THE DIFFERENCE IN TEN YEARS

I was sitting in my favorite spot in my living room this morning listening to an album that was released fifty years ago.  Steely Dan's "Can't Buy A Thrill" stared at me as the music wafted through my ears and into my head landing in the memory bank of my mind.  I first saw and heard Steely Dan perform "Do It Again" on "The Midnight Special" one Saturday night.  Donald Fagen had a distinct voice that caught my attention immediately.  It was a good song with good lyrics.  Back in the 1973 pop music was, in my mind, in the middle of the greatest decade of rock music in my lifetime.  The years 1965 to 1975 plus maybe a couple of years added to each side of that timeline took rock, country and jazz music through  a magnificent metamorphosis.  I can look back to the Top 40 of any week during that decade and my mind just whispers to me, "wow....".  As I scanned my memories from 50 years ago I started thinking what I was like 50 years ago.  Looking back 50 years ago even I wouldn't recognize myself.  I was a kid of 16 then with my whole future ahead of me.  I had yet to buy my 1967 Impala.  It was a time of transition for me from Debbie to Barbara with my last few months of freedom on that front being realized.  I had my career picked out but that was about the only thing of consequence I had accomplished.

My mind shifted to the changes my life had gone through in just the last ten years.  I thought about how I am now compared to just ten years ago.  "Just ten years ago".  During the ten years that followed 1973 I had graduated High School, married Barbara and adopted Brett.  I was in a job with a company that would see me through to my retirement.  In 1983, it still felt like I had my whole future ahead of me with a lifetime to go.  Time passes quickly though.  As I look back I can see that now and realize that life is ever changing and it doesn't stop until you take that last breath.  I am much closer to that last breath now than I was in 1973, 1983 or even 2013.

As I look back at myself in 2013 compared to today the changes are dramatic.  Brett had graduated high school 13 years before and had left Barbara and me with an empty nest.  Dutch never got over Brett not being there and go crazy wild every time Brett came walking through the door.  Dutch was only 5 years old at the time and still had his tank of energy at full.  In 2013 I would take Dutch for a weekly walk as I had Rudy before him.  I did not walk Dutch as far and as long on those walks as I had Rudy though.  Rudy had developed problems with his joints at an early age.  I did not want that to happen to Dutch.

Barbara's health was just beginning to slide on that downhill slope.  Her back was just beginning to bend forward as the fusion of her spine began.  She was able to still ride with me to Alabama to visit family but in 2013 we only ventured that direction once a year.  Mom and dad were still living in Kansas City but slowly their health was beginning to decline as well.  In three years they would relocate to Alabama to live closer to my sister.  When they moved was when my hands were full trying to take care of Barbara whose health was on a rapid decline, and dad's health was starting to fail as well.  As a family we decided that Elaine could take better care of mom and dad than I could while I was trying to take care of Barbara.  I think Barbara's last trip to Alabama was in 2014.  She made one more trip, that being to Texas for her nephew Travis' wedding.  As far as I know she never left Kansas City after that.  It was too hard on her back to even make a trip across the state to St. Louis.

We were on the last of the Saturns we would buy, Barbara driving a 2007 while I drove my precious 2006 Ion.  I think I loved that car more than any other car I had owned except maybe the 1979 Malibu that I had purchased brand new.

Barbara had returned to work and was happy with her job.  It would be the last job she held working for R. L. Stein Construction as an office manager.  In three short years, the spring f 2016, Barbara would stop working because of her health issues and begin the process of applying for Social Security Disability.  I was still working at Dit-MCO putting in my 34th year with the company.  I like to think I had attained the status of old-timer among the younger workers that brought a little respect for just staying around so long.

My health was not on the bight side in 2013 though it was much better than Barbara's.  I had two big wake up calls in 2012 and 2013.  In 2012 I had suffered my first heart attack.  It was the first sign to me that maybe I was starting to get old.  In 2013 I had my first colonoscopy where they found and removed several per-cancerous polyps.  This put me on the three year colonoscopy plan which I was thrilled about.  Since that first colonoscopy they have removed per-cancerous  with every procedure.  As you can guess, I am still on three year plan.

Ten years ago I was still fairly active though.  I broke my foot playing basketball with Brett that year and we never finished the game.  I claim the victory though since I was up on him as the time of the fracture.

The house had undergone a slight transformation.  After having carpal tunnel surgery on both my wrists, it was near impossible for me to paint the house.  Putting vinyl siding on the house became our first major improvement on the house other than a couple of new roofs over the years.  It improved the look of the house dramatically.  Barbara and I did not spend a lot of money ten years ago as we saw ourselves nearing our 6th decade of life and started trying to save a little bit for retirement.  Barbara was more concerned about our readiness for retirement than I was or so it seemed to me.  I didn't require a lot of money to keep me happy and I thought I would do very well keeping the standard of living we had then on into retirement. After mom and dad moved south, my trips to Alabama became more frequent and I depended upon Brett and our neighbors to keep an eye on Barbara due to her health.  I did not like leaving her alone with only Dutch to keep an eye on her.

I think it was around 2013 when my natural cynicism rose to a new level concerning events and life in general.  When President Obama was elected in 2008 I held out hope that he would be a good man for the job.  I even made an entry in this blog about my hope for the new administration.  By 2013, that hope had been obliterated.  My cynical side became stronger and I went int a phase of life of not trusting or believing anyone outside my own little family.  In 2013 I saw the world as a huge mess with respect being thrown out the window.  The youngsters of 2013 (under twenties) did not seem to take seriously anything.  They did not have respect for the country or the system that made this country as great as it is.  Ten years later I look back at those kids in 2013 and realize that they were not too different than I was in 1973.  Strange how that works.

Now I look at myself in 2023 compared to that person I just described.  I am calmer now than I was ten years ago.  I don't let my anger out hardly at all.  I tend to let things slide a little bit more.  I feel like I have come to accept the way the world is.  I do not understand a lot of things that go on in the world these days but things do not seem to bother me as drastically as they use to.

I am retired now after receiving a kind reminder from God that I am mortal by way of a second heart attack.  That heart attack the day before Barbara's birthday put me in the same hospital, in the same ICU just down the hall from where Barbara had died.  Those few days gave me plenty of time to think.  I thought about where I was and where my life was going.  I confirmed my thinking that life is indeed far to short.  I came to the conclusion that perhaps I had not lived my life to it's fullest.  Perhaps a little Charles Dickens crept into my thinking that I still had time, just as old Ebeneezer Scrooge had time to change a little.

I find myself in this phase of my life as entering the end game.  I am heading towards 70 now, an age I never could foresee happening.  I began my life with Barbara in the form of a first date 50 years go.  It was not always easy during those years.  There were plenty of rough times mainly because of myself.  We made it though.  During those last years with Barbara we grew closer to each other on a daily basis.

Now the nest is not only empty, my whole life feels empty at times.  The house especially feels so quiet and empty.  Dutch died last November, Brett of course is out making his way through life and Barbara has been taken to her heavenly home.

I find myself trying to learn how to live on my own by myself.  I have had to overcome my anxiety about making phone calls and still have a ways to go on that.  I have to learn how to keep up the house and keep it in order.  I have to learn to keep doctor and dentist appointments.  I have to learn to keep a healthy diet.  I have learned to keep myself busy and out of the house a day or two each week.  I have found a place to volunteer my time to helping others.

I have to learn to deal with the silence and the emptiness that I feel not only in the house, but in my heart. 

I guess the biggest change from 2013 to 2023 is that in 2013 I felt a purpose.  I was working.  I was taking care of loved ones.  I was being productive. In 2023 I am still productive.  I am still active.  I do feel that in 2023 I am being myself more than I ever had in the past.  I use to spend what seemed like every hour of everyday I was trying to do the right thing, to please somebody to do what was expected of me instead of what I wanted.  I feel like the vast majority of my life was not about me but what others expected of me.  There hasn't been a lot of "Bill" in my life.  I am trying to change that.  Still though there are times that when I do take a step in that direction, I suffer consequences from people who still have those expectations and there is nothing I can do or say to change those attitudes. Even now as I contemplate whether to publish this put it out for the world to read, I have a hesitancy because of some of those factors from long ago. 

But in 2023 I also realize I am aging and as time ticks away ever so quickly I age even faster.  There are times when I feel so alone in a house that in the past I had craved to be alone in once in awhile. 

I feel like I am existing from day to day to day knowing that one day that last breath with finally come.

This writing did not take the course I was thinking it would.  I strayed a little I think.  I do think I painted a picture, albeit a sloppy picture, of how I have changed from who I was in 2013 to who I am today.  I am a work in progress still.  

I keep moving forward.

ENTRY NUMBER 500

 I finally arrive at the 500th time I have published an entry here in this silly thing called a blog.  I have been thinking about this entry for awhile now.  I want it to be different from the other 499 entries.  I have no idea how this entry will look like.  There is a good possibility that some of what is written here will have been covered somewhere in the previous entries.  Let's see how it goes.

The first entry I published in this blog took place on October 6, 2010.  Doesn't seem that long ago but it has been about eleven and a half years running.  I have not published consistently.  I wrote when I felt like writing, not to meet a schedule.  

Entry number 001 was titled "GOLDEN YEARS".  It had nothing to do with the David Bowie song but may have been inspired by it.  I may have been listening to Bowie as I started writing it.  In short, it had to do with getting old.  My premise was we are always aging until the moment we die.  Those golden years don't happen until we reach our ultimate age, right before we die.  The golden years we all try to get to only last a split second between life and death.  Sounds silly now, but I think perhaps I was trying to come off as a deep thinker and philosopher than just being who I really am.

A few statistics on this tome of mindless thoughts from a "boy" in Missouri:

At the time I am writing, this blog has been looked at, if not read, 86,600 times.  That is an average of 173.5 times for each of the 499 entries.

It has been read in over 18 countries.  Only 55% of the views have been from the United States.  Countries that are represented in the viewing audience include Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine, Sweden, Canada, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Poland, Japan, India, China, Netherlands Brazil, Romania, Latvia and Czechia.

The most read entry, and this really surprised me, was the relating of a story that my grandfather use to tell me about an Indian in the Ozarks named Falling Rock.  Other popular entries include ones about my fear of tornadoes, about two young ladies named Rachel and Alesia and, of course, about Barbara.

These statistics are far larger than I ever expected to attain.  It is still a small blog in the world of the internet but it is out there.  Not all of the 499 previous entries were original writings.  In the early days I did quote Mr. Carlin and some of my favorite songs as well as a quote or two from President Nixon.  The clear majority of entries though are original.

I have written about people in my life.  I have written about events that I experienced as I went down this path.  I have also written my thoughts on things that were going on around me.

I wrote about the summer of 2018.  It was the hardest six month period in my entire life.  It was a time when I lost Barbara, my father, a long time neighbor and good friend, his daughter, and an uncle.  The years immediately before 2018 had their fill of loss as well.  In 2016 I lost my eldest sister and in 2017 I lost a long time friend that I met when I started working at Dit-MCO.  After 2018 I have lost two uncles and four aunts as well as a four coworkers at Dit-MCO who I adored.  One of the most striking posts on Facebook over this past year was put there by my Uncle Jim.  He is the youngest of 5 siblings and after losing his brother (my dad) in 2018, his sister (my Aunt Norva) in 2019 and then finally losing two sisters within the last year (my Aunt Fay and my Aunt Velma) he put up a picture of himself with his brother and three sisters and a one sentence emotion.  "Now all my siblings are in Heaven."  He had lost his family in the space of only a few short years.  I love my Uncle Jim and I know that his faith helps to carry him onward through his life.

I have spent my life observing and listening while occasionally making my maturing thoughts known out loud.  I like to think I was open minded about other ideas and I think I was.  I learned this from my grandfather.  It is okay to be wrong.  It is okay to change your mind.  This is called maturing, growing ... learning.  It is also okay to affirm your thinking and to believe you are correct and not agree with with what others may think.  To be able to stand for what you believe in is very important as part of our growth and maturity.  The important thing is to agree or disagree while being respectful to those who you are speaking with.  There does not seem to be much respect being shown in the world these days.  Disgust and hate have replaced the idea of respect.  What has replaced the importance of respect is the silencing of ideas, not only by individuals but also by corporate entities.  Sorry, I got off track for a bit.  What I was going to say is that these writings that are taken from my observations and some things I have heard and experienced are to show what I have learned from them through my 65 years on this planet.  Not all of it is pretty, but all of it is human.  None of us are perfect.  None of us are totally right in our thinking. What we all are though is human.  As we go about our day to day lives and interactions, I believe this is an important thing to remember.

"I don't think I'm racist."  I spoke these words to my grandfather on an afternoon visit after work one summer day.  His response was short and to the point, "Everyone's a racist .... everyone."  As he said these words he did not exhibit any of his ordinary mannerisms that he commonly used when making a point.  There was no leaning forward at me.  He didn't point his pipe and stub finger at me.  There wasn't a small "hr-mph".  He did not even look at me when making the statement.  He just looked straight ahead speaking steady and matter of factly.  There was no follow up, just silence as we both seemed to let his words sink in.  I have only seen him respond to me in this manner one other time.  It was a personal time when we were alone in the dining room of the old house.  This manner of responding was rare for the old man and reserved for situations that seemed to be very important and personal to him.  The conversation did not go much further than that on that afternoon.  He changed the topic shortly thereafter, his point being voiced and made.

I thought about that short conversation several time over the course of my life.  I still think of that afternoon even today, especially with society being in the state that it is in.  This is my theory on what my grandfather's thinking was.  Knowing my grandfather and his stories of life along with little hints that I observed of him over the remaining years of his life, I think it is pretty close to what he was telling me.  "Everyone is racist.... everyone."  My grandfather lived a life that he thought was proper.  No, he was not perfect.  He had plenty of flaws but when his flaws came out, as flaws always do, he did his best to make it right.  Grandpa wouldn't give this explanation in these words, they are my own, but I think the general idea is there.  The human species is a tribal species.  This is not unusual in nature, many are tribal, some more than others.  The thing about the human species is that although we are tribal that vast majority of humans try to not let that tribalism rule our behavior.  Even men like my grandfather, who are seen by those he encountered as being fair and treating everyone the same, deep down have this tribal sense of belonging.

"I don't think I'm racist."  One day in gym class at Ruskin High School we were playing volleyball.  It was a time when the Ruskin community was becoming more diverse as we were seeing the number of black kids increase every year.  Personally, this did not bother me.  I didn't see it bother any of my classmates that I could tell.  To be honest, it seemed to bother the parents more then us kids.  I had already reached my six foot frame when I was a junior, so I was fairly tall.  During this game that day I had the opportunity to lay down a wicked spike on my opponent across the net from me.  "Yeah boy!!" I exclaimed with a fist pump.  Then I looked my classmate who I had just spiked the ball on.  "Boy, huh.."  The black face looking at me looked both angry and hurt.  I did not say those words intending to hurt.  It was part of my vocabulary.  I did not even realize that he was of a different race.  The words just came out and it hurt and angered him.  I did not respond.  I kept silent.  I should have apologized.  The incident did not progress into anything but to this day I can see his face, I can hear my words.  I should have been more careful, more aware and more sensitive.  I understand that now.  Since that day I have taken care in my words as much as I can.  I keep that moment in my memory as a reminder to do so.

So this is what I got from my grandfather on that day.  We all think others are different.  We all think we are pretty good people and "our" people are pretty good people for the most part.  Every race has great people.  A lot of great people.  Every race also has very wicked people. Not as many as good people but still the wicked ones are out there.  Each one of us understand people of our own race better then we understand people of other races and, of course, each race considers it the better.  All of us have to train our minds to take on an outlook of keeping that behavior under control or better yet, completely hidden and not even thought about.  That tribal instinct should not even be known to ourselves.  Its should be so small in our minds that we don't realize it is there.  Still we have that basic tribalism that stays with us.  It stays with all of us.  "Everyone".  Some are better at this than others.  My grandfather was a master at it.  I am not so good at hiding it as he was.  We all need to try though because in order for this country, this world to survive, we have to.  As for me, I continue to work at it.  I try to see people by what I observe how they live and what they say.  I have a long ways to go.

It took me over three years since we lost Barbara, but I have manage to take another step in moving forward in life.  I won't try to trick you, moving forward has been a very difficult thing to do.  This spring with help from Brett, I began to make this house look more like "Bill" instead of "Bill and Barb".  I got my mind ready to let go of a lot of Barbara in the house.  Mainly her clothes, books and, to be quite frank, junk that she liked to have around.  By this I mean that stuff that didn't bring on strong memories of Barb or our life together, but just stuff that she liked to keep.  The house looks different now.  There is still a lot of Barb there, but I tried to transform into a house that reflects me.  Made it more comfortable for me.  I am happy with the result.  Her wedding dress still hangs in the closet and the shoes she wore on November 21, 1975.  Her chair that she sat in during the last years of her life sits with the crocheted throw that the nurses laid over her after she died.  It was difficult for me to do and I know I should have taken this step a couple of years ago.  It is healthy for me emotionally as well as physically I guess.  I still love her.  I always will.  At the same time I need to keep moving forward in life as difficult as that may be.  I'm getting there with the help of a few special friends, one in particular.  Thank you Lisa for your advice and help.

Barbara's Chair

All of my regular readers know of my love of music, literature and baseball.  What I haven't touched on very much, if at all, is my love for movies.  To start with I have a lot of favorite male actors but there is one female actress that rises above all others.  Sandra Bullock.  It has become kind of a running joke among my family and friends but I do like her.  She is very good in my mind.  Comedies, dramas, sci-fi, she can do anything.  By my calculations she has been cheated out of some 25 Oscars ... just my opinion. 

Seriously, movies have had a big influence on me by the messages they try to get across.   Not all movies are made for a message, most are for pure entertainment value but there are a few that have a statement to make.  I don't agree with all the messages put out there but I think it is a good thing if a movie makes you think after you have seen it.  

I think instead of getting onto all of the messages, I am going to list some of my favorite moves that reach for more than simple entertainment value.  These are not in any particular order as to how I favor them, just a little insight into my thinking.  Let you get to know me a little better.

    "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"  "Fargo"  "Dr. Strangelove"  "Being There"  "Catch 22"  "Grand Torino"  "Miller's Crossing"  "Network"  "Patton"  "Wall Street"  "Girl Interrupted"  "28 Days"  "Lincoln"  "The Man With The Golden Arm"  "All The President's Men"  "The Sunset Limited"  "To Kill A Mockingbird"  "The Mouse That Roared"  "Lilies Of The Field"  "Shawshank Redemption"  "Waking Up"  "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof"  "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner"  "Dog Day Afternoon"  "Forrest Gump"  "Up"  "Conspiracy"  "The Blind Side"  "Philadelphia"  "A Time To Kill"  and many more if I took time to really think about it.  These movies, though, come immediately to my mind so they are more than likely to be the ones I go to.

Over these 500 entries, I have tried to address things that I have learned during my 65 years.  I told them in song lyrics, the modern day philosophers as I refer to the songwriters as.  There is another subset of philosophers and I have quoted them a lot as well.  Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor told their philosophies by making observations of life and relaying these observations honestly but with exaggerations to show how ridiculous some human behaviors are.  If you listen to them, they will make you laugh, but if you listen to the sub logic under the exaggerations, you find the truth they are trying to bring out.

I also told of my observations through stories that, for the most part, are true and are a part of my life.  Some involved teachers and others came from a few interactions with authority.  A lot of the lessons I learned came from those who I looked up to with upmost respect. Family members and those outside the family.  Teachers and clergy.  Neighbors and classmates.  I have been extremely lucky in life and the people who have been a part of my life.

Observing and listening are perhaps two of the most important tools we have as we proceed through life.  Care must be taken though because observing or listening to the wrong ideas and actions can do more damage than good.  I was lucky and I made some mistakes.  I have made some big mistakes in life.

Hopefully, this blog of stories and ideas, good things and not so good things, can make even a small impact on anyone who stumbles across this collection of entries long after I am gone.

Thanks for reading my dear friends.  A lot has been left untold, but I plan on working at getting those things told in the future.

ENTRY NUMBER 498

 There is not a title for this entry to the blog. So, why no title.  Recent events in my life have put me into thinking mode.  Crazy convoluted thinking.  My mind has been running all over the place jumping from one topic to another.  It has been jumping all over the place at such a speed that I am not able to get organized in any manner or form.  Therefore, I guess I'll just write down .... well, whatever and see if you people can make any sense of it better than I can.  I am not going to post this on Facebook as I normally do, so it will probably be read by less then ten readers.  I have had this blog looked at over 86,000 times mostly because of Facebook.  I only have 2 followers according to my stat report on the it so do the math.  No one will hardly see this.  This is a good thing in this case as it makes it easier for me to write anything I want and not give much worry as to what people think.  Let's try this and see what comes out.

It is midnight here in Kansas City, Missouri the morning of March 27, 2022.  I have learned over the many years of my life that when people ask where are you from and you answer Kansas City, they immediately ask you how are things in Kansas? This irritates me a lot.  I do not live in Kansas.  Never have have and, if I have my way, never will.  I don't actually HATE the great state of Kansas.  It is just that Kansas is not Missouri and I LOVE Missouri.  I was born here and have lived my entire life here so far.  After the last few years, particularly the last week or so, I no doubt will die here as well.

Yes I love this state.  There are many reasons why I do.  One of those reasons, ironically, is the fact that Kansas is so damn close.  On the western side of the Missouri there is a natural rivalry between the two states.  It is more than the rivalry tween the two major universities, University of Kansas in Lawrence and the University of Missouri in Columbia.  This divide between these states can be traced at least as far back as the United States Civil War, if not earlier.  Before the war began and as part of Missouri being given statehood in August of 1821 the powers that be came up with the Missouri Compromise.  The main part of the compromise was the beginning of ending the growth of slavery in the country.  Missouri would be the last state to come into the union as a slave state.  All territories and states from then on would be free non-slavery states and territories.  It was a huge first step in the country's move towards ending the institution of slavery.

There is a misconception that Missouri was a southern state and a part of the Confederacy.  Fact is that when the CSA was created, Missouri did not succeed from the union.  This state has always been a member of the United States of America from it's inception.  This worked out great for the north and eastern part of the state.  St. Louis was a northern, anti-slavery city without a doubt. Most historians consider St. Louis the last eastern city in the country and Kansas City the first western city.  That is a little side track but one that I have always found interesting.  Anyway, Kansas City definitely supported the southern cause and lined up with the CSA.  Kansas settlers were supportive of the abolitionist and so on the border between Kansas and Missouri fierce fighting and battles broke out during and after the war was over.  Kansans were known as Jayhawkers while the Missouri folk were referred to as Ruffians.  The most famous of these Missouri Ruffians was one Bloody Bill Anderson.  He was best known for raids into Kansas multiple times and once burning the town of Lawrence to the ground.  Eventually, after the war was over, the Federal Government had to institute Order Number 11,  I think that is what it was.  Barbara would know for sure, but this order acted kind of like the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.  Eventually the two states learned to live next to each other, but deep down there is still a little of that rivalry existing between the citizens whose families have been in the border area for many years.  New comers don't understand it, but they shouldn't be expected to I guess.

So I have lived my whole life within 15 minutes of Kansas.  In all honesty though, the people of Kansas are good people.  They are typical mid-west friendly as much as those in Missouri are. My definition of the mid-west is not the same as it is nationally.  Ohio part of the mid-west?  I don't think so.  The mid-west to me is east to west from the eastern border of Indiana and there about to the western border of Kansas.  From north to south it goes from the Canadian border down to maybe northern Texas, no further south than Dallas though.  Mid-west people are very friendly and helpful.  I would rate the people of the southeast and the mid-west about the same.  There is no better place to have a car breakdown on you than somewhere in the Great Plains.  You will have help and get helped back on your way s soon as possible.  Thinking about that now, it could be because these mid-westerners don't want you to be hanging around the area very long.  They see California car tags and the general thought is that the sooner we get them out of here the better.  I can see that thought process being carried through.  I can see myself thinking that way actually.

I have visited other cities in the country.  The cities I have spent most of my time out of Kansas City include San Francisco, Oakland, Denver and Chicago.  Also on my travel resume are the cities of Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Nashville, Memphis, Dallas, Phoenix and Louisville as well as some smaller areas. I can honestly say that none of those cities compare to my home town.  That is to be expected though I imagine.  I do love this town and state.

Well, it is 1:30 am on the 27th of March of 2022.  I have breakfast and church services in the morning so I'll temporarily stop for now and maybe pick this up again tomorrow. 

Woke up a little early this morning, around 6:30 when my Sunday morning alarm is set for 7:00.  I do not find a problem with this as it gives just a little more time to relax with Dutch.  I love my Sunday mornings.  It is an important part of my week and the most relaxing part of my week.  I wake up and first thing on the agenda is to let Dutch out.  While he is outside taking care of business I grind up some coffee beans and brew a nice pot of my favorite beverage followed by letting Dutch back inside.  I then shave and take a shower, get dressed, put some music on before sitting down and enjoying a cup of coffee while petting Dutch.  This is such a relaxing few minutes that Dutch loves.  I head out towards my first stop of the morning.  At 9:00 every Sunday morning I walk into the Belton Crackerbarrel Restaurant.  Sometimes I enter with my special friend Lisa if she is feeling well or wasn't up all night dealing with things in her life.  Most Sundays though, I enter alone and sit facing the windows that look out onto I-49 to watch the traffic pass by as I eat.  And what do I eat?  It is very simple.  Coffee and Mama's Pancake Breakfast. This gets me two eggs, two sausage patties and three pancakes to go along with my coffee.  Now the church is only a few minutes away so I can eat leisurely taking my time enjoying every bite.  At 10:05 I head out the door for the short drive to the Open Door Bible Church a couple of blocks away.

When I arrive at the church I exchange greetings with the "Welcomer of the Week" before heading to a board that has name tags printed on to sticky labels.  I find my name, put the tag on my shirt and walk into the sanctuary to find a seat on the back row.  Today was the last Sunday of the month so at the end of the service we partook of communion.  This is always a special time for me.  It has been special nearly my whole life.  Communion upholds my beliefs and my faith.  It is a time of reflection that provides me a way to strengthen my faith and what changes I may need to make from the mistakes that occur on a daily basis.  This week there was a lot of reflection and corrections that need to be considered.

I can predict the rest of this particular Sunday.  I'll find a ball game to watch or maybe a movie.  I might listen to more music.  More than likely a nap will happen at some point in the day.  Sunday s a day off for me in a series of days that are all days off more or less since I retired.  I'll head to bed around midnight or so and wake up tomorrow morning whenever Dutch feels it is time to get up.

Well, I think ENTRY NUMBER 498 went fairly well.  Perhaps I will do the same for number 499.  I don't know.

Right now though, it is publish time.

SOME SONGS DESERVE A SECOND, OR THIRD LISTEN

I was driving home from work a few weeks ago, listening to my music when a special song started to play.  As the song ended, I reached up and triggered the CD player in the car back a step to listen to the song again.  After the song began to come to a close, I once again clicked it back to listen to it again.  It came to me that I do this quite often and began to think about that.  I don't do that to every song that comes in the queue.  I then realized that there are certain songs that, when I hear them, one listen is not enough.  The songs ends too soon.  I began to take notice as to what songs effected me in this manner.  Usually the main reason I need to listen to a certain song more than once are the lyrics but the music itself plays a big part in what makes me listen two or three times.  I made a list in my mind of these songs and thought I might share with you a few of the songs that land somewhere deep in my mind to make me decide to listen again.

The song that started this whole thinking process was a song that I have loved since I was pre-teen.  It is Simon and Garfunkel's recording of Paul Simon's "I Am A Rock".  This song, as most of Paul Simon's compositions are, has a wonderful melody.  It is a beautiful song that starts with just Simon and his guitar then slowly builds in intensity until at the very end when it goes quiet and soft and the final few lyrics are sung with just the guitar once again.  It is the last track on the duo's "Sounds Of Silence" album and what a way to end an album that is mind provoking throughout.

The lyrics tell of a person who is a loner.  The words try to justify to himself why he is such and tries to convince him that he enjoys being that way.  It opens with a statement about where he finds himself at the time these thoughts creep into his mind:

A winter's day

In a deep and dark December

I am alone
Gazing from my window
To the streets below
On a freshly fallen, silent shroud of snow

A rather dark and bleak picture that tends to make a person do some deep thinking.  Then comes the chorus which states the self affirmation of the individual:

I am a rock
I am an island

A simple chorus.  It is only two short lines that are emphasized at the end of each statement that makes up a verse.  I am a rock. I am strong and can withstand anything the world throws at me.  I am an island. I am my own man, my own self and I go my own way.  I think for myself and am not a follower.  It is a powerful two lines that drive his thoughts home.

In between the restating of the chorus are lines that explain why he believes he is a rock, an island.

I've built walls
A fortress, steep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship
Friendship causes pain
Its laughter and its loving I disdain

 I am a rock
I am an island

During the course of my life I have hid behind those self made walls.  It is difficult for people to get to know me.  I have spent years building them and over the last several years I have been trying to deconstruct them, to raze them though without much success.

Don't talk of love
Well, I've heard the words before
It's sleeping in my memory
I won't disturb the slumber
Of feelings that have died
If I never loved, I never would have cried

I have loved and lost at love before.  It does hurt.  I was lucky to find a lasting love when I met Barbara and it was good.  Three years ago in July I found myself losing love once again as Barbara passed away and once again, losing a love hurt.  This one almost crushed me.  I did cry.  I cried by myself in a darkened quiet house.  I still do every now and again.

I am a rock
I am an island

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me

Ah, books and poetry.  Yes I do have my books and I have poetry.  Robert Frost's writings have brought out feelings in me as long as I have been reading it seems.  John Steinbeck effects me much in the same way.  Poems and novels full of life, meaning and lessons to be learned.  I revisit them often.  Then I also have my music whether I am playing it or listening.  Music comforts me.  I find music almost everywhere I listen.  A train rolling down the tracks behind Paul's Drive-in blowing it's whistle, well I guess they aren't whistles anymore.  Horns.  Still it is a wonderful sound.  Music is everywhere if you listen and pay attention.  I can get lost in the music and the words that I have at my disposal.  They do protect me from what is out there.  My house is my "womb".  It is where I feel safe and am comfortable.  Not a lot of people get into my house anymore.  It is sanctuary to me.  For an individual to get into that inner sanctum, I seem to require that I can trust you with my special place.

I am a rock
I am an island

And then .... and then quietly he tells himself why he feels he has to be a rock.  Why he has to be an island.  The last few lines are sung softly with just a few quiet acoustic guitar chords that are even softer than the voice as he reflects on how he has to see himself in life.

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries 

I can't feel pain.  I can't afford to.  I will not cry for that would show the world too much of who I truly am, how I truly feel, how lonely I truly am.

Since I first heard this song I found that I saw a lot of myself in those words and thoughts.  As I grew older I could relate deeper with them.  When I hear that song, that wonderful beautiful song and I sing softly to myself along with the recording, I feel like I am that person and I am talking to myself.  For most people this song is not that high on the list of songs that people think of when someone mentions Paul Simon or Simon and Garfunkel.  It isn't "Bridge Over Troubled Water" or "The Sound Of Silence" but to me, it is probably one of the most honest songs that Paul Simon wrote.  And so I listen to it over, and over, and over ......

I almost feel like I could end this entry at this point.  It pretty much sums it up why I feel I have to listen to a song more than once.  However there are a few more songs that lose me in what they mean.

Warren Zevon.  That name may or may not be familiar to you.  He was a great pianist with a voice that is very distinctive in a Bob Dylan kind of way if you get my meaning. You might be familiar with his biggest selling song entitled "Werewolves Of London".  Yeah, that was the kind of songs he wrote for the most part.  As humorous and eclectic as his songwriting was, if you read between the lines, he always had a message in t here.  You had to search for that message pretty hard at times but the lessons were there.  He made quite a few appearances on The Letterman Show where he was able to reach people who otherwise never would hear many of his songs. His albums were not top sellers and not many of his songs cracked the top forty.  Then came 2002/2003 and his song writing became very retrospective.

In late 2002 Warren Zevon was diagnosed with Mesothelioma.  A cancer of the lungs.  Zevon was only 55 years old when diagnosed and that diagnoses would reach it's conclusion on September 7, 2003 when he was 56.  He decided to put out one more album.  The album titled "The Wind" was a work of passion.  His passion for life, poetry, music and love.  With this final chapter Zevon would bare his soul as he had never done before.  You did not have to read too deeply between the lines to get his message in these songs.  It is a beautiful album that is sad.  It is sad yet celebratory.  It is Warren looking back and looking forward and sharing what he sees and feels.

The song off of this swan song album is a message to his wife, friends and possibly his fans called "Keep Me In Your Heart For Awhile".  It is a song telling us he is dying and how he wants us to carry on after he is gone.  It really needs no explanation or interpretation.  It is clear what he is trying to say.  There is no word twisting or assimilation, just feelings straight from his gut and his heart.

Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile

If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile

When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for awhile

There's a train leaving nightly called "when all is said and done"
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sometimes when you're doing simple things
around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile

You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on
your blouse
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you

Engine driver's headed north to Pleasant Stream
Keep me in your heart for awhile

These wheels keep turning but they're running out
of steam
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Keep me in your heart for awhile 

I'll be honest with you.  This song always brings a lump to my throat.  It is difficult for me to sing along to.  Most times I start to sing, but then I just listen to Warren opening up his thoughts and his heart to the world.  What a special message to leave his loved ones and friends.  "The Wind" is Zevon's farewell and this song sums up the entirety of the album.  Often when I listen to this song my mind wanders to Barbara.  This is what she would want me to do.  I know that.  "If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less".  I can hear Barb saying that to me.  "Sometimes when you're doing simple things around the house Maybe you'll think of me and smile".  I can hear her saying that as well and I do think of her and smile.  

Warren Zevon is no longer here on this earth.  The words of his farewell will live on for a long time though.  The words say more then even Zevon could put into words.  I have the feeling that as he finished this song he still probably thought it doesn't say what he is feeling quite strong enough.  And so I listen to this song over, and over and over ......

Leonard Cohen also did a swan song album before his death and I highly recommend to all my readers to listen to it if you get the chance.  It is a short album recorded in his apartment from his favorite chair in his last days.  It is a short album but powerful.  He speaks of his impending death, his faith, old loves and things he did not understand.  The name of this last album is "You Want It Darker". I'll give you just a small taste from "You Want It Darker".  This a verse from the song "Treaty" on that album.  Maybe it will give you a sense of Cohen at the end.

I've seen you change the water into wine
I've seen you change it back to water, too
I sit at your table every night
I try but I just don't get high with you
I wish there was a treaty we could sign
I do not care who takes this bloody hill
I'm angry and I'm tired all the time
I wish there was a treaty, I wish there was a treaty
Between your love and mine

I think Zevon's swan song serves this purpose and I have a quite a few Cohen songs that get repeated depending on my mood.  The one that I think really catches me is called "The Tower Of Song".   In this song Cohen gives us a peek into the mind of a songwriter.  He gives insight into sacrifices made for the craft.

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song

The tower of song.  Writers often isolate while they are working.  They have a special room or house away from all the distractions of the world so their creativity can flow.  When he wrote this song he had been writing for a long time.  He was starting to age.  He has lost friends either to his art or death.  He wants love but he is too busy to bother with it.  The rent?  Every song he writes while locked away in the tower.

I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song 

This is one of my favorite verses in the song.  It suggests there in this tower, there is a hierarchy among the artists.  As great of a songwriter as Cohen was, he saw Hank Williams as ranking 100 floors above him.  That, my friends, is a humble man and that is what makes this verse, to me, so special.

I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here
In the Tower of Song

Again, his talent is not of his making.  It is a gift from God.  He felt blessed and grateful for this gift that came at such a price to him. He accepted the gift and paid the price.  That says a lot about who he was.

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don't let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song

Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song

I see you standing on the other side
I don't know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again

These three verses spell out what that price was.  The sacrifice of losing loves many times.  The sorting out of the voices of creativity.  No woman can come between a songwriter and his songs.  In a way, the gift he was given was his true love I suppose.  It was what gave him pleasure.

Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back
They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone
I'll be speaking to you sweetly
From a window in the Tower of Song

Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song

And so the song ends.  Continuing to pay his rent in the tower creating songs and words until the day he died.  I think the reason this song connects with me is that need to create.   Now I am in no way saying I create as great as  Leonard Cohen did.  If Leonard Cohen thought that Hank Williams was a hundred floors above him, then Leonard Cohen is somewhere along the lines of an infinite number of floors above me.  But I do like to write.  I am not as talented with my writing as he was with his music, but it gives me pleasure.  I enjoy it.  I enjoy people reading my writing.  I feel like if I can contribute just a little something to someone's life, I may have accomplished something and so I listen to song over and over and over ....

Thinking about Hank Williams now since Mr. Cohen paid tribute to him in that last song.  Cohen was correct.  The world has produced some great songwriters over the centuries.  Some stand a little higher than others.  Gershwin, Carmichael, Rodgers and Hammerstein so many great songwriters that rank at the top not to mention the jazz and classical composers.  For my money, Hank Williams is right up there at the top with the best of them.  The lyrics that he writes are some of the most heart wrenching love songs ever written and the music that goes with those wonderful words, the melodies, is absolutely gorgeous.  Over the last 68 years since his death it seems like everyone in the music world has covered his songs and each time the song is beautiful.  Now that I think about it, it could be almost impossible to ruin a Williams song.  You can't help but find your soul being pulled into the songs whether listening or singing.  It grabs by the shirt collar and immerses you into the emotion that those songs carry with them.  My personal Hank tune and a song I consider one of the greatest popular songs ever written is "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".  Like Warren Zevon's song discussed earlier, this masterpiece does not need to be thought about what he is trying to say.  It is straight in your face as most of his numbers are.  Hank didn't play games with words.  He wrote what he felt and did it in such a way that it speaks to everyone who gives the time to listen.  So my friends, Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry

I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind the clouds
To hide its face and cry

Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves began to die?
Like me, he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry 

It is not a long song.  It is short and straight to the point.  It has that Hank Williams magic embedded into it and so I listen to this song over and over and over .....

I think you get the idea of why some songs, such  as these, make feel like I want more of that.  The song is over way too soon.  There are not a lot of songs that have this effect on me.  I would guess maybe 15 or less.  My mood at the time has a lot to do with it as well.  Some of those artist that I can say gives me a song or two include John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jim Croce, John Denver, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Chapin, Graham Parsons, Neil Young (I really feel like I should have shared one of his songs.  Listen to "The Needle And The Damage Done" or "Long May You Run" to get a sampling).  These artists, these craftsmen have given the world a part of their soul.  I am so glad that they did that for us.  It is that part of themselves that dwell in some of these songs that make me listen to them over and over and over ....

TAKING CARE OF MYSELF

 Early last week I posted on Facebook that I would no longer be sharing this blog on the platform.  There is a very serious reason for this.

It is me taking care of myself both emotionally and physically.  For those of you who are long time followers of this thing there are probably a few things you already know.  The one that is most relevant in this decision is my long term problems with depression and anxiety.

When my mind broke many years ago, I worked with doctors and therapists and psychiatrist to find a medication that would be best for me.  During this time we had some miserable failures when it came to medication but eventually we found a cocktail that worked.  For over ten years now I have been taking 150mg of Effexor XR, 200mg of Seroquel and a minimal dosage of clonazepam when needed to get me through high anxiety situations.  It had worked well.  I was doing well.  As a matter of fact I had approached psychiatrist and my therapist about the possibility of  taking the dosage of these drugs down just a little bit.  I felt confident that I was learning techniques on how to cope with situations and while I may need some medication to keep the edge off, I was definitely showing improvement.

 Let me be upfront about one thing.  Psychiatrists are not my favorite people.  I have seen four of five of them and each time they have found a way to burn me or plain just not listen.  To me, psychiatrist are the most narcissistic professional Dr that there is. The sad thing is that the people that are their clients can really be damaged more by them then any other professional.  At times, it seems they don't care.

So late fall of 2020, my then Psychiatrist informed me he would no longer accept insurance.  Not just my insurance but ANY insurance.  This is his right to do so, but such a dangerous game for the type of patients that they see.  Without insurance I would be paying this doc approximately $500 for a 10 minute phone call and a few seconds of his time to renew my prescriptions.  I can not afford that.

I made a good faith effort to my primary care doctor asking if he could take over the effexor and seroquel scripts for awhile and he did not feel comfortable with that.  And so I found myself without any scripts and felt like I had no choice but to go cold turkey off my meds.  This is not a good idea, but I felt like I didn't have much choice.

In short, the last month and a half to two months have been pure hell for me.  I have been detoxing off of some very serious drugs on my own and the detoxing side effects are not good.

Now, we all know the craziness of at least the last year and so far into this new year.  Totally bizzare. I found myself in mental places where I did not want to be and social platforms, news outlets .. everything was making my emotional state worse.  I am not pointing at liberals or conservative or anyone in particular, but it was just the whole overwhelming amount of information over running me.  As far as facebook was concerned, I was reading things posted from people, family members and friends, that were so out of character I wasn't sure I recognized them anymore.

I decided I needed a plan.  My plan had to be to simplify my life as much as possible. And thus I quit visiting Facebook.  I also quit visiting YouTube which I really use to enjoy.  I basically quit dealing with things that I didn't really need to deal with.  Things that there wasn't anything I could about it anyway.

I have improved my diet to a VERY healthy diet.  I have quit drinking coffee after 12 noon everyday.  I quit taking my usual afternoon naps so I would be able to sleep better at night.  I took up old activities that I use to love and still do.  I read a lot.  I play my piano.  I watch sporting events and fun tv shows.  I have been reacquainting my self with my DVD collection.  I try to excersize at least every other day for a bit. The highlight of each week though is on Sunday morning going out to breakfast followed but attending church services with a very dear friend every Sunday morning.  Just doing things that might help me enjoy life a little more.

What I do not do anymore ... no Facebook or social platforms of any kind.  No Youtube.  I do not watch network television.  I do not watch the "news" programs anymore. I do not listen to music anymore while falling asleep but just put my earbuds in to dampen any outside noise. Clarification, i DO listen to music quite a bit still, just not at bedtime.

I am trying to get myself healthy.  Mentally and physically.

Stopping posting or sharing this blog was not a protest or anything.  It was a health issue.  so far taking all these steps have help a little as I go through each day one step at a time.

And the thing is ... I can honestly say I do not miss Facebook, Youtube, the "news" or anything else that could bring about my anxiety or emotional problems.

SO that is what I am doing.  I am simply trying to care of myself.  Trying to survive from day to day. This is the way I feel it has to be for me right now.  FOR ME.  

I do ask you one favor though.  If we should run into each other in a store or something, please please please respect what I outlined here as to what I am trying to do.

I'll keep writing.  Writing is good for me.  It keeps me thinking and 99% of what I write is not opinion pieces anyway but rather just stories from my life as I remember them.

Hope you all can follow this, if not that is okay.  This blog was originally started as something I could do to ease my anxiety and depression anyway.  Wasn't really meant for anyone but me, but I like to share some of my memories.  I have had a lot of good memories over the years.  I have had some sad times as well.

Love y'all ... and please do take care of yourselves out there. 

Bill

JUST A LITTLE CHIT-CHAT

I just noticed that I have not written or posted since July 6th earlier this year.  That is too long of a period between posts.  So let's see what we can come up with.

Today is Tuesday.  Election Day in the United States.  Yeah .... not going to write about that.  I am not going to write about politics at all. You all probably pretty much know what my thoughts are ... at least most of you.  There are those that think they know where my stance is when it becomes apparent that they do not have a clue.  

This whole year has been marred by the CV-19 virus.  No sense in talking about that either.  Lifestyles for all of us have been completely turned upside down.  The thing about this virus thing is that it has been tied to politics and the election and so everyone is up in arms against each other across the board.  Nah, not going to write about that either.

Major League Baseball was different this year.  To me it was a little disappointing.  Because of the virus restrictions, the Majors only played a 60 game season.  They went ahead with the playoffs and had a World Series.  I decided that for me, this was not a legitimate World Series and should not go into the record books.  My basis was that a mere 60 games is not nearly enough games for the cream to rise to the top.  You need at least 162 games for the best teams to prove their worth over time.  However, I was glad they did play this so called World Series because of the last 30 seconds of game 4.  That little amount of time made the whole thing worthwhile.  I encourage you to check out the 9nth inning of game 4.  Definitely worth your time.  But baseball was redefined by the virus and I don't want to write about the virus ... so I am not going to write about baseball.

Actually when you stop to think about it, just about every part of life was touched by either the virus or politics.  Perhaps that is why I haven't written in so long.

I was planning on traveling to Alabama in March to visit my mother and family members but thanks to the virus, It was delayed.  Mom was in lock down at her living facility so there was not much point in going.  I did finally make it to Alabama in mid-October though.  My little brother and his wife, myself and my mother and sister and her husband celebrated mom's 90th birthday a month and a half early.  Mom was able to escape from her facility to spend a week at my sisters.  It was a good visit.  It wasn't a perfect visit though.  I fell off my sister's front porch one night while staring up at the wonderment of the stars and tore up my knee and my ribs.  Those of you who have been following this blog know that I do not have a very high pain threshold and this hurt.  Then there was the hurricane that blew through putting my return to Kansas City off by a day so I wouldn't be driving through it.  Other than those two things, it was a very good week.  I am happy to report that my mother is in very good health and we were able to avoid any political talk.

I don't want this to be a wrap up of the year and it feels like it is turning into that.  I want to save that for December.

Social media ... well, I have been limiting my time on Facebook and stuff because, quite frankly, there is too much hatred flying around the election.  One of my dear friends accused me of being a troll and told me to go somewhere else to do my trolling.  I do not troll.  I asked a question concerning a post by said friend that I did not have the answer to.  Apparently it offended my friend so I was labeled a troll.  I don't play games like that.  If I ask a question, it is a sincere one.  Then there is all of the ignorance people seem to be showing .... nope, not going to go there.  I just have been staying off my computer and the internet a lot.  I don't need all of the arguments and stuff in my life right now and I certainly do not need to be called names or labeled as something I am not.  When I do get on the internet, it is to get news of those that I care about.  How they are doing.  Seeing pictures of my nieces and nephews so I can enjoy them since I can't see them.  I have reconnected with old friends, a couple who are very special in my life as I was growing up.  It has been a good experience.

I can say this about the year so far.  I still miss a lot of people who influenced my life and have passed on.  That will never change.  I still take my grandpa with me everywhere I go in the form of one of his bandanas in my rear pocket of my jeans.  I have been carrying one ever since he died.  On my way to bed each night, one of the last things I do is kiss my fingers and then touch them to a picture of Barbara that I moved out into the living area of the house.  I don't say anything or stop and look at her picture, just give her a tiny kiss each night ... well most nights... at least once a week or so  Last week marked 2 years since my dad passed away in that horrible year of 2018.  I brought out some more of my Uncle Dan's works of art to display and think of him often when I see the results of his marvelous talent.

Now I often stop and ponder my own aging. I turned 64 last month.  One more year until my planned retirement.  I remember when grandpa retired and when my father retired.  Seems so long ago.  Now I am facing my own step into that part of life.  My twilight years are definitely upon me.

This brings about thoughts of my own death.  The thought of dying does not bother me.  I am not scared of dying.  One of my friends reminds me often "To every season ..." and she is right.  There is a time for everything and that includes dying.  Don't get me wrong now, I am not ready to die quite yet.  I feel like I have a few more years on this earth left in me.  However, if my doctor told me I had a week left?  No big deal.  I am ready to deal with that possibility.

I do feel like I am starting to burn out at my job, which is kind of sad.  I have loved my job my whole adult life.  I have loved the company I work for and have been faithful to it.  But I am getting tired I think.  I began to feel the burnout after Barbara died and it has slowly increased.  I think that whole second half of 2018 pretty much burned me out on life in general.  Sometimes, I simply do not care anymore.  Like this election that we are having today.  Yes I think it is important.  Yes I plan on voting.  Bottom line though, is whatever happens, I am not going to have to live with the outcome for very long.  My son will though and that is probably the biggest reason I will vote.  Really though, it is just another election.  This country has survived many of them with different outcomes.  This country will survive this one as well.  But I am not going to talk politics ... remember?

Many of you are bragging "I survived the year 2020!" ... I got that beat easily.  I survived 2018.

MY COUNTRY? OUR COUNTRY!

I was not going to write anything about the turmoil that is tearing our country apart.  I tried to start writing about it once but things were changing so fast that my writing was woefully out of date after 24 hours.  Things have been moving fast ... too fast.  My perception of things will not agree with a lot of you and to be honest, I am to the point of not really caring one bit right now. The United States is being torn apart from within.  It is quickly becoming a country that I don't recognize and I feel it is changing for the worse.

Let me say one thing that I deeply feel is a true statement.  The vast majority of Americans, well over 99%, were shocked and outraged at the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  I know I was.  I want those officers to be held accountable and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  I want any cop that goes against his sworn oath and duty to be held accountable.  I also think that the police officers should be held to a higher standard when performing their job than ordinary citizens.  I would be willing to wager that most Americans, that 99%, feel the same way.  At the same time, the police should be given latitude for their actions in situations that are high stress with little time to think cognitively on how to deal with it.  A police officer must be able to think on his feet very quickly and to act in the most appropriate manner that he feels is justified.  It takes a special person to do that job and I for one am not equipped to be able to do it.

So what happened in our country to take us from total unanimity on the outrage of the actions of police officers dealing with Mr. Floyd to the subversion taking place in our country today.  Well, the story has been progressing for a long time.  For the sake of brevity let's just keep it in the recent past.  Let's say start in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.   That Act was a huge step in our country moving forward.  No, it was not a cure all.  It would take the Supreme Court to take it and mold it to the Constitution.  As late as 1967, a full three years after the Civil Rights Act passed, interracial marriage was against the law in several states, including the great state of Missouri.  When the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia in 1967, it was another very huge step towards bringing the Civil Rights Act to it's full potential to bring equality to all in this land.  We still had a ways to go and the Supreme Court is still to this day making decisions that are based on the Civil Rights Act.  Same sex marriages have been deemed to be under the umbrella of the 1964 Act.  Loop holes in racial equality continue to be sewn shut by the Court.  The police have been reformed somewhat by the Court as well.  The Miranda case is one of the biggest clamp downs on police in the last century making the police treat all people equal.  The decisions continue to be handed down from the Court and the country continues to strive towards that Utopian idea of total equality for all.  Where do I stand on the idea of full and total equality?  I am 100% for it.  I do not think our nation can survive without it.  The country continues to move towards that goal year after year and we will get there.  This I firmly believe.

Now many of you are probably thinking, why has it taken so long to get there?  Why are we still on that path toward total equality?  Well, the best answer I can give is that it is vitally important to not move too fast.  Some laws that are on the books might seem to be against the idea of equality but if we take a good look at them, they are important in the long run to keep equality instead of making it worse.  If we move too fast on such important matters, mistakes will be made and they could have devastating results for those that they are designed to help.  We should be careful and make changes methodically, rationalizing what we want the outcome to be and craft any new laws so that they accomplish what we intend to.  We are closer to real equality for all citizens of this country right now than we have ever been before.  We were anyway until a few months ago.  It has not taken long for a few political groups to start the dismantling of our country, our Constitution.  I feel like we are on a dangerous downhill path to the United States becoming unrecognizable.

So here we are.  The summer of 2020.  It has been 56 years since the  passage of the Civil Rights Act.  The country is only 244 years old.  Less than a quarter of our history as a nation has been under the conditions of the Civil Rights Act ... about 23% of our country's existence. That is not a very long time to bring forth such sweeping changes in different cultures, lifestyles and philosophies.  With every new generation though, a little of the old cultures, lifestyles and philosophies are discarded and it becomes more natural for the country to move towards the goal of equality for all as a greater percentage of the nation learns and believe in what is the right thing to do.  The right way to act and the right way to treat our fellow countrymen and human beings.

Ignorance still has a strangle hold on many members of our society though.  Those who are ignorant of what equality means, or what our country stands for are in the minority of the citizens of this country.  They are still out there though.  The ignorance pervades all cultures, all races, all religions and any other societal sect that there is, but they are thankfully still in the minority.  That is why I can look at this country and feel proud of  how far we have come in this pursuit.  Yes, we have a long ways to go, but we have come such a long ways.  That progress is in danger of being totally lost right now.  I believe the Great American Experiment is in danger of coming to an end. 

You know, for almost a week after Mr. Floyd's murder, we all stood as one.  It was horrible.  It was wrong.  The police officers who committed this crime should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  There was no question about it.  Then the agitators came.  To me these organizations could and should be labeled as domestic terrorist organizations.  Suddenly our cities started to burn and unlike anything before, the destruction accelerated at a pace so quickly, we could not keep up with the latest developments.  Crime has become rampant as these organizations continue to push their political agendas.  They moved so fast and with so much destruction, we saw our police, our leaders kneel before these agitators which pleased them a great deal.  Now changes are being made and they are being made to quickly, without forethought or logic.  Changes that will change what the United States represent to the world.  Changes that could very well never be walked back.

Bits and pieces of the Constitution is at stake in my opinion.  Free speech has been greatly altered to allow only the proper ideas and thoughts to be expressed in public without being brought down by the wrath of the radicals.  I have already seen the idea of due process greatly inhibited and even tossed aside.  We are treading in dangerous waters.

If Dr. King taught us anything, it was that change can be brought about peacefully.  Our country seems to have forgotten that ideal.

I pray for our country.  I pray for our citizens.  I pray that this great country that stands for freedom unlike any other country in the world will survive this tragedy.  I pray for a civil discourse to solve these problems that we face.  I pray that we can make changes, real changes, but in a thoughtful, reflective and wise manner.

I pray for all .. ALL of my fellow Americans.  

May God bless the country and bring us back together and help us to continue moving forward to real equality for all of us.  That is my hope for the United States of America.

SINCERE CONCERN FOR VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN

I want to talk about Vice President Biden for a little bit.  I do not want to weigh in on the recent harassment allegations against him except maybe in how his party may approach the situation.  What I want to talk about is the changes that the Vice President has seemed to be going through during this campaign season. It may not be a popular writing with some of my readers because of what is coming to light about the Vice President.  Let's try anyway.

Pre-accusation  feelings  on Mr. Biden.  I respect the man.  I have watched him in the Senate for many years and I feel like he had an air about him as a fair minded, bipartisan politician who tried to sincerely do what was best for our country.

I have been following national politics closely since the Presidential election of 1968 when President Nixon defeated Vice President Humphrey.  With the arrival of cable television and the creation of the C-SPAN network that televised the House of Representative and later expanded to broadcast the Senate live as well, I was able to witness these politicians and decide for myself what kind of people they were instead of taking my grandfather's word for it.  It was eye opening as I grew older and came to understand the working of the government better.

Joe Biden stood out to me.  As I watched the Senate there were many Senators that I just could not bring myself to have much respect for.  Among those were Senator Leahey, Senator Durbin, and Senator Kennedy (Edward) among others on both sides of the aisle.  However there were many Senators that I felt were doing the best they could for their states and their constituents as well as the country.  These Senators also covered both sides of the aisle and one of those was Joe Biden.

Joe Biden had my respect pretty much the whole time that I was aware of him and who he was.  The thing that really won my respect for him though was when he was Chairman of the Judiciary committee.  He presided over the extremely controversial confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas to be placed on the Supreme Court.  Justice Thomas underwent accusations almost parallel to the hearings that we just watched Justice Kavanaugh go through.  There was an accuser.  The Democrats smelled blood in the water and the Republicans wanted the accusations to be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.  It was ugly.  It was nasty.  It brought out an angry Justice Thomas that accused the process of being a "high tech lynching".  Senator Biden, as I mentioned, was the chairman of the committee.  What I saw Biden do during that 2 weeks of accusations, fighting, arguing presenting to the American people the United States Senate at it's worse, was a man who tried his very best to keep things in order.

Joe Biden tried, and I believe succeeded, in keeping the hearings fair and under control.  He chastised both Republican Senators as well as Democratic Senators during that time. He gave and took on both sides.  It was probably the most fair hearings I have ever seen coming out of the Senate (except for the Soto-Mayor and the John Roberts hearings maybe).  Joe Biden stood tall.  Joe Biden kept to his plan on how to handle the hearings.  Joe Biden came off as a fair and honest man in my mind and he earned my respect during that time.

Since then, I feel like he continued to do an admirable job as a Senator.  When he was chosen by President Obama to be his running mate, I was pleased.  It made my decision on who to vote for in those two elections pretty difficult.  I was not enamored with Mitt Romney and so that was probably the second toughest decision I had ever made in a Presidential election.  The other one was in 1976 When President Ford was challenged by President Carter.  I voted for Carter in 1976 and even though his administration can be seen fairly easily as a failure, he did some very good things as President.  I was not, and still am not questioning myself on voting for Carter that year.

I did not vote for President Obama however.  At the time I felt like Obama was too inexperienced to hold the office of President.  He was a one term Senator with little, if any, other experience in National politics, particularly foreign policy.  That was what threw me over to vote for Romney.  I believe a President's number one responsibility is that of foreign policy and it just wasn't there with Obama.  Even as Obama ran for a second term, his opponent Senator McCain was much more proficient in foreign policy than the President was.  Through all of that though, I still held my respect for Joe Biden.  Biden did know foreign policy.  In my mind Biden was still that hard nosed Senator from years ago who was bi-partisan and honest and sincere.  I still feel that way about the Vice President. (current allegations withstanding).

So that is my background concerning Joe Biden.   I do feel like during his eight years as Vice President he became a little more partisan but over all still a fair, sincere man.  That brings us to what my concern with the former Vice President is and what this entry is meant to be about.  Most important about Biden was that he never seemed to jump on the "Hate President Trump At All Cost" bandwagon.

When we entered the current campaign season it was fairly obvious that the Democrats were going to have some bloody moments on the road.  It seemed that the party was fractured widely between moderates and, well about as far left as you can get on a piece of graph paper ... maybe even off the paper.  But then came Joe Biden into the mix.  Now I can't say I agree with him on policy or really much of anything as it seems that Biden, as well as myself, have changed over the years.  Still, I could see Joe Biden as that same man I saw at the Thomas hearings.  He was an arbitrator early in the campaign.  He would answer questions quick, straight and hard nosed.  You didn't have to wonder where Biden stood on things and it began to appeal to the Democratic party.

Something began to happen though during the primary season.  It wasn't easy to notice at first.  Biden began to hesitate just a little before giving an answer.  The pause began to grow as the weeks went by.  Then Biden began to get words turned around now and again but was quick to correct himself.  After that little anger burst began to come from somewhere deep inside him and a few times he threatened democratic supports and challenged them to what appeared to be fist fights out in the parking lot.  Then it got worse and I began to really get concerned about Joe Biden as a man, as a human being.  Joe was slowing changing into a Joe Biden that I did not recognize.

Over the past few weeks, the Vice President has begun to slur his words a little.  His thought processes have begun to be disjointed.  He forgets words entirely and can not correct himself.  He seems to not be aware of where he is or sometimes what he is doing.  During one campaign speech he announced that he was "Joe Biden and I am running for United States Senator".  This was the point when I was convinced that early onset dementia was starting to effect Joe Biden.

I have no proof of this.  There have not been any medical examinations or anything of the sort to confirm what I feel I see in the man.  But I do see it.  I watched my father slowly slip into dementia and what I saw in Biden was almost a mirror as to what I saw in my father.  It continues to get worse in my eyes as the days go by.  He looks old.  He looks tired.  His wife, Jill, has had to walk him off the platform a few times.  He has wondered off camera.  One night with the camera on him, he turned and talked to the wall with his back to the camera.  He stops mid sentence constantly now trying to remember what his train of thought was.  Personally, I see the dementia growing almost daily.

It is sad.  I am sincere in saying that.  It is sad to see any person slip into dementia especially when you have seen them with a sharp mind and very capable of taking care of themselves.  It truly is sad to see Biden go through this.  What I do not understand, what I can not understand, is how the Democratic Party puts him through this.  It is becoming more obvious by the day that if he were to be elected, he would not be able to serve the country the way we deserve to be served.  He would not be capable of carrying out his duties, of upholding the Constitution without the danger of being led by people who could be of questionable character talking him into making decisions that the Joe Biden of past years would never make.

I feel that the Democratic Party has to find a new candidate to take Biden's place on the ballot and they need to come out of their convention with a viable candidate.  If they put Joe Biden on stage in a debate with President Trump, I do not believe I would be able to watch it.  It would be so sad to see that once great man, not able to formulate a consistent argument or sentence without stumbling all over his words and looking tired and old.  I would not want to see that.  I don't think the American people would want to see that, no matter what your political philosophy is.

Now comes the only time I will bring up the current allegations against Biden.  I truly hope that what I am about to say does not come true.  My fear is that the party that Biden was a part of and loved for all these years may turn on him.  They may use this scandal as the excuse to replace him at the convention putting him and his family through unnecessary turmoil.  I think that this could happen to cover up the fact that the Democratic Party were ready to nominate a man who is so clearly unable to carry out the responsibility of the office if elected.  This would be about the meanest thing that could happen.

I hope, my fervent hope, is that somebody in the leadership of the party, a few of those people, talk to Jill Biden and get her on board before approaching Joe with what everyone is seeing from day to day.  My hope is that they are  able to talk to him and make him understand enough to realize that stepping aside is the right thing to do.  I have no idea or thought on who could or should replace Biden at the top of the ticket.  That is what the convention will be for.  My hope is that they treat Joe Biden gently with all the respect he has earned over the decades of serving his country. As far as the allegations, that can be worked out without a President being hampered as President Trump has been since he was elected.  The situation can be handled in a just way, in quiet and outside of government.

Joe Biden deserves at least this much respect and decency.  I truly believe this.  The last time I felt this bad for a Senator that went down was when George McGovern and the democrats embarrassed and shamed my senator from Missouri, Thomas Eagleton in 1972 because it came to light that he suffered from depression and was seeking help for it.  I feel like the situation with Biden is much worse than the Eagleton situation.

I am asking the leaders and members of the Democratic Party to please, please give Joe Biden some dignity as his political career comes to a close.  He deserves it.

(As an aside, I do not condone any actions that Joe Biden may have done if the allegations are true.  At the time of this writing it is reported that 8 women have made accusations in the past against Mr. Biden.  This of course, changes my attitude toward him as a man in the overall scheme of things.  I also believe he needs to be held accountable after an investigation is conducted)

PREPARE BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW

I need to write again for my own sanity.  It helps to clear my head and helps me to think about things that need thinking about.  As I sat thinking about what to write two things came to mind.  First I do not want to write about how COVID-19 is effecting me and how I see it effecting others.  We have plenty to read on that topic and nobody knows for sure much about it anyway.  Secondly I did not want to write another piece on Barbara or how life has changed since she passed.  I do not want to burn out my readers by hearing that over and over again. There will be plenty of time to write about many things concerning my life with Barb.  I tried to do this in my last entry concerning Debbie but by the time I got to the end of it, there was still a lot of Barbara in there.  I suppose that is how it will probably be from now on.  So much of my life experiences had Barbara involved in them with me.  After all two-thirds of my life was spent with her.  This is another experience that she and I shared together.

This is about preparing for events that we do not know when or how they will happen.  This is about being ready for as much as we possibly can and the steps that we took to prepare for these things.

One big lesson that I was taught came from Barbara's daddy, Harry.  Harry was a very wise and thoughtful man who had lived through a difficult childhood and ended up making his way through life on his own.  I haven't written much about Harry but I could write a lot.  I can make a direct comparison between Harry and my grandfather and my father.  Both had to deal with events that basically were out of their control and somehow learn to control it as best as they could.  Harry had to deal with making a career out of something he loved, raising two daughters while caring for a wife who was seriously mentally ill.  It was not easy for him or for his daughters.  Harry, however, was able to visualize down the road of life and see what would be required if he were to live a normal lifetime and that is where my lesson from Harry came from.

I was young.  I am not even sure I was his son at the time when he spoke this magic sentence that led me to prepare for the future decades away.  I remember that sentence so clearly.  Harry knew that with Barb and myself being so young, we were making our way through life basically from paycheck to paycheck.  I have tried to pass this quote down to my son and my nieces and nephews through the years.

So you are wondering what this sentence was that changed my life so dramatically?  It was a very simple sentence but filled with some very heavy wisdom.  Harry told me, "When you sit down to pay your bills every month, be sure to pay yourself first."  That was it.  Simple.  Direct.  Wise.  I thought about that advice for a long time.  It made sense to follow that advise but as we all know it isn't always easy, especially when you are just beginning your path through life.

One day, we had a big Human Resources meeting at the company.  It had been at least five years since Harry had bestowed upon me that little piece of wisdom.  The company was starting a new program called a 401k account.  The idea was that money would be held from your check voluntarily and would not be taxable at the end of the year.  It would be invested by an outside source in various markets to maximize the yield of the money.  Furthermore, for the first seven percent of your salary that you set aside for retirement, the company would match it.  So if I decided to set aside that seven percent a month, I would be investing fourteen percent of my salary towards our future and it would all be tax free until I decided to retire.  Even now it almost seems to good to be true, which was why I thought about it for awhile.  While I was thinking, those words that Harry had spoken to me a few years before came back to mind, "pay yourself first..."

I took all the reading material home and studied it.  This was back before the internet was really a thing in ordinary households so I was not able to "google" anything but instead had to read up on it myself.  Barb and I discussed it and decided we could afford somewhere around four percent to set aside at the time.  As our circumstances changed over the years, we could adjust our contributions to the 401k which we did.

Now the time is drawing near that all of that savings over the last thirty five years or so will assist me as I look forward to retirement in October of 2021.  I will be 65 years old, receive Social Security benefits and have that investment from my 401k to tap into if I need to.  Hopefully by then the markets will have recovered sufficiently enough to get me back to where I was before this whole virus thing crashed the markets over the last few weeks.

Even if my money does not recover to it's high points, it is still good to know that I have a safety net of sorts as I begin my life of leisure, as they call retirement.  It was a plan.  It was preparation for the future.  I feel good about it.

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It was a spring day, a Saturday I believe, in 1982 when we received a knock on our door.  The gentleman who was making a visit to us was from Floral Hills Cemetery and Funeral Home.  He said in introducing himself that he was there to help us get prepared for something that everyone has to deal with at some point in life, that being death.  Barbara invited him in to talk before I had a chance to say we were not interested.  For the next two hours or so we talked with this man about what our plans were for the future.

At this time we had begun the process of applying to adopt a child from the Missouri Baptist Children's Home and so talk about preparing for the future found it's way into our thinking.  It made sense to both of us.  Pre-plan everything now for something that could happen at anytime.  The fact is that nobody knows what tomorrow may hold.

We did purchase a pre-plan for the future.  I am not sure what Barb's final thoughts that made her mind up were, but for me it was basically a concern for Barb and for our future child.  If something happened to me, the majority of the funeral plans would be paid for.  This included the plot for our final resting place, the casket, service cost, the grave marker, basically everything except the opening and the closing of the grave.  As young as we were, chances were that the majority of the funeral cost for me would already be paid for and Barb would not have to deal with whatever emotions she might be dealing with while trying to make decisions concerning a funeral.  Anything that was not completely paid for would be taken care of with my life insurance policies that she would receive upon my death.  This was a way to take a lot of the stress from the life changing event that she would face.

We finished paying off the pre-plan several years ago.  It was about that time that Barbara's health began to worsen on an ever increasing pace.

July 23, 2018.  I had spent the night at the hospital holding Barb's hand as she lay in a coma for what had been a week.  From the events of the day before I knew that this would be the last day of our time together.  It was about 7:00 that morning when an old friend of mine, Phil, showed up to visit Barbara to find me there with her.  Phil knew what I knew.  This was not going to get better.  Later he told me that when he walked into that ICU room he wondered if I realized what was happening and when he looked me in the eye he realized that yes, I did know what was happening.  Phil left and soon my sister Karen arrived to sit with me at Barbara's side.  Soon a few of my cousins arrived at the hospital as they had everyday over the previous week.  It was at 10:00 in the morning that day when the doctors and nurses came in to tell me that they had run out of options for Barbara.  I gave permission to take away all of the life support equipment that had kept her alive for the previous week and Barbara left me after I gave her a kiss.

I went out to the waiting room and knew that Barb had a plan for her funeral that was now to come into play.  I asked my cousin Ellen to call the funeral home and let them know about Barbara so that they could get things started on pulling what Barb had chosen so many many years before.  Brett, Karen and myself went to the funeral home the next day and went through things with the funeral director.  We ended up spending maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes there without having to make any serious decisions.  Those decisions had already been made.  Everything was paid for except the opening of the grave, as we were told it would be way back in 1982

Her is the thing concerning this.  It was supposed to make things easier for Barbara, not for me.  The fact is, again, that none of us knows what tomorrow brings.  Anything could happen at anytime.  You know, one of the things that went through my mind and continues to do so, is taking those wedding vows.  Back then it was before you wrote your own vows.  Dr. Wilson had a book of suggested vows that he shared with us as we prepared to get married.  In almost every single one of those vows was the line "Until Death Do Us Part".  I had heard that line in movies, in plays, and in real life at weddings and  I did not think about what it really meant.  It was something that was just said as part of the tradition and the ceremony.  "Until death do us part".  That concept, the idea of death ending your marriage when you are only 19 and 20 years old is such a foreign idea.  You don't think about that actually happening.  It won't happen.  It escapes your mind and you don't think about it.

It does happen though and you do not know when or where it will, but death will visit that marriage. Death visited our marriage and we have parted from each other on this earth.

And so I advise everyone that I can, every time the opportunity presents itself to let people know that one of the best things you can do for each other is to pre-plan your end of life requirements.  It takes so much pressure and stress away from the situation.  The decisions drop to just minor decisions instead of major ones.  It makes it a lot easier on the funeral directer as well.  That has to be a tough job being a funeral director.  Walking grief stricken families through the process of method of burial, purchase of caskets or urns, choosing a plot.  It takes a special person to carry out that job with caring and discernment.  Oh but how much easier it is when all of those decisions are made.  The funeral director can take time to talk and to listen to you about your partner who you have just lost.  They can have the strength to help you  and to comfort you.

Please, my dear readers.  For the sake of your loved ones give them this simple gift of not having to face the stress of making all of these difficult decisions when they are most vulnerable.  Pre-plan.

PREPARE.  Prepare for whatever lies down the road for you and those you love.  Whether it means paying yourself first before you pay your bills or preparing for the unthinkable, prepare.

Prepare, because none of us ever know what lies in store for us tomorrow.