Avoiding Controversy? Or Refusing to Think?
As per my normal morning routine, with coffee in hand and dog in my lap, I perused first my email and then moved on to Facebook to see what comments had been posted since I turned in with the chickens last night. One private message and one public comment to an earlier post I had made prompted the subject of this essay. I saw the private message first. The sender is a friend I made on FB via another FB friend. Although we have never met personally, we hail from the same hometown, and we grew up in fairly similar environments. A few days ago this friend had posted a sort of snarky, one word comment regarding a news source I had posted for a political story – we have vastly differing political views on many, many things, and he was giving me a...
Read MoreFor Mama
My mother has been on my mind quite a bit lately. At 87 years old, and living in an impaired and deteriorating body, it has been hard for me to see and remember the vibrant woman of my youth. This past week I visited her in Chattanooga where she has lived in a nursing home for the past 6 years. She is wheelchair bound, and likely to be bedridden before the end of the year. Her poor body is so wracked with arthritis and progressive muscle deterioration that she is bent over at almost a 90 degree angle. Recently the decision was made to move her to a soft diet because she can’t really swallow solid food any longer. When I walked out of her room after spending time with her last Tuesday I was almost in tears, for I am powerless to help her. My mother...
Read MoreBack to the Future
One of my favorite films of all times is Michael J. Fox’s Back to the Future. What a hoot it was to follow Marty McFly as he met his mother, “battled” the bully Biff, and gave Chuck Berry the inspiration for “Johnny B Good”! Like all classic films, Back to the Future resonated with its audience due in no large part to the charisma of its actors – which immediately brings to mind Tim Matheson and John Belushi in Animal House and Belushi and Dan Akroyd in The Blues Brothers. But I digress. Who among us hasn’t wished at some point that we could go back to our own past, revisit those days when the high school football game was the biggest event on the calendar, and our most pressing concern was whether we would have a date to the big dance?...
Read MoreWhere Life Takes Us
When we are young, we have our lives all figured out. Or at least we think we do. For example, when I started college I thought that by the time I was in my early 30’s my life would be perfect, I would be settled in a wonderful marriage, whatever “job” I had – if I even had one – would be stress free, and that my free time would be spent at the country club. Life, however, had other ideas. The decade of my 30’s turned out to be the living epitome of Dickens’ comment “it was the best of times; it was the worst of times”. I was divorced, lost custody of two young children, and became an alcoholic. Fortunately, before that decade ended, I also found recovery and AA. In the intervening years – over two decades now –...
Read MoreWhen There’s Nothing To Celebrate
The first I ever heard of National Siblings Day was when I logged onto Facebook this morning. Lots of pictures of brothers and sisters – usually from childhood – accompanying expressions of love and gratitude for each other. I considered how many Hallmark and Blue Mountain cards would be received today, and wondered why we needed a special day to acknowledge people we love. I guess the progenitors of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day thought they better cover all the potential marketing bases. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Grandparents’ Day was added to the fray. National Cousins’ Day must be right around the corner. As I scrolled down my FB page, I came across a post from a friend who is an only child. Her lament,...
Read MoreThe Inevitability of Life
When I was in my 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s, my quiet time thoughts were preoccupied with the details of daily living: children, spouse, work, the demands each placed upon me and how best to juggle all three so that no one felt short changed (other than yours truly, a fact of life that I thought unavoidable and part of my civic and familial duties). My life was busy. I had neither the time nor desire to contemplate the inevitabilities of life. Certainly, life happened around me – my only living grandparents died, as did a few people close to my age – but none of those passings made me look at my own mortality. In my 50’s my perception began to change, most notably when my father was given a terminal diagnosis. Over a three month period I...
Read MoreGrow Where You Are Planted
I get on reading kicks and stay glued to a particular author or subject until I have totally exhausted my interest in the writer or the topic. For example, earlier this fall I got hooked on Jody Picault novels and read several of them back to back before realizing I couldn’t stand to read another lawyer book even if the stories were pretty entertaining. I did the same thing with the Stieg Larrson books, except that I would have loved to continue with that saga. Too bad Larsson died while writing book four. Recently my reading interests were pointed in a different direction after seeing a Facebook post about a man named George Anderson. Anderson is a medium – something people either accept as possible or reject as hooey – and he has been...
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