Dear God

Billy and I swapped comments on Facebook this morning about religious crap. I had posted that I could not understand why we humans wasted so much time and energy arguing over the existence of God. As an Agnostic, I just cannot say either way. Billy is a believer of a chaos kind of explanation; we just happened.

Okay fine. We stated our feelings and that should have been the end of it.

Billy then commented that he lived in the middle of a bunch of Thumpers down in Texas. That fired up some of the cylinders still working in my brain. I reflected that I had once read that the once invincible Puritan stronghold, New England, now had fewer churches than any other region in the country.

Always in search of something to write about, I quickly googled, "Which state is the least religious". It turns out that I was right. The citizens of New Hampshire and Massachusetts claiming high religiosity are tied at 33% each, with Maine and Vermont coming in close behind at 34% each. The 4 states with the highest percentage of religiosity are Alabama and Mississippi at 77% , followed by Tennessee at 73% and Louisiana at 71%.

The article from the "World Atlas" site speculated that the high level of secularism in New England may be a residual effect left us by the Puritans. The Puritans were many things, rigid in their beliefs, unforgiving of blasphemous behavior and the notion of secular was never on their radar. They did however, support literacy by creating public schools long before we became a country. They felt that people needed to be able to read the Bible in order to lead them into a life long relationship with God. 

I am guessing here, but did their efforts to teach people to read and write lay the foundation of their failure over time? I think it may have. It certainly could partially explain why today's Evangelicals are so anti-education. Teach someone to read and they will often find something other than God to direct their lives.

I stopped posting the silly church billboards because too many of them were fake. The above collage may contain fake messages, but their messages certainly point to a truth that the Evangelical segment of America look at education without restriction with jaundiced eyes. And time has proven that Evangelical Christianity in America is generally not a friend of secular education as the bill boards point out.

I long for the day in America when all religion is practiced quietly and personally and not worn on the shirt sleeves of so many fanatics. It seems counter intuitive that while Christianity as a whole is losing parishioners at the highest rate ever, the growth of Christian Nationalism has exploded. 

We should never want to stamp out religious faith, for religious freedom is an important and integral part of our culture. But what we should be doing is keeping it from  becoming the law of our land. Theocracies never prosper for the many. They always end up only serving the few.

Later ..........................................

______________________

Music for this post is from an Indie band from the 1980's, XTC. Here is "Dear God". This song twisted Christian panties coast to coast. Death threats followed which only ensured this tune becoming their most popular song. Righteously indignant Christians are their own worst enemies. .......... I just don't get it.

My favorite lyric:

“The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost/ Is just somebody’s unholy hoax“

An Update of Sorts

I will often have an itch to write, but have nothing to say. Anyone who has read my drivel on a regular basis knows I am not lying. I will, as I have this morning, just start writing and let that first thought dictate the result. No direction, no salient point. Just write for writing's sake.

I make no apologies, though I used to. 

When I created the "BoZone", I had no plan, reason or rhyme. I had heard of blogs and thought I might try it. That was eighteen years ago on Tuesday, December 2, 2004. Since then I have penned over 2000 posts, publishing over 1500 of them. As of today, this moment,  519,132 people have visited my blog; 8000 of whom left comments. And after all that time, I still sit down most days without anything in mind to write about.

I have never given those statistics much thought. The level of traffic has ebbed and flowed. I have paid almost no attention. If I had monetized this blog, I might be more aware of how many people visit per day, per week, per who gives a fuck.

I have flirted with discontinuing the BoZone at different times in the past 18 years. I would anguish up different reasons to not continue. In the end, the prospect of returning to writing in spiral notebooks with handwriting even I sometimes have trouble decoding; well, that always brought me back to my blog. Writing in my blog was so much easier and it offered me a wonderful place to cache all the thoughts I considered worth saving, even if the folks out the in the blogosphere thought differently.

Once again I have successfully screwed the pooch and placed out there in the Internet ether more useless and wasted bytes of nonsense that will have no impact on anything of substance. Just some more Crum flapping his lips trying to not influence anyone, but just a shout out that says, .......... 

"Hey, I am still here and this is what I think today."

Keep it 'tween the ditches ...........................................

_______________________________

Yeah, what music would go with this post? ..................... Let's go random as that is where the above post came from anyway.

The song, "96 Tears", was recorded by " ? & the Mysterians " in 1966. It has always been my contention that their band name is the best band name in history. "Question Mark" was their lead singer. All of them were sons of migrant farm workers living in northern Michigan. "96 Tears" was their one hit wonder and it was a doozy. The song is #210 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of the 500 greatest Rock songs of all time. We used to rock out hard to this tune at Teen clubs and dances coast to coast. 

BTW - The collage at the top is my fault. I came across that image of the Beatles and remembered it from my teen days. I think it was associated with the movie, "Help". Anyway, I always liked it and I wanted to do something that indicated what might be on these boys' minds. Everyone knows what is always on boys' minds.

Us & Them

My initiating comment earlier this morning in response to the Meme at the right:

"With what the Republican owned state legislatures are doing, yes, Republicans and their ugly Fringes are definitely a threat to Democracy."

What follows is the brief exchange posted on the Right Wing dominated page, "Opposing Views" on Facebook. 

Tom replied:

"Yet another democRAT gaslighting, but who is living proof of the dumbing down of America."  

 My reply:

“Tom. If I had known you were watching, I would never have contemplated testing your obviously more powerful intellect. You shame me sir with your biting wit and clever use of capital letters. Touche. When you retire to your double-wide tonight, I do hope you will think kindly of me and remember my true regret for having crossed you. When next we meet, I will hope that you might be more understanding of a member of the insignificant majority. If not, I will understand of course. Dealing with the dregs of society is never ending trouble and toil. If only there was some way we, the insignificant many, could elevate ourselves to your level; we might also understand as you obviously do, what living with our heads up our ass is like. I hear it is quite comfortable once one gets used to it.”

 "Opposing Views" was created on the pretense of attempting to bridge the deep divides between the Right and Left with serious discussion without the meaningless hyperbole of "Yo Momma" rhetoric. It is a typical back and forth that illustrates just how the lofty goal of civilized discussion was quickly laid low as tempers flared and mindless insults became the rule.

I have really tried to deescalate my use of inflammatory rhetoric. I have succeeded for the most part, but as you can see, while I didn't use mindless words meant to enrage, I did do my best to slam this asshole hard, hoping my comment sailed over his assumed superior intellect.

I get that from my mother. She was so very good at insulting without overtly appearing to do so. When she was on her game, it was an awesome example of intellectual ownership. I can only flounder around attempting to emulate her. She was the Queen of the unsaid insult. I am only a pretender.

Later Gators ...........................................

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I sometimes feel I have created a monster with my insistence on including a musical choice with each post. There have been times that finding the music I want to include takes longer than writing the actual post. But what the Hell it is what I decided, so today I will need some more time ............... ( the dots indicate the passing of time) ...............................

I did not have to even think of using Google, Youtube etc. The song today is "For What it's Worth", by Buffalo Springfield. I think it was released on their first album in 1966 when they called themselves "The" Buffalo Springfield. 

This tune became a rock anthem for the freak flag flying anti-everything demonstrations of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It brings back many memories; good and bad. But of more importance, it seems even more relevant today. 

The Perfect Hard Boiled Egg

After reading Jim's post on Facebook this morning about his recent experience cooking hard boiled eggs, I decided to let Google lead me to the best way to cook them. I typed in, 

"The perfect way to hard boil eggs"

My answer appeared in 0.59 seconds and there were 214,000,000 results. Hmm........

I decided the response time was impressive and the result count, while not astronomical, indicated this issue is one with many opinions that when discussed will result in possibly heated debate. Hard core kitchen folk can be unwavering about cooking anything.

Of course when compared to googling "Trump", there is no comparison. That took Google  0.85 seconds to respond with 843,000,000 results. If Donald gets wind of the fact that his name only drummed up a paltry 843,000,000 results, I am sure he will try to strong arm and shame Google into bumping the count to over a billion just like he has done with his financial wealth claims and election tallies. Nothing makes a man feel better about himself than lying about the size of anything he has on his person or the number of votes he knows he really deserved in an election. 

This is to be expected. The planet is more interested in the stupid, the inane, and useless information like the madness that swirls around Trump than they are about such serious, life changing stuff like cooking the perfect hard boiled egg. Having finally purged Trump from front and center in my mind, creating the perfect hard boiled egg has more value to me than reading about a wannabe despot who cheats at golf.

So, of the 214,000,000 million hits, the first page is supposed to have the best answers. The number one response claims to be the best, but I don't know. Seems to me that with hard boiled eggs, it might be possible to create the perfect hard boiled egg a number of ways. But the one thing the good recipes all call for is cooling the eggs thoroughly before trying to peel them. 

But then a new questions arises. What is the best way to peel an egg? 

Okay okay, I have definitely dropped down a rabbit hole here. A hole made up of silly questions with millions of answers. When I googled how to peel an egg ................... in 0.46 seconds I had 43,400,000 results that brought me back to .......... Yeah, that's right, how to hard boil an egg.

Help, I am trapped in an ovum and egged into a many egg layered horror house that is an endless loop with no set solution, just a multitude of opinions that may be right, with some more right-er than others. 

All this playing on Google reminds me of when I first found Google before they were the 800 pound gorilla they became. I was fascinated by how fast and how many results I could find regarding the wackiest minutia. I was reminded of my time trying to read the whole World Book Encyclopedia as kid after my parents purchased it when I was seven or eight. I got to "M" before my interest finally petered out. But over the ensuing years I often would pull a volume down open it up to anywhere and begin reading. I learned a lot doing that. I have done the same with Google.

And finally, because my head aches from reading so many different takes on boiling an egg, I offer up my wife's surefire method to cook that elusive perfect hard boiled egg. Not sure what the baking powder does. I assume it is just more of her VooDoo Magic.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ..........................................

_________________________

The first three tunes I checked out tunes with "eggs" playing some part in the song, well, they all were excellent in a range of differing ways.

The first one was "Egg Man", by The Beastie Boys. I am not much of a fan of Rap / Hip Hop. But some I like. Of all the earlier Rap I listened to,  I liked the Beastie Boys and Ice-T the most.

Next up was a fine Benny Goodman tune, "Egg Head". His clarinet playing still gives me the chills.

And finally, of all of them, by far the best one is "Eggs and Sausage", by Tom Waits. His lyrics, his voice, and his piano playing; Hell, the whole package. There is a reason Tom is Legend. This song took me back to those late nights spent in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures in college. When the night had played itself out and I was headed back to the barn, I always felt an obligation, a pull on the steering wheel that would invariably deposit me into the parking lots of all night eateries that existed in Flashing Neon Greasy Glitterness on my scattered routes home. ......... Yeah, Tom catches the feeling of so many inebriated people sharing some time filling their pie holes before they went their separate ways to lay their heads down for the night.

___________________________

Image at top - "Humpty Dumpty did not fall", by Richard Gerhard

Come Together

I was putting clean dishes away and rockin out to YouTube music videos on the kitchen TV. All the while I kept asking myself why I did not punch up these endless playlists more often when dealing with kitchen drudgery? No, really. I have known and used the YouTube music video channel more than a few times, but not very often in the kitchen.

 …….. Hmm 

I’d pursue some answers here, but my reason for writing today is not YouTube and its total immersion into my lifestyle. No, today’s post was kicked into gear when the Beatles tune, “Come Together” punched its way out of those awesome two inch speakers on the flat screen. 

Of course it brought me back, took me back without much trouble to days long ago when my sixth grade friends and I would argue incessantly over who was better; the Rolling Stones or the Beatles? 

The heated discussions at lunch, on the walks home and during recess always took place along gender lines. The girls absolutely loved the Beatles. The guys, because they did not want to seem unmanly, picked the Rolling Stones. 

Beatles = Chick music; Rolling Stones = Dude music ……

 Being a guy, I was all about the Stones, the Who, all the Brit groups who snarled and pounded out their horny melodies at insane decibels promising desperate pubescent boys, some shagging would visit them in their futures. Those bands knew what horny teen boys wanted; they wanted sex.

 Chicks, well the chicks didn’t seem to understand horny, or so I thought when I was that age. They expressed feelings of love, stolen kisses behind barns, and holding hands as they and their main squeeze walked home from school. It was only later I was informed that teen girls also harbored lustful thoughts and they knew full well what boys wanted. They wanted sex.

 So at the time both the Stones and the Beatles were making their names here in the States, it was about sex for both. Sex sold better back in the day; better I think than it does today. It seems that no matter what is going on on this planet Sex is wrapped into it somewhere. After all, sex is one of the three legs that support the triad of Human desires, food, fornication and fighting.

I did not think much of the Beatles until "Revolver" came out in 1965. And then it was a slow conversion for me to come to realize that the Beatles wrote some of the most amazing music ever. They ranked right up there with Bob Dylan.

 All this went through my mind as I listened to “Come Together”. Then a lyric I have always felt was a perfect lyric popped up:

“He say, "one and one and one is three"

“Got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see”

I won’t launch into the meanings of this song or any other song. Anal retentive audiophiles all over the world have analyzed Beatle music to death. I just feel this song was penned by a musical genius who was taken from us by the very insanity he wrote songs about. Its message to many of us is still relevant and timely today given the overheated climate of our culture and our planet still finds itself in.

Because I never properly grieved over John Lennon’s death when he was shot, I certainly do now. We lost a great artist when he was gunned down. And I guess I need to give the Beatles their due. If not for them, would I have ever heard the Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin? Okay okay, yeah I probably would have. But to deny the impact the Beatles had on my musical life at such an early age would be blasphemous. The Beatles were Rock Gods then and they still are.

Later ..................................

_______________________

The song today is of course, "Come Together", written by John Lennon and performed by the Beatles.

She Wears the BVD's

"She Wears the BVD's,"

"I Stand in the Street and Freeze." 

"It's Nobody's Business but my Own."

These are some of the fine lyrics I found on a fifty cent CD I bought over to Marden's some time ago.  I found it in a gaylord ( large cardboard bin) right next to the only check out open that moment.  Suddenly an image of the slogan, " I should have bought it when I saw it at Marden's" passed through that area I charitably call my mind.

Stark and sad images of  harsh lessons from my past popped up and reminded me that it was never a good idea to pass up a deal too good to be true, especially at Marden's. Missed some good shit in the past by telling myself, "I'll come back".  The good deals don't stay healthy out on the floor.  

I looked at the gaylord full of the 5000 or so CDs and decided they would not last. So I dove in. 

Maybe thirty minutes later and only a foot or so deep into the gaylord, I came up for air.  Had set aside 20, 25 CDs to take home.  I seriously considered diving back in when Reality tapped me in my pocket.  Nothing like a phone call from home to ruin any good buzz one has goin.  Damn.  I would have to come back I guess. Sadly I gathered up my paltry pile of bargain CD's and dragged my sorry ass over to the only check out counter open at that time..

The lady at the counter was soon underwhelmed by my purchases.  Only about a third of the pile had price tags.  Well Shit ..........  No bigger monkey wrench in the works exists at Mardens than plopping down anything without a price tag.  Days are ruined, Life sucks, and it is all because I had the indecency to not check the CD's for tags before I decided to buy.

I knew this to be a cardinal sin as I had on a previous occasion or two ruined some other Marden's employee's day, or maybe even their week.  I dutifully hung my head low and mumbled,"Sorry Ma'am."

Her piercing stare was all I saw as she reached for the loud speaker mike.  "PRICE CHECK AISLE 2".

Some moments passed as I endured scathing looks from customers and sales folks alike.  Only one sales aisle open and this flounder has not just one thing to price check, he has a dozen.  I know everyone hated me.  I deserved it.  I knew the rules.  My car was licensed in Maine.  Go to Marden's and keep up or go somewhere else like Job Lot.  Fuckin Texas Leaguer.  I know that is what everyone within eyesight was thinking.

Even with my eyes diverted to the floor, I sensed her presence.  Not so much saw or heard her; I guess I just knew an employee with pull was in my general vicinity and getting closer with every step.  A large and imposing figure blocked out my sunlight and said, "That damn CD box again."  Her withering stare was directed not at me but at the sales lady who actually bothered her while she was catching up on the latest harlequin romance to come in with the latest gaylord full of books.

At first, Sales Lady looked rebellious.  But Queen of the Counters was the big bad ass broad with the stare to end all stares.  She said, "Got a piece of cardboard?"

Sales Lady hesitated just a second too long for the Queen's liking.  "Well, do you?"  And then she looked down her nose as if to say, "What's the matter, don't understand English?"

Cardboard produced, the Queen took the 3 steps it took to reach the gaylord full of trouble I had dipped into.  Queen of Counters stapled a cardboard sign to the bin that read "50 Cents or as Marked".  Turning back to Sales Lady, "Got it?  ........ Learn to make a decision ferchrisakes. " And with a kind of a whinny, the Queen of the Counters cantered back towards the rear of the store.

Meanwhile, behind me, the only cash register functioning continued to back up.  At least I was at the front of it.  ......Poor bastards.  There's always someone and sometimes we have to be that someone, that guy, that poor bastard everyone in line will hate until they drive away in their cars.

I paid my $12 plus tax and hit the road.  As it turns out, there are at least 6 standout CDs from that gaylord.  "The Country Gentlemen" was my favorite. I saw them live , in person , up close with my brother in the mid 1960s at the Red Fox Tavern in downtown Bethesda, Maryland. Them, Flatt and Scruggs, and Doc Watson were responsible for my life long love affair with Bluegrass music. 

Keep it 'tween the ditches ...................................

____________________

Naturally I had to pick a tune off that fifty cent CD. Here is "Nobody' Business" by The Country Gentlemen.

( originally written - 2/13/2021 )

Anticlimactic

We spend the first twenty or so years of our lives just winding our clocks up, filling our fuel tanks with knowledge and sensory overload.  At some point, usually later in that twenty year curve, we are spit out into the World to sink or swim.  

Of course this only relates to maybe 98% of the planet's population.  There is that 2% who have no clue or ever had to have a clue from their beginning to their end.  And many of those 2% are the progeny of earlier two-percenters who had no clue either. With each generation, they lose even more contact with reality.  But that's okay, we have places for them;  Monaco, Aspen, Palm Beach, the list goes on and on. There is still plenty of room for the rest of us to stumble around finding our way.

So most of us spend the first twenty years getting ready.  We embark on our journey to find whatever it is that will end up being our fate, our direction, our focus.  Most of us will enter into everything at the ground floor, from the social basement to the corporate/labor basement.  We have lots to learn still, but our basic tools are out on the bench and ready when we know how to use them.

Somewhere between the twenties and the forties, we settle in, build our careers, copulate to create our replacements, and concentrate on building some kind of nest egg, physical or otherwise.  The lucky ones find it close at hand. Like the girl next door, its a wonderful life here in Pottersville.  Some will hit the road and follow their dream or a stream of cash, dragging anyone hooked into their trip with them.  And for some who are left, they will search for that spot to settle into and never find it.  

Regardless, we all seem to have a pinnacle.  A point we reach where everything we did led to that point of our lives.  Anything that comes after is just biding time to when we finally depart in a box with a tag around our big toe.

So why do we anguish about how long we will be around?  We have no real control over this.  Accident, war, disease, self destructive behaviors all conspire to take us out at any given moment.  But we insist on worrying about the time we have left to continue taking up space. 

I have been through the run up, the pre-adult prep.  I have done the build a family, a life, create a replacement.  And now I am in a phase I just do not know what to think of.  Empty Nest syndrome doesn't quite cover it.   I have been used to that now for years.  For lack of a better word, I will call it what it is; I am retired. 

Whatever.

I thought about this awhile back on an errand over to Home Depot in Rochester. I had about forty five minutes behind the wheel to consider where and when my peak was. Had I passed it without a clue? It certainly was not in front of me anymore, but just in case, I ran through some previous high points and low points just to make sure.  None of them seemed fitting to apply the word Peak or Pinnacle.  My life just looked like a series of  minor bumps and dumps on the graph covering the time I have been around.

The notion of mortality; my mortality, visited for a minute.  Was there enough time left to find this pinnacle if it still actually existed?  Did I even care? If it was waiting out there for me to find it, could I step outside the comfortable box I have hammered together over the last fifty plus years long enough to even look for it?   The questions died unanswered. So I moved on.

We all look for climaxes. We look for them in our sex lives, our career lives, our marriages, our books, movies and music. Many of us it seems, look at Death as the ultimate climax.  Besides our birth, that is the only other event in our lives that really matters.  Instead of embracing the end of Life as a normal circumstance and not a climatic moment, we seek every measure we can to avoid it. We seek to put off that final breath, often leaving any quality of Life questions in the dust. 

I wonder.  I have seen death and it really doesn't seem to bother the person dying so much as those who witness it.  They are here and then the light leaves their eyes and they are gone.  All they leave are the memories they have created in those still living.  Some are lucky I guess to have left legacies that are recorded and examined from time to time by those who still walk the planet.  But for the most part, all we leave of ourselves is cached in the hearts and minds of the small circle we orbited in.

Death is anti-climatic and unpredictable. Is worrying about something I know is coming worth the time wasted fulfilling the worry? I decided no, it was not, is not, and never will be. 

It is Life that blows my dress up. I will continue on as if I have not peaked yet. This acid trip is not over.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ................................................

______________________________________

Originally written, 2/27/2011. Found today, leaving me to wonder what caused me to leave it in the "languishing Draft" folder. Seems I let quite a few posts from back then languish. I must have cared more then what folks thought of me and what I wrote. ............ Nah. 

__________________

I decided to use a band name to search for my musical choice today. I dug deep and remembered this song from an album I bought out of the back of a music store van back in the summer of 1970. Paid $1.50 for it. Along with the early Fleewood Mac and John Mayall, Climax Blues Band turned me on to the Blues. It is odd that it took British bands to show me some of the best music ever created in our country. Anyway, here is a classic blues tune off the album, "Plays On". Here is  "So many Roads" . 

........ Shots of whiskey go well with this song.

Just Desserts - 100 Words

I decided to create a flash fiction challenge for myself from a crossword puzzle I just finished.

100 Words on #10 Down and Across on the Daily Crossword Puzzle on the AARP website.
The words are Demi and Dessert

Just Desserts

The ten guests were a mix of winners, losers and a couple of pot stirrers who kept the conversation elevated and robust.

“Will Hank be joining us?”

“Please, eat. Hank will be with us by dessert.”

After dinner, Demi disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with a skull on a platter filled with what appeared to be watermelon pieces impaled by fancy toothpicks. She offered each guest a piece. One took two.

She set the remaining dessert at the head of the table. Demi lifted her piece as if to toast.

“To Hank: I'm so glad you could make it.”

_________________________

Not sure what I think of this effort. Did not spend much time on it. And yes, I am rusty. 

_____________________

For the musical choice, I picked "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" as performed by David Bromberg. It was originally released in the 1920s by Bessie Smith. I decided I liked David's version best. I think of it as a kind of epilog for the 100 words above.

A Conversation at the Kitchen Table

Not sure why I did not post this back on Dec. 13, 2011 when I originally wrote it. I didn't and so it goes. I did save it I guess so I could find it later; like a written time capsule of sorts. Here we are eleven years later and Life is still "Same Shit, Different Day". 

I was reading old blog posts about this and that.  For some reason focusing on angry political posts did nothing for me.  Some pissed me off.  Others I agreed with.  I gave my usual responses, but without my normal level of righteous indignation. A few caused me to stop for a second and really ask myself how I felt instead of kicking it into automatic knee jerker mode and ripping off a few hundred angry words.

The past few years have found me wondering why I see political situations in certain ways.  I ask myself if I had the strength of backbone to actually be the one who decides an outcome or direction to resolve one of the million, Ka jillion problems facing us at any given moment.  In that I have an over blown trust in my ability to handle what comes at me, I thought I could.

Ten seconds into this self induced ego boost, I realized I had no clue whether I had the intelligence to first of all, make a good decision, or second of all, the discipline to follow through with it.  My life has been sprinkled with moments of grand failure to perform as advertised.  Trying to not beat myself up and not end up in a weeping pile of crippling disappointment, I did not look very hard.  Still, some glaring moments of falling well short of the goal line still jumped off the index card I keep in my mind just for nostalgic moments like this.

I was about to fall into one of my loser, nobody likes me, I'm going to eat some worms routines and work hard to create for myself a lousy day.  My lovely wife and a conversation not three weeks earlier crossed my mind.  Suddenly all was right with the world.  Instantly my spirits were lifted as I replayed our brief encounter.

She was sitting at the kitchen table when I came home from the bike shop.  I had been beaten up several times that day by disappointment, frustration, and failure to have the right answer when the phone rang.  Nothing had gone right that day.

"Hey"

My wife stopped eating.  "Hey Yourself".  She looked at me.  "What's wrong?"

What is it with women; they can pull from the word "Hey" that something is wrong?  

"Uh, well, I had a shitty day at the shop.  Everything I touched turned to shit.  I feel like such a loser."

She dropped her fork on her plate, turned slightly in her chair and stared at me.  I wasn't sure, but was that the beginnings of a gleam in her eye or was she..........

"You are a loser.  But buck up.  You aren't as big a loser as you were this time last year."

She picked up her fork and shoved it under a piece of pot roast that had been basking in well cooked juices.  She took a bite and smiled at me.

When she's right, she's right.  That is what I am - not as big a loser as I could be or have been.  

It was indeed a good day after all.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ................................

__________________________

The music accompaniment for this post has to be " Loser " by Beck. 

Gird Your Loins

I wanted to come up with a post of Biblical proportions. I had to settle for my usual poorly proportional outcome. I believe planets have converged and stars have aligned in such a way that today is the day, the day all Christians meet God in his/her house high up in the clouds where the antelope play.

It's Sunday today and maybe today the planet finally divests itself of many whining holier than thou cross bearing troublemakers around the globe. They have been looking forward to this day forever. Today I hope to hold the door for them so it doesn't smack them in the ass on their way out. 

Today is the beginning or the middle, or maybe the end of  "The Rapture". I never could get the timing of this auspicious Christian fantasy straight. None of the various evangelical sects can agree on the details, the date, or what it means in the end. Yeah, they do have a hard, cast in iron loose set of guidelines in that factually challenged but rule specific book known as the "Holy Bible". Being holier than their neighbors in the church on the next block, they twist their take to their liking regarding the Rapture, Judgement Day, the Crack of Doom. 

I understand that one of the hard and fast rules is the Rapture will occur and only "good Christians" will be allowed on board. This is a pretty straight forward rule. Everyone who is anyone in the evangelical culture seem to agree on this point. But as in the rest of this book of contradictions and nonsense, what makes a "good Christian" is left up to those interpreting its meaning; especially if one draws their life lessons from both books found within. 

A Bible Thumper in Colorado has decided today, September 25, 2022, is the day all good Christians will have their tickets punched. Tomorrow they will wake up at the Pearly Gates where toothbrushes, toothpaste and shampoo will be handed out. There will be no need for towels in Heaven as there are at least two body blowers distributing God's breath on the faithful on every corner. The Thumper knows this as fact or they would not have spoiled the lines of their beautiful Subaru "Outback" with their message. 

My question to them is how does a surburban dweller of the Denver area know today is the date when so many more sanctified holy rollers who are closer to God's elbow were always wrong. The Rapture has had an infinite number of start up dates and so far, it has failed to launch.

I keep rooting for them to be right at some point. Sooner would be preferred than later. If they vacate the planet, that will lead to less confusing contradictions worldwide and the card carrying atheists might just shut their pie holes about there not being a God allowing the not so perfect, but friendlier Christians God leaves behind with bragging rights.

My hopes have been dashed before. If there is no Rapture or at least a pre-game warm up, my tattered hopes will have to wait for the next sure fire prediction. Seems to me the odds have to be narrowing. At some point they may just get it right.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ......................................

BTW - I always wondered where the term "gird your loins" came from. I always knew what it meant but not of its origin. As it turns out, it is a befitting title for this Rapture post. It has its origins in the Bible. ........ Of course it does. 

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Again it's "Google's Choice" for the musical pick. I am punching up "Rock music about the Rapture"

The Alternative/Rock band, "Hurt" offers up two versions of the same song. One is a metal/rock version and the other is a fine acoustic version. I could not decide, so here is both.

• "Rapture" - metal version
• "Rapture" - acoustic version

US Route 301

Recent memories of the Florida I lived in back in the early 1960's included the many road trips my family and I made north back to Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maine during the three plus years we lived in the Sunshine State. 

There was no I-95 yet, no awesome super slab to love life while smoothly cruising between 60 and 65 mph. No gliding down  gentle curving exits that ended at clean restaurants and immaculate gas stations with friendly and helpful attendants all wearing clean shirts and name tags.

In the South of the early 1960's, the fastest route north or south on the southern East Coast was US 301 or nothing. Every Podunk town large and small anywhere near it, insisted on being part of it.  And pretty much every town made you slow down while driving through. Speed traps were everywhere. 

Driving further North, the options increased but did not make the drive any better. The service went from surliness with a smile to no fooling in your face surliness as we got closer to the Big Apple. The New Jersey Turnpike was nice. There was a  Ho Jo's every 30 -40 miles or so. Because it was a feeder highway to New York City, the bumper to bumper traffic was intense all day and into the night. I witnessed amazing incidents on those trips. Horrific accidents, Traffic backed up so badly in New Jersey once, it took over six hours to make it to the George Washington Bridge.

Heading back to Florida in late summer 1962, we became entangled with thousands of KKK party goers on US 301 in southern Georgia. It was past sunset and I had been sound asleep in the back seat for awhile. My mom jammed on the brakes throwing me onto the floor. When I regained the seat and took stock of what was going on outside the car I saw two endless lines of red tail lights moving south at maybe five MPH. Most of the cars in front of us in the right lane were turning into a huge field covered in rows of flaming lanterns marking where to park. Men in hooded white robes holding flashlights, guided the Johnny come lately's into their parking spots.

Further in the distance up on a wide knoll, many yards apart were two large crosses on fire with people in white robes and pointy hoods milling around them. PA systems were blaring and the folks just getting out of their cars were in various stages of putting on their KKK outfits. Georgia Highway Patrol was everywhere, guiding traffic, answering questions or just jawing with good ole boy goobers in pick ups and beat up sedans.The tension in our car was enough to make me nervous and cause my 10 year old mind to imagine all sorts of awful scenarios. It was an awesome experience, but not in a good way.

We were hung up in that traffic snarl for over a half hour. Naturally in that time I had questions my parents deftly talked around. It was not until we got back home in Tampa that answers were attempted even though my parents were as dumbfounded as I was.

I would drive by one other KKK hoedown before we finally left Florida and resettled in the Washington DC area in the summer of 1964. The harsh and often brutal lessons from the race education I received over the three plus years I lived in Florida have stayed with me without forget and have always been easy to bring to the surface to remember. I learned about the evils of racism through witnessing it and experiencing it firsthand.

Keep it 'tween the ditches .........................................

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Musical selection is going to be another "Google's Choice". I punched up "Music about US 301" and got zilch. Damn, I would have thought at least one tassled Buck Owens wannabe country singer had recorded a tune about US 301. I did find one. It was awful. 

So I punched up "music about KKK". Here is a nice reggae tune by Steel Pulse, "Ku Klux Klan"

Stumbling Off the Trail

When I was in South Portland a month or so ago, I stopped in at Harbor Freight, that purveyor of all the gizmos any dad with shallow pockets could ever want. I bought a hi falutin headlamp that can blind low flying aircraft, should any decide to buzz me. I have been walking Maggie early mornings of late and under the canopy where it's dark as a pocket, this headlamp really lights up the night.

A week or so ago, I wondered just how well did I know the trails at Mary's Park across Sam Page Road from my dooryard. I had walked those trails thousands of times with a dog, dogs or just by myself. I knew most every root or embedded rock well. Most had tripped me up at some point in the last 50 + years. But could I navigate them without help? I began to turn off the headlamp to see if my memory was good enough to guide me out of the woods on trails I was familiar with.

Mixed results of course. Most stupid things I have ever done had mixed results. But for the most part I did fairly well, often making it 100 yards or so until I stepped off the trail or tripped over something. One morning I tripped over Maggie, who had decided to stop in front of me. Anyway, I was almost impressed with myself.

During these early dark thirty AM excursions, funny things happen to the light just before dawn. It might just be a glitch in the light sensing hardware of my brain. But if memory serves from my days of driving trucks at night instead of the day, those dim periods of transitioning light at Dawn and Sunset have always been tricky. 

One morning when I turned off my headlamp, I was faced with a wall of  light waves vacillating between dark and light. It looked and felt like a Acid Trip flashback. I stopped and reveled in the optical confusion and quickly pulled a couple of tokes off the  joint I had cradled in my hand. Maggie ran by me and through the wall of wavering light creating a series of trails as the light waves opened and scattered for a moment. It was awesome.

I find stumbling around in the dark to be more fun than it sounds. And I should. I have been a stumbler since the day I was born.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ..................................

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I gave up looking for a tune yesterday when I wrote this post. Nothing I found fit or even came close. What a difference 24 hours makes. Here is an easy listening tune from Sheryl Crow, with James Taylor sitting in. I have never heard it before. "Flying Blind". Enjoy 

Concussed

Junior Seau - Suicided as CTE took over

The Ken Burns documentary on Ernest Hemingway and my post about it yesterday brought up an issue both Ernest and I have in common. We both have dealt with an abundance of head blows in our lifetimes. Granted, Ernest's incidents were all more serious than any of mine, but we both tended it seemed, to put our heads in danger without any thought to the potential repercussions.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy ( CTE ) is a medical condition we really have little information on. At this point, its existence in our brains can only be confirmed by autopsy after we die. Suffering a series of blunt blows or sudden stop traumas to the head over time is believed to be the primary cause. It can go undetected for years. But there is no doubt that any hit on the head can create the beginnings of nightmares in our futures. How some folks seem to live with the damage just fine and others are affected harshly the rest of their days is I guess still a puzzle. There is no doubt however that any blow to the noggin will leave traceable evidence in its wake if anyone is inclined to crack open our skulls to check us out after we pass onto the great beyond.

CTE has been around well, forever. Only in recent years has it been given the attention it deserved. We can thank the NFL for finally acknowledging its existence among their player ranks as the primary reason we even know about it. After all, the players of the National Football League are the perfect poster children for this life changing condition.

All this new information on just how fragile the contents of our heads are makes me wonder just where I stand with regards to this problem. I have had so many blows to the head over the years, I can only remember the ones that knocked me out and/or sent me to the ER for stitches. 

Hmm ..............

I stopped writing so I could try to pin down as many head banging incidents in my life as I could. A few or more moments have passed now and I have decided the list is most likely endless. There are some stand out moments though that rocked my brain hard and had residual effects later. 

My first known encounter with objects as hard or harder than my head was at age four. I have no memory of the incident but I am told I slipped on a throw rug while running in the house and fell cheek first into the corner of a coffee table minutes before my parents were about to leave for a trip to Japan. Seven or eight stitches closed the cut, but my vision didn't recover for several days. My parents still made the trip but only because my father had control over the flight as it was his assigned plane. I understand it was the first of many actions on my part that would piss him off over the years.

The years following were full of intermittent visits to various emergency rooms to have my scalp sewn up followed up by strict directions to keep me awake for 24 hours until my pupils regained their uniformity. The head blows were always different. A brick thrown over a wall once on a dare that I would not move to avoid it sits near the top of the youthful stupidity I was so full of. That was the first time I remember waking up after being unconscious. The dare I took to be the one who climbed the highest in that tree and then found the one limb that refused to hold me. The kids who gathered around my unconscious body later claimed I was out for many minutes.

And on and on and on; I continued to lead with my head sure in the knowledge I couldn't hurt a billiard ball. How many blows did I suffer from by participating in contact sports up to and including college. I broke two windshields in college and suffered concussing effects; one riding my bike on York Road and the other defending a pass from Bill Frank while playing intramural flag football. To add to my pain, I had to pay for the damages in both incidents.

My self inflicted punishment did not stop when I became a responsible adult either. I broke 5 helmets riding and racing bicycles. I once walked into an unforgiving steel part of a trailer that knocked me out. I was in the back field safety checking the empty trailers we used for hauling scrap and salvage. I think I lost a half hour at the least. The blood on my face was dried up by the time I got back to the office. The receptionist squeaked a little when she saw me. That one took over 10 stitches and I had headaches for several days.

So I have had a lifetime of head blows. Based on what I know now, there has to be some long term accumulative effect. And that is okay. I am lucky any damage has not ruined me. But it makes me wonder if I had been more careful, would I be different than I am today? Just wondering is all.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ..............................................

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Music for this post is ....... uh, I don't know yet. Hmm ..........

After screening a series of unsatisfactory videos about blows to the head, concussions, etc. I remembered a Pink Floyd tune from my college days. It was a tune I had become convinced was the best pot smoking song ever............ until of course the next one came along. Here is "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd from the their break out album "Dark Side of the Moon". Enjoy.

The song seems appropriate somehow in that while I have not ended up comfortably numb. I have enjoyed though, the many years of searching for comfort and numbness. 

All You Have to do is Write One True Sentence

I watched the three part Hemingway documentary yesterday. It was a Ken Burns documentary. I expected a well rounded and informative accounting of Ernest Hemingway's time on the planet. I was not disappointed.

Ken confirmed that yes, Hemingway was a royal asshole much of his life, but he was also brilliant, dynamic, charismatic and he did redefine what the American Novel was during the 20th Century. His unapologetic approach combined with terse, unadorned, and to the point writing style was antithetical to the flowery language and filigree encrusted writing that had been the rage in Europe for the last so many centuries. I had an English professor in college who called Hemingway's style "blue collar writing". He did not think much of Hemingway, but he was a big fan of Shakespeare. Me, I did not care. I liked some of Hemingway, but I favored Steinbeck, Kerouac, JD Salinger. I did always like his simple to the point style though. The man could pack a lot in a few words.

I watched this three part series not as just an interested viewer, but as a viewer who also liked to write. I hoped to glean some writing nuggets of worth from following the tragic life of Ernest as he stumbled his way through the many Hells he created for himself and those he loved. Again I was not disappointed. Ken Burns provided me some wonderful ideas to try to bring into my own style of writing.

The one Hemingway nugget that stood out was Ernest's contention that good writing springs from that first sentence, that "one true sentence". This beginning was not necessarily restricted to the beginning of a story, but to any effort to write, daily, weekly, or after a long break. Find that one true sentence and what followed would come easily. 

Hemingway was a disciplined daily writer who often pounded out thousands of words. If he could not find the one true sentence that day, he would often shit can that day's efforts and start over the next day.

The other Hemingway-ism I learned years ago. In an interview, he was asked how it was he made writing look so easy. His reply was not friendly nor accommodating. He replied that Good writing is never easy, nor should it be. A writer should suffer sometimes to find the words that are locked away in their minds. That once he finds the right words, there is no better feeling for him in the world. At least that is how I interpreted his response to such a stupid question.

Regardless and for what it's worth, Ken Burns' biopic of Ernest Hemingway is excellent and is only 3 chapters long for a total of 6 hours I think. PBS is currently streaming it. Check it out.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ................................................

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Music for this post has to be a Bach fugue. Ernest insisted that his first inspiration in his writing came from listening to and playing Bach tunes on his cello as a child. Enjoy this Bach piece composed for those huge church organs from the way back in the days long before the more recent back in the days.

Fugue in G Minor BWV 578

Educate Yourself

A comment on Facebook jerked me around some a few minutes ago. In the comment section under the image to the left, a comment went like this:

"I got to where i am

As well without an education. Well I did go to school but didn’t even get into that field, so felt it was such a waste!"

I'm tired of listening to many Americans continuing to buy into the notion that if we don't go to college or finish college, we are somehow less educated and of lesser value than if we had a college degree. I am tired of the false sense of superiority given college graduates over non-graduates; especially in light of the quality of the college educated leaders we have running the show right now. Their example certainly does not speak well of college as environments that build leaders.

A dumber class of movers and shakers I have yet to find. Oh sure, there is always a dimwit in the gang. Just look to Ronald Reagan or most any Republican since. Never has the intellectual quality of Congress, the Judiciary, or the Executive Branch dipped so low as it has in the last six years. We are still dealing with these idiots and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Those of us who chose different paths other than the expected worn out trails that led us to college need to stop saying we are uneducated. Education is not what is in books. Education is not learning to pass tests or degrees. Education is an ongoing process that involves everything we see, hear, read and observe as we make it from one day to the next. Each and every one of us should be involved with whether we are teaching ourselves or in a classroom. Seems to me a person claiming they are uneducated is a convenient excuse pulled up to cover for well, usually shit that needs no covering. Its an admission they are not of the same caliber as the folks with the mortar board caps and tassles.

Bullshit.

Necessity and want are the two primary drivers of real education. Existing in an educational world because it is/was expected. "Everyone in our family went to college" is not the best reason to attend. There is no doubt that college holds the possibility of broadening one's horizons and possibly increasing one's chances for a good career. As to setting oneself up for the real world, college is only part of the puzzle. Information is useless until one knows how to apply it. Educating ourselves can show us what might be possible, but only hard work and tenacity will make that education work for us. If making money is the only reason to go to college; in my opinion, that is possibly the poorest reason of all.

Later .....................................

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Only one tune fit the post and more importantly, the mood I am in. Please enjoy "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd. The song pretty much sums up the current quality and aim of conventional education today, yesterday, and well, like forever man.

It's a Rain Out

Normally I would say that Labor day was ruined here in the pucker brush of southern Maine. There will be no outdoor BBQ's under blue skies, no volley ball on sandy beaches, nor any pleasant moments sitting on a dock on a pristine lake sipping Mai Tai's. It's solid, no bullshit raining outside and has been all night I think. It is supposed to be gone by afternoon, but this is Maine; only believe what you see when open your front door.

Though many annual outdoor festivities will be limited today, I figure the rain is a damn sight better to see than happy smiling groups sitting on logs eating Smores. We can party anytime. The rain, well, the rains have been mostly missing in action this summer. And this one is a soaker. Excellent.

Maggie hates the rain. I have to yank her out almost kicking and screaming so she can do what dogs do after eating and drinking. But because we never had the foresight to potty train her, or for that matter, find a toilet that would make that possible, out in the rain she goes. Funny thing though, she refuses to be out there by herself in the rain. If I do not accompany her, she will just hang out at the door and whine.

"What the Hell dude? You make me go outside in the rain, but you won't get wet with me? That's Bullshit and you know it."

I hang my head and step out there with her. Fair is fair.

I will say, the rain certainly makes her focus better. No chasing butterflies; no stopping to smell her last dump. She's all business. Piss and shit; three minutes and we are headed back to the bunkhouse. 

I don't make plans much anymore. So today has not been ruined nor did it force me to find alternative activities to engage in. I mighta, coulda, and maybe shoulda done some kind of grunt work out in the yard today. That would be a classic way to spend "Labor Day". But no, the rain ruined that idea. Hey, another reason to be grateful for the rain.

As I reveled selfishly in the pleasure of much needed rain, I was crudely and rudely brought back to reality when the news reminded me that many parts of the world have been suffering from too much water in the form of torrential summer rains and in Pakistan, their glaciers are breaking up. What a tragedy.

One man's blessing is often another man's curse. Never so evident than in today's environments.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ...................................

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Music on this rainy day should have a rain theme I think. My first search yielded too many choices. Seems we like to write about rain almost as much as we write about sex and romance. 

Immediately I thought of Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty's fascination for rain: or so it seems anyway. I picked "Who'll Stop the Rain" because it is a rain on someone's parade tune and it is a song used in the 1978 Movie, "Who'll Stop the Rain"; which was/is a great movie you may never have heard of.

Check out the tune and maybe the movie also.

We Don't Deserve this Planet

It's Saturday morning. I haven't a clue about what to write. I've been poking around in the dust bin of my cranial void only to discover that the cranial void is indeed empty and actually lives up to its name. There may be a shadow or two dancing in and out of the weak light, but for all intents and purposes, there is not even a promise or inkling of any worth waiting to be shared.

On that note, after copious amounts of coffee, a few righteous tokes, and after an hour of dealing with the mundane chores I usually steer clear of, I came here with something to share but in this run up to the big share, damned if I haven't become lost in the wonderment of my own words and forgotten from whence I came and why.

Whew! That was a long sentence. I used to write that way all the time. When it works, it can be a wonderful way to express myself. More often than not though, it falls flat and inspires no awe and leaves the reader thinking, "What the Fuck?" I know for sure it hasn't worked when I read what I just wrote and go, "What the Fuck" ?

We have had a couple of A+ days recently. We have one more time, been lifted out of the Heat Wave summer we are not used to here in the Pine Tree State. Mainers can take the bugs. They handle the cold and snow without thinking about it. We look forward to Mud Season. But the heat, Jeezus, it gets into the low 80's and we start melting. No exaggerations, I am not shitting you, people melt up here, become puddles, and have to be scraped up off the asphalt. We hate the Heat. Well, I do anyway. 

One of the reasons I settled here in Maine was because of the cooler temps. I have lived in warmer climes like Florida in the 1960s and Maryland in the 1960s and 70s. Yeah, I am no stranger to heat and humidity. I learned at an early age that when it is cold, you can always warm up by putting on more clothes. When it is hot, you can only take so much off and if you are still hot, you are a loser. 

Of course I came up with this observation back in the days before universal interior climate control. Now days, most folks would not think about not having air conditioning where ever they are; the house, work or while driving their car. Climate control is no longer something odd and special. We take it for granted now.

BA and I have acknowledged that Air Conditioning has its place, but its presence is not necessary usually up our way; a couple of weeks a summer maybe. We have AC in our cars, but not the house. This summer, there were many days in a row I wanted to have any excuse to drive the car somewhere so for awhile, a few instances, I could bask in the cool air hitting me in the face off the dash. I cannot imagine how miserable further south has been. 

All this brings to mind that we have ended up with what we deserve for being such poor stewards of a beautiful planet. And I don't want to hear recriminations, denials, or accusations. The shitty climate we are dealing with now is at the least partially our fault, but more likely, mostly our fault. Regardless, we were warned it was coming over 50 years ago. Instead of taking commonsense measures to mitigate the future Hell we were and are facing, we turned the issue into a political football being tossed back and forth while nothing got done. ..........  The conversations were endless and useless. 

We don't deserve this planet.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ................................

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Once I remembered this cover of a favorite Led Zeppelin tune I knew this was the song for this post. Enjoy turned to WOW, here it is, "When the Levee Breaks" - from "Playing for Change", a charity working towards Peace through music. Performers around the Globe work together remotely to create some of the best music available today. It's a damn good charity also.