late night musings

A true dog story - who could make this up?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2012-02-06T01:41:17Z

The following is a true story. A man in Jacksonville, FL has two brown boxers. A while back they escaped from their fenced-in back yard, started to roam around the neighborhood and A1A. They were gone for hours. Their owner searched all over and finally went to the local Humane Society and found his dogs. He identified the two boxers as his.

He was told that he had to have proof that the dogs were his. He produced a few pictures of him and the dogs that he posted on Facebook. As far as the Humane Society was concerned they were ambivalent but finally relented and agreed to give him back his dogs. However, his cost would be $290… per dog. The man told the Humane Society that he could not afford that kind of money. They told him the only alternative was to sign the dogs over to them. The man thought about it for a few minutes and as he was thinking he saw a sign posted over the door advertising adoptions for $30. He took a lot of time signing over his dogs and after completing the paperwork, walked out the door then immediately returned and said he said he wanted to adopt the two brown dogs he gave up. They vehemently objected stating that the dogs were his. He reminded them he gave up ownership by signing their paperwork and now wanted to adopt the two brown dogs. They were forced to relent. After a tree day waiting period, he got his dogs back.

The real beauty of all this is not only did he get his two dogs back for $30 each as opposed to $295, while in the Humane Society’s care they trimmed the dogs’ nails, spayed them and implanted an identification device.

Who says it’s only government that is quirky?

Glory days

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2012-02-05T16:48:09Z

I have mentioned in the past that I walk the beach few times a week sharing it with the seagulls and a few beach goers. When I do, I have my IPod on listening to music I enjoy. Yesterday was Bruce Springsteen (aka The Boss) day. Although I have listened to him in the past, yesterday I heard two consecutive songs that got me thinking.

The first was Glory Days. I think it is hard to go through a long life without experiencing days when everything seemed to be going our way. Success and personal satisfaction seem to be two main characteristics of those times. String several of those days or weeks or months together and you have the makings of Glory Days.

The problem is that most of us never realized at the time that they would come to be remembered as our glory days, perhaps because when we are living them, we think we finally got things right and nothing will change. The high school football hero, the person we love becoming our spouse, the rapid promotions - experiencing those and so many more are the basis of those special and wonderful times in our lives.

But the reason we look back and fondly remember those times and call them Glory Days is because those periods in our lives didn't last. That really hit home when The Boss started singing the next song - Let's Be Friends. In that song, he sings the chorus:

Don't know when this chance might come again

Good times got a way of comin' to an end

Don't know when this chance might come again

Good times got a way of slippin' a-way

And so it is with our Glory Days; they do come to an end, they do slip away.

So to really enjoy them and value them for what they are worth, they need to age like a fine wine. They need to be bottled in our minds, allowed to ferment and then when the time is right, to be uncorked, and fully enjoyed. The tasting is in the remembering, swirling those times long past over the palate of our consciousness, because in doing so it brings back warm memories and a smile. That smile comes from knowing that someplace, some time in our past we had our Glory Days.

The movie - life

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2012-01-29T05:18:37Z

The Oscars are coming yet probably the greatest movie of all hasn’t even been nominated. The movie? Life, or more specifically our life.

With the advent of the internet, I’m sure you, like me, get emails with all kinds of thoughts regarding life in general, our life and our relationships with others (Maybe you’ve read a blog or two about the subject.) Some are trite and some are worthy of consideration. It seems everyone is trying to make sense of life and our conduct while getting through it, so to speak. To me, one of the most simplistic and accurate descriptions of life comes from Joseph Campbell, noted mythologist. He said, "Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what is going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends."

When you think about it, that pretty much sums up life. We weren't around for the opening scenes and won't be around after the curtain finally comes down. When the cast of players are listed, we will be even less than a bit player. After all, there are over 6 billion players in the current scene of life's movie; and that's without all who came before and all who are yet to enter stage right or left.

As for those questions, they just seem to pile up. We aren't even smart enough to know all the questions to ask. Of those questions we do ask, they range from the mundane (what's for dinner? Will it rain tomorrow?) To the profound (Why are we here? Is there life similar to ours in other galaxies?).

Yet, for all that one might trivialize our role in our life's epic movie, in our little vignette we loom large. For good or ill, our existence plays a major part in those lives that touch ours. And maybe, just as that butterfly fluttering its wings on a Himalayan mountain affects the global weather, our actions may well greatly influence the big picture in ways we can't imagine.

Parking lots are lots of pain

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2012-01-21T15:41:44Z

There are many well documents differences between men and women. There is one, however, that I haven't read much about. It has to do with parking a car in a public parking lot. My experience and observations suggest those differences are significant. Most women just look for the first parking space they can find regardless of how far it is to the store. Finding one, they pull in, with no remorse should one closer open up. To them parking is just one of the necessities of driving a car; there is no sense of challenge in it.

With men, there is a completely different mindset. With men, they turn parking into a game, albeit a serious game, that requires plans and strategies. That is true, however, only when the man is alone or their spouse has grown weary of complaining about the many miles they put on the car driving up and down parking lot lanes. If she still is active in deciding where to park, most men take their wives' advice and just park in the first open parking space. There is a straightforward "park the car" command and the husband softly mutters but obeys, knowing if he doesn't that he will be hassled until he does find a place to park and gets into the store.

Most men, however, I suspect are more like me. When it comes to parking at the local Publix grocery store it's a challenge which rarely results in success but rather with failure and frustration. There are a few situations that can cause this frustration, each the result of not finding a spot very close to the store. In the first instance it is when you are waiting for someone, typically a woman, to get their groceries into their car and leave. You try to wait as long as you can as she loads her groceries, parks the cart, gets in her car, finds the keys, turns the mirror so she can adjust her lipstick, readjusts the mirror, starts the car, tunes the radio and finally looks around to pull out. As you sit there waiting, a check of your rear view mirror reveals a growing line of cars anxiously waiting to pass you. Given enough time, the horns start to sound and you begin to panic. Only the strongest maintain their place; most finally cave in and move on, only to see the car behind them pull into the woman's spot.

It's a similar situation to go down a lane not seeing an open space. As you reach the end of the lane and prepare to turn into the next lane, you look into your rearview mirror and watch a car just a few feet back pull out of a space. It is impossible to backup as the exiting car is in the way and there is a car now waiting to pull in. At this point you are not sure if you want to smash the windshield of the car leaving the space or the car waiting to pull in.

A third situation occurs when you have tried your best to find a place near the store and finally have to admit defeat. You then take that last parking place, furthest from the store, and start that long trek to the store's entrance. As you near the store you now see three open spaces just a few yards from the store. Of course you know if you ran back to your car by the time you got to those empty spaces someone else will have found them.

Unfortunately, leaving the parking lot isn't the end of it. When you arrive home your wife greets you with that question that caps the whole experience. "Did you waste an extra ten minutes driving around the parking lot trying to find a open space close to the store, dear?"

Martin Luther King - I have a dream

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2012-01-14T12:53:09Z

The following speech, I Have A Dream, was delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. It is one of the greatest speeches ever given. It is worth reading again.

---

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

When is old antique?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2012-01-10T15:57:38Z

In talking to a few friends around my age, the subject turned to possessions, specifically our possessions. Having broken through the glass ceiling of seventy, you might correctly guess that a few of the items we own are rather old. More so, some of our possessions were given to us by our parents which adds a couple of decades to the age of those items. You might call them antiques although I prefer not to think that anything that I bought as an antique. If what we own are antiques, one might, by extension, suggest we are antiques as well.

Anyway, we talked about wanting to hand many of those items down to our sons and daughters. The problem is that many of the younger generation have no interest in owning them (yes, there are exceptions – but few). I guess they view them as simply old dust collectors, not antiques. There might be one or two items they can relate to, something they can fondly recall from their early years as children, like a blanket or sled. But most of the stuff we own isn’t wanted by most of our children. Those who want to incorporate antiques into their decor typically head to some antique shop where the items are well over a hundred years old. Of course, those things aren't free; they cost hundreds of dollars.

I think these times are proving to be a watershed in terms of family possessions. The younger generation has become a use and toss generation wherein most all their possessions are expendable, to be replaced by the latest and greatest. What we of the older generation own isn't old enough to be considered antique but are aged enough to be thought of as simply old and not wanted. We who are in our sixties and seventies still have the mindset of our parents that lived though the Great Depression wherein nothing was expendable. Hand-me-downs were welcomed. They weren't thought of as antiques but rather just a way to save money.

But times change and people change. I guess we could sell our possessions to some antique shop. Then our children and grandchildren would rush to buy them. It's a strange age we live in.

Wasted lives

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2012-01-04T16:16:35Z

The other day I was driving to the mall. In order to get there I had to drive through a less desirable section of town (to use a euphemism). As I was waiting at a red light, two of the local residents crossed the street in front of me. Both were unkempt, unshaven and wore torn clothes that looked like they had not been in a washer for some time. You could tell by their walk that they didn't have coffee for breakfast but rather something much stronger.

Then the light turned green and I was on my way. But I couldn't get those two men out of my mind. It would have been easy to simply dismiss them as two drunken bums and let it go at that. But then again, when my mind gets hold of a thought, it rarely lets go. So I wondered how they got from there to here, from a young child in grade school to the individuals they are today. While many of the street people today are suffering from mental illness and are left to their own devices, it seemed apparent that drugs and/or alcohol also plays a major role in these people's lives. But that begs the question of what got them from an innocent child to a life of drugs and alcohol.

I wondered what their home life was like as they were growing up. Was there a loving and nurturing parent or parents or had the child's parent(s) passed through the same doorway long before they were born? Was it peers that led them down the path that resulted in the life they were now living? If so, why didn't their parent(s) take control of the situation and stop that behavior in its tracks? What were they like in school? Was there a brilliant mind or a mediocre one that was wasted? Were they happy-go-lucky souls or introspective, brooding children? So many questions, so few answers.

Maybe only those who are living that life know the answers to those questions, or maybe not even they know. Minds often rearrange facts to suit self. That or the ravages of drugs and alcohol write over the truth with a story that justifies one's existence. Whatever the case, they are lost souls, forever travelling down a road that someday will run out at a dead end.

That led me to wonder who and how many of those I knew back in my early school days are now living a similar life. How many that I lost track of are dressed similarly and living similarly. Would I be surprised if I knew who they were? Might, in fact, one or more of them be living in that area I drove through.

All that led me to write another of my so called poems. It is:

Do I know you?

Who are you?

It is really you?

Where is the person I use to know?

Where is the sparkle you had in your eyes?

Where is the smile that lit up a room?

Where did that you go?

Why are you here?

Why did you change?

How is life treating you?

I miss the old you.

I miss the way you used to be.

I miss what we had.

Can you change?

Can you be what you used to be?

Or are you gone forever?

I am sad, old friend.

My New Year's wish for You

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-30T15:58:56Z

The ending of any year seems to require some kind of list about the previous year, or in the current year's case the past decade. I will not bore you with a list - you can find them in your local newspaper, on the internet or favorite newscast on TV.

Rather, I will make this end of year musing simple. For the pleasant times in 2011, keep the memories and cherish them. For those times when the past year was unkind, leave them behind and know that better times can be yours in 2012. Most importantly, I wish you and yours a most joyous New Year and a 2012 filled with love, peace and good fortune.

Finally, my special thanks to you for taking a few moments to read my musings - it is truly appreciated.

Happy New Year.

John

Driving into 2012

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-29T06:07:16Z

One of the things I tend to do when a birthday or anniversary or New Year's Day rolls around is look back and reflect on my life. Sometimes it's just a glance back over the past year; sometimes it's a long look back over my entire life. As I look back over the highways and back roads on that mental map, I am looking back over my life, recalling the twists and turns, the curves, the hills, the detours and the stops along the way. I recall the pot holes of pride I ran into, the hills of hubris I tried to climb, the U-turns of an ill-considered marriage, the s-curves I steered through trying to keep the peace, and the detours I took when I realized I wasn’t really making any headway in my life. Furthermore, I can remember when I passed a few people along the way and several passed me by in my career. I also had a few straight superhighways I sped down, windows rolled down, and great music filling the air. Unfortunately, just as a driver speeding is more apt to have a wreck, so too did I when I played speed demon in my life which resulted in a major accident somewhere along my journey. But best of all, how can I ever forget those rest stops of brief but wonderful times when I just let life slip by while I paused to do something pleasurable or be with someone enjoyable.

To extend the metaphor a bit more, I have no idea what number my life exits on, but at this age, I know I’m a lot closer to it than I was further back when I first got on life's highway. Just as we speed when we set out on a long drive, we tend to speed along in early life as well. It is only as we get nearer to the end of our journey do we slow down as we realize that this pleasant journey is coming to an end. It is then that we finally begin to enjoy the scenery along the way. The most amazing thing is how beautiful that scenery was and is. I regret that I didn’t slow down earlier on my life's highway to more fully enjoy it.

So when this New Year’s Day arrives, I intend to stop, relax and look back over my journey to this point, recall how enjoyable it has been, and then get moving on down life's highway again. One can never be absolutely sure, but I think there just might be a few more mile markers I’ve yet to pass.

Drive with care, my friends, and enjoy your trip. And have a happy and safe New Year.

Merry Christmas - 2011

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-22T12:34:28Z

Christmas might seem to be a strange time of talk about a Nero Wolfe novel by the author Rex Stout. However, the murder mystery, Christmas Party, is one of four stories in his novel, And Four To Go. As the story's title might suggest, the murder took place at a Christmas party hosted by the murder victim, Kurt Weill. At one point during the party and before his murder, Weill gave a toast to Christmas.

Although I read that story some time ago, I copied that toast for it seems to succinctly express the feelings and emotions we all have during the Christmas season. It is a time when for the moment we set aside our ill feelings towards others. It is a time when we experience the joy in giving as well as the joy in receiving. It is a time to share time with family and good friends. It is a time when love and caring looms large in our lives. For so many reasons it is the most precious of holidays we celebrate.

It is in writing this musing that I realize how inadequate I am as a writer to express the warm thoughts and feelings I have for you - family, friends, and readers of my musings. Knowing that I may have given you a few moments of enjoyable reading or touched your life in some small way is perhaps one of the greatest presents I can receive. While it might not appear under the Christmas tree, it is a gift that I will long remember.

Now let me retell the toast by Rex Stout as spoken through his character Kurt Weill; I could not have said it better.

"I repeat, there are times when love takes over. There are times when all the little demons disappear down their rat holes, and ugliness itself takes on the shape of beauty; when the darkest corner is touched by light; when the coldest heart feels the glow of warmth; when the trumpet call of good will and good cheer drowns out all the Babel of mean little noises. This is such a time. Merry Christmas! Merry, merry, merry!"

So in this simple Christmas musing, Bonnie and I want to wish you and yours the merriest of Christmases, and the peace and comfort that comes this time of the year. May these good tidings be with you in the coming year. Blessings to you and yours, to each and everyone. - John

A Christmas quiz - carols you know - kind'a

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-18T15:37:38Z

It is the time for the most merry and solemn of holidays - Christmas. It is a day which celebrates the birth of Jesus and the giving of gifts by that jolly old man - Santa Claus. It is also the one holiday that has so many songs associated with it. The playing of those Christmas songs is the overture to this special day.

Sadly, the songs too often are first heard in stores well before Thanksgiving. But once the bird has been carved and consumed, we really get into Christmas, prodded by those same Christmas songs. Many of them have been around for many years though some are newer than others. Equally interesting, many of the Christmas songs being played today were first played and sung by artists in the 1940s and 1950s. Now that is tradition given all the changes we have had in music and the artists over the decades.

And so it is time for a little Christmas quiz. Listed below, in alphabetical order, are many of the traditional Christmas songs. None are younger than a few decades old. While I have listed nearly two dozen, I'm sure you can probably think of others. Your challenge is to guess the year each song was written. Following the first list is a second one showing the songs and the year (in some cases plus or minus a few years) that the song was written. And away we go...

Away in the Manger -

Blue Christmas -

Carol of the Bells -

Christmas Song -

Do You Hear What I Hear? -

Feliz Navedad -

Happy Holiday -

Here Comes Santa Claus -

I'll Be Home for Christmas -

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus -

Here Comes Santa Claus -

Jingle Bells (Original) -

Let It Snow -

Little Drummer Boy -

Little town of Bethlehem -

O Come all ye faithful (Adeste Fideles) -

O Holy Night -

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer -

Santa Claus is Coming to Town -

Silent Night -

Silver Bells -

Twelve Days of Christmas -

We Wish you a Merry Christmas -

White Christmas -

Winter Wonderland -

Away in the Manger - 1885

Blue Christmas - 1948

Carol of the Bells - 1916 (1921 in the United States)

Christmas Song - 1944

Do You Hear What I Hear? - 1962

Feliz Navedad - 1970

Happy Holiday - 1942

Here Comes Santa Claus - 1948

I'll Be Home for Christmas - 1943

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - 1952

Jingle Bells (Original) - 1857

Let It Snow - 1945

Little Drummer Boy - 1941

Little town of Bethlehem - 1865

O Come all ye faithful (Adeste Fideles) - 1751

O Holy Night - 1847

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer - 1939

Santa Claus is Coming to Town - 1934

Silent Night - 1859

Silver Bells - 1950

Twelve Days of Christmas - 1909

We Wish you a Merry Christmas - 16th Century

White Christmas - 1940

Winter Wonderland - 1934

How many did you get right? Feel free to tell everyone by posting your score as a comment to this musing.

Yes, Virginia, there is a God

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-17T17:16:43Z

I recently published the famous letter and response – Yes, Virginia – There Is A Santa Claus (see Must reading for the Christmas season). As I read the words and pondered them, I realized the response to Virginia’s letter would read the same if she asked about God. So here is my revised letter, with only one or two very minor tweaks. How interesting.

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no God. Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so. Please tell me the truth; is there a God?

VIRGINIA O'HANLON, 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a God. He exists certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no God! It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in God! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch the heavens on Christmas Eve to catch God, but even if they did not see God, what would that prove? Nobody sees God, but that is no sign that there is no God. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest man that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No God? Thank GOD! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Must reading for this Christmas season

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-15T21:20:58Z

If only I were as wise and as great a writer as Mr. Church. This is a perfect answer to a question; a rebuttal to those whose hearts and minds are cold and closed – even today.

The background: Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so. Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O'HANLON. 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest man that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank GOD! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

A Christmas poem

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-11T21:08:00Z

I wrote this poem in 2009. Since it seems nothing has changed, I thought I'd reissue it in this musing.

A Christmas Poem – 2009

My cup runneth over

My blessings so many

It is the best of Christmas'.

Their cup near empty

Their blessings so meager

It is the worst of times.

In a land of plenty

In a land of comfort

Many have much.

In a land of plenty

In a land of comfort

Many have little.

I live in safety

I live without fear

I take it for granted.

They live with war

They live with fear

They take it for granted.

So here comes joy

So here comes sadness

Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas? Christmas?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-10T23:33:21Z

Someone just reminded me that Christmas eve is two weeks away. Another nine or ten days and I'm going to have to get serious about it.

Copyright 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010

Now I understand why

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-12-03T21:25:57Z

I decided that rather go into the shop in Winter Park with my wife who wanted to browse through the purses and jewelry sections, I thought I'd sit on a convenient, comfortable bench on the nearby sidewalk and enjoy the beautiful day. I knew I'd be there a while. As I looked around, I found a stand which had a free local health magazine on it. Always interested in anything dealing with improving my health - though I must admit my interest seems to be more in theory than practice. Anyway, I picked up a copy of the magazine and started reading.

Well, as you might expect there were articles and ads galore offering better ways to stay healthier, look younger and be more at peace with yourself. Nothing that I hadn't already read elsewhere. But then I came across an article that made me sit up and take notice. Here, in this ordinary, local health magazine, I found someone who finally diagnosed one of my major health problems - and it wasn't even a doctor!!! In this article they described the symptoms and cause and even had a medical term to describe it. I instantly know they hit up my major health problem - I suffer from WLR. No more shame with my problem; now I could tell everyone that I have a severe case of WLR.

What is it, you ask? Why, I am suffering from Weight Loss Resistance! It is a disease wherein the body refuses to lose weight no matter what you do. Suddenly I realized that I wasn't to blame for the pounds I had added on over the years – I was and am suffering from WLR. Someone who doesn't suffer from this disease can eat whatever they want (or so I believe) while for me simply getting in close proximity of a juicy, greasy hamburger will add a pound or two to my frame. But now knowing that my body is resistant to weight loss, I typically conclude that I might as well eat that hamburger - it doesn't make any difference. It’s that or fast and starve myself to death. This leads me to the conclusion that if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the road to weight gain is also paved with equally good intentions.

Maybe someday science will come up with a pill that provides one with WGR (Weight Gain Resistance) - then my weight problems will be over. Then again, maybe the pill is already out there but they are keeping it a secret. Maybe those people whose weight is appropriate for their height are already taking the pill and are selfishly keeping the secret to themselves. So now I am on a quest to find the magical potion that will turn WLR into WGR.

Copyright 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010

Goodbye Invincibility, Goodbye Youth?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-27T16:35:11Z

There are many ways by which you can define youth. It might be age, maturity or some other characteristic. There is one way that most people don’t think of, maybe because by the definition, they still are young – and who wants to be old? It is what I call the invincibility factor. It is a belief that when we are young we are invincible from the ravages of aging and the fact of our pending death. Neither one is a pleasant topic so why dwell on them? As long as you don’t think about them, as long as you believe – even foolishly – that you are invincible, then you remain young. We all have this failing. It matters not your age; it has to do with a mindset.

This all came to mind because this past summer was a challenging one, to say the least, from the standpoint of my health. Now in my seventh decade of life, the wall of invincibility that had been with me throughout my life came crumbling down. It has been a summer of dealing with a few health issues that while not immediately placing me at death’s door has cleared my mind of that elusive goal of invincibility. It has been a summer of reminding me that the aging process that I saw in my elders is at work on me as well. The strength and stamina of my youth has been replaced with tenacity and patience. I have crossed a threshold that I never thought about. Although we age, we never think of ourselves as growing old. We may be ‘agier’ but not older; we are eternally young. Or so we are until Father Time and Mother Nature conspires to remind us that we are not invincible, that youth is not an eternal thing, that we do not remain forever young.

But lament not. That recognition doesn’t have to be a negative in our lives. Rather it can just serve to remind us how precious life is, and it shouldn’t be squandered. Anger needs to be shed. Confrontation needs to be replaced with compromise. The rush of living needs to be replaced with taking time to enjoy the moment. Hatred needs to be replaced with at least respect, if not love. The ones we love need to be told of that fact again and again.

Losing our youth should be a time to replace that invincibility with the maturity and wisdom we garnered over the years. If you do, you find you need not be invincible to enjoy life. Seniorhood can be exciting and satisfying.

Pursuing or Persued - have you been one?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-23T04:36:58Z

I doubt there is any person over 50 who has not read Dear Abby or Ann Landers advice columns at one time or another. Today we also have Ask Amy and Miss Manners and countless others. Their advice runs the gamut from family relationships to love affairs to weight problems to most problems imaginable. For the most part, they seem to give reasonable advice though no doubt our own advice is much sounder and wiser.

Yet for all the modern day columnists, there was someone who offered a bit of great advice and wisdom nearly 2,000 years ago. It can be applied equally to most things coveted, which includes lovers and cars. While I can't presume to speak with authority for women, I think I am on fairly safe ground in saying the words penned applies to many younger women and men (as well as a few older ones as well).

When it comes to dating, falling in love or even buying a car, one should heed these words well. The advice giver is Pliny the Younger and his advice is, "An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit." Been dumped while dating someone? The one who promised to love you forever has dropped you? The one you thought you would love forever no longer is exciting? The car you're driving doesn't excite you like it did when you first bought it? Wonder why? Pliny had the answer long before you were born.

So, as you go through life either as pursuer or pursued, remember Pliny - he was one smart cookie. I can attest to that. Can you?

Aging is a state of mind - and more

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-20T00:16:52Z

Some time ago, the Daytona Beach News-Journal had a page one, above the fold story about 5 women who served in the military years and years ago. Prominent on the page accompanying the story was a group picture of the five of them taken recently (in their 70s and beyond), and above that group picture were individual pictures of them while they were in the military. What a startling change, but then an expected change. You could see some of each of those younger women in the faces of each today, but clearly they have aged.

The aging process on our faces and bodies is something we all know will happen, but think somehow will never come. We secretly believe we can will it not to happen to us. Yet even as we believe or hope that our stop light will be effective, we can see those changes subtly happening each time we look into the mirror. A small wrinkle here, a bit of a sag there as mother time paints old age on our faces and sculpts our bodies. Aging is not only a process each of us face, it is a fact that our government is facing as well.

Thanks to medical science and our medical systems we are living longer. The average age we are living to is slowly creeping up, and those of us are living longer and longer. The number of people who will live to see their 100th birthday is going to grow significantly in the coming decades. There is much talk about how government is going to handle this problem (yes, it is a problem as the longer we live, the likelihood of making demands on the medical system grows). Like me, I'm sure you have heard a great deal about this and will hear more.

But there is another issue that I have not heard addressed. I previously wrote about the lack of training, the lack of classes to teach people getting close to 65 how to make the best of seniorhood. The one exception to this is those investment firms who want to manage your finances so you can have that idyllic life seen in their commercials. Other than that, you are pretty much on your own. What you learn is by observing those seniors who are retired. In watching them, you make mental note of what and how they do things and decide for yourself what parts you will incorporate into your retirement years and which ones you hope to avoid.

Well, living to age 80, 90, 100 or beyond, assuming you reach those ages, offers even less in training. There are even fewer role models. This means you are pretty much on your own to define your life style. Also, the infirmaries that you might have to face in seniorhood may well be even more prolonged in the coming decades as medical science finds treatments that will keep you alive longer but without any improvement in the quality of life.

This whole thing about living even longer is daunting, taking you into uncharted waters. But in looking at those pictures of those military women now gives one hope, regardless of their age or ours.

Happy birthday, Mom

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-18T05:09:14Z

Happy birthday, Mom (aka Jennie – thanks to Ellis Island, aka Yolan): Nov. 17, 1912 – Jan.21, 2001

Calvin And Childhood

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-15T17:47:33Z

I thoroughly enjoy many comics. In addition to my daily ration in the local newspaper, I also follow a few more on the internet. While most of the comics I read on the internet are new each day, there are two which are no longer produced but are rerun daily on the internet. One is Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed, which gave birth to the character Opus, and subsequently led to the comic strip of the same name.

The second comic strip is Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, again long gone. The strip follows the adventures of sneaky little Calvin and his sidekick Hobbes, who is a stuffed animal in others eyes but a real live tiger when alone with Calvin. It was a recent strip that first made me laugh then gave me pause.

In it, Calvin is shoved over in the playground by his nemesis, Moe. In the final panel, Calvin is lying on the ground, battered. His final words are, "People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children." Naturally, my first reaction was to laugh. Then it hit me. I sometimes wax nostalgic in this blog about my early youth. And as Calvin (aka Bill Watterson) so wisely noted, I tend to forget or gloss over those times and events in my early childhood that weren't so pleasant. I guess unless we carry those bad memories over into our adult lives, we all tend to forget then ever occured.

I suspect there are very few of us who weren't bullied by someone older and bigger. I'm sure we all met some adult that struck us wrong; someone who, for whatever reason, we simply didn't like. Even in childhood we experienced disappointments and setbacks. But for most of us the good days and the good times outweighed those childhood dark times. If we are fortunate, those dark times didn't scar us for life. But nevertheless, childhood was not and is not all fun and games.

I hope Calvin forgives me, but I do get nostalgic about childhood at times because, all in all, I can see as an adult that those were some of the best days in my life. Hopefully the grown up Calvin would agree with me.

Turing Fifty – Fabulous Or Fearful

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-11T22:02:23Z

There are a lot of ‘fifty’ things we encounter in life. The Kennedy half dollar is fifty cents, there are 50 states, we have speed limits of 50 and in Kabbalah there are 50 Gates of Wisdom (or Understanding) and 50 Gates of Impurity; Paul Simon sung of the "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”, there is a rapper nicknamed 50 Cent and fifty percent is equivalent to one half, so that the phrase "fifty-fifty" commonly expresses something divided equally in two. But there is one 50 that touches all of us as we grow older - turning 50. That is what many people are doing.

If I could turn 50 (again, being seventy plus), it would be a joyous occasion. But for someone going from 49 to 50, it often looms large as a forbidding milestone birthday. For going into your fifties you have to leave those fabulous 40s behind. It is said that life begins at forty and seems to flow on wonderfully throughout that decade of life. But what can one say about turning fifty? If you plan to live to be 100, you are already half way there. And if you don't make that century mark, well then, the math turns ugly.

There are, however, some bright spots in becoming fifty and living through that decade of life. For one thing, you aren't sixty, and everyone knows you are considered old at 60. For another, once you get over the shock of turning 50, you realize you still feel as good as you did in your forties and that life goes on. At fifty you are assumed to have lived long enough to collect some wisdom along the way and thus your opinion seems to count for more. Of course that assumption does not apply if you have any teenagers around. In that case you are only deemed to have some wisdom when they turn 50.

It might be reassuring to remember that everyone you know over 50 made it through that milestone birthday and are still functioning. In these trying financial times, you might even enjoy the financial benefit of qualifying for senior discounts. Also you'll have more things to read in your mail since you'll now be receiving all that stuff that AARP sends.

Finally, as much as you might dread the arrival of that fated day, there will come a time when you will look back on it with fond remembrance. That may take another 10 or 20 years but it will happen. Then you will come to realize what all of us older than you have learned. Turning 50 can be a fantastic experience. So, relax and enjoy the day, your special day. It only comes once and when it is gone, it is gone forever.

Why I write what I write when I write

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-08T14:28:32Z

I have been asked what the theme of my musings is. Writers typically have a special interest in, an expertise in some special subject and write about it. I can see that in so many other blogs. There are many writers who have the expertise to dwell on some singular subject and I admire them for that. I admire anyone who possesses knowledge and even more so who have taken the time to accumulate enough to become an expert.

I am an expert at nothing. I can’t fix cars, I can’t quote any sports facts in any detail – I am devoid of any expertize in or passion in any area or about a singular subject. Well, I guess there is one exception though it probably is one we all have an interest in – life and living and the world around us. I guess that is my interest and passion. If you have read any or most of my 100+ postings here you would finally come to the conclusion that I sometimes question, sometimes wonder and often am in awe of life and living. My only advantage over others, if it is an advantage, is that I got an earlier start in observing life, having been born over seven decades ago. My senses have never grown weary in perceiving people, places and events.

Life is such an amazing, astonishing and wondrous unfolding of time. At the same time it can be such a dreaded, perplexing and saddening series of events that sometimes affects the individual and other times affects whole populations. Then again, the same can be said for the cause of these events. In some cases, it is the individual gone on a rampage while at other times it is nations gone mad. While we have no control over what Mother Nature brings our way, it is heart-breaking when devastating events are man-made. Unfortunately, the newspapers are replete with such happenings. The reporting of this weary news is consumed along with our breakfasts, lunches and dinners; they seem to be an accompaniment as much as salt is.

So it is that I read, listen, watch, then try to digest and write. There is nothing profound in what I say; we all are witness to the subject matter, if not the subject itself, of my musings. I am merely one observer recording life, living and of the world around us. Nothing exciting, but certainly subjects that we all are familiar with. So there you have it; a non-exciting answer to why my musings. If I have succeeded in my writing, then my blog is just a comfortable place that you want to stop by now and then and see what John has to say.

(Readers’ note: You might notice two topics that never appear in any of my musings – politics and religion. That is not by oversight. Like you, I have strong feelings and opinions about both, but I avoid them since my interest is to create a written environment that isn’t upsetting. My intent is to remind everyone we are more alike than our political or religious feelings might indicate.)

Sex wasn't invented yesterday

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-05T12:42:09Z

I guess when it comes to talking about sex (as opposed to sexually talking while actively engaged), we each have our set of guidelines and rules. For some, the topic is off limits with just about everyone. For others, more so with women it seems, they limit the talk about sex in their lives to a few friends of the same sex. . Of course there may be sexual innuendos, mostly by men, couched in terms of jokes and chiding. One can make sense of all that since a person’s sexual escapades and performance is a very personal thing.

But what strikes me as very interesting is one aspect of sex that we seem we all are in agreement. It is one form of sex talk/exploration that we all avoid and that includes this writer. It has to do with any discussion about or with the sex lives of our parents. While we may factually concede that our parents were sexually involved (after all, we’re here as evidence of that), we strenuously avoid contemplating what it might have been like.

This same sort of avoidance seems to apply to parents and their adult children. We tend to cringe when they happen to talk about their love life with their spouse or significant other. Parents today, because of our new-found norms, might indulge in this some; however, I think it too is a likely taboo subject.

So why is it I am writing about a topic we all want to avoid? Because I think in doing so, we throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. When our parents have a happy marriage, we admit they love each other, but we tend to diminish who they were and are. We lose sight of the fact that even 25, 50, 100 or more years ago, lovers were still lovers (we who are seniors can vouch for that). The wanting and desire they had for each other was as strong as ours is today. They were not the rigid caricatures we see in old pictures. They weren’t always that old 70, 80 or 90 year old man or woman we talk to today. They were living, breathing, passionate people who professed their love and displayed it in their private moments together. And that is a marvelous and enduring thing.

So it behooves us to keep in mind those infamous lyrics from the song in 1942 movie, Casablanca. The song is “As time goes by” and the lyrics are: “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply as time goes by.”

Listening at the beach

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-11-02T15:40:03Z

I hadn’t walked the beach all summer. That was due in part because of the summer heat and part because of a health issue I was dealing with. While the temperatures are still up there, my health improved to the point whre I knew it was time to return to the beach.

It was but a short trip across A1A And down the steps to the beach. With a sigh of relief I headed south, observing the waves and the people enjoying them. About a hundred yards down the beach I heard the familiar voice of my old friend and teacher, The Beach. “Hi, John. It’s been quite a while. Is all well?” I explained about my health problems and told him it was good to once again be with him. “Well, let’s just walk a while, relax and enjoy what’s here.”

It wasn’t long befiore I heard the screeching of the sea gulls who seem to make the beach their home. While it was simply screeching to me, I wondered if other gulls could make any sense of those sounds. If so, what were they saying? Was it about their plan to fly further down the beach, was it the sight of a morsel of food left behind by some beach goer or just a sigh of relief like mine, happy to be alive? That led me to wonder about our family dog. What, if anything did his barking signify? Was there any rhyme or reason to it that other dogs could interpret or was it just some gutteral sounds whiich reflected some base emotions.

For as intelligent as we humans are, as high on the scale of living intelligence we place ourselves, we still aren’t able to completeely converse with those lowser on that intelligence scale. Oh, yes, maybe we can command some animals with a few one or two word commands, but that is far from a conversation. It makes me wonder if should we ever be able to travel to some distanat planet that had some form of lesser intelligent life, how would we communicate with them, if at all. Would we respect their place in their environment or would we consider them as we do other animals on our planet and treat them as we do the animals here?

I shared these thoughts with my teacher, and I heard a soft chuckle. “John,” The Beach said, “people don’t understand so many sounds around them. They don’t even consider them;. They never even really think about them and what they signify.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Consider the wind, John. There is much to be learned by the sounds of the wind, but humans aren’t intelligent enough to know the messages being sent. It may be subtle but the wind reveals a great deal about the weather, if only man were smart enough to learn the languages.”

“You mean to say that even inanimate things are saying things?”

“Of course. Nature abnounds in sounds, each with their own meaning. The problem is that as smart as man is, he (and she) isn’t smart enough to understand the messages being sent. So much for man being the most intelligent animal on the planet. Take another example. Take me for instance - The Beach. Come sit here and listen. Listen to how the oceans and I combine to make sounds. We laugh when men go searching for fossils to tell them about the ancient past. They marvel at finding a bone from long past animal, human or otherwise. Yet right here, right now, you are hearing the sounds that go back to times before man ever roamed this earth. They are the sounds that cavemen heard tens of thousands of years ago. Columbus heard them as he came ashore in this part of the world. You are hearing history, John.”

“But the saddest part, I think, is that so many people don’t really listen to each other and understand. They are so convinced of their own opinions and beliefs that they discount what anyone else is saying. Those people never have and never will listen; if they would, the world would be a better place for it. Miscommunication and lack of communication are two of the greatest barriers to living in a peaceful world.”

“So, John, talk less and listen more; there is so much you can learn. Now, till next time, enjoy the rest of your walk and listen – there is much you can learn and experience by doing that. “

A Halloween story - Dead isn't always dead

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-10-30T00:00:37Z

Halloween is here so it seems appropriate to publish a very short Halloween story.

Dead isn’t always dead

He sat alone in the viewing room, admiring the handles on the coffin. She was laid out in her simple dress, her face, eyes closed, had a blank look on it. He thought she wouldn't be there if she only listened to him, if she hadn't disobeyed him. It served her right.

Lost in thought, he didn't see the slight stirring of her body or her hand reaching the edge of the coffin. It wasn't until her head rose that he realized what was happening and even then he couldn't believe it. "It can't be" he thought. "She's dead, she's embalmed. What the hell is going on?"

As he watched, his mouth open, she slipped first one leg then another out the coffin then rose completely and stood on the floor, her eyes now opened. He was frozen in place, unable to move as she walked towards him. He wanted to scream but all he could manage was a gurgling sound. She stood before him, a cruel smile on her face. He could see her arm rise then descend quickly, the hard, cold edge of her hand reaching the side of his neck, then his world turned black and ceased to exist.

Family and friends filed into the room and saw no one. Reaching the coffin, they looked in disbelief at his body in it. Their disbelief turned to fear as they realized a side door was open and the woman they failed to help was gone.

A terrible way to die

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-10-28T16:45:53Z

(Readers’ note: The following is not a sunshine and flowers musing.) There are so many ways of dying. There is a multitude of illnesses that can cause it. There are various ways of dying in accidents – cars, trains or planes as they say. One may be the victim of a violent crime which results in murder. It may be just a matter of old age and our bodies wearing out. In all those cases, there is grieving by those who loved the one who died, a sense of inconsolable loss.

But there is one way that I think surpasses all those. That way of dying is suicide. Just the mention of it sends shivers down our spines. The idea of being in such a state that the person sees no better option than killing themselves is to those not in that state incomprehensible. It is said that most of us let that idea flit though our minds at one time at another but know that option is not for us. There are many other ways to resolve whatever the issue is. There are those who choose suicide as the preferred way of dying when afflicted with an incurable disease that has an ugly impact on them in their final days. In that case, it is a moral judgment that each individual must resolve. But that aside, we have a hard time understanding what would drive someone to commit such an act.

Those who loved the person who committed suicide have more than just grief to deal with, as severe as that might be. Unlike all other situations of loved ones dying, those left after a suicide must deal with the nagging question of how did they fail, how did they not see it coming? In that sense the survivors also feel failure. They forever wonder what they could have done to prevent it. How could they have been so blind as to fail to notice the desperation in the person they loved? These feelings are multiplied ten times over when the one who committed suicide is someone’s child. Whereas we see a full live ahead of them and their cup being full, the child sees it as the cup being not half empty, but completely empty

There is an old saying, often used humorously but also applies to this situation though not in any way funny. It goes, “Give the gift that keeps giving, give guilt.” Well, if you are in a situation like this, you are probably dealing with the biggest guilt trip of all. It is a perceived sense, right or wrong, that you failed and that failure led to the death of someone you loved. That feeling may be tempered with time, but it never goes away completely.

To understand the magnitude of the problem, the suicides in 2005 numbered more than 30,000 though our rate was far from the highest rate in the world. Also, the rates surprisingly vary significantly by sex. For males, it was 17.7 while for females it was 4.5. But this is not about numbers; it is about real people suffering the real grief that comes when a close one commits suicide. They are the ones who are left to deal with the aftermath. They are the ones who are left to deal with that unwanted gift – guilt.

Paris can be anywhere

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-10-24T15:55:40Z

If you ask me what my favorite movie is, I would answer without a moment's hesitation - Casablanca. It almost always is ranked near the top of the 100 best movies and sometimes claims top spot. In my mind it is #1 and always will be. The storyline is great. Humphrey Bogart as Rick and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa are great in the leading roles. Even the supporting roles seem to be perfectly cast. Clause Rains as Captain Renault, Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, Peter Lorre as Ugarti and the rest of the cast seem to have been born to play their parts. That even goes for Dooley Wilson who, although a drummer, was the piano player.

I don't think there is any other movie with more well-known lines than Casablanca. Those who really know the movie know that Rick never did say "Play it again, Sam". What he really said was, "You played it for her, you can play it for me. Play it!" And Ilsa said "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By"'. And so that haunting song begins - "You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh... The fundamental things apply as time goes by."

Then what better and more memorable line of five words is there than "Here's looking at you, kid". Now there's a man's line. Some of the other great lines never to be forgotten by anyone but the very young are: "I stick my neck out for nobody", "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine", "Round up the usual suspects." and "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".

There is, however, one more famous line in that movie, and it is the thought behind this musing. The line, spoken by Rick to Ilsa as she gets ready to board the plane and leave is, "We'll always have Paris." It is a line that in some form or another probably reverberates in all of us. I think we all have had at least one special time in our lives that we never will forget. And that one special time includes one special person that helped make it so. That time and place is our "Paris". It is a thought that comes when a great relationship ends on a sad but loving note, regardless of reason. It may not have been Paris but it was a time and place that we look back on and recognize how special it was, even though circumstances dictated the closing of that chapter in our book of life.

Those times are rare for the person and events in it are rare. It might have been a day, week, month, year or even a lifetime of loving someone. If you are unable to look back or look around now and not recognize your "Paris", then my regrets - you have missed something truly special.

The bird and the woman

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-10-20T19:32:00Z

Listening to a bird singing his song

Looking at a woman all alone.

Her heart is broken as are her dreams

Her future shattered too.

The words of love she once heard

Just echo in her mind.

The pledges once made now forsaken

No longer holds any meaning.

Her hopes are dashed, crushed under his feet

Her hopes transformed into prayers.

The life to be now never will be

Will there be life at all?

So friends console, while others ignore

And family says I told you.

Still the bird remains and sings to her,

For it knows of her pain and grief.

Bang! Bang! You're dead.

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-10-16T12:18:27Z

Verbal abuse, physical abuse or death by shooting. - take your pick. They are the few choices so many women who are in violent relationships have today. And to keep them aware of those possibilities, there is stalking. When convenient, there is internet stalking wherein emails, text messages and entries on social sites can further demean and threaten the victim and others considered a supporter of the woman. In some cases the victims are wives, in other cases it’s significant others. In either case, they live in a world of fear and mayhem or threatened mayhem. There is the screaming and yelling and being told they are stupid and to blame. Then there is slapping and punching and kicking – all the ways macho-men teach their women a lesson and keep them in their place. After all, whatever is wrong is the woman’s fault.

You are hard-pressed to get through a day of news without a story about some husband, ex-husband or boyfriend killing the woman in his life. To make it doubly unfortunate these killings often take place in public places so that not only is the woman a victim but so are innocent bystanders. The others might be coworkers of the victim, neighbors, fellow church members, casual friends or even strangers. To a distorted mind everyone is guilty and everyone must pay.

Our judicial system provides a purported way to stop all this violence; it’s called an injunction. It’s a piece of paper that requires the man to stay away from his victim. In most cases it is as effective as using that piece of paper to stem a break in a dam. An injunction is not a bullet-proof vest; it is an illusion. Too often it serves simply as a challenge to the man and his assumed rights and domain. On the other hand, caring society establishes shelters for the women and their children. I can’t vouch for these programs but I suspect their successes are not 100%. A woman who is in a violent relationship got there because of some unmet need and probably has low self-esteem. Sadly, they sometimes have a need to return, often in the misguided belief that things will get better. This is not to say they are at fault for the situation they are in; the man with the evil intent and actions is. If these women had a caring and loving man in their lives, it would be so much better. But choices are made and not always for the better.

So it is that a segment of our society lives a life in hell. Sadly they are suffering pain for sins they never committed.

Making memories

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-10-12T12:43:04Z

I often write about memories, I guess, because I have come to learn they loom large in later life. The good ones certainly are better than any reality show on television. In our minds, we conjure up old friends, revisit old places and relive happier times and pleasant experiences. And the best part about them is that you don't need an author, a producer or director - they are of our own making.

I have even suggested to graduating seniors, in one of my pseudo-graduation speech entries, to collect lots of memories. But two things came together recently for me to muse about memories once again. The first is a new release by Bon Jovi - "Make a memory". While the lyrics suggest making memories under different circumstances, I like the idea of making memories in another context. The second piece fell in place while my grandson was visiting us by himself for a week.

During his visit, we spent some time on the beach, hit several dozen golf balls (he's just learning), saw a movie, had breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and hamburgers at Steak 'n Shake. We played around with our computers some and did a bit of shopping. All in all, a most pleasant time for both of us, I think.

After he left, Bon Jovi came to mind because along with all we did, we were also making memories - not only for me, but also for him. Long after I am gone and he is an adult with his own children, he may recall his time with Gramps and Grams. And when he recounts our visits, I hope he speaks of them fondly. Just as I have those fond memories of my parents and grandparents, I sincerely wish Nick has a few of his own.

If you have children or grandchildren, I hope you are taking time to make memories with them. Whether it is playing together, visiting places together, trying new things together - do them! Long after the birthday and Christmas gifts are forgotten, those memories will prove to be the very best gift you could have ever given them.

A Mixed Bag Of This And That

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-10-08T10:45:52Z

They aren’t worthy of a musing, but I had to do something with them – so here they are: random thoughts.

I've always wondered who is in charge of distributing any weight we gain. Who gets to pick where it goes? It certainly isn't me or anyone else who gains weight. I ask this only because it seems that extra weight always goes where we don't want it. It's one thing to bulk up but bulking up around your waist or rear end doesn't make us more appealing. If it is our genes, then I think it's time we fired Gene.

-----

Speaking of weight gain, several months ago I stopped eating late night snacks. Now if anything, most times I try to confine my late night grazing to a fruit or other low calorie snack. It has helped in reducing my weight. While late night snaking is not okay, it is all right to have dinner later in the evening, especially if dining out. So the question becomes, when does eating later in the day cease to be eating fashionably late and becomes late night grazing?

-----

Brides typically wear a white gown at their formal weddings which is meant to symbolize purity. If that is true, then why is it that most grooms wear a black tuxedo? What is that supposed to represent? It is true that recently many grooms are going for grey tuxedos but all that suggests is that they have led a bit more sedate and pure lifestyle than those who swear black. However, it should be noted that no man wears white. Then again, it is a rare man who gets married and is a virgin. If he were, I wonder if he would wear white.

-----

I was doing some shopping at the local grocery store. There is one ingredient I use when making soup that is interesting. It is saffron. In case you didn't know, saffron is a spice derived from the flower from the saffron crocus. Each plant has three stigmas which are harvested and dried for use in cooking. As you might expect, having only three stigmas per plant means you have to harvest quite a few plants to get a decent amount.

----

Anyway, I picked up what is a very small container at the store. It cost something over $6. What makes that startling is that the package contains 2 grams or about 1/56 (yes, one fifty-sixth) of an ounce. That works out to over $335 an ounce or more than $5,375 a pound and makes the cost of a filet mignon seem cheap in comparison.

-----

Although I am a senior living in Florida, in my mind I don't exhibit any of the traits that seniors here do. While there are many studies (and complaints) about our seniors and their driving habits on our roads and highways, less is said about how they drive their shopping carts in grocery stores. From what I have observed, their behavior behind a wheel carries over to their behavior when pushing a shopping cart.

----

Typically they push their carts slower than most younger shoppers, often causing traffic jams in the cereal aisle. When entering a main traffic aisle from the spices aisle they just push their way out, oblivious to anyone trying to make it from the produce area to the meat counters. And while perusing the can goods, they often park their carts in the middle of the aisle preventing anyone from proceeding down that aisle.

Maybe it's time for the state to add a Department of Cart Traffic to the state bureaucracy to regulate this kind of inconsiderate cart pushing. It certainly would make those who are younger (and this senior) happy.

-----

Since I’m on grocery store shopping, let me end on that topic with a bit of Hollywood tossed in. I don’t know about your grocery store but in mine (Publix) they have a system that keeps the lights in the freezers turned off until you approach a door. Then the light for that compartment comes on. If you walk down the freezer aisle, you get a series of lights coming on, just preceding you as you walk along.

When that happens to me, I think of Jimmy Durante and the closing of his show. If you don’t know Jimmy or don’t know what the closing of his show was like, you are among the very young (you might check this out and watch until the end: click on Jimmy says goodnight . So let me close this casual musing by repeating what Jimmy would say. “Good night Mrs. Kalabash, wherever you are.”

Some insights about getting older

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-10-04T17:36:20Z

I think you who are older will understand the following musing. Those of you who are younger should consider this a heads up about what is coming.

First, some background. If you are a steady reader of my musings, then you know that I join about 12 – 15 of my high school classmates (Class of 1954) and their spouses for an annual gathering – a kind of mini-reunion. For those who aren’t aware, we have these annual gatherings at various places along the East Coast each fall to meet once again and enjoy the pleasure of each other’s company. This year our Gathering 2011 was held at Pigeon Forge.

The first of these gatherings was held in 1995 and have been held annually except when we had a full class reunion. What is germane to this musing is that graduation year – 1954. That means our ages range from 74 to 76, not young by any means. And as you might expect, there have been physical changes since 1995 and even more since 1954. Aging is the one thing we all have in common.

Now then, in meeting annually as we do, it seems like we are watching our lives play out in slow motion. Each year, there are a few changes, nothing startling but enough to know there has been a passage of time since we last met. However, the one thing that hasn’t changed is our love and affection for each other. In that respect, time has stood still. We still are, as I once wrote, 18 year olds some fifty-five plus years later. Our caring for each other, our joy of being with each other has withstood the test of time.

In another respect however, that insidious phenomena called Time is taking its toll on us. What hair we have is grayer now. That youthful physical form we had many years ago has been replaced by expanded waists and facial wrinkles. Additionally, the list of medical problems becomes more comprehensive each year. Things we only read about or perhaps saw in our elders are now our medical problems. Knee and hip replacements, heart attacks and stents, urinary problems, illnesses of our various organs as they struggled to keep us alive. Pill cases are common, especially at dinner. The stories we use to swap about our children and our successes at work and on the golf course have been replaced by stories of our medical trials and tribulations. Clearly we are in the final stretch of life.

But if you think our lives are dire, you are sadly mistaken. Smiles and laughter abound when we are together. We still are amused by the foibles of life. Talks of children are now replaced by talks of our grandchildren and the joy and pride they bring into our lives. Yes, we may exchange information about medical procedures and drugs but there is logic to that. We share that information so that we might have many more years of life and each other’s company.

You see, we are fighters. Life has thrown challenges and hurdles at us throughout our lives and we have overcome them. We know life has its downsides but we also know if we persevere there will be an upside. We understand about ying and yang, and that there is a time and season for everything. Our lives have been full of them.

What we also understand is that with a loving soul, a caring heart and an active mind, life in these later years can be as rewarding as anything else we experienced. And the icing on the cake is having some friends that have remained for decades and still brings happiness to us when we are with them. That, dear reader, should be something you know or will be something you will learn.

A disturbing conclusion

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-30T17:06:32Z

In a musing I published a few years ago, I wrote about returning to my home town to attend my 55th Class Reunion. This was after a 40 year absence. In that musing, I sadly touched on the degrading physical state of my home town. I also wrote about seeing some of my classmates after four decades. Several readers, including some of my classmates, wrote to say they felt I accurately commented on the state of many small towns and life as we experienced it those many years ago.

It seems, however, there was one small portion of that musing which seemed to resonate the most with seniors. It had to do with three sentences in that musing. They are:

What was once a vibrant and growing town, a perfect town for a young boy or girl to grow up in, has turned into something that is not. I guess my heart goes out to today's youth of the town; they simply have no idea of how good it used to be and how good it could be. It is something they will never get to experience.

My classmates, just about all grandparents now, wrote to say they regretted that their grandchildren would never get a chance to live in a world as they did in the early 1950s. In hindsight we know that life was simpler in those times, although it didn't feel that way at the time. If you are in your late sixties or seventies and use the internet, then I'm sure you have seen forwarded emails that talk about those days. Most often those emails are accompanied with pictures of products and people of that era.

In thinking about those expressed regrets, I realized that there is a deeper, and more disturbing, feeling. First, in order to compare the 1950s with today, you have to have lived in both times. Those who are young today have no idea what it was like to live back then, therefore they have no basis for a comparison. However, we who are in our late years do. And the conclusion we seniors reach is that not only were those times better, but also that the youth of today will never experience anything similar.

If accurate, that conclusion is disturbing. What we are saying is that for the first time in the history of our country future generations will not have it as well than we did. My parents, my grandparents and every generation before always believed that their children would have a better life than they had. That is not true of my generation. Today we don't look forward to the future with the thought that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have a better life. True they have more sophisticated possessions but all that seems to come at a price. What they don't possess is that simpler lifestyle of the 1950s. I sometimes wonder if young parents of today feel the same way as they look back and compare life as it was when they are young and the way it is for their children now.

Anyway, as one senior reader commented (paraphrasing), we had our drills for a possible nuclear attack, but something called MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) precluded such an attack. Today we have to contend with terrorists who are willing to sacrifice their own lives to wreak death and destruction on our population with airplanes and backpacks. We never went to school worried about a Columbine incident. We didn't have mothers killing their children and fathers killing their families. Ethics and manners were the guiding lights in our dealings with others.

Perhaps we are to blame for the world our children and grandchildren live in. Perhaps we could have done things differently to change the outcome. Then again, perhaps not. All we know is that unlike our forbearers, those who come after us in all likelihood will not live a life that was as satisfying as ours was when we were young. I pray I am wrong, but I fear I am right.

Appliances and me - getting older

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-23T17:12:01Z

It's difficult to forget just how old I am. As if those annual reminders called birthdays aren't enough, every time I turn around there is another reminder. Hardly a day goes by that I'm not reminded that I've racked up over seven decades of living. When people talk about presidents, they talk about FDR, Truman and Ike like they were in office about the same century as George Washington. The car magazines I read sometimes have articles about those old cars like a 1960 Corvair or a 1957 Chevy, both of which I owned as late model used cars. Here in Florida, if your car is more than 30 years old (that's 1979 and older cars), you can get an antique license plate for it.

I try to hide from all that by spending time in the world of the internet, but it's no use. Every week I get a well-intentioned email talking about things from the good old days of the 1950s. Well, I was around in the 1950s and remember just about everything mentioned in those emails. Then again, I sometimes do things which remind me of just how old I am. My iPod has about 150 popular songs from the 1950s. When I'm walking the beach, I sometimes listen to those songs. When I'm in my car, I often listen to the 1950 and 1960 songs on the XM radio.

All this came to mind because of an issue of the magazine, Consumer Reports. In it they had an article titled, "Great old appliances". In the article they wrote about several people who are still using their "old" appliances. Some of the featured appliances include a 1946 O'Keefe & Merritt stove, a 1954 Kenmore dryer, a 1955 Electrolux vacuum cleaner and a 1959 Osterizer blender. To the editors of the magazine, they seem amazed that any of these appliances are still around, let alone working. Well, not only are those appliances still around, many people who owned them when they were new are still around and working very well, thank you.

I guess it's impossible to escape the fact that I am old, or at least older. After all, 27% of our population is 19 years old or younger, and 87% is under 65. To them anything that came before the date they were born is old, and anything that was around more than 20 years before they were born is ancient. I guess I could be upset but then in 1950 when I was in my teens, anything 50 years old, which would have been 1900, was old and ancient to me.

So it is that time is relative and so is life. Yesterday is old and ancient today, and today will be old and ancient fifty years from now. If you are young and don't believe me, just hang around a while. Fifty years from now I suspect there will be a repeat of the article in the Consumer Reports magazine that includes the new stove smooth-top you are using today, and you'll be talking with fond remembrance about that 2010 Chevy you once owned.

Just a quickie

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-20T17:33:44Z

It is 1 PM on Tuesday, September 20^th, 2011. A check of some of the headlines on Yahoo news reveals the following:

Police find woman's body in freezer

Police: Skydiver sheds chute midair to kill himself

New Stomach-Turning Footage of the Reno Air Show Crash

Florida man accused of shooting wife, pastors had killed before

2 men dead after tire blows in Nevada road race

2 people shot to death at Lowe's store in NC

Locked-out Denver man falls to death from balcony

Get Ready for the New Dark Age of Movie Watching

And finally –

CBS' 'Two and a Half Men' kills Sheen's character

Happy anniversary Mom and Dad

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-17T19:00:09Z

(My apologies to the readers of these musings, but I had to post this second entry - musing - today. If you read it, you will understand why.)

I am writing this on September 17, 2011. I mention this because today would have been my parent’s 81st anniversary. I have a wedding picture of them taken on this day on 1930. Although they weren’t smiling in the picture, I suspect they were in their minds and hearts. I don’t think newlyweds were any different eighty plus years ago than they are today. That may be hard for those young to believe, but love is love regardless of the decade.

As I looked at their picture and thought about it, I realized that they had no idea what their journey through life would bring. They started their married life with dreams, with plans, but with no idea where it would lead them. Their marriage brought changes to many lives. I know for a fact that they each had a profound effect on each other’s families. It began as anger and frustration in both families (he was and Italian Catholic and she was a Hungarian Protestant – vinegar and oil in those days). But in a matter of a year or two they were readily accept and loved by the families. It is impossible to quantify the impact each had on each other and their family and friends, but it had to be significant.

While much of the impact they had others was of their own doings, there also was the impact they made by extension. That extension was me. Where it not for their union, I would not have been born. Thus, by extension they were the cause of whatever effects I had on all those lives I came in contact with and affected either for better or worse. I am an only child so I guess in some respects that impact is somewhat limited. Parents who have multiple children affect others by the magnitude of the number of children they have. My wife’s parents had seven children and each of those children has lived their lives and is living it with significant consequences on many others.

So were my thoughts as I sat there, admiring their wedding picture. Even today, we marry, and for good or evil we will have an impact on so many others. Eighty years may seem like an eternity but it is but a drop in the bucket in the larger scheme of life. We may not think about that when we first marry – and why should we? Our marriages are like dropping pebbles into the sea of life and the resulting ripples will affect others for years to come. Even 81 years later.

So to Mom and Dad – Happy Anniversary and thank you for starting on that journey together.

Classmates and never growing old

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-17T15:40:05Z

Bear with me; this really is about classmates and not growing older.

My journey into blogging began a few years ago and not by design. There is a group of my classmates (Class of 1954) who gather once a year to share pleasant moments with together. After one of those gatherings, I wrote an email to my classmates to let them know how special they are to me. That singular email soon became two, three and a few more.

I realized that not all of them might want to get all my emails. At the same time I was becoming interested in blogging. In lieu of those emails, I created my blog, www.latenightmusings.com . When I created my blog, the first entry was that initial letter to my classmates. In addition, when I published my book, Late Night Musings, that same email and first musing became the first entry in the book.

Anyway, now about not growing older. In my last musing, I wrote about a place where I don’t grow older – in my dreams. Well, there is a second place, but you’ll have to read the musing about my classmates (see below) to learn where it is.
---

My Classmates

(Note to readers: About a dozen classmates from my high school and their spouses gather once a year at various locations simply to enjoy again the pleasure of each other’s company).

I was thinking about our annual gatherings. If someone asked me to compare them with something, I think I would compare them to jumping into a pile of clean warm sheets just out of the dryer or jumping into pile of leaves on a fall afternoon. When you are captured in those sheets or covered with those leaves, worries are banished and time stands still for a moment, and that scientific construct of time being an arrow is broken. You are lost in the moment and your mind is free to transcend time - and it is so easy to find yourself back in 1952, 1953, 1954. Classmates, times, events are vividly recalled and embraced. Whether the past event is only recalled by one or mutually shared, they bring laughter to all as we relive days long gone by yet just around the corner.

Others look at us and see faces and bodies beyond their years of youth. yet, when we look at each other, we wisely look into each other's eyes and see the warmth, love and caring that still resides there after all these many years. Our gatherings are special times to be enjoyed with special people - we have kept as part of our lives for well over 50 years. They are a gathering of still 18 year olds, fifty plus years later. When I pause to count my blessings, among them I most treasure is each of you, my friends, and for that I thank you.

Where I never grow old

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-14T17:35:47Z

I can't speak for others on this matter. And perhaps in writing about it, I am revealing some very personal information about myself. But you know what they say about fools rushing in.

I realized this morning that there is one place where I never grow old. It certainly isn't around family and friends who can clearly see the changes that time have wrought. Nor is it in the mirror where the young man with a size 30 waist and a full head of hair disappeared many decades ago. But it is one place I now realize I never aged. Where? In my dreams.

Maybe I am unique in this, maybe not. All I know is that when I awoke this morning, I recalled a dream I had and realized that in that dream I was still young, trim and had a full head of hair. And having thought about that fact more, I realized I don't have dreams anymore wherein I look as I do today. Not only that, in my dreams I have performed as only the young can. In last night's dream I was playing basketball with a professional team. In the past I have run for miles. I have travelled from point A to point B by simply willing it; no need for car, train, plane or jet pack. Again, only in my dreams.

Interestingly enough, those in my dreams never age either. They remain as young and as vibrant as they were many years ago. Be it relatives long gone or friends of my age, everyone seems to be somewhere around 30 to 40. Of course, that excludes children who, when they appear, are somewhere between 5 and 15.

I wonder if the end of time is located in the land of dreams, or maybe dreams are our subconscious fountain of youth (or at least when they aren't nightmares). In any event, when the dreams are pleasant, I am young again, doing things I haven't done in years, if ever. So, welcome to dreamland - where time seems to merge all those we know into a singular moment, captured long ago, when you and I were oh so young.

9/11 - An unforgettable September morn?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-09T21:55:56Z

Our country’s second day of Infamy occurred on September 11^th, 2001. The first one, so labeled by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, occurred on December 7, 1941 – seventy years ago this year. That is the day when Japan attacked our fleet at Pearl Harbor which led to the start of WW II. As a result of that attack, the United States lost eight battleships, innumerable aircraft and over 2,400 servicemen. In the ensuing war, the United States lost 416,800 military personnel; military deaths by all countries involved in the war were somewhere between 22.5 – 25.5 million.

Then sixty years later, the United States was once again attacked on its own territory – first New York City. There was another attack - a plane that crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth plane that only (if it is possible to use that term) crashed in an open field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, thanks to the bravery of the passengers on board. In that series of attacks, Infamy II, we lost nearly 3,000 civilians, four airplanes, two landmark buildings and a damaged Pentagon. Although there had been serious incidents previously, it was that event on that September morn that opened our war with Muslim extremists. In so many ways these two days of infamy are so similar, yet in many ways they are so different - the intervening years notwithstanding.

I began writing my musings about four years ago and the topics have included different holidays observed here in our country. The one thing I never have written about was that four plane attack on September 11, 2001. Whatever emotions I had as that attack occurred and in the years since pale in comparison to those who were there. The greatest price was paid by those who lost their lives, those who lost family and friends. Nor can I claim that Infamy II affected me more than any other citizen of our country. Like everyone else, my emotions ran from anger to fear, from sorrow to determination that we would avenge our loss. We suffered as one family.

So it continues today. There is nothing I can add to the videos, pictures, interviews and commentary about what happened that day though others may. I can only mourn along with everyone else. However, what concerns me is the similarity in the two attacks and the aftermath. My concern is that long after I am no longer part of this earth history will once again repeat itself. My concern is that in another seventy years the events on September 11, 2001 will be recalled with the same fervor that is shown today for the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Those who are now older adults will have died and those remaining will remember 2001 only in passing. Like Pearl Harbor, it will be noted in some small article in the newspapers. The pain will have been overcome by time, as pain so often is.

What it might mean is that we as a country will still not have learned the lessons that history teaches. We seem to have short memories. Just as we failed to heed the lessons of Pearl Harbor, our children and grandchildren will not have learned the lesson even though it was retaught with the attacks on September 11, 2001. My fear is that at some future date my country, our country, will have to be taught that lesson once again… on some September morn.

Caregivers - true saints

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-08T15:10:41Z

Someone wrote to say she became a caregiver during the final stages of a friend's life. That friend of my friend had a terminal brain tumor. My friend didn't say how long this final stage lasted but I surmised it wasn't all that long - typically they never are once they reach that stage. But whether it was a month, six months or even a year, we all acknowledge that it is most difficult on the person with the illness. I previously touched on this in my previous musing (An unwelcomed, unavoidable ending).

I reflected on how difficult it must be for those who know that their lives will end within a specified period of time. What I didn't write about is those who love them and take care of them in that person's final days. The feeling that you are watching the one you love slowly slip away has to be grueling at best. Doing so must take an emotional toll as well as a physical toll. The attention the caregiver gives is constant - a day after day endeavor. They do what they can but know that in spite of it, the enemy, death, is going to win. The outcome is a foregone conclusion.

These caregivers are sometimes given a rest by others who know the patient or the caregiver. Others get some respite by the people at Hospice who also take over when the end is imminent. Both are worth their weight in gold, especially Hospice who also can provide medical relief for the patient.

While a brief respite is welcomed by caregivers, what must be difficult is what happens when the patient finally dies. Although I have never been in that situation, there must be the conflicting emotions of relief and profound loss. How one reconciles those two emotions is beyond me. How does one feel good that the pain and suffering of the one they loved, the one they took care of, has died? Perhaps those who were or are caregivers can provide insight into that dilemma. Having never been in that situation, I can't. I am the first to admit that I don't know everything.

We sometimes read about some celebrity who has a terminal illness and perhaps about someone who takes care of them. What we never read about is the hundreds of thousands of similar cases going on every day in this country. This care giving is happening as you read this. Clearly the most difficult part is borne by the person with the illness, but next comes the caregiver. They do it for love. They have my admiration and respect. If God or some higher power is keeping track of good deeds, these caregivers have to have a big plus next to their names. They truly are saints.

An unwelcomed, unavoidable ending

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-05T03:14:56Z

To the reader - beware. The following deals with a morbid topic.

We sometimes gently brush against the fact of our own demise. The subject most often seems to arise within the context of someone who is close to us dying. We usually express it by wishing that when our time comes we will pass on unexpectedly and quietly while sleeping. When that happens we want it to be a surprise, assuming we can be surprised by such an event in our sleep. The universal wish is that our death be instantaneous and without warning so that we have no time to think about it.

Each time we read about some major calamity, such as a plane crash or perhaps that event on that infamous day in 1991, we wonder what those involved were thinking and hope we will never have to face such a situation. It is often said that one's life flashes before then in the moments before their death, but that has never been proven and we have no interest in finding out.

But there is another death scenario that is more likely to occur. It is another that I have no idea how I would handle and one I'd rather not experience. Yet it is one that so much of humanity has experienced and is experiencing. It is one where someone is told that they only have but a few months to live. While we sometimes hear about some celebrity facing such a situation, there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who face that fact everyday in this country and throughout the world.

I'm sure each person reacts somewhat differently to that prognosis while, except in the rare case, the outcome is the same - they die. It is a situation in which I have no idea how I would react and one I really don't want to be in. It seems for the most part those who are in that situation ultimately accept the fact and face their own demise with dignity. They fight the good fight and accept that their opponent will win.

I marvel at such people; they have my greatest respect. I wish each one could overcome the odds and win the battle, but that is not to be. Instead I have to accept that life and its ending doesn't always play out the way we want it. And in the end all I can do is what their family and friends can do - to wish them God speed in the rest of their journey.

Dolly and Jean

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-09-01T14:46:36Z

It was time for another of my bagel fixes. When I want a bagel I have a choice of a few places to get one. Today it was Dunkin' Donut. Although it was around lunch time, the place wasn't too busy. In fact the only customers were two women in line ahead of me placing their orders. It was obvious they both were in the Christmas spirit. As I watched one put her arm around the other in what could only be described as a close and sincere friendship. They both were laughing and joking with the clerk behind the counter.

When they turned for one reason or another I could see a close resemblance. I figured that they had to at least be sisters if not twins. And from their behavior I could only conclude that one of them was visiting her friend and they hadn't seen one another in quite a while. Being the astute observer of people that I am, I smiled knowing that I had these two women down pat.

Wanting to give myself a kudo, as I was leaving I stopped at their table to confirm my findings. With a smile to match theirs I explained that I had watched them in line and at their table and just wanted to asked them a few questions and learn a bit about them. Being the friendly souls they were, they readily agreed, however Dolly first had a question for me. She asked if the questions were going to be clean or dirty. When I assured her they would be clean, she disappointed said, "I was afraid of that." I laughed.

They introduced themselves as Dolly and Jean. To my first question asking if they were related possibly might be twins, they answered no. They were not twins and, in fact, not even related. In my mind I did a mental, "Huh!" I then asked if one of them was from out of town visiting. Again the answer was no; they both lived locally. My snug ego was crumbling.

As for being long term friends, they said they had met about a year ago when both were patients in the hospital. As a result of that encounter they became close friends. So contrary to my assumptions, my batting record was zero for three. They were not related, not long time friends and both lived locally.

They asked about me so I told them my name and why I asked. I explained I write a blog with my observations about people and life, and they interested me. After a cordial ending and wishing each other a Merry Christmas, I left. As I drove away, I thought about what had just happened and knew I had a musing, but not about the topic I was going to write.

What this musing is really about is judging, and misjudging people, based on casual observations. Regardless of how good we think we are in assessing people based on what we see and what little we hear, we are not infallible. Our biases, our life experiences lead us to one conclusion and not always the right one. It suggests we need to reserve judgment of others unless and until we really get to know them.

I told Dolly and Jean I might write a musing about them but failed to let them know where to find it. Consequently, they probably never will know about this musing. But to Dolly and Jean, thank you for a wonderful few minutes and another lesson in life.

What advice would you give?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-08-28T12:38:58Z

(Watch out for the question at the end; it can be a toughie.)

If you watch much television, you probably have seen the two commercials. They are sponsored by Lincoln Financial. In one instance, the younger man is standing in front of a nursery window in a hospital, looking at his new born daughter. While standing there, an older version of the younger man joins him. The older man gives the younger man some clues about the future, mostly about the younger man’s financial situation in the future.

In the second commercial, the theme is the same except in this case the younger man is on a plane flying coach, when the older version of him sits down next to him and again talks about his financial future. The older version again gives some advice then returns to first class to let the younger man know that with the proper planning he will be sitting in first class someday.

If only we were so fortunate to have gotten some advice from an older version of ourselves when we were younger to help us navigate through life. Alas, that never was and is not to be. However, those commercials got me thinking. I am not the younger John, but I am the older (much older) John. If I could go back and talk to the younger John, what would I say? What bits of wisdom, what advice would I give him to guide him as time marched on? I think before I could do that, I would have to decide if I am happy where I am. If the course of events led me to a happy place in my life, then I would suggest one course of action. If my current situation were dismal, my advice would be very different.

In my case, I am content with how my life turned out. It’s not perfect, but all in all my life’s story has a pretty happy outcome. So what would I say to younger John? To suggest anything different than the way my life played out might cause a significant change in the course of my history and I wouldn’t be where I am today. Then again, with a few changes my life might have been a life of wealth (you need to save more, John, and invest wisely) and good health (be sure to get some form of exercise every day, John).

I doubt that without all of the pain and sorrow, without all the good times and happiness, without lots of hard work and some luck, that I would have what little knowledge and wisdom I have and would have been as happy as I am at this stage in my life. It was the sum total of all who came into my life and all of the experiences I had that got me here, and I’m ok with where I am. In thinking about it a song by Brooks Garth Brooks called The Dance came to mind. It is the advice I would probably give that younger John. Some of the words are:

And now
I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
The way it all would go
Our lives
are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss
the dance

So I guess I’d tell younger John that he was going to have some great times and some bitter times, but take it as it comes. Except for being a bit more sensitive and not hurting those who will be in your life, learn from life and stay the course – it will be worth it.

Now then - what would you say to that younger you if you could?

The overextended extended family

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-08-24T14:34:31Z

I had a reading of my book, Late Night Musings, and a signing at a local adult community (adult as in age, not sexual inclinations). It took place at their weekly coffee and bagel get-together. There were about thirty people, ages fifty and above, in attendance - more for the bagels than to hear me I think.

Anyway, I briefly explained how the book came to be then read about five of my musings from the book. At the end of each one, I encouraged those attending to offer their own experiences and observations on the musing's subject matter. I heard some very interesting and poignant stories.

When the reading and book signing was over, an 80 year old gentleman approached me to comment on one of my musings that had to do with my extended family where I wrote how much I missed what I had as a child. He said he too had a similar experience although he and his wife lived in Brooklyn all their lives. They grew up only a few blocks apart so they certainly experienced the comforting feeling and security of living among their extended family.

He then got to the reason he spoke to me. He lamented that the concept of an extended family living in close proximity to each other seemed to be over. He cited his own family as a good example. He had a son and a daughter, both married but neither living anywhere near the rest of the family. That is equally true for the younger generations of other extended families. We have become a mobile society and our children and grandchildren seem to move to wherever their work takes them. Often that means several moves that could be hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Although I am an only child, my cousins and friends that I grew up with have left our local town for the most part. To the extent I would was part of that extended family I am not since I now live in Florida. The same could be said for the gentleman who spoke to me. In my wife's family, two of her six siblings live far from the remainder of the family. One lives in Virginia and the other in California. They each have two children who only see their aunts, uncles and cousins once in a great while. Then again talking about being mobile, my wife's family is from Malone, New York but live in Florida. Most children today don't get to experience living near their extended families.

You can find many things to blame for the problems we face in society today. Somehow I think the need to find work or rise on the corporate ladder has much to do with it. For many seniors (read parents and grandparents) retiring in more southern states can be blamed. Into that mix you can toss in divorce wherein the husband and wife move away from each other. Whatever the cause, the ones who pay for all this are the children. They never get to experience the joy, comfort and security of being part of an extended family. What a shame.

Didn't we meet before?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-08-19T13:18:50Z

The other evening we had a few friends over for dinner. Like me, they passed age 65 a few years ago, which means they graduated in the 1950s. In the course of our conversation I mentioned that if you looked at our high school year books, all the pictures of the students from one year book seem interchangeable with another - the faces all looked the same. One friend doubted me so I pulled out my 1954 year book, randomly opened it to a page and showed it to him. He took one quick look and swore that at least two of the pictures were of classmates who graduated with him. The second friend had to concede that the pictures were eerily similar to those in his year book.

That confirmed what I always thought but never expressed for fear of being thought daft. Maybe it's the hair styles or the types of clothing we wore - I'm not sure. But whatever it is, it seems that without looking at the names, I'd be hard pressed to say whether a yearbook I was looking at was mine or someone else's. It could be we all looked the same because we were part of the genre of the 1950s or perhaps there was a secret cloning experiment going on back then. In any event, it is an interesting phenomenon.

But even more interesting is a second observation I have made over time which is how those who graduated with us in the 1950s today look so much like the elderly people we knew when we were young. I could plunk my peers of today down in the 1950s with slightly different clothes and they'd look like all the other older people who lived in that decade. It seems as we grow older we become those who we use to know. For instance, I live in Florida where we have more than our share of retired (aka older) people around. I see them in grocery stores and restaurants. With just a little effort on my part, I can see myself as a child gain, and when I do I am seeing the same faces here that I saw those many years ago. Maybe that's why I call them sir or ma'am even though they are around my age. I have to conclude that mature (aka old) looks the same regardless of the decade.

Expanding further in this same vein, it is said that we all have someone in this world who could be our twin. I would suggest there are hundreds that look just like us, especially when you include those who have passed on long ago. True that an older person of Oriental birth won't look like someone older who is Caucasian, but within the greater world of Orientals, there will be several matches. So it is with every race. The only thing that bothers me is that someone could say the same of me - that somewhere in this country, in this world, there is another, and another, and another John. That kind of deflates my ego.

I'm not quite sure what to make of all this. I know in the grand scheme of things, it means little. I once wrote that contrary to the warning in one of Jimmy Buffett's songs, we didn't turn out to be like the people our parents warned us about. However, it seems that in many ways we did turn out just like our parents, even in looks.

Do you know your wines? A quiz -

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-08-14T14:10:06Z

The other night my wife and I joined a few friends for a wine tasting at a nearby liquor store. They hold these events about twice a year. While many attend to get a chance to taste the different wines, I suspect a few go to drink as much as they can in two hours as well as fill up on the snacks provided. Since I only drink about a glass twice a month, I was there so my wife could taste various chardonnays, which is her favorite, and to enjoy the company of good friends. Besides, in my case my taste runs to Rossi's Paisanno which is sold in half and full gallon bottles.

In wandering around a rather packed liquor store, I noticed a small cooled room which housed the higher priced wines - anywhere from $50 to $120 a bottle. Obviously there was no tasting of those wines so that room stayed empty. Also, there were so many different wines throughout the store that it would impossible to have a wine tasting of all of them. That is what had me thinking about the names of the many different wines.

I can remember when the typical wines were made by Gallo, Almaden and Rossi. Clearly times have changed the landscape of wines. Now the names include those I never heard and probably will never taste. So in my wanderings, I collected the names of some of the names with the idea of creating another one of my little quizzes.

Below you will find a list of real and fictitious names of wines in alphabetical order. Your challenge is to pick the names of actual wines. Scroll down for the answers. Let's see if you know your wines.

.

Big Ass Zin

Cakebread Cellars

Chard

Cloudy Bay

Cupcake

Cycles Gladiator

Earthquake

Etorki

Faraway

Fog Bank

Frisco

Frog's Leap

Gnarly Head

Gold Mine

Goldie's Cellars

Grgrich Hills

Hemmingway Hills

Horse Heaven Hills

Josie's Hills

Little Black Dress

Michael's

Paradise Sound

Ravens Wood

Rugged Hills

Sequoia Grove

Stork's

Toasted Head

Torrid

Upstart

Wild Horse

Wither Hills

Wrongo Dongo

Zonin

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Big Ass Zin	Wine
Cakebread Cellars	Wine
Chard
Cloudy Bay	Wine
Cupcake	Wine
Cycles Gladiator	Wine
Earthquake	Wine
Etorki	Wine
Faraway
Fog Bank	Wine
Frisco
Frog's Leap	Wine
Gnarly Head	Wine
Gold Mine
Goldie's Cellars
Grgrich Hills	Wine
Hemmingway Hills
Horse Heaven Hills	Wine
Josie's Hills
Little Black Dress	Wine
Michael's
Paradise Sound	Wine
Ravens Wood	Wine
Rugged Hills	Wine
Sequoia Grove	Wine
Stork's
Toasted Head	Wine
Torrid
Upstart
Wild Horse	Wine
Wither Hills	Wine
Wrongo Dongo	Wine
Zonin	Wine

Apologizing

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-08-09T15:14:06Z

There are many things in life that are difficult to do. Probably one of the most difficult is to apologize. Be it in a relationship, in business or in government, it seems we are loathe to utter those words, "I apologize". To do so is to admit we erred, we were wrong; that is a difficult thing for our egos to swallow. Perhaps it is because we want everyone to think the very best of us, and to admit we made a mistake would be to devalue ourselves somehow. While it is true that the person owed the apology thinks less of us without an apology, we tend to weigh that against all others who know us and who would, we fear, think less of us knowing our transgression.

In lieu of an apology, too often in business and government the mantra heard most often is, "mistakes were made". This does nothing for acknowledging the responsibility for one's own actions or words, and, in fact, suggests that just maybe someone else might be at fault. In personnel relations the phrases most often used are, "I didn't mean anything by that" which begs the question. If nothing was meant, why were the words uttered? The other cop out is, "you're just too sensitive". Regardless of the words, the bottom line is that we are just avoiding what needs to be said - specifically, "I am sorry, it was my fault - I apologize". For all the subterfuge, what most situations require are those exact 8 words.

I mention this because that is precisely what I did the other day. I offered a few people my apologies for what I considered, in hindsight, to be harsh comments regarding some actions they took. You can't require the offended to accept your apology, however, if you have any kind of moral compass you live life by, you know what you have to do, regardless of your age.

Do you have enough time?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-08-05T16:55:20Z

Jim Croce sang it. "If I could save time in a bottle". The song is, of course, "Time in a Bottle". Quite an interesting idea. Like catching lightning bugs and putting them in a bottle to light the darkness when you want. If only we could catch time and save it so we could use those minutes, hours and days like money from a savings account. Living through some boring times? No problem - just put it in your time account. Having a great time with someone special and want to prolong it? Again, no problem - just withdraw a few hours or days and extend the moment.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with that. For one, as Jim lamented, "But there never seems to be enough time, to do the things you want to do, once you find them". Even if we could tap into a time savings account, there wouldn't be enough time. One thing universal among people this world over is that we never want to good times to end. It may be that our good times are someone else's bad times, but no matter - we don't want them to end.

The other problem is that time is not bankable; we can't put it in a bottle or in some special account to be used later. Time isn't lightning bugs, and it's not something tangible that we can put under the mattress or deposit in a credit union. It isn't something you can collect like coins to be spent at some later time or hoard it so it can increase in value.

Time is more like the wind. You can't hold it in your hand or collect it to use later. It is a fleeting thing, an ephemeral thing. It is a flickering candle, a flame that melts the wax and consumes the wick. Like a used candle, when it is gone, it is gone. So, it is the prudent among us who understand the value of time and use it as it is given to us. Each tick of the clock should be savored. Each moment of life enjoyed. The Romans understood. The language may have been different but the thought is the same: carpe diem - seize the day.

You mean I've arrived?

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-31T16:05:19Z

Our genes, coupled with evolution, are wonderful things. Over the centuries they have prepared us for so much and protected us from so much. Yet even they have come up short in a few situations - like getting married. There is nothing taught in our schools or embedded genes that adequately prepare us for that. So mankind, being the ingenious creatures we are, have come up with a solution - pre-marital counseling. During that training, you are told what probably is coming and ways to make the very best of it. Parenthood is another. There are classes not only for the expectant mother but the father-to-be as well. Again, in those classes you are taught what to expect and how to cope with what will be miserable days and nights dealing with a new baby.

But mankind has failed completely in another auspicious event. No schools teach nor are there any classes on what to expect and how to deal with seniorhood. It is the one thing all of us, the good lord willing, will come to experience, yet no one is conducting classes in getting old. Sure they have classes about retirement and the financial planning you have to do for that day when work ends and leisure begins. But entering into seniorhood and living though being a senior is more than that. It is probably one of the most difficult phases you ever will experience in your life.

I guess they assume in observing seniors when we are younger is enough - kind of like on-the-job training, but it isn't. The problem is we never really accept the fact that some day we will be seniors. There is so much talk these days that today's 60s are like yesteryear's 40s. We're all younger as we get older. We believe we will never pass through that door into seniordom. The sad fact is that the door is simply being moved further down the hallway. You may go a bit longer to get to it, but you will in time.

The first steps into the land of seniors may be pleasant ones. You no longer work and, if your financial planning works out, your will lead a fairly comfortable life. You will have time to enjoy life's pleasures - enjoy the golf game, the weekly lunch with the girls, spend time with the grandkids.

As for the downside of being a senior - well, the chorus from the song, "tomorrow" from the Broadway hit "Annie" comes to mind: 'tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow - you're always a day away'. We think old age will never come. We refuse to face the inevitable. Maybe the downside starts with just a few aches and pains - nothing to really worry about. Those cuts and bruises don't heal as fast anymore. Then comes a serious illness or fall. Visiting doctors become a way of life. What use to be an aspirin now and then becomes a pill regimen that requires not only those seven-day pill cases but also a small pill case in your pocket or purse as well.

Suddenly you are the family expert on heart attacks or hip replacements, having learned from experience. Not only that, now everyone is treating you just as you did your parents and grandparents so many years ago. Slowly you are moving from seniordom to feebledom, assuming you live that long. All those things you observed in older people when you were younger are being observed in you by those younger.

And you can see in their eyes, in the tone of their voice and their words that they, just like you those many years ago, don't really believe they will be taking your place someday. The only revenge is a bitter-sweet one - knowing that their day will come, just as yours has now arrived.

Travelling in time

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-27T15:36:04Z

Much has been written of time travel, mostly in science fiction. A few scientists have written about the possibility of traveling in time, but it isn't even at the hypothesis level. Personally, I don't think time travel is possible. If it were, why haven't I seen anyone around from the future? Not once in the 70 or so years that I have been alive has anyone from the past or future showed up. Furthermore, if someone from the past appeared today, the question would be why isn't the invention of that years-ago time machine still around. There certainly wasn't any time travel or time machines reported in past newspapers.

It could be that time travelers don't find anything of interest in what has happened in the past 70 years or so. Maybe those time travelers of the future are more interested in traveling back to cavemen days or some other era. Maybe in looking over the past, those in the future find nothing today that would be worth a visit. Maybe the most interesting periods in history are behind them but still ahead of us.

For us time travel is little more than enjoyable fiction or just a mental exercise. So I opted for the latter and tried to decide where in time I would want to travel if it were possible. The first decision I would have to make is deciding whether I wanted to go back in time or jump ahead into the future. Personally, I think I'd opt for the future. First of all, there is much I know or could learn about the past from old newspapers and history books. Besides, if I were to travel back to the days of dinosaurs, I might just end up as some beast's lunch.

The future, however, is a different matter. No one knows precisely what the future holds. It would be interesting to see what advances science will have made in computers and medicine. Equally interesting would be the ability to look back from the vantage point of the future and learn what happened in world affairs and how our country fared. Also, by then global warming would be a fact or disproved as 21st century hysteria.

Most importantly though, I would be able to see my descendants and see how the family tree grew, if at all. Would there even be any evidence of the lineage that started with my parents and grandparents? In another 10 or 20 generations, would they even care that I had something to do with their existence? Would they congratulate me on a job well done or condemn me and others living today for how things were then? Even were my descendants not available, would those I did meet greet me as hero or villain? Scary thoughts.

After considering it all, I think my choice is to travel into the near future, say to 2025 or 2030. And I don't want to do it in some time machine, but rather take that slow boat which would get me there a day at a time - the slow boat called living. Now that's my kind of time travel.

Sayings you never heard

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-23T13:23:49Z

I recently read a blog wherein the author listed several quotes by Will Rogers (if you don’t know who he is, check Wikipedia) and added some of her own commentary and observations about those quotes. It was an interesting and informative blog.

However, in reading it, it reminded me that over the past several years of writing my musings and miscellaneous other writings, I collected several of my own sayings. I’m not sure when I started. At first I simply collected others’ sayings that appealed to me. Then I started to add a few things I wrote myself.

In looking back, I am amazed by how many of my own I have added to the list. That is not to say they are on equal footing with any of Roger’s quotes, nor will they ever appear in Bartleby (aka Bartlett). In spite of that or maybe because of that, I thought I’d share several of them with you. I apologize if I inadvertently included something created by someone else; mine and others are comingled in a single document.

The subject matter is as widely varied as you might expect, if you have been reading my musings. I made no attempt to collect them by subject matter; they are simply in alphabetical order. I’ll understand if you don’t get through all of them; there are many though not all I have. Also, I never penned (keyboarded) them with the intent of capturing all the wisdom of the ages, so some (lots, all?) might be boring to you. My apologies for that. Anyway, here they are:

Acceptance of self is a difficult thing - we always expect the best from those we love. - John

And the honest man, true to his nature, said I never lie; and the dishonest man, true to his nature, said I never lie. - John

Be true to yourself, be yourself, love yourself and all else will follow. - John

As far as many men are concerned, beauty can be found in a painting, in nature or a woman's swaying back end. - John

Can love unlock love? - John

Choices can only be made within the constraints of the circumstances. - John

Circumstances dictate all. - John

Communication is the life blood of a relationship; love is the heartbeat that keeps it flowing.- John

Death is the ultimate aspirin. - John

Don't live your life so that you look back and regret what might have been. - John

Either you control life or it controls you. - John

Enjoy the view, never stop looking - no matter how old you get. - John

For a while I thought doors were only closing but now I can see the hallway is long, - John

God save me from the little old ladies and the girl next door; I can handle the bastards. - John

Happiness sometimes arrives when you're so busy enjoying what you're doing, you don't even notice it's there. - John

Hell, after a bottle of wine there is no such thing as bad food. - John

Honesty doesn't necessarily mean revealing all - it does mean in being truthful in what you do reveal. - John

I am old enough to have experienced the death of just about all of the older members of my family. I have come to realize that time does a pretty good job of taking the sting out of death. What it does not do is erase memories. - John

I have found the people I enjoy the most are those who enjoy themselves as well. - John

I once had someone tell me they were willing to meet me half way but in their mind they were already half way. - John

I sometimes think of the cycle of waxing and waning of the moon as the universe's way to remind us of that bit of wisdom. "This too shall pass". - John

I’d rather be swept into a sea of love and be lost than drown in a puddle of indifference. - John

I’ve always visualized sitting on a hillside covered with tall golden grass shoulder high, on a summer afternoon, blue skies, a distant buzzing, looking down at a small town. It has a white steeple showing, a dog barking off in the distance, clean laundry on the line in a backyard and far off laughter of children. An old Ford pickup truck on the edge of town, heading west. - John

If one is not careful, cyberspace can be the slippery slope leading downward to reality. -John

In life, there are pleasantries and there are pleasures. Don’t get so wrapped in the former that you never experience the latter. - John

Interesting how we make choices and decisions, never realizing the doors we are closing and opening. - John

It is only those who are oblivious to their faults that are most immune to criticism. - John

John’s Rule for Living Life: Remember Tarzan - he never let go of one vine until he had the next one in hand. - John

Life is like the ocean - the tide comes in and then goes out; in time our footprints are washed away and the world will forget we ever stood there. But ah, while we are here, we will rush to each other and caress - like the waves that rush and caress the shore. - John

Life is not about making one big decision; it's about making thousands of small ones that shape your life. - John

Life never goes where you expect it. - John

Love allows all else- John.

Love can overcome much if the two truly want each other and are open and uninhibited with each other. You need to communicate with word and action. - John

No relationship is ever stagnant - it either grows and flourishes or withers and dies. - John

Not accepting a truth doesn’t make it less so - only in acceptance does one come to terms and at peace with it, and allow it to fit in one’s life as it naturally should. -John

One always has choices; it's just that you may not like the consequences of those choices. -John

One can always be patient when you have no other choice. - John

One of my rules is never be afraid of the nice things in life. When you do, you end up missing the pleasure they bring. - John

One should never rain on one's own parade. - John

Perhaps a miracle is no more than a timely course of events. - John

Pleasurable things should always be taken at an easy pace so each delightful and satisfying moment can be enjoyed. - John

Rarely do you know the ending of the journey when you're just beginning. - John

Rationality crumbles in the face of love. - John.

Religion? It's like the wind - something you feel but can't see; something that you can see the visual results of. Its presence can't be seen or touched. It is something that you have faith in. It exists on the basis of the

changes you can see in life around you. - John

Simply put - when the sun fails to set over the gulf, when the dunes disappear from the Carolina shores, when my mind fails to recall the beauty of you - then, and only then, will I not remember you. - John

Sometimes the most pleasant of journeys have unexpected beginnings. - John.

Sometimes water does not quell a fire nor quench a thirst. - John

Strange how we all tend to look back when there isn't much to look forward to. - John

The answer is waiting out there in the future; we'll just wait till we catch up with it. -John

The blessings are the memories - the curse is in losing those who created them. - John

The Cinderella complex? I see it around me. Why are so many Americans getting divorced this year? Because the movies are just that - movies. We become disappointed when our lives don't turn out like the movies. - John

The impact we have had on others around us is what is important in life, though that too diminishes with time. - John

The pace and intensity you set at work is up to you, but you just need to know when you're spinning your wheels and chasing an elusive dream as opposed to making progress in your career. - John

The peace that only comes at night, when the world is quiet, nature sings a low lullaby to those who listen, and our minds can escape the trials of the day, the demands for solutions. - John

The two definitive things in a man's life is his birth and death - everything else is a crap shoot. - John

There are dreamer of dreams and dashers of hopes - we each decide which of the two we are going to be. - John

There are many windows through which you can observe life. One of these with the greatest view is the window of poetry - for through it you can see not only the world as it was and is and can be, but you can also know the very souls of those who live therein. Enjoy the view, never stop looking - no matter how old you get. - John

There are times in the day when I want to steal into your mind, softly walk around in there, like a cat brushing against your legs letting you know I am there and wish to be stroked. - John

There is always time - if only you want it and make it. - John

Things that make me cry? An abused child, a child in pain, an old person who is alone and poor, countries at war, a death in the family, lost childhood, those trapped in unhealthy relationships, victims of natural disasters. - John

Three things about me that I don’t like? I’m sometimes too logical/objective. I don’t suffer fools gladly, I can be impatient; my occasional indifference. (I know that’s four but then I’m not perfect.) - John

Three things about me that I like - my honesty, my ability to objectively see life as it unfolds around me, my sense of proportion in life. (I am but one individual on a planet of 6 billion and we are but one planet in this vast universe and my knowledge pales in comparison to all that which could be known.) - John

Time builds some relationships and erodes others. - John

Unfurl your sails and ride the wind. Enjoy the fresh breeze in your face, the spray refreshing you, making you feel young and alive again. - John

We all seek that which we are most comfortable with, like wrapping yourself up in your favorite old blanket. - John

We each have a destiny that often not even we understand. - John

We may grow older but the child in us is always there if only we look. It is the child's simple belief of right and wrong, that the bad guys in black hats go to jail and the good guy in white hats get patted on the back by the townsfolk, and the cowboy and cowgirl go riding off into the sunset and live happily ever after. - John

When it comes to life, we never know with certainty what could have been. - John

When the very best game players are in the game, you never even know they are playing. - John

Why ask a question you already know the answer to? - John

You can control life or let life control you. Which one it is determines how successful you will be in life. - John

It's all about love

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-22T03:09:23Z

If there is one topic that has had the most written about, it probably is love. It is one of the strongest emotions (along with hate) that we experience. It is a universal emotion; I have never read or heard of anyone who is sane that has not felt it. It is as ingrained into our genes as is the act of breathing. I have no doubt that the newborn child feels sit towards others even though its mind is not yet fully developed.

There are more kinds of love than there are flavors of ice cream. They include the love of a parent for a child, the child for a parent, the love for a sibling, relative or friend. There is love of country and love for the great outdoors. Cars are loved as is food, especially chocolate. It seems that anything we ascribe a positive feeling about gets labeled as someone or something we love. Yet, for all those definitions, all the explanations, all those words, we still seem to be searching for a perfect description of it. For all the songs that have been written about it, still no one has captured precisely what it is. All the evidence we have about love is anecdotal.

If all the words written about love were set end to end, they undoubtedly would reach from here to some romantic, distant star. It is a topic explored, expressed and dissected by poets, psychiatrists, professors and love-struck teenagers. Like produce in grocery stores it is weighed (I love you more than you love me). Entire careers have been spent telling people how to find it, enhance it, savor it and control it. Advice about it is dispensed freely in newspaper columns and available for a price in innumerable books. If you seem to be having a hard time finding it, there are love potions that are guaranteed to bring it to you. It also seems to be a most difficult thing to keep once we find it. If you had it and lost it, there are countless getaways, which include heart shaped beds, to help you rediscover it.

While love is perfection, those who love are not. We are mere mortals with our flaws and blemishes. To make matters worse, love is a power that clouds our judgment. We don't always make the right decisions when it comes to love. We sometimes love the wrong person for us, though unfortunately, that isn't apparent until after the damage is done.

So to all the words that have been written about love, this musing now can be added. I have no answers and I have no advice. I am a man who loves his wife, family and friends. What more can I say?

From whence we came

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-18T12:41:32Z

My wife and I recently visited her birth place, Malone, NY. One may talk of Upstate New York, but Malone lives it. The town is a mere hop and skip from the Canadian border (no jump necessary since they are that close). The town's population is just about 15,000. It was formed in the very early 1800s as many of the towns in our country were.

The town shows the wear and tear of its long life and more recently the recession. The one theater in town closed its doors years ago. Stores and restaurants and a large hotel that use to be its shining stars are now gone. Smaller stores have tried to fill the empty store fronts with varying success.

During my teen years I lived in Fairmont, West Virginia. I hadn't returned in years (rectified a few years ago) but I tried to follow happenings in town. As best I could tell and then observed, the description of Malone, in terms of businesses, can be applied to Fairmont as well. Prior to that, I lived in what best as I can describe is a very small town in Northeast Pennsylvania (West Wyoming). That town was and still is too small to even have a business area.

Such is it for so many small towns in America which seem to have reached their zenith decades ago. The towns of our youth are towns of the past. The determined and committed citizens have stayed in those towns while the rest of us looked elsewhere to fulfill our dreams. In both cases, some have found happiness while others wonder if they made the right choice to stay or leave those many years ago.

However, those towns are part of us no matter whether we stayed or left. We lived in them during the formative years of our lives. Along with the experiences we had going to those stores, restaurants and movies, we were molded by our relatives and friends who lived there. We are an extension of who we were in our early lives. Those towns will always be with us for they are part of us - an important part of us.

Sadly though, these once vibrant small towns have become vague, dismal portraits of their former selves. Our children and grandchildren will not experience the pleasures of growing up in such a place. They say what goes around, comes around. I'm not sure that is true for those small towns of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Only time will tell if future generations will recognize the value of those towns, return to them and revitalize them. Unless that happens, they will remain the Phoenix that doesn't arise again from its ashes - they will continue to be the towns in our past and the towns of our dreams.

Marriage, Engagement - Commitment

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-14T20:38:40Z

There are a few events in life that rank up there as biggies. Being born certainly is one although we are in no condition to celebrate that at the time. Right next to it would be the birth of a child. In some respects it is having the power of a god, of being able to create life. To a lesser degree there are those happy events as we progress in our careers, though the downside is the loss of a job or a demotion.

Close to the top of those life-altering events, one would have to list getting married. Whenever you tie your future, your well-being and happiness, to another you could be skating on thin ice, as the divorce rates show.

There have been several times in the past few years that I have touched upon the promises and commitments that go with marriage. When you get married you take vows, often before God. What you are doing is making a public commitment – you are giving your word, putting your reputation, on the line. As I have said in the past, your word is probably the most valuable thing you possess. Shatter that and you shatter the essence of who you are.

Of course we rarely think of it like that since when first getting married we can’t conceive of the marriage not working out. Love does that to you – it clouds rational and objective thinking. Statistics have no place in the realm of love. So we blindly jump in, sometimes for the second or third time because we don’t seem to learn from our mistakes.

In a similar fashion, though to a slightly lesser degree, similar things can be said of getting engaged. Being engaged can be heady and exciting, knowing that it is the penultimate step leading to marriage. It allows the two to plan for the marriage (and a great party in many cases) and for their future lives as one. It is making a commitment to faithfulness and making the commitment in marriage when the time comes. But like marriage, getting engaged can cloud rational and objective thinking. It’s love at work again, too often causing us to get lost in the event of getting engaged.

Unlike a marriage, however, there are no legal and/or religious vows to break if an engagement is called off. Entering into an engagement, it is often forgotten that this is the final stage of commitment prior to marriage. What starts with dating and moving on to going steady is but a progression that, if successful, leads to marriage. It is the giving and wearing of a ring (size or cost does not matter) that is the outward sign, the public display of the commitment two people have made.

Certainly an engagement can be broken with no assistance of a lawyer. But except in rare cases, one of the two engaged still gets devastated when the engagement is broken off; it is unwelcomed and undesired. The reason there is so much pain is because of that implied commitment when two people agree to become engaged. Though you might argue otherwise, one does not become engaged to see if things will work out. The assumption is that most of the concerns that would upset the progress towards marriage were raised and answered while dating. Moving on to engagement carries the implication that the basic issues have been satisfactorily resolved.

People planning to get engaged need to think long and hard about taking that step. The fun and games of being single are over. Friendships may continue with mutual agreement, but the search for a partner is over. You have either found that person you want to be your spouse or you never should have gotten engaged. The giving and accepting of the engagement ring may be more private that the exchanging of rings as part of the marriage ceremony, but again, that concept of mutual commitment is there.

So I wish Heidi and Kirby, and all the others getting engaged, well. May this be but the start of a wonderful journey that will last throughout your lives. May the happiness that is yours today continue into your marriage and may you always know the joy you know today.

Niles

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-11T18:22:25Z

(Readers: I wrote this nearly three years ago. I am publishing it again because today is Niles’, our family dog’s, third birthday. As I write these words, Niles is asleep on the sofa next to my wife – secure in knowing he is safe and adored.)

In previous musings, I wrote about Samantha, affectionately known as Sam, who was my wife's cat for 19 years and mine for the last ten years. Sam is no longer with us. With her passing some three months ago, my wife and I agreed that we would not get another family pet for at least a year. A pet always is a constraint on your life in some way. You can't just pick up and go places. If your pet is a dog or cat and you plan to take them with you, you have to make sure that they are accepted wherever you go. All this was factored into our decision not to get a new pet. But life has a strange way of unfolding, and what you avow today may be tossed into the wind tomorrow.

While visiting my son, we were introduced to a litter of puppies his dog recently had. The puppies were about 8 weeks old. In the course of our 3 day visit, we found ourselves playing with the puppies, taking them out, holding them and just doing things people naturally do with puppies. Although it didn't dawn on us at that moment, we were on a slippery slope to puppy ownership. My wife was the first to notice it when I was holding the runt of the litter - a quiet, docile, observant puppy. She said that it looked like I had found a dog. I laughed.

Our visit ended, and we returned home only to be confronted with a very hectic month. We found ourselves traveling to Pennsylvania, Charleston, SC and Wilmington, NC. During our travels, our discussions often returned to that cute little puppy. We kept reminding ourselves about our declaration of no pets for a year. However, each time we had a counter-argument as to why it might be nice to have a pet - more specially, that cute little puppy I held.

Like the tango, it takes two to decide to get a new dog. If I had unknowingly made my commitment that day I held that runt of a puppy, I knew my wife had slid down that that slippery slope to join me when, one evening while we were lying in bed reading, she asked me if I thought Niles would be a good name for a dog. At that point, we both laughed recognizing that while our paths might have been different, we both reached the same conclusion - we were going to get the puppy.

And so we did. Niles, the name we decided we'd use that evening in bed, joined our family last week. He was named after the brother on the TV show "Frazier". It seemed appropriate since our Niles seems to have the same studious and wimpy nature as his namesake. I need not describe what it has been like since Niles arrived. Anyone who has had a puppy knows the experience. Once or twice we have asked ourselves if we did the right thing. Then Niles, who typically is curled up in my wife's arms or mine, looks at us with those sad, sorrowful eyes and all doubt disappears.

Welcome home, Niles.

Timeless words

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-08T15:48:00Z

The Bible is many things. Depending on your religious convictions or lack thereof, it is a book of history, it is a book of genealogy, it is a book of conjecture and speculation, it is a book of dreams, it is a book of belief, it is a book of exquisite writings and it is a book of wisdom. Whether one believes in it literally or not, one cannot escape the fact that portions of it permeate our language, in terms of sayings and words of wisdom.

My intend is not to get into a religious discussion or controversy, but I think most everyone would agree that there are some verses that in terms of beauty and/or wisdom stand out for all. Certainly, the words of the 23rd Psalm, especially the King James Version, are one of these. It has brought peace of mind to millions and millions as they faced the end of their lives and probably will be close at hand as we end ours. I doubt if there is any other writing that has the power to soothe as those words.

To that Psalm, I would add another portion of the Bible, well known although most people couldn't quote the exact scripture. So famous, in fact, that the thoughts it conveys and some of the actual words were used in a popular song. Simplistic as the theme is, it offers words of wisdom that have withstood the test of time.

And well it should, for it is about time. It talks about the cycles of life and the acceptance of them. Whether you are a Christian who believes in Jesus Christ, a Jew who awaits the coming of the messiah, a Muslim who reveres Mohammed, an agnostic or an atheist, the verses describe the orderly rhythm of our lives. And if you believe in God, then you have an insight to the nature of the universe as God wished it to be.

The writings, of course, are found in Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1-7, and it seems the older I get, the more profound the words become. They are worth revisiting now and then.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

And so it is that time is the binding that joins the pages upon which are written the days of our lives.

The music still echoes in my mind

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-05T20:08:45Z

(Readers: This was written a few years ago, but it still feels appropriate.)

A feature in the Orlando Sentinel is a list of the most popular song 70 years ago, and every 10 years thereafter. In the paper today, the most popular song 60 years ago (1948) was Ballerina by Vaughn Monroe. Ten years later (1958) it was At The Hop by Danny and the Juniors. If one is looking for evidence of a seismic shift in music, it is that change and the decade in which it occurred.

We of that 1950s generation were witness to the end of the music genre of our parents and the advent of today's music. Younger people may argue there is a vast difference in music of the late 1950s and 1960s compared to today's music. Those differences pale in comparison with the outgoing and incoming music back then. Big bands and ballads, crooners and sirens were the music from the early 1900s till that shift occurred. It was the music of our parents and grandparents and, to some degree, of those of us who grew up in the 1940s and were in our teens in the 1950s. The rock form of music, as best I can recall, started small, then exploded on the scene with Bill Haley and Rock Around The Clock. Nothing was the same after that.

It seemed that musical revolution was two-fold. Along with introducing rock and roll to the nation and the world, it also introduced the idea that popular music didn't have to fit a single mold. Musicians were free to spread their creative wings and allow other forms of music to fill the air. And so the early rock progressed, transforming itself into classic rock, heavy metal and all the genre that came thereafter. Ballads remained but the lyrics were no longer about storybook love and simple relationships. The world of music was irreversibly altered.

I wonder if rap is to these times what the introduction of rock and roll was back then. What variations on that form of music, as much poetry based as musical, if any, will evolve over time? Perhaps it's just a short-lived deviation in the history of music, which will become a footnote decades from now, or perhaps it is the Bill Haley of our times.

But even now, the golden oldies stations are moving beyond the music of the 1930s and 1940s to The Grateful Dead and that ilk. The definition of what is old and what is new has changed and will continue to do so as listeners grow older.

To this listener's ears, which are growing older and older with every passing day, the music of the 1930s and 1940s will always sound great and evoke memories of a simpler time. And some day, when the last of us is close to passing on, perhaps then that someone will sit in an old Chevy on some back road in the middle of nowhere that served as our necking grounds and sing the words of Don McLean’s American Pie one last time (slightly revised):

A long long time ago
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
with every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about the music's slide
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

4th of July

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-07-01T04:13:00Z

(READERS' NOTE: I originally wrote this for the 4th of July, 2007. I thought, with minor alterations, it is worth repeating. John)

On this 4^th of July holiday, I think it is time for everyone to take a deep breath, sit back, and thank God, thank their parents or thank good fortune for being a citizen of this great nation. We live in trying times - the general war against terrorism, the specific wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Great Recession, the natural disasters, the challenges in doing what is right and reasonable with the environment, doing what is right with our immigration problem, and the overarching liberal versus conservative philosophies.

We have endured as a nation for 235 years now. During those times we, as a nation, have faced many challenges - some foreign and some domestic. Yet, in spite of it all, we are still one nation, the world's strongest nation. For that we can thank the majorities and the minorities in past years and centuries. We can thank the true believers and the non-conformists, the visionary leaders and the unwilling followers.

What is most important to remember on this our country's birthday is that all Americans want what is best. As in any family, we may not always agree on what we think is best, but with time, patience and understanding, we have always got it right.

So, on this holiday take a moment to thank whomever or whatever you do when good fortune smiles on you. And, as part of that thank you, remember to thank your lucky stars for that cantankerous opponent, that apparent idiot who seems to have it all wrong. Were it not for all of you, we'd have never gotten this far nor will we achieve all there is yet to achieve for this great country.

When I say I'm proud to be an American what I'm really saying is that I'm proud to be one of you - be you democrat or republican, believer or non-believer. We are, after all, all citizens of the greatest county with the greatest potential in the world.

So, go enjoy the beach, pig out at that picnic, marvel at the fireworks - it's the biggest birthday celebration you'll ever experience - and the whole national family is enjoying it with you. See you there.

These dark days will end

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-06-27T14:39:00Z

If times are good for you, I have bad news. If times are bad, I have good news for you. Times are going to change. They always do. As Willie Nelson sang, "Cause nothing lasts forever but old Fords and a natural stone, Diamonds are forever and these old cars they still keep rolling on...". In these days you wonder if, in fact, that diamond you have will keep its value forever and will that car of yours keep rolling on. While I can't vouch for diamonds and old cars, I can tell you that Willie has it right - nothing lasts forever, be it good times, bad times, or life itself.

It's true that bad times can wring you out and leave you with less than you had. But there always is a light at the end of the tunnel, and you will emerge to continue on. That can be very hard for so many to believe these days. The natural calamities of floods and tornadoes have decimated towns, destroying homes, cars and businesses. With this great recession, people have lost their homes, their jobs and lost their investments. The current crisis is certainly worse than many others we have faced over the past several decades. You probably have to go back to the Great Depression to find times more dismal.

While I was born at the tail end of that era, my parents and grandparents lived through it as, no doubt, your parents or grandparents or great-grandparents did. For all of the trials and tribulations they faced, they never gave up hope. They saw it through and then lived through a war that threatened their very existence. They persevered till finally the good times came.

My family and friends are as strong and as resilient as my parents and grandparents. I believe as a community and as a nation we are as strong as those who came before us. We may feel despair, we may shed tears for our plight, we may wonder if this will ever end. It will, for as we are reminded in those old words of wisdom - this too shall pass. When it ends you may not have as much as you had, but what you will have is yourself. If you remember that all you had were a result of your efforts, then you will know it can come again. Just as our grandparents never stopped trying for their own sake, as well as that of their children and grandchildren, neither should we.

We are a resilient people, we are a resilient country. Just keep Willie's words in mind - nothing lasts forever, and that includes these dark days.

Friendly is as friendly says

johnbonn@cfl.rr.com (john) — 2011-06-23T14:51:55Z

While all parts of the country have terms of affection, it seems the south uses them extensively. What others reserve for those they know and have strong affections for, the south liberally spreads around to loved ones, casual acquaintances and even strangers.

Maybe that is why the south prides itself on being friendly. It is often said that the south is friendlier than other parts of the country. Though I suspect that might be argued by some, I wouldn’t argue with it. In addition, in my experience not only is the south very friendly but of the southern states I have been in, North Carolina seems to be the friendliest. And within that state, it seems waitresses are the ones most inclined to show a friendly disposition and use these friendly labels.

During my travels in the southeast I have heard several of what I would call terms of endearment typically used by waitresses when speaking to me and other customers, including women. It was clear that I was not special; the words are just part of the area’s vernacular. The ones I hear most often are darlin’, honey and sweetheart, and the most famous one of all, ya'all. For those less inclined to use those "intimate" terms, I have also been called “there”, as in “hi there”. I’m sure there are others. In any event, when used they bring a smile to my face and typically I will respond in kind.

I guess the use of those terms signifies that the speaker harbor no ill will towards the recipient. After all, we really are strangers and therefore have no knowledge of each other – and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we need more of that in this world - more strangers that have no reason to hate. Maybe we should make the waitresses of the south our ambassadors. Maybe a little southern drawl and a few darlin’s, honeys and sweethearts will solve most of the problems in this contentious world.