Just a little more than usual
I recently introduced myself to the new combination belt/spindle sander I had bought a while back. It’s a very useful tool, and I intend to utilize it as often as called for, especially now that I know how it works.
As far as lessons learned, one can never arrive at a place where they feel as though there’s nothing more to learn, especially when it comes to human relationships.
I honestly have no burning desire to visit any urban area, but if I had to choose, it would probably be places like Tokyo, Sydney, London, Paris just because, and Reykjavik.
It’s good to live in a place where people are trying to sustain a certain vibrancy and connectedness. Last night, we walked around the center of town, which was a few blocks filled with street vendors and warming stations and Christmas music. It was a way for folks to feel welcomed and involved, something to enjoy, take part in.
With a light snow falling, the atmosphere felt like something out of a Currier and Ives Christmas card, or maybe a Hallmark movie. It gave a whole new feel to a part of town that normally is busy with traffic passing through and people tending to business.
The traffic was still passing through, more slowly, but the surprisingly good crowd of people didn’t exactly seem to be in a hurry, or pre-occupied with taking care of errands or avoiding the snowflakes. For the lack of better words, it was something different and nice. And the wintry conditions didn’t seem to be bothering anyone.
That I’m engaged and up to speed on things.
Of the three choices named in the prompt, the one I remember best is my first day of first grade. My first day of work was when I was maybe 16, working on a farm, but I don’t remember much else about what I did that first day. My first day as a parent was, of course, a day like no other, and the significance of that moment when our first child was born wouldn’t really settle in until sometime later.
My first day of school, on the other hand, sticks in my head as a sunny morning in early September, 1960. I remember waiting for the bus at the bottom of our dirt driveway, on the opposite side of the street, near a power pole and a banking, beyond which spread nothing but woods, since it was still years before the housing development would appear. My Mom was with me, though I can’t remember if any of my brothers or sisters were there, too. Dad was already off to work. I was the oldest, so this was the beginning of a next chapter that I got to kick off.
I remember the old Dodge bus rounding the bend and slowing down. The door opened and I got my first glimpse of Mr. Lemanski, a weathered, older gentleman with a gruff exterior but a good heart, who smoked cigars (this was 1960…) and gave me the impression he was always a bit put out by something.
I don’t remember my first day in the classroom, just bits and pieces along the way. But I’ll never forget that first day waiting for the bus. That has stayed with me, for some reason.
It’s the visual, and the shit-eating grins. Trump sits, fully awake and beaming ear to ear while he holds up the latest Executive Order proclaiming the destruction of endangered habitat or the removal of all safeguards at a plant that makes razor blades, while a gaggle of Cabinet members and Congresspeople gaze adoringly and try to refrain from backslapping and lighting victory cigars.
It’s the incongruity, the dissonance, because we know it won’t be long until the next gathering of minions, standing around the Commander-in-Beef as he holds up an order declaring 24 hours of celebration and flag-waving revelry in honor of the most recent derailment and explosion of tank cars full of mustard gas in a small town in upstate New York.
I was Bob Cratchit in a middle school performance of A Christmas Carol, but never got to deliver all of my lines because a couple pages of dialogue somehow got skipped. It was a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.
I was a pastor for 26 years, so most Sundays, Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Eve, Lenten mid-weeks, Holy Week, and at weddings and funerals I stood before groups of people and offered words that hopefully fit the occasion. They weren’t speeches, in the typical sense, but to a skeptic or a neutral observer they may have seemed that way.
I can’t shake the thought that this military build-up near Venezuela is just the latest attempt at distraction from everything going on at home for President Dunce Cap. Imagine putting our military personnel in harm’s way just so we can secure more fossil fuel and keep the media off the scent of decay. Certain pundits and anchors are playing up this potential confrontation as a cakewalk, but we should know better.
There’s plenty from which to distract: a delayed release of footage from the second boat strike on 9/2, the ongoing smokescreen surrounding the release of the Epstein files, dissatisfaction with food prices and costs in general, and the never-ending reminders of just how ill-suited and incompetent the entire administration is, beginning with Donald Trump– the fragile man child dressed in a suit.
Another building with his name on it, receiving a ridiculous, contrived FIFA Peace Prize, hosting the Kennedy Center Honors and spearheading that institution’s plunge into irrelevance—it all serves to keep him happy, I guess.
But to the rest of the world, it’s just the latest confirmation of how pathetic he is, and that the bottom has yet to be glimpsed, in reference to how far we’re falling.
I try to get to the Y on a regular basis, where I warm up with a brisk half mile on the elliptical, then move on to several weight machines. I’m not against walking, but it’s nice to have a destination or at least different routes. And even though we use a cart, golf is quality outdoor time, with friends, and a fair amount of walking is still involved.
Come Spring, I might be working with my son, helping him in his landscaping business. I also enjoy mowing our yard and doing other yard work.
They volunteer, give of their time, find ways to stay connected, keep their heads about them. They aren’t in a hurry, they practice their religious faith in ways that make sense to me, that seem genuine and well-informed. I find a certain humility admirable.
I gravitate toward people who are low-key in their approach to conversation and general behavior, who are capable of engaging in give and take– capable of listening as well as speaking. I tend to tune out when people are loud and in your face and argumentative, none of which sparks admiration or joy.
3 Cents' 