The Day the Music Died

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I took a careful look through the stash he was showing me and from what I could tell everything looked good.  Still, as I was very unexperienced in such trades I was nervous and more than a little scared.

“So, kid, how’s it lookin?” the guy asked.  He wasn’t helping my nerves much.  He was very dirty and dressed in raggy clothes- I was at least somewhat clean- and he kept wiping his nose with the back of his hand.  It seemed to me that he had a drug problem although that was mostly illegal unless approved by the State.

“I, I dunno.  Looks ok I guess but I’m not sure.  Is it all here like I asked?”

“C’mon kid, I ain’t got all day.  Sure it’s all there.  Would I risk it?  Would I risk having you rat me out to the Greys?  I got a life to keep goin’ here and I need to survive.  You got the trade stuff?” he asked, appearing now a bit nervous himself.

“Yeah I got it in the box there” I answered, indicating the beat-up carry-box I had brought in order to help avoid suspicion if I was seen.  At one time I had heard you could be seen everywhere by the many electric eyes that had been set up everywhere.  But now, even though it was very illegal to do it many had been ripped out or destroyed by the Streeters.  The ones that remained often broke down or were not monitored around the clock as they had been in the gone days.  Only in the richer areas owned by the Inners were the eyes working and active and watched all the time.  For the most part they didn’t care about things down on the roads and in the alleys where we all were.

“Lemme see it, quick!” he grunted.

I pulled the box over and slowly opened it by my feet.  He looked inside.

“It’s all there” I said.  “It’ll last you a good couple weeks if you’re careful with it and don’t share none of it.”

“Great.  So, are we done?” he asked, again with a growing amount of nervousness.  Or so it seemed to me.

“Well, Jally said you were good for the stuff and that he trusted you so I guess so but I need to know where I can get something to, y’know, something to…”

“Put this in so you can use?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Look kid, that’s real tough to do.  They used to have them computers and some bigger players but they mostly disappeared.  And besides, they need power and even if you found one that worked and found someplace to plug it in that worked they would be able to detect it and track it and find you; maybe find me too.  They don’t watch the eyes much anymore but they are REAL worried about their power stashes” he explained as he rifled through the box which I had handed to him.

“So what can I do?  Tell me because I’m kinda new to this and don’t know” I tried to explain.

“Kinda new and kinda alone kid cuz nobody messes with this much anymore- they all just gave up.  But you seem kinda okay so I’ll tell you this.  Go up to the west end near what used to be called miller’s end, near the old broken down truckyard.  Ask around for a dude name of Banky.  He might be able to help you, find one of them old smaller players that used batteries.  But then you need to find some good batteries and you also need a set of them old wirephones you plug in to listen” he offered.

“Okay I’ll do that” I came back.

“Gotta run kid.  And remember you don’t know me and this never happened.  Don’t mention my name to Banky if you find him.  Just tell him you heard of him in the alleys and leave it at that.  Later kid” he said as he locked the box under his arm and ran off down the crumbled concrete of the narrow alley.  I noticed that he couldn’t wait though as I saw him quickly grab some of the trade stuff from the box and stick it in his mouth.  He must have really been hungry I imagined.

Now I had another challenge.  I had to get this other box of trade stuff back to the safe place.  Safe place- hah, I thought to myself, as if anywhere was safe.  The box was being loud as the devices inside rattled with each running step.  I tried to be careful as most of them no longer had cases.  I didn’t want to break anything even though I didn’t even know how any of them worked.

As I got closer to the safe place I thought about when I had first heard of these things from the old man.  They used to put music on these things and called them see-dees though I never learned what that meant.  People once were free to pick what they liked and buy it and then listen to it on a thing, what the old man and trader called a player.  But the old man told me that the Bosses one day began to listen and let some stuff be sold and some not be.  If they didn’t like what the music said or how it sounded they destroy it, everything, and the guys who made the music or the see-dee would be arrested on the spot so they all had to start being real careful.  And then the Bosses started to let some other groups help make the decisions in case something the music said was somehow offensive to them or someone they knew.  Or maybe they just didn’t like it for some reason.  Some of the see-dees were put out anyhow with the help of some of the underground people but even that stopped when the Bosses started arresting the people who they even thought might be involved and those people weren’t seen ever again so far as anyone who knew them ever knew- and no one who knew them ever had the guts to ask where they were.  So the players and then the see-dees disappeared and before long the music was gone as well.  There wasn’t no music anywhere that I had ever found.

I knew the moment the old man told me about all this that I just had to find out more for myself.  I had never heard about see-dees.  And I had never really known what music even was.  All I knew was what the old man had told me not long before he was taken away himself.

Justapositioned

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The town of Wimington grew up in the shadow of Glastercher.  The two co-existed for very many years until the one absorbed the other and the other was no more.

This is the way it had always been.

As Glastercher grew and grew it grew beyond its ability to sustain itself and, finally, the time came when it could sustain itself no more.  Poverty was followed by starvation which led to anarchy and civil war in which only one particular set of people was allowed there to stand.  United in their devotion to themselves they decided to split the city in two.  The larger would be called Glastercher, as was the usual case, and the smaller called Winington.

Such is as it was and had always been.

Soon, however, and not beyond the plan as defined in repetition, the smaller Winington grew again in the shadow of the larger and more prosperous – by law of course – metropolis of Glastercher.  This cycle though involved the revival of the war allowance as the elders of the smaller Winington were allowed to state a position of antagonism against the larger Glastercher.  Both declared a state of alarm and gathered the citizens to form the necessary armies.  The armies were in due course armed and a state of battle preparations was then declared.  All of course via proper administrative order as established long ago.

A line of contact was determined and the armies called to form and lay down their arms and then attack.  This was done but in the ensuing confusion the citizen-soldiers of either side showed rather poor judgment and turned upon themselves and were, in quite short order, defeated. 

Peace treaties were signed, monuments erected, and medals awarded.  The dead were properly buried with the right amount of ceremony and the living went on to do what they did best. 

It took many years as it had every time before until both cities had recovered enough to grow once more.  Again Glastercher outpaced Winington, swallowed it whole before swallowing itself and splitting again in two with Wipington subsequently formed as the new old city.

And so it went and went until one year in the middle of the mutual destruction cycle there arose a hero of sorts who decided that the town of Witington should not turn and kill itself but would, instead, stand and advance to kill Glastercher.  It took some doing for this hero of a man to convince his fellow Witingtonites but convince them he eventually did do.  Such was the nature of the man and the sign of the new times.

Glastercher was quickly and easily routed, fighting itself at the same time that Witington was also fighting it and it was anyway too confused to really know the difference.  After all there were no uniforms by which the contrast between friendly foe and foely friend might be known.  Order did not lead to chaos so all was done quite neatly and with military precision.

After the initial shock of the situation had faded the two sides were reunited again as a single city but this time with the name Wivington.  Glastercher was no more.  The hero of men was knighted and made monarch of all and for the very first time in the old tale of the two cities there was peace but no longer a purpose beyond what was seen.

It was declared that this was to be the new way of what would from then on always be.  All properly declared of course by order of the king.

32 Years

Personal No Comments

 

It’s always been a favorite game of mine to pick out a favorite number and use it to lead to a discussion of something completely useless.

This time it’s thirty-two.  Not thirty-one or thirty-three.  Those are far weaker numbers which are devoid of any major substance.  Thirty-two is strong and substantial and it sure feels that it is the type of number a guy can be proud to know; a number that leads a man to something worthwhile in his life.

Thirty-two.  Could have been 1982 or could be 2046.  The difference between those two years is sixty-four years.  And usually that is the same as two thirty-twos but in this case I just don’t know if that holds.

I don’t recall what happened in 2046 just yet but I do still have some recollection of the year that at one time was known as 1982.  It was the year just after 1981 and just before 1983.  It was not just then 1984 and we did not know that all of what Orwell predicted would not quite be realized in full just then.  Maybe later.

Were you around in 1982?  What do you remember?  Do you miss it and do you ever go to visit?

I do, but only on very special occasions.

Will you be there to greet 2046?  What will you expect?  Will you miss it once it arrives and will you then recall 2014?

I’m afraid I’ll likely miss it but not after it arrives.

There are still many things I would like to do and there is so much I would like to change and hopefully improve.  But unless I have at least thirty-two years at my future disposal I fear I will not accomplish it all.

But I will try.

And if I only have a day I will do all that a day allows me to do.  I must be busy and work smart and work hard.  I cannot count on having too much sleep or taking too many vacations or watching too much TV.  Every moment and every moment after are so important.  For all of us actually.

I do pray that I can survive long enough to get a good chunk done.  Too much have I waited too long to get myself and my actions dedicated to getting done.

Here is a start, here in 2014.  I wish I had been able and willing to start back in 1982 and if I am still around and able to do anything in 2046 well…

I will then consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth and the number thirty-two the luckiest number yet to come my way.

And there you have it all.

 

Surely I wasn’t sure that it was me

Reflections & Memories No Comments

 

I’m just not sure any longer.  Or maybe I really am.

My confidence used to be higher when I was older.  Now that I am younger, though actually feeling older, I find that it is on the wane.  Surely this is not the way it was supposed to be was it?

There were times when I was older that I always knew just what to do.  It was all clear and hard as a bell tolling on a cold and cloudless winter morn.  Now I merely mill about in search of ways to spend my time before it has completely abandoned me and wasted all of that oldness that was supposed to help me as I got younger.  It ain’t working Jack.

How do you know what is right when you are no longer completely sure of what it is that is wrong?  Everywhere I look more and more people just do- they don’t look much like they care about making sure it is good or right.  What is good or right is no longer of much concern as it has been replaced by what is me and mine.  The kinder we are told to be the more selfish we tend to be.  Good and right?  I couldn’t even tell you absolutely any longer.

Who is more selfish, the young child or the elderly citizen?  That has often been the great debate but maybe it focuses in the wrong places.

When I ask who is more selfish is it not me who is?  Isn’t merely asking the question an indication of an extreme selfishness?  When did I get that way?  And if I was more selfish when I was older and will get more selfish as I get younger doesn’t that mean I have always been selfish and that how much is only a matter of degree?

So there I am and the problem is really me.  It has taken most of my old age to finally figure that out.  It’s not that I wasn’t sure it is really that I just didn’t know and very likely that I didn’t know because I just didn’t want to know.  But now I know.  Surely I must.

I guess I came here today to find something that would again make me sure of the things I had been sure of before I turned so selfish.  What I found was that I have always been selfish, from my old age right on through to my youth and also everywhere in between.

I thought that when I worked to help some of my mates in college that I was being helpful.  Then when I started my first career and worked such long and hard hours I felt as if I was sacrificing for the company I was with at the time or the team that I was on at the same time.  Perhaps when I supplied financial support for my ailing father that was surely a sign of an unselfish person.  And later when I got married and agreed to share my life with another that was certainly a strong indication that I was giving person, willing to give and also willing to give up.  Then when kids came along, well, what parent does not provide total support and sacrifice for their children no matter the cost to himself?

Somewhere along that line I must have gotten it right at least once.  Just once.

But no.  The experts tell me this: the college thing was just to get people to like me; the work thing was just so I could get ahead; the father thing was simply a way to hide my guilt at being so many states away from personal responsibilities as he faded; marriage was only so that I could appear more like a normal person and not some weird bachelor; and having kids and trying to do what is right in taking care of them is just to gain their loyalty for later on when it is I who will need them.

Selfish.  Selfish. Selfish.

So as I grow younger and stay selfish and as my kids grow older and try, unlike me I guess, to not be selfish I am hoping that I will see them in passing and be able to say simply that I am sorry for being so selfish.

And unless my wife grows young with me I had better say it to her now if she is not already out of earshot.

I was always sure that it wasn’t me.  Now I am sure that it always has been.

Tridbitvial

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“I do not take my Chesterton slowly” I mused, rather a bit unerringly.  “And that is because you care not for him?” was the lineal response. “No, rather the opposite in all actualness.” “Then why tell and pray kindly sir?”  “Because I revel in his prose and if I were to linger long I would be hard pressed in time to recall and relate all of that which is so rich and plush in its full tapestry.  I would rather a revisit at a later time in which to rekindle all that lost during the initial journey.”

Legalizing marijuana will not cause problems.  Did whiskey drinkers start with beer?  Doubtful.  They likely went straight to the harder end to save time.  And there is a world of difference as reflected in the old tale of the three sots lying drunk and without consciousness in the gutter.  While it was not easy to see which spirit had visited each poor soul by looking at the man directly there lying it was, indeed, easy to discern the same by noting which of three bottles- ale, wine, and whiskey- that rested nearby each hard and sotten-stilled hand.  If the numbing smoke be made legally available it will not cause those who did not to now do; it will not cause those who did to do more; it will not cause those who dealt illegally to shift their trade and alter their marketing strategies; it will not cause a search for a yet higher plain and a press for legalization at those levels as well; and it will most certainly not send an approving message or a new and alluring opportunity for our already unsure youth.  All will be fine.  After a few bongs we can all believe that.

How do you get a controversial bill to pass a house of Congress and then become law?  First, obtain a majority position, however slight.  Next, wrap the controversy inside of a surely acceptable premise and call it something nice like the “Fair American Wage Act”.  If questioned with any scrutiny, you deny.  If pressed more than lightly, you fall back to a position secured by the very kindly name of the bill itself and turn the question, now linked with an accusation as well, back on the questioner.  You rely on the usual ambivalence and ignorance of the public and force it through with a promise to look deeper at it later.  After it has passed you then feed it to the machine and hit the power button to set the assembly in motion.  In short, you contrive, then disguise, then lie, then deny, then roil and boil and shake and bake.  And don’t forget to lie and deny at every possible opportunity- no one is likely to hold it against you in your next election.  It’s the new American way.

I love an umpire who has to ask the catcher what the last pitch was- ball or strike- and then threatens to toss the batter out of the game is he expresses a different viewpoint.  Seems fair to me- at least while we’re in the field.

Did you hear the one about the career politician in Washington being sought for questioning in a recent criminal investigation?  The FBI was allowed only to find him (or her) by contrast and comparison to the general legislature and came away with no possible suspects.

Why do people just take it?

How many times must a principle be compromised before you just can’t tell anymore?

Why do people change when in church?

When did white American men become so vilified?  I guess it’s not like blacks in Africa, whites in Europe, and white women in America had anything at all to do with slavery.  Understand your history before you point an accusing finger okay?

Why can’t we all just get along?  Is it just possible that there are those among us who profit from our never being able to do so?

Big corporations are bad but big government is just fine by you.  Okay then, that makes a ton of sense.

I know, I know- let’s all just follow Europe’s lead!

I think that everyone who is for allowing illegal immigration to stand with an easier path to citizenship than those who try it legally should be made to live in Mexico for one year.  Then they can re-enter the country only by one of two ways- coming across illegally or applying for citizenship legally.  I wonder which they will choose?  Oh, the easier one I guess.  That’s human nature and it never stops being human nature.  So why would illegal immigration ever stop?

Winter up here sucks.

Our kids are in trouble if you ask me.  And this time it is vastly different from the many times that statement has been uttered in the past.

Teachers Unions are all about the kids and Employee Unions are all about the workers.  Okay, I got it.  Huh?

Culture is so much a thing of the past.  Class is a word in the dictionary.  Manners have given way to the simple chant of me-me-me.  So be it then.  That’s easier too.

Why do our soldiers fight and die for us?  I think we all once knew but who does anymore?  Is ground gained, or a major battle or war won without later relinquishment?  I truly despise the people who salute our soldiers just because it makes them look good to do so.  You people are despicable.  You protest when the other party is in office and celebrate bravery when your own heads are resident.  There isn’t really much very much lower than that.

In the human race cunning and deceit are swift and able runners and would win every time were the contest not made long enough for integrity and justice to catch up and cross the finish line first.  Often just barely.  Maybe that’s why the framers of our Constitution tried to make things not too easy to change.  Today, that is largely ignored of course.  Everything is a sprint when it’s my everything that is at issue.

Likely I will die before I see the ultimate demise or possible recovery of this once-greater country.  But I still hold faith in at least some of the people.  If they would only hear and rise up…

How does this story end?

jibberatti

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I have a friend named Sammy.  Mickey really.  Well, I had a friend named Sammy-Mickey.  Sometimes I think that we all have had or might have had. 

“I chose the name Samujule when I was born” he once told me.  “But when my parents saw me they changed it to Michael and then Mickey no matter how hard I protested.  But that was because it was January.  If it had been October it should have been Bartholomew.”

“But you were born in June” I responded after a brief pause.

“Exactly” was what he said before he said no more. 

Now he always told me to call him Sammy so I did.  But when his parents were nearby, back when we were kids together a long time ago, I was told by them to call him Mickey.  Only once did he insist that I call him Bart and that was right before he went away to the special school in upper Michigan.  I forgot the name of the school but it was for his own benefit according to his parents.  It was early October.

I didn’t see Sammy-Mickey-Bart again much over the following years.  Not until he had returned from being away for almost seven years.  He didn’t seem to me all that different but his parents kept saying, before they died later on at least, how much better he was.

Sammy was always scared of things; many things.  Nine-legged spiders; green cars; low-flying planes; girls with braces who looked at him; morning light but just the rays that somehow managed to reflect and come back at him and him only from the west (just isn’t natural he would often say); successful failures; dogs with short tails; hammer heads; orange smoke; footprints in the snow; clocks that ran fast; unplugged television sets; and many, many more.  His list was long and his fears real.

I never really understood why so many people thought Sammy so strange.  Well, maybe I did sometimes.  I knew him for what seemed forever and while I would not say he was my best friend he was still a good friend.  He would often listen to me for hours and then only sometimes ask the most innocent of questions.  He never expected much from me other than to not yell at him or hurt him in any way.  As if I ever would or ever could.

“I’ll need you there at the end of all this” he told me on more than one occasion but I didn’t ask. 

Sammy was also always afraid of running out of things.  He was very scared that he would run out of excuses or options but he also feared running out of money, ink for his pen, lead for his mechanical pencil, toilet paper of course, pills for his head pain, space for his eraser collection, water for his favorite plant, and far too many other things to list.   His list was very long and his fears were very real.  To him.

His parents died when he was still relatively young but they left the small, neat house and a sizable trust fund to Mickey-Sammy and appointed me trustee.  I did the best I could to make his life comfortable and I visited as often as I could but I one day moved away and later got married and had a family.  I would go see Sammy once or twice a year and I think he was very disappointed but, unlike so many others in my life, he never let it show and never said a word about it. 

I don’t know if he ever realized how different he was.  To me not strange really but different.  He seemed to know what he knew and did not know what he did not know and, for him, that was always enough.  It served him well and lasted a lifetime.  He rarely smiled or laughed but he never cried and never yelled.  He just was.

I got the call one day from his doctor who told me Sammy was in a bad way and, this time, likely not to recover.  Even at that point none of the doctors he had ever seen- and there were many- were ever able to diagnose Sammy’s condition.  They tried drugs and they tried analysis and even twice tried surgery when he was younger and still in the care of his parents but nothing ever changed and Sammy just kept being Sammy.

Sammy hated human contact but now that I was at his bedside he seemed to know he was in trouble and he asked to hold my hand.  He squeezed it hard and then just kept a grip on it as he managed a deep and toiled breath.

“For too long I wondered about my trip to the ocean when I was very young.  Do you remember that?”

“I do.  You went with your parents to visit your grandparents somewhere in California I think.”

“Yes, it was there.  I remember being in the water but feeling scared.  Probably one of the first times I can remember being so afraid.  Later on when I was older I often wondered if any of the water that had washed over me had ever washed over any one else and if it had ever touched someone who was normal and went on to live a normal life” he said slowly, softly.

I looked at him but no words came.  I guess he understood what I could not put into words though.

“All of my life I have wondered about that.  And all of my life I have known that I would never know.  Never know” he said, closing his eyes as he turned away briefly.

Slowly and finally he turned back, looked again at me, and swallowed hard.

“You know, ” he said as his fading eyes seemed to just slightly moisten, “I really died my first time a long time ago when I first decided not to really live.  There at the sea.  This time around though I think it might the final time, the last time.  And I now know for certain that I will never know.  I think I’ve run out…of time.”

And with the slightest and to me the saddest of sighs he expired.  And it was almost at once as if he had, indeed, never even existed.

His only communicated wish in life for his death was to be cremated but he could never really bring himself to ever say it or write it quite that way.  He never said directly what was to be done with the ashes but, there, at his bedside, I realized that I finally knew.

 

Mr. Bojangles

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At 3:00AM in the morning it became clear and apparent that I would not be able to sleep.  After just a couple of hours of rest I awoke and could not return to sleep no matter how hard I tried or how much I wanted to.  It just wasn’t meant to be for me.

I think it was the dream I had that kept me from returning.  Sometimes I guess that the stimulation of the brain while it is supposed to be resting is enough to create a chaos that cannot easily be overcome.  Such it was with me.

It was not a scary dream, it was not a dream filled with heart-pounding adventure or any particularly exciting moments, it was not a dream to cause me to instantly awaken but rather more gradually brought me to this point now.

I dreamed that I was a dancer and that everywhere I went I went dancing.  I never walked and I never ran; I just danced along my merry way.  And where I went the desire to dance went with me and swiftly infected all around me.

For there at the bus stop the two persons waiting with me began to dance as did all the folks on the bus after we had boarded.  The bus driver, though somewhat concerned about all these people dancing on his bus had to pull over and stop the bus so that he too could rise and dance.  He danced right off the bus and then on down the street.  We all then followed his lead and got off the bus and danced away down the street in our own particular directions.

At the coffee shop and in the lobby of the building where I worked the infection spread to everyone regardless of gender, age, color, or even physical condition.  Small people danced as did their larger counterparts; men, women and children all started their feet to movement; old people found partners and danced as if they were young again; young people joined their older partners and danced as if they had all of the experience of age to assist them; bald men danced as did hairy teens and tiny ladies; janitors spun round and offered to kick it out with the security officials at the front desk; all, everywhere and even on the elevator the folks began to move and sway and shuffle and do whatever they knew or felt to be their own signature rhythmatic gestations.  Move they did and move did I, growing more proficient with each passing moment.

And so it went as it spread further to my workmates and later all of my friends and family.  All danced and all looked to me to lead.  The evening news and morning weather were presented in rhythmic forms.  The inmates in the holding tanks and maximum security prisons stood and boogied.  It fanned out until it had moved from across state lines and then even into the hallowed halls of Congress and deeper still into the White House itself.

No one sat and no one cared much about how they looked or might be perceived by others; they just moved and learned as they went along.  Parents taught their children just by doing; spouse reconnected after years of marital misuse; young lovers found some of the long-retired expressions of passion; old lovers rekindled fading flames; teachers joined with their students and preachers with their flocks; black and white and rich and poor and young and old and big and small and men and women and everyone of any color and any religion and any physical condition all moved in beautiful motion to no sounds whatsoever.

It was just the music of their hearts and souls that propelled them.

So before I awoke I danced and danced and was ultimately elected President in a special election.  The sitting President gladly danced aside to allow me into his former position.

The entire country just danced.  I cannot recall how or when any of us ate or slept or performed any other human functions- we simply just danced.

We felt no reason to not bring our dancing to the rest of the world so a special session of the U.N. was called and it was there that I faced the cold, hard reality that the rest of the world had no interest in dancing.  Not then, not ever.

And then I awoke in a cold, hard sweat, lying in my bed with my heart beating quickly and my feet completely still.

Conditioning

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In Charles Krauthammer’s recent book, “Things That Matter”, he makes a statement in his essay on Democratic Realism that hit a point with me: “It’s not one man; it is a condition” (p. 349).

You would need to read the essay itself to gain full contextual understanding but, in the shell of a nut, it is his view of the major threat we face today with what most honest folk call radical Islam.

I would extend this however to say that perhaps it has always been thus.  One man may cause or advance a condition but it is a condition nonetheless.  How else to be able to turn your head to an Auschwitz or the Great Purge?  It may have been borne of fear and not simple acquiescence but, like a virus that brings on the flu, it leads to a condition in eventuality.  And conditions can be changed albeit not just by the simple removal of the one man.

A virus needs a host cell to work its dastardly doings on that very same host.  Does this sound familiar to those among you with even the slightest knowledge of history?  No host, no problem.  Except, that is, for the virus.

And, yes, most often the host is unaware of what is happening but it still tries to fight it off to a degree.  At least initially and even later if it is not fully overcome.  It can happen, it does happen as most of the time we do have a good chance of getting well.

Still, the virus can spread and often does spread to many others.  It has to in order to survive.

The best defense then seems to be to make sure the host is healthy at the base levels.  And also for the host to do its level best to avoid situations and conditions conducive to the potential invader.  Eat your veggies, drink your milk, get sleep, exercise, wash your hands thoroughly and often, be careful of what you touch and who you hang out with in close quarters.  Most of us know this at a young age.

But sometimes it is easy to forget or maybe we just get lazy. Vigilance is important here.  Be ever vigilant and practice good hygiene.

Okay, enough of the medical analogy.  You’re all mostly smart so you probably get it.

What I wanted to get to here was the condition part.

What is our condition?  What is any one person’s or one country’s condition?  I believe condition is what matters most for without it I don’t think that one man could do much damage.

That is unless he is trying to change that condition and make it more conducive to the infection.

Who could possibly want to do something like that?  Do you know anyone like that?

I suppose that history is full of such examples and I suppose that some were successful and some were not.

It was the condition that mattered most.

It Could Happen Here

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Bet you’re thinking that you know what’s coming here because, by now, you think you know me don’t you?

You don’t.  You only know part of me and that is only revealed in what I have chosen to share through these blurbs that are read by no one.

So I am not going to say what you think about gloom and doom and our country’s conversion to progressivism or socialism or communism.  I am not going to comment about my concerns over our move to despotism or even totalitarianism.  I will not pine away about the old times and how we are becoming a fat and lazy nation that will not be able to hold a medal position for education, economic achievement, military power, or even personal freedom.   And I won’t even comment regarding the sad and most disappointing slide of our national culture.  No, that is not me, not here, and not now at least.

What I would like to suggest is that what could happen here is a conviction to change things.  Our conviction to change things.  What could happen here is that we dedicate ourselves, our lives, and our families to an effort to alter the course of our once-greater nation.  It has been done before, many times, in our rather short but very great history (sorry apologists but you are all dead wrong on that topic) and since I still have great faith that the great American spirit still beats strong if presently subdued in most of us I will not lose faith that it might, it can, be done again.

What does it take to revive that spirit within you?  No one really knows but you. 

Why does it sleep?  Because we let it sleep.  We let it with the quiet afforded by our accepting things that are and things that are not yet but may soon be.  And though we don’t like or agree with many or most of these things we do nothing about it.  Nothing.  Why not?

Make some noise in your heart, shake your soul, revive and awaken your spirit.  It can be done; it needs to be done if we are to change the course of things to come. 

Maybe you think you are too old for it to matter; or maybe you feel that alone your effort will amount to little; or maybe you don’t care about your future.  Maybe you have kids and don’t care about their future.  Can you tell them that?  Or maybe you have kids and do care and you should tell them that.  Or maybe you don’t have kids but care about my kids, or the future of all our kids, or just the future of our country, YOUR country, in general.

Have you done all that you have in life so far just to lead to the future you now see?  Do you really see it?  Do you?  Are you really okay with it or do you just close your eyes and hope it goes away?

I am no one to make a call but I would like to make a call to action- any action, as small or insignificant as it might seem to you.  Just do something good, something right.  But start by waking up and looking around.  Wake up and educate yourself on what is happening.  Make large changes to what you know and small changes to what you do and how you act, get involved in some way to start a move in the right direction. 

And, if you can, try to take a friend or two along. 

I woke up.  I got smart and opened my eyes.  I know that you can do the same and more.  You are an American and this is your country and it is a great and wonderful country, still, easily, the very best in history no matter what some would have you believe. 

Tomorrow, when you arise, ask yourself “what little thing can I do today?”  You might be surprised, after a little while, how far down the right road you have traveled.

Your country needs you.  Are you able to respond?

It could happen here.  It must happen here.

A Push and a Shove

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I wonder when that expression was first employed.  Rhetorical question unless I change my mind.  I’ll get back to you on that.

You see it on the playground all the time.  Of course this is only in places where kids are still allowed to use that intrinsically dangerous area of unhealthy childhood social interactivities.  It breeds inequality, yes I know the tune.

During a game of tag a kid tugs another for some reason.  And then he does it again.  The tugged kid responds by yanking on the tugging kid.  Hard.  Advantage to the reactor.  Big advantage.

In another game a big bully of a kid shoves a smaller kid.  Hard.  The smaller kid reacts sometime later when, in a crowd where he thinks he is safe, he nudges the bigger kid.  Maybe it is an attempt at a shove but it still results in what appears to be little more than a nudge.  Not accomplishing what he intended the smaller kid nudges again but this time the bully of a kid notices and responds with another shove that puts the smaller kid on the ground.  Others look on but the smaller kid’s friends are too scared to act and the bully’s mates simply realize this is playground business as usual and they really don’t have any sympathy for the smaller kid anyway.  Advantage to the bully.  Huge advantage.

And so it goes.

The tug and nudge are often nothing more than friendly messages meant to convey something of some importance.  They are often met with the yank and the shove which are likewise meant as messages although not ones meant kindly in nature.  Either may precede the other but the tug and nudge are never very effective responses to the yank and the shove.  But that is all that some kids are willing, or able, or even brave enough to do.  They may be the proper moral victors but the others, the yankers and shovers rule the playground.  It has always been thus, yes?

Which are you in your life?  Do you do either, neither, or both?  Which is more effective and why?

Seems to me that over the last, oh, century or so, the progressives, the socialists, the radical liberals, and, dare I even utter, the communists have been the yankers and shovers.  Those on the other side, the conservatives, the constitutionalists, the originalists, the, in my opinion, true patriots merely respond and even do so during the times that they are in power, the times when many more on the playground are on their side, with just a nudge or tug or even two.   And even those hesitatingly applied.

It is well known that it takes many tugs to equal a yank and an equal number of nudges to counter a shove.  Did you know that?

I have a fear that we have already been yanked and shoved so far off of our positions that tugs and nudges are no longer sufficient or even proper responses.  It’s time to reclaim our playground and use it in the ways originally intended.  Stronger yanks and more powerful pushes are now necessary.  We must stand our ground with honor and with power.  We must stand our ground with conviction and with purpose.  We must stand our ground united.

And then, after we have stood our ground, we need to reclaim the ground we have been losing for far too long a time.