A Valentine Too Late

One has to have a sense of humor about love and marriage, but my problem has always been that I do the romantic charming things during the pursuit of love but discard them during the marriage. Wives don't think that's funny. Let's take Valentine's Day for instance. I never liked it. I didn't like it when I was alone on certain years because that sucks, and then I didn't like them during marriage because...well I thought it was pointless. I mean ...you're married. How romantic is that? One year my wife made a big deal about my thoughtlessness on Valentine's Day, so I decided to compose an original poem that would sweep her off her feet. It was written, I believe, two or three years prior to our eventual divorce. I'll leave it to you to decide if it postponed or hastened our eventual parting. Enjoy.

Rose are Red, Daisies are yellow

By now you think I'm a miserable fellow

Mayonnaise is white, cheese can be cheddar

For a husband, you're thinking

"I could have done better."

How many times have I said I'm forgetful?

And for that I must say, I am very regretful.

"For better or worse" our wedding vows said.

For it to be worser you'd have to be dead.

So I'm giving this poem to make up for my dumbness,

to apologize for my sensitivity numbness.

I'm sending my love in this Mardi Gras season

to show you I care...I'm really not teasin'

Happy Valentine's Day from your husband Rick

Stop telling our friends that I'm just a...rascal.

Although I don't say it or do it enough,

I love you Nanette...if that scares you...that's tough.

Surviving The Cosmic Screw

I dislike the practice of assigning human characteristics and sensibilities to the entity we call God. I believe organized religion in all it's myriad of forms has successfully corrupted the message and motives of the divine consciousness that conceived and created the universe and all it contains.

For my money, It (the Divine It) is unknowable to the degree that we desire to know It. I am particularly uncomfortable with the ideas of Heaven and Hell , both petty human notions that insinuate that God is a sadist and taskmaster that demands obedience from his sheep to avoid eternal suffering. That alone suggests that God has contempt for Its own creation. The concept of Free Will gets thrown in just to give religious interpreters an "out" to portray God as tolerant and fair while still being "Holy." It is a perversion of God through generations of sacred scripture rewrites, exclusions,reinterpretations and in some cases outright embellishment and pandering on the part of leaders and their clerics who see an opportunity to control and manipulate the masses. How else do you explain the European blue-eyed image of Jesus that adorns the halls of religious institutions today or the notion that Jesus and, by association, God Itself is a conservative Republican that endorses War and favors one political view over another. How can anyone take that seriously?

And yet they do.

To the degree that we are able, I believe that we owe it to ourselves to test the tenets of religion against our own experience. Nature is our teacher and this life we live, ultimately our testing ground. It provides a level playing field that does not favor one soul over another by magic or supernatural intervention. I do believe Prayer provides us with a link to our higher nature but I have come to believe that God does not intervene or step in to alter natural outcomes. I do agree with traditional thought as it pertains to the pursuit of spiritual purity because I do think that our ultimate destiny is to be reunited with God, who is by all accounts the standard for purity and enlightenment. But here is where I part with the teachings of my youth, and veer off the path to consider the concept of reincarnation. My own intuition tells me that it is a valid consideration. Nature does, after all, teach life, death and rebirth. Some may say that an argument like that is simplistic, and I would counter by saying that faith in God must be simplistic and it must reject complex, intellectual trappings.

Throughout my life I have been plagued by repetitious dreams that appear to me to be memories of past lives. One takes place in Egypt where I am being punished for some sort of offense, slapped repeatedly and berated by a man...the same man in every dream. Another involves the aftermath of a flood where I stand at the end of a pier and look down below to see the bodies of dead friends consumed by the rising waters. Still another involves an English manor and a wealthy household from at least two hundred years ago and I am a husband to a virtuous woman and the father of two young daughters. They are with me in the house, a house I know well, but their physical appearances tell me that they are sick, all with drawn, pale faces with dark shadows beneath their eyes. Sometimes I feel that the dream itself is a memory of a memory and that my wife and children have already died. These dreams, and others, have appeared over and over again in vivid, stark detail, never changing to any great degree. And they are not like normal dreams. It is as if they are trace memories of previous lives. Previous tests of my will and progress toward final purity. But how long can the process of purification take? Again, unknowable until you at last meet God.

I made up my mind some twenty years ago, when God did not answer my heartfelt prayers to heal my brother-in-law of cancer, that prayer for "special treatment", was an exercise in futility. It is the first and last time that I ever actually fell to my knees and begged God to grant a miracle. But the Age of Miracles is over, so say theologians who try to rationalize why God appears uninterested in parting the waters or raising the dead. My question is , was He ever?

His truth, His wisdom, His love is not and was not ever defined by special consideration of one over the other. That is a human quality and far less than divine. I believe that if there is a final reunion with God that all of us as children of the Creator will see that day, if not together then in our own due time.

The year 2009 has been the year of the Cosmic Screw for me. It is my name for the inexplicable convergence of what I perceive as undeserved piling on of bad luck and Instant Karma from above upon me. Its just the divine process in motion. I won't bother to whine about how I don't deserve it and I certainly won't pray for any special favors from the Creator of the Cosmos. That would be hypocritical of me. In the mean time, I'll rely on my talents and charm to get through the convergence. However, if you don't share my beliefs and want to help, feel free to pray to God for me, and I'll let you know how it works out. If I'm living in a cardboard box next year, I'd say you have some thinking to do.

A Tribute To A Father

I remember I was so angry that day when I found out that he had filled in the large hole that we had been digging for days for our new underground clubhouse. Our plan was to dig a huge hole and trench, then cover it over with plywood to fashion a kind of roof that would then be covered over with a thin layer of dirt thereby rendering the clubhouse below invisible and ultra secret. The "We" that I am referring to was David and Alan Miller and of course me. We should have known better than to dig on someone else's property. The three of us did a lot of things we shouldn't have done. There were several secret clubs that we formed, but we also kept girlie magazines hidden in the woods, cigarettes in a shoebox under the driveway culvert and at some point burned a giant black spot on David's bedroom wall with a chemistry set explosion. We were those kind of kids.

Later David's parents would suffer through countless hours of Beatles music blaring from David's record player as we pretended to be The Beatles practicing our music. I think we called ourselves "The HorseFlies". Eventually we "became" the Beatles and held real rehearsals on their carport and treated the entire neighborhood to our own brand of rock n roll. In those early years we turned the Miller's house and yard into army battle fields, BatCaves, secret agent headquarters and mad scientist laboratories. It went on and on. I knocked on that door off the carport leading into the kitchen every day during those certain summers with joyful anticipation of playing at the Miller's house until the sun went down. They eventually named me affectionately their "#3" son.

In my high school years, Wesley Miller was my enemy at school, and a second father after the bell rang and on those countless weekends. I was not a bad kid but my hair length was always an issue with the school administration and during those SHS years he was "The Man".

My parents had their own issues with my hair, but Mr. Miller had to be the bad guy at school.

He sympathized with all of us who longed for the dress code to be revised, but until it was, he put his personal feelings aside and went by the book. No amount of dippity do hair gel could fool him in to believing that you had actually gotten your hair cut over the weekend. He knew us all.

In 1991, My wife and I attended the Class of '71 reunion in Slidell. Wesley Miller was there as an invited teacher and we sat and talked for awhile and caught up a bit. He graciously sat with my wife and kept her company while I (sans wife) mingled with old classmates and enjoyed the hours with old friends who may or may not have wished that they too were free from the old ball and chain for a little while.

A few years ago I passed by the Miller house at 425 Michigan Avenue and happened to catch Wesley out front in the yard. He recognized me and motioned for me to pull over while he rushed back inside for a moment to retrieve something. He came back out holding an old catcher's mitt that belonged to me when I was just a kid , a forgotten remnant of my many days spent under his watchful eye on Michigan Avenue. He wanted me to have it after all those years.

I do not like to be reminded of death. I avoid funerals if I'm able. I prefer to delude myself into thinking that those that I love are not gone and that they continue to exist in those buildings and rooms and in those places that I no longer frequent. It is for my own protection. On some level they will., in fact, always exist for me and others, as a pleasant and joyous reminder of the good people that one can meet on this journey through life. This is not just for him but for his family and his life mate of so many years. They are wonderful people. From me, your unofficial number 3...rest in peace.

My Poetess, My Troubadour

I am just a troubadour

a simple man of songs

unsure of where I'm going to

Not sure where I belong

I look at you, your golden hair

I gaze upon your face.

Please take my hand, oh lady fair

and fill the empty space.

I am just a poetess

A lover of sweet words.

I speak of life, so lyrical

the secrets of my heart.

I seek a truth that few have seen

The journey is my own.

I go my way in solitude

I travel all alone.

When contemplating o'er my tapestries

the feelings just aren't there.

The loves I've written of are fantasies

illusive as the air.

You beckon me with words you weave

with dreams you lay to rhyme.

And oh to be a dream you have

your poet for all time.

And in the middle of my melodies

I sometimes lose the words.

With you beside me I find harmony

a song I've never heard.

If you could be my perfect love

and tell me of love's peace.

My days with you would be enough.

My longings then would cease.

I'm not the kind you've known before.

a lover like the wind,

My love grows stronger every day

a gift forever sent.

Living life apart in loneliness

would never be the same.

Come and wrap me in your tenderness

and whisper soft my name.

And if it should be we fall away

Our time is not too long.

I'll write of you in my poetry.

And you will be my song.

A Serpent's Tooth

original thought...the final word

eternal truth can ne'er be heard

the wisdom in the final draft

begs one to sleep, or one to laugh

we contemplate alternatives

and criticize the way He lives

He resurrects, reincarnates

what of poltergeists and floating pie plates

skeetshoot saucers from the clouds

ancient angels feed our doubts

dare we believe the options there

deities vanish in thin air

the Atom of His fingernail

Eve of destruction taints the tale

can Uncle Sam be Anti-Christ

and white wash the crimson sacrifice

the sons of God all stand accused

and Lucifer remains amused

immaculate confusion reigns

and Hades' population gains

if Paradise can e'er be found

the answer beckons underground

if blind faith be the price we pay

with fingers crossed we kneel and pray

The Dream Deluxe

Light And Shadow meld in a fleeting flickering moment

And hover on the wick of muted memory

A pirouette through time last performed

Temporal temple of desire and hope

Its quickened ghost crashing down in wicked ballet

Sparkling shards of sentiment buried in moist black earth

Love and laughter fire in eternal richocet

Her hand in mine, liquid eyes in reflected twilight

As an infinite echo of an everlasting kiss

From gin joints to starships

Where went the yellow brick road

I was there the day it died

The path to Oz and Tara

Its mushroom dust gave rest at last

One dream left barely escaping

Me and Dorian Gray

I am a practitioner of Romanticism and while I admit to it I still recognize its failings as a philosophy to live by. Romanticism butts heads with Realism more and more as one grows older.

I view the book "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" as fiction of course but I cannot ignore the similarities of the ideas expressed in the work and my own feelings about life. As a young man I barely recognized my actions as being in line with a particular predictable pattern but as an older adult now, its hard not to. Romantics have a freedom that allows them to ignore logic and reason and yes... even morality. The mind and body want what they want, with no apology. I embraced it in my twenties not really knowing that I was becoming a hedonist in the process. I looked at love as a casual affair, something I couldn't do as a teenager. I was devoted and true to one but at the cost of being the victim of love's fickleness myself. I dabbled in romantic betrayal and drug induced euphoria that allowed me to walk away from the unpleasantness of reality but certainly not without some regret. That is the curse of the romantic, that sense of longing about what could have been if only your heart was more grounded in reality. Eventually the romantic , in his waning years, wishes for someone...someone that would stay, and offer true comfort and love on a level that playwrights and poets would echo and hail through time. It is the paradox of profundity and superficiality that exists side by side in the romantic mind.

I do love me some women and I love it when they are beautiful. Honestly, sometimes it actually makes my heart beat faster (even now) when one merely passes me on the street. And I like all kinds, but I'm mostly attracted to women who project an air of purity and innocence. I've had the good fortune of being involved with such women but, like Dorian Gray, I allowed myself to be controlled by my own untapped decadence. That need to explore those feelings came out of my sheltered youth where religion was an invitation to conform and be clean and uncorrupted. To ignore the compulsion to explore those feelings would have been hypocritical on my part. What does it say about a person who is willing to corrupt innocence. It's despicable unless you look upon it as unintentional corruption. It is Experience being drawn back to what it once had in the way of purity. Dorian Gray and Oscar Wilde saw it as a perfect coupling of two souls...one old and one new. And that was me too, for a while. If there is a point to this thing we call Life, and I think there is, it is this. Life should be a process of purification but not at the expense of others. Pleasures of the flesh and other dark places in the human heart make that process a tricky proposition. At the end of his life Oscar Wilde tried to redeem himself by embracing religion practically on his deathbed, but I doubt that it really works that way. Romanticism is not necessarily a part of hedonism, but it was for Dorian Gray and a little for me too. I hope that before I die I can finally find that missing thing...that piece, that person, that true epiphany that maybe I saw once but didn't recognize it at the time for what it was.

Things Said / Summer 1970

Things Said

I felt free there

Perhaps because home was faraway

And the people were strangers

Remember how I played my guitar for you?

You said I looked so content when I played.

I was singing for you.

The tide and the sand were our playground

I had never felt so in love

They must have thought us transients

Like a scene from a movie

Just two, needing each other

The bonfire that night made me sad

I knew our time was slipping away

All we could do was sing songs

And wait for the fire to die

Then we escaped for awhile

Where we laid in the sand

The things we said still echo within me

I never thought you would say you loved me.

I felt the same but the words were hard to say.

Why you cried then I didn’t understand.

All you did was close your hand tightly.

I kissed you forever that night

Even in my dreams

That next morning was quiet.

Going back I just held you

I laid in your lap like a baby

I felt like a child secure in your caress.

Time diminished the memory of those moments

And people changed, you and I.

I wish you had never told me about that phone call

That call to him after we went in that night.

Is that why you cried?

I suppose the sand or moon or just circumstance

Made us say those things while there.

Remember how I played my guitar for you?

You said I looked so content when I sang.

I was singing for you.

Flying Over Yesterday

I'm a very linear type person. I categorize and compartmentalize people and places into events on the timeline of my life. It confuses me and frustrates me when one overlaps the other or bleeds over into a division occupied by something else. These pictures represent those divisions of my life from old to young. I recently chastised someone from my past for daring to try to encroach into my present and continue our relationship on different terms. Don't you see the problem that presents? I would have to re-edit this video, and that would be an inconvenience. How shallow is that?

Finding That Faded Freak Flag -Reviving The Revolution

I was outraged and offended when I heard Morgan Freeman telling credit card users to "let your freak flag fly", and saying it with fervor, as if our nation needs to go further into debt to the huge banks that we ourselves bailed out just months ago. How pathetic that is and what a monumentally disingenuous use of the term that was filched from an era that dared to challenge the establishment and its system that values money over humanity...a system that celebrates the inequities inherent in a society that with one arm condemns inhumanity, and with the other embraces a fixed "free market" itself slyly keeping the working class in their place.

David Crosby coined the phrase in a song entitled "Almost Cut My Hair" and to me it was a song about the search for freedom in a society that constantly tries to take it away. Cutting his hair was a symbolic act that would have represented his succumbing to the pressure to conform instead of remaining true to himself. How devious of a corporate mind to adopt a slogan or phrase and spin it to mean something else totally opposite. I would encourage people to be dissatisfied with that kind of thinking and to go into their attic or garage this weekend and find that old box full of your youthful hopes and dreams ...the one that your freak flag has occupied for decades ...yank it out , dust it off and run it back up the flag pole. And then take a moment to reconsider the revolution. The one that never truly took off. The one that was quieted by gunfire on college campuses in the late Sixties. The revolution that died minutes after the closing act at Woodstock. Many of us have seen our "freak flag" (ie.. our hair) get thinner and grayer over the years so growing it longer now would be foolish, but it was only a metaphor anyway. What should really inspire us more is the present state of our country...not just the economic disaster the we are suffering through , but also the power structure that helped bring it to us. I laugh at conservative revolutionaries and their corporate sponsored tea parties. Their kind of revolution is like going camping...in an $ 80,000 camper mobile home.

Roughing it...but in comfort. Real revolution, I believe, must come with discomfort...aching backs, dirty fingernails and dripping sweat. It can't be done from a penthouse office.

Several years ago, author Chuck Palahniuk, wrote the book that was turned into a movie in 1999 call "The Fight Club". It became a cult phenomenon and a rallying point for many who approved of it's message of anarchy in Tyler Durden's Mayhem Project, a plan that involved destroying the financial system of the country whereby, in his words," everybody goes back to zero."...that is, equal status through anarchy. That's pretty scary stuff but people cheered at the prospect of the end of power structures in our country as we have always known them. Discriminating , unequal and unfair. I guess it depends on how big one's bank account is as to whether you would agree with that sentiment. Up until about 12 months ago, a lot of people would have condemned the idea of a revolution that toppled the powers that be. They were doing just fine. But a lot has happened in a short period of time that should really open our eyes to the truth about how things are. Napoleon once said, "religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." It pacifies those currently disenfranchised individuals with promises of eventual reward from a just and loving God. And it may well be true, but it is still a pacifier.

Just as much as a politician who pacifies his supporters with promises of correcting the inequities of a society built upon those very same inequities. In some circles, it's called bullshit.

Dr. Julian Edney has written many things of note, but none more thought provoking than his essay called "Greed." It's a little lengthy, but well worth reading. It's easily found on the world wide web. It offers a historical perspective along with suggestions of his own on how we should proceed. I have my own short list just hastily thought out but I'd like to share some of those suggestions quickly with you. First, abolish the U.S. Stock Exchange. Secondly, divide the country in half putting all conservative-thinking individuals together on one side to pool their resources for survival. All of them. Then , in the other half put all liberals or progressives together to work out a plan for their own survival. Pick the side that represents your long term philosophy. Split the country down the middle (philosophically, it already is) and allow it to reflect their philosophy of survival in real ways. Then let the competition begin. Now adopt some new rules of politics for both sides to follow such as stringent term limits and zero tolerance for politicians who betray the public trust. You break the law, you're out of politics permanently.

These small suggestions may not be the answer to all problems, but I believe that revolution still has a place in a society that has seen what we have seen about how the other half,( actually 5%) lives and flourishes off the efforts of the underprivileged 95%. Does majority rule in this country? That's what we've been taught to believe, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Take the time to think about it, and do it before the truth acquires a corporate sponsor.

Taming Tiger's Wood

It must be awesome to be wealthy and famous. Apparently I'll never know personally how it feels but I don't have to be wealthy and famous to know that it's great. If Tiger Woods has been on the Wheaties box before, they should put him on again. Sales would skyrocket. Who knew that Tiger practiced all those many hours, all those many years, to become a great golfer just to meet girls. But that's how it appears. He's like every guy I ever knew who learned to play guitar for the very same reason. Money and fame equals women. That's a pretty simple equation. I'll fore go the easy jokes about strokes, and balls. That would be wrong...and hilarious. Let's just say he did it because he could. Who wouldn't? Dating hot women carries with it a euphoria that lasts a very long time so I'm not sure when Tiger will settle down. But when the euphoria wears off he will realize what most celebrities eventually all come to know. Quantity does not equal quality. Men with money always wonder if the women they're with are there because of their money, or because of the person they are. What will change Tiger's behavior is when he finally meets that woman who finds away to take his money and put him back to where he once belonged...just a regular guy. It's the problem that comes with wealth and prestige. It screws with your head. Affection and attention can be bought, but love cannot. When he does come back to earth maybe he will appreciate the simpler life ...back to how it used to be. Being satisfied with a hole in one...and one only.

The Limits of Acceptance

There was some gossip circulating among my co-workers two weeks ago about one of the new guys that got hired. They were all speculating as to whether he was gay since he was young and fit and clean cut...and a little prissy. He didn't curse and he never ever talked about "nailing chicks" or "getting pussy." They overlooked the possibility that maybe he was just a nice guy who was unsure of how he should act on the new job front. I stuck up for him because, frankly, I've worked with and accepted a variety of personalities, ethnic groups and sexual preferences through my long career in the movie theater industry. Gays who looked straight, gays who flamed, hot lesbian types and the mullet- wearing dike variety too. Their sexual preference didn't bother me and my only reaction was sometimes amusement... at how far some would take the public flaunting of their sexual flamboyance. The glitter teeshirts proclaiming themselves as "boy candy" or "lez be friends." The steps we take to find love and acceptance can take many forms that have nothing to do with crossing gender lines though. It can be a question of a guy wanting the hot chick but settling for the fat chick. I used to work with a black male who routinely passed over attractive black women to actively pursue less attractive white women. He felt it somehow reflected better on him to be seen with a white girl even if she was 300 pounds. Hey, I say, whatever gets you through the night. I've seen some, male and female, who were summarily rejected at every turn by the opposite sex and so "settled" for anyone of the same sex that showed an inkling of interest. Were they gay? I'm not even sure if they knew.

But I think this touches on something that I just recently discussed. Love and Acceptance and how much we need it. Everybody. And what happens if we don't find it. The old saying "any port in a storm" comes to mind. I think it fits. Standards we set for ourselves change under certain circumstances but a lot of us never find ourselves in those desperate circumstances where we finally say " well guys seem to hate me, maybe I'll try girls...or the attractive girls reject me, I'll settle for the skanks. I 've never done research into it but I would guess that a lot of people in our prison system didn't go in as homosexuals but over time developed a taste for the same sex simply ... well...not simply... but because they needed the acceptance...the companionship and affection where traditional choices were not available. I liken the situation to the movie "Castaway" where a volleyball becomes Tom Hanks' companion and in the most complex way, his only link to sanity. The next time you see someone out in the world in a relationship, take a moment to think about the steps it took them to get there and what was lost or given up, or actually what was ultimately gained, in the way of hopes and dreams.

Many years ago Bill Murray and Harold Ramis starred in a movie called "Stripes" where they and others enlist in the army to forget about all the bad stuff happening in their civilian lives. As Murray and Ramis's characters are being interviewed as to their suitability as soldiers the recruiter asks them if they are homosexuals. In a wisecracking response Ramis replies "No, we are not homosexuals, but we are willing to learn." It's telling and funny. Not that homosexuality is a learned behavior, but it says that if circumstances require it, it's possible to accept it..
  Twice in my life I have been informed that a male acquaintance (my hair dresser) and later a male co-worker had romantic feelings for me, but as I told a friend recently, "I haven't joined that club yet." Two marriages and several girlfriends in my life and I've always remained true to my heterosexuality, but in today's world where uncertainty looms around every corner and every relationship, I jokingly tell friends who ask questions about my romantic leanings, "Well, I;m not dead yet,,,and the day ain't over."




Ramis quips, 

Vaginas- Getting Back In

I can still hear my old friend Charlie as we sat in a college dorm room talking about girls. What he said wasn't an original thought of his, but it stuck in my head when he said it, so I suppose I feel he owns it. As it pertains to the female genital in particular he observed ," the first thing we do in life is come out of one, and we spend the rest of our life trying to get back in." How true. Simple but profound in its simplicity. Life , from the very beginning, is the search for love and acceptance. And that love is expressed in its fullest in the sexual act. When you do finally "get back in" there is a sense of accomplishment that supercedes everything else. It validates ones existence and stands as proof of one's worth as a human being. It says you belong to the family of man.

I was very ,very young when the specifics of the sexual act were explained to me. A boy not much older than me decided to lay it all out for me, and he did it by using a stick he found on the side of the road and drawing a diagram of the male and female genitalia in the dirt as if he was some learned mentor lecturing at a chalkboard to a student. I remember being fascinated by the whole explanation at the time but I never considered then what it truly meant or how complex the process was to getting to that moment when you do get in. The mechanics were pretty simple but the emotional investment that went with it was a mystery to me.

My first sexual experience was awkward and I'm relatively certain that I am not the only one to ever make that statement. It was for all purposes a huge disappointment for many reasons but above all it revealed to me that love and lust were two separate entities and ultimately had little to do with each other. They are at first glance emotional twins but in the final analysis they differ in huge monumental ways. Lust is a pale counterfeit to Love. It becomes painfully obvious after the fact. Lust makes one turn over and fall asleep or, worse, hit the floor running and never look back, while Love requires one to stay and cuddle and connect.

Lust is about conquest, and Love is about surrender. When one looks at it like that, the two are actually polar opposites.

But let's get back to the basic question of what "getting in" really means to me specifically. If Love were a competitive sport ,(which it is), then, to extend the analogy, the vagina would be the goal post, or the basket or the home plate. We actually do refer to "getting in" as "scoring" so I know my analogy is valid and recognized universally. While others may savor the mechanics of the act I always looked beyond the act and to what it's implications were toward me. I have always enjoyed the hunt and the pursuit and all the charm and romance that is a part of the process and the game. The sexual act itself, however pleasurable it was or was not, was secondary to the act of surrender and acceptance of me on the most basic of levels. As I said before, "getting in" , for me, is about my personal validation by another human being. It's beyond mere friendship and at its very core takes me back to the warmth and security that I felt in those moments prior to birth, poised in the fetal position, serene and insulated from the world ... and wanting nothing more.

The Azurites- A Tip for Potential Time Travellers

Maybe it's a tradition everywhere. I don't know. Creating shrines or desktop altars to commemorate the life of a lost friend or family member. Here in the Deep South it's done for the benefit of the one's left behind dealing with the grief brought on by that loss. At its best it serves as a way to channel one's affection toward that person post mortem and at its worst eliminate the need to make a trip to the cemetery. I am a person who saves stuff...letters, photos, trinkets,souvenirs and mementos from my past. I never thought about it much until I had the means through online social networks to share all of these memories with old friends that I was now easily able to re-connect, reminisce and catch up with after years of separation. The process of rummaging through all those photos and letters was much like a trip through time for me with clear divisions of particular eras and the people from each of those eras. With my stack of stuff I revisited my past and for better or worse I allowed my self to re-live those relationships that were so important to me over the years. Here is my advice to you after having traveled back decades and finally returning to the present. Let it go...just let it go. As I have said before ,when travelling through time you run the risk of altering past events. A friend recently corrected me when I wrote those words to him. He insisted that it was not the trip back that changed the event but the return to the present that ultimately changed my perception of the event. That perception was changed by the reconnection with those who were there with you and who now have their own version of the past that conflicts with yours. And there is the problem. And here is my tip. Memories are delicate entities. Keep them to yourself and eliminate the danger of seeing your past revised by others who delight in destroying it. I am lucky, in that I actually saved the documents from my past and can produce evidence to substantiate my "version" of the past. If you do decide to step inside the time machine and push the button, make sure you collect your evidence first and lock it safely in a box.

Springtime/Sunday Morning 1987

She made that grand entrance through the door and paused briefly, throwing back her shoulders and posing with an air of runway defiance. Just as quickly she broke her stance and danced a spontaneous ballet across the lobby while the morning sun sparkled through the mane of her dark shiny tresses and bounced softly off her bare shoulders like captured rays of Spring. “Well, what do you think?”, she asked coyly, as she stopped to gauge his approval. There she stood in a modest blue and white sundress that tied behind her neck and fit tightly down to her waist finally flowing outward uniformly past her knees then resting comfortably near the top of her calves. A pair of tanned brown boots with short raised heels and bold laces running up the front of each completed her look. Her bright blue eyes hinted at a smile forthcoming held back only by the anticipation of his answer.

“My God,” he said, attempting to find the right words. “You are so very beautiful. You truly are.”

“I know.” she answered laughing. “I just wanted you to always remember me. Do you promise?”

“How could I ever forget you?”

The Egg Drop Predicament

I'd like to relay a story to you and then I want you to decide if it's true or made up. It's a short story so don't worry. The father of a high school senior was collecting materials at the local market for his son's school project, the infamous eggdrop competition now standard in most public school physic classes. The students are challenged to produce a container that will protect an egg from destruction when dropped from a height that would normally easily crack the shell of an egg. Limitations and restrictions are placed on what can be used and so the experiment becomes a test of ingenuity for the students all else being equal. The father in a moment of whimsy buys a carton of brown eggs , instead of the typical white eggs that most students would use. Not a big deal , it's just the expected norm. On the day of the competition the container used by his son fails to safely deliver the egg to the ground and the boy's grade is of course negatively affected. The father of the boy objects and officially accuses the physic teacher and the school, of racism based on the color of his son's egg. The dispute goes to court and the school system settles for an undisclosed monetary judgement. I'll give you a moment to ponder the veracity of this story. (3,2,1)

I just saw a guy on TV who made a documentary called The War On Children. It's premise is that in today's public schools there exists an atmosphere that closely resembles that of a prison more than an atmosphere that promotes individuality and creativity. This trade off is the result of what can be described as a climate of fear within the school environment that struggles daily with the possibility of violence and the more sobering thought of litigation and lawsuits from all directions. This fear, not necessarily unfounded, has resulted in a fundamental change in the way students are learning and preparing for life in the real world. And it sucks.

I myself raised two boys both in public school and routinely dealt with absurd issues like the logic of school uniforms or why toy weapons or nooses can't be brought to school or even pictures of these items brought to school because of the liability it creates for the school system. It's a society on pins and needles ( or dare I say eggshells) and schools are now routinely equipped with their own law enforcement teams, networks of security cameras and students who give up a percentage of their civil liberties in the way of random searches of clothing and belongings. How does this foster learning and what does this teach our future generations who are slowly being conditioned to conform and comply to authority without question? This trend did not start with the Obama administration. It's been growing since Columbine. The Secret Service was solicited by previous administrations to research and provide recommendations to the Department of Education as to how to fix the fear. George W. Bush and his Education Secretary pushed for the measures that we currently see being instituted nationwide in our schools. For all purposes public schools are little mini police states preparing our population for mediocrity and unquestioned compliance.

Think about that for a while. Conformity and compliance. Sounds like a cautionary science fiction story. Oh yeah, and about the egg drop story?... I made it up, but you have to admit it could very likely happen and , tell the truth, you almost believed it.

A New Face

I just got tired of the Farmville updates, the e-hugs, the "what does your name mean", the "what cartoon character are you" quizzes and oh yeah, the Christian conservatives that hog Facebook with their Hallmark card personas and ignorant political stands and , as is typical, the ridicule of anyone who pokes holes in their logic or beliefs. But what should I have expected? It is after all a social network. Once the initial excitement of reuniting with old friends and all the catching up is done , you're left with uncomfortable silence and the realization that your life is pretty routine to most everyone, so that boredom...that silence... must be filled with inane electronic messages generated and created by someone who probably laughs at those who feel that they are really connecting with the outside world in a meaningful way. Facebook is like a woman who suckers you into believing that it's You who are making the decisions for the both of you, all the while telling you to "friend" this one and that one and "become of fan" of something you hold no real interest in. In fairness, I will say that there are some who were brave enough to put themselves out there and be real...but they were few in number.

Anyway, that's why I'm here. Maybe I'm kidding myself but I need a creative outlet that doesn't resent my presence online. If I need a hug, I'll get one made of flesh and blood. More later.