I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation
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Active Shooter!….or, Won’t Someone Please Think of the Children???
As I predicted, the local school shooter thing from yesterday turned out to be a hoax. I couldn’t resist tormenting my coworkers about it. As soon as the facts (if such things are remotely possible in today’s media) began to spill out, my coworkers were all in a rage about how the hoaxer, a high school kid, should be tarred and feathered, etc. etc. etc. During a lull in their clucking, I spoke up. “I don’t believe it was a hoax. In fact, I know it wasn’t a hoax.” They all looked at me. “Why would you say that?” asked one, who had been particularly hysterical yesterday while the news…
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It’s The Usual Question, Regina
It’s always a mistake when I think to myself, “I’ll just duck in here and pick up a few things. It’ll only take a few minutes.” So there we were, meee-eee-eee-eee and Mrs. — Mrs. Orr. (Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Orr…) There we were, fresh out of a grocery store where we’d stocked up, and on the other side of the parking lot I noticed the Dollar Tree…those places where, yes, everything’s a dollar. They’re great for things like notepads, generic anti-inflammatory drugs and pain relievers like Ibuprofen and acetaminophen, for cheap kitchen matches and implements that can be used in gardening (like colanders for…
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I, Too
I didn’t intend on staying away from this blog for so long. And I can’t really give words to why I have been silent. Oh, there are things I could say, reasons I could offer. But even while turning these things over in my hands, letting the honest sun glance across them, I see that they are inadequate. Deeply personal things are never expressed adequately, not ever, not to anyone. Laura Wood is a powerful, perceptive writer. I read her blog because she writes of beauty, of sanctity, of things lost, of hearts betrayed. I read her most of all because she understands suffering. Laura Wood carries suffering with her…
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The New Holomodor
Friends and family send me videos and podcasts all the time. I watch or listen to very few of them, simply because I’m not interested in most of the topics, or because I can see in advance where the topic is going, and I don’t have time to wade through something that’s not going to provide any genuine insights or epiphanies. I am confronted daily with the international scam known as Covid. I don’t mention it much on this blog because the topic is like evil in the world: it is pervasive and spending too much time thinking or talking about it tends to depress and defile the soul. But…
- Books, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Quotations, Reflections
Days and Days
The year has rolled back to the time when spider webs are more prominent in the mornings, especially with the dew hanging on the sturdy strands. This morning I saw one suspended beneath the maple in the back yard, the sun just starting to glance off the night’s architectural marvel. So much work. To be undone in so short a time. Such is the way of this world full of beautiful tragedy and melancholy art and small, fragile creatures with their arduous work and deceptive power. Speaking of the small creatures of the earth, Mrs. Orr told me something delightful last night. “Do you know what a group of ladybugs…
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Fright And Grief
When I arrived home tonight, Mrs. Orr was cooking up a feast of salmon patties, new potatoes, green beans and a cucumber & tomato salad. We ate, and then Jinx and I went out for our evening stroll. A couple of years ago, one of my readers helped me identify a type of milkweed I’d never seen before. That same strain of milkweed is everywhere this year. As Jinx and I walked, I counted more than eighty of the plants along a twenty yard stretch of our road. The butterflies will be well pleased. Back at the house, I decided to set all of my wife’s pot flowers (as in…
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The Basics of Life
Early this morning, my wife and I were talking about the unpredictability of life, and how we could never have imagined the twists and turns our lives have taken. This is a fact I’ve meditated upon quite a bit lately, and it has ushered in a phase — who knows for how long? — in which I am saturated with a sense of anticipation, a feeling of “What’s in store for me today?” And not in a feeling of dread or doom, but open curiosity. I welcome it, for however brief it may be. A few miles from work, I passed a wooded area next to a gas station/convenience store.…
- Books, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Movies, Music, Quotations, Reflections
The Path of July
I have a category on this blog with which I flag certain posts, a category called “I Never Thought I’d Be In This Situation.” The holiday of Independence Day is suddenly upon us, and my feelings about July 4th definitely fall into this category. Watching this country walk the path she’s on is a difficult thing for a man who grew up in the time of my youth; it’s a completely different place. This year, I will forgo watching any of the fireworks & music festivals that have been a custom for many years, like A Capitol Fourth and the Boston Pops annual concert. I won’t subject my eyes or…
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It Comes To This
Time comes when a man realizes, truly and finally, that he will never do any of those things he’s kept in the footlocker of dreams in the back of his life’s closet. They call themselves the Chicks now, because they’re ashamed of the word “Dixie” and because they’re progressive and they’re on the right side of history. Mind you, they don’t have much of a career anymore, and they’ve never been introspective enough to take the blame for their Maines-inflicted fatal wound, but they were once very enjoyable. And the lyrics to this song are poignant and powerful. And tonight, the lyrics are personal. UPDATE — I replaced the video…
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Not Sure Whose Will Be Done
I’ve long detested men who cultivate trademarks and eccentricities. Far too many in my past and present who wear garish socks, or inappropriate hats, or bizarre haircuts or outlandishly-sculpted facial hair, or a certain color of clothing every day (because the world needs more Johnny Cashes), or who steeple their fingers when offering their ninth-hand opinions, or who fondle pipes and cigars because a certain professor did so, or who carry hundred-dollar water bottles snapped onto their noncombatant and too-wide hips. It’s one thing to have a natural quirk; many men have them. But to read the biography of a famous or infamous man and then affect an eccentric mannerism…