Rolling on the River?

He awoke with a start. Disoriented, confused. Expecting Simon to step off the raft and on to the shore to continue their journey. As he lay there, the world coming into focus, the moon lighting the trees out in the yard, the dim red glow of the clock. No need to look. It would say 3:1?. 3:11, 3:17, 3:14, it did not matter. It always said 3:1?. 3:1? was his witching hour. The moment when his conscious would seize control back from the sub-conscious and which had, like the Who’s down in Whoville,  holler “yalp”. "We are here. We are here. We are here." A nonsensical world that was bright, vibrant and teeming with life would be wrestled back under control. He would be left there in the dark to wonder what it meant..

He had been dreaming again; that dream. He had awoke with a start and  in considerable discomfort. No wonder, because as he came too, he realized that he was clutching something tight to his chest. So tight his arm was cramping.  His jaw was set. His forehead furrowed with deep rows in a mix of anger and sorrow. As he slowly eased his brow, unclenched his jaw and moved his arm he could see that he had been holding the red journal of his brother. In the light of the moon, it was its spectral gray. In a moment, with the brush against the nightstand light, the cover would turn red and inside, the random scratches would transform into the even flowing hand writing of his dying brother, set there twelve years earlier.

This was only the third viewing of this dream. He could not recall the trigger for the first two that had fired his imagination into such vivid action. Little doubt as to tonight’s catalyst though. He had been cleaning the upstairs closet; a job that had caught up to him on a list. While cleaning, he came across this sealed box of Simon’s things way in the back as if twelve years of other accumulations would shield its contents from the world, like a curtain of lead shielding all things radioactive and destructive.  But there under the games, the photo albums, the box of outdated and useless electronic gadgets, two other boxes of software cds, diskettes, and disks for computers long discarded, sat Simon’s box.

A slice of a utility knife revealed, a pine wood derby trophy, a high school and college diploma, several concert ticket stubs, four yearbooks, several photo's of friends, a framed photo of Kendra, and ten diaries. They started in his senior year of high school and covered the next seven. I took them out, sorted them by date, picked up the last and started reading. I quickly found that it started in the middle of his fight. But it was late. I could find the early rounds tomorrow.  Then this entry; June 28, 1998: followed up with Dr. Klein; declined elective, seems like a painful long shot. Better to enjoy what I can of time left. That time . . . three months.

DAMN HIM! There was a hope, a chance?  He didn't tell me. He did not choose to fight? Did he tell anyone? The prior and subsequent entries offered no clue. Simon's death killed mom and asking dad was futile. The alsheimers had ravished all memory.  An hour on the web, left five possible Kendra Millers. 1:30 am was too late to wake the four imposters. And in more rational moment, it was too late for the authentic Kendra. They had broken up their jr year at Auburn. While Kendra had sent notes and visited once, she had been in a serious relationship with that Miller guy during Simon's struggles.  It would wait until tomorrow.

Sleep brought the dream. Like its two siblings, Simon was standing on a raft paddling across a wide river. However, the floor of the raft was made of words. As the raft glided across, the words would scroll up. Kindergarten, school, little league, home-run, all-star, 4-h, camp, church, broken leg, first kiss, dance, football, high school, first date, first-base, all conference, second base, prom, home-run, on and on it went. This words forming rank upon rank tied together with the vines made of  a host of other words. As a rank would slip into the river behind Simon, a new rank would form in front, and his long silent trip continued.

 Then still a long way from shore, Simon's face changed. Worry crept in. Looking down at his feet, I saw tired, weak, couldn't, doctor, tests. As these words laid themselves at his feet, the fewer words vined around the planks. The futher he rowed the more unstable the raft became. The raft started taking on water, the words becoming more grim. Until there was only pain, and visits from friends, mom, dad, me.

Finally, the words failed him. The river took him in a long way from shore.

But the third time was a charm. Tonight was different. I could see the words reforming, Slowly, painfully at first the words came together, diagnosis, chemo, bed ridden but recovery. And then faster, bolder, more exciting, grad-school, graduation, marriage, kids life. The words forming the raft; rank after rank, bringing him closer to shore.  But as it approached, the words uncoupled, spread out, started mixing with the current, jumbling, losing any focus, simply slipping away.

Kendra looked at me; reflecting my sad eyes, seeing my anxiety and struggle as I tried to keep the words together. Diagnosis, bed ridden, grad-school, marriage, kids, bed ridden, college, kids, life surgery, graduation; until I looked up in utter confusion and anguish.

“He could have chosen a different outcome?”

“No. We all die. The outcome would have been the same.”

“I know that. Sure in the end we all die, but the end could have been much delayed?”

“I doubt it. You only see it clouded through the mists of time. You forget the pain he suffered. The doctors know more now than they did at the time. Now, cures come daily that 12 years ago were miracles."

"But I saw the words reforming. The raft was reforming. His life could have gone on."

"No. Those were your words. Your words can't sustain another's story. At best you can only provide a twig or two in the vines.  The story is his, and even then he places only a few planks. Most of those are ill-fitted and placed poorly.  Its best when crossing the river if you just shut up and row."

3:13.

Take care

Roger

PS. This is only a work of fiction that will be used as a scene in a longer story. But is too long for this format.

Signs Signs

Most of the time when I sit down with a blank screen to write these musings I have no idea  of what to write. So I end up writing a couple of paragraphs of gibberish until my mind clears itself of hectic life related topics and I can embark on one theme or another that was vaguely expressed in the original mishmash. Not so this week. This topic hit me upside the head on Monday and I have been mulling it over all week long. As always if you like it, pass it on to your friends by posting it to your facebook status.

Bev and I were driving along last Monday after dropping off the car for an oil change on the way to a movie. True Grit for me. The King’s Tongue for her. Or was that the King’s Speech? Whatever. I was sharing that I had a few minutes to watch the morning talk on the T.V. in the lobby of the shop and the talking heads were going on and on about Ricky Gervais and the Golden Globes. They did not care that he was mean to nearly everyone, but that at the end he said “I want to thank God for making me an atheist.” They seemed to be surprised. They had no recollection that he made a movie about the same theme, “The invention of lying” which I thought was hilarious and expressed some truths about how we see God, but was, in the end, a vehicle for his beliefs about God.

I only bring that up because a few minutes later, we were listening to the Christian radio news hour and they featured a man who believes that Christians should have hand signals so that we can flash our beliefs across crowded rooms and those in the know will be able to flash us back, like a bunch of Jesus Gangstas. I quote from the Florida Baptist Witness: “It’s just the idea that First Baptist Church of Panama City member Mark Mitchum created after recognizing the lack of a clearly defined, unmistakable hand gesture for Christians.”  You can imagine my surprise. I thought I knew the omni-present and omni-potent but I found that I was lacking. My life is complete now.

It appears that Mr. Mitchum came up with extending the three middle fingers (this is called throwing three). This hand gesture is for the trinity. Now according to Mr. Mitchum, he did his research and other than the obvious three fingers meaning the number 3, three fingers had no other universal meaning.

Not to belittle Mr. Mitchum’s reference encyclopedia, but I can think of several other meanings no less universal. There are losers who express that they won the consolation game. It is what the bronze medal winner holds up in the Olympics. Boy Scouts hold up three fingers to say Be Prepared. The less savory of us held up three fingers and said “read between the lines” in defiant rebellion against the school authorities who said the flipping people off was inappropriate and punishable.

That was without the internet. With the internet, I found that if you aren’t careful “throwing three” will get you on the wrong side of a Crypt or a Blood in

East LA.

And most sobering, you throw three in Serbia and you will be telling your Nazi brothers that you are down for the struggle. Look it up.

But as I pondered the imponderable, it suddenly dawned on me that I have a deep personal stake in this latest of sign of the times. What happens if God recognizes this as a sign of one’s faith, a litmus test to heaven so to speak? While I will gladly convert if such signs of devotion are called for, what will my father, Lloyd, who died 20 years ago do? He who went to the after life as an amputee  of these now crucial fingers, could be in serious trouble. I can just see him now walking up to the pearly gates and St. Peter saying “Next,…  Show us the sign.”

“What sign?”

“You haven’t heard. New policy; to get in you have to throw three.”

“Throw three?”

“yes, hold up your three middle fingers on your left hand and we will let you in. Very easy. Very straight forward. No muss no fuss.”

“Slight problem St Peter. I don’t have three middle fingers on my left hand.”

“What are you some kind of trouble maker?”

“Well, no. Actually, I was just a busy farmer who was in a hurry one day and got my hand caught in some machinery”

“Really? Three Fingers Left Hand?

“Yes.”

“Hmmmmm? All gone?

“Yes”

“Next.”

And what about all of us 1970’s Christians who thought the fish was the sign that all the good Christians put on their bumpers to declare their ichthyology or was that eschatatology.

We suddenly find out we are anachronistic? But this is how we identified ourselves so that people like Ricky Gervais (the atheists) wouldn’t know what we believed. Only those in the know would get It, and we could communicate in our own secret language. In fact I have been cut off by a good Christian or two with a fish sign on their bumper, but they communicated by only throwing one. Curious.

In the end, Mr. Mitchum wants us to buy a throw three bumper sticker, put it on our car and when we see another indentified three thrower we should pull up beside them and throw three at them (unless you are in Serbia or East LA). This will allow the two of you and I quote to “share a few seconds of intimacy.”

Really?  A few seconds of intimacy? What the heck is that?

All I can say is that if you can only spare a few seconds of intimacy with a hand gesture doing 70 on the interstate, maybe you ought to get some sort of spiritual Viagra.  

I’ve made an animation of a new gesture that I think is unique—and gives a nod to all of those fish. Warning: this is not highway tested for safety or intimacy.  See video.

Reunion?

Learned something about myself last night.

Once, along time ago, Bev and I spent two summers at Camp Riley at  Bradford Woods. Actually, I spent two summers there. After the first, I convinced Bev, that it would be fun, and she spent one summer there. It is a camp for individuals with a disability or chronic illness. The camp served children and adults of all abilities. We made many great friends and learned to serve others to the limits of our own abilities. However, the pressures of modernity have driven those friendships to the nagging nether regions of my mind. The regions maintained with would and should and periodic Google searches, Facebook searches, and the tenuous thread of a poorly updated Christmas card list.

Jim D. is one of those Bradford Woods friends that came into our lives almost 30 years ago. He also stayed on the Christmas card list all of those years. Jim has had Cerebral Palsy all of his life. We met when he was 30 years old at UCP camp. That is United Cerebral Palsy camp.  United Cerebral Palsy at the time had the resources to sponsor Adults with CP for a two week camp. I am sorry to say that they no longer can and only offer scholarship support for 3 or 4 weekend retreats during the year. If you are interested you can donate at their website. http://www.ucpaindy.org/  

I met Jim 30 years ago and to this day I am in humbled that any 30 year old would trust the 20 year old me to provide the appropriate care needed. Care, that if incorrect or inadequate, could mean a hospital stay and long recovery. I am grateful for the trust shown to me and the ability for that trust to be forged into a friendship through the years. Jim sent a New Years letter that reminisced about cookies that Bev made and were shared among the campers; which just goes to show how blessed I have been. There have been many plates of chocolate chip cookies. I am doing well to remember the last three plates. I must admit that I am a bit jealous that he remembered a plate of cookies when direct photographic evidence exists that shows me wearing a dress crawling up into his lap. Except for desperately needing laser hair removal on my upper lip, I was memorable.

In his letter, Jim expressed the desire for a reunion of campers and staff through the years. I have a facsimile of that reunion often actually. Bradford Woods lies on a line between home and IU that I travel a time or two a semester to visit with Ben at the Mexican Restaurant near downtown Bloomington. As I drive past, it is always a sunny late May day. Turning into the entrance and winding the way up the drive to the main building, hunting for Ed Hamilton, a person who interviewed me by phone and I have never met, I am nervous about getting my first paying job. I had worked plenty in the past but farmer’s son wages are not very good.  Thankfully, that is where my family’s arguments fell short. As I expressed interest in this summer job explaining that I would be making $80 a week plus room and board, more than once, I heard that was not very much money. In fact, it was not enough to make it worth my time, but I was able to point out, that if I stayed at home to work, I would get room and board with $0 a week.

It is always; 200 wooded acres of trails, canoes, lakes, practical jokes, exhaustion, young Mr. Ward, Jim, Neck like a giraffe, Mr Gaddis Pizza, campouts, Rick, Annie, Ed, Jennie, Jodi, Ray, and a one mile long hike into the Pine Woods with high care kids that was supposed to be impossible, and I am always 20 years old. I understand now, that impossible work is the best kind for 20 year olds.

To all of you who enjoy reunions, I take my hat off to you. I am glad that those memories are so sweet that you want to focus on them.  I recognize that my prejudices are my own limitations and that I miss something important not attending. However, I can state unequivocally that I do not like them. I had always thought that it was because I had no fun in high school. Why in the world would I want to go hang out for the evening with a group of people that did not like me and that I did not like? The answer is I would not.

But seeing the word sixty and reunion in the same paragraph, a light bulb turned on for me. I do not want to go to this reunion either. True, this would not be a high school reunion for me. I loved those two summers. I love the people, the challenges, every minute of it. However, I don’t want to go to a reunion because I don’t know how memories cast through a twenty year old’s eyes will stand up at a sweet party of  40 and 50 and 60 some-things.  I am afraid that I have changed too much; become too proficient at the calculus of the possible, the calculus of the wise, the calculus of the prudent, to have the memories of a 20 year old still be sweet.

Those proficiencies are important though. Aren’t they? That 20 year old would have never helped raised two wonderful children, be passionately in love with my wife for 25 years, never survived farming and reinvented a career. He had no ability to see the long term. Every impossible challenge was to be taken on no matter how foolish or imprudent. The path of the 20 year old isn’t conducive for the long term. How could someone who knew so much know so little?

Take Care

Roger

Golden Job?

He was there; standing in the cold of a near zero wind chill looking for the food money at the end of the 69 and 67 exit. Our family had just gotten done eating brunch at Waffle House. I love Waffle House hash browns, and we're heading home looking forward to an enjoyable afternoon. There he was. All bundled up, the light just turning red placing us well within his sphere of influence. I was looking through the ash tray. No change. We had no paper cash. The homeless must really hate the credit card revolution. So there we were left with guilt trying to avoid eye contact.

We had several extra people in our van and I exclaimed my desire to find some money, and someone asserted that those people earn incredible amounts of money with these scams on a yearly basis. $50,000 a year in this case was the assertion in this case. I am not accusing any one of insensitivity. I freely admit that I only look for money when wind chills reach below 5 degrees, or the heat index soars to about 99. Anything in between and they are on their own. Someone else has to give them their daily bread. They are not "working" hard enough to get my loose change. The scam idea has crossed my mind. I have heard that they "make" $50,000 a year. The youtube video of Ted Williams, the homeless man with a golden voice, going viral with over 13 million hits in a week, has not helped my cynicism this week. From homeless to radio in a week. It would be ironic if a he got a gig with Prairie Home Companion. I am so pleased for Mr. Williams. I hope that everything works out for him, and that after the tide of publicity starts to recede, it leaves him on the shore and doesn’t drag him back to the tarpaulin tent in the park.

I guarantee that in a car with four riders at least one of them will put voice the $50,000 a year cynicism. Where did this idea come from? I know of no news outlet, other than maybe the Onion, that has put together a report of an individual who earns that kind of money panhandling.  I have never spoken with a person who saw the Dateline, Sixty Minutes, or 48 Hours that had the report. Yet, nearly everyone I know can tell that panhandlers make tons of money a year.

With that kind of acceptance of the truth, I have a few questions. For the sake of these arguments, I am prepared to agree that "every pan handler in  the state of Indiana makes $50,000 a year". It is true. I saw it on Datelne, Sixty Minutes and 48 Hours.

So pan handlers routinely make $50,000 a year. They obviously have decent homes and even drive nice cars which which they park far away from the intersections they work. A family of 4 clears $120,000 with mom and dad working and the two high school aged children working 4 nights a week on evenings and some week end work purchasing their own incidentals and putting a bit away for college. All of it tax free. All kept in tin cans in the back yards of their $150,000 houses.

Given these facts, I have five questions.

1) Did you know that by the generosity of the American commuter and the detritus of our cup holders, we support these brave individuals at a higher standard than the government does with no overhead costs? When we give them a quarter they get an entire quarter's worth of value. According to USDA data, rural income in non metro areas in 2003 stood at $23,000 per capita. This figure includes more than $214 billion in direct payments to those individuals. So without the government's help, we are doing a better job taking care of a jobless person's income than Uncle Sam. If I can remember accurately, I believe that the Social Security Administration is "guaranteeing" to pay me $17,000 a year of my own money back to me at the age of 70, while hoping that I only live to 71. I could pan handle part time for that year; catch a cold and die and do as well as accepting social security.

2) Why do people care if there are people making $50,000 on other people's donations? There are people out there making a lot more on our donations than bums. For example last year Dan Coats and Brad Elsworth asked for your donations to help them get a $150,000 a year job in Washington D.C. We gave Coats $4.7 million and Elsworth raised $2.3 million. Numbers that are so staggering and disgusting that we turn our attention to the panhandlers making $50,000 a year. I say if we don’t begrudge the politicians for their panhandling out of sheer audacity, let’s not begrudge a bum making $50,000 a year when they get no paid time off; especially when they don’t even raise our taxes.

3) If you make that kind of money why don't you have a summer and winter operation. Be the ultimate snow bird. With a little bit of investing savvy, you could have a summer home here in Indy and a double wide in Florida; or at least Georgia, Arizona, or California. Sure, you don't want the kids to be scarred from having to move around so much. But with a $50,000 income ($100,000 in a two earner family) you could afford some counseling, play station 3 or something to take the sting out of living in a warm climate year round. Of course this would mean that our brethren in the south would bear more of the burden from taking care of the panhandlers from all over the country 5 months out of the year.

4) If they are making so much money, why isn't everyone doing it. $100,000 (for a two earner family isn't huge money. But it is certainly more than the $67,000 estimated 4 person family median income in Indiana. Based on pure economics more than half of America should be out pan handling. There are no barriers to pan handling. No permits needed. Just a bag and a sign and I suppose a coin sorter and viola you are in business. Panhandling should certainly be easier than waiting tables. So if there is more pay (which I agreed to at the top) all of those waiters and waitresses should be heading out to 465 with cup and sign in hand.

5) If panhandling for $50,000 a year is a horrible thing. If that is the problem, why don't we conspire against pan handlers and keep them from these kinds of windfall profits? No, I am not talking about legislation or higher taxes. Economics will take care of these profiteers. On Monday morning, everyone who thinks that people who panhandle and make too much money, should head out to their nearest interchange and start begging. Within a month, all of the profits would be driven out of panhandling.

Example; say we can support 100,000 pan handlers at $50,000 a year. If suddenly 1,000,000 Americans showed up and started begging for cash, the average income of panhandlers would shrink to $5,000 a year because our capacity to give did not increase. Are you going to stand out along the street for $5,000 a year? No, and neither would the bums. They would quit and do something more lucrative like get on welfare. Sure after the bums quit the "wages" would go up, but the only people left in panhandling would be those who a month earlier felt that begging was a disgusting thing and they would be glad to quit and go back to the jobs they left.  In essence, panhandling would become a job that Americans wouldn't do.

So what would happen then? We would hire illegal immigrant panhandlers who would come in and beg at a quarter of the wages the current profligate panhandlers. I wouldn't be jealous of a panhandler making $12,250 a year. Would I?

 

Take care.

Roger. 

By any other name?

Around 11:00, wandering out to the front porch and looking to the west at the demolition being done on the old hog house, I watched as the backhoe extended for that final bite. The final post and rafter came down with a crack and I murmured “there goes the hog house.” The funny thing is; I am 47 years old and do not ever remember seeing a hog in that building.

 The roof had fallen in at several points. The 2 x 4 oak siding on the North side had been cannibalized for a roofing project on another barn a decade ago. It had become an eye sore in the town of Ingalls. A small Indiana town that knows its eye sores. Being conscientious members of the greater Ingalls community, we have long debated on the best way to remove it. I have long been a proponent of the conflagration.  The EPA said no.  It appears that if it accidently burnt down everything would be okay. But after asking permission, an accident is a fineable offense.  We had given up after 5 years of trying to create an “accident” with a lightning rod grounded down into a bucket of gasoline.  Then last week, a guy stopped by and needed some work to keep his backhoe busy for a few days.  For $950 and all of the metal that he could scrounge up around the place he would tear it down and bury it for us. Deal.

The hog house had seen better days, and while it is the outbuilding that is 200 yards from the house, its westerly location dominated glances across the farm as we looked to the horizon for weather that was coming our way. As I mentioned, I am 47 and I have never seen a hog in the hog house. Supposedly the herd was sold in my third year as Pop, my grandfather, and Dad had to reinvent themselves because of a soil borne virus that the herd had picked up.  No matter. It has always been the hog house and today as the last pole was pulled it went down as the hog house.

The hog house was where dad had to go one more time before he took mom to the hospital for my birth. Lore has it that I was almost born in the back of  Crackpot which was the name of a red Pontiac Bonneville that received its moniker after an accident on the way to kindergarten five years later. We were fine. The back quarter-panel was crinkled pretty badly, but dad drove Crackpot for another 10 years. Who knows what it would have been called if dad would have worked with that old sow another 30 minutes.  “Placenta” isn’t quite as catchy as “Crackpot”.

The hog house was where we were told to be careful because it had a slab to the south that was divided into pens. Along the south side of these pens was a 4 ft wide by 8 ft deep by 200 ft long pit that was used to hold the manure from the pens. These pits were full of water, and over the years the 2x10 planks that covered the pit began to rot away, creating a death trap that would draw curious boys like a metal flag pole draws tongues in the upper-Midwest in January.

The hog house was where a cable was stretched along its southern side by  young boys who then attached a pulley to  it. Where, during a boring Farm Bureau meeting the adults told the Sharritt, Grantham and Likens boys to go out and play. Run after successful run, the speeds continued to get faster and faster as the rust was worn off that old pulley. Then being young scientists, I ran to the house and got an oil can. Frictionless, I was doing an Austin Collie imitation as I was turned around zooming down the length of the building into a 5 ft block that was called for a personal foul. That was the first time I had ever saw stars. I was amazed that Wiley Coyote got it pretty close to correct. We knew that I passed a concussion test because I understood that I was not to let any of the grown-ups know if we ever wanted to come back out.

The hog house was where we learned about dilemmas. A corn crib had fallen down; leaving 5,000 bushels of ear corn on the ground. Throw a foot of snow on the ground and a long winter and you have the perfect storm for rat haven. Then one Saturday, dad had to go to town for some important business. That made it the perfect time to send the hired hand, a 10 year old, and 12 year old out there with some scoop shovels and a wagon. Who knew that we would learn Shakespeare? To put your pant legs inside your boot or leave them outside that is the question. Whether it is nobler to have a rat run straight up your pant leg or up the boot and then down into the boot to wiggle around. There was a lot of debate that day. BB guns were brought out. Pitchforks were thrown. And I am not too proud to admit, my cousin screamed like a little girl as he found the answer to Hamlet’s question. It is better to have a rat down in the boot, than to have it run up you pant leg to the regions that shall not be named.

Those and a hundred other things happened out in the hog house that to my personal knowledge never held a hog. But it had to be named something. Barring corporate sponsorship, the hog house is a better moniker than the building of a hundred lessons.

Take care.

Roger

Looking to the west for weather past the hog house.

The days of our lives?

December 31, 2010. Days like this come around so rarely. No work, no expectations during the day to go someplace or do something. No yard to mow. No grill to fire up.  No family to invite over or get the house ready for. No wood to cut for winter.  Nothing to put off if I want to rest; meaning no guilt by procrastination. A gift of a day. 

Today has been an even bigger gift because, work has been a pain in the patooie, the keester, the rear, the assssstrophysics of the sciences. Over the past few days, I have been repeating the mantra “some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you” in an effort to maintain perspective and sanity. But by Thursday, the Bear was making New Year’s Resolutions to go to Weight Watchers and lose a few pounds of Roger.

Then this glorious day arrives. Up at the crack of 10:00, a York Peppermint Patty breakfast in my belly, I am looking forward to the promised high of 60 degrees. The snow erasure doing its work very quickly and without the usual nightly news video of surprised flooding victims living in the boggy bottom, the frog flatlands, or river ravine neighborhoods. “My House is flooded. We’ve lost everything. I was really surprised by how fast the water came up.”  Surprised . . .? Really . . .? They should have paid a little bit of attention in synonym class.

This is a perfect day to sit down and write a blog.  December 31; a day to reflect on the year past and to resolve for the future.

A week of pain in the butt work followed by this glorious day released “Moma said there’d be days like this” in my subconscious. The admonition provided by the Shirelles has been floating around in the arcade for years. The arcade is the label given by the lovely Beverly to my brain.  It seems that a song can be released into my head and suddenly many months later it will come shooting out my mouth in full voice, leaving Freud to ponder all of the possibilities. So today, I wrote those three paragraphs; sat back, took a breath, and out shot in full falsetto “Momma said there’d be days like this. There’d be days like this my momma said.” Why was momma warning me about these great days or was she warning me about those days?  Those horrible days of work last week. It was off to web to see if the cloud could tell me why the lyrics were calling from beyond the veil in warning.

          

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8SD9baVPKw&feature=related

It appears that the Shirelles’ momma wants to exhort me to persevere through the times when your dream boy turns into a nightmare and goes off to another leaving you alone and unloved. But that didn’t seem right to me. I have been putting my head down and getting through the bad days for a long time. I can handle that. I need no warning. I am all over that. Besides, the blog did not start with the bad days. It started with the good day. The day was a good one and my inner freud was calling out warning me.

I am back to the web to resume the quest for this warning in my head. And here it is.

               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BteIwbKU_iQ&feature=related

Van Morrison is warning me that there will come a day when all of the parts of the puzzle all seem to fit. It is prophetic for me. I can get through the tough days. It’s the good days that I have to look out for.  Be careful! Sure things are going well now but it doesn’t happen very often. You need to get ready for the bad times.  That bear is going to eat you.

And that is the problem. By now I am at the end of a great day; a day with a long hot bath in the spa, a nap, one blog done and another started, supporting a couple of friends who are having 30 high school aged kids at their house for New Years Eve, and then moving on to friends that we haven’t seen for 12 years and picking up the conversation like we hadn’t seen them in a week, kissing my honey at mid-night, and rather than seeing it for the blessing it is, I am preparing for the rug to be pulled out from under me.

Here’s to seeing exhortations as encouragement to persevere. And warnings as reminders of the great things going on right now.

There’ll be days like this.  Enjoy.

Take Care,

Roger