Daily Blues & Views

We hear the phrase all the time: It was a simpler time.  Things were very different back then.  Back then can refer to anything from 20 to 100 years ago these days.  But, for the most part, we do live in a different world than mere decades ago.  One easy way to compute and visualize the differences is to simply turn on the TV.  As a culture, we seem to be fond of looking at family sit-coms from the 50s and 60s as a way to gauge social change.  The black and white images of squeaky clean 50s families with perfectly coifed mothers and business-suited fathers seem ridiculous by today's family units.  Take the color out of TV and we find a land where nobody is gay, neighborhoods are lily-white, and the language...oh the language is ever so proper.  These Pleasantvilles weren't always so peaceful and perfect.  But the arch of early TV sitcoms is both predictable and benign compared to today's fare.  Sometimes, while watching TV thes...

I I was all set to sit down and write about what an awful year this has been when I encountered quite a pair in this coffeehouse.  They aren't really an odd couple but he is quite a bit younger than she.  I'd say about 50 years. A grandmother and grandson...most likely.  But just his reactions to her voice changed my mood.  He has dark blonde curly hair but is obviously of mixed racial parents.  She could be most anyone's grandma, but an older middle-class white woman will suffice.  They upset my apple cart of gloom and doom.  Lots of babbling, smiles and that kind of innocent curiosity that can hold anyone's attention.  I admired how she kept talking to him all through their time together.  In the end, I got a modest good-bye wave and a last glimpse of that smile.  Mood elevating to be sure. How easy it is to stop thinking about a President that lies more often than not and the recent wild firestorms that have decimated much of the ...

That this country, the USA, is deeply divided is not news.  We've been that way since the inception.  In fact, it's in our DNA and we value that diversity of viewpoints.  What is new, however, is that the divides seem deeper than ever before. Countless stories surface of people not being able to talk to one another.  If the sight and sound of political commentators and policy wonks talking over one another, no, shouting over one another is any indication, we are in new territory.  So how can anything move forward in an environment of so much verbal toxicity? Empathy is the only answer, in my view.  Say it again, empathy.  People need to walk a few miles in the other guy's moccasins, as native Americans would say. There are many ways to walk those miles, too.  That was the theory when I went through my training as a VISTA Volunteer.  For two weeks, we altruistic, recent college grads lived in the homes with families that had very little. ...

Aside from the plethora of tragedies that converged this past week on this culture, a couple of homegrown phenomena crossed paths in front of me.  While the Mayor of Portland was telling the media that he's aware that the new name for his city has become "Tent City," I finished the novel Mary Coin by Marisa Silver. Portland has a serious homeless problem.  Parts of the city resemble the "Hoovervilles" of the 1930s. Tests and makeshift lean-tos pockmark the bridges, underpasses, and trails surrounding the many beautiful parks.  It's the underbelly of the American Dream and it won't go away.  Now, the problem has morphed with the addition of broken down RVs that are often towed to a city lot for destruction.  It's not uncommon to find a person's belongings inside these decrepit vehicles. But then, living on the side, or by the side, or underneath or on the margins is nothing new.  In fact, one of the most iconic photographs of all time, Dorothea ...

"The man hasn't read a book in years." I keep hearing that about the current occupant of the White House.  Maybe that's as it should be because recent studies say that claim goes for over half the population of this country.  Scary but true.  It's obvious that the President doesn't know the history of this country.  Examples abound. Even for those who can forgive him for inventing the African country of Nambia (he referred to that the other day) the fact that he knows very little about American History doesn't seem sway his followers.  Either they know nothing too or they simply don't care.  Probably both.  Yet, the notion of ignoring history and repeating mistakes looms large all the while. A former colleague of mine, who taught Language Arts for a lifetime used to have a large banner in her classroom. When kids came into this learning environment they saw a sign which read, "Unless We Read, We Live But One Tiny Life." I'd love to hea...

Something about a song lyric, popping up in your ear at just the right time and your life can flash by.  Maybe not your entire life, but certainly a few segments. One of the things that keeps me exercising regularly is the ability to listen to music while doing so.  I move around on Pandora a lot and ultimately settle on a genre.  Usually it's blues music because I know that will keep me awake and to the task at hand.  But occasionally I wonder over to Neil Young or Dylan, or even Jonathan Edwards, a lesser known country rock artist whose sounds often sooth better than a cool drink of water. Today, a combination of all three took me back to lovers and friends from decades past.  I realized that you never stop loving someone unless you work at it.  There were a couple of times, OK maybe even more than two, when a relationship in my back pages ended and I was feeling undone.  We've all been there but when Dylan sings "If you see her, say hello..." a st...

It's difficult for me to watch the grim footage coming out of Houston, Texas without thinking about the year I spent there as a VISTA Volunteer.  I knew very little about this 4th largest city back then and in full disclosure, even as a recent college grad, I was heavily influenced by the stereotypes, positive and negative, that focused on TEXAS. I wasn't even sure I could spend a year in Texas back then.  But, as often happens, when you immerse yourself in what you are doing and keep an open mindset, you often find that the result is pleasantly surprising. I found plenty of decent people in Houston.  There was Carl Adams, the former trumpet player for such notables as B.B. King and Ray Charles, who wanted with all his heart and soul to run music workshops for kids who lived in under-privileged neighborhoods.  Houston had plenty of those, and when I see much of the footage today of the flooded homes, I wonder what it looks like where I once say large projects for l...