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Small Pale Songs

 I've been dismantling my personal library over the past few weeks.  At its height, I must have had about 500 books in all.  Collected from the time I first entered college all through my years as a teacher and up through the last 20 years of retirement, I liked to surround myself with books.  Among the more valuable volumes were those signed by authors at various bookshop readings, and a few things I traced down while doing specific research on the radio programs I produced.  I once counted up 15 different courses I taught over the years, mostly Literature and social science classes. All has specific titles connected to them.  Some of the most interesting or rare volumes in my library were gifts from people who knew my passions.  So there were lots of history titles, fly fishing books, blues autobiographies, novels and non-fiction about thoroughbred race horses, and of course, lots of poetry.   I recently decided I didn't need to own these becaus...
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Recent posts

Speak of the Devil

 Last night I witnessed one of the most memorable speeches made by an American president.  Oh, I wasn't there, but observed and listened for just about an hour as the current inhabitant of the White House delivered his comments to the White House Press Corps at their annual dinner.  The nation was curious to see this version as the originally scheduled one this year was abruptly cancelled due to another assassination attempt on the president's life.  Also, it was the first time that Donald Trump personally attended this event while president.  The exceptionally thin-skinned POTUS is not one to appreciate the subtlies of sarcastic humor directed toward his majesty.   So, what made his remarks so memorable?  Their lack of sheer relevancy to anything currently troubling this divided country.  Often one to ramble and drift into the weeds surrounding his prepared text, Trump was in rare form last night.  He was more concerned with the light fixtur...
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Unavoidable

 It stops with me.  This invisible burden that I've carried for decades definitely stops with me.  I'm the last of the line on my father's side and I have no children.  The name, in all its forms stops with me.  But, it is much more than the name, isn't it?  It's the legacy, the family, the historical continuation.   Maybe it's just a construct.  We are all brothers and sisters, right?  The family of man, or more accurately stated the human family.  That helps to ease the burden.   I don't think about it all that much and I recognize that the word burden may be too excessive.  What I have begun to think about is what will happens to all the evidence that the family did exist.  I have become the keeper of all that remains.  The photos, documents, important papers that once held such import as to be kept secure and protected.   I opened the storage tub that houses this archive today.  Envelopes that contain fa...
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This Land

 With America poised for a big 250th anniversary party, I'd like to offer my thoughts on the verge of the huge star-spangled, ultra patriotic orgasm about to take place.  Rather than go with the explosions that linger far into the night and the one after that and probably the one after that, I offer a rather thrifty 250. What I am going to do, and what I recommend my fellow Americans do is the following:  Search and find the first verses of Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land.  Then, read, sing, or recite them slowly out loud to yourself and anyone else you might be near or able to hold captive.  The key here is slowly.  You might want to practice first.  Read the words over slowly in your mind.  Then, when you think you've read them slow enough, do it again, but even slower.  You don't have to belt them out, but find the volume you feel comfortable with.  The slower the better.  Something might reveal itself much like the detail...
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Joyful Noise

 What has done it for you?  What in your vast life experience has produced that one emotion?  That unique feeling?  That unforgettable happiness?  How have you experienced Joy?   Other than the fact that my first real girlfriend was named Joy, I estimate that this welcome friend has occurred in my life a handful of times.  It usually comes with something as life changing as getting that job you wanted, or perhaps an unexpected stroke of good luck.  A reward of some kind or that wonder feeling that comes with being validated, understood, valued.   Joy often comes when you are open to it.  Case in point.  Many thousands of people have recently felt the exultation of  joy because their team has won a championship, their horse a race, or their candidate a political contest.  But what of those that eschew sports or politics or or other interests.  I think they miss out on something very beneficial.  Something with big...
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Always

 Last weekend I met up with a former student of mine.  He graduated high school in 2007, so it had been a good 20 years since we'd seen each other.  He was visiting a sister in Portland and looked me up.  We met for coffee.   David was always one of my most memorable students.  He was in a Jr. Honors English class with me and then took my Intro Psychology class too.  Aside from being highly motivated, and intellectually curious, David was a good athlete and quite a good looking young man.  His father is Jewish and his mother is Japanese, so he has that striking quality that bi-racial kids often do.  It occurred to me once that I had his mother as a student in my first year of teaching back in 1973.   We spoke of many things, especially world affairs.  David does geo-political analysis for a tech company, reflective of his educational background which includes degrees from UC Berkeley and Georgetown.  The conversation was heady,...
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Truckin'

 Meet my friend Patty.  She's striking because of 3 things.  First, she always has a kind word and a smile.   She often has thin, brightly colored ribbons streaming down her  shoulder length hair.  And then there is her posture, or lack of it.  Patty is one of those folks who walks all bent over.  It might have been scoliosis, but no body asks.  On top of all this, Patty has been battling cancer for the last few years.   I met Patty in the Tai Chi class I've been taking for the past couple of years.  When she can, she shows up.  Sometimes she goes through the motions while sitting down, but more often than not, Patty keeps up, doing the best she can despite her physical limitations. Patty is inspiration incarnate.  When many of us older folks in the class are feeling tired, or sore, or just not our sharpest, Patty is there.  She shows up.  If she can, certainly we can too. Patty likes a good joke and is a faithfu...
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