For most of us, one moment hardly defines our lives. So many wait, pray, work, and scheme to get their 15 minutes in the sun, only to have them, watch them pass, and then sink into bitterness, disappointment, and regret.
Category: (Gene)ric Ramblings
Teeter-Totters, merry go rounds, and monkey bars prepared my generation for life
Hurrah for the brave men and women of The Greatest Generation! Their wild celebrations after they had won world peace seeded the Baby Boomer Generation (those born in the years 1946-1964), of which I caught the shirttail.
(Not so) Gentle on my Mind
American singer/songwriter, the legendary Glen Campbell reminds us to remember those who suffer with Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Less Baggage, New Luggage: A New Year’s Resolution for 2019
IN 2018, Donya and I bought new luggage. We did so because we had big plans to see places we had never seen. First, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine…and then Rome! Looking back on the year that has been and looking ahead at the year to come, the places we saw and experienced and the things…
Dreamers Take it to the Limit (one more time)
“You know, I’ve always been a dreamer…” These lyrics have forever resonated with my soul. I have dreamed more than I have done and I have done more than I dared dream…and still, I dream of more. While others my age and in my station in life are setting the cruise control and coasting into…
The Darndest Things – or – the wisdom of the child
“Kids say the darndest things.” You know it. I know it. We love it. Back when he was one of America’s most beloved and cherished comics, Bill Cosby demonstrated this fact in a TV series by that name (it ran 1998 – 2000). Art Linkletter ran the original “Kids Say the Darndest Things” as a…
Where does the time go? ~Putting the Past and the Future into Perspective
“Where does the time go?” An old friend and I were reminiscing not long ago, talking about old times the places we had been and the things we had done together in days long gone. His was a rhetorical question – one that I have asked and heard others ask innumerable times. It is a…
Dear Mom, Thanks for the benefit of the doubt
I woke up this morning thinking about my mother…Mom, I call her. I think it was the residual thoughts of a dream I dreamt, but it slipped into the recesses of subconscious and disappeared in the fog of fading memory. I can no longer confirm that I dreamed of her or dreamed at all. At…
A Father’s Day Remembrance: Little Granddad – the dad who almost wasn’t
I have honored the dads in my life just about every year around Father’s Day. My own father, William David Strother, died at age 51, when I was 30 and left a million memories of my childhood and a million more what-ifs behind. My wife’s father, Thomas Henry Weir, now 80 and still spry, still…
On the loss of Snowflakes (my complaint against the Right)
One of the Right’s worst moves in recent memory has been to co-opt a perfectly wonderful word – and beautiful feature of Nature – and wield it as a pejorative term. Look, I don’t care for the over-sensitive, safe-space seeking, racial strife-stirring, victims†of everything they don’t like and everyone they disagree with Millennials with…
Trigger warnings, safe spaces, and middle-age orneriness
Dear College/University Student, Please forgive me if I don’t understand your need for Trigger Warnings and Safe Spaces. Forgive me not understanding how vital it is to your mental health and wellbeing to be sheltered from all adversity and opposing ideas. Let me explain where I am coming from and maybe, if in your safe…
The Dance of the Insane – or – The Direction of the Informed?
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. ~Friedrich Nietzsche I was in the house alone, except for my English Setters, Huck and Finn. I was lustily singing a Willie Nelson song to the plaintiff guitar strumming in my head. The dogs couldn’t hear…
A Birthday New Year’s Resolution -or- 101 reasons to celebrate
What a week it’s been! I have 101 reasons to celebrate life right now. Last Friday, my baby girl got married to the love of her life and started that incredible journey called marriage. It was a beautiful wedding, well attended, and pulled off without a hitch. I had the privilege of preaching the charge…
It’s the Journey, Man! or, Welcome to Walley World, now go home
One of my favorite Hollywood comedies is National Lampoon’s Vacation. I love it because it is such an accurate caricature of life in the American familyand because most of us who have been around a minute can identify with the characters and their misfortunes. There is this epic journey to Walley World, with mishap after…
Lost in Translation | I Have a Dream (that needs an interpreter)
I need a Joseph or a Daniel to help me out here. I need a dream interpreted and I am willing to pay for it. Well, sort of. Last night I dreamed and this is how it went… Someone had died. I don’t now know whom it was, but in my dream, I must have…
The Journey Man: Celebrating seven years and change of not much
Today is nothing special…and that is a perfect reason to write this little bit of self-indulgence. I decided this morning over coffee to take a look back at my blogging journey. I discovered that I have been writing about sports, religion, family, faith, politics, and assorted other subjects for more than seven years. My very…
Remember Franklin’s 13 Virtues | Make America Great Again
Donald Trump, the petulant presumed Republican candidate and the lesser of two evils, is campaigning on the slogan, “Make America Great Again.” That’s great. What is sad, however, is Trump’s idea of what made America great in the first place. I will tell you this much: It was not his brand of bombastic narcissism. It…
Unexceptional beginnings? Don’t stay where you started!
Ancestry.com is an exceptional tool for learning how unexceptional you really are. Likemost people around my age, I spend more time thinking about roots and origins and the “old times” than I did, say, 20 years ago. Can it, then,be a surprise that, when the opportunity to pop my family name into an Ancestry.com search…
Insanity revisited, or Life in Review
randy travis mug shot I like Randy Travis. I know he fell hard and landed naked on the side of a north Texas road, broke and broken by a life he hadn’t found a way to keep up with. I like his song, “1982,” because it resonates with my soul. Now, it is about a…
Like the rain: a retrospective of this life, love, and marriage
Marriage: Any relationship that stands the test of time must withstand its share of storms. It may have begun with sunshine and song, but the thunderstorms will soon roll in.