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…
Category: (Gene)ric Ramblings
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.