I’m the Dude in 9C

You know they are looking at me

I feel their thoughts, I hope he’s not near me

There’s a seat open, and it’s 9C

I plop my bags, and manage the overhead

The sideways glances the lean away is evident

I’ve planned ahead, as much as I could do

I look ahead, no eye contact is part of the plan

I’ve got medications to help

I’ve got napkins, they hold up better than tissue

I’ve got four hours of closeness with 9B and 9D and rows 8 and 10

Fruitlessly I suppress cough, it just makes it worse

You know it has to come out – I might just explode

It sounds worse than it is, but who’s going to want to hear that

I know what they are thinking anyway, my next week is ruined

I hope not, but I couldn’t drive home, so there’s no choice

Sometimes it’s a bit of life’s lottery, sorry you were near 9C

Finally, arrival, and for a first, no one crowds me as I leave

They never stopped looking at me

Yvonne and I have birthdays two weeks apart, so milestone birthdays are always cool.  However, turning 60, we thought to be a relatively low key affair.  We looked forward to getting together with the kids and grandkids the first weekend of November on Yvonne’s actual birthday in Marco Island and thought that was terrific.  We didn’t want to make a big deal out of turning 60, we really did enjoy the time with the kids and grandkids.  Used to be 30 years ago, we’d want to get away from the kids!  Now we can’t wait to see them and long weekends are a great way to do that!

Well our daughters, and our Mom and Dad decided that a surprise was to be in store for us and they shocked us, and touched us immensely! Much of our extended family came to visit and surprise us with a dinner and party. Then of course another one the next day and wind down party on Sunday too.  Wow!  First how did they pull that off, and second how didn’t Yvonne sniff it out?

Her sister’s, my brother and sister from Michigan came, as well as our local family and our family from Arizona.  Total surprise!

Our brother-in-law Hector cooked for the second party and our Grandson’s Birthday, Wesley is three!

It was a great party weekend and we cannot thank everyone enough, so many gave of their time and spent so much to reward Yvonne and I for making it to this milestone of 60 years old!

Back to turning 60… of course we’ve been thinking about slowing down, and someday soon retiring.  Recently we’ve gotten excited about planning for retirement including spending summers in Michigan, with a condo we purchased near family, and making time for travel.

While everyone was visiting and thru Thanksgiving, and we have so much to be thankful for, especially with such wonderful family and friends!  Work jumped up to put demands on me.  For three weeks in a row, I worked production on a project that was behind and burning our team out.  At 60 I had a chance to understand and to demonstrate a commitment to customer and to team that I think was good for others to see.   Many asked, why are you working so hard? The ones that know and understand me the best, required no explanation.  They knew I would have to drive to deliver on commitments and to support the team

Well at 60 it was harder to stay up and party with everyone and get up and go to work the next morning than it used to be, but I did it.   I was happy to see that I could still do it (for a short time anyway) and reminded me that 60 isn’t so old after all… but retirement still seems so very attractive!

Oh, and maybe we learned that birthdays shouldn’t be low-key, but rather enjoyed and a celebrated part of life, for sure they are precious, and not guaranteed.

An Accident at Rush Hour

An accident at rush hour, 7 cars

Inconvenient for many, tragic for some

Our baby in the middle, but she’s able to call

She’s injured in the ambulance, fear as we arrive

She’s bruised and cut and as we extract her and go to the hospital

Others are being lifted into ambulances and glass is being swept

The cause was a woman, drunk, distracted, a storm of uncertainty

She’s at the hospital as we wait, along with her man, trying to explain

No point in listening, no need to respond, a reckless storm knows no guilt

Lives disrupted, maybe permanent, maybe tragically, but the storm won’t remember

It’s just an accident at rush hour, something to find your way around

Unless it’s you, your loved ones, that are trying to weather the storm

The storm will blow through and tragically do it again

No responsibility, there’s insurance for that

Haul the cars away, clean the mess

Pray the victims will rebuild from this storm!

Feet up at the end of the day

When you’ve fought the battle well

When it’s of success you wish to tell

And pride causes your chest to swell

Celebrate accomplishment with a happy smile

Put your feet up at the end of the mile

Let your toes flag fly for a little while

Yesterday, I was reading an article about poetry I found interesting, it describes a new book called “Poetry Pharmacy”.  I love the title.  The article I was reading can be found on the BBC site, and is entitled “The Words that can make us calmer“: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170927-the-words-that-can-make-us-calmer

William Sieghart, the author of Poetry Pharmacy, creates and uses poetry as a self-help book for life.

This makes so much sense to me; to use the observation and expression of someone else to help us understand, life, and life situations and emotions.  Giving words to life gives us a deeper understanding and a means to internalize the what’s-going-on-with-me thoughts.   In the article, there is the recommendation that to read poetry and to feel it’s message it needs to be read out-loud, at least out-loud in our heads.  Otherwise the information has no emotion and the meaning is lost as in reading a menu or directions.  The directions or list is understood at that time, but not retained in the part of brain that captures emotion and feeling.  I found that reading the article helped me understand in part why I write poetry and why it means something more than just rhymes on a page.

We all have days when the demands of the world require us to carry a load further, and we have had those days where the world is not cooperating and we are weary of the repetitive demands of the burden we carry.  I had one of those days not long ago and these words that follow came to me.  Maybe this gives a little solace to those that have to get up and keep trudging on when you’d rather not, my view of The Burden…

The Burden

Today will be a rainy day

I feel it in my bones

And in my bed, I’d rather stay

But I rise, creak and crack

The world expects it of me

So, put this burden on my back

Onto the day and into the rain

It is for me to carry on

No use or purpose to complain

The burden will never know

It just sits there and weighs

Heavy as it bends me low

I’ll rest well when I’m dead

And the burden will fall gratefully

To another lucky someone instead

Richard Thaler won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in Behavioral Economics.  He’s really an interesting guy and I’ve read some interviews he’s given, quite fun!  His thoughts and work on how psychology impacts people and their behavior toward money and how that drives the economy differently than economic models for rationally behaving people is very cool.  He is quoted as saying, “conventional economics assumes that people are highly-rational—super-rational—and unemotional. They can calculate like a computer and have no self–control problems.”  … I guess we know that’s not quite true.  After all we still get duped by sale advertisements, and how many of us will spend $3 on a bottled water when there is a perfectly good free cup of water also available…  well here’s my take on how we behave toward money…

What is That Dollar Worth?

If you see a dollar lying on the ground

Would you be happy about what you found

Would you set that dollar once again free

On something shinny and new that you see

Is it worth less than the one you’ve earned

And if so what have you really learned

The dollar knows no difference from its brother

It’s you that have assigned character to the other

One dollar that is found is fun and furious

The dollar earned and saved seems so serious

What is that dollar worth to you

And do you like its brother equally too?

January, 2017, I wrote a poem, “When you were Eleven”.  In some ways, it’s one of my favorites because of the pre-puberty innocence of that time and thoughts that drive a young boy and how much life changes as we become adults.  However, at eleven I still had more of that “Little Boy in Me” of November 2015, not far removed from the bounce on the knee and the song and rhymes of a little boy.

Last night I dreamt that I was eleven again, and had all the emotions of a little boy wanting to stay in line and do as I was told and yet all the fire and restlessness of eleven, wanting to get out of school, to go play!  I want to run and play like a “Summer’s Day” of April 2016.

Oh, the promise of the future, the awareness of youth, and energy and thrill of life!   Keep always close that fire and passion of youth, and allow your dreams to take you back and remind you of those joys, those possibilities and forever young in heart you’ll be!

The following poem is inspired by a book by the same name, written by Mark T. Sullivan, who tells the incredible but true story of an Italian boy Pino Lella, that grows up during World War II, to become a hero many times over, but in the process tragically loses his true love. If you haven’t read the book, you should… at least see the soon to be released movie…

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

Adventure and life oblivion of youthful insight

Interrupting us on this unforeseeably violent night

That sky with lights, with burning fires

Scarlet, tortured, indecent death pyres

Escape, survive, action for the fleeing loving others

Learn, strengthen, flying with our roman brothers

Bravely in love, bravely in service of right

Fragility of life exposed, of wit, of action into the night

Of secrets, of hidden lives, of scarlet skies

Careful, learn again, keep the secret with vital lies

Of love of culture, country, of love of life of each other

Where can we be, what can we do, dear brother

Death always at the door, life and love short

Nowhere to run, never to find a safe port

Fight with cunning and information and wile

Living in the moment, seeing all, biting back the bile

The evil and the weak die without honor or shame

And still the brave and innocent die ugly all the same

Guilt of survival, heartbreak driven revenge

Keep it together, cannot allow this mind to unhinge

More in a few years than anyone should see

So much more life to live so much more to be

But how to go beyond, how to find your heart

How to forever live for what has fallen apart

Strength is cheerfully raising up the weakest of us…

Time is simultaneously a moment and forever…

I just finished a book by Jon Meacham, “Thomas Jefferson The Art of Power.”  It was a fascinating read, not for the historical facts, but to understand the essence of the man, Jefferson.  A man with faults like all of us, certainly, but a great man that linked the emergence of reason in the age of enlightenment with the need to deliver a new world a new form of government of the people and by the people.

He believed that with reason and with education (he founded the University of Virginia) and with thoughtful pursuit of science and learning (sponsored Lewis and Clark expedition and was consummately engaged in understanding science and discovery) that people would, could, and should throw off the yoke of dictatorial rule and replace it with rule of reason as represented by the democratic process.  As author of the Declaration of Independence he laid out with clarity and brevity: That…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

So too, Jefferson’s view of the Creator, and consequently religion and various religions, for which he studied was based on an application of reason, and a realization that religion was another source of power over people.  His religion, if he were to have one, would be one that would take the best of many religions and throw off the elements that are about the acceptance on basis of faith only, of direction and authority of leaders, as well as unreasoned adherence to such leadership and attendant ceremony.  Jefferson would say religion requires careful thought, not reflective acceptance. Specifically, a quote from Jefferson,  in a letter to his nephew:

“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”

Jefferson failed in many ways.  He failed to find a path toward ending slavery, which he viewed as an abominable institution.  He did not emancipate his own slaves in his lifetime, even though he could well had done so.  He was generous with family and friends, but left his family in deep and unrelenting debt.  He lived in different times and should be judged in the context of those times, but he also lacked the courage to overcome flaws that he knew were wrong in the eyes of any Creator, and future judgement, as he was always looking toward the future in his life.

During a difficult and nascent period in our country and government, he was singular in ensuring the survivability of a democratic republic at a time when it’s survivability was so immensely in doubt.  Furthermore, he envisioned and ensured that our country could grow to occupy the continent with the Louisiana Purchase.  He helped President Monroe with the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine, ensuring a sovereign message of preeminence of the USA in the Western Hemisphere to discourage adventurous behavior of European nations.  So much service to our country and our growth and future across the continent  throughout a 40-year history of public service.

Despite personal failures, he deserves our praise for advancing the cause of freedom of peoples over dictatorship and hereditary-based rule, through the design and survival of the grand experiment in democracy!  So too, he deserves our approbation for ensuring that education, continuous learning, and unrelenting reasoning are important elements of country!

A book well worth reading, and reasoning about!