Channeling a Great American Song Writer today with this modest offering.
The setup: We have a semi-tame crow named Caw who always sounds off for peanuts when he sees us in the back or front yard. And we have an eight year old perpetual kitten named Oak. Came into the living room, saw the following and put it into lyrics for a song rip-off I call:
Suburban Homespun Blahs
It goes like this:
Caw’s on the front porch pickin at the kitty plates, Oak’s at the screen door trying to transubstaniate.
Look out cat, You know where it’s at. God knows what, but you’re sittin on your butt.
Apologies to Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues
My step-father has just passed from complications due to Covid.
He had been moved to hospice yesterday. Today, the chaplain arranged for video calls for me and also for my daughter to see him and speak to him one final time. I had not seen him since Covid started.
He had been in the hospital 27 days before hospice. I had spoken with him on the phone three times during the ordeal, and the procedures he endured were very uncomfortable.
But today, he was in a pleasant bedroom with soft light from an off-screen window. He was not connected to any machines or devices, no restraints that he had previously had.
He was comfortably covered in sheet and blanket on a fine bed and looked finally at peace after all his travail. I was able to tell him we were all so proud of the man he was – how he always tried to do what God wanted him to do, no matter the cost to himself.
He often gave his possessions away to those who needed them more, and was the best kind of Christian, who followed the spirit of Christ of love, tolerance, and forgiveness.
He could completely disagree with people, distant or family, even when he though they were going against the Lord, and still offer compassion and fellowship, and pray that they would someday see the light, even while readily admitting is own illumination was imperfect and that there was no end to his own seeking of the truth.
I loved my father so much. He came into my life when I was seven, accepted the responsibilities of fatherhood and gave me his time, his wisdom, and his heart.
He was my scoutmaster, my chauffeur before I could drive, and even was my assistant in my business for a time in later years. In short, he was always there to support me, in painting a picture for my birthday of my favorite photograph he had taken, driving us on family vacations, organizing trips to Disneyland, the beach, or to see family friends, staying up all night to complete a homework assignment for me while I slept.
He was a fine artist, an inspired composer and pianist, and a veteran who served in Japan in the late 1950s. But most of all, he was a wonderful, loving, nurturing father who encouraged me to find my own way, and guided me to discover the path to it.
He had two small strokes about fifteen years ago that ended his piano playing and artistry, but only in his hands, not in his mind.
For the past four years, I have had the good fortune to have returned to his area where he was living, and visited him in the nursing home every week where we would share stories of his childhood and mine, speak of fond memories, go over our family photo albums, and discuss current events, both of our kin and of the world at large.
I would often bring him special meals, some made by me, but most cooked up by Teresa to share with him. Mary always wished him a greeting whenever I went to visit, and he always sent one in return.
But we shared more that just food and entertainment and news and memories. We shared our hearts, unfettered and open – a conduit filled only with love.
I shall miss him greatly, as I miss my natural father, my mother, my grandparents and all those souls who treated me so well, and whom I hold in my heart every day.
But this is my father’s day – the beginning of his great journey to be with the Lord – the moment he had spent his whole life waiting for and anticipating.
I, myself, am a spiritual agnostic, but my dad was a man of faith. And in respect for the goodness that brought out in him, I will simply wish him well in the hereafter with the words that we spoke to each other at the end of every conversation: “I love you, and God Bless”
Both parties want to stack the deck in their favor. But neither party wants to create a country in which there is no deck to stack.
Note that today Mark Esper, secretary of defense, said that active duty military forces should not be used to put down protests and should only be used as a last resort in a law enforcement role to restore order.
Neither party wants a dictatorship. Neither party wants power at the expense of democracy. Each wants to control power in a free country, not to have absolute power in a different country because we changed what we have now into something else.
Since the president apparently has no such compunctions, thank God we have true American patriots willing to draw the line, declare “a bridge to far” and to stand against the gradual creep of authoritarianism and fascism.
Issues of racism, inequality, economic deprivation, and disenfranchisement must be addressed and improved toward the ultimate, though perhaps Utopian ideal of someday – someday soon – resolving them.
As a people, we have always forged an imperfect union – not a union of states, but a union of hearts and minds – a joining of cultures and points of view that, though disparate, come together as we all look toward that shining beacon of perfection that serves to guide us forward, ever forward toward increasing equality, expanding inclusion, and growing tolerance of diversity to the point of celebrating together that which makes each of us unique.
But this journey cannot continue and may end completely if we do not draw the line between democracy and absolute power, and to hold the line between freedom and tyranny.
As a professional analyst I never take anything on faith, especially when it supports my own beliefs. If I am to truly have an open mind, which is essential in order to see the truth, I must constantly question those things that most support my point of view, for those are the things easiest to gloss over and accept as fact. In analysis, the first thing you learn is that everyone is biased, no matter how open they try to be. We all have blind spots, and the best way to minimize the bias within ourselves that we cannot see is to be most skeptical of any data that agrees with our predisposition.
From an early age I had a bent toward revolutionary politics. In my youth, however, I was more focused on giving love, meeting my responsibilities, and avoiding harsh or abrasive emotions.
Now, such inhibitions are gone, and as a senior citizen I find myself becoming the young radical I always should have been.
An original instrumental song in memoriam for Princess Di. I wrote this during all her memorial services. At the time, I was pretty depressed (not a rare condition for me) and so I sat around in my pajamas for two days, recording one take after another until I got it laid down the way I wanted. I’ve always felt it could use some additional instrumentation, but I squeezed all the interest I had in the piece during that marathon session.
I have a horrible lack of skill in marketing and advertising. And doing business gives my heart road rash. My joy is to pursue an idea as long as it holds my interest and then leave it unfinished and go chasing after the next when it appears. I’ve finally, just this year (and perhaps because of “pandemic brain”) accepted that this is my nature, and now (thanks to social security) I have given myself permission to be as capricious and fragmented as needed to drop the last idea and pursue the next. I wake up well-rested these days, and full of enthusiasm and whimsy.
