Month: November 2015

Thanks for Giving


While the yawns are passed around the room and the desserts get placed in the fridge to cool,  when the day begins bowing to the night and the closet coughs out wraps against the shiver and out in the drive exhaust plumes signal weary friends and family to come hither;  after every person acknowledges the fortunate few who need not travel, to homes distant in the evening dew ,  and thank yous and I love yous reign in the dusk, then the time arrives when the host must, have his say and ask blessings for all at the end of this glorious day!

Unwavering instability


While thinking of relationships the past couple of days, a simile of sorts occurred to me, a mental picture if you will, that depicts various relationships in a mental picture. Perhaps some of my more artistic friends could illustrate my thoughts better than I can word them.

Let’s start with the idea that a house represents a person. Not a family or roommates but a single person is a house. Let us say that when two folks meet and decide that time needs be spent close to the other, these dwellings move closer to one another, neighbors indeed. These new neighbors enjoy the closeness and decide to plant a vine between the buildings and tend too it as a team. This creeping idealization spreads and links the two homes in a physical embrace and is tended to by the homeowners. Gradually the foundations sport the greenery and show of this blooming relationship with the glory of newly blossomed petals, and the tendrils continue crawling up the walls , thusly holding the houses together in a show of the strength this relationship has built. As time passes and the owners grow closer with the maturation of their vine, the thing is allowed to grow unabated, to peek into the windows, to slip under the doors and the siding, perhaps even rise as tall as the roof, as the relationship moves into a certain nonchalance, or maybe a cocoon of comfort , if you will.  As long as both principles involved remain content , this scenario is certainly viable, and mayhap even desirable! But let’s say that one of the partners in this endeavor decides that more freedom of movement is wanted,indeed more autonomy is needed, to retain the individuality originally brought into the neighborhood, and feels the need  so strongly , that the only recourse is to trim back the crawler so to allow the windows to open, to strip some of the glory from the covered walls and allow the oneness of the house to show , to clear the walkway so as not to trip when stepping out for some fresh air; would it be imaginable that the partner , the home next door, might feel threatened ,nay fearful for the existence of the neighborhood and lash out without method and subsequently destroy the vine, the glory of the partnership, leaving naught but the wisping tendrils of a once mighty binding,simply waving to and fro in the breeze of the arguments that ensued over the tending, or lack thereof, of a once strong relationship ?

Education


The credit of an education does not lie within the walls of a specific institution, rather it lies within the mind of the pupil ! Just as learning to drive does not require a Ferrari, and learning to read does not demand a computer, learning to learn requires only an individual with the desire to do so !  Take advantage of what is offered !

Autumn in the Ozarks


Bittersweet season approaches the Ozarks, that is , bittersweet emotionally for me. The leaves have turned and mostly dropped from the deciduous trees , leaving only the green of the eastern cedars , and the few pines and other evergreens native to our forest. While the landscape is decidedly a bit forlorn though, the forest creatures pop into view , [ especially into the roads ] creating the late autumn – early winter mosaic of what many of us hillbillys call “the road kill cafe”.

“Look there,” calls little Billy from the back seat as Daddy swerves to miss the carcass of a big buck whitetail lying halfway in the road. ” Man, I bet he had at least a ten point rack ! Look out for the broken glass, Daddy ! Do you think that car had to be towed from the ditch? ,” he remarked excitedly upon the sight of the skid marks crossing the lane of pavement and ending in the dirt shoulder of the road. And so the afternoon ride through the woods proceeds, with the children [ and adults , too ] remarking upon the various fauna of the forest lying at various points in the road having met their match on the highway and thusly left in ignoble, frozen, various poses for the wandering eye to see .

Along the twisting, curving way drivers might see squirrels flattened or armadilloes rolled and lying with their four feet pointing up to the heavens. And some of them, the armadilloes, will have a carefully placed beer can or bottle placed between their front paws, making it seem that they had drunk themselves into a stupor !  Skunks abound, and careful manuvering should be taken in avoiding these little stinkbombs of the journey, lest in death they accomplish what they were feared for in life and leave an unpleasant reminder of this journey in ones automobile for awhile !  ” Dad ! ” yells little Susie from across the car. ” You hit him on purpose !  Whew ! ” she screams while Billy laughs and chokes from his end of the seat.

After some miles and waning smiles, when the setting sun shines through the windshield blinding Daddys’eyes and causing him to swerve into the opposite lane of traffic and swear, the end of the roadtrip draws near, and the recollections of the buzzards lunching, and the coyotes wolfing the remains of the roadkill cafe , [sometimes becoming dinner themselves ! ] begin to fade with the grins of the sleepy children , Daddy pulls in to the end of the driveway and says to Mommy, “What’s for supper , dear ? “


Has anyone out there felt anger so deep

That the essence of it crept into the street?

Can anyone wonder how deeply it hurts,

When a man is driven to disavow

The progeny who seem to somehow

Feel that the pain that you’ve been

In the raising became

A debt owed forever

After all Dad, I am not feeling well!

Thank you .

Strange Bedfellows !


How many times have you been to a barbeque

And seen the men drinking beer by the pit and the women

gathered to themselves, remarking to one another

Of the silly mindless things  their husbands do expound?

How often when, at a family meal do the females bounce up and powder their noses and thusly go together and leave the table unattended? Do not men tend to gather and watch violent sports only to reminesce of the time .. { That was not bad, but I was better when… }

Like the deer in the herds and the wolves in the pack; like the sheep in the herds, and the teachers with words; Biology tricks the brain and causes pain because the sexes fail equality.

About the system there is nothing wrong, And nothing is amiss in the quality, except that the failure to acknowledge the difference, equals a subliminal lack of intelligence. Male or female who not recognize their strengths can [ and do ] make more of this difference ; ultimately to the demise of the relationship.

I am not singing a song of equal rights, but I guarantee I would try to be sure that I am Catholic before I decided to become a nun; And I WILL know that I have a prostate before I submit to the test. !

Could it be Possible ?


And now the rhetoric , reignited , Raises the foul voice of self righteousness

Attempting explanations , creating divisions, and drawing

Ill advised conclusions,

If I have any understanding of this ‘wisdom’

I am lead to believe.

Feeble minds have decided without querying us

[people ] These things that have come to pass, are passing because

They have been ordained to pass.

Would the horrors and brutality and blood shed

Have ‘come to pass’

If the ‘wise’ had not convinced a following

Would the ‘professionals ‘ have become involved

If profit was removed from this equation ?

Would the half-truths, the half doctrine, the half assed

Motivated men in an alien , to them, land

Commit atrocities.

In the name of a God

who , I might think, is far too busy

To dictate the course of the people

He created

with free will

And strength

And compassion.

I suppose the bottom line

would dictate

loss of power

loss of money

For the ‘privileged few’

And common folk, are expected

To Pay the Price!

My heart glows with anger

And hope.

That the ‘Infidels of all religious sects’ , and political ‘parties’

Get swept away in a ground swell

When all the PEOPLE find their tongues and teeth

And expose the bullying charlatans

For what they are, and embarrass that class

Out of existence !

May the meek find their strength

And inherit the Earth !