Okay, so I have been doing a study on relationships, and comparing being single to being hooked up, and / or married.
I have come to the conclusion that, whichever state we are in, we are institutionalized. If we are married, we must have this other in the house with us, most of the time. One or the other of the mates will require this. Sometimes both need it. Two become one, and then they go home and find out which one!
If we are single long enough, we get set in our ways, and do not care for anyone else in our private living space, for very long, at all.
Single has its advantages, though. The absence of children is quite nice, really. You put something down, it is there when you go back for it. The house is not always sticky. Or loud. Or looks like a shipwreck.
I have two adorable nieces that I get to see once in awhile, and they have both promised to bring me cookies when I get old... I'm set!
"Your own kids" may just very well be over-rated!
Consider; who is to say they will be worth anything? Some kids, no matter how many times you discipline them, nor what ways you use, are just rotten to the core. Who is to say you won't get one of them? Or what if it is eternally handicapped, and can't be of any use to you when you are old? Now you not only have to worry about who will take care of you, but who will take care of this other burden.
And if you get a real sweetheart of a daughter, or a model son, who is to say that they won't marry wrong, or fatally? That they won't keep the grandchildren away from you, just to spite you. Because these in-laws are really out-laws, and are not in fact anywhere near the model son or daughter that you contributed to their horrid genetic line! There is just so much that can go wrong!
Oh, but you need someone look after you when you get old!
Really?!
I have worked in a number of end-care nursing homes, back when I was in my teens, and I have never yet seen a patient who ultimately did not believe the child caregiver - his or her own child - was siding with the staff in collusion against the patient...
No, I don't really see the point. Children are a by-product of a relationship, and should be taken on those terms. Not to expect too much out of them, nor have them simply for someone to mow the yard for a few years. Lawn Care is ultimately much cheaper than Child Care!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Powerless
From 4:30 yesterday afternoon until 3:00 Am, Three Acres Plantation came to a standstill. By the time I returned and was apprised of the situation, around 7:00 PM, it was as hot as a barn in my living room, and suddenly I was teleported back to living just down the street from here, in my grand dad's old farm house, once again, just before dad and I installed that little window unit in his/my old bedroom, upstairs.
That sort of primeval Summer heat, and that rural quiet that I once knew here, as a child, staying with him and grandma in that same house, years ago. They never had any air conditioning, nor any indoor heat, except the wood stove.
In the evening, they seemed to fear the coming of something called Dark. This was night time, and out here, in the sticks, it gets very dark out here, very quickly. Everything had to be done 'fo Dark!', or it did not get done...
As Dark came upon me yesterday evening, I was sitting on my front porch, enjoying a little of the cool from the rains of the thunderstorm. Glenda, my cousin from across the street, has a dusk to dawn light on her phone pole, but tonight it was not working, at all. The inky blackness of that rural darkness fell over the yard, and only when you look up at the tops of the tree line do you see any ambient light from the horizon, giving you just a little bit of contrast... Just enough to see that there are trees, and that they are still there.
They had electrical lighting, but none of it was very strong, except for grand dad's reading light. That bulb could start a fire, all by itself, it was so bright, and blinding... The rest of the house had these dim wattages, which were little better than candles.
I had a candle lit last night, as well. One.
I keep one under the sink in an old mason jar, next to a cigarette lighter. I keep these things there for just this reason, and found them in the dark, by feeling my way along the kitchen sink... Two thanksgiving table candles from years ago. They are my emergency lighting plan here at Three Acres.
I light the taller candle, and set the jar down in the stainless steel sink of the kitchen, to sort of half way light up the kitchen, and the living room. Just so the house is not in that solid pitch black under-your-bed sort of darkness! You can see to get around, but that is all...
My iPod goes into the battery powered speakers from my lifeguard survival bag, and I have my milk and Dr. Peppers down in a great cooler full of ice that I drove six miles into town to get, in case the power was out all night. Ice cold milk for my cereal in the morning is as necessary as air!
I open an unscheduled Dr. Pepper, and sit down to watch the flicker of the candle in the kitchen, from the couch in my living room...
Later, another breath of air on the porch, and the still deafening quiet of the after-rain. Black as pitch, everywhere you look, outside. My life is not this quiet. This is Ghost Quiet, where the souls of the past can be heard and felt and even seen, sometimes moving about, and I never have it this quiet out here, for that reason.
I have a photograph of one of those things, the White Lady Ghost of Avenel House, Miss Letitia Burwell... and I know that they are very real. She can be seen on the second disc of the official Avenel House Documentary Portrait of a Plantation 2009. Touch that link to see the Amazon site for it.
If I keep my driving rain CD on continuous loop all night long, I can sleep undisturbed... Tonight, however, there is only the deep, tomblike quiet of the country... the buzzing of some locusts outside, maybe, but in here, nothing at all... No power for the CD tonight. The occasional car going by, every few hours, can wake me if I don't have the CD going... I have not had my shower, and I am hot and sticky and this really blows!
3:00 AM. The kitchen light comes on, by itself. Just like I set it to do, before I went to bed... The house comes back to life!
Life has been restored to Three Acres Plantation, at last.
That sort of primeval Summer heat, and that rural quiet that I once knew here, as a child, staying with him and grandma in that same house, years ago. They never had any air conditioning, nor any indoor heat, except the wood stove.
In the evening, they seemed to fear the coming of something called Dark. This was night time, and out here, in the sticks, it gets very dark out here, very quickly. Everything had to be done 'fo Dark!', or it did not get done...
As Dark came upon me yesterday evening, I was sitting on my front porch, enjoying a little of the cool from the rains of the thunderstorm. Glenda, my cousin from across the street, has a dusk to dawn light on her phone pole, but tonight it was not working, at all. The inky blackness of that rural darkness fell over the yard, and only when you look up at the tops of the tree line do you see any ambient light from the horizon, giving you just a little bit of contrast... Just enough to see that there are trees, and that they are still there.
They had electrical lighting, but none of it was very strong, except for grand dad's reading light. That bulb could start a fire, all by itself, it was so bright, and blinding... The rest of the house had these dim wattages, which were little better than candles.
I had a candle lit last night, as well. One.
I keep one under the sink in an old mason jar, next to a cigarette lighter. I keep these things there for just this reason, and found them in the dark, by feeling my way along the kitchen sink... Two thanksgiving table candles from years ago. They are my emergency lighting plan here at Three Acres.
I light the taller candle, and set the jar down in the stainless steel sink of the kitchen, to sort of half way light up the kitchen, and the living room. Just so the house is not in that solid pitch black under-your-bed sort of darkness! You can see to get around, but that is all...
My iPod goes into the battery powered speakers from my lifeguard survival bag, and I have my milk and Dr. Peppers down in a great cooler full of ice that I drove six miles into town to get, in case the power was out all night. Ice cold milk for my cereal in the morning is as necessary as air!
I open an unscheduled Dr. Pepper, and sit down to watch the flicker of the candle in the kitchen, from the couch in my living room...
Later, another breath of air on the porch, and the still deafening quiet of the after-rain. Black as pitch, everywhere you look, outside. My life is not this quiet. This is Ghost Quiet, where the souls of the past can be heard and felt and even seen, sometimes moving about, and I never have it this quiet out here, for that reason.
I have a photograph of one of those things, the White Lady Ghost of Avenel House, Miss Letitia Burwell... and I know that they are very real. She can be seen on the second disc of the official Avenel House Documentary Portrait of a Plantation 2009. Touch that link to see the Amazon site for it.
If I keep my driving rain CD on continuous loop all night long, I can sleep undisturbed... Tonight, however, there is only the deep, tomblike quiet of the country... the buzzing of some locusts outside, maybe, but in here, nothing at all... No power for the CD tonight. The occasional car going by, every few hours, can wake me if I don't have the CD going... I have not had my shower, and I am hot and sticky and this really blows!
3:00 AM. The kitchen light comes on, by itself. Just like I set it to do, before I went to bed... The house comes back to life!
Life has been restored to Three Acres Plantation, at last.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
EARTHQUAKE - First Thoughts
Okay, a little before two, we had an earthquake here at Three Acres Plantation. My first since taking up ownership of the property, and hopefully my last! Things like this never fail to remind one Who actually owns your property (hint; it ain't the County, nor the State, nor the Federal Empire of North America!)
Approaching Scorpio
Well, the Fall in the air is the signal of the Death of Summer, which completes this activity around the 24th of October, as we enter into Scorpio. Scorpio the scorpion stung Orion to death, for killing Taurus, his equally-stubborn friend... and in his death throes, Orion crushed Scorpio beneath his feet... or something like that. It is sort of like the Beowulf story. Beowulf dies killing the dragon. The theme of death while gaining personal retribution. Really a perfect ending for any Scorpio.
I am Scorpio, through and through. Like most Scorpios, it interests me that people can so easily read up on what I am really like.
I am the more magnanimous one of which they speak... The Golden Eagle, or whatever. Too much self esteem to be a self-defeating depressive Gray Lizard and to little regard for my opponents to be a true Scorpion Vindictive... My detractors always seem to end up Fired, In Jail, or Dead from Natural Causes...( or car wrecks!). Apparently people who don't like me are not very nice people, at all, anyway!
I enjoy watching the Karmic Cycle. It is my very favorite channel for reruns!
I am Scorpio, through and through. Like most Scorpios, it interests me that people can so easily read up on what I am really like.
I am the more magnanimous one of which they speak... The Golden Eagle, or whatever. Too much self esteem to be a self-defeating depressive Gray Lizard and to little regard for my opponents to be a true Scorpion Vindictive... My detractors always seem to end up Fired, In Jail, or Dead from Natural Causes...( or car wrecks!). Apparently people who don't like me are not very nice people, at all, anyway!
I enjoy watching the Karmic Cycle. It is my very favorite channel for reruns!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Death of Edward Hardwicke, Dr. Watson
Click on either picture.... So now, on this 20th of August, a day before the third anniversary of the death of my own father, George Alton Wills, at Duke Hospital, I find out about the passing of Edward Hardwicke, whom I so enjoyed as Dr. Watson in the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series...
I have a fan letter from Mr. Hardwicke, handwritten and everything, just like Watson would have written it! It was in a response to a fan letter I wrote him after the death of Jeremy Brett in 1995...
Edward Hardwicke died on May 16, 2011. His portrayal of Watson is not to be missed, and while I have all 42 of the original Granada TV series on VHS tape, I one day plan to have the $300 DVD box set of them, as well!
Friday, August 19, 2011
The Last Day of Summer Camps
It seems official now. School will be starting again, very soon. The Y camps are at last at an end, and the weather up here on Tom Cat Ridge is actually quite enjoyable, in the evenings. Nice long walk in the front field, this night. Getting ready to contemplate the rest of my remodeling on the Big House, the 80 foot singlewide of Three Acres Plantation... Hearts of Space tonight... The show this evening promises to be a good one... DESERT SOLITAIRE. Steve Roach always has some good stuff. Slow, quiet, darkened theatre sort of drones and so forth...
I hope we get more of an Autumn this year, than last... We went from blistering heat to freezing cold, last year, it seemed. And we are due for a spectacular leaf change, as well. Not since I filmed the Blair Leaf Project in 1998 have we had anything even halfway decent! And that year was fantastic! Yes, we are so overdue up here, on the Ridge, and the Blue Ridge, in general!
I hope we get more of an Autumn this year, than last... We went from blistering heat to freezing cold, last year, it seemed. And we are due for a spectacular leaf change, as well. Not since I filmed the Blair Leaf Project in 1998 have we had anything even halfway decent! And that year was fantastic! Yes, we are so overdue up here, on the Ridge, and the Blue Ridge, in general!
The Useless Attraction to Physical Beauty
From the beginning, we are attracted to physical beauty. Long before we are adult creatures, at all, we are attracted to beauty as surely as if we were hot-wired that way. We are attracted to youth, and repulsed by age, as a rule, in people we do not know.
An ancient great-grandmother of mine loved me no end, yet I was scared to death of her... as a toddler... simply because she was old. We fear old, because deep inside, we know that one day it will also claim us... and we fear it, until it actually comes upon us. Then we can almost laugh at the joke of youth and beauty... as our own fires begin to diminish...
But why can't we, as young people, be attracted to things that are good for us? Why can't we be attracted to people who will do us the most good, instead of beautiful people who will physically gratify us, for a time, before they themselves lose that spark of stinging, intense beauty, and become ordinary, like the rest of us?
Beauty is of course youth, and symmetrical features, and pleasing appearance... but it is not always nice. Some of the most beautiful people I have ever known were some of the most unpleasant sorts. Yet, the attraction to them was still there for me. And why? Because of their powerful genetics? Because of their ease upon the eyes? Because that others would see me as somehow great, if I could be seen with this type of a woman? Sadly, yes.
I have actually dated some of the most beautiful women in the world. Girls from modeling shoots for VOGUE and GLAMOUR Magazine used to come to Marker 32 for dinner, where we played weekly Chess games with our Halifax Chess Club, and many of them were so bored because none of the area men had the guts to even speak to them... let alone ask them out to dinner...
I spoke to a number of them, between Chess matches, and they were so glad to have someone, anyone, to talk with... Guys were always so afraid of them, they complained. They were afraid of being rejected by someone so perfect.
But I wasn't. And I said so... (I told them that just figured that If I was gonna get turned down by one of these remarkable ladies, I would at least completely understand the reason why!)
Many of them did go out with me. For dinner. Maybe a walk on the beach, later... nothing more than that. And we enjoyed ourselves, very much. It was then that I developed my skills as a Southern gentleman, which have served me very well, ever since. And I got to enjoy an evening of complete fascination, at least to me. All of these girls had aspirations of becoming actresses, though few of them ever got the chance.
Yet, Beauty it is a fleeting thing. The girls knew, and understood this. They knew that youth would come and go, and take their beauty with it. They wanted to make their money with the magazines, now, and save it for later... college, or whatever.. They talked of having to go out into the surf in January, and pretend like it was fun, and 100 degrees, when it was really freezing! They had to do this because, in the Summer, the beach in Daytona is littered with campers and tourists and kids... No magazine spread wants any of that background! I learned a lot about what a hard job these girls actually have! And how they have to stay beautiful! Preparation H is one of their greatest tricks for getting rid of bags under the eyes! The truth behind beauty is not very pretty, at times!
Beauty, when it is all said and done, will only benefit your children; the next generation... and then only in the half doses of genetics, because they only get half of that, as a rule, at birth...
So why must we be so enamored of the Beautiful thing?
Is Beauty really all that beneficial to the next generation? Or do we believe it to be so because of a fault in our DNA? Why do we first desire beauty, above all the other traits, when we are searching for someone special?
And if we are all so programmed for Beauty, then why are we not all Beautiful, yet? Why has Beauty not taken over the earth?
Why does ordinary still rule the majority of us?
Because Beauty, like life, is unpredictable, and cannot be contained, nor plotted and programmed... We only have the possibility of beauty in the next generation. And less than gorgeous sorts do end up mating, many of them much more than the average, in fact. Jacob was attracted to Rachel, but he was having loads of kids with the plainer Leah... True, Rachel was barren, but Leah sure got her share of attention! For not wanting her, originally, Jacob sure was with her, enough! Ten kids?
An ancient great-grandmother of mine loved me no end, yet I was scared to death of her... as a toddler... simply because she was old. We fear old, because deep inside, we know that one day it will also claim us... and we fear it, until it actually comes upon us. Then we can almost laugh at the joke of youth and beauty... as our own fires begin to diminish...
But why can't we, as young people, be attracted to things that are good for us? Why can't we be attracted to people who will do us the most good, instead of beautiful people who will physically gratify us, for a time, before they themselves lose that spark of stinging, intense beauty, and become ordinary, like the rest of us?
Beauty is of course youth, and symmetrical features, and pleasing appearance... but it is not always nice. Some of the most beautiful people I have ever known were some of the most unpleasant sorts. Yet, the attraction to them was still there for me. And why? Because of their powerful genetics? Because of their ease upon the eyes? Because that others would see me as somehow great, if I could be seen with this type of a woman? Sadly, yes.
I have actually dated some of the most beautiful women in the world. Girls from modeling shoots for VOGUE and GLAMOUR Magazine used to come to Marker 32 for dinner, where we played weekly Chess games with our Halifax Chess Club, and many of them were so bored because none of the area men had the guts to even speak to them... let alone ask them out to dinner...
I spoke to a number of them, between Chess matches, and they were so glad to have someone, anyone, to talk with... Guys were always so afraid of them, they complained. They were afraid of being rejected by someone so perfect.
But I wasn't. And I said so... (I told them that just figured that If I was gonna get turned down by one of these remarkable ladies, I would at least completely understand the reason why!)
Many of them did go out with me. For dinner. Maybe a walk on the beach, later... nothing more than that. And we enjoyed ourselves, very much. It was then that I developed my skills as a Southern gentleman, which have served me very well, ever since. And I got to enjoy an evening of complete fascination, at least to me. All of these girls had aspirations of becoming actresses, though few of them ever got the chance.
Yet, Beauty it is a fleeting thing. The girls knew, and understood this. They knew that youth would come and go, and take their beauty with it. They wanted to make their money with the magazines, now, and save it for later... college, or whatever.. They talked of having to go out into the surf in January, and pretend like it was fun, and 100 degrees, when it was really freezing! They had to do this because, in the Summer, the beach in Daytona is littered with campers and tourists and kids... No magazine spread wants any of that background! I learned a lot about what a hard job these girls actually have! And how they have to stay beautiful! Preparation H is one of their greatest tricks for getting rid of bags under the eyes! The truth behind beauty is not very pretty, at times!
Beauty, when it is all said and done, will only benefit your children; the next generation... and then only in the half doses of genetics, because they only get half of that, as a rule, at birth...
So why must we be so enamored of the Beautiful thing?
Is Beauty really all that beneficial to the next generation? Or do we believe it to be so because of a fault in our DNA? Why do we first desire beauty, above all the other traits, when we are searching for someone special?
And if we are all so programmed for Beauty, then why are we not all Beautiful, yet? Why has Beauty not taken over the earth?
Why does ordinary still rule the majority of us?
Because Beauty, like life, is unpredictable, and cannot be contained, nor plotted and programmed... We only have the possibility of beauty in the next generation. And less than gorgeous sorts do end up mating, many of them much more than the average, in fact. Jacob was attracted to Rachel, but he was having loads of kids with the plainer Leah... True, Rachel was barren, but Leah sure got her share of attention! For not wanting her, originally, Jacob sure was with her, enough! Ten kids?
Monday, August 15, 2011
Some thoughts on eulogies...
I have lost several friends in the past several years, all of whom just died abruptly, and without any warning. As in all such cases, funerals are hastily prepared, and people called in to witness the passing, and the burial. There is this sickening day or two, while everyone adjusts to this new absence, this new loss, and this gratingly heavy finality...
During the funeral, a pastor or a family member will rise to try and say something profound about the passing of the loved one.
But, what if there was a video left by the deceased, prepared against such a day, as this? And what if the thrust of funerals was changed, entirely, to a different format?
What if the quick disposal of a body was done, without a viewing and without all of the makeup and the mortician's morbid artistry? Then, a quick burial, attended by the family, and a few close friends... And then, a couple of weeks later, a memorial service, where the videotape prepared by the deceased would be shown to everyone who had finally found time to schedule this into their lives?
The deceased would appear on the screen, sort of like Christ by the tomb, and explain what he or she thought of death, and dying, and what were his or her views of this newfound experience, which he or she knew was coming upon that person's family... that day... what the subject thought it might be like... and what he or she wanted each of them to remember about them... Like a will, it would be sealed and held until the day of this memorial service.
It might be of a great comfort, to know what this person thought might would comfort the bereft, at that moment, and how nice it would be to hear such a message... if we would only get by our immediate morbidity of making such a video, and actually make the thing...
I personally find the whole funeral experience to be, well, funereal... not comforting in the least...
I think it would be great, for the deceased could select the music, if any, and say what he or she really thought, knowing that, like a will, this would only come out after the passing of the subject in the film.
They could speak to us from beyond the grave, with a dead state of mind, and not from a living, home movie sort of mood.
They could comfort us, as a ghost would like to, but cannot, without terrifying the ones to whom comfort is directed...
And they could see it over and over again, every time a memory of that person would be desired...
I like the idea of a Videotaped Auto-Eulogy.
It could be posted on Youtube, for all to see... and linked to a memorial page on Facebook...
It could be a really great idea...
If I was going to leave a eulogy on video, I would try and say something to comfort the people who had come to the service to see the video, I think. Thank them for coming... assure them that, where ever I was, I was fine. For I truly believe that. I think that death is a place much like where we came from, before we were born. I don't remember it, so it must not have been a bad thing, or a bad place... The concepts of heaven and hell, of God, and redemption, notwithstanding. The religious communities speak of a paradise, or of a limbo, or a holding area... A good place for the just and a bad place for the wicked, of separation from God, or a torment, or a "burning" desire to be with the God who was rejected for carnal evil, upon the earth... A "burning" in hell, or a hole in the ground, so to speak, where the created cannot be with the rejected creator...
Death is a very desirable state for the extremely elderly, the terminally ill, the suicidally unbalanced, and the grievously wounded, and injured... if people in their lowest and weakest moments seek it, it must not be an unpleasant state, at all. There must be some remembered past that they recall, at that moment they reject life, and seek to be rid of it, permanently. And, at any rate, each of us has an appointment with the Grim Reaper, at some point down this long and winding road... when we are healthy, we fight him off... when we are debililitated, we beg him to hurry up...
I accepted Christ, and was a Christian, albeit not a fundamentalist one... That should ease everyone's mind on that end.
I have a photograph of a real, actual ghost. She does not look like she is in any pain... She still hangs out at Avenel House. I do not plan to come back here, again, unless it is to float down the beach... for there was the only place that I really, truly felt alive and connected. The sands of Daytona Beach, Florida...
I would make up a ten minute video, to comfort the bereft... because ask not for whom the bell tolls... IT TOLLS FOR THEE.
Funerals are for the living, and I always said, don't do me any favors! I get nothing out of them, at all! A memorial service, however, is another matter, entirely.
My musical selection would be HEAVEN CAN WAIT by Meatloaf, which is like the third or so highest selling album in history... It is a great song, it really is... about as sad as Pachebel's Canon in D Major (the Kodak song)... I would have a montage of photos of me, and things I liked, passing by in slo-motion sequence... and then, a fade to black... Let everyone out early, for a long lunch, and be done with it!
Other than that, I either plan on catching up with some very old friends, or else taking the longest, greatest nap in the history of sleep...
Either way, I won't be complaining about it, at all!
During the funeral, a pastor or a family member will rise to try and say something profound about the passing of the loved one.
But, what if there was a video left by the deceased, prepared against such a day, as this? And what if the thrust of funerals was changed, entirely, to a different format?
What if the quick disposal of a body was done, without a viewing and without all of the makeup and the mortician's morbid artistry? Then, a quick burial, attended by the family, and a few close friends... And then, a couple of weeks later, a memorial service, where the videotape prepared by the deceased would be shown to everyone who had finally found time to schedule this into their lives?
The deceased would appear on the screen, sort of like Christ by the tomb, and explain what he or she thought of death, and dying, and what were his or her views of this newfound experience, which he or she knew was coming upon that person's family... that day... what the subject thought it might be like... and what he or she wanted each of them to remember about them... Like a will, it would be sealed and held until the day of this memorial service.
It might be of a great comfort, to know what this person thought might would comfort the bereft, at that moment, and how nice it would be to hear such a message... if we would only get by our immediate morbidity of making such a video, and actually make the thing...
I personally find the whole funeral experience to be, well, funereal... not comforting in the least...
I think it would be great, for the deceased could select the music, if any, and say what he or she really thought, knowing that, like a will, this would only come out after the passing of the subject in the film.
They could speak to us from beyond the grave, with a dead state of mind, and not from a living, home movie sort of mood.
They could comfort us, as a ghost would like to, but cannot, without terrifying the ones to whom comfort is directed...
And they could see it over and over again, every time a memory of that person would be desired...
I like the idea of a Videotaped Auto-Eulogy.
It could be posted on Youtube, for all to see... and linked to a memorial page on Facebook...
It could be a really great idea...
If I was going to leave a eulogy on video, I would try and say something to comfort the people who had come to the service to see the video, I think. Thank them for coming... assure them that, where ever I was, I was fine. For I truly believe that. I think that death is a place much like where we came from, before we were born. I don't remember it, so it must not have been a bad thing, or a bad place... The concepts of heaven and hell, of God, and redemption, notwithstanding. The religious communities speak of a paradise, or of a limbo, or a holding area... A good place for the just and a bad place for the wicked, of separation from God, or a torment, or a "burning" desire to be with the God who was rejected for carnal evil, upon the earth... A "burning" in hell, or a hole in the ground, so to speak, where the created cannot be with the rejected creator...
Death is a very desirable state for the extremely elderly, the terminally ill, the suicidally unbalanced, and the grievously wounded, and injured... if people in their lowest and weakest moments seek it, it must not be an unpleasant state, at all. There must be some remembered past that they recall, at that moment they reject life, and seek to be rid of it, permanently. And, at any rate, each of us has an appointment with the Grim Reaper, at some point down this long and winding road... when we are healthy, we fight him off... when we are debililitated, we beg him to hurry up...
I accepted Christ, and was a Christian, albeit not a fundamentalist one... That should ease everyone's mind on that end.
I have a photograph of a real, actual ghost. She does not look like she is in any pain... She still hangs out at Avenel House. I do not plan to come back here, again, unless it is to float down the beach... for there was the only place that I really, truly felt alive and connected. The sands of Daytona Beach, Florida...
I would make up a ten minute video, to comfort the bereft... because ask not for whom the bell tolls... IT TOLLS FOR THEE.
Funerals are for the living, and I always said, don't do me any favors! I get nothing out of them, at all! A memorial service, however, is another matter, entirely.
My musical selection would be HEAVEN CAN WAIT by Meatloaf, which is like the third or so highest selling album in history... It is a great song, it really is... about as sad as Pachebel's Canon in D Major (the Kodak song)... I would have a montage of photos of me, and things I liked, passing by in slo-motion sequence... and then, a fade to black... Let everyone out early, for a long lunch, and be done with it!
Other than that, I either plan on catching up with some very old friends, or else taking the longest, greatest nap in the history of sleep...
Either way, I won't be complaining about it, at all!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Tom Cat of Tom Cat Ridge
Tom Cat Ridge is beginning to live up to its name. For some time, now, my brother has been enjoying a number of housecats on his place, across my field, next door. (I do not think he has named his property, so I cannot know what to call it, except Bro's Place... ).
Some time ago, a strange, and wildly long-haired piebald feral cat was seen in my back field, and had been sleeping on my Dodge Stratus. I finally got him to move on to greener pastures, or so I thought... Last night, I discovered I have a kitten, a short haired piebald little rascal, living under my singlewide. Now, we are only half way through the process of replacing my underpinning with T-111 siding, which withstands the March fury and winds much better than what we had... In the photo, you can see T-111 siding on the home in Port Orange. It is really good stuff.
The little creature can live there until we get this finished, at which time he will be locked out of the underside of my home, permanently...
I had a cat, Josemaines, for 17 years and 7 months. I wrote upon his cardboard casket that I would never have any pets, again, and I have lived by that promise lo these many years. I meant that both ways. I refuse to be a slave to some housecat, any longer. If he can survive on the mice, and stay out of massa's way, when I come through, he can stay... But only under those provisions.
The picture shows Josemaines Kitty circa 1987... in Port Orange, Florida, where we lived... He was the best cat one could ever have. Dad used to say that he "tried" to be a good cat... "Joe tries", he would say... He was born to us in Virginia, and is buried in the back yard of that home in Florida, now, way down deep... The length of a long shovel handle, to the tip, at least!
Late Summer Rains on Tom Cat Ridge
I can tell that August is losing its grip on the Summer, now. The afternoon thunderstorm, growing out of the west, was all hat. Maybe a drizzle of rain, for a few minutes, and a stray lightning bolt, or two, a rumbling once in awhile... The air did cool nicely, after that, and I enjoyed an evening walk around the front yard of Three Acres Plantation, with a cup of coffee, in my bedroom slippers... Yes, like General Longstreet, I wear carpet slippers outside around the yard. My brother finds this to be terribly amusing, but with the situation with my feet being what it is, the bedroom shoes seem to work out quite well. Here at Three Acres, comfort is key.
It is nice to have your own place in the country, and I realize that few people ever get this sort of a sensation, or such an arrangement. Owning your own land, away from others and their noises, is terribly addicting, even without the slaves, and the crops, and the Big House, and all of the other accoutrements that establish a Southern plantation. Many of the Southern plantations were about the size of my place, here, with small dog-trot houses, and not nearly as many Greek Revival architectural homes, nor even the Avenel-styled mansions as Hollywood would like to have us believe. A place my size would have had about ten to twenty slaves, and I would have worked in the fields beside them, as a master, and as an overseer, and as a slave on my own plantation... It was a family business, as much as anything else, and slaves were more like family than the yankee historians would have us believe. They certainly were at Avenel house, all one hundred of them! Few people travelled more than 25 miles from their homes, in their entire lifetimes, up until the War of Liberal Aggression. People worked and fed themselves, and survived. In that attitude, one can see how the farmers would have been convinced that the federal invaders needed killing, and that right quickly. We the people were our land, and there was no separation between us, and it.
Personally, I would have never owned any slaves, I do not think. The idea of finding a wife is daunting enough! And children! I just don't know about any of that! The view is getting mighty dim from Tower 50!
My grandfather was hired-out at the age of five to the neighboring farms, somewhere around this area, and he owned the first real property that we owned, which was right here. With a 3rd grade education, he amassed the 119 acres that we all live upon, today, and he worked it with four people; himself, and his three children, one of whom was my father.
And now I have my portion of it, right here. My cousin Stacey's land backs into mine, and I do not think that anything behind us will ever be developed further, at all... at least, not while I am owner of Three Acres Plantation!
It is nice to have your own place in the country, and I realize that few people ever get this sort of a sensation, or such an arrangement. Owning your own land, away from others and their noises, is terribly addicting, even without the slaves, and the crops, and the Big House, and all of the other accoutrements that establish a Southern plantation. Many of the Southern plantations were about the size of my place, here, with small dog-trot houses, and not nearly as many Greek Revival architectural homes, nor even the Avenel-styled mansions as Hollywood would like to have us believe. A place my size would have had about ten to twenty slaves, and I would have worked in the fields beside them, as a master, and as an overseer, and as a slave on my own plantation... It was a family business, as much as anything else, and slaves were more like family than the yankee historians would have us believe. They certainly were at Avenel house, all one hundred of them! Few people travelled more than 25 miles from their homes, in their entire lifetimes, up until the War of Liberal Aggression. People worked and fed themselves, and survived. In that attitude, one can see how the farmers would have been convinced that the federal invaders needed killing, and that right quickly. We the people were our land, and there was no separation between us, and it.
Personally, I would have never owned any slaves, I do not think. The idea of finding a wife is daunting enough! And children! I just don't know about any of that! The view is getting mighty dim from Tower 50!
My grandfather was hired-out at the age of five to the neighboring farms, somewhere around this area, and he owned the first real property that we owned, which was right here. With a 3rd grade education, he amassed the 119 acres that we all live upon, today, and he worked it with four people; himself, and his three children, one of whom was my father.
And now I have my portion of it, right here. My cousin Stacey's land backs into mine, and I do not think that anything behind us will ever be developed further, at all... at least, not while I am owner of Three Acres Plantation!
Friday, August 12, 2011
The Aura of a Beach Bum
I moved to Florida in 1984, and stayed until 1998... but I finally got to live as a beach bum, in 2009... For 13 months, all I did was get up at two in the afternoon, go surfing until late in the evening, walk on the beach, and then have dinner, overlooking the pounding surf... Some TV, and then work on films for Amazon CreateSpace until early in the morning... maybe go out on the beach, again, for a late night walk in the moonlight, or the total darkness... (Walking on the deserted beach at night, in the moonlight, looks like somewhere in the deserts of the Middle East... or a Christmas Card. You expect to see three wise men going by on camels... The sand is really cold, almost like being on the surface of the moon).
... then backup to the room, and off to bed, to do it all over again, the next day.
It completely and totally ruined me. I can no longer wear shoes, of any kind. I went barefoot, or in a pair of slip on sandals the entire time. My feet are history... All I want to do, any more, is slip on a pair of shorts, and grab up my big old beach hat, and take off for the water, with a cup of jacked-up coffee...
At least half of my remaining years will be spent in this fashion, if I have anything to say about it!
... then backup to the room, and off to bed, to do it all over again, the next day.
It completely and totally ruined me. I can no longer wear shoes, of any kind. I went barefoot, or in a pair of slip on sandals the entire time. My feet are history... All I want to do, any more, is slip on a pair of shorts, and grab up my big old beach hat, and take off for the water, with a cup of jacked-up coffee...
At least half of my remaining years will be spent in this fashion, if I have anything to say about it!
The End of August
One of my favorite Yanni songs, the End of August, is now actually approaching Tom Cat Ridge in real time. This morning I am up at Oh-Ungodly hours (seven a.m.), preparing to work the camps this morning at the Y.
I stuck my head out the back porch deck doorway, to enjoy a quick breath of morning air, something this hard shell Scorpio nocturnal creature rarely, if ever, does... and I could feel the excitement of Autumn beginning to tinge the trees with its cool, embracing bite. God, I love Fall!
Second cup of coffee, and trying to make sense of the morning. Last week I found some old cassette tapes from the late eighties/ early nineties. Tapes of the ECHOES show from NPR, 90.7 in Orlando, of their original New Age programming. Transferred them to CD, and now I am listening to them on the five disc changer. Had not heard them for 20 years, or more... Now, it seems as though I have stepped back in time.
I am almost glad to be turning 50 years old. Since I have realized this, I have released the death grip I had upon Life. It is a really nice feeling, actually.
I look around me, and I see all of these projects I have completed in my time on earth. The volumes of poetry, the novels, the drawings, and the films and movies... Stuff that is just now beginning to see the light of day, thanks to the newfound legitimacy of self publishing, and computer promotion. Some of it is pretty good, actually. But this was the legacy that I thought to leave.
As great a man as Thomas Jefferson was, he left a few inventions, 18,000 plus letters, and a couple of homes, one of them just down the road from me, here... about a day's ride.
If I left everything today, for others to discover, I would be content with what I have gotten done. And that has made me step back, slow down, and begin to take a new approach to the final stages of Life. Where just several weeks ago I was completely focused and driven, and plowing through new projects like they were on fire, now I seem to be easing up, in a most wonderfully soothing way. I have some forty odd films out, right now. These new ones will get there, eventually. What is my real hurry, after all?
I plan to keep my land up here, and live a good deal of my time at the beach, in Florida... Coming back and forth as I get tired of one area, or as the weather gets hateful here, or there... Rent a beach house, and stay as long as I like. Forget owning land down there, where the Northerners have so fed upon everyone with their damnable taxes that only they remain, now, and they are now feeding on each other. But when we lived there, in 2009, for 13 months, we figured out that renting is the new deal...
You can get a place on the beach for next to nothing, any more... so long as you do not try and call it your own property!
The Transplant Florida Yankees can have everything from the sand dunes, west, to the Gulf Coast. Just give me the sand from the high tide line east, to the surf, and we'll get along just fine!
I stuck my head out the back porch deck doorway, to enjoy a quick breath of morning air, something this hard shell Scorpio nocturnal creature rarely, if ever, does... and I could feel the excitement of Autumn beginning to tinge the trees with its cool, embracing bite. God, I love Fall!
Second cup of coffee, and trying to make sense of the morning. Last week I found some old cassette tapes from the late eighties/ early nineties. Tapes of the ECHOES show from NPR, 90.7 in Orlando, of their original New Age programming. Transferred them to CD, and now I am listening to them on the five disc changer. Had not heard them for 20 years, or more... Now, it seems as though I have stepped back in time.
I am almost glad to be turning 50 years old. Since I have realized this, I have released the death grip I had upon Life. It is a really nice feeling, actually.
I look around me, and I see all of these projects I have completed in my time on earth. The volumes of poetry, the novels, the drawings, and the films and movies... Stuff that is just now beginning to see the light of day, thanks to the newfound legitimacy of self publishing, and computer promotion. Some of it is pretty good, actually. But this was the legacy that I thought to leave.
As great a man as Thomas Jefferson was, he left a few inventions, 18,000 plus letters, and a couple of homes, one of them just down the road from me, here... about a day's ride.
If I left everything today, for others to discover, I would be content with what I have gotten done. And that has made me step back, slow down, and begin to take a new approach to the final stages of Life. Where just several weeks ago I was completely focused and driven, and plowing through new projects like they were on fire, now I seem to be easing up, in a most wonderfully soothing way. I have some forty odd films out, right now. These new ones will get there, eventually. What is my real hurry, after all?
I plan to keep my land up here, and live a good deal of my time at the beach, in Florida... Coming back and forth as I get tired of one area, or as the weather gets hateful here, or there... Rent a beach house, and stay as long as I like. Forget owning land down there, where the Northerners have so fed upon everyone with their damnable taxes that only they remain, now, and they are now feeding on each other. But when we lived there, in 2009, for 13 months, we figured out that renting is the new deal...
You can get a place on the beach for next to nothing, any more... so long as you do not try and call it your own property!
The Transplant Florida Yankees can have everything from the sand dunes, west, to the Gulf Coast. Just give me the sand from the high tide line east, to the surf, and we'll get along just fine!
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Police Work
People always ask me why I got out of police work. But the vast majority of people who ask me that question are civilians who have never been police officers. Any police officer who asks that question usually does so rapidly... and actually fills in his own answer before I have a chance to respond to it... He will say something like, "Just get tired of it?" or "Not enough money?" And the answer is yes to both of those questions, and to several other unasked ones, as well.
But here is the answer that everyone is looking for...
I got into police work, very much against my father's wishes, because I wanted to follow in his footsteps, and prove that I could do it. Once I had a badge, and a gun, and arrest powers, I wanted to 'change the world', and 'make a difference'. These are the sentiments of a rookie cop who has no idea what he is getting himself into.
I wanted to save lives, and stop crime, and ride around and be the good cop whom everyone wanted to see coming... I ended up just like all of the rest of them; an armed secretary, rushing about from one frivolous call to the next, and seeing only the very worst side of humanity, on a daily basis.
The really exciting stuff you get to do, you have to generate on your own. You have to decide to follow a car, and figure out what bugs you about the driver, or the license plates... you have to decide to go down on the beach and look for the robbery suspects, on your own initiative. You have to smell the marijuana, and approach the car, and generate a small narcotics violation... in order to find and then to pull out 27 pounds of the stuff in the trunk, and make a major bust... If the dispatcher sends you on a call, it is usually just to sweep up. To write the report. To talk to the survivors. If other policemen would just take these 'followup' calls, you could get ever so much more done on your own, in your zone, and on your shift!
Police officers really have one job, and one job only... Many think it is To Protect and Serve. But once a man becomes a policeman, his superiors tell him something else; they tell him that his job is simply this; to report the commission of crime to the state. That's it. Other than that, he will call a wrecker, an ambulance, a fire truck, or a supervisor. In the performance of this reporting of crime, he may have to shoot someone, or make an arrest... but he will always be ball and chained to that eternally damnable paperwork. He is an armed secretary. And he will spend a great deal of his life in traffic court, on his off-duty time. This gets incredibly worrisome, after a few years.
I am glad I was a police officer. Like being a lifeguard, you learn invaluable skills that make you a much more observant and powerful person, mentally. I came away from that job with enormous powers of detection, and comprehension. I can profile just about anyone, and usually I am right about that person. Profiling is police work, despite what the Liberals say about it. It is the job of a police officer, to prejudge people, and to make learned assumptions that are correct about people. It is what they are paid to do. It keeps them alive, in the course of their duties. It is what a lifeguard does, every day... only the politics of Liberal government have not yet intruded into the pool areas, as they have done upon our streets, and highways, and into our prisons. Not yet, any way.
But I am glad that I was a police officer. The job has eroded into a Click It or Ticket stupidity that I cannot even imagine. It is now all about enforcing an unreasonably low speed limit in an area where the natural and workable speed is ten to fifteen or so miles an hour faster... in an area with a speed limit so low that one has to really ride the brakes to maintain it... and all because it generates revenue to write tickets of this type in those areas... Areas where you only frequently see patrolmen at the end of the month...
About the time they went from carrying revolvers to carrying automatics, the job just sort of died for us Old School types. When they stopped allowing full-bore high speed chases. When they went from leather to velcro. Police officers now seem so civilian, in their attitudes. They do not even use Ten Signals, any longer... nor Codes... The aura of a knight, or a cavalry soldier... a protector of the realm... is gone now, Swept away. I spoke with a policeman in Roanoke last year after I was rear-ended at a light, and he seemed just like us, the civilians. Maybe it was the computer in the front seat which told me that he was doing his own dispatching, these days... Running his own 10-28s and 29s, and criminal histories, instead of calling them in... But there was no feeling of being in a superior presence; of that awe and wonder about the man and his job. He was on our level. Not like in the old days.
Maybe that's a good thing, now that I am a civilian, once again. But it is not the job I knew, at all. My time is over, as a law enforcement officer, and I am glad of it.
I made every major case that I wanted to make... from stopping armed robbers to recovering many pounds of narcotics and stolen property. And I never had to shoot anyone. I always had the power to convince the suspect upon whom I had drawn down that I was deadly serious, and always got the compliance that I needed to make the arrests without incident. When a policeman has to fire his weapon, it means that the situation has escalated out of his control. And that job is all about this kind of control, and nothing else. About keeping that lid on things, and keeping the department out of liability. And that imagined aura of police officer superiority we once enjoyed, even though it was never real, always helped us do just that.
One should be a policeman when he is young, and still has that aura of immortality about himself. I lost that, at the age of 24, chasing a suspect off a porch in Daytona Beach. He and I both hit the ground at the same time, and knocked the wind out of us both... It was a few moments before I could get him handcuffed. As my sergeant appeared, and jerked him up, and threw him in the back of my cruiser, still gasping for wind, I was just beginning to be able to breathe again, myself... and it was then that I began to realized that I was not immortal. I stayed longer than that, of course, but the shield of invincibility was cracked, now, and not as strong as before. A great number of policemen killed in the line of duty have been there forever... thirty years, or more, at times... Sure, young cops get killed, too... mostly from inexperience... but the older ones, I think, should make an exit long before the odds catch up to them. Like gunfighters, or race car drivers...
I do not see police work as a career, nor did I ever see it as such. If you stay 30 years in patrol, people want to know why you never made rank. Rank, or being a supervisor, is a whole other job, entirely. You now have to do several police officers' jobs, including your own... and it gets worse the higher you go up the ladder. You have to become a nanny to your patrolmen, and see to it that they do their reports properly. You have to train them, and evaluate them, and you lose that edge; that hunter's instinct, because of these distractions. Your officers are now making the initial contacts, and the really exciting stuff. You, as a supervisor, get called in later, while it is still going on... but the thrill of the chase now belongs to the line patrolmen. The song does not remain the same! Police work is like being in the military... if you stay long enough, you will usually be promoted out of the job, itself, and into administration, farther and farther away from the streets, until you wear a white shirt with gold brass fittings, and stay inside all day long... And you lose the job that way.
If you do not make rank, dissatisfaction will consume you, utterly. If you stay on the streets forever, and watch your rookies that you yourself trained become your supervisors, it has a very negative effect upon you. And you lose the job that way...
So being a police officer on patrol is not a permanent situation, for anyone. And that is why I did not choose to continue looking for work in the law enforcement field of municipal city police work. The job has still not been professionalized, even though they have been trying to make it so for the last thirty years. The job just does not have enough benefits, and enough going for it to attract that sort of a reputation. The first policemen, centuries ago, were trash collectors on a night watch of the town... The job is a little better than sanitation, these days, but not by much... Like sanitation, it is a necessary activity... but unlike sanitation, the direct contact with people should make the job a priority, like school teachers, and day care workers... and lifeguards... but none of these jobs has the real aura that they deserve... nor even the aura that they once enjoyed... and they have never been paid anywhere what they are actually worth... none of them.
Except in police work, people are shooting at you... and usually when you least expect them to be doing that... So, no, I did not decide to push the odds any further. I was satisfied with what I had already accomplished, and knew it was a different game, if I stayed... but not one that would make it enticing enough for me to stay in it.
At the end of the day, the difference I made was not permanent, and has long been forgotten. Except to those to whom it mattered. Like me, they remember.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
August Hot
There are those people who believe in only turning on the A/C for guests, and trying to live in a mostly uncomfortable setting -just to save a few worthless, meager bucks. This is a bad idea, and an even worse joke. One's damned sanity has to be factored into any such arrangement, and how one feels is directly linked to how one responds.
The American Self-Improvement Movement is not a pleasant thing, at all. Recycling to the point of distraction, being a No-Impact sort of a Liberal, and 'doing everyone's part' like we are on some deserted island, sharing the last few sticks and seeds that there are to be found anywhere is worse than a Religion, worse than a Socialism. It is a metastasized cancer, and a demonic reaction to the real cost of comfort, and ease.
Comfort and Ease are not extravagances! They are essentials! They are what keep us from outright killing each other in heated arguments. And who will know how much you suffered and bled for savings in a hundred years?
I cut the A/C on, and even the cold little kitchen window unit, as well, when it gets ungodly hot! And I take a moment to laugh at my stingy others, who still curse their power bills each month, brought to them by the sitting Liberals, anyway!
The American Self-Improvement Movement is not a pleasant thing, at all. Recycling to the point of distraction, being a No-Impact sort of a Liberal, and 'doing everyone's part' like we are on some deserted island, sharing the last few sticks and seeds that there are to be found anywhere is worse than a Religion, worse than a Socialism. It is a metastasized cancer, and a demonic reaction to the real cost of comfort, and ease.
Comfort and Ease are not extravagances! They are essentials! They are what keep us from outright killing each other in heated arguments. And who will know how much you suffered and bled for savings in a hundred years?
I cut the A/C on, and even the cold little kitchen window unit, as well, when it gets ungodly hot! And I take a moment to laugh at my stingy others, who still curse their power bills each month, brought to them by the sitting Liberals, anyway!
Saturday, August 6, 2011
When I Lived on the Beach
At times I really miss living on the beach. Reading the Skinny Island Post brings a lot of that back to me, now. The waves crashing on the beach at night, which become part of your blood pressure rhythms, and your biological pace. I used to miss it when I would just drive over to the mainland, and get groceries, or get dinner out, somewhere.
The food is really great down there. Nights of crab legs, and shrimp, fixed at the condo... or fried clams, flounder, and beer down on Sunglow Pier, at Crabby Joe's... I sense an ever-deepening withdrawal, one that only tends to get worse as the years go by.
I think I will finish up Life on the beach, somewhere, down there, in a beach house.
Some thoughts from Tower 50
There is this really neat sense I am getting about turning 50 years of age. There was this absolute sense of dread about turning 30, and then 40... but 50, now, seems a lot different. I am no longer an old young person... I am going to be a young old person... and that, somehow, is making all the difference.
It's like people don't expect me to try and keep up with the younger kids, anymore.
Not that I ever did that, mind you. I was always more comfortable, socially, with older people, anyway. Older people, or else those so much younger than me that I get to be the Old Man in the Furs, to them. People my age were never impressed with me. But the Scorpio is said to look old in youth, and young in age...
And I am ready for some of that, now!
It's like people don't expect me to try and keep up with the younger kids, anymore.
Not that I ever did that, mind you. I was always more comfortable, socially, with older people, anyway. Older people, or else those so much younger than me that I get to be the Old Man in the Furs, to them. People my age were never impressed with me. But the Scorpio is said to look old in youth, and young in age...
And I am ready for some of that, now!
Friday, August 5, 2011
Three Acres Plantation
Okay, I am going to refer to my land out here, five miles south of the city, as Three Acres Plantation. It's really 3.5, but I live on the upper three. The view from the front porch is nice, with all of our weather coming from the West, just over yonder, towards Roanoke, the town of my birth... Mom's place is just visible in the porch shot, there, and I own clear up to that phone pole, which is our dividing line... Bro on the other side. We have a monopoly on this side of the road!
Fall is coming! My birth sign, Scorpio, and my favorite time of the year! Born on Woden's Day, 8 November, 1961.
(That date reads the same if you flip each number upside down! 11/8/1961. )
Right now, I am growing some vicious grass and broomsage out in the field, and around the place... Patiently waiting for the growing season to end, so I can knock it all back once more before the Winter months...
My brother is installing a family cemetery on the end corner of my place, which I donated for the cause, and the wrought iron railing looks really neat.
The Tom Cat Ridge Gazette - First Issue
The Tom Cat Ridge Gazette - First Issue, First Edition, First Attempt
Well, things are nominal this morning up here on Tom Cat Ridge... Overcast, this 5th day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven... Coffee and some Hearts of Space stuff on the CD changer... Cinemotion, I think... Tonight is Friday Night, and 89.1, our NPR affiliate, will run Hearts of Space at 11:00 tonight. I always listen to the show. Mom actually met Scott August out West and purchased Radiant Sky from him. He signed it for her. It's a great disc!
A couple hours before I have to be and appear at my job...
Not sure what one is supposed to include in a blog, or leave out, but I will figure it out as I get there, I suppose!
In three months, I shall be 50 years old. That's half the ride, or more, in the books... documented.
I got the idea for this blog from The Skinny Island Post of Sam Harrison, with whom I have just reconnected after Lord knows how many years... Thanks, Sam! I now have websites, Facebook, (don't Twitter... am not nervous enough for that!), and now this. This Blog thingy.
Tom Cat Ridge is what my dad used to call this area... and this piece of land I own, way up here in the hills of Virginia. I have 3.5 acres, and it is very quiet out this way... so this is the Tom Cat Ridge Gazette!
I do not keep a journal, nor a diary, but this might be a nice way to jot stuff down for later, if anyone ever cares to see it...
Well, things are nominal this morning up here on Tom Cat Ridge... Overcast, this 5th day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven... Coffee and some Hearts of Space stuff on the CD changer... Cinemotion, I think... Tonight is Friday Night, and 89.1, our NPR affiliate, will run Hearts of Space at 11:00 tonight. I always listen to the show. Mom actually met Scott August out West and purchased Radiant Sky from him. He signed it for her. It's a great disc!
A couple hours before I have to be and appear at my job...
Not sure what one is supposed to include in a blog, or leave out, but I will figure it out as I get there, I suppose!
In three months, I shall be 50 years old. That's half the ride, or more, in the books... documented.
I got the idea for this blog from The Skinny Island Post of Sam Harrison, with whom I have just reconnected after Lord knows how many years... Thanks, Sam! I now have websites, Facebook, (don't Twitter... am not nervous enough for that!), and now this. This Blog thingy.
Tom Cat Ridge is what my dad used to call this area... and this piece of land I own, way up here in the hills of Virginia. I have 3.5 acres, and it is very quiet out this way... so this is the Tom Cat Ridge Gazette!
I do not keep a journal, nor a diary, but this might be a nice way to jot stuff down for later, if anyone ever cares to see it...
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