I had to put this up the moment I saw it. It is perfect for the heaviest driving season of the year. I and my wife once drove through the San Joaquin Valley in Central California at the breakneck stop and go speed of 10 miles per hour. Yes, boys and girls, 300+ miles on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. This cartoon is so rich. Enjoy it.
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Now, this is the hour when the "Bell Tolls." It is exactly one year since the very first post of this blog came into existence. It continues. Different title, same intent. To keep me thinking and helping you to do the same. My computer says that this is the 365th post for the blog. The calendar says that it is November 25, 2011 and that completes a 365 day year. However, for technical reasons I get credit for fulfilling the quota, but for actual readership purposes, the number is only 363. So, now that you know that I am a complete failure, you must be saying, "Why continue?" That's an easy one. I still have a lot to say. I still have something different enough just about every day to keep you interested. I still have enough autobiography left for my children to discover that I have to continue. I have some plans for future "Thoughts" that will serve to rattle your cages a little bit as well. Since I am fond of cage rattling, I can't stop this while I'm planning so much fun.
Let me kick this off with one that happened today.
When is the last time you had a "silent discussion" with your spouse? Mine was today. It was short. There was no "winner." It makes for good telling.
We're going to the Thanksgiving dinner. We get off the highway, go toward the bottom of the ramp and see, off to the left, a tall, thin, mustachioed mendicant. Immediately Belle [I am honoring her request to stop referring to her as the "Voice from the Kitchen.] says, "Do you have something for him?"
I saw two things that did not resonate with her. 1* The light was about to turn in my favor. 2* The man had a small dog on a leash.
My retort: "If he can afford to feed his dog, he doesn't need my money. After he eats his dog, I'll contribute." SILENCE. Oh yeah. It lasted about five minutes. It ended in a nice, concessionary tone expressing sympathy for our ailing #2 son that we had to leave at home. During the silence, I could hear her disagreeing with me, but I think she had also come to the factual observation that by the time we had reached his position by the side of the road the light was green. So an eleemosynary act under those conditions would have been inappropriate at best and stupid, at worst. So, in the end, it makes for a cute story with a happy ending. Besides, I'll make it up to God by doubling the next one.
A good start to the new batch of "365 Thoughts."
Have fun.
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| BOOOOOM!!! |
If and when ever you read the introduction to this blog, you'll see that I wondered if I could get 365 thoughts in one year. As a matter of fact, I got so many thoughts so far this year that I can't begin to calculate how many more I have lost than those that I actually captured. It is the usual story of the challenge of standing at the starting line and wondering if reaching the end is possible. This initial phobia can be rather difficult to conquer. But, as a matter of fact, it has not been difficult. It has been more difficult trying to keep the product within some sort of logically bounded territory. I have constantly told myself that the autobiographical nature of the product should never be abandoned. So, that means that I have to abide by some self-imposed rules. For a character like me that is not easy to do. I therefore get around that difficulty by maintaining other blogs that serve as pressure relievers when the boundaries are starting to squeeze a little too tightly. That hasn't happened too often, so things have been rather smooth and slippery. I have tried to maintain the "Grant, Data, Warrant" model in the production of the articles. Sometimes it works, sometimes my affinity for the digression and the embroidery is too demanding and off I go... I read the thing the next day and I say to myself, "Well, the humor is not in the way it was said, it's more in the way it was written." Oh, yeah, I know it happens.
This is a strange feeling for me, the discipline I mean. Since I was 12 years old I have been writing and speaking in public. Most of the time I do it extemporaneously, without notes and many times without a written outline. I always have one in my head, but hey, everyone knows what stream of consciousness does to you when a good line swishes by and your synapses grab it. You just have to use it. When I first started, I figured that things would just come and roll out. Like in the featured picture. Just sit down and whooosh! 700 words and off to bed with you. Actually, most days it's like that. Some are not. But over all it is fun, and it is, believe it or not, instructive too. For instance, I have learned to stay away from foul language, except in Latin, as you know. But then again, everybody knows that foul language is one the the first double standards that children discover as they are growing up. But I think I have been quite restrained in that area. The other area I have been carefully monitoring is the "no-no" duo, "Politics and Religion." I have three other outlets for that, but I decided that this was not the place for that kind of stuff. Not that I don't have thoughts and convictions about them, but just that if anyone wants to sniff around with that, they can ask me and I'll tell them. The important thing is that the audiences for those outlets know where to find them. I have mentioned them here a time or two and the links are listed off to the side. Actually, if truth were told, some of the greatest gems are in my old E-mails. Some of them are sparkling jewels of who I really am!
Finally, I have generally been rather modest. I have one article that I wrote several years ago about a mother who was bringing her daughter to church for first communion. The mother and the daughter were dressed in equally stunning white dresses. One was 10 years old or so and the mother was, of course, somewhat older. The mother was somewhat less than appropriately dressed for church, and I write about it. In polite terms, of course. I was thinking of putting it here, but the Voice from the Kitchen is dead set against it. So, if you want to see it, click around a bit. You'll find it. By the way, The Voice from the Kitchen has about 36 more days of left to her half-life. After that I will abide by her wish to use her real name for ever more.
So, you see, this is a reporting of what goes on in my coconut with regards to this effort of mine. I can therefore confess that it is nothing but an authentic, unvarnished, secular, but polite part of me. One that my children will be able to show to their children, on the off chance that they generate any.
