THE BACK PAGE FIRST PAGE

I was a very devoted aficionado of "Mad Magazine."  Of course one of my favorite features of the magazine was the monthly fold-in that was drawn by a man name Al Jaffee.  Al is now ninety years of age and is still performing his routine of "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions."
I chose this because I have designed a new blog that is meant to be the home of my as yet unfinished autobiography.  Now the reason why my autobiography has yet to be completed is because I am still alive.  For this very obvious reason I have not been able to compose the last chapter.  In the past, during the very first moments that I made the decision to do this, I had a subterfuge all designed and composed in fact, to get around the "last chapter" problem.  I decided that since I was [still am] an inveterate reader of the last page of any publication, first, I would start my autobiography with the introduction on the last page inside the back cover.  Back then, this was an easy hurdle to scale.  Now that there are no last pages to "turn" to, I am really stuck.  There are no electronic "last pages" because everything is measured by the clock and the calendar. So it is that in this day and age, the last page is always on top and in the front.  So why am I complaining?   So, I am going to be true to my self and put the "last page" that I composed some years ago on the first page of the blog.  Since every page of a blog is dated, I may bring myself to manipulating the date manually in an effort to stay true to myself.  Maybe.  All the while cheating the computer into thinking that this is the first post of the blog, no matter what.  But for the time being, I am so confused, I think I am going to have to lie down and count to at least ten.
There is one good thing about the autobiography of one, PA Dion.  It is not chronologically presented.  It is more a "stream of consciousness" frivolity that is meant to entertain as much as to edify and educate.  Both of these words carry a promise that is out my reach to fulfill, but they sound promising, don't they?  Just like "MAD" magazine.  Believe it or not, the original outline of  this project, though conceived as a paper and pencil "oeuvre" was not planned as a chronological progression.  So see, I am avant-garde, even at my age.  So, maybe, right from the very start of this whole thing, there never really was a "last page."  Oh, my, oh my!
Just to give you a peep at the now "First" page of the work, I proceed with no further ado.
Hey, what are you doing here?  Don't you know that in this country and in this culture we start a book from left to right, not from right to left?  But, hey, I know that there are enough of you out there who have the same curiosity that I have always had.  I start at the back of the book too.  But with me, it's mostly in the magazine stuff that I get hooked.  I can't ever remember reading Time, Newsweek, Mad, Sports Illustrated and a host of others from the front to the back.  It just always seems more interesting that way.
So, this page is dedicated to all of you who are like me.  Enjoy yourselves for a moment.  I will submit to to conventional Occidental culture from this moment on and take things from left to right.  If you keep going in the right to left direction, you are going to have some mighty boring stuff staring you in the face.  You know, Index, End Notes... Hey wait a minute, end notes can be kinda fun, right?
OK folks, this is all the right-brain power I have for the moment.  Now it is back to the system that got us here.  Just start here and work your way through this mess and this will become the last page over time.  That's probably the the only logical thing that you'll experience between these covers.  Certainly the only true chronological one.  Hope you enjoy it.

EDUCATION BY INTERVIEW

I had a powerful insight about how some people come to their wisdom.  I do not have the desire to describe nor to define "wisdom" here.  I just want to point out how some people come to a point of having a great volume of information and a very powerful ability of making it create wonderful intellectual and even emotional conclusions.
I do not know why, but I was impressed by the command of facts that the biographer of Steve Jobs had of his subject and of the environment that had shaped the life of the subject.  I was also moved by the breadth of knowledge shown by the autobiographer.  He was not just wise about Steve Jobs but he showed a wisdom uncommon for the majority of people who appear on television.  I couldn't help but think that much of his wisdom had been infused into him by the dedication that he had applied to any number of biographies that he had produced.  It is of course logical that anyone who would undertake the task of writing biographies would come to know many things about life.  After all, learning what others think about the way they have lived their life cannot help but fill the interviewer with a wealth of information about such a mysterious subject.  But deeper than information [data] is the wisdom that it generates, both in the subject of the interview and in the attentive interviewer.  I am happy that I paid more attention to learning about the biographer than I did trying to learn anything more than what I already knew about Steve Jobs.  I must say that in my opinion, the biographer is an admirable human being.  Much more so than Steve Jobs.  All I ever knew and thought about Steve Jobs is contained on the cover of his biography.  The title, "Steve Jobs."
Allow me to give you a little suggestion from the bundle of thoughts that I am trying to keep in logical order here.  if you want to know something about a person of interest to you, go to Google, click on "Images" and search for the biography or the autobiography of the person.  Note the title.  In my opinion, if the title is eponymous, just as the title "Steve Jobs" is, don't bother reading it.   You've already got everything you want to know.  If it has an intriguing descriptive title, that's the one you want to pick up.  It is my contention that if the person being interviewed by the writer in view of producing a biography cannot encapsulate his/her life in five words or less, the biography is not worth reading [nor writing, for that matter].  [That goes for autobiographies too.]
It is therefore my contention that there is a lot to be learned through interviewing people for biographies.  It can make a wise person of the one who pays attention to the craft.  I'll bet it can even make a wise person of the one who prepares the production of an autobiography with diligence and pure honesty.
Oh, by the way, in case you haven't noticed yet, I have the right to hold my opinion about how to entitle life stories.  My whole life is encapsulated in the participial phrase, "No Crying at my Funeral."  Go ahead, Google it under "Images."  You'll enjoy yourself.  Then, you won't have to read the book.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL INTROSPECTION IS WHAT THIS IS

Now you're going to know part of who I am.  It is impossible to cover the description of a person in 400 words, so I will try to make these 400 words as pleasant as possible.  I started out by putting up a picture, but then took it down because it didn't say anything.  As you all know I have been thinking of writing my autobiography now for nearly ten years, maybe even more.  Hey, 10 is a nice round number, so let's go with that.  Now here's the goofy part.  I am still debating with myself about how to keep track of the stuff that describes me.  Here's what I mean.  Every project that someone undertakes has a beginning, a middle and an end.  Usually, they come in an order that is readily captured by the people who avail themselves of the end product.  Usually written product, like this article, have a plan that they follow.  Remember, I said usually.  Because I know that, and because I insist that my autobiography should be understood by the readers, it has to have a plan. That truth I have been carrying around with me since I turned 9.  The nuns told me how to write stories.  I followed their advice and found that it works.  At least it worked for all the time that I was doing school assignments.  
Then I left school.  I didn't stop learning, I just stopped getting harassed about grades and discipline and little things like that.  Well, the grades I can do without.  The discipline though is what is getting to me.  I know what I don't want to do.  Now, all I have to do is to decide what it is that I want to do.  I know for sure that I want the first page of the book to be in the back.  Why?  Because I would then be the first person to respect those people who like to read books starting from the right.  Besides, that;'s how I start reading any book or magazine.  So that is I, with a capital "I" and I want to celebrate that idiosyncrasy of mine.  But that's not all.  I know that I don't want to divide the book into a regular, straight line of events like most history books.  Boooorrrring!  For a few years I thought I had the answer to my perverted desire to arrange the book in a non-traditional way.  I was decided that I was going to write it according to the four seasons.  I decided that I would start with Winter.  Go ahead, ask me, "Why Winter?"  I was born in Winter, that's why.
I was so sure that I had the answer.  Then, one fine day, it struck me that I had more than four seasons swirling around in my head.  I had the heavy duty celebratory seasons that were full of stories that bore telling.  They also demanded that they be distinct from the "astrological" reality during which they fell.  You all know by now that for me Summer and Baseball season are not synonymous.  Rats!  Now pay attention to this.  I have been carrying this dilemma around with me for several years now.  I have to tell you that even though I should be embarrassed to say that, I'm not.  Heck no.  I'm coping pretty well.  Not super happy that my creative alter ego is dragging his fanny about solving this problem, but hey, we still get along.  Every now and them he throws me a bone.  A small chicken bone, but hey, it's better than nothing.  I confess that I have not yet had the final mental turbulence that I would like to have so that things would get clear, but I am getting somewhat optimistic that I am getting there.  The free flowing, stream of consciousness exercise of the "365 Thoughts Emanating from Paul Dion, STL" is helping.  I like it because it doesn't have the rigid railroad track discipline that chapters and verses have.  That's OK for the Bible, but what was good for my namesake doesn't turn me on.  Not in this field, anyway.  [Gotta be careful here.]  So now, after a few months of this exercise, I'm thinking that a clustering of related themes would be a good way to go.  That way I could spend a couple more years deciding what should be clustered with whatever else.  I figure that if I give it two years, I could almost get half-way through. then my sons could look at it and be convinced that what their mother always maintained is perfectly true: "He started a lot of things but never finished anything."  So there ya go, "Manifest Destiny" is what it is.  It won't be on paper, but it will exist.  It won't be distilled, but it will take up space, electronic or otherwise.
Every now and then I read some of the stuff that I have written.  There's a lot, believe me.  Some of it is pretty neat.  All I can hope for is that my progeny will realize that this is the record of my hegemony.  If they live long enough, they'll get to know who their old man really was.  There's nothing there to make any of you cry at my funeral.  For 50 years now that has been the title of my autobiography.  That, I tell you straight up, will never change.

THE DRAWING BOARD (see below)

So GOOGLE can't find me.  So what?  Here's the truth:
Deep down in my mind and heart I have had a driving conviction that I had to leave an autobiography to my children.  I knew that I was not going to leave them any more than memories and word pictures of my life according to the way I saw it.  So, about seven or eight years ago I started writing my autobiography.  I have some of it done.  In fact I have the most important thing done...The outline.  I think it is really a break-through concept for an autobiography.  I can tell you that I am not following it one single bit.  I have fallen into the "blog" trap and I like it because it is really me.  The one thing that I have to confess is that I know that my children do not read it.  That, however does not really perturb me.  I know that some day, they too will "leaf" through it.  If it did not exist, they would have nothing to "leaf" through.
Therefore, you are all witnessing an exercise in futility.  You know what? I love it!  I am convinced that I am doing the right thing.  And that, to you all, and to my children for the future, is my thought for today.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

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Paul Dion Biography

Paul Dion

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I GOOGLED "PAUL DION AUTOBIOGRAPHY" 

and got what you see here.  Isn't it 

encouraging?  Looks like I am going to get 

back to the drawing board.  SEE YOU THERE.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY?

I suppose that it is because it is impossible to know where to start and you don't know where it will end.  I sure as the devil do not remember when it all started.  Do you?  I can't tell you what it feels like to be in an environment where you don't have to breathe.  I can't tell you what I was thinking when I first saw the light of day. Or was that a klieg light and it wasn't day at all?  There's no one alive who knows any more.  So here I am stuck with a resolution that is now some 20 plus years old to write my autobiography and not too much to show for  it.  Believe it or not, I have an outline.  I have a great innovative and creative idea to not have the story progress over time, but rather meander through the four seasons of the temperate zone in which I was born and grew up.  It's a great idea.  It really does turn out pretty well.  It has some great stories in it.  The nice part about it is that they are all true.  The bad part about it is that I don't give it the time I should to get it done.  I have no idea who in this world does have the time.  I also don't have the resources to hire an amanuensis to do the work for me.  So here I sit with a bunch of blog posts, none of which follow the super creative plan that I worked out a couple of decades ago for my infamous autobiography.
Perhaps the most revelatory posts are to be found in http://fourinchdevil.blogspot.com/, called CRUSTY KURMUJJIN for one.  That one's a little bit edgy.  I let myself go in this one.  I have another one that is quite spiritual and actually has the title that I have in mind for the autobiography, http://nocryingatmyfuneral.blogspot.com/, NO CRYING AT MY FUNERAL.  You can look these up, if you have the time and the inclination.  They are both rather serious productions.  No Crying at my Funeral is really intended for the Church and can be found in the online weekly Catholic Life Style magazine, www/ParishWorld.net
It is really a well focused look into the depth of who I am.So now you know why I don't have time to follow the neat plan meant to support the creation of my autobiography.  I suppose if anybody reads enough of me on the Internet, they'll come to know me and they'll never know all the neat stuff about me like where and when I was born, etc.  So, I have the thought, I have the plan, I just don't have the treasure of affordable time to get it done...So instead I do this...Wow!  What a waste!  Trouble is, I like this, devil take the hindmost, and the autobiography too.

CUT AND PASTE -- PLAGIARISM, HHHmmmm

Now, come on, you don't expect your blogger to pay anyone the ultimate compliment (plagiarize) right?  Now when you don't have a thought to share, shouldn't you admit it?  I mean, I didn't even go to Google to snatch a picture of a block.  I found a way to make a file of something small enough to put here.  Actually, that's my secret of survival.   I ask myself how many things I have had to do in my life that had to come from an empty well.  You know, manage a team in a second language, run a school, start a model farm, manage an apartment complex, paint homes, run a switchboard (The old plug-in type), write employee manuals, manage the risk management of a multi-million dollar per year enterprise, manage a factory in a different country and finally to make a long story short, market myself to the world in order to make a living.  
Believe me, I am proud of that.  I am proud of the fact that if I lose a job in the line to which I am accustomed, I can find work anywhere and succeed.  I have found work during good times and during bad ones.  I have a secret.  I always ask for work, not a job.  During hard times I have found work when my opening line was, "You have work that no one else wants to do.  Give it to me."  That is usually work that no one has to be trained for.  I got jobs that were graveyard telephone answering service operator on Friday, Saturday and Sunday;  There was  the job where I had to get up at 2:30 AM to be standing at the front door of my first passenger at 4:00, six days per week; There was the job where I had to stock and restock shelves in a soap and beauty supplies shop during nights in the Christmas season; there was the cashier / bus boy at the Taco shop where the owner was a flaming b____!  There was the security guard job at a construction site in an undesirable part of town, graveyard shift, of course.  So friends, writer's block or not, when you are my age, you can always pull a rabbit out of your hat because there is always something that can be produced from the wellspring of your warped and twisted mind.  
No plagiarism allowed.  No digging back into another blog for a "Best Of..." repeat.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go back to my other job.  Nope, it ain't my day job.  I haven't had one of those in quite a while!  I'm doing this because no one else wants to do it.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EXERCISE MAINLY FOR MARC AND JO-EL

I was telling Isabel that for many years now I have decided to write my autobiography for the boys.  I have it started.  I had it on some 3.5 inch floppy disks (remember those?) and some of it has been lost and some of it remains.  I still  have some hard copy and I still have the outline.  All I need is the time.  This new expression of what goes on in my head should be considered a part of the autobiographical process.  Not only this blog, but here and here as well.  Click on those blue babies and you'll get some insights.  There is nothing there about my historical physical existence, but the activity that goes on between my ears and in my emotional self is pretty much what you'll find.
If you take a close look you'll see me on the highest step in the photo, hunched and poised for the kill with the glint in the sidelong stare.
This particular post was occasioned by the unexpected query at the breakfast table about what I was doing last night until 12:00.  So I simply told the truth and then was given the 3rd degree about my motives.  So, once again I had to actually think and tell the truth.  I was rather happy with the reaction.  She thinks it is good.
Therefore today I had two thoughts:  The clarification of why I do this and making sure that I understand the now growing expectations of the 10 of you who now know what is going on...at least the little bit that I now know and think about, you are privy to.
Oh, in case you are wondering, yes, I do know all the children in the picture.  Go ahead, put me to the test.  Go to the comment box below and twist my cranial synapses.  I dare ya!
I am now drained and have no more thoughts, ideas or phantazees left for today.

INTRODUCTION TO AN OLD MAN'S MUSINGS AND GROUSINGS

Hello,one and all.  Welcome to a experiment in human behavior.  I am wondering if I can actually practice the discipline that it is going to take to do this.

First let me introduce you to the symbol for the year.  the picture of the door on the right is the door that leads to the bedroom where our two wonderful boys spent the first years of their lives.  One of them is a rather clever cartoonist.  One day he got hold of a felt pen and let his imagination run roughshod over about 15% of the door. (The lower portion--he was about 8 or so.)  I liked it, and decided that we needed a little creativity in our lives.  That was a daring decision.  I never regretted it.  I want that kind of thinking to rule over this production.


I have to say that I have been walking the face of the earth for a little more than seven decades.  Along the way I have had some thoughts about some subjects.  I have also had some ideas.  If you can tell me the difference between the two, I'm ready to listen.  Anyway, two nights ago I was lying in my bed suffering from the pain that an attack of gout inevitably brings on.  As I lay there, I was occupied by a brain that would not stay quiet.  I had this inspiration to note a specific thought that caught my fancy for every single day of one year.  The longer I lay there languishing in the no-man's-land between sleep and fiery pain, the stronger the conviction came to do this.
Well, it didn't take long before I got into an argument with myself.  It was about the very important element of when the year would start. I knew that I couldn't wait too long because then it would be a leap year.  My brain was having nothing of that.  365 is enough, I can't and won't do 366. So the neutral part of me said, OK, December 1, 2010.  But then I got excited and things started to happen and it was decided that we would start immediately...today, November 25, 2010.
So here are some of the reasons why today won:
1. 50 years ago today my younger brother Denis was married.  Sadly, I can't be by his side, physically, so I will piggy-back on his marvelous tenacity and in that spirit, I begin this today.
2. If it's worth doing, do it.
3. I've already got two thoughts, why waste 'em?
4. I've got the symbol / logo for the year.  What's to wait for?

So away we go.  I have explained the logo above, so here's the first thought I had for the year.

See that lady on the right?  That's Isabel cooking the Thanksgiving turkey.  Laptop and all!  All I could think of when I saw this scene was how it was done when I was a boy.  I saw it done a couple of ways.  My maternal grandmother had a coal fired oven.  That didn't prevent her from cooking some bodacious excellent meats...it didn't matter to her, beef, pork, chicken, turkey, meat loaf and even bread.  So what's with the laptop, Mom?  My father was a more intellectual type, and we had an electric stove.  He still used to succeed marvelously well without a computer when it came to baking, and he never once took out his slide rule to get help in the process.  

My thought about this is that some things that we call the fruits of progress, really deserve the title because the results that they bring about are in fact better.  Some things though are only "progress" because they make the job of obtaining results easier, quicker and less strenuous.  In so many cases they do not make the end product any better.  Some things though are true progress in my book.  Take that laptop, for instance.  Now that's progress.  There is a universal library in that little black box.  And it doesn't cost a thing.  So, as my brother-in-law Jack responded upon hearing the story of the turkey being "Googled", as my sister Emelie remarked, made the insightful comment, "Well, that's one turkey who won't "gooble any more."

Now there's a thought!  Why didn't I think of that?