UNREQUITED LOVE -- SO FAR --

TEN YEARS AND COUNTING...

I was out doing some housework this morning.  I actually did accomplish something, if not the things that neither you nor the Voice from the Kitchen would guess.  Or maybe, you did guess because of the feature photo.  No, I did not throw them out.  No, I did not package them and ear-mark them for some poor, inner city orphan.  I figured that if I could trundle them around with me for ten years already, if I am going to package them for anything, it's going to be for the cremation oven.  I figure that if I don't build them, no one else will.  So there.  I know that I should not have that kind of attitude.  I know that somewhere out there sits some poor young man or girl [wait!  Girl?  Hmmm... You sure?] OK, I won't erase it.  ...I say, some young man or girl who could be kept off the streets and/or out of the hookah bar if I taught them how to enjoy the process of constructing model airplanes.  But then if I did that, what would you do in the morning when the best e-mail of your life would not arrive?  You'd go nuts, is what you would do.  I know it.  Even if you don't read it, you at least know that I am alive.  For some of you, that's a good thing.  We won't mention the others.
Frankly, I decided to throw this thought out on the table for you all.  It is a real thought.  I am quite sure that you've read me saying it before, but hey, if it's good, you'll enjoy it twice, right?  You'd better.  You know that there's a Latin saying that says just that.  So if it was good enough for Cicero, it should be good enough for you, right?  So back to the real thought thingy.  I truly have been dreaming for many, many years now of building the Stearman bi-plane.  I even bought this kit for the outrageous sum of $27.00.  Then some unforeseen things started to happen.  I moved away from my work bench to be with my wife.  You know, HER.  Life has never been the same since that fateful day.  Six years ago, I did the same thing, except that there was no work bench to move away from.  But I still had my model kits and my tools, oh yeah.  So there they sit.  
In the meantime, a guy by the name of www.ParishWorld,net caught me by the scruff of the neck and really tapped into a deeper part of my soul than even the Stearman bi-plane had been able to reach.  He needed someone who knows how to pray, and knows why he prays and is not afraid to say it out loud.  He also needed someone with my educational background to help him avoid the doctrinal mistakes that could get him in trouble with the Vatican CIA, otherwise known as the guy sitting next to you in church.  So, I was hooked.  Old missionaries never die.  They just wish they would.  It's the only way a missionary ever gets to take a rest.  Don't believe me?  Ask my 88 year old missionary brother down the street.
Anyway, I start reading and writing.  I start one blog and I share it with him.  Before long I get to wanting to vent more freely, so I start another blog, all my own.  Six years later I now have direct and real time influence over four blogs and I mess around with others just for kicks.  Given this depth of passion, I have no time for Mr. Stearman nor for Mr. Mitsubishi.  So my life has changed.  I'm enjoying myself, somewhat.  I won't tell you what the "somewhat" is all about, so don't ask.  So there you have it.  I love what I do, but I still haven't got to kiss the girl yet.  I think of it more than I let on.  Oh, by the way, I hit the California Lotto last night.  $1.00.  I'm retiring in about an hour...for the night. :-) 

PROVERBS, 3,000 YEARS OLD -- STILL YOUNG

SOLOMON TEACHING HIS PROVERBS

Yes, I am a Bible reader.  I read the Bible in many different ways.  I read it for the stories; I read it for the People in it.  Yeah, I'm an avid Bible-People, people watcher.  I also read the Bible for the humor that there is to be found there.  Like when David could have killed Saul when he found him obeying Mother
Nature's call in a cave.  David stole Saul's scarf, backed away out of the cave, went to a peak across the valley and waved the scarf in Saul's face from a safe distance.  A great "Gotcha" moment.  There are a lot of brave people in the Bible, like Moses and like Joshua, for instance.  Judith too. Now SHE is a favorite of mine.  God sends her to save the city where His people are being besieged.  She's newly widowed.  She doffs her mourning duds and puts on her make-up, goes to the besieging army's camp, finds the Captain, plies him with drink, seduces him to get herself invited to his tent.  He is so drunk that he falls asleep the minute he is in the warmth of the tent.  She unsheaths his sword and cuts off his head.  Score one for the brazen, saintly woman.  I am also an avid reader of old sayings.  I like them because the more I read them the more I realize that 3,000 years later, nothing has changed.  Here's a short favorite of mine: <Better open reproof than voiceless love.>  There are so many of these truth-filled sayings that I have been surfing them for years and I still get a kick out of them.  They are so true!  I am also a serious seeker of Bible poetry.  Not just in the Psalms.  Check out Kings and Chronicles.  You'll find great stuff.  There are so many REAL stories that bring the truth home to us today.  Read the story of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis and you will think either of yourself or of someone you know not too far away.  Think of the stage mother of the two apostles who walked up to Jesus and said, "I want that when my sons die, one will sit at your right and the other at your left."  Give me a break, lady!  I also enjoy the prayers of some of the psalms.  Gory stuff, and it's a prayer.  Go to psalm 137.  I read that and although I know it is wrong, I have to admit that I have similar thoughts.  Oh yeah, here's my point:
I often hear people say how good things were when they were younger.  How much simpler things were.  How much more pious and God fearing people were then.  I listen quietly and rarely do I contradict them although I know that it is not true.  I often think about the story of David.  He didn't have the Internet, movies, comic books and newspapers,  but he sure knew how to get around and ruin other people's lives.  He even had to run away from his own son. It's not for nothing that God forbade him from building a temple to house God.
The Bible is living proof that people have forever been super righteous, plain righteous, a little righteous, a little bad, bad, plain bad and downright EVIL.  As human beings, we will always be torn between good and evil, for as long as we live and as long as we exist as a race.  Get used to it.  It is our mission to make better everything that we can make better.  We can't do that by wishing for the past, becasuse the past doesn't hold the secret of good behavior.  The way we live the present in the hope of influencing the future is the secret of good behavior.  That's in the Bible too.  You don't even have to believe in God to find it there.  
As it happens, I believe in God.  I've been tested in my belief.  I'm still there.  I love the Bible so much, I fearlessly plug it as the most exciting collection of 73 books in such a small fraction of your home shelf space that you can find.  If you're Orthodox Christian, you have a few more books.  Lucky you.  Enjoy them.  Rest assured, the Bible is forever.  It is from God.  If it were from humans, it would have disappeared already.

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

DIFFERENT VIEW OF LIFE, BECAUSE...

At one time or another, we all get into a position that we didn't expect.  It is not an accident, but it is not planned.  It just seems to happen.  We get up in the morning, get through the day until a certain hour, an then things change and we are at a different place with a different perspective than we had.  Some of these changes are powerful enough to cause radical changes in our outlook on life.  Those of us who are spiritually oriented defer the change to an all-knowing God who is the Master of the Universe.  Even then, the humanity in us still steps aside and tries to analyze the string of causes that came into play in bringing such a change about.  It is especially intriguing when it is clear that another person, just as virtuous and just as capable as we should have been the one in the order of the universe that has now become our place.  It happens more than we know because some of the changes are minor and the change that they effect is of very small consequence.  Every now and then we see our planned calendar of events for the day change.  We step aside and take what comes and we get though the day none the worse for wear...and some times even, better and in a better mood.  Those are the easy ones.  Those are the ones when we say, "Phew, somehow I dodged that bullet!"  Sometimes we don't dodge the bullet and we get home after the day and we are very grumpy and full of blame and vituperation for things and people who contributed to the discomfort.  That is still small, and the next day we get up and start all over again from scratch.  Lately, though, a big one happened to me and it changed my life.  For the better, I might add.  It is akin to having got a promotion after a fairly well-liked colleague got his walking papers.  I was the beneficiary of someone's misfortune and happened to be at the right place at the right time.  I happened to be there because of a string of events that fell into place because of a complicated ball-of-string background existence that led to my being there  in the first place.  When the situation changed and I found myself in a place that I had not foreseen, especially since I had pretty much played by the rules, I felt some remorse for the person who was on the negative end of the change.  I still think of that.  I still have to run to the spiritual side to try to understand the cold, hard truth of the whole matter.  It resembles the complex feeling that is described by psychologists when they talk about the adjustments that survivors have to make.  Somehow it feels weird to benefit from someone else's sudden change of factual life requirements.  Especially when it is clear that the change has prevented a very hotly desired outcome from happening.  It is not easy to think of how scarred the other person could be because of the appearance of a sudden fork in the road of life.  
My outlook on life has been changed in the last six or seven weeks.  Not just from the fall-out from the positive experience that fell into my life, but from the experience itself.  It is challenging.  It is also so sweet.  I pray every day that the other person has been blessed with something good along the way.  It is difficult for me to imagine what it could be, but somehow I am convinced that this is so.  I have to tell you, this is the greatest switcheroo that has ever come into my life.  I like to think that it was about time, but then I wonder about the person who was left on the other tine of the fork in the road.  I have made it a resolution to do the best I can with what was given to me so that the good that I can make happen will somehow, secretly but surely, be attributed in part to him.

TO YOU SWEETHEART, ALOHA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y6F8M1GJRg
     Click the above link for a recording of an emotional "Adieu."
It is quite a feeling to be on "YouTube" memorializing a very emotional moment.  Our Isabel, the "Voice from the Kitchen" saying a very poetic "Good Bye" to our colleagues who had assembled for the First International Gathering of La Salette Laity in France last September 1 - 10.  The smile is missing because of the deep emotion that was filling her heart and soul.  You read some of my reflections concerning the type of people who attended this Gathering in yesterday's post.  Today, we received this recording from the colleague who sat next to me during the entire proceedings.  This is a still photo of her during a performance a week earlier.
The sound is not too clear, so here are the lyrics for your pleasure:

To you, sweetheart, Aloha,

Aloha, from the bottom of my heart,
Keep the smile on your lips,
Brush the tear from your eye,
One more Aloha, then it's time for goodbye,
To you, sweetheart, Aloha 
In dreams I'll be with you, dear, tonight,
and I'll pray for that day 
When we two will meet again,
Until then, sweetheart, Aloha


Great thanks to our colleague and friend, Pierre Zaessinger

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Who me?
You have to know that I just spent nearly three weeks in Europe in a country where the dominant language is one that I know perfectly well.  While I was there I met at least 50 people whom I had never met before in my entire life.  It was a very rich experience.  There were people from all walks of life.  There were even people who were not residents of that country at all.  Some were South Americans, some were Africans and some were Asian.  Not all of them spoke the dominant language of the country in which we had all come together, but they all spoke enough of the languages that I understand so that communication was rather easy, and comfortably so.  For about 35 or 40 of those new acquaintances, our sojourn together was about eleven consecutive days.  The other ten or fifteen of the new faces were rather short inter-relations.  The reason for all this detail is the preparation for the topic sentence (remember those?) of this post.  None of these people asked me the famous American question, "What do you do?"  Not a one.  Believe me, not a one.  They asked me my name; the number of siblings I have; my birthplace; my educational background, not the school's name, but the mainstay of the school's curriculum.  They asked how I had maintained my language skills.  They asked about my religious convictions, my political leanings and the kind of food I prefer and finally, they gave me permission to use the familiar linguistic form of address when speaking to them, which I, of course, reciprocated.  Through all of this getting to know you inquisitiveness, they never asked me "What do you do?"  That is not to say that it did not get put on the table through all the casual conversation, but it was never an important piece of information to any of them.  
I, of course, expected this since I had lived in other cultures for many years before this last experience.  It is still in my mind though, that in such a swirl of new faces, international differences, hodge-podge of languages and intensity of interaction that I was never asked the question. I guess it is because who I am is more important to these people than what I do.After all, what I am, I am forever, here and after-here.  What I do changes and will change and even go away some day.  Who I am will never go away.  Dead or alive, there is only one of me, and ever will be only one of me. Those who know me, know me, not so much what I do, but who I am.  What I do is only a temporary reflection of who I am.  My self, my identity is forever, no matter what I do. There is a corollary to this statement here, if you want to sniff around and see what it is.
It is therefore on the table for you to give some thought to figuring out who you are separate from what you do.  Have fun. 

LIFE

How often do you think about LIFE?  Just that.  LIFE.  If you're like I am, not very often.  I am here now after 316 of these articles and I am just now getting around to mentioning this subject.  It's because we think a lot about the details of life, but rarely about the reality of life itself.  We think about vegetable life, animal life, earthly life, social life, life style, sex life, city life, pro-life, after life and more, but I've run out of lives to enumerate.  When I was in school, grammar school, that is, life was rather simple.  There was human life and there was chicken life.  We raised chickens.  Chicken life was not very long and generally came to an end on the chopping block, followed by the plucking, gutting, cooking and eating.  Human life was that activity which had the strength and the freedom to use other forms of life for its benefit.  Along the way, being raised in a deeply spiritual and religious family, the other dimension of life for humans was the relationship with God and His world of Saints and Angels.  See, I started by saying that when I was younger, life was simple.  Ha!  Just a few sentences into the narration, it got complicated, didn't it?  Of course it did.  I haven't even mentioned the fact that in my mother tongue there were two ways of talking to people.  There was the polite way which required different grammatical forms, and the familiar way which didn't require special forms, but was nevertheless different.  That's a wrinkle that English speaking children don't have to contend with.  Then, of course, things really got a little more complex when I found out that to get by in this country, knowing English was a must.  Jeepers, creepers, was this thing ever going to get easier?  Not really.  Not for the first born boy.  There was house cleaning, diaper changing, chicken feeding, plucking and cleaning, grass mowing, victory garden work, school work, fishing, baseball and mumbly peg.

Now life is really getting difficult to organize.  But, somehow I got through it.  We all do.
One of the interesting aspects of life as I see it is the nearly constant effort that we make to define it in ever simpler terms.  We have Robert Frost and his famous poem, "The Road Less Taken."  Easy choice.  One of two things.  Now we all know that this is certainly far from the reality that we all know.  Instead, we find ourselves bombarded with lists of "simple rules" to follow that guarantee a happy life.  It used to be that these lists appeared in books that were too expensive to buy, so the contents didn't interfere with the course that we were carving out for ourselves anyway.  Now, of course, hardly a day goes by that we are confronted with PowerPoint Shows with beautiful pictures of stunning flowers, sweet music and a list of life rules that are assuredly the source of happiness in life.  Oh, that it were that simple!  
Some 50 years ago, I happened to be a college - level student in philosophy.  One of the topics that we had to confront was, "What is life?" Ha!  At 23 who cares?  Since I was there for a reason, I decided that it might be fun to hear the answer.  I'll tell you the way it was told us, and then I'll translate it.  <Vita, sui motus est.>  "Life is self motion."  The topic got quite a few hours of treatment, but it didn't contribute to making life any simpler.  We did learn that the motion of water boiling is not indicative of life and that oxidation of iron is also not a sign of life.  Whoopee!  Doesn't that make you happy?  Come on admit it, it does, doesn't it?
I am not going to get too deep with this thought because I feel that it is better to leave you to your own devices in this area.  The only thing I'll say before leaving you is that however life is defined, it strikes me as something about which we should be happy.  Just put yourself in touch with the joy you feel in the morning after having been "dead" for a few hours.  Feels good, right?  Enjoy it.  No matter how complicated it gets, it's a gift that we look forward to every day.
Finally,  remember what I told you, No crying is allowed at my funeral.

NCR - XEROX - IBM - MICROSOFT - APPLE

Beware of where your thoughts drove you when you opened this page today.  This is not about the relative merits of the three corporate behemoths named in the title.  It is about a thought that I have had for many years.  I have shared it verbally with many people.  Now, you're going to enjoy it up close and personal.  I have NCR at the top left because that is in my mind since November 8, 1960.  Some of you may remember the date.  It is the day when Jack Kennedy was elected president of the United States.  Lost in the minds of those who, like me, remember exactly where they were that long and weary night, is the fact that ENIAC, the mammoth computer produced by NCR was online that night, following the election and projecting the outcome.  This was a first.  It was a historic moment for the world.   Not only were humans working things out in their minds and using their pencils and slide rules to interpret the return numbers and produce probability predictions, there were also humans feeding the information into a machine which was providing results more rapidly that the slide rules and pencils.  I remember.  
XEROX is here close to the top not because XEROX was ever a big player in the production of computers.  It is there because it is the company that received a substantial sum of money through a federal grant to study the process that it would take to turn the world into a "paperless society."  It is clear that the U.S. government was as ignorant then as it is now.  Imagine giving a federal grant to a copier manufaturer to study how to eliminate the use of paper.  Of course, like all good, clean-cut Americans, XEROX took the money and ran.   For ten years.  Now here is the punch line.  XEROX actually had a conscience.  It put all the information that it had gathered in the ten years into its museum for public display.  In walk Steve Jobs and his buddy, Steve Wozniak.  They sneak and snoop for about a month or so, leave and go out to make history.  XEROX still hasn't figured out how to make copies without paper.

The small company represented by its logo on the left was run by a guy named Watson.  I forget his first name.  The company was able to bring the size of the computer down to manageable dimensions for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that between 1960 and 1965 or so, the solid state capacitor was invented and the days of the vacuum tube were numbered.  Bye-bye, ENIAC, bye-bye NCR.  So now that things are going faster,and of course cooler, much cooler, the demand for more and more calculating power was fast 
outstripping the ability of IBM to produce 
the operating systems needed to 
satiate the frenzy of the market.


It is now time for Bill Gates and Paul Allen to drop out 
of Harvard and offer to do a little programming for IBM.  Wouldn't you know that IBM thought that it would be a good idea to let these two guys see what they could do to make IBM more successful and more responsive to the market.  That's exactly what happened.  It happened so well that IBM no longer makes PC's or Laptops or anything like that.  Even Microsoft doesn't manufacture computers.  Never did.  Never will.  Microsoft is a purely software producer.  This brings us to our two other buddies, Steve squared, Jobs and Wozniak.

You got it.  They get together and they start Apple, Inc.  They decide that they are going to compete with IBM and Microsoft and manufacture computers and produce proprietary software for the machines that they produce.  They are very successful at what they do.  They are able to contribute to the shrinking size of computers.  They also make software that prompts the user of the machine through a set of pictures, called icons, rather than through a set of typed commands.  They dominate the market in a variety of product fields, always maintaining strict control over the rights to their finished products.


Through all of this, the computer never gets patented.  To this day.  That's where my thought entered the picture some 45 + years ago.  It is a thought that divides the world into two major groups.  Those who want to keep what they produce under their strict control, thereby being, as close as possible, the sole beneficiaries of their efforts, AND, those who produce and help others to produce so that a broad base of producers and users can benefit from the product.  It is a thought akin to the "Give a man a fish..." parable.  From the very beginning of the computer boom, IBM and Microsoft didn't patent anything.  They treated the fruits of their work as though it were already in the public domain, and in fact, from the beginning, it was.  It was always possible to buy an "IBM compatible" computer from the geek down the street who was building them in his garage.  So it remains to this day.  Hundreds, if not thousands of companies and even individuals produce PC's on the IBM/Microsoft model for their own benefit and the benefit of the broad base of computer users across the world.  Apple has had to make adjustments to its operating system in order to be available to the whole, wide world, but it still remains a more expensive machine with fewer users.  


Apple has been creative in many ways and must be admired for this.  It is also undeniable that in many ways it remains aloof and maintains a blue-blood attitude in relation to the rest of the world.  Microsoft is a hard driving, brass knuckles company too and maintains an attitude of inter-mingling with the world, for the good of the world.  
Finally, lately I have been having some difficulty finding the Steve Jobs Charitable Foundation information.  Do you suppose that Google has something against Apple?


Larry Page and Sergey Brin are exceptions:  They both graduated from college.  How come they are so successful?

OLD AGE, A GIFT? HHmmm

I had this thought.  I looked for a picture.  I found this one.  I'm using it because it fits.  I found it linked here: http://blackberrycreek.typepad.com/blackberry_creek/2008/05/the-gift-of-age.html
I started with a different take on the thought than what appears in the blog stated above.  I am therefore going to proceed, now that I have been fair to the blogger who created the thought[s] contained in the above.  My driving force is the death of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer. He was 56.  I come from a family in which the majority of its members died before 50.  They all died quickly, except for one or two.  Now, a whole generation of this family has disappeared and I am the eldest surviving member of the generation below the one that has disappeared.  I am somewhat older than 50.  Old age is a gift.  It is a gift of time.  Old age is certainly a challenge.  It is not easy for a person to accept the general weaknesses that come with the accumulation of the years.  To those who conquer the temptation to feel bad for themselves because they aren't 35 any more, old age is certainly a gift.  I have not been quick to come to this mind set.  All my adult life I have been fervently praying for a quick, heart attack death.  Just get me out of here.  Lately, and particularly these days when I get the chance, like everyone else, to reflect on the death of one of the richest people on earth, I am happy to still be here.  Steve Jobs knew that he was dying for some time now. That too was a gift.  Not that illness is that great a gift, but in many cases, it is.  There are so many of us who don't get the chance to participate in the immediate planning for the inevitable.  We all know that we are going to die.  We all know that we have to stay ready.  We all know that our entire life should be planned with the inevitable in mind.  We all, and I mean all, spend a lot more time planning what we're going to do next month, next year, etc. more than we spend on preparing for the Great Inevitable.
So, what are you doing to prepare for it?  Are you preparing by creating something that will live beyond you and force people to remember you because of it?  Are you preparing by taking the advice of the Great Teacher who counseled us to care for the widows,the orphans, the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, the lame and the sick?  The good part about the second option is that this is a preparation that can be done during an entire life time,no matter how long.  Yes, even in old age.  My maternal grandmother used to go out in the cold, icy weather to visit the old people who could not go out.  I used to laugh to hear her say, "I'm going to visit the "Old Lady Robitaille this afternoon"  My grandmother was 85 and the "Old Lady" was 72.  To my grandmother, her old age was a gift.  She was sharing it with the "Old Lady."  It is not humble to use yourself as an example, but hey, I'm humble and I'm proud of it.  Therefore, as an example of gifted old age, I have found a way to share what I have.  I would prefer to have gainful employment (you know $$$) but I find myself contenting myself trying to make you all happy electronically.  I am thankful for every hour of every day that I have.  I laugh every time I think that my doctor told me that no one is old before 80.  So, OK, I'm not old yet, but I allow myself to accept my "advanced age" as a gift.  A gift that allows me to share what I am and what I have with the world.  I am thankful that I have had the inspiration to accept this stage of my life as the active collaboration for the planning of the Great Inevitable.  It might be tomorrow or it might be in 2020.  Whenever it happens, know that I was ready and thankful that I had the time to design the exit.  If you are around at that time, keep this in mind and you will not be the least tempted to cry at my funeral.

HAPA HAOLE

Hapa Haole 1979

Hapa Haole 1978

See, I  talk Hawai'ian  too!  I also talk Ilokano well enough to have the great and loving Voice from the Kitchen, Isabel, to smother both these Hapa-Haole's with her motherly love and attention.

Some twenty and some years ago, in Disneyland, Anaheim, California something happened that I remembered early this morning and it got me to thinking about the racial mix running through the veins of the two handsome male creatures pictured above.  It was not a pretty picture and I had one of those "French Canadian Hockey Player" moments.  We were taking a break from the usual attractions and just lolly-gagging on the lawn near the "Haunted House" with our then small boys.  Along came strolling musicians, a Mexican Mariachi.  To my surprise, one of the two sweet children above said, "These people should go back home."  I whirled about, stabbed him in the heart and throat with my eyes (The right for the heart, the left for the throat) and ground out "You should too, Half-Breed" from between my teeth.  That put an end to happy-happy for a few minutes.  Of course Mama took care of smoothing things out.  All I did for a few minutes was shake my head in disbelief.  The boy had been in the local parochial school for less than two years and he had already been able to make such vicious judgments and express them.  

Time has a way of changing things.  It is sure that the Disneyland episode had an effect on our beloved sons.  They went on with their lives living in the miscegenetic (I made this word up) world of Southern California.  They had close friends of several races, even some Hapa-Haoles like themselves.  Just to show you how indiscriminate they were, and still are, they even have a white, Anglo-Saxon or two in their close circle.  One of them is married to a Native American lady.  Both of them know and respect their origins.  They both know and understand the language of their mother and of their father (the English speaking half of their father, who himself, is a Hapa-Haole of sorts).  They both eat from the cultural menu of all their friends, ranging from Japanese, touching all the Pacific Islands, landing in Mexico, reaching out for some European, especially Italian, and grabbing a hot dog and a hamburger on the way.  They do have one strong culinary predilection, though.  They are rice eaters.  Potatoes are a distant second on the staples list.  

It is very interesting to see the cultural development of offspring.  They grow up not giving too much shrift to their cultural heritage.  Then one day it hits them.  This is especially true when growing up in Southern California, one of the thickest "gumbo stew pots" in the nation.  It is not necessarily true in other sections of this great nation.  Some 40 plus years ago when I was working for a General Mills plant on and across the Mexican Border, we hired a young African American woman from Alabama.  She and I became fast friends.  She had never experienced such culture shock.  She told me several times that she was glad that her family could not see her "cavorting" with white people and all these "other natives from God knows where."  She said that in her Alabama environment, she would hardly see two or three white people a month, never mind work every day with them, eat with them and even sit down at a bar and have a drink together with them.  I haven't seen her in all this time.  Somehow I hope she reads this.  Say "Hi", Tommie!  

I leave you therefore with my reflections about this "Hapa Thought."  I hope that we all appreciate the treasure of the cultural stew that we live in.  I know I do.  To paraphrase St. Peter, Friend, of gold and silver I have none.  What I do have, I willingly give you.  Get up and enjoy the aura of my way of life as I know you will allow me to share in yours. (Heart-warming story as told in the book of  Acts in the Christian Bible, chapter 3, verses 1 through 10)

PUNCTUALITY (;-)=[=< -- WHAT'S THAT?

Punctuality is a rather rare commodity in some areas of our lives here in the United States.  It is very strange to us who are accustomed to making fun about people from cultures who do not have the same appreciation of time that we think we do.  We talk very easily in disparaging terms about "Mexican time;" "Filipino Time" and other such "times" many of which escape me for the time being.  I am here to tell you that we, fauna of the United States of America, have no right to talk trash about the lack of on-time habits in other countries.  For a country, or is it a culture, who has as an axiom, "time is money" I am here to tell you that it is now clear to me why we are in the midst of hard times.  It's because we squander so much of our "money."  It seems as though we have more lateness than we have punctuality in our daily lives.  If it is true that "time is money" and if it is true that we believe in what we say about time, then we are sorely lacking in respect for our "money."  In fact It strikes me that we must be nearly bankrupt.  I can vouch for some of the disregard for punctuality in segments of our dear country.  I have experienced bus schedules that are a farce.  Not only are the buses late, but the people in customer service blithely announce to the inquisitive soul who wonders where the vehicle is, "Oh the buses on that line are never on time."  Yes, boys and girls, that is a direct, true to fact quote.  Trains?  What few we have are also more late than on time.  I don't dare to visit the airline situation.  I'm am trying to keep this light and humorous.  In that vein, let me tell you a funny(?) story.
We were going to take a bus from Boston, MASS to Springfield, MASS.  The conveyance was to leave the dock at 9:55 AM.  Promptly at 9:50 AM the driver fired up the engine, closed the door and disappeared inside the terminal.  Promptly at 10:05 he returned, let three stragglers on the bus, came in, strapped himself meticulously into his captain's chair and started to roll at 10:08 sharp.  Between then and the arrival in Springfield the clock had surpassed our sick, lumbering whale by another 25 minutes making our loving relatives waiting for our arrival for an extra 33 minutes.  I will let you do the math about the amount of money that was squandered in that situation.  Oh, by the way, six days later on the return trip, the scenario replayed itself out again, but this time the waste was 40 minutes...the engine ran for 12 minutes while the behemoth sat in dry dock.  At that rate, even though we had three and one half hours before our plane was due to leave, we were worried about whether or not we would make it to the airport on time.  We didn't have to worry, because that conveyance was not in any mood to be punctual anyway.
See you tomorrow, anytime, sharp.

RAIN IN A BOX -- NO KIDDING

"I wish I could put some of this beautiful rain in a box and bring some home with me."  Words that at some time or other anyone who lives in Southern California will utter when visiting some other part of the world where it actually rains now and then.  Although the words are an expression of true desire, they are uttered in jest and with no real hope that the reality could ever come to be.  Be honest now, all you SoCal denizens.  You know that you've said this at least once in your life.  You also know that when you get company from some of these other parts and you have planned a picnic six months in advance of their arrival, you just know that it is NOT going to rain.  I know.  It happened to me in 1955. I visited my relatives and they had all these outdoors events planned and they just knew that it would not rain.  I would get up every single morning just knowing that I would be able to catch them with their totally unreal anticipation blown to smithereens by a vicious rainfall.  Never happened.  You can tell that I have never forgotten the experience.  I get to live it often with my brother and sister-in-law who have recently arrived from a rather rainy country, the Philippines.  So why am I gloating at this?  Easy.  I and the sweet Voice from the Kitchen put some rain in a box.  Brought it home from Massachusetts and watched it rain in Southern California for a whole day beginning about six hours after touchdown in SoCal.  No kidding.  We spent some 6 days in Massachusetts and watched it rain for nearly 4 of them.  It was magnificent.  Belle and I would look out the window with a glint in our eyes and a smile on our lips because it was so beautifully lush and luxuriant outside because of the abundant rain.  The air was crisp, comfortable and oh, so clean.  We repeatedly wished we could bring some of it home.  So we did.  One whole day of rain in early October in Southern California.  So you all, keep that in mind.  When you want rain, talk to us.  We'll order some from Massachusetts and bring it in for gardens, air filtering, road washing and stuff like that.  (;-)=[=<

FOUR SIBLINGS, FOUR DIFFERENT PEOPLE

Four siblings, four different people.  All sitting together sharing experiences that touched them differently although they originated from the same source.  Same mother, same father, same extended family, same house.  Parents shared same cultural background, same language, same religion and same socio-economic status.  Range in age from 63 years to nearly 75.  See one another around the same table approximately 1 time per year, all together in the same general geographic area of their upbringing.  They have a great time exchanging stories.  The same stories that siblings all around the world recount when they get together.  Those of you who have siblings and get together with them know what that means.  Most of the time we get together, do what we like to do, eat, drink and be merry, get up, leave and don't reflect on the change that may or may not have occurred during the gathering.  This evening was a little different for me.  When my brothers left and returned to their homes, I was left with my spouse, the lead cook for the affair, my sister, the host of the gathering and my brother-in-law, the long time spouse of my sister who, of course, also hosted the gathering.  Three of us were still sitting around the table, relaxing and participating in some post - postprandial reflections.  My brother-in-law who was working the automatic dish-washing machine said "You four are so different from one another."  Our reaction was "We are?"  His come back was, "You are.  My sister and I are were the only two children in the house.  We are really quite similar in our ways.  You however are outstanding in your differences."
That was an interesting thought.  I never really thought about it.  But I did then.  So we passed it around a bit and decided that there was some truth to the observation.  We did not come to any earth-shattering conclusions, but we will not soon forget the observation nor the meditative conversation that followed.  We also walked away from the table convinced that Brother-in-law was right.  The #1 and the #2 are really quite different in many ways, though they are alike in many ways.  However there is no denying that they have many points of differentiation.  #3 is different from #1 and #2 in that there is a great difference in her personal approach to life.  She communicates more through artistic expression than any of the others.  She also joined the family a little later.  She followed a child who required special needs from our parents.  (This child was #3 in birth order but is no longer with us.)  She was also the "baby of the family" for nearly 5 years.  Then came #4.  He is the gentle giant of us all.  Our father died when #4 was 12 years old.  He also grew up outside of the prolonged, direct influence of the eldest son, #1.  He is gentle and generous and loving.  He is also our token "lefty."  #1 and #2 made him that way.  Give him credit, he has enough gentle love in him to laugh about it with us, even though he says that it made him crazy.
I close this thought with the assurance to you all that these four people are in love with one another.  We wouldn't know what to do without one another.  Well, for a little while anyway.  We all have different life experiences.  Many of these experiences are intense enough to write a book about.  No wonder we are different.  Each one has been honed by life on a different stone.  The reason why we are still comfortable with one another within our souls is that we are comfortable with the life-stone that has honed us and we don't begrudge the other the stone that honed him/her.  In fact, we thank God for giving us the Grace to be comfortable with what we have, including the Grace to be comfortable with our differences.

ONE HANDED CABINET MAKER ... NON DOMINANT HAND

It looks to me like this fellow has two hands.  It does look as though he has but one.  This is a little bit of an unintended follow-up from last night's "Why me?" thought.  It came to me when I was at the church preparing for my presentation on the subject of prayer.  As it turned out, I was stopped by one of our major collaborators for the week-long Adult Faith Formation Week Mini Congress.  This man has one hand, his left.  He was driving his pick-up and met me on the campus of the church where I was setting up my presentation for the evening.  He stopped and I walked up to the window and what do I see but finger food on the passenger's seat.  I didn't  say anything but I could not help but think that this friend of mind drives with one hand, eats and shifts and does a lots of things with just one hand.  Amazing.  Reminds me of a man I knew in my younger days.
There was a young man, a cabinet maker who lost his dominant hand in an industrial accident.  He was plunged into a deep depression by this turn of events and was having a hard time getting out of it.  He had six children to support and didn't have an idea of how to do it with his dominant hand gone.  The priest used to come to his house every Friday evening to play Parcheesi, a board game.  One night the priest told those man that the milk company down the street was in need of a night watchman to watch the horses in the barn over night.  The young man, being a city dweller knew nothing about horses, but because he needed the work decided to try it out.  It was not long after the first night that the fear of the horses themselves (dray horses are not small) and the discomfort of being disabled were too much for the young many to overcome and he had to tell his employer that he had to quit.  This was a hard thing to do because the job had come from a once removed family member and the priest.  About one month later, one Friday night after the Parcheesi game the priest told the man, "On Monday, you come to the rectory (parsonage) with your tools and you will start to work for me."  The young many protested, hemmed and hawed but to no avail.  The priest was adamant.   Monday cam and the young man did not want to go.  He wife gathered up hi tools, put therm in the tool box, closed it, took her husband by the good hand and started to tug him down to the street level where she could begin to conduct him to the priest's residence.
She got him to the job.  He was weeping with so many mixed emotions that it took him  long time before entering to report for work.  When he stopped asking himself "Why me?" he entered into the residence, too his first orders and never stopped working for the priest who saved his life and presumable even that of his family.  That man, Joseph Thibault, my maternal Grandfather re - learned the trade that the accident had taken away from him temporarily and worked tn to the highest professional degree for fifty [50] years from that day until the day he died at the age of 75.

Why me?  Hey, just do something.  You'll know "why me" when you finish.

WHY ME?

I know how to get the answer to that question.  It's not that hard, really.  Here's how I do it.
a.  Stop trying to find the source of the reason.  Like, trying to make it a kind of punishment.  Get off the guilt thingy.  OR, make it an injustice because there might be someone out there in the universe better qualified than you.  OR, anything else that might tend to make you feel uncomfortable.
b.  Stop trying to prove yourself incapable of fulfilling the demands of the situation.  Like having to settle the estate of your deceased parent who died intestate.
c.  Stop worrying about what others will think or will judge about your performance.
d.  Stop locking yourself into a sound-proof box about the position in which you find yourself.  You'd be surprised what you can learn from echos.
E!  Finally, stop asking yourself that silly question.
I personally learned early on that the answer to that question is nowhere to be found other than within myself.  Like, "Why me?"  Let me show you.  Yeah, even You, God.  When I find myself in a "Why me" situation, I get to work so that in as short a time as possible I start to feel comfortable with the path to take.  Once I have decided that I'm going that way, unless you have a bodaciously powerful reason, not an argument, a reason, to dissuade me, then just stand back, because this is now my gig.  Once I have made that step I am sure of at least two things:
1.  50% of those around me will think that I am OK.  The other 50% will think that I am the biggest, invincibly ignorant, incompetent dunce who could have ever been put in the given situation.  Once I have identified those in said camps, I help myself to the assistance of the positives and lift the middle digit to the negatives.
2.  Once the situation has been resolved [This too will end.  Right?] I will have the answer to the question that has only been asked by me once, at the beginning.  Now that it is the end, I know the answer.  
In my life about 85% 0f the time the answer is "I did all right.  There are others who could have done better.  There are others who could have done as well.  There are still others who could have done slightly less well.  There are others who could have failed."  So the reality of the outcome is that I now know a truth about myself that I did not know before I started.  Among those who thought that I would fail there will be some who will have to  admit that I did OK.  Among those who stood behind me at the beginning there will be those who will think that they got snookered.  So, what else is new?  The split will still be about 50 / 50, because some will have changed places.  And me?  I'll be happy that I got through it alive. 
This, my friends is truly my rule of life.  Now, I ask you, why would anyone cry at my funeral?

17,200,000 results (0.29 seconds), BUT NO ME!

Blue is the day.  I put in "365 Thoughts" in the box at Google and out of 17,200,000 hits not a single one about me.  I fished this cheesy little calendar out of there (I think it is a calendar) out of spite, just to show you how jaundiced Mr. Google is against short, fat, ugly, old wrinkled guys who are left to their own writing devices to fool Mother Nature into thinking that what they are doing is feeding the emaciated intellects of the proletariat. I also chose to put this silly little calendar here because it was right up top on Sergei's first page in its significantly oximoronish come-on about "365 thoughts to jump start your day."  Really, now?  WHICH DAY?  Mine, I've got that figured out, maybe.  But are you giving me 365 thoughts for my today?  Isn't that what the cover says?  Looks that way to me.  The other things that got me about this little number is the direction of the 365 thoughts.  Are the thoughts inside the spiraled book and just shivering and begging to be let out to splashily start off my day?  But then again I get the idea that somehow the pages inside, assuming that there are pages inside this sly little contraption, are there for me to write my 365 thoughts inside there to start my day of in a good, productive, happily swishy mood.  365 thoughts per day x 365 days = 133,225 in one year!  17,200,000 possibilities and Google comes up with this?  My "365 Thoughts Emanating from Paul Dion, STL" has got to be at least 5,000 times better that the little thingy in the corner.  Donchas think?  Over 6,000 times people have opened my pages and started their day with a spring to their mental health and a jounce to their good humor cerebral hemisphere.  I tell ya, I gotta stay away from that Google fella. He's a bummer.  Tell you what, let me try again before I hang up.  Now that he knows that I am unhappy [Oh, he knows all right!]he'll probably throw me a bone.  Just a sec' here and I'll be right back.
Yuk!  I put the whole title in the box.  1st page, not too bad. Page 6, a picture of Satchel Paige.  Hmmm.  Page 8, busty woman in a skimpy white bikini.  Well, at least she had something on. Actually, I checked to see if my parent guide was on.  It's not.  So I got lucky.  Typically, I don't go down lower than page 5 because that's about the cut-off for the GP rated stuff.


Did you ever wonder what you would find if you had the time and the patience to get to page 15, 785, 274?


I find that such a sweetly frightening thought that I'm going to leave this right here.  I'll bet that my crystal meth impregnated follower will be able to tell me what's on that page when I open my comment section in the morning.  Heeee!
Bring it on, Lad.  


BTW, I like this one.  I hope you did too.

ARE YOU LOOKING TO LOOK, OR ARE YOU LOOKING FOR WORK?

I had some fun the other day.  It rang a bell the timber of which I had not heard in a long time.  So I figured that I would enjoy myself and lent an ear to the person who was ringing it.  It was shiveringly gratifying. I live in a ""Senior citizen" Mobile Home Park. I did say senior, not senile.  On numerous occasions, maybe 14 or 15 times per year I get telephone calls from representatives of construction companies who want to inspect our home for free.  Until last week, I said "no" every time.  Sometimes I would get sassy and retort "Nice of you to tell me that your here in the park a lot.  I never charge for people to look at the home and no one ever asks me to pay for the privilege."  One or two of them actually laughed.  One of them was enough of a dunce to say, "Is that a "No?"  I was brash enough to say, "Listen closely, the next sound you hear will be the clicking confirmation of my 'no'."  Anyway, I told the representative who called that I would consent to a free home inspection.  We set up an appointment and he came.  Nice lad, actually.  I was working at my desk, and he could see that.  I was polite but short.  He wasn't getting the hint.  In trying to sell me, he was managing to increase my blood pressure to dangerous levels.  So I simply said, "Isn't your purpose to do an inspection?  Go do it, I am busy."  When he left to go outside I gathered myself and reminded myself that it was my fault that he was here, ONE.  TWO, I  said "yes" because I wanted to have some fun.  So, I gathered myself and prepared for his re-entry.  The fun started when he asked that the Voice from the Kitchen be present.  I told him that I knew why he was here and that the conversation would be short.  I sweetly asked if he wanted a glass of cold water.  He politely refused. I asked if he wanted to sit down.  He suggested that he show me what he had found. There was more fluff than substance except for one factual defect.  He gallantly said that they could help me out of this "jam" for the paltry sum of $750.00.I said that I would willingly smoke one with him if he would share it, but not for that price.  What happened next was really great.  He called his manager, called him sir and everything, gave him a flowery description of the penurious state of our living situation and came back to me with a bottom line of $525.00. 
I agreed with him that the problem had to be repaired.  I figured I'd try to stretch  the game out into extra innings, so I said that I would consider it over the weekend [this being Friday and all] and give him a call on Monday.  He said that the company had a policy that I had to pay $55.00 to hold my place in line.  "So," says I, "you don't want me to call you on Monday?"  He wasn't having any part of that.  He could see his commission disappearing around that bend in a big, bad cloud of dust. So he calls Mr. "Sir" again and says that I am hanging on to my etchings of Hiram Ulysses Grant with fist clenched so tightly that he's going to have to slay me to get one of them.  Now, this is fun.  He keeps his composure and tells me that it is OK to make my decision known on Monday.  We shook hands and smiled at one another, wished one another well and parted ways.
The moral of the story is, if you don't want me to enjoy myself at your expense, tell me what you want straight as an arrow. I'll tell you back where I stand with your statement and then we'll both know that neither I nor you is tinkering with me.  When I look for work, I tell the prospective employer, "I'm looking for work."  I don't ask. I always get a reaction.  Sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, sometimes inviting.  It doesn't take long.  
The warning in the story is twofold.  To "Juniors:  Don't mess with us Seniors.  Believe it or not we know more than you do.
Seniors: Never give the upper hand to Juniors.  Remember, you know more than they do.  
Salespeople:  If you're having a good day, drop on by my place.  I can cure that for you.
The end of the story is that on Monday, the company called me and I said that I was not buying the service.  The person on the telephone just said, "Thank you for considering us."  
Nice touch.

STAND ON ONE FOOT, THEN ON THE OTHER...

First I stood on one foot and then on the other. 

I never did find out on which one I felt the better. 

So, then I tried to lean with my right side on the wall. 

I shifted to the left side of my body and that was all. 

How can a person who is sitting on a writer's block

Go inside of his head and pull an idea out of stock? 

Ideas are always teeming, streaming and flowing. 

It is the breath of Spirit that just isn't blowing. 

So here I sit, first on one cheek then on the other 

Never really comfy neither on the one nor on the other. 

It is never easy to sit and invent tergiversations 

And it is sinful to manufacture and weave prevarications. 

Rather than stress my cerebral synapses into bifurcation 

I turn to the jubilation, exhilaration and satisfaction 

 Of turning to celebrating relaxication through horizontalization
While praying for the tantalization 
Of matutinal revivification.

SOUVENIR -- ISN'T THAT FRENCH?

Souvenir is a rather complex word in the French language.  It is a noun with many meanings, some of which are rather philosophical and some which have fallen into complete desuetude.  It is also a verb that is what is called, "essentially reflexive."  It's like calling our crazy-bone the same thing.  Another interesting thing about this word is that it looks like it comes from the marriage of two Latin words, the first of which means "under" and the other "come." So, whatever that means when you talk about remembering is too far beyond me at this late hour to get into.  Besides, I do know that in English "Souvenir" means money spent for some mysterious reason that I have still to fathom.  It is one of those things that has become so automatic in our culture that not too many people think about the meaning of their actions.  Every time someone comes back from the far corners of the world and gives me a token "souvenir" I invariably ask myself, "Now what am I supposed to be remembering?"  Not being a person who very easily drags the past along with him into the present, and even less into the future, souvenirs are quite a challenge.  Now, if I have that attitude about my past, I want to know what that says about my attitude about your past visit to the land where whale teeth make jewelry.  I can't help it.  If I bring something home for you from the moon, let's say, what am I asking you to remember (souvenir)?  You weren't on the moon, so that's a blank.  Maybe I hope you'll remember that I went to the moon and was lucky enough to get back?  Maybe I want you to remember that the moon is not really made of green cheese?  I just told you my age with that last one, right?  I don't have any souvenirs of that, except the one at the top right of the page.  1978 that was!  Don't forget it.  Maybe if I give you a souvenir I want you to remember that I remembered that I would tickle you into remembering that I remembered to bring you something from the moon that would help you to remember that I remembered to make you remember by taking up more space on your nick-knack shelf?  
The kicker to this thing is this.  Our memories are deteriorating so fast that when we travel we forget some rather important stuff and it is lost forever.   But we don't forget to remember to make your remember that we remembered to make you remember that we remembered.  What?
Last part of the thought is this:  I know that the Voice from the kitchen doesn't agree with this.  So just don't tell her that I said this.  Besides she has already bought you all a French Fry from La Salette so that you can ...  you got the picture.  
PS:  We have 3,000 photos that you just HAVE to see.  The golden age of digital cameras with rechargeable batteries that NEVER die.  

COMPUTERS DON'T COMPUTE

Computers do not computer.  Computers do not "ordinate."  Computers are not feminine.  Computers are not masculine.  Computers, as smart as we may think they are, are not epistemological.  [I made that one up.]  For all I know, they may be מחשב. 
Whatever they are, the one I am using now just refused to recognize the font with which I started this composition.  I am telling you, I did not make any changes to the font setting.  The מחשב decided to do its own thing, without my permission.  Worse yet, it is not even taking the easy way out and begging for forgiveness.  So what started out to be a cute little story about the idiosyncrasies of computers just went off on its own tangent and I am left here trying to figure out how to get back to the starting line  because of an idiosyncratic מחשב.  In the name of peace and harmony I am going to let it [notice I did not switch to feminine] do its own thing while I catch my breath and tell you what I started to tell you from the moment I wrote the title.  
The first paragraph is all truth.  Each little sentence about what computers are not, is a comment on the name by which computers are known in several other languages.  We call them computers, because we put the emphasis on the mathematical prowess of the invention.  The French call them "organizers" thereby eschewing the mathematical prowess and emphasizing the logical magic of the invention.  Some languages call them "computers" but with a word that is sometimes feminine and sometimes masculine.  {Yeah, don't forget that "feminine" and "masculine" are grammatical realities, not human ones.}  No matter, they can sometimes be rather baffling.  Now, here's the root of the story.
Yesterday, a laptop in our household stopped typing.  No provocation.  No altercation.  Nothing.  Just that all of a sudden the keyboard and the trackpad stopped functioning.  Yep.  Just laid there and dared us to bring them back to life.  Hoo Boy!  What a nerve wracking 30 minutes that brought about.  Long story short, I called my son, he told me to Google it.  I Googled it and it worked.  The directions I found actually were a solution to the problem.  But I must say that going in I was rather dubious about the validity of the process.  But, rather than thinking of $$$$$, I figured I would pass the time trying out the proposed process of bringing the laptop back to full revivicence.  [I made  that one up too.]  It was written in Google to, 1. Remove the battery.  2. disconnect the external power source.  Now comes the killer, 3. Push the on/off switch down for one minute (be sure that it is ONE minute.).  Now you see why I was dubious.  Carry the thing across town away from all electrical sources and press the on/off switch for one minute.  Hunh?  I call my mind back to the picture of the $$$$$.  I don't like the ugliness of the picture, so...
I get out my stop watch.  I poise my finger over the switch, I start the clock, I press the switch.  I'm so far gone that at the 50 second point I decide to go for 64 seconds, just for good measure.  64 ... scrreeech.  Phew.  Made it.  Now let's see.  Battery reinserted.   Power plug reinserted.  I check Google to see if it is OK to press the power switch again.  No instructions.  I figure I'll give it a shot.  Press. Stare at the monitor.  Glare at the trackpad.  Cross my fingers.  Hold my breath.  Control the curses that are bubbling up in the esophagus.  Now, look at that.  It's all lit up.  I put my finger gently on the "J", yep, I remember it was the "J".  It worked!  I'll be damned, it worked!  Besides, It is now 30 hours later and it is still working.  
Now, do you doubt that computers don't compute?  To fix the idiots, you deprive them of power and them depress the power switch to "ON" for one minute so that they can resurrect.  You explain that to me and I will then know that you too are a מחשב.

OFF-THE-WALL THOUGHTS, CONTINUED

Do you know why I have this picture here today?  Hmmm, I didn't think so.  Actually, it is not really symbolic of an off-the-wall thought, I don't think.  Off-the-wall thoughts are random, spontaneously generated electro chemical phenomena that invade our private mental space with no introduction, and just simply refuse to go away.  They're like ear-worms, only more insidious.  I say that because their source remains a mystery no matter how much you try to fathom what happened.  So, I chose this picture just because it is bright and doesn't seem to have much logic, if any to it.  This particular season is rife and ripe for all kinds of spontaneous memory activity for me.  It is about this time that I get closer to going to Massachusetts and that always brings me closer to all kinds of crazy mental gyrations.  But not always having to do with the East Coast.  The other day, for instance, I was thinking about Cape Cod when out of the blue ( I think ) came this picture of a lady who was a passenger of mine when I was driving the van for the medical transportation company.  It happened so fast that I immediately thought that she had died and was telling me goodbye.  I decided to check it out.  Sure enough, I was spot on.  Believe it or not, this happens to me often.  I think of people at the oddest times.  Rarely at night.  I don't have time for thinking at night.  That's the time I save for sleeping.  So don't you try invading my grey matter after such and such an hour, sweetie pie!  It's not always the dead ones who knock on my door.  Lots of you live people do it to.  I never have a way of knowing whether it's a good thing or a bad one.  So, out of fear of the truth, I just go take a cold shower and hope that you'll leave me alone.
For me, it's a telepathic phenomenon.  I believe in that kind of communication.  I believe that we are all connected spiritually and that we have the duty to care for one another by keeping ourselves at peace with ourselves so that we can be at peace with the human community.  It is also for me a deep religious conviction that we have to keep ourselves as righteous as possible for the good of one another.  This makes so much sense to me religiously, that I have come to understand the value of such a conviction for everyone, religious or not.  One of the big questions I have is this: "I am so friendly to the free spirits all around the place, why do I have to stare at my computer screen for so long before I can even decide to touch the keys?  Can't they pitch in and help me out?  Luckily I don't have that problem very often.  Besides, ya know what?  The idea for tomorrow has just now flitted across my mind.  It's a story that will surprise most of you, I think.  It has to do with a computer problem that is so mysterious that I have to talk about it.  You'll see, it's an interesting one.
So until then, "Sweetheart, Aloha, from the bottom of my heart."