Video of the week
Thinking of my Dad a lot- September will bring a year since he died…
I still can’t say goodbye, by Chet Atkins
Dear Dad
I was thinking while driving home in the car I bought from you the other week and I realized I have done some strange things lately. Well, your granddaughter noticed first. We were riding along and I waved at someone in the neighborhood, and she said I waved at them just like you do! I was not aware of it but I guess I did.
Then Pam and I were out celebrating our nineteenth wedding anniversary, and we were doing some shopping. I bought a touring cap, like the ones I have worn for several years. Like the ones you wear. Nothing weird there. Until I caught a glimpse of myself in a window and, for the briefest of instances, there you were looking back at me in the reflection from the window.
But the weirdest thing of all was, on the same shopping trip, I found a collection of Glenn Miller’s greatest hits and bought it. I do like big band music, mostly because you and Mom like it and played it so much when I was growing up. But something made me want to hear that music in the Oldsmobile. A strange compulsion.
Now, twenty five or thirty years ago, if someone suggested that I was like my old man, well sir, they would have had a fight on their hands. No way was I ever going to be like that old codger. But since I am now the age you were then, I have a different perspective. And being Dad-like is looking better and better lately.
Because I can see now. I can see how you got to where you were when you and mom had me. I can see the abandonment in your life that made you so strong and independent. I can see the war experiences that took away most of your tolerance for foolishness and left only a fierce devotion to protecting your family and country.
And I see you now as the embodiment of the American Dream. The dream that if a man works hard and tries to be honest in all things, is true to his wedding vows and his commitment to his children, treats others as he would want to be treated, then he gets to drive big cars around and wear touring caps and listen to Glenn Miller songs.
And I am learning now that good behavior in all weathers is not the price we pay for the Dream. It is the Dream. Through your day to day conduct you gave me the knowledge of how to be a Good Man. And I am giving it to Rob (though he would never admit it.) and he will give it to his son and on and on. That will be your legacy, Dad. And that is what I mean when I say to you:
I love you, Dad
Dave Seward
November 1998
He who dies with the most toys, missed the point altogether.
Quotes of the week
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
~Albert Einstein~
Those who recite many scriptures but fail to practice their teachings are like a cowherd counting another's cows.
The Dhammapada
The Dhammapada
It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.
George Horace Lorimer
George Horace Lorimer
A man does what he must- in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures- and that is the basis of all human morality.
Winston Churchill
To counsel others, and to disregard one's own safety, is folly.
~Periander of Corinth, his motto, inscribed on Temple of Apollo at Delphi,~
Meditation of the week
When a person drowns himself in negative thinking he is committing an unspeakable crime against himself.
-- Maxwell Maltz
Negative thoughts can rule our lives as compulsively as an addiction. The feelings of power we get from holding a dismal and gloomy outlook deprive us of the positive and pleasant parts of life. Some of us have said, "If I expect the worst, I won't be disappointed. If I think the worst about myself, no one else can cut me down." It is like taking a driving trip and looking only for trash and garbage in the ditches, ignoring the beauty beyond. Indeed, what we see may be real, but it is a very limited piece of the picture.
When we have relied on negative thinking, it feels risky to give it up. We cannot do it in one day. We can begin by imagining ourselves with a more open attitude toward ourselves and the world. Then we can try it out as an experiment in little ways, with no commitment. Finally we reach the point where we can take a risk and entrust our Higher Power with the outcome.
Today, I will experiment with hopeful and positive thoughts about what happens.
-- Maxwell Maltz
Negative thoughts can rule our lives as compulsively as an addiction. The feelings of power we get from holding a dismal and gloomy outlook deprive us of the positive and pleasant parts of life. Some of us have said, "If I expect the worst, I won't be disappointed. If I think the worst about myself, no one else can cut me down." It is like taking a driving trip and looking only for trash and garbage in the ditches, ignoring the beauty beyond. Indeed, what we see may be real, but it is a very limited piece of the picture.
When we have relied on negative thinking, it feels risky to give it up. We cannot do it in one day. We can begin by imagining ourselves with a more open attitude toward ourselves and the world. Then we can try it out as an experiment in little ways, with no commitment. Finally we reach the point where we can take a risk and entrust our Higher Power with the outcome.
Today, I will experiment with hopeful and positive thoughts about what happens.
Poem of the Week
I Ride Greyhound by Ellie Shoenfeld
because it's like being
in a John Steinbeck novel.
Next best thing is the laundromat.
That's where all people
who would be on the bus if they had the money
hang out. This is my crowd.
Tonight there are cleaning people appalled
at the stupidity of anyone
who would put powder detergent
in the clearly marked LIQUID ONLY slot.
The couple by the vending machine
are fondling each other.
You'd think the orange walls
and florescent lights
would dampen that energy
but it doesn't seem to.
It's a singles scene here on Saturday nights.
I confide to the fellow next to me
that I suspect I'm being taken
in by the triple loader,
maybe it doesn't hold any more
than the regular machines
but I'm paying an extra fifty cents.
I tell him this meaningfully
holding handfuls of underwear.
He claims the triple loader
gives a better wash.
I don't ask why,
just cruise over to the pop machine,
aware that my selection
may provide a subtle clue.
I shoes Wild Berry,
head back to my clothes.
in a John Steinbeck novel.
Next best thing is the laundromat.
That's where all people
who would be on the bus if they had the money
hang out. This is my crowd.
Tonight there are cleaning people appalled
at the stupidity of anyone
who would put powder detergent
in the clearly marked LIQUID ONLY slot.
The couple by the vending machine
are fondling each other.
You'd think the orange walls
and florescent lights
would dampen that energy
but it doesn't seem to.
It's a singles scene here on Saturday nights.
I confide to the fellow next to me
that I suspect I'm being taken
in by the triple loader,
maybe it doesn't hold any more
than the regular machines
but I'm paying an extra fifty cents.
I tell him this meaningfully
holding handfuls of underwear.
He claims the triple loader
gives a better wash.
I don't ask why,
just cruise over to the pop machine,
aware that my selection
may provide a subtle clue.
I shoes Wild Berry,
head back to my clothes.
Author of the week
It's the birthday of Howard Zinn, (books by this author) born in Brooklyn, New York (1922). He's the author of A People's History of the United States (1980). It has sold more than a million copies and continues to sell about 100,000 copies each year.
Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including the memoir You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994). Last year, he said: "I think it's very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country. Socialism basically said, hey, let's have a kinder, gentler society. Let's share things. Let's have an economic system that produces things not because they're profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism."
You can’t make up such a thing as that, I dare you to even try
This was just four years before my parents were born!
It was on August 26 in 1920 that the 19th Amendment was formally incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. It said: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." It ended more than 70 years of struggle by the suffragist movement.
Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed the proclamation that morning at 8 a.m. at his home. There was no ceremony of any kind, and no photographers were there to capture the moment. And none of the leaders of the woman suffrage movement were present to see him do it. Colby just finished his cup of coffee and signed the document with a regular, steel pen. Then he said, "I turn to the women of America and say: 'You may now fire when you are ready. You have been enfranchised.'"
