Reflections of Me

 I am a white man.  A Caucasian, if you will, with ancestral roots going back almost strictly to the U.K.  I was born in Omaha, Nebraska.  I grew up in Northwestern Iowa.  I came to California in my last year of high school, then spent most if not all of the next 5 years back in Iowa and Nebraska.  Most of my friends were Caucasian growing up. I am also a black man.  And a red, brown, yellow man.  Because what I am, first and foremost, is a American.  I am a product of the wonders of diversity, as well as the mistakes.  I am English, Irish, Scots, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Canadian, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, Asian, Russian, Indian, Native American, African.  I am here, now, because of the wonder and beauty of what can happen when diverse cultures find a common ground, possess a dream of better things, and work their tails off to try to make it happen. Men and women, from different races, cultures, religions, ba...

     Yes, I have many idiosyncrasies.  No, I am not alone ; it's a prime affliction of the human condition.  Being introspective, I sometimes examine some of mine which make little sense to me.  Little sense due to the fact I can find no reason I possess them.      Pointing out that being introspective is, in itself, a idiosyncrasy will avail you naught.  Nice try, though.      One of my idiosyncrasies is a dislike for certain names.  There is no reason for it.  It simply is what it is.  There are not many I dislike, very few in fact.  One, however, stands out over any others.  That one is : Donald.  Lest you think this is going to be about  one certain Donald, let me disavow you of that notion.  He may be a part of it, but, not the focus.  So to speak.  I say as if I were actually speaking, rather than writing this.      No, this on...

     Well, been a while since I let my thoughts roam a bit.  Been a bit under the weather, so to speak.  But Spring approaches ( slowly, as it usually does for me ) and so much has happened, my steadily decreasing brain capacity simply refuses to keep up.  Spring has always been the time when, no matter how bad things were, the optimist in me woke up and cheered.      That hasn't happened this year.  Major League Baseball continues to slide down the garbage-strewn ramp into nothing but business and the quest for more and more.  More money, more offense, more effrontery to the rules that made it the greatest game on the planet.  Not as if I hadn't seen it coming the past 50 years, but I deplore it.  The game I grew to love, and grew up loving, has been taken from me as surely as my own youth and exuberance have been taken.  It's change, and change is inevitable, but the conservative in me resists that change.  ...

     I thought I'd take a bit to speak about some of my favorite books, past and present.  Well, technically, all past, since I can't very well speak of any I haven't read ( hush up, back there, Self : you always want to complicate things, don't ya? ).      I should clarify : I am not doing book reviews.  Always hated those, in school.  Somehow, I always got decent grades on mine, was never sure why.  I had no clue what I was doing.  Reading, however, has been a important part of my life since before I entered kindergarten ( back in those good old days of the 50's ).  I was lucky, I was taught to read while still quite young, and have always considered it the most important thing I ever learned.  I have always felt it helped me to enjoy so many other things later in my life, because I was fortunate in another respect.  In response to a very early question I asked when faced with a new thing to read ( ok, what i...

     We have a lot of words beginning with 're', don't we?  And, a lot of words we think should begin with 're' and don't.  Confusing, isn't it?      I hope you weren't expecting me to try to explain it.  This stuff is beyond me.  I use 'echo' when in doubt.  'Course, even that one is a tad odd.  You get a echo once ; if you do it again, is that a re-echo?      But, since a echo is a repeating sound, it therefore repeats.  But, when did it peat?      Rehearse is a fun one.  We all have a basic understanding when we hear the word 'hearse', right?  Letting myself think about it ( always a bit dangerous ) since I once did a lot of 'rehearsing', should I have been a bit frightened by describing it as such?  It rather implies that, well, we killed it once and it got hauled off in a hearse, let's murder it again and call it a 'rehearse'.  So, the more we rehe...

     I often have conversations with myself.  Subjects vary widely, usually because I can't focus on one thing at a time.  One occurred recently.      Self: What ya thinking?      Me:  Nothing.  Why?  Who is that?      Self: Me.      Me:  Can't be.  I'm me.      Self:  Ok, we can do this all day.  I'm bored.  What about this Mueller report?      Me:  Mueller?  Mueller?      Self:  Don't bother.  I didn't hear any horses neighing when I said it, either.  This report, that everyone has been so anxiously awaiting ; what ya think of it?      Me:  Nothing, haven't seen it yet.  No one who needs to see it has seen it.      Self:  The Attorney General has.  He wrote a summary.   ...