A lunchtime browse of social media reveals the latest shocking Trendy “news”. Apparently, Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr., a rapper in his late Forties, is obliging CNN with something to report that is worthy of headlines.  “Snoop Dogg” so the story goes performed a mock assassination  of President Trump in a music video.  But there are problems with this story.  First, it is being reported on social media and CNN, which are both more prone to fiction these days.  Second,  “Snoop Dogg” is hardly more than a footnote in the encyclopedia of work that black Americans have contributed to culture and the world at large.  Louis Armstrong, BB King, Stanley Turentine, and  Jimi Hendrix are just a few who have a world audience.  As this is Black History Month in the U.S.,  I learned more about the astronauts, inventors, and scientists without whose work, industry and the world would be poorer.

And then you have an angry man.  Twenty-five years ago, his music and associations were very polarizing in expressing the rage of black youth.  But not all black youth.   Fifteen years ago, my mentors in the Navy who taught me how to excel, how to strive for and achieve success as a Chief Petty Officer and then a Senior Chief Petty Officer were two of the finest human beings I have ever had the pleasure of knowing,  Master Chief Cryptologists Banks and Logan.   

I attend my church with men and women of all colors, races, and origins.  And among our fellowship are some of the men who have made an indelible stamp on my Christian Discipleship.  So when this angry – but extremely wealthy ‘gangsta’  –  man panders his drug use, anti-social attitude and downright criminal (I think any reference to assassination of a President however veiled  is a felony) behavior as freedom of expression,  I can only have pity on him.   There is a Judge that will ultimately decide his fate.   I hope for his soul that he can be salvaged while he still is breathing.

The end of the world is coming.  And I don’t think it is going to be a Mad Max franchise movie.  The rival factions:

  I don’t care if Fifty is the “new Thirty”!   That’s the nonsense that the younger men palaver on about as they don’t want to think about the things they cannot do as well when they are north of age 35.  Over breakfast today,  I was able to revel in stories of working at heights 22 years ago. My wife and I joined another couple at a breakfast cafe that is popular with those who qualify for a senior’s discount.  

We all talked about things we had done – or chosen not to do in our youth.  One of these, we husbands opined, was working at heights.  I didn’t have time to fear heights, as my responsibilities on a Navy ship included going up a hundred-foot mast to work on communications equipment.. After a morning hike with other guys in my church group, and getting the dogs walked at the same time- I was energized and having breakfast with this couple was a fine way to relax this weekend.  Even my back pain which I joked was a ‘sympathy’ pain to my wife’s discomfort, may have been insensitive. Three of the four of us were engaged and enjoying the morning.

I looked over at my wife.  She was looking pale and unfocused.   A visit to the doctor yesterday – and a scolding about not coming in sooner for an exam had revealed that she had injured it.   A couple of weeks ago, both of us were recovering from bad, lingering colds and congestion.   A severe cough was enough for her to wrench her lower back.   You have to understand that my wife is an R.N.   Where I would be ill and go to the clinic or the E.R. – a nurse will choose to rest — unless the injury is life-threatening.  Severed-limb -level.   A little Tylenol and a bandage for her. Morphine for me.  However,  Sheri asked me for the car keys and wanted to go lie down till the nausea went away.   

So anyone who has not been working out consistently since they were still carded to get into bars and clubs, the nonsense about youth now lasting into your fifth or sixth decade – is just so much talk,  

Pass the Vicodin.   Or perhaps when I next lift a ninety pound sack of concrete mix, I too may be on the couch with heating pad and a glass of red wine. 

 

Incredibly, the United States has few today that rise to the level of public speaking that developed in the crucible of discord.  But after two decades of control exerted by a duopoly of Big Media and central government, people have an opportunity to have their voice heard and acted upon. And one man’s Twitter feed moves others to action. 

Britain must have a dearth of good news today,  Or they celebrate a boring day with the dry wit the Brits are known for.   Today was “National Toast Day”  I learned from scanning Facebook.  As I am waiting for the ‘Calming Tea’ to make me sleepy, I just had to comment.

Sure enough there are several references online to this day!    And not being particularly imaginative this evening — it was a LONG day at work and commuting was — well,  let’s just say I ended up at home feeling like,  you guessed it dear reader, TOAST!

And oddly enough,  this was the first day I brought a loaf of bread, wheat bread, to work.  You cannot get toast – and no slices of bread separate unto themselves,  at our work cafeteria at any time other than breakfast.   So here I am this morning, in ignorant abandon, having toast.

Good think I didn’t try asking for it like acting legend, Jack Nicholson.

As a man in his late 50’s,  I recall this scene if not necessarily the whole movie.  But anytime I have a little difficulty with an order or request,  I am tempted to get flippant and ask for plain, dry toast.

Such an odd day to ponder other uses for a baked good.

From DICTIONARY.COM: . Idioms
be toast, Slang. to be doomed, ruined, or in trouble:
If you’re late to work again,

you’re toast

After all this,  I would rather just drink a toast to the approaching Friday.  The weekend is almost here.   To make it through tomorrow, Friday, I will need a little nightcap.  Though my spouse is asleep, I will raise a glass of my favorite beverage in her honor.  For I don’t drink alone…

that’s a  TOAST

Slumbering without benefit of an alarm clock for the first day of work in 2014 was not as restful as I would have wished.  Due to conflicting schedules today,  I drove my pickup truck to the train station instead of carpooling and was uncomfortable.  Huffing and puffing the few hundred yards from the transit parking lot I caught the Coaster commuter train with minutes to spare;  missing it would have given me an excuse to skip work until Monday.  I’m just glad to be away from the left-over cookies, chocolates, zucchini bread, crackers and dip.

The weekend will be here in a couple days.  And none too soon.  I have a list of projects to start the year off.  The truck now seems to have developed some fuel problem that thankfully held off until I was pulling into my driveway,  A couple strings of outdoor lights need to be stored in the garage.  A bedroom needs painting;  odds n ends cluttering the house have an appointment with the Amvets truck now that 2014 is here.

Happy New Year!   Four hundred ninety-six days ago, or 1 year, 4 months and 9 days ago, I apparently had something to vent and did so.  In the meantime I have been silent, like a slumbering caldera, or perhaps have had little to say. A Christmas present from my wife this year, a journal, bears a witty foreword that resembles my thoughts and verbal commentary — usually while we are driving together over these last two years.  Perhaps a little more blogging is in order and will provide me some perspective.  Numbers like five years from now I can draw military retirement,  two years from now our financial house should be in order, one year from now a student will have graduated and be urged to leave the nest, six months from now I will be able to order from the Denny’s senior menu,  and a day from now, I may be taking public transit back to the job to start another 52 weeks of work.

In the past year I learned a little more about ancient cultures and the figurative relationship of numerology in the Bible.   And though I have no real fascination with numbers,  I cannot avoid some interesting (some might say hazardous) coincidences.   While three is associated with Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Trinity,  seven is regarded as a holy number ( seven crowns, seven lampstands, etc) in the Book of Revelations.  Six on the other hand is a number associated with evil. Six pieces of silver, the  ‘666’ mark of the Beast and so on.

In 2013, I learned to live without a car (totalled by a drunk at the end of 2012),  dealt with another hospitalization for gastric issues,  severely broke my wrist, had my house catch fire (candles – though the artist who used them has not- have been banished from my home), had another car driven by my other son disabled by a collision (two previous tire blowouts on the interstate that year were foreshadowing his pending lack of ‘auto’-mobility,  and other minor irritations,  And if you believe that incidents occur in threes, I bear witness,  If one sums the digits of 2013, the result is SIX, but happily, the sum of the present year is SEVEN.
Let me offer prayers to the Most High that the new year will bring significant positive outcomes for my family.

Raise your hand if you have become irritated with sound bites, glossy ads, baby-kissing, union-halls forums and now the increasingly annoying dirt-slinging between political camps.  If you are gay but fiscal conservative, you are attacked by gays; if you exercise free speech to attack one-time ubiquitous American values, you get center-stage. If you use free-speech to criticize others championed by the same suck-up media, you are a bigot.   Profits earned by business – other than those who fund the political machine of the party in the White House are despicable. But what about the suck-up media which profits enormously from it’s muck-raking??  Not much different than the campaigning of two hundred years ago.

The Alamo

Anyone who has studied U.S. history might recognize one of the symbolic structures in our nation’s lexicon. “Remember the Alamo!”.  In 1836, a small group of Texicans opposed an overwhelming force of foreign soldiers in the struggle to have an independent state.  While these brave men were killed, they were remembered in a rallying cry that later gained Texas as an independent territory from Mexico, and then   statehood in the growing United States.

Today it is unpopular to be a Christian Disciple, in the true sense of the word.  The world at large hates the values and ideals of following a Christian God, partly due to the folly of men and women who have professed a faith in Jesus, but have in practice, have exhibited little of His teaching. In the absence of a true and committed faith and adherence to His Word, cynicism, ignorance, selfishness and  brutish behavior fill the vacuum left behind.

It is foolishness to those who are perishing, the Bible says.  The brave men who took a stand for an ideal and died at the Alamo outnumbered by an enemy, might appear foolish to some. But how many then or today would choose to leave omnipotence to be clothed in human form, suffer and die horribly for the entire race of men across the world -even enemies – including those yet unborn?  That God sacrificed His only Son so that we might have the right to become sons and daughters, and to inherit eternal life.

I choose to change the course of my life.  It is meaningless to squabble over politics, over leaders who have acted one way or another, to hoard up riches or to squander the opportunity to know God.   The beginning of knowledge is to be empty of oneself.   At a gathering of 18000 faithful, “recovering sinners”, men and women, families of all ages, who chose to worship a Christian God as He intended, I am eternally grateful for the change and focus.  As a White Male, whose attitudes were once laughably labelled “Born Forty:, I have chosen to redirect my remaining life in service and worship and Truth.

YOU are never alone when you have multiple personality disorder.  I work primarily by myself in a closed engineering lab and over time I have given in to talking to myself.  Now my friends who have known and worked with me over the years may not be surprised as I have been this way for a long time.   

2011.  Okay world, lets try to get the year off to a better start:  If you own an Iphone and used it as an alarm clock today – it is a good thing that it is NOT a workday for most folks – the news reported another operating system bug which causes a failure of the alarm on January 1 and January 2.