The radio is playing chants. I curl beneath my electric blanket on the floor and listen, thinking about the day, my friends, my body and soul, my past and future, illusions and reality, and this very perfect moment.
“He who yields to fear or pain or anger is a fugitive slave.” ~Marcus Aurelius
“I really enjoy your writing,” the Ultimate Waif told me. Later, for some reason, she ghosted me.
MAP told me that I can turn a phrase as well as anyone she’s ever read, but that I lack a “sellable” cohesive structure. She says I don’t take the reader into account.
I’m thinking about you, all the moments we shared and who we are to each other now. I’m thinking about what it would be like if you walked though my front door right now.
I remember she wanted to go to church with me, but when it came time for Communion, she shrank away and said, “I’m not a member here.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “All Baptized Christian are welcome to receive the Sacraments.” It was the last time I took Communion.
… if the right thing is revealed…
Quote I read somewhere today: “Sour sixteen, when I was cooler than God.”
Later: I wasn’t ready to stop punishing myself for the cruelty of others.
All humans have weakness, but we don’t have to be weakness.
Brocimole. Don Spankenburger. Cowpotamus. Chili with Irish potatoes: chili con Blarney!
There is a clever saying that goes, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.”
That’s how I feel and act all the time. When I bought new tires for my Nissan Juke this week, it inspired me to hand-wash the car, which I finished around dark, but I decided that I wanted to do more, so the next morning, I took advantage of the morning cool and vacuumed, Armor-alled, Leather-alled, and Rain-Xed both the Juke and my Nissan Frontier.
I bought this car 11 years ago, and it still looks, and drives, like a champ.
It certainly wasn’t going to happen by itself, and since I am always happy with my vehicles when they are clean, it seemed pretty straightforward: get to it, and get it done.
Another thing on my mind this week has been my weight. Anyone who saw me this week would argue that I was off-base, and my weight was fine. But when it the best time to watch your weight? Before you get heavy.
I photographed this half-glass or orange juice because I liked the light on it, but it reminded me that fruit juices are better is all respects than drinks with processed sugar.
Managing my weight is unfairly easy, since I tend to have a taste for foods that are inherently good for me, like fruits and vegetables. I actively dislike processed sugars like those found in cake, candy, and doughnuts, and I ever prefer – yes, actually prefer – to snack on fruit. I haven’t had a soft drink of any kind since, hmm… I guess I drank a coffee-flavored Coke left behind after Abby died, since the alternative was throwing it away.
So there really isn’t a better time than right now to do something, get something done, help someone, eat more nutritious foods, let someone know you are glad they are there, even something as simple as holding a door open for someone with a smile.
Today is the day.
I found veggie “skallops” on Amazon. They make a nice addition to my veggie stir fry.
Today Ada Sunrise Rotary presented the 2023-24 President appreciation plaque to me, which was an honor to receive. And while I did serve as Sunrise Rotary’s President for a year, it was fun and productive, and, for anyone familiar with civic clubs, another chapter of, as the Rotary International motto says, “Service Above Self.”
Ada Sunrise Rotary 2024-25 President Christen Puckett-Smith presents a plaque to me in recognition of my 2023-24 Presidency.
I feel that we accomplished many of the goals we set out to achieve, including this year’s better-than-ever Fireball Classic 10k/5k/Fun Run. I also feel that our new President, Christen Puckett-Smith, is poised to be a great leader in the coming year.
In the past year, the duties of running the meetings left little time for what had become one of my favorite reasons for joining Ada Sunrise instead of Ada Rotary (which meets at noon), breakfast at The Aldridge.
Anyone who knows our town knows that breakfast at The Aldridge at 12th and Broadway is more than just a meal, it is a meal full of tradition. If you want to taste Ada, get a bite at the Aldridge.
I know I’ve made this point before, but civic clubs in general are worth your time and support, and if you have ever considered doing something fun with a sense of purpose and belonging, Rotary, Kiwanis, or Lions might be right for you.
Breakfast at the Aldridge is great any time, but tastes even better on Friday mornings with my fellow Rotarians.
Seven Social Sins is a list by Frederick Lewis Donaldson that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi published in his weekly newspaper Young India on October 22, 1925. Later he gave this same list to his grandson, Arun Gandhi, written on a piece of paper on their final day together shortly before his assassination. The Seven Sins are:
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Religion without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.
“Illness is a cross, but perhaps also a guardrail. The ideal, however, would be to draw strength from it and to refuse its weaknesses. Let it be the retreat that makes one stronger at the proper moment. And if one has to pay in suffering and renunciation, let’s pay up!” ~Albert Camus
“Liberty is the right not to lie.” ~Albert Camus
“Sometimes offers for help are actually cries for help.” ~Unknown
“The main thing, when the sword cuts into your soul, is to keep a calm gaze, lose no blood, accept the coldness of the sword with the coldness of a stone. By means of the stab, after the stab, become invincible.” ~Franz Kafka
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
One of the most appealing thing about being Ada Sunrise Rotary is the idea of having breakfast with friends at one of Ada’s longest-established businesses, the Aldridge Hotel.
Every Friday morning, Ada Sunrise Rotary, my civic club, meets at the Aldridge Hotel Banquet Room starting at 7 a.m. Meetings start with a ringing the ceremonial brass bell, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, a non-denominational prayer, introduction of guests, announcement, “Words of Wisdom,” a guest speaker, singing the “Friday Song,” an appeal to donate to Polio Plus, and, ending the meeting, “The Four-Way Test of the things we think, say or do” …
Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
I didn’t join Rotary to change or reform it. When Robert and Jennifer Greenstreet, long-time friends, invited me, I thought it sounded like fun, that it would be a good source for community news for my newspaper, and an important way to represent our newspaper as a civic-minded product.
When I joined, two and a half years ago the “Words of Wisdom” segment of our meetings usually consisted of one of the buzz-cut set telling a slightly off-color joke that started with something like, “So this 80-year-old couple is about to make whoopee, but they’re both a little deaf…”
I decided that I might have something more erudite to contribute, so about a year ago, I started bringing in some of my brainier-sounding books on science, philosophy, sociology, writing, creativity, and so on. As I did so, everyone began to realize that I might be making a worthwhile contribution to the discourse, and that I was at least attempting to be well-read and creating an atmosphere of ideas and learning.
As the last six months or so, from July 1 when Ashley became president, has evolved, more and more when we get to “Words of Wisdom,” Ashley’s eyes, and everyone else’s, immediately turn to me.
Last Friday I read this from Albert Camus’ The Plague…
“The evil that is in this world always comes from ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more-or-less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue, the most incorrigible vice being an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for it the right to kill. The soul of murderers is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.”
I bring my journal to Rotary every week, and it gives me a chance to write, if I haven’t, for the week, as I wait for breakfast. Thus, I concluded that I should be more consistent about writing down my words of wisdom, and make it a regular feature here on this blog.
To find words of wisdom, click on the category by that name, or simply go to the search box and type “words of wisdom.”
Hopefully, I will be a wise man, and not a wise guy, as time goes by.
In a world of increasingly shallow content, I have often made an effort to read, and discuss, deeper topics.
“What is life? It is a flash of a firefly. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” ~Crowfoot, Blackfoot Chief
I saw a woman in the parking lot as I walked to my car after photographing the Free Fair. She used a walker and seemed very unsteady. She told me she’d had a stroke, that left her with an uneven gait and slurred speech. I helped her to her truck, and put the walker in the bed of the truck for her.
It seemed like the right thing to do, but I was the only one helping her. I think this was one of the most important things I learned by taking care of my wife Abby at the end of her life: we all benefit from acts of kindness and generosity, and it is our duty as humanitarians.
There is a scene towards the end of Richard Attenborough’s 1982 movie, Gandhi, where the late Om Puri, playing the role of a Hindu man whose son had been killed by Muslims, bursts onto a terrace where Gandhi, weakened by weeks of fasting, is lying on a bed.
The man throws a chapati at Gandhi and shouts, “Eat! I’m going to hell but not with your death on my soul.”
“Only God decides who goes to hell,” the Mahatma responds quietly.
“I killed a child. I smashed his head against a wall!” the man screams.
Gandhi winces and asks, “Why?”
The man’s eyes well up with tears, “They killed my son, my boy. The Muslims killed my son.”
“I know a way out of hell,” Gandhi whispers. “Find a child. A child whose mother and father have been killed. A little boy about this high; raise him as your own. Only be sure that is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.”
