Treadmill Time
Some days are ...
On my retiring from the Navy in February 1978, a job offer came from a “beltway bandit,” one of many firms working government contracts around Washington, DC. With less than a dozen associates, this was a small firm doing business with various Naval systems command headquarters. They had a new contract in my field, so I worked that one with them then went off on my own. The firm’s founder and owner was a brilliant fellow who wore Supp Hose socks and drove a dark blue eleven-year-old Cadillac Sedan de Ville that he had ordered new without air conditioning (a waste, he said, open the windows). He never read the morning newspaper and driving to work mornings he never turned the car radio on, because he did not want his focus and frame of mind disturbed by depressing news about which he could do nothing.
His approach to the day imprinted me to an extent. My mother would tell bad news at the breakfast table, until I learned to say kindly, “Mama, there’s nothing I can do about that, and it’s so sad that it will depress me for days, please don’t tell me that.” This also defines almost all television news, such that my TV time is zilch except for the weather. On the bright side, Joe introduced us to Turner Classic Movies on TV, which are great, free, no commercials. Round up the usual suspects.
The Syrian government will fall and be replaced with far worse. Hardly anything is more evil and despotic than religious certitude of any flavor.
In a nation with subtle but rabid despotism of our own, it’s pointless asking why the mental case next door who is part of no well-regulated militia may own automatic weapons even though he murders again and again and again.
Wrenching as the clock passed 5:08 yet one more time again, to muse that a century from now GBM will be history, a disease of the past. I still cannot believe the little sign on that fresh grave. Faith confronted and challenged.
Though destined to be touted as unduly severe by sports pundits, NCAA sanctions will be far, far less than Penn State warrants, because the only apt sanction is bulldozers.
Though destined to be touted as unduly severe by sports pundits, NCAA sanctions will be far, far less than Penn State warrants, because the only apt sanction is bulldozers.
For over a year now we have been captive clients of a legal system that is based not on service, promptness, commonsense, or justice but on billable hours. However, it now looks like closing out my mother’s estate may be on the horizon instead of somewhere over the rainbow. Shades of Charles Dickens.
Life may be hell, but it’s still preferable to the alternative: every morning so far, I wake up and say, “Hey! I showed up again! Thank you, God!”
Oh, look! An email from a widow in Africa whose husband was murdered by his political enemies. She has $3.2 million in a bank account that she needs to disburse to someone trustworthy before she dies of the cancer that has destroyed all her inner organs and she doesn’t have long to live. She has chosen me as beneficiary.
Treadmill Time.
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