Wednesday set loose
Sorry to miss being "camera ready" as our local osprey circled just outside my bay side window just now, obviously quite proud of the small mullet clutched in his talons, and zipping off to the nest with his catch! I say "his" mindful that regardless of where our civilization and culture have evolved with regard to "woman's work" and "a man's job", the ospreys I've watched for years at Boulder Counter Fairgrounds Osprey Cam (Longmont, Colorado) still are mired in His and Hers, have the work fairly well sorted. They both can do everything and do share, but for the most part the mom osprey stays with the nest and the dad goes fishing in the adjacent pond and brings home the bacon. Our PC osprey was really close to my window just now.
Ships coming and going as I sit here, so I go out on the porch and snap them as they glide past Linda's tomato plants. The photos need lots of work, maybe I'll get 'round to that in due course; if not, don't you worry about it, because I'm certainly not going to - -
Picked up a FB contact this morning that took me to browsing some great Panama City pictures from our early/mid part of the 20th century on a friend's FB page, noticing a landmark I'd forgotten about, so googled it, Tennessee House that was at the corner of Harrison Avenue and 4th Street downtown. Came up with the picture above. Tennessee House, a wood frame building hotel?, next door to the Ritz Theatre, was where in the late forties and early fifties was Schneider's, an upgrade clothing store where I worked for a while my senior year at Bay High 1952-53. I say upgrade, classier than Sears or J C Penney, not as classy as Cogburn's. Our men's shirt brands at Schneider's were Arrow and Manhattan, I sold a lot of shirts and ties the two or three months I worked there. I already had a white shirt, and my parents' graduation gift to me Spring 1957 was a new dark blue Hart, Schaffner & Marx suit from Cogburn's, the suit I wore in our wedding.
What? Bernie Madoff dies in prison at age 82. A pathetic life that an apparently brilliant man wasted. I read an interview with him after he'd been in prison for a while, and it seemed to have been the first time in his life he was able to find peace. Nothing to do or be but exist, too late for regrets, no worries or fears or folks, no friends or loved ones, just himself for the rest of his Time. I'd rather be a speck of dust in empty space in some far reach of a distant universe, and I suppose Madoff will be something like that before the week is out. Cremated and flushed? In my theology, Life on Earth with Loved Ones is the Heaven we have a chance at, and Hell is Not; so I won't worry about Bernie's eternity - - as someone said, "the limitless void that awaits us". Bernie Madoff's main sin? that his life drove his son to suicide in shame. What's left after that? Hell would be a prison cell in solitary throughout eternity, a pistol on the bedside table, and no bullet: maybe for Bernie Madoff that was what he got and he thought he was in Heaven. I feel sadder for Bernie than for all the greedy people who thought he was going to make them rich.
What else? White cops still killing unarmed Black men (you have to capitalize Black now, and therefore White as well so it doesn't seem racist). Black Lives Matter and I don't know any answers any more than anyone else does. White cops kill Black men because the cops are on the edge afraid the Black men will kill them, where the Fear itself is a racism that I don't know can be trained out of White cops. Maybe have only Black cops, no White cops allowed? Or, no cops at all, and anarchy, chaos? I don't know, I have no idea, I'm copping out with my usual excuse that I'm 85 going on 86, so it's your problem. I do know that part of the American anti-dream is that White people see and fear our grip on majority power slipping away before our eyes. When you lose power, those whom you were bullying will now take a turn bullying you, which stirs Fear, and - - evil.
What else? For all my hating covid19, I like that covid19 is forcing us to open our eyes to the world about us, to accommodate in ways that give us new ideas for life. Maybe some future generation that was not emotionally involved will judge covid19 to have been as much a blessing as a curse, IDK.
ABC&PTL
T+