Old World Swine

"I Feel Young! I Feel Fifty!"

The title of this post is a phrase very familiar to the men-folk of our family. It was coined by George, a barber, in Anchorage, Alaska in (I'm guessing) about 1973.

Dick was my regular barber (I was by then 12, or so) and the proprieter of the establishment, and George - a wizened old native Alaskan, - played second chair. He was what they sometimes call "wirey", about five-feet-two, at least eighty years old and more often than not sported a wide grin. I remember him as being remarkably quick and energetic for a man of any age.

This particular day, my Dad led his gaggle of boys (3) into Dick's Barber Shop and ordered the usual - buzz cuts all around. He greeted Dick, then George "Hey, George! How're you doing, today?", to which George famously replied, "Oh, great... I feel young! I feel fifty!"

Today, I am fifty, and I am pleased and privileged henceforth to adopt George's enthusiastic mantra as my own. Turning fifty does seem almost comically and absurdly unreal for someone of my generation; the tail-end Baby Boomers. By the time I hit my teens (late in 1973), the Cult of Youth was rocketing toward its preposterous zenith, and the day when the only forseeable use for a middle aged white dude was as the butt of jokes. Stand up, blue collar guys like my Dad were set up as buffoons, a bunch of clueless Archie Bunkers.

So, it was with some great humor that I first observed in the wobbling hand held mirror an undeniable bald spot. It concerned me not at all, but struck me as unaccountably hilarious (we men do have it easier in the looks department. I mean, we're mostly sort of dull and frousy, anyway... what's a little hair loss?). It seemed a kind of cosmic joke. I don't know why, exactly. Maybe it has to do with the strange thrill I get driving by a graveyard... as if a chorus of murmured voices calls out, "Hey... we're waiting! Did you get the invitation? Okay, then. Bye! We'll see you soon." (and at this there are some laughs in the background).

Okay, then. I'm going to be optimistic and consider this the halfway marker. The fifty yard line. Even given that favorable forecast, I'll have to be busy if I'm to get even half the paintings done that I have in my head.

Thanks for all the good Facebook wishes!

Behold!!

I knew it had to exist, and was rewarded for my intrepid Googling;

Behold; Turducken... in a pig!

Now, if I can find the expansive soul who will nestle the whole affair inside a goat and wrap it all in a cow, I will be content.

Signs in the Heavens

Some amazing skies I've seen lately. Unforunately, I had no way to record them for posterity.

The first was Thursday morning, when I saw the thinnest of crescent moons hanging over a the pre-dawn glow that spread low on the Eastern horizon. A crescent so slim and brittle one was afraid it might break in a driving autumn wind. The atmosphere was so clean and clear (so different from summer) that behind the crescent one could see very plainly the bulging form of the unlit portion of the moon, its solidity and roundness so palpable that it looked like someone had hung a Christmas ornament among the stars.

Then this morning I again became an accidental stargazer. Sweet Wifey had just left for the day and I was about to start my morning prayers. I have always struggled to keep any discipline and consistency in my prayer life, and having a routine is almost a necessity. When my schedule is disrupted or goes through major changes, my prayer life suffers for weeks. I am a creature of habit. I am also not a morning person. This particular morning (as with most) if I closed my eyes to pray, my brain assumed it was time to go back to sleep.

But I'm also a very visual person, and when my eyes are open for prayer, the world is full of distractions for me. So, I went to our big picture window to look out on the pre-dawn blackness of the woods, so that I would have as few visual distractions as possible. I was delighted to see the stars out and shining brilliantly in the pristine autumn air. Orion was clearly visible, even through the tangle of oaks with their remaining tattered leaves. If one has to be visually distracted during prayer, one could do worse.

Then I saw what I realized was a prodigy, but one routinely overlooked. I saw a man-made star, blinking its multi-colored lights silently across the heavens. The thing is, had any cave-dweller seen such a thing in ages past, it would have been some sort of apocalypse, a portent and a wonder. If I understand correctly, primitive people would often speculate that there must be heavenly beings or even men riding aboard comets and meteors. Here I was looking at a multi-colored shooting star, knowing full well there were people riding in it, and it hardly registered on my conscious mind as I sipped my coffee. How dull our minds must be, to see such a thing as mundane.

It reminded me of this quote by Ralph Walso Emerson, taken from David Zach's book of quotations called Worth Remembering;

If the stars should appear just one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore!

Post Election

Apologies again for the dearth of blogging, yada, yada...

Just a few thoughts on the election results.

1) The American Middle, - the undecided - are a fickle, fickle, bunch, no matter where you sit.

2) No Tea Party candidates on the ballot at all in our state, but plenty of Greens, which is like the Tea Party of the Left.

3) A viable third party will never have a chance until one is created that can draw voters from both established parties more or less equally. So far, that hasn't happened. Third parties are always either right of the GOP or left of the Dems. The appeal would have to be to the middle, which means that there would be very little to hold such a party together (see #1, above). Positions on the most pressing issues of the day would be all over the place. Middle ground voters lack the conviction to hold a party together.

4) I do think Obama gets unfairly blamed for the overall crappiness of the economy, but that is largely his fault, for a couple of reasons. A) He ran as the guy who was going to fix everything, and B) He never, ever tried even a little to establish real consensus or work with conservatives. Silly man thought he had some sort of mandate and could ignore everyone who disagreed with him. So, he rammed a HUGE new entitlement program down the public's collective throat, ignoring the fact that most people thought it was a bad idea, what with the weak economy, and all. Long story short; the economy is always tied closely to whether people feel optimistic and secure, and his gleeful enthusiasm for spending our tax money made most people feel pessimistic and insecure. Racking up unprecedented national debt with little explanation aside from "Trust us!" does not inspire confidence in government.

5) If Obama now moves toward the center and begins to compromise here and there, I expect a lot of Dems will be hopping mad that he didn't so six months ago and save a lot of their seats in Congress.

6) I left a lot of blanks on my ballot. I think I flunked.

7) It's a little disappointing how quickly and seamlessly the Tea Party was rolled into the GOP juggernaut.

8) Question of the day: What odds would you give today for a Hillary Clinton run for the Dem nomination for POTUS against Obama in 2012?