The Down-Google Journal

 I'm going to completely dazzle all of you.

I found out today that so much of what's happening in the world is all very much related. Connected in ways I never thought of. The conflicts and politics and and financial upheavals and climate change...all of it is linked.

Sit tight. It seems like all my life I've heard about powerful movers like the Rothschilds, George Soros, the Masons, the Illuminati, the Templars, Davos and Bill Gates. A vast number of seemingly unrelated people, organizations, events and distant places that have come together in ways most people can't even begin to realize. 

In researching a lot of the information coming across my feed, I've found data on those subjects that would probably never come to light without counterintuitive methods. A straight Google search leads nowhere. It finds what gets paid for by advertisers first and what gets the most engagement after that. You've got to go way down the list to get to the real facts. The things that don't get brought up much because they're outside the realm of 'normal' or 'accepted'. I've been there. 

The reason they're so many pages deep in even an AI search is that there are not enough views to move them up. People are too confident in the common reality to look beyond. To go far and wide to find what I found.

Even the dark web has only glimpsed the edges. There is so much more to understand.

It's all really overwhelming if you can see past what you thought was true. A sprawling operation of global proportions. It has it's own sophisticated psy-ops, legal and financial teams, a dedicated news and propaganda arm, covert operators and a very high level of control going back decades. 

Debating politics and issues led me to some very strange places. I thought I had a good handle on most things but there was knowledge staring me in the face that I couldn't see. Thousands may deny it but it's true nonetheless.

In the next post, I'll walk everyone through the research methodology and background. It might be hard to understand or accept but the facts are scientifically undeniable. 

Stay tuned.

Sunday By Way Of Monday

Sunday (that ran into Monday) thoughts:

I've been thinking big thoughts on long roads, quiet mornings and lawn mowers. It used to be locomotive seats but now I'm an aging retiree with more time to click the keys and get it down before it gets lost in the shuffle. I'm waxing philosophical is suppose but I've heard old men are allowed to do that.

So I wonder sometimes who I wound up being after all these years. Who or what would I rather be? What should I be? Or not be? I've spent a lot of run-time under my receding hairline on it. It's good exercise for more than my quads and calves.

It occurs to me that perhaps it's too easy for people like us to think of the world as filled with who and what we aren't instead of who we are.

What if Instead of thinking 'I'm not' something, what would happen if more believed in 'I'm' this?

In a good way. Without being angry at someone. Without worrying about the cost. If it's worth a try, I'll go first:

I'm equality. I'm compassion. I'm empathy. I'm inclusion. I'm women's rights. I'm Muslim. I'm an immigrant. I'm LGBTQ+. I'm ANTIFA. I'm BLM. I'm First Americans. I'm an asylum seeker. I'm my neighbors. I'm Trans. I'm SNAP. I'm addiction. I'm a single parent. I'm jobless. I'm homeless. I'm hungry. I'm disabled. I'm alone.

I'm vaccinated. I'm mental health. I'm universal healthcare. I'm safe food. I'm science.

I'm a living wage. I'm fair taxes. I'm mail-in voting. I'm prison reform. I'm public education. I'm school lunches. I'm all of The Constitution. I'm accountability.

I'm an American.

I'm a million small things that make "E pluribus unum". I'm disagreement. I'm argument. I'm debate. I'm a roaring opinion. I'm imperfection. I'm always trying again. I'm wanting better ahead. I'm remembering the past. I'm not leaving.

“I think, therefore I am” said Descartes. I would paraphrase it a little...'I am' is therefore what makes us think.

Sweating and Fear

I've been thinking. I know. Usually bad.

I rode 60 miles recently which is the farthest I've ridden on the old Trek 2.1 in more than five years. 

I love that bike. We've been a long, long way together. I used to ride it when things were awful. Each pedal push up a big hill was stomping at fear and anger. But it led to calm.

We rode the Tour and scouted a million miles of routes too. I could peel off a century almost at will for a few years but slowed considerably when my work schedule changed and then along came prostate cancer. My mileage dropped to 35 on a good day. The blue bike hung in the garage a lot but I figured we'd get re-acquainted once I retired. Last I knew, it had about 40,000 miles on it. And the anger is gone.

So now it's about getting my legs back and letting the endorphins work. It's time to reflect as the tires sing hymns in the 'Church Of Everlasting Asphalt'. I don't want to get all Zen about it but there's a lot to be gained when you only have to think about Sur la Plaque and Rule #5. 

https://www.velominati.com/the-rules/#credit-4

Which leads me back to what I was thinking about.

I'm sure it's not original but I've always tried to reach my own conclusions from what I've seen and learned. So in keeping with that, I've been trying to work my way through why everyone is so angry. Particularly among members of a brand of nationalism and current political influence.

It's been a nagging puzzle to me since it burst on the scene out of the wreckage of the Tea Party and the Moral Majority. I just can't see the logic in in it (probably because there really isn't that much) but I think I can see where it takes root. 

At it's most fundamental level, I firmly believe the anger is based almost completely on fear. The hatred and the brutality comes later and is strongly related but at the heart of it all, in the 'dark night of the soul', there is fear. 

Of the unknown, of the unseen, of what is incomprehensible, of not belonging, of diversity, of others unlike or unliked. Somewhere under the chest thumping, flag waving, casual cruelty and poisonous patriotism there lies a person who's in some way afraid.

Fear makes people see shadows in the corners. If someone is thinking all the time of all the terrible things that might happen in every Walmart parking lot, public restroom, classroom, place of worship or someone else's bedroom, that's what fear delivers. Darkness and dread even in sunny places. The thing is, you can usually find what you're looking for if you squint just right and have been told over and over what it is you're looking at.

- Even if you're not looking down at a skinny front tire somewhere in Speedsville with sweat in your eyes and a cramp in your calf, think about it. 

I figure it's easier to be afraid first than to try to understand too. And it's very easy to fear what you do not understand. We evolved that way. Understanding or even a desire to understand just drowns in the adrenalin response. Hate fills the vacuum and cruelty masks the emptiness. But deep down that little nugget of dread is at the heart of it all.

I can hear the screaming in protest already but slow the roll and think for a moment. There's a seed of an idea that an entire movement and it's flagbearer is afraid of something or someone.

Stick with me. If you recall, it began with name calling. Insults and swearing became the language. 'Cucks' were anyone not on the in. 'Sheeple', 'Libbies' etc. You remember the forwards and the speeches that came to include 'losers', 'shithole countries', 'lefty scum', 'narco-terrorists' which have now evolved into 'commies', 'ANTIFA' and on and on and on. It's how people who are afraid try hard not to appear so. If you yell loud enough, maybe someone will be afraid of you. Of course, the subjects of the fear come and go but the roots and the harvest are always the same.

I suggest that even people who said they held their nose and went with the program because of a single issue also did so because they were afraid. Afraid of losing. Afraid that their issue would get voted down. Afraid that someone might get something they didn't. Afraid that what was so very important to them maybe wasn't so much for others so damn the consequences, this is the only option.

Single issue people who said they knew about the downsides but went along anyway were just scared. I remember arguing with folks early in the game. "They're going to come for our guns". Obama, Biden, Hochul, Harris. Everybody was coming. Fearing a shadowy someone who would break into their house in the night and take, millions armed and stocked. I heard it over and over, "I'm gonna protect my family" spoken in true cowboy style. Or the ever popular, "Nobody is taking what's mine" and my favorite, "Molon labe" 

Who was coming or taking wasn't the point. It's 'them' and they are everywhere. The anger is fear dressed up as courage and whistling loudly in the dark where the monsters hide.

But nobody came for the guns. The 'slippery slope' of regulation to inevitable confiscation never even blipped on the radar. Sales and ownership of firearms skyrocketed. Gun violence is still with us. Nothing happened except fear.

- Sidetracked by the reality of a bee momentarily stuck in my ear (luckily not long enough to unload a sting), I managed to distract myself from the discomfort of saddle sores by cheek-shifting on the saddle and cogitating further.

"I'm against abortions" is another common theme which is certainly a valid and moral position which I will not debate today but again, a single issue that overwhelmed every other immoral position associated with it. 

They were afraid. Fearing God's judgement, fearing what the congregation would think if they said otherwise, scared of falling off the self-proclaimed high ground. Afraid that a baby would not be born. And often unwilling to consider the consequences. But at the end, abortion is not gone. It's actually on the upswing and women's health, safety and rights have been damaged if not destroyed. 

- I'm now down to much lower gears. My neck and shoulder are now on fire and the wind is relentless. I want to know who puts down new pavement that has more bumps than the old State Street bricks. Why is it always so far home after the last turn? Is 'The Man With The Hammer' sneaking up on me? Think deep thoughts and push on.

Many more fear 'the others'. Other races. Other religions. Other cultures. I know many, many people who are seriously afraid of immigrants. They will deny that they are afraid. Loudly and sometimes violently but if you think logically, what else could it be? Even a superficial surf fails to validate the horrors quoted except in highly publicized and infrequent events. The fear inducers in power have instilled a powerful belief that immigrants and even children of immigrants are taking something from 'us' and literally millions of people are afraid because of it. 

- Ah...the end is in sight. My own fear is that I'll collapse in a mound of cramps and nausea before the driveway. The gorilla is not yet tired though so we continue to wrestle. The last mile is too bright and glittery which means I'm nearly used up. Keep putting one down then the other.

So at last, with the Trek firmly in her spot back in the garage and my sweaty self finally breathing without sounding like I've been digging a ditch by hand at 10,000 ft. without oxygen, the final touch goes on the thinking for the day.

What to do? A quote from Frank Herbert's wonderful sci-fi novel 'Dune' comes to mind. It's called 'The Litany Against Fear' and is used to clear the mind when you're afraid and focus instead on what happens after:

"I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain"

I can't offer much except that I hope against hope that even a few of the fearful would find a way to see past it. I've learned something from long, sometimes awful experience that knowing where to look for them is the first step over many barriers. 

Facing the idea that fear drives much, maybe there's ways we can find to live without it.

Running Silently

A couple days ago, I splurged 4 bucks and rented one of my old favorite movies...'Silent Running'.

It's from 1972 and starred Bruce Dern as a biologist/astronaut in charge of one of the last remaining forests from a sterilized Earth. Whole ecosystems are stored in huge domes on cargo ships orbiting near Saturn against the day humans might want them back.
Spoiler...they don't.

I almost think I remember seeing it in a theatre ages ago although at the time, I can't imagine who would have taken me since in '72 I wasn't driving yet.

I always liked it. Not sure why but it meant something. It's sad but makes a simple point. And even after 54 years, it's still relevant. I think that makes it a good movie.

I've also long been hooked on Joan Baez's song from it, 'Rejoice In The Sun' written by Peter Schickele and Diane Lampert.

It's a haunting thing that still gives me goosebumps sometimes.

"Fields of children running wild
In the sun
Like a forest is your child, growing wild
In the sun
Doomed in his innocence
In the sun

Gather your children to your side
In the sun
Tell them all they love will die
Tell them why
In the Sun

Tell them it's not too late
Cultivate, one by one
Tell them to harvest and rejoice
In the sun"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkF05D-NJMU...

I guess I'm just hopelessly sentimental. I don't know that that's a bad thing either.

It's maybe a little strange that one of my favorite songs from the Wayback is by 'Mike + The Mechanics' and also titled 'Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)' written by Ba Robertson/Michael Rutherford.

It's another kind of spacey sort of thing that appeals to me both in sound and lyrics. Why? Who knows. It just does and there's always that sentimental streak again.

"Take the children and yourself
And hide out in the cellar
By now the fighting will be close at hand
Don't believe the church and state
And everything they tell you
Believe in me, I'm with the high command

(Chorus)

Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?
Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?

There's a gun and ammunition
Just inside the doorway
Use it only in emergency
Better you should pray to God
The Father and the Spirit
Will guide you and protect from up here

(Chorus)

Swear allegiance to the flag
Whatever flag they offer
Never hint at what you really feel
Teach the children quietly
For some day sons and daughters

Will rise up and fight while we stood still

(Chorus) X 2

(Can you hear me running) hear me running babe?
(Can you hear me running) hear me running?
Calling you, calling you"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i17mgRK3GX8

Running silent but at least not on empty.

Back To Port Huron

 I went to visit an old friend yesterday. 

Kellie and I made a jaunt to Canandaigua, NY for an event I used to go to with my Dad, "The Steam Show". 

It was something he always liked. Lines and lines of antique tractors, stationary engines, steamers, you name it. He'd poke at this one or that one and chat with guys in pinstripe coveralls for hours. 

It was much smaller (as was I) back then but I remember very well the smell of coal smoke, steam whistles wailing, hit and miss engines popping, sawmills buzzing on the end of a 50 foot belt, threshing machines flailing along, a parade of giant machines chuffing around the track and a whole building full of tiny model steam engines. I wasn't allowed near anything running because most machines of that era had never seen a belt cover or chain guard. Everything was right out in the open ready to remove a finger or more. A ton of flywheel and an open belt with a half twist was not to be trifled with. It was pretty amazing for the kid who spent hours watching the tractors go by in the field next door at home.

I didn't make it back for a lot of years after I got a few years of my own under my boots but it was always a "I gotta get back to that" thing on the list. I finally made it.

It's gotten pretty huge since I was there last. A lot of people use golf carts, quads and garden tractors just to get around it all there's so much acreage. 

But to my old friend...

In another long story that I'll have to track down among the fuzzy memories in my head, Dad wound up with a 1915 Port Huron steam traction engine.

It belonged to a friend of his named Argyle Ballard, an old farmer from Newark who still ran it to thresh oats. This is the engine in 1981 when it was only 66 years old.

Dad had it stored in a shed he built in the back yard and on occasion he'd fire it up and chuff around the yard. He was never able to get the water injectors to work right so it was a brief run at low pressure as he had to pull the fire when the water started getting low. It was pretty special though.

Over the years, runs got less frequent as he was pretty nervous about the state of the boiler which hadn't seen much maintenance or an inspection since probably the '20s. He ran it on compressed air a couple times I think but mostly it sat for longer and longer periods.

He asked me once upon a time if I wanted him to leave it to me when he passed away. It was sore tempting but reality reared it's ugly head and I knew I'd never be able to take care of it, much less restore it. I didn't have anyplace to keep it under cover and couldn't afford to build one. I don't think I could have scrounged up the money to even move it at the time.

So Dad wound up leaving it to the Pageant. It made a lowboy trip to Canandaigua and there it stays, not so far from Newark where it worked it's last. She's 111 years old now and hasn't seen a fire in a lot of years. They keep it under cover as Dad did but tow it out to display for the show each year. They started to paint it but the guy doing it is gone so it'll have to wait.

I found one of the guys from the New York Steam Engine Association while we were wandering around the grounds and had a long chat. I told him my Dad had donated the engine and he lit up about "The Port Huron". He said it was one of his favorites and grabbed another guy walking by with, "Hey, this is the son of the guy that donated 'The Port Huron'." 

"The Port Huron". It was "The Port Huron" every time.

He said it's on a long list of engines to get a new boiler someday but that it costs over $100,000 by the time it's all done and that doesn't restore all of the rest. But it's going to get done and someday, 'The Port Huron' will whistle and sizzle again.

We took a few pictures of her and history whispered in my ear again as it often does. I found Dad's little oilcan in the same tin holder in front of the engineer where it was handy. I wondered when he last filled it.

We wandered around the grounds a while but there were a lot of ghosts among the iron and a rain shower blew in to scurry us back to the car. 

I drove out feeling better knowing Dad's engine was sleeping in good care. They invited us to come back again and check up on her and I'm sure I will. 

Maybe, just maybe, I might even see the old workhorse smoke and steam again. Dad would like that.

Why Don't You Tell Me A Story?

"Why don't you tell me a story?

Please tell me a story, too

You know, I think I'll tell you the story of my life

You tell me!

I wanna hear, too!

I was born in Anamoose, North Dakota a long time ago, see

And now, I'm lucky enough to be here with you

Yeah, but what else happens in between?

Yeah, what else happened?

Well, it went pretty much like this..."

'Life Story', The Hellers

Anyone who ever heard "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" in the wayback knows those sample lines. A soft voiced man telling a story to two little kids followed by one of the most epic breaks ever recorded. It still works for me. Copy/paste if you wanna hear it again. It's at about 3:30 but you know you want to listen to the whole thing:

https://youtu.be/JArJLBBEDVk?si=nOdQSPPk5fiUTuEJ

I always pictured Mr. Rogers saying it on a children's show but a little search found the sample in the 1968 record mentioned above. Trust me, it has nowhere near the punch in the original as Flash gave it in the mix. How he stumbled onto that  particular psychedelic old song I'll never know.

But it leads me to think of how old can be new over and over again. I know that's not very original but it does have relevance anyway. It pays to take a glance in the rear view occasionally and see what might be sneaking up on you. 

I've never been one to live back there too much but memories are part of what makes us...well, us. It's like Florida. Fun to visit perhaps but once the shine wears off, it's just life. 

So why don't I tell you a story? 
I think I'll tell you the story of my life. 

It'll be bits and pieces. It'll be odd. But I've got time. For a while yet.

Sailing the C

Communism. 

I know there's a 'snarl word' of the month for the current political party and they get rotated in and out as needed to stir up the ever-faithful/fearful target audience and keep the donations rolling in. If I read the news correctly this morning, communists are an existential threat that we didn't hear much about until just now. 

So let's start with what it really is: "...a political and economic ideology that aims to eliminate private property and social classes. Instead, the community or the state owns all resources and means of production. Wealth is divided among citizens based on individual need...'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'" Britannica

The fashionable definition of Communism these days however is "Everything I don't like is communist." It doesn't even have to resemble the actual system. I would paraphrase the quote by Barry Taylor who said, "God (Communism) is the name of the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape." 

If it can't be explained any other way or it's just too much work to actually know what you're talking about, it's got to be communism. If someone doesn't really understand someone else with a differing viewpoint, they must be a communist.

 I've had a couple of swipes come my way and all I could think of is the old Charlie Daniels lyrics from 'Uneasy Rider':

"Well he's a friend of them long-haired hippie type pinko fags

I betcha he's even got a Commie flag

Tacked up on the wall inside of his garage"

Do they really think that? It would give me a chuckle if it wasn't so stunningly wrong. And just lazy. 

 

If anyone was to ask I'd say that there's way more to it than a label you can stick on at random. I actually suspect that when a war isn't going well, the economy is embarrassing, midterms smell like losing, lies are only fooling the foolish and irony threw itself on it's own sword in frustration a month ago...you've got to move on to the next national emergency to keep the patriotic spirit up. 

Enter Communism.

Nothing moves the base like a grand old national emergency. We've had a lot of them of late. Particularly whenever there really isn't one. But this time it's like the crowd at The Great American State Fair...sparse, overheated, walking on previously well-trod ground and invisible to almost everyone outside the Beltway or the algorithm. 
It has a sibling in socialism which gets tossed around with nearly as much abandon but for now let's go with the big 'C'.

It creeps into discussions about pretty much anything or anyone these days. Slowly but surely, everything has become a commie threat ala Republican Senator Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare of the 40's and early 50's. 

Most of us know how that turned out. It destroyed pretty much everything it touched and cost the Republicans dearly. It led to the 1950 "Declaration of Conscience" speech by Margaret Chase Smith(R-Maine) in which she made it clear what real 'witch hunting' would do:

"Surely these are sufficient reasons to make it clear to the American people that it is time for a change and that a Republican victory is necessary to the security of this country....Yet to displace it (the Democratic administration at the time) with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this nation. The nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny - Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear.

I doubt if the Republican Party could - simply because I don't believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest."

                                          

Then the journalist and war correspondent Edward R. Murrow said of McCarthy, "His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and the conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of the other. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men - not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."

                                     

In the end, McCarthy was censured by the Senate, disgraced in the press and died at 48 an alcoholic and addicted to morphine. His zeal became a punch line and what could have been a valuable contribution to his country got lost in power, hatred and decidedly un-American activities. 

His story is one the current Republican administration could learn much from. I know we in the electorate could stand to learn something as well. When you look at everyone and everything through a preconceived lens and seek to use what you see as a weapon, you will eventually find exactly what you're looking for in yourself...and you won't like what that weapon turns into. 

It pays to keep in mind, "And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Nietzsche

If communism is the threat, maybe it would pay to really gaze into that abyss and see exactly where it's coming from. McCarthy never did to the high cost of his party, his country and his life.

Hopefully we will not follow that disaster with a new one of our own. 

I'll stick with the illustrious Mr. Clemens who said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

We might play the same songs, but the rhymes can change.

Considering 250

It's the big birthday month for our experiment in non-royalty, sorta by-the-people governance here in the USA.

Having watched and read hours of commentary about what I should think about it all, I've reached a conclusion:

I'm an unapologetic patriot for my country. Nobody gets to tell me I'm not. I think I'm that way at heart without being either all Norman Rockwell or Holy Crusader about it. It's not a boast, it's just how it is.

It isn't splashy or newsworthy but it sure is rooted well. I grew up on it.

And despite all the negativity and partisanship that floods the news cycle every couple hours, I still very much trust that the dream is not dead yet. It's a mess right now for sure but hell, so was I for a long time. With work, perseverance and luck, things got better. If it works for one, maybe it'll work for all. I still think we have a chance. 

The short version of it is simply I love living here. Always have. This is home and I'm a homebody. To me, patriotism is like homeownership, personal relationships and simple practicality all stuffed in one. Things that are worth working on.

Worth working on because I've been told many times of late by self-proclaimed patriots to "Love it or leave it" if I don't agree with the outrage du jour. But that isn't patriotic at all, it's just lazy. It ignores the work. It's a meaningless argument that's equivalent to burning your house down because it needs painting. Going back to my analogy, if my house has leaky pipes or drafty windows, I work at fixing what's broken. I don't move across town because I found a mouse nest or the furnace quits. That's part of the gig. 

Same thing with relationships. Only an idiot gives up on a good friendship or marriage or partnership on a whim because you had a bad day or even run of bad days. You screw up, you own up, you fix up. It takes work, patience, acceptance and willingness to see someone else's point of view...and maybe just possibly change your own.

And in practical terms, what kind of lunacy would suggest that the patriotic thing to do is abandon everything that works because some of it doesn't? Throw the whole thing out because it isn't doing what we want right now? Love it or leave it is like abandoning your car because a warning light came on. Especially when you still have loan installments to make. See where I'm going here? We still have a lot of stubs in the payment book.

Being patriotic means more than flying flags on your pickup, cheering whoever's in charge at the moment, wearing the correct swag, saying the accepted things, disliking the out-of-favor of the day or cheering for the loss of anyone. It's harder than forwarding a meme, insulting anyone who disagrees and calling names. It's not being happy all day about your country. It's being worried too. Sometimes very much so.

It's work. It's knowing that things are not all great and never were. Hating doesn't follow knowing as some would have us believe. Understanding what was gives context to what is. If teaching our unwashed history makes people feel badly, then we're doing it badly. I understand our country has done some horrible things but that doesn't mean I love it less and it shouldn't for anyone. Sweeping away everything that's ever been wrong diminishes all that's ever been good. Someone like me who loves their country should hate wrongs that were done in her name in the past but also believe she can do better in the future. One doesn't exclude the other. That means learning, thinking and yes, working.

You don't become unpatriotic because you admit we have a lot of very tragic and evil events in our history. The bad doesn't outweigh...only counterbalances the truly wonderful things we've done. And we have done some wonderful things. 

In the end, in thinking of the Semi quincentennial (which I still struggle to say without a lisp), I've re-upped my subscription to E Pluribus Unum and holding these truths to be self evident. I'm not really interested in making America great again, I'm all about making her greater still. We all should take pride not in 'again' but 'ahead'.  

I may not be able to do much in the grand sweep of things but it's worth a try.

Because what is a patriot if not as Webster says, "...a person who loves their country and is ready to boldly support and defend it." 

Sign me up.

The Advocate

I've been called a devil's advocate.

So of course I had to find the actual definition according to Cambridge: "someone who pretends, in an argument or discussion, to be against an idea or plan that a lot of people support, in order to make people discuss and consider it in more detail"

Well, yeah. In annoyance to some of my acquaintances, friends and social media followers, I do that. I tend to counter a lot.

I think I prefer agent provocateur at times though: "someone who intentionally causes arguments or discussions, or intentionally makes other people feel angry, offended, or uncomfortable", because sometimes the debate needs that.

There's a method to the madness however.

Watching and listening over time I've found that arguments over everything from politics to theology to science to...just about anything...have become shall we say, way too superficial?
People tend to see something quick that they agree with and suddenly that's the story. Memes, forwards, copypasta, conspiracies, glurge and now AI slop are all way too easy.

I think my rebuttal posts aren't just for the sake of being contrary though. The idea at least in my mind is to try to make the arguee follow the line of thought they've put out to it's conclusion. You posted it, why? Something made you want to spread it around, what did you want to accomplish?

In other words, think about it. Take what you've said to the end of the line and see where it leads. Slow down. Be honest. Have some facts in your pocket instead of a YouTube video. Or at least have a video by someone who makes some logical arguments. Also, I'm really, really bad at responding to references to 'them' and what 'they' are up to so you might want to edit that out.

I have a few pretty straightforward rules to debate by: I make it a point not to use name-calling, ad hominem attacks, 'whattabouting', anecdotes or 'everybody knows'. I don't use common sense as an argument because it usually isn't. I do block occasionally when someone is abusive, combative or proudly fact free. I will be respectful and try to present references. Don't tell me to 'do your own research' when that's literally what you should have done before starting out.

Maybe I'm not very good at it but thinking is a worthwhile enterprise. If you're going to put stuff out there, I'm probably going to try it.

Retired And Less Tired

 I have neglected my old pages. I'm retired now and have long felt I needed to write more. I used to click away much more often than any time in recent memory.

I looked back over some of my old posts going way back to the first one. It seems like such a long time ago and so much has changed. I'm really glad I wrote what I did and kick myself for not keeping up. 

It's a diary of sorts. A journal of the events that shaped who I am. More permanent than social media but less so than an actual paper book although I did write a great deal in green felt-tip when I was in real trouble. 

But now, the page has turned again and without all-night train trips and odd-hour phone calls, I believe it's time to revisit the old Wayward Home. 

As Paul Harvey used to say, "Stand by for news".

The Failing Light

 Let me tell you a story. It's the story of someone who has spent most of his life living with depression. He's felt invisible and unwanted for months at a time with occasional manic bright spots in between bookends of sadness. It's led to some really awful places over the years. It's cost in wasted days has no measure.

You know it's me and I've had a number of proverbial 'one of those days' days of late. I've been here before and know the signs. Over the years, I've learned some ways to keep the struggles mostly at bay and I can usually hang on and function at least marginally through such times. But every so often...particularly in November and December, the thread breaks, the monster roars and I collapse inside. Sometimes there's a hangover into January and sometimes even as far as March before I can stop 'gazing into the abyss'. These are when every hour is a slog. Most of the time I bury it under being busy or working or or doing. And then there's days when I just can't. My coping strategies can't keep up. It's a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. 

I fell apart again in a bad way you see. My old enemy, The Black was hovering in the background waiting for a shot and then I spilled coffee on the couch. Next thing I know, I'm sobbing. I'm on the floor staring at nothing. It's like that. A little trigger or a tiny push and I'm gone. It only takes a casual word sometimes...something that a normal person wouldn't even notice. But it crushes me. The next few days got sucked up in fighting off paralysis. Plodding on through the minutes just to keep going. Put your head down and just keep going.

The "Holiday" season in particular is always like that and always the worst. I've written about it before and it hasn't changed much. It's isolating, sad, exhausting and dark. 

Thanksgiving 2022 was another one where I wondered why I was even there. I would have been better off working and not inflicting my loneliness on everyone...not that they noticed much anyway. Everyone was busy and I felt like a complete outsider in my own home. I don't speak TikTok or Snapchat or football or really much of anything that interests anyone. Nobody cares about trains or bicycles or rockets or skating or pretty much any of the oddball things that interest me. Attempts to talk about anything that matters to anyone else fall flat and awkward. I can't stay out of the way in the kitchen and there's nowhere to fit in the living room. As is so often the way of my world, I am surrounded by people and completely alone. 

2023 was the second year in a row that it was awful. I was actually hoping to be working knowing what was coming but made it home at two in the morning. I woke up after 5 hours dreading it so much I couldn't fall back asleep. 

People started showing up at noon and off we go. Hardly anyone said hello to me when they walked in. They know each other and it's a big family reunion that I don't fit into. The chatter quickly got so intense that I couldn't hear anything but white noise. Just layers of loud and snippets of conversations I wasn't part of. I felt like running. No one noticed. I just made excuses that I was tired and tried to be invisible. Standing by the corner out of sight and out of mind. I felt like sobbing. No one cared anyway. I hid upstairs with wine when it became too much to stand. I'm just being ignored and in the way. I sat at the dinner table in a blur of lonliness. Sitting next to Kellie all alone again. Awkward. Miserable. 

It doesn't help that I miss my kids. I saw posted pics and videos of my granddaughter laughing and playing in Florida with my ex. The granddaughter I don't know because she can't come here for some reason. I suspect I'll never know her. 

My sons are with visiting my ex and I'm here because she puts on the big show and pays airfares and is ever the better grandparent I guess. It cuts deep but I can't say anything because it might make someone feel bad. Wish that one time I mattered enough to put ahead of inlaws, exes and everyone else. Just once. 

But then I'm not so I stand and take it. It hurts so much.

So once again, it all comes together and I'm not sure why I worried about being home from work at all. I guess I'm supposed to. You'd think I'd know by now. My presence is neither needed nor noticed in the rush. I should learn that it's better to just miss these things and pretend that it matters to anyone. The world goes on as it has for so long without me being there. People get used to the idea that I might be away and so they make plans for that. If I happen to be around, it's just weird because they weren't really expecting me anyway. Nobody even knows what to say to me when I do appear because I'm such a stranger to everyone. It bleeds me out. I want to run somewhere but the garage hides horrors of it's own and my hobby bench or office is within earshot of laughter and fun that I'm not a part of. Just try to smile and keep pushing. 

I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. I saw that face again. Kellie says she knows the look when it's like this. I do too. I saw my father wear it often. It's just blank. A far, far look in his eyes. I have photos of him behind it and I know what he was feeling. A flicker of a smile on demand and then nothing. Oh yes, I know it well...it's baked-in empty with a layer of sad and frosted in lonely with a single candle on top of the cupcake. That tiny little flame is all that's holding the world together and it's so very fragile...struggling not to be blown out by a whisper of breeze. 

The failing light that you fight so hard to hang onto because if it goes out, there's nothing left at all.

Idle Thoughts

 I have a thought. Let's just pretend for a moment that a couple of things happen on down the road a ways...

First, the Evangelicals and their sort get their wish and the "Right to Life" under any and all circumstances becomes the law of the land. No more abortions for any reason because "All life is sacred". They win. Every baby conceived is born and all is well in Gilead.

So where do they go from there? What's the next morality battle in the fight against the heathens? Well, one might propose that the next logical step to preserve all life could conceivably be the even more prevalent catastrophe...gun violence. After all, 45,000 or so gun deaths in a year is pretty significant. Since all life must be preserved at any cost, wouldn't it make sense for the same bunch to have a change of heart on 2A now that they have a victory under their belt?

Picture this: An emboldened hyper-religious segment with connections, lobbying power and a base that has typically agreed with their ideology in the past has an epiphany. God speaks to them and they decide that firearm violence must end now that the battle of abortion is over. The same group that espoused 'God, guns and guts' when they needed firearm owners if not necessarily be on their side, at least not to oppose them, has a change of heart on the guns part. 

Using mass shootings, domestic attacks and suicides in the news cycle as evidence, the call for regulation goes out from pulpits and city halls. Children especially must be protected at any cost. 'Well regulated' becomes a rallying cry. Key law enforcement and political leaders fall in line. Red Flags and confiscations become speakable subjects as even the NRA and manufacturer lobbyists come under condemnation as purveyors of sin. God is no longer on their side.

Everyone who is sick of hearing about weekly or daily shooting attacks hails it all as long overdue common sense and a giant step further than 'thoughts and prayers'. Public opinion, already leaning away from ever-increasing numbers of weapons and weary of government inaction, coalesces into votes. Congress, smelling a change in the wind and sensing where the religious power is heading becomes a springboard for restrictions unheard of in recent times. Sizeable campaign donations grease the skids. Along the way the religious minority takes a page from their playbook and using the power of the same Supreme Court that bent over backwards for them on abortion, begins chipping away at yet another supposed 'right'...just as they did with RvW. 

With over 400 million guns in private hands, the Christian Nationalist movement calculates that it's far too risky for their future to have so many independent minded people so well armed. A Godly country can tolerate random violence very little after all and organized resistance even less. So the long-predicted "they" who will be coming for your guns shifts quietly from the left to the right.  Unregulated access to firearms subtly becomes impermissible and before long the very thing that was intended to prove 'Shall not be infringed' turns into the vehicle to prove that it will. 

Stranger things have happened.

Farewell and Goodbye

 I said my goodbyes. The ashes of my mother, father and brother were buried side by side this week. Not one of the three of them wanted any of this. I stood on wet grass with my jaw clenched trying to hold it together. A man said words. A few people sang some hymns over canned music. I guess I was supposed to pray for something. It all just blurred. The man in the collar asked for memories but how do you pick anything out of a lifetime? Most of what we remember is wrong anyway. Colored by years and distance and retellings to the point they probably never even happened...at least not the way we recall them. Is that better or worse?

But each of them are now nothing but memories. Some good, a few bad. Isn't that what everyone is in the end? Fading light and failing recollections. A generation or two and it's all gone except the stone. 

I wanted desperately to be alone with them for a last little while. I tried to take a couple minutes as everyone was leaving to put my hand on each box for the final time...trying to know what to feel. Remembering. Wondering if I could ever grieve enough. Even that got cut short.

There was lunch afterward but I couldn't do it. I've been away so long. So much water under the bridge. I wondered if Dad would have pushed through it like he always did at big gatherings. Doug would have laughed. Mom would have understood I think. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Far wiser people than I have written volumes about grief and loss. Quotes by famous people are abundant. There's a lot of platitudes and Kalil Gibran/Hallmark nonsense. Religion tells tales of life everlasting. Thoughts and prayers. None of it makes sense and I can't add anything deep or meaningful to the collection. All I know is that each of us gets through it in our own way. 

There are things we are supposed to say and ways we are supposed to act when we lose people. Painful formality and rituals. "It's for the living", is the cliche'. Maybe, but if that's so, it's a travesty of anything remotely comforting. Dress up in your best black and bring a dish to pass. Say the words and wonder when it's your turn. I guess that's just how it is.

I wonder sometimes when a song comes on or a picture pops up or a random reminder comes to mind...will it ever get better? If getting easier means I remember them less, is that how it's supposed to work? When the stone is all that's left and all the memories are gone, what then? I know this isn't very original thinking. I don't care. It's my thinking right now.

And I miss them. I miss them. As an uncountable number have before me, I miss the ones who've gone. I'm dancing around the holes they left in the world. The hammer will fall one of these days and I'll collapse for a while I imagine. Every tear I gritted my teeth to hold onto at that awful cemetery will come loose. I'll figure out how to grieve. Then maybe...just maybe...it'll be ok. 

Mom. Dad. Doug. It'll be ok.

Back When

Seems like nobody wants to live here anymore. Or live now anymore. I mean, my social media is overrun with posts lamenting 'Back when we were in school...' and 'Kids these days...' and fill in the blanks.

Most of it is about how much better everything was X-number of years ago depending on the age and 'Gen' of the poster. I will admit it's a little tough for me to hear 20-somethings talk about 'back in the day' when I have a pair of Technics speakers twice as old as they are but it's all perspective. Objects in their rearview mirrors actually are closer than they appear.

Maybe it's just nostalgia for what we like to think of as easier, happier days but if you really take a hard look and admit it, nothing much really changes. The crisis of the moment is different and the names change but life is and always has been complicated and confusing in contrast with the carefree and happy-go-lucky daydreams so many seem to wish for and claim to remember. Everyone's past is filled with good and bad even if they choose not to remember it that way. 

My own rear-view mirror is pretty cracked and I've lied to myself about enough that unarguably true memories are hard to come by. I suspect we all do that to protect ourselves from all that junk back there that would hurt if we poked at it too much.

It's just human nature to look for simplicity amid complexity. 'Back when we were kids' seems understandable when so much of the present seems incomprehensible. Us 'Boomers' are very susceptible to this.  

The music was better. The cars were better. Everything was better. Except it really wasn't. Cars that 'lasted forever' didn't. 50 grand was high mileage and on top of that, a whole lot of them had a tendency to kill their occupants in a crash. Elvis was a societal menace as was all that rock-and-roll 'devil music'. The Beatles were the end of civilization as we knew it. Hendrix was evil incarnate.

True as well that prices were very low compared to now but so was income. You could buy gas for 55 cents a gallon when I started driving in '76 but I only made about 20 bucks a week working every day after school and on weekends. It was still a stretch to fill the tank, go skating, eat and make it till next payday.
Mom stayed home and Dad worked just like the memes tell it but he worked all the time and only had Thursday and Sunday off for years. It took an enormous toll on him and her both but hey...it was the 60's right so it was all good. 

Every generation looks back through rose-colored glasses and wishes for what seems like simpler times. But at least for me there's never been a time when things were as carefree as all that. I'm not saying it was all bad but I do think it's pretty disingenuous to claim the world was all sunshine just because you once were 16.

That's one that comes up a lot...rewinding to your teens. A wish to go back to high school days. Maybe for some that would be nice but if you're being truly honest with yourself, high school is probably one of the most high-stress times of your life. You can tell yourself that it was great being on the football team or going to the prom or partying in the woods or having a hotrod and all the other 'Glory Days' (sorry Bruce) adventures but I wouldn't go back there even if I could. As everyone does, I have tales to tell from those years and a lot of it was great fun. A lot of it wasn't. And I don't live there anymore. 

The flip side is how tough it was for 'us' compared to how it is for 'these kids'. Everyone knows the cliché, "We walked uphill both ways in a blizzard without shoes to get to school so quit whining about your iPhone." 

At least from my point of view, it isn't that is was so much harder when I was young...just a different hard from now. I wouldn't trade my tough times for Gen X, Y or Z tough times for any amount of money. And even if it was true that they have it easy (which they most certainly do not), who do you think made them that way? Oh yeah...that was us. We came up with participation trophies and helicoptering. We decided they had to go to college and signed them up for the loans. We scheduled them and activitied them and mini-vanned them and lessoned, camped, cliniced and programmed them because we thought we were doing the right thing. 

But now it's their fault they don't live up to our collective memory of what childhood should be. Ain't it funny how their music, their cars, their culture...everything that we brag about in our lives is somehow less for them? Give them a chance and a few years and they'll be just like us. Bragging on whatever becomes the next platforms about how the Alphas don't know how easy they have it. But until then, some of us might want to remember how it feels to be looked down on and back off on the toxic nostalgia a little.

I wonder sometimes that if we try to convince ourselves it was always sunny, we can dance around the parts where it was dark. There's no doubt in my mind that it pays to remember the days when we cried. Tears are truly a valuable part of who we grew up to be after all and to forget that we shed them along the way is to lose a little of yourself. The good and the bad make us who we are.

So when the urge hits to wish for all those wonderful things like rotary phones, rabbit ear televisions with three channels, 45rpm singles, Chevys with fins, stingray bikes, staying out till dark and Saturday mornings with Bugs Bunny...smile a little and remember like we all do. But temper it with a smidge of truth. It's fun to look over our shoulder sometimes and pat ourselves on the back for just getting through it. That's human nature and likely won't ever change.

But don't forget about today. If you live too much in times past, you just might miss a lot of times present.

In Absentia

"Non male loquare absenti amico"

Speak no evil of an absent friend
Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC - 184 BC)

I've been absent. 

Oxford defines absence as 'the state of being away from a place or person' and 'the nonexistence or lack of'

That's how it feels. Like being away. It feels like nonexistence. 

It's coming into the longest, darkest nights again and true to the season for me...it's just flat-out the toughest time of the year.

When the daylight is so short...the world is a harder place. It's been that way as long as I can remember.

Learn to pronounce

 

Pushing through is hard. It's hard to talk. It's hard to engage. You just do and that's about all you can do. 

You put on your face like you put on your coat before you go out the door. You dance on the thin edge between smiling and not. Patience is a virtue you struggle to find. Your fuse is short and easily lit. Everything aches. Sleep is a troubling thing. You find yourself at the window with the 'thousand-mile stare'...watching but seeing nothing.

It's isolating. Surrounded by everyone, you're lonely. You miss people. You miss people forever gone. You miss people across town. You miss people across the room. You miss people because they don't seem to miss you. You wish some old friends would call but you hardly know if you can answer or what you'd say if you did. You miss them but can't bring yourself to reach out yet again. So you wait. There's been so many times...

And frustrating. You wish everybody wasn't angry all the time. Smiles without fangs. Laughter without snarls. Conversations without rage. Simple words with nothing underneath. Hoping you can say something...anything without some kind of awful consequences. For a break from absolutes.

And exhausting. Time is relentlessly out of synch with the hour. Little things become big things as fast as flipping a coin. You fear that anything you do for yourself takes away from someone else. You wish you didn't feel like you have to be everything to everybody every day. You wish for a lack of crisis...lack of doubt. You wish you could rest enough to somehow not feel worn out. Weariness walks with you and whispers defeat.

And yet...

Yet still somewhere under all the dark you hope for warmer days and dreamless nights. A tiny hope for quiet and calm that seem so very far right now. For even a few things to be alright.

It's only that little thing that keeps you present perhaps. Small it may be but it speaks to the hard winter and the wind. It says that spring will come. It says you're not completely alone. It reminds you that it might not always be so dark if you can just hang on.

Yes...just hope and hang on. If it's all you can do, it'll have to be enough. Make it through today. Make it through the week. Lean in through the month. And hope that one day soon the sun might shine a little brighter, the ice could find itself in a puddle, the Hope Tree will bud and...with a little luck...absence itself might just be absent for a while.

Casually Cruel

Anyone who knows me knows that the holiday season and I will just never get along. November and December are awful for me year after year and nothing ever seems to change it. I've been down this road before...the fake happiness, the overwhelming capitalist nightmare of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and whatever other commercial madness that comes along, fake friends, fake all of it.

This time around there's another wrinkle that is making me miserable. I call it 'Casual Cruelty' and in the last few months, a wholly depressing number of people have perfected the practice. It consists of just being mean and not really thinking anything of it...hence casual but cruel nevertheless. 

I've heard people in common conversation say things like, "Immigrants should just be rounded up or shot if they try to come in illegally" or "If someone gets in my way protesting something, I'll just run 'em over" and "I'll fight in the streets if anyone tries to give me a shot"...like asking for the salt...casually offering to kill someone for the unconscionable sin of being someone else or disagreeing with them. Not even a thought of what that might be like. Who you might be doing it to. Why you'd even think like that. People just do. Apparently, everyone needs to die for everything. 

Ask someone to wait a minute...get shot or beat up. Forget a turn signal...get rammed. Work on a school board...get death threats. Teach...get death threats. Work in food service...get death threats. Work in healthcare...get death threats. It never ends.

The idea that people 'deserve' what they get is just awful. 

Asylum seekers were just asking to have their kids taken away and lost when they had the audacity to seek asylum here. Addicts deserve to suffer because they 'chose' that life like it was picking a color for the kitchen walls. Women should carry every pregnancy to term because they weren't chaste enough for the Evangelical crowd. Lazy people on public assistance should be cut off and pull themselves up...get a third job, forget medical care and just 'want' to be successful enough because needing a hand is a character flaw. We can't 'afford' to help people because if they were us they wouldn't need it so it must be their fault.

Casually Cruel. Name calling. Bullying. Intimidation. 'Karen' going ballistic over nothing at all. 'Fuck Biden' flags on thousands of front lawns. Petty, adolescent, self-absorbed, entitled cruelty for the sake of it. 

A scowling madman spreading hate and more cruelty nightly to legions of the dedicated. Millions of nodding followers thinking this is all ok. Just say 'socialism' and anything goes. 'They' who are not 'us' must have brought it on themselves.

People deciding it's good to ban books they don't agree with. People who've never read 'Fahrenheit 451' or '1984' and never will because they're gleefully burning copies of them by the dumpster-full. 

Whole swathes of people deciding that we should teach only that which doesn't cause 'distress'...to white people. 

People who've never read the Constitution railing about our 'Christian' country and threatening anyone who doesn't subscribe with execution.

It's evil and it makes me absolutely furious that there's even a debate over it.

Möbius On My Mind

I'm still processing. It all seems so overwhelming. RvW is gone. Human rights are once again on the chopping block. Half the country is on a gun binge and apparently willing to die or kill for them. Corporate America is happily gorging itself and starving it's workforce. Policy compromise is DOA. An entire political party gleefully endorses an outright fairy tale. People are scared and worried. I'm one of them.

It's the way I am. I can think my way around most debates that drop in my path and actually like working my way through them. I'm not a scientist or an academic but logic and facts make sense to me. Over the years, I've developed a low tolerance for simplistic arguments and buckshot analogies. It leaves me nervous when so many people have not.

The gleeful disregard for verifiable information is one thing I never saw coming. A sizeable portion of the body public seems bent on denying logic or proof. Everything that doesn't fit is fake. Or someone got paid to say it. Or just call everyone a pedophile or groomer and go happily and confidently on your way. Facts are flexible things that bend and twist to meet an end. It isn't what you know...it's what you believe. It isn't what you can prove...it's what's been approved. Anyone who isn't with you is against you. There will be a purity test administered for admission to your chosen faith system. It's a zero-sum game and there will be no negotiation.

Möbius was right in more ways than he ever could have imagined when it turns out literally everything tends to be one-sided. The world has become his eponymous strip that always circles itself back around to the beginning.

That might be why I'm having such a hard time. Everybody is yelling. Everyone is so very sure they're right and everyone else is a monster.

I've been debating gun rights over on my other social media and keep running up against the same big-brush arguments over and over. Now it's Roe v. Wade. Next it'll be January 6th. Then inflation. Then...well pick one. They're all complicated and deserving of consideration but memes and sound bites drive the discussion to a tabloid level. And it's self-reinforcing thanks to algorithms that drive clicks to the very same lowest common denominator that will generate the most likes and sell you the most stuff. It's so very easy to live on Möbius' strip where all things lead back to where you started and there's only one side no matter how you slice it. Your friends are there and they all agree with you. 

And yet, there are so many really important things going on all around us and much as I'd like to turn off the world, I can't just ignore it and wait silently for whatever happens. If you don't engage you could find yourself sitting fat, dumb and happy when the roof caves in. 

I'm unsure what to do or even if there's anything I can do. I think I should do something but where to start? I vote of course but I'm only one drop in an ocean. I can donate to what I consider worthy causes but how much difference can it reasonably make? I have to earn my way so how much volunteer time can I commit to? I raise an occasional stink on Facebook but I'm very much aware that you can't change the world by arguing on social media. Nobody is listening no matter how civil and thoughtful the post or how narrow I try to keep the focus. But then...is it doing anything anyway? Is it teaching the proverbial pig to sing? Wasting my time and only annoying the pig?

It's frustrating. So I'm processing. With any luck, I'll figure out if not what to do then at least which way to start. If all I can do is flirt with disaster with the keyboard warriors I guess that'll have to do for now...but I doubt it'll be the end of it. 

As always...more to follow.

For Maple

A few days ago, I got to meet Maple at last. Maple Rose is my first grandchild and what a sweetheart she is. After some unavoidable delays that meant she was over a week old before we were officially introduced, she didn't seem to mind and so another adventure begins.

I'd forgotten what it's like to hold a baby human. They're so tiny and fragile and wonderful. My son handed her to me and just like that, I went swooping back to the first time I held him when he was born. All the worry and hope and joy and love that you pour into those little bundles looks up at you and life is suddenly different. 

You realize that she's seeing all things for the first time and in the whole of the world that'll never ever be again. You're watching something that happens every day but truly happens only once. That time when everything is new. It's absolutely wonderful.

Welcome to the world Maple Rose...you stole my heart from the first. 

May all things be wonderful for you now and onward. May you be as sweet as your namesake tree, as rare and beautiful as your flower and even if you come with a few thorns...well that's ok too. You're in the best Mom and Dad hands I could wish for and I know they'll love and teach you well. I would wish that you always look at the world with wonder in those eyes like the first time and reach for all you can like you reached for my fingers. 

So off you go with all my love little one. Life is suddenly different once again.