“We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole.” The Over-Soul – Ralph Waldo Emerson In the great scheme of life, I don’t know much about death. However, I think I have found a way to put the proverbial round peg of life into the square hole of death. At least for me. Like most folks, I spend my days among the living. My readings, musings, and conversations are mainly focused on living and lives. I read from and about the famous and common folks as well. Their triumphs and...
On Seeing Clouds, the Second Day of Autumn
When first Autumn came, The air turned cool, working its elemental magic. Vivid valleys held fast as a rule, Not swayed by change so tragic. Dimensional clouds stilled, The Earth turned round, slipping on its axis by degree. And I not hearing the astral sound, Supposed an echo o’er a galactic sea. A leaf lingered on. The Moon turned full, sharing the dawn with the Sun. Though toward Summer Sol did pull. Winter’s proxy had all but won. Feast the Autumn then, As stars turn clear, shining over fields at night. Silhouetted eternities seem nearby, Amid this soft, seasonal flight....
Where I’m From
I am from egg whites, From Taste of Inspiration hummus and Blue Moon beer. I am from a 3-acre lot on a dead-end road, where native and acquired flora and fauna fill the yard and air. I am from the Firebush and the aged-Hedge Apple trees that retired many years ago from being a fence row. I am from the coal camp trinity (God, FDR, and John L. Lewis), from hardscrabble lives and uplifting love, from Frog and Bernice, Daddy Bud and Mockie, Lonnie Lee and Betty Joan. I am from the adapters and adopters, from those who wandered at times...
An American Mythology
Get that frown off your head‘Cause you’re a long time deadLife goes on and on and on The Kinks – Life Goes On Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is long dead. In fact, at this writing, he is 141 years dead, nearly double the 75 years he lived. He was born in the Portland District of Massachusetts in 1807. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise created the free State of Maine and the slave State of Missouri. He lived some forty years in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The house was General George Washington’s headquarters for a time. He went on to the...
Red Heifer = End of Times Trifecta
Gann Academy is some 555 miles north north-east of Stink Hill in the Greater Boston area (Waltham). The school mascot is a Red Heifer, rallying support for teams ranging from basketball to ultimate frisbee. The school slogan is “Who Will You Become?” The grownups and founders tout the school as a “pluralistic model of Jewish high school.” In short, the school’s target market is various Jewish denominational groups and non-denominational students as well. A plus for me, the school “as a whole keeps vegetarian dairy kosher.” However, students “can bring their own meat into the building.” Not sure if someone...
The Power of a Dissenting Opinion
There are 300 index cards buried somewhere in the old Jefferson County landfill. These 3 x 5 cards of Supreme Court cases were part of my strategy for doing well in a constitutional law course my senior year at Shepherd University (nee College). It was not just a law course. It was my academic love letter to Dr. Mary Meade Walker. I arrived at Shepherd in the fall of 1976 with the notion of getting a degree in journalism. I hadn’t been in a classroom since 1972. I graduated high school with a 2.6 GPA and was lucky to have...
Airborne Shuffle
As summer 1972 came to a close, there was a notable movement away from Pearl in the can to pot when I returned to El Paso after basic training. I had a couple of weeks before reporting to jump school in Georgia. I worked on improving my running and partying endurance. The former was more useful. On day one, the physical training test wiped away some potential paratroopers. “I want to be an Airborne Ranger. I want to live a life of danger.” They called it the Airborne Shuffle. We shuffled 3-miles in the morning. We shuffled everywhere we went....
Skies
Oh, to own a brim. Not just any sky you please, But one becoming my demeanor. A casual statement as it were. A prelude fit for gods. Those mythological creations Not your monolithic almighty. A lamppost, a silhouette, brim tilted, Bogarting Prince Albert’s cigarette. Smoke dancing round the face. The trolley passing through the fog, As the movie house let out. Zeus, Hesse, and Stravinsky Sauntered out the double doors. A turned-up collar had each, Against the winter wind. Plaid, brown, and blue scarves Wore they in turn. Stravinsky was the shortest.
Memorial Day – 2023
Lore suggests that in the shadow of the Civil War, communities, North and South, held springtime tributes to their fallen soldiers, decorating graves with flags and fresh flowers. It became to be called Decoration Day, first officially observed May 30, 1868. In 1971, as the Vietnam war played out fully on the evening news, a public war with tremendous private sorrow in communities across the nation, Memorial Day became a federal holiday on the last Monday of May. Assigned to the Old Guard, among the war dead, I first read these words: “Not for fame or fortune. Not for place...
Inoculated and Acclimated
I reported to Fort Myer, Virginia on January 16, 1974. In a fill-in-the-name letter to my father, Captain Thomas S. Jeffrey III, Commanding said congratulations were in order not only for my selection to the 3d United States Infantry, the Old Guard, but for my assignment to Company E (Presidential Honor Guard). I was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky with the 101st Airborne when I got the nod. I completed basic training at Fort Ord, California on Monterey Bay on the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1972. I was 17, an E-4 due to 4-years of High School ROTC, and...