5.27.2022 – I can find my name

I can find my name
tell me who I am, it don’t
tell me where I am

Sorry but I am all over the place this morning and find it difficult to focus on just any one thing.

The haiku is adapted from Robert Frost’s poem, “Snow”

I guess I know my way,
I guess I know where I can find my name
Carved in the shed to tell me who I am
If it don’t tell me where I am. I used
To play”

Through everything and all the news, one question does seem to cut through the clutter.

What the hell is going on here?

Where are we?

Where are we going?

In conversation with one of my brothers last year, he pointed out that when he was just out of college, the late 60’s and into the early 70’s, the hippie era, students were shot on a college campus. drug use was rampant, a US President resigned in disgrace and the war in Vietnam went on and on and the end of the world was predicted every other day.

To tell the truth, I was releived.

The current year, I guess, has always looked worse than last year.

And next year will probably be worse than this year.

Of late though I have to reconsider.

Nope, these past years have been really, significantly worse.

I would point to the turn of the century.

I would point to the internet and the world wide web.

I would point to the focus of the world on the word I.

My news is catered to me.

My day is curated by my actions and my phone to me.

I used an Ipod and an Imac.

I use an Iphone and an Ipad.

I can carry a gun if I want to.

I can wear a mask if I want to.

I won’t wear a mask if I don’t want to.

I watch what I want to when I want to on TV.

I listen to the music I want to when I want to.

(I am reminded of the story that when the manuscript of “The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt” arrived at the publisher, Scribner had to send out for more boxes of Upper Case I’s)

I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it and nobody BUT nobody is going to to tell me I can not do what I want to do when I want to do it!

I am in control.

I AM the master of my fate, I AM the captain of my soul!

I grew up on the University of Michigan football team under Bo Schembecler.

Schembecler had a saying about the three most important things in sport.

“The Team, The Team, The Team.”

Michael Jordan was told by his coach, “There is no I in Team.”

Jordon replied, “There is in win.”

I think back to another era or trial and tribulation.

I think of this poster of Rosie the Riverter.

Notice there is no I in WE.

Still don’t know where we are but it’s not a good place.

And I am pretty sure, there is no going back.