11.25.2022 – ain’t got no home, just

ain’t got no home, just
a-roamin’ ’round, ain’t got no home
this world anymore

Based on the Woody Guthrie tune, I Ain’t Got No Home.

My life in no way compares to the people in Mr. Guthrie’s song.

Recently on a unexpected trip up north, I recounted my current lifestyle and was told, “You are living the dream.”

Not don’t get me wrong because in many ways, I am living the dream.

But in some ways, to be honest, the dream is a bit of nightmare.

If I take this world, this country, election cycle, I worry all the time like I never did before.

If I take in the world of my kids, that I have no control over but I wish I could I wave a magic wand and make it all better, I worry all the time like I never did before.

If I take in the world of my Grand kids, that I have no control over but I wish I could I wave a magic wand and make it all better, I worry all the time like I never did before.

If I take in the world of some of my family, that I have no control over but I wish I could I wave a magic wand and make it all better, I worry all the time like I never did before.

If I take in parts of my world , that I have no control over but I wish I could I wave a magic wand and make it all better, I worry all the time like I never did before.

I feel like I ain’t got no home.

I feel like I do not feel at home in this world.

I worry all the time like I never did before.

Still, I am living the dream.

And if asked, don’t wake me up.

If only I could wake up and appreciate it.

Here are the lyrics of I Ain’t Got No Home.

I ain’t got no home, I’m just a-roamin’ ’round,
Just a wandrin’ worker, I go from town to town.
And the police make it hard wherever I may go
And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.

My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road,
A hot and dusty road that a million feet have trod;
Rich man took my home and drove me from my door
And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.

Was a-farmin’ on the shares, and always I was poor;
My crops I lay into the banker’s store.
My wife took down and died upon the cabin floor,
And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.

I mined in your mines and I gathered in your corn
I been working, mister, since the day I was born
Now I worry all the time like I never did before
‘Cause I ain’t got no home in this world anymore

Now as I look around, it’s mighty plain to see
This world is such a great and a funny place to be;
Oh, the gamblin’ man is rich an’ the workin’ man is poor,
And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.

11.24.2022 – O Lord, we thank Thee

O Lord, we thank Thee
and grant that we may feast in
paradise with Thee

A Thanksgiving Prayer … to be read in unison:

“O Lord, we thank Thee for this food,
For every blessing, every good.
For earthly sustenance and love
Bestowed on us from heaven above.
Be present at our table, Lord.
Be here and everywhere adored.
Thy children bless and grant that we
May feast in paradise with Thee.”

By Garrison Keillor.

Mr. Keillor recommends have the prayer on a poster on the wall as that printing the prayer on cards would … would feel like a school assignment. Instead, I just look up at the wall and start singing (to the tune of the doxology), and everyone else in the family chimes in.

Although you must all resume toting the barge and lifting the bale tomorrow, it’s inspiring to hear 15 people find harmony around the Thanksgiving table. And it sets a tone. No crying in the cranberries. Lighten up. It could, as we say, be worse.

11.23.2022 – gather together

gather together
to ask the Lord’s blessing
sing praise to His Name

Having talked about the smells of Thanksgiving, it is fair to talk about the sounds.

And for me the sounds of Thanksgiving included the sound of singing the Hymn, We Gather Together.

I always knew it was of Dutch origin and for that reason I wanted it sung at our wedding and we did.

I learned more about the hymn from an article in the book of essays, Thanksgiving : the American holiday by Laurie C. Hillstrom.

The essay, We Gather Together,” A Thanksgiving Hymn (1894) states:

“We Gather Together” is a hymn that is closely associated with Thanksgiving. For the first half of the 20th century, it was commonly sung by children in schools as well as by worshippers in churches across the country.

But few people realize that this short hymn has a long and complicated history that began in 16th-century Europe.

The melody used for “We Gather Together” started out as a European folk song, and it had various lyrics associated with it through the years.

It turned into a hymn about overcoming religious oppression in 1597, when a group of Dutch Protestants defeated the Spanish Catholics who had long occupied their town and sang to celebrate their religious freedom.

The first printed version of the song appeared in a book of patriotic songs called Nederlandtsche Gedenckclanck, which was published in Holland in 1626. The Dutch-language version of “We Gather Together” traveled to the New World with early Dutch settlers. It was first translated into English in 1894 by Theodore Baker, an American scholar who heard it while studying in Germany.

The song began appearing in American hymnals in 1903, and its popularity increased during both World Wars.

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!

We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender will be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

Source: “We Gather Together,” 1597. First published as “Wilt heden nu treden” in the Dutch songbook Nederlandtsche Gedenckclanck, collected by Adrianus Valerius, Haarlem, Holland: 1626. Translated into English by Theodore Baker, 1894.

11.22.2022 – I was downwind from

I was downwind from
camp and the odor of their
soup drifted to me

Adapted from the passage written by John Steinbeck in his, 1962 book, Travels with Charley where Mr. Steinbeck writes:

Fortunately the tents and trucks and two trailers were settled on the edge of a clear and lovely lake.

I parked Rocinante about ninety-five yards away but also on the lake’s edge.

Then I put on coffee to boil and brought out my garbage-bucket laundry, which had been jouncing for two days, and rinsed the detergent out at the edge of the lake.

Attitudes toward strangers crop up mysteriously.

I was downwind from the camp and the odor of their soup drifted to me.

Those people might have been murderers, sadists, brutes, ugly apish subhumans for all I knew, but I found myself thinking. “What charming people, what flair, how beautiful they are.

How I wish I knew them.”

And all based on the delicious smell of soup.

Maybe it’s the thought of the smells of Thanksgiving that brought this passage to mind.

In a recent New York Times Opinion Piece (Nov. 20, 2022), Pamala Paul asked, Is There a Problem With Thanksgiving? and answered her question with:

We could start with the base-level perennials — the godawful travel, the risk to one’s diet, the cousin who is loudly certain that someone has slipped gluten into the gluten-free stuffing.

There’s typically a grievance against the potatoes: the format, mashed or casserole, whether or not to marshmallow, why is there never enough.

Someone has canceled at the last minute; someone nobody invited shows up anyway.

At least one child refuses to sit at the kiddie table, the teenagers refuse to put their phones down at whichever table, an uncle insists on watching the football game at the table.

The table itself looks nothing like tables on Instagram.

Notice she doesn’t touch on the smell.

Think of all the issues named by Ms. Paul.

Then think of all the delicious smells of Thanksgiving.

Don’t you think about anyone connected with those smells that charming people, what flair, how beautiful they are?

And all based on the delicious smells.

11.21.2022 – show redirected

show redirected
and rehabilitated
reconfigured life

It’s sad, more than anything.

So starts the article, Pete Rose hasn’t given Rob Manfred any reason to change his mind by Ken Rosenthal.

Mr. Rosenthal writes, “The average person who has not followed along closely might sympathize with Pete Rose, believing he has suffered long enough. That at 81, it’s time for baseball to forgive and forget. Reinstate him. Make him eligible for the Hall of Fame.”

Except with Rose, it’s never that simple.“

Mr. Rose was banned from baseball for life or until he could show a redirected, reconfigured, rehabilitated life.

Those words come from the pen of then Commissioner Bart Giamatti.

He is the feller who wrote a book about baseball titled, Take Time for Paradise.

I have long been a fan of Commissioner Giamatti and I have to admire the alliteration he achieved with the that sentence.

A redirected, reconfigured, rehabilitated life.

Redirected.

Reconfigured.

Rehabilitated life.

BANG – BANG – BANG!

It should almost be a standard when a jail sentence is read out in court.

The reason for a life time ban?

Mr. Rose was betting on baseball games.

Apparently games he was playing in or taking part as the team Manager.

Even today that might not be acceptable.

Back in 1989, it was far far beyond the pale.

Because of his lifetime ban, Mr. Rose in not eligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Mr. Rose has often said how are going to keep 4,256 hits out of the hall?

Then Mr. Rose goes how to show you how, or at least, the why.

And Mr. Rosenthal chronicles all those ways so I don’t have too.

I have commented on this before.

I think I have a solution to the problem, how do you keep 4,256 hits out of the Hall of Fame.

Give Pete a plaque.

A blank one.

There is a precedent.

There is a building at the United States West Point Military Academy known as the ‘Old Chapel’.

Inside the chapel are 14 marble plaques.

One for George Washington and each of his Generals in the Revolutionary War.

There is one blank plaque.

That plaque would have been for General Benedict Arnold.

Arnold achieved his own measure of fame in that just the mention of his name pretty much sums up why his plaque is blank.

And if we ever forget, the blank plaque and explanation is there to remind us.

So give Pete Rose a plaque in the Hall of Fame.

A blank one.

So when kids see it and point and ask why its blank.

We can say that would have been for Pete Rose.

For Pete Rose … had he not …

It’s sad, more than anything.