Category: Life

9.3.2020 – things I want to know

things I want to know
are in books – friends will get me
a book I ain’t read

This is attributed to Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

Looking for a citation, the best I that can do is that Carl Sandburg has old Dennis Hanks recalling that his young cousin Abe Lincoln saying, “The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll git me a book I ain’t read.”

Mr Sandburg recorded this in his book, Abraham Lincoln Volume 1 The Prairie Years (Dell, New York, NY – 1927).

So did Mr. Lincoln say it?

Or did Mr. Sandburg imagine that Mr. Lincoln said it?

Would Mr. Lincoln had said it had it thought of it?

Well, maybe and yes and why not all at the same time.

Lincoln or Sandburg or Lincoln and Sandburg.

Someone said it and I like it.

It works for me.

Its good enough for me.

It is late in the day.

I got my new Kindle Fire that my wife got me on my last birthday.

She is my best friend.

I got lots of books on it I ain’t read.

Me for the back porch and the rocker.

Ps – the above painting is owned and displayed by the University of Michigan – I liked to go look at it as student …

9.2.2020 – I wanted to be

I wanted to be
a cowboy when I grew up
Mom said make a choice

Ran into the the same problem with my front tooth.

It was chipped in half when I was 9.

My Dad was a Dentist.

He said he would fix it when I matured.

He fixed it anyway.

Seems like I told this story already.

Still not a cowboy.

Still haven’t grown up.

Seems to be some hope yet.

A lot about growing up ain’t all that it is cracked up to be.

My friend Doug was always quoting his Grand Father saying, “it’s great get old but it’s hell to be old.”

I would tell my Mom I am still thinking about making the choice.

8.31.2020 – put on habits and

put on habits and
habiliments of age, or stay
invincibly young

As Brendan Gill of the New Yorker wrote in the forward to his book, Late Bloomers (Artisan, New York NY, 1996) . . .

The moment in time at which we discover, whether through an event dictated by forces outside ourselves or by seemingly spontaneous personal inside, some worthy means of fulfilling ourselves.

The age at which we make this discover is an irrelevance.

The process of growing up, like the process of growing old, is various and unpredictable.

Some people in their forties have already put on the habits and habiliments of age, other people in their eighties are invincibly young

They are people who at whatever and under whatever circumstance have succeeded in finding themselves.

As someone who people have waited lifetimes to see grow up, I have gotten older, my drivers license says so, but I would still rather eat the dessert first just to be sure I had room left over before I started eating dinner.

Various and unpredictable would describe my process of growing up.

I am getting old in the regular way at least.

But in my heart …

Invincibly young sounds okay to me.

Have I found myself?

Stick around and I will let you know.

8.30.2020 – we talked like old guys

we talked like old guys
men who had died long time
before they were dead

At some point in my life it seems like my conversation and my thoughts turned from tomorrow to yesterday.

Makes sense I guess.

Fewer tomorrows.

More and more yesterdays.

When will stop thinking of tomorrow completely?

When does the enthusiasm for tomorrow disappear?

Dead before you die.

Big Bill wrote’s Macbeth put it this way.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)