June 4 – right mug

Have to have right mug!
Not sure why, with shelf of mugs?
… or its a bad day

My morning routine is pretty set in concrete with a strict time table.

Alarm at 5:15AM.

Make coffee, shower and in kitchen by 5:30AM.

Coffee and whatever I feel my stomach is ready for for breakfast. Most often, my stomach is NOT ready for anything.

With my coffee, start with reading my Bible then the newspapers on the iPad.

Still start with the Detroit Free Press. When I was a kid, our neighborhood in Grand Rapids, had DAILY MORNING DELIVERY by a PAPERBOY of the Free Press. I cannot remember a time in my life when the morning didn’t start with the Free Press.

First sports then the front page. Though on the Free Press App, more and more sports stories end up on the Front / TOP STORY page, I still go to the sports page first.

After the Free Press, its USA TODAY, sports first then front page and finally Google News and the Guardian (UK).

At 5:55AM, I am in the kitchen assembling something for lunch. Not a lot of variety to my lunches as I can’t think of much at this time. I think about how in High School, I made a ham sandwich everyday for the same reason.

By 6:00AM, I am back upstairs getting dressed.

Before 6:10AM, I want to be in the car.

I know all this and I have done this routine time and again, yet when I open the cupboard to get a mug for my coffee, if I don’t see my regular mug, the morning train comes to a stop, my brain freezes and I stare at the stack of other mugs, trying to decide which one to use.

And it can take a long time to decide.

Throws off the rest of the schedule.

The mug won’t change the way the coffee tastes, but it does.

The mug won’t change the way the day goes, but it does.

Even more stupid, we have several other mugs in the exact same style as my favorite, but the color scheme and the company logos on the mug are different.

But if I don’t have the right mug, the day, while not ruined, doesn’t feel right.

It’s going into a fight with one boot off or whatever they say in Texas.

Later in the day, you could look at me and ask, “gosh, whats wrong?”

If I was honest, I would say, “didn’t have the right mug.”

June 2 – sequence of torsions

sequence of torsions,
gracefully twisting, turning
takes eye round and round

Adapted from this passage: One sheet shows a woman’s head and shoulders in a revolving sequence of torsions, gracefully twisting and turning, from every angle, even the rear, in exquisite metal point on pinkish-buff paper. Leonardo’s line takes the eye round and round, in and out, and through the movements in an extraordinary perpetual mobile. It is the graphic equivalent of an entire ballet danced by a solo performer. And there, among all these variations, is the actual pose he used for the serpentine figure of Cecilia Gallerani in that surpassingly strange portrait Lady With an Ermine.

(I love the use of words and language. I think there could be a months worth of Haiku’s from this passage)

In the review of Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing review – lines of beauty by Laura Cumming at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London – This superb show of Leonardo’s drawings reveals the craftsman alongside the visionary – and the sheer range of his curiosity

Another short quote – ‘Just to see the botanical drawings alone is to witness Leonardo’s mind in action.

I can’t get to London. I can barely get downtown.

But I can see these images online through the magic of the internet.

The accessibility of art, music and literature is at a level imagined.

If only we make use of it.

June 1 – Improve steadily

Improve steadily
Demonstrate consistency
Astonish yourself

It was pointed out to me that my Haiku’s were starting to sound like the School Of The Power of Positive Thinking of Norman Vicent Peale.

That was never my intent and I do not want to appear to be offering advice to anyone or to ever think that I might have advice that might be helpful to anyone.

I aprreciate the comments.

Today, the juxtaposition of the words I used jumped out at me in a paragraph in a column by someone named Martin Pengelly.

“‘This success has not been overnight,’ Lewis wrote. ‘The men, coached by the ebullient Mike Friday, have improved steadily before this, their breakout year, where they have demonstrated an astonishing consistency in nine straight tournaments.'”

The article is USA men could be rugby world champions this weekend – no, really

May 31 – National nightmare

National nightmare
goes on. Here, truth, laws, not men
Here, the people rule

Based on Gerald R. Ford’s Remarks Upon Taking the Oath of Office as President

Mr. Chief Justice, my dear friends, my fellow Americans:

The oath that I have taken is the same oath that was taken by George Washington and by every President under the Constitution. But I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.

Therefore, I feel it is my first duty to make an unprecedented compact with my countrymen. Not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech–just a little straight talk among friends. And I intend it to be the first of many.

I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many.

If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises. I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency. I have not subscribed to any partisan platform. I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman–my dear wife–as I begin this very difficult job.

I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it. Those who nominated and confirmed me as Vice President were my friends and are my friends. They were of both parties, elected by all the people and acting under the Constitution in their name. It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the President of all the people.

Thomas Jefferson said the people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. And down the years, Abraham Lincoln renewed this American article of faith asking, “Is there any better way or equal hope in the world?”

I intend, on Monday next, to request of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate the privilege of appearing before the Congress to share with my former colleagues and with you, the American people, my views on the priority business of the Nation and to solicit your views and their views. And may I say to the Speaker and the others, if I could meet with you right after these remarks, I would appreciate it.

Even though this is late in an election year, there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people’s urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.

To the peoples and the governments of all friendly nations, and I hope that could encompass the whole world, I pledge an uninterrupted and sincere search for peace. America will remain strong and united, but its strength will remain dedicated to the safety and sanity of the entire family of man, as well as to our own precious freedom.

I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad.

In all my public and private acts as your President, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.

As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.

In the beginning, I asked you to pray for me. Before closing, I ask again your prayers, for Richard Nixon and for his family. May our former President, who brought peace to millions, find it for himself. May God bless and comfort his wonderful wife and daughters, whose love and loyalty will forever be a shining legacy to all who bear the lonely burdens of the White House.

I can only guess at those burdens, although I have witnessed at close hand the tragedies that befell three Presidents and the lesser trials of others.

With all the strength and all the good sense I have gained from life, with all the confidence my family, my friends, and my dedicated staff impart to me, and with the good will of countless Americans I have encountered in recent visits to 40 States, I now solemnly reaffirm my promise I made to you last December 6: to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right as God gives me to see the right, and to do the very best I can f or America.

God helping me, I will not let you down.

Thank you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 12:05 p.m. in the East Room at the White House following administration of the oath of office by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. The oath of office and the President’s remarks were broadcast live on radio and television. The White House announced that Richard Nixon’s letter of resignation as 37th President of the United States was tendered to Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger in his White House office by Assistant to the President Alexander M. Haig, Jr., at 11:35 a.m.

May 30 – Rest, comrades

Rest, comrades, rest, sleep.
Yours, the suffering been. Ours,
shall be memory .

My Great Uncle Peter De Young, Wounded in Action, August, 1918 Juvigny, France

Photograph of the 32nd Division in action at Juvigny, France, August, 1918

Decoration Day

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest
On this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
Nor sentry’s shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,
And started to your feet
At the cannon’s sudden roar,
Or the drum’s redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death
No sound your slumber breaks;
Here is no fevered breath,
No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,
Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease,
It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When I was a kid, Decoration Day or Memorial Day was May 30th.

My Grandpa Hendricson would pick my Hendrickson cousins on the south end of Grand Rapids and then drive to the North End and pick up the Hoffman’s and take us to the Memorial Day Parade in downtown Grand Rapids.

Off to the John Ball Park Zoo after the parade and then to Grandma’s house on Elliot St. and pick up Grandma Hendrickson and pots pans of Chili and Goulash, wrapped in newspaper and tied up with string.

With about 10 kids, Grandpa and Grandma in the car, Grandpa drove over to Aunt Wanda’s or Aunt Joan’s house for the family picnic.

It was a great day to be a kid.