October 22

And off I go, to spend nearly a month in my childhood hometown.

1978

How do I make each day a work of art? Carefully thought-out and consciously executed. I may not be able to create a beautiful painting, or write a complex and moving novel, but I can make each day a thing of beauty. Today, I plan to read for a while in “A Hundred Years of Anthropology”. Not a predetermined time, maybe 30-60 minutes. Then I will work on my presentation the Association of College Professors of Textiles and Clothing - carefully - in order to dispose tomorrow towards a happy outcome. Right now I will blow my knows. I mean NOSE!

Later: I must not lie, embellish, or otherwise undermine my credibility.

Comment 2023

Who was this person???????

1985

The college reorganization battle slogs on. I think we are winning, or at least making progress. They are listening now, and the questions they ask show they understand us better.

Comment 2023

Oh, they understood us better, all right. So much better that when they tried again to eliminate the college six years later, they succeeded. Never underestimate a determined university administration, grasshopper.

2016

Going home, or something.

And now, for something completely different.

​They say you can't go home again. But I'm going to try. For most of my childhood and my early adult life I was homesick for North Platte. That's North Platte Nebraska, slightly west of the center of the state. Sitting on the High Plains 3000 feet above sea level on what was once the undulating floor of an ancient ocean, bisected by the Union Pacific mainline, it's home to about 25,000 people. It was once home to Buffalo Bill Cody. It was also my home from my first birthday until one day in late September, 1957, when our '49 Chevy pulled away from 310 South Willow and headed east on Highway 30. We were headed to a new home and a new life in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City. I think of it as moving from the Little House on the Prairie to Mad Men; the culture shock was awful. For the next few years, I would lie in my bed in my darkened bedroom and cry, praying fervently that when I woke up it would be a dream like in the Wizard of Oz and I would be back in North Platte with all my friends. It never happened.

When I was 12, we moved again, to Connecticut. Another small town and once again, the new kid in school. Living there, but never really at home. I fantasized about going to Midland College in Fremont, Nebraska where I was born while my father had gone to school on the G.I. Bill. But instead, I went to Syracuse University, fell in love, and lived my life, year-by-year, moving from upstate New York, to Rhode Island, and finally Maryland. This has been my home for forty years, yet when people ask, I still say I am from Nebraska.

Is been 59 years since I left North Platte. The eight-year-old has grown up and is growing older. I am wondering what would have it been like to stay in North Platte? Who would I be? What part of me really comes from there?

So on Tuesday, I fly halfway across the country, rent a pick up a rental car in Denver, and drive home to North Platte. Not home forever, but home for 3 1/2 weeks. I have no idea what I'll find...or who. Stay tuned.

Comment 2023

And off I went, to spend nearly a month in my childhood hometown. Not as much fun as my trip to Mexico in 1966, but still interesting. Especially the election.

2016

My last free NYT article for the month, and so worth it.

"“I’m a Leninist,” he said in a conversation recounted by Ronald Radosh in The Daily Beast. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

There you are, patriots. Trump's campaign CEO, Steve Bannon. Making America great again by reducing democracy to rubble.

2017

Today is Friday.

I think I have a newsletter article due today. I have been putting off doing a full weekly review. I have been putting off making appointments for the podiatrist and a mammogram.

Tarot: Daughter of Swords

She has energy to start new things and is ready to stir things up in her life. She wants to turn her ideas into something and doesn’t want anything to get in her way.

Comment 2023

Sure, sure.

2018

These might have been day 21 and 22…

#expensive? I’m not so much into that. #inktober #inktober2018

I took longer this time; between church, cooking, and a 3 1/2 hours long Indian movie, there was only time to start. But -- BONUS -- you get words, too!

Down the Drain

Where'd they go?
Sixty-nine years (or 832 months or 25,358 days)
Circling the drain of life in a quicking vortex.
Growing, losing, leaving, sleeping (lots of sleeping)
Gathering memories, lessons, and regrets.
Ever faster, ever closer to...what?
Hold on, I'll sweep you along, until then.

#drain #inktober #inktober2018