It Happens

Too Late For Coffee

COMMUNITIES OF COLOR

FOX NEWS LIVE
Around 10:10 am
MN Governor Walz (D) in a press conference this morning used the phrase:  'COMMUNITIES OF COLOR.' 

What is wrong with this phrase...  because the phrase is accurate...  there most certainly are communities of color in America and in her States...  in fact, I live in East TN and am very familiar with where the communities of color are located and that these communities of color, in most cases, are no different than those communities of non-color.

And...  what I just wrote is what is wrong with this phrase...  think about it...  communities of color rather than communities of Americans...

1. Black communities
2. White communities
3. Asian communities
4. Hispanic communities
5. Latin communities
6. Jewish communities
7. Irish communities
8. Italian communities
9. Catholic communities
10. Baptist communities
11. Middle class communities
12. Wealthy communities
13. Poor communities
14. Cajun communities
15. Retired communities
16. Student communities
17. Muslim communities
18. Military communities
19. Oriental communities
20. Celebrity communities

And, now do you see what I am saying?

 ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE AMERICANS...

Racism will continue in America as long as we see these various communities because that sight HIGHLIGHTS OUR DIFFERENCES...

I'm Ready For Bed Hon...

Chicken Jumps For Food

Octopus

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My Old Circular Saw

Friday morning started off muggy, foggy, and overcast and it just looked and felt like it was going to rain, but it didn't and about 1:00 pm, my wife and I realized that the sun would probably be out in a cloudless sky for the rest of the day.  We went outside to work and our hunch paid off.

I piddled around measuring, designing, and cutting wood for a two step stool with hand rails to make it easier for me to get in and out of the hot tub since these last few times, I have noticed me grunting more than usual.  Arriving at a good stopping point, I turned my attention to finishing the top caps on the deck rails, as I had 5 more to go...  and, not wanting to end up with a sore lower back again, I decided to cut and screw in 3 and finish the last two tomorrow.

As I was putting my tools back inside the storage shed, I had the realization that my circular saw was fairly old and decided to take a minute to figure it out.  I left military service in 1972 and was required to serve in the RESERVES for another 3 years...  one night a week from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm and was paid $100 a month.  In the summer, I was required to spend two weeks on ACTIVE DUTY and do not remember how much I was paid for those 2 weeks.

I used my $100 each month to buy hand tools and other devices that I thought I might need sometime down-the-road rather than saving the money or taking the wife out to dinner.  Three tools in particular I remember:  an electric drill, an electric jig saw, and an electric circular.  Several years ago, the drill was losing oil so I discarded it in the trash and I lost sight of my jig saw but my circular saw is still around.

STILL AROUND CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?

THE DAMN THING IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 45 AND 50 YEARS OLD...

It's a CRAFTSMAN in case you are wondering...

I doubt tools made today will last 50 years...  who's fault is this?

RACISM IN AMERICA

Ignoring racism in America allows racist ideas to flourish.  Here's how to be antiracist.

Americans love the idea that you can avoid being racist by passively treating everyone equally. Ibram X. Kendi's new book explains why this is false..

Aug. 21, 2019, 4:30 AM EDT
By Noah Berlatsky
American University professor Ibram X. Kendi's new book, “How to Be an Antiracist,” begins with an account of how he once delivered a racist speech.

Kendi participated in Prince William County’s 2000 Martin Luther King Jr. oratorical contest when he was in high school. In his speech, he chastised black youth for being unmotivated and unambitious. "They think it's OK to climb the high tree of pregnancy!" he remembers telling the crowd. "They think it's OK to confine their dreams to sports and music!"

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE...

Unless you are on a ventilator in the hospital as a victim of COVID-19, then you are aware of the senseless killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis... and yet, this is not the first time that blacks have been killed by white policemen in America... and, we have just learned that prosecutors will not rush to file any charges against the 4-5 law enforcement personnel who have been fired as a result of this senseless violence... either committing it or standing by watching it happen... There has been 3 days of violence in Minneapolis as a result of George Floyd's death.

HOW CAN THE GOVERNMENT FORCE WHITES TO STOP THEIR RACISTS BELIEFS AND ACTIONS AGAINST BLACKS IN AMERICA?

DIY Projects

It is a foggy morning in East TN and I believe it must have rained all night here as well since the deck out back still has puddles of water all over it, leaving me with 5 boards yet to cut and screw down to finish my handrails project.  It took me 3 days to get this far which I suppose someone who knew what they were doing could have done it in 1 day...  but, this is the price one pays when one gets old...  but, it is also the price that one pays when one does not do manual labor especially any form of building and/or construction.

AND...  this is the main reason why I returned to College and graduated so that I could use my degree working behind a desk with my mind rather than working somewhere else with my body, like would have been the case working on a construction site, building homes, or as a plumber, electrician, or carpenter, and...  the idea was to make enough money to hire those people to do the work that I needed done; although, now when I attempt to perform work as a carpenter, I really don't know what I am doing.

However, there are many College Graduates working behind a desk with their minds that also have taught themselves DIY projects at home that involve carpentry, plumbing and electricity because they simply wanted to know how to do that as well...  which I did not...

So...  this foggy morning and wet conditions keep me from finishing my task and I will have to wait another day or two until conditions dry out sufficiently to cut the wood and screw it in...  and, in a way I am happy because I am also experiencing extreme lower back pain from slightly bending over the cutting table and from standing in one place too long.

This lower back pain from standing started when I was in the military and on guard duty and later discovered that I have a curved spine which "acts up" when just standing around or walking slowly...  the condition must worsen with age.

DAMN I LOVE BEING OVER SIXTY...

Over My Lifetime

I always write in the mornings with coffee...

From 1972 until 2015, about 43 years +/-, I have been seriously writing poetry everyday...  usually in the mornings when my mind is fresh and open...  and, when I stopped writing poetry in a serious way, I counted them all and discovered that I had over 42,000 of those jokers...  In 2009, I decided to create my first blog that would be totally dedicated (for the most part, not counting all the extra pages) to the publishing of my poems.  Nothing much happened that year, and the next year that blog was completely ignored but in 2011 I started publishing more and by 2012, I was publishing a poem everyday which lasted until 2018 when I slowed down again, and in 2019 only published two...  but, in 2020, I decided to start publishing again...  except this time, I also created three other blogs that because I was retired, felt like I had plenty of available time to devote to them.

On December 26, 2001, I began keeping a daily journal that I referred to as DAILY PAGES for some reason and I was so obsessed with writing everyday that I filled up a 100 page (200 pages both sides) every 3 months...  so, for a solid 18 years I have been writing my Daily Pages and keeping them and have all 70+ notebooks in a file cabinet in the basement.

In 2020, one of my new blogs JOURNAL OF DAILY PAGES was theoretically supposed to substitute for my DAILY PAGES but I still write in these notebooks but not as much because I have my online forum.  These days, these notebooks record my financial calculations and calories for the various meals that I cook.

This morning, sitting out on the back porch thinking about my poetry, I began to calculate how long would it take for me to publish all my poems.  According to my calculations, if I published 5 each day, it would take a little over 21 years or 10 a day would take a little over 11 years.  These last several days and some are still scheduled to be published, I have a series where 3-4 are published each day and a second series where 13 are scheduled to be published...

I'm toying with the idea of publishing all my poems before I die or before I get too old to type...

WHY?

Vanity I suppose.

Just Cats

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Just Dogs

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For Hot Days Only

Magnolia Trees

Around 2000 (give or take because I cannot remember for sure), I dug up 10 small Magnolia trees from my parents front yard in Chapel Hill, NC and brought them to our home in East Tennessee where I transplanted them...  all ten lived and are now about 15-20 feet tall and since I planted them about 10-12 feet apart, they have grown together and formed a privacy fence which was my intent from the beginning.  It was also my intent for the trees to be loaded with flowers because my wife loves Magnolia flowers and I wanted her to be able to sit on our back deck and see a wall of white Magnolia flowers which never happened to the extent for which I had hoped; still, looking over at them from our screened-in back porch, I have counted about 30 beautiful flowers this morning.

Some of the trees are wider and taller than others but that does not bother me near as much as the leaves that fall to the ground and have to be constantly mowed up to keep from killing the grass.  Our acre of land is slightly sloped from the front to the back as is the land of all our 12 neighbors forming a low but angled area behind all the houses for proper water drainage...  which over the last 20 years has worked perfectly.  Sometimes, our grass in the back sloping area looks healthier than the grass in our front yard but I suppose that is to be expected as well.

Just An Opinion

Since I am not an expert in any field other than being retired, I am in a perfectly good position to offer an opinion about the current situation in the US of A and for that matter around the world as we begin to  come to terms with this PANDEMIC that CHINA released on the rest of the world because of unsafe practices in one of their research labs...  even though they do not want to admit it.  Interestingly, what the rest of the world should understand is the simply fact that any country that does not have the FREEDOMS that one finds in the US of A is going to keep SHIT from its citizens because they do not want their citizens to know what it is that they are doing...  HOWEVER and with that said, the US of A still does a pretty good job of hiding shit from its citizens anyway, especially if our government perceives that the citizens will have an adverse reaction.

BUT, this is not what I wanted to write about today or this morning or whenever...

I have this strange feeling brought about by recent events that AMERICANS will be back to NORMAL or back to a NEW NORMAL no later than JULY of this year even though it will take much longer for everyone to be re-employed as companies will move slowly and cautiously...




States will reopen
Cities will reopen
Counties will reopen
Companies will reopen
Schools will reopen
ETC...

THEN...   in the FALL...   ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE... when the Pandemic re-inserts its fangs into our economy again because,

AMERICANS stopped taking precautions!!!
Americans don't think they are going to have a heart attack until they do...
Americans don't think they are going to contract cancer until they do...
Americans don't think they are going to have a serious car accident until they do...

IN THE MEANTIME,
Americans act like they cannot be touched...
Americans eat whatever they want to
Americans drive as fast as they want to
Americans drink as much as they want to
Americans don't like preventive medicines

It does not take a BRAIN SURGEON to see that Americans are headed for one disaster after another...  and, will never appreciate what they have, until it is gone or has been taken away from them...  then and only then will they BITCH LIKE A STUCK PIG...

Coffee Drinkers

Well... did ya???

Vacation Time Has Officially Begun...

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND officially opens the new vacation season and LABOR DAY WEEKEND officially closes the current vacation season...  or, at least that is the way it used to be when I was in elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and grad school...   but, the last time I was enrolled in any kind of educational program (aside of certifications) was 1981, some 39 years ago...  and, these days it appears that schools are out before Memorial Day (instead of after) and have reopened in August before Labor Day (instead of after).  So, vacations start and end before they did in my day...

Like all HOLIDAYS having to do with the advent of WARM WEATHER (of course if you live in the extreme southern part of the USA, you are basically warm all the time...  but, that is not part of my analysis), families and/or friends typically get together and GRILL OUT with hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, steaks, and maybe fish...  with potatoes, baked beans, french fries, chips of all sorts, a variety of dips, chili, cold slaw, corn (off and on the cob), potato salad, vege casseroles (or whatever) and home made ice cream and a various assortment of cakes, pies, candies and cookies.

NO...  I did not forget the ALCOHOL...  which typically flows like Niagara Falls and includes all sorts of beers, wines, spirits (vodka, gin, bourbon, scotch) but also non-alcoholic drinks like: soft drinks, lemonade, tea (sweet and unsweetened), and water.

Games are also typically played at events like these and can include:  softball, football, soccer, tennis, basketball, volleyball, horse shoes, bag or ring toss, pool, croquet, and bocce.

HOWEVER, this year, my wife and I were not with family or friends nor were we at any kind of public gathering hosted by the city or resort, but at home working in the yard since the expected rain failed to arrive.

We spread several bags of small white rocks around, emptied large bags of mulch and spread it around the flowers, dug up several plants to thin our the flower beds, put up a 2 foot fence made of lattice board around the tomato and cucumber plants, and replace rotten or warped boards on the floor of the deck.  We started around NOON and finished around 5:30 pm.  Tomorrow, unless it rains, we will spend a similar day outside.

Being retired...  we both tend to forget about some of the holidays that we so much looked forward to when working...  C'est la vie...

Remembering... as a Vietnam Era Veteran