Brighter Days

~The path hemmed and hawed its way through tree lined latticework, mountain laurels and magnolias, bloodroot and bluet crowding for space in the meandering dirt and stone strewn expanse. Larger rocks and stray boulders some cleaved in two stricken perhaps by lightening or from earths great hellish heaving’s during some long ago terrestrial cataclysm and then pitched down the hillsides hither and yon to stand randomly like sentries from another world. Marauding old and twisted knees and elbows of larger trees broke up and through the surface of the lane as if requesting help, pleading their case. An occasional glimpse through wrecked and fallen timbers displaced a thick and gauzy haze exploding heavenward from out of the earth itself, silent, erect and vertically swirling, smoke-like apparitions, the ghosts of morning dew, damp fire pouring forth from the dawn of the newly baptized day, as if the mountains themselves were aflame and retching out some demented and forsaken anguish....

~The Old man snatched up his cards and ferried them broadways across the table to the dealer. He’d stayed long into the night and the time to leave this place had long since passed. He scooped up the tokens that were his and counted them out stacking them orderly by color and pushing them forward towards the man whose shack he and the rest had been sharing the evening with. The host recounted the stacks setting them back neatly into the stained   and leathered box that housed the chips and cards along with an old worn Texas Instruments calculator he’d used to total up the dividends of many an evening past spent. The host tallied up the count and uncoupled the hasp of the old cigar box that he’d used to ferret away the notes and coins which the players had traded for earlier in the evening and as necessary throughout the game. He pulled out a small sheaf of bills and a handful of assorted pocket change and handed the folded notes and coins to the old man. The old man crumpled ...

~The sleepy child ambled up clumsily to a kneeling position in order to better survey his surroundings. The room where he awoke was semi-dark and the midafternoon light played across the white bed linens laddering them as it exited through the venetians on the eastern windowed wall. Small motes of dust and other particulate matter floated eerily and caught in the sun’s rays forming disorganized patterns and glowing dramatically in the vertical eddies created by the heat in the stillness of the room. The queen sized bed from where he drew his bearings rose scarcely three feet as it surfaced from the floor but could just as well have been The Eiger or perhaps even the southwestern face of El Capitan such were his juvenile negotiating skills.   The room itself was small by adult standards but, for the toddlers’ perspective, loomed large and profound with shapes contemplative and angular, and silence everywhere both distracting and oddly frightful.   Translucent and bon...

Well it’s been close to 30 days since I last decided to weigh in on anything ~ New ~ and I suppose that it’s about that time again , so here goes… Maybe it’s best to begin by saying that I’m a fairly progressive thinking kind of guy. I try to remain moderately open to new things and ideas and I‘ve been known to be persuaded by logical and impassioned rhetoric even when I’ve previously held some sort of stubborn position on a particular topic. I believe in diversity and am intrigued, to a degree, by the way in which it can inject sometimes dramatic affect and change in socially stoic ideations regarding all manner of “ things ” different. God only knows - I take some getting used too, not necessarily for the way that I look or dress but most certainly for my odd way of looking at and describing the things that cross my gaze from time to time. I too can only assume that I require some degree of patience and understanding when it comes to listening to the driveling prattle that es...

It’s been a little while since I’ve had anything new to add here to this semi-autobiographical forum of mine and I suppose that it’s due at least in part to some degree of laziness from my end. The potential for commentary happens daily and frequently is filtered and modified by the confluence of events and conversations that I have with others as well as those that take place within the narrow boundaries of my own soul. Let’s get started shall we…… It’s not always what you may think “it” is . There’s a certain distinction to be noted, one that periodically gets redrawn, depending upon one’s point of view, one’s own unique point of reference. Lines of thought, beliefs, goals, the daily maps that we attempt to adhere to as we make our way into the fray of our heavily populated lives…..the plans that we formulate in an attempt to influence the events that swirl discordantly about us. There seems to be by necessity the need to build in layer upon layer of contingency……escape hatches...

…..I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve somehow made it, (miraculously), to the “5 score +” point in the years category of marking time ( Well past my “half life” as one of my bouncers in a former life of mine once described my relative age!). In my working experience along this seemingly uncharted course, I’ve held quite a few very different unrelated positions in which I was able to put together “some coin” and manage to eek out some sort of sustainable existence (some better than others). No complaints here in this department, I’ve Made some Money…I’ve Spent some Money. Now if the Truth be Told, I’ve Spent more money than I’ve ever actually Made which can present some fairly serious financial hiccups from Time to Time, that can, (and Do), produce some relatively uncomfortable Stresses “a veces”, but, really on the whole I’ve developed some fairly good memories (-and Stories) which I’ve “banked” from these spending episodes so I can’t really complain too loudly or too frequent...

I found myself riding home from work this evening with a friend of mine, I should say an old friend of mine probably. My car had decided that yesterday was as good a time as any to deliver its latest round of negative karma to me in the form of total engine failure on a busy highway in Asheville (another story altogether), and at any rate that’s why my buddy and I were sharing a ride. It’s funny to me the broad range of purely ridiculous topics that Jeff and I so often find ourselves discussing, also particularly disturbing, in retrospect mind you, is the passionate quality of the debate on said discussed topics….. .For instance, somehow, don’t ask, the “discussion” began with the topic of people talking on their cellphones while driving and thereby recklessly endangering the lives of others with their irresponsible behavior. Reasonable discussion, responsible subject matter, adult oriented cautious-minded discourse……in a span of 4 or 5 minutes of highway driving, at an alarming rat...