The Life in My Years

An anthology of life

June 4th, 2021. The Black Hills, South Dakota. After an interesting, if somewhat disappointing, stop at Wall Drug, we’re headed to our cabin located somewhere between Hill City and Custer. Our route has taken us through relatively large, Rapid City, slowing us down on a sweltering afternoon when all we want to do is get …

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Quite some time has passed since the last edition of the COVID Chronicles. Does that mean that we’re almost over it? From where I’m sitting, here in carefree California, it’s almost like we’re ready to emerge from the deep, dark COVID woods. Some catching up and a little perspective might be in order. We’ve been …

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Groundhog Day is a movie in which Bill Murray plays a TV weatherman who finds himself reliving the same day over and over again There were a few moments of irony during Vice President Kamala Harris’s appearance with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, this morning. The Vice President paused in the midst of the ceremony, …

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“As with many traumatic experiences, they were anguished by their memories and haunted by shame for something that wasn’t their fault. Shame is a cruel thing. It should rest on the perpetrators but they don’t carry it the way victims do.” ― George Takei, They Called Us Enemy I pass them frequently on the recreation …

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This year, after a 2020 COVID cancellation the NCAA Basketball Tournament, aka March Madness, has returned and is winding down towards crowning a winner. This year, America has been enduring another version of madness in March. Don’t order a pizza or dip into the nachos for this madness, because this is all about a month …

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Indulge me for a few moments while I waste my time. There was another mass shooting in America yesterday. It was the seventh one in seven days. Hell, mass shootings have become so ho hum that I only knew about two of them; the shootings at the Atlanta spas last week and the shooting in …

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“I’ve got some bad news and I’ve got some good news. Nothing lasts forever.” ~ Kate McGahan, author. The “where were you when” conversations. You know the ones. Somebody asks, “So where were you when…? The when is always one those consequential events, usually an unpleasant one. Life’s moments that leave stains that won’t wash …

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“You play to win the game. Hello? You play to win the game. You don’t play to just play it.” ~ Herman Edwards. I’ve been watching the second Trump impeachment trial, nearly gavel to gavel. I did bail out on some Friday’s session and the arguments being laid out by Trump’s attorney Michael van der …

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Today, for only the second time that I can remember I watched a Presidential Inauguration. That wasn’t necessarily by design. This is the first inauguration held since I went into retirement. The other inauguration that I watched was in 2008, the inauguration of Barack Obama, America’s first Black president. I was working that day but …

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Now what indeed. The January 6th uprising was quelled but America has forever still before it. Where to? How do we get there? In my previous posts about that dark day (one written as events were unfolding) I declared that I was never afraid for American democracy, as fragile as that democracy now seems after …

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