The Life in My Years

An anthology of life

I began this post long ago in the days just following the murder of George Floyd and since that beginning it’s been subject to a score of rewrites and questions. Part of the reason is that I’ve felt the need to really get this right. The other part, maybe the greater part, is that it’s …

Continue reading

Note: This article quotes from the book Bullwhip Days an oral history of former slaves.  The original work was recorded and then transcribed into book form retaining the spoken dialect of the subjects. I’ve retained the dialect as published in the book.  “Putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders is like house arrest. Other …

Continue reading

The San Francisco Bay Area is well known for its fog. Sometimes it’s a high overcast that shrouds the tops of San Francisco’s highrises. At other times it’s a low lying blanket that hugs the ground and the surface of the chill bay waters, a scene that makes for picturesque photos from the surrounding hills. …

Continue reading

Life goes on here in COVID central (aka The United States of America).  Well, it goes on if you don’t become one of the rising number of statistics; THE statistic, death, that is.  As of this writing we’re closing in on 200,000 and change.  Change. Change is a term used to describe coins as opposed …

Continue reading

“I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed.”  Revelation 15:1 At 7 in the morning the rec path along San Pablo Bay can be a busy place; hikers, dog walkers, runners and an occasional skater. Cyclists wiz by, more often …

Continue reading

Are we operating on the two nonsensical theories that the coronavirus respects borders or that people won’t get into their cars to go get services not available in their communities? 

Dog and pony show – An elaborate act of bullshit, generally used to distract attention away from the sheer uselessness of the actual project or act. ~ The Urban Dictionary It was a widely ballyhooed event last Friday, the first briefing by the White House Coronavirus Task Force in nearly two months.  At the outset of …

Continue reading

Consider this my RSVP.   I won’t be attending the celebration.   That shouldn’t come as a big surprise to those who know me, particularly my wife.   To say that I’ve never been a big party person is a gross understatement.   When I was still working, many were the times when I would stay at my desk …

Continue reading

From the slave trade to the evils of the men we’ve put on pedestals to the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow, Rodney King and on to George Floyd how can we possibly say with a national straight face that “We are better than this?”  No we are not better than this.  This is who we are.