A Winter Wonderland

This is what it looked like out my front door this morning. It truly was a winder wonderland. Weather forecasters indicated the area might get a little snow overnight, but this is more than a "little snow." It is a very wet snow so I don't think it will stay on the ground and in the trees long. However, more is on the way, so who knows.

Finding My Bliss

Often throughout my life I've wondered if I found my bliss. I'm referring to the "bliss" that Joseph Campbell, the noted author of The Power of the Myth talked about in his television interview with Bill Moyers. I thought I found it when I left home after graduating from high school and leaving the cloak of restraint that my small town wrapped around me. But I was too busy in my new living arrangement to think about the search for my bliss. I went on some blissful excursions the first year out of view of my small town neighbors and the boy whose parents had intentions for us.

I met a good-looking radio announcer at a radio station located next to the business school I attended. This handsome guy had a beautiful, velvet-like voice, and in the evening while I was at home practicing my Gregg shorthand, he would dedicate songs to me on the air. Oh, how thrilling! Several times after his 11:00 p.m. shift at the turntable, Romeo would come over for a late night visit. The couple I lived with and for whom I worked to earn my room and board advised me one morning that I was "burning the candle at both ends." I had to arise early to prepare breakfast and lunches for all of us even though I got to bed at 1:00 a.m. At the time I didn't comprehend what "burning the candle at both ends" really meant. It took many candles and a few years before I finally learned the meaning of that old cliche. Golden throat didn't pan out, and I can't remember why except that another blissful excursion came along. I have often wondered what bliss I might have missed out on, though.

Where Did September Go?

Looking back on my calendar I'm assessing what I did and where the month went. Seems after retirement time flies by without much accomplishment. Or, at least we think there's been no accomplishment. One thing I did resume which I hope I can keep up is walking to the Plaza at least 3 times a week. I walk my neighborhood twice a day with Elsa, my Yorkshire Terrier; however, that is not a very long walk so I need to add some mileage to the effort.

Some social events popped up and a visitor came through town.

I've been generating several chapters to my Rosebud book......which, will in the final analysis, turn into Petunia or another flower name. Rosebud is the small town in which I grew up in Central Texas. It was actually a fun place to grow up, good teachers and schools. After I left town when I graduated from High School, the beautiful red brick school building that meant so much to the town was designated unsafe and torn down. The Rosebud School District was then consolidated with Lott School District and became Rosebud-Lott High School. Many old timers are still upset about that. And, in fact, some research has been done to claim that the building was not unsafe and did not have to be condemned.....it just happened to be the year of consolidation. Oh well, at least some of us still have a souvenir brick.

Must go now and prepare for the advent of October, which, too, will fly by, hurling in November than Christmas. Dear Santa, my wish list is growing!

Winding Down August

To those of you who received the posting of this morning, please note this attachment. I did not really intend to publish my comments when I did because I wanted to add this photo of Old Man Gloom. I'm still trying to figure out how to operate a blog, so bear with me.

Just a little something from the writing file......

MRS. GOTROCKS

There was nothing like the air - - the sharp, crisp air of a Santa Fe, New Mexico morning, giving wings to all living things: the gigantic Mountain Jays; the foxy little cotton tails, scurrying along a path of red sand and chimesa; and the wakeful humans coming to terms with the day.

Already she, Mrs. Colleen Gotrocks, was up, dressed in an orange billowy caftan, watering the petunias by the waterfall, breathing in the aroma of the pinon trees, and watching the humming birds dance around the purple hollyhocks. She thought this wasn’t the mansion of servants and gardeners she had dreamed of, but it was more than the little white frame house she lived in for twenty years back in Texas. That was her faraway life, she opined. Different air, different garden (hedges only), and a lifestyle that boasted of football parties and small town gossip.

For years the town gossip had centered on old man Matthews, who swept that poor little Irene off her feet at 19. Why, he was old enough to be Irene’s father, maybe even grandfather, as the whole town knew. Colleen was amused at how long that gossip persisted, for it did become a legend and even followed Colonel Matthews and Irene to every location they lived. People said, “What could cute, saucy Irene see in a man twice her age who had children almost as old as she was?” Colleen always believed that the Colonel provided Irene with a ticket out of a quiet provincial village and into the rest of the world. Matthews was an air force man, moving up in rank, and even though older than Irene, he wasn’t old and decrepit, Colleen recalled. He was more like a romantic Sean Connery, suave and militarily decorated. Colleen had to admit that envy made her speechless when Irene and Col. Matthews returned on furlough from his duty in the Orient. Descriptions of the gold and jade jewelry and silk suits Irene brought back circulated throughout the town. “Did you see that pendant? Did you notice her silk suit at the First Methodist Church service last Sunday?” It depressed Colleen. Someday, she assured herself, “My day will come to leave this little clapboard house, and the stingy man who’s been my husband for too long.

Turning back to her garden she smiled at this reverie then shut off the water. Entering her doubled-walled, charming adobe home situated on a Santa Fe hillside with a view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, she realized her home is far better than the mansion she had imagined.

Next, she took a cup of coffee to Chester, the love of her life, then back into the kitchen to put eggs, bacon and pork chops on the stove for breakfast.

Another poem

One of my readers (all of two or three) will recognize this poem, also written in my college days.

Silky and sensitive
She studies the notes at the big baby grand.
A tiny fairy
Struggling to grasp abstract confusion
Finally, a bang...
a bang...
a bang, bang, bang!
At last a pure scale...
do-re-mi...
fa-sol-la-ti
do...
The birth of Jenny's fifth.

A bit of reminiscence

In a discussion recently with my daughter the value of interpreting literature came up which called to mind a poem I wrote while a "mature" student at Texas State University in the 70's, pondering the decision of what I would choose as a major. Here it is with minor editing.

A Student's Dilemma

There is no mystery in government and history
Even physics bets the laws are set
But woe to the mind whose atoms blast unkind
As too much time is spent making literature rhyme.
One can find pain in that vein.

A lonely search to decipher what branch the author's perch.
Too many imageries casting hidden liturgies
Until a muddled intellect breaks down from conflict
Of emotions wrought for what the mind has sought.
It is not here in this place you are near

Or in that author you thought to bother.
No, the walk is drawn with plainer chalk
When tangible issues resolute become our main pursuit
Rather than chasing writ
Which but a few souls can truly interpret.