Musical Saturday Morning

Remembering the fall of 1973 and those awesome gathering at the Auburn Shakey's ( a great pizza paelor, albeit, long gone!)

Sister Freaking Out!

Sommer, needed a break and took off to Iowa two weeks ago.
Her idea of Heaven: bratwursts, antiques and craft beers!
I could see a day off that, but TWO weeks?

So I get a panicked text from her.
She just got home and the neighborhood is on fire.
Thousands are rioting,
And the governor has called for the national guard ...

Yeah, she lives in Minneapolis.
In fact only a block from where the cops managed to kill yet another black man.
They had not fully recovered from the last time this happened!

So, she is freaked out.
Even thinking of finally leaving this Hell-hole for good!
Yeah, any place with Minneapolis' weather is what I equate to a Hell-hole,
Baking sunshine with droughts.
Freezing long winters, with power outages.
Heavy rains in fall, with flooding.
Rains with flooding in spring.

Heck yeah, sounds like a must live in to me!

So, I told her again to come out here.
"Heck no! Don't you remember 40 years ago?"

Oh course I do.
One does not forget 35 hours fleeing a volcanic blast!
Nor the week of blindness I suffered through.
Not to mention all of the eye rinses to get the ground mountain out of my eyes!
Never have worn my contacts since!

Hmmmmm.
Rioting or volcano?
I think I would prefer brats in Iowa ......
Prosit Sommer!

Answer For

I get involved in the strangest conversations sometimes!

Take one from from Friday ...

Now I am just happy to talk with ANYONE these days.
Yeah, my friends have all gone home and disappeared!
I Don't get it it.
Many of them seem to just disappear, if they are not working!
And I know they are home and NOT working!
So, what are they doiing?
No idea.

Now, I was thinking about stepmother, Gwen.
I really miss her!
And I was in a discussion with someone concerning the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church..

Gwen suffered at the hands of teachers she had in parochial school.
And I relayed some of her tales of the abuses she suffered at the hands of those whom NEVER should have been allowed near a vision impaired child!
Of course, it did not help that the condition came and went.
I saw her on days where she could not find the floor,
Then on others when she could spot a spaghetti sauce stain on my tie at forty feet!
(Totally freaked me out the first that happened!)

And the person I was talking with commented,
That those people had a great deal to answer for .....

But in reality,
If I read my Bible correctly,
All any of us get to answer for is:
"Did you submit, in faith, to Jesus' Lordship in your life"

Pretty simple yes or no condition!

Yet we muck it up continually with what is our pet peeve.
Method of baptism,
Or just baptism, period!
Tithing
Anything to do with the Holy Spirit.
etc, etc, etc!

Sure glad Jesus gets to sort it all out at the end!
Nobody wants me deciding their fate based on my take on their life!
I have enough problems keeping myself straight with me!

Well, just something to think on while the BBQ warms up.

Musical Saturday Morning

Where Has The Year Gone?

Oh My Gosh!
It is almost Memorial Day!
Where has the year gone?

Historically, We get together with Dutchman and Swede, and all go Camping.
Such fun we have had in the past!
Camp outs to the San Juan Islands, Blake Island, Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, etc.
Any place where a tent could be pitched and roaring bonfires could be had!
And visitors often swelled our parties.

Though my mind draws a blank heer.
Edvard, Swede's brother,
Margi, whom Swede had the worst crush on for years!

This year, we are doing a BBQ in the yard.
Swede and all of my kids, and all of their kids.
So, ought to be fun!

Have a safe holiday!

Bummer

So the results did not come in!
So much for the two day turn around!
I guess that Pierce County turned in so many blood samples that it will now be Wednesday
before my test results will be available!
sigh .....

In other news:
I had my wound care on the foot today.
It was painful, as usual.
No way around that when you are regrowing a foot and breaking new ground medically.
I also had the second graft of new skin to the heel area of the foot.
So, it continues ...

Rather a full day.
Time for pain pills.

Interesting

Does EVERYTHING draw scrutiny and criticism?

Take something simple, like taking the COVIC19 test.
Now Swede had this test run on him last week, with the new blood draw they are offering.
Of course, he tested positive because he had this back in February.
Poor guy.

So since he was positive since at least mid February,
And we hang out together,
I scheduled a test for me,
As I was quite ill the first week of March.

Not a biggie as far as I was concerned.

But oh no, a great many around me objected.
"... if you really trusted God ..."
and about 10 even stupider statements!
ETC

Of course, they are completely missing the point:
If my test comes back positive,
It means I will now be immune from further infection.
It also means that with the recovery of my foot,
I have a ministry possibility to those whom will fall ill in the second and third waves.

Well, that was my apparently utterly selfish idea ......

REI

I have been a member of REI since 1972.
A gift membership from my uncle Douglas.
One of the few times in my life when someone actually gave me something reflective of me!
Back then I spent all of my time climbing and hiking.
So, much appreciated!

Much more than the brief case some thought I really needed.
I used it for my suitcase when I travelled for 20 years!
Yeah, wholly impractical!


Bored, over the weekend, I did some reading on the history of REI.
Got to reading about James Whitaker and his Everest climb.
Side tracked by b5zarre 1990s alternative rock groups w Whitakers son.
And I slammed into Robert Kennedy!

Robert was the first person I was aware of politically.
Even though far too young, I thought he would make a good presidential choice!
My guess, so did someone in our shadow government,
and he was killed.

Last night, I thought about him.
All he said,
All he stood for,
All that could have been.

And, I remembered a song ...

Clean up

Well, went through my twisted posts and cleaned them up.
Made actual sentences,
Cleaned up spelling,
And corrected what I was trying to say.

Sorry not as many snickers available today.
Beat there are still hundreds of errors.
sigh

Covid Central

Greetings from the current American leader in all things COVID, except for deaths!

I am so sick of this house arrest I live under,
Sure lots of people a violating the containment and will survive.
But I was identified as a "strategic resource" and told that I have a "condition" which puts me on a watch list.
Yeah, I met six out of six conditions.
To guarantee death if I get it!
And apparently someone wants me alive.
sigh

Hence, I get daily checks for any symptoms,
It is fine with me,
Just over-kill.
Probably once every two weeks would be just as good.
Given the state of what we know.
Which is not much.

Swede is also under watch orders and he spends days every week in testing!
But then, he is showing something is wrong with him.
All teasing aside!
We are waiting for permission for him to visit on Thursday.
I hope he can, I have not seen him since he took me to ER in December!

And since he is my closest friend these past five years,
Yeah, I miss having someone to talk with.
Long days of boredom,
Punctuated with doctors and nurses for several hours everyday.
sigh

Church still has NO plans for meeting again.
All of the art classes and shows through summer are cancelled.
All coin shows are cancelled.

Musical Saturday Morning

Music Video on Subject

Thought I would give my tired brain and over worked tear ducts a rest!
It is amazing how close to the surface those nerves are!
We think we move on,
But, A well seems some things are larger than life!
Even 50 years later.

Sorting it out

Fifty years ago, the week wore on.
People I had no respective for were screaming, "America, love it or leave it!"
Then beat the crap out of you because you did no sound "American"!
Yeah, I had an accent the whole of my life, until the stroke in 2005.
Of course, I also lost my language abilities!

On the otherside, was also a group I had desire to identify with.
The "Don't tempt me!" crowd.

My friends were mostly on the hyper patriotic side.
Very few on the radical in your face crowd.
Most were like me, undecided which was right.
Yeah, we had no basis from whiich to judge right from wrong!

Father's friends were all "government - right or wrong!".
And yet such a blind eye to basis of truth, seemed really wrong to me!
But, again, I had nothing from which to express this.

Nixon was an anomally in my life.
Like me, anti-war.
Unlike me, pro-government policy.
The shooting at Kent State and the resounding reaction across America, honestly shook him up!
It made him rethink.
From his core belief.
To bad it was an evil version of Nixon that won that inner battle!

At this point, God, completely changed everything for me.
From an environment of hatred, all I had known, to one of acceptance.
From friendless, to true friendships, many whom are still with me!
From wandering, to directed.

It is now 1975:
The US Army lost their case against me in Federal Court,
The Fellowship was fractured and scattered.
We duplicated our groups around the world.
I had learned to lean on Jesus for everything,

And there were some mighty awesome men, and women, whom taught me:
Jess Moody
Francis Schaeffer
A guy named Douglas Hunt
Bruce Robinson
Debby Kraemer
and, or course,
Dutchman
and Swede.

And whom was right or wrong?

Seems to me, whatever you put in front of God in your life - is wrong.
Does not matter your politics or desires.
Nixon was wrong because he had the choice,
And he chose ultra-conservatism, over his Quaker beliefs.
Mudd was equally wrong because he sought man's right over God's.

Yeah, choices we make do matter.
Short term
And in the long term .....

Innocence Lost

I came to America in 1969.
Not a good year for America.
Even harder on Germany.

But 1970 was worse.

I was in South Carolina and planning my escape!
For a high scgool student, there were only two options:
College or military draft.
I could handle the draft since father was a personal friend with Nixon.
So, hoping to avoid the Coast Guard, I was working the college angle.

In the pre-internet days, you had magazines ads to learn about schools.
So, I had found some which looked like they would take me.
And as far from South Carolina as I could get!
Two f my top choices were Lee College in Tennessee and Ohio's Kent State.
Two non descript schools.

But, as this week was to playout, fifty years ago .....

The nation was stunned,
Then broke into factions,
By the end of the week,
It was mass rioting and confusion.
Kent State was but the spark.

My school sponsored a guy named Rudd(?) to come and speak on civil disobedience.
I certainly understood his passions,
But I knew from Nixon, personally, his split view on anti-war and governing requirements.
Although portrayed as a hard ass conservative in the press,
he was a very much a feeling man with liberal values .....

Musical Saturday Morning

Buckwheat

As my mind has been slowly rebuilding, little things keep popping up as memories.
One of my hard ones was buckwheat.

I remembered a grain we had in Europe as a child.
But the name completely eluded me in English!
And the German for it was worthless!
Mostly because there is an English same word for a different item!

Finally, I went to various stores here in town and described my problem.
Of course, stores these days are manned by "employees".
Not by people whom know their products.
Finally, I went to a hoe in the wall placed.
The only person there was of ittle help as I explained my quest:
A seed,
Anciently used widely
Middle Eastern and northern European
Angular or pyramidal shaped
--- nothing clicked ----
Was used in Russia for Kasha

Ah, score!
So, they fetched their Russia grains and there it was:
Buckwheat!

I bought a bag and have been enjoying it every morning :)
Problem is I ran out,
And I can not drive to store due the heart surgery in October!
Luckily, Tomorrow marks the first day my driving restriction is lifted.
But, with no working feet at this time,
Driving is still beyond me to do!

And store openings appear to be random in our trying times!
But there is always mail order.
Right?

Nope.
The only store which has is it in stock, wants 20 times what I paid back in pre-COVID times!
What the heck?!?!?!?
First it was anything that would kill germs.
Then toilet paper, kleenex and paper towels.
Now bulk grains?

Are people insane?
What next I wonder .....

Well, it may be a while until I can get someone to drive  me over to the one store here with Buckwheat, when there are open!
sigh ...
But hopefully I can drive by summer and enjoy some crunchy memories!