John Wooden once said:  “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.’

Now that’s really something, isn’t it?

Sometimes, we can’t do a darn thing about something.  It could be an “anything” at all in this life of ours.

There are moments when the world seems a little overwhelming to me. So many injustices. Unending  violence, strife, prejudice, discrimination, hunger, pain and suffering.  At big levels.  Globally.

And me…. I am a speck.  A little dot on the surface.  So much I cannot do.  But.

I am reminded by people like John Wooden that I shouldn’t let what I can’t do interfere with what I can.

What I can.

Today I can lend a hand, an ear, a smile.  I can give someone a compliment or tell them that I appreciate them.

Is it enough?  Probably not.  But I guess it beats doing nothing at all… or conversely… acting in the other direction.

As much as I’d like to save the planet… unfortunately… I don’t have it in me.  My magic wand has been on the blink for a long time.  But… I will try to make little bits of magic where I can, when I can.  What I can.

So.   Abracadabra.  Presto Chango.

And Poof.

Life is “trying things to see if they work”  – Ray Bradbury

I went a lot of places today.  But the Booth of Fun and Games wasn’t one of them.
Nope.

Now most days… I can find the place where they keep the fun and games.  And laugh.  At anything.   It is usually good laughing.  Not at anyone’s expense.  I don’t like to give people expenses.  But I like to laugh.  Especially at myself.

So.  Some days there is laughing.    And some days…..  there might be crying.

Either is perfectly fine.  And totally good and completely right.  It just depends on the moment, the circumstance, the happening.

But believe me when I tell you this.   Even though I didn’t happen by the Booth of Fun and Games today…..  I saw so many other things that were good, and amazing, and remarkable.  I found so many things to be thankful for… every time I turned around.

Maybe it isn’t always necessary to throw the ring around the milk jar, and win the big stuffed pink elephant.  And laugh.  Until milk comes out my nose….. at the big booth of Fun and Games.

Some days… there are other things that must happen.  In their time.  In their order.

“I can feel it in my nose.  Something is going to happen today.” – Lucille Rita Rose

“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky”  –  Buddha

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the place where I grew up.  And who I grew up with.

Here is a picture of that place…. and those people.  Yep.  That is my family.  That is the backdoor.  I can not tell you the number of times I ran in and out of that door.  But the thing  never slammed shut.  Nope.  It had one of those arms on it… the cylinders that is kind of like a hydraulic doohitchamajigger..  At any rate, my Dad always seemed to make sure things worked.  Everything was fixed.  We didn’t have holes in screens, or leaky faucets.  No peeling paint, or lights that were burnt out.  Everything was in great repair.  The same thing goes for the screen door. It just closed slowly, quietly.

It was probably the only quiet thing in that house.

So.  This is a photo of the all of us.  My Dad and Mom…  all seven kids.  And, how about those hats?  What were we thinking?

I am the youngest there in that photo… and in the family.  I had the best bonnet, if I must say so myself.  Can’t say so much for my Mom’s big black scary hat.

We didn’t wear hats all the time as I recall.  I think this must have been Easter.  Hard boiled eggs and bonnets.

I bet in all our little minds… at the time this photo was snapped….  I bet… we had absolutely no idea what our lives would be like.  How we would turn out.  The conversations we’d be having with one another these days.  I for one… cannot remember what I was thinking when that picture was taken.  I bet none of the others can remember either.

That is the thing about life, isn’t it?  We just don’t know much at all, when it comes right down to it.   We can guess, plan, speculate, project… about the future.  And, we can sort of recollect some parts the past.    We go in, and out, a lot of doors.   Yet…. all we really know is the moment.

I wish I were better about staying in the moment.  But I am not.   It seems I am always trying to figure out what’s ahead.  That way, I’ll have plenty of time to worry about it.  Dang it anyhow.

I miss some things about that old house.  About that time growing up… with all those people in that photo.   I have  good memories about that place, and those people I call my family.  I love them dearly.  With or without bad hats.

 “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself” -Chinese Proverb

The topic of color keeps coming around to me.  So color me curious.
I may as well talk about it.

Color is really the grandest of magic tricks.  It happens when light comes in contact with a surface.  Now light is made up of the spectrum of colors…. and the surface either absorbs part of the spectrum, or bounces it off.  When blue bounces… we see blue. And on.  When all of the colors bounce, we see white.  When they all get absorbed… we see black.

But they bounce and absorb in a gazillion-gabillion different combinations.  Nuances.

So when someone asks me what my favorite color is… I am a little confounded.  How can I answer that?  How could I possibly choose one?  And what the heck would I call it?  There are buckets full!

I found out…. just yesterday… that I am not alone in this mindset.  My brother thinks the same exact thing.  And let me tell you this… my brother KNOWS color.  He used to work at Sherwin-Williams.  He was the Grand Namer of the Paint Chips.  Like Flight of the Rose…. and Sand Dollar Whisper.

But back to it.  You see… I really like… let’s say… BLUE.  But there are… right now… in the same room with me… about 20 different colors of blue that I can see.  Just from where I am sitting.  Some of them I like.  Others…. not so much.  Depending on “the blue” it may or may not be my favorite color.

This is particularly true of green.  Wow.  There are some gorgeous greens.  Then… there is snot.  And bile.  Yuk.  I’m not crazy about neon green either.. or army-drab green.  So you see?  All greens are not alike.

There is an entirely different level to this as well.

My “favorite” color changes all the time.  Right now, I am really jazzed about orange. Years ago… I couldn’t stand anything orange.  I think the lighting is different these years.  That MUST be it.

As it turns out… those guys in the white lab coats (all the light deflecting) … in those big labs…. have deemed that color affects our moods, our emotions, our development,  and even our appetites.  Blue and purple are relaxing; red is a passionate color and increases our circulation;  green is the heart color, associated with peace and earth energy… but yellow.   Yellow affects the nervous system.  It is a high energy color, causing our minds and nerves to be stimulated.  They say you should never paint a bedroom yellow.  Guess what color my bedroom was while I was growing up?

Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Toto.

We owe a lot of this haberdashery to Sir Isaac Newton.  One day, he caught some light in a prism… split it into seven different colors…. and we haven’t been the same since.  And then… the apple dropped on his head.  Which is why I am writing this on an Apple Computer.  But that is a whole-nother story.

There are bold colors and bland colors.  Light ones and dark.  There are warm colors… and cold colors.  Yep….  for me… what color I like is highly dependent on the current room temperature.  If it is cold in the room… I like to see a good red, or an orange.  Hot summer day… give me a blue.  As in …  deep blue pool of water.

Oh so much to consider… in the way of color.  Heck.  Try painting your kitchen.

These days… I would have to say my favorite color is … Sock Monkey Gray.  It matches me.  Like a sock.

“We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.” – Maya Angelou

“On my desk, Sulley. The pink copies go to Accounting, the fuchshia ones go to Purchasing, and the goldenrod ones go to Roz. Leave the puce.” – Mike Wazowski

There used to be this old guy down the street from us.  His name was Herman Galloway.  Everybody used to call him “Cookie”…. but I don’t know why.

But old Herman would always have a “saying” for everything.  Most of the time, they just didn’t make a bit of sense to me.

One of them….. he used to say, from time to time, was…. “There ain’t nothing fancy about Fancy Ketchup.  But.  If you see a fancy fence, you can bet good money……they got a gate that’s just as fancy.”

And there you have it.

Herman was right.

“Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?” – Dame Edith Sitwell

In case you were wondering.  The raven is the largest bird of the crow family.   Now….I really like a crow.  They are smarty birds.  They like the shiny object.  But, back to the size.  It is a big crow….. twice as heavy… at 3 pounds.  That is a lot of weight to be flopping around with a couple of wings.   Yet…..  they have very good wings… with a span of 3.3 feet.   Ravens can live 40 years in the wild and 70 in captivity.

Ravens can soar high above the trees… which is very unlike crows.  Those crows rely on active flight. But Ravens… they are stylish.  They are capable of aerial stunts similar to those executed by the birds of prey.

Ravens are considered the most intelligent birds… as I mentioned before.  They are capable of displaying high learning ability and use of logic for solving problems.  I am not kidding you…… they are smarties.  In some tests bypassing the chimpanzees.

Scientists have tested them.  Deemed them whacky-smart. Due to their intelligence, ravens are very playful.  They will tease and prank other animals.  Cool-io.    Get this.  Ravens have been even taught to count.

Throughout history… a lot of people have thought ravens are pretty neat-o…. and others have pegged them as scary.  The Chinese, the Egyptians and the Greeks… depict the raven as a messenger of storms or bad weather. In African and European legends, the raven forecasts death.   Shakespeare wrote about  the Raven.  So did Edgar Allan Poe.

Now a 49er is a much different beast.

A Forty-Niner is a person who went to California… in search of gold.  Beginning in the spring of 1848…. they were pretty much just the residents of California themselves. And…. these first miners tended to be families in which everyone helped in that old gold-mining effort.   There’s treasure in them hills…  I say…. Treasure!

Word of the Gold Rush spread slowly at first. It kind of “fanned” out.

The earliest gold-seekers were people who lived near California.  By the beginning of 1849, word of the Gold Rush had spread around the world, and an overwhelming number of gold-seekers and merchants began to arrive from virtually every continent. The largest group of fortune seekers in 1849 were Americans.  These folks arrived by the tens of thousands…. across land in wagons, on horses, on foot.   They also came along various sailing routes.  Of course, the name “forty-niner” was derived from the year 1849.

It is estimated that approximately 90,000 people arrived in California that year…. about half by land and half by sea.  The gold hunters continued to flow.   By 1855, it is estimated at least 300,000 gold-seekers, merchants, and other immigrants had arrived in California from around the world.

And that’s it.  The Super Bowl of Information.

So, if a Raven and a Forty-Niner were to get in a match….  who would win?  It depends on the match.

If you race between two points… as the crow flies… well heck.  The Raven wins every time.

If you see who is better at finding shiny objects in a creek… well dang.   Winner is…. Rave.

If you have a contest to see who can grow a longer, smelly beard… well darn.  Forty-Niner.

And…. if you have a fashion show for leather boots, and flannel shirts….  well shoot.  Forty-Niner.

Football…. that would be… Holy Smackerels.  It is the Raven.

“Winning isn’t always finishing first. Sometimes winning is just finishing.” – Manuel Diotte

Well.  Since this time of the year seems to be filled with all sorts of awards… I thought I’d publish my own list.

This year, I bring you….the…..

“I Don’t Give A Rat’s Butt Awards”

Yes.  They go like this.

I don’t give a rat’s butt that some poor desperate man called a guy on the Notre Dame football team and pretended to be a woman.

Don’t care one iota.

I don’t give a rat’s butt that Beyonce lip synced.  Ever.  Heck… I don’t even care that Milly Vanilly did it way back when.  Or Scritty Politty…..  Or whoever the heck it was.

I don’t give a rat’s butt that someone named Rihanna is back with someone named Chris Brown.  They are probably slapping each other silly right now.

I don’t even care that a Kardashian is having a baby.  I don’t really give any consideration to anything Kardashian.  I am not entirely sure why they are in the news to begin with.

I don’t give a rat’s butt that Miley Cyrus got a new tattoo. Don’t care about that Justin Bieber kid either.

No rat’s butt for the 49er’s Cheerleaders giving me their tips on how to stay in shape.  Or that Chicken Wings are bad for me.   Nope.

I grow tired of this unending revolving door of “newsworthy” information that infiltrates our homes every time you pick up a newspaper, or turn on the TV.

Actually, in all my life, there is not at time when I  remember caring much about the “Buzz” that now seems to be a constant source  of noise in our society.  But someone cares.  Someone fuels it.  The National Enquirer is still alive and well and on the news stands.  Liz and Michael and Elvis and all ….

I wonder what would happen if society gave as much energy and attention to making things better… like education, health care, anti-violence, human rights, conservation, global warming… and such.  I wonder.  Now THOSE are some headlines.

“No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.” – Bertrand Russell

To dare mighty things…

It happened on a Monday.  It was February 1, 1960, when four  college students sat down at the lunch counter inside a Woolworth’s store.  They were at 132 South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Those men… who later became known as the Greensboro Four, ordered some coffee.  Not much too ask, really.   But.  Following store policy, the guy at the lunch counter refused to serve the African American men.  You see, they were sitting at the “whites only” counter.  Go figure.  The store’s manager didn’t come over to make it right.  Nope.  Instead, he asked them to leave.
The four university freshmen – Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr. , and David Richmond – stayed until the store closed.  They didn’t get that cup of coffee.

Imagine that.  They couldn’t get served at a restaurant because they were black.  Why?  Because some white person, somewhere, at some time… said they were not worthy.  They were not equal.  They were less than human.
Can you conceive of such a thing?  It makes my stomach sick to think of such a discrimination against another human being. But a lot of white people felt this way.  They hated blacks.

This was a little over 50 years ago.
This all happened because black people seemed somehow different than white people.
Whew.  I am glad we are in an age now of higher awareness, where people are treated as equals… here in the great and free country of the United States… without question.   The modern age.  Smarter.  Advanced.  Sure enough.

Or is it?
Unfortunately, this same type of thinking still happens.  Yep.  For an example.  What if two people who were in love… oh… let’s say for almost a quarter of a century…. could not have the same legal rights as other married couples.   Because they didn’t seem the same as the majority.  Hmmm.  I don’t ask anyone for God’s Blessing.  I leave that to God.
For those of you who still believe that you should have more rights than another… because of how you look… or what you “believe”….
I have news for you.
The world is flat.  Blood-letting works.  The sun goes around the world.  And maggots are born spontaneously from rotting meat.

Tonight, I am sitting at the lunch counter.  Whether you will serve me a cup of coffee, or not.

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” – Abraham Lincoln