This is the great flood of 1913, in Dayton, Ohio.

Prior to this image being made… the skies opened up, and it started raining.
The ground swelled.  Yet.  It continued to rain.

All that water had nowhere to go.
No way to leave.  All the exits were blocked.

Yet.  At some point…. the water finally departed.  It left somehow.
Like Houdini.  It figured out the Great Escape.

It figured out a way to go.

And then the world got dry again.

“The part always has a tendency to reunite with its whole in order to escape from its imperfection.” – Leonardo da Vinci

Here is the deal.  Tonight, I was going to write about “Which Came Firsts” –  You know.  Which came first?  The fishing pole or the fishing line?  The nut or the bolt?  NBC or CBS?   All of this…. because one of the things that has been on my busy brain today is this.  I wonder which came first….. the CAN … or the CAN OPENER.   Now the chicken and the egg always seems to be the big dilemma.  Oh we have heard that line a thousand times before.  But the answer is clear to that one.  After all these years… WHO really gives a CLUCK?

No.  The big “Which Came First” is definitely the can or the can opener debate.  I see no other way around it.

But.  We will have to save that discussion for some other night.  Yeppers.  We will open that can of worms down the road.  Be that what it may.

Tonight, I have bigger things on my mind.  Like…. all the good things in my life.

The Feast of Blessings.   I dine at the table every day of this feast.  Each moment, bringing some new and spectacular dish of life.  Some I savor.  Others I gobble down.  Some of them, it seems…. I just can’t get enough of.  I keep going back and back, time and again, dipping my ladle in the pot.

But now that the bowl is getting empty, and there are no reserves left in that big huge pot,  I must simply sit back in the chair — and be thankful.

Thankful for all the goodness I’ve just been treated to, at this spectacular meal.

There will be other meals.  Just not the same as this one.  And I will have to learn to be even more grateful for the next.

I just hope someone has a can opener handy.

“Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.” – Norman Vincent Peale

Tonight, I think…  I am questioning everything.

I question.

How it all connects, and hooks up…. how it is all wired.

I don’t understand one bit of it.
There doesn’t seem to  be an logic it to…. whatsoever.

Yet.  It continues to work.

“Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On March 9, 1969, a Dayton, Ohio family became quite alarmed, when the youngest child  made an all-out attempt to consumer her entire Easter Basket before Catholic Mass.

Not  the candy.

She had dumped that on the ground moments earlier.

No.  The young girl tried to eat the basket, and the plastic grass there in.

From that point  on, they knew she was not quite right.

This had an echoing effect on the entire family.  The youngest boy, joined the Mafia three days later. The eldest brother started designing women’s clothing.  And the four sisters formed a singing group called “The Bowling Pins”

Do Wop.

“There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same” – Chinese Proverb

I love this photo of my family.   Look at my six siblings… my brothers, my sisters, and my Dad.  (Mom was behind the lens.)  How stinking sweet is this?

Ann just out of rollers.  Sue so melodious (and tan).  Ed filled with glee.  Jerry at attention.  Jane with her shoulder shawl.  And Julie… clutching some sort of large dead rodent, and sucking her thumb.  And my Dad.  Just as proud as could be of his clan.  But so gentle in nature.  So full of love.

It is a moment in time.  Captured.  They stood where they stood, but could not see the future.  Oh.  “Little did they know.”

This was taken during the year before my birth.   By my best estimates…. as the dates go in the photo album go… Mom may have already pregnant with me.  If so… it was barely.  Yep.  Only six kids… but soon to be seven.

Yes… this photo was taken before I entered into this world.  Before I came in to being. Before life as we know it.

As we know it.  Holy Smokes.   Little did we know.

Yes.  It seems we have a certain discernment about our existence.  Here.  Here on this earth, here as humans.  Our only physical perceptions begin when we are born.  But there is much more to each one of us than the physical.  There is the  the intellectual, the emotional, the psychological, the spiritual, the intuitive, the mystical.

Then there is that ONE thing.  Call it what you may.  It could be the sneaky feeling, the knot in your throat, the brick in your gut.  It could be the itchy nose, or the burning ears.  Perhaps it is the “something” that tells you to look at your watch, and make note of the time…. for no reason at all.  Or the coincidence.  The serendipitous event.  The penny… heads up on the sidewalk.

It could be Skylab falling from the sky… crashing right into your living… while you watch reruns of Lost In Space.  “Danger Will Robinson.  Danger.”

Maybe someday we will get.  Maybe not while on this earth.

For a smart as we think we might be… I somehow have a sneaky felting…. that in fact….  there is little that we know.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
– Socrates

A dang homebody.  That’s what I am, I’ll tell you.  I love home.  I love BEING at home.

If I travel or go on vacation… … by the third day, I am ready to go.  You guessed it.  Go home.

It is no wonder that I loved the movie E.T.    That little dude just wanted to get back home.  Phone home.

I was thinking that I would have made a completely terrible explorer.  First and foremost, I am not adventurous, at all.  And after the third day, I would have turned around the ship, or the dog sled, or the submarine, space ship, covered wagon, canoe…. WHATEVER….. and headed back for home.

Some explorers in history were better than others.  For instance, Lewis and Clark did a pretty decent job.

Some explorers weren’t very nice when they arrived at a new place.  Find and conquer was their motto, I suppose.

Then there were guys like Henry Hudson,  He made his first voyage from England in 1607.  Twice, he was turned back by ice.  I’m thinking the guy either set sail at the wrong time of year, or he was steering due north.

The third time he took off… he got across the Atlantic… and headed right up the Hudson River.  It wasn’t named that back then….  they named it for him.  Albeit. He was looking for the dang Panama Canal.  (I wonder if they will rename the Roku… the KronyKu, perhaps?)

On his fourth voyage West, he wound right back around the Hudson River…. spent months drifting around the Hudson Bay… and eventually fell victim by a disgruntled crew.  Yep.  Mutiny.  In the Hudson.

I would have been a bumbler… like Hudson… had I set out to explore.

As fate would have it.  I am not sewn that way.  I am not an inventor, or explorer, or a voyager.  My wires don’t connect like that.  It is probably a good thing, really.

Conversely.  I am very good at sitting with my tapioca thought processes….  in my soft, warm bed…. with a big bowl of snacks on my lap… with my honey to my left… and my dogs at my feet…. watching reruns of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.  Yep.

And sometimes… just being with myself… is all the adventure I can handle.

So won’t you show me the way to go home.

“Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve.” – Henry David Thoreau

We all have likes and dislikes in life.  Just a simple fact about our human nature.

Now for me, “The Cold” is one of my biggest dislikes.  Not the Common Cold.  Those I don’t mind nearly as much as “Being Cold”

Cold weather brings the bad news right to me.  It is not just some fickle dislike.  For instance.  I am not real crazy about Donald Trump, or his hair.  I’m not too fond of people who fake being handicapped to get the parking pass…..  or even the smell of cow manure pits.  No.

My dislike for the cold is much greater.  It is more like my Arch Rival.  The Enemy.  My Bane of Banes.

A curse.  The blight.  An affliction.  Misery. Woe. (I wonder if I’m being clear enough about this….  )

And yet.   I am beginning to see that even with our biggest disappointments in life, our greatest fears, our deepest pains…. sometimes there is something to be learned.  Some thing to see.  Some thing to appreciate.  To treasure.

And on occasion, if we look really hard, we can see the beauty of it.

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” – Confucius

“What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.” – John Westerfeld

Today I spent a little time in a health treatment care facility.

Several people were receiving chemotherapy in the same area where I was.

As I walked through, to where my Dad and I would be sitting… every single person looked up, from the IVs and tubes, and blankets……  and they smiled.

Genuine smiles.

The most of them looked like they probably didn’t feel like a smile.  Yet, they offered one regardless.

It was a true an act of kindness.  An effort to welcome and comfort without saying a word.

Yet they spoke volumes.

Phenomenal.  Simply, and purely…….amazing.  As in, grace.

“It is not what they profess but what they practice that makes them good” – Greek Proverb

Today was a very special day for me.  So special in fact, that I decided to do something…. …. oh so very fun!  So.  Off I went to Big Udder Way…. the biggest Cow Racing Track in all of Camden.

And.

Once again, the Cow Races simply got out of hand.

Bessie….  just a nose from lead… made the mistake of looking toward the camera flashes.  She wanted to show her best profile for the newspaper photo….  Ahhhh…. she could see the headlines of the Sports Pages now….

And just then… Mabel took a commanding lead.

It was a little sad to watch… but that is how the Cow Races go.

The first races were held in what is now Donegal, Pennsylvania, in 1623.  Granton Bellamy and Charles Whitenforth were the “founders” of The Cow Race.  While the Grass Juleps were not a popular drink at the races, Bellamy & Whitenforth soon discovered that Mint was a more popular choice.   From that point on, they only used the grass for medicinal purposes.

But that is another story.

The Cow Races eventually gave way to the more popular Horse Race.  And Kentucky surpassed Pennsylvania as the “racing” capital of the U.S.  This was mainly due to slightly warmer temperatures, and longer racing seasons.

At any rate.  I’ll take a good Cow Race any day.  They last longer.

And if you don’t drink Grass Juleps…  They always Got Milk.

No Bull.

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

“Not as easy as One. Two. Three.  But… I like Three. Four. Five.”
– P C Kronenberger

The era of “Beam Me Up Scotty” is upon us.

While our physical bodies are not yet being zapped from place to place, all sorts of other things are!

Photos, Stories, Bank Statements, Registration Forms…., books from Amazon…., shoes from Zappos.

Zip.  Zap.  And Alakazam.

Way back when mass communication got its start… things were all hooked together by the very physical presence of wires, and plugs and switches.

We owe the big and wonderful BEGINNING of this to Mr. Alexander Graham “Can You Hear Me NOW” Bell.  This, just happens to be his birthday… March 3, 1847.

But back to “Star Trekish-ness”…

There are sound waves, microwaves, radio waves, particles, signals, digital transmissions, and on and on.

Around the planet, exists a swirling mass of digital soup… thick in the air.

Like whirled peas.  Oh… HOW I long for whirled peas.

Some people hope for baby cheeses.  Me? It is simply peas.

ANYWAY… back to the digital chowder.

These signals are moving around us, through us… in and out… up an down.

Why…just yesterday… I swear there were voices in my head.  But alas… I think I was just tuning in on someones text message from Boise, Idaho to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Holy Cow… it is no wonder I am tired all the time.  I’ve got this deluge of digital goo infiltrating my blood system at a molecular level.  My blood type is something like….

…. like … O+ 2.5 MgHz.

In a few years, we won’t have cell phones, or iPads…. laptops, or even TVs.  Nope.  We’ll all just get a chip.  They will put the chip in our heads.  That’s how we will send and receive calls… watch TV… and news reports…. play games… send messages.  Yep.

It will save millions on production costs.  It will save many planetary resources.  It will be cleaner and more efficient.

It scares the heck out of me and creeps me out.  To no end.    They will know where we are, and what we are thinking…. before we do. They’ll know if we are late, early, or in between.   You won’t know if you ar talking to the person standing in front of you… or if they are on a phone call to Little Rock, Arkansas.  People will get hacked.    It’s going to be a crappy mess.

First… there was the end of the gosh darn Twinkie.  (The Mayan Calendar “Called” that ONE… I might add!)

But yes… first “No More Twinkies” and the next thing you know… the end of free thought.

Happy Birthday Alexander.   Whatever have you done Alex?  Whatever have you done?

“It’s not the same to talk of bulls as to be in the bullring” – Spanish Proverb