Today I heard a beautiful Eulogy.  It honored an unselfish man…. one who was a Seeker of Peace.  A believer in Goodness and Equality.   But I cannot talk about that tonight.  Not really.  So.  Maybe some other time.

But  tonight, perhaps it is a good thing that I have a story about a lot of things.

Yes, there is probably not a day that goes by, that I don’t think of some little thing that has happened in my life, that I’d like to share with something.

I drove through my old neighborhood today.  I grew up in Dayton, Ohio.  I guess the section of town was called…. well….  do no know what it was called back then.  Today, I would call it dangerous.

But it was right near Shawn Acres Orphanage, just a bit north of downtown.  That neck of the woods. As I drove through…  I was reminded of the corner market store on Theodore Avenue.  We would go there for penny candy and orange sodas.  I saw the first garage-hub, where I started my afternoon newspaper route.    Lucille Connor’s house.  Strit’s.  Tuck’s.  Oh. The whole nine yards.  I saw the house where I used to beg the neighbors (a Lithuanian family) for Kugelis (Potato Pudding)… pretty much on a daily basis.

It all came back to me in a rush.

Yet, our old house, didn’t look at all the same to me.  Not one bit really.  But it holds an incredible amount of memories.  I mean… THAT many kids sharing THAT little bit of bathroom space.  Whew boy.  You are bound to make a bunch a memories there.

But the story I REALLY want to share is this.  When we were growing up, our parents instilled in us a sense of fairness and consideration when regarding others.  Love others.  Be kind.  We were taught to believe in Human Rights.   All people are created equal.  And the human rights movement was beginning to take hold during my youth.  When I was just a babe…. I told my Dad (I was an early talker)… I said … …. “Dad.  I am going to try and come up with a signal for solidarity among us common people.”  So one day, while sitting on his lap… I showed my new sign.  It stuck.  I started doing it everywhere.

Before I ate my Gerber’s Blueberry Brickle.  Or…. after my nap.   Anytime I was in a large group of people… I would throw up my saluting fist.

And look what happened.  Four years later….   Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in a gesture of solidarity at the 1968 Olympic games. Both Americans were expelled from the games as a result.  But a least they made the statement.

Yes… just another little tidbit from my life…..  that I remembered today.

Rock on, my friends.  Rock on.

“What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.” – Thomas Jefferson

Common occurrences seem to exemplify the bigger pictures in life.

There are little things which pop up from time to time.  It makes me want to say…. Holy Smokes.  Is that thing ever metaphorical, or what?

You know.  Like when someone plucks a fading dandelion from the ground… and proceeds to blow on it.  Then all the little swirly-gigs go floating through the air…. in every which direction.  They float up and away. They go all over the place.  All over.  Some of them travel out of sight, others land on the ground, and some alight on the tips of dogs’ noses.  Who knows.

Those Little-Big Pictures of Life come about any where.  Any time.

When you pass an old, long, stone wall… and there in the very middle… is a little green growth of leaves.  Right in the middle of nowhere.

It stops you in your tracks when you notice the beauty of it.

You say out loud.  “Holy Smokes.  How did that ever grow right there? I wonder why and I wonder how.”

There is no logical answer.  And you really didn’t expect to get one.  But you had to say it out loud regardless.

I wonder how and why.

“The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.” – Charles de Lint

“Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to” – John Ed Pearce

I know I have said it here before, but it bears repeating.  I’m not so crazy about the phrase “It is what it is.”

To that I say… “Wellllll…….  Is it?   And IF it IS what you think it is….. just how can you be so sure?”

To me, the better phrase might be:  We don’t know what we don’t know.

I am always reminded of something like The Land of Oz.  You know…. when Dorothy steps out of the wind swept house… and in to the land of lollipop flowers and toadstool houses.  Then it all goes…… from Black & White to Color.  And she looks at her little dog, and says… “Toto.  I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Oh.  You might be walking down the street tomorrow….. on the corner of Main and Maple….. and are absolutely sure about things like blue mailboxes, and traffic lights, and corn flakes…. you might even walk around saying “It is what it is.”   Then.  Suddenly,  you blink your eyes…. and  everything looks extremely different and foreign.  Like….   Yellow Brick Roads, and Flying Monkeys.  Poppy Fields.  Horses of Different Colors.  Scarecrows who can talk.

The Lollipop Guild serenades you.

And you are not quite sure what it is you should do next.

Yep.

Simply.  We don’t know, what we don’t know.  And we welcome you to Munchkinland.

Many of you know that my Father passed away, a little over a day ago.

This afternoon, someone asked me how old he was.  I said “He was 90.”

They responded… “Ninety?  That shouldn’t be so bad.  I mean, at that age, what do you expect?”

Well, at age 90, I then expect 91. And so on.   Because I loved my Dad, a lot.  I know we can’t live in our human bodies forever.

But no matter how many years you have with someone you love, you still experience an incredible emptiness when the leave.
The empty pit.  An ache.  A terrible void.  An abyss.

… …. … ..Just ask my Mom.

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” – C.S. Lewis

Oh, we are all looking for THE answer.  The secret of the universe.  The way of the world.  The reason “Why” of it all.

And who better than Mr. Smarty Pants to tell us.  Yep.  Here it is.  Today is the Anniversary of Albert Einstein’s Birthday.  There he was.  Born on March 14, 1879.   He died some 76 years later on April 18, 1955.

What a man he was.  Very smart.  Incredibly kind.   Extremely wise. (Albeit, not so faithful…)

Yet. The world has always wondered what his last words were.  But here is the whooping deal of it.

When Albert Einstein lay dying in a Princeton Hospital, the dang nurse assigned to him didn’t speak a lick of German.  And guess what Al’s native tongue was?  German.  And guess what people do when they die.  Well.  It depends on the person.  But Albert, old smart Albert, spoke his final words auf Deutsch.  (In German, the language of his birth).  So the great physicist’s last words have passed by without meaningful comprehension.

Until now.  You see, I just learned that the nurse said it sounded like Albert Einstein said “That side’s bitter.”  Well I know German.  And this one is easy-peasy.

That side’s bitter.  In German, that sounds just like… “Das Salz Bitte”

And that means… Pass the Salt Please.  Hmmmm.  Pass the Salt.  Puhhhhhlllleeeeeassssse.

And there you have.  The ways of the universe.  Explained.

Just as I suspected.

“I want to know God’s thoughts…the rest are details.” – Albert Einstein

…. And just like that.    He was gone.

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