It sometimes amazes me the amount of ignorance in my white race.

Obviously, my little school in my little town was progressive in the late 1960's, because we were taught a lot of black history.

I can see (on a small scale) what it is like to be oppressed. The middle school (called Junior High back then, which was grades 7 through 9) I attended in the mid 1960's was (conservatively) 75% black. It opened in 1962, part of the 'Baby Boom' expansion. Only two other middle schools of the six at that time had any black students - about 10% at each.

I was part of the white students who were bused into my school. In athletics, we ruled the city. We won almost every city tournament for years. Our Freshman football team didn't lose a game for the first 11 years of the school.

I was bombarded with black culture and at the ages of 12-14 I adapted quickly. I made lifelong friends who are black and one is still like a brother to me. My first crush and first kiss were both from a beautiful black girl that I met in school. These things would be considered radical during that time period, especially when you consider that my family moved to my hometown from the south.

Today I see our country as having taken a step backwards in race relations. Ideas of people I have known for years are coming to the surface. It's hard not to be hurt when I see friends I have known for years talking about 'we have rights, too & all lives matter'. It took me until now to see how deep rooted white privilege is. These same people have no idea what it is like to not have to worry about walking down the street or being pulled over simply because of the color of your skin.

Being a minority for only three years, just in school, taught me something. The vast majority of white people need to stop and listen to their brothers of color, to hear their stories and to wake up and make changes to their way of thinking.

Okay, my rant is done.

Life goes on.

~

I have always thought that whenever I hear someone say: "It's better than sex." They probably have never had great sex.

Since we're not expecting any rain here until next week, I think I'll go wash the dust off of my car.

Maybe doing that will speed up the rain getting here.

I'm willing to make the sacrifice to help get some much needed moisture around here.

~

Under a month to go until we can be free of all of this election garbage.

Until something new comes along.

2020 - what a year!

~

If you look closely, pretty much every Beatles song is mentioned visually in the video:


Coolness

But not really.

We are creatures of our upbringing.

Many of my friends growing up in the '50s and '60s did the same thing:

We grew our hair long & preached peace & love. We demonstrated. We smoked (cigarettes & pot), drank like fishes and fornicated like there was no tomorrow.

Jump ahead 40 years.

Those of us who ate, drank, smoked (both) and fornicated too much have paid the price.

Eventually we turn into our parents...

I chuckle at my old friends (those still with us) when they talk politics.

They act as though they were practically virgins growing up.

Deny, deny, deny.

They don't see how they have turned into their parents, who wouldn't admit all of the anti-social things THEY did growing up.

Life is indeed a cycle.

~

... that nerve wracking continual 'beep-beep-beep' of construction vehicles first thing on a Monday morning.

This is what we used to call an album side song:


Music to help put you in the mood.

Bob Gibson, Hall of Fame pitcher who played for the St. Louis Cardinals, has passed away from cancer at age 84.

As a kid (and not a Cardinal fan) I was fascinated by his competitive style.

In 1968, he set the all time low e.r.a. for a season (post Dead Ball era) at 1.12 and in the World Series that year he set a single game record by striking out 17 Detroit Tigers (and beating baseball's last 30 game winner that year). In two other World Series, 1964 & 1967, he was World Series MVP by winning three of his teams four games.

Thank you for the memories, Bob. R.I.P.

~

The president and his wife have both tested positive for the Corona virus.

After all of this time of downplaying a world-wide pandemic, I believe karma just stepped in.

~