“Looking Back, on the memory of, the dance we shared, ‘neath the stars above….” One of my favorite songs. 
Today I spent some time looking back and there were some tears, and there were some smiles, and there were some surprises that found me shaking my head in wonder all as I “thumbed through” a blog I wrote some ten years ago. In truth, it comprised some of the most creative and out-reaching time of my life, as short as that duration was. But, it also opened my heart, chipping off the armored crust that I’d built to keep me safe.
Today I reread a post I wrote about being invited to what should be a very nice thing: Christmas Dinner. I was miserable. (https://wordsthateffect.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-lonely-walker.html) 
What surprised me was that I still remember that pain. I don’t remember specifics of the day, I remember how much it hurt to be cast away as inconvenient only to be so magnanimously called back like a dog once again let into the house. I felt obligated to go, I felt obligated to forgive the hurt I felt, and I felt obligated to be the good guest who buries the hurt and the abandonment I felt even though I was an adult and shouldn’t be so easily hurt. 
I was the bad dog, let back into the house, and quite frankly I was “just fine” outside. Just fine, thank you very much. … …
There is a song written by the group Imagine Dragons, called “Believer”. I’ll not speak for the artist, but it always hurt, this song. For me, it spoke about how the singer was made a believer, was made what he was told he was no matter how he fought against it. Imagine the power we have over people that we can develop their very self image!
But, that song also gave me hope as I realized that if we have the power to negatively impact the very way someone sees themselves, we also have the power to positively impact their life. We can make them a believer of something truly grand for their life.
I left blogging because, as I mentioned, it forced me to open my heart and dang that hurt. I had to watch the greatest ugliness to find a way to demonstrate that it was not reasonable or godly to be so hateful, and often that ugliness was voted for by people I loved. I wrote posts about people being abused. I wrote posts about young people listening to others demean them and those like them. I wrote about hopes lost, lives lost, tears shed, and dark times. It frightens me as I look over those past blogs more than a decade old that things have not seriously changed, though I do think that more people understand that we are all different, each of us unique and special and worthy of love. As we come upon another presidential race 
I hope people will consider the world they want to create, the legacy we hope to pass down to our younger generation, because that is the defining aspect of the voting process.
Yet, claimed I was, a man no one wanted by a dog no one wanted, and both of us thought by some better off with a bullet. And so, Grace came home with me, this wild one that would protect my home and safety, just as I wanted. Just as I thought I needed.
There was nothing wrong with her tail, that’s for sure, and she was sure to tell anyone who could reach the box that she was ready for a bone no matter how bad her leg hurt. Two weeks ago I found out that she actually had cancer as her pain was getting worse and worse.
Jakuniku-kyoushoku. “It’s the year 2022, and the population has risen to a third of a billion for the United States. Pollution, catastrophic climate change and blind greed-based taxation has caused severe shortages of food, water and housing nationwide while the military budget grows beyond the ability of the nation. Only the wealthy can afford health care. The environment is oppressively hot and humid thanks to the out-of-control greenhouse effect. Corporate America has taken on the role of feeding most of the nation’s population with tasteless processed foods, over-preserved and under scrutinized, while nutritional and safety factors are the new cost of repeatedly underfunded government overwatch programs and an overworked populace repeatedly asked to sacrifice more and more so the wealthiest may receive favorable tax breaks. The Soylent Corporation produces their wonder food called Soylent Green…” (edited quote of Soylent Green film summary, 1973).
My father kept Popular Mechanics magazines from the 1950’s and 1960’s that tell me I should be flying my car by now. Shortly after I was born American men were walking on the moon, stepping out of the nation’s boundaries as explorers and architects of a new future. During that time, a generation fought against itself – one side imagining the heights we could go if we only dreamed, if we only loved one-another, if we only gave more than lip service to the idea of freedom, while others suffered a nightmare of bullets in jungles they didn’t know existed but a short time before. Men of Peace, men of hope, men like John Lennon died to bullets, and it seemed like the generation had made its choice. The fall of Jimmy Carter, the rise of Trickle-Down politics and Glory of Greed, Iran/Contra-gate, a new war in the land of sand and oil, and a new rising NRA became the Siren’s Song spelling the end to the hope of Lennon and King. 
the stars…I never look at them anymore’. Have we lost the hope that seemed to infect America when I was young, when cars were shaped after rocket ships and kids would look to the stars and dream of following in Buzz Aldren’s steps? It is no wonder to me why people long for the world to be like it was in the ‘60’s. Life was simpler back then, provided you weren’t drafted, a woman, a minority or poor. Marjory Taylor Greene has called for a new America, a new Civil War, a new Hitlerian dystopia where we must declare our votes. She wants to void criminal charges for a national secrets leak because it was originated by someone who was white, Christian and anti-war. Lauren Bobert says that babies are being murdered after birth for the convenience of a late abortionist. Our most recent president is in court for Rape, Tax Fraud, and his followers are going to Jail for Sedition and Violence in efforts to Overthrow the Government, but that’s all “fake news”. Fox News pays $787,500,000 to avoid justice, Governor DeSantis kidnaps destitute families and declares gay people to no longer exist in Florida, and “Good Guys with Guns” stood by and watched babies be shot. Across The Land of the Free, men are being accused of horrible crimes for telling stories to children and their parents in public libraries. The religious right has declared the liar, the glutton, adulterer, the jealous, the proud, the lazy and the wrath filled to be saintly.
capacity beyond a cautionary one is surely pure comedy. She is surely not the cause of our troubles, only the parasite that feeds on our weakened flesh. She is a result of a country that gains their beliefs from news anchors and pundits, like rags flapping in a breeze that the ill-considered salute unquestioningly. I understand; I’m a Chicago Cubs fan, and I could respond to any challenge with “We’ll get them next year”. Then one year they somehow kept winning and the joke became real. 
I was raised that it is the obligation of every man to those who follow behind to make a world better than he found it so that his children may live their life without war, famine, disease, poverty. But suddenly there was a black man in the White House and the era of fear and denial was upon us. Now we are strangled by guns, anger, lies and false reality. The preeminent focus is not what is best for our youth, our country, but what will regain the lost power of the ’50’s for those longing for a world gone by.
What happened to my neighbor? What happened to those Sunday School lessons? Have we lost already the promise of our fathers, the charge of those who came before? We are meant to be a country of builders. I feel anger and despair in those around me as they are denied their reality, denied their choice, denied their identity. 
At that younger time, I was pure lethality with a gun. I made a game of being able to spin the cap off a bottle without breaking the bottle by just nicking the side with the bullet, but I enjoyed the explosions of the shattering glass when I missed. Like many kids, I relished the wanton destruction, the control of continued existence or the end of that bottle. I felt powerful, skilled, and capable in a world where otherwise I foundered at the whim of forces I felt incapable of withstanding, weak, ineffectual. 
and the most intimate of actions lets one be alive still and another not so very much. It is horror and excitement and at no point does the heartbeat slowly for any involved. It is but for targets, some may say, but what is target practice but the refinement of the skills necessary to kill that which you intend great harm? Some say it is an act of freedom to hold the means to life and death in your hands, but whose life, whose death? And why is the ability to take a life a definition for freedom?
It is the unmitigated gall, the pretentious and pompous attitude that one’s ownership of a gun shall not be infringed, even in the misuse and mishandling. Bill upon bill has come before congress, requesting the mere modicum of relief to those of us unwilling to be set upon by others unfettered 2nd amendment rights, only to wither in committee, shot down by the special interests lobby. How sad a people who have decided money is far more important than the life of a school child.
do hold tight to that instrument of power, that wand of courage that burns away the dark and sends the monster back into the closet? But power is fickle, isn’t it? It isn’t only our own fear, our own rage that dispels in the smoke of a smokeless powder concussion. Quiet little sparks in Uvalde, in Sandy Hook, splashed out little stars in last moments of terror. And as those little lives fade, do you wonder if their last thoughts are to be thankful that old men may rage, that young men may rage? Hold on to your fear, gentlemen, do hold on to your fear if that is all you have left. 
Perhaps it was a poor choice. Some would certainly say so, while others, me included, found it a fantastic and hilarious romp into the absurd. Nonetheless, wisdom be damned, there he was. Dressed as a woman. He said he felt there was no choice. He said it didn’t change who he was, only allowed what made him distinctive and what he found to be imperative the opportunity to exist rather than be closeted and slowly dying in the darkness, the loneliness, the loss of all that was dear. The person he was, the identity that he felt in his heart wouldn’t change with the dress, it wasn’t the dress or the men’s clothing that made him who he was, it was only the outward appearance shown to a world that rarely gave a damn.
For a while, as he navigated this new life as a woman, he felt mostly complete. The children loved him as he watched over them, cared for them.
Perhaps you have already seen through my deception as I bring my most favorite and troubled actor’s great film into this debate. Robin Williams was the great storyteller, the comedian who made the world laugh. Who knew his pain?
Scottie's Playtime 