A New Year

It's late at night on December 12th, I'm feeling a little blue, a little old, wondering if I can conjure up a blog worthy of some seasonal cheer.

So here goes...

My brother John used to get together with his brother-in-laws family on New Years day to watch College Football on two or three TVs all at once...one game after another, over another. Pre-BCS. When ASU actually had the occasional chance to make the Rose Bowl (there's always next year).  This particular family was all Irish American and Notre Dame boosters and mainly male...with all the trappings. Beer, and food, and more beer, and plenty of football to go around. One thing always cool about John, he'd get bored after a while and we'd go outside and shoot hoops...and all of this was all right with me, it all worked.

Sometimes on New Years day I would stop by Dad's little apartment on Greenfield and pick him up and he'd join us for the festivities. However, this particular time...I could hear the radio on in his apartment, I knew he was home and yet he did not answer. He was a hermit at times. I can relate, I have that gene too. But I was mad, and I went on to the New Years game, and I complained a bit to John when I got there, don't you know. I was vexed just a bit.

Dad had passed. I did not know, did not know until days later, when John called me at work. I was devastated, heart broken. I miss my Dad still.

Where do I find cheer with that? Well heck, all the years I did have Dad, and the years I have been a Dad, and that I learned not to hermit a bit from that, and that now I have daughters and grand kids and Christmas comes each year...and Christmas means a little bit more, and Christmas reminds me of my beliefs that one day I will see my Dad again. And maybe by then ASU will have played in the Rose Bowl again  (there is always next year).  :)

Cheers, nca

So Wrong

I was driving and listening to an audio version of  'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Steig Larsson on the way home from work and an inspirational critical thought about the series came upon me like a light bulb. 

I had read the book once before, and seen the Swedish version of the video series via Netflicks , so I would say I knew the series fairly well. So when the inspiration dawned on me, I thought it would make a great blog. I thought I had suddenly gained a unique and crucial insight into the mind of the deceased author, something blogdom would find interesting enough to read.

I knew, to make the case for the inspirational idea, I'd have to do a little research to back up my suppositions with some supporting facts.

But as I dug into various details about the author, the series, and other related facts...it quickly became apparent that I was....

WRONG!!!!

Yeah, after researching various items, it became very very clear.....

So, I still had the idea, and I could still find enough facts here and there to provide support for my thoughts, but I knew for sure...

Now, my blog audience is very small, so the chance of someone in the audience catching my mistakes and pointing them out to me was astronomical.

But, then again, like I said before, deep down...I knew that I was...

I had to eat my humble pie, discard my 'brilliant' idea as if it were some moldy cheese I'd find at the back of the crisper drawer in my fridge.  My idea was shot down like a Hugh Hefner at a GLP parade.

Oh yes, blogee, I have been wrong before, sure. And I will be again, and again...more times then I even want contemplate. I can move on, no problem.

My comment on this is, I think about how easy it is to use a few strategic facts to justify just about anything. Without restraint, without minimal ethics, without self policing, facts can be used with pinpoint precision to back up even the most outrageous claims and beliefs.


Cheers, nca

P.S. "Three Hamlets walked into a bar, and so the bartender asked   'what will it be?'".  Salohcin

MAX RELOAD

  Today during lunch hour I drove down through Papago Park, past The Hole in the Rock,  the National Guard Armory, turning on Oak, then Thomas, finally driving down into my childhood neighborhood.

Everywhere I turned the sights and sounds stirred up memories long forgotten from the weight of 52 years living in this Valley of The Sun, 52 years living.

Landscape is memory and architecture is memory and youth and family and school and church and scouts and baseball all memory crowed together and trapped and freed when needed or when called upon or just seeping forth unbidden.

The blinking radio Towers of South Mountain like the beacons of Gondor calling forth memories like men upon horses. Were those towers always there? In my memories they were and a time when they were not only exists outside my memories and therefore outside of time and outside of being, separated from the me of my existence.

The weight of memory is heavy within my heart this day, weight carried upon my shoulders, of guilt and regret, and mulligans, and do overs. Good memories too, and just plain old memories un-judged, unplugged, swirling around in the synapses waiting to be recalled.  The road led me back down to Amelia Street  to that place where all my memories first sprung, that wet watering hole, the cradle of my youth.

Back then to work, then home to family, my journey to the past complete, I now contemplate upon the weight of the memories I carry with me now, of memories yet to be, and of memories lost or soon to be. What of these memories? I do not know. I'd say I know something of this place I live, this Valley of the Sun, but I'm not sure I know my place in it or what purpose I have served or if I served my purpose well.  Time will tell.

Cheers, nca