LITTLE THINGS MAKE LIFE MORE TOLERABLE

Hardly anything about old age is appealing, at least not for most people.  There are all the aches and pains, the medical problems, the difficulties with making ends meet on a retirement budget . . . and loneliness and boredom.  I've learned, like many elderly people, that the little things make life more tolerable for us.  I never got excited about a cup of coffee back when I was a younger man, and I've always loved it.  Time was when I popped out of bed in the morning, drank a couple of cups of coffee, then headed off to work.  I had things to do, fishes to fry, that sort of thing, and coffee was just part of the routine.  Now it's a big deal to me, and that's just a little thing.  I'm not just a morning coffee drinker
anymore.  Coffee goes good with sunsets, especially if you've got a quiet place in the back yard to sit and enjoy the evening.  I do this alone because my wife doesn't like sitting outdoors.  Mosquitoes eat her alive, as do all sorts of other bugs.  It's like feast time when she shows up, but they don't bother me much.  Maybe they don't see anything about me worth wasting time on.

My little things include growing things - flowers, trees, bushes, scrubs, vines, and . . . critters of all kinds.  That includes both the domesticated kind, like the dogs and cats we have around here, and the wild kind.  I never paid any attention to birds until I got old, but I do now.  I even like lizards, snakes, frogs, and turtles . . . and fish.  I keep a few exotic fish in a pond out back, and I like plants with big leaves.  Got them too, and lots of blooming things.  My home town is full of flowering crape myrtles right now, and pomegranate trees (big bushes), and pecan trees, and other nice trees.  I like that, and I pay attention now.

The good thing about paying attention to little things is that they have a way of turning into big things.  Life is more tolerable, even pleasant at times, due to the wonders around me that were overlooked for many years.  I'm slow these days, and slowing down puts me in a better position to discover things I missed over the years.  I'm glad they're still there for me to enjoy now, but I grieve some over what I missed years ago that won't ever be there again.  In my haste to be successful, I didn't notice some of the things that success can't buy.  I won't ever get a second shot at some things I missed, but I'm wide awake now and paying attention.  So, bring 'em on.  I'm finished taking my licks at the big things, or what I thought was big at the time.  Nowadays, they don't seem so big . . . and that's a good thing.

CAT CHRONICLES: KEEPING UP WITH THE CREW

CLOWDER, that's the word for a group of cats.  I've got two clowders of cats - the bridge street cats (at my shop across town), the Parkview clowder, and I even devoted a website to them at Weebly called Clowder Country.  I don't keep it up very well, but it's there in case I decide to chronicle what's going on with the cats I take care of.  This cat thing isn't by design, isn't something I planned on or prepared for, and I've almost come to believe that providence led to it.  Then again, perhaps it's just an extension of what I've always done, which is take care of things.  I've been a caretaker for a long time, just in a much different way.  I was for a long time a college professor, took care of lots of things related to the teaching profession, and I came to think of myself as just that - a keeper.  I kept up with students and all the paperwork and management that goes along with that, and I was also a coach, which required more of me.  And I liked it and did a fairly good job of it.  That's all in the past now.  I'm old, retired, and . . . lonesome for something to take care of, I guess.  God must've known I needed something to look after, and so he sent animals.

I came to Texas with one old cat, a female I'd had a while named K.C.  She lived to be 16, finally died in 2004.  I wasn't a good caretaker then, barely paid attention to her, just put out food and gave her a place to live.  My life changed dramatically in early 2005 when I nearly died of a heart attack.  I had bought a little house across town, was restoring it and turning it into a guitar shop, and that's when I went down for a while.  My recovery was a slow one, and I had lots of time on my hands doing little or nothing.  So, I got a dog, and then another dog, and then a few cats showed up.  My shop produced the first of them, mostly abandoned kittens that I saved.  A few of them were given away, and a few of them came home with me to my home on Parkview to live.  More showed up, and several of them had kittens, and we gave more away, and kept some.  My home is across the creek from the city's largest park, a place where folks abandon animals from time to time.  Starving cats started coming to my front porch looking for food, and I fed them.  I now feed six or eight cats there each day - cats that are mostly wild but need to eat.  At the shop across town, I feed another half dozen outside cats each day, and those cats over the years have given me more kittens.  I've got nine other cats living inside the shop now . . . full time house cats, pets, spoiled rotten and content to be where they are.

Over the years I've shucked out money to have neutered and spayed almost all of the cats that have come to be part of my cat crew, and they've all been to the vet for various things - shots, sicknesses, etc.  In all, I've got about 35 cats to look after these days, and my feed bill is about $500 a month.  And taking care of the cats takes several hours of my day - feeding, cleaning litter boxes, checking them out, doctoring them, etc.  And there's the dogs, too.  I have only two dogs here at home, but a small chihuahua/terrier cross female attached herself to me some time back, and she recently had five puppies.  Now I've got five little pups to feed and provide a home for, and that's more work . . . and more worry.

Nothing gives me more enjoyment than caring for animals, but there's also some heartache in it.  I lose them from time to time, and that always sets me back.  My favorite shop cat was killed last fall, and I'm still grieving over that.  Some of my kittens have died, and that always hurts.  I don't mind spending the money on vet bills, do what I can to save them, but I'm stretched thin because I'm getting old and less able to care for them.  Friends are starting to suggest that I should euthanize some of them, do the humane thing, they say.  My response is, "Yeah, I'll euthanize my cats just before I euthanize myself."
I don't kill anything unless it's absolutely necessary, so I keep plugging along, doing what I can to care for the animals . . . and that's keeps me from feeling absolutely worthless.

I'm a writer . . . a disenchanted, disappointed, disheartened writer for the most part who's sick of it.  I spend about half the year working hard at writing, but it gets to me and I have to lay off for a while.  Maybe I should write about what I enjoy the most - animals.  Maybe I should just forget about the writing and be a caretaker, a keeper of critters.  I like that idea best, but I haven't been able to make myself do it yet.  Something always draws me back to writing.  I'll finish more books before long, as soon as I can pull my head out of my ass and take care of the final stages.  I'm not as good a caretaker of my own affairs as I am of animals, it seems.  And I don't really care.

SOMETIMES LITTLE BROTHER IS SMARTER THAN BIG BROTHER

Speculation about what would happen should the current system of government in America collapse goes past just speculation.  We'd have to invent a new word for the uncertainty that would occur, but some people are thinking about that and are coming up with scenarios.  I've read through some of them, even introduced a few ideas of my own, but I don't see anything that would work until we're forced into the necessity to make it work.  Necessity is the mother of invention, you know.

Government in America is pretty much in the crapper across the board.  The federal government is screwed up with politics, mismanagement, indecision, gridlock, and ineptness.  It fumbles and stumbles along, manages to keep things going, and for one reason - wealth, and that comes from the American public's tax dollars.  Economic forecasters do a decent job most of the time in predicting what will come . . . in the short run.  Nobody in this country actually does much long range planning.  If they did, we'd be big time involved in what to do about water shortages in the country, a concern that's drawing attention and getting worse by the day.  We don't have a uniform plan.  States are grappling with the problem as are local governments, but not much is being done most places . . . just talk, and talk is cheap.

Democracy is from the start a fumbling, inefficient way to manage an economy.  Too many hands in the pot - that's part of the problem.  Lack of expertise is another, but nothing happens when problems arise until the problem is already full-blown.  And sometimes that means it's too late to fix the problem.  What then?  If it gets too broke to fix, what do we do?  The answer is simple:  we find something to replace it.  The good thing about us as a people is that we've always been pretty good at doing that.  We get caught with our pants down lots of times, and we seem to find ways of working out of it . . . but at enormous expense.

If you study government around the country, these united states, you'll find a lot of differences in how various states, counties, and cities are managed.  Some states do better than others, and the how and why of that is sometimes hard to pinpoint.  Is it good government structure at work?  Good managers at work?  Are some states and communities just higher class than others, and therefore in a position to better take care of business?  Probably, and if that's the case, there's a lesson here.  Are liberal leaning states better places to live than conservative areas?  Well, not in some cases.  Texas is conservative, and it's one of the best places in American to live, if you want a job and a decent place to live.  We're not all corn pone and cow ponies down here.  Austin, for instance, is one of the most up-beat, lively, attractive places in the country, and people are flocking there like crazy.  That city, like all metropolitan areas, has lots of problems, but they've also go fairly good leadership there.

Nebraska is another conservative state that's drawing attention as a good place to live, especially in Omaha.  I don't know exactly why, but I can make some educated guesses, like - there's a good work ethic inherent in places like Nebraska.  Keep it simple stupid kind of work ethic, just buckle down and do it, and that keeps them on top of things.  And, they're the only state in the union with a unicameral legislature . . . one house.  It's a state with a good attitude, and that helps.  Texas thinks big, and even though we don't get there with our big ideas a lot of the time, we get somewhere.  Some states are going nowhere . . . except in the same direction the federal government is going.

My point?  Maybe it's time somebody paid attention to little brother.  Maybe it's time big brother took some lessons for someone who's doing it better than they are.  Wise up, Uncle Sam.  The grass is greener where you're not trampling it down all the time.  The window to success is sometimes a keyhole, so you'd best be taking a peek.

LIFE'S A BITCH, AND THEN YOU DIE

"Life's a bitch, and then you die.  You don't know when, and you don't know why.  You live a little and then you say goodbye.  Fate comes in a flips the switch.  Life's a bitch!"  Words from an old Michael Johnson song, always liked it . . . the song, that is.  Don't like the message, though, but maybe that's because it's pretty much true for most people.  If you take a look at the hard facts about life in America, which is supposed to be better than it it elsewhere around the world, we're pretty much in the crapper when it comes to living the good life.  Most Americans miss out on that because . . . well, because we live under a badly flawed governmental system.  Yup, let's blame it on government, and let's do that because they damn well deserve it.  When it gets right down to most of the things wrong with this country, you can drop that right at the feet of government.

If you think this blog is going to be a diatribe against all the evils of government, you're wrong.  Government in America isn't a villain, isn't the devil or a monster that hides in the closet to torment us at night with thoughts of what it did to us that day.  If you want a metaphoric snapshot of government, picture it as an old man sitting in a park feeding pigeons.  Around him might be all sorts of things that would better benefit from the handout, but the pigeons are bigger and more aggressive, and so they get the treats.

Today as the country wakes up and goes about the business of being the world's most productive nation, 47 million people (or thereabouts) will depend on food stamps to feed the family.  An overwhelming percent of workers will go off to jobs they don't like in order to make just enough money to survive.  Most of them won't make over about ten bucks an hour and will spend half that amount on shelter, a place to flop at night.  The percentage of Americans who work at good professional jobs is small, and those who go home at night to mansions amounts to just a tiny percentage of the population . . . yet they control most of the nation's wealth.  The stats get worse with each passing year, but I'm not one of those people who think the oppressed class will ever get enough and rise up in rebellion against a system that keeps them down and struggling.  Marx was wrong about that.  There's no end, it seems, to how much people will take from crappy government.

Life in America is indeed a bitch for most people, and then they die, like all living species.  They die in droves each year due to a rotten health care system, to the diseases that attack the bottom feeders.  I'm not talking about bad food but rather bad living - drugs, bad work conditions, crime, violence, and yes, lack of adequate health care.  For most folks, living in the U.S. isn't a deal, a promise of good life, a comfortable existence . . . but there is still life, what there is of it, and I'm always amazed at what people are able to take from it.

I live in a small town that is home to two worlds - my world, which is a fairly comfortable life in a good part of town . . . and the world of the have-nots across town where my old man's playhouse is located.  It's a crappy little house I bought for fifteen grand about ten years ago and restored as a place to keep my "stuff."  It's paid for, the only piece of property I've owned outright.  It's not in the slums 'cause we don't have them around here, but it's in the "poor" section of town where my neighbors don't have much.  Even the animals over there are poor, and that's how I got into the abandoned animal care business.  I didn't intend to, but they sought me out, and now I've got about 15 cats and several dogs, including a new batch of chihuahua puppies, to feed.  And if I don't feed them, they'll die or drift off into the streets and end up victims of the dogcatcher's net or whatever.  In that regard, I know how the government feels when it comes to taking care of the needy.  I do what I can, but about all I can do is patch cracks in the dam.  I can't hold back the flood waters.

The animals are symbolic of the people who live over there on north side.  They too are rejects in many ways, down on their luck, or working bad jobs that won't allow them to live anywhere else.  But the live, and they try to make something of life.  On Sundays, they go to the park, or congregate to share a meal, and there's music floating up and down the streets from time to time.  By my standards, they have nothing, but I'm well aware that by the standards of the lucky, the vested, the wealthy, my standards are likewise meager.  And I live too, doing the best I can with what I've got . . . so excuse me, please, if I detest the government I live under.  They try, but they're overwhelmed and can't (or won't) do what needs to be done.  Forgive me for hating an economic structure that keeps most people locked in a meager existence mode.  But then again, if you like the system like it is, don't forgive me.  But you'd damn sure better keep an eye on me.  I'm old and almost out of the game now, but I'm symbolic of the few who'd like to ignite the flame of revolution.  I'm the spark that could set it all off . . . and the sooner the better.   I'm the guy you might find in a park somewhere feeding the hawks.

YOU CAN'T ALWAYS BUILD ON SOLID GROUND

Foundation is the most important thing in life.  It's your underpinning, your support, your starting point.  Almost everything, including a house, is built on a foundation.  We'll use houses as a metaphor here because most folks live in them, know a little about foundations.  I've even heard it said that a house is only as good as its foundation, but it might surprise most folks that most houses aren't build on perfect foundations.  Houses settle over the years, despite attempts to make sure the house in built on a solid foundation.  The foundation itself might be well constructed but the earth under it is the problem sometimes.  

I walk around my 20 year old house from time to time and check the brickwork to see if cracks are developing.  I watch walls on the inside for separations, check other things, and that's mostly for my own self-satisfaction.  There's not much I can do about it if cracks develop.  Most people live with them because that's just part of home ownership.  Some parts of the country presents big problems for foundation builders because of rocky soil, or sandy soil, or hillside property, or whatever.  Put plainly, housing foundations are problems when you make bad choices about where to build the home.  It's either choose another spot to build on, or turn to technology to take care of the problem.  Live in San Francisco, for instance, and you've got to consider earthquakes, and builders know how to prepare for that.  You can't hold off on building your house sometimes because the foundation is going to be a problem.  You can't always build on solid ground, and that's true of lots of things we do in life.

I decided many years ago to become a college professor, and I didn't have the foundation for it.  I'd never been a particularly good student, had not developed good study habits or a work ethic, and I didn't know much.  In being a poor student, I'd missed out on learning a lot of the basics most students in my class already knew.  Fortunately, I had a good mind and was able to catch up . . . and I did become a college professor, even without the best of foundations.  If a man goes to prison, decides to build a new life for himself once freed, he's going to be hard pressed to do that due to foundation problems.  Turning his life around is going to be double hard because he's got to start somewhere, and that means he's going to be building on ground that's a long way from solid.  

I'm sure you're thinking, "Well, what's your point?"  Should a person just give up on certain things because he can't find a good starting point, a good footing?  No.  It does mean, however, that he's got to understand that he's starting with disabilities because that lack of solid ground is going to cause problems somewhere down the road.  At some point in time, that foundation is going to need some attention, some shoring up, some restructuring.  The good news is that by then you've already got a good house going for you, something worth saving.  And if it isn't, you're always better prepared by the to move to a better house, or perhaps to better footing where a good foundation can be built.  The message here is that few people pick the perfect spot the first time.  What counts is getting started.

DO THE THINGS YOU DON'T WANT TO DO, AND DO THEM FIRST!!

I grew up in a generation of folks taught to work, regardless of whether or not you actually enjoyed the work.  We weren't taught that work should be fun, or entertaining.  Work is a vehicle to better things, pays you money that can be spent on things you enjoy . . . but the job itself does not carry with it the requirement of being a joyful experience.  But that was yesterday, not the way most folks in this day and age think.  I'm not even sure anyone thinks about what they work at as actually being a job.  Job implies work, right?  Maybe what's happening is that we've turned into a society of people who frown on jobs, want professions instead.  Well, I've got news for you pardner - most work is not a profession because those are jobs reserved for folks who've earned the right to a recognized profession.  If you don't get the ticket, you can't ride the bus, and the world is full of people who aren't qualified to call their jobs "a profession."

But . . . having a job, regardless of what it's called, is important.  Do what you can do, and if digging ditches is all you can do, then do it.  Paint houses, be a carpenter, learn to be a bricklayer or a welder or a mechanic, but do something without the expectation that it should be fun.  Do it because you need to.  Do it because you want the money.  Do it because it's simply the right thing to do.  Don't make excuses for what you do, and do it with pride that you at least have a job and are not a drag, a weight on society.  We've got lots of them, too - the drags.

My dad once told me that I needed to get a good education because I was too lazy to work, and he was right about that.  I didn't learn to work until after I got the education and became a college professor.  I worked some along the way toward getting myself into a professional status - did construction work, worked on a ranch, other things.  College teaching bored the crap out of me.  I enjoyed it most of the time, worked hard at being a good professor, but I still got antsy and restless . . . and that led to me doing other things.  I once had a paint contracting business, did that for several years to earn extra money and drive off the ants in my pants.  Woodworking has been a fascination of mine since my early years, and I've stayed with that over the years.  I've always had a shop to work in, can't imagine life without one.  I grew up around working people, factory workers who did their jobs and then came home and did what pleased them.  Introduction to a work ethic like that was good for me, perhaps one of the best things that ever happened to me.

My grandson can't keep a job because he's retarded.  No, he isn't mentally retarded, he's just a ten year old in an adult's body.  He's a spoiled brat who flunked out of college after one semester, and has failed at every job he ever had . . . because he can't do things he doesn't want to do.  His mother is an enabler because she puts up with him.  He's a good enough kid, doesn't get into trouble, doesn't like to party or anything like that.  He's just lazy, and laziness is a form of retardation.  The worst form of social retardation?  When you don't do the things you don't want to do, you're retarded, and worse yet, you retard everything around you.  You're a drag, a weight on society, a loser.  And you'll stay a retardate until you learn to do the things you don't enjoy doing . . . and you need to learn to do those things first.  That makes the fun things you do a whole lot more fun.  

A DREAM COME TRUE?

I used to have these unsettling dreams that I was lecturing a class, and the students were getting up and leaving.  I'd always wake up before the classroom was completely empty.  I retired from college teaching back in 2000, and those dreams went away.  That dream never came true, and I seldom think of those days now that I'm living another lifestyle.  But I'd take the hectic pace of life I had back then if allowed to go back.  I don't like my lifestyle these days, but that has little to do with being retired.  I don't miss teaching, or coaching, or anything I did back in my younger days.  What I miss, however, is doing something productive, worthwhile, and challenging.  I don't like being worn out and worthless . . . and even worse, a liability.  That's my worst nightmare, the liability part.

Do dreams come true?  Ask most people, and they will say no, that dreams are just dreams and nothing more.  I disagree because I've had some dreams that came true.  They didn't play out exactly as my mind conjured them up in dreamland, but they still came to pass.  During one of the worst periods of my life, back when I was struggling with a weighty drinking problem, I had a recurring dream where I came home and found my house empty.  That old house is gone now but the dream is still with me because I lived it.  In the dream, I get out of my car on a cold morning and start walking toward the front door.  And as I get closer, I see that the house is abandoned and in disrepair.  I never get inside the house in the dream, wake up first and in a cold sweat.

I stopped drinking in 1982 and didn't encounter that empty house until a few years later.  It was a March morning and cold, just like in the dream.  I'd been away for some ten days, and I wasn't surprised to find the house empty.  There'd been a big disagreement between me and the wife before I left, and I expected her to be gone when I returned.  I'd almost forgotten the dream until I stuck my key into the front door lock and heard it echo inside . . . and yes, the house was indeed empty except for a few of my things.  That was the coldest day of my life, and I was 43 years old at the time.  Within six months, I was divorced, and within a year had a new life started with another woman, the one I'm married to now.  It was a good trade - good for everyone concerned.

I think of my life in two parts - the first forty years and the years since then.  The last part has been much better than the first forty . . . until the past few years.  Now, I'm worn out, and I want out.  Lately, I've been dreaming about places I've never seen before, and about people I don't know.  The dreams are almost pleasant, and if they're in some way uncomfortable, they're at least entertaining.  I don't remember much about most dreams, just little pieces of them, and that's probably for the better.  I don't have much to be unhappy about, and I'm not miserable by a long stretch.  I'm just disabled, or unabled, or whatever you want to call it.  My mind is still active, but my body has quit me, disallowed me to do the things I want most to do.  The body and soul should die at the same time.  A trapped mind is an awful thing, and the better the mind, the more devastating the entrapment.  My mind wants out of this old body, and that comes out in my dreams.  I'm waiting on that dream that shows me where I'm headed after my worn out body finally gives up.  I'm hoping for a farm, lots of animals, that sort of thing.

So, dream, old man, dream.  It might just come true.

CROSSROADS: LIFE'S QUESTION MARKS

I don't remember when I reached the first major junction in my life, but I'm almost sure I took the wrong road.  If I sat down and thought hard enough, I might remember most of the crossroads that appeared along life's highway . . . but I don't want to do that.  How many wrong roads have I taken?  And how would I know for sure it was the wrong road?  I can answer the second question.  Where you end up reveals whether or not you made a good choice at the crossroads.  The destination of a road we pick at these junctions or crossroads is seldom known to us, and we call that uncertainty.  The most difficult thing any of us deal with in life is this uncertainty.

My family is small, just a couple of kids now in their forties, and a couple of grandkids - a 21 year old, and an 18 year old.  I'm the only surviving grandpa, and I know some things about crossroads.  From what I can determine at this point, my kids and grandkids haven't figured out which road to take.  So far, their choices have been mostly wrong, and there are always consequences to taking wrong roads.  My two grown children have been through their wild and wooly years, have taken a beating doing it (lots of wrong turns), and are starting to make wiser decisions.  The two grandkids are at least consistent - wrong road always, ignoring sometimes the right one even though it is plainly marked.  Do you remember those marked crossroads?  How many wrong roads did you take even forewarned that it was treacherous?  Yeah, me too, but I'm old now and know better.  I pay attention to signs now.

I come from a family of high achievers.  Both of my parents were highly educated (one a minister and the other an educator), and they demanded the same of me.  I resisted at first, but the constant pressure they put on me finally paid off.  Like any good parent, they tried to point out the roads I should take when presented with crossroads . . . but I didn't pat attention.  Life beat me up a lot - yeah, a whole lots, and it finally beat me to my knees.  It's easier to pay attention when you're on your knees because by then, you're finally humble.  Listening takes a certain amount of humility, and it took lots of suffering to bring me to that point.  I was forty years old when I finally took a right road, started building a life based on taking into consideration the signs life also gives us.  Sometime finding the signs that tell us which road to take is hard because they aren't all that obvious, but they are there.

I made sure both of my kids got good educations, tried to point the way for them as they chose professions and got on with their lives.  My two grandkids are struggling right now because they're all puffed up with youthful arrogance . . . and ignorances.  I've got big time investment in both of these young people, but I've reached a crossroads myself.  Should I follow the road of intervention, do my best to get in the way of their wrong road choices, or should I become an observer and watch as life beats them up?  Which is the wise road?  I chose the road of intervention with my own children, and I did that with a firm and demanding hand.  Doing that took a lot out of me, and I'm tired now.  I'm just the grandpa, not the parent, and I choose the road of the observer.  That means I've taken the road of letting go, but I've traveled it before . . . and it's a bitch.

AND THE ANSWER IS?

NO!  Not just no, but hell no!

I'm coming up with a standard answer these days.  Just say no.  Here are a few.

No, I don't want to go to dinner at an expensive restaurant.  No, I don't want a new car.  No, I don't want to go to your church.  No, I don't want to take a cruise . . . anywhere.  No, I will not respond to your text message.  No, I don't want a drink of anything with alcohol in it.  No, I will not loan you my pickup truck.  No, I will not loan you money (unless you're a kid or grandkid).  No, I will not enter your contest.  No, my tools are not for loan.  No, I will not buy your foreign raised anything (like Walmart fish).  No, I will not wait for hours if my appointment was at 10:00 o'clock.  No, I will not stand in line to see a movie.  No, I will not attend a concert with you (Unless it's James Taylor or some other entertainer I admire).  No, I will not donate to any national fundraiser.  No, you can't have one of my cats.  No, I do not want to be a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness.  No, I won't write a poem for you.  No, I won't play guitar and sing for you.  No, I won't go Black Friday shopping with you.  No, I won't go tubing down the Guadalupe with you.  No, I will not play golf with you.  No, I won't watch Duck Dynasty or any other redneck show with you.  No, you can't have free copies of my books (unless I owe you).  No, you can't sell my collected stuff on ebay (until I'm dead).  No, I will never euthanize an animal out of convenience.  No, I will not go hunting with you.  No, I will not go on vacation with you (unless you're my wife).  And no, you don't have to read this idiotic blog if you don't want to (I should've said that first, right?)

MY LAST GRADUATION (THANK GOD)!

Thank you Lord for endings, and for me there will be no more graduations.  As a retired college professor, I've seen lots of college graduation ceremonies.  I sat on the stage with other faculty members and watched with great anticipation . . . that it would soon end.  Graduation ceremonies for those who aren't there to see a relative graduate can be dismal affairs, and the more of them I attended, the more I hated them.  I only went through one graduation ceremony and that was to receive my M.A.  Found a way to get out of all the others, and there are several diplomas hanging on my office wall.  I attended my daughter's high school graduation, and her college graduation because that was local, right there at hand.  I didn't attend my son's graduations from high school and college in Arizona because they took place a long way off, and I was tied up with coaching duties.  Now, both of my grandkids have graduated from high school, and I attended both ceremonies, and that's the end of it for me.  I've had enough.

Yeah, I know, graduation is a big deal for the graduate.  And it should be, but graduation ceremonies have deteriorated over the years to where they're little more than a circus event.  I went to a college commencement ceremony at a large university about 15 years ago when my step-daughter got her M.A., left with a bad taste in my mouth.  Tacky.  Just a bunch of celebratory bullshit.  No class.  But the high school commencement I attended this past Friday night topped 'em all when it comes to being tacky.  My granddaughter was graduating along with hundreds of other kids from a large high school.  So large, in fact, that they had to have it at the city civic center.  I'm just guessing, but at least twenty thousand people showed up.  I paid ten bucks to park a half mile away from the building, then got a seat so far away from the stage set-up that you couldn't see much, unless you looked at the big video screen.  At the doors coming into the place, searches were conducted of bags and purses to make sure nobody brought in celebratory stuff - air horns, balloons, etc.  And they actually sold soft drinks, popcorn, and stuff like that.  Are you kidding me?  At a high school graduation?

It was a lengthy process, and as always with modern commencements, tacky . . . big time tacky.  Disgustingly tacky and low class.  I saw one man wearing a suit - one.  I wore a white shirt and dress slacks, stood out like a sore thumb among folks dressed like they were headed to a beach party.  But in the midst of all of that bullshit ceremonial stuff, something really nice was taking place.  Lots of happy kids were on display, their show, their time to be center stage.  The old days and old ways are gone now, replaced by a lightweight display of what should be more dramatic, more of a memorable event.  But that's me, and I'm old, and it's not my graduation.  I'm out of it now, won't ever feel compelled to attend another commencement.  Perhaps those two grandkids will graduate from college, but one miserable old man won't be there.  I'm done with graduations, and they'll just have to understand that.