I took time off from writing essays so that I could focus on completing the MS of my forthcoming book. Task completed. It’s now in the hands and before the eyes of my editor and several beta readers. Concentrating on that solely had side benefits. It provided a respite from the other focus of my writing: Penning essays on topics related to our current socio-political situation. And it helped refresh my batteries. A writer’s version of coming up for air.…
We’re never too old to learn or to be reminded about truths and principles that have been forgotten along the way. Oftentimes, they were originally picked up or gleaned from pithy lines in stories from our youth. One about personal power and action comes from the classic film, The Empire Strikes Back. Recall the scene in which Luke Skywalker crash-lands into a swamp on Dagobah and meets Yoda. At first, Luke is dismissive of Yoda, thinking him to be little…
Good piece. Well said.
I got an early gift from my sister. She had called to tell me to expect a package. As we chatted, I detected a bit of urgency in her voice when she told me to pick it up from the post office as soon as it arrived. Fortuitously, it got here earlier than the USPS had predicted. When I got it from the staff at the counter, I quipped that the USPS must’ve fed the pony extra oats. They laughed.…
Jerry, as always, your accurate assessment of our current state of affairs leaves me wondering what more each of us might do to improve . . . well, just about everything. Thank you for sharing your memories. They’re always thoughtfully grounding.
Governments aside, we can donate food if we’re able to. I think we sometimes forget at our power is in our ability to act, whether or not the government does, and that ability is where real change for the good happens.
Yum!. I want some! I’m still thinking of the pizzelles. Of course, I just have to make them. Such a delicious memory to then compare it to there are starving kids in our country as you were one growing up definitely hits home. Mum talked about it seldom. We as a nation have and should distribute the resources so that we don’t have hungry, starving children, adults, or even pets. There is no excuse. Not for this nation. Not in this day and age. Supposedly, we’ve come a long way since the 1950s and 1960s.
I wish that our leaders realize their priorities-the lesson from King Midas, you can’t eat gold, but you can eat pizzelles! Merry Christmas Jerry!
In the beginning, the United Sates was divided sectionally between free states and states where slavery was lawful. But the border eventually became blurred, then obliterated. After the war with Mexico, slave owners sought to expand their power into the territories Mexico ceded to the United States in 1848. Then in 1857, they saw their power substantially increased by the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision that declared slave owners could take “their property” wherever they wanted throughout the United…
I have seen much of Ken Burn’s creations and saw part one of his American Revolution series. I always enjoy his format where voices speak and then give their names. As a Vietnam Vet, I especially related to that series.
As to this “continuing revolution” to insure the continuing health of America I say put down the signs and admit that we just have to give ourselves another enema once again.
In the early nineteenth century, there was debate, driven by the institution of slavery, about the foundational aspects of America. It focused on both the morality and legality of slavery given the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that all men are created equal and have inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Abolitionists maintained the Constitution’s three-fifths clause abjectly contradicted that assertion and cited those words for the justification for abolishing slavery. After the 1857 Dred Scott decision,…
Raise your hand if you enjoyed your history classes. Take a moment to reflect on why you did or didn’t. Now consider whether your feelings about studying history have changed. If so, how? Are they the same? Are you more interested? Or might you still not find it engaging? Assume you’re writing your autobiography. Think about its structure and what you would include. Would it be a timeline, a compilation of factoids? Would you describe how you dealt with and…
What you speak of in this essay is really important, especially in this time when our “hollow” leaders brag of having “alternative facts”, a statement which scares me into going back to my Orwellian days of 1984.
“ Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.”
We Americans are a religious people. About seventy percent profess a dogmatic faith, primarily Christianity. The rest of us are a hodgepodge—spiritualists, atheists, and more—affectionally or disparagingly, depending on the source, lumped into a group called Nones. For the most part, we maintain a live-and-let-live attitude about another’s belief or non-belief. That wasn’t always the case, but over the years we’ve become better at it. We still have work to do on that, but that’s a discussion for another time.…
Amen, brother! Love how you show the parallelism between our Bill of Rights and the Ten Commandments. If only our current “leaders” were as erudite.
I take issue that 70 percent of people in this country profess to be religious. It reminds me of Rolling Stone Magazine asked in a poll, “Where you at Woodstock?”. Over two million persons replied, “Yes.” Anyhow, my favorite quote on the subject of church and state comes from Senator Sam Ervin:
“Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion.”
I would love to see t-shirts with Voltaire’s quote. Thank you for reminding me of it!
September 11th Eve was another of all-too-often dismal days. Within minutes, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed and a sixteen-year-old student at Evergreen HS wounded two fellow students in a rampage before turning the gun on himself. Due to the school’s lockdown protocols, fortunately no others were wounded. Physically. Mentally and emotionally, the surviving students along with the Utah Valley University students joined the ever-widening ranks of those who’ve survived similar mass shootings and are scarred for life. There…
It is hard to believe the with the nine levels of angels in heaven, we can’t get out of this mess.
“ Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
John F. Kennedy
In the classic film High Noon, Marshal Will Kane faces a gut-wrenching choice between staying and confronting the bad guys who are coming after him or running. The story, however, goes beyond one man’s struggle with his conscience. It has meaning at the macro, societal level. Although there are a plethora of roles in the film, only a half dozen or so are significant. They include Amy, Will’s new bride; Helen, his longtime female friend; and Harvey, his deputy. Most…
One of my favorite quotes is by Thoreau- “The mass of men lead quiet lives of desperation…..” . The masses deserve what they get when led by “Hollow men”. As a sidebar, Jerry, check out the movie “Outland” starring Sean Connery. It is a futuristic movie with a “High Noon” storyline.
Good essay, Jerry. I looked up why John Wayne detested the film (along with his frequent director Howard Hawks). He really missed the point of the film. Trump would sound like Wayne these days.
Recently, Xcel Energy needed to replace one of their poles. Since the project would require time, they gave notice that we’d be without electricity for about eight hours. But complications set in. Eight hours turned into ten then nearly twelve before power was restored. A little over an hour later, it went off again. By that time, it was pitch dark. A moonless night without a street light to break it. The affected area was silhouetted. If I weren’t exhausted…
Jerry, I can relate to long outages. Last year, I had multiples. One was roughly twenty-four hours, and I was scrambling to keep my standing freezer full of meat cold enough to avoid losing hundreds of dollars of meat. Apart from that, it was the kind of inconvenience that reminded me (as it did you) how lucky we are to have (mostly) reliable electricity.
During an outage of some sort last year, I noticed the guys (it was an all-guy crew) had been at it for a long time and asked if they would like some bottled flavored water. They were happy for the offer. I brought them some baked goods along with the water. And whenever anyone is working on anything at my house, I make sure they understand that the bathrooms are available for their use. It’s surprising to me how often I hear that people are annoyed if they want/need to use a customer’s bathroom. Seriously? How does humanity get lost in the shuffle.
This year, I’ve had ongoing issues with the cooling/heating mini-split head in my bedroom, necessitating numerous trips to my house by my HVAC people. I’ve made breakfast for my HVAC guy on several occasions. He’s come to my house on more than one Sunday–on what is essentially his day off. Breakfast and my unending gratitude are the least I can do.
I’m a solopreneur, so I have “customers” (I think of them as my authors and clients) I do work for. Only on occasion is one of them less than gracious, and as the XCel Energy guy, so to speak, I’m grateful for that. It makes my work a joy. I try to remember that with other laborers–because anyone working for payment is in one way or another a laborer.
Happy Labor Day to all. And just as many think we should keep the spirit of Christmas all year round, I think we should also keep the spirit of remembering to respect and honor one another as laborers all year round.
Way to go, Jerry, As a very lucky educator, I had the honor of teaching in two newly constructed facilities and was very thankful to those who labored in both its construction and its maintenance Thank you Jerry in reminding us who are the real people who make this country great.
“ It is the working man who is a happy man.
It is the idle man who is a miserable man.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Very nice. And I agree .. cheers to them and the many others who actually hafta work on the holiday meant for them (and us) They keep this country running.
Thanks for the reminder !!
Much love!!
Thanks, Jerry, Melanie, Glenn, and Patty, for the gentle and timely reminder about the important people who labor for us! Our lives would surely be different without their work, spirit, pride and dedication to their jobs! Happy Labor Day!
……. a non-Bronco fan
Growing up in an alleyway in a steel town, we knew, often by name, the people who collected garbage, delivered mail and newspapers and the huckster who sold vegetables from a small truck. The water supply line would break at times and we ran out with pots and pans to the water truck. The parish priest walked around the streets and alleys and us kids, whether in the church or not, ran out to see him. There were problems for sure, but more of a sense of shared humanity. Now it’s easy to become angry when internet service is interrupted. As you point out, we easily take for granted that the water with run, and the lights will go on. Thanks for the Labor Day reminder.
In Walden, or Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau encourages us to “simplify, simplify.” It’s sound wisdom. The reason being there’s a strong correlation between complexity in one’s life and their allostatic load. When one simplifies, they have less to tend with and worry about. The problem is that in our increasingly complicated society, and by extension our personal lives, simplifying is not as simple a process as it was in Thoreau’s day. Seniors who accept they’re performing their…
Ahhh Jerry, you missed the simple solutions from both movies. In Casablanca it was “Round up the usual suspects.” In Last Crusade it was “ Count to ten….in Greek.” See how simple?
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” A few essays back, I ruminated on what Peggy Noonan called a certain idea of America. I avoided making a definitive assertion about what it is because it’s an enigmatic notion, open to speculation to those who muse about what America was, is, and will be. I did, though,…
American culture has many virtues. Near the top is society’s languid, easy-going, unhurried pace. It borders on torpor. It’s uplifting to observe strangers smiling and offering greetings when they pass and so many rolling with punches, not getting into tiffs over trivial slights. And you can’t beat the civility, comity, and respect with which Americans treat each other, even those with whom they strongly disagree. But what warms the heart’s cockles most is the populace’s appreciation for good-natured ribbing, chuckle-causing…
Jerry, it’s helpful to focus on how our lives are defined by time and its passage. At some point, as a young child, I realized that it was possible to plan future events (it was a revelation that the TV guide let me know when to watch a favorite show in the next week). At this point my sense of being solely in the here and now ended. As you point out, in America our perception of time is inherent in our language, unlike some other cultures. Understanding this, we can perhaps realize its limitations.
Time is precious and finite during this lifetime. When I hear people say, “I am just killing time” I want to remind them that they would be better served using their time wisely rather than wishing it would pass quickly. When someone mentions that time is flying, they need to remember that they are the pilot.
Charles Schultz said of time- “Don’t worry about the world ending today, it’s already tomorrow in Australia”
I love Paul Simon’s 1968 hit, “America.” It captures the soul of a wandering, wondering young man in search of his identity and the role he’s to play now that he’s an adult. After she’s dozed off, he confides to his friend Cathy that he’s lost. I identify with that state of mind. At eighteen, I too was lost, and now in my ripened age, at times it feels as if I’ve come full circle. I sometimes wonder if this…
Yes, Jerry. I fully relate to the nomadic inclination. I believe change is a good thing. Keeps us on our toes! That said, i send my wishes to the Universe every day that this horrific setback in our rights as Americans under this new regime will end far sooner than anticipated. As an Army veteran, I love the United States I joined to serve, and I want those United States back.
I remember reading in my American History text that our parents and grandparents came over in “waves”. Now we are told they come as an “invasion”. It is a shame that a nation of immigrants chooses to despise other immigrants.
Thank you for a very thoughtful article.
Good one!
What is a country? What makes it up? Is it an enclosed area populated by people speaking a common language, honoring certain customs and traditions, and practicing similar religions? Are there traits a country’s people share? Perhaps love for a particular sport: football, sumo wrestling, rugby. Or cuisine: lasagna, frog legs, sushi. What about size and history? Ideas abound when thinking of a country’s makeup. My questions aren’t meant to be a query into geo-political dynamics but instead to…
“Killer Angels” is such a powerful and beautifully written book. I’ll read it again. Thank you, Jerry. Your musings always make me muse!
Its true ! We need to remember the dirty gritty details and learn from the good AND the bad. You can’t just erase things. How else did we get to where we are?
I read this book a few years back… Killer Angels. Amazing detail, and another that I had trouble “putting down”.
Thank you for all you do! I enjoy reading your thoughts ♡
Glenn Blanco
February 5, 2026 at 5:30 pmIt’s too bad our constitutional leaders don’t go by NFL rules. When the game is over the score is final. The winner celebrates and the loser goes and cries in their beer. It’s too bad we don’t have a leader who never learned to lose and never learned to cry in an ice cold brewski. We would all be better off if that were so.
Froggy
February 8, 2026 at 10:54 pmWere we this divided when Kent State happened? If we were, in time we will come back together just as we eventually did after those protests. Just hope it’s before we women are wearing burkas, speaking Farsi or bending at the waist speaking Mandarin. Speaking Spanish is the least of our worries. In the meantime, we’re all walking on eggshells. waiting for calm to return. Bills winning or Broncos winning seem not so important anymore to me. If it works for others to not think of today’s unrest, outstanding. Because whatever change is coming, is coming regardless. Enjoy the game while you can.