Those of an age likely recall Don McLean’s 1972 megahit, “American Pie.” Though an easily sung, melodic tune, the song is a stream of forlorn allusions that when woven together become an elegy, a melancholy paean to a time past, a pop rendition of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. “American Pie” came on the heels of a tempestuous decade, which had followed a superficially placid, bland one. Some critics rank it among the great pop songs. Although its place in music…
I’ve begun reading Peggy Noonan’s latest book. It’ll take me a while to complete. The reason isn’t because it’s extraordinarily long or complex or that it’s one of several I’m immersed in. It’s because it’s an exceptionally thoughtful and calming read. Peggy was a speech writer for Ronald Reagan and is currently a Wall Street Journal columnist. As such, friends and long-time readers might be surprised that I’m wending my way through her work, but they ought not to be.…
When it comes to our nation’s history, I’m a romantic. I can’t help it. I love learning more about it…one can never know it all. I don’t mean romantic in a simplistic my-country-right-or-wrong, love-it-or-leave-it sense. Far from it. I embrace it all, the great along with the despicable. For if one cannot bear hearing uncomfortable truths, they’re quite the shallow character. When we read stories from our past, it’s natural to focus on acts of courage and triumph. That’s because…
The Revolutionary War began in April 1775 at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. After the Shot Heard Round the World, there could be no compromise. The American rebellion either had to be crushed, or it had to succeed. Twenty months into the war, Thomas Paine wrote it was a time that tried men’s souls. The situation was grim. The Continental Army was back on its heels, but that didn’t deter those fighting for their rights. They stiffened their resolve…
When writing “The Gift for Hope” for Food for Thought: Essays on Mind and Spirit, I approached The Great Gatsby from the concept of hope. The reason was Jay Gatsby modeled unbounded, albeit irrational, hope. Although his deep-seated hope is what Nick Carraway, the story’s narrator, chiefly carries away when he thinks of Gatsby, he has another takeaway: Complete disgust with those that preyed upon him, even though Gatsby represents everything for which Nick has “an unaffected scorn.” “No,” he…
Well said, Jerry. I’ve wanted to reread The Great Gatsby for a while. Maybe it’s time.
Gatsby has always haunted this country’s emotional landscape. It’s like the richly apoointed house on the hill looking out over the valley of despair. Upton Sinclair hung out in the valley so thanks to those like him for presenting both views. Most of the general American public is ignorant of both of these great writers of historical fiction . In fact, dare I say, that most Americans today “frankly, don’t give a damn” about anything. Toxic masculinity hangs like a ghost-like cloud over much of the everyday take of politics and culture. “Wokeness” conveniently takes the place of the should-be targets of change, both socially and economically. The widening wealth gap is like the “widening gyre” in Yeats’ prescient poem, The Second Coming. The “best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity…” As Gatsby might have observed: Oh woes is us!
Regret is an interesting concept. We generally use it when thinking about stupid decisions we made, harmful acts we performed, or positive acts we should’ve done but didn’t. We also use it trivially, like in being invited to a gathering and the invitation says, “Regrets only.” That usage, however, could be problematic for recipients if they didn’t want to attend the soiree in the first place. Should they lie and say they regret not being able to make it? Such…
I’ve long been in agreement with your approach on this, Jerry. If I go back to the woman I was at thirty, it’s hard to regret what she said, did, or thought because that woman was the composite of her life up to that point–not the woman who is now going to turn seventy-six in a couple of weeks. We need to cut ourselves (and everyone else) a little slack about the past.
I can’t see the word “regrets” without thinking of my late husband’s little play on words with it. He would draw a little picture of an egret and write, “Egrets? I’ve had a few.”
Thanks again, Jerry, for these philosophical reminders to be as human as we can be in world that seems to be decaying around us. Living in regret is living in constant sorrow.
“A fever called Living.” It’s a line in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “To Annie.” I was so moved by it that I instantly decided it would make an ideal theme and perfect title for an essay. But like what unfailingly happens when I write, thoughts and words veered in the direction they would. “To Annie” is a melancholy paean about resting serenely in the afterlife. Perhaps it was Poe’s notion of heaven. Maybe, but the poem indirectly alludes to the…
Nice and cozy article about the reach of the human race! Thank you, Jerry, for reminding us that there IS such a thing as humanistic spiritualism.
When I began teaching freshman English, I knew I faced a challenge. Years of teaching eighth graders had taught me girls would read pretty much whatever I put before them. Boys, though, were a different story. By their early teens, they had been conditioned—programmed—to believe reading and writing were for girls and math and science were “masculine.” And if there is one thing most adolescent boys want to prove, it’s they’re “real men.” Fortunately for me such a man serendipitously…
Jerry, this was wonderful and so true. I look back and wonder how I became such a voracious reader without a teacher like you. My biggest influence was my father who didn’t read for pleasure but told wonderful stories each night before bed. And libraries were a refuge for an unpopular kid like me. Your students were very lucky.
You applied in the classroom what I didn’t grasp until after I left the classroom.
Jerry, you’ve said it so well, I’m clapping and have little to respond to. You’ve made me contemplate the possibility that some of the closed-mindedness and divisiveness in our society might be related to the decline in reading by a big chunk of the population. If true, that’s a hugely important reason to encourage reading and talk about books.
I wish I’d had you as a teacher! Thank you for giving me hope that my fiction may influence readers to think.
Jerry, in our common high school experience many decades ago, we were assigned reading lists for reading over the summer or holidays. I still remember the anticipation of opening a copy of The Brothers Kalamazov or The Return of the Native. I’ve revisited these books over the years and learned how good books can transport me into another reality. Now I’ll occasionally pick a random book off the shelf with the intention of experiencing what it has to tell me, something I don’t already know. I wish I could thank those teachers we had back then as I’m sure some of your former students feel the same.
So well said, Jerry. It makes me feel good about being both an avid reader and a writer.
“These are times that try men’s soul.” So wrote Thomas Paine in The American Crisis on December 19, 1776. Six days later on Christmas Night, General George Washington led his Continental Army command across the ice-choked Delaware River for a surprise attack on Hessian mercenaries who were carousing in their warm barracks in Trenton, NJ. It was a military stroke of genius, one that gave the struggling nascent independence movement hope. A year to the day after Paine published his…
I agree, Jerry, nicely said. Where has that “Spirit of seventy six” gone from our leadership. Why are there so many “Hollow men” playing patriot games in our government?
I fondly recall the tour I took of Hearst’s Castle on the California coast. I hadn’t planned on it, but when I saw how the woman at the welcome center, after I told her I had just watched Citizen Kane, huffed about how the movie was NOT a fair representation of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst’ life, I couldn’t resist. I have to admit I was not disappointed. The tour was quite interesting. I entered the hallowed bedrooms where the…
Nice tease, Jerry, but in the winter of my discontent I’ll just take a ride downhill on my sled “Rosebud”.
On our first date when my husband-to-be learned that The Winter of Our Discontent is one of my favorite books, he read it the next day. How could I not marry him?
The great American poet Maya Angelou once proclaimed, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” It’s a powerful, incisive statement. It cuts through the fog of dissemination, obfuscation, and doublespeak. Maya’s maxim is generally quoted in context of an individual person, but it can be applied more broadly to a group, region, or country. The dust is settling from the 2024 elections, and the post-mortems keep rolling in. For the most part, the experts’ analyses…
Jerry, Another thoughtful and timely essay. Teachy, not preachy! I fear too many people this time around went with their gut rather than doing the hard work of researching. I fear this time around will be quite different from #45’s first term.
Once again you’ve hit my own nail on the head. While researching “Golden Visas” and Canadian immigration, I’ve come to realize that as a Colorado native, I am for the moment, safe. I am a white, upper-middle class, older woman so many of the impending disasters, ignorant actions, and looming losses will not be felt by me as intensely as younger, non-white, poor, females. For the moment, I plan to hunker down, safeguard my resources and assets as best I can, and like you, “age out” the disaster of the next years. Thanks for reminding me I have friends like you who are facing the same dilemmas. If I were younger, I’d definitely “be heading for the hills,” figuratively. Literally, I am and always have been here.
It was a Christmas night like the ones over the years. Close to three dozen of us gathered into our family’s eight hundred square foot house. The little ones played in the cellar and the older kids mingled with the adults who congregated mainly in the dining room, where we sang songs like “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and “Deck the Halls” as Dominick—sister Helen’s husband and family Chet Atkins—played guitar. My mother, who had taken refuge…
Love this. Love your magical, meaningful words but love the remembrance of very “joyful” days. Thanks for that
Much love,
Pooh
Randy singing and Grandma just grinning….. I remember! Joyous times for sure! Bernie
Every once in a while, that moment comes to mind, and it always brings a smile to my face and JOY to my heart! I also remember the Christmas that mum came out of her bedroom and very proudly handed each of the grandchildren (most of whom were teenagers at the time) a one-dollar bill. That moment still brings a tear to my eye and puts a lump in my throat. The adults were shocked as mum didn’t believe in gift giving at Christmas, and the kids were shocked but so grateful and happy and mum was filled with JOY!
Thanks for bringing so great memories back!
It was intriguing to listen to two friends jocularly engage in an exchange about being opinionated. While their back-and-forth was in context of their discussion group, I was hearing it through a philosophical sense. Like what is an opinion? Why have one? When should it be shared? And more. Someone once asserted that opinions are like personal flatulence: Everyone has them and they all stink except one’s own. Of course, that’s an opinion since the assertion hasn’t been—thankfully—empirically tested. Essentially,…
Well, here’s my opinion — in today’s society, sharing an opinion is not always welcome unless it aligns with the masses. I have found that people are often scared to shared an opinion as he or she will be labeled a certain way when he or she is merely trying to express a thought, belief or start a discussion. Rather than encouraging discussions and exchanging of ideas, opinions have become polarized and a way of labeling and no one wants to be labeled these days.
From time to time, we’re shaken by the news that someone we personally knew or knew about took their life. In moments like that, we’re often taken unawares, stunned, and bewildered by the revelation. It makes us wonder, question why it happened and why we missed clues they were at extreme personal risk. That’s particularly true when the person who commits suicide is young or never exhibited suicidal tendencies. A primary reason we’re blindsided is that the idea of suicide…
Thank you for this post, Jerry. It took bravery to write it, and I bow to you.
Jerry, as always, you present difficult topics with sensitivity and respect. Shortly after Robin Williams shocked the world, I wrote a piece about suicide and how I have experienced it. Here’s a link to it on my website: https://leadvillelaurel.com/suicide/
Thank you for thinking deeply and sharing your insights . . . and your grief.
Thanks, Jerry. Suicide is a difficult and often unanswerable topic, and I applaud your efforts to tackle it. I had a friend commit suicide. None of us was surprised. He was bipolar, for one, which likely contributed to it. But that didn’t make the pain any less for the survivors. A character committed suicide in one of my mysteries, a central element of the plot. The reason was very different than the rest of the characters thought. I wonder if that isn’t common in real life. Often, as was the case with Robin Williams, we don’t sense or grasp the demons that lay within someone’s soul.
Have you ever escaped to nature and encountered more than you expected? Feeling embittered after a fracturing of a deep, personal relationship and finding his emotional, psychological, and spiritual energies depleted, Jonathan Slovanco travels to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico for detachment and restoration. He achieves both of these in unexpected ways. Jonathan discovers he’s crossed the portal into the realm beyond the ordinary, where he encounters two beings he had considered mythical and another he had long wished he…