A Time for Hugs or Humbugs

Well I am feeling the Spirit.  The Holiday Spirit is everywhere.  It is a little harder to feel it when we live in California or Florida but it is there if you look for it.  One of my favorite Christmas stories is "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.  I love the gradual change that takes place in the heart of Scrooge but more than that, I love the indictment of society that he represents.  

His reaction to those men who come to him for a donation to the poor is to say "are there no workhouses?"  and "let them die and decrease the excess population".  I see that attitude everywhere and it strikes at the heart of why we have such a divided country and world and why most people live lives of quiet desperation.  

I hope that you can look around and see the generosity and human kindness that is also in the world.  It may be a challenge, but I have faith that it is there.  Be of good cheer and be the one who brings cheer to others. 

 Remember Tiny Tim who says, "God bless us, everyone."

Jack Caselles

 November 8, 2022

Well, here I am again.  

The truth is that I don't believe that anyone is reading these little messages, but I feel that I need to put down my thoughts on occasion, if for no-one else to read but me.  I have been reading a diary I wrote back in August of 1983, while on a solo vagabond trip to France and Spain.  It speaks to a sense of freedom that I had to go anywhere and the feeling of self worth that it brings.  It also speaks of the longing I had to be with my sweet Vera and our children.  To paraphrase a line from a book, how sweet were my memories then.  

Since my last entry, we have sold our old house and our wonderful RV.  We tried to adapt to SeniorLiving and now rent a home a mere block away from our old home.  The plan was always to buyahouse in a nice community, fix it up, raise our children, wait for the value of the home to rise to a point determined to provide us with comfortable retirement.  The plan worked.  The children gone, the price where we wanted it to be and so we put it up and away we went in our 33' Winnebago.  If you are waiting for the other shoe to drop, it didn't.  Thanks to my dad for teaching me the skills to put together

a plan to take care of my family.  

Today is election day.  This is the day that our overwhelming government has to provide its citizen the right to "voice".  But this is not just a voice to complain or spread ridiculous ideologies, it is a duty and pleasure to take part in our Democracy.  We live in a country and maybe a world that is self indulgent to the point that we think we can determine what is or is not the truth.  A fact is a fact no matter how many people say the contrary!  The world is not flat!  Nearly half of the population of these United States, believe that a man who defies all social and moral principals is qualified to determine what is truth, moral, ethical or medical.  

I am saddened to see so many of my friends die.  Ever since the early days of my youth my friends have died.  George Pierner, Barbara Pope, Arnie Page, Marc Trummel, Jim Wyatt just to name a few.  Friends who are gone, not because of age but of a wealth of other reasons.  I thank God for long life, I can do nothing to be worthy of His gifts.  I just hope that He can use me and that I can stay the course and run the good race.  

It has been 11 years!

   It has been eleven years since I started talking to myself on this "blog".  Somehow it is satisfying to be able to speak what's on my my and have only the dog to respond to it.  Yet, I don't really speak my mind because there is the chance that someone that I care about might be hurt to read it.  We all have pain and disappointment that is caused by friends and family that hurts deeply but that we cannot speak about because they still are important and mean so much to us.  I like to give the impression that I am a tough guy and that I am OK with letting people go when they hurt me, but that is really not how it is.  John Wayne said, "Forgive you enemy, but remember the bastards name."   That is true but at the same time you try not to loose a person only because they broke your heart.   

  I have been trying to keep busy during the pandemic by making little things out of clay.  It is pleasing to see something nice come from the labor (passion) of your hands.                            

     

                                                                                            

(see Instagram:   10 Saguaro )

Another Year (looking back - looking forward)

                                                Happy Birthday 

    

Grateful! The first word that comes to my mind on this day is Grateful!  Grateful for the gift of life. None it is said are given to know the day or hour of our death, and so just to have lived this long and to have seen the fabulous technical, medical, and intellectual progress this world has made in my lifetime, gives me a feeling of joy in our collective accomplishments.  Grateful to have been given enough time to realize that courage, loyalty, generosity, and love, are the real important things in life.

  I watched my Dad die at the age of 61, my uncles in their 60s and 70s. Almost ALL of my "friends" are dead of Agent Orange or Cancer or just stupid behavior.  I often wondered how old I would get and asked God to give me long life so that I could finally get my life together!  In my late 20s I met my sweet Vera, and it was as if God had said, "Now I set you on the right path".  

  Today I become an octogenarian!  Hah!  I don't even know what that is supposed to mean.  I feel the same as I did in my 20s.  Crazy as it sounds I feel as though I could still play football and ski my pants off.  Of course my body tells me differently, especially when I have to get down on the ground and then get up.  OOF!   I am grateful for Aqua Aerobics and walking to keep me moving.  I am grateful for my hobby/passion, Ceramics.  Making things out of dirt has open the doors to friendships, travel, mental growth, and a general direction for life.  I have my own studio in my home, including a slab roller, a new kiln, and a fine new potters wheel.  I teach seniors how to make pretty things and watch many of them grow with their interests.  

  The future is bright with our children and grandchildren leading the way.  It is wonderful to think how we can be of help to them in the future.  If I was asked to give advice at this time it would be, "If you want to be a leader, get moving" and, "Never slow down, something may just catch up with you", and finally, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got".

A New President - A New Peace?

  Fear, anger hate are all hard wired and sit inside us like ticking time bombs. So why don't we all go running through the streets with flaming torches and pitchforks?  The fuel that feeds these emotions comes from what I call the " empowered leader".  This leader given voice by extreme radio broadcasters and some evangelical preachers, is free to feed the "big lie" to simple needy people who will follow forever if their fears, anger and hate are not addressed.  

I wrote these words before the tragic and disgraceful attempt to overthrow a legally cast and counted election, and the peaceful transfer of power as outlined in the Constitution, and that is so sacred to this country.  Those who were fed lies by their champion and empowered leader sought to take over Congress by violent and life threatening means, including kidnapping and murder.  Some carrying bombs, nooses, and clubs.  

Some of those misled people have been apprehended but those that led and planned the atrocity in Washington, have not and probably will never be held accountable.  Soon we will turn the page that closed one chapter and begins a new one.  What a great opportunity we have for change!

We are not there yet, but some day, the people of this country will begin to remember that We are better than we were.  We must begin to listen to the voices of those to whom we disagree.  We must avoid the flames of discord, we need to  give VOICE to those who feel they have none, and then we must LISTEN.

This is the challenge we must all take up.

"Count yourself lucky if you live in exciting times"

  

  The Chinese have said, “that you should count yourself lucky if you live in exciting times.”  Hah! A lot they know.  2020 has been a year of incredible variation, a roller coaster of events political, medical astronomical and .... we ain't done yet!  Needless to say, when hundreds of thousands of Americans and people all over the world are struck down and some (way to many) die from viral infection, that it takes number one in the events of this year.  We have seen the Corona Virus (Covid-19) grow in this country from 19 in June to over 200 thousand in November. (54,805,521 cases in the world today.)   

 This is an election year, the normal, peaceful, exchange of ideas leading to the election and peaceful transition of leaders in a democratic republic, the United States of America.  What a joke!  The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was led begun by bullying and mean spirited attacks by Trump on his opponent, Hillary Clinton, on  national TV and in the digital and the Right Wing media. 

   What ensued was a series of over hundred national embarrassments, including having to pay his mistress (a porn star) compensation so that she would not testify against him in court.  He embarrassed the people of the U.S. with foreign confrontations and general incompetence, not seen in the White House in modern history.   The normal checks and balances directed in the Constitution disappeared in a flash.  

  The Executive Branch lead by Mr. Trump hired cronies and incompetents to lead cabinet and departments as long as they were loyal to the President.  The House and Senate were united as the Legislative branch of HIS government.  The Supreme Court was hanging on by a thread to maintain an impartial Judicial Branch.  It seemed as though we had gone from a democracy to an Oligarchy in the blink of an eye.  Lucky for us the House achieved  a Democratic majority in the mid-term elections.  Still the Senate dominated by a Republican Majority and a Speaker, Mitch McConnell, so enamored by Mr. Trump that no policy suggested by the Democrats, could clear the Senate and become law.  That included even laws that would provide health care for those in need during a worldwide pandemic.  

  Every time one of the President's appointees made a statement or appeared to disagree with him, he had him fired!  The President filled one after another National Judges with those that would bring his followers closer.  This group of national supporters numbered in the millions and threatened a civil ideological war.  Trump even suggested that the U.S. buy Greenland! (A surprise to the citizens and leaders of that country)  He called countries he disagreed with "shit holes" and even pushed the Prime Minister of Montenegro so that he could have a better spot for a photo shoot.  

   Then the bottom fell out!  The last warrior in the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, died.  It seemed that the rights won by women, people of color and the Gay community would be erased in the next session of the court.  A Trump appointee was a true wing nut and it seemed all was lost.  

His Life, How I see it

Yesterday my Dad would have been 120 years old!

     My dad was an immigrant from Spain. He and my uncle came to America in 1914 through Ellis Island and worked as laborers on Hwy 1 (the old Boston Post Road).  He settled in California and soon saw enough similarities with the climate of the Glendale foothills that he moved his family there.  
     To say that I have respect for him would be an understatement.  He was the kind of man who held the respect of other men and the envy of their wives.  He was a solid man, who gave his word and never failed to keep it.  He never made things difficult for me, his way was to let every bump in the road become a learning experience.  He was my safety net and my guide. 

     My birthday is exactly one week from his.  I will be, God willing, "four score" years!  At this point, I have lived 20 years longer than he did.  He did hard labor (I never did) and he was a smoker, (I never smoked).  He lived through a civil war in Spain but caught the Influenza, the so called "Spanish" flu although it originated on a military base in the USA.  He loved his family in Spain and visited them with his family.  It was not easy to afford but he took my mother and I to Spain for a summer.  He loved to grow things and was never happier than when he, with a cigarette hanging from his lips and his pats rolled up to his knees, was out in the mud tenting to his garden.  

     He represents many others who came to this country to start a new life.  He spoke a broken English but made sure that I learned an eloquent sort of English so that speech would never be the stumbling block to me as it had been to him.  He worked to earn his way, paid his taxes, eventually became an American citizen and for all, was a contributing member of the American society. He was all this in the midst of a society that demeaned his kind, tolerated him as an immigrant, and refused him an equal place in a country that he had happily helped to build.

     He was an example of a disappearing type of man.  Protective of his family, a stalwart of society, a "no nonsense" man with a great smile.  In short, a great dad.