19
Jan
2015
Cowboys, Silly String and Helium
Happy trails to you, until we meet again...
A few evenings ago I watched a movie from a Louis L’Amore Old West story. His stories were always clear about right and wrong, about redeemable and unredeemable, about enduring friendship and love, and certainly about consequences for ones actions.
I’m reminded of the summer when the only thing my friends and I could play is Cowboys and Indians. Kids at our age didn’t have political correctness on our radar; frankly speaking, the idea of that kind of sensitivity wasn’t even invented yet. You may assume as we divided up that most wanted to be Cowboys, but that wasn’t the case. In our world the Indians could easily win too. Some of our games were co-ed; in fact, one variation of our play introduced the nurse/patient relationship to me. Yes, my first experience playing doctor happened that summer (circa 1965). That was certainly a “Happy Trail” day for me, I can tell you that! I shutter to think of my fate had HER mother come down stairs to see why we were suddenly quiet.
Many of my ideas about friendship come from watching westerns. It only took a few episodes of watching Roy Rogers and I understood why every kid should have a horse to call his most faithful friend and confidant. I dreamed of endless nights in the Wild West, sitting by a warm campfire with nothing but freshly cooked beans and a horse for company. Read the rest of this entry »
19
Jan
2015
The Census – What Sense to Us does it make?
The Magnificent Eagle
I recall during the 2004 election season that many well known Hollywood types would offer sound bites expressing fear, even panic, at the thought of another four years with Bush in the White House. Many declared they’d move out of the country for fear of losing their privacy to the Right Wing Wackos, authors of the Patriot Act. In 2008, the same garbage was spewed by “the other side” when the thought of living under the liberal tyranny of an Obama administration loomed. No one has left the country of course, it was all grand standing. Too bad, I don’t think it would be so bad for many of the extremist on both sides of the aisle to depart our borders. I’m not alone in this thinking either. Read the rest of this entry »
19
Jan
2015
Tell Me A Story
"... then I climbed the tree and saved the kitten"
As a very young boy I can recall the times my Grandparents would visit us in Maryland, from their home in Jasper, Indiana. I reveled in Grandpa Oscar’s visits, as did my brother and sisters. Grandma Nelda, on the other hand, was feared more than embraced. My grandparents never seemed to be in much of a rush when they visited, I was too young to understand the stress my grandmother caused in my mother. Grandpa Oscar could always lighten the moments by calling me to his lap, where I would sit and listen to his stories.
One of my fascinations as a youngster was listening to all the tails of bygone times, even injecting myself into these stories as if to claim them as my own.
With practice I could recall them with pin point accuracy, in every detail; it was important to be correct with regard to the fine points because it was the fine points of a story that made it unique. Read the rest of this entry »
19
Jan
2015
Dreams Are Far Behind or What Suit Do I Wear Today? Part I
On the occasion of my first divorce (I hate saying that, it means I’ve had more than one) I went into counseling. I determined my sanity was at stake and didn’t want to be an island after the dust settled. Over the course of my marriage we’d been to counseling on several occasions. We never actually ‘finished’ counseling and each season of it ended the same way, with the counselor merely trying to keep us together, creating ‘distance’ from the crisis. It’s a clever method too, to bring folks down to earth after grievous confrontations. Sadly, it left me without solutions to long standing marital issues. In the end, the marriage died an ugly death. (Related post, Everyone Needs A Starter Marriage) Read the rest of this entry »
19
Jan
2015
My Boy Is Coming Of Age: Redux
Be it a boy or girl, coming of age is not a singular moment in time, but a process, a procession of sorts, by which innocent youth is replaced with whatever is to follow. I wrote about my son coming of age in a blog post (My Boy Is Coming Of Age) October 2006, it would seem the procession continues.
A favorite of mine!
Like most parents, I want my children to “have it better than me” as they grow. Since the dawn of the 1900’s, each generation had to deal with new social models that complicated, not simplified, the process of raising our offspring. It’s unfair to compare how our parents raised us for that reason alone. When I was growing up we didn’t have a color television until I was about 16 years old, now we have color television on our cell phones. Our first video game was Pong, today we have sophisticated hand-held games that would have been considered futuristic, space age even. Computers were in huge rooms with complex cooling systems and only performed simple calculations, by today’s standards. Contrast that to the powerful netbooks that can crunch more numbers faster then the computer’s used to land men on the moon. I even remember purchasing a complex calculator for college that cost more than the netbooks I just mentioned. Read the rest of this entry »
19
Jan
2015
And Then There Was One
ORIGINAL DATE OF PUBLICATION is March 14, 2010.
Eric Nelson, a regular contributor here, offered his view of a health care solution (Risk-Based Health Care Premiums: A Modest Proposal). Well done Eric. In this post I offer an Altered Focus for you, the reader, to consider.
Recently I heard a Professor of History from the University of Virginia respond to the suggestion made by actor Tom Hanks that World War II was largely driven by racism. His premise is made by drawing comparisons to modern day rhetoric with that of WW II rhetoric. Hanks concludes our fight with the Japanese and ultimately our use of “the bomb” was from a racist motive to utterly and completely wipe them out. I think the 1940’s era phrase he invoked was “…just wipe them all out!“, referring to how America should dispatch with Japan. Unlike any true historian, he reflected current wartime rhetoric about our enemy, Al Qaeda, and the calls to “…just wipe them all out!” as proof to cast a new light on World War II motivations.
The historian referred to this as “presentism“, that is to say, taking today’s values and overlaying them on past events and coming to new conclusions. Read the rest of this entry »
19
Jan
2015
Happy Valentine’s Day
I write poetry in addition to my other writing passions. Although I wrote this about 4.5 months prior to meeting my wife, it only touches the surface of my love for her. Love at any age is grand, don’t you think? Happy Valentine’s Day!
Can You Not Hear
By Tim Hief, January 2, 2007
Can you not hear, ’tis but a faint sound?
If you busy yourself with folly, it will pass unnoticed. Read the rest of this entry »
14
Sep
2009
The Walk Away
School yard fight
I was born in the shadow of our nation’s capital. Growing up in the Washington DC area it was a common event to drive passed the White House and the Capital buildings. Like so many people who grow up in an area with a huge tourist industry, my family never did the ‘tourist’ thing. To this day I’ve never toured the White House or any other buildings used to govern our country. My early school field trips took care of visits to the Smithsonian, the Museum of National Art and the Washington Post however, so I’m not completely bankrupt of local sophistication regarding the area.
It will come as no surprise that my locale was a hot bed of racial tension during my childhood. The year my father died was the same year Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, it was a year of riots, and even more change in my family due to my father’s unexpected death. I was not alone in figuring out my place all of this, my brother, just 18 months my senior was my closest friend and ally.
The year was 1968, I was nearly through fourth grade, and after a winter of being kept inside all the kids were excited to see spring arrive. Warmer weather led to exciting games of kick-ball, running around in the school yard and swinging about on the school’s playground equipment.
It’s also a time when the boys determine to correct ‘pecking order’ mistakes inflicted by a their teacher during the winter. Teachers have been known to make terrible mistakes in that regard.