Random Thoughts on a Passing Scene

 

From January 14, 2021

Dad Joke:  My grandkids were very upset when our neighbor’s bunnies escaped.  (Pause)  They’re too young to deal with hare loss.

Weather – generally a safe topic to start-off:   It has been an unseasonably warm and wet end of 2020 and start to 2021.  I have only had to shovel snow and use the snow-blower two times thus far this winter season.   I don’t know – along with most other old-timers – what a normal winter is anymore.  Yesterday, along with almost spring-like temps, a weather front with 70 mile-per-hour gusty winds roared through to blow over many trees and blow out the clouds.  Thus, today we bask in bright sunshine under glorious blue skies from horizon to horizon and not cold temps by any sense for mid-January. 

Religion – generally a topic to approach with caution:   “You have to get right with Jesus; stay right with Jesus; don’t blow the ashes of a wasted life into his blessed face.”   This is the tagline for another story of mine where I encountered an angel – for another time, perhaps.    

Politics – certainly at this point in time, NOT a safe topic:   My views on our country.   The extreme lefts and the extreme rights have taken control of public discourse.   This is woeful, unnecessarily divisive and bodes such peril for America’s near future.  As far as Trump:  He is in the harvest time of his presidential ways.  He may have exhibited some solid management traits for the U.S.  But, his actions and words demonstrate he is not a good man.   He did not represent the leadership values that I consider paramount.   Where was his character, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, loyalty, caring and compassion for others…? I don’t need to continue here.   Now, as his presidency ends, he is reaping what he has sowed.  It is hard for me to be sympathetic toward him, even as I decry the violence exhibited by those so polarized as either for or against him.  This country needs LEADERS to step forward with more healing and less partisan stances and posturing.

Other Random Thoughts on a Passing Scene:

·         I have about 40 swords left in my collection and will continue to downsize in the years ahead.

·         I have 4 old west pistols.

·         I have 7 rifles from the old west.   (No, I am neither a shooter nor a hunter; I own no modern shooting weapons and can’t remember the last time I fired one of my muzzle-loaders.  My interest in firearms has always been and remains historical.)

·         Did a rough tally on the books left in my book cases and came up with about + 500.  I would have thought more than this.   Whatever.   I don’t purchase many books now but prefer to check with the Library first to see if they can find the one I am looking for.   Jan would snap a photo of the cover of a history book that had caught my interest in Barnes and Noble and then the library search began.  (Like the guns and swords, I can’t help but scratch my head on when and how to downsize the number of books on hand.)

·         I own a nice canoe but am thinking of trading in for a sleek kayak.  Easier to lift and allows solo paddling for me.   Plus, offers the chance to get real wet as I learn the intricacies of kayaking.  (I had an elderly neighbor that had a high end beauty of a kayak hung up in his garage.  I told him to let me know when he wanted to sell it.   Well, his wife had some health issue - she died – he sold the house and put the Kayak on Ebay and sold it to another person within an hour or two.   No worries that he forgot about me.   His life was in dislocation and he was relocating a short time after his wife’s passing.)

More to see than can ever be seen:  My best night time skies where the Milky Way was prominent and dramatic:  the outback of Australia (the constellation are strangely different); the Andes of Peru, the North Cascades of Washington (at Twisp), Great Basin National Park in Nevada (a designated world dark sky spot), and north of Elko, Nevada at the Wild Horse Reservoir.  I can imagine Patty O’s sky on a clear night in Northern Michigan.   I was north of the Arctic Circle in Canada – but it was mid-summer and the night was never more than twilight!  There were only a few stars shining even at 1 AM in the morning…rather than a splendid mid-night sky, the dawning of the sun was already nigh!  My advice:  Get away from ambient city lights and look up in amazement at the swath/ribbon of light that is our Milky Way and our place in the Universe.

More to know than can ever be known:  

·         Beau Bassier is already exhibiting the characteristics of a builder, mechanical engineer and engineer.

·         Alyssa Witherington excels at reading, vocabulary and comprehension.

·         Ben Witherington, of late, has been on a counting / numbers kick but is quick to exhibit traits of a future “super hero” as far as activities of interest and energy expended.

·         Winter is a rapidly changing and growing toddler.  He is animated, talkative, likes to climb stairs, explore cupboards and helps with the laundry (certainly, this impresses his borderline OCD cleaner of a Grandpa.) 

More to do than can ever be done:     The continuing Odyssey of Tom Bassier

·         We had a family Christmas in Hawaii.  The time was mostly spent on the island of Kauai.  There are so many positive memories that this vacation deserves its own more extended sharing.  This was before Peter Co and James Witherington were part of our “scene” and thus no grand-children.  But, I feel compelled to share that Maria Sari Bassier was part of the Bassier Clan then.  And, Maria has the dubious distinction of having hit a sea turtle in the head while we were playing in the warm surf.  (It seemed like sea turtles also like to ride the waves.)   Maria claims this close encounter of the turtle-kind was unintentional.   But, we suspect she could have been deliberately letting the subject turtle know that she was the boss and this was her wave to catch.

There you have it.    

TAB

P.S.  I do have another Hawaiian vacation for all of us on my bucket-list.