An Open Letter to Earthlings

     I know many people assume this was a scene from a movie. In fact, this photo is from the secret files of our government. It's true. The film is based on an actual interaction between your people and my people.
     We came in peace to give you a hint about what awaits your civilization, if you do not destroy it first. Yes, we have taken many of your people up into our  Mother Ship with the goal of allowing your people to mix with species from distant parts of the universe.
     We have done this for many billions of years. Your government attempts to deny our work, but they can not be totally successful. In time, you will understand what other realities surround you day to day. You thinking is limited. You still do not understand that all you need to get around in the universe is your towel, always at the ready, and belief that anything is possible.
     And about this thing you call death. Do not fear it. You simply pass from one body to a much greater life. There is no such thing as punishment in the hereafter. You have so much to look forward to. Your minds are still limited to your childish concepts of a god. You will know the Truth when you step out of your mortal body and join the Brothers and Sister of the Light. We await you. If you can but learn to open your spiritual eyes to the  beauty around you that vibrates at different wave lengths, you may grasp moments of clarity. You must watch for synchronicity with all form of life upon your little world. Do you not realize that you are but small parts of a greater whole, which you may call the Creator, but it is so much more.
     You struggle day to day for your basic needs and wants. If you become one in love, you will be given your just needs and wants in the blink of an eye. Do you really thing that God is so trivial that he must be praised and glorified? Do you not know that He wants you to have your just needs and wants. Would you willingly deny your own family of what they truly need or even want?
     Look to the animals upon your planet. Study them. See creatures that do not feel compelled to change the world. These creatures accept the world as is. When you are ready to accept what is, then and only then, will you be ready to achiever higher states of existence.
     We see what you are doing to your people. You'd better quit it. In the blink of an eye, all that you have can be gone, transformed into something more important to the universe.
     Nanu nanu.

Empty chairs and empty tables.

     Alas, the best time of the day at school. I say the students can go, and Ka-Pow, Shazam, and they are gone. They don't even care if leaving in a minute or two will result in their having to repeat some of their work. Nope, they are gone, gone, gone.
     I would love to post pictures with the students in the room, but because of privacy laws, I can not do so. That really is a shame because I do have a diverse group of students from all over the world. I have some really ugly dudes in my class, but the ladies are all quite beautiful. It's okay though, because almost every student is on Facebook. They are so shocked when I tell them I saw their pictures on Facebook. Hey, it's okay. I don't judge people for what they have on Facebook. I try to make the students understand that their insurance company and future employers will look. Wouldn't you love to be a company that insures cars and you see your customers drunk out of their minds and/or texting and driving?
     I really enjoy working with students. Most of my students are new to college, so they still think they are able to come and go as they please without problems. Most think they are paying for school, so it is none of my business if they come to class or do the required work. I tell them from day one not to get behind, but do they listen? No, they are special and will be able to catch up at the last minute, or at least, I will pass them on to the next level class. Sometimes, students find themselves taking their classes a second or third time. They learn they have to grow up or fall behind their friends. Many are simply in school to get the free money. They know just how long to attend before they lose their grants and other monies. I really would like to see students who graduate from high school have to serve our country in some capacity for a year or two. Shucks, many of us fought in wars instead of going to school when we should have.
     Students expect immediate gratification  for everything. My lab course does just that. It reward them when they do wrong, and it goes out of its way to help them learn. The education system is changing, not necessarily for the better. With any luck at all, I will be out of the class rooms before the terrible changes hit the system. The basic problem is that the people who make the rules are rarely people who have had to teach in  the school systems. They take courses that are supposed to have all these brilliant ideas that turn  out to be more destructive than helpful.
     Now, that's off my chest for the night. Time to go read for awhile. Tomorrow, I will  be giving spelling tests. That's always fun.  Of course, our politicians are against spelling tests. For some silly reason, they seem  to think the students already know how to spell. Not so, since their earlier brainstorms was not to correct students' incorrectly spelled words, so as not to stifle the student's creativity.

Good Days Slip Away

     I miss the old days of fishing with a fly rod. We lived in a mobile home retirement village at Murrel's Inlet in South Carolina. The park had three large ponds that were stocked with several kinds of fish. The ponds were connected by three foot pipes. Every now and then a beaver would show up in one of the ponds. He always came over in to our ponds by digging under a fence on the forest side of the park. He was a sneaky old beaver that always managed to avoid our traps.
     I would fish almost every day.  I enjoyed fishing with open face spinner rods and reels. I'd cast the line way out into the pond and reel in the spinners or plastic worms, letting the bait rise and sink. The  fun part was watching the bait hit the water and immediately seeing a large-mouth bass hit the bait and jump right up out of the water. I can almost feel the fish running with the bait. The line would go slack, I'd jerk up on the tip of the rod, and the fish would jump out of the water again. Eventually, he'd break loose, or he'd tire out and I'd pull him up onto the bank.
     The most fun was using the fly rod. The other old timers who fished late in the afternoons always made fun of me for using a fly rod, but they also enjoyed seeing me, the youngster, whipping the line back and forth until I plopped the end of the line right over a set of bubbles. Seven times out of ten, a fish would hit that bait and either jump out of the water, or jerk the bait down under the water and run with it. Other times, the line would make a soft plopping noise, and I would slowly pull the line in, usually with a small perch or a crappy flopping around. Then came the sound of the old retired men chuckling at the youngster who fished with a fly rod in a man made pond; but, when I landed a nice small mouth bass or a large mouth bass, I heard a string of rather vulgar cuss words float across the pond.
     I didn't care what the weather was like. I'd fish at the hottest hours of the summer days. I'd fish in the rain while the old timers sat on their screened in porches and watched me daring the lightning to hit me. I usually released the fish back into the ponds, but sometimes the old timers would yell out for me to let them have my fish for their dinner that night. Since I did not care for killing, scaling, and gutting fish, I was always happy to let the old timers deal with the messy part.
     Now, I don't live near water, so I never fish. I miss the feel of a fly rod and reel in my hands. I miss snapping the line back and forth overhead and watching the tip gently touch down upon the surface of the water. I miss the smell of the rain, especially as the water dripped off the tall pine trees. I miss the smell of the salt water inlet that was only a quarter of a mile away. I miss the perfectly mowed lawns around the lake and the park. I miss the bright colors of the green grass and the flowers that lined my yard. Gosh, you could just about spit a watermelon seed on the grass, and within a few days a watermelon plant would pop up out of the grass. Roses were easy to grow. Gladiolus grew profusely adding many different colors to the yard. Azaleas grew fast and bloomed for a long time.
     Yes, I miss fly rod fishing and all the fun of a leisurely life. These days, when I should be retired, I work seven days a week. My fly rod hangs in the shed out back. Sometimes, I take it down and hold it and am tempted to flip the line a few times, but no, not here. I miss the fish and the beaver. I even miss the moss that bloomed on the ponds each year.  I miss walking back up to my perfect little mobile home with its perfectly built sun deck, and the perfectly mowed lawn that was bordered with perfect flowers and bushes.
     I miss looking up at the window over the deck and seeing the perfect faces of my two first born children, Christi and Angela staring out at me with their big eyes and even bigger smiles. Those were good days.

The End of the World Cometh

      That's what they say, you know. "The end of the world cometh."
I was taught that the world is without beginning or end. Stands to reason that if God is everything, and if God is without beginning or end, then so must be the world.
     I'm not really sure all that logic actually works, but it is what my mother (RIP) taught me. Many the nights we sat up until dawn arguing about religion. We read our scriptures and tried to garner some kind of meaning of every word. We could really go at it. We never really agreed on much. Mother told me her interpretations were correct. Of  course, I, being a young man, knew that my interpretation had to be correct.
     We loved to discuss serious topics. "Can God make a rock so large, that He can not roll it down a hill?"
"If God is perfect and without sin, why did He create women?"  And about the scientists who put forth the Big Bang Theory, "How could there have been a big bang, if women had not yet been created?" And, "Why didn't God send Jesus to us in these modern times." Of course that was back in the 60's, so we weren't really all that modern back then.
     Here we are at November 24th. The end is near. Where will we go? To heaven? To hell? Will our very souls be lost in the extermination of our planet? Will we pop up in a different form, perhaps on another planet or star? I don't want to float around on a cloud while I play a harp through eternity. That would be hell for anyone nearby. I don't want to be in Hell with all the other sinners, unless I get to inflict a bit of punishment on some of the people who have done me wrong. And yes, I have a few in mind.
     Well, confound it all. Never mind. I was just reminded that it was actually, "The ice man cometh."
Getting old is frequently embarrassing. It's okay, I usually forget what I've said anyway.
   
     If you read this far, you need something constructive to do. I have been told more than once that I have nothing worthwhile to say. "Now go and do the right thing."

     The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen  King turns out to be a great read and an even better audio. Stephen King narrates the cd. Usually, I am not pleased with his readings. I think he is a bit monotone, but that may be because I listen to so many other books in which the readers act out the different voices.
    In this book, Stephen King does a great job of reading his book. Most readers know that following King's books can be a serious task. In this book, King has caught my interest and the story line is exciting, which makes me eager to go back to all the other Dark  Tower books. Of course, once I finish listening to the audio book, I will have to read the hard back book too.
     If you have considered reading The Wind Through the Keyhole, I might actually suggest that you buy the audio book. The book is a short read compared to many of King's books, but well worth the money and the time.

The Scarecrow and Dorothy

I am attempting to post on here from my IPad. I have no idea what will happen.
I would, if I only had a brain.

You know that loveable Scarecrow guy was not really so bright after he received his "brains".Turns out he did not really rule. Oh, a scarecrow ruled, but not this particular scarecrow. It seems a scarecrow is a scarecrow. They are all about the same.

I always thought it was a bit weird that he and Dorothy had such a close relationship. What was that all about?  If you read the other stories, you learn that little Dorothy manipulated and used people and things. Most of the time, she only thought of herself.

There's No Place Like Home.

"There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home."

Wicked child stole the shoes from the rightful owner.
Dorothy was never quite the brightest child in the Land of Oz. She was rather selfish for the most part.

Of course, one must get beyond the silly movie that used to precede Christmas. The books add so much more to the world of Oz. Most of the other stories are far more interesting.

Happy Thanksgiving Marks the Day

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

     Here I am again. I love to start these blogs and let them play out for a few weeks, then move them over to a private journal. I always think I will keep one blog going. I am interested in the time that people invest in their blogs. I suppose that is because I have so little time.
     Bloggers, real bloggers, post consistently over the course of a year. I actually attempt to teach my college students to keep journals. Most students don't. After a couple of years, some of those students email me to let me know they wish they had followed my advice. I tell my students that at some point in the future, students will see the value of keeping journals and will regret all the lost information that could have been saved for future uses.
     As I worked my way through college, I knew the importance of writing daily. Every day, I would find a quiet place in the libraries where I could sit and write. I wrote several short stories and a couple of short novels. I still have those works. I never did anything with those meanderings, but I did save them. I look back at my writings and wish I had continued that daily writing, but time has a way of covering up much of what is worthwhile in life. Now, in my later years, I see everyone, everywhere writing and many actually publishing, even if they do it themselves.
     Most of my free time comes late at night. I teach during the day and have to grade and work online until late at night. Then comes the medicines which causes me to forget much of what I do late at night. So, quite often, I write some nonsense on Facebook, then when I see it the next day, I wind up deleting most of what I have posted. I have largely weaned myself off Facebook over the past month. The problem with not posting on Facebook is that I lose touche with a few people who are rather important to me. I tried deleting Facebook more than once, but as a common Facebook addict, I go back. Who wants to miss out  on all the drama on Facebook?
    I find that I have more time to read for my own pleasure, and I find that I can plug in my earphones and listen to audio books by not posting so often late at night. Of course, the last part of the cd is always absent in my brain the next day, so I have to listen to the cd more than once. Of course, I am also compelled to read the actual paper book or an e-book. I suppose I must have some sort of OCD about reading. Who knows. I do jump around in my readings without much difficulty though.
     Well,  I intend to leave this blog active. I have been deleting other blogs and websites that I have played with. The sites tend to have glitches that take away from my enjoyment. I miss the old days when I got to write my own HTML. I had quite a few sites and they were quite intense. Drama, drama, drama.
     The nice thing about this site is that much of what is written is not seen enough to really be a problem, and yet, the posts are public. I am curious to see what develops on the internet in 2013, if it is not taxed into oblivion.
   
     

Blog open date

Blog opened November 22, 2012.