Will there be a Life to Come?

.....I know that Joel and Barbara had gone to see a B-24 Liberator & I wonder if it was the same as the one Rhoda and I went to see at the Boca Airport (where Robin lands & takes off when she comes here).  I think the name on the plane was "Witchcraft" or something like that.  There was also a B-17 and a P-51 Mustang.  I'm pretty sure the the bombers were the same that JR & Barb went on.  We got there late afternoon so there was no big crowd.  People were being charged $12 to get to see them, and if you wanted a ride, it was only $425.  Just think--I flew on a B-24 for two years for free!  Because I'm a vet, we were not charged to get in.  Rho climbed a small ladder and got inside the B-24 and she got a first hand look at my WWII main venue.  I did not venture to follow her.  


.....Now, I must continue to review my years in retirement in Life #7.  I certainly don't want readers to be "confused" about which life was which.  I'm doing the best that I can at trying to recall some of the events which are not in my memoirs and this attempt is not scientific.  One life sometimes ran into another life.  I thought about it and to clarify, I will adjust them a bit for your and my better understanding...although keep in mind that I am doing this review mostly for my own benefit...I want to see where I've been and try to learn where I'm going--although I have a pretty good idea about that.  Let's just consider for the sake of easy chronology that Life #1 was my childhood in Long Branch until I was nine.  Life #2 would then be my growing up in Fort Apache, ergo The Bronx.  Life #3 would be my experiences in WWII.  #4 would be my college days--(which I said was a life of its own).  It came within what I will now call, for the sake of easy reading,  Life #5--my marriage and my raising a family and my teaching career.  Life #6 would then become my single years (after my ex kidnapped herself) and my trip around the world.  And then Life #7 when I met and married Rhoda and retired to Florida.


.....Besides teaching poetry and Shakespeare to the seniors in my community, one day I read in the Huntington Lakes' newsletter that the Theater Arts club was going to produce "HMS Pinafore", the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.  One of my early goals was to become an actor--but marriage and kids vetoed that idea...until I auditioned and won the lead role as Sir Joseph Porter, and the show ran four nights in 1992 in our 600 seat theater.  Eventually, my new career landed me leading roles in "The Mikado" (1993) as Koko; as Prez in "Pajama Game" (1994); Captain Andy in "Showboat" (1995); "The Music Man" as Harold Hill (1996); as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof" (1997); "Pirates of Penzance" as Major General Stanley which I also directed; and "My Fair Lady" as Henry Higgins (2007).  I also directed that one and Rhoda & Sally Forman did a terrific job as Producers.  Then age, illness, & debilitating accidents to my body caught up with me, and my career as a thespian came to an end.  However, I was not finished trying to achieve all my goals; I became computer literate and since I always wanted to be an author, I started to write my "Memoirs of a Tail Gunner" which was published in 2007.  But I was not finished writing; I started a "blog", chose a persona as the Red Baron von Zorro, (Check me out in the photo) and I've been working on the blog--which really has served as a journal of my life for the past five years, reaching over 3000 pages--more than Tolstoy's "War & Peace".  

So, I have finally, at the age of 88 become a famous unknown author!  Have I achieved "greatness"?  Now, it doesn't really matter; I am what I am--and what is, is.


....

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together" (All's Well)

.....We have lived for the last 29 years in a gated senior condo community in Delray Beach called Huntington Lakes.  I first saw it in 1982...there were three four-story units and a long staircase going nowhere. I supposed another building was to be erected, this one to be eight stories.  I think it would have been much cheaper for me to buy the staircase.  The attraction at this venue was a $6 million dollar clubhouse replete with a 600 seat theater, a gym with all manner of equipment, a beautiful lobby with a fountain, a pond, fish, and a six lane indoor swimming pool, a sauna, and a jacuzzi...or whatever you want to call it, a huge ballroom, classrooms, a billiards room and card rooms.  Early on I was the only one in the place.  Of course, now there are about 44 buildings--and several of the eight-story variety.  Each four-story condos has 32 apartments.  And this is how Life #7 began.

.....For the first two years I was here, I taught in a private high school & was selected to coach a very poor soccer team.  Florida then was like Texas--football country.  Rhoda also found a job in a doctor's office and retired in 2000.  When she first got here, she was dismayed that she had no friends and most of the women were much older than she...But now she fits in here like a bee fits in a hive. (Definitely not a cliche!) When I left the school after two years, I taught a six-week course in our clubhouse called "Fun With Shakespeare".  I never suspected that I would get so many seniors to register for that class. I would pick a play that I enjoyed and I used to get from 30 to 60 "students".  I have to say that it was great to teach those seniors who were obviously hungry for some education that they somehow had missed. I'm a professional so I didn't teach pro bono...I charged $30.  I taught this class for many years with unsuspected community interest.

.....While here I played golf almost three or four times a week with neighbors who also moved here eventually from East Meadow where we had first settled in NY. We bought a small ranch house there.  My golf game got steadily better, and there were many courses available to play.  I was proud that I got to be a 7-handicap player.  Early in the 80s, our Board established a "senior olympics."  In the first year I won a gold medal in the 3-mile walk, racquetball, golf, and in swimming--for the 50 yd. freestyle and the 50 yd. backstroke.  (I was a swimmer since I was 5 yrs. old).  I won an awesome "MVP" trophy.  I no longer am able to play golf or any of the other sports.  However, if they held a walker or a scooter race, I might enter. I love a sporting challenge. After all of this, I still couldn't decide if I was "great".  I finally decided that the proper thing to do was to let other people make that determination.  

Life #7 has gone on now for 29 years.  So, it has to be continued.  A lot more to come!!  My books, my blog, my musical and acting career, my medication, & etc.

  

"Greatness knows itself" (Henry IV)

.....As promised, Life #5 typically began with a traumatic event sometime in 1976. All four children had left the nest empty.  Well, not really completely empty; my wife and I were still inhabitants, as well as a dog whose name I have forgotten.  I was never too fond of dogs ever since I was confronted by two enormous St. Bernards who lived with our neighbors in Long Branch.  They were really harmless, and neither had a canister of brandy dangling from their necks. However, my daughter, Bonny, was very fond of dogs and other four-legged beasts; so it seems we always had one in the house--as well as a white cat we called Simba, if I recall.  But to get on with it--we had been married for 29 years at the time, but the marriage just seemed to have lost its excitement and its joy.  Bonny had gone to California to seek her fortune--or whatever, and Thelma became severely depressed; I guessed that she wanted to go out west so see how Bonny was faring & so I bought her a ticket and away she went--never to return, as I have said in a previous blog posting.  So, I was left alone and lonely with a four bedroom house, a load of furniture, silverware, dishes, a dog...and lots of memories.  We were divorced after 30 years.


.....And now, after a fashion, I was single again. I had no inkling as how to go about living a single life--what with the war and the hospital and college, and the marriage, I never really led the normal single life.  However, I decided that it was time to put down the dog, sell a whole lot of stuff in a lawn sale, and then take a sabbatical leave from school after selling the house.  This time I took a whole year at half pay.  I bought an Around the World ticket from SAS for a ridiculously low fare.  I flew to England, France, Holland, Denmark, East and West Germany (great beer!), India, Indonesia, Israel, Iran,Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Bora Bora, and on the island of Morea, a Club Med.  And then I returned home and back to school where I had been Chairman of the English Dep't. as well as the Varsity soccer coach and coach of the Track team. The Board did not want me to coach anything while I was in charge of the English Dep't.  So, I resigned that job and continued my coaching. I simply could not abandon all those kids on my teams to someone they did not know...or trust.  When I got back to the States, I bought a blue Mustang, rented an apartment in Syosset, and filled it with furniture of my choosing.


.....Then I went about learning how to lead the single life.  It started by going to bars where I could meet women...and this venture was a huge success.  I met and dated about a dozen of them, and it became a dazzling, awesome life.  However, on New Year's Eve, 1978 I went to a house party sponsored by B'Nai Brith where I met RH+. And I stopped dating all but her.  She was 39, but about to turn 40 on Feb.2. I made her a birthday party in my house.  She lived in the same development.  From that time on we became...shall I say, enamored of each other?  Of course, and our relationship as singles lasted for five years. She came to all my games and waited at the finish lines for me while I ran two 26 mile marathons in my fifties.  By this time, I began to believe after all I had accomplished in my life, that if I hadn't achieved "greatness", I was pretty damn close.  But as Shakespeare said, "Greatness knows itself."  However, there were still some mountains yet to climb.  When I retired in 1982, I went to Florida and bought a condo in Delray Beach.  In 1983 Rhoda and I were married in New York, and she joined me in Florida where we have lived for the last 29 years.  
......And that's about it for Life #5.  It began with trauma and ended with trauma; I understand that marriage and retiring and moving to a new environment are considered traumatic events. And so they were...but they were fun traumas...if there is such a thing.  Life #7 has some surprises.  Be there.


Life #7 

"Variety's the spice of life that gives it all its flavor" (William Cowper)

.....As 1952 rolled around, I feel by that time, after surviving a war, being the first in my family to graduate from college, getting married, raising children & continuing my studies from Columbia's Teachers College toward a doctorate degree, (which I achieved in 1962) I have been better than "good".  In fact, I have to give myself a "good +".  But still yearning to reach my goal--of being "great"; to "...follow knowledge like a sinking star.  At Columbia, I had some of the very best teachers--poets, writers, Pulitzer Prize winners...including Mark Van Doren; and if I recall--his older brother, Carl for a class; and Lenora Speyer and Padraic and Mary Colem.

,,,,,College to me was like being in a different universe.  I took almost every course available in English Literature, in Drama workshops, in creative writing in Shakespeare--and I believe this kind of loading up in subject matter like that helped me when I began to be a teacher.

.....Going to college was a life of its own. To me it was Life #4.  By this time, it seemed that for me a "new" life always began and ended with some kind of traumatic event that changed the course of my existence.  My tenure at Cranford HS ended in 1954 when I was fired for "incompetence"; the real reason being that I had volunteered to become the teachers' union representative...how do I know this?  Because all of my evaluations written by the principal were exemplary.  So, I had no trouble finding employment at the high school in Sea Cliff, NY where I taught ninth grade and was also the junior varsity soccer coach; double duty for $4100 a year.  I even was able to buy a car...a Chevy DeLuxe.  We were able to find a ranch house in East Meadow at a VA 4% loan interest. A year later, the twins, Bobby and Bonny were born.  Now we needed additional equipment for them and that made money a scarce item...so, I earned some extra cash by refereeing club soccer games for $10 on weekends.  And in 1956 the new high school's construction in Glen Head was complete and grades 7-12 moved to "North Shore H.S. where I taught until I retired 28 years later in 1982.  

.....And so ended Life #6.  I skipped #5 for another time for a good enough reason; but that will be set down for the next blog posting.  Be there.

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." (Ecclesiastes)

.....When I was about 14 year's old, I met a girl from Brighten Beach in Brooklyn whose Aunt and her four cousins lived in the building next  to ours on Kelly St. in the Bronx.  She was a very pretty blonde...the only kind I was ever attracted to.  She was 12 and we became quite close--even kissed a few times; but I think that was a case of cheating on a game of "Spin the Bottle."  At any rate, we did correspond while I was in the Navy and when I returned, we picked up where we left off.  Only by this time, I was 21 and she was 18.  Very significant changes, I believe.  I spent an hour every weekend on the BMT subway just to get to her home in Brighton where she lived with her parents and two older sisters.  We decided to get married, invitations were printed and mailed just about the time I was incarcerated in the VA hospital in 1946 suffering from battle fatigue.

..... (I may get some of my dates wrong, but it's not that important; this examination of my life is primarily for my own satisfaction.  When I was younger, I did not want merely to be "good"--I wanted to be "great"--as I mentioned in a previous blog.  At this time that particular goal seemed dismal and improbable, if not impossible.)

.....Of course our marriage was delayed, to say the least--but we did get married in June, 1947; we were divorced in 1977.  Our marriage after 30 years simply got stagnant.  She ran away to California one day and never returned--she wanted "to find herself"; but  before that stunning decision, we raised four children;   I didn't I fully understand her compulsion, but I thought what she did was courageous...I couldn't do it.  I wanted to find myself also, but I didn't know where to look.  After our marriage I spent the next five years in college, having time only on the subway to study for my courses.  My daughter, Robin Lee was born in December 1950, and my son Joel Michael in 1952--the year I got my MA degree.  The twins, Bobby Lou and Bonny Sue came into this world in 1955.  By that time I had my first job teaching English in Cranford, NJ.  I took to teaching English Lit. like a duck takes to water, like a bird takes to flight, like a hot dog takes to a bun.  

.....I  was in the middle of Life #3.  

.....God! I've had a long life!  How can I finish this?

"Every man's life is a fairy tale..." (Hans Christian Andersen)

.....So to continue: I usually refer to my life from birth to age 21 as Life #1.  You can read all about it in yesterday's blog posting.  My Life #2 began after I was discharged from Naval Air November 19, 1945.  After high school, I worked for awhile in the Public National Bank as a "pageboy"; when  I went back there, they made me a teller.  I learned to count money faster than a speeding bullet, and little did I realize that paper money is like mining coal--your hands become black.  Believe it.  However, I found it impossible to adjust once again to civilian life.  I felt guilty that I survived, and my friends did not. I could not work in a cage, so I became depressed...and even suicidal.  This was not the life that I envisioned for myself.  My mother noted my mood and behavior and insisted that I present myself to the Kingsbridge VA hospital in the Bronx.  It seemed to be the right move to get out of the banking business.  I spent the next six months in that hospital with what my shrink there told me was "battle fatigue"...now known by the fancy name of PTSD--"Post traumatic stress disorder".  


.....While I was serving my time at the VA hospital, I began to write some poetry and shortly a social worker named Lucille Cusick came to see me and began to read my work.  She was impressed by it and demanded that I go to college.  I told her that in high school I did not take any college prep courses--only secretarial stuff.  She said, that it won't matter and that after I was discharged she would accompany me down (or up?) to Columbia University's Admission Office.  I thought she was out of her mind, but I thought, "Why not?"  Actually, Lucille put me on the road to the rest of my life.  At Columbia I was asked to take the admission's test--and I did--and a week or so later I got a letter from Columbia suggesting that the result of the test indicated that I could not do college level work.  This really pissed me off and I vowed that I would get a degree or two there---somehow.


.....But Lady Luck was on my side--Lucille had sent one of my poems to "The Saturday Review of Literature" a very prestigious magazine edited by William Rose Benet.  The poem was published in a section called "The Best Poetry of WWII".  On the cover was a picture of Lenore Speyer, a poet and teacher at Columbia.  Lucille Cusick dragged me and the magazine back to Columbia and on the basis of that publication I was admitted conditionally by taking a few makeup courses and getting no less than a B average before they would allow me to matriculate for a degree.  I spent the next five years there--from 1947 to 1952 for my B.S and Masters degrees.  I graduated "Magna Cum Laude".  So much for their letter saying I could not do college level work.
.....And so ends Life #2   #3 tomorrow if I'm up to it.

"It matters not how long we live, but how."

…..You need not read this particular post on my blog because I am writing it to myself trying to assess what I have accomplished in this long life.  Ever since I was a little waif, I never wished to be merely “good”…my aspiration was to be great.  Well, I don’t know if my aspirations actually reached fruition, but the time has arrived when I need to evaluate the meaning of my life. So, to begin, my first venture into the world of action…apart from just eating candy and playing with girls when I was 9, was to get down to the beach in Long Branch, NJ, and sell newspapers.  It was a lot of fun, and I met some very interesting people…but my feet were burning because of the hot sand.  My most  prolific financial day was the day after the steamship “Morro Castle” burned right off the coast.  So, at the least, that became a “great” day.  

…..After Dad died in 1933, my mother, sister and I moved in to mom’s parents’ apartment in the Bronx.  I graduated there from selling papers to becoming a shoe-shine boy.  I made a shoe-shine contraption out of cheese boxes, bought brown and black shoe wax, and ventured into the streets to shine shoes for for 25 cents.  However, it took all day just to make $1.75… in those days a largess of awesome proportions.  I was now a successful entrepreneur… and I was my own boss; that was also not merely good—but finally something great!  And to think I was only 11 years old.

…..So, Baron, let’s skip ahead a few years to high school.  I wasn’t particulary great in school, although I did manage to get good passing grades in all my subjects…particularly English, steno, and typing.  Mom thought I should become a court stenographer; but I wanted to be a journalist--a sportswriter.  Little did I know that in my 80s I would become a “journalist”…but not the newspaper kind…On my PC I began to keep a “journal” of my life in Florida on a column called a “blog”….so there.  I was a “journalist” after all…one of the vagaries of life...and somewhat of a disappointment.

…..It wasn’t very long after I graduated high school in 1941 that Pearl Harbor was bombed and America went to war again…WWII.  I was 18 when I joined the Navy in November of 1942.  I spent three years as a combat aircrewman, flew 60 combat missions and eventually was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses and eleven Air Medals.  However, that accomplishment did not make me a hero…the real heroes were those who didn’t make it back.  Regardez…(I learned a bit of French during the war such as “Voulez vous cigarette? O chocolat?”, and “Voulez vous couche avec moi?”.)  I wasn’t too sure what that meant—but eventually I found out.

…..This blog is now getting too long.  Readers might lose interest, so I will continue this, perhaps tomorrow, and I guarantee it will be exciting reading…good enough for kindles, iPads, iPods…and whatever.

"There's no business like show business..." (Annie, Get Your Gun)

…..One of my favorite shows is “Kiss Me Kate”, based on Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.”  And my favorite song in that show is “Where is the life that late I led” sung by Petruchio after he marries Kate.  I do remember all the lyrics which I recreate here for your entertainment and enlightenment, and I find this number particularly appropriate for my current station in life:

FROM "KISS ME KATE"

“Where is the life that late I led; where is it now?—Totally dead!

Where is my Becky, my Becky-Weccio; still selling pizza by the slice

     In Ponte Vecchio?

And where’s Rosellio, that fierce virago, who fled to me from

    Trinidad-Tobago?

Where is Carmen, from Venezuela?  Still sleeping with that

     Alcoholic sailor?

And where is Ruthie, my English cuzzin? Still favoring

     Her suitors by the dozen?

Where’s Alfonsina from sweet Firenze, whose flirting

     Always put me in a frenzy?

And Sister Carla, also from Florence, whose kisses

    Rained on me in torrents?

Now there was Rhoda--beneath the cover. So voluptuous 

     I still cannot recover.

And Filomena, from friendly Venice, who played me

    Like she played a game of tennis.

So, now, where is the life that late I led? Where is it now?

     Totally dead!      Come—kiss me, Kate

Not bad, eh. I told you that I remembered all the lyrics.  Now, who was it that wrote this show?  Where is he now?  Oh! Cole Porter?  Forgive me, Cole, for changing the lyrics a bit.

"What a sigh is there. The heart is sorely charged." (Macbeth)

....  Today was a very frustrating day.  At an evening event in our clubhouse on Friday, Rho won a man's watch from Macy's in a raffle.  I have a watch and don't need another.  Today, we decided that we would go to Macy's at the Boca Mall to trade the watch for credit.  Of course, to go to the mall I needed to take the scooter...because I can't get too far with a walker.  Soooo, about 1:30 from our apartment I drove the scooter to the car, put the key in the lift (by the trunk) lowered it, and drove the scooter onto it.  However, when we tried to raise the lift with the scooter on it, the lift simply refused to rise.  Soooo, I had to drive the scooter back to the app'tment and traded it for the walker, hoping that the Mall had scooters available which they sometimes do.


.....When we got back to my car, we noticed that someone had stolen my license plate!  So, anyway, we persisted and we went in Rho's car.  The mall had one scooter left!  Yea!  But the person who had used it, went off with the key! Sooooo, we had to rent a wheelchair which Rho, with difficulty, pushed me to the food court, because at this time (2:30) she was very  hungry...she's big on lunching.  We got to the food court and found that there were only a few food vendors open because the food court had undergone "reconstruction".... To make a very long story short, Rho went to Macy's and exchanged the watch for a gift card while I waited for her in the main lobby watching the world go by on MLK day.  

"Ode to the West Wind" (Shelley)

.....Since I have been called upon to say a few words at the North Shore HS reunion of the classes 1962-1970, I was their teacher & I recall lines from some of the greatest poetry of the Romantic Period in England.  I have already extolled the virtues of Tennyson's "Ulysses" which I taught to many at this reunion.  Now, I would like to have you consider some of the most passionate and emotional lines ever written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and I quote (with some editing) from "Ode to the West Wind".  Keep in mind that in a long life...and Shelley only lived until he was 30...most everyone cannot fully escape from illness, debilitation, or depression.  And that includes the Baron who has lived 58 years longer than Shelley.  I have had my share of most everything life has to offer, and I am most grateful for it.  It's the last line of this poem that offers redemption...and hope.

                                          
                                     O wild West Wind, thou breath
                                           of Autumn's being, make me

                                           Thy lyre even as the forest is...

O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed	50
Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd	55
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,  Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse,   65   Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!   Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

"Ulysses" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Since I extolled this particular poem as spiritual, motivational, inspiring, and rife with yearnings, I think it only wise to place it here in my blog for all to read...and wonder.  Everyone ought to feel the emotion and the passion that it evokes.  I wish I had written it...but, nevertheless it speaks to me.   In this poem, Ulysses (the Roman for Odysseus and the hero of Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey), now an old man, having returned to Ithaca after twenty years absence and much adventure, has grown restless, and is now contemplating setting out with his crew again.  Reading it aloud will bring you the best experience!

Alfred,Lord Tennyson : Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

 This my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

 There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought
 with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 Alfred,Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Tell me...was I wrong?

"I have immortal longings in me." (Antony & Cleopatra)

.....You know...when you reach my stage in life, there aren't too many...if any, ventures or adventures that do not take a whole lot of energy to accomplish.  About the only things left where you do not have to stand up are Facebook, Tweeter-dedum, Links &  any other social sites that I'm not aware of.  I haven't time enough to consider using those offerings. And I'm not having much of a good time on the PC any more...I just entered a whole bunch of information on Target's web site...3 times...for a credit card...and they still did not accept my zip code which I've used here for the past 30 years.  So after spending a half hour on the phone with an "agent" nothing got accomplished.  She said I needed to put my wife's "security code" online.  I told her I'm tearing up the card & gone to Walmart or Dunkin' Donuts.


.....Make no mistake--I am no Don Quixote tilting at windmills, nor Gulliver confronting the Yahoos; nor Sir Gawain seeking the Green Knight to get his head cut off.  But what I am, I am--like Ulysses, perhaps, facing old age. He yearned once again to explore worlds he'd never seen, despite his reunion with his wife, Penelope, and his son Telemachus, "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."  Try reading Tennyson's poem, "Ullysses".  It's a lesson in grandeur, in resilience, in ventures beyond the seas.  I re-read it now and then for motivation, inspiration, mystery and even joy.  There must be some joy left in this life...you think?   Oh, yes, the new mattress is a joy...as simple as that seems to be.

The Baron is extant!

.....Yes, yes...I know; I've been delinquent.  Last post was Dec.24...unacceptable.  But, as happens once in awhile to everyone, I was under the weather, so to speak.  I hadn't eaten anything for five days.  While in the hospital, I definitely ate nothing...hospital food, yecch!
Actually, this will of necessity be very short.  I'm still not ready to go blogging.  We are expecting delivery of a new mattress on Saturday and I'll probably be sleeping on it for days.  I've been sleeping on this one, now for about 20 years.  This new sleeping thing will be a real treat.  And...O' yes...I have to write a speech for the reunion celebration of the Class of '57.  Fortunately, the reunion will be held here in W.Palm Beach...scheduled for Feb. 11.  Hopefully, I'll be fully recovered from this malady by then.  


.....So, my good friends, once more I wish all of you a very happy New Year.  Now for my nap...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz or is it ZZZZZZZZZZ?