I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


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Friday, March 2, 2018

This weight upon all the family generations I know


March 2, 2015  (I was 70)

This weight upon all the family generations I know
has been passed on without record of what or why
by whoever first took it up
nor by what right they handed it off
I feel it bearing down a clumsy load
ill defined baggage no one meant to leave behind
Your niece correctly noted you were the last
the closing chapter of adults we knew as kids
The geologic era of that range of towns has passed
It does not exist for my children
This heavy iron now rusts in my memory
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