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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Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Considered before sleep


        
from this week in November, 2015   (I was 71)

        Considered before sleep
Avoided Nam being young and dumb
student deferment through ’66
Graduated married a teacher a father
classified exempt until the lottery
Then turned twenty-six too old to be taken
reached a militarily untrainable age
locked in my recalcitrant ways
Dumb luck the smartest thing I did
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