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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Monday, April 26, 2021

I had an agnostic friend

 

April 26, 2008  (I was 63)

 

I had an agnostic friend

When we were together he spoke incessantly

It was as if it was all he knew what to do

We went on a long drive

He’d say Snow on the mountains

when anyone in the car could see the snow

Shredded tires all over the highway

Contrails crisscrossing the sky

must be Air Force maneuvers

Gas cheaper in Carolina than California

Third dead dog in the last ten miles

wonder if they got hit or just jumped out of trucks

Damn potholes are three feet across

whole infrastructure is going to hell

Saw this thing on PBS said within ten years

we’d be able to paint solar panels on almost anything

They’re putting silicon cells in the paint

and algae is gonna end up the best source for ethanol

cause it reproduces so fast and is harvested from

pond scum

I said why don’t you just be quiet  He looked at me and said 

And that won’t bother you the silence

No I said  Thank God he said

And never spoke to me again


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