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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Wednesday, February 1, 2023

What became of the social contract

 

from this week in February, 2020 (I was 75)

 

What became of the social contract

I remember when I first came to live here

in the fall of 1966 When all was so new for us

driving the Nimitz freeway to the Bay Bridge

when the traffic moved both fast and smooth

in time to the music on the radio

Cars signaling changing lanes even trucks

in mutual trust and respect for right of way

It inspired confidence in the grandeur

of civic behavior and cooperative effort

to attentively assure we all got to our destinations

in that alluring city on the Hill above the blue and windy sea   

Moving smoothly through the tunnel of Treasure Island

to emerge into the loveliness of accessible possibility

Just another manifesto now lost to the worm of cynicism

and recalled only in fictional idealism of old lyrics 

 

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