Why we play the game

In baseball you're taught to "always run out the play." Just because your hit didn't go as far, or go as high, as you wanted it and you think you going to be out at first, always finish the play.

The same holds true in day to day life as well.

The other morning I woke up to grey skies and water slowly dripping from the Crepe Myrtle onto the Wisteria and then to the ground. Not an inviting way to start a day at all. Surrendering to the reality I couldn't stay in bed all day, I got up and took a shower. For a few minutes the day looked better; alas, it did not last.

Dressed and in the kitchen, coffee in hand, the day was still a drizzly grey and depressing. Days like this remove most of my motivation, and for the most part I don't care. The day just sort of drags along, minutes seem like hours, food tastes like dust and the cats are just a pain in the butt.

I knew what I needed. A dose of The Darling Rebecca. Always a bright spot in my day, alas her day was no better than mine. A remedy was needed. "Dinner out!" I suggested to her and she agreed. But where? With the doldrums of the day, no decision would be forth coming on my part. Maybe dropping different names in a hat and drawing one out. 

With Rebecca's arrival at home a decision had to be made and "The Social Club" was the winner so with the livestock fed we were free to go.

And with cocktail and menu in hand the decision was made to "nosh" rather than "dine" and so we did. The day was beginning to improve. After some crab cakes, deviled eggs, fried chicken and a couple of cocktails, we were ready for dessert. Ice cream was in order, or a glass of wine "on the veranda" down at Mc Nears.

As we entered the plaza, on the way to our rendezvous with our after dinner aperitif, music could be heard. There sitting by himself in a chair with with his guitar and surrounded by assorted foot pedals and gizmos, was Sebastian Nau.

It was Monday night and Sebastian has committed to playing outside of “Speakeasy”, a late night wine and nosh place. We changed direction and sat and ordered our wine.

We were immediately struck by the sound we were hearing as Sebastian tapped his pedals and strummed his guitar. It turned out he was recording the different layers of the song he was about to play so he could play along with himself as his accompaniment.  The intricacies of the music and his ability to keep things straight are just amazing. It is no wonder the boys in the band, Highway Poets, refer to him as “The Man Himself”

                       

 Well the day ended on quite an uplifting note indeed. With toes tapping, hearts beating and faces smiling it was a great ending to a dreadful beginning.

So, like the coach said “Always run out the play,”  cause you never know what’s waiting for you at the end.

Stay Tooned…

We WERE Different

FROM THE BEGINNING we Americans have been different. With the exception of the Native Indians we are all sprung from immigrants.

When I say immigrant I do not mean wanderer. The folks who came here first were the adventurers, seekers, and those who refused to be shackled. These folks were the breeding stock that made this country what it is.

We were not founded by patsy's or weaklings, but the strong and the daring. It was in their genes not to stand for intimidation nor domination, they were willing to leave their homelands and cross the oceans to reach an uncharted land. With this in mind I pitty those poor bastards who first met the Pilgrims at the boat. Had they known what was about to happen to their world they never would have shown us how to make it through those first winters.

As time passed, and the natives gave way, a change occurred in the way "us Americans" ran our lives. Some of us built towns and cities, while others continued westward toward still newer frontiers. Once again the "adventure gene"(AG) led some folks to venture out into the unknown.

DAVY CROCKETT

DANIEL BOONE

While others stayed behind and led us on a different kind of adventure, one of business and  manufacturing and wealth.

J. J. Astor

Cornelius Vanderbilt

While both factions proved to do well, by making America what it is today, could it be that by doing what they did, they made everyday life easier on the general population and there by dulling the AG?

With the adventurers showing that the white man could survive in the west came civilization. Vanderbilt, through the railroads, making it easier to get to the west and the Asters bringing society to the west, it's no wonder we spread out so quickly.

We still have our leaders but, unfortunately for the masses, they have figured out that they are leading, well...sheep. There. I said it. We have become a nation of sheep, just like the people who stayed behind way back in the beginning.

We have become a nation of mostly followers rather than leaders. Though the AG never has truly gone away, a mere 20 years after the decision to do it was made, we did land a man on the moon and bring him back.

Our leaders of today seem to care more and more about themselves and the folks who think and act like them, than they do for the folks who hoisted them up to the positions they hold. Business leaders putting the quest for the all mighty dollar in front of all else. You, me, the Earth and the rest of the world, be damned! Politicians putting the next election in front of all else. You, me, the Earth, and the rest of the world be damned! It doesn't seem to matter what either of these groups say, the masses believe them. DDT is safe, I won't raise your taxes, the drugs you buy in America are better than the same drugs in Canada - that's why they cost so much more.

Our AG seems to have, for the majority of us, gone into remission. While at the same time it seems to have been replaced by the GG in our leaders. I hope, down to my toes, that WE THE PEOPLE IN ORDER TO FORM A BETTER UNION, well you know how that story goes...

Coming up the GG "Greed Gene"...stay tooned.