Ironwood Rhubarb #2

I have a friend who is a sailor. Sometimes he takes companions with him,  but frequently he sails alone. He has time to think when he is out there in his boat on the water, and among the things he has thought about is the difference between solitude and loneliness. Solitude, he says, is when you are out on your boat and the wind fills your sails. Loneliness is when the wind dies. It is as good a description as I have ever heard. (Earl K. Holt III, minister emeritus, First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, Missouri)

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Read On (by David Rowe)

Since the beginning of time thoughts have filled our minds and in some cases we have chosen to set them down in some form of medium, going back all the way to the hieroglyphics of the cave dwellers.

Some--though not all--of us choose to delve into these thoughts of others through the activity known as reading. Today numerous distractions such as televisions and computer games tempt but some of us speak to the written word.

A friend once told me that reading was like travelling and in a very literal sense that is true. Reading matter such as travel magazines, road maps, and atlases take us places where otherwise we wouldn't ever go.

For many of us, though, the way to travel is through the imaginary world created by the imagination of the writer of fiction. We are transported into their world; we cheer the triumphs of the hero and applaud the downfall of the villain.

And then there's poetry which today includes not only the traditional but also some of the best written songs--they all urge us to sing, if not outwardly then internally.

And finally there is reality, warts and occasional roses and all. Nonfiction works such as biographies can enlighten, and through quality journalism such as The New York Times we can connect with the world around us.

So my friend, dive into something worthwhile--who knows, you may someday turn into a source.

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A Paean to the Bean
(also by Dave Rowe)

From cold steely gray comes warm washing light
From once empty mug comes sweet swirling sip
From sounds once subdued comes free-flowing jazz
From cold frozen grudges comes a once latent smile
Snikerdoo, Angel Kiss, Double Espresso--some call it coffee
I'll call it life.

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See! I will not forget you....I have carved you on the palm of my hand. (Isaiah 49:15

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Than Ho Delivers (by Mickbic)


[The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.--Mark Russell]

Bill Madigan dipped into some Fred Bonnie short stories while waiting for a plane in Cincinnati. Nothing like his own 1970 short story about an ambassador for Christ sleeping in the best bed in the embassy.

There was no luggage awaiting him in Chattanooga, Must have taken the flight to the rings of Saturn.

The 25th high school reunion near  Rochester NY had gone well. Marcia, the former majorette looked a little lost and forlorn after two marriages gone bad. He would call her sometime in July and tell her some of his own tales of woe.

Bills's luggage arrived from Saturn a few days later at the specialty printing company where Bill was employed.

Bill had first become acquainted with Fred Bonnie's writing through a former sister in law of Fred's. Fred died while on a a book signing tour in 2000. He had just published his only novel, Than Ho Delivers, based in Birmingham. Alabama. No mention of Christ's ambassador sleeping in the embassy or luggage ending up becoming part of the rings of Saturn.

Newt Gingrich and Rudolph Perz

That night in October 1994 Dan Thorpe was playing his guitar at his dining room table and sharing his reefer and beer with Bill Madigan. At one point Dan said "there is something inside Stone Mountain."

Bill felt like he had been given a mild electrical shock. It was hard to believe that someone else thought the same as he did about Stone Mountain. Harmonic convergence? Was going to the center like going to God, stepping outside of the flow of time and process, getting off the carousel, the Ferris wheel, the spinning planet?

Years later Bill envisioned a baseball stadium inside Stone Mountain with Newt Leroy Gingrich throwing out the first pitch of the 2019 World Series--only it wasn't the 2019 World Series but a make up World Series for the year 1994. No World Series that year due to a player's strike.

1994 was a good year for Newt Gingrich, the Pillsbury Doughboy who offered a Contract with America after spending a little more time in the oven than he wished.

Due to exfoliation, it would probably be difficult to carve a baseball stadium inside Stone Mountain, but then Gingrich once complained that his wife was a Jaguar and what he needed was a Chevrolet.

Rudolph Perz, who created the Pillsbury Doughboy in the 1960s died on Thursday in a Chicago hospital at age 89. He too might have thought he had been in the oven a little longer than he wished. Happens to us all.