it doesn't matter anymore

This morning I was up at 6:40am and I was in the newly renovated bathroom debating where to put a new box of kleenex I had in my hand. Would it be better here or over there and just as that was actually happening I began to realize how insignificant so many things are that I spend time on even at a stage in life where my time is running low. 

If you were in a desert and only had water to survive another day you wouldn't waste a drop of it yet there I was standing there deciding on where to put a box of kleenex. When I was shooting photos, one fraction of a second was the difference in an incredible captured moment and a forgettable one anyone could take. Life is also not this ongoing infinite succession of moments that go on forever and realizing that and not wasting of them is all too often learned during the last breath we take. 

These past two years since mom passed away it has been my task to sort through and do something with about two hundred years of my families belongings that were kept throughout generations. Little did I know there would be more than just the house to contend with but the memories, mementos, photos, furniture, some a hundred years old that had value to the lives of loved ones no longer here. Those larger than life people who had very little yet raised, fed, and clothed the generations that comprise the family we have today left these things that the younger generation has no practical knowledge or connection to and I have an understanding of that. 

I'm cutting myself some slack over the gut wrenching time and emotions going through these things has brought to me and I will be eternally grateful to God for choosing me to have these connections and memories. At times I have felt  and still feel that I am not living up to deserving to have come from these people who were my family but I know completely that God doesn't make mistakes and he made me a part of them because he thought I deserved them. I have to remind myself of that often and it's up to me now to live the life that honors God's choice of giving me the roots that I have to some of the most wonderful, resourceful, and  loving people that will have ever have walked on this earth. 

A recent visit with my nephew and his wife gave me some particular insight that I didn't think I wanted but in the end I knew I needed. We cling to things that belonged to the people we loved when those people pass away as if it were a piece of them we can't let go of. Those things can and in my case do, number in the hundreds and thousands from several generations. Those things can become a burden of weight in ways our loved ones would never have wanted for us. While it's somewhat uncomfortable to say it this way, it is of monumental value to acknowledge it and then more so to, do something about it. 

Cyndi sat there listening to me whine about what to do with these thousands of photos I have, some dating back to the 1800s, and of people I'm not even sure who they are, and when I asked her what she thought I should do with them she very calmly looked me straight in the eyes and said, either scan them and get rid of them or just get rid of them. 

Wow....... That was the moment I began to realize a lot of this weight I feel I'm carrying today is self imposed and not at all what those people I desperately miss would want for me. I love you Cyndi and your candor and perspective out of care was exactly what I needed. Even though I already knew it to be true, I just needed to hear if from another caring soul and I'm intending to implement that sentiment throughout the rest of this journey I'm on. 

the people, not their things.

Sure I'll keep a few things but I can't keep it all and most of it has to go. It's on me now but it always was and my mom left it to me because she felt confident that I could handle it and do the right thing. Her own words to me were to, be right and to do the right things. 

I'm evolving from grief and loss into realizing that the things we leave behind don't really matter. What matters is that we are remembered as having done our best to be right and to do right things.  

One of the mind tricks I have to get over is the self induced and completely manufactured guilt when thinking of getting rid of things. It says nothing about how I feel about the people who owned and kept them. Those feelings are in my heart and will go with me the rest of my life. It has everything to do with saving myself and my sanity to go on living like I promised my mom I would do. I miss her like crazy and giving clothes and stuff to the Goodwill is exactly what my mom would want me to do. The habit we all have of accumulating things is nonsensical to me and we all do it. When we are gone and that can happen in two seconds, this practice of accumulating goes from nonsensical to burdensome on those we leave behind. 

One of the greatest gifts you can give today to those who will grieve and suffer at losing you one day is to take the time while you are still here to declutter and purge your accumulated stuff so they don't have to during a time when they are hurting the most.    

Thank you Cyndi and David I love you to pieces. I'm unloading as much stuff as fast as I can so you don't have to do it.

no soup for you.

One of the best business moves I ever made was to fake my way into television. The other was investing in the stock market but that’s another story and just as unimaginable a success for an oddball high school dropout like me. A Rolling Stones, ZZTop concert at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas hooked me on video and a few years later tv news would be my way in. Looked simple enough. Find the on/off switch and point the right end of the camera towards the action, hit record, have a blast, get paid. What, is that it?? Surely there was more to it than just those things and there were but a lot of the rest of it had me wondering if it was even remotely possible that this is all there is to doing this. 

When I figured I had enough in savings to buy one of those big cameras I started calling around tv stations to get a feel for my chances of making any money before writing a check for every penny I had. At first no one would even talk to me. To get rid of my persistent calling and leaving messages for whoever the grand poo-bah was (the poo-bah thing was for you Mike at NBC5 to keep you anonymous for having laughed at me for even thinking I could just walk in and do this, oops…) that did the hiring, I finally got 5 minutes with the “anonymous” NBC5 guy who was anything but encouraging but just telling it like it was. 

Other than to ask what my experience was (I had zero) and what markets I had worked in (there are markets?), the goal was clearly to let me know, this ain’t how it’s done. I was a 10th grade dropout and was working in a warehouse at the time driving a forklift and apparently there just aren’t many openings for uneducated forklift drivers in the television business. Who knew.. The message I was given to remember was this, “son, if it were that easy to just walk in here and do this because you want to, there would be a line outside our door around the block.” Exact words and thanks NBC5, you’ll never know (well you do now) how much of a fire that lit under my ass to find a way. 

The naysayers were swarming out of the woodwork and for a few moments I will admit, they almost had me convinced this wasn’t doable especially for me. Long story short, 25-30 years later I made enough, invested enough, and retired early while I’m certain some of them, are still working in the most tarnished and disrespected profession that has ever fallen from heights of the Cronkite era when truth, facts, respect and dignity were the counterpoint in every newsroom. 

The camera in this photo was my first, a $36 thousand dollar Sony BVW 300A. Was 4:3, shot tape, and standard definition before high definition. That $36 grand was every penny I had to my name and I risked it all against sincere attempts to dissuade me from more educated and experienced professionals who knew more than I thought I ever would. That camera before it’s unceremonious retirement many years ago made me approximately 2 million dollars over the years of its life and I still have it as a souvenir along with my fake media credential I printed off the internet to get into scenes and learn how everything was done. Several cameras, network shoots and shows, corporate gigs and travels around the world several times later, here is this photo I found taken by who the hell knows at a time when broadcast media was a respected and useful profession. I had bucked all the odds and because I was too unsophisticated to know I wasn’t qualified, I just went ahead and did it anyway.  

I still have that hat around here somewhere. Never let your lack of education interfere with your success and NO actually means, oops, I need to take another route.

All this nonsense enabled me to discover that I had a lifelong dream I didn’t know I had. To finally make my mom proud. And she was. Things, money, travel, nothing compares to knowing she was proud of me before God took her hand and led her away to be with him. What an incredibly strange and weirdly rewarding life this has been.

close friends

I've never had many friends. Many acquaintances, but few friends. Now that I've reached the second half of my fourth quarter of life with health issues raining down, it occurs to me that my solitary lifestyle, one that I cultivated and perfected, might not have been the best way to go..

Facebook says I have almost 5,000 friends as if I needed more evidence that social media is fake and a poor substitute for life. Having never been a "people person," it's no surprise that this part of my life where days and nights are hauntingly quiet and dinners for one are my way of life.

Around this time of year with Thanksgiving and Christmas bearing down it is especially tough seeing what was once warm and comfortable enter the rear view mirror. So many we once knew have moved on and away, some have passed away and in some cases just walked out of our lives.

It's interesting how working on my Will recently and sorting through all the complexities of who to leave what and how much and all the legal jargon and wanting to be fair and on and on has ended up giving me an intense general feeling of, who really gives a shit more than anything else. People who were not much if at all in my life while I was here, I've spent hours trying to sort out what they will get when they accidently hear that I'm dead and now all that seems like wasted time and a bit foolish on my part.  

All of the people who made a difference in my life have passed away. There is no one left. I'm leaving a few things to some of the people who helped me along the way in my professional life that gave me the assets to need to write a Will in the first place and I feel good about that. Not life changing things, just things to say a final thank you, appreciate it, see you on the other side. 

Social media aside and back in the real world, it isn't the numbers that have any meaning to your life or mine, it's the closeness or the distance like in my case that matters at my stage. I would say that I have one close friend. Not dozens or hundreds certainly not thousands, just one that feels close. And two or three others that I speak to occasionally if I do the reaching out.

Depending on your definition of "friend," the "close friend," if you have one at all, can make a really uncertain 4th quarter of life a bit easier to think about. 24/7 no matter where I am or where he and his wife are, I could call and he would answer without fail. I cannot say that with any certainty about anyone else including those who I spent and probably wasted, a lot of time on in the process of the Will.. 

One final, here is a link to a youtube video made and written by Steve Faktor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JHsLJH0Rdk&t=211s

Paul McCartney and Carl Perkins - My Old Friend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn19iLYFZKw

social studies

absolutely nothing happened today. 

No catalyst for this beyond the feeling over the past ever so long, that social anything has drained my senses. Not just the internet but walking down the street, driving the car, working, entering or exiting a business, social just about anything has reached a point in my life where it requires more energy output than I have left to give it. 

Interactions between myself and all but a few is so incredibly draining that I end up using more energy to avoid contact than I do trying to pretend I'm not doing that.

Political buffoonery I can't tolerate, I mute commercials, meaningless chit chat makes me grind my teeth to the root, mindless texts and emails, my tolerance for all of it has just about run out completely. Most  of what is commonly considered by most to be ordinary back and forth with people, places and things have now taken their rightful place as the useless wastes of what little time I have left while on top of this earth. 

This blog has always been the purging of things in my mind that have no other legitimate place to be expelled but here where it feels more sane to write than to sit alone in a dark room and talk to myself. 

Gone are those days when you knew if you went missing for a day or so someone would ask about you or come looking for your body. Those people, those someones, they're all long gone now too. I'm constantly thinking what's the point in regards to just about anything I do or get involved with and it wasn't all that long ago I could find some beneficial reason to endure a few things that made the social exercise seem worth it but no longer.

My world is different now, a different life than the one I lived just two years ago and I've found everything about it and in it to be damaging to my soul. While I do not fear the end of this life and have said many times that I am not eager to go, I wonder at times if perhaps I look forward to that end a little more than I care to admit. 

My promise to my mom that I would continue on is why I will remain here until God decides, not me, that my usefulness here has run its course. Until then I will keep looking on my own for some light on a dark path. The days and the nights where I live are very quiet even though I know I'm not actually alone.

He who finds the light, wins.

Moderna Booster Reaction

For several health related reasons and advice from my Doctors I got jab #1 (no reactions to speak of) in February 2021, jab #2 (some cold related issues but not bad at all) in March, then just this past Saturday the booster. I got all of mine at CVS pharmacy #1 and #2 in Abilene because no appointments locally, then the booster locally.  

Almost all in line for the booster this Saturday were older people with only a couple of exceptions. The pharmacist was the "shooter," and oddly enough he wasn't wearing a mask and wore only one glove which I thought was odd considering all day long for days on end this guy was presented with and being face to face with people some of which had not been vaccinated at all. 

I have zero interest in the debates going on over to get or not to get as I made my own decision for my own reasons and that is that. But I do have a concern over this pharmacist not wearing maximum protection around all these people giving them shots so there's that..

Day of shot, the shot itself was painful going in. He took aim, didn't hold the skin with one hand and just jammed the needle in and yeah, it hurt a bit. He didn't say I should hang for a few minutes to see if I had a reaction I just went to my car and headed home. This was about noon. By 6pm I was not feeling well. By 8pm I was feeling much worse. Body aches all over, chills I was wearing a jacket to keep warm, a headache that would kill a moose, the injection site on my arm felt like I had been hit full swing with a baseball bat and not enough energy to get off the couch. 

Sunday I woke up about 1pm and I felt like I had been slammed into by a train. Haven't felt this bad in years. On a scale of 1 to 10 and 10 being the worst, I was 10 plus and wondering if even catching Covid would feel this bad.

That was the worst of it so far at least as today, Monday I feel like my bad number of 10 plus is more like 5 today. Headaches are still there but not as intense and body aches are less with the exception of my back. Maybe the worst is over but we'll have to see. I've done what I can to help prevent myself from getting this China attack on the world that my Doctors say with my ongoing other health issues would probably kill me and that's really all I can do. 

Purpose

the clocks tick down from the moment we are born and throughout the rush to our end. All that we are assured of is this very moment we are in right here and a tomorrow for us may not come. Millions of fractions of moments have led me to this place where I am and even having experienced moments in places that some only dream of, all of my moments have led me right here to this place where I feel invisible with no purpose. 

It isn’t a new place that I need to find even while thinking it might be from time to time what I want to do, it is a purpose that I need to find and I see nothing ahead to fill my void. Another day is a blessing but without purpose feels like a sin. There is no one left that I have ever loved to take care of anymore and no one I have ever cared for that needs me. When I didn’t have two nickels to my name and I needed to go to work everyday, that is when I was a very rich man and I had no idea. God blessed me with a mom that filled my entire life with purpose. She made me feel like it was she who needed me when in fact she did quite well raising us kids with no help and taking care of her mom and herself and so many others I have discovered when going through her things since she passed away. 

But it was I who needed her, and too many times throughout the years I didn’t have a clue how much. In mom’s last few years she actually did need me and I was blessed to be able to be there but since the moment she took her last breath, I realized how much more I needed her. We talked about how she wanted me to keep going and how she was worried I might not. She was more worried about me than herself and that was always how she was. Mom knew she was dying and so did I but I never let on that I knew. We had many talks about God and how she wanted me to get closer to him so we would see each other again and I promised I would and I have kept that promise. She was working harder when she had little to no strength on making sure I would be OK and either I thought I would be alright or I outright lied, but since her passing I am more than a little unwell. 

On my walk last night moving silently down the streets in the neighborhood I thought about how alone I felt pushing through the darkness and how unaffected anyone would be if in fact tomorrow I were not here. Wiping a few tears that no one would ever see and feeling a bit sorry for myself, I began to realize that I actually wasn’t alone and that none of us ever really have to walk through this life completely alone. My God walks with me and my mom watches over me and I have no right to suffer knowing they would be so disappointed.  

Hope we all keep walking, keep pushing on and I in particular must find purpose and that purpose will help light my darkness.

August 14, 1969

The festival Woodstock musical festival that drew nearly half a million people to Max Yasgur's dairy farm in the Catskill mountains was a pivotal moment in American culture. The festival ran August 15–17, 1969.

Woodstock 1969

This is a general view of the crowd at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, Aug. 14, 1969. (AP Photo)

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WOODSTOCK

Rock music fans relax during a break in the entertainment at the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in Bethel, N.Y., on Aug. 16, 1969. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

A mud-caked music lover lies atop his motorcycle at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, Aug. 14, 1969. (AP Photo)

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WOODSTOCK

A girl helps herself to a free food ration in the camp area at the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, N.Y. on Aug. 15, 1969. (AP Photo)

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WOODSTOCK FESTIVAL 1969

About 400,000 people attend the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in Bethel, N.Y., August 16, 1969. (AP Photo)

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WOODSTOCK

About 400,000 people attend the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in Bethel, N.Y., August 16, 1969. (AP Photo)

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WOODSTOCK

Jammed cars are seen on Rt. 17B near the Woodstock Festival in Bethel, N.Y., on August 16, 1969. (AP Photo)

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WOODSTOCK 40th

FILE -In this August 1969 file photo, a view of part of the crowd at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival held on a 600-acre pasture in the Catskill Mountains near White Lake in Bethel, N.Y., in Aug. 1969. The festival, billed as "Thee Days of Peace and Music," started on Friday, Aug. 15. More than 400,000 persons attended. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

Rock music fans sit on a tree sculpture as one leaps mid-air onto a pile of hay during the Woodstock Music and Art Festival held on a cow pasture at White Lake in Bethel, New York on Aug. 15, 1969. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

Young people abandon their trucks, cars and buses as some 200,000 persons try to reach the Woodstock Music and Art Festival on a leased cow pasture at White Lake in Bethel, New York Friday, Aug. 15, 1969. Cars were backed up for 10 miles. The festival closed the New York State Thruway, creating the nation?s worst traffic jam. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

Music fans are treated for cuts and bruises after falling from the outside of a car on the grounds of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival at White Lake in Bethel, N.Y., on Aug. 15, 1969. (AP Photo)

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WOODSTOCK

**ADVANCE FOR MONDAY AUG. 10** FILE -In this August 1969 file photo, over 400,000 people attend the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in Bethel, N.Y., August 16, 1969. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

A youth lies with head injuries suffered when he was thrown from the trunk of a car on the road leading to the Woodstock Music and Art festival in Bethel, New York, Aug. 16, 1969. Ambulances were unable to reach the scene because of the traffic. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

Woodstock Rock music fans gather at a stand outside a motel near the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in Bethel, New York, Aug. 16, 1969. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

Hundreds of rock music fans jam highway leading from Bethel, New York, Aug. 16, 1969 as they try to leave the Woodstock Music and Art Festival. Two hundred thousand persons spent a rainy night at the festival. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock Festival

Thousands of rock music fans are packed around the stage in a field near Bethel, New York at the Woodstock Festival, on August 16, 1969. A throng estimated at 500,000 persons covered on the area creating a gigantic jam of traffic and humanity over many miles and giving rise for concern for the health and safety of many of them. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)

Marty Lederhandler

Woodstock 1969

Music fans seek shelter is a grass hut at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in Bethel, New York, Aug. 17, 1969. Sign above reads "Have a Marijuana." (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

Volunteers pick up trash in the mud on the grounds of the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in Bethel, New York, Aug. 17, 1969. Festival sponsors asked for volunteer help in removing the debris left by some 300,000 rock music fans. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

Rock music fans hike from the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in Bethel, New York, Aug. 17, 1969. Some 300,000 fans began to leave as the festival ended in the rain. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock 1969

Young people leave debris-strewn scene where hundreds of thousands congregated over the weekend to enjoy the rock music festival held in field in Bethel, New York, Aug. 18, 1969. In background is stage where musicians performed. (AP Photo/Bob Scott)

Bob Scott

Woodstock 1969

Woman sweeps debris from the street in front of her home in Bethel, NY, as rock music fans leave the Woodstock Music and Art Festival, Aug. 18, 1969. Many of the 300,000 persons attending the festival were still making their way home. (AP Photo)

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Woodstock

A girl naps on top of her car, while trying to reach the music festival at Woodstock, N.Y., Aug. 16, 1969. (AP Photo)

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Digging Woodstock

FILE - In this August 16, 1969 file aerial photo, music fans at the original Woodstock Music and Arts Festival are packed around the stage, at bottom, in Bethel, N.Y. Archaeologists from New York's Binghamton University are trying to find the exact location of the stage and light and speaker towers and say aerial shots taken nearly 50 years ago can't be relied upon to help them, because the bottom of the hillside was re-graded in the late '90s to accommodate a temporary stage for anniversary performances, and the spot of the original stage is under a layer of compacted fill. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler, File)

Marty Lederhandler

Woodstock 1969

Hundreds of rock music fans walk along the wet highway leading from Bethel, New York, Aug. 16, 1969 as they try to leave the Woodstock Music and Art Festival. Two hundred thousand persons spent a rainy night at the festival. (AP Photo)

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WOODSTOCK

Woodstock Music and Art Festival participants leave the festival on Aug. 17, 1969 in Bethel, N.Y. (AP Photo)

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