YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street, and I am not completely surprised that the U.S. is expected to have record high temperatures during the coming mid-November weekend, just two weeks before Thanksgiving.
I believe in global warming, although I think there are factors at work in addition to humanity’s squandering of the Earth.
I have told this story before, and I am hoping that neither of my regular readers will remember or be offended by it.
This happened probably in 1965 when I was a sailor at a helicopter base in Imperial Beach, Calif., so close to the border with Mexico that on Sunday nights we could see the stream of headlights leaving the bullfights at the Arena By the Sea in Tijuana.
It was my practice to pass on the free breakfast at the chow hall on Saturday mornings. Instead, I liked to go have a healthful donut and endless coffee at the base coffeeshop where I could read the ‘San Diego Union-Tribune’ at my leisure.
On one particular Saturday the newspaper carried an interview with a researcher from the famous Scripps Institute which is located just up the coast from San Diego.
The article quoted the researcher saying that ‘we’ were about to enter a 300-year cycle of the sun. The researcher (sorry, I can’t remember whether it was male or female) said that the result would be a blurring of seasons — including unusually hot days in cold months; unusually cold days in warm months; and a change in rainfall patterns.
The researcher claimed that the most important effect would be to agriculture, saying that farmers could no longer plan the exact date they would begin spring planting, or autumn reaping.
We’ve only got to get through about 250 more years before the weather becomes ‘normal’ again.
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WAR IN ISRAEL. I have no tolerance for Hamas’s bloody surprise attack upon Israel. I understand Israel’s refusal to back down from the total destruction of its enemy. The attack was like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, if those horrendous events can help you understand.
We have to understand, also, the mindset of the Palestinians. Part of their homeland was wrenched away from them by the United Nations and by the Jews who were determined to reclaim their Promised Land.
Taking from one and giving to another never works out. For instance, Northern Ireland where descendants of the original landowners (Catholics) still harbor sometimes violent feelings against the ‘newcomers’ (Church of England) who got the confiscated land when it was given them by the ruling English royalty.
If you peel back a few layers you will find some people who still haven’t gotten over the Civil War.
There were some people in Africa who were forcibly taken from their homeland and pressed into slavery in a faraway land across the ocean.
And explain to me again about the Trail of Tears.
I am not smart enough to come up with a solution. Maybe a few hundred more years must pass for us to get over our anger.
So far our country hasn’t been the object of any new attack in retribution for our support of Israel. But don’t be surprised.
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SPEAKING OF WAR. Someone recently told me she couldn’t watch any more television about Trump, Ukraine or Israel.
“It breaks my heart and I cannot watch any more.”
I mostly agree. I am ready for some goodwill and harmony, but I’m not likely to get either.
What I AM likely to get is the latest Michael Connelly novel, due for postal delivery Tuesday. I may disappear in in a cloud of goodwill and harmony for a bit. I can shut out the world for a few days.
Connelly’s characters are the greatest — LA Detective Hieronymus Bosch, his half-brother defense lawyer Mickey Haller and Detective Renee Ballard, among others. I love the books and the Bosch, Bosch Legacy and the Lincoln Lawyer tv series on Amazon Prime.
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THE GOOD EARTH. The Daylight Savings Time change has mean more than making me early for church. When I do my morning neighborhood stroll it ends with a pink dawn. Used to be finished still in the dark.
And another thing: There is the most pleasant, subtle smell in the air. What is blooming?
And another thing: Before it turned back warm again someone in the neighborhood had a fire going in the fireplace. The smell of wood smoke is very pleasant.
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THINGS I LEARNED by opening email: I was struggling to understand how lightning works … And then it struck me.
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WORD GAMES. That nice young couple Adam and Eve. It was an arranged marriage.
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HE SAID: “Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.” Yogi Berra, Yankees Hall of Fame catcher
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SHE SAID: “For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.” Reba McEntire, singer. Before she became a famous entertainer, she performed at the Pine Tree Festival in Dierks.
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
