"The end is near" said the crazy guy on the corner.

One of my super pet peeves is all the Doom and Gloomers who came crawling out of the woodwork in the last couple of years. All those idiots who claim to know the future and for them, the future is none too good, to say the least. Most of them belong to or subscribe to some extreme political cult or group. They only listen to talk/junk radio fat ass drug addict idiots and believe every word they hear.

For them, the main stream media are all lying to us on every front. They basically blame them for all our woes. They pine for the "good old days", when they thought life was basically "black and white". You know..........The guy with the white hat loved, protected the citizens and was always good, pure of mind and heart and never did anything wrong at all. Now.........The guy with the black hat was the devil incarnate. He was a crook, mean to small children and would rape and molest all the women in the neighborhood without a second thought to what was right or wrong.

These Doom and Gloomers really started big time during the so-called year 2000 computer disaster, which of course like everything else they freak out about never even happened at all. As far as I know, NOTHING whatsoever happened! Back then all these crazies dug huge holes in their backyard, lined the walls with 4" impenetrable metal and stocked up their hidy hole with enough food to last for the few years they thought the end of the world would take to catch up with them. Then they went out and bought up every bullet within 50 miles of their new home in the dirt to be able to protect themselves from the unshaven masses who were for sure coming to try and rape and pillage their loving families.

Now of course they all have rotting, stinking, putrid food they need to deal with. They also drove the price of ammunition through the sky with their idiocy. Now bullets cost more than gold, thank you very much...Maybe after they clean all the rotten food and ammunition out of their special holes in the ground, their children and grandchildren will at least have a fort they can play in huh?

All throughout history there have been nut cases standing on the corner with hand drawn signs that say "The end is near". I wouldn't doubt if they even had savage nut cases as far back as the cave man days screaming about the local volcanoes about to erupt because they thought the other tribes were not paying enough attention to whatever gods they believed in at that time.

So.........believe it or not, after all the Doom and Gloom predictions about the world as we know it ending because of our new president or any number of other stupid reasons put out by the extremist, we're still doing just fine, thank you. Matter of fact, there are clear signs that everything is creeping very slowly to be sure, back toward whatever will be our new normalcy in these interesting times we find our selves in at this time in history.

Sometimes the Doom and Gloomers even try and compare our present temporary recession to the Great Depression. Can you believe that? Have you seen pictures of those poor folks back in those times. Holy Shit. We're all rich beyond imagination compared to those times. Back then, there was no safety net of any kind for those poor souls. No welfare. No food stamps. No nothin! There was starvation, for heavens sake back then. Now days, with the wonderful outpouring of food, clothing and housing available for the poorest of the poor, we have it made in general compared to those terrible and unfortunate days.

There's nothing I can say to the Doom and Gloomers that will make them understand how out of touch and crazy they are, other than to tell them to shut the damn radio off, but for the rest of us.............

Just relax folks. Slowly but surely, the same as the other approximately dozen temporary recessions we have already lived through, the economy will get better. Americans are the most resourceful, creative people on the planet and will be just fine in the long run. The job market will start slowly growing with time. Even losing some of our manufacturing base is temporary. With all the new "green technologies" coming along and being invented daily, new job skills will be necessary, which will put people back to work eventually.

At this point in time, the only people I personaly feel sorry for are people who are subjected to the Doom and Gloomer's crazy rants. I'm guessing these poor folks make any excuse they can to get the hell away from these nutcases as soon as they can. As the title of this piece says:
"The end is near" said the crazy guy on the corner", as normal, sane people just shake their heads, laugh and move their families to the other side of the street for their own safety..........




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Christmas, oh so magical. Or is it?

Christmas for everyone is assumed to be the most magical, amazing, wonderful time of the year. A time when all family's make a special effort to get back in close, personal contact with all their loving relatives and friends. Often times, this really only happens this one time each year, which should make it even more special.

Christmas starts out for all of us as this crazy, wild, huge event that slowly becomes more and more real and important starting from the day we are born. It's a time when as children, all of the sudden out of no where, relatives we might almost never see show up at our homes with smiles and love shinning in their eyes and souls. A time when we re-connect with people we have a blood connection with or those who married or coupled with our blood relatives.

All of the sudden our homes become this loud, happy, huggy and warm place where nothing bad could possibly happen. It re-affirms how life can be a wonderful and fulfilling experience for all. Our homes become this special place with the amazing smells of Aunt Gertrude's yearly dishes that taste oh so good. Everyone has their own special dishes that fill the home with aromas from heaven. We all eat far, far too much of everything and every meal includes the obligatory moans and groans of being too full at the end of each meal.

Okay. That's the dream Christmas and possible reality for a lot of folks lucky enough to have a large loving family who either lives close by or are willing to travel across the country to end up in one special home each year, sharing their love for each other openly and with great glee.

The sad truth for so many is as we grow older and most of the children move off to have their own families and realities, it becomes harder and harder to get together at all. Then there are those who had those times only when they were little kids. Then their brothers and sisters, if they had any at all, slowly became estranged from each other for tons of stupid but real reasons. In adulthood, they might even now be in a place where they are so dysfunctional that they don't even talk to each other at all now. As sad as that seems to happy families, there are a lot of people out in the world in that position.

For them the whole Christmas season becomes this sad, lonely time of the year. We've all heard about the incredible and unfortunate amount of intense depression, even suicides that happen during the Christmas season each year.

I'm not writing this piece to put a damper on the season for folks but to just point out that Christmas is not always this perfect, wonderful, magical thing for an awful lot of folks. These people could and should get love, comfort and understanding from everyone around them. If you know of anyone like this as I'm sure you do if you look carefully around you, lets all take even just a moment out of our hectic lives to do something special for these deserving people who don't have these great big loud, loving family's around to give them a huge group hug we all crave so much.

Just taking the time to spend a few moments with them. Giving them a call out of the blue to wish them a Merry Christmas. Giving them a small but thoughtful present. Just letting them know that you do care about them, even in just a small way most likely would make them feel wanted and cared about at this special time.

Since I do believe in some kind of Karma, I believe this goodwill will come back to you in spades if not now, someday soon.

Oh yeah. Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope we all have a wonderful, prosperous New Year.



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Most people really are quite amazing....

When this whole recession thing first started and people started losing their jobs or as in the building industry, the jobs just started tapering off toward fewer and fewer, I started trying to think of ways I might be able to help. My business has never been impacted much by the various recessionary periods we have gone through in the past and thank the stars above, this one so far is no exception.

The reasons my business has not slowed to much are many, including just having so very many loyal, wonderful customers all these years. The other factors would be the price of my service. One doesn't have to get a loan to get a haircut. It's money most folks have right in their pockets. Another would be how much better a person feels after getting a haircut. Even I forget how great it feels to get cleaned up with a haircut until by wife gives me one. It's a relatively cheap feel good procedure that everyone can and does do on a regular basis.

I put a sign up right in front of everyone as their setting in my chair. The sign says:

If you have lost your job or been laid off in these trying times we find ourselves in right now, the price of a haircut is now $10.00, which is what I charge retired folks.
This price will stay at that level for you until you find a job and or the economy gets back on track for everyone.

At first almost no one took me up on that deal but as the economy started slipping more and more and people actually did start losing their jobs, more of them slowly and reluctantly started excepting my special deal. Even this far into these trying times, there are still people who refuse to utilize the deal out of their own person pride. Some folks are just barely making it and I still can't talk them into it.

Then a crazy, wonderful thing started happening to make me re-realize just how amazing and fantastic a lot of folks really are. One by one, several of my customers started handing me $20.00 for their haircuts. When I started to give them their change, they turned it down and told me to apply it to my deal to help others who need the help. Can you believe that? It shocked me at first but more and more folks have started doing this unbelievably generous, caring thing.

I am guessing I'm at the point where these wonderful people are pretty much paying for my deal with their sharing, beautiful attitudes. In most cases, these are people who have not lost their jobs and just want to pass on some amount of good will and sharing toward their fellow human beings in some small way.

I want to take this time to truly and proudly give thanks to these great people. They should feel proud of themselves and know that I appreciate their contributions with all my heart and soul. I now have quite a few folks who are taking advantange of the special pricing. I have to add that most everyone of them always mention that as soon as they are employed again, they plan on going back to paying the full price.

So............once again it proves beyond a shadow of doubt that most people by far are loving, caring people who in troubled times or good are ready and able to share with their fellow humans. I really think this whole thing should renew all our faith in the basic goodness of people.

I know it sure does for me.........




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Taking normalcy for granted............

This is something none of us gives much thought to until something happens to bring it to the forefront. We go through life taking feeling normal completely for granted. We don't even give a seconds thought to how great just being a normal, healthy, alive and vibrant human being is. There are so many things to feel thankful for in life but most times these thoughts just don't occur to most of us on a daily or minute by minute basis, no matter how wonderful just feeling normal actually is. It takes something that forces us to compare normalcy to, to wake us up to the amazing, perfect being we really are feeling just plain normal.

What brought this to the forefront for us is the damn cold that rudely and obnoxiously crashed through my household the last several days. We went from just cruising through life without a care in the world to falling off a damn cliff of pain, aches, voice completely disappearing, noses running like Niagara falls, coughing like the end of the world and feeling like we just busted rocks for 5 years at a state prison for the hardcore misbehaving and misfit humans serving a life sentence . All of the sudden, normalcy is something completely out of reach. We would pay big money to just feel normal but there's no angel standing there with their blessed hand out promising to bring back normal for a fee.

Food? Nothing sounds good. Sense of taste gone down the road, visiting some other good person not standing on this train to nowhere, as we are. So, trapped in the house with the heater turned on high, sweating like an injun in a hot house of punishment for bad behavior. Living in sweat cloths that go from sopping wet with fever to cold as hell from being so wet from sweating. Stinking beyond most folks limits to behold. The only thing that would seem to help would be good old sleep, except that lovely state only lasts for a few minutes, then it's time to flop over on your other side trying to find that magical comfortable position, which is always and inevitably just out of reach no matter what you do.

Normalcy oh normalcy, where for art thou? Please come back. Don't forsake us during our great time of need. We've been good boys and girls. We've worked hard to achieve this wonderful station of life called older age and deserve nothing but the finest days and nights for all our careful, intelligent and industrious ministrations.

As awful as all this is, way down deep somewhere I guess I do know that this will have an ending and we will eventually feel back to whatever normalcy is for us. I can't even imagine what it must be like to come down with some sickness or disease, without a timetable to see. Some disease that has no wonderful normalcy at it's end. Some unfortunate disease with no cure.

For that all we can do is thank the goddesses above and the gnomes below for the health we do have and know that we are so incredibly lucky to be so fortunate to have the bodies and minds we were given on this Earth. To just wait out our turn with this Earthly hell called a cold and be thankful knowing it will come to an end eventually and we'll feel....

Normal again




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Children....Oh so innocent...Or are they?

It seems most people always assume that our children come into the world as a completely clean, empty slate. Thinking this, our job as parents would then obviously be to fill that slate up with our abundant knowledge and teach them everything they need to become caring, intelligent, contributing members of the human race. We assume they bring nothing with them at all except the bodies they are born with. In the Western world, not believing in any form of reincarnation, our natural assumption of the "clean slate" theory is the only possible explanation for this.

I studied eastern philosophies and spiritualism for years in the wild and crazy sixties, which included Zen, Buddhism, Meditation and Reincarnation. The general idea with reincarnation of course is we are brought into this world over and over again until we finally learn all the reality lessons we need in order to advance into the higher planes of existence. Moving always toward the day we ultimately reach the realization of the oneness of everything or God, as the western religions call it. As each life ends, we choose our next life on the basis of what we need to constantly move toward that lofty goal.

The great eastern scholars don't see reincarnation as a absolute truth writen in stone like western religions tend to do. They just see it as the most logical explanation to the cyclic nature of the world.

Getting back to children, as I watched my child and other children grow through the years, I'm often left wondering how it could be that children come into the world as a blank slate, when they each show such individualism, no matter who their parents are or the environment they were raised in.

As we all know, there are kids who are raised in the most horrible circumstance imaginable. Dirt poor and living in filthy, even dangerous environments with uncaring parents and still somehow raise themselves above their appointed stations in life to become brilliant, amazing, accomplished human beings. Then there are other children who seem to have it all. Money, powerful loving parents who end up in prison, having done some incredibly stupid and horrible things, seemingly out of the blue and completely out of character in relation to their parents.

Nature versus Nurture. Which is it? The environment they're raised in or how they were raised?

Watching my own child through the years, I've often wondered why, if she had a choice, did she choose us to raise her. It took me years to finally admit that we must have done a lot of things right in her upbringing to help her be the super intelligent, driven maniac she ended up being. For the longest time, I couldn't imagine where she got a lot of the great attributes she ended up with, other than the obvious influences from my wonderful wife who had so much wisdom to give. I did finally take some personal credit for helping her along her path to who she ultimately became.

I've came to the conclusion that basically she is who she is. As most children probably are. She and most of them most likely would have turned out great no matter how they were raised or by whomever because that's just who they are down deep in their beings. This of course brings this whole conversation back to the idea that we are somehow born with at least a seed of who we are before we learn anything from our parents or the environment at all. What that seed is, I have no idea. Our soul? The ongoing culmination of all the previous lives we don't remember living? Again, I have no idea.

Do you?




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