Glass half-Full and Glass Chimera

After 73 years on this earth, I do not pretend to know or understand what unexpected events lurk on the corners of my memories. An old song from the '60's popped up in my awakening thoughts this morning: ". . . like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning, like an ever-spinning wheel. . . the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind" While those lyrics do come to mind, the more profound lyric I had found myself contemplating earlier, while awakening this morning, comes from an old labor union song, sung by Joan Baez, on one of her many vinyl LPs, back in the day, when she sang: "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me. Says I, 'but Joe, you're ten years dead' 'I never died', said he. ' I never died,' said he. . ." The Joe Hill tribute song goes on to explain that wherever working men strive for equality or safe working conditions or higher wages or whatever, the legacy of Joe Hill, the bold labor organizer, lives on. Now I'm a southern boy, born in '51. . . never did know nothin' 'bout no labor union, but I remember hearing Joan singing about that old dream of a labor organizer. But obviously, I do recall them for some reason or other. Those meditations spun into a wider cycle of memory as I now recall the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, carved into the wall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington: "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." With myself having stood at the Lincoln Memorial while reading the slain President's words from Gettysburg Address, I lifted those words (above) in a scene - at that same Memorial location - which was written in as part of the story in my novel, Glass half-Full. But that's neither here nor there now.  Just now - and I'm pondering how all this memory stuff operates - I'm pondering the significance of a bundle of those memories. . . where they came from, why they are so meaningful to me, and. . . in this present day and time. . . No matter what the musky does or what words are uttered by any mar-lago maven or his magamaniacs, I know that the history of this nation. . . our striving and fighting for freedom against privileged tyranny, slavery, capitalist excess, cruelty, thievery and against any kind of human abuse - our striving to overcome all those injustices- is necessary to defeat the presence of evil among us (yes, I am a Christian) because. . . as Dr. Martin Luther King had said, and as Moses long before him said. . .  WE SHALL OVERCOME and as for me and my house: we say, we shall overcome, because we know that Jesus conquered death by defeating death itself with his Resurrection. . . and. . .as Amos had written in what later became my bible, the Lord does act on behalf of po' folks and he sho'nuff does expect His people to do the same! And furthermore, as the other Amos had said to Andy back in the day. . . and "I told him that!" Now I'm a'telling you that. Lastly, being an old guy, I just got, by doctor's orders, a brain scan, to see if any of my 73-year-old brain cells were leaking out. I got through it at Moses Cone Medical Center, although Moses never mentioned brain scans in any of his biblical books.  But it all turned out ok and I survived it, and that's the news, as Garrison Keillor used to say, " from Lake Wobegon". . .

the Prairie Home Companion Radio Man from Lake Wobegon. . . because, you know, when you get to be my age, all woe is, indeed, gone. There's nothing you can do now about the state of the world or the state of the Union or the deep state or even the state of the world. About all you can do is jot a few notes about what you remember and hope for the best and maybe share your thoughts and your memories with some good folks because, as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby of my childhood used to sing: "Thanks for the the memories." Don't do what the gangsters in the movies used to say in the movies, don't fuhgedaboudit.  Which is to say, remember what, as brotha Louie Armstong sang, in between his trumpet virtuosities : "Thanks for the memories!"  Thank the Lord, the Creator, for the recollections, and the mind he gave you that reserved those precious memories, for you in your latter years. And if you believe that . . . I've got some real estate in heaven I'll tell you about (later.) King of Soul