Notes - "Give light" / ramblings / a parental sadness

         Mid-morning. You and Carol just got off the phone with Kim, wishing her a Happy Birthday. You are drawing a blank -- nothing is going on in your head, at least that is what you think. - Amorella

         It is as if I have nothing in my head to reference to. Strange sensation -- I am asleep with my eyes open.

         In here words are wandering around with no place to go, boy. Later, Amorella

         1148 hours. I have been playing paperboy. Counting up our change we keep in four separate 16 ounce plastic cups. Carol helped putting them in their counting tubes and so far I have wrapped seventy dollars worth of coins and I'm sure there is another twenty to thirty dollars worth but we ran out of coin wrappers. I usually do this twice a year but it has been at least a year. Reminds me of paper route days as a kid and counting the weekly collections to give to the paper manager. I got to keep what was left, usually five to seven dollars a week. Not bad from 1951-1956. I was nine when I started and had about forty customers on the south side of Minerva Park, more on Sundays -- "The Columbus Citizen" then "The Columbus Citizen-Journal" when "The Ohio State Journal" merged -- Scripps Howard Newspapers -- their motto: "Give light and the people will find their own way." This was placed under their lighthouse logo [top left on the front page] at the time. I was always proud to be a newsboy because I was providing a community service and getting paid for it too. I look back on those days with fond memories of my early small contribution to society. I did my part like most others in my class did. That's how it was growing up -- providing a service. That's what's in my mind when I do the house coin counting. Nothing wrong with working for a purpose, that's my thought on the subject. (1209)

         You are feeling guilty for dropping on that last sentence; too didactic you think. Post anyway. - Amorella

         Carol is suggesting to you to go shopping for new underwear because cotton prices are down. You suggested eating at Potbelly's as it is close by. Carol is making stuffed peppers for supper and you suggested some corn on the cob to go with it. Sounds like an afternoon plan, boy. - Amorella

         1249 hours. I am sitting here reading over the 'bones' of a script for Grandma 21 and I am not getting anywhere.

         You have 'Sixties Oldies' via AOL Slacker Radio on the living room speakers. Enjoy the music, boy. We can work later. - Amorella

         Early evening as your culture has it. Carol is watching the local news, you have returned from errands, concrete sealer for the sidewalk, a sprayer to apply and grass seed for early September seeding. Tomorrow you plan to finish leveling soil where the trees were removed then buy five or six bags of soil and see how it spreads over some areas as well as apply the sidewalk sealer. Earlier you had a late lunch at Potbelly's and picked up underwear [4X Tees] and two pair of Dockers pants [3X-28]. You discovered the Casual Male in Kenwood is closing in a couple of weeks and you will have to go to the Tri-County Mall area as that will be the only one in this area; otherwise, you assume, it will be stores in Northern Kentucky, Dayton or Columbus. - Amorella

         1802 hours. When we first arrived in Cincinnati in 1972 I had to go to Polloy's downtown, what a wonderfully antiquated 'big and tall' store with wonderfully old salesmen to serve. Think 1920's - 1930's style for the store but the clothes themselves were up to date. In fifty years most everything will be made to order on three-dimensional printers and clothing stores, as we know them will follow the national bookstores. Amazon with three-dimensional printers, that's my prediction if we make it that far. I don't see much difference from the 1920's on when people shopped via the Sears and Roebuck catalogue, some even bought their houses that way and built their own. I'm I sounding like an old-timer or what? [There was a time I would have been mortified to whisper my clothing sizes, now I don't give a damn, and I am the better for it.]

         The national news will be on shortly and supper will be later still. Perhaps later, perhaps not. Post. - Amorella

         1901 hours. What to do in Syria? All those dead bodies, many of the women and children, like somehow the men don't count, like the men are supposed to be dead in war because that is the way war is when rules are followed. We could have those atrocities here, by missiles or even drones or even angry non-thinking people, men, women and/or children. At least they lined the dead up in rows and are even burying them in holes in some sort of mathematical fashion one row on top of another until someone decides it is time to add the dirt on top. Chemical warfare, which appears to me not much different from biological warfare. There are many ways to make people dead quickly if not quietly. We know how people grieve but I wonder how all these people are received on the other side, if there is one? Mostly it is timing. We all leave. Maybe it doesn't make any difference to the Dead because we will all arrive sooner or later after birth. Many didn't believe the atrocities and the Jewish camps, some even after the war ended. Some today still don't believe it. I believed when I saw the copies of the photographs distributed to the troops. I've been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington twice. There have been plenty of other such holocausts around the world. What to do about it costs time and money and even more lives, but then doing nothing is not going to be the end of it. Doing nothing ever is the end of anything. As far as I know the Dead do nothing. If we, the people of the world chose to do nothing, then what separates us from the Dead? Not much, I think. Damn our stubbornness, our pride, our arrogance, our vast worlds of politics when we set ourselves into such bloody conflicts against our fellows. We need to create a better way for the children first so they can grow and mature and be ready to work for and to build a better more humane world for their children. The anger subsides because I can think of nothing else to say, and what I say has been said and/or thought many times before by lots of people, many of them now dead. I'm done. I hate soapboxes; I'm too heavy to stand on one of them. - rho

         Are you done with your rant? - Amorella

         I am.

         What would the Dead in the story think? In here, it is not much different than the Living. Sadness, mostly; a parental sadness one feels when, while alive, a child leaves this world. Why would the Dead who have their humanity still, think differently than the Living? Even in fiction it appears a real enough fact to me. Your friend, Amorella. Post. No more tonight.