Faded Paper

 

 

A couple of days before Thanksgiving I joined several thousand people for the Feast of Thanksgiving. We all set side by side in a giant events center and ate a Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and dressing with all the trimmings. The food was good but it was just not the same as the food I share with my family on Thanksgiving day.
Ever one has several cook books but those hand writer recipes that my Mother stuck between the pages of her cook books have long since faded. Mother was a great cook in the southern tradition. Every Thanksgiving she made cornbread dressing that was best eaten with a spoon. No matter where I am when I eat dressing that dish always takes me back home. When I see it on my plate I feel as though my family is setting next to me but it never taste the same or is as special as the times Mom made it. Just the taste and texture of dressing evokes both mood and an image of Mom. I can remember asking her about some of her recipes, her guidelines were vague. Don't over stir or mix,season to taste, use a generous helping, add flour as needed, she could look at a dish and know how much of this and how much of that it needed. How did she know that?
As much as I love dressing she could have fed me her famous wennee and wennee gravy on Thanksgiving, it would have been ok with me but if the truth were known she was the only one who really liked that dish. I used to think she invented the dish because surely her mother did mot pass that recipe down.
I could try 1000 times to duplicate some of Mom's recipes but I will never be able to cook like her. Something are best left alone. Just as those pieces of paper have faded, over time so do the memories. This is why family's still gather on Thanksgiving day. The recipes from our past are the links to our cherished memories. 

This is why the game is played

For pageantry, it's tough to beat the Michigan-Ohio State game. This year both teams have a perfect regular season. The winner will hold the number 1 ranking, the Big Ten title and get a spot in the national championship game. The Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry is special no mater what the teams records are but this year every play and every call will have national hopes riding on them. This game could create legends and destroy reputations and maybe even careers.
Based on the coverage of this game, you would have to wonder why any other college teams would schedule a game on this weekend since this is supposed to be the most important game in recorded history. Now don't get me wrong, one vs two is a big deal but I've been hearing about this game since September and I am kind of sick of it. I guess I'm a little bit of a sore loser since my team the Texas Longhorns got knocked out of the national championship picture. Honestly, if both teams could somehow lose, that would just make my day. I said I was a sore loser!
If you think I am going to pick one over the other you're crazy. Both teams deserve to be number 1 and number 2, what ever order you want to put them in. They are both talented teams but all the coverage is getting out of hand. The media has reached a bottom trying to find stories on the game. About the only thing that has not been written or talked about is the grass that grows in Ohio State's Stadium. That story would not interest me in the least because the only grass I ever cared anything about was the grass you smoke. So if any of you Bozos over at ESPN need a new angle for a story just email me, I can give you hundreds of stories on grass. I'm ready for them to just get the game over with so I can find something else to complain about.

Take your best shot

Texas has put a Republican in the governor's chair once again, enhancing the Republican agenda. Go ahead call me crazy, I am in favor of common sense, logic, sound judgment and smart leadership rooted in truth and reality. That means I can't support the Republican agenda. I am a liberal Democrat and I make no apologies for it. Hell I am proud of it.
Republicans scare me with their smoke and mirrors, their quick double talk and their expensive campaign tactics, advertisements and distractions none of which are rooted in truth or reality.
If the truth be known, there are a lot of liberal Democrats but many of them run from the label. They whisper it like you would whisper "I am a Nazi". Liberal is not a dirty word! If you feel that blacks should be allowed to set in the front of the bus, that women should have the right to vote, that Vietnam was a mistake and that Saddam Hussein had no ties to al Qaeda or anything to do with 9-11, then you are a liberal even if you don't want to admit it.
There is no law that forbids anyone from holding their leaders accountable and it's sure not unpatriotic to speak out about that accountability. We can't demand freedom of speech then turn around and say "Please don't say bad things about me because of my liberal thinking". You got to be grown up and take your hits. Yes I will admit, I am a liberal so go ahead and fire away!

Life's Lessons

The simple lessons are often the most rewarding. Laughter is a gift. It washes away anger in the same way rain washes away dust. It breeds friendship and dilutes hostility. Seeing humor in situations is an art for some people but for me it takes a little practice, I am sometimes a little slow on the willingness to laugh. To enjoy laughter I need to speed up that willingness. I laugh at myself as much as I laugh at anyone or anything. Sometimes I may be the only one who thinks something is funny but that to makes me laugh. I used to make a big deal out of everything, always looking for perfection or a way to control the situation and that seemed to cause a lot of stress and failure. I leaned to accept the fact that my failures were usually in full view and my successes almost always in private so I just learned to laugh at them both.
The skill of laughter is not in the emotion but in the ability to keep it going through life, in success and failure. One can always find sorrow in the world, finding joy takes a little more effort and the best thing about joy is it comes with no expiration date!