I found him lying on the ground in my back yard one summer afternoon. I was about 5, maybe 6. There, under an oak tree, was this little baby blue jay. I knew enough about birds to know that their parents push them out of the nest when they think it's time for the babies to fly. I think I learned that in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but no matter, I knew it was true. If the baby bird flew, all was well. If not, well, you get the little fella that was on the ground in front of me. I’d seen this sort of thing before, a dead animal from time to time in my back yard or maybe in the woods behind my parent’s house where we used to play. Sometimes, it was a small frog that my dad had accidentally hit with the lawn mower. A few times we’d found birds, usually sick or already dead. One time, we could tell that the bird had been killed by a tick that had swollen up with the bird’s blood. I guess that’s what killed the bird. Even now, after all these years, when I think back, I’m p...
Beginnings are, for the most part, easy to spot. First something isn't and then it is. You really do know that something has begun. I'll concede this isn't always the case, but usually it is. Of course, there is the rare example where something has begun, and you don't know it until you take a moment to look back, and realize, well, there it is; that was the beginning. It may be a happy thing, or a sad thing, or even a nothing thing. But it’s begun just the same. When I was a kid, my parents used to take us camping on summer vacations in some campground upstate NY, or out East on Long Island. On one of these vacations, my brother and I met up with a couple of kids, a brother and sister, while we were fishing for sunnies. Their names were Erik and Elena. Ah, Elena. I was young, but at that turning-point age where I certainly noticed girls. Now at first I treated Elena like I would any other new kid we met while fishing. Just a cool kid who liked to fish, could catch a ...
Lately I’ve been thinking about where my life has been, and about where it’s headed. I find myself thinking about the past, about mistakes I’ve made, regrets I’ve had. People long gone, only to be remembered, and at that, vaguely, like a faded snapshot from an old Kodak. I’ve started to wonder why it is that I dwell so much on the past, and I never really live in the moment. That’s odd, don’t you think? I can’t wait for tomorrow, but when it gets here, all I think about is yesterday, and then I start anticipating tomorrow again. But wasn’t today, tomorrow, just yesterday? Ouch, that one made my head hurt. It’s true though. Right now, this is where I am. Here. As much as I had some fun at the good Dr. Grad Student’s expense, there was a lesson to be learned there. I think I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. Everything we do, everything we touch, everything that touches us, changes us. Changes our course, the fundamental direction of our lives. Like the mo...
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