LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

-Bumper sticker of the week: Sorry for driving so close in front of you.

-Quotes of the week: “My creed is this: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.” Robert Ingersoll

“Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.” Pearl Buck

-Happiness:

* is a life well lived.

* has little to do with money and possessions.

* comes from your capacity to give and the sense of self you find from doing so.

* is a hat that fits you and socks that match.

* means never having to say “I’m guilty.”

* has little to do with sex, but everything to do with the intimate dance played around a lasting relationship.

-Things that make you wonder:

* You got to wonder why there are so many attorneys. You would think they would have kept on selling used cars.

* Various people will tell you they know “the truth.” I wonder.

* I wonder what the Pope is thinking when he tells people in poor countries to not practice birth control or use condoms?

* There are a lot of innocent people in prison. I wonder how that happened?

* I wonder if a good person can make it as President of the United States? We’ll see.

* I wonder why a school would have a 30% drop-out rate? I wonder why nobody would do anything about it?

* I wonder if it is really good to allow people and corporations to make all the money they possibly can?

* I wonder why a civilization so much more advanced than we are would come to Earth and just make crop circles?

* You would have thought by now that humankind would have figured out that war will not bring about peace. That torture will not bring salvation. Makes you wonder.

-Being somewhat of a curmudgeon, one of my acquaintances recently suggested that I read Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking.” I asked what the hell good that would do?

-I think about my father a lot. I suppose one of the reasons is that he died suddenly when I was 18, He was 46.( I played against him in softball the night before. We young guys won). Our relationship was close, but at my age, not near complete. I think it is the unfinished business that keeps its presence with me after 43 years. The wondering what our relationship would have developed into? What he would have thought about me? I am much different from him, yet in many subtle ways, the same. Had he lived, he would now be 89. I can hardly imagine him at 89. I can hardly imagine anyone at 89. He would have lived almost another lifetime. That would be a lot of time for things to really go good, or really go bad. It’s funny to think that death ends a relationship. It doesn’t.