pronounce you man and wife

Yesterday, we attended the wedding of my oldest grand daughter, Tara. It was a simple but beautiful affair attended by family, and friends of the bride and groom that they have known since grade school.

For more photos go here.

autumn wedding cake

Here's the final wedding cake. Who left the window open and let those leaves blow in? Now to transport the cakes 25 miles to the wedding tomorrow.

groom's cake

Dusty's gnome cake

anatomy of a cake

Dorothy is busy making cakes for Tara's (our grand daughter) wedding.

For the groom's cake I designed and built this stand. What's it going to be? Let's let that be a surprise. Whatever it is, it looks like it will be wearing boots, doesn't it?

Dorothy's starting to build the groom's cake Progress is being made.

I'll post the finished cakes as soon as I can.

a poem

I just finished reading a post by Lucilocket over at Lucy Volume II where she says that eating a donut helped out of a bad mood. It reminded me of this poem I wrote years ago.

Donuts Give Me Solace

Donuts give me solace.
I'm embarrassed to make the claim,
But donuts give me solace
Just the same.

When life has my nerves frayed
And they're in need of balm
The sugar and carbohydrates
keep me calm.

A doctor could give me Prozac
whenever I feel crazed.
Instead let's have some donuts,
and make mine glazed!

What happens, I know your thinking,
When my blood sugar begins to drop?
I just have another donut
With chocolate on top.

do go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas wrote the poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night for his father who was strong and fierce in his youth, but had become weak and gentle in old age.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This has always been one of my favorite poems. I always thought I would put up a fight against the oncoming frailty of old age and that I would, at the last, go down with both barrels blazing. But I was much younger then. Now that I have arrived at that time in life where I no longer have to work for a living and my strength and energy are gradually fading, I can see the wisdom of going "gentle into that good night". Not that death is knocking on my door, but I can see it in the distance from my back porch.

I know that in our culture, men are reluctant to give up the image of the aggressive and masculine Alpha male, but, fierce and militant old men don't make good grand fathers. As elders of the tribe older men need to be strong, yet gentle pillars for their grand kids to lean on. We are the story tellers, the joke tellers, and the ones that can be depended upon to set aside our dignity for any silliness that will bring a smile to a toddler.

So, as time goes by, I'm going to allow myself to go gentle in the area of approachability, vulnerability, and kindness, while maintaining my strength to act as a family protector, advisor and loyal friend. And when it comes time for me to leave the planet, I'll simply slip out the back door unnoticed.

corn maze

Yesterday, Dorothy and I went with our daughter Kelly and her family to the Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze in Missouri. This is a great place to get your Halloween pumpkins and then find your way through the seven acre corn maze. There are lots of things for the little ones to do; slides, swings, hay ride, and even a corn cannon.

Getting pumpkins for Halloween

Bird's eye view of the corn maze. Finding our way through the maze. After 30 minutes we find the exit.
The cow train Hunter comes down the slide

The Keys family. A handsome lot, eh?

quote of the day

Suddenly, it becomes a subversion of progress to assert the common-sense principle that communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them, not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit.
--Theodore Roszak

grab an orange, mother and child

My seven year old grand daughter, Marley, came home from school in tears because she didn't get the part she wanted in the school Christmas program. Her mom told her maybe they're saving a better part for her.
"Yeah, a donkey!" Marley replied.
She wanted a solo singing part. "I don't get stage fright," she claimed. "And I know the words, just listen: 'Silent night, all is bright. Grab an orange, mother and child' ".

i turned around and she was grown

This picture was taken almost twenty years ago. Here I am with my very first grand child, Tara. She's getting married this month.

painting

Dawn asked me recently how my painting was coming along. Here is my latest painting. It's now hanging in an art store (not a gallery, but a store) for sale.

To the right is the photo I used for the painting. It was the banner header for this blog before the current one.

quote of the day

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.
--Jessamyn West

the real me

I don't work. By this I mean I don't do things I don't want to do for other people or organizations in return for money. I did that for 42 years and now I'm done with it. A person that spends the bulk of his life working will have his true personality subdued. During our work life we're pressed into the mold of corporate culture and our true selves are shaped along social convention. So, when the day of retirement finally arrives (and there are those who are never able to retire), and the constraints of the world upon our selves are relaxed, our souls unfold like a sponge that's been compressed and then released. It's been two years since the day of my retirement and I'm still waiting to see what will blossom. It seems that working has changed me. Some of the things that I had planned to do no longer hold an attraction for me; and some of the talents that I seem to have possessed in my youth have faded. So, instead of the real me just popping out like a jack-in-the box, it looks like I'm going to have to go into my psyche and drag me out.

Here's a quote from Alan Watts:

"The conventional 'self' or 'person' is composed mainly of a history consisting of selected memories, and beginning from the moment of parturition. According to convention I am not simply what I am doing now. I am also what I have done, and my conventionally edited version of my past is made to seem almost more the real 'me' than what I am at this moment, for what I am seems so fleeting and intangible, but what I was is fixed and final. It is the firm basis for predictions of what I will be in the future, and so it comes about that I am more closely identified with what no longer exists than what what actually is.

quoted from, Three: The Way Of Zen

quote of the day

In order to live with integrity, we must stop fragmenting and compartmentalizing our lives. Telling lies at work and then expecting great truths in meditation is nonsensical.
--Sharon Salzberg

memories

I'm back at the remodeling thing again. Before I could start on the new room I had to rent a storage space to store all the stuff that has accumulated in that space for the last few years. I've taken four pick-up truck loads and now I can start pulling down drywall and ripping up the floor. While going through the stuff to haul away (we had three piles, one went to storage, one to a yard sale, and the third pile gets burned) I came across some old record albums. Remember the 33-1/3 rpm records? I played a few and was saddened to think how many years have rolled by since we first listened to those songs. Dorothy and I have had some of them since we were teenagers. We have the Beatles first album, Chuck Berry's greatest hits, and The Righteous Brothers. Our hormone driven teen love was intensified by listening to Johnny Mathis and Elvis. Just looking at the album covers brought back images of the years we've been together. The Beatles album reminded me of the times Dorothy and I would go to the record store to buy the latest hit. The Ventures albums brought back my efforts to learn the guitar and become a rock-n-roll lead guitarist. Memories of my time in MP School at Ft. Gordon Georgia were evoked by the Lovin' Spoonful. Album by album I visited the scenes from my life over the last 50 years. (sigh)