Pointless maybe

Forgive the intrusion

but words are how I express 

me.

Mostly written words.

Attempting to be not too verbose,

preferring to be succinct.

Brevity is a virtue.

And these words?

Likely inconsequential.

Pointless maybe, but I hope not.

Just wanted to let you know,

thinking of you.

Werewolves of London

 I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand

Walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain
He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fook's
Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein

Ah-hoo, werewolves of London
Ah-hoo

- Warren Zevon

Stayin' Alive

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother.          You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.                                                   Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'

And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive

- Bee Gees

Wake Up Everybody

As Black History month comes to a close, a song:

Wake Up Everybody

Wake up, everybody, no more sleeping in bed

No more backward thinking, time for thinking ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be

There's so much hatred, war, and poverty, whoa, oh

Wake up, all the teachers, time to teach a new way

Maybe then they'll listen to whatcha have to say

Cause they're the ones who's coming up, and the world is in their hands

When you teach the children, teach 'em the very best you can

The world won't get no better

If we just let it be

The world won't get no better

We gotta change it, yeah, just you and me

- Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass

https://youtu.be/axmBtBOlbVU?si=R5diXiUyaEUhCgS9

Lent & Taxes

A long time ago, my father brought home a live chicken.  I must have been 8 or 9 years old.  Who knows where it came from.  Dad sometimes did construction work pro bono especially for his AA friends who needed help.

As Dad would say, some of them "did not have a pot to piss in".  (His language was at times colorful.). Their drinking had apparently drained their bank accounts and at times their family relationships.

Dad chopped its head off.  Ever see a chicken flap around after losing its head?  Scared the pants off me.

I felt like the chicken chicken yesterday.  It had been a busy day.

(Dad spoke at 12 Step meetings throughout Michigan. My hometown Chamber of Commerce once gave him a Man of the Year award  for his work.  Dad often spoke at Brighton Hospital. Brighton near Detroit was the first hospital for alcoholism and addiction  in the state. That is where Dad became acquainted with Bill W. the founder of AA.  Bill W also spoke there in the 50s.)

Yesterday, I helped a single mom with three kids.  Income in the mid 20s.  She will receive a refund of $14,600.  It is more than half her annual income.  She works at some church in the office.

You don't think her refund will allow her to maybe repair her car or maybe even get a substantial down payment on a better used vehicle.  Or maybe just some better school clothes for the kids.

Maybe she will actually treat herself and her kids to a nice dinner out on the town. Or buy herself a new coat or dress.

When I see sometimes that our clients don't have a "pot to piss in", well, sometimes it hurts your heart.

Then I think about a mother's smile when she finds out the amount of her income tax refund.

It may be Lent in some worlds.  In mine, it is tax season.  

Lent was first established by a bunch of old men at Nicaea.  The Romans required taxes long before that.

My almost meeting of The Champ

Except in Southwest Michigan, I suspect not many know that Muhammad Ali for decades had an estate and lived in Berrien Springs, Michigan.

Many others likely had closer interactions with Ali than I did.  Here's mine:

In 1994, my school district was preparing for a spring school facility bond issue vote.  I had just arrived at my school district in late summer 1993. I was the business manager new kid on the block.

I drove to one of our elementary schools, Stewart, for a meeting with the school principal something about how the bond would impact her school.  Leaving the school parking lot, I was walking up the long sidewalk leading to the main entrance.  I was running late, so I was walking fast.

On the sidewalk, I passed two people.  Both were wearing business suits. One was a lady.  The other an African American gentleman.  I forget which was carrying a valise which made me think they were some kind of sales representatives trying to sell something to the school and the valise carried samples of their wares. 

I quickly passed the two on the sidewalk.  As I approached the main entrance doors.  Several special needs school children were in the entry with their teacher.  They were all waving excitedly out the glass.

Not sure exactly what I thought at the time, but was wondering why they were waving at me. "Boy. They really like me at Stewart" or something like that.

I opened the school door.  The teacher who would become one of my best friends in the district, Kathy, stated:

"Rob, you know you just walked past Muhammad Ali."

I turned around. Sure enough it was the Greatest, the Champ. 

The valise?  Ali loved to perform silly magic tricks for kids.  I am told he loved to hear them giggle and clap and cheer.  It was his bag of magic tricks.

Later I found out one of the other teachers at the school was a friend of Ali's.  Her husband, a local executive, sat on the Boys and Girls Club board.  Ali may have been honorary chair of the Board.  In any event, he was involved with the Benton Harbor community in trying to improve the impoverished city.

Ali's son played baseball at Niles High School.

A Forbes story about the sale of the Ali estate in 2018 with pictures.  

The estate had at least two famous owners.  Ali at one time the most famous person in the world .

The other more infamous:  Al Capone.

From Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/keithflamer/2018/06/22/the-secret-history-of-muhammad-ali-mystical-michigan-farm/

Olympic Skating

Alysa Lieu's choice for music to skate with in the Olympics is one of my favorites from the late 60s:

"I will take my life into my hands
And I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes
And I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky
And after all the loves of my life
Oh after all the loves in my life
I'll be thinking of you
And wondering why

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!
Oh, no!"

 Even if she did not use the Richard Harris version but instead Donna Summer's. LOL. 

 

https://youtu.be/Dg0h9iZ1ZAg?si=Kk4LkowI5DKVd49c

 

 

 

Hamnet, the novel

Thinking about it, I am not sure there are too many 

movies that I have seen and also read the novel.  Having seen the Henry Fonda 1940 flick The Grapes of Wrath, I have almost finished the Steinbeck novel, not quite.

In college, PBS broadcast a series of BBC Shakespeare plays.  Most of those I had read in my first year back in college from the Navy.  I would follow along with my Collected Works book while viewing some of the Bard's comedies and tragedies. Shakespearean English is simply a precursor to modern English, but retains nuisances of its Middle Ages ancestor.

I am struggling to finish the last 20 pages of Hamnet.  Having seen the movie twice, my reaction to the final scene was visceral, a scene in which Hamnet's mother Agnes watches her husband's Hamlet and finally understands her husband's grief at the loss of their son.

The book cannot produce the same emotion of a movie.  But I know what is coming in these last 20 pages.  So, I hesitate to finish. 

In the movie, Agnes was clearly and outwardly touched by the death of Hamnet.  William seemed to hold it all inside until he was able to produce Hamlet.

I can understand both.

Shake it off

Must admit, that the first time I remember hearing this song is when I took my grandson to see the cartoon movie Sing.  In the cartoon, it was sung by a pig.

At the time, I did not even realize that it was Taylor Swift:

Players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate (haters gonna hate)
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off

- Taylor Swift

Ancestry.com

 This is what Ancestry.com indicates:

 

- Rev Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island (originally Anglican priest, founder of American Baptists)

born in Cowley, Middlesex England, died in Providence, Rhode Island 1603-1683 

- Daniel Williams, 1640 -1712 Rhode Island

- Peleg Williams Sr., 1678-1744 Rhode Island

- Peleg Williams Jr., 1719-1809 Rhode Island

- Peleg Williams, II, 1740-1821 Rhode Island served at Valley Forge

- Providence Williams, 1773-???? married Abigail Hazeltine

- Laura Williams, 1796-1858 daughter of Providence, married John Hunt in 1823

The Hunts:

 - John Providence Hunt, 1825-1910 

-  Anna G Hunt, 1878 -1952, married Charles Burgess, grandfather

- John (Jack) Robert Burgess, 1909-1989

- Robert, 1954-...