Notes From A Bear's Journey

     Don't ask me why but I picked up a book on tractors.  Never owned one, no idea how to operate one, and no idea why the book attracted me like...well, like a tractor beam.  Maybe it was title: From John Deere to Lamborghini.  Wait, what??  Or maybe it was that naive thought of spending my later years in the country, grow a few veggies, chat with the nearest farmer ten miles down the road, hang out a Trump 2028 flag.  Okay, snap out of it.  Who was I kidding?  First of all, I'd starve, or worse if that pump to the well broke or that "cute" horse I bought for a song and a dance was one mean mare ready for the pasture and was having no part of my city-boy antics.  But then look at those tires.  Wait, I'm not being misogynistic because I still am talking about tractors here.  But what's with that younger, slimmer, no baggy eyelids Trump posing with a young Army cadet in the Oval Office?  Well I had to get your attent...

      My wife listens to and loves music of all sorts (except jazz for some reason), all while I am quite content to sit with a book in silence.  Yet plop me at a concert, or put on a good concert video and I'm all in (that is, if it's good).  But for the most part, my wife is far more open to new music and new artists while I am the one continually asking who that guy is who jumps off pianos (and does he have more than one song)?  So shiver me timbers when the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry reported that after studying nearly 11,000 elderly folks (yes, that's me raising my hand in the air), they found that those who "always" listen to music: ... are 39 percent less likely to develop dementia than those who said they "rarely" do.  Wait, didn't the report also say that more research was needed to confirm such a link?  So what about the other new stat that said that 40% of those over 45 report that they're often lonely.  So what...

     There's something rather amazing of what once was and is no longer, that is except for those many pieces now beautifully preserved in museums, whether obtained legally or by some other means.  The spoils of war philosophy: what was yours is now ours.  And so everything from jewelry to statuary (not to mention animals and people) were often moved around the world to decorate homes and palaces, or in the case of people and animals, to be put to work.  And if a few countries were fortunate enough and wealthy enough, some material items would end up in museums for many to see (albeit still in a foreign country).  The complicated issue of whether ill-gotten (i.e. stolen) items taken decades or centuries ago, and now resting in universities, or the black market (or museums) becomes a rabbit hole that extends into bones (think massive dinosaur "finds" or the gravesites of ancestral peoples) and pottery, maybe even DNA samples.  But no worries becaus...

     So it was Easter past and a tradition not of churches for us but of visiting friends we've known for over 30 years.  We've known their "kids" since they were indeed kids (as in 7/9/11) and some are now married with their own kids.  Anyway, part of the dad's Polish tradition is to drink some  Żubrówka Buffalo grass vodka  ("in tribute to the bison --'zubr' in Polish-- that were fond of the sweet-tasting grass," wrote the site Wine ), each shot followed by a bite of either pickled or straight herring on rye bread.  Of course, a few people there had a small shot and followed the tradition out of courtesy, and a few (me) carried it onward to another, and another, and another.  Now this really wasn't me, but then there I was, sliding my shot glass over as if waiting for that famous "flashlight in the eyes" moment when "I've had enough" switches over to "why not?"  (My wife and the other spouses --whom I thank...