Notes From A Bear's Journey

      I try not to think of myself as a garbage disposal, but sometimes I wonder.  Despite trying to stay healthy by eating the right things, up comes a wedding or a friend's party and all bets are off.  Out come the Oreos and the cream puffs, the fried whatever and the soft chunk of cheese that looks a bit like a wedge of Crisco.  But at the time, it is all so delicious, sort of like that first bite of a corn dog at the state fair (remember those?) or opening that warm $7 bag of unshelled peanuts at the ballpark.  It's the cruise or the vacation, a time when you're ready to break routine and eat like royalty before returning to life as a commoner.  And so what if you can't finish it all?  You paid for it so who cares?  You've had your fill and are ready for the leftovers to be whisked away.  Thus the disposal.  And I kept hearing the words of author Hayley Campbell : I kept thinking about what a waste death is.  A body that has spent years growing, repairing itself

      What have I done to deserve such a fate, asked The Beatles?  And while their song dealt with a relationship going sour, I often tend to ask myself that question but in a positive way.  So many others, especially as winter approaches and cash begins to tighten, have been dealt a far tougher hand than me, for what appears to be little reason.  However you want to say it --luck of the draw; ours is not to question why; God works in mysterious ways, even Einstein's "God does not play dice with the universe"*-- sometimes life proves more difficult for some than it does others.  Much of this thinking began for me with a bit of serendipity, a friend of mine recommending that I read his friend's books, one of the books being the author's time spent as a medic during the Vietnam War; and the other being his return to working at Disneyland  and going from clown make-up artist to creating the Main Street Electrical Parade, a light show which would be viewed by a hundre

               NOTICE: This post is NOT about politics (well, a tiny bit) ...            It's a popular phrase, or at least it was for one of the political parties here in the U.S., even if the result was more of a filling of "the swamp."  Indeed, of some 540 Republican candidates running for office in these midterm elections (just days away), close to 200 of them not only continue to deny that Joe Biden is President, but many have announced that they will question the voting results if they lose (but not if they win)...in my day, we would call such folk "sore" losers, and indeed just as with a sore, this political divide has now festered and become infected to the point of making its way into our country's body and could threaten its health overall.  BUT, talking politics is about as interesting as talking about the good time you had on a vacation, or about how much money you won while in Vegas.  Instead, this post will be about...actual swamps!  WAIT: befo