Sweet Old Dog

It's not any easier to watch your dog age than to watch yourself age ... and Bucky, who's become sweeter with the years, has now developed a bit of a limp when he first gets up off the floor.

We think he's about ten years old so, I guess, it's about time.

So now we'll start looking for elevated food bowls, a softer bed that he'd actually consider using, any other ways we can help him adjust to geezerhood.

But it's kind of hard. We've had him just three years but now -- as I'm sure every petlover knows -- I can't imagine life without him.

So I won't. I won't imagine life without him.

Sweet old dog.

CNN Isn't Real Life.

I wish I could frame something coherent, and thoughtful, and sympathetic around what those poor kids at Virginia Tech experienced this week. I can't.

I was a college kid in an era where we thought everything was happening for the first time, and that we were on the edge of anarchy and mayhem. A stinking rotten war a half world away, violence at Altamont, kids shot by National Guardsmen at Kent State, a bloody riot at the Chicago convention -- all these felt so dangerous, so horrible, so on the edge of death and forever.

But what most of us were exposed to was not at the level of what these poor kids experienced -- and there was significant distance from the violence.

Believe me, it was a hard, bad time. There were plenty of kids killed in the jungle, at the raceway, on the grass in Ohio and in the streets of Chicago.

But we didn't live it, and relive it, and watch it over and over, and pull it up on our computer screens and drown in it in the immediacy of 24/7 coverage the way we are now.

And it makes me sadder than I can express that we now have such intimate familiarity with a mad killer who managed to slaughter 32 of his peers.

I am so sorry. And so sickened by what life can be. And I need to remember this reality isn't the only reality there is.

CNN is not real life. I just can't accept that we're seeing is a truthful representation of life, our life, this American life.

I hope we find a way to somehow understand this kid, his miserable existence and the damage his pain caused him to cause.

In 1971, I Walked Around Provincetown Hoping I'd See Him

Kurt Vonnegut
1922 - 2007

drawing by Kurt Vonnegut

This Is A Placeholder Post

I don't have the time or the focus to write what I'm thinking about. But I don't want you reading my Easter post for the rest of the week. Now that Easter is over.

So, please consider this the test pattern -- you know, like the picture of the Indian Chief that used to be broadcast after midnight on your family's old black and white television -- until I can arrange my thoughts in an orderly fashion and give you something worth reading.

Hope you don't have to wait very long.

Childhood Memory of Easter

I can remember being a small child in church on Easter Sunday, standing with the crowd, belting out this hymn of triumph. I loved it then; I love it now.

A joyous Easter season to my Christian friends. Share the memory of this hymn with me:

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!

Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia!

Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!

Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!

Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!

Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia!

Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!

Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!

Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!

Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!

Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!

Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!

Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!

Praise to thee by both be given, Alleluia!

Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!

Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!

Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!

Thee to know, thy power to prove, Alleluia!

Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!

Rabbit, Rabbit!