I wrote some time ago that we often veer from what we really want to do with our lives and wind up doing something vastly different. I can be excused from this group because when I left college with a degree I didn’t know what I was going to do, or how
When I was still in school I leaned toward being a constitutional lawyer and hopefully land with the State Department in some capacity. But I needed a break from everything that was going on with my life – I was still in my Dark Years – and get away.
So after flunking the Army physical with a heart that drew laughs from the two doctors who examined a group of potential recruits in Seattle, I caught a Greyhound Bus and headed south to Los Angeles to find something that would turn me on and provide a nice living.
But starting at a very young age I had a fascination with music, especially the Swing Music that was popular in the 1930s and 40s and country music that provided a lot of, as Hank Williams would sing, lovesick blues.
What I came to realize probably in my 40s is that music was part of my soul, and it should have inspired me to go n that direction with my life. But with a family, I needed something more suitable to making a living, so I stuck with sportswriting, a profession I found on Feb. 2, 1970 when I first walked into the old Bremerton Sun as an employee
Now with my life facing the sunset and in semi-retirement, I have come to the realization that I am torn between three lives – that of being a sportswriter, that of being addicted to music of almost any genre, and living that of being an outside-looking-in politician who gets fired up at some of the stupid stuff that real politicians do on a daily basis.
I have a mandolin, piano and guitar that I wish I could play, but don’t take the time or effort to do so, although I asked one of my granddaughters to help me out and she said yes, but apparently has forgotten our discussion.
So here I am, bogged down in three worlds of sports, music and politics and am angry because I don’t do either of them well enough to suit me. The one thing I wish is that somebody would come along (Elizabeth Warren?) who could fire up me and the rest of the world to get positive results from government instead of the deadlock and leadership by ineptitude that we have.
I fear what is coming because of the ability now of the obscenely wealthy to buy into and control our government to their benefit. I fear that somebody like Warren who stands up against this kind of plutocracy government would not survive if they did run for president. But it is what is most needed right now, somebody who will sincerely govern for the middle class and the poor, and there is nobody except Warren out there in the political wings.
I’m very upset that it has come to this because the gulf between us – the obscenely wealthy and the middle class – has grown so wide and continues to grow that way that our country has become a government of classes and with every passing day the voices of the lower classes become dimmer and dimmer.
The best I can do for my sanity is to continue to write about the good guys, listen to my music and go for long walks to get away from all the dirty politics and violent stuff going in the world.
I just finished a column on Ron Vehrs that was published in the Kitsap Sun on Wednesday (March 24) and I did not put in the column some of the terrible things that Ron has seen and heard that leaves him (and me) shaking his head. The one story that bothered both of us was the one about the couple who threw a puppy out of their moving car.
“Who would do that?” Ron wondered, his angst clearly heard in his voice.
You can apply Ron’s words to a lot of things happening in our Congress and with men and women on the move to make a presidential run. Our country is in a shift to the far right and that does not spell well for what is to come.
Who would do that, indeed?
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.
