Once Upon A Western Dreary

    I don't know about you, but I have always had a fascination for the westerns in cinema. They have taken many forms over several decades, but didn't really stray from a certain formula until the 1960s.

   Some basic plots of a western:

a) cowboys vs "Indians", a plot device that has thankfully been disposed of decades ago due to the oversimplification of the hero cowboys and the sometimes good, sometimes "evil" "Indians".

b) evil bandits/hired thugs threaten the sheriff or marshall to get out of town, leading up to a showdown

c) a wagon train encounters troubles on its journey west for a new life

   Lots of combinations of these basic ideas were used over and over between the 1920s and the 1950s, some employing the use of singing cowboys in the form of Gene Autry, who found later success singing about reindeer, and Roy Rogers. In fact the basic formulas worked well in the beginning as they were cheap to produce and theaters were cheap to get into during the Depression and World War 2. Along with the wacky antics of the 3 Stooges, Marx Brothers, and Laurel &Hardy, westerns served to cheer up an otherwise worried and depressed nation.

   When television was turning into a real thing that was here to stay, western TV shows such as "Gunsmoke" and "The Lone Ranger" jumped from radio to the small screen along with countless others and were a major staple of 1950s television. 

   I will say this for "Gunsmoke": it grayed the lines between the good guys and the bad guys fairly often as the show approached its last years. "Bonanza" did that occasionally, but not as successfully.

   Here's the thing, though. Westerns were put out for pure ENTERTAINMENT. They weren't meant to be a moral lesson. You watched the good guys shoot the bad guys with no real special effects blood spewing out, and you couldn't wait to catch the next movie where the same actors playing villains would get shot again. Nobody took those movies or early TV shows seriously.

   I am still amused by a later Brady Bunch episode where Bobby idolizes Jesse James. It amuses me because he's old enough to have a clue if he did any real reading, and as there was no social media or even internet to conveniently skew facts a la Alex Jones, the episode is ludicrous...but then the whole series is really if one watches it on MeTV on the weekends. But I digress...

   Let's come to the mid 1960s where an Italian filmmaker named Sergio Leone decided to take this oversimplified good guy vs bad guy genre and give it a rotini twist. He created a character generally known as 'the man with no name', played by Clint Eastwood, one of 3 American actors Leone used for a classic trilogy of films: A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Eastwood's character was not so much a hero, but rather the classic definition of an anti-hero: a character you know is the protagonist, but can be brutal, opportunistic, and plain old selfish...a far cry from your typical John Wayne flick. Leone made another western later called Once Upon a Time in the West in 1968, a movie featuring more American actors. I just caught this one today and found myself laughing whenever Jason Robards spoke since he was the best character, much like Tuco in Good/Bad/Ugly. Henry Fonda played the villain while Charles Bronson played a quiet hero (in other words, Bronson playing Bronson).

   Clint Eastwood would go on to not only star in but also direct other movies which included westerns. He continued in the rotini twist of the classic formula often, most notably in High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). In Drifter, he is a vengeful spirit who is sometimes hard to like but then so are the townfolk who betrayed his former human self, so there is a balance. In Wales, one gets a rare favorable view of the Confederacy and the cruelty of the Union in post-Civil War America.

   Sam Peckinpah really put on the violent edge on the western genre with his films, particularly The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. The lines of good and bad really blur in the latter. In fact, there is that sense in more modern crime films, not just westerns, that one does not necessarily want to know all that the side of justice does to nail or destroy the evil-doers in the world, and that line between right and wrong gets more and more blurred with each new take. 

   And with each new take we see more blood and gratuitous violence because, well, in many ways that's how things really happened. The west was a violent place for a long time with fights for land, power, and money...often all three. If we keep burying our heads in the sand a pretend it was all for the good of the nation, we haven't learned much about human nature in the past almost 200 years, and are likely doomed to  dreary rehashings of violent history over and over.

Blast to My Past

    I've had it. I can't take it anymore. Once and for all, I am going to leave this ghastly place leaving others to fend for themselves in this modern hell!

   What? No! I am not going to take my own life. Rather, I will take my life out of 2022 and go back to another time, a time where I could relate to what was happening. That's right, I am going to back to my birth year of 1972! 

    I just have to work out the details of getting there. I don't have a plutonium-powered DeLorean or a spaceship that can slingshot around the sun. If anyone has access to an inter-dimensional wormhole, text me.

   That little technicality aside, let's answer the big WHY aspect of this. The HOW is already unlikely enough, so I might as well go into my reasons and philosophy.

   Basically, the world is fucked right now, most of all America. I am 49 years old and have seen a gradual downfall of morals, politics, and media...sadly they feed on each other constantly and have grown into a satanic blob pitting the citizens against each other, even family members, over little things that should be laughed off.

   However, people aren't laughing anymore, not like they used to. Everyone takes everything so damn seriously now. It has become so angry and hostile...and violent.

   The pandemic alone has altered or destroyed so many lives. I didn't escape unscathed. Two years of wearing masks did a number on me and I am still recovering. Others died, went crazy, The sadness of it was that COVID became a political and social weapon, not a medical issue.

   Now let's go to politics. In my life I have seen several U.S. Presidents, almost all of them middle aged to old white guys, which was the norm for most of U.S. history with a few exceptions. Then a Black guy was elected...twice! After his time was done, we as a nation put in another entertainer of sorts. We already enjoyed one in Reagan, so why not another? This time we installed a combo of Don Rickles and Morton Downey Jr in terms of subtlety. This in itself wasn't the bad part, for we tried to convince ourselves that a non-political entity in there would help shake things up. Oh, Mr. Trump shook them all right! He shook them to the point of being impeached twice and trying illegally to hold onto his oval office. And people want him back. 

   Russia was once our enemy...now we have "leaders" who glorify and defend the actions of a former KGB agent, current president.

   On the flip side of the political coin, there is such a large movement on many sides trying to control what people can watch on TV and what people can and cannot say. That to me defies core principles in our Constitution. 

   That's politics...let's go to the media. I used to trust the news. People came on the air, told you the happenings, and left you to ponder the importance of it all in regard to you, your family and friends, and society in general. Now there are a bunch of assholes on several stations that TELL you WHAT may or may not be true, tell you WHAT to think of it all, and TELL you WHO is to blame. On top of that, there is social media online where ordinary citizens post a lot of bullshit "news" and personal views...I've seen friendships and family relations dissolve on social media over the past 6 or 7 years.

   And now let's go to the morals. I'm not sure where they went for many people. I have gone to church many times in my life and felt a personal relationship with God form and develop. I enjoy this relationship to this day, and have a good idea when I have strayed and needed to get back on the right track. I am not seeing a lot of that these days. I see churches get over-involved with politics, even going to the point of saying if you don't believe in our President, you don't believe in God.  I have read about church leaders committing sexual atrocities on children that would get most people sent to prison...many of these people just get sent to a different town like they were in Witness Protection! We have political "leaders" (as opposed to modest servants of the People) do the bidding of rich fuckers so they can stay in office and continue "representing" the People. This is why medical care is so expensive, why education suffers, why homes cost so much. 

   As for myself, I have tried to be the best family man I can, be the best teacher I can me, and be the best me that I can muster...on my current track, I do not see things improving. I will always be carrying burdensome debt, always dealing with some crisis, always wondering when things will get better.

   I am tired of wondering. Tired of dealing. Tired of carrying. Tired of watching the world burn.

   But why 1972?

   Simply, it seems to be a year of good music, better vibes, a clearer idea of what was right and wrong. 

   There certainly was no Internet. If you wanted to find something out, you had to do some actual research by going to a library and looking it up...or look in an encyclopedia. By doing this you found information without getting a free opinion.

   People were outside more. Play structures in parks were more fun for kids. 

   In 1972 if you went to a store in your pajamas, they'd likely kick you out.

   TV didn't have disclaimers for their shows...you watched or you didn't. Most markets had only a few channels, no massive cable packages with a lot of useless channels and shows. Most stations were off the air late at night. No 24/7 outlets. Some radio stations were like this as well.

   As there were no online distractions, families spent more time together (for better or for worse) talking or playing games.

   Schools had a curriculum to teach, not standards...school lunches were made at school, not prepackaged.

   Our enemy was communism and the USSR. Simple.

   Was it perfect? Absolutely not. Vietnam was still a bone of contention. Watergate was about to put trust of the government to the test. People still had problems. Different ones for many.

   Still, I could go back with a decent sum of money and live out my remaining days. I could then see what happened with a more mature pair of eyes and not glorify those events.

   I'd just have to watch out for who I bump into. A small price.

   I can dream, can't I? Dreams are what make things possible...and more acceptable.

The Thrilling Days of Yestercable

    If you're like me (and the Geneva Convention strictly prohibits such sins!) and grew up in the last quarter of the 20th Century (which Millenials are trying to outlaw), you are probably aware of the great technological accomplishments of that era, particularly in the realm of chia pets!

   And how did we learn about the chia pet? I mean, aside from the person down the street conned into buying one the same way some schnook gets a My Pillow now, That's right, it was good old cable TV! Cable is, or rather USED TO BE, a marvelous invention with a very important aim...to make us grateful for more Diff'rent Strokes seasons after being subjected to the horrors of local access shows!

    No, don't be ridiculous, that show was useless right after the Bicycle Man 2-parter starring Mr. Carlson. Seriously, the original purpose of cable was to bring TV signals to homes in rural areas or at least semi-rural areas.

   Of course, many didn't want to pay for cable and instead opted for a huge aerial outside their house and connected to the TV.  When I was really little and we lived in Michigan, we had one that easily got the Detroit stations whose transmitters were only 20 miles away. However, when we moved to Pennsylvania in 1976, we lived in an area where any station was at least 35 or more miles away. In fact, we had 2 choices: aim the aerial to the west and get the Susquehanna Valley stations or aim to the southeast and get the Philadelphia stations...my dad chose the Philly suite, probably the better choice. Most of the stations came in well except for one of the independents.

   A few years later, we moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. NOW it was time to get cable as there were only 3 stations in town: ABC, NBC, and PBS. I distinctly remember when the cable truck pulled up in late June of 1979...it was plastered on both sides with an advertisement for WTCG Channel 17 in Atlanta...it was named a Superstation. At 6 years old I wondered what that even meant. Well, it turned out to be one of 2 independent sitcom/cartoon stations we'd get. Our CBS came out of Durham, and we got a couple other networks from other eastern NC towns. At one point, someone hooked up a wire to the TV and got us an illegal (I assume) connection to HBO. That was pretty cool! I remember seeing Grease for the first time there.

    Well, the South was a fairly short experience, lasting only 16 months. We ended up moving back to PA in the fall of 1980, and THIS time we got cable. All Philly stations came in along with a few Susquehanna Valley stations and a couple up in the Scranton and Allentown areas. A couple of years later, our service, Berkscable, got a new station called USA! It was its own network, airing a lot of older shows, including my beloved The Edge of Night starting in late 1985! I also caught the old Dragnet on this channel.  Also in 1983 we got a decoder box in order to have a local HBO-type station called PRISM which aired movies, sports and, late weekend nights, soft-core porn...or so I heard wink wink! Yeah ok...teenager me turning that opportunity down? Let's move on.

   In 1986, Berkscable got a MAJOR revamping: cable boxes! Suddenly we had 60 channels instead of just 12...of course we didn't watch all of them. Still, we not only had USA, we had ESPN, Nickelodeon, A&E, BET, MTV, VH1, Discovery, HSN, CNN, Weather Channel, Cinemax, TNN, and a few other channels to sort through. A year later we also got WTBS (previously WTCG) which was later just TBS, and even later TNT.

   Later in the 90s we got some other channels like Cartoon Network, Science Fiction (later just lazily Syfy), FX, Game Show Network (later lazily just GSN) and TV Land. I liked TV Land for a while because they aired a lot of classic shows and some classic commercials. By the mid 2000s it had gained too many ads and cut their shows more. As Cartoon Network began airing more original shows, it spawned its own offshoot Boomerang which eventually became like its mother.

   On top of all this were various incarnations of HBO, Cinemax, Movie Channel, Showtime, Starz, and Encore...most of which required an added subscription. Then there were tons of shopping channels as well. Long ads called infomercials replaced the test patterns on broadcast stations. Pretty soon, a lot of cable channels began running long marathons of the same damn show, inspiring the current trend of streaming show binge-watching.

   And with the growing number of cable channels out there, cable package prices got astronomically ridiculous, even just for basic, due to all the licensing fees either the channel or cable provider charged each other. It wasn't that way back in the good ol 20th century, even early 21st. We had Cox for quite some time, then when DirecTV made a deal with AT&T, we switched. It was ok for a time, but then in 2019, DirecTV couldn't reach an agreement with the company that owned our CBS station. That pretty much cut it for me. In the fall we dropped DirecTV (but not without a hefty early termination penalty that we recently finished off) and just used an antenna for regular channels plus their digital offshoots which carry any combination of classics depending on the day's signal strength. Plus a friend gave us one of her spare Fire Sticks, so we also stream with some selected services.

   What I have noticed, however, is the new tricky nature of streaming services, charging rental fees instead of just making all their shows and movies free...Amazon is guilty of this! Plus, other smaller streaming companies offer their own bundles of channels once attainable only through cable. Translation: they saw cable dropping in popularity and needed to find a way to make money.

   All in all, I miss the old days...don't we all? Progress is not always good. In fact, progress in terms of TV viewing has created a system, an ENABLING system if you will, of making us feel ok to just sit and veg on a show all damn day, whereas when I was more youthful, I knew what was on and when, and did other things during those times. If I sit for a binge-watch now, I fall asleep around episode 2! None of the shows are what I'd label RIVETING.

They don't even try to sell me a chia pet!

From the Raven to the Dove

    Recently I read a good book. 

   I know I know, you're saying ANOTHER DAMN BOOK REVIEW?! DON'T YOU KNOW WE HATE THESE AND WANT YOU TO WRITE FUNNY SHIT TO MAKE US GIGGLE?!

   Yeah yeah, I'll write jokes later, I'll smash a damn watermelon, put a prop arrow in my head, whatever you want. For the time being, though, I need to talk about something...

   Or rather someone.

   About 36 years ago, I was channel surfing when upon me came a show on USA that I'd seen once or twice before in daytime called The Edge of Night. I hadn't caught the plot or characters before that, I just liked the music theme. Come to early 1986, I finally sit to catch the actual show. It was an array of some really interesting, off-the-wall characters, from psychotic killers to fraudulent actors to obsessed cops...and at the center of a lot of these stories and dialogues was what could be described as an anti-heroine, someone who people rooted for but wasn't necessarily good. 

   Her name was Raven Whitney...actually I would later come to learn she was Raven Alexander Jamison Swift Whitney. She was played by a quite gorgeous woman named Sharon Gabet. I must admit, at 13 I was quite smitten with her just as much as any girl I liked in junior high.

   When the Edge run ended on USA in early 1989, I was quite bummed, though I knew she was on another soap at that point, just not a front-of-the-line role. For the next ten years, all I had was the scant videotapes of whatever I'd recorded. Then in 1999, I found an Edge web page from which I found some people who had more than I had on tape! I bought a few tapes and that kept me going for some time. Then AOL video aired episodes earlier than the USA run and I got an earlier and quite nastier Raven!

   Even later I found a group on Facebook devoted to Edge as well as another person who sold episodes on disc! Admittedly I spent over $300 on these but this show was important to me and I got to relive what I saw decades before, plus stuff I hadn't seen because I caught it months after the run began. Most importantly, in the group was none other than Sharon Gabet herself! She shared much with us about the show, as well as the fact that she had written a book called From the Raven to the Dove (yeah I know, talk about your long preliminaries, Bryan!). It was more about her spiritual and emotional journey as an adult than about her days as a soap star. She was also good enough to answer questions from me in IM personally. You have no idea what that meant to me after all those years.

   It took me a while, but I finally decided I wanted to get this book and read what Sharon had to say, so I asked for it for Christmas. Thankfully my sister-in-law got a copy for me. When I opened the present, I was beyond ecstatic!

   Truly, I felt a surge of energy holding this book before I opened it up. It was like I held a certain expectation of what I would read, even though I truly knew Sharon is just a human being like the rest of us. Then I flipped past the opening title page and what not and got to the actual text.

   What I received through reading this book over the course of a few weeks was an incredible journey, a tale of someone who grew up in a seemingly idyllic 1950s environment. I must admit that as a child of the 70s and early 80s, I shared some of the same memories...mostly the outdoor life, exploration, options of places to go in a time before the virtual world consumed us. Millenials would not likely understand this life, it is so foreign.

    Yet, that was just the opening.

    The ensuing chapters are about her growth and experience as a model, then a nurse in New York City...and a nasty perspective of an abortion clinic in New York City in the mid 1970s...not a pretty scene. 

    Then there is the acting part of her life that would go for over a decade of thrills, excitement, and a sad number of downs that came toward the end. How Sharon describes it is more than what some might consider a midlife crisis, but more about a person looking around herself and wondering suddenly who she is. She is frustrated, angry, and in despair...almost like the acting had gone on for much longer than her years on TV.

    What really got to me in the "meat" of the book was how she saw herself in terms of her relationships with men...as well as with her children. What she was looking for, or what she thought she needed to look for, tended not to pan out in the long run. Anyone can see someone going through a divorce, maybe two divorces,  and say, "Well, they didn't try hard enough to make it work." Sharon goes to great depths to show that we do not always know what our souls truly need or want. Society has a great, almost EVIL, role in telling us what we should do in our relationships, what roles we are destined to play...especially for females. Yet the same goes for men, the sense of tough dominance and authority they need to exhibit in order to fit the role, to be accepted. 

   I have to confess that my vocabulary in terms of spiritual journeys, so-called "mythical" creatures and ideas are many times lost on me as I read Sharon's words...the words "skip a bit, brother" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail hit my brain a few times when it got too deep vocabulary-wise. Yet, those were small parts that just enhanced Sharon's overall message which was always understood at the end of each chapter.

   And then when she talks about her children, I can see the love, the deep connection...and the frustrations that accompany. Sharon has a daughter who is autistic, and her journey from discovering that quality to exploring ways to cope and communicate with her, show that Sharon Rose Gabet is not your average suburban single mom who merely gets her child diagnosed and fights with the school over the IEP for years...no she went BEYOND that and found people and experience to help make connections. There is a part near the end when her daughter says "NO" and means it...I won't tell the story of that, but it showed that those people and experiences had borne fruit.

   Possibly one of the deepest themes (maybe THE DEEPEST)Sharon explores, maybe deeper than relationship dynamics and expectations, is the relationship with God that she has explored...often referring to God as Creator, an accurate name and perhaps more appropriate as a descriptor. It is a deep topic explored throughout the book, from her Catholic upbringing to examining the social norms and expectations of believing and what believing truly means when one digs deep into their soul about their true relationship with "the man upstairs". I related to this theme as I have taken a smaller mental journey of my relationship with God and have come to understand what I see it to be...and have felt it to me more rewarding inside.

   Toward the end, Sharon shares her online and phone reunion and some times with her Edge love Larkin Malloy. We as fans were devastated when he left us over 5 years ago, but her take was especially emotional given their past time together. You can feel the love between them onscreen even though they never got together in real life. One understands that sometimes things are meant...and not meant to be. Our inner energy does not always match with others the way we WANT them to. Yet what they had in their way was more real than probably most marriages I have seen onscreen and real life.

   All I can really say to end this review is that it all started with being a fan...and I still am. I can watch the adventures of Raven and Sky on The Edge of Night over and over on disc and Youtube and never get tired of it. Yet, by the end of the book, I feel empowered to dig even more deeply into myself to unravel a few knots and see where I end up. It could be scary, it could be exhilarating...possibly both simultaneously. 

   Thank you, Sharon, for giving me probably one of the most meaningful reads I have ever experienced.

Egg Bites

2021...A Mild Hell in Review

 It's the New Year, everyone! It may be raining or snowing or sunny where you are today, but no matter where you are, we're past the fireworks moment. That moment was not really about it being 2022 so much as kicking 2021 to the curb permanently...for many of us!

If any of you had a positive and blessed 2021, that is wonderful, and I wish you the same happiness this year.

For many others, however, it was not a positive and blessed year. Many had personal or health (or both!) problems. COVID pretty much ruled the year with vaccination side effects or not knowing what to do about getting the vaccination or its booster, and the damn masks!

And then there was the political turmoil. The events of January 6, 2021, are still fresh in the minds of many, and like the vaccination controversy there are varied opinions on what actually happened. This is the first year in my life that an ex President remained in the public eye and attention after he left...because he wanted it that way.

As for me and my family, we hung in there as always. Vickie had a hysterectomy and I was lucky (har har)enough to get 2 kidney stones blasted. Vickie got us a deal online for 2 bikes, and in the late Spring and most of the summer I rode all over the northernmmost neighborhoods where some orchards and many horses resided...almost a rural Pennsylvania feeling, except the high humidity was missing.

Working summer school provided funds for some short getaways in late June and all of July, the highlight being Cedar City, Utah for me.

Thankfully we teachers were able to start and STAY in our classrooms with our kids, little to no virtual quarantine emergencies.

Celebrities we lost (ones I am familiar with anyway): Peter Scolari, Willie Garson, Norm MacDonald, Charlie Watts, Jackie Mason, Charlie Robinson, William Smith (I didn't know this one till today!), director Richard Donner, soap performers Ray MacDonnell and Stuart Damon, Clarence Williams III, Arlene Golonka, Gavin MacLeod, B.J. Thomas, Robert Hogan, Charles Grodin, Tawny Kitaen, Olympia Dukakis, Frank McRae, Johnny Crawford, Jessica Walter, George Segal, Rush Limbaugh, Larry Flynt, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Diamond, Cicely Tyson, Cloris Leachman, Hal Holbrook, Larry King, Hank Aaron, Phil Spector, Joanne Rogers, John Reilly, Marion Ramsey, Tanya Roberts, Gregory Sierra, and, just yesterday, Betty White....proving 2021 had one more groin kick for us all.

Celebrity deaths aside, many of us suffered the loss of a friend or family member, which makes the loss much more heartfelt. My mom lost her friend Rose, whom she had met at the National University library in San Diego almost 29 years ago. She was a very sweet woman, I remember her fondly. She passed at age 73. We also lost our elderly former downstairs neighbor Norma in June. Even after we moved into the house, we continued to come help her with her cable remote or pick things up (like smokes) from the store. A very kind woman who had known Natalie since she was 2. Norma passed at 89.

This may sound trite, but let us take the tragedies and bad news of 2021 and do what we can to make 2022 the best we can make it. My advice...make reasonable goals you can attain and maintain, not crazy half-hearted "resolutions"...New Year's resolutions at heart are a meaningless tradition passed on from other generations who usually failed at resolutions as well...and as we are a nation often fails to learn from past failures, let's break this bad habit once and for all!

A happy blessed and successful 2022 to all!

The Christmas Letter

 Dear Everyone,

   Well,  here we are again after a year. Wow, where has the time gone? Lots has happened in this short time, and I don't quite know where to start, not to mention how to fit it into a concise letter that most of you will probably stop reading after the first paragraph or so. However, since I have this neurotic need to boast about my family's successes in the hopes of one-upping at least one of you other shit-braggarts at least once, let's let it rip!

   Our oldest finally came off of alcohol...again...this past autumn. Of course, he didn't have much of a choice after landing in jail for D and D (NOT  Dungeons and Dragons) for the eighth time this year. It should be noted that he was very polite to the officer when he showed him his...pride. In our son's defense, officers of the law should be more clear when asking for an ID from someone under the influence. In his state, our son thought ID meant immense..."definition". Having landed in the clink a few times myself for inebriation in the past, I can relate to him. Having been arrested so often got him in a slightly higher class of imprisonment, so he is moving up in the world. Even better, he is now the official "Queen" of C block, so now he finally has a title at 26 years old.

   Then there is our younger child. Now, I have heard all of you chortling behind her back about dressing like a hoe and being the most likely to get knocked up before turning 20. Well the joke's on you all! She's only 17 and has 3 months to go before the due date! The dad is a fine gentleman. His official title is "social director" and has an office, so to speak, close to all the local motels. He even gets a commission from all the nearby businesses for bringing them business himself! Hopefully our grandchild will carry on his family name!

   Of course, there is my wife! God bless her, she really has an interest in building our credit rating and local exposure. We went from having very little debt to well over $10,000 in credit cards alone. I was worried about her for a bit with our son's and daughter's successes and feeling somewhat left out. No sir! She has amassed an impressive new wardrobe, made local business connections at various hostels and bars, not to mention making contributions to our local police and court systems. She even unofficially modeled for a local lingerie outfit and has created a demand for more. For some reason, the cash flow has gone away rather than toward us, but I am sure she knows what she's doing.

    And then there's boring old me with the same old sales job traveling all over the place, eating and drinking alone often. Thankfully I am not always forced to sleep alone! I've often woken up as the guest of some kind stranger or another...who for some reason are often rushing me out, but hey, everyone has to get to their own job, right? After one of those trips, I did have a persistent itch and oddly colored mark that hasn't gone away. After all those pleas to get a COVID shot, I am wondering if that'll clear it up?

   Well, that's been our wonderful year! I cannot imagine being in a more loving, successful, and growing family. Hope you all have a great New Year. Try not to be jealous of us, we just do things our way!

Love, 

Phil