To Sleep is to Dream?

 Last night, I had probably what was one of the craziest dream sequences ever.  It was a series of two dreams.  In the first, it was late-night talkshow personality Greg Gutfeld.  Now, I love Gutfeld's show, and I do watch it regularly, but because I don't have conventional cable television I watch it the next day on Rumble on my TV.  Any rate, Gutfeld is fun to watch, but not something I have as a high priority mark in my life though.  But, last night, I had an odd dream about him that defies logic frankly.  In the dream, I was in Gutfeld's studio with a bunch of other people - the studio bore striking resemblance to a shopping mall corridor.  We were all settling down for a short sleep in this studio, and prior to that, Gutfeld instructs me to wake up in 20 minutes and meet him in the main area.  So, I do, and as it turns out, I was to be married to this beautiful woman that looked a lot like the actress Tiffany Amber Theissen.  I show up though, and I have no pants on!  So, after several delays Gutfeld is officiating at this apparently civil marriage, and then I wake up briefly.  Upon falling back to sleep, I am now dreaming about a class I am taking in the dream on children's literature, and very oddly the teacher - who is on a face-cam on computer (talk about high-tech in dreams!) looks like Nancy Pelosi!  My crazy sequence of dreams led me to write this today, as sort of a continuing series of talks on personal reflection and developing habits for self-help that are sound.  Like the journaling article I wrote recently, these things are all interconnected too, so it is important to view them in that context as well. 

Everyone has dreams at some point - if you don't, then I would question your humanity.  Dreams can be familiar, bizarre, or disturbing, or they can just be pleasant experiences.  All a dream is essentially is your mind at work while you are sleeping - while the rest of your body rests, your brain works to keep everything functioning.  So, what often happens is that a person's dreams are pulled from their thoughts or subconscious memories, and often they are sort of hodgepodged together in a strangely familiar but strangely eclectic mosaic of things which create the dream.  There are reasons people have dreams, and I have concluded based on my own experience that there are three of those:

1. A dream is a coping mechanism for stress.  In life, the more stressed I get, it seems the more vivid my dream cycles get at night.  God did that for a reason, as those dreams do help us to sort of have a mental vacation as we sleep from the mounting pressures we face during our day. 

2. A dream can also carry some significance.  Symbolism in dreams is something worth paying attention to, as it may be God trying to talk to you.  This is especially true if a vivid, specific detail sticks out to you in the dream and you tend to dwell on it.  

3. A dream may also be just a result of eating something that messed with your system.  Those types of dreams can be absolutely bizarre, and also can be nightmares too.  The best remedy for that is to lay off the spicy foods before sleeping. 

Documenting dreams is a very essential practice to cultivate.  As Fr. Pedro Meseguer writes in his book The Secret of Dreams (Fort Collins, CO: Roman Catholic Books, 1996) on page 69, he cites Hervey de Saint-Denis's studies in noting that it is essentially a cultivated discipline to record one's dreams that takes practice and also a special interest in the dreaming to cultivate.  The point here is something we all experience when we wake up in the morning - if we had a dream the night before, it is often forgotten unless we somehow collect the details while they are still fresh in our minds.  This can be a challenge, because not everyone has a notebook and pen beside their bed, and also you have grogginess and a bit of fuzziness in your head until that first cup of coffee kicks in.  Fr. Meseguer recommends recording the dream with the same urgency as if you were trying to memorize a speech - that way, you can capture more details of it to analyze and reflect upon later.  I tend to agree with Fr. Meseguer on this, as if we are not careful we can easily miss things that may be significant in our dreams.  Now, on occasion, after some time down the road you may instantly recall some detail of a dream you had months (and even years) ago.  If that is the case, if you do keep a regular journal, be sure to document it.  These are very practical and common-sense things most of us should be able to do, but it is just the matter of motivation to make it happen. 

Dreams are often dismissed as being too trivial for serious inquiry, even by psychologists as well as religious authorities.  Unfortunately, this has led to the subject of dreams being hijacked by occultists and New Agers, and as a result, any discussion of dreams - in particular dream interpretation - is seen as too esoteric for serious inquiry.  In reality though, the Bible is chock full of examples of where God speaks to people in dreams, and that cannot be dismissed.  The problem is when we try to seek out meanings and we do online research, all we often see are occultic and New Age pages about dream interpretation.  It is the enemy's way of corrupting a good thing by turning it into superstition, and that should not be tolerated.  It will take some work, but seek out more sound sources dealing with dreams, either from Christian sources or even from more secular psychological studies.  Those tend to be balanced and are largely free of occultic nonsense.  

In summary, dreams are good things.  Do not dismiss them as just the result of too much pepperoni on the Friday night pizza you had for dinner.  And, always document those dreams, as there could be something in them that may be a source of revelation or comfort.  Thank you for allowing me to share until next time. 

Allegations and Politics

 As you may have noticed lately, my posts here have been taking on a more political dimension, and with good reasons, of which I will give two.  For one, trends in culture do have a personal dimension - what is happening in the wider culture will affect individuals on a personal level one way or another.  Secondly, it is a practical thing on my part, as over the next few years I am seeking to more or less consolidate three blogs into one, as my doctoral dissertation and other responsibilities are not affording me the opportunity to write as much as I once did.  That being said, let me get into the topic at hand. 

Over the past couple of weeks, two very high-profile individuals - online influencer Andrew Tate and actor Russell Brand - have become targets of sexual scandals.  In recent decades, this has been an effective weapon to wield by certain people against others, especially when it entails discrediting what they say because the powers-that-be disagree with them.  It is a fruit of what we call now "cancel culture," and it is running rampant.  I know very little about either Tate or Brand, except that they are eccentric figures who are saying things that certain people don't agree with, so these certain people are trying to shut them up.  The presumption of guilt or innocence is not even the issue in this instance, but rather the fact that someone obviously is uncomfortable with what people like these guys are saying - by what I have seen of both Andrew Tate and Russell Brand, they tend to talk about the need for men to act like men for instance, and they also have said some other things that resonate with most normal people but the elitists in the major institutions find unsettling because it could be a threat to the power those institutions hold.  Institutions such as the media, Hollywood, the major universities, mega-corporations, and the Federal bureaucratic Kraken that controls our government.  Many of those institutions are in the hands of an elitist group of oligarchs who all think alike, and they have an agenda that seems to be lifted right out of the playbooks of Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.  We heard it recently when one of these high-profile oligarchs, the sinister-looking Klaus Schwab, declared at a meeting in Davos in Switzerland of the World Economic Forum in so many words what the agenda - they call it "The Great Reset" - entails.  In the creepy German accent he has, Schwab essentially said this "You vill eet zee bugz, you vill live in ze pods, and you vill own NOTHING and be happy!"   While Schwab has all the charisma of a fictional cartoon villain from the 1970s, it must be understood that these guys are dead serious about what they want to do - many of them are multi-billionaires, and they are trying to envision and make a world in their image that the majority of normal human beings would find dystopian.  And, they have many world leaders in their back pockets to experiment with their ideas - I am of the opinion that the whole COVID-19 mess was a test run for what they wanted to do.  Therefore, if anyone stands in the way of their vision of "progress," they must be removed, especially if the offending individual happens to be a high-profile celebrity who dares break from the "herd" as both Tate and Brand have done.  It is one reason also I believe why Donald Trump has been targeted with a virtual litany of indictments, and it is also a reason why one other prominent billionaire who also broke with the "herd," Elon Musk, is a target for destruction.  The powers-that-be do NOT like being challenged for their dystopian fantasies, and they throw their wealth and influence around in order to eliminate any potential threats to the agenda they want to impose on mankind.  One effective means of doing this is sexual misconduct allegations, and that is their weapon of choice against certain celebrities and others who break rank with the accepted narrative. 

I am a regular viewer of Michael Knowles' podcast on The Daily Wire, and in watching that one day last week, Knowles made a very important observation.  He essentially said that the sex allegations really don't mean much in the greater scheme of things, as many of the accusers are guilty of worse stuff in many cases.  Many of these individuals, for instance, had season passes to Epstein Island, and some reports I have heard have suggested that the meeting places of these oligarchs - Davos, the UN headquarters in New York, etc. - often prove to be lucrative business opportunities for the local pimps and pushers, as these billionaire playboys like to indulge in copulation with whores and indulging in copious amounts of mind-altering drugs in the orgies many of them attend.  Despite the fact that they themselves engage in such practices, they are also astute enough to know that most of the general public still is disapproving of these behaviors and activities.  So, what they will often do is encourage their "friends" to indulge in as much sex, alcohol, drugs, and other activities as they want, and as long as they tow the official line no one bats an eye.  But, if one of them breaks ranks, then all of a sudden there are pictures, spurious witnesses, etc., who allege that such an individual took advantage of them with sex and drugs, and this then tarnishes that person's reputation and in turn "cancels" them.  In his book Speechless - Controlling Words, Controlling Minds (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2021), Michael Knowles notes that many of these twenty-first century leftist ideologues get this idea from the writings of Herbert Marcuse, and the premise is rooted in Marcuse's idea that dissenting opinions are somehow "dangerous" and "violent" and therefore are not to be tolerated and disagreement with the established narrative is to be eliminated by any means necessary (Knowles, 64-65).  The effective tactic of doing so, it seems, is to exaggerate charges of "immoral conduct" (despite the fact the accusers are essentially amoralist), and thus in the eyes of a shocked public, it effectively neutralizes any opposition to the agenda.  Brand and Tate are not the first ones to be targeted in this way, as it seems to be a tactic employed over several decades, and even goes back to Saul Alinsky utilizing fake "Klan" outfits to discredit Nixon and other Presidential candidates as "racists."  One other prominent example who parallels Brand in particular is the case of Bill Cosby a few years back, and I want to talk about that now. 

Many of us grew up with Bill Cosby's talents - as a child, I remember the Fat Albert cartoons, in my early days of collecting vintage records I also amassed a good collection of his comedy LPs, which I still enjoy, and in my later teens The Cosby Show was one of the biggest and most popular sitcoms on TV.  Also, there was his marketing of the Jello Pudding Pop, which really did a lot to boost sales.  Cosby was a legend of his time, and honestly, he was a real role model for Black kids in particular as he always communicated positive values to kids in a humorous way.  Now, around the year 2007, Cosby wrote a very insightful book entitled Come on People - On the Path from Victims to Victors (Nashville:  Thomas Nelson, 2007).  One thing Cosby really makes a point driving home is in regard to the situation of young Black males in the US, and on page 25 of the book, he comes out and says this: "It's much more comfortable to have someone to blame other than ourselves. That's just human nature."  Of course, he is right, but in the context he said it, and we see that on pages 46-47:  "But for all the talk of systemic racism and governmental screw-ups, we must look at ourselves and understand our own responsibility."  What Cosby is saying is simply this - we have to stop playing the victim, blaming things that don't exist, and take responsibility for our own actions and own it.  The Political Left hates this mentality, because what it does is it liberates people to be who they should be as individuals and not be stuck in some sort of societal pigeon-hole that blames external factors for something we have the power to change ourselves.   If you want to know the real reason for Cosby being cancelled, there it is - he said something the oligarchs did not like.  This now deserves more reflection. 

Like Russell Brand, who said something similar in regard to men in general, Cosby is not necessarily personally a paragon of perfection.  As a flawed human being, he may have done some stupid and irresponsible things in his younger years - who hasn't?  I think too even Cosby himself would be quick to acknowledge that.  But what happened was almost beyond belief - they more or less soiled Cosby's reputation, stripping away many of his honors he rightly received over the years, and they threw the poor man (who was approaching his 80s) into jail!  Ironically, though, another Bill and his wife were literally getting away with murder on a free pass from their friends at the same time - we are talking about the Clintons.  If there was actually a case for "White privilege" that everyone seems to scream about on the Left, this is it - Bill Cosby was thrown in jail in disgrace due to a lot of stuff that I believe was spurious at best, yet Bill Clinton and Hillary still act corrupt, and God knows how many women Bill Clinton actually molested.  That also doesn't take into account how many "accidental deaths" (Vince Foster, Jeffrey Epstein, etc.) happened to individuals closely associated with the Clintons.  Is that conspiracy theory perhaps?  Maybe, but there are things that just don't calculate. Apparently, to the Leftist elites, a Black actor is not as important to them as a White demagogue who happens to be part of their little elitist club.  Bill Clinton still has his billions of dollars, all his ill-gotten honors, and he is still looked upon as a "statesman."  Yet, what of Bill Cosby??  Ahhh...the classic tale of "Two Bills!" Recently, Cosby was released from jail, and as it turns out, many of the things he was accused of may not actually be true.  Yet, you don't see all the big universities restoring his honorary degrees, nor do you see his career being vindicated either.  As a matter of fact, I find it disturbing that even conservatives among us still presume Cosby's guilt, and I find that unsettling.  Many of those same conservatives basically ignore what Cosby actually said in his book just before all these allegations began to crop up, nor did they listen to a speech he gave just prior to these things surfacing which would immediately cause questions to be raised about the allegations themselves.  I feel that Russell Brand is at least getting a fairer shake, but maybe it is time to re-examine our position on Bill Cosby too based on the same situation.  I think that once responsible conservatives start examining the evidence for themselves (and I would encourage them to read Cosby's book as a start) they will come to a different conclusion about Cosby and maybe stop parroting the talking-points against him which originated largely from the Left yet were gobbled up by lazy conservatives who failed to do their due diligence.  As a professional paralegal, the sloppiness in which many conservatives have adopted the "official" narrative about Bill Cosby would get them fired if they were in my profession.  Crap like that has sent innocent people in the past to the electric chair.  If recent events and the proliferation of this "wokeness" crap taught us anything, it should be that perhaps it is time we exercise some "fact-checking" of our own against established narratives.  We might surprise ourselves. 

Any rate, I just wanted to address this, as you can also read an earlier article a few years back specifically dealing with Cosby for more information.   Have a good week ahead and thank you for allowing me to share.  

The Art of the Journal

 

For about 27 years or more, I have been keeping a personal journal.  Journaling is a practice that requires consistency and discipline, and thus it took a few false starts to really establish my own routine.  In recent years journaling has become more of a thing, and it's actually a good trend.  I wanted to just share my own experiences at journaling and use it to offer tips to others who may feel a desire to keep a journal, but no gumption to start one.  And, this is the first piece of advice I will give as we kick off the conversation - don't think about it, but just start!  That is what I essentially did, and it was the best thing I ever embarked upon as a personal project.  That being said, let's see where this conversation goes. 

There are many reasons and also many methods to journaling.  Journals can be permanent as a record of one's daily thoughts, or they can be specific - for instance, taking a course, undergoing a medical procedure, going through a life change, etc.   Some people feel the need to keep a specific journal for a specific reason - that is perfectly fine, as there is no rubric to when to keep a journal nor for how long.  The journal serves a primary purpose of challenging feelings and thoughts in a way one may not be otherwise able to communicate them, and it also is an opportunity to share feelings in a way you cannot with another person.  The journal is between you, it, and God, and only you can decide whether to share it or not.  This means then that anyone can keep a journal.  And, that leads to another observation.

You do not have to be a professional writer or anything else to keep a journal - write as you like, and don't worry about proper grammar, etc.  It does help if you know proper grammar, but it isn't necessary. Also, the more you write, the better you will write anyway.  Your journal will not be graded on grammatical perfection, and it also will not be scrutinized by a bunch of pompous-assed critics who fancy themselves literary experts (we all know about self-proclaimed "experts," and in all honesty, you can crap in one hand and place an "expert" opinion in the other, and then weigh them to see which has more substance).  Your journal is your thoughts, and you have the prerogative to express them in a way that reflects who you are.  Getting over that hurdle is something that will be a motivating factor in keeping a regular journal.  And, that leads to another issue worth examination - privacy.

A journal ideally is private - it is for the writer's eyes only, and the writer of the journal has the freedom to choose how much they want to disclose.  Even in a court of law, a personal journal should never be considered admissable evidence, as it is a violation of privacy and thus sacrosanct.  A person may actually be a raving psycho in their journal, but it is still just that - their journal. Further, if you are married, this is an area you also do have some freedom to not share with your spouse - if you feel comfortable doing so, then that is fine, but it should not be a condition of marriage for a spouse to have access to their husband's or wife's personal thoughts.  If a spouse tries to guilt you into letting you read your personal journal, it probably means that your spouse has serious insecurities and trust issues.  Therefore, at the start of a marriage, you can establish boundaries.  And, besides, if you pass away before they do, then they can read all they want because it will not matter then.  This may seem a bit controversial, but I think it is also a reasonable standard as well. 

So, this leads to methodology.  A journal is not something that is concrete as far as form goes - it can be as dry as just documenting daily activities, or it can be a practical novella.   That depends on the personality and writing style of the person keeping the journal.  Journals are also not restricted to just written words either - there are sketch journals, photo journals, and even scrapbook journals that contain bits and pieces of different things that inspire the person.   Content is also open as well - a journal can record daily events, it can also be a tool to use in daily religious devotion, it can be a way to vent things that may be weighing on one's mind, it can be a record of your dreams you have as you sleep, or it can be a combination of all the above.  That again is the prerogative of the person composing the journal.  In the case of mine, I am one who includes all the above, as together for me they present a more comprehensive picture.  Be as creative as you want with your journal, in other words. 

Another misconception is that a personal journal is just one book - anyone who would see mine would instantly radically change their view.  While there are instances of one-volume journals for particular circumstances, a journal kept daily will accumulate multiple volumes.  In my case, I have been writing in mine for over 27 years, and all of the books I have of my journal fill up a whole shelf in a cabinet right now, and there will be more I am sure.  The more and longer you write, the more of a personal library of your thoughts you are going to build.  I will get into shortly how that works, and what the best type of book to record your journal really is.  

As for designating time to keep a journal, in my experience that also varies.  While it is a good discipline to set aside a regular time each day to write down thoughts in your journal, it may not always be convenient.  Over the years, I have written entries in my journals in bizarre places such as office bathrooms, break rooms, restaurant booths, parking lots, parks, bus stops, and at my desk in offices I have worked on slow work days.  Writing in a journal is a good way to pass time when you are waiting on a bus or a ride, or if you have to be at the office some time before your work shift starts.  You can use it to clear your head and focus yourself for the day ahead in that case.  Ideally, I like writing journal entries before I go to sleep at night, as generally I am by myself and it is quiet and I don't risk being disturbed.  A big pet-peeve I have is when you happen to be writing at a bus stop or something and some stranger who doesn't know you from the man in the moon comes up and has to ask "Whatcha doin'?" and it will provoke a rude response like telling such a person what they can go do to themselves and to mind their own frigging business.  If you see a stranger reading a book, or writing something, just mind your own damn business and leave them alone - they don't want you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.  If they wanted to share that with you, they would - but, they don't know who you are, nor do they care, so what they do is not your business.  This is something called common courtesy.  I just wanted to share that as it is a major area of contention at times. 

A journal may also inspire one to pursue other things.  My journal, for instance, inspired me to blog, and it also gave me inspiration to write down my whole life story in a way that is comprehensive.  That latter aspect is something I owe a debt of gratitude to my late mother for.  Back when I was just beginning my journal in 1996, one day Mom was visiting our house and she got to talking about a dog we used to have named Jill.  Reliving some of those memories caused a bit of inspiration for me that night as I was doing my daily journal entry - I could use my journal as a way to tell my own story!  For the next year and a half or so, I wrote different aspects of my life story as part of my daily journal entry, and some time later I decided to collect those into a separate book and then add details as I recalled them or they were given to me on areas I may not have been old enough to remember.  After my 60th birthday in a few years, I plan on typing that whole story out and getting it bound into a book.  It is a legacy I can leave behind, and thus integral to keeping our family history fresh too. 

My journal has also aided in doing blogging like this - even this conversation on journaling is the result of a journal entry!  The journal helps me often to get some thoughts organized so I can present a good story for my blogs, and thus it plays an integral role.  It also has helped over the years with class projects and other things too.  While not divulging the entire aspect of the journal, you can glean the idea and apply it.  

One further aspect of journaling that is important has to do with dreams.  Everyone has dreams at night while we sleep, and on occasion those dreams stick out to us.  A dream can be explained by a number of things.  For one, it is a type of positive coping mechanism especially during times of stress.  Secondly, it is more or less a sort of convergence of a lot of thoughts, memories, etc., that one has floating around in their head - the dream mechanism gives those disparate thoughts expression.  Third, if you are a religious person like I am, some dreams have meanings - pay attention in particular to details that stick out in a dream, as they could have some significance.  Fourth, a dream can also be a reaction to too many onions in your fish cakes or spicy pepperoni on your pizza, and thus they can range from the bizarre to the frightening.  Whatever the case, if you wake up with that dream fresh on your mind, write it down!  If you cannot do a journal right away, then at least keep a small notebook handy to write your dream and its details down so you can then add it to your journal later.   Some people keep a journal exclusively for dreams too, and that is largely their choice on that.  Dreams can tell one a lot about themselves though, so it is important to document them.  And if a particular detail sticks out, then look it up to see if there may be some symbolism behind it.  I had a dream like that myself recently entailing my traveling to different Pacific islands.  In the dream, one particular word, "buhay," stuck out.  When I inquired about the meaning of that word, I found out it was a Tagalog word meaning "life."  Knowing that detail put that entire dream into perspective.  Writing these things down will prove valuable later. 

Finally, the question arises as to what type of book do you keep a journal in?  Again, there is not a set criteria for this, but I stick generally with professionally-made journal books as they just look better.  However, in the past I have used spiral notebooks, composition books, and other things as journals, but for the most part they are not really designed for the type of interaction you will want to have, so a neatly bound book specifically for journaling is your best bet.  On Amazon oftentimes, you can buy these in bulk quantities of ten, which is what I do.  That way, you don't have an interrupted journal routine.  Always keep a dependable ink pen with your journal book too - some ready-made books have a place for pens in them.   Then, keep the journal book in a secure place so that nosy people in the house do not mess with it.   You can also add things to the journal as well - items such as sticker art, bookmarks, photos, prayer cards, and even some newspaper and magazine clippings can be inserted between the pages.  I do this a lot with mine.  Your journal is a blank canvas, and thus you have the opportunity to design it as you see fit. 

Thank you for allowing me to share these practical tips about journaling, and I encourage you to maybe consider taking journaling up as a routine, as it will be a valuable resource later.  Any rate, so long until next visit. 

The Thrower Music Collection Update - Year 41

 In all honesty, I had not planned on updating this year because it has been a slow year for my collection.  With a lack of funds, as well as not really having a lot of items I am seeking after now, there was minimal activity.  But, I want to still report on what I did get, as it is significant.  

To begin, here are the numbers.  As of today, the total number of my items in my library is 3187, which breaks down to 1840 CDs, 1142 LP records, and 207 DVDs.   That means we are about 15 items from 3200 in the collection total.  The net gains for this year include 1 LP record, 1 2-disc CD set, and three DVD movies, which is a grand total of 6 new items.  Now, we can go into detail as to what those are. 

The LP record is of significance, as it is one of the last albums Harry James recorded before he passed away.  The LP is titled Ciribiribin after his theme song and was released in 1983.  I originally had this on a cassette tape when I was a teenager, and the major reason I got it was because of one song, Harry's stellar rendition of the 1970s pop song "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."   This recording is very hard to find reissued on CD, and as far as I am aware, I don't think it has been.  Therefore, getting it on LP assures it a place in the collection.  The CD set is of the 1920s saxophone legend Loren McMurray, who was featured on several early records of bands such as those of Sam Lanin and Ben Selvin, but he also had a group of his own.  Unfortunately, he was one of the earliest casualties of the era, as he passed away very young in 1922, just over 100 years ago.  McMurray, therefore, is one of the rare and unsung talents of the era, and thanks to Archeophone Records, his legacy has been given some attention and thus is preserved. As to movies, my good friends at Zeus DVDs have a treasure trove of vintage big band films, and one of those I obtained was A Song is Born, which was released originally in theatres in 1948 and featured the talents of Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, and Benny Carter.  A similar lineup could be found in a 1944 film I also got called Jam Session, and the third movie I was able to get was from 1943, Around the World, which was one of the many pictures Kay Kyser's orchestra was featured in.  With those added to my collection now, it pretty much gives us everything we wanted as far as vintage big band movies go, and those movies in my collection begin with 1929's The Vagabond Lover, featuring Rudy Vallee, and end with 1994's Swing Kids, which entailed the persecution that young big band and jazz fans faced in Nazi Germany during the 1940s.  Thanks to modern technology, I now have a library of all these vintage films, and that is amazing in itself.  Those six items are essentially what I have gotten this past year, and although few, they are still significant and are integral to preserving this great music. 

I was also able to get my second CD shelf assembled last December, and also able to integrate all of the new CDs I had gotten over the past 6 years into the main collection.  I have a small collection of classic jazz recordings I have been getting since I was younger, and I decided to integrate those into the collection as well, which also swelled the numbers a bit from where they were.  In this context, "classic jazz" refers essentially to any post-Swing Era small-group jazz acts - the bebop legends such as Charlie Parker and Theolonius Monk, late 1950s and early 1960s jazz groups such as those of Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi, and Ray Bryant, and later fusion jazz such as Freddy Hubbard as well as classic original jazz from later years such as Wynton Marsalis.  Integrating those into my main music collection essentially broadens the scope of my interests a bit, in that now it is still predominantly big band recordings but also there is a substantial amount of early popular music vocalists and vocal groups, post-WWII modern jazz, and some instrumental items (early Ray Conniff, Henry Mancini, etc.) that I actually like.  However, unlike my early collection efforts in my teens, I am not being indiscriminate in my collection, but rather am focusing on some things I like and am incorporating those into the collection as a whole.  It shows a level of evolution in my efforts too, as in the early days of just buying quarter LPs at the Rio Mall, when I got practically any artist that Henry Boggen played on WBT on his Sunday night show I listened to then, to for many years just focusing on vintage big bands and trying to limit what else I got, to finally accepting that some of the other stuff was actually good and I had favorites that I liked (for instance, I still appreciate Pat Boone's "Love Letters in the Sand," as well as non-big band instrumentals like Ray Conniff's "S'wonderful" and Henry Mancini's "Theme from Mr. Lucky.").  So, I am at that point of just incorporating those into the collection and broadening my musical interests while at the same time remaining true to my vintage big band core collection.  And, after 41 years of my love of this music, I have a collection I like and can be proud of.  This is where we are as we embark on Year 42.  

I am also considering now taking my collection and turning it into something more constructive, and I feel like my soon-to-be-earned Ph.D. will be a vehicle for doing that.  Although my dissertation I am working on is something completely different from music, I have been toying with the idea of actually doing my own book later on vintage big bands, and it would be a different sort of book than the earlier histories of legendary writers and commentators such as George T. Simon and Leo Walker.  Rather, I am thinking more on the lines of what the big band genre actually is (and if it is even fair to call it "big band," as it also entailed a lot of smaller groups), as well as when and where this musical tradition evolved from.  My theories, as I have been listening to this stuff for a good 43 years now, are going to probably be something totally different from what many music historians have said.  For one, I don't tie big bands exclusively to the evolution of jazz - while they are somewhat entwined, the big band tradition I believe predates jazz by decades, in that I see its roots in the parlor orchestras - such as those of Edward Issler - of the 1880s, as well as the minstrel show music of individuals such as Will Marion Cook from around the same period of time.  The collection I have now actually reflects that, and what I want to do is create a new and unique history of this great music that would entail my theories on this.  I can see it now though - there will be jazz purists, as well as even other big band enthusiasts, who will more than likely give me guff about what I will say, but that is OK.  After all, I am not the first to stir up controversy in that area, as the late jazz historian Richard Sudhalter sort of did the same thing in his book Lost Chords when he correctly noted that jazz was not exclusively an African-American art form, but rather an American art form that reflected the melting-pot influence of its earliest performers.  I plan on also incorporating Sudhalter's view into my own thesis, and basically taking it and expanding it but not focusing as much on jazz, as the music genre called big band actually encompasses even more complexity in its origins.  I aim to do essentially the first academic study of the big band movement as a whole. and in doing so, it will be my ultimate expression of my own passion for collecting this wonderful music. And, a project like that would be the ultimate legacy of my own interest in the music itself. 

As for this coming year, I am not sure where we are going. I don't have a set goal as to how many CDs or anything else I will acquire, but I do have my eyes on a couple of things.  For one, there has recently been a reissued collection of several volumes on the Classics label of Hal Kemp's whole catalogue, and at this time there are seven volumes.  That will be an objective this year.  The other item I have on the scope that is of interest is a classic LP that was released in 1958 that was very innovative.  It features two orchestras - Les Brown's Band of Renown and the orchestra of Vic Schoen (who was better known for being the conductor of the band that backed the Andrews Sisters and others in the 1930s and 1940s) - who combine their talents to create a serious work for two bands playing together.  I have heard some of this actually, and it is phenomenal.  The album has never been reissued on CD, so I will settle for the LP original for now.  There may be some other things that come up between now and next year at this time, so we will play that by ear.  But, the goal has been set, and we will get the Hal Kemp collection as well as the Les Brown/Vic Schoen LP classic.  If we are successful at obtaining those, it will boost my collection to 3195, just short of 3200.  That is OK though, as I am at a point in my collection where numbers are no longer a factor, but rather focusing on those items we really want to get.  

Thank you for allowing me to share my journey of 41 years of a phenomenal music collection, and I look forward to sharing Year 42.  

My Choice For President

 Election Year - 2024 - is fast approaching, and already there are a number of candidates who have thrown their proverbial hats in the ring.  A lot is at stake in this election, perhaps more than in any other.  At present, we have a senile old fool named Joe Biden who is in the White House, and he is useless, corrupt, out-of-touch, and he is more interested in Ukrainian transvestites than he is his own citizens.  Simply put, we cannot afford another 4 years of him.  There are plenty of Republican candidates - as well as one somewhat decent Democrat, RFK Jr. - vying for the position.  So, who will come out on top?   Let's look at things.

The obvious front-runner for the Republicans is Donald Trump, and Trump does represent the mindset of the average man in the street in so many ways.  Then there is Ron DeSantis, who has been a stellar governor in Florida and also has some good ideas, although he often does not really have the "oomph" factor to communicate them.  Then, there are some really bad Republicans - the overly-obese Chris Christie, who is useless; Asa Hutchinson, who in reality should be a Democrat; and Nikki Haley, who on occasion has said good things but for the most part I cannot really figure her out.  Then there is the former Vice President and Race Bannon (from the old Johnny Quest cartoons) clone Mike Pence - Pence is a nice guy, but as a leader he would stink honestly.  But, there is another who really has shaken up the status quo, and to be honest I am putting my support around him to be the Republican nominee, and that is newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy.  I want to focus my discussion now on him, as he is of interest.  

Vivek Ramaswamy is an American-born tycoon and entrepreneur of Asian Indian descent, and at 38 he is youthful and enthusiastic.  He has many good ideas, and so far what I have seen of him I like.  Now, mind you, I am not a Republican myself - I would rather have a dozen root canals than be part of the current Republican Party, which is dominated by a bunch of Establishment hacks who are out-of-touch with their base.   The candidates that are getting noticed are the ones who stand out - Trump, DeSantis, and now Vivek.  To be honest, any of the three of them I believe would be a good Republican contender against the Senile Sovereign that is in the Oval Office now, but it will come down to one.  More than likely Trump will be the guy who gets the nomination, and naturally I will vote for him if he does.  But, there are issues with both Trump and DeSantis that need to be considered, and like commentator Ben Shapiro said today in his podcast, the objective is to kick Biden out of the White House, and we need the best person to do that.  Are any of these guys that person?  

Trump has already been President, and while he was in office he did a lot of good stuff for the country.  Having him back in the White House would be very welcomed.  But, Trump has issues.   For one, the myriad indictments taking place against him - all of which I think are bogus and are a way Democrats are plotting to get rid of him as a serious contender -  may cause a problem.  Also, despite the fact I believe Trump to be effective, his weakness is that at times he doesn't activate the filter between his mouth and his brain, and that has caused him issues.   As for DeSantis, he has excellent policies and a pretty impressive and effective track record as Governor of Florida.  He has the potential to be a wonderful leader if he were elected, but the problem is that he is now becoming America's best-kept secret - he is not really strong on his national campaign.  Then there is Vivek - of the top three, I think Vivek has a lot of promise.  He is passionate, very conservative, and he also does admit where he is weak and I believe he knows how to delegate authority so that his weaknesses can be compensated.  Even people who like Trump and DeSantis seem to also have a fondness for Vivek, but at times there are some things people bring up about him, and I want to get into that now. 

The first thing people tend to bring up is that Vivek is not a Christian, but a Hindu.  I have heard some conservative commentators I listen to say that an American President has to be Christian.  I would argue that this is not necessarily true.  We are not electing a religious leader; we are electing the leader of our nation, and personally I want a leader who reflects my values, and although Vivek is Hindu, he does  have some pretty good traditional views on social issues - that is all I am really concerned about, and he passes the test there.  Some others have made issue about his name - it is obviously not a European name by any stretch, but again, I am not concerned about that at all.  After all, did we not have a President for 8 years named Barack Hussein Obama??  That is definitely not a European name either, despite the fact I am distantly related to him on my mother's side of the family - that does not mean I like him though, because Obama was one of the worst Presidents we had yet and he was elected based on his skin color and not his policies or his record, which were practically nonexistent.  Therefore, if a conservative Hindu who loves America more than the White Democrat leftists do becomes President, I am OK with it, and I could care less what his name is.  If we can have a Barack Hussein Obama for 8 years, I don't think there should be an issue with a guy named Vivek Ramaswamy.  

Another issue that many conservatives have with Vivek is his stance on legal immigration - he wants to establish a vetting process for that but not have a set quota or limit, and that has caused concern with some.  Personally, I am conservative, but I am an independent, so in all honesty I am somewhat flexible on this like Vivek is, and I have personal reasons I won't get into now for why I believe as I do.  Not every conservative talking point is good, I will just say that, and there are a few areas I would disagree fundamentally with other Conservatives on, but I also understand where they come from and I respect them too.  This is one of those issues.  The key concept here in regard to immigration is legal - if someone wants to come to our country and respects the system enough to comply with it, that means a lot.  It also means they appreciate American enough to be good patriotic citizens once they are nationalized, and we need all of those we can get!  I have known many foreign-born nationalized citizens of our nation, and many of them are very patriotic, as well as being political Conservatives.  I respect those people, and they are a wonderful addition to our nation, so I would welcome them.  So, I think Vivek has a good idea here - it could probably use a little tweaking and refining, but I think he is smart enough to know that too, so we should give him credit. 

In summary, I am supporting Vivek Ramaswamy as a viable Presidential candidate.  He may or may not get nominated, but he is essential in that he is bringing some things to the table that need to be addressed.  Provided the Republicans nominate a good candidate like Vivek, Trump, or DeSantis, that person will have my vote regardless.  But, I am firmly on Vivek's side too, and it would be wonderful if he would become the nominee to usurp the Alzheimer's Autocrat in the White House now.  Thank you for allowing me to share this brief PSA, and my prayers for our good candidates who are running, and also prayers that the bad ones will evaporate like the dew on the morning grass. 

Exploring the Background Ideology of An Evil Regime

 There has perhaps been more attention given to the various aspects of the Third Reich over the past 80 or so years since World War II, and much research has focused upon military history, the Holocaust, and the personage of Adolf Hitler.  However, one of the lacking areas of research for this period of history is the background of how the National Socialist Party (Nazis) came into existence.  And that raises many questions worthy of research.  For one, what things did influence the evolution of National Socialism?  Secondly, how did those concepts converge to construct a new ideology, and to what degree did the Nazis fully identify with earlier movements?  Finally, when studying the Third Reich, one notices that Hitler and the Nazis actually ended up persecuting people they shared views with - why was that?   These are the questions warranting a need to tackle, and now they will be the focus of this Ph.D. dissertation. 

As with anything else, the important foundational fact in researching this or any other topic is that things do not appear suddenly out of a vacuum - somewhere along the way, there are factors that shape, influence, and contribute to the overall final product.  While some historians have indeed specialized in this aspect of the research - two that come to mind are Richard Weikart and Benjamin Wiker - for the most part it is often shrugged off by academia as being too broad of a topic with the impossibility of narrowing down. This is a problem that is evident at the university level in dealing with faculty.  One faces challenges with this whole thing due to the fact that there are serious barriers to research - one, surprisingly, is the academic institution itself.  This is a major reason why this topic has not been indulged from a more scholarly perspective, although tons of popular literature on topics such as Nazism and the occult are widely available, and the recourse is to often use these sources as a resource to find primary source material, as surprisingly these more "conspiratorial" works so easily dismissed by academics do have a wealth of primary source leads for more in-depth research.  And, in the case of Nazism, it is also important to know German as well, which I do have extensive language study in.  One thing to remember though is to "stay the course" despite garnering opposition, and in time the research will compensate itself. 

In conducting research on these ideological sources, it is admittedly a challenge to sort things out, but in doing so research has been narrowed to four primary areas - occultism, political movements that arose at the end of the 19th century in Germany and Austria, the impact of social Darwinism and also the issue of homosexuality in early Nazi circles, and finally the philosophical views of Nietzsche, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Martin Heidegger.  The approach is to treat each of these areas individually, and then see how they converge and intersect in creating what became the National Socialist movement.  The oft-overlooked question, however, would be how the Nazis cherrypicked ideas and then discarded the sources of those ideas when they were no longer convenient.  The jailing, for instance, of Karl Haushofer, the geopolitical professor who more or less gave Hitler the idea of Lebensraum, and the falling from grace of Rudolf von Sebottendorf, the early German occultist who founded the Thule Society, an occultic sect that birthed the National Socialist Party as a political arm.  For a lot of this type of material, German-language sources in the form of correspondence and official government documents is crucial, as the Nazis had a public face that often belied their origins and seemed to contradict them.  Aside from identifying the ideological sources themselves, this is one of the more important factors that merits further examination outside of "conspiratorial" literature as was popular on these topics during the 1970s and 1980s.  

Much scholarship in this area - including some well-meaning professors at the particular university where this dissertation will be submitted - casually dismiss the possibility of an organized National Socialist ideology.  While it is understandable where they are coming from (it is agreed that the Nazis were one of the evilest movements to ever exist), caution must be exercised to avoid being too dismissive of this.  In order for a movement to have success - both good and evil movements - having an organized platform of ideas is crucial.  And, while the Nazis tended to be somewhat utilitarian and opportunistic, they did still manage to craft a very plain ideology that merits some examination, as it also sheds light on the background of the Holocaust and World War II in general.  Therefore, the focus of this research is primarily in the decades prior to the Third Reich - from approximately the 1890s to the 1920s - and focuses on ideological and social history primarily, with some examination of the overarching themes present in the time period as a whole (the conflict between Enlightenment-era rationalism and the rise of interest in alternative religious expressions during the Victorian period in America and Europe, etc.).  In understanding the overarching influences and factors that provided the fertile ground for cultivating a certain ideology, it brings a fuller understanding of what the ideology actually is. 

Therefore, in conclusion, this is a project that entails ideological background, and at times sources will need to be used that fall out of the academic spectrum - meaning popular or "conspiratorial" literature - because this area has honestly been largely ignored until recent years by conventional scholarship. Many of these undiscovered sources conceal a wealth of primary source material (including much in the original language of the culture the topic addresses) that would aid in this study, and therefore cannot be casually dismissed.  Some of these sources may actually contain material that is agreeable to the researcher, but agreement must not supersede empirical evidence.  That is perhaps the most prominent historiographical issue for this specific topic.  However, it must be restated that understanding the background of an ideology of any sort will provide a backdrop for other topics within the same historical context.  

A Little Catching Up

 So, it has been a while since I have been here, as I have been quite busy with many things at this point. As I am writing this, I am getting ready next week to do my final exam essay in the last of what are called my Comp courses - these are comprehensive reading requirements that are divided into four courses for the doctoral program at my university, and they consist of subject areas in early America, modern America, early modern Europe (from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution), and modern Europe (from Napoleon to the 21st century).  These courses are somewhat of a pain in the butt honestly, as each one requires six sets of discussion notes to be prepared over the 8 weeks of the class, and then you post those and respond to two of your classmates and their notes.  The way these are set up is that you have to discuss six sources - two books, two academic journal articles, and two primary sources.  This includes picking out the major research questions, the conclusions the source reaches, and the significance of a particular source to historical discourse.  It is very time-consuming doing those, but thankfully I just completed my last one (24 total over 4 courses!) and I am about done with the Comps then as of next week from this writing.  I then will begin the actual dissertation phase of my program starting on May 15, and for the next year it will be all about the dissertation, and at the end and after a successful defense I will then be able to preface my name with the initials "Dr."  This is a huge deal honestly, and I am so thankful that soon my almost 50+ years of education will soon be completed.  It will be nice finishing that, in all honesty, and then my next role in a classroom will be in front of it teaching.  So, in case any of you missed my pithy, insightful commentary on here, that is the reason why.  I will not be writing as frequently for a while, but I do intend to occasionally conversate with you virtually here.  

Life has been a complex mixture of challenges over the past few months too.  I have been hit with a few financial curve balls over the past few months, and it has been a bit stressful.  Thankfully, the dust has been starting to settle a little now and things are working out.  I also did have my recent six-month medical check-up last month, and that went very well - still have to watch the glucose and tri-gly counts but other than that I am fine.  I also do have a sleep study my doctor ordered coming up, as he wants to test me for sleep apnea, and I do need extensive dental work as well - my teeth, in all honesty, are a mess as I have not been to a dentist in almost 50 years.  I am thinking I will need implants for sure in my mouth, so I will be working toward that too.  I also have been offered a position with a preparatory academy in my home state of West Virginia, and if the background screening for it goes well, I will be starting that in September.  In summary, life has been extremely busy lately, and it looks like it will continue to be so for a while. 

As many of you now know, about two years ago Barbara and I divorced, and a couple of months ago we also got our annulment from the Church as well, thanks in part to our wonderful priest who helped us with the process.  However, Barbara and I are still very good friends, and we will be probably the rest of our lives.  It is a very widespread fallacy that many in society have about divorce - a divorced couple does not have to hate each other, especially if they are Christians to begin with, and if you can still be friends despite the ending of a marriage, it actually shows a high level of spiritual and emotional maturity.  I will not go into a lot of details as to why our marriage ended, but unfortunately it did, yet neither of us really blames each other - the circumstances actually show that we were both victims of the same thing, and we both understand that and are better friends because of it.  Barbara is actually like a sister I never had, and we do still care for and look out for each other as if we were siblings.  That is actually a wonderful thing, and I could not ask for a better friend than her.   While our marriage did not work out, not every aspect of that is bad either, because we do share many good memories and do still talk about them.  And, we have both also moved on with our lives in other areas - more on that at another time.  So, the lesson here is quite essential - divorce is an unfortunate fact of our fallen world, but even in the tragedy of divorce good fruit can be borne, and indeed it has with Barbara and myself. Therefore, do not be quick to judge us or any other divorced couple - like that guy Dhar Mann often says in those inspirational videos he has, you can never judge a book by its cover, as between the covers is an entire story.  I direct this especially toward some of our friends and family who claim to be "religious" - both Barbara and I have known many of the same people over the years, and many of them identify as conservative Evangelical Protestants.  This leads me to a little soapbox I want to stand on for a little bit, as some things need to be said. 

Those of us who are Christians know that our God is righteous and just, but what we tend to forget is that God - and especially incarnate in Jesus Christ - is a God of mercy and grace too.  While this would be a better discussion probably for the SPT blog, I mention it here for a more personal dimension.  Everyone on this earth, regardless of who or what you are, has screwed up on occasion.  We all sin, make bad choices, and at times our judgments are a bit clouded.  All of us with no exceptions.  The big theological term for this is concupiscence, and it is affirmed in Scripture in particular by Romans 3:23 - all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Even after we are converted and are baptized as Christians, we still war with that, and this is the reason why God has given the gift of supernatural grace - as both Aquinas and Bonaventure teach in their writings, the role of supernatural grace is to elevate, heal, and perfect us.  It isn't the same idea of grace that many of us were wrongly taught as Protestants, that it is simply "unmerited favor" - that definition confuses grace with something else, and that is mercy. Grace helps us grow, but mercy is the supernatural intervention - which we do not often deserve - that sustains us.  So, it is mercy that is an "unmerited favor," not grace.  And how do we receive both? Through our faith in God, in particular the ultimate mercy God gave us - Himself on a cross for our sins.  So, for my Evangelical Protestant friends, that is an important difference you should understand, and at a later time I will do a full teaching on that in my SPT blog.  For now in this context though, it has to do with attitudes both Barbara and I have faced by some of our friends over the years.  That is what I want to talk about now.

Divorce is an unfortunate effect of the Fall that even affects Christians, as we all are in the process of letting supernatural grace do its work to elevate, heal, and perfect us.  However, there is a nasty stigma that surrounds divorce for Christians, and it involves these three faulty ideas:

1. A divorced person is destined for hell

2. A divorced person who remarries commits adultery.

3. A divorced person is apparently not good enough for God.

All three of these ideas are wrong, cruel, and ultimately can harm someone, and Christians in particular need to throw them out.  In all honesty, I used to hold to at least two of these ideas too, but after experiencing a divorce myself, I had to grow up fast.  The fact is, a divorced person who is a Christian does not forfeit God's favor, and there are even times when the divorce is not even the intention of one or either party, but it unfortunately happens.  Now, there is a procedure however to follow in the event of a divorce, and it is basically just common sense and simple.  If you are a Catholic who has divorced, you will also need the marriage annulled.  This can be a scary process, but a caring priest will walk each former spouse through it.  During the annulment process, no remarriage is possible.  Also, a civil divorce is also legal, and is recognized as such by most Christian traditions.  So, before even thinking of moving on, that would have to be in order.  It is not a sin at all for a properly divorced (and in the Catholic context, annulled) person to remarry.  As a matter of fact, if such a person finds one to love like that, it is actually a beautiful thing because we as human beings are made to need the companionship of a soulmate - there is a certain incompleteness one has if they are alone, unless they do have a calling to be celibate.  That is just how we are hard-wired.  If the proper steps are taken, then remarriage is NOT adultery at all, and if the chemistry and true love is there, it is actually a beautiful new beginning for such a person. And, in saying that a divorced person is "not good enough for God," let's also enlighten that too - remember, no one can be good enough for God anyway on their own merits - ain't gonna happen!  But, because of Christ, we are made good as a mercy through his Blood shed for all of our sins.  And, that includes divorced people - if a divorced person still serves God, then they are in a good place and God does not hate them nor does he expect them to be "good enough" for him - he chose them and his love is unconditional. All we have to do is accept that mercy and let God love us as we are.  Then, supernatural grace will be given to us to do the rest.  So, if someone says that a divorced person (or any other sinner for that matter) is "not good enough for God," they are in effect committing heresy, because that is not what God's own words say in his Bible.  So, if you are one of those people who finds it necessary to condemn a divorced person in your church, you better look in the mirror first, because you have in essence become a "church Karen" and probably have issues of your own you are avoiding.  A Christian comedian, Taylor Ransom, portrays such "church Karens" vividly as one of the characters he portrays, and it is worth watching (plus, it is extremely hilarious!).  Any rate, if you are a divorced person who has experienced these attitudes from people, there is encouragement for you - God still loves you, so find your refuge in him, and let him take care of those who attack you. 

I really did not mean to get off on a Bible study here, but I think it needs to be said and some people do need to hear it.  And, I am writing from the heart too, as it is my own experience as well.  After our divorce, I noted already that Barbara and I are still close, and people who we encounter at Mass and elsewhere actually find us to be a true witness of God's grace at work - I am not saying that to brag, but I do love the witness Barbara and I still have with people we come across.  Other couples in a divorced Catholics group I am part of on social media have also been encouraged by my story too, and on occasion I find other spiritually mature people who also have moved past the divorce and are still close friends with their former spouses. Some have remarried other people obviously, but it has also created a beautiful community among them.  That is really something we should take to heart and think about, because it is integral to our spiritual and emotional growth too. 

I am also saddened this past month as well, as I lost one of my oldest and dearest childhood friends.  Sim Taylor and I have known each other since we were in 3rd grade over 44 years ago, and to be honest he was like a brother.  I last talked to him on March 7, and at the time he was going through a lot too - he had issues at his workplace, and a couple of years ago he lost his wife.  Little did I know that would be the last conversation I had with Sim, as the next day while he was at work he had an aneurysm that ruptured in his brain, and it took his life on March 9.  It was really a blow to learn about that, because on average we would talk back and forth at least once a week, and I started noticing a couple of weeks back that I hadn't heard anything out of him for a while.  So, I checked his social media, and his sister had posted that he passed away - that stunned me, as he is the same age as me.  I want to now just share a few memories of Sim with you now, as we go back a long way. 

                                                            Sim and I back in 2016

Sim Taylor was a neighbor of my dad's back in the day.  He and his family - his mom, stepdad, and two sisters - lived in a house a block over on Union Street from Dad's house on Ellis Street in Brunswick, GA.  We met actually in third grade at Burroughs Mollette School in Brunswick, and given we were close neighbors, we later became good friends.  One of the things we both enjoyed was watching a cartoon then called Space Giants.  This was a Japanese science-fiction series that was produced originally in the mid-1960s, and it could be described as something that would happen if Power Rangers were merged with Lost in Space, and it featured as its prime protagonist a huge giant gold robot named Goldar. Although it looks somewhat corny now, back then the local TV station in Jacksonville aired it on weekday afternoons, and for some reason Sim got me watching that.  There were times he would come over and watch it at Dad's house with me, and we would have cookies and chocolate milk as we watched the program.  Recently, I actually found that whole series on DVD and bought it, and it was kind of fun to watch again.  We also attended each other's youth group meetings at churches - Sim's folks went to the Nazarene church near their house, and they had a program for elementary-aged boys called the Caravans, and I went to those meetings with Sim.  I was actually part of another church, Beverly Shores Baptist Church, and also part of that boys' group there called the Royal Ambassadors.  I would on occasion take Sim to those too.  And, of course, like most kids, we formed our own club which we called the "Secret Agents" on Sim's recommendation - neither one of us knew why the hell we called it that, but it sounded cool to two nine-year-old boys.  After leaving and going back to Mom in the summer of that year (1979), I had lost touch with Sim for many years, although my dad would say occasionally that he ran into him and would tell me how he was.  Thanks to social media though, about 10 years ago we were able to get back in touch, and since then we have been close again.  He was an amazing friend.  In the years in between, Sim and I lived our respective lives - I went to college, and Sim got a job at 19 at the local seafood processing plant on St. Simons (the old Sea Pak Foods, now Rich Foods I believe), and he married an older lady while I married at 22 to Barbara, and life went on for both of us.  But, once we got back in touch, it was as if we never stopped talking since 3rd grade together.  He was an amazing guy, and one of my best friends, and I am sure going to miss him.  Rest eternal Bro and will see you again one day. 

So, that concludes our insights for today, and hope to visit again soon.  It has been really busy with my doctoral work and other responsibilities, so I won't be here as frequently, but do plan to check in.  Have a good week everyone and catch you next time.