Case in point, arguing about politics on Facebook. Granted it’s not a forum given to erudite and thought provoking discussion. “omg you dress is so awesome” and “I totally peed my pants today! LOL!” generally being the deepest and most meaningful of Facebook posts. Politics it seems, brings out the worst in us and political posts should be avoided.
Now if only I’d listen to my own advice. See, I have a problem. I love to start political fights on Facebook as most of my friends are staunch republicans and I am just a little left of Trotsky…so you can see where there might be some issues. Of course I create the issues and start the fights so there’s that.
I’ve vowed to stop this heinous practice and very occasionally I do. I’ll post the usual gibberish mostly about how I’ve peed my pants. Because it happens so often. But then I can’t help myself. I see something somewhere, most probably the hippie commie sites that I read, and feel compelled to share it. I can’t stop.
So I’m sitting outside enjoying a cup of coffee when I hear planes overhead. I’m such a geek that I stop pretty much what I’m doing to watch. But wait, says I, thes planes sound different. Turns out they were WWII planes of some sort. I was scared and thought for a minute that I’d been transported in time back to 1941. Then I realized that my iPad probably wouldn’t have Internet access in 1941 so I had some coffee.
So my wife got a new iPad for a graduation present. I feel it’s not quite the cool toy she thought it was and is kind of at a loss as to what she should do with it.
Dean Martin, Bob Hope, George Goebbel, Judy Carne…the very epitome of old school cool. Dig ‘em drinkin and smokin and being funny. Nary a cuss word was uttered on that night (at least that we know about)
Recent piece in the local rag written by a sportswriter who is leaving our fair city for the more temperate climes of Charlotte got me to thinking…what makes a home?
Not a home like a house. Or an apartment. Hell everyone has to have one or the other. Unless you’re a tent dweller, in which case, good luck to you. Really. Good luck.
But what makes a home as in a city?
Is it the people? Perhaps. While Kansas City has decent, nice people, I wonder if the people here are any nicer than in any other mid sized city. Are they more helpful? More apt to go out of their way to assist you in finding something or getting somewhere? Perhaps. I’d assume that the people in Kansas City are at least as nice as those in any other city, will help you find your lost puppy or your lost way or whatever it is that you need to find or get to.
Is it a willingness to help those less fortunate? Once again, I guess that Kansas City is equally as willing to help as any other town.
But does this make it home? Does it make it A home?
Yes it makes it A home. It happens to be where I live. Where my kids have grown up. So in that sense, it’s home. Whenever we travel and people ask where home is, it’s easy to say Kansas City. ”Oh” they inevitably reply, “Kansas is so..um..nice.” I no longer fight to say I live in Missouri because really, what’s the point? There isn’t one so I just nod my head. ”Yes. It’s quite lovely.”
People ask where I’m from and I still say Houston though honestly I’ve lived in Kansas City longer than I ever lived in Houston. When I go back to Houston it’s different. It’s foreign to me. Not really in a bad way, but in the way that any new city is foreign to a traveler. Because really, I don’t go home. I’m travelling.
It’s been said that home is where the heart is. In that case, I guess Blue Springs, Missouri is my home. Not a willing home, but a home nonetheless. My heart is here. My kids, my wife. All here.
Ever notice how a certain smell can bring back a memory that for some reason or another you had filed away in the back recesses of your mind? Isn’t it interesting the things that trigger these memories.
Case in point, whilst browsing a cook book while taking care of some serious bathroom business, the smell of the cookbook I was reading brought back a powerful memory of a summer job that I had years ago. Mind this wasn’t a summer job during college or high school, but a summer job that I had “in between real jobs” if you know what I mean.
Basically the job involved putting together shelving and display units and desks. We generally worked for the Burlington Northern Railroad at JUCO but on occasion went out into the real world for a job. One such job was building book racks at the library at UMKC.
I had not yet gone to or certainly graduated from UMKC, but I loved this particular job. And this was a job I generally HATED. I hated the people I worked with, hated the guy I worked for, hated pretty much everything about it, but it payed the bills so there was that.
The job that I speak of was building display units in a section of the library. I don’t think that it was a widely used section, perhaps it was semi-private? I don’t really recall. I do however, recall that it smelled wonderful. It smelled of books, it smelled of knowledge, it smelled of a completely different world. A world that I so very badly wanted to be a part of.
The smell reminded me of how much I wanted to be a part of this special world. A world in which being smart was a good thing. Where a library wasn’t just a place to go and surf facebook, as is the case with our local library. But a place of learned people and learners and ideas and thinkers and thoughts and hope and everything that was good.
