The Ghost Of All Things Past ....

.... the beauty of drinking yourself silly on Christmas eve (An unnamed fruit-punch concoction) is that one wakes up particularly ornery, impatient at most things and just wondering why it is that you do the things you do in the first place. So please allow me to indulge in my annual year-end venting. It is in no particular priority or logic.... just T-P being , well.... a roll of paper...

As I get older, I find myself amused in that I am attracted to things that as I child I would have never looked twice. Gardening? Poetry? ... Bird watching? Book classics? Those I call my friends here in California (... and Alabama?) say I am maturing and appreciating the simplicities of life. Knowing my cousins in New Jersey and Puerto Rico, they will rip me a new one and think I am for certain turning metro-sexual, or worse. My mind tells me its something more apparent. I have been watching a ton of documentaries on American History and Biographies. That John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two figures I have grown fonder by the minute, were lovers of nature and read everything they got their hands on has certainly been influential. As an example, I recently looked up who the hell Cincinnatus was, based simply on a reference from one of Jefferson's letters.

Why is it that age takes away physical strength, yet gives us better clarity to understand the poignancy and relevance of history? Its easy to put it all on the maturing of the mind, but could it be that age awakens a level of beauty in the eye of the beholder that can only be uncovered by unidentified colors of pain, our unplanned catastrophic reference points and the drip-drying of tear ducts?...

In thinking of history and appreciation of the proverbial days of yore; the writings of Americans from the past has me physically spell-bound. Last night, while nursing said drunkenness in bed, I watched the Ken Burns' documentary of Lewis and Clark's westward expedition under President Thomas Jefferson. The letters from Meriwether Lewis to Jefferson, while simple, elegant, non-contrived, and devoid of angst, are as powerful and emotive as a punch to the solar plexus. The letters from Lincoln to his Generals during the Civil War?,... nothing I've read in my life has made me as embarrassed of my own ability. Has there ever been a love story with a natural grace as told by the letters between Abigail and John Adams? How is it that these times had such great writers? How did these people, without a public education system of note acquire such expression-dexterity? Such eloquence of syntax and penmanship? It would be so easy for me to drop in an example of how Washington (the General) would have texted his concerns to John Hancock were he to have had a Blackberry, .... but I won't.......Ok, this is too temping not to, so I will.... "Yo JH, pls snd $ for guns. We R chillin' in V-Forge. Benedict A. keepn us warm with jokes LMAO. Say Hi 2 Gen. Howe if U C him. Peace out" .... It just doesn't quite have the same regal gait and aplomb, does it...

In a related topic, and as I have been spending time at my newest Blogging collaborative effort, (www.conservativeconvictions.blogspot.com) I've been scratching my dome about many things. The founding Fathers and Mothers were for the most part Statesmen yes; but they were not foreign to dropping the F-bomb here and there and using the saltiest of words to make their case. Good language and conduct was considered of good manners and social-form; not something to be done due to the pressures of a politically correct atmosphere, as is the case in today's discourse. So I ask myself, why should I have to be a "kinder and gentler" T-P? Why?.... I know, I have spewed many times on not letting the messenger derail the message. I am an ardent believer that -for the most part-, when one delivers a message on a bed of flowers it is going to get more of a look-see that if it were on a bed of thorns...... still, why Do we have to be so nice? Why DO we have to be the bigger persons of ideology when the other side is message-vile and holds no quarter in putting our philosophy down? Is there not a virtue to let your unbridled passion of expression give your message the gravitas it needs? ... (Screw Rodney King, I say..., we DON'T have to get along....)

And speaking of "Gravitas" (as I have a fast-forward philosophical turret moment)... , in 2000, the media had an orgasmic time with the word. G.W. Bush was said to have no "gravitas" so he needed Cheney to buttress his lack of foreign policy yada-yada. Hmmm. Fast forward to 2008. PEBO (Pres Elect Barry O.), had zero foreign policy, executive or economic "gravitas", ... nothing. Heck, he had to get Biden just to get a few pounds of it. Yet,... did anybody hear the Media utter the "G" word once? I'm not saying anything new of course, and truthfully I don't put too much weight on experience anyway,.... but it just makes me laugh at how much of an attention span we have. The media thinks we are suckers,... and for the most part, I heartily agree with their assumptions.

Ok, back to my time capsule musings. Thomas Jefferson really screwed up, in my opinion. He should have never bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon no matter how good the bargain. Think of it, then the United States had the Atlantic as the eastern wall, the Gulf as the southern wall, the Mississippi in the west, and the British Territory to the north. Nice little nation without worrying about the Spanish/Mexican territory or the Oregon/North West passage. How much more manageable could we be right now? ... Did we really think expansion (The Southwest? The Oregon territory? Guam? Alaska? Hawaii? ...) was that important? I may have to do one of those "What if.." postings just to make myself feel better. We are too big, too varied, too multi-cultured and too .... whatever it is. Xenophobic? call it whatever comes in handy, but we are a 50-state Jabba-the-Hut nation whose eaten way too many cultural donuts and we can barely get out of our beds and do the dirty work we need to survive.

All this rummaging through history has my hangover feeling worse.... not better. But I do have one idea that has as good a chance to get national traction as Barrack Obama getting a breast-lift. It wont fix my headache, but it will amuse me to no end to share it. It goes like this:

Let's split the country 50/50. Why not do an experiment that calls for 25 states (for the next 25 years) to be ruled by me, by Fiat, without a democracy, a Republic, a Contitution or even the nuisance of voters to get in my way. Make me Benevolent Dictatus for 25 years, then decapitate my head at the end of my "term" for all to see no matter the final outcome. The other 25 states can continue on this 2-party system of Government that is as obsolete as the treadmill looking at me from the corner right now. You guys do it your way, I will have my little 25 States do it my way. I will bet you my country and my subjects would be the envy of the planet. And just to make it fair? I will let the traditionalists get to pick their 25 States first .... JUST as long as mine are contiguous, .... Just sayin'...

..... Finally, as of today's count, I have a Blog of my own, a Blog or two to which I contribute, 8 different email addresses to stay in touch with friends and family, a home phone, cell phone and smart phone, texting capabilities, a Facebook and MySpace social networking page, a web page for my band, two computer programs to make sure I stay "organized" and in control of my life, and God knows how many other ways to communicate with everybody in the Planet. Still, I wish I lived in a world that had but the pen.... the simple quill to write and express...., nothing more. Because in spite of the many windows of communication available to me today, I am far more isolated -and probably much lonelier-, than Meriwether Lewis and William Clark ever were..... even in their darkest of days humping over the Rockies, and paddling upstream,... always upstream ....

..... Uh oh... , my Blackberry is humming.... gotta' go and see what important matters await me. Be well America, feel free to make yourself a sandwich of both hope and despair, and down it with a swig of thoughtful introspection.

..... Only 991 more years until the new Millennium ....