Goats in trees.  I can not and will not say anything more.!

comfort

Have you ever not felt comfort for an extended period of time?  In our self centered world we are all about ourselves and our comfort.  I remember when I was in Honduras for twelve days and as I finally sat down on the airplane with the air conditioner, no dust or noise, there was something unfamiliar surrounding me.  COMFORT!    There were no sharp edges or rocks, there was no sand in my shoes or underwear.  Sweat was not in my eyes and dripping off of my body.  There were no bugs in my ears, gnats in my socks or spiders trying to use my nostrils as a den.  I was not consumed by odors that I could not identify, odors that only days ago were foul and categorized as awful but now have textures and nuances.  I do not think I want my odors to have nuances.

I remember spraying bug spray and mosquito spray in a circle around my sleeping bag and making sure it had a zipper that worked so I could completely zip myself up inside the thing, like a mummy's pouch.   Sure I had trouble breathing and it was one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, that is thirty seven and one half degrees Celsius because I was in Honduras, but I was safe from all kinds of evil that wanted my crevasses.   The floor of the burned out church was flat and moist with the occasional crack running the length of the cloister.  From inside my sleeping bag the only sound I could here were the bats dive bombing for the insects trying to thwart my defenses.  I could live with the bats, after all, they are mammals and you can reason with mammals sometimes.  I tried sleeping on my side but my arm would fall asleep and I would wake with a throbbing pain that had no origin but I felt it in my fingertips.   I slept on my back which means I snored very loudly.  I am sure the bats were upset.  Insects do not mind noise.  I knew a fly that used to sit with me while I jack hammered the living room.  He would stay on my shoulder and only once in a while flit of only to return.
Comfort, yes.  Well, the last few days I have been in a rotten mood.  While complaining to myself because at times like these, people just do not want to listen.  Friends are vacant, enemies are surprised you would talk to them until they realize you are not talking with them but at them and they wander off remembering why you are not a friend.  I could not figure why I was in a bad mood.  I had everything I needed, a job, food, I could go for months without it, a car that runs, children that do not hat me.
  It was comfort.  I was lacking comfort.  A comforting nod, an unexpectedly soft foot stool.  Socks that do not snag on your toe or heel but rather encapsulate your foot in soft cotton.  I was missing a meal that you wanted to hold in your mouth and savor for as long as possible.  I want to enjoying a perfectly made glass of iced tea while sitting under an oak tree welcoming a cool breeze.  It has been a long time since experiencing a pleasant sound in my ear, a note that swarmed around the inside of my head like the final note on the "Let it Be" album.  I am subjected to the rattle of the road, pot holes and poorly constructed manhole covers that jar your teeth loose and are only on the other side of the tracks.  My tennis shoes make more noise than the electric door at the supermarket.  I squeak like someone walking with a rubber duck in his shoe.  I need to move like I have wings on my feet and clouds under my heels.  I need to savor for hours a seventy eight percent cacao bar that bathes my mouth in creamy ecstasy.  I need a shower head with a three foot diameter and two thousand holes delivering water that surrounds me like a hot waterfall.  I need a bed with fresh linens that are so soft you do not even know they are touching you.  I need the comfort of my mothers food, Halupki that will make you cry with joy.

That is what I need.

Tin soldier

Some of you older people may remember the song "One Tin Soldier".  It was the sound track to "Billy Jack", a radical, in your face anti-establishment movie.  Well, this song was very popular and the lyrics are as follows:

1 Listen children to a story
2 That was written long ago
3 'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
4 And the valley folk below

5 On the mountain was a treasure
6 Buried deep beneath a stone
7 And the valley people swore
8 They'd have it for their very own

 CHORUS

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end

There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the Judgment Day
On the bloody morning after who
One tin soldier rides away

9 So the people of the valley
10 Sent a message up the hill
11 Asking for the buried treasure
12 Tons of gold for which they'd kill

13 Came an answer from the kingdom
14 With our brothers we will share
15 All the secrets of our mountain
16 An' all the riches buried there

17 Now the valley cried in anger

18 "Mount your horses, draw your sword"
19 And they killed the mountain people
20 So they won their just reward

21 Now they stood beside the treasure
22 On the mountain dark and red
23 Turn the stone and which beneath it
24 "Peace on Earth" was all it said

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend, blah, blah.
 One Tin Soldier rides away!

There are a few points to be made about these lyrics and are important to discuss.  But first, I must digress to my tender age of fourteen years.  As I was hearing this song for the first time, I was thinking  about line 7 and 8.  The valley people are so rude. Now with true heavenly grace lines 13-16   I thought, "Boy isn't that nice that the mountain kingdom is willing to share all it has with the valley people".  Line 17-20 shows that the valley people were not willing to share even shit that was not theirs.  I was an impressionable child and I was crying for the mountain people,  All of those children and old people that were butchered.  Tears were running down my face.

Now we have a show we can watch called "Game of Thrones" that reminds me of this song.  Line 23 and 24 were even more shocking.  "Peace on Earth" was all it said.  I was stunned.  If I was the sole survivor of the mountain kingdom,  I would be pissed.  My emotional roller-coaster was a rough ride that continues every time I hear the song.  Today our entire country acts like the valley people and they are proud of it.  Somehow it is standing up against something and we cannot be treated that way.  Someone should slap our parents silly for not slapping us silly every time we acted selfishly and rude.

And finally the Tin Soldier thing.  What is a tin soldier.  Is the current definition a result of this song?  Is there an old English definition of it.  I do not know. This has always bothered me.  Were armor suites ever made of tin?  There was a bronze age but no tin age.  I think bronze has tin in it.  How does tin feel about copper and bronze getting an age in history?  What is an age?  And finally, is the tin in the soldier the same as a tin horn dictator which is a bad thing?

Friday Music 04-15-16

 Every morning I wake up with a song in my head and a pain in my bladder.  Here is a quick recap of the songs.

Monday Morning - Easy Living   Uriah Heap
Tuseday Morning - A Horse with no Name  America
Wednesday Morning - Run Through the Jungle  Credence Clearwater Revival
Thursday Morning - Stealin when I should been Buyin  Uriah Heap
Friday Morning - Smackwater Jack  Goffen and King

Baseball

Today I am thinking baseball.  Specifically about memories with my crystal radio listening to the Cleveland Indians.  Also today, James Loney of the Tampa Bay Rays was let go after having a great spring training following three great years with Tampa.  I am sad for James's spirit.  He has made some money, millions and seems level headed so I assume he has plenty enough.  Yet, here is a guy who has done everything his dad ever taught him about baseball and it seems  not to be enough.  He hits for a good average, lifetime .281, is considered a better than most first baseman, bats left handed which everyone likes.  He is also a true team player and experienced leader on a "ball club".   His salary this year was creeping up there but not too much for what he brings to a team.  He also was in better shape this year physically so what is up.

I suspect that with being on the Tampa rays payroll, his salary was part of it but most of it was that he cannot hit home runs very often.  He was taught to connect with the ball, to get the bat on the ball.  You can tell, he rarely swings at bad pitches.  When you have ducks on the pond, you want someone to move them around.  Not any more. Baseball demands you take steroids and hit the ball out of the park although very few do hit it out of the stadium anymore.  Maybe stadiums are bigger, probably.  Many players, good and exciting ones are having a tough time these days because they do not hit the long ball.  My dad said that he would have taught us differently.  He would have taught us to hit the ball harder regardless of average.  My dad could have taught a three legged two toed sloth to hit a baseball.  The best pitching arm in Utah in 1975 would not play baseball because he could not hit a baseball.  He hated baseball after years of embarrassment.  I told him, my dad would teach you how to hit, "You just pitch".  He had a fastball that tailed up and in, what a pitch.  That pitch cannot be hit at any level.   The scouts were talking about Axel Hardy and Bruce Hurst not this guy.  I digressed.

Not being good enough for some is hard to accept.  You do the best you can and screw the rest.  Someone will pick up Mr. Loney.  He is valuable to teams and baseball.  His qualities are valuable to the world.