For what it’s worth …
I heard this group in person in the early 70s in Denver when
I was working for the American Friends Service Committee helping war resistors …
it is my theme song I guess …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY
I now minimize my time listening to the news … so much worse
than my memories of the Vietnam war era and my time as an Air Force
Intelligence Officer … I was once charged with writing highly classified war
briefs for B-52 pilots armed with nuclear weapons in case things got worse …
glad they did not … my directions to the pilot headed for Hanoi was to drop his
bombs in the Gulf of Tonkin and turn around … fortunately no one read our
highly classified briefings for the pilots … I wrote Senator Gore (Senior) and
thanked him for getting me out of the Air Force early and expressing my deep
distrust and disappointment with the USA … he responded with a short note encouraging
me to not give up hope for better times … I am now on the brink of giving up …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdWGp3HQVjU
I do not think I can do anything to make things better and
it seems pointless to take Tolstoy’s advice related in a bable in Confessions …
see his recounting a fable in chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/confessions-tolstoy.pdf
… I know … too many sidetracks … that is
life … a series of accidental sidetracks … “little we see in nature that is
ours” … https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us
... Stop it already … I keep revisiting things I read long ago … quite by
happenstance and not as assignments … I avoided assignments … life is
essentially discovery learning …
I do listen to upbeat songs such as Judy Collins’ Simple Gifts
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnpwiMTVkxI
But then Birmingham Sunday creeps in knowing my older
brother left home to join the bus boycotts … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ0y-vO9QLE
… my brother had more courage than me … I miss him …
And I sometimes read … not learning technology texts but
random things like this – “I am Waiting” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42869/i-am-waiting-56d22183d718a
... STILL WAITING …
“I grow old … I shall wear my trousers rolled” … see “The
Love Song …” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42869/i-am-waiting-56d22183d718a
What do I know? What can I teach others? …. At a loss for
words … Mike Spector