I know so many people, including myself, who suffer from insomnia, that horrific state of being totally exhausted but unable to find a state of blissful relaxation and rest. Insomnia rears its ugly head in many forms. For some it is a matter of not being able to fall asleep at all. For others in involves waking after only a few hours and then staring at the ceiling for the remainder of the night. Mine is a combination of the two. I often take well over an hour to finally fall into a state of slumber and then wake up after about four hours and proceed to toss and turn until around four thirty in the morning when I finally find the deepest sleep of the night. I haven’t enjoyed the recommended seven to eight hours of uninterrupted slumber for ages. Continue reading “Bring Me A Dream”
Month: October 2015
The Stepchild
Houston is a city invented in the minds of real estate brokers and businessmen. Geographically it had no features that might have indicated that it would one day become a mega power. It is as flat as a place can be, hot for most of the year, devoid of rivers linking it to other places. The early hucksters who first imagined building a town in Houston often sold its potential to out of town folk with posters depicting a quaint village surrounded by mountains. When the individuals who had bought into the fake depictions arrived they usually had no means of doing anything other than staying even though they had been duped.
Somehow Houston attracted innovators and investors with grand ideas. These were men who convinced railroad magnates to tie the city into the commercial system that crisscrossed the country. They were the same types who conceived the plan of connecting Houston with the Gulf of Mexico by building an artificial route to the sea via a ship channel. The early Houstonians were visionary enough to create a university that would become known as “the Harvard of the South.” They recruited talented young doctors to found medical facilities that would grow into a world renowned center of excellence. When World War II broke out the city of Houston was poised to tackle the business of producing the necessities of battle. By 1948, Houston was a city on the move and somehow its growth never stopped. Today it is the fourth largest city in the United States and forecasters predict that it will overtake Chicago in the next two decades. Continue reading “The Stepchild”
The Humanity
All summer long and well into the early fall days we have seen the images of refugees from warring and authoritarian nations pouring into Europe. Countries there have been overwhelmed by the level of human misery and sadly these poor souls represent only the tip of the iceberg of suffering. While governments grapple with difficult considerations, all I see are desperate people who have grown weary of despots, war, and privation. Mostly I notice that so many of them are fairly young men who appear not to have families with them.
Closer inspection reveals a trend that is far from new. It seems that many of the immigrants searching for respite in foreign lands are heads of households. Their almost universal goal is to find a secure place to live so that they might one day send for wives and children who remain in harm’s way. They have made the difficult and unsafe journey alone because to bring women and small children would have been far too dangerous. They travel best if they only have to care for themselves. They have become familiar with the laws of the lands where they hope to live. They understand that once a country accepts them and they establish a foothold they will have the right to send for their loved ones. This is the plan. Their hopes and dreams depend on making this a reality. Continue reading “The Humanity”
Living the Life You Choose
It’s common place for some of today’s political sorts to speak of the present economic time as being quite horrible as compared to the past. They speak of the troubles that face young people and insist that this is the first generation that will not have the opportunities that were available in earlier times. I can’t speak for anybody else but I know that in my own case opportunity meant hard work. My first job was a summer gig in which I served as a receptionist at a medical clinic. I arrived promptly at eight thirty each morning so that I might be ready to answer the phones when they began to ring at the opening hour of nine. I generally worked until six in the evening but sometimes one of the doctors requested that I stay a bit longer to help close up after the late patients had left. For my efforts I was paid the grand salary of eighty eight dollars per month! (Yes, you read that correctly. I received twenty two dollars a week for working forty plus hours. A quick bit of math confirms that my salary was about fifty cents per hour.)
While I was busy working a “professional” job my brothers spent their summers at a roadside fruit and vegetable stand where they sat in the sweltering heat hoping to sell paper buckets of tomatoes and such. If I remember correctly they made about twenty five cents an hour which seemed like a gold mine to them because neither had yet turned sixteen years of age. My job was high living compared to theirs and I also managed to add a bit to my coffers with babysitting gigs on the weekends for which I received twenty five cents an hour. Over time my brothers and I managed to land an assortment of jobs all designed to pay for our extras like class rings, senior trips, and college. It never occurred to us that we should be outraged for having to put some sweat equity into our slow but sure progression up the socio-economic ladder. Continue reading “Living the Life You Choose”
A Beautiful Life
Many years ago I was working at Paul Revere Middle School when I had the pleasure of interviewing a young man who was seeking a position as an English teacher. There was something magical about Bob Buley that game across during the interview. He had a twinkle in his eyes and an enthusiasm about life and people that made him enchanting. To say that I was quite taken with him would be to underestimate my strong desire to hire him on the spot. I was quite pleased to learn that the principal was in total agreement with me. We both viewed Bob as being someone who would be passionate and warm in his approach to teaching and it took little time for us to learn that we had indeed been right in our initial assessment of this young educator. Continue reading “A Beautiful Life”
All It Takes Is A Little Love 