Hey........don't get upset......I just took a day off!!!!! And you know.....sitting here this evening I can't even remember just what interesting/uninteresting events occurred in my life yesterday. Soooo, that says a lot about the day, doesn't it?
I have been thinking a bit today about just how my Life has been divided into chapters.......pretty easily defined chapters. Oh sure.....there are some periods when, as I look to the rear, I am not exactly certain when one chapter ended and another began.......but, for the most part it is easy to discern a beginning and an end....at least from my vantage point at this stage of my Life.
Chapter 1 is actually the first 18 years of my Life.........the pre-school and the in-school years. Times that are becoming more and more difficult to remember anything other than very, very specific events that were either very bothersome to me or were memorable events where I succeeded very well in my endeavors. I have discovered very early pictures of myself.....from the collections of my recently deceased Mother......that I have decided to retain: one is a picture showing me at age 3.5 when I made my very first "long" trip away from home(Colorado Springs) with my grandmother.
We went overnight from Jefferson City on the Colorado Eagle.....a grand train that whisked us through the night crossing the state of Kansas......and, we surely all agree that crossing Kansas at night is the ONLY time to cross it. The memorable event was that during the night...in the summer....the a/c went completely out on the train, with the exception of the dining car. I can still see in my mind the bodies, of people who passed out from the heat, being carried down the aisle as they were carried by their shoulders and feet to the dining car.......going from one car to the next until they reached the one with a/c. It was scary enough that I haven't yet forgotten those bodies passing by my seat.......ugh!
In the 1st grade......I remember one evening while at home, I went to the bathroom to take care of #1 necessities and nothing but RED blood came out! And the next thing I knew, I was in the bottom bunk of our bunk beds with the Dr.(who made house calls in those days) putting IV's into my arm and hanging the liquid bottles on the bedsprings of the bunk above me.....and the next morning I was in the hospital for what seems like a week.........might really have been shorter than that, but it seemed LLLOOONNNNGGGG. Won't forget that experience!!!
I was a really, really skinny little guy(times HAVE changed).....and in the 2nd grade I STILL remember as if it happened yesterday.......when the prettiest girl in the class (whom I had a crush on)....came up to me and wondered why my arms were sooooo skinny. I was wearing a long sleeve close-fitting shirt.....and she said I shouldn't wear something that tight on my skinny little body!!!!!! Oh My God......how that hurt me soooo much!!!!!
Next chapter???? The almost five years of going to college. WHAT a difference in this chapter than in the previous one.......hahaha. GREAT fun........much, much mental stress with the studies and instrumental practice, but ohhhhhhh, did I learn sooooo damn much about Life. In order to understand this last phrase you must realize that I attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO.....from 1961 to the spring of 1966......AND.......L.U. was originally started as a university for the black soldiers of the Civil War and remained a black university until desegregation in reverse began in the late '50's. WOW........do I have some stories about those almost 5 years!!! It was a GREAT and WONDERFUL experience........a chapter of my Life that changed me and certainly made me the individual that I am now.......and I am sooooo happy today that I went to college at LU.....WONDERFUL!!!!!
Soooo, as to not bore you, I will close at this point......and will return to this last chapter (tomorrow?) for some wonderful learning experiences that I have to share with you.......centering around my active 5 years of working to integrate various facilities in that part of Missouri. WOW!!!!!
Hey......nothing really happened in my Life today either, so I have decided to step back into my past and reveal to many of you what has made me who I am today.....like it or not! But.....you know....all of the above...and all of the rest that is yet to be discussed......have helped to make me very, very certain that for this old sagging hulk of me.......
LIFE IS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!......And, I hope it is for all of you, also!!!!!!
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