As I start my blog, my opening credits are to my family and to my friends. If you'll permit me to be a bit confessional here, I want to note very important people in my life who have died, but whose memories and souls remain vibrant, even after years:
- My Mother -- Kathryn and my Father -- Maxwell
- Some special cousins -- Donald and Benson
- A best friend -- Another Stuart
Now for the living -- In the film, Stand By Me, Richard Dreyfuss makes a very true statement at the end. It is about friends -- To paraphrase; the friends you make in high school remain your friends for life. And so it is!! Friends then and friends now -- over 1/2 a century later. I cannot put their names here because they've not yet gone to that great high school in the sky.
Some opening thoughts. I have concluded that Life is a cruel practical joker or jokestress. She gives you thumbs up with one hand, and simultaneously gives you the thumbs down with the other hand. They say that the "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing." Bull-dookie in Life's case!
Prosecution Exhibit 1:
-- 2 wonderful daughters and 2 wonderful grandchildren
-- One daughter gets pregnant after several years of trying -- only to mis-carry
-- The other daughter has 2 children who want to play ball with me, but I cannot. My knees are really bad.
Prosecution Exhibit 2:
-- Always had work with excellent paying jobs, even in the worst economy
-- Every company for which I worked either had serious financial problems or went out of business
Life!! You're not funny any more!!
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Some standard pap:
- Always loved jazz
- Getting hooked quickly on Classical, even to the point that there are some composers I like and some I don't -- Mozart - Yes! Sorry Claude Debussy - No.
- I know most of Gilbert & Sullivan by heart
- I love and collect antiques
- Hobbies include genealogy, history, and politics.
- I love learning a language -- Majored in Russian in college.
- One other thing -- It is with great sadness that I confess to the crime of being an avid Philadelphia Eagles fan. -- 'Nuff said...
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Chapter 1
I am Stuart, but I assure you not the same Stuart I listed in the Preface. I am 71 years old and in better shape now than I have ever been. Lost lots of weight, working out like crazy, and working at my job. More about that later. For now, it is Thanksgiving, 2012.
It has been a nice long weekend for me -- off Thursday, Friday Saturday, and Sunday. These days off haven't been idle. I am trying trying to clean up the garage. Why, you ask? I live in a 3-story townhouse. I love it. Unfortunately, my knees do not. I am slowly but increasingly coming quickly to the conclusion that I'll need a single floor unit soon. Knee replacement is looming like the sheer granite wall of the Rocky Mountains.
In two weeks, I'll be on a cruise to the Southern Caribbean -- Curacao and Aruba. I hadn't been too interested in cruising until the last 5 years. But I am hooked! Do it! You'll get hooked, too.
I've been writing some stories, screen plays, and music. Nothing published yet, but I keep trying, and further, I may even torture you all with some of my musings ...er... writings. I also wrote My Story, a chronology of my life and the people in it. I work on it from time to time. It is becoming the central repository of all the factors that make me, me.
OK! Enough for my first blog post. Feedback is welcome, but remember, I don't take criticism well.
Stuart
