LIFE LONG LEARNING STARTS WITH A CALL

Life long learning doesn’t end with the last school day, the last class, the last good-bye.

It doesn’t end with a diploma, a certificate, or a license.

Those indicate the culmination of a training sequence, but the learning is just starting.

Now you find out what you need to know, which is . . . ?

How to tell the difference between who is important to you, and who isn’t, is a bad question.

Everyone is important to someone, which sounds like a motto from the ’70’s, like the song “Everything Is Beautiful.”

It’s a song by a guy named Ray Stevens, a thirty-one year old entertaining the youths back in 1970.

If you were one of the youths you heard it, maybe bought the 45, which is a small record with one song on each side.

The top picture shows the youths of the day fifty years later.

It wasn’t a boys school, but a wrestling team shot.

Back then only boys wrestled.

We had a good team with a bunch of district champs, a couple of state runners-up ,and a couple of state champions in Greco and Freestyle.

A few years later a different version from the same school ran it all the way the state team title. (Hey 1979)

Were they all beautiful?

Yes they were.

 

Were They?

As we age, and no one is saying baby boomers are old, at least not too loudly around here, we look back at images from a different point of view.

The guys in the top picture are in here some place, but they might as well be anonymous.

This could be any senior class from any school gathering on the football field to spell out the town’s initials.

It’s an N B for North and Bend.

The cheerleaders in the group shot kept order.

Looking back I see the empty grandstands where football coaches brought the team up from the practice field to run bleachers.

 

Coach: You run until you puke, that’s how you get in shape to play football.

 

The coach ran with us; he puked first .

Was it beautiful? It was something.

With the cheerleaders dressed up, why aren’t all the football players dressed in their home uniforms?

We had a good year, one loss under five hundred ball.

Like the wrestling team, the Bulldogs of 1973 set the stage for team success a little further down the line.

Call it a process.

 

Everyone Is Beautiful? Yes They Are

At some age we stop judging, or should stop judging.

Who doesn’t get tired of hearing an out of shape old fat man pointing out women with ideas on how they could improve themselves?

It’s the same fatigue when gracefully aging women urge others to agree that large young women strutting their stuff in skimpy swimwear liberates all women.

Young people have big Lizzo one minute, and thin Lizzo the next.

We had Divine, a big lady one minute, a fat man the next.

Everyone works out their own version of beautiful.

 

Hello, This Is 1973, Talk To Me

What happened in 1973?

 

Roe v Wade decided that women had legal rights to control their own body.

The Vietnam War started to end.

The World Trade Center twin towers opened.

Watergate hearings started showing on television.

 

Since then?

 

Roe v Wade re-decided that women do not have the legal right to control their own body.

The Afghanistan War ended worse than Vietnam.

The One World Trade Center opened.

Nixon left the presidency with the message of, “I’m not a crook.”

Trump come into the presidency as a convicted felon with, “So what?”

 

Imagine fifty years from now, a half century later, and you’re taking a call on a piece of gold colored stone.

Will it sound as weird as the last fifty?

I’m waiting to hear.

While I wait I will continue my life long habit of life long learning.

What do I expect to learn?

How can a city better embrace both business and livability?

How can a small town better welcome new families?

As a senior citizen with the turkey neck to prove it, I’m surprised to find so much in need of improvement.

Without nagging, bitching, or complaining about it, I still see needs unfulfilled.

Now that everyone is a journalist, a videographer, a star in their own universe, we can see a common thread.

Everyone can’t be stunningly beautiful, but they can be better citizens, better stewards of the land, and dedicated to active life long learning.

It’s a relief when I meet someone new and they’re not ashamed of their feelings and hide behind the usual facade of manners and etiquette.

What’s the normal response to something hurting?

What do you do first when you discover, “It hurts when I do this?”

Stop doing that.

Call my golden phone for more helpful advice.