Reminiscing

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving.  We collected Mom and drove down to have dinner with my sister’s family.  I got to talking about the different jobs I’ve had with my nephew (Patrice, who’s attending Harvard Law) and it got me thinking back about options, choices, paths not taken and fading memories.  Later, I heard an old favorite song of mine by Garth Brooks titled:  “Every Now And Then“.
If Robert Frost is correct and the paths we choose to take make all the difference in the world (see:  “A Road Not Taken“), then I imagine lost loves make up a big part of the difference.  I’ve added the link to the lyrics to my poems page.  As usual, read the lyrics and then go find the song – the words, the imagery, the music – are haunting.
On a lighter note, as usual, after eating, we sat around and played team Jeopardy.  Neither team did very well.  Art’s team (Bec and Sarah) won, but mostly because they had a whole category they killed on – nicknames for musicians.  We fared about even on most of the other categories.  Playing Jeopardy always reminds me how uneven my own education is.  I know very little about the Arts – literature, art/paintings, music, etc.  I always tell myself I’ll spend more time on broadening my education, but I’m afraid I’m very much a creature of habit – in reading as much as in everything else.  Well, some time ago, I bought “An Incomplete Education“.   It’s a book dedicated to teaching / reminding / exposing its readers to a broad range of liberal education.  The topics include US history, world history, Art, Literature, Economics, Psychology, Science, Religion, and Philosophy – pretty much all the stuff I should have learned about from Grammar school through University (but never did).  The book is only 700 odd pages, so it obviously can’t get too deep into any single topic, but I’m hoping it will whet my appetite to go back to school to gain more depth.
Today I read the first 70 pages – mostly about US history – poets, literature, political parties and historic scandals, and, finally, important Supreme Court decisions.  To tell the truth,  other than the political parties and Supreme Court cases, it was a dreadful bore.  Even the few paragraphs on Frost were not particularly interesting.  I’m surprised because I like his poems, but didn’t find Frost himself interesting.
I guess when I’m done with the book I’ll have to re-evaluate the plan.  Reading the Percy Jackson (Greek mythology) series was vastly more interesting.  At least that series prompted me to Wiki some of the characters and stories to learn more about the real Greek myths.   The funny thing is, it’s not really the writing style of the authors, which is, in turn, straight-forward, sarcastic, ironic, humorous, pithy, and seems well organized.  I’m just not finding the ideas from the people they are covering to be particularly of interest.  Quite discouraging actually!  Still, I’ll plod through, gleaning what I can…
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On This Day In:
2021	So Will Persistence
	I Won’t Shed A Tear
2020	Minute Fractions Of Happiness
	There’s Angels Everywhere
2019	Far Too Often
2018	A Divided / United Nation
2017	What We Want
2016	To The Extent
2015	Ambition
2014	More Branches To Climb
	Just In Time — Happy Thanksgiving (2014)
2013	For And Against
2012	De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum
2011	Similar And Different
2010	Reminiscing
	Differences

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