POETRY OH POETRY - yeah, whatever

"Exit wide - seashells old

infancy proximity

gallant colors - power-brakes

penguins called in pairs

silence at a roar – closing when it's open

surrealistic feel anxieties"

I don’t like poetry. Avant-garde is way extreme; to me it’s a bunch of confusion and secret codes only poets understand, which I doubt they even do. Classic poetry and your basic greeting card stuff is too fluffy and tear-jerker corny.

With poetry we tend to pretend that we “get it” and we "like it" because we don’t want to look stupid or ignorant; for most of us, that's because we don't quite understand it. Maybe we should try: "oh great stuff" and hope that it will all go away. I can’t pretend, because that is not who I am and also because I’m so totally not interested in poetry - because I don't understand the WHY?

It goes da-da-da-da-da-da for the longest time and that is simply too boring. Why can't they just say what they want to say without having every other line rhyme and at times not even that? Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the important place poetry has in literature, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, does it?

Read this next poem with a slow, deep and sensuous voice - if you dare; that will underline the romantic tone the poet is seeking. If you are a bit shy, practice reading these lines to your cat or bunny, before risking other humans, okay? Remember, slow and rhythmic, here you go:

"I swim in eyes so endless blue

My being - reaching, wanting you

Your gentle touch, so feathery

So deep it searches for my soul

My Dearest God, can this be true

Adoringly in love with you"

  

So did you get into it? Did it feel right, warm and cuddly? But more importantly, did you swoon Fluffy? I cannot read anything like this without laughing, so I can't buy into it, also for the reason that the above poems suck high heaven. And I can say that because I wrote both of them in less then 5 minutes; that's how easy it is. If you sit down and try this yourself, you'll find that there is nothing to it - seriously; how important does that make it? No offense.

In the late 1960's  I was utterly infatuated with this female person. She was heavily into poetry and dragged me to an evening of poetry reading; I would have followed her anywhere. The room was full of… whatever. The lights were low and then one after the other went up in front of the microphone and recited some lines of words in no particular order. When they finished, the crowd went crazy – and I had no clue why. It all seemed so pretentious to me; but due to this girl, I hypocritically applauded like an idiot. “Did you like it?” she asked with moist eyes. “It was awesome,” I lied. “What part?” “All of it,” I blurted out, tightening the noose. She saw right through me and I was dumped accordingly that very moment. I had never been dumped before, and found it didn't feel good. After that short evening, I despised poetry even more - makes sense?

Ignorant and shallow, you say – and I proudly say yes to both. You see, the weird thing is that I like abstract paintings. The complexities and the simplicities, the explosions of colors and forms; the kicker is that it does not open up much logic for me. So why do I not find anything in a poet’s non-figurative words or even in simple words?  “Open up, Peter,” I hear you say, but I did try and I didn’t like what I read or heard. It is too much The Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome, which to me translates into if you don’t get it, you are stupid; fair enough. But I would rather appear stupid than not be honest.

And it’s not just poetry that gets the massive pretend-I-like-it treatment. I have been to enough concerts of "new" music where I felt the so-called composer had no idea what to write, play or create, but did it anyway. And then, unfortunately, some self-elected music-critic cowering behind the walls of an esteemed newspaper writes how glorious the piece was and then we all go: it was heaven on earth; how right he is. But we still know it was crap. So why don’t we just call it like the little boy did, when he pointed out that the Emperor was actually walking through his kingdom in his nightie and not the fancy clothes the con-tailors had said he was wearing? Because they said that if you couldn’t see it, you were stupid. But the little boy had obviously not received the memo about that. Honesty prevailing - that's the ticket.

YES, I admit I wrote some poems back then. My first "serious" one was at age 12; BRAVE YOUNG SOLDIER. Even when I read it today, because it is unfortunately still so related, I get teary eyed. It's the truth in the poem that gets me; not that I wrote it.  

We have so many choices and options in our everyday life and we have an equal quantity of opinions about every single one of them. For some reason we tend to be hesitant expressing what we really feel and think in too many cases, for the most so not to hurt somebodies feelings. But trying to be nice, doesn't that make us a bit dishonest? To me poetry sucks, so why should I tone that down so nobody gets their feelings hurt (WAH WAH WAH). Okay, so I don't have many friends and this attitude has probably a lot to do with it. But I prefer to be friendless than being dishonest and have friends - see what I mean?

My taste is not the same as my wife's in some areas, but I have never played Mr. Nice-Guy by lying about my opinion when asked. So we have stuff in the house that I'm not wild about; I'm more so ecstatic about it, because those things makes my wife happy. And in the end, isn't that what we all want to do - make each other happy, using honesty? No matter how bad the poems suck - at least I'm honest about it, friendless or not... (Thanks high heavens for Facebook, huh?)

See you next Monday

DON'T MISS...

Some years back I got an assignment in a creative writing class I took here in Santa Rosa. Write a poem, was the order. As I couldn’t do the hypocritical thing, I decided to write a poem about how I don’t like poetry. I liked that idea because at least I was honest up front; what more can you ask – really. It's called POETRY OH POETRY. If you want to read this so-called poem, click here and it will take you to my Web-Site and the correct page: http://petersteiness.com/1522.html

GIGGLE OF THE WEEK - perhaps

She said: "You look familiar."

He smiled: "I hear that a lot - especially from my wife..."

Want to be notified about new posts? Follow the directions on your right. New posts of LIFE AS IT REALLY IS are being published every Monday. Thanks so much for following my blog.

Want to forward the link to this blog to friends and family?

It would be highly appreciated.

The more the merrier



SAY CHEESE – to delete or not to delete

A camera is stuffed in front of our faces and we all go: Emmentaller, Jarlsberg, Havarti, Gouda, Swiss, Blue Castello, Brie, American, Limburger, Mozzarella, and my all-time favorite: Newton’s Theory of Gravitation. Besides the silly one, these are all responses to the camera-holder’s encouragement for us to smile, by saying “cheese”. But why not just ask us to SMILE – duh?

For the longest time I thought we were asked to cheese because saying that word or the name of any kind of cheese, would shape my mouth into a grin, smile or smirk; but I was never sure it would. So I decided to read the names of all the cheeses in the world, in front of a handheld mirror; it took six days and three nights. Did you know that we have over 62 million different cheeses? (an approximate figure)… None of them left a smile on my face – what a waste of time, but now we know and you are welcome.

Around here we use cheese to get everybody’s attention before the button is pressed. Cheese is supposed to be funny, but quite honestly, I'm pretty bored with it, since I proved it doesn't work. So let’s see what kind of smiling encouragements they use in some other countries, shall we?

Cabbage (Bulgaria), olhao o passarinho (whatever that means (Brazil)), eggplant (China), omelet (Sweden), Little Bird (Serbia), Pepsi (Thailand), spaghetti or cheesecake (Germany), potato (Spain & Idaho), Gee it's expensive here (Disneyland), Smile or Else (North Korea), etc. So you see cheese is not universal at all; good knowledge, don't you think?

Interesting fact: we consume over 18 million metric ton of cheese annually. For those of you not using the metric system, that's a lot of cheese. But even that does not make me smile – it more so makes me puke and that doesn’t look good in a photo, does it? Well, enough about cheese…

Not much needs to be said before the clicking starts. We see a camera, phone, iPad, just about anything and we automatically scoop/herd/gather/assemble in front of any picture taking devise and opportunity, exposing enough ivory to light up a small city.

Noticed how we always smile in photos? Are we trying to make ourselves look smashing, charming and utterly happy for that 1/200 of a second no matter how crappy our day is going? Next time, notice how all those smiles disappear within 1/200 of a second after the photo is taken – rather interesting. And don’t you just hate it when the photo-taker can’t get it together for the longest time and our already strained smiles morph into painfully frozen grimaces? Yuk…

The funny thing is that we like to be photographed; we have no problems with that. But the other funny thing is, that we are extremely critical of the photographic images we see of ourselves and for silly reasons - really. We want to appear perfect, at least in a photo; we want to be exposed at our best - and even when that happens, our extreme critical judgement takes over - at least for me (and I have a reason).

With today’s digital photo possibilities, which can take pictures with just about anything, we are constantly exposed to being snapped, clicked and remembered forever or at least till the delete button do us part. At times we fight against being photographed (bad hair day, wrong clothes or icky istuff between teeth), but in spite of that, we still can’t wait to see the images of ourselves. And even when it’s a great photo, we scream very loud “HOLY TUNA” and scramble for the delete - and in many cases we regret that we did, approximately 1/200 of a second too late.

We have over 12,000 photos in our library and I like most of them. We enjoy taking photos of the kids, family, friends, flowers and other stuff around us, as well as pictures are perfect reminders of trips and travels. We can be a bit lax about composing the images as we snap them, because adjustments and repair can easily be applied later with the software we use (Photoshop) and its thousands of editing possibilities. Spinach eliminated from teeth in seconds. The busiest button in the program is called to delete or not to delete - or something like that; we use it relentlessly. Digital photography at its best.

But what do we really see? When we look at our own image in a mirror, we see a different me than the me we see in photos; and people around us see us even more "different" then that - so who am I really? comes to mind. In front of the mirror we can move around a bit and find that angle where we look our best (in our own opinion). But a photo pretty much nails us to the digital cross in one split second, cheese or no cheese; but at times we look smashing, don't you think? And at times everybody else thinks so too, which makes us feel real good.

I don’t like photos of myself because I don't have that magazine-model good looks. But it does not bother me at all - according to my psychiatrist. I am not photogenic to any extend, besides a few baby photos. 

I know two individuals who are utterly photogenic. It's impossible to take a photo of Johanna and Sara that is not awesome; all you have to do is click away. They are beautiful young women now (relax, they are family), but from they were little girls, that photogenic thing was so apparent. Very few people have that - I certainly don't, according to my psychiatrist, who is magazine-model handsome (but obviously a real jerk).

Cheese or no cheese, for the most we like to see ourselves in photos and that is just fine, really – as long as we can reach that option button called to delete or not to delete.

 Until next Monday – click click

So who says I'm not photogenic?

My psychiatrist is such a jerk.

Johanna - several years back

Me - 1832 or there about

Sara, about a year ago



IRONY OF THE WEEK:

He loved the sea, but was afraid of water

Want to be notified about new posts? Follow the directions on your right. New posts of LIFE AS IT REALLY IS are being published every Monday. Thanks so much for following my blog.

Want to forward the link to this blog to friends and family?

It would be highly appreciated.

The more the merrier

DEAR POLITICIAN – Ten Generic Demandments to lead by

The day after I was born, my Mother advised me that there are three subjects I should never discuss, debate or communicate about: politics, religion and sponge-bath techniques. As I got older I could see her point, except for the silly one. But today, a million years later, I will against her advice, stick out that proverbial neck of mine and take some chances. So enjoy this Monday’s post, as it could be the last. (Excuse me; did I hear a sigh of relief?)

2012 is election year here in the U.S.A. (didn’t we just have one?)  That includes political candidates constant debating/arguing, hustling for position in front of open microphones, rolling cameras and kissable babies (Yuk!). As political life is still too male dominated around here, the demure wife is standing by with adoring and rolling eyes, pretending to admire her husband with a frozen smile on her face while thinking: “What the hell am I doing here? Home Shopping Network is on; did I set the recorder? What is that icky looking stuff on his shoe?”

I decided on one last blog-Kamikaze mission, expressing my thoughts about politicians and politics, founded on my observations that politicians, their political convictions combined with innate stubbornness, are slowing down progress for all of us instead of speeding it up. When you think about it, you might also find this an unfortunate reality on too many levels.

 As I don’t want to get in trouble with my Mother, the following are my Ten “generic” Demandments that can be applied to any politician or civil servant anywhere in the world, no matter what color, gender, sexual preference or car they drive. Okay, so newly self-elected North Korean dictator, sorry “leader” Kim Jung Un might not find this amusing – but he really should; don’t you agree?

Yes, Dear Reader, I fully acknowledge that not all politicians are off track. If they were, we would not be where we are, of course. Still, in the following there is something for everybody – even I might learn a thing or two (one would be to keep my mouth shut as Mother told me to? There’s an idea).

Dear (put in name of favorite politician or civil servant)

          We are yet again faced with the task of having to place our vote for the persons we believe will actually live up to the promises they make during the electoral race; or “process”, if you feel that sounds nicer. I’m using task as believing quickly goes to disappointment in many cases, as what you told us you would do you didn’t do. We must believe that voting should feel like a privilege, that We the People must feel, believe and trust that we do have a say, that every single vote counts as we should be able to put our true faith in the system, believing that you do work for us, not for yourself – at least that was the plan. Or did some of you forget that?

          To help those of you who are a bit off track with respect to understanding the privilege of being a civil servant, maybe the following will help.

The Ten "generic" Demandments

(In no particular order of importance – as they all are)

1

We the People are not to any extend ignorant, stupid or uninterested, so stop talking to us as if we were, because if you do, we will seriously lose interest.

2

We the People listen to what you say, but much more so watch what you do. So do what you say you will do – we are keeping an eye on you (and it even rhymed).

3

We the People do not consider you a god, goddess, celebrity or super-hero of any kind, so stop acting like one.

4

We the People ask you to stop screwing around – literally. If you can so ignorantly be unfaithful to your wife (or husband), how easy is it for you to think you can also screw the people, the voters who trusted you as well? If you ever think you can get away with it, you are pathetically incompetent. Ask Clinton, he’s been there and done that. So in the future and before you pull down your pants, envision Nancy Reagan (there’s a picture for you) screaming: JUST SAY NO; so right she was (though it was about drugs, it works for both).

5

           We the People enjoy fairy-tales, but not one starting with:

“When I’m elected…”

6

We the People advice you to stop kissing babies, shaking hands with the elderly and pretend that you care. “Oh he kissed a baby and shook Mrs. Anderson’s 103 year old hand, so he must be a great human being and superb leader (or perhaps a closet pervert, if you ask me). We know it’s for the camera, and pretend on any level is pathetic – remember we are not stupid, so get to the issues instead and stop pretending – we don’t buy it.

7

We the People beg you to stop all that political bickering. We want to hear what YOU are about, not what you think your opponent is not. Slinging mud at somebody else, tells us much more about you. So stop bickering as you are the one ending up with egg on you face – and that is far from pretty; at least mud has some kind of skin healing effect, doesn’t it?

8

We the People plead with you to seriously work across the aisles, instead of hanging on to your party’s convictions and policies for dear life. If ALL of you consider and acknowledge what is the very best for the country and the people, against and in spite of political agendas, that is what will move us forward; that is what MUST be prevalent. Pride and convictions are fine, but progress for all is much better. Don’t you think?

And by the end of the day, it will all balance out and everybody wins.

9

We the People beg you to be honest; we are pleading with you to tell us the truth. Dealing with lies and deceptions is a waste of time, depressing and disrespectful.

Make us want to place our vote on election day, not by making it a task, but by making us believe in that glorious privilege it is to vote– and then it’s up to all of us to work together and move forward.

PROGRESS is the only way; don’t you agree?

10

As long as you remember who you are working for, who elected you and why you wanted to make “politician” your tool to improve our country and our world, you cannot go wrong. Don’t forget that you are also one of We the People, which should keep you humble and appreciative of the honor it is to serve in such an important capacity.

Now, go get it done and don’t screw it up, you hear?

(No, I don’t want to be president, but thanks for asking)…

Make it a good one, please. Until next Monday, perhaps – we’ll see…

PS. In spite of this post, would you consider coming back next Monday if I did a piece on Sponge-Bath Techniques? I thought you would, but I won’t…

Want to be notified about new posts? Follow the directions on your right. New posts of LIFE AS IT REALLY IS are being published every Monday. Thanks so much for following my blog.

Want to forward the link to this blog to friends and family?

It would be highly appreciated.

The more the merrier

ABBREVIATIONS – the long version

Are we trying to save time, make things easier or in many cases more complicated? Scientific research has found that saying ABBA instead of “Agnetha – Benny – Bjorn – Anni” is saving us a total of 14 minutes if we live till the tender age of 98 (and good luck with that). Of course this is not true, because I made it up; we actually save 27 minutes – but you get the overall idea, DY? (Don’t You?)

We all know that the Latin word brevis means short, and doesn’t that word more appropriately describe something diminutive compared to abbreviation? The silly thing is that we can of course also abbreviate abbreviation; it's abbr. And how you  pronounce abbr, is totally up to you. I can say it whatever way I want, because I’m from Denmark and you wouldn’t expect me to say it correctly, would you, huh? Now it’s your turn; let’s hear it. 

We use and misuse abbreviations and we use some of them not fully understanding what they actually mean. Most say PIN number, which means that you are saying Personal Identity Number Number; PIN is all you need to say and now you know what it means.

Please tell me why we abbreviate pound as lb. I can’t find neither l nor b in the word pound – and I looked twice; can you?

Here’s one we should all know what is: ADF. In airplane lingo (brevis for language, by the way), ADF means Automatic Direction Finder. If you are on a plane at 35,000 ft. and the captain is rushing up and down the aisles screaming: “Where the hell is that damn ADF?”, you might want to look under the seat for a parachute. If it’s the auto-pilot screaming for the bloody ADF, looking for a bible would no doubt be more appropriate; good stuff to know.

Abbreviations were used extensively back in early literacy, which makes sense as everything was hand-written using feathers and juice from an octopus. As far as I know, those days are over, but we still abbreviate – old habit and a bit of laziness.

ABC is short for American Broadcasting Company, but here in California’s wine-country, it can also mean Anything But Chardonnay.

A religious abbreviation is HC for Holy Communion. They use the same HC in India, but for Holy Cow – if they don’t, they really should.

We all know PC means Personal Computer. For some it also stands for Pretty Confusing. We watch those cool dudes and dudettes in awesome outfits catching bad guys on TV (that’s Television or Totally Vague – many times the same thing). They are part of a SWAT team. I bet you have no idea what that stands for, though you hear it often and maybe even say it out loud in public. Special Weapons and Tactics, also known as Shooting Without Any Thinking.

BTW is By The Way or the less popular: Back to Work; and the extremely ignorant one is from back in Salem year 1660-something: Burn the Witches (a dark spot on American history, if you ask me…)

Some silly person asks you to send the URL link of something in an E-Mail (you know that’s Electronic Mail, huh?) But you struggle with the URL. Well, that’s another reason you follow my blog – for the vast quantity of great information. Okay, URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator and I have absolutely no idea what the heck that means – I can only guess.

 Quick, what is IT? – Information Technology. And here is the tongue-twister: DNA. We use this often, hear it in movies and TV shows constantly; I’m not looking for your understanding of the abbreviation, but I just want to see if you can pronounce what it stands for: Deoxyribonucleic Acid. This is where we embrace abbreviations BT (Big Time)…

SPAM; well, some like spam when it means Some Parts Are Meat, but the electronic understanding Self Propelled Advertising Material or SP Automatic Mail, can be rather annoying, DYTS? (Don’t You Think So?)

ATM = Automated Teller Machine – DOB = Date of Birth or Dirty Old Bugger.

Finding our ways around we use a GPS. Do you know what it really stands for? ADTS (I didn’t Think So). Global Positioning System. I use the GPS a lot, and always wonder what the person with the voice telling me where to go does in between her directions – DY? I mean I go 250 miles on Interstate 5 in total silence – and then suddenly she wakes me up. So what has she been doing all this time?

When we talk about our cell-phones we loosely use the term SIM card, as if we know what we are talking about – and for the most we don’t. We know where it goes and somewhat what it is supposed to do, but SIM? Well, it’s Subscriber Identification Module – so there you have it.

CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer, which is kind of the boss-of-bosses; but BOB wouldn’t sound as important, would it?

PM is Post Meridiem, which is Latin for After Noon (makes sense, but why not use AN?) AM is for Ante Meridiem which is Latin for Before Noon (so why not BN?) When we try it out, meeting somebody for lunch at 11:30 BN doesn’t sound romantic at all, does it?

With texting in the billions of messages daily world-wide, we have made abbreviations an art-form, KO (kind of). But to me it’s about the ethics of respect in our communication. Don’t get me wrong, I’m for all kinds of communication and if increasing communication with other humans involves an adjustment of language, I am seriously all for it. I highly appreciate that whole thing, as I think that many who would normally not communicate as much otherwise (shyness, insecurities, etc.) now have cell-phones, social networks as Facebook and other avenues of staying in touch; all the more power to them (BTW: I’m going to cash in my 350,000 Facebook shares later this month – I wish).

I was against texting from the start, but finally saw the use. Communicating with my kids, wife and friends for short remarks and “love you’s” became, well cool, and now it’s part of the communication package I use. But I will not abbreviate or shorten my language – I refuse to do so, no matter how old-fashioned that makes me sound – R U OK with that?

Now it’s time to listen to Dancing Queen performed by Agnetha – Benny – Bjorn – Anni. I'll turn it up, bite that lower lip and swing them hips… till next Monday …

Even back then I thought ABBA dressed weird

Want to be notified about new posts? Follow the directions on your right. New posts of LIFE AS IT REALLY IS are being published every Monday. Thanks so much for following my blog.

Want to forward the link to this blog to friends and family?

It would be highly appreciated.

The more the merrier

ONE LAST LETTER TO MICHAEL

I know it’s not Monday, but I had to write this.

So many of you read and especially responded to my post Michael, we’ll always have Paris, telling the story about how my friend Michael and I met in 1974 and formed a loving, warm and fun friendship from that day forward. The following is a last letter to Michael, who sadly passed away last December.

If you didn’t read Michael, we'll always have Paris, you can find it by going to the column to your right, scroll down to blog archive, click on December 2011 and scroll down till you find that post. If you haven't read it, you really should.

Dearest Michael.

This is the last letter I’m going to write you, as I have a feeling the padded wagon will quickly pick me up if I do this more than once. The true reality is that you won’t read this, but my reality, the one roaming around in my heart, says that you will – and to me, that’s the only thing that counts. So after this letter and until we hook up again, we’ll communicate telekinetically in words, not making stuff move around, of course - you know what I mean, huh?

Drove south to attend your celebration last Sunday. I arrived 15 minutes before show-time and there were so many people and such a long line outside the hall. I said to a nice woman that you had told me I was your best and only friend ever, so the long line was confusing to me. She warmly informed me that everybody loved you and that you had a massive quantity of best friends. Oh well, hard to swallow, but I lined up anyway - with all your “other best friends”.

The hall was "standing-room-only" full of people chatting away, and a lot of laughter too; I expected nothing else. I signed the guest-book; nearly wrote PBS as you always used in the E-mails to me. For some reason you saw humor in my initials matching Public Broadcasting Service.

And then this pretty woman came up and gave me a hug. I hadn’t seen your daughter since what 1974-1975? And that son of yours was nearby and we finally got to shake hands. Good looking dude, huh? Must be from his mother's side, no doubt. Your wife looked strong and radiant and the hug from her felt good. She must have hugged at least two-thousand times that Sunday afternoon.

Your son started the celebration of you and did that very well. Stories from his childhood with so many praising words about you. He obviously loves you no end. He can even sound like you, and at times he sounded even better than you ever sounded - go figure.

Then it was your little girl’s turn and she had a hard time holding back tears; I was fighting the same fight. Her words about you came from deep in her heart. I think your little girl will never stop being your little girl, as her love for you is so strong and so clear; it was beautifully emotional.

Your brother misses you too. I mean, who is he going to pay lunches for now? I envy the brotherly relationship you guys had, and I am certain that the free lunches (meaning he paid for you) was something initiated by you very early on and for 20-some years? You often mentioned the lunches with your brother, but never that you were on a free ride. I guess you knew I would have given you crap about that. The way you talked about your brother, I can only see that the love for each other was rich and respectful.

Your lovely wife wrote a poem for you and I had to dry my eyes yet again. There had been no time for farewells, I understood, so I have to believe in my heart that you heard every beautiful word she sent your way.

Many fun stories about your, at times, weird ways of opinions and how things should be done according to you, but not much shocked or surprised me; except one thing. Speakers hinted about your height (in a loving kind of way, for the most, but to me a bit insensitive at times). Sure 5 foot 4 inches is not Michael Jordan tall, but I was confused as to why people would laugh about it. To me you were always as tall as could be – for a short guy like you, I mean.

I miss you so much Michael, I really do. I tried to find out the reasons other than the obvious, why I choke and tear up when thinking and talking about you. I have finally come to the conclusion that it’s due to my anger that you died way too early, as you had so much more life to live. For crying out loud, we were supposed to grow old together and then die a million years from now; I thought that was the plan. You were supposed to be around for your wife, your kids, your cute grand-kids, your brother's free lunches and for the many friends and extended family. Your too early departure was not fair to any extend – very far from. You not being around saddens me, but too early on, angers me.

A big photo of us from October 2009 is hanging on the wall in front of me, above my desk where I write and work and spend a lot of time. The kazoo hangs next to it.

I want to stay in touch with your daughter, your son, your brother and your wife. From what I saw Sunday, they will all move on, greatly cared for by each other and so many friends, neighbors and loving family, all missing you forever – I have no doubts about that;  but just in case, I’ll check in once in a while; for both of us, okay?

We will all move on with you solidly planted in our hearts, the many hearts you touched through your life, no matter how gruff your voice was, because you really loved life and adored the people around you, in that own way of yours (gruff-gruff).

Mr. Kazoo-Man, you take care and I will do the same. I will shed many more tears and choke ups, but I’m fine with that now – I really am; writing this last letter to you helped a lot - and in my heart, I imagine that you will read it and fully understand how much I love you.               

Your Pal Always,
Peter (PBS)

Michael & me, October 2009

Want to be notified about new posts? Follow the directions on your right. New posts of LIFE AS IT REALLY IS are being published every Monday. Thanks so much for following my blog.

Want to forward the link to this blog to friends and family?

It would be highly appreciated.

The more the merrier