It has always seemed strange to me...

There is much to be grateful for in my life. It is just my opinion, not a fact, that things I do require time and/or money. What I be is free. There is nothing I have to do before I die and one thing I want to be. I want to be me. Not the best me, just me as I am. And I am pretty much the same guy who served mass at St. John church at 12 in 1971.

Four days in the clean Canadian air surrounded by clear, cold Canadian water, poured on by rain, and warmed by a wood fueled fire in a 1938 built stone fireplace, sleeping in an uninsulated vintage, running water-less cabin. I wouldn't feel more forgiven had it rained holy water for those 100 hours. Without technology the entertainment was watching a little chess tournament by the fire, lots of laughs at the expense of eachother, and turning in early for a few chapters of Steinbeck's Cannery Row.

Steinbeck wrote Cannery Row in 1945 as a contribution to the war effort. Soldiers in Europe in need of a diversion from war escaped into Cannery Row, a ficticious story with characters from Steinbeck's life in California. This past year I escaped into Steinbeck books and became a fan of his writing. Whenever I see words strung together so perfectly that I hesitate to read on in fear that I will lose the beauty the way a burning sun sets I highlight them, bend the corner of the page, or write the words down somewhere to hopefully find them one day again. This paragraph seems appropriate in this current economy and political season.

Thank you John Steinbeck---

"It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness, and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness,greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."...The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous--but not quite...

I'm thankful I had the opportunity to live with less long enough to appreciate more.