Loose Leaf Notes

1. My second childhood involves a bicycle and maybe a sandbox.

2. “Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument.”  Desmond Tutu

3. “It’s gristly not grisly . . . Well unless he killed some bears.” -My Facebook friend Warren

4. “I look at her picture of snow and think of Robert Bly’s poems about Minnesota winter, his love of silence, something he said about being nourished by sorrow. Thanks to my sorrowful face, I have few friends but I treasure them all, knowing how hard it must be to converse with a sphinx, and I maintain a lighthearted conversation for their benefit and doing that, I cheer myself up. I look forward to 2022. I’m rejoining my old gospel quartet to sing bass, I’m writing a book called Comic Medications, I have a wife who is a necessity in my life like coffee and music and Google and metoprolol. Happy New Year to all. Hang in there. Lighten up. Brush twice daily and don’t forget to floss.” -Garrison Keillor

5. One day I say ‘there are no birds to watch in winter so I’ll start watching clouds,’ the next day it sounds like spring in December, then it snows and the birds come out in droves to feed at the feeders.

6. “This is such a unique New Year’s Day, because even as we toast our glasses to the future, we still have our heads bowed for what has been lost. I think one of the most important things the new year reminds us is of that old adage: This too shall pass. You can’t relive the same day twice — meaning every dawn is a new one, and every year an opportunity to step into the light.” – Poet, Amanda Gorman

7. January 6: Stormed / The day the world fell apart / it thawed and violently dropped / It snapped and crashed in chunks / and loudly broke its wholeness / Truth clung like polar bears / trying to survive / on floating sidewalks / with tell-tale cracks… While the drone of lies / hummed like a generator / that we hoped / would run out of gas – From 2021 The Rear View Review

8. Here’s to Cheers HERE.

9. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in 2018, reporting that the most productive age in human life is a lot older than you might think. The article said: “An extensive study in the USA found that the most productive age in human life is between 60-70 years of age. The second most productive stage of the human being is from 70 to 80 years of age. The third most productive stage is 50 to 60 years of age. The average age of a Nobel Prize winner is 62. The average age of presidents of prominent companies is 63. The average age of pastors of the 100 largest churches is 71.” – from The American Elder

10. “”The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. -Dostoevsky

11. I’m fine with being ‘Nana’ to my grandsons but I recently came across someone who was called ‘Glama’ and I thought it was pretty cool.

12. I think ‘coleslaw’ should be called ‘coldslaw.’

13. A sign my grandson was here.

__________Thirteen Thursday