A cold Sunday of reality in this World of sadness and tears...Let us Pray for the ones they call the Children of today!

Sometimes I wonder what is wrong with people today.  I think some have never had real hardship in their lives.  Can we have compassion for animals but not for other people?

This weeks news headlines set off a whole flood of feelings I did not want to let into my mind right now.  I have been following some Italian news because of my 500 year ago cousin and the 150^th Anniversary of the Italian Red Cross, when I can across an article on the plight of Libyan refugees trying escape in rafts and boats  across the Mediterranean to the various posts on the European side.

A policy of trying to pick them up and saving them from drowning has been called foolish…”that it is encouraging them to try it”.  In other words if they pick them up and save them from drowning they are causing this problem to escalate.  So we as humans should let them drown?  The reality is they should not have to take such extreme methods to save themselves and especially their children from starvation and war.

On line, via the web, the global warming people are screaming about climate change causing these extremes in weather…while the disbelievers are screaming back that this is all hype and just a way for some to make more money… Some say that we need more oil…OIL?  They say that we have given too many subsidies to “green energy” a source that has produced little energy? 

Mean while people in our own country are freezing and we are cutting programs to our own poor, disabled, or elderly and don’t recognize the marginalized poor that have lost their homes that have become “our boat people” living in tents and shelters?

We are a crazy lot….”War”, greed and religion, has wrought all of this…”Men fighting with GUNS and hatred”.

I guess we have forgotten too soon the price of WWI and WWII.  Herbert Hoover was the man in charge of the rescue of millions of starving people after and during both conflicts.  He had an unbelievable job considering the food had to be brought in because war had devastated the land and infrastructure…not to mention the men and animals lost! Countries unable to feed themselves.

Not good thoughts…

I am stuck here in old Eaton this year trying to save and find homes for a few cats…”dump offs”…I can’t stand to see an animal ill, injured, starving or hurt. I try to help everyone I can and …for the life of me… I can't understand why men go to war for power or religion…and how anyone could condone just letting people drown while they are just trying to save themselves and their children. 

In America we are raging against immigrants…but in reality we are raging against ourselves… as almost all of us except the “First Natives” were brought here for a better life or for religious freedom by our forefathers and mother’s.  So on this Sunday in the blog...I pray for all the “children” of the world….”The ones we call the Children of Today!”

With that thought I whipped out my guitar and sang this old Gordon Lightfoot tune...listen to the words…understand the meaning!

For all my Facebook friends, music & Gordon Lightfoot, "THANK YOU"!

Another week in winter…”Cabin Fever” has set in as I sit here at night in this dismal place where winter has seemingly no end.  People call it the wrath of “Mother Nature”… Guess ma is mad about something! 

The cold has taken its toll on machinery, houses, furnaces, people and most of all “pocketbooks”.  Read something funny on the internet last night…home heating prices will remain low for a couple of weeks because of the warm up.  “WHAT WARM UP”?

I sat here thinking after I got the boiler running and the pipes thawed.., Ahh! That was until it thawed all the way and a pipe burst in the kitchen.  The sound of the water and pressure escaping from the boiler pipe was like a song! 

The song was a sad one and I wandered back to my youth and the good times…, which, have been gone for a long time now.  Family dead, what’s left is small and lives far way, old friends here are all-dead.  Some say Facebook is a waste of time but without it and my new FB friends, last night would have been terrible...but after a few posts… a group of well wishers (some of whom I have never met in person) were sending best wishes, offers of help and encouragement!  Thank you all!

Then I started to think about the past and my music, music that I don’t play anymore because it brings back memories, thoughts of the fun past, and the ghosts of yesteryear. I guess like Paul Anka’s the “Moments of Our Lives”, we all have “our songs”.  

I got to thinking about it…yes me who always had a guitar in hand, always singing…NO MUSIC, don’t even have a tape or CD player anymore.  I got up, went into the icy cold front room, grabbed my old guitar…tried to tune it and played it (TERRIBLY) with my bad, cold, overworked hands. Soon the week no longer mattered…and before I knew it, it was midnight.

The last song I played said it all.  Of course it was a Gordon Lightfoot song.  Who else says it all in some song or another… it was his “You Are What I Am”!  A great song!

“You are what I am…lovin’ you for ever if I can…You make the time stand still…Do it now and you always will. Think about the times we’ve had, we’ve never been blue…(music) you got the combination gal to keep me straight and true...You are what I am…Lov’in you for ever if I can... Any time that I fall down I never get stuck...You got the combination gal to get me right back up…’Cause you are what I am…(singin’ songs) forever if I can…”

Hope you had a better week than me… If not sing along!

PS Those banjo players and extra musicians on this cut are members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra..."Gettin' Down" or UP? ... I guess!

This Sunday morning, thoughts and singing "Early Morning Rain"

Sunday…I can think of a number of Sunday songs that have been popular but today it is Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” that I am singing, especially since I only have a dollar to my name.  It is raining and quiet and truthfully I wish I could be anywhere but here today.  Wish I could hop a “Jet Plane” and go to some place quiet where there is no news programs, no starving people, no Ebola, no war, no missiles coming in, no sadness.

The news has brought WWIII closer in my estimation.  The media needs stories and just placing this out in the public sector I fear encourages bloodshed.  I can’t imagine killing anyone or anything… think of walking down your street and shooting people or blowing them up because they go to a different church.

Religion and Nationalism have cause more deaths than can be counted by normal means.  We hail our warriors as heroes…and yes those that have to serve are… if they protect us. But why should they have to protect us? 

Towns and cities destroyed because of hatred… Who owns the land?  Who has rights to the water?  Who is right - who is wrong?

If we could all live by that old-fashioned “Golden Rule”…do unto others, as you would have them do unto you the world would be a different place.

What kind of man can kill a child or pass it by as it cries for help because of his nationality or religion????  What sort of person can run over an animal in the road for fun? 

Nothing has changed under the sun since the world began I am sure… but shouldn’t we all learn and become wiser?  Why is it we can’t learn from our mistakes?  What is the main fault of man?

People are worried about climate change…maybe we should be more worried about changing how the world views itself… If climate change occurs and wipes this era of man from the earth… really would that be a bad thing???

All things I am thinking about on this the last Sunday in July 2014…

“You cant jump a jet plane, like you can a freight train.  So I best be on my way… In the early morning rain!”

The true forest, poverty, Gordon Lightfoot and me the old folksinger!

I am totally sick that people can’t see the trees from the forest.  I have a number of FB friends who forward me stories on the homeless and the poor… yet do we really try to do anything about it… and yet things rage in Congress on cutting social programs, people who won’t work... minimum wage.   Nobody wants to live on the street unless they have mental problems... or are poor and unwilling to take a social program... or live in an area where there is no safety net!.

We are happy to pay big bucks to go to a game or movie and look with disdain on anyone who might be standing on a corner looking for a handout.

Other FBers go on and on about people unwilling to work…. without the causes of unemployment or the mere fact that after being down so long they are not fit for public employment because of looks, disabilities or even worse… ignorance. 

We forget that not everyone is born with enough common sense or intelligence to care for themselves...they need help. What if they have no family?

Oh yes let us not forget our red, white, and blue flag wavers who fail to feel compassion for Vets who have come home with mental problems and who “litter” city streets as the homeless. 

As I sat in the cold stoking my woodstove… alone… I thought of a Gordon Lightfoot song I had sung for many years when I was into folk music… and had lots of friends and family.  Got out my old guitar and sang it…I leave the words with you... and I have shared the actual song being played at the end of the lyrics…listen and learn.

Oh the neon lights were flashin'

And the icy wind did blow

The water seeped into his shoes

And the drizzle turned to snow

His eyes were red, his hopes were dead

And the wine was runnin' low

And the old man came home

From the forest

His tears fell on the sidewalk

As he stumbled in the street

A dozen faces stopped to stare

But no one stopped to speak

For his castle was a hallway

And the bottle was his friend

And the old man stumbled in

From the forest

Up a dark and dingy staircase

The old man made his way

His ragged coat around him

As upon his cot he lay

And he wondered how it happened

That he ended up this way

Getting lost like a fool

In the forest

And as he lay there sleeping

A vision did appear

Upon his mantle shining

A face of one so dear

Who had loved him in the springtime

Of a long-forgotten year

When the wildflowers did bloom

In the forest

She touched his grizzled fingers

And she called him by his name

And then he heard the joyful sound

Of children at their games

In an old house on a hillside

In some forgotten town

Where the river runs down

From the forest

With a mighty roar the big jets soar

Above the canyon streets

And the con men con but life goes on

For the city never sleeps

And to an old forgotten soldier

The dawn will come no more

For the old man has come home

From the forest....

Story of the Dream Net, Sigurd Olson, Whispers of the North and winter!

As the wind whistles outside my window and the snow floats softly to the ground, I like so many creatures am starting my winter solstice period.  They in their winter quarters... I with a book by the wood fire.  The days of laboring on outdoor projects this year has come to a close, ending with my unfortunate hand dug excavation of my side yard to solve a septic problem caused by this years two floods.

I visited the museum today with its new snug roof and its completion... sat wondering how I managed to get it together.  My little band of volunteers managed to put on a good small Eaton Day and Backstreet Barb and I finished a number of new books and videos.  All in all I don’t think we could have done more.

But it is winter and new projects loom, projects that I hope will lead me to a vacation in the Adirondacks or the lakes country.  So with that in mind I picked up a new book Cathy Nagle donated to my history collection called “Runes of the North” by Sigurd Olson.  The book written in 1963 is a collection of stories & legends… (Runes).  It covers Olson’s ramblings through the Quetico-Superior country of northern Minnesota and northern Ontario, Canada …that includes the Lake of the Woods and the long canoe passages of the many rivers and connecting waterways.

Runes, stories…  as he describes the scene as a young man before the logging companies clear-cut the rivers and lake banks floating the logs to mills.  Before nature lovers banded together to stop such practices that laid waste to vast areas for years and years.  He spoke of the fish and wildlife that flourished...  we now speak of oil pipelines and tar sands projects.

Olson eventually became a teacher and with his writings and expertise helped draft the Wilderness Act of 1964, he served as the president of the Wilderness Society.  Places that he helped protect included National Parks and Wildlife Refuges from Alaska’s Artic to Point Reyes National Seashore in California ...eventually becoming President of the National Parks Association.  Olson led quite a life.

The part of the book that charmed me the most was his telling of the legends of the Chippewa... including one about “Dream Catchers” that have become all so plentiful at gift shops.  The natives called them Dream Nets and on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation as a young father he was given one.  To him it was an unusual gift.

The Native woman told him to take it home and hang it over the beds of his children.  She explained that good & bad dreams waited around children for dusk and that the net would stop bad dreams from reaching them.  When he questioned the small hole in the center she smiled and said that it was so the good dreams could enter.  He did hang the dream net over his sons’ beds and related the story of the Chippewa woman to them.

Olson says: “Their years of childhood faith, I believe, left a mark upon them and as proof, the little net was eventually hung over another little bed in Alaska.  The net accomplished its purpose as it had for the Chippewa over the centuries of time.”

So perhaps when I dream tonight of camping in the north….and imagine a dream net over me…only good dreams will come……

“Whispers of the North

      soon I will go forth.

     To that ancient barren land

         where nature takes its course……”  

View and listen....great scenes and music!
Gordon Lightfoot music... video by a man for his dad and a trip they took!

Veteran's Day, my dad and the Patriot's Dream...

National Cemetery in Elmira, NY

 On Veteran's day I always think of my dad Captain Domenic J. Messere who was a veteran.   Dad served in so many different capacities that it is unbelievable to me.  He was an original member of the 27^th Infantry that was a Federal National Guard started in 1940.  He then was assigned to the 108^th regular Army Infantry and Signal Corps in Europe, and then he went on to the 1301 Engineers with Patton and still on to the Pacific being in Japan’s waters when the surrender was signed. 

When he came back to the states he returned to the National Guard again.. this time with the 208^th Tank Battalion serving as second in command of the Armory in Syracuse (This is the one I enjoyed)  eventually ending up in the Reitred Reserve attached to the 10th Mountain Division.

As a child I would go with him to when he visited the different Armories (Oswego-Rome-Oneida) when they had special occasions.  From his office in Syracuse I can remember looking down to the large room below and watching them drill and practice.

My favorite "Army" memory was the time my brother and I riding in a jeep with his Sargent driving ...at a parade in Syracuse where the Guard had set up communications…  We couldn’t believe we were in a jeep!

Dad also took us to Arlington Cemetery and this trip I will never forget.  Visiting the graves of men who had died some in battles he fought in.  Thousands and thousands of white markers in rows lying in the gleaming sun.

We saw the changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers an occasion that brought tears and sadness to me.   To this day visiting a National Cemetery does the same thing.

Dad survived…but so many more didn’t.  600,000 died in the Civil War, thousands and thousands since… all in Wars to end all Wars, which of course can never end. 

It is human nature I guess.  People can’t get along with their associates or neighbors let alone with other countries and other cultures.

My dad’s ideas in spending time with us and in taking us traveling I think was not to make us rich… but to make us “Cosmopolitan”…  This word and view has been forgotten, but today it is a reality in our world that is shrinking because of media and fast transportation…Cosmopolitan – a person of the world – diverse – well traveled- cultured…  and understanding in depth the world around us not just our little corner of it.

Here is a video and a clip from a Gordon Lightfoot song I have always wanted to do a video of..maybe I will some day.. 

The songs of the Wars are as old as the hills, 

they cling like the rust on the cold steel that kills

they tell of the boys who went down to the tracks...

in a Patriot manner with the cold steel on their backs..

Listen to the words...it is a trilogy of sorts so follow it to the end..written during the Viet Nam era..it is a treasure telling the truth..straight out..not a protest...