Author Archives: bbj1969per@aol.com

A Legacy update – from June, 2025

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*An image – and associated meme – explained near the end of the main text (and in the Notes)…*

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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”

This blog is modeled on the Carolina Israelite. That was an old-time newspaper – more like a personal newsletter – written and published by Harry Golden. Back in the 1950s, people called Harry a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.” (For his work on the Israelite.)

That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”

For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.

In the meantime:

June 11,* 2025 – In the last post I said that this post would continue the story of my recent two-week trip to London, Liverpool and Stratford. (Including an account of arriving at “Lime Street Station in Liverpool, though perhaps not as ‘majestically’ as Brian Epstein.”) But first: Back in April 2015 I posted On leaving a legacy, so I’d say it’s about time for an update.

Of course one big part of my legacy will include the ongoing travel adventures, with the lesson being that you too “can become an old guy who still gets a kick out of life.” (I’ll be 74 in July.)

But back to 2015. I was a mere 64 years old. (“Young Pup!”) Yet even then I wrote that “the idea of leaving a legacy looms larger and larger.” The idea of leaving behind something for future generations to ponder, “even if it’s only some musings in a blog like this.” One quote I found on the subject said “Your legacy is putting your stamp on the future. It’s a way to make some meaning of your existence: ‘Yes, world of the future, I was here. Here’s my contribution, here’s why I hope my life mattered.’” Another thought: “Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” Or consider this, from Bill Graham (1931-1991), the noted “impresario and rock concert promoter:”

Our days are numbered. One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day. The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparations should we be making now? The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day.

Of particular interest – to me as a writer – were the “I write” quotes from Shannon L. Alder, including these: “I write because God loves stories,” and “I write because one day I will be gone, but what I believed and felt will live on.” And so I write, mostly about things I believe.

One thing I believe – with Ralph Waldo Emerson – is that “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.” Another thing I believe: You don’t have to turn into a grumpy old frump just because you’re getting up there in years. See Why Are Older People More Conservative? – Psychology Today, to wit: Most old folk were “quite liberal when they were young, and younger people will become more conservative when they grow old.*” Another finding: “intellectual curiosity tends to decline in old age,” but that doesn’t apply to me. I’m still learning and hope to keep learning.

Still more findings: Old people are less tolerant of ambiguity, need more “closure and structure” and tend to “dismiss information that conflicts with their views.” And they act in “more prejudiced ways … because in older ages preserving old knowledge is more important than acquiring new knowledge.” Again, “Not me!” As I posted back in 2021 – when I turned a “mere 70” – I hope to live to 120, like Moses, with “eye undimmed and vigor unabated.” (Deuteronomy 34:7.)

Which accords with what John Steinbeck said in his 1962 Travels with Charley. (On the “1960 road trip [he made] around the United States … in the company of his standard poodle Charley.”) At the time he was a mere 58 years old – again “young pup” – but he’d been suffering a host of physical ailments. (“Steinbeck’s son Thom [said he] made the journey because he knew he was dying and wanted to see the country one last time.”) Thus Steinbeck began Part Two of Travels by noting that many men his age – told to slow down – “pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood.” (They “trade their violence for a small increase in life span.”) But that wasn’t his way:

I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage… If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway. I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It’s bad theater as well as bad living.

I too would certainly not want to commit “bad theater.” On the other hand that brings up what Robert Louis Stevenson said in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. (He pioneered a 140-mile hiking route – now called the GR 70 or “Chemin de Stevenson – that I hiked in 2023, as detailed in the Notes.) Here’s what Stevenson had do say about such “strenuous pilgrimages:”

Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy himself about the future?

On such a Camino hike* today – I’ve done six or seven since 2017; I’ve lost count – you focus; you concentrate solely on getting up in the morning and reaching that day’s down-the-road destination. Or contemplate first-thing how good the fresh-squeezed orange juice and Café Crème tastes, and how good that first cold beer at the end of the day’s hike will taste. In other words you are mindful. You experience the eternal now. In plain words you don’t give a rat’s ass about the future and what problems it might bring, which is itself liberating.

These days we have plenty of future to worry about. (Things that might happen but hopefully won’t.) So it’s rewarding to take a break from the nowaday sleepless nights and concentrate on reaching today’s destination, with everything you own carried on your back, and looking forward to that hot shower, warm bed and cold beer. Or it could come down to this basic lesson in life: “To have a mountaintop experience, you have to climb the &^*@$# mountain!”

As noted previously – repeatedly – “I dread the day when I have no more mountains to climb.”

But how the heck did we get to all that from a lead-off picture of a stork delivering a baby? For one thing it has to do with my style of writing. I’ve been told in the past – repeatedly – that my writing goes all over the place! (But as I said in the last post, “You know, like Leviticus, Isaiah and Tristram Shandy?”) But to me that’s the fun of blogging. The chance to learn new things in doing the research, in going off on those rabbit trails, those off on a tangents. In other words, the chance to stretch your mind, in the same way you should be stretching your body.

For example, I’ve been doing the yoga pose below since at least 1976, and I always thought it was the “fish pose.” But in fact – as I learned only yesterday, researching this post – I’ve actually been doing the Supine Hero Pose. I also discovered – just yesterday, researching this post – that I’m not the only one who thinks “Get to the point!” when reading one of the prevailing New Journalism-style articles so popular these days. (Where you have to plow through all the unconventional, subjective literary psychoanalysis just to get an answer to the question raised by the headline.) And third, I also discovered – just yesterday, researching this post – just how the stork-delivering-a-baby meme came to be. Including but not limited to the fact that to some people storks were seen as omens of stability and family devotion, while others thought storks bring harmony and prosperity to households where they nested.

And all this new learning came about because my niece in Massachusetts introduced a new baby boy into the world just yesterday morning. (Thus the “stork” lead-off meme.) Which is why I’m finishing up this post in West Springfield (Massachusetts) rather that back home in the ATL. (I wanted to See The Baby!) And “Li’l Sam” also provides another good reason for me to leave a legacy. For one thing, to prove to him and others his age – who one day will be running the country – that not all those who turn 100 years or older are grumpy old frumps. (Also, “Please don’t ship me off to a nursing home, just because I turned 100!”)

In the next few posts I hope to get back to both leaving a legacy – comparing and contrasting my views from back in 2015 – and back to that wonderful two-week trip to “London, Liverpool and Stratford.” In the meantime I can remind those people my age – and those coming up to my age – to “stretch your mind, and your body! Follow those rabbit trails! Go off on those tangents! Take the Road Less Traveled. Don’t take the safe route other have taken. (‘Bor-ing!’)” Mostly because making those original and independent choices can make life a lot more rewarding.

Even if sometimes you write “all over the place.” (Like Leviticus, Isaiah and Tristram Shandy.)

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The upper image is courtesy of Stork Delivering Baby – Image Results. See also Why Storks are Associated with Delivering Babies, and What bird is said to bring newborn babies? – Birdful, for even more “off on tangents.” Such as:

The stork myth evokes notions of care, nurturing, and the safe arrival of a vulnerable new life. It also allows parents to avoid explaining the complex realities of human procreation to young children. Simply telling a child “the stork brought you” can satisfy juvenile curiosity and provide a romantic, gently fantastical origin story.

Also, “In Ancient Greek and Roman mythology, storks were seen as omens of stability and family devotion, while in many European traditions, “storks were believed to bring harmony and prosperity to households where they nested.” See also the Young Pup link, saying the expression is “often used to refer to someone who is young and inexperienced, particularly in the context of a particular field or profession[, or] in a derogatory manner to suggest that the person being referred to is naive or lacks the necessary skills or knowledge to succeed in their chosen field… When used in this way, the term ‘Young Pup’ can be extremely offensive.” Or you might just be using sarcasm or irony.

A side note: I dated the original post “May 11.” Maybe because I’ve been distracted lately?

For this update I also borrowed – or plan to borrow, for future additions – posts including Achieving closure, On achieving closure – Part II. and “I pity the fool!” On living beyond the usual “three score and ten,” see From two years ago – “Will I live to 141,” Still pushing the envelope, at “ripe old” 72, and posts listed in October 2023, November 2023, December 2023. (On the 2023 Stevenson Trail hike.) On the “three score and ten,” Psalm 90:10 Three Score And Ten – Meaning & Origin.

On people getting more conservative as they “grow in age.” There is that quote, supposedly from Winston Churchill, that “if you’re not a liberal when you’re young you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative when you are old you have no brain.” (Or words to that effect.) There is ample evidence Churchill never said that. Further, “Surely Churchill can’t have used the words attributed to him. He’d been a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35!” Yquotes.com. See also Quote Origin: If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, etc. All of which is a slew of new things I just learned, doing further research on this post and tweaking it the morning after publishing. (“The learning never stops!”)

On Camino hikes. I define them as where at the end of each day you can look forward to a hot bed, warm shower and a cold beer.

On Rabbit Trails (or “rabbit holes”) see Rabbit hole Meaning & Origin | Slang by Dictionary.com, Definition of ‘go off on a tangent’ – Collins Online Dictionary, Unity and Coherence in Essays | Writing Center, and Unity & Coherence – ENGLISH 087: Academic Advanced Writing. (The last two articles show that at least I’m trying.)

Re: “See the baby.” Unlike the baby in the Seinfeld “Hamptons” episode, Li’l Sam was “cute as the proverbial button.“

The “Road not taken” quotes are from the “familyfriendpoems.com” article, The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost, Famous Inspirational Poem. Others have interpreted the poem differently, as noted in Road Not Taken – Wikipedia: “its interpretation is noted for being complex and potentially divergent.” Also that while it is Frost’s most popular poem, it is frequently misunderstood; for example, that “the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable.” Which is yet another thing I learned “only yesterday, researching this post!”

The lower image is courtesy of Fish Pose (Yoga Pose Explained) – Yoga Pose Encyclopedia, under the link Supine Hero Pose. Meaning this is yet another something “new under the sun, Ecclesiastes – Qoheleth,” that I just learned today, researching this post. As noted, all these years doing yoga – since at least 1976 – I thought I was doing the fish pose, not Supine Hero pose.

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Re: The Israelite. Harry Golden grew up in the Jewish ghetto of New York City, but eventually moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Thus the “Carolina Israelite.” I on the other hand am a “classic 73-year-old “WASP” – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – and live in north Georgia. Thus the “Georgia Wasp.”

Anyway, in North Carolina Harry wrote and published the “israelite” from the 1940s through the 1960s. He was a “cigar-smoking, bourbon-loving raconteur.” (He told good stories.) That also means if he was around today, the “Israelite would be done as a blog.” But what made Harry special was his positive outlook on life. As he got older but didn’t turn sour, like many do today. He still got a kick out of life. For more on the blog-name connection, see “Wasp” and/or The blog.

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A note for the upcoming August trip to England (back to England), see Faye – Whole-Trip Travel Insurance. I’ll update my research on this travel issue in upcoming posts. Also for a future post, How to Write Like a Journalist (12 Tips) – Omniscient Digital. That came from reading an article on two names you should never name a new baby. The explanation came way down after you had to read through a bunch of crap to find out what the two names were. My thought: “Get to the point!” (On that note see New Journalism – Wikipedia: “a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non-fiction. Using extensive imagery, reporters interpolate subjective language within facts whilst immersing themselves in the stories as they reported and wrote them.” In “Old Journalism” the reporter is said to be “invisible,” and facts are meant to be reported objectively But Point One in Write Like a Journalist says:

Know the inverted pyramid[;] capture attention and communicate effectively… It is a way of organizing information so that the most important points are at the beginning, and the less important points are at the end. This style is perfect for online marketing, because it ensures that readers will get the most important information first. People are too concerned with “storytelling,” or the vague notion they have of what storytelling is. This results in blog posts with 500 word long introductions that don’t say a damn thing, when all I want to know is [whatever I searched for]. Journalists know to get to the point.

All of which is another one of those rabbit trails, to which I’d say, “I couldn’t agree more!”

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On “London, Liverpool and Stratford…”

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*“Yours truly,” with a view of* *Shakespeare’s Church* *after a Sunday service back on May 11.*

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May 28, 2025 – Incidentally, that title could be sung to the tune “Hartford, Hereford and Hampton.” (From My Fair Lady,* with the English Her-e-ford in three syllables, and yes, “showing my age;” 74 in July.) But all that serves as segue to the fact that I just flew back from London, “and, boy, are my arms tired.” But seriously, it’s been over three weeks since my last post.

That’s because on May 7 I flew over to London, for two weeks “dress rehearsal.” That is, to get a feel for flying back next August and hiking the 130 miles of the Pilgrims’ Way, Winchester to Canterbury. (Plus do some additional sightseeing I won’t be able to do in August, like taking that “ferry ‘cross the Mersey” in Liverpool or visiting Stratford-on-Avon.) So after the last three apocalyptic posts, it’s time to get on with some fun in life. Like going over to visit London, Liverpool and Stratford, then getting to write up a scintillating travelogue about it. (A term “supposedly a blend of travel +‎ monologue,” something I didn’t realize before writing up this post.)

Starting off, the May 7 red-eye flight to London was scheduled to leave Atlanta at 9:50 p.m., but didn’t actually take off until 45 minutes or an hour later. And this time the Delta movie options didn’t include either “My Fair Lady” or “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” (I like them both for the great music.) So I watched a bunch of “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns.

At Heathrow airport the trip through security was amazingly smooth, possibly because of the ETIAS clearance I got months ago. Then came a ride on the Elizabeth Line (the London Tube) to the ABC Hyde Park Hotel, 121 Sussex Gardens. One of the first things I noticed was a lot of “look right” signs, painted on the pavement at London intersections. We in America are used to looking left first (mostly because we drive on the correct side of the road). But Britain is different, and I almost got my “self” run over twice before I caught on; once by a huge bus and once by a speeding bicycle which showed no sign of slowing down for unaware American touristas.

Once we settled in, my travel companion and I walked the half-mile to Kensington Gardens, with its Italian Garden, along with the Serpentine (“recreational lake”), and the 1912 statue of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. (Bringing up the song, “I Won’t Grow Up,” which you might say applies to a 74-year-old man who keeps flying overseas to hike 130 to 150 miles just to burn off beer calories.*) Meanwhile, for those interested in such things, for a quick lunch we split a fish-and-chips order at Sussex Fish Bar, London – Paddington, about four minutes southwest. Then later on we dined at the Mughal’s Indian Restaurant, London – Paddington, also close by our digs.

Next, as noted in the last post, after the day off in London – to recuperate from jet lag – the trip would go on to Liverpool and Stratford-on-Avon, then back to London. We got eight-day Britrail passes, so once we used that up – with the trips to Liverpool and Stratford, plus day trips out of London – we’d stay in London and travel around the city on the Tube, or by bus, using our (Visitor) Oyster cards. (Which came in very handy.) But here I run into a problem.

In Liverpool and Stratford we ran up against reservation problems. Those problems were pithily described in an English expression I remembered vaguely from long ago, but it “hit the nail on the head.” That happened in Stratford, so I’ll take that episode out of order. In the next post I’ll describe the Liverpool visit, then revisit Stratford, then go on to the rest of the story.

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We have a friend in Stratford, Jane, which is why we stopped off there. (That and the Shakespeare stuff.) She went with us to where we had a reservation, an apartment in a small gated complex right across the street from Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon. (Which would have been very convenient for getting to the 10:00 service next morning.) We went through the gate, looked around for someone to check us in, but no one could be found. There followed long attempts at phone calls and texts, all to no avail, very frustrating. Time passed by, we knocked on doors, but got no answer until one young gent finally answered. He had no clue but did his best to contact someone, anyone, to get maybe a code to enter into a lock-box into whatever room where we were supposed to stay? Until finally Jane said, “What a cock-up!”

At that I couldn’t help but laugh, despite the frustration, and my wondering “where, oh where will I lay my weary head tonight?” In such situations I always opt for a beer at a local bar, which usually includes the WiFi necessary to solve today’s travel problems. So, on Jane’s recommendation we hiked up what became Waterside Lane to The Dirty Duck, a “historic pub with two names and a royal connection.” Meanwhile, Booking.com tried to find an alternate place to lay our weary heads later that night. But unfortunately the “Duck” was packed…

Looking back it’s all kind of fuzzy, but there was an English gent sitting at a table on the streetside patio, with three empty chairs. Somehow I ended up in line with him, waiting patiently, while the ladies kept watch at the patio table. I found out his name was Chris, and asked him what he was drinking. He said an Abbot Ale – which I’d never tried, or heard of – so I ordered two, one for each of us. From there, hopefully, things would start to sort themselves out.

Meanwhile, we had expensive reservations at the Royal Shakespeare Theater. (With still no idea of where to find a bed for the night.) In due course we left “the Duck” and Chris, then got to the theater and were able to check our bags and my pack. Then we sat through a unique version of “Much Ado About Nothing.” (See the Notes for a review link.) All the time, watching and listening, I kept wondering, “Where, oh where am I going to lay my weary head tonight?”

The updated play was a unique blend of Shakespeare’s original Elizabethan dialog, combined with a “football club” setting. “We open at the final of the Euro League, as Messina FC takes the cup. Shakespeare’s lines are interspersed with football chants; ‘vaping’, ‘signed’ and ‘manager’ replace the Bard’s original words.” (The updated play frames the story “within sports to explore toxic masculinity,” and later gets into “slut-shaming, revenge porn and deepfakes, using the setting to their advantage to really explore these themes through a modern lens.”)

And all the while, trying to process all that hubbub while sitting in the way-up-high balcony I kept wondering, “Where, oh where am I going to lay my weary head tonight?”

But the play and the hubbub finally ended, and after that we got our checked bags and my pack, then trundled off into the late-night unknown. “Booking” said they’d found us a place, “but who the heck knew?” Which makes this a good place to end this post, with the Faithful Reader all on tenterhooks. (“Very nervous or excited [and] keen to know what it going to happen.”

I’ll describe what happened in the next post, along with my fulfilling a life-long dream in Liverpool. (Or at least a dream I’ve had since 1964, when I was 13.) That and yet another “cock-up,” this one involving our Liverpool hotel reservation. And I’ll do that even though my writing may “go all over the place!” You know, like Leviticus, Isaiah and Tristram Shandy?

As its title suggests, the book is ostensibly Tristram‘s narration of his life story. But it is one of the central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale…

On that note it seems that I too cannot explain anything simply – like tell a travel story – but feel compelled to add in “explanatory diversions to add context and color.” Which is another way of saying that I get a lot of grief because my writing ostensibly “goes all over the place.” But to me that’s the fun of both travel and writing about your travels. In my writing I explain those off-on-a-tangents as rabbit trails. To me they’re the fun part of blogging, as for example the rabbit trail that led me to Robert Burns and his expression, “cock up your beaver.” (A derivative of the “cock-up” expression, and relax, neither term means what many people think.*)

As John Steinbeck once said, you don’t take a trip, a trip takes you. So maybe the same thing applies when you start writing about your travels. You know (or should know) that the cock-ups are going to happen, so it’s better to just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. And maybe learn something new? Or experience something never expected? In the meantime, the next post will continue the story with an account of coming into Lime Street Station in Liverpool, though perhaps not as “majestically” as Brian Epstein, as described by Paul McCartney. Stay tuned…

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The upper image is courtesy of my traveling companion. See also Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon – Wikipedia. On this trip we visited three other churches – Winchester Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, and St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Re: “Hurricanes hardly?” People of a certain age will recognize the allusion to 1964’s My Fair Lady. It struck me that “London, Liverpool and Stratford” has the same rhythm as “Hartford, Hereford and Hampton,” where Eliza used three syllables for “Hereford.” (In the song The Rain in Spain, “a turning point in the plotline of the musical. Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering have been drilling Eliza Doolittle incessantly with speech exercises, trying to break her Cockney accent speech pattern.” Wikipedia.) See two live versions at Hartford, Hereford, Hampshire… – YouTube.

Re: “Arms tired.” The link is to What’s the source of the phrase “and, boy, are my arms tired,” indicating it’s the punch line of an old joke, variously attributed to Henny Youngman or Bob Hope. Definitely a “rabbit trail” – for more, use the search engine above right – that led me to Did anybody ever really laugh at these? – Cafe Society.

Also on the Pilgrim’s Way see Pilgrims’ Way Stages: Winchester to Canterbury | One Step…

The link travelogue – Wiktionary, the free dictionary adds that it describes “someone’s travels, given in the form of narrative, public lecture, slide show or motion picture.”

On “not growing up.” I myself did have that 50 or 60-year interim – before my “second childhood?” – but the less said about that the better. Another note, before that interim I didn’t have beer.

Re: The Serpentine. “Although it is common to refer to the entire body of water as the Serpentine, the name refers in the strict sense only to the eastern half of the lake. Serpentine Bridge, which marks the boundary between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, also marks the Serpentine’s western boundary; the long and narrow western half of the lake is known as the Long Water.” Wikipedia. I walked down below Serpentine Bridge, unaware that I’d crossed from Kensington Park into Hyde Park.

The site Cock-up – Meaning & Origin Of The Phrase said the phrase “isn’t commonly used in the USA, where it is generally assumed to have a vulgar meaning.” But no, “‘Cock up’ sounds rude, but it isn’t:”

What they might make of Robert Burns’ poem, which took the name of the old Scottish rhyme ‘Cock up your beaver‘, is best left to the imagination. What Burns was actually referring to was adorning a beaver fur hat by putting a cock’s feather into it.

None of which I knew before writing this post, one big reason I love blogging.

On that note see The Dirty Duck, Stratford-upon-Avon – Wikipedia: “It has existed as a pub since 1738 and has been known as The Black Swan since 1776… However, the pub is more commonly known as The Dirty Duck. It is unclear where this name originates.”

See a full review at Review: Much Ado About Nothing (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, The RSC).

On my writing shortcomings, and for future personal reference, see Rabbit hole Meaning & Origin | Slang by Dictionary.com, Definition of ‘go off on a tangent’ – Collins Online Dictionary, Unity and Coherence in Essays | Writing Center, and Unity & Coherence – ENGLISH 087: Academic Advanced Writing. (The last two show that at least I’m trying.)

Re: Steinbeck on trips. The actual quote is “people don’t take trips. Trips take people.” John Steinbeck – Travel Quote of the Week – Authentic Traveling.

The upper image is courtesy of Liverpool Lime Street railway station – Wikipedia. The caption: “LIME STREET STATION LIVERPOOL JULY 2013.” I used the image to lead off the post, A mid-May “Recon,” then on to Canterbury! The reference to Brian Epstein riding “majestically” into Lime Street Station – with a record contract, finally – is from England, the 1960s, and the Triumph of the Beatles | Plus, a series of lectures by Professor Michael Shelden. As I recall, Shelden described McCartney mentioning the incident during a “cock-up” during the filming of a fairly recent television interview.

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Are we “living through an apocalypse?”

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May 5, 2025 – Next Wednesday I’ll fly to London. After a day recovering from jet lag I’ll visit Liverpool and Stratford-on-Avon, then come back to London for some sightseeing. (And hope I don’t get bored?) Meaning this will be my last post until I get home near the end of May.

Part of this trip is an Escape From Reality, an escape from the ongoing polarized politics we’re going through in America. For example, in October 2024 a source noted – starting ten years earlier – that nearly half of those polled said “people in the opposing political party weren’t simply wrong but evil.” And now we have a president who also thinks those who disagree with him aren’t just wrong, but evil. (And has the power – for now – to do something about it.)

But are we living in a true apocalypse? As often helps, “first define your terms.”

An apocalypse can be an event of “destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale.” Or the “complete final destruction of the world, as described in the biblical book of Revelation.” But technically it’s a literary genre started in Judaism where “a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary.” (The Judaic term means disclosure or “revelation.”) Then too, “apocalyptic eschatology is the application of the apocalyptic world-view to the end of the world, when God will bring judgment to the world and save his followers.” Which might be a relief, “but I have too many blog-posts to write and beers to enjoy!”

We could turn to Wikipedia on Durer’s Four Horsemen woodcut, shown above. One note: “During the 1490s, there was a wide belief spread throughout Europe, popularized by Christian eschatological ideas, that the world was going to end by the year 1500.” And that when the first edition of Four Horsemen was published in 1498, “this doomsday ideology was at its peak.” And these days there’s been a lot of doomsday ideology in this country as well.

As to whether Dürer was on to something when he did the woodcut, apparently he was. As bad as things were in 1498, the “stuff” didn’t really hit the fan until the European wars of religion, 19 years later in 1517. That’s when Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses, which “took only two months to spread throughout Europe with the help of the printing press.” (Back then “the press” was an all-new technology.) There followed a series of wars in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries, between Roman Catholics and Protestants. (Those who thought “the Roman church” had become too corrupt.) Which brings up Kenneth Clark and his book, Civilization.

Clark said whatever the long-term effects of Protestantism, “the immediate results were very bad.” Northern Europe was “full of bully boys” – seen in the image below – “who rampaged about the country and took any excuse to beat people up.” They appeared frequently in sixteenth-century German art, “very pleased with themselves and apparently much admired. All the elements of destruction were let loose.” (Sound familiar?) Which raises the question:

What could an intelligent, open-minded man do in mid-sixteenth century Europe? Keep quiet, work in solitude, outwardly conform, inwardly remain free. The wars of religion evoked a figure new to European civili[z]ation… the intellectual recluse.

And – Clark added – no one personified this recluse-figure more than Michel de Montaigne. “Only one thing engaged his mind – to tell the truth.” His concept of truth involved “always looking at the other side of every question,” however shocking that other side might be. But he had no illusions. “In trying to make themselves angels … men transform themselves into beasts.”

[Montaigne] is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. His work is noted for its merging of casual anecdotes and autobiography with intellectual insight. Montaigne had a direct influence on numerous Western writers; his massive volume Essais contains some of the most influential essays ever written.

An update: These days I’d say Montaigne would be doing blog posts, but he’s not here. Therefore it may fall to someone else to popularize the Blog itself as a literary genre. (Maybe by merging “casual anecdotes and autobiography with intellectual insight?”) I myself like the recluse part, defined as “a person who lives in voluntary seclusion and solitude.”

Also the parts about keeping quiet and outwardly conforming but inwardly remaining free, mostly as a way of not getting caught in the crossfire, as Montaigne was able to do. As mentioned in the Notes, his was a moderating force, respected by Catholics and Protestants alike. Kind of like Johnny Cash? Cash’s music in the 1960s “was popular with the counterculture as well as with traditional country fans. His albums and his prison reform activism rejected the law-and-order policies of conservative politicians who sought to enlist country music in their cause.” (Also, “self-defined liberals and conservatives claim[ed] him in equal measure.”)

But we’re digressing here. One topic I brought up was whether we’re currently living through a true apocalypse. Another question, “If we are, how can we live through it, while maintaining our sanity and standing up for the right?” On the first question, I’d say no. American history – like all history – moves in cycles, meaning at some time in the foreseeable future there will be a change from the current state of chaos. For one thing there’s the 22d Amendment, plus our inherent tendency to Build Up Only to Tear Down. Another answer I like is thinking long-term:

Long-term thinking involves considering the future consequences of our actions and making decisions that will benefit us in the long run. It requires patience, strategic planning, and a willingness to delay gratification. On the other hand, short-term thinking focuses on immediate results and instant gratification, often leading to impulsive decisions that may not be in our best interest in the long term. While short-term thinking can provide quick fixes and temporary satisfaction, long-term thinking is essential for achieving sustainable success and fulfillment in the future.

In other words, it helps to think about what it will be like in February 2029 when the current administration changes. (A topic I hope to explore in my next post.) But reviewing all this current chaos led me back an earlier meditation, from 2020, on what I called “the new plague.”

Being alive always was and will always remain an emergency; it is truly an inescapable “underlying condition…” This is what Camus meant when he talked about the “absurdity” of life. Recognizing this absurdity should lead us not to despair but to a tragicomic redemption, a softening of the heart, a turning away from judgment and moralizing to joy and gratitude.

Some life lessons? Back in 2020 I’d hoped the Coronavirus pestilence might lead to a change in national life, and especially our national political life. (As in a general and sweeping “softening of the heart.”) And that these changes might include a “turning away from judgment and moralizing to joy and gratitude,” or even a realization that there are more things to admire in all people than to despise. That hasn’t happened yet, but consider this: It took Europeans 250 years or so to escape from their wars of religion, and we’re not anywhere near that. (Plus they didn’t have the 22d Amendment.) In the meantime I’ll indulge in my own escape from reality with two weeks in London, Liverpool and Stratford. (Where “hurricanes hardly happen?”)

There is one bit of good news: I don’t think I’ll see too many bully-boys over there, acting “very pleased with themselves and looking for any excuse to beat people up…”

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The upper image is courtesy of Apocalypse (Dürer) – Wikipedia. The caption: “The fourth woodcut of the ‘Apocalypse’ series, ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ (1498).

The full polarization link is to Political Polarization is Not Unique to the U.S., but its Causes Are.

The full escape link is to Quotes About Escaping From Reality To Inspire Your Mind. I especially like the one attributed to Lewis Carroll, “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.” And that escaping from reality can be “a form of self-care. It gives us the opportunity to take a break from the stress and demands of everyday life, allowing us to recharge and refocus.” Indeed.

Re: “Define your terms.” The quote is attributed to various people, including Aristotle and Voltaire.

See European wars of religion – Wikipedia.

Re: Montaigne. See Montaigne and the Art of the Personal Essay. And speaking of Montaigne – and his “unequalled detachment” – Kenneth Clark wrote that by 1571 he had retired from public life completely to the tower of the château – his so-called “citadel” – where he almost totally isolated himself from every social and family affair. (These days he may have flown to London for an escape from reality.) Wikipedia added that during “this time of the Wars of Religion in France, Montaigne, a Roman Catholic, acted as a moderating force, respected both by the Catholic King Henry III and the Protestant Henry of Navarre, who later converted to Catholicism.” (Something to shoot for?)

Re: Johnny Cash. See Johnny Cash & the Politics of Country Music, also The Politics of Empathy: On the Life and Music of Johnny Cash (“How could we explain such a wide range of political identification with Cash, with self-defined liberals and conservatives claiming him in equal measure”), and Citizen Cash : The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash.

On long-term thinking, Long-Term Thinking vs. Short-Term Thinking. Or Google “think long term.”

See The Paradox of Leadership: Why We Build Up Only to Tear Down.

Blog posts. The link is to BLOG POST | English meaning – Cambridge Dictionary. I’ll be referring to it and especially What is a Blog Post? – The Perfect Structure – FirstSiteGuide, for future reference.

Another note: My March 2020 post, Meditations on “the new plague,” talked about how – even before Covid – “I was pretty much a hermit, living in a rambling four-bedroom house on an isolated acre of woodland. (It’s so isolated that I don’t have any curtains or Venetian blinds on any windows. Who the heck is going to look in?)“

Re: “Hurricanes hardly?” People of a certain age – like me; 74 in June – will recognize the allusion to 1964’s My Fair Lady. It struck me that “London, Liverpool and Stratford” has the same rhythm as “Hartford, Hereford and Hampton,” where Eliza used three syllables for “Hereford.” (In the song The Rain in Spain, “a turning point in the plotline of the musical. Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering have been drilling Eliza Doolittle incessantly with speech exercises, trying to break her Cockney accent speech pattern.” Wikipedia.) See two live versions at Hartford, Hereford, Hampshire… – YouTube. (Thus endeth a Montaigne-like anecdote, to wit: a pleasant trip down memory lane.)

I got the lower image from Kenneth Clark’s book, Civilization (Civilisation; A Personal View), at page 160. (My photo, cut-and-pasted.) The quotes from Clark are at pages 160-163. A separate “Four Horsemen – Apocalypse” image is on page 162. Clark also wrote about the art of the time of these ongoing wars, which had come back into fashion “under the catch-penny title of Mannerism.” Such art abandoned all belief “in the decency and high destiny of man” achieved during the Renaissance. (Does that sound familiar?) As Clark added, “Play it for kicks: that is the mannerist motto, and like all forms of indecency, it’s irresistible.” See also Mannerism – National Gallery of Art, “sometimes defined as the ‘stylish style’ for its emphasis on self-conscious artifice over realistic depiction.”

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Revisiting “Bizarro Trump,” and an upcoming hike…

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“*At least you could easily tell the Bizarro version – seen above – from the real Superman…*“

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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”

This blog is modeled on the Carolina Israelite. That was an old-time newspaper – more like a personal newsletter – written and published by Harry Golden. Back in the 1950s, people called Harry a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.” (For his work on the Israelite.)

That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”

For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.

In the meantime:

Recently I went back and checked out a post from February 2017, “Meet Bizarro Trump?” (And boy was that a weird experience.) To do that I had to enter “bizarro trump” in the search box above right, but for some reason that search also brought up an earlier 2017 post, from August 24, Training for the Camino. As in training for my first Camino hike in 2017, which led to five more in the years since then? (And BTW: I define a Camino hike as one where “at the end of each day you look forward to a warm bed, hot shower and a cold beer.”)

In this post I’ll review both memories from 2017. One was very pleasant to remember and one – “Eh, not so much.” And by the way, this August 2025 I’ll be doing my seventh Camino hike. This one is better known as the Canterbury Trail, but officially it’s the Pilgrims’ Way. I’ll hike 133 miles from Winchester in England “to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury in Kent.”

Getting back to Bizarro Trump, the allusion is to Bizarro Superman. But trying to see which is which is way more complicated than I could ever imagine. Mostly because it’s increasingly difficult these days to tell which version of ‘the Donald‘ is more weird: Bizarro or the real thing.

So which is the real “Donald,” and which is the “Bizarro Trump?”

You could call this a new “Bizarro parlor game.” The goal is to come up with whatever crazy responses, arguments and comments that may pop into your mind. And which were – or are – the complete opposite of what the real Donald would say. That’s getting harder and harder to figure out these days, but there is one thing Bizarro Trump could do: Blame everything wrong in this country on right-wing conservatives. That would be the bizarro opposite of 70 years of hard-line conservatives blaming liberals for everything bad in this country. Bizarro Trump would simply say “No, every conservative cause is based on a lie, all assassins are conservatives, and conservatives are assaulting America!”

You could say all this hubbub started in 1947, the year conservatives started blaming liberals for everything bad in this country. (That trend would continue in the election of 1950 and beyond.) That is, in 1950 “Tricky Dick” Nixon accused his opponent in the California Senate race of being “pink right down to her underwear.” His suggestion that his opponent “sympathized with the Soviet Union” referred to Helen Gahagan Douglas. As Wikipedia noted, Nixon implied that Douglas was a Communist “fellow traveler.” The end result? Nixon won the election with more than 59 percent of the vote, and Gahagan Douglas’ political career came to an end.

Which seems especially ironic given the results of the 2016 presidential election, when hard-line conservatives seemed to say it was fine if the Russians affected election results, so long as their candidate won. And a historical note: Douglas “in return, popularized a nickname for Nixon which became one of the most enduring nicknames in American politics: “Tricky Dick.”)

Anyway, the idea for this Bizarro Trump came when I remembered an old Seinfeld TV episode, The Bizarro Jerry. The Seinfeld episode in turn referred to the earlier twin concepts of both the Bizarro Superman and the Bizarro World, as described in by DC Comics.

Bizarro is depicted as having all the abilities of Superman, although these traits are reversed, such as[:] “freeze vision” instead of heat vision[;] “flame breath” instead of freeze breath[; and] “vacuum breath” instead of super breath…

Like I said, it’s harder and harder these days to tell which version of the Donald is stranger. But one thing we know, the reverse-trait Bizarro Trump would be the very model of moderation, cooperation and compromise. But I supposed that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

Turning to the second half of this post, and Training for the Camino: In 2017 we hiked the Camino Frances, in my case from Pamplona to Santiago. But this August we’ll be hiking in England, meaning I should be able to understand most of what the locals are saying. Still, some things stay the same. The boatload of paperwork. Booking your air line flight. Getting travel insurance. Getting your pack ready, and making sure it weighs no more than 10% of your body weight. In 2017 that was 16 pounds. These days it should be 15 pounds – or less, on a good day – but starting on the 2023 hike I opted for 20 pounds. (Still, I may cut back some this year.)

As to getting ready to hit the trail itself, the hardest part is still getting your feet ready. But over the years I’ve changed methods. For example, here’s what I wrote before the 2017 Camino:

I’ve been hiking 12 or more miles a day, once a week, for the last several months. And making sure my feet are in good enough shape the next morning to hike another five or six hours. And for the past several weeks I’ve been doing my weekly hikes on the Pine Mountain Trail, near F.D. Roosevelt State Park, near Warm Springs, GA.

That was the last time I hiked the Pine Mountain Trail to get ready for a Camino.

Over the years I’ve come to realize you can’t train to hike six or eight hours a day – not counting breaks – unless you put in the time to hike six or eight hours a day. (Back home you have way too many other things to do, which is why finally starting a Camino hike is relaxing. Your days are focused and life becomes simple.) Over the years I developed more time-efficient ways. By early 2023 I’d taken to time-efficient practice-hikes with ten pounds of ankle weight. Then – usually in July and August before heading over – I add a 20-pound weight vest. That all made quite a difference; on the 2023 GR 70 hike in France I only got one small left-foot blister, first day out. But it healed up overnight, and I had no more blister problems the rest of the 150 miles.

Compare that with my first Camino in 2017. On that 450 miles – from Pamplona – I developed blisters over blisters. By the end of our 30 days – 28 hiking – the soles of my feet had developed a thick-callus layer of hide that didn’t peel off completely until months later. (Like when “we of a certain age” got sunburned as kids, before they developed all those fancy sunscreens? And days later peeling off that dead skin?) Which led to my routine at the end of each 2017 hiking day. I’d put my pack up at the foot of the bed, then flop down on the bed and prop my feet up on top of the pack. (So blood could flow back from my swollen feet.) Then I’d tell my brother – my hiking companion at the time – to go ahead and take his shower first. Each day’s end was agony.

For more on the upcoming hike see A mid-May “Recon,” then on to Canterbury, and Next up – Hiking the Canterbury Trail. But now it’s time for a practice hike at the nearby Ridge Nature Area, complete with 10 pounds of ankle weights. Then, since we’ll be hiking in August instead of September, I’ll start lugging the 20-pound weight vest in July. Here’s to Happy Hiking!

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The upper image is courtesy of Bizarro Superman – Image Results. The original post – I tweaked it on February 26, 2025 – had a lead image fromkotobukiya created a statue that the bizarro version of jerry seinfeld would totally get on board with … dailydead.com: “Standing eight inches tall, this Bizarro anti-Superman statue is based on DC Comics’ New 52 version of the popular villain and will be released in November [2016].” (Which is actually kind of appropriate…)

Re: Camino hikes since 2017. The French Way that year, from Pamplona to Santiago, the Portuguese Camino in 2019, hiking over the Pyrenees to Burgos in 2021 (the part I missed in 2017), the Way of St. Francis in 2022, the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail in France, in 2023, and the Camino Finisterre and Camino Ingles in 2024.

“133 miles.” See Pilgrims’ Way Stages: Winchester to Canterbury | One Step Then Another.

The GR 70 is better known to us as the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail. (Check Wikipedia for more.)

Re: “My brother – my hiking companion at the time.” I now have two hiking companions, starting with the 2019 Portuguese Camino, after his wife retired from the IRS.

The lower image is courtesy of Pilgrims’ Way – Wikipedia. Caption: “In the Middle Ages the pilgrims’ route left the ancient trackway to climb St Martha’s Hill.” According to Google Maps, “St Martha’s Hill – Guildford Lane Car Park, Guildford Ln, Albury,” is some 40 miles from Winchester and 77-78 miles to “Canterbury Cathedral, Cathedral House, 11 The Precincts, Canterbury CT1 2EH, United Kingdom.” (Assuming I got the right hill.)

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On Che, ‘Boomers and the New Revolution?

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*Che Guevara died trying a revolt in Bolivia, but “succeeded in launching a million t-shirts.”*

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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”

That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”

For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.

In the meantime:

April 14, 2025 – A week ago I got an email from my brother in Massachusetts. He went to a rally in Boston, to protest various actions of our latest president. (Reminder: “He’s temporary.”)

The Boston rally was huge. We ended up on a knoll, north of, and above the Commons Bandstand and we could see streams of people coming in from every direction. I couldn’t believe it. When the crowd was told to start heading up to the City Hall for the rally speeches, you could barely move, barely shuffle a foot or so at a time, stop, then shuffle some more. I kept thinking, “My god, my god, look at this!” And I knew then there’s hope for our country yet.

Then came the Twist. He got home to find the local media gave the nation’s hundreds of thousands of protesters “a quick mention and moved on to the really important stuff – sports scores and the latest Hollywood gossip.” But still, “something is happening here that’s not being covered. People are leading their leaders, showing them where we want to go.”

Which is another reason why there’s “hope for our country yet.” Including – he added – the “scale of last Saturday’s country wide rallies; 100,000 in Boston, the same in NYC and in Los Angeles. 15,000 in [Salt Lake City], Utah! Not exactly a hotbed of liberalism.”

I responded in part that Rolling Stone did an article on April 8, Massive Protests Against Trump Are Just the Beginning. “But then, what respectable person reads that rag?” (Irony or sarcasm, one.) Then added, “Who’da thunk it? Back in the early 1970’s I was the long-hair bearded weirdo with the peace sign hand-painted on the front of the puke-green hand-me-down VW micro-bus. Watching movies like ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ and eventually getting the CD and listening to it at least once every Thanksgiving, remembering resistance to the draft and Vietnam.” Then:

So what’s next, a Che Guevara t-shirt? Like the kind I wore that so pissed off [a high-school classmate from West Virginia]? And continually listening to Joan Baez sing “We Shall Overcome,” and also the duet with that guy at Woodstock, “Drug-store truck-driving man.” Woodstock, about which Arlo Guthrie said, “Lotta freaks, man!”

And finally, “‘Irony of irony, all is irony!’ (A nod to Qoheleth.)” Which points out one big difference between then and now. You know, coming of age in the 1970’s “Age of Aquarius?” (Which for many meant sex and drugs and rock’n’roll. “Yeah, I heard about that stuff!”)

Back then I thought the established church a failure; full of hypocrite fat-cat conservatives, intolerant, self-righteous, narrow-minded. (Much of which still holds true, as in the oxymoron, Christian nationalist.) I tried other ways of Coming to Terms With Life; self-hypnosis, Alpha Thinking, yoga, and other Eastern ways. Books on karate, aikido, tai chi and others like Zen in the Art of Archery. I learned about prana, chi, ki, and “the force,” as in “the force be with you.”

But as the years slid by I found myself turning back to the mainline church of my “yoot.*” In the process – especially over the past decade – I’ve become quite the Bible scholar. (Mostly because I firmly believe “you pointy-headed, bleeding-heart liberals need to start reading and studying the Bible, even if it’s only for political self-defense. Don’t concede the high ground!“)

All of which brought back a slew of memories, including that mention of my own “Che” t-shirt. Of which Tom Brokaw wrote, “Che Guevera was assassinated while unsuccessfully trying to foment a Cuba-like revolution in Bolivia, although he succeeded in launching a million t-shirts.”

Another memory? I knew Che failed in Bolivia because he didn’t follow his own rules. And how did I know? Because aside from the shirt I also got a copy of his 1961 book, Guerrilla Warfare. And may still have it “even to this day,” although it may take a while to find in the boxes of books I’ve yet to unpack – since 2017. (Then there’s Amazon Books if the need arises.) But there’s one thing we Boomers have now that we didn’t have then: Real Power.

Baby boomers are now retired, and Senior Citizens as a group have huge political clout. They’re also a lot wealthier, but a lot of it’s in Social Security, now in a state of chaos. (“Chaos, long waits at Social Security for seniors.”) Then there’s the investments. I don’t have a 401(k), but a friend of mine said hers dropped $100,000 in a month. Sounds like an invitation to Revolution to me!

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A woman holding two American flags participates in an anti-Trump protest — *4/7/25 – “Demonstrators over the weekend in Boston …* against Donald Trump.”*

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The upper image is courtesy of Che Guevara Image – Image Results. See also Che Guevara – Wikipedia, and The Inconvenient Truth Behind Revolutionary Icon Che Guevara:

Boxer Mike Tyson has a prominent Che tattoo. So does Argentine football star Diego Maradona. Omar Sharif portrayed Che in a 1969 film, and Benicio Del Toro did so to acclaim in 2008. Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen once sported a runway bikini with Che’s image on it. His face has adorned T-shirts and been on countless storefronts. It’s been on “South Park” and on “The Simpsons.” Guevara, these days, is the personification of utter cool to all those who want to defy the establishment.

Re: Christian nationalism. I figure if Jesus had been a nationalist He would have freed Israel from Roman rule. Instead, starting a decade or so after Him the “nationalists” rose up in arms. The armed revolt failed, the Romans pretty much destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the pitiful few survivors “to the winds.” (See Diaspora – Wikipedia.) “And that’s what you guys want?”

Re: “Yoot.” See Psalm 25:7, in what I call the My Cousin Vinny translation. (“Dese two yoots.”) BTW: In Bible Hub it’s Psalm 25:7. In the Book of Common Prayer it’s 25:6.

The t-shirt quote is from page 32 of the large-print version of Boom!: Talking About the Sixties: What Happened, How It Shaped Today, Lessons for Tomorrow, by Tom Brokaw.

And about Che’s book, Guerrilla Warfare: Wikipedia said while it was “intended for other revolutionary movements in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, it was also studied by counter-revolutionary military schools.” See also the version available at Amazon, Guerrilla Warfare: Guevara, Ernesto Che.

Re: Coming of age, “a young person‘s transition from being a child to being an adult.”

Re: Boomers’ economic and political power. For more on the first, Google “trump social security in danger.” For more on the second, see The Immense Power of the Older Voter in an Election – AARP, Why Older Citizens Are More Likely to Vote – U.S. News, and especially The Senior Citizen Vote: Key to Conservative Political Victory: Senior citizens (over 65 years) “largely vote for conservative candidates. Moreover, the November 2020 national election experience indicates that senior citizens represent the fastest-growing voting segment of the American population, now amounting to approximately 25 percent of total votes cast.” (And Trump wants to mess with that?)

Re: “Revolution.” The link is to The Beatles – Revolution – YouTube. (Sounds appropriate to me. Click on it for the full effect. “Rock out, Dude!) See also Revolution – Wikipedia.

The lower image is courtesy of Why are there so many boomers at anti-Trump protests? See also From Protest to Power: A Boomer’s Guide for the Next Generations to Challenge Authority, and Aging boomers are ready to return to their activist pasts. Or do what I did and Google “boomers return to protest.” From “Protest to Power,” here are five ways younger leaders can push back: 1) Demand Transparency and Accountability (like Boomers did for Watergate), 2) Leverage Economic Power (“When money moves, power listens”), 3) Master the System to Beat the System, 4) Control the Narrative, and 5) Build Intergenerational Alliances.

And about that lower-image caption, see Core Democratic groups are preparing to be targeted by the Trump administration. No surprise there, but while those nationwide protests were remarkably peaceful, see also Agent provocateur – Wikipedia: The French word for a “a person who actively entices another person to commit a crime that would not otherwise have been committed and then reports the person to the authorities. They may target individuals or groups.” Also:

In jurisdictions in which conspiracy is a serious crime in itself, it can be sufficient for the agent provocateur to entrap the target into discussing and planning an illegal act. It is not necessary for the illegal act to be carried out… Prevention of infiltration by agents provocateurs is part of the duty of demonstration marshals, also called stewards, deployed by organizers of large or controversial assemblies.

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For possible reference in future posts, here’s a fuller version of my “transition to adult:”

After high school, I went my way, like so many in the 1970s, in search of the “good life.” At the time, Transcendental Meditation was a Big Trend on Campus. It was part of the process of many Boomers “heading east” for enlightenment. They tried various gurus and methods, which led to further ways to both expand the mind and come into closer contact with the “universal life force.” In turn, many left the church they grew up in.

I tried self-hypnosis, Alpha Thinking, yoga, and other Eastern ways of dealing with life’s unpleasantries, my own shortcomings, and the unremitting evil and suffering each day on TV and the news. I read books on karate, aikido, tai chi and other eastern disciplines, and books like Zen in the Art of Archery. I learned about prana, chi, ki, and “the force,” as in “the force be with you.” I was entranced by Transcendental Meditation and how easy “they” said it was, but balked at the price. (At the time, it was supposed to run a week’s salary, which included a personalized Sanskrit mantra, “mine alone.”) But I couldn’t afford a week’s salary, being a poor, bearded unemployed student. So I kept looking, and the quest seemed to end when I found the book How to Meditate, by Lawrence LeShan…

I grew up in the “Age of Aquarius” (of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll), but now find myself settling into the cares and responsibilities of “mature” age. [In July 2025, I will turn 74.] And in my younger days I tried many different ways of Coming to Terms With Life. Like other boomers, coming into Middle Age I found myself turning back to the mainline church of my youth, just like Mike Doonesbury did in 1994.I came back even though – when young – I considered the established church a failure; full of hypocrite fat-cat conservatives, intolerant, self-righteous, narrow-minded. I still carried some baggage, some skepticism and mistrust of younger days. I had a hard time with the “buzz words” favored by so many who call themselves Christian.

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A mid-May “Recon,” then on to Canterbury!

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March 31, 2025 – “Think positive thoughts, think positive thoughts…” Which I will now try to do, by focusing on a pleasant, upcoming overseas trip – instead of the current sordid and polarized state of American politics. As noted in the last post, this coming August I’ll be doing another Camino – Hiking the Canterbury Trail in England. (And once again, I define a Camino hike as one where at the end of each day you look forward to a warm bed, hot shower and a cold beer.)

But before that I’ll do a little recon, going over for two weeks this coming mid-May.

And by the way, before you can get into Great Britain you have to get an “ETA,” an electronic travel authorisation. (I applied for and got mine last December.) And just to be safe I also got a set of buttons indicating who I didn’t vote for. (“Let the reader understand.”) I’ll let you know how that turns out, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll get some free drinks along the way?

Then there’s the question: “Why would you spend good money to visit England twice, same year, in the space of four months?” For one thing, ever since 1965 – when I first heard Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey, that “Pacemaker” song – I wanted to do just that: Take the ferry across the River Mersey in Liverpool. This year I wanted to do that by flying over early in August, then taking the train from London to Liverpool. But it turned out that plan just wasn’t feasible, joined as it would be with trying to hike the Canterbury Trail on the same trip. But as it also turned out, a dear friend – and future travel-but-not-hiking companion – has a friend who lives in Stratford-on-Avon. And Stratford – as it thirdly turns out – is halfway between London and Liverpool.

But first, some preliminary details. First, the plan: Fly to London – another red-eye from Atlanta – and arrive next morning, all jet-lagged. Then get a modest place for that night, and next day take the train from London to Liverpool’s Lime Street Station. (The same one Brian Epstein repeatedly left from and came back to in 1962, trying to get a record deal for the Beatles. “Time and again he boarded the London train from Lime Street station… And time and again he would return with bad news for the band. One record label after another turned the group down.”)

Anyway, the point is that through a confluence of circumstance – ones I couldn’t foresee when I made my plane reservations for August – I am now able to make this mid-May trip to England. In turn that means I can both do a little recon for the Canterbury hike, while also being able to cross off a number of other Bucket list items that have been hanging fire lo these many years. (Decades in fact.) So this post will look ahead to that mid-May trip: 1) as a “preview of coming attractions,*” 2) as a point of reference for when I get over there, and 3) for future reference, for when I get home and can compare how dreams and plans matched up with reality.

So, aside from visiting London – for a second time; I went over in 1979 – on this trip in May I hope to: 1) take that ferry across the River Mersey, 2) come through Lime Street Station, with its historic connection to Brian Epstein and the Beatles, 3) see other Beatles-connected sites in Liverpool, 4) visit Stratford-on-Avon, with its historic connection to William Shakespeare, 5) make a day trip to Winchester (via BritRail), where my hiking companions and I will start out in August, and 6) make a similar day trip to Canterbury, where we’ll end our hike.

But back to Lime Street Station. We’ll arrive there – after three hours* on the train – just like Brian Epstein returning from London in 1962, with the great news that his then-unknown group (the Beatles) finally had a record contract. (Though perhaps not coming in as “majestically” as Paul McCartney once put it.) We’ll only have one night in Liverpool, but that’s okay because the next day we only have to travel half-way back to London, to arrive at Stratford-on-Avon. (Or maybe the Leamington Spa station, a 24-minute car ride from Stratford.) Meaning that while we’ll only have that one night in Liverpool, most of the things I want to see there are clustered around the same area. (Between Lime Street station and the River Mersey.)

For example, the dock at Pier Head (Mersey Ferries | Liverpool) is a mere 20-minute walk from Lime Street Station, and only two minutes further from the hotel I booked for our one-night stay. There’s a Beatles statue in the area, along with the British Music Experience museum, the Liverpool Beatles Museum and The Cavern Club itself. (Where “it all started.”) So we’ll have plenty to do in Liverpool before heading southeast to Stratford.

And in Stratford? There are three Royal Shakespeare theatres, along with Shakespeare’s Birthplace, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, and even a Shakespeare’s Distillery, “an artisan gin and rum distillery certified as a carbon-neutral business.” And maybe some practice hikes around the area, drinking in the ambience of those long-ago halcyon days. (Or so they seem to us.) Possibly followed by a G&T at that Shakespeare Distillery. And on Sunday, a service at Shakespeare’s Church – Holy Trinity, Stratford. There I’ll pray for continued safe travel, before getting ready to hop on the train back to London for seven or eight days. Once back in London we’ll use the remaining days on those BritRail passes for day-trips including but not limited to Winchester and Canterbury. (That’ll be the pre-August, pre-hike “on to Canterbury!”)

Finally, once the BritRail passed run out we’ll see if there’s anything else to do in London…

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The upper image is courtesy of Liverpool Lime Street railway station – Wikipedia. The caption: “LIME STREET STATION LIVERPOOL JULY 2013.” The article included the photo below left, “Inward view of Liverpool Lime Street Station in 1959.” (Closer to the time Brian Epstein frequented the place.)

Re, positive thoughts. The full link is to How to Think Positively Every Day: Advice (Wikihow). See also 11 Ways to Boost Positive Thinking, 5 Tips to Train Yourself to Think Positively – Walden University, and others, by Googling “think positive thoughts.”

Re: “Recon.” The link is to Reconnaissance – Wikipedia: “In military jargon, reconnaissance is abbreviated to recce (in British, Canadian, Australian English) and to recon (in American English), both derived from the root word reconnoitre / reconnoitering.” I’m familiar with the term because I came of draft-age in the late 1960’s (and thought I might end up involved in such things). More precisely, familiar with the term “LURPs,” long-range reconnaissance patrols in Vietnam. (A LRRP was conducted by a “small, well-armed reconnaissance team that patrols deep into enemy-held territory.”) For more information see Long-range reconnaissance patrol – Wikipedia and Long Range Patrol in Vietnam War| K75 Rangers: “The long-range reconnaissance patrols (LRRPs) of the Vietnam War operated in a silent netherworld of dark green shadows where error could mean death and where the extraordinary was commonplace.” (All of which means some things from your “yoot” are hard to forget. And by the way, “Lurps” is not a misspelling. That’s how they pronounced it back in the day…)

Re: “Preview.” See the old-time (1960’s) Prevues Of Coming Attractions (1960s) Cinema Promo Trailer.

Re: Stratford-upon-Avon. I usually shorten that to “on Avon” on the theory that in this day and age the average reader is overwhelmed with data and so of necessity has the attention span of a gerbil. Thus fewer syllables, fewer words, shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs, etc.

Re: “Hanging fire.” See Wiktionary, the free dictionary, that aside from figuratively meaning to “wait, or hold back,” it literally referred to the case “when a gun does not immediately fire when the trigger is pulled, but may fire shortly after.” (Which I didn’t know. See also “misfire.”)

On Brian Epstein trying to get a record deal, see Lecture 5 in the Great Course, England, the 1960s, and the Triumph of the Beatles. (“Beatles for Sale: Brian Epstein’s Genius.”) Professor Michael Shelden opened by quoting Paul McCartney during a taped interview in 2007. Enduring a number of technical glitches Sir Paul said serenely, “We’ll get it right. We’ll move majestically to the end like the steam train bringing Mr. Epstein into Lime Street Station to tell us we had a record deal.” Shelden added that if the Beatles were to conquer the world “they knew the journey would begin at Lime Street Station with the long trip to London.” And that Epstein repeatedly took that long train ride until, after “many frustrating setbacks,” he finally came back with a deal. (As for that deal, it was officially signed in June 1962. See George Martin offers The Beatles a recording contract, though it seems the band’s very first record contract came a year earlier, “in Hamburg, Germany, where the band honed its craft playing gigs in the city’s boisterous nightclub district.”) And here’s the full “time and again” quote:

Time and again he boarded the London train from Lime Street station and kept pitching the Beatles as the next big thing in music. And time and again he would return with bad news for the band. One record label after another turned the group down.

Re: The Mersey. The link is to Ferry Cross the Mersey – Wikipedia, about the Gerry and the Pacemakers song “released in late 1964 in the UK and in 1965 in the United States.” Also, “The Mersey Ferry runs between Liverpool and Birkenhead and Seacombe on the Wirral Peninsula.” See also FER Gerry Marsden Ferry Terminal – Seacombe Ferry Terminal. And there was also a Ferry Cross the Mersey (film), which I didn’t know until working on this post.

About that “three hour” train ride from London to Liverpool. I’ve seen Google Map references that say many such trips can take seven hours, but I’ve been assured ours won’t take that long.

Re: Stratford. See e.g. The 18 best things to do in Stratford-upon-Avon – Time Out. See also Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon – Wikipedia.

Re: “Anything else to do in London.” That was either sarcasm, irony or maybe hyperbole? I sometimes get those three mixed up.

The lower image is courtesy of Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon – Wikipedia.

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Next up – Hiking the Canterbury Trail…

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*Something like what we’ll see after hiking the 12 or so days from Winchester, in the UK…*

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March 15, 2025 – It’s that time of year again. Well, almost. To explain, pretty much every September since 2019 I’ve done a Camino hike over in Europe. (To me a Camino hike means at the end of each day you look forward to a warm bed, hot shower and a cold beer.)

My brother and I started such hikes in 2017, on the Camino Frances. I met up with him in Pamplona and from there we hiked – and biked* – the 450 miles to Santiago de Compostela. (The “Way of St. James.”) In 2018 we changed up and did an 11-day canoe trip, from Kingston on Lake Ontario up to Ottawa. (A break in the hiking action.) In 2019 my sister-in-law joined us for a hike on the Portuguese Camino, from Porto – home of port wine – back up to Santiago. In 2020 came another break in the action, thanks to COVID, but in 2021 it was back to the Camino Frances – or at least the part I missed in 2017 – hiking over the “dread Pyrenees.” (For reasons explained in Hiking over the Pyrenees, in 2021 – finally!)

In 2022 we three hiked the Way of St. Francis in Italy, from Assisi down the 150 miles to Rome. In 2023 we hiked the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail in France, what the French call the GR 70 or “Chemin de Stevenson.” Last year – 2024 – we three hiked the Camino Finisterre – to the “end of the known world” – then on to the Camino Ingles. (Basically a round trip from Santiago, out to and up the northwestern coast of Spain, then back down to Santiago.)

In all those hikes we had to learn important terms in a foreign language to get by. (In Spain for example, words like cerveza and banos, pretty much in that order.) But not this year! This August we’ll be hiking in Merry Old England, and so will be able to understand what the locals are saying. (Pretty much.) Which means it’s time for a bit of preliminary research.

For example, in 2021 I posted Countdown to Paris – 2021, on August 8, the month before I flew over to do the over-the-Pyrenees hike. Then on July 24, 2023, I posted On visiting Paris and Lyon in 2023, before flying over to hike the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail. (In the Cévennes Mountains of south-central France.) Then on March 5, 2024, I posted Preparing for a Camino hike, for the Finisterre and Camino Ingles hikes – again in Spain.

The ’21 post covered the 2010 film, The Way, starring Martin Sheen. It’s central premise was not just that an old, out of shape Beverly Hills eye doctor went to France to recover the body of his son – who died while hiking over the Pyrenees. It also covered his spur-of-the-moment decision to go on and hike the 500 miles of the Camino Frances himself, without any prior preparation or training. In other words, the film shows all the things you should not do when preparing for such a hike. (Including sitting on a bridge and taking off your pack, only to see it fall into the river below and float away. Or leave your pack unattended, to be stolen by a young gypsy.)

The ’23 post discussed my early plans for climbing the towers of Basilique du Sacré Cœur in Paris and Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière in Lyon. (Neither of which panned out. “C’est la guerre.“) And finally, the ’24 post offered tips for such an adventure. It led off with a sentence, “Getting ready for a hike on the Camino de Santiago? [Remember my definition.] Here are some useful tips.” Which as it turns out is always good for me to review.

It talked mostly about the importance of having a good pack, not a “cheap low-hanging pack from a local ‘Yuppie Goodwill.’” And about how the experts say your pack – including a full bottle of water – should weigh no more than ten percent of your body weight. (In my case 15 pounds, but for the last two hikes I’ve gone to 20.) And about the importance of packing only quick-dry clothes, good hiking shoes – along with some other incidental concerns.

Which brings up preparing for the next adventure, hiking the Canterbury Trail. The destination is Canterbury Cathedral, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, “spiritual leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.” A pivotal moment in its history was the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, “in the north-west transept (also known as the Martyrdom) on Tuesday 29 December 1170, by knights of King Henry II:”

The posthumous veneration of Becket transformed the cathedral into a place of pilgrimage, necessitating both expansion of the building and an increase in wealth, via revenues from pilgrims, in order to make expansion possible.

And it looks like we needed to do this pilgrimage sooner rather than later. It turns out, “Much of the stonework at Canterbury Cathedral is damaged and crumbling, the roofs are leaking and much of the stained glass is badly corroded… [A] combination of centuries of weathering, pollution and constant use had taken its toll on the ancient building and some serious problems were in need of urgent action.” Which makes this trip kind of like that 2019 pilgrimage to Jerusalem,* what I rightly considered the chance of a lifetime. (I wouldn’t want to go back there now, or any time in the foreseeable future for that matter, and I am turning 74 in July.)

Back to the August hike: We’ll start at Winchester Cathedral, not just famous – for we of a certain age – for the 1966 novelty hit song by the New Vaudeville Band. But rather than “bringing me down,” this cathedral should make a good start for our UK pilgrimage. Among the largest of its kind in Northern Europe, it is the “sixth-largest cathedral by area in the UK, surpassed only by Liverpool, St Paul’s, York, Westminster (RC) and Lincoln,” and a major tourist attraction.

I hope and plan to write more preparation posts in the coming months, but in the meantime, here’s a glimpse of some of the foresty terrain we’ll be hiking through…

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The upper image is courtesy of Canterbury Cathedral From The Pilgrim’s Way Uk – Image Results. See also Pilgrims’ Way – Wikipedia, Canterbury Cathedral – Wikipedia, Pilgrims Way | Winchester to Canterbury | Pilgrim Walks, and Home | Canterbury Cathedral. (The site Pilgrims’ Way to Canterbury | The Natural Adventure offers a different and shorter route.)

Re: “Hiked – and biked.” Google Maps says it’s 234 miles from Pamplona to León, and from Leon, 182 miles to Santiago, though the official Camino mileage may differ. It took us 20 days, with one day off in Burgos, to get to Leon, but we only had 10 days left to finish. So we rented mountain bikes in Leon. (Google Maps also says the full Camino Frances hike from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France – and over the Pyrenees – is 453 miles, but Camino guidebooks put the distance at 500 miles.)

Re: 2018 canoe trip, see The “Rideau Adventure” – An Overview. For information on other past hikes use the search engine at the upper right.

Re: That French term after the ’23 post review. See History of the phrase ‘c’est la guerre’ (‘it can’t be helped’). It noted, “The French phrase c’est la guerre – literally ‘it is war’ – expresses acceptance of, or resignation at, the situation engendered by war; it can be translated as ‘it can’t be helped.'”

Re: “Yuppie Goodwill.” It’s actually the Clothes Less Traveled store in Peachtree City GA. “And by the way, I ditched that low-hanging pack on the sidewalk, by a series of recycle bins, just outside our last lodging in Rome, at Viale Angelico 38. (A half-hour mile-and-a-half walk up from Vatican City.)”

Re: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem. See the May 2020 post, This time last year – in Jerusalem!

Re: “Bringing me down.” The 1966 song begins, “Winchester Cathedral, you’re bringing me down. You stood and you watched as [pause] my baby left town…”

The lower image is courtesy of Pilgrims’ Way – Wikipedia, which provided the caption.

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“If we make it through March Thir-teenth…”

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*Merle* *“made it though December” – and on to the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors…*

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February 22, 2025 – Back in 1974 Merle Haggard released a new song, If We Make It Through December. It explored the feelings of an unemployed father struggling to make ends meet, and provide some kind of happy Christmas for his family. One observer conceded that the song was heartbreaking, but said that didn’t matter to the people who prefer honestly-rendered pain to “false merriment.” Still, the chorus repeats, “If we make it through December, everything’s gonna be alright I know… If we make it through December we’ll be fine.”

So what brought that song to my mind? Just that lately there are lots of Americans heartbroken over the direction they see the country taking. One example? Lots of posts noting Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days. Specifically, on how on January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic, and how a mere 53 days later, in “one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy,” he destroyed a “constitutional republic through constitutional means.” And a cautionary note: The original story said he “set out” to destroy, which is way different than actually “dismantling democracy in 53 days.” (One example, a later post said “Hitler tore down a democracy in just 53 Days.”)

The implication was pretty obvious, that something similar will happen in our own country. Aside from the “tore down in 53 days” post, another said Trump told top aides he wanted the same kind of ‘totally loyal’ generals that Hitler had. Which sounded pretty bad, until I did some of that Lateral Reading stuff and saw what Snopes had to say: That lacking further detail or corroboration, “we have rated this claim as unproven.” (Trump has only been in office two days over a month now, meaning: “Boy are the next four years going to be interesting…”)

Getting back to the 53 days, I some calculating, and our 53 days – from Trump’s swearing-in on January 20 – comes out to March 13, 2025. As for Hitler, most sources indicate his countdown started on January 30, 1933, when – as noted – German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor of Germany. (One big difference between our political systems.) At any rate, assuming our countdown started last January 20, the fifty-third day would come on March 13, 2025. (Awfully close to the Ides of March, of Julius Caesar fame.)

So, like Merle’s Make It Through December, I figure if we can make it through to March 13th, “Everything’s gonna be all right I know.” Let’s hope so, but here’s the timeline, according to 1933 in Germany – Wikipedia, which can give us a heads up. The countdown started on January 30, as noted, and on February 27, “The Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building in Berlin, is set on fire under controversial circumstances.” With our countdown starting 10 days earlier, that means on February 17 there should have been a suspicious act of destruction, which Trump would say was caused by Democrats, liberals or other such scum of the earth*.

Next day, February 28, the German legislature – the Reichstag – passed the Reichstag Fire Decree in response, “nullifying many German civil liberties.” On our adjusted February 18 timetable, nothing like that happened. In Germany’s March 1, 1933, “Hundreds are arrested as the Nazis round up their political opponents.” Which should have happened for us on February 19. And finally, on Hitler’s March 5, a German federal election was held in which the Nazi party gained 43.9% of the votes. (We won’t have such an election. Hmmm.)

So, adjusting for Trump’s taking office on January 20, not January 30, the new “53 days” timeline would look like this. February 17 will feature some perceived emergency or disaster, “under controversial circumstances.” Next day, February 18, Congress will pass a decree in response, nullifying many American civil liberties. The day after that, February 19, hundreds of Americans should have been arrested as Trump had his political opponents rounded up.

On that note I just Googled “Trump political enemies jailed” and got nada, except threats he made before the election. Then Googled “has Trump had any political enemies jailed,” and got much the same list. (Along with this from three months ago, Trump has threatened to jail his critics. As one of them should I be worried?) Meaning we might want to keep those February 27, February 28, March 1 and March 5 timelines in mind. And we might even change Merle’s adjusted lyrics to “if we make it through March Twenty-third,” to err on the side of caution.

But are we in the same position as the Weimar Republic in 1933? Created a mere 15 years before, in 1918, after the devastating losses in World War One? Millions of service-members and civilians dead? Untold billions in war debt and reparations? For one point of view:

Our republic is far older than was Weimar; we are not a parliamentary system; the dates of our elections are, for better or worse, fixed; our courts wield greater power; the media environment and superconducting modes of information exchange are particular to our age; our economy, unlike 1933 Germany’s, is not mired in a punishing depression…

That’s from A Fourth Reich? It’s Not Just a Bad Dream. For a somewhat different point of view see Here’s what federal judges could do if they’re ignored by the Trump administration.

David Cole, a Georgetown Law professor who has repeatedly argued cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, predicted that the most likely penalty a president would face for defying a court order would be political – not legal.

“If the president were to defy an order, it would cause a political firestorm,” Cole said. “And he knows that, and he’s therefore very unlikely to do it.” Which remains to be seen of course…

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Now a couple thoughts to close out. First, every executive power that Trump expands can be used by every Democrat president from here on. Second, We the People hired Trump – temporarily – to do one thing: Fix the economy, period. Which means bringing down prices across the board, and bringing down inflation. Those two are what the Sovereign People want from Trump. Especially those younger People – and others feeling disadvantaged and left out – who want a better better chance of finally realizing the American Dream. In particular, being able to own a home, despite high mortgage rates and a scarcity of available houses.

Meanwhile, there are signs that Trump’s honeymoon is over. (See POLITICO‘s take: “New polls show a majority of Americans say he has overstepped his presidential authority — and hasn’t done enough to address high prices.”) But that’s thinking long term. For now let’s just see if we can “make it through March Thir-teenth.” And ponder whether we as a nation prefer the honestly-rendered pain needed to survive, or that “false merriment” of ignoring the problem.

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The upper image is courtesy of Merle Haggard – Wikipedia, which noted that he “accepted a Kennedy Center Honor on December 4, 2010, from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in recognition of his lifetime achievement and ‘outstanding contribution to American culture.'” (Which seems rather ironic in light of certain recent events.)

Re: “Scum of the earth.” That’s how Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, described the soldiers who made up the bulk of his armies. (Wikiquote, though by and through them he defeated Napoleon and saved the English way of life. And “not that there’s any connection to current events or anything.”) Another point: Famous leaders need such “scum” to win battles and stay in power.

Re: Owning a home. See The Cornerstone of the American Dream Is Still To Own a Home – and Many Think It’s Achievable. But see also Is the American Dream of Homeownership Still Within Reach?

Another sign of the end of the presidential honeymoon, Angry crowd confronts Republican in deep-red Georgia with ‘boos and catcalls’ over support for Trump’s agenda.

The lower image is courtesy We The People Image – Image Results. See also Preamble to the United States Constitution – Wikipedia and Constitution101: The Sovereignty of the People:

The federal government acts like it stands as sovereign in the American system, but that was never intended… In fact, the federal government was never meant to serve as anything more than an agent, exercising the specific powers delegated by the true sovereign… While many Americans assume the federal government sits at the top of the power pyramid, it actually belongs on the bottom. Under the intended constitutional system, “we the people” hold the top position of authority… The very first words of the Constitution make this clear… Have you ever wondered why these three words appear in large, ornate letters? When an 18^th century British king issued a grant, his name always appeared at the top in the same fashion. The framers merely replaced the king’s name with “We the People,” signifying the sovereign authority from which the delegation of power flowed.

A lengthy quote which may be explored further in some future post, if and as necessary.

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On “hoping for the best” – February ’25…

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*A thought credited to Benjamin Disraeli*, *though I prefer “hope for the best, prepare for the worst…”*

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February 11, 2025 – Back in August 26, 2023 (well before the results of our last election came in), I pondered what a Second Trump term might mean. (“Gasp!”) Ten days before that – August 16, 2023 – I did a draft, “On Liberty’s ‘FIRST Crisis.'” Later that day I did another draft, “More on Liberty’s ‘FIRST Crisis.'” They had to do with “one of my favorite go-back-to books, Liberty’s First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits who saved Free Speech, by Charles Slack.” It described the effects of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, when the party in power criminalized undue criticism of that party in power. (The Federalists.) And about how democracy survived.

I also mentioned that book – earlier – at the end of a May 24, 2018 post, On “Pirate’s Island,” Alabama. (About a kayaking adventure on Logan Martin Lake and seeing what I first took to be an American flag, but turned out to be a Jolly Roger, on a “little bitty island about a 100 yards offshore.” A bit of foreshadowing?) In this post I’ll try to tie up those long-ago loose ends.

But first a look at that August 26 Second term post, which included this:

I must confess – I “do not deny, but confess” – to some sleepless nights about that [second term]. Sleepless nights at the thought of him winning the 2024 presidential election. To be sure, that seems far-fetched at this point.* Or maybe not. The point is, with a second Trump term America might start looking more like Arkady Renko’s Russia[:] Death threats, reporters disappearing, broken legs, riots. At least that’s what some think…

BTW, those Renko novels feature a fictional Moscow (as in, Russian) chief investigator in charge of homicide investigations, but somehow his friends and co-workers keep getting killed off and he keeps getting into deeper and deeper trouble. After the first one, Gorky Park, the sequels show him taking on roles “varying from a militiaman to a worker on a fish processing ship in the Arctic.” That fish-processing sequel was Polar Star, which I found most interesting “because in it, Renko’s world has been turned upside down. Like America will be if Trump gets re-elected in 2024.” In other words, the novels give a good idea what it’s like to live in a dictatorship.

For example, those death threats, “reporters disappearing, broken legs, riots,” as I said in that August 26, ’23 post. (You could Google “Trump dissent crack down” for more specific examples.) Which brings up what one lady reporter said in Tatiana, a later Renko novel:

The thugs who do such work are meticulous… We recruit them and train them and call them patriots. And when they find an honest journalist, they let the bear loose… Sooner or later, I will be poisoned or nudged off a cliff or shot by a stranger…

But there’s hope in Renko’s ongoing ability to survive such dangers in his world turned upside down. In Polar Star he finds himself “gutting fish on a factory ship in the Bering Sea, in part to hide from the KGB, who have tried to kill him.” (Wikipedia.) Or as I wrote in Second Trump, Renko is “among the onboard lowest of the low. He works on the slime line, in the lowest bowels of the ship. But survive he does, with tricks and techniques we might all need to learn, possibly starting on Election Day, 2024.” And that turned out to be a bit of foreshadowing.

In other words, things turn out fine in that novel, as in the other Renko adventures; he manages to survive dire circumstances. Applying that message of hope to a possible Trump2 I noted, “There may be a blood bath (hopefully metaphoric) if he gets re-elected. And lots of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. But in the end we’ve gotten through worse, and will again.”

Which brings us back to First Crisis, the story of the first big test of the First Amendment, when the Federalists in power passed an extreme piece of legislation that made criticizing the government or its leaders a crime punishable by heavy fines and jail time, and so “the country’s future hung in the balance.” (Sound familiar?) That “extreme piece of legislation” was the 1798 series of Alien and Sedition Acts, of which John Adams said, “Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.”

The jury is still out on that last thought, but First Crisis does bring up some nuggets of wisdom from Charles Slack‘s book. Like its page 3, which said, “The greatest enemy of liberty is fear. When people feel comfortable and well protected, they are naturally expansive and tolerant of one another’s opinions and rights. When they feel threatened, their tolerance shrinks.” Which seems to have happened in the last four-to-eight years. But it raises the question: Are we willing to keep that tolerance and spirit of compromise? Or the noble idea on page 59, that free speech “belongs to each individual wrestling with his own conscience, and is meaningless unless the people one most hates can have heir say without fear of official reprisal?”

Then there’s the thought from page 73, that dealing with the 1798 Sedition Acts occurred “not among a nation of ignorant sheep in need of rulers, but of free people working things out, turning ideas over in their minds and having their say, state to state, town to town, brother to brother.” Which raises the question: Are we still a free people, capable of working things out, or have we become a nation of ignorant sheep, in need of a strong ruler?

On the other hand there is this one possible bright spot about those Alien and Sedition acts: In the 1800 U.S. presidential election voters booted Federalists out of office and the party pretty much faded from political view. It was never a viable political force after that.

In the meantime, on the topic of hoping for the best – or at least trying to keep a positive attitude – I’m getting ready to hike the Canterbury Trail (Pilgrims’ Way) in England this August ’25, from Winchester to the cathedral in Canterbury. (And maybe checking out the process for moving over there?) The next four years are going to be extremely interesting…

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The upper image is courtesy of Hope For The Best Prepare For The Worst – Image Results. On a thought credited to Benjamin Disraeli. See Wikipedia.

Re: “Far-fetched at this point.” The Second-term post noted “the poll saying 53% of US voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump. (Another poll puts that figure at a whopping 64% of Americans.” Meaning 53% of Americans said they “‘definitely’ would not support him and another 11% said they ‘probably’ would not support him.” (So much for the polls.)

The lower image is courtesy of The Nightmare – Wikipedia. “‘The Nightmare‘ is a 1781 oil painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli. It shows a woman in deep sleep with her arms thrown below her, and with a demonic and ape-like incubus crouched on her chest.” To which I added these thoughts:

A head’s up. The punchline for the [image] above would be, “At least it wouldn’t be as bad as living in Russia!” That’s the impression I got after starting to read my latest Arkady Renko novel. (Tatiana, one of a series of “life in Russia” novels by Martin Cruz Smith.) [And] a word about those Renko novels. They really make me appreciate living in the United States.

Which was true back then, but am I now starting to wonder? There’s Lincoln’s thought: “When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.” (Sic, from Lincoln on the Know Nothing Party – Lincoln Home National Historic Site.)

I guess we’ll have to wait and see, while “getting ready,” etc.

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For possible future reference here are some other notes from First Crisis. From page 3, on how Federalists saw themselves as “protectors of family, faith, education, and country… [T]hey believed in liberty, yes, but liberty as informed and guided by a natural aristocracy consisting of themselves.” Then there’s page 49, which noted Freedom of the Press is the Bulwark of Liberty. Page 59 went on to talk about James Callender. Of whom Wikipedia noted that in the late 1790s, Thomas Jefferson sought him out to attack President Adams, which Callender did. (And Jefferson won.) But then after Jefferson won, Callender asked for a cushy federal postmaster job as a reward. Jefferson said no, after which Callender switched sides and “reported on President Jefferson’s alleged children by his slave concubine Sally Hemings.” (Which brought to mind the expression, “It all depends on whose ox is being gored.”)

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For more on the gored ox see King, Christie: Classic “Ox is Gored” Conservatives, on the idea that “Conservatives only like government intervention when those close to them or their immediate constituents personally need it.” In turn the expression “it all depends on whose ox is being gored” is from Exodus 21:28 and 29:

If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible.If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner also is to be put to death.

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Reckoning ahead four years – from 1/20/25…

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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”

That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”

For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.

In the meantime:

January 21,* 2025 – I’m trying to take the high road. Trying to think that maybe – just maybe – in their collective wisdom the Sovereign People made a good choice last November. In the alternative I’m just hoping the next four years won’t be as bad as lots of people think. I’m writing this so I can check back on January 20, 2029, and see whose prognostications proved correct. (And to the extent possible I’ll try to stay out of the crossfire.) But it’s tough.

Robert Reich for one doesn’t hold out much hope, as I discovered this past week when I ran across his video, Why Trump Won … YouTube. He said basically that Trump won by expressing the anger and frustration of the vast-majority of working class Americans, while at the same time planning fat-cat-friendly policies – like increasing corporate welfare – meaning most Trump voters will be in the same position (if not worse off) four years from now.

That led me to some lateral reading and these other posts: Economist Robert Reich ‘goes back 4 decades’ to explain why Trump ‘isn’t the cause’ of US dysfunction, and Robert B. Reich: Will Trump get credit for Biden’s successes? (I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.) Next – from a hot tip – I Googled “shove the presidency down trump’s throat,” and found these posts: Shove the Presidency Down Trump’s Throat – Yahoo News, and a review of that post, ‘Real job stress’: Democrats handed fresh advice. Finally I found this from Rolling Stone magazine, American Authoritarianism. How Bad Will It Get Under Trump?

One thing Rolling Stone said was that despite the Constitution’s two-term limit – the 22nd Amendment – Trump will try to stay in office “for life.” On the other hand (they said), America’s system of federalism offers hope: “Many things are going to be terrible. But controlling the federal government doesn’t mean you’re controlling everything.” Author Tim Dickinson exhorted Americans to support local institutions that uphold democratic norms and strengthen them.

Defending those institutions will give proponents of America’s democratic experiment their best shot at recovery, when the MAGA movement stumbles. Here, Trump’s age and lack of a clear successor offers some hope. “He’s old, so at some point, age is going to make a difference… There will be a power struggle. The next opportunity will be when he dies in office.”

Then too I recently started reading Stephanie Grisham’s book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now (“What I saw at the Trump White House”), for clues about what to expect coming up in “Trump 2.” (Page 7 talked about Trump’s appeal to voters, page 36 talked about the revolving-door chiefs of staff, and page 22 talked about Mitt Romney’s experience: “I don’t know how aware he was at that point about Trump’s slow, deliberate torture of him or if he was a particularly vengeful man. But in the years to come he would find ways to get back at Trump.” Hmmm…)

Meanwhile, I have a few thoughts of my own. Some I expressed in past posts, like April 2019’s On “why I don’t like Donald Trump.” Also, August 2019’s On “why it might be better…” (Gasp!) As in, why it might have been better if Trump had been reelected in 2020. (Legitimately that is. For one thing, he would have been leaving office on 1/20/25.) Then too, as things started looking more bleak (for many Americans), I posted this from August 2023, On a second Trump term.

I’ll be checking and re-checking those sources in the months and years to come.

And I had other thoughts: Like, that Trump will have a Honeymoon Period, the “period of popularity enjoyed by a new leader,” but that period is getting shorter; recently down to seven months, “from an average of 26 months earlier in American history.” For another thing, there’s the Paradox of Leadership: Why We Build Up Only to Tear Down: As soon as Americans elevate a new leader to high office, “we seem equally driven to bring them down… The fall from grace, then, is almost inevitable.” Third, in my view the Sovereign People hired Trump to do one thing: Fix the economy. Bring prices down, make it easier – or even possible – for today’s young people to buy a home of their own, and pay reasonable prices for food, housing and gas.

To the extent he can do that, he’ll succeed. Otherwise, there will be a day of reckoning…

In the meantime, on to more pleasant things. Like, this August I’ll be hiking the Canterbury Trail in England, more formally known as the Pilgrims’ Way. My companions and I will start the 120-mile-or-so hike in Winchester. (And on to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury in Kent.) Along the way and while in London I’ll wear my Dodger hat with the prominent “LA.” But to ward off rude remarks and puzzled questions. I’ll also wear this button. (But hidden, maybe under a lapel, ready to flash, “just in case.”) It’ll pay to be careful in the upcoming months and years…

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May include: A round button features the text 'DON'T BLAME ME I VOTED FOR KAMALA' in red and blue lettering on a white background. The words 'DON'T BLAME ME' are in red, while 'I VOTED FOR KAMALA' is in blue. The button is a political campaign accessory expressing support for Kamala Harris.

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The upper image is courtesy of Fortune Teller Image – Image Results. See also Prediction, Forecasting, and Nostradamus, all from Wikipedia. Here’s another interesting post – maybe to review in four years – How Donald Trump Won the 2024 Election | TIME, for comparison purposes.

Re: “1/20/25.” I wanted to post this on Inauguration Day but couldn’t. (Intervening circumstances.) I actually posted it at 8:00 p.m. the following day, but because it was so “late” the way-bottom of the text says it was posted on January 22. Also, about that word in the title: The verb “reckoning” means the action or process of calculating or estimating something, as in something coming up in the future? See Collins English Dictionary for variable and countable nouns, and synonyms. Also Merriam-Webster, about a settling of accounts or calculating a ship’s position.

Re: “Crossfire.” The actual idiom is Caught in the crossfire – Idioms by The Free Dictionary. Literally it means to be caught “in the middle of an exchange of gunfire.” Or affected by or made to be involved in a conflict “one is not a part of,” but of course, as an American citizen and thus part of the Sovereign People, I’ll be very much involved in the upcoming events.

References to the Gresham book are from the 2021 Harper Collins hardcover. Here’s another tidbit, from page 60: “The Secret Service secretly dubbed [Melania Trump] ‘Rapunzel’ because she remained in her tower; never descending.” And that agents tried to get assigned to her detail, with “limited movements and travel,” because they could spend more time at home with their families. (I’ll try to add more such tidbits in future posts.)

Re: The economy. The Reich YouTube video included a graph showing the economy (80%) as second only to immigration (90%) as the top issues that mattered most to voters.

Re: Lateral reading. The link, Best media literacy tip to vet credible sources from the Poynter Institute.

Re: “Honeymoon.” I Googled “Biden’s honeymoon period” and got links like How Joe Biden’s approval ratings looked across four years, Biden Honeymoon Unlikely Despite Early Challenges – U.S. News, and The president’s “first 100 days” is a myth — Biden included | Vox. There’s some interesting reading there; I’ll be checking them too in the coming months and years.

Also re: Checking and re-checking. I’ll also do that for things like the Consumer Price Index, the rate of inflation and the prices of gas and a dozen eggs. See News Releases, from January 15, 2015 (CPI), AAA Fuel Prices, from 1/21/25 ($3.12 on average), Is there an egg shortage? Here’s why prices are up, from 1/9/25 (“up to $3.65 in November versus $3.37 in October and $2.14 in November 2023”), and What is the current inflation rate in the US? – USAFacts. (2.7 percent as of November 2024).

The lower image is courtesy of Dont Blame Me I Voted for Kamala 1.25 Button. ($2.25, plus shipping. There’s also one for $6.99, A stylized “Vote,” followed by “Don’t look at me. I didn’t vote for him.” See also Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Harris | www.splicetoday.com.

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The Georgia Wasp

A blog of life-reviews by an old guy who still gets a kick out of life.

Author Archives: bbj1969per@aol.com

A Legacy update – from June, 2025

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On “London, Liverpool and Stratford…”

Are we “living through an apocalypse?”

Revisiting “Bizarro Trump,” and an upcoming hike…

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On Che, ‘Boomers and the New Revolution?

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A mid-May “Recon,” then on to Canterbury!

Next up – Hiking the Canterbury Trail…

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On “hoping for the best” – February ’25…

Reckoning ahead four years – from 1/20/25…

Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”