There is a longstanding phrase that sums up the impulsivity of youth: Young and stupid. It was likely suggested by some parent dazed by their child’s disregard for personal safety and lack of good judgment in the face of the obvious. I’m not saying that those in the older ranks can’t come up with...
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The noise and clouds of rising smoke have left this year’s 4th of July celebration in their wake but it seems that every Independence Day I’m reminded of my endless fascination with blowing up shit when I was a kid. I was a pyrotecnic nutball, just wondering, mind you, what would happen if this or that...
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I seriously doubt that many young men would have resisted a just and necessary cause but it was clear, except to those with a blind allegiance, that the Vietnam War, this clash between the Communist-run North and the U.S. backed South, was a civil war unworthy of our intervention and loss of life. Like...
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It’s probably unnecessary to publish a formal correction to an earlier essay since that’s really only applicable if you’re a news reporting agency. In addition, this corrects a case of misremembered identity of a dead dog so I’ve probably got no obligation there either. However, my since of fairness in a universe that doesn’t...
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And that title pretty much sums it up because throughout my youth the rec room in our basement was a sometimes room for entertaining but, more importantly, a sanctuary where I carried out my studies in music. The only child’s goto move is ‘alone time’ and much of that was spent sifting through mountains...
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It was so much fun the first time that I’ve unleashed 10 more of my life’s musical bookmarks, songs or themes that will forever be associated with a time and place: 1) Ry Cooder – “Yellow Roses”: I’ve had an irrational love for this 1955 Hank Snow classic ever since I started tooling around...
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Music denotes points of interest along the road of life, bookmarks if you will. We’ve all got events, significant or outright mundane, that are made memorable because of a song or piece of music that will forever elicit a memory. Since I’ve become quite a fan of randomness, here are several of mine in...
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Because there was no father on hand and because my mother tried to have a life even while caring for an only child, I did a lot of things on my own that would probably have been more enjoyable in a larger family environment. But at the time I didn’t have anything to compare...
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Growing up in a U.S./Canadian border city with the great wilds of Windsor, Ontario a mere few miles away, there are Canadian cultural curiosities that just seep into your life. When your frame of reference includes radio and television stations that begin with ‘C’, watching Saturday morning curling, knowing who movie host Bill Kennedy...
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Reflecting on my freshman year in college, it’s a miracle that I graduated at all because it was one long case of overstimulation, resulting in a grade point average that only a village idiot could be proud of. Sticking to task meant many things to me but studying wasn’t one of them. There were...
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