Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

Let me BRIEFLY dispose of the hippopotamus in the mud puddle before he does something tasteless. The elephant in the living room is long since gone from MY house, but the hippo does make an appearance twice a year, sometimes three times. I do not particularly begrudge him the space in the mud puddle; in fact, he is the only one who uses it, except for the Moose, when he gets a rash. It's just that when the hippo is ensconced in the cool, soothing, gludge, he has the nasty habit of getting what used to be referred to as 'the vapors,' and it splatters. So, here is me, driving the hippo out of the mud puddle: Father's Day ceased to have much attraction to me after 1975. Up until then, my GrandDaddy Paulette was alive, and he was in loco parentis.  (That does not mean that he was a crazy parent; in means he was acting in the place of a parent; for the first five years of my life, he was the adult male authority I interacted with every day.) And, for reasons that MOSTLY depa

        Warning: this blog post may contain items which may be regarded as spoilers. I do not intend them as such. However, the author, J. M. Ney-Grimm, has written so clearly about a core crisis in our lives that I HAVE to talk about it. And so,  I return to my blog, which has been neglected for months. This is where I talk about the things that really matter, in addition to writing wildly ridiculous stories. First, the background. Sarvet is mentioned briefly (IIRC) in "Winter Glory," which is the first work of Ney-Grimm's I encountered. It tells the story of her mother Paiam and her father Ivvar, in a time when they have grown old and mostly grey, although they do retain most of their vitality. It is a wonderful story that tells the truth: old people can fall in love, mightily, and can be counted on not to be twerps about it, unlike the star-crossed lovers, the terminally stupid Romeo and Juliet. If it did NOTHING else than point out the truth that old people can love