Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

I haven't been able to read much recently, so I thought "Why not try Heinlein?" Last night while waiting for my 14 pound baked potato to microwave (yeah, I know, but it WAS a big one), so I could stuff it with sausage, mayo, red wine vinegar and the rest of a beefsteak tomato (and it was even better than it sounds), I pulled a paperback off the shelf, which turned out to be "The Day After Tomorrow." I was not quite finished with the first chapter (fascinating story about a small group of surviving scientists and technicians who fight against a PanAsian occupation of the US) when the microwave beeped, and my 26 pound potato was cooked perfectly. Note: before putting it in the microwave, I rubbed garlic olive oil into the skin. We have gone in the past year to coconut oil, mostly, so I had to look twice in order to see the garlic olive oil on the shelf. Why GARLIC olive oil? That, I do not know. Sometimes the women make strange choices when they go to the grocery ...

This is a riff off comments made by Sarah Hoyt in her blog today; she is returning to her US home after visiting her birthplace in Portugal. During the course of the trip, she gained some insight into her relationship with her mother. Read what she has to say here . Nothing is as simplistic as I'm about to make it sound, but for a certain segment of the population, I think I'm going to come pretty close. That segment includes bookworms, and I'm reasonably sure that people who read my blog fall into that category. Furthermore, I'm speaking to bookworms who come from a home where there was a good bit of conflict. I don't know how many will relate to that combination, but here it goes anyway: I'm not sure that high intelligence has much survival value for kids in homes with a lot of conflict, particularly when the conflict is also reflected in society as a whole. Being smart just allows you to see the discrepancy between what is, and what should be, in the way pare...

The immediate set-up: On Monday, May 16, my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, was released from her position as a legal parapro at a small legal firm doing business primarily in the Woodstock area. For several days, we contemplated our next move. Some deep background, and a sort-of real-life fairy tale: Vanessa's first husband gave her seven children, and then abandoned her to raise them as best she could. Using Social Services provided in North Carolina and West Virginia, Vanessa was able to earn her General Equivalency diploma, and continued on to college at West Virginia University. She moved to Georgia in 2001, had her prior coursework accepted for transfer, and became an upper classman at the prestigious Spelman College of Atlanta University. She was selected to serve as one of the Student Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 2004; with her fellow college students, she traveled b...

Two long and brilliantly fascinating comments: 1. I was talking with Tobiyah and Jennifer, my intelligent and VERY politically astute young (mid 20's, early 30's) black daughters the other night about the election, AND I remembered my teen years, particularly 1968, the year I turned 15: Tet Offensive, The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr, and Bobby Kennedy, Chicago Democratic Convention , (although the song was more about the trial of the Chicago Seven) and later the Kent State shootings . It seems to me that we didn't HAVE ANY choices back then, from my perspective. I voted for George McGovern on an absentee ballot the day they taught us how to fire Claymore mines (FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY) in Basic Training at Ft. Jackson (D-7-2). (He won Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.) And then I reflected back a few more years to pre-teen years;the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and how we were traveling from Texas to Georgia on the old two lane roads, a...

NOTE: This is MY blog, and MY opinion, and I am in NO WAY affiliated with ANY candidate for any office. There are some times when I wish this blog had about a million subscribers, and this is one of them. It's because we have an election coming up that matters for Cherokee County. I'm not a native of Cherokee County, but I've been here since 1991, which may make me an adopted son. I've been here for all of Roger Garrison's term of duty as Sheriff, though, and that gives me something to think about: donuts. Now, cops love donuts. EVERYBODY knows that. And when Roger Garrison first took office all those years ago, he brought donuts with him, and he put them in the break room. And nobody would eat them. Evidently, before Roger was elected, the environment was a lot different in the Sheriff's Office. So different, that the deputies were afraid to eat donuts that were left out for them. It took Roger making a special announcement before anybody helped themselves to t...

It's a Friday night in 1972, and I'm a broke 19 year old PFC in downtown San Antonio. There are lots of things to do in San Antonio if you have money, but if you don't options are really limited. I don't remember how I found the USO, there may have been a fellow medic trainee with me, but find it I did, and it was a great place to go. Not much in terms of privacy, but some really great home made pound cake. And girls. Forget the scenes in the WWII movies about the jumpin' band rocking the place; I don't remember there being any music at all. But there was a girl. neatly attired in a very modest and patched dress, who came up to me, and asked me if I would like to talk. Well, yeah. I poured my heart out to her, giving her my tale of woe, and she listened respectfully. At that point of my life, I didn't HAVE a plan, I was in the hands of the Army for the next three years, and I just had to deal with it. I felt trapped and pitiful, and I told her all about it. ...

I turned my Facebook off yesterday to avoid the birthday greetings, but a number of people found out how to wish me a Happy Birthday anyway, so thanks. And Moose dropped by the house last night and outed me, so Vanessa and the kids (including the adult kids) found out. In case I haven't mentioned this in an earlier blog post, I don't care for holidays in general , and holidays in which I figure as a main character particular. There is ONE exception to that, which is January 1. I love that holiday. Okay, so I'm 63. That's 3x3x7, or 9x7. The number 9 is the first non-prime odd number, and 7 is the perfect number in some numerology systems, but I really can't find any significance in there.  How many years is 63? One way to look at it is to measure the distance from my birth to now, and count BACKWARDS from my birth that same number of years, we arrive at 1890; in other words, the distance from 1890 to my birth is the same distance from my birth until now. And, if we ...