Morning Thoughts: January 20, 2107

On mornings like this, expressing one’s feelings is difficult. Finding solace takes some digging unless you’re a libertarian. They’re happy. No government in our country is, after all, their lifelong dream. Talk about “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” We’ll re-visit them when our rivers start burning again.

I guess some members of our president’s political party are happy. I’m not sure all of them are, but they could have prevented his train wreck at any time. I suspect the party’s radical fringe has the more thoughtful members locked into behavior-prisons from which they would just soon escape. Perhaps, several “Thomas Becket Moments,” “Saul of Tarsus Transformations,” or “John Newton Transfigurations” might have saved us.

Too late now, though.

Me? I’m just happy I don’t have to explain our country to my cousins in Germany. I’m sure that some of their ancestors felt the same way in 1936.

And,

I’m happy that the sun will rise in a few moments and the intemperate weather has subsided to the point where I can walk outside and enjoy the rebirth of “… my own little postage stamp of native soil,” as William Faulkner described his own world years ago.

I’m happy that YouTube still has posts of David Oistrakh playing Sibelius.

I’m happy that Joseph Conrad was born.

I’m happy that a person of African-American descent in our country can dine in restaurants, attend movies, pursue an education, and become President.

I’m happy Jonas Salk discovered a way to prevent polio and chose not to, in the ways “Big Pharma,” file a patent, so it would be available to the “least of those among us.”

I’m happy that it only took our planet 3.5 billion years to produce a Vincent van Gough from single-celled prokaryotic cells.

I’m happy that our American political system was blessed by the (much too brief) participation of a Barbara Jordan.

I’m happy that John Lewis survived Pettus Bridge.

I’m happy that Bob Dylan has lived a long life.

I’m happy that my best friend is sleeping in the next room and hasn’t grown tired of me.

I’m happy that I can still breath, think, and walk.

I’m happy that my cadre of close friends are, to a person, some of the finest people our country has ever produced, and that I will never have to apologize for the actions of any of them.

I’m happy that I served my country, albeit that I didn’t particularly want to at the time. Now, though, it scares some, pisses off some, and impresses a few, not a bad tally.

Finally, I guess that I’m happy in a way that I probably won’t be around to see our planet take its last gasp, that is to say unless those younger than I decide to take control. That doesn’t appear likely this morning, but I’m happy that the great pendulum of history swings fore and aft, that there hasn’t been a ship of state drop anchor for an extended length of time since the Egyptians, and that, as Lewis Mumford said, “trend is not destiny.”