I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity. Edgar Allen Poe
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. - H. L. Mencken Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so -Bertrand Russell What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ... -James Branch Cabell
November 26, 2015 - 11:49 a.m. Dateline Southborough: I am writing this from my attic room at Joe and Emily's house. It must be Thanksgiving. You know how I love writing about commuting; yesterday it was a seven and a half hour commute so I have quite a bit to write about. I took the Boltbus up to Boston. I catch the bus at 33rd street and 12th avenue, the far west side of Manhattan. I was excited because for the first time I could take the brand new 7 line extension there. I thought it would save me lots of time and walking. Well it saved the walking. My plan was to get there by 2:45, preferable closer to 2:30 to board the 3:00 bus. I got a bit of a late start, a little before 2:00 but was confident I'd be there in plenty of time, I just had to take the 4 to Grand Central then three stops on the 7, I started realizing I was not going to even get there by 3:00. I was sort of frantic; I doubted there would even be space on the next bus as this is the busiest travel day of the year. I checked the email on the ticket to double check exactly where the bus left from and saw that it wasn't 3:00, it was 3:30! I was not late. I got there at 3:10; I would have missed a 3:00 bus but was in plenty of time for the 3:30. Many people were there before me but I am registered with Boltbus so I got an A ticket. A tickets board first so I got exactly the seat I wanted in the second row. Things worked out great. The Flying Spaghetti Monster protects the feeble minded. So that's my promised idiot story. I took the window seat; I always want the window seat. A woman came on the train and wanted to sit in the first seat right in front of me. Someone was sitting in one of them. She said excuse me and the man in it said, "I'm taking two seats." I was aghast. I expected the bus to be sold out so he'd have to let someone sit there. She didn't argue and I immediately said, "You can sit here;" pointing to the seat next to me. She did. I was so selfless letting the beautiful woman sit next to me. Martha proved to be the best random traveling companion I ever had on a bus or train. I never took my computer out and didn't even play on my phone. We talked the entire four hours and forty five minutes of the ride. We did take our phones out to check on Waze for our arrival time. Oddly they weren't always the same but usually close. We then both contacted the people picking us up with our ETA. Even though it was the holiday weekend we were only 25 minutes late. I was picked up by Joe who also had to run to the airport to pick up Sarah and Drew who flew in from Texas and arrived at about the same time. They got picked up than me which was a good idea as I couldn't find Joe and Sarah came out to find me. We got back to the house where Emily, Grumpy, and the kids were. Grumpy is not one of the seven dwarves it's what the kids call Emily's dad. I grabbed some meatballs that were waiting for us and we sat around and talked till we did what we do every day, sat around and sang. There was a great example of group memory. Joe asked me, "What should we sing next?" I said, "What's the song we said in the car that we could sing tonight. Joe didn't remember that there was a song we said we'd sing. Sarah remembered we said that but not the song. I said, "We said it as we were passing Fenway Park." That flipped the switch in Joe's brain and he said, "Charlie on the MTA." I loved that, now way any of us could have remembered that on our own but together we could trigger thoughts in each other than brought it to light. Then we went online to find the lyrics, I found different lyrics than Joe. Mine had a verse that I had never heard before but cleared up a mystery that always bothered me. The story of the song is that they raised the fair on the Boston T, the MTA. Since you had to pay when got off the train Charlie was a nickel short and couldn't get off the train and lived forever under the streets of Boston. Every day his wife would pass him a sandwich at the Scully Square Station. Which has always raised the question, why didn't she give him a nickel so he could get off? This new verse answered that age old question. Now did you ever wonderNow I can rest easy. We then went in search of the happy ending version of Puff the Magic Dragon. We sang many other songs and as always included Gentle Arms of Eden and as almost always, Iowa. Sarah said something that I said would be the title of today's blog. I forgot it. Why? Come on you know this; it's a gimme. It's because I'm an idiot. So I need another title. So I have to go a little further in my story. After the singing I went up to my room in the attic. It's an attic so there is a sloped ceiling/wall at the top of the stairs. It comes very low. When I got to the top I hit my head against it. I always say next time I'll remember but I don't. But it gave me a title so it's well worth it. Great art is worth a little brain damage. Hey I have brain damage so I think this is great art. Now I better finish this off and get back to helping get ready for Thanksgiving. I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge: please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
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