"...Yule"

I folded time-space. The experience is like passing through warm air. The Shift set me in the shadow of the elm that once stood in front of my home.
My childhood home.. 8:46pm Monday December 23rd 1957~CE.

It was snowing. Winters were colder then. A car with tail fins drove by. The street lights were dim. Sodium Oxide lamps were years away. There was movement in the windows. Our Tree was going up. Strings of blinking Christmas lights.

I tried to take in this world during the 48 seconds of my Shift.

A woman was on a ladder at the tree. My mother, an aunt? 

The front door was opening. ...a child!

I Shifted.

"...pole star"

So the holidays. For our very lives this year we must be separate. Such is life in a Plague Year. America is a good land,…we are a good people.  We will care for each other, and more than survive this.

America is a strange land.

The Holiday season is a pole star to be looked to. I remember back when cars had fins milk was delivered in bottles children could wander safely, and you could have TV in any color as long as it was black, and white.

In that faraway time before we crammed near space with debris, and online meant either jump rope or waiting to get into a movie. I remember Uncles, and Aunts tons of cousins, and family friends pouring into each other’s houses.

I remember our house.

All done up as best we could. Our traditional six foot tree. Decorations some going back to the late 1800’s mixed with flashy electric geegaws of the 50’s. Dad, and the Uncles all gathered in the daddy spots yacking about guy stuff work the Army…WW2 recently won. What routes they took to get here. They all came on the new Interstates that Eisenhower just built.

My Ma, and the Aunts in the mommy space…the kitchen. Going on about how them uncles drove them crazy how the kids were just as nuts. Who was graduating college soon…a bunch of aunts did. Also who was having a baby. Babies. I remember babies showing up all the time. Endless new cousins,…even a new sister.

Meanwhile our dog Brownie was under the table listening. That’s what dogs do for kids. They listen to what’s really going on. Then tell all good girls, and boys what’s coming their way. Good Dog!

Presents.

Besides tearing the house apart all me my siblings, and the cousins. We dreamed about the neat stuff coming our way. I mean Santa never let us down,…mostly. Yeah I was still into the guy then. Still am somewhat.

There was the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalogue that the mailman would slip us every year. Yep the instruction manual for materialist yule heaven. The thought was that Santa ran Sears. At least at Christmas,…made sense at the time.

Then Thanksgiving part two.

I would have gone on about part one, but my fingers are tired…com'on I’m an old guy now. Anyway it was mostly the same stuff, but with a Turkey, and family incidents. Christmas on the whole just had the Turkey.

Christmas Turkey.

As I sez part two. Before the age of fast food gluttony. Folks only pigged out once or twice a year. The Holidays. As had been traditional for over a 1000 years.

Now we stay up all night eat constantly. Obliviously use tech that would seem magic to our folks, and us. But back then we just had each other. …and it mattered.

The aroma of cooking filled our house. Near every house. We sat said grace then the passing of food all manner of wonders. Laughing stories the tree bright blinking it’s soul to heaven in the background.  We were family we were friends we were together.

Remember these were Depression, and WW2 folks. They were making up for lost time. Those that could made sure the kids had at least a taste of security.

As my ma told me years later. She dad, and our aunts, and uncles. They gave us good memories on purpose. They knew what desperation want was, and what it did.

They deliberately created a sense of harmony despite everything. I was told years later we nearly lost our house…more than once. I found out in my thirties. They so loved us.

There was also music.

My family both sides played instruments. This was a common thing before mass entertainment. In the days when radio was cutting edge. Folks made their own music. Having instruments, and sheet music was common in every house.

We sang carols. We actually sang.  My dad played the piano assorted uncles or aunts accompanied on violin,…even viola. Everyone sang. Even me shy as I was. We sang, and meant it because we really believed in things. Each other,…even a G-d.

Yule gatherings have been with us for 1000 years, and more. Beginning as folk solstice rituals. It’s been passed on to many peoples each adding their touch to it.  Family friends gather at certain points in the year for a reason. A Blessed one.

Sometimes in war or like now in plague it must be put off. But it stays in our hearts. That, and as many are already planning. Next years gathering after the vaccine will be as is being said, “A Fucking Blow Out”.

I have every intention of being around that that.

Bless you all. Be brave be safe be wise be kind.  

 

My Brooklyn 'Hood fed up with the passage of events as they are.

Declares an "End of Time!"

My building has appointed me Temporal Administrator,...acting, of the Peoples Commune of Eastern Parkway.

At a socially distanced meeting in the courtyard we decided the demented mayhem of 2020 has gone on long enough. The masses of these six square blocks declare Time Ended or at least frozen."

Frozen is our amended position since ending time might be like stopping the rotation of the planet. It could get windy.

In any case things being what they are we have canceled the balance 2020, and the movement of time in general. It shall remain timeless until things improve or at least get funnier."

Proposals that we reset to last New Years Eve, and stay there have been tabled. Watch your zoom bulletins, and emails for updates.

(Below Franklyn Avenue Clock. The western boundary of the Brooklyn Timeless Zone.) ..."BTZ", they'll be hats, and t-shirts soon.

"...tubes"

"...tubes"

A little story about my first radio set. It was a 1942 small "Zenith". 'Made of plywood which was really new, and cool in the 40's. They made patrol boats out if it so it had to be cool. Anyway this was about 1963 or so I'm around 12. My Aunt Sybil,...aka Mum gave me her old set. Being a model kit fan,...thanks cousin Jimmy. I'm gluing crap for 60+ years, and still at it. Anyway I went at it like it was a model Spitfire. I cleaned the set. Scrapped the housing. Put a fresh varnish coat on it. Cleaned the electrics rack replaced the old tubes. They still sold radio tubes then. That, and she was in business,...with some of her 1940's tubes still working, and playing Motown, and the Beatles. 
Above is a near spitting image. Thanks Aunt Sybil.

"...la luna"

"...la luna"

This evening's Moon.

From my Kitchen Observatory.

This at 6:57pm, 1-09-20~CE

"...actually"

"...actually"

I just read a piece about the internet how it went all evil nuts, and the tool of Satan. That, and what could be done now. All that useless digital introspection crap. My solution?
Scrap the whole evil mess, and go back to writing letters or ranting on the street. 
That, and mimeographing broadsides. Hand them out. It's good honest work. 
It was not only more fun, but people actually read you demented crap, and thought about it.

Video below:
Here's folks handing out Emergency Food Center leaflets during the latest republican government shut-down. This works better than any website rant. Now there's civil ordinances about this. Look them up before doing this. 
Mostly about littering...clean up any copies people drop, and you're okay.

"...mostly"

"...mostly"

One of the neat things about being a for real elder is not giving a fuck. That, and everyone being mostly okay with it...within reason. I mean I ain't climbing the damned Chrysler Building with my underwear on my head with a Roman candle sticking out of my butt shooting fire balls, and me singing the Oscar Myer Hot Dog song. That's something we've come to expect any day from our head of state...also an old bleep.
Being older is to begin the process of stop worrying. There I feel better already.