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Here we are rocking and rolling down the coast out of Seattle, not with a band, but aboard an Amtrak train that bumps, jumps, sways, jerks and hurtles all at the same time, knocking me around like a dog in a shipping crate thinking that at any moment I might go airborne.
These are the gentle years, beyond the rages of youth and the desperation of middle age, seasons of summer warmth, and skies so intensely blue that it hurts the eyes to gaze upon them. Only God and the artist Magritte could paint such skies and implant such peace on a softening day in July.
It seemed somehow appropriate that Irv Thomas-author, philosopher and world-class hitchhiker-would die on the eve of Independence Day. The anniversary of America's birth, after all, represents freedom of the individual and Thomas represented freedom of the spirit.
I once took it as a personal affront for anyone to suggest that I chow down at a fast food eatery. I do not necessarily dine at five-star restaurants every night but never would I lower my cultural standing by being seen at a place that serves fat-soaked burgers and French fries deep-fried in pig…
A ruptured aortic aneurysm is known to cause death almost instantly. Basically a tear in one's main artery, it pours out blood at a heartbeat tempo and leaves a lifeless victim in its wake. The mortality rate from a burst aneurysm is 90% even if you make it to the hospital. Only a few survive.
I had not seen Rose Toren for almost 15 years, until last weekend, when I decided that if anyone deserved tribute on this special holiday of memory and celebration, it was she.
I received word the other day that a long-time acquaintance had died. We had worked together in the beginning years of my newspaper career, and while we hadn't been that close, he nonetheless had represented a link in a circle of friends that was growing smaller every year. I was losing my history.
I did not gather you here today to form a circle and lead you in a child's game of Ring Around the Rosy, at the end of which we all fall down. It was fun when we were kids and could bounce up off the play yard like balloons, laughing and clapping in delight. Well, it ain't so much fun anymore.
It is raining this morning, May 6, over greater Los Angeles. It began tapping at our rooftop shortly after midnight and was still coming down as night blossomed into a gray and gloomy day.
It's not enough that Latinos are primed to "take over" California, the United States and America's institutions of higher learning by the sheer growth of their numbers, now they're threatening to take over evangelical Protestant churches. Sort of.