Modern Days and the Blogger - 2023

    If Hemingway were alive, if Orwell were alive, if Steinbeck were alive, if Clemens (Twain) was alive, if Melville or Tolstoy were alive...

    What would they write? Would they be prolific like James Patterson, with paperback novels filling up the supermarket shelves? Would they be prolific essayists or op-ed writers?

    Or, would many of these great authors be reduced to so many bloggers, as the majority of the writers in the world have become?

    How many voices populate our screens and windows on the world that we know and live in?

    Millions. Perhaps not a billion. Yet.

    Spring break 2023; I have seen parts of my home state that I had not seen before. Southern hills near the Ohio River and Kentucky. We re-visited the birthplace home of Abe Lincoln. Many memories... or a few memories there. Nostalgia, on a personal level, but also speculation and contemplation on the macro-levels of our world and history.

    I slept in Asheville this evening into morning. I have family or ex-family here. We visited with the productive working niece in Hendersonville. We ate Thai food. Reminded me of my mother, of which I reminded her of, her grandmother that has been gone more than nine years. Gone for now.

    I read of my friend Robert's father dying less than a week ago, April 2; he made it to age 90. That is a good life. Way to go, George! With children (surviving) in Colorado, Pasadena, California, and Nashville, Tennessee. Ever the musician, that son. I read an interview of him online this past year or so. The obituary did not mention his wife. Perhaps he is single now. I will reach out to him and offer my condolences.

    His old best buddy, my ex-brother-in-law, is struggling and crashing on couches in the Inter-Mountain West. Down and out on the Wasatch Front.

    We have family from East to West in the United States, even a soldier nephew in South Korea.

    God bless us, every one.

    Israel and Palestine have problems this Easter weekend.

    All the service networks keep churning out their shows: we all get our entertainment fixes through multiple media sources. The kids have done it this Spring Break foray through Roku. That facilitates the media, like Psych from a decade ago.

    My dreams were affected by the show, me in Saudi Arabia or some such desert-like city environment.

    With buddies and comrades.

    We are good in North Carolina. Managed stop-lights in South Carolina, repaired a punctured tire in Georgia. Good, handy mechanics. One from the state of Mexico and the other from Michoacan. Not too bad a price, and we wound up there circuitously.

    I have email junk block, report or delete.

    I have my daughter's awesome post on "Artistic Musings" that I cannot find. Following ‹ Reader — WordPress.com My Home ‹ Artistic Musings — WordPress.com

    I have a novel to pre-clear and publish. It might be called "The Watchman: A Reflection on Afghanistan and the World that We Live In".

    We stayed at Stone Mountain, hiked it, camped and ate. And we saw and reflected on the Confederate leaders. Fading away, literally and figuratively. 

    I saw a prominent Confederate flag, I think by the side of the road in South Carolina.

    We are in the post George Floyd, post-pandemic lockdown days.

    What would all those writers be scribbling about now?

    Russia and Ukraine? Year two in that conflict. Wagner sends men to die for the Russian dreams of supremacy.

    Happy Easter. That gives many of us hope, among other things.