Coming Up Short - Going the Distance

    A poem about life.

   

    I realize I come up short

    I see and feel the reminders real time

    In rejections

    In failures

    In stumbles

    In falls and tumbles

    In misses

    In errors and faults.

    All those things, and a few things more.

    Comments, looks, avoidances, evaluations.

    They can be added up and can take a toll.

    The ego and the psyche can be wary and run down

    So much to absorb.

    Sometimes overwhelming to ingest.

    Death is hard, sure. Some accuse me of thinking of those who have passed too much,

    Guilty (I am) that I think of them, yes, and I wonder, I expostulate.

    The dead are still with me.

    Most of them never go away. 

    I keep them near and far.

    As for the living, there is plenty of heartache and sorrow.

    Not that the good and joyous do not abound, either.

    I think the good and happy largely outweighs the bad and the painful.

    We can be hopeful and optimistic, we should be.

    Yet we learn new things at later ages.

    A few haunting and harrowing facts.

    A close family member was attacked, physically and intimately, a few years ago.

    I learned of it just now.

    Another close family was not satisfied in their relationship,

    Finding comfort in another's path.

    It should have been me.

    

    I was absent.

    I was not there enough.

    I was wrapped up in my own meanderings and pursuits.

    Not present for that one.

    The one I vowed to give to, to share with, to be there for.

    I failed consistently.

    Aware but unaware.

    Clueless of my surroundings.

    Selfish, and not helping. 

    Not giving, not sharing.

    Not sharing enough.

    Oh, what lowly beings we can be and become!

    Where is the sense that should be delivered upon our heads and hearts?

    Where is the trust and the bond and the love?

    Absent, too often, missing, forsaken. Forgotten, abandoned.

    I left my loved ones, me absent-minded, selfishly seeking elsewhere.

    Coming up short.

    I am sorry. 

    

    I must be present. 

    I must share.

    I must care more.

    I must improve.

    I must complete my tasks better,

    I must and I must continue stronger.

    Not faster, not overwhelmingly powerful.

    But solid full.

    If it is God, and Jesus, with them fully.

    If it is with others of other holy names, with them, too.

    Commit to the texts, commit to the prayers.

    Sing the songs of life, the songs of joy and redemption.

    We must go the distance.

    I want you there with me.

    I am sorry I slacked; I am aware I was unaware.

    I want to be with you.

    Let me stay by you.

    I will listen to your words.

    I will share what you are.

    We will make it the distance.

    I must do better.

    I must right these wrongs.

    There are many ways to succeed and advance, progress.

    Yet there are always many ways to err and fail.

    Life is choices, living presents priorities.

    I know we all can reach our goals.

    Our hopes.

    Our dreams.

    Our best selves.

    You and me.

    The family.

    Together and unafraid.

    Together and giving

    Sharing,

    Caring.

    Preparing.

    Daring to be present.

    And alive.

    And aware.

    I love you.

    I have come up short.

    I will be there 

    For you.

    For me.

    For God.

    For all.

    And, again,

    I recognize my weaknesses.

    I can do better.

    I will go this distance.

    For all of us.

    And you can stay with me

    We will make it together.

    Be happy, and free. and rejoicing.

    All the way there.

 Least favorite # 1. Mrs. Graebe. Oh, that C was not me, but it was me.

    She was not the biggest least favorite, but she was the first that I can think of for me. In my life. I should be grateful that I did not have more negatives before her. I think that is right.

    This was the first in a series. Least favorite teachers and mentors.

    We had four rotating quarter long (nine week) classes as seventh graders. Computer class was a substitute for one of them, so for me it was mechanical drawing, shop, cooking, and computers. I did not do sewing. I cannot recall now if computers or cooking class was first or second. 

    Oh, the class. The teacher. Little or no cooking.

    But a whole bunch of Weight Watcher's formulas on case scenarios on how to lose weight. Multi-step problems that took too much time.

    Mrs. Graebe was overweight herself! What was this all about? Busy work to be fit, a thing that I was (formerly) and she was not?

    Admittedly, I had put some weight on, because since my parents' split I was less motivated, less driven, and I let the love handles grow on my haunches. I was not grossly overweight, like some kids I had known.

    No, I could still move okay, get around. But I was not up to my own previous standards as a kid.

    I had quit the football team, for a number of reasons.

    I failed to do all the stupid homework Graebe has assigned. Tests? I don't know, I don't recall. I got a C.

    This hurt me. I did not think of myself as a C student. But there it was.

    How stupid!

    Stupid! Was it her? Was it me? Yep, in the end we were both dumb.

    Me for not doing it, her for assigning it. There was way too much of it, with little to do with cooking. Asinine.

    Fatso woman. She had me bothered.

    My mother had been in Weight Watchers and had put on a little extra pounds, but not like this lady...

    Ahhhhhh. Ugh.

    My first least favorite teacher. She damaged me.

    It was the first of a series or succession of teachers and mentors that left a mark on me, either literally or figuratively.

    Nor forgotten. Perhaps helpful in the long run? Depends on how we interpret the data and the record,

 My Least Favorite Teachers and Mentors - Do They Matter?

    I was thinking of some people that were not good for me, which means I was not the right fit for them, which may only mean I was not good enough as an individual, therefore I may be the biggest part of the failing equation of these assessments of the following. These reflections might be a bigger representation of how I am the one to be blamed or at fault for not being the right guy. Had I been savvier, smarter, more diligent--better-- perhaps the people that I am thinking of would not be so negative to me.

    A matter of perspective.

    7th Grade. Mrs. Graebe. What was her first name? Linda? Betty? Judy?

    10th Grade. Mr. McMillan. What a blowhard.

    10th Grade. Mrs. Kinzer. Okay at teaching. Alcohol on her breath at school, not cool.

    11th Grade. Mr. Gurley. I knew his first name. Check my blog for that. (I later remembered Wayne) Right?

    12th Grade. Mr. Lumbley. This was more on me than him. Great teacher, for most.

    Was there someone in Chile? A companion, a leader? Each has their quirks, but nothing too bad.

    1990, 1991, 1994, 2005. Hilda Rojas would get frustrated with my rustic Chilean Spanish, sometimes just wrong. I called her husband, the scholar and poet, "astute". Does not apply in Spanish, for him, turns out. Maybe Satan. Or Stalin or Franco. Whoops.

    The rest of the 1990s. Maybe that computer teacher? Or Hoyt-Okada from Indianapolis? Hmmm. Was there a boss or teacher in Utah that was bad? Nah, it was usually me coming up short, 1993-1997. I flipped the decade. Then me in California in 1999. The teacher years.

    Enter the 21st century! Who was bad, or who was I no good to?

    Mike Bell, the geography professor. Yeah, a blow hard. Knows a lot. Does not amount to my style, nor did he think I was much.

    The last few years, there were some here and there, in Virginia, in Afghanistan, in Kuwait. The names should not be mentioned. Still too current.

    DHS Guy, CBarrel Gal, HotClosetDude, and maybe CheeseHeadMan. Although, to be fair, the last one mentioned never was mean or dispiriting. So, it was more about me. However, it could be a least favorite.

    Sure, the more that I think about this--all these people that I did not like--I come to the clearer realization that it was about me, the negative part of the equation. I was the least common denominator in the fraction of what I was so frustrated and upset about. They were bringing out some of the worst of me because I was the one who was worse.

    Over time, it plays out. Had I been better, these people would not have dragged me down as I thought that they did. It was me. Sometimes it takes many years to see the reality of things.

    Many of those self-doubts were true. Many of the fallacies or false thinking that I had thought, perhaps too much, in blaming others, was really on me. I was to blame, limited by my constraints, poor habits, poor efforts, both lack of ability, or talent, but worse still, lack of perspicacity and diligence, or resiliency, to get the job done, Time after time.

    It's me. Not so much them. They were reacting, or behaving, according to how I was. Not meeting the mark, not trying or doing enough. Even not being enough.

    I think I need to break these people down post by post.

    Least favorite # 1. Mrs. Graebe. Oh, that C was not me, but it was me.

    

    

     

 So Many Smart and Wise People, So Many Foolish and Awful Outcomes

    Over the course of history-- pick up any book that covers more than a few months-- and we find that people are always making choices that lead to the often grizzly or horrific ends of others. We look at genocides as one example, that crops up too much, but there are smaller and more telling stories of how us humans are simply poor at making the right decisions, rulings, judgments, policies, standards.

    We are all imperfect, we know that. Yet, despite our best and worst errors, which are often simply accidental, we also commit horrendous mistakes that are intentional.

    George Orwell illustrated this in his genius novels. He summed us up in allegorical cartoons satirizing communists and those that thought they had better ways to improve humanity, our shared living quarters and spaces on this one planet where we have been rubbing shoulders on since time immemorial. Time immemorial? That is a reference to the times that we do not have much known or written about it. We gather clues and evidence from paleontology, anthropology, archaeology, and all the other studies. Ice samples. Carbon dating. Art and bones and cave drawings.

    I had a neighbor who died of her health condition--she was older and had diabetes--but she should have had her medicine to avoid the unfortunate and preventable demise, because her few days waiting for the insurance to purchase the right medicine was lapsed. In other words, the delivery of the incoming medicine that she depended on did not happen because of poor timing. It was a matter of a simple payment schedule that killed her.

    Whose fault was this? Not coming from a wise or smart person, in our collective opinion, yes? Was it the woman or her family's fault, or the system that allowed the lapse to occur? Perhaps a combination of the parties involved?

    People make bad decisions on short term bases and over the long term. A guy gets drunk and kills others in his car, whereas another smokes cigarettes and gets himself cancer and even puts secondhand smokers at risk.

    Then we think of the politicians and bosses and companies that help us or hurt us. Some think that they are doing us wonders, while others may not care much other than their personal bottom line, which is usually money.

    There are religious people and organized faiths that can hurt or help others. People make mistakes in these groups and organizations. Some believers with extreme practices can put others at risk. Militaries and law enforcement personnel are blamed for hurting and killing others, egregiously. Most of us, I think, believe that the law enforcement in most communities are protecting us more than they harm us.

    There are wise and foolish in every profession and place.

    Who are the most foolish? Are some purposefully hurtful towards others for their own gain? Case by case, many of us may review what the goals and purposes of individuals and movements and parties were over time. We may debate who meant well. Marx and Engels thought they had the answers, but it seems that repeatedly for almost two centuries those who tried to implement socialism or communism came up very short: too authoritarian, too draconian, too stagnant, too self-serving, too unnatural, too against real economics.

    Here we are in 2025, watching and observing some men and women making decisions that on some levels seem to be "stopping waste" and by implication corruption, malfeasance, wrong-minded programs and jobs that do not do anything effective but give some cush jobs to some superfluous and deplete the tax payers' money. This in the United States, which is not as bad as Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, Sudan, and a few other war-torn parts of our planet. 

    Humans doing terrible things against other humans. In ghastly, violent ways.

    Meanwhile in our country, thousands have arbitrarily lost their jobs, which sooner and later will lead to deaths, some by consequences that were not thought of judiciously, with so many of their positions and whole missions were cut. Here and abroad, people are going to die due to DOGE purges. Musk will have blood on his hands, graves and cemeteries will be filled of those that are getting cut under the rather unhinged and mean auspices of Donald J. Trump.

    The peacemaker, or so-called would be "wise guy" deal maker, is sowing a bitter crop. Perhaps he has cut a deal with the Devil? Putin is bad enough. Thousands of souls will haunt that murderous despot till eternity roils over, however that works.

    Wise fools, like the sophomores are known as. But this is not sophomoric, only, this is for real.

    Awful outcomes will befall the allegedly smart and wise. Do not take us all for fools.

    We must survive. Smart or dumb.

    Wars and crimes, the fighters and the bullies and the law breakers have their place. Then there are the rest of the dunderheads.

    May we know the difference. And act and behave accordingly.

    May we go forward with diligence and the wisdom that remains with us.

    But, I think the abruptness, the very obvious 

    

 War and Peace and Courage and Cowardice

    Some people are peacemakers and others are warmongers. Most of us are somewhere in between.

    Similarly, some of us are courageous and brave, while others are cowards and pusillanimous. I would say that most of us fall in between the two things. We can be valiant in some things but timid in others. This can reflect our values and beliefs.

    I am not sure how brave I am. Some folks who are brave, or certain courageous people are able to confront things with good vigor and spirit because they have a really good capacity to deal with smaller details and seemingly mundane tasks or skills so that they end up being heroic in their abilities and outcomes as a worker, servant, or leader. They do the small things in great ways so that the big things come easier, or efficiently, and great results occur.

    Hence, we have brave folks in many industries and pursuits. Those who come up short and fail in small things and big things, might be considered less than, and cowardly. Perhaps not by intention, but by overall standards, a person not valiant enough to get the job done is the weak one, the loser.

    Donald Trump called John McCain a loser. Not a winner. Brave, maybe, but a fool? A fool for being shot down in the heart of the enemy we were fighting. He survived, as many would not. John McCain, by almost any definition, is an amazing, resilient, survivor, and therefore, a winner, a champion.

    Who is the fool? Who is the fool, characterizing the life and status of others? Those that survive and advance without being shot down, captured, and tortured, for the service and loyalty of their country, or the person who lives a long time, cutting deals left and right, making and losing millions, even billions of dollars? But who got out of the was as a young man for bone spurs in his feet.

    Maybe his lack of physical ability led to him becoming who he is today, avoiding the worst of it and growing empires of real estate and entertainment. And now elections.

    Who starts wars? Who ends wars? Who wages peace? Who sustains peace?

    Who is brave, and who is cowardly? Who is a fool, and who is the most clever. Or wise?

    The devil can be in the details, as they say 

 Ach, Nein! Mia Love gone at age 49

    She will be missed and is gone way too soon. She was one of my favorite politicians. Why? She became a congressperson in one of the states that I have lived in. Every time she spoke, I tended to completely agree with what she said. She was a groundbreaking Republican based on her race and gender.

    She was an American success story and a great person, from all accounts.

    Wow. I did not know that she had been diagnosed with brain cancer and given so little time. She outlived the initial prognosis by two years. Wow. She did not make it to 50. But she did lived a sweet, influential life. She inspired me, and perhaps millions.

    The longer we live, the more we see people who do not live out their natural course, which would be more old age and causes of aging. Many of us are not destined to live out the longest term of our lives.

    I am grateful that I have lived into my 54th year. It seems like an advanced age, compared to many, or too many that do not reach this age. Yet, most live to their 60s, 70s, and many far beyond.

    Ahh, Mia. I am grateful that she lived and lived well. She has a legacy that I am extremely respectful of, and inspired by. I would like to read her book. I am glad that she has left behind three children. I cannot help but think that they can live on the dream of their mother.

    Some people think of Republicans as racists. Some are, I think we can agree. But most of us are not. We have different ways of seeing government and finances. And morals and values that we believe in.

    Mia saw things as I did. I will have to search more if there was anything politically or morally that she believed that I did not concur with.

    But now she is gone! Ahh, I need some more Mia Loves to root for and stand with.

    God bless her family and her causes, and her country. Yours and mine. We have lost a large, shining light. May her memory and her goodness last forever in as many as possible.

    Thankful for her life and meaning.

    Fare thee well; I hope to meet you in the life to come. With my remaining years, which I do not know how many there will be, I hope to have a portion of the effect that you have made in your community and your world. Our world has been so much better because of Mia Love.

    One of my favorite candidates for office of all time. She was special, unique, and I think she really knew how to think and act. That can be rare in public service. Rare in life.

    Grateful to live in a land where she became a known advocate and public servant for good.

 Blue Bloods Done: UConn! Whew. Kansas, North Carolina. UCLA.

    Still going: Duke. Is that it?

    Obviously, Indiana has not counted forever. And a day.

    Any other many time repeaters? Even the Florida two timers are ... No, they are still alive.

    BYU plays Alabama next! Football schools.

    

 Each Nation has its Ghosts

    How many nations are there in the world? I think there are hundreds and hundreds. Like, in the United States alone, we have quite a few. There are the normal predominant American types, who fit the standard categories, like White Anglo Saxon Protestants, or Catholics from Ireland, but there are also the Hidatsa and the Arikara, the Cheyenne and the Sioux, and on and on. Seminoles. The Lumbee. The Pamunkey. The Matonai. 

    There are the sub-nations of immigrants that are among us in the United States, and Canada, and Mexico. The Amish, the Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren of Christ. Mini-nations of folks surrounded by greater political boundaries of official sovereign nations.

    There are many other lands around the planet with their respective nations and peoples. The islands, of the Pacific, the Caribbean, both vast Indies of the tropics the great expanses of China, or Mongolia, or Russia and Kazakhstan, and on and on upon the steppes and plains, into the massive taiga and tundra from international boundary to the next river and sea and ocean. From Arctic peninsula to narrow isthmus, the folks with their own language, traditions, ways of life, and lore.

    Whole nations apart.

    Each of us have our spirits, our kindred dead, the ancestors that we have buried or forgotten, that we have lauded or lambasted. Or those who have past away from us long ago, or last year, who we simply allowed to seep away in the mists of time. But and however: their ghosts remain. Their vesigThey are still there, haunting or blessing or reminding or keeping vigil upon the living, or their co-deceased. 

    Spirits, ghosts, demons, ghouls, poltergeists, and guardian angels. The whole gamut.

   In the United States we have the hundreds of thousands of Civil War dead. Many men, and a few women and children were sacrificed for those causes in the 1860s. Lincoln was another casualty of it, within a few days of the official treaty of the final signings of surrender, in south-central Virginia, the Commonwealth of much death and destruction, we have our own shares of the dead spirits bopping around.

    Most of us to not sense them, or remember them, or even think much of them.

    There was the 15-year-old who drowned in the river in Clarke County during the forgotten battle there. They never found his body? I think not. But his spirit goes on somewhere. Perhaps he was from Ohio, and he traipses around there?

    Many men, on both sides, suffered and died, never to return to their homes in the flesh. But their memories and spirits moved on. Where did they go? Perhaps more go to the next life, not to swell the ranks of the ghosts here. Are there phantoms or kind presences, auras of persons who have come and gone? Mass graves were assembled where thousands were left unnamed. Tombs of the unknown and less remembered. Tabulated by those who won and lost, at minimum. At least.

    They are not visible or noticed like the living. Their remains and bones may continue in some places of prominence, but mostly all of them are hidden away, some in books and stories, if fortunate enough to be mentioned on a placard or monument, or a tomb, or within a story of heroism or travail.

    Most are nameless and faceless. And they are no longer here, and they are invisible.

    Fair. Or, as atheists have it, their souls had purchase while their hearts beat and their lungs rose, but no more since their last expired movements of cellular existence. The hair follicles grow on the bodies of some dead, but that hardly counts as existing as a person. They have moved on, whether as a soul or not.

    Some transfer of energy, knowledge, personality, and identity has transpired. Violent or sad endings befell so many in that half decade of the 1860s. In our one nation here. These happenings have played out thousands of times over the world round, backward through the eons.

    Our Civil War dead and survivors are but one piece of that puzzle.

    Lincoln paid them tribute, as many of us do still. And should, always.

    Their ghosts remain, and even speak to some of us.

    The Chinese have many more ghosts than our nation. Maybe Britain does too, based on their longer history? We early Americans contributed to some of their lost troops, the once and forever Red Coats. More Brits have perished in southern Iraq or in certain stations of Afghanistan, in this the latest century.

    Each nation with its haunting and surveilling souls. Especially the ones that did not age out as the normal course of things, but found their lives ending precipitously and precociously. These were not natural causes that took their last thoughts and feelings, and physical functions, these family and friends removed from their associations, but an act of another, be it a bullet or artillery shell, a bayonet, or some gross infection, or maybe the malaria other sickness that aggrieve the troops on their military bivouacs, like Brandy Station. Was it Brandy Junction? Or which was it, not far from here? Hundreds took sick and died before one shot was fired, thanks to the stingers of the pesty mosquitos. Better to suffer the freezing cold and rain than that fate, methinks.

    Yes, the ghosts remain: to complain, to remind, to console, to scare, to sober up, to awaken, to rekindle, to hearten. To terrify? Maybe a little of that. To sadden, to make wistful, sure.

    And what of the millions of Chinese, or the Russians, or the Germans, or the Jewish, or the people called Aztecs, which was not their real name but another one affixed?

    What of them? What of the Egyptians, dead and gone? Not just the royalty, but the slaves and masses.

    The slaves and masses. Do their lives and legacies linger?

    The ghosts and angels of all the peoples, our collective families.

    Nation upon nation. Yours, mine, and theirs.

    Filipinos, Vietnamese, Norwegians, Icelanders, and the Inuit. The aboriginal of Australia and the Mapuche of Chile. All of them, from nation to nation, cross blending their ghosts to us today.

    We feel them, or ignore them, at our own peril or gain.