It’s been a bit since I’ve written; the path to hell is paved with good intentions, as our mothers used to tell us. Do parents still use that old one to chide their children into good behavior?
Good behavior is sometimes hard to find, as I find myself dealing with a personnel issue at the book store. Can’t be nasty when you’re in the customer service business and we have someone who is…
And to others in the store. As I left on Saturday, I informed her she does not have my permission to be disrespectful to me.
And then I sailed away into the night as I didn’t trust myself to contain my anger.
Other than that irritation, the summer continues, warmer than recent summers I am being told, with more humidity [not good in a book store]. I continue reading and listening to classical music and generally wake up happy. And I love the interchanges with the customers and the folks who come back and ask me to help them make another choice because they liked what I suggested when they had been in before.
Yesterday, a man came up and bought two books, one very adult book and a children’s book that encouraged youngsters to think about science. As I was about to put both books into a bag, he pushed the children’s book back toward me. He told me to give it to some child; I would know the one when he or she came in. His way of paying it forward. [Picture above.]
Inside it was signed, Dr. Mike, Harvard University, what have you discovered today?
It moved all of us. For Joyce, who owns the store, it was a first.
And, Dr. Mike, you will not be forgotten. Ever. By me.
An old friend from my cable days has retired abroad and wrote me an email and asked me to walk him back from the ledge as he can barely understand what is happening in our country and it is painful for him.
And, I suspect, no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, it is a little painful these days, if not a lot painful.
I told him to turn off the television, read a few good sources [mine are the NY Times, Washington Post and the WSJ, with a soupcon of Time Magazine thrown in and a few other bits and blurbs]. It is not so agitating to read about events as it is to hear the endless drone of news commentators constantly attempting to read the runes of the latest tweet.
Frankly, it has grown so bewildering that I feel as if I am watching a game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon – who met who, where and when for what reason. The Trump Tower story has changed again. I think. Didn’t it? Wasn’t there another tweet this morning?
It would all be a bit amusing if there wasn’t so much on the line. New sanctions have hit Iran, just after Iran demonstrated their naval ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. That’s probably the most important waterway in the world because so much oil goes through there. We have an enlarged trade war with China as of this morning.
The Canadian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia has been kicked out of the country because she spoke out against the arrest of a number of Saudi feminist leaders. The Saudi Crown Prince has given women the right to drive and has suppressed the women who advocated for that right.
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is on trial. His right-hand man, Rick Gates, testified they stole, evaded and scammed and while they were doing those things together, Rick Gates embezzled from Paul Manafort. Ugh. Such a pretty pair. If they go to jail, it would be poetic justice if they were cellmates. That’s a reality show waiting to happen.
Fires burn in California, a quake has ravaged Indonesia, a hurricane is threatening the big island of Hawaii and the climatic beat goes on with record high temperatures being set all over the world on an almost daily basis.
But while Trump tweets, and Mother Nature is being a very bitchy Mother Nature, there are men like Dr. Mike, who care to pay it forward and I am going to focus on him as I close this missive. And here’s to all those folks out there paying it forward.
Letter from the Vineyard 
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