The Bench

 Sometimes on my way to work

There at the bus stop on my corner

There will be the old man, 

Grizzled grey in overalls

A cane at his side

Waiting as if for the bus

A kind and patient look on his face

I passed the corner five days a week

And it took a month to notice him

Every day in the morning at the bus stop 

On the bench with his cane.

I used to say I didn’t like people

But its not true

I’ve always liked people.

But there were times I didn’t like myself so 

You know how that goes.

Or do you?

I hope not.

I hope so.

Sometimes they ask you with

Whom would you like to sit

On a bench for an hour and talk

Well, there is Ghandi and Lincoln

And James Stewart always seemed nice

My dad, or my great-grandfather 

Who they say was run over one night

When he was down on his luck.

Or my first love.

Would she remember me?

Would she remember me 

The way I remember her?

Her nose, cold in the December night

Her cheeks blushed, lips soft

Her hands warm in my pockets

And mine in hers.

This I would like to know.

It took a month to notice him

There on the bench in the morning

It took another week to notice something else.

In the afternoon, returning home from work

He was still there with his beard and his cane.

Still that kind and patient expression.

Had he been there all day?

Yes he had, and here in the afternoon

 There are a group of people gathered around him 

And children

And they all seem to be listening to him.

I think he must like people. 

I think he and his cane 

Make the journey everyday

And he holds court there.

He does not ride the bus, ever.

Maybe one day I’ll go sit with him.

Just me and him and Abe Lincoln.

srenfro 11/2020

"Marjorie 'Traitor' Greene

The latest Trump supporter to fall out of favor with the president.
Reporter: “We have seen these attacks from the president at other people. It's not new. And I haven't heard you speak out about it until it was directed at you.”
MTG: “I think that’s fair criticism and I would like to say humbly I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It’s very bad for our country and it’s been something I’ve thought about a lot especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, is that we I’m only responsible for myself and my own words and actions, and I am committed, and I’ve been working on this a lot lately to put down the knives in politics.”
I’m glad we have elections instead of term limits.
You don't step into the job being a kickass congress person. You grow into it. It takes years.
Elections ARE Term limits.
Maybe there is hope for Marjorie Taylor Greene after all.

A Jar of Rain

There she was, at the party.
Except in dreams, like now
I hadn’t seen her in 100 years.
“When did you get to town?” I asked
“Just yesterday”
“How long will you stay?”
“I’m visiting friends.”
Coyly. Elusive. Reticent.
She didn’t answer my question.
I drifted to the kitchen
Her to the patio.

Moon was rising.
Bringing the tide with it.
Gravity. Its such a powerful thing.
And like the pull of the moon on the sea
There she was, leaning against the wall
With that cool look, like a canary might fly out of her mouth.
“You didn’t answer my question”
“I’m thirsty” was all she said.
Out of thin air a clay jar appeared in my hand.
‘Here, drink this”
‘What is it?”

“It’s a jar of rain. May you never thirst”
“Of course. Who else would bring me a jar of rain?”
“Yes. Turning the world around.”

The dream started to get all watery.
The atmosphere, it rippled the way it does
When we start to awake.
We never want the dream to end and
Sometimes we have to rush to the end
To try to get everything in before we rise all the way out of it
Convinced that the world we are returning to is just a lie, just a lock
Just a stage where we play out
And pretend to be who we truly are.

Passing from the dream state
I could sense a closeness
Like moon and tide
Like gravity itself, very like the angels…
You cant see them

They do not speak
(but they none the less command attention)
I'm rising now, weightless, floating away
And through the watery ripples her lips moved
The sound frozen in time as she mouthed the words...
“Oh Steve, you haven’t changed a bit”

But you know what?
She still didn’t answer my question.

Sign of the Times

"And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people..."

Set in 1971, The Post depicts the true story of attempts by journalists at The Washington Post to publish the infamous Pentagon Papers, a set of classified documents regarding the 20-year involvement of the United States government in the Vietnam War and earlier in French Indochina back to the 1940s.
The Nixon administration sues the Times, and a judge tempoarily stops the time from publishing more articles. The Washington Post, not named in the suit comes into possession of the papers and has to decide whether to publish or not.
Katherine Graham the owner of the Post, decides to publish at the risk of being held in contempt, is going to jail, and losing the paper.
The Post and Times appear before the Supreme Court to plead their First Amendment rights. In solidarity, other newspapers across the U.S. publish information from Ellsberg's documents. On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court rules 6–3 in the newspapers' favor, vindicating Graham's decision. In response, Nixon bars the Post from ever entering the White House again.
Justice Black, concurring opinion, New York Times vs United States 1971
"In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people..."

"Go Fuck Yourself"

The 2013 Shutdown:
Was due to Republicans wanting to strip funding from the newly passed ACA (Obamacare).
The 2025 Shutdown:
Is due to Democrats wanting to extend funding for the ACA (Obamacare) that will expire December 31st. The Big Beautiful Bill did not extend the funding.
In 2013, Republicans were not able to entirely defund the ACA, but as part of the negotiations, the Democrats conceded to stricter income verification rules for citizens accessing the health insurance exchanges. And the shutdown was ended.
I always liked the John Boehner (pictured left) quote from that shut down:
“We are [the Republicans] are standing our ground. Its Harry Reid [Democrats, pictured right] that isen’t moving.”
There is even a video of Boehner telling Reid to go "fuck himself"
Pretty funny, except its everyday hard working people that get hurt.
You might note that the Democrats, as part of a bargaining chip, did not start firing and laying people off.

On Hegseth's Meeting With The Staff

Remember when Longshanks tossed his sons Minister of War out the window in Braveheart? Someone should have done the same thing with ol' Longshanks.

TURTLE SOUP

At one of the Escoffier dinners I had the honor of cooking for we had Turtle soup for the soup course. An old Swiss chef, chef Charles Finance, came to me after the dinner.
He said " When I was a young chef in the Bahamas I had to cut the head off of a turtle to make the soup. I looked into his eyes while I held the blade. He was crying. Tears were running down his cheeks. So I could never again no more cook the turtle soup"
So I asked him "Did you not eat the soup?"
"Oh yes, I ate the soup. It was delicious"

I was first exposed to Turtle soup when I was 5 years old in Detroit Michigan.  Dad had been transferred to Detroit and for a few months we lived in the Whittier Hotel.  I was fascinated by Turtle soup, and ordered it often. Years later, working at Luminarias in Fort Worth, I found that my chef Billy Ray had been a cook at the Whittier when I was up there. I had been eating his Turtle Soup.

Also known as Bookbinders soup.

Image- Chef Finance, Houston, 1964

The Soldier, His Wife and the Bum

I was a bum in San Francisco but once managed
to go to a symphony concert along with the well-dressed people
and the music was good but something about the
audience was not
and something about the orchestra
and the conductor was
not,
although the building was fine and the
acoustics perfect
I preferred to listen to the music alone
on my radio
and afterwards I did go back to my room and I
turned on the radio but
then there was a pounding on the wall:
“SHUT THAT GOD-DAMNED THING OFF!”

there was a soldier in the next room
living with his wife
and he would soon be going over there to protect
me from Hitler so
I snapped the radio off and then heard his
wife say, “you shouldn’t have done that.”
and the soldier said, “FUCK THAT GUY!”
which I thought was a very nice thing for him
to tell his wife to do.
of course,
she never did.

anyhow, I never went to another live concert
and that night I listened to the radio very
quietly, my ear pressed to the
speaker.

war has its price and peace never lasts and
millions of young men everywhere would die
and as I listened to classical music I heard them making love, desperately and
mournfully, through Shostakovich, Brahms,
Mozart, through crescendo and climax,
and through the shared
wall of our darkness.

~Charles Bukowski

Don't let it be one of mine

Jimmy Kimmel and Guillermo back tonight.
It took me a couple days to figure out what was it was Kimmel said that was so offensive to some. I decided if I was going to rewrite the joke it would go like this:
"We hit some new lows over the weekend with ~~BOTH SIDES~~ desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them..."
Because that is what happens every time, isnt it?
And I will say it seemed to me the left doing the most backflips on this one trying to tie the killer to the other side.
I know when someone gets shot, or there is a mass shooting, or a car bomb, one of my first thoughts is “Please don’t let it be a (Fill in the blanks)”
Don't let it be one of mine. But sometimes it is.
I’ll be watching, not because I like Jimmy Kimmel but because I don’t like the government getting involved in what who can say.
And I love Guillermo.

Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History

"The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, according to four people familiar with the matter, including a historic photograph of a formerly enslaved man showing scars on his back."  
Washington Post
"The Scourged Back” shows the scarred back of escaped slave Peter Gordon in Louisiana, 1863."

Slavery in America. The more you run away from it, the more you run into it.