Mile Marker Zion

[the mingo]

Discovering something - you can't repeat that.

You just can't.

It's an all for once all in all thing.

[the mingo]

[the mingo]

I dropped a dollar bill on my way out of the mini-mart tonight. I didn't go back to get it. I did think about it. About going back. But I just kept walking toward the Jeep. Got in turned the key put it in gear & drove off into the night. Just like that. Tomorrow I'm to meet friends for lunch. I look forward to that. Friends are the finest of riches & the greatest of treasures this world has to offer. Bar none.

[still.trucking]

Friends, as close a thing I have to a religion.

I used to like the Travis McGee novels by John D. McDonald.
Travis lived on a fifty foot wooden houseboat called The Busted Flush that he won in a poker game. He drove an old Rolls Royce called Miss Agnes that he converted into a pick up truck.
Travis was self employed as a Salvage Consultant He only worked when he needed the money. My kind of guy. A beach bum I guess, nothing worse than a bum without a beach.

Anyway, I do have a point, Travis also had a college professor friend who lived on a cabin cruiser called The Thorstein Veblen who told him "A friend is someone that you can say any Tom Fool thing to and still remain friends." I am a old Tom Fool, but I have made a few cyber pals on the internet.

I am a fortunate son.

[the mingo]

You have & you are. I scoped out your ref to Travis McGee. I've heard of these books but never read any of them. I might check one out to see what's goin' on. Thanks.

[still.trucking]

A fool and his money
I got thirty three dollars to last seven days
enough for six packs of cigarette

I always thought we Christ killers were so smart about money
I must be an aberration
a bad seed.

Travis kept a stash of money in the safe of his houseboat. He took his retirement in installments.

I spent thrity thousand dollars on a divorce, and I have never been married. But how much is a baby sister worth.
I have given away all my money


Yes G d is the square root of minus one
and Friendship is my religion
I hate money
I remember every arguement my parents had seemed to be about money. I have a bad habit of tearing money up when I get pissed. Did I mention I am crazy. Certified by my local draft board in 1963.
but this going into the forlorn rags of old age is a bitch without it.

[still.trucking]

Doodle Art by my fair haired blue eyed brother



On friday nights when we were all playing ball in the street the rabbi from the synegogue on the corner would come over and ask him to turn on the lights because it was considered "work" and the ortodox christ killers can not work on shabitz. And they assumed he was a shagitz.

I only mention the christ killers cause that seemed important to you. I remember you wrote about the trial of Jesus being illegal because it was held at night.

I am good with Jesus, I try not to hassle him with my petty little problems anymore. After silent woman's abortion He helped me make it through the worse night in my life so far. Standing there with the blood from the stiches on my scrotum staining my jockey shorts. ANd they say only women bleed. I was standing on my own two knees praying to Him to just let me fall asleep. How I craved the oblivion of the dream world. I had no thoughts of suicide, just a craving for the oblivion of sleep. ANd the next day I went back to the doctor and had my vasectomy reversed.

I been blind sided by a lot of pain lately, such is my karma, but I have not prayed to Him, I decided to take Naproxen instead. And I don't make deals with god anymore.

I don't really want no truck with what people call god.

Except for the G d of Einstein and Spinoza. I suppose I am a quatum mystic in my old age.

Thinking about your headless rooster again.
That could be a story I don't know. I take you at your word, I don't need to see your discharge papers.

I never wanted to kill anyone out of fear, not that I can remember. Except for maybe my father. I sure come close to murdering my mother. I am at peace witht them now, and with that mighty smitey tribal god of my family too.

but I spent spent a long night of the soul in Astoria Oregon trying to figure out how to kill a man with no muss no fuss. I had no desire to see him suffer, I just wanted to see him dead. That was the night I decided to became a Friend, When Friendship became my religon. I have not been to a Meeting for Worship in years. I suppose I have been dropped from the membership, I hope not.
Friends, aka Quakers, The Religious Society of Friends

A fine line between fear and anger I suppose.
They say the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
For me it has been my anger at the Lord.

Jimboloco says he don't trust himself with a gun, I know that feeling, I hardly trust myself with a knife.

Delete this mingo if you think it is best.
Please please pardon ranting and raving about Christ Killers. A family tradition with us.

As I understand it the Navajo do not have a word for revenge.
I did not notice much sweetness and light after 911, only a desire for revenge.

[the mingo]

Your post stands sacrosanct here, Jack. I've run across that term "Christ Killers" here & there on my journeys. Always ethnically motivated as far as I can see. Jesus' enemies exerted all their efforts to put Him on that horrific cross as if they might miss their chance. Had they known what was going on they would have realized they could not have kept Him off of it even if they had known what to do.

You're right about the Navaho having no word for revenge. That doesn't mean they won't kill.

Headless Rooster - Jack, I was in the Navy from 1970 to 1979. I was fucked up when I got out. Which was why I got out. If I could go back there from here to see myself then I would not recognize the man who stood in front of me. And that man would not recognize me. He had been sifted. I have been weighed. Both of us have been found wanting. Neither of us have any use for religion. Both of us can be found sitting with the blind men at the side of the road who called out as the crowds following Jesus passed "Lord, Son Of David, have mercy on us!" And when the people in that crowd tell us to be quiet, tell us to quit being such a bother, we shout out the louder, "Lord! Son of David! Have mercy on us!"

Gotta get going for now Jack, the day's tasks are calling out to be done.

[still.trucking]

I can't see why anybody — unless he was a child, or an angel, or a lucky simpleton like the pilgrim — would even want to say a prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that's all! Who isn't he head and shoulders over? Who? Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls — but, my God, who besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don't tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that — but that's exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God.

How in hell are you going to recognize a legitimate holy man when you see one if you don't even know a cup of consecrated chicken soup when it's right in front of your nose?I swear to you, you're missing the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer has one aim, and one aim only. To endow the person who says it with Christ-Consciousness. Not to set up some little cozy, holier-than-thou trysting place with some sticky, adorable divine personage who'll take you in his arms and relieve you of all your duties and make all your nasty Weltschmerzen and Professor Tuppers go away and never come back. And by God, if you have intelligence enough to see that — and you do — and yet you refuse to see it, then you're misusing the prayer, you're using it to ask for a world full of dolls and saints and no Professor Tuppers.

Wickipedia

I mention books I don't expect none to read them. Franny and Zooey J. D. Salinger had a bit about The Pilgrims Prayer, how to pray incessantly.

Maybe I have broke on through to the other side. I am not going to go for the surgery. Living with the pain sometimes I cry out "Jesus Christ" then I say "Have mercy"

I got to get my chores done early because of the pain med I am taking makes me a shut in during the day.

Thanks for the Christian tolerance. Something in short supply, I guess it has always been that way.

I have no tact, I think it is the Aspergers syndrome.

Life is so beautiful for me these days. If not for gravity I would be just fine.


Sail on

[the mingo]

I ain't awake yet. Get up in the mornin' & it's Goodbye oxygen Hello caffeine!

I've done absolutely nothing with my life but live it. Was something more called for?

If I was a creek running through a glacial made landscape I wouldn't want Richard Brautigan fishing in me. Or writing about it later.

I don't know if I'm going to die with my boots on or not. I'm glad it's not my decision.

Has the pudding been proofed yet ?

I want to go up with Snoopy next time he's out to hunt the Red Baron. I'd like all my old girlfriends & ex-wives to see us hurtling earthward smoke pouring out the back of the doghouse our fists raised skyward with a "Curse You Red Baron!" issuing from our throats & our scarves blowing out straight in the wind.

I can feel the caffeine comin' on.

Was thinking about the pain you're talking about, Jack. Now that I'm broke is probably when one or the other of my teeth are gonna start hurtin'.

[stilltrucking]

Second cup listening to the radio (NPR morning edition)

here is a sound byte

Next time you're hurting, try opening your wallet and counting your cash. ... shows that handling and thinking about money can actually lessen pain and ease

Been surfing about Sparta this morning,
they had an interesting arrangement between men and women
put them in a dark room and the first woman a man would grab hold of would marry him.


Got my outside chores done
repotted my tomato plant

That was what I woke up dreaming about
my tomato plant

I can live on home grown tomatos.

Everything is so got dam perfect mingo
I reap what I sow
It may be a delusion but I enjoy taking responsibility for myself

sail on

[the mingo]

I enjoy taking responsibility for myself too ... as long as I don't have to work too hard to discharge it.

[the mingo]

Just stopped on the way back to the lodge from town to get my check to pick some August wildflowers for the woman of the house. Clover, sweet peas. goldenrod, asters.
Also picked a piece of pampas grass to top my little bouquet off. Pampas grass, it's from South America. Introduced here to the northeast as an "ornamental". Of course it has gotten loose and now grows wild. Competes with the native cattails head to head. They call it an "invasive species" ... like it got here on its own. Like it's competing with the native cattails on purpose. Right. Will the real "invasive species" please stand up ?

[stilltrucking]

It is a vain delusion.
the truth is too ugly
So I take responsibility for myself
And I avoid mirrors

One of these days I will sail away
right through the looking glass

[the mingo]

First time I heard that about choosing mates in Sparta, Jack. Sounds like it would do the job about as well as anything else that has been tried over the millennia. Thanks for mentioning it.