This is the End of 2016 My Beautiful Friend, the End

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntPHFVWDIqM

It’s New Year’s Eve and we gather together or sit alone and say good-bye to the year past while welcoming the new year full of unknown potential for good and bad.  It should be a time of fanfare and fireworks.  Not this time.  Looking back over 2016 I can only say “good riddance!”  Burn it down!  Looking forward to 2017?  Anyone’s guess. 

I certainly did not accomplish everything I had hoped to do this year.  But does one ever?  There were a number of research projects keeping me busy, and there were always the various writing projects - a novel, a novella, some short stories - that moved forward although not as quickly, and often not as satisfactorily as I had hoped.  Still, I persevere.  It’s what writers do.  Be happy with what you get down on paper.

I have not posted here very much this year.  I guess my mind has just been elsewhere.  There were none of the usual “Dispatches from Maine” during the summer months.  Distractions.  Everyone seemed to have them as we watched our politicians (I hesitate to call them leaders) eat their young during what had to be one of the most divisive national elections in our history.  It just seemed easier to submerge myself into the fictional worlds I have created.  There is a satisfaction even if the work goes slower than one had hoped.  So I will persevere.  There is still much work to do.

Tomorrow I will take a look back at the year we are thankfully leaving behind.  Every year comes with loss and disappointment, yet 2016 had more than its share.

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Celebrating Our 42nd Anniversary Today!!

               Photo Taken December 27, 1974 in Pensacola, Florida.

Wishing Everyone a Festive Holiday Season!

A True American Hero in Every Sense of the Word

I have just learned that John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962, passed away today at age 95 at the Ohio State University medical center in Columbus.

Glenn was the last surviving member of the original Mercury astronauts who also later flew on the Space Shuttle in October 1998, becoming the oldest person ever to fly in space at age 77. That should have been enough to make him a hero in anyone’s book. Yet he had the right stuff long before he became an astronaut, flying 59 combat missions as a Marine pilot in the South Pacific during World War II after enlisting in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He later flew 90 combat missions over Korea during two tours of duty in that conflict. He was a man who never walked away from danger in the service of his country. For his bravery he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and many other honors.

It seems these days the label "hero" is thrown around too easily, affixed to any individual who is simply doing his or her job. But John Glenn was so much more than that. He always did far beyond what was expected of him, and often at great risk of physical harm or death. That is a hero in my book. There aren’t too many out there anymore, and it is always a sad day when one leaves us behind.

John Glenn led a long and honorable life . . . a heroic life. He has slipped the surly bonds of earth for the last time. May he rest in peace.

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Happy Holiday Greetings!

Wishing everyone a very festive holiday season and best wishes for a return to sanity in 2017!