Continuity

    Nice to be back, folks! Hope you are all doing fine. Please continue to contact me with your interests and ideas, they are still very necessary and I do enjoy hearing your opinions.  If you approve of the posts, what exactly do you like about receiving stories of personal knowledge and experience in our local history? Tell me, please.

    I am basically doing a rush job on this one and so will be leaving the links behind for a handful of observations.

     Yes, "Continuity" is the name of the post, as attesting to various facets of our lives in referring to the many complications we deal with so often. There are alarming changes we have seen in a relatively small number of years. I could of just as well called it Discontinuity, too. An opposite example would be the unfortunate occurrence of the manner of rarer posts made to the blog in the last year or so! Now you probably get the drift, right? Here, we are concerned with lack of continuity in our lives in modern times. I decided to forgo making connection to links or research. The main concerns seem self-explanatory to me.

   Although by no means a "scholastic report', beyond the obvious concerns of recent political and media bias run rampant, as always in historical terms, there is a continuance of change in the broader scheme of things, yet we live in a more manic and volatile age.

    A little list will definitely include the following:

 - Commercials: More and more frequently, they are full of nonsense and contain weird humor. A real chore to sit through.

- Older Americans - And the old heroes are long gone -replacing them with WHAT?! Comic book characters, then? A great improvement, maybe in the ideas and impressionistic minds of the young, but hardly producing a lsting effect in the quality of their 

 - Government regulations:  appear ever more stringent and complicated, perhaps in the attitude of 'doing somthing' to make situations look better.

- Degradation of music. This one should be obvious to most older Americans. Many younger people have much to say about the lack of quality and content also. Need we say much more?

- Advanced technology: Such advances are a positive in some ways, especially in a lowering of price ranges for consumers, but still seems to get more complicated, not less so. Just look at the constant stream of 'apps' for your phone or computer...gigabytes from kilobytes, on and on it goes while security does not keep up as noted in the next category.

- Social networking: All one need do is observe Facebook and some other online conglomerates and the newer realizations that being hacked in the millions is suppose to become somehow acceptable these days. All for the pleasure of an upgrade here and there. Many of us sensed all along where this could be leading the nation.

  - Upgrades: After  a while, yep, no more upgrades - like vintage 8 tracks, cassettes, all wiped away without a thought. The same with the old Windows systems, long unsupported; old phones and outmoded televisions fall quickly by the wayside. So much more modernity exists all around us as I write this. Oh the march of what is weakly called 'progress'! Naturally enough, the young may not notice these conditions so much, that's understandable. It's about time they took a closer look at our society and the stability or lack thereof. Because personally, for whatever reason, I tended to pay attention to trends in my surroundings going back to my teenage years. Maybe we were a bit more studious back then, who knows.

   There are probably a lot of other issues that could be mentioned -crime, immigration, taxes, changing plans with utility companies, the job market, on and on. You are reading this now, so I would venture a strong  guess that you are smart enough to know what those problems are and have lots of creative ideas on how they should be solved. 

   Hey, whatever happened to the dangers of noise pollution? How about air pollution in our communities? Wasn't this a looming concern in the 1970's?

   Speaking of the community, we have seen the mixed results as the old ones die off, of people constantly moving here to there, homes being sold and rented out. Some of the influx of local color and neighbors sadly appear to have less interest in these old villages and their traditions. They are new to them, after all, holding very little understanding or sympathy toward these localities comparing unfavorably with residents who have had ancestors die here, go off to wars, buried in our cemeteries, raised families and spent their lives growing up and cherishing the old spaces and places, having deeply invested in the prospects of local interests. Theirs was a special influence we must not be forget, their lives honored.

 
   While the regular happenings taking place in town and village life in small segments offer a generalization of basic factors subject to minor change, this is to be expected. That does not explain the enormous adjustments we make in a large degree denoting many varying perspectives brought on by questionable circumstances involving long and short term causes of a whole melee of meaningful issues raising significant challenges to our regional way of life, to the point we are hard pressed to know which way to turn.

    So...we do the best we can. Keep  your nose to the wind and your wits about you, folks. Remember your p's and q's; try to keep our origins uppermost in your minds. There is always a tremendous hope around the corner and down the road.

    Let us reassure ourselves of our American resourcefulness in years to come and I suggest you do not forget to give your prayers key consideration in asking for God's continual blessings in the future.

    Let's start by experiencing and enjoying the continuity of a traditional holiday in the middle of the coming week!

    Merry Christmas and a most Happy New Year to you and yours

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

      On behalf of the website, I want to personally thank all the good visitors for coming in for a while out of the wind and snow to spend some cozy time in this corner of the internet. I will be back soon with more posts.

      Take the time now to do a little last minute shopping, maybe bake some sugar cookies and enjoy the presents. Give and Receive. The twinkling holiday lights, that magic look on Christmas morning in a child's wide eyes reflected in our own, that first whiff of delectable stuffing from a juicy turkey, one of the finer nuances of our culinary lives. I hope you experience a late Nutcracker dream on a silent, holy night. And to imagine in those olden times when laborers and merchants took a full twelve days for all the festivities!

      Please, take a special moment out of the exhilarating rush by midnight for a carol or hymn with the peel of church bells and ponder the deeper side of your own holiday history and the miracle underlying the shared celebrations of Yuletide.


    

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a most Happy New Year !

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Merry Christmas And Happy New Year To All

  Well, it's that special time of year again, Sleigh bells, (if you still hear any of those ), shining Christmas trees, with beribboned gifts beneath anxiously awaited; the wonderful smell of turkey soon to come, pealing church bells, Santa's arrival and, not in the least, the birth of the Savior in a manager, those mysterious angels singing and shepherds watching by night with the slow approach of the wise men.

 The snow sure has been blowing to help put us in the mood. Have a bit of eggnog and the warmth of a fireplace; enjoy the spirit of giving and some receiving as well!
                    

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all

 

Christmas   Eve

 

It is, indeed, the night before Christmas,

 colorful presents aplenty
turkey dinner of the next day awaited,

Bells are ringing with carols to be sung

a glimmering tree a lit , shining with hope and magic
Holly wreath and mistletoe hung,

to welcome Santa and his elves

An old red stocking all stuffed,
the winter's snow silently falling and a candle glowing
and thoughts gently turning

to the season of wise men, a miracle Star,
our Saviour's birth

Goodwill and festive cheer
the heartfelt desire at this great time of the year,
near in the minds of those that are near

A special charity, A special reason,
to all people, Yuletide greetings

And in all our dreams,
the Holy Night surrounds us

filling us with the love and delight
of Christmas Eve


(written, Dec, 24th, 1982)


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