b. traven

I’m ninety three now and Kurt Weill’s “September Song”  can bring me to tears. Not just because it hearkens back to my lost youth but its poignancy of “loss” reverberates to my sadness over the loss of our country to greed and vicious mediocrity. My youth was spent in a war that we came out from with hope for a world getting better and today we see our nation and our world spinning out of control both physically in the environment and  spiritually in society and governance. The words below of Kurt Weil, forced to leave our country over fifty years ago because he was a communist in spite of being a sensitive song writer.

When I was a young man and courting the girls,
I played me a waiting game…

But it’s a long, long way from May to December
And the days grow short when you reach September

And you don’t get time for the waiting game
when the days trickle down to a precious few.

Those days are getting very short at my age and I try to do as much as I can to make the most of each day to make things better in our world. I try to leave as small a footprint as possible in waste to help the environment. I save every scrap of paper, plastic, and metal to recycle. I try to help those who are working to make change in our governance. I believe that “a contrary perspective” in each person’s life is the bedrock of our democracy.  My wife feels I am too “negative” but I still retain from that young man of 21 who came out of the army in1946 that scepticism that power is not a “waiting game” but a commitment to today.