Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For all those unfamiliar with Catholicism, this is the official beginning of the Christmas season, black Friday notwithstanding. Today people came to get their advent candles blessed. There are four candles in an advent wreath. Each candle symbolizes a season during the year, and at the same time, the seasons of life. The use of candles is supposed to symbolize the light Christ brought to the world. But, regardless of your religious belief, is it true? Did Christ bring a light to the world? Is the world any better off now than it was before the advent of Christianity?...

After having given my thoughts to issues such as the erosion of our civil liberties, war, the crisis in education, the history of just about everything, philosophy and religion, I thought it might be time to turn my attention to a really serious subject, Godzilla. Now we all know that Godzilla is the English name for this 100 meter creature, Gojira being the Japanese name. That just should go without saying at this point. Having just spent a morning watching a film in which Godzilla was engaged in combat with Mothra, the giant moth, I cannot help but contemplate the mystery that is the atomic breath...

Since it is going to be Thanksgiving, I thought I would leave a blog appropriate to the occasion. As you who have read my previous blogs know, my family had several people on the Mayflower. Most of them lived to attend that first Thanksgiving. They are: Thomas Rogers, John Bundy, Anna Churchman, Walter Deane, John Gilbert, John Howland, John Rogers, John Stong, Samuell Williams, Sarah Williams, and Thomas Williams. Two of them, Thomas Rogers, and Thomas Williams even signed that famous document, The Mayflower Compact along with Miles Standish and John Alden on November 11, 1620. They weren’t...

There’s a fence I need to mend And some bills I need to send But, hey, the world’s not going to end Tomorrow There’s a friend I need to write But there’s a movie on tonight So if I wait it will be all right Tomorrow There’s that book I’m working on And I have yet to mow the lawn The moments here and then it’s gone Tomorrow. And when my yesterdays have passed And this today becomes my last The world will still be spinning fast Tomorrow Wilson/05

I love living in the twenty-first century. I will admit there are parts of the twentieth century I liked better, but all in all, it’s nice to live in this day and age when we have all this amazing technology. When I think of the things that have been invented just in my lifetime it boggles the mind. I find that many of the students I teach cannot imagine life before there were VCRs, microwave ovens, home computers, and even compact disks. You should see the looks on their faces when I tell them that when I was a child I had only seven TV stations. And they don’t really understand that...

This is a work of Fiction:  Any resemblance to an actual person should be inferred.  After all, who would be this stupid? In the offices of a certain religious broadcasting network: –No, Paul, I don’t know what we’re gonna do. This idiot in the White House is a real problem. So far, we’ve been able to keep him from doing anything, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last. Before you know it, we’re going to have the gays getting married, and after that? Who knows? Dogs marrying cats? It’s just getting out of hand! I tell ya, somebody better do something! And now there’s...

Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner where the dish that received the most attention was the cranberry sauce. It’s funny how we set priorities. We all know the turkey is the main dish, but the other side dishes are important too. But we spend all our time before Thanksgiving telling turkey jokes and reading turkey cartoons. Nobody much tells cranberry jokes. That’s just attaching too much importance to something that isn’t that central to the event. As a matter of fact, I don’t even like cranberries, so I don’t even eat the damn stuff. We do focus on some weird things in...

When I was in junior high school a thousand years ago, we had a dance. I didn’t go to it because I lived too far from the school and my parents didn’t want to drive me the thirty some odd miles each way back to school and back home. This was undoubtedly very wise considering the state of repair of our car, and old Ford station wagon. My dad was barely able to start this car on most occasions, and driving it was no picnic either. I distinctly remember that this car had big holes in the floor caused by rust. I used to enjoy watching the street pass under us as my dad drove up and down...

I remember once, when one of my sons was just about ten (I won’t say which one).  He was over at my apartment complaining about his mom. She had borrowed ten bucks from him from his birthday money and had promised to pay him back by that Saturday. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to make good on that promise, and he was pissed. “She owes ten dollars!” he angrily shouted. And at the time, this struck me as funny. And I said to him, “Let me get this straight. The woman who gave you life, the woman who provides a roof over your head, food for your belly, the clothes...

A body at rest Will stay at rest Unless somebody moves it And that my life Is as it is Most definitely proves it. So many things There are to do And yet remain undone And here I am Still sitting here With none of them begun I could get up And take a walk Or even wash some dishes So much of what We want from life Lives only in our wishes So many hats I might have worn So many roles to play I might have even Changed the world But here I sit today A body moves The way it does And so will keep on going What will stop it Newton said, There is no way of knowing Wilson/06