The Human side of Humanity

 Good day readers and followers.  Happy Thanksgiving, which will be over here in the states by the time I get this piece completed and posted.  The "holiday season" is in full swing and is a time that used to be my favorite part of the year. Living in the east/ mid-atlantic region of the USA we have the change of seasons and the autumnal equinox brings cooler weather, bright colors of yellow, red, and orange on the leaves then transitions to colder temperatures and hues of blue and purple as the leaves fall.  Hence the "Fall" season. I am very grateful for every day.  Every day that I have been given that some of my dearly departed and very missed friends were not given in this life.  However, that is also part of what changed me.  What changed my thought of the favorite time of year.  I choose my friends in a very delicately selective way.  In a way that those closest to me make fun of me...but it is also why I so much miss those friends tha...

 Hello dear readers.  The idea behind this blog started out as something different but before I could even start it there was another shooting in the city where America was born....where I was born. Philadelphia.  I still live in an adjoining suburb. Supposedly we are the "City of Brotherly Love."   Six weeks ago after a particularly violent weekend I tweeted "It is a sad, horrible and frightening reality in the "City of NO Brotherly Love."  The love has truly been lost.  Every morning I wake and hope the stat line is zero shootings and homicides." This recent shooting, after a joint high school football scrimmage was another homicide in a horrific year.  Any death by violence is bad, but this brought additional shock and sadness.  This was a shooting involving teenagers.  The shooters & the targets- all teens.  Targeting kids just trying to get on a bus after playing a sport to have fun and stay out of trouble disgusts me...

 Good day readers and followers.  Welcome to late summer here in the USA!   I came to a point of realization yesterday as I was getting ready for work.  The world has long since started to return to what used to be normal.  We don't all just work at home.  We go to the office, we go to see clients, we leave the house and for me that means leaving my dogs by themselves.  My pups don't really like when I leave for long periods. First let me explain my two pooches again.  Skye, my girl, was adopted from a rescue at nine weeks old.  Skye was born at the rescue, a place where some of the volunteers come in just to play with the dogs.  The happiest dog ever, she was adopted to be a buddy to my aging Westie, Piper, who has since passed over the mythical "rainbow bridge."  Skye is a mix of mini-greyhound, Jack Russell and Chihuahua, 13 pounds of speed, happiness and fun.  My older daughter and my granddaughter lived with me for th...

 Good day readers.  Happy Summertime!  Welcome back to my first post since the change of seasons.  Back in late the Spring I read an intriguing article by writer Leah Campbell about missing her "soulmate window."  While Ms. Campbell is still relatively young at only 38 years old, she came to that realization at the age of 32.  There were parts of her story that reminded me of many people I have known and a piece that I wrote years ago.  I previously wrote a blog about the struggles of trying to find a suitable date, mate, significant human to share life's experiences in my post-divorce e-dating reality. It was a struggle.  Eventually I threw in the mythical towel on e-dating.   In full disclosure- reading that article and then writing about it also made me keenly aware that I had stopped searching for a "match, mate, date" or whatever we are calling it these days.  I am sarcastic and cynical.  Being a cynic means I have little ...

Hello dear readers,  as many know this has been a a really horrifying five days since 19 young children and two teachers were shot to death at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX.  It is hard to fathom.  More challenging is the knowledge that in just the first 122 days of the year 2022, there have already been 27 school shootings.  I was watching an interview with the father of a young girl who was killed at the Stoneman Douglass shooting in Parkland Fl.  I was jarred back to a piece I wrote here in 2018 about the memories all those affected at that tragedy will have in the future. The Dad was saying in paraphrase, "All these things, all these memories I will never have, those parents in Uvalde will never have in their lifetime...No high school graduation, no college graduation, no proms or weddings.  All stolen. I want everyone to think how you would feel if your child was killed."   I am the father of only daughters, and a granddaughter.  ...

 Good day readers- and a great weekend it is with the springtime sun to shine a light on the end of a busy work week and beginning to another.  I had a busy week and in my down time not only do I write but I also like to read.  An interesting article came up by writer/author Leah Campbell.  The piece was called I missed my soulmate window because I was too busy having fun.   I enjoyed the article and it reminded me of a piece I wrote a few years ago on a former blog I had called  E-Dating and the new reality .  In that blog I discussed the travails and challenges of dating or finding a date in the electronic age, perusing dating sites for a substantive match.  It was filled with sarcasm, which is a character trait of mine.  Sometimes I went on the site cynically looking for material for my blog, not a date. I broke down the population into a few segments but concentrated on two.  I called them the ABS crowd and the DWC crowd.  ...

Good day readers, followers.  If you really care about it, Happy Valentine's Day.  As for me, this is merely another day.  I have long felt that Valentine's day was just a commercial push for sales.  This blog isn't about Valentine's day, I just happen to be writing it on February 14.  I've written a past piece about this day and it's supposed history.  This piece is about the goodness of humanity. The positivity and morality that everyone can possess but don't always exhibit. Due to the common lack of these qualities when someone specifically does, well, it shines through.  A bright light, like a halo in the darkness. A halo, the mythical circular light that appears above the head of those who exude goodness. The light is reserved for only those with the qualities of an Angel, closest to perfection.  Now, we are all human, so there is no such thing as perfection.  We are all as I've long said- perfectly human.  Part of being human means...

 Good day readers, friends, followers.  Answerman, sleepless Answerman here at less than 3 am Eastern, in Greater Questionopolis, USA (GQU).  I woke with a head full of thoughts and despite my younger pup's best intentions- could not just snuggle back into slumber.  As a result here I sit with a keyboard and some speakers lulling me into the reality of a Saturday-to-be.  To most, this is the "middle of the night."  However, the reality is that with it being after 12 am it is really the middle of the   morning darkness  The reality, and that is what this blog represents, reality....the middle of the morning is best described as 5am-8am.  At "Less- than- 3am," it is dark, saving for the glorious moonlight.  We are really in the middle of the morning darkness.  I am cool with that notion.  I love the moon and it is invigorating moonlight. Once upon a time, in an era we call the 90's the great lyricist, singer, musician Billy...