It is Black Friday again. Last year we visited the Lemp House and stayed the night in its haunted confines. This BF we are enjoying our friends Margo and Jeff and we are soon to have some birthday cake for Jeff’s Birthday.

Jeff and I spoke with Michael T. last evening. Michael T. is such a kind and considerate gentleman. As I was listening to his voice I transported in time 50 years ago when we first met. He is one of the most positive people that I know. It is an encouragement to just hear him speak and his kindness to me so many years ago has never been forgotten.

My Buddy Brent looks just like I remembered from our days of installing carpet out of his old Checker Cab. The Cabs headlights were malfunctioning thus if our installation job ran after dark…I shined a flashlight out of the passenger window in order for us to stay on the road and not cross the center line. MJ would make Brent and me a fried egg sandwich for our lunch and often Brent would inquire as to whether MJ had made the egg sandwiches. When I answered in the affirmative he suggested that we eat the fried egg sandwiches for breakfast and that he would buy our lunch…and so we did…with gusto. One morning MJ accidentally put a lot of salt on the sandwiches. As Brent drove us down the road to our first job he began to munch on his favorite breakfast…his face began to flush and his eyes to moisten. Upon my taking a bite of my sandwich…I immediately understood the problem. When I asked Brent how his sandwich was…he responded that it was just like he liked it.

Goble Goble Goble is what I just heard as I sat down on the Writing Porch. Indeed the time has come to enjoy a day of family and friends and appreciation for the profound gift of life.

‘Save me the drumstick,’ Chet said with a gluttonous grin. ‘I am a breast man,’ Billy B. commented. ‘The giblet gravy is to die for,’ Jane pronounced. ‘I simply can not get my fill of the stuffing,’ Jonathon B. proclaimed. ‘More wine…it is Merlot…my favorite,’ Neva J. laughed as she refilled each glass to the top of the rim.

Did you see Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning,’ Aaron B. asked. ‘I thought it was the best one ever…especially the resplendent Santa Claus at the end,’ Grandma A. added. ‘The Macy’s Parade always puts me in the mood for the Christmas Season,’ Debbie R. said with a smile. ‘Here are my special mashed potatoes,’ uncle Ron said as he ladled a generous helping on each hungry holiday reveler. Cousin Paige was busily making the Margaritas…which had become a new Thanksgiving Tradition. Cousin Tyler announced that after dinner…the Thanksgiving Party begins!

The Thanksgiving weather was so mild that the grand feast was held on the Writing Porch. Margo and Jeff had come from London to enjoy the uniquely American Holiday. Soon ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town was playing on the stereo…from a Vinyl recording…followed by Berl Ives’s Holiday rendition of ‘Silver And Gold.’

Then the dancing commenced with Margo and Jeff doing the Turkey Trot. Soon everyone joined in. It was a sight to behold.

Mylo ran from one dancer to the next wearing his new Christmas Sweater and searching for apple slices and blueberries.

We have been enjoying our dear friends Margo and Jeff as they visit from London. Jeff accompanied Jonathon and me to church Sunday morning. Not only was he well received at First Presbyterian but we had a lovely visit with Rick and Dori Jefferson. Whenever MJ and I have the opportunity to visit with our United Kingdom friends I am reminded of how short life is. Yesterday Jeff and I were teenagers…now we are not…

A benefit of knowing someone for over 50 years is that even though you may not have seen them for some time…it is as if you have not been separated. The memories of years gone by seem to morph into the present time without a ripple. Shared experiences make a wonderful holiday catalog of hope for the future.

It is warming up a bit and that is welcome. It has been unseasonably cold for the past several days. We joined Margo and Jeff and Thelma, Margo’s mom, for lunch yesterday. I always enjoy seeing Thelma. On more than one occasion she shared her family dinners with me when it appeared that there was just enough for her and her sons and my friends…Brent and Bart. Thelma always made me welcome and at home.

I often said to MJ when we were just starting out on life’s journey that we must strive to enjoy every day as we knew not how long we would live and if we lived to be old…it would whisk by rapidly. I see that I was correct. Why worry your life away…it is a gift…unwrap the pretty paper and take off the lovely bow…and live…

It was the Southern Illinois Blizzard of 1979. Eighteen inches of snow and impassable roads. MJ and I had the pleasure of hosting Margo and Jeff in our home…which I think was still our first home…the trailer. We had a blast enjoying the winter wonderland and eating homemade biscuits. Mom was with us as she could not return to her home in Eldorado. Finally, we embarked on our frontier journey to follow the snowy path to the City of Gold. We made it with our hands frozen to the steering wheel and our hearts in our throats.

We were yet to begin our family and Margo and Jeff were years away from moving to the United Kingdom. Everything seemed possible and yet a bit of a scare of the unknown. Often what appeared to be frightening turned out to be fascinating. Challenges that seemed too high to climb…turned out to be foothills with lovely scenery.

Opportunity knocks every now and then in our lives…it is important to answer the knock.

MJ and I are picking up our lifelong friends in a couple of hours…they will be with us for a few days…I don’t think that we will have biscuits…but I will be thinking of the Blizzard of 79’…

From our earliest days, our parents and teachers and friends and family illustrated for us how we should live and what we should think and where the lines of our behavior were drawn and to therefore not cross them. Often parents attempt to fashion little replicas or mini-mes of themselves. Unhappiness and depression and even a bad stomach come from trying to fit our lives into the expectations of society.

I have taken some pleasure in reading the writings of one of my dear friend’s son who has entered the ministry. He seems to downplay the old religious saw of pointing to the man of god for all of the answers to a Christian life… or being a member of a small sect that is to be saved while the rest of honest-hearted Christians burn under the judgment of God.

God is inclusionary, not exclusionary. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ John 3:16. NIV

The chains of the expectations of others…grow very heavy indeed. It is often the case that a person can go through their entire life and never realize who they are. The certainty with which our advisors speak to us about our life is not reflected in theirs. The Cult Leader Keith Rainere spoke to his acolytes with clear pronouncements of what they must do to meet his expectations. These expectations always redounded to his benefit and when they failed to do something that he thought they should do he told them that they were guilty of an ethical breach…that they could never recover from…although they tried and tried and tried. One young woman was captive in a room for two years in the struggle to regain Raniere’s confidence.

Illness can result from attempting to be someone that we are not. Mental and physical maladies occur when we attempt to form ourselves into the rigid ideology of men and women who have interpreted either the Bible or Faith or simply our life…after their idea of right and wrong and who is in and who is sadly out…

‘Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat…won’t you please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t got a penny a hay penny will do…if you haven’t got a hay penny…God bless you…’

Forty-one years ago… not long from now…Aaron came into the world with a lusty cry. MJ and I were excited and ecstatic with our newborn son. It was cold like it is today. When I made my first visit to the nursery the nurse in charge of the babies asked me if I wanted to feed my new son some formula. He had on a little blue hat. He was quite dapper. I held him in my arms and fed him his bottle and he looked very content with his new surroundings. I thought what a miracle and hoped that I would be a good father. The nurse said that he has a lot of character…and he still does…

His first words were ‘Di Da’ whereupon he would slap his bottom lip and grin. When I carried him into our little four-room house in Elkville, Illinois…I knew that we would never be the same…life had changed.

Aaron and I are much more alike than he realizes. Many of his thoughts and ideas are identical to mine. On the rare occasions that we disagree…I listen to his opinion and often change mine due to his well-thought-out hypothesis.

Aaron is kind and thoughtful and considerate. He is a hard and dedicated worker and gives his job all that he has to give. He helps his mom some in the kitchen and he can cook the best hamburgers that I have ever consumed. I am continually amazed at the depth of his knowledge of a multitude of subjects.

Aaron is a natural manager. A consummate photographer and a gifted artist. His smile lights up any room that he is in!

If Aaron is 41…how come I am only 50? Indeed I was 24 when he was born and I thought that I was old and had seen it all. After Aaron joined MJ and I…I knew that I had not even begun to live…

Aaron gave me a Zippo Lighter for my birthday. I remember my dad and his grandpa carrying a Zippo Lighter. I would watch dad light his Zippo and he looked like a man’s man…a father of the 60s… Aaron reminds me of dad…

It is a few days until Thanksgiving. The Holiday Season is here. It is time to purchase Christmas presents, decorate the Christmas Tree, and visit St. Charles, Missouri. We have not visited St. Charles since 2019. Then came Our Pandemic which never left… We saw Aaron Neville at Powell Hall in January 2020…and then we went home and stayed for a year or more…with little contact involving people, all the businesses were closed as well as SIUC and theatres and our church. It was a Brooks Family tradition to visit St. Charles each Black Friday…until it was not. There will be Santa Claus and St. Nicholas and Father Noel and elves and Mr. Scrooge and Tiny Tim…and even the Ghost of Christmas at St. Charles.

Margo and Jeff are coming and we are excited… We had been visiting Europe and the United Kingdom every two years…until Our Pandemic. Being with Margo and Jeff is great fun!

Life as we knew it changed…and is still changing due to the Pandemic. History will be the judge of just how drastically we have changed. We are in the middle of the Great Change…and can not truly see the ramifications of it due to our myopic perspective.

Cold and misty was the order of today. The leaves are mostly on the ground. Change surrounds us. We humans believe that we are in control. Many of us are control addicts. We do not enjoy feeling out of control. We like every I dotted and every T crossed. We enjoy our routine and we do not enjoy having it disrupted.

I enjoy my trips to Eldorado. Each time that I am there I recall how I felt when I was walking the streets of the little town…and how it feels to walk them now. It seems like just a short time since I was a child in Eldorado…but it has been over 50 years. Time is a peculiar mysterious and liquid dimension. When we think that our exploits are memorable and compelling and something that deserved to be memorialized…all we have to do is watch a family member scatter the ashes of their cremated loved one over the ocean.

I saw the most interesting of movies the other night where the ending revealed that the characters in the flick had been living in a computer simulation. I was totally blindsided at the surprise thriller ending and reflected on the Quantum Physics idea that all of us are simply members of a computer simulation and that helps explain the occasional glitches that we encounter from time to time.

It has been said that dust we are and to dust, we return… Indeed we are spiritual beings in earthen vessels. What we see…and do we see the same things…is malleable and breaks down into its molecular components.

Love is what we leave behind after we are no longer here. Love is our legacy.

It is another late fall day in the neighborhood. The Woods were in good order today and changed a bit from yesterday. I pondered this morning how many humans had walked where I was trodding. I had a colleague who told me that he often went to the woods on Sunday…that was his church. The older I get the more I understand his philosophy. We humans love words and those who can speak them well captivate our minds.

Story… is the constant of life’s narrative. We love our jobs…if indeed we do…due to the story that our employer tells. We are Christians due to the story of Jesus. We raise our family in emulation of the story of a family that has been mentored for us. In art and literature and theatre… the story is what we seek to expand our understanding of who we are and why we are here.

Illness is like hitting a brick wall in our story. We are reminded of the temporal nature of our position as an actor in the grand story of humanity… The scripture asks…’What is a man that thou art mindful of him…’

Old age creeps up on us almost unawares. We walk slower and see dimly and hear…what we want to hear. Looking back we see the story more clearly. How many times did our Guardian Angel protect us at the last minute when we were confident that we had the master plan and did not require any additional advice from the Peanut Gallery.

Fascinating it is to see people follow a good storyteller. I am watching an HBO documentary regarding the NXIVM Cult that is led by Keith Raniere. Mr. Raniere was so adept at spinning a compelling story that many women followers of NXIVM allowed themselves to be physically branded with his initials to prove their loyalty to him. His title was Vanguard in the movement and his second in command was called Prefect. The teachings of Raniere were so persuasive that actors and the well-educated and the rich followed him. When you look at the Cult from the outside it seems patently obvious that it was a bizarre lie and abusive in the extreme. But there. is something about being inside that is brainwashing and identity removing and evil that can not be seen…similar to not being able to see the forest for the trees.

Simplistic answers do not solve complex problems. Beautiful words are spoken by evil people…at times. ‘And the devil said to Him, ‘All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.’ Luke 4:6

The chill factor is 33 degrees… which is 1 degree above freezing. Yet I am on the Writing Porch…cold. We just had our cedar tree trimmed and now I have a perfect view of our pond. If it keeps this up…it soon will be On Frozen Pond.

I traveled to Eldorado yesterday to pick up the two tiles that I had purchased with Eldorado Scenes from my youth. I bought two more…another trip back to Bountiful…Eldorado. Cynthia and Marlene were there and when they found out that I have journeyed to our hometown many times over 2022 to take photos…they suggested that I share some with them and asked if I had ever considered capturing some images and asking the question…’Where is this at in Eldorado?’ I like the idea and plan on doing so before the end of the year.

Our dog groomers have a new Bull Terrier…and he is adorable. Perhaps you recall Spuds MacKenzie. As I walk the streets of Eldorado I am transported in time to the days of my youth. I can see my Grandma Askew and my dear mother and my good friend Jackie Brooks. When I look at the Orpheum Theatre I recall entering and exiting the wooden and glass doors…hundreds of times and watching flicks that formed much of my worldview at that time and even today.

Margo and Jeff are coming…and we are excited! They are dear friends from the United Kingdom. We met 50 years ago in the little village of Elkville. They are coming to visit and enjoy Thanksgiving with Margo’s mother…Thelma…who is another dear friend. I am certain that we will tell tales and spin yarns…and simply enjoy each other’s company.

The past few days have been more springlike than fall. Parents and grandparents had their kids and grandchildren at Giant City to slide and swing. I remember the teeter-totters. Where did all of the teeter-totters go? When I first met Jackie B. and we would play on the seesaw on the playground at Hillcrest School… he could hold me in the air until he grew bored of doing so. When I protested that I wanted to come down he looked up with squinted eyes into the sun and a large grin. Neva J. bought me a hat that buckled up in the front and the ear flaps connected to the top of the headgear. The idea was to unsnap the ear flaps and re-snap the strap under your chin. If I was not wearing this weird hat I was wearing a sock hat. I hated sock hats…they had no character. As soon as I was financially able I began to wear classic fedoras and hats with some class. Almost no one in Little Egypt wears these types of hats. The most loved hat in Southern Illinois is a ball cap. I have never worn a ball cap well. I had a pastor who advised me that I should bend both sides of the straight brim of the ball cap down severely. He assured me that was what the style of the day demanded. I chose not to do so and subsequently forgo to this day…ball caps.

My wardrobe dream was to own a leather coat. It seemed to me that people took those who wore leather coats seriously and with some respect. I noticed that my doctor had a leather coat. So, I purchased the first of many leather coats through the years. Today wearing a leather coat means little to me…but they still look good. Today the lighter the coat…the better I like it.

Leather gloves were another aspiration of mine in my teeter-totter days. I purchased a pair of leather gloves from the L.L. Bean Store in Freeport a year ago in September and I am pondering wearing them today. We have our first snow of the season. A few days ago we had record breaking temperature of 81 degrees now 31 degrees and snow.

Jonathon and I tried the Bar at the Giant City Lodge out yesterday and found it outstanding! We found ourselves surrounded by a Crocodile Head a stuffed Turkey and an Opossum hanging from a limb…what a unique Restaurant and Bar.

Teeter-Totters remind me of life. One day you are up…and the next day you are down. There is a manifest reason we humans appreciate good times…we fully understand what the bad times feel like.

Raiment is necessary and indeed vital for us humans as we have mostly hairless bodies that do not respond well to the elements. Life clothes are important as well. Early in my life, I discovered that I could be a primarily negative person and that there was some bitter joy and satisfaction in the process. After all…how can a person be blamed for their mistakes or maladies if Life’s Card Dealer has simply dealt them a bad hand of cards…

Focus it takes to wear the clothes of acceptance and forgiveness and mercy and empathy. Sometimes the sweater of optimism does not fit perfectly. Perhaps your hat has to be stretched to allow acceptance of others. Indeed you may be compelled to give your fine leather gloves to the homeless person whose hands are freezing…