He ain’t heavy

About forty years ago I would sit behind a drum kit at four thirty every Saturday. John Tassone my drum teacher puffed on his pipe and would start the record and I would try to play along with the music. More often than not I would have stop and restart the music. One Saturday he started a song called "He ain't heavy he's my brother". I had real trouble playing that song for the simple reason I was picturing the lyrics in my mind. I was picturing a man carrying another man. I really didn't realize until many years later what that song was all about.

The road is long with many of winding turns
That lead us to who knows where,
who knows where
But I'm strong,
strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
So on we go
His welfare is my concern
No burden is he to bear, we'll get there
For I know
he would not encumber me
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
If I'm laden at all,
I am laden with sadness that
everyone's heart isn't filled with the gladness
of Love for one another
It's a long long road
From which there is no return
while we're on our way to there why not share
And the load doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy , he's my brother
He ain't heavy
He's my brother

"The Hollies"

This song it seems means even more today I would think that during the current difficulty you must know someone who you might carry. After all he ain't heavy .

Death

"Death is the ultimate injustice"

Most of us don't think about death until it is thrust upon us via a death of a relative or a friend. However, it is something we all must face and it seems that we have little say in how and when, That is unless you take your own life and you have the time and place and method at your disposal. My problem with death is that the only justification I can see for its need is to keep the planet from being overpopulated.

I am not going into the religious significance of death, that is a can of worms I refuse to open. Moreover, I can see no way to avoid it I believe that if we were able to find cures for every illness and somehow stop all accidents and really bring death to a halt we would only slow it down for a short time. I believe in some fashion it would begin to consume us in wholesale fashion again at some point. I looked up online the amount of deaths per day on the planet and my research came up with somewhere around ten thousand a day die here on terra firma. Many more than I would expect, that started me thinking that if this planet goes on say for another thousand years we will need a lot more space for graveyards unless we come to some consensus on cremation and there again is another topic I will leave alone.

The finality of death and its randomness strikes me as a crap shoot and lottery, a flip of the coin if you will. One day you're here and the next you're gone and it seems that it takes most of your friends about two weeks for you to leave their memory unless they get the occasional reminder that you have just died. I guess it makes people think about their own demise and no one wants to do that. Now that's exactly what I am doing making you think about your death and do you agree that it is the ultimate injustice? Think about it for a minute did you do anything to deserve it? Have you engaged in genocide or ethnic cleansing, wholesale slaughter of others or any one of the acts which society has decided to place death as the ultimate price?

Having done nothing of this kind then is your death and yes you will have one, is it justified? Can you give me any good sound reason why you should die? Why your life should come to an end and the appointed hour. Remember we are or at least I am leaving any kind of divine intervention out of this. Having trouble justifying your demise, can't find a good reason? Now I mean a good reason not the noble crap "my time has come I have lived a good life and it's time for me to go stuff" I mean a good reason that says to you "yes that's a good reason for me to die" Yes, I believe that reason makes it ok for me to leave my family, my friends, my job, my car, my money and or anything else that might seem worth living for.

I can't for the life of me seem to find any good reason for my death or anyone else for that matter save the Hitler's and the like. Nope, can't see it for you or me, I think we should be able to stick around for as long as we like. Turn it around for a second how many reasons can you give me to stay alive?

Brewery in Lorain

Recently, I watched a news piece on the rise of craft brews or basically local brew houses. This begs the question of why not here in Lorain and why not use the Broadway building. Now I have no idea who owns the building and it looks like it needs some repair. However, it sits empty and deteriorating as you read this. I would expect that if would make a good building for just such an enterprise. Cleveland has "Great Lakes Brewery" and arguably has had some success and I do not see why we cannot do the same thing here on the river. No, I have no brewing experience No; I have no experience running a brewery. However, I do have experience drinking good beer and that must count for something. What do you think? (About the brewery).

Corn syrup

Next time you go shopping take a minute or two and look at the labels on your food and see how much high fructose corn syrup is in just about everything. I think the only think it's not in is gasoline.

Wonder about that

Do you take the time to wonder about things? Things like why we get old, why we have to die, why we wrinkle like a prune. Why we have a change in seasons and why those seasons seem longer in the winter than the summer months. Moreover, why we marry who we marry and why we get rid of those folks nearly fifty percent of the time. Additionally, why do make the choices we make and why animals don't go to heaven! That's enough!

Recall

The time has come to start thinking about getting enough signatures to recall the Govenor!