Greetings from the Palmetto state.

Pleasant evening with the family last night.

It was great seeing my son Kevin, his wife Lauren, and my sweet granddaughter Sydney again.

Sydney is six now and she’s really quite amazing. Loves to tell jokes and laughs at mine. Smart as hell too, great vocabulary and knows stuff that lots of grownups don’t, i.e. state capitals. Anyway, I’m not going to be one of those bragging grandfathers (much), but she was really fun to be around. Looking forward to more time with the other grands too.

Kind of a tough night sleep-wise. No problems staying awake through the evening hours so I thought I had the jet thing whipped. Woke up at 2:30 in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep until 6:00. Woke up at 9:00 and it was raining which precluded me taking my planned walk. Fooled around on the internet, then went back to bed and slept until the early afternoon. Geez.

Wasn’t a total waste of a day though because I discovered this:

A time machine.

Yeah, I know it looks like an Ernest & Julio Gallo wine box. But when I looked inside I was transported back to the early 1970s. The contents included:

My high school sweetheart Karen’s senior portrait…

A photo of me, Karen, and my 1963 Ford pickup truck.

A copy of my high school newspaper where I served as a columnist and executive editor.

One of several short stories I wrote (yeah, my dream back then was to be a writer). And some gawd awful poetry I authored as well.

No idea what might be on these old cassette tapes, And no idea how I’ll ever find out. That technology just doesn’t exist here in the 21st century I’m afraid.

Anyway, there was also a journal in the box. What really shocked me about my thinking from those long ago days is that it is so similar to how I often feel these days. I guess I haven’t learned much. Or maybe the more things change, the more they remain the same. Or something. Take this entry from October 1974 for example:

Well, it happened again, three times in three weeks. Pretty fucking good! I’m bitter, I know it. But I’m tired of it all. Ya know, I’m alive and I feel pain too. Goddamn, haven’t I paid the price yet!

It doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’ve had it. Women are my downfall and I can make it alone. There are more important things for me to do.

Well, that was 44 years ago. I have no recollection of what I was on about, but damn, it does sound familiar. Scary to think I still haven’t figured things out. And yet, here I am, still plugging away. I do recall that I was thinking about suicide quite often back then. And doing lots of drugs, mostly pot but sometimes LSD and PCP. So, I guess I have made progress in my life at least.

Anyway the time machine experience has given me a lot to think about. No answers of course, but at least some perspective.

And I’ll leave you with a dose of some of the bad poetry I mentioned above. No date on this one, but it’s titled “New Year’s Eve”. My guess is it lamenting another lost love, probably Gail Weed.

You never even took the time
To see what you were using
And you were shocked when you found out
It was you who did the losing

And when it is finally all over
Will you look at your life and be sad?
Will you remember the the people and places
And the love you could have had?

I’ll be happy if I can just avoid more fuck ups. I’d love to have love in my life again, but not if it ultimately results in more bad poetry.