One of the magazines I subscribe to is Bloomberg Businessweek. It explores a wide range of subjects that will both raise your hopes for the future of our planet Earth with new technology. Then on the next page, a different journalist will try to convince you that armageddon is just around the corner. It might be the strategy as Bloomberg works to compete in these days where news outlets, whether it be the movies, T.V., my cell phone, or Facebook, etc. try to wow you with so much information that’s not normal. I’m afraid that normal might become a word in our vocabulary that my grandchildren might ask “grandpa what does normal mean?” What a question, I’d better be prepared to answer it in a way that will help us all to lead normal lives. I look to my Webster’s New World Dictionary that I bought for an English class that I took at Cal Poly. The year was 1953, my freshman year. I feel more comfortable using this 70-year-old relic from the past because a dictionary freshly printed in today’s printing press might have a definition that is not what I mean at all. Daniel Webster decides normal stands for “Corresponding to the median or average of a large group in type, appearance, achievement function, and development.” To me, that sounds kind of boring but after a fairly long life, I can look back and see that I’ve done quite a few things that weren’t boring. Number one without a doubt is my wife, two daughters, two sons, nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

        I was born during the Great Depression. I was ten years old at the end of World War Two. Watched the Korean War come and go. Then the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and its demise starting on 11/9/89 the Cold War basically ends, after years of name-calling. This war of words I believe ended with a win for democracy and on the other side of the wall Communism demonstrated that it didn’t work very well at improving any society. In the 1960s and part of the 1970s, we fought the Vietnam War which rocked our democracy to its very soul. Then along came the Iraq War and the Afghanistan debacle. Now a Democratic Party is trying to stamp out a possible recession while funding a Ukrainian War with Russia. Now, this is what I call “normal times.” I listened to the evening news this day on 4/14/23 and heard a lot of saber-rattling that is rapidly disintegrating into a game of high stake brinkmanship to see who blinks first; another example of normal human behavior.

        I’ve almost forgotten the reason for this blog. But I’m back on track now. Zee and I were watching on our T.V. The American Rodeo. The rodeo with the richest purse and for those that are not called professionals in the sport of rodeo if they win their event they have a chance to win a million dollars. The last event is the bull riding and a young man by the name of Stetson Wright wins the bull riding and the saddle bronc riding something that nobody had ever done at this most prestigious rodeo. After the awards had been given out the announcer was quick to corral Stetson for an interview. The announcer's first question was “What do you think about doing something that nobody else has done?” Stetson with no hesitation said “I’m proud of myself” and that’s about as good an answer as I’ve ever heard. I firmly believe that believing in one’s self is so important because after the cheering crowds have left most of our lives are spent in the land of the normal. But I think even in normal land we all still need a cheerleader that appreciates who I am no matter what. Who might that be Jack? None other than Me, Myself, and I. Don’t spend your life waiting for the crowd to come back and cheer. Encores can happen but don’t count on it. 

        So as the years pass for me in “normal land,” I can always find different degrees of contentment when I say to Me, Myself, and I: “I’m proud of myself.”          

                     See Ya, 

                      Jack