The Townspeople and Their Lady - -written by self February 24 2014

That night the townspeople all gathered around, to make sure the queen wouldn't lose her crown.

We stood shoulder to shoulder to keep the devil out. 

We held up our lanterns to show them the light, they won't mess with this town, not ever, not tonight.

They say Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, They say Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.They say all the kings horses and all the kings men went to put Humpty together again.

They gathered again on Commercial that night.

They raised up a wall, to keep out the fright.

For Hailey, her family, so they could walk without fear, so they wouldn't fall or be hurt, not with us here.

You could hear the train conductor crying so loud, we needed no whistle to know he was coming through our crowd. The mighty steel of his rails that night, would be cold and damp, while he came and stood with us, and held up his lamp. 

As for the King he was there too, he watched us keep vigil, and made sure no one hurt us again tonight, not with me and not with you.

Over ten thousand were here, in irony you could say, a year for each person so she would fly sooner with angels, not tomorrow, today.

This is the Queen City, and as all should proclaim;

Not this town, and not tonight, don't ever mess with a lady, and not expect a fight!

Its that time of season!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Garland, lights, bulbs, tree, wooden reindeer, and other trinkets from trunks hidden in their summer slumber, all awakened again for a season of love, adoration, family, giving and friendship. Its Christmas time again!

Deck! The halls with boughs of Holly!

I am writing this before Thanksgiving because its the season. I personally cannot stand the tree only being up for three weeks. This year with the kids being here, we have decided to leave it nearly bare, and allow them to decorate it. Plans to get them from their mothers this week are made, three hotel rooms, two kids, and one rental car.. I could nearly make a 12 days of Christmas out of anything.

Yule tide carols being sung by a choir..

Memories of singing this for my grandmother when I was a child, bring a smile to my face. I remember my aunt being so excited and my grandmother clapping so proudly. My grandfather with his Christmas cocktail in one hand and a grand kid on the other. He would have loved this Christmas, of course every year he would have loved.

Me.. I want a hula hoop!

My wife is bouncing around the house, there goes the Cardinals world series coke bottles from 82, back in the box until next year. I am so ready for another season, what a disappointment they were to us all. Hoping to have some cool stuff this year, I have included Cardinals fans, a letter to Santa asking for a new offense and better pitching to best the MLB next season.

I'll be home for Christmas...

This year will be different, my brother will be here. He hasn't had a big Christmas I do not think since, well ever. Last year we had presents everywhere, and of course I cannot speak to the volume he experienced, this year will definitely be great. 

Oh the weather outside is frightful..

Snow flurries forecast for tonight, I am so excited, I think we are going to all run to the window and smudge our faces like little children with not a care in the world, the most exciting part of Christmas is the snow, and being close to someone you love, warm and secure.

Have a holly jolly Christmas!

It really is the best time of the year, there will be snow, and mistletoe, along with the feeling of giving. Christmas specials on t.v. and the one time of the year my wife dreads, the vintage version of Santa Claus with Dudley Moore and John Lithgow, What a great movie! Yes it's old, and yes it may be what you kids call "corny" but I think its great and I am reveled at the thought of my father waking me up to watch it on Christmas eve as a child, then we would leave a bowl of sugar and carrots for the reindeer. 

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock..

To all of you who are still in your grinch like state, get out and feel this. Its all around this year. I hear people from left to right complain how the lights are on too early and the trees lit too soon. I think personally that we have suffered enough warm un-like temperatures in the last couple years, everyone was looking forward to getting Christmas started.

I really must go..

It is ridiculously cold outside, almost unbearable. Make sure to give back this season, you never know who needs it more than you. This year my whole thought and hope has been to give back, and to pay it forward to those who need it the most. Knowing, is the first part of giving. Be merry everyone, and give with your hearts, love in your soul and may everyone have a blessed holiday season.

Bells will be ringing, the glad, glad news.. 

I could kiss the ground .. copied for the public from class blog.

"Don't open that door." That's what was screaming in my head when the kid in the front row stood between my professor and the door saying he was leaving. The selfishness of someone thinking about them self before everyone else in class. There were 15 of us in there. Maybe 20? Not sure.

I kept looking at the ceiling tiles, can I fit through there? My god there is someone outside that wall, somewhere with a gun.

"The kids, do I text their mom and let them know I'm ok? What do I tell my wife? Great, now I'm nervous, can this be seen, hands between my legs, that will hide the hesitance. "

Thoughts in my head as the alarm went off on the wall today in class. A shooter was here, in Springfield Missouri. Of all the places in America, here, we have four colleges, were all still learning in life, why would anyone want to harm us? We are no body at this point.

Rat in a cage.

Trapped. If I get up and leave, someone could get hurt if I open the door, but there are a million places I'd rather be today.

Texting my wife, my friend next to me says they've shot one person at Drury. Over a judge? Over what? Where do students play into this? Someone please make sense of this. Finding out later, no one was hurt, injured, or shot.

A lot of us were made aware though.

Another alarm, telling us what the suspect looks like, no one in class fits that description. Nope, not you,not you, not you. Is the glass on the door bullet proof? Is the door bullet proof? How come she's even trying to teach this right now, what did she say?

Everyone says there is nothing you can do.

As someone who has walked away from it, who got to breathe air again, I looked to the sky in thanks to the lord. I wanted to kiss the ground. I was free. There is a lot more we could be doing.

Trapped like an animal, my mind turns to the boys at Guadalcanal, trapped on that island, at the mercy of Japanese warfare, the government all but leaving them for dead. "You're on you're own."

No heroes in this. My mind plays to those lost in Aurora Colorado, trapped, like animals, backed into a wall, no where to go.

This is it.

Life, love life. Live to your fullest and don't look back. The moment that comes where you're against the wall side by side with death, looking inside yourself for your deepest fears, life is never as bad as it seems. At least you are alive.

The one before the last. 7/18

Last night I wrote the final blog post for our class. Tonight I am writing last nights post. I wanted last nights to have meaning. So maybe this will be an extension of what was last, and make greatness start now. Yeah right.

So this summer I have talked about my kids, talked about baseball, the heat of passion, or summer. However you see it right?

I am still engrossed by what is left. I travel to Texas next Tuesday night to get the kids and bring them here to Missouri. The rest of my summer will be spent writing, getting ready for FOUR classes this fall, birthday parties, lunches and times with family before the fall blitz begins.

As for the class, I have enjoyed learning from everyone and hope you hang on to continue reading. I will most likely begin a blog on blog spot, but if not this will read on as long as the pentium hearts keep beating. Do you think some garage band is out there named the megabytes? No that would be pretty weird and everyone would be too busy trying to download... Ok really bad attempt at a play on words.

Lately I have allowed irony in life coincide with cynicism and it has caused some ups and downs. I have been funny, and a lot of times, obvious and off. At least I noticed.

This summer George Zimmerman was acquitted, the president wasn't too happy about it. There was a man fired for exercising his first amendment right for speaking out against pictures posted in Rolling Stone magazine. There is argument against neighbors again, we are almost a country divided because of our words and discussions in politics, religion, and many other things.

Remember when you're sitting listening to another person express their belief or disbelief, that its freedom that gives them this option.

I leave everyone with the lines from the naturalization oath taken by EVERY naturalized citizen in America, regardless of belief, race, religion or creed. My point? You'll see at the very end.

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

All over but the crying - Final blog post 7/19

Is it the music that really died? Or was it the writing? Where will I end up in this I will not know until its finished. Funny word final. The final out, the final inning, the final sentence cancer spoke, the final exam.

The time has come!- The Walrus (Alice in Wonderland)

This is my final blog post for composition one. In this class I have come back to a better understanding of what writing is to me, how it can benefit me and where it can take me in my education. I grasped fluency by the hand, flung my arms around the neck of punctuation, throwing caution to the wind and without a care, I have found my voice.  It is made up with a high pitch squeal of a young lady fresh out of high school, a 40 year old brushing up for a test at work reading my writing with a burly tone, the swagger of a soul man and in my own head I am narrating with a little hint of Craig Sheffer, and Morgan Freeman. 

" Long ago, when I was a young man, my father said to me, "Norman, you like to write stories." And I said "Yes, I do." Then he said, "Someday, when you're ready you might tell our family story. Only then will you understand what happened and why."- Norman Maclean (A River Runs Through It)

Mozart had his concertos, Beethoven his symphonies, Mr. Holland (although fictional) had his opus, and I, I will have my writing. I am inspired, I will take this to new heights.

"Brown noser." - Glen Holland (Mr. Hollands Opus) 

As for the future, I read work from other writers and I am intimidated by the 8-10 letter vocabulary words being used to make sentences into 6 word sentences with 25 syllables to express a point better explained in a 8 line paragraph, makes me wonder if I am doing something wrong, writing the wrong thing or even expanding my mind in the right way.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

In this class I have learned how to relate my ideas from paragraph to paragraph, how to incorporate proper editing, and that while writing has its format rules that need to be followed at times, it is still my writing. No one else can make it theirs and the words although heard in many other voices, are still mine.

Mine I tell you!

With that being said I have learned that using others' quotes, while effective, is sometimes frowned upon when needing to get across a point in simplest forms. Sometimes it is better to slow down and see what is in front of you, write it a hundred times and find the best version. Free writing. I have gotten back in touch with this and it has helped a great deal.

I want the truth! - Dan Kaffee (A Few Good Men)

In closing, I am sad to be leaving this class, but am excited at the prospect of others. It is time to move on and see what else lies ahead for me. Will I become a professional writer? Will I be writing speeches for our next public administrators? Will I run for my own office and fire everyone of my writers because they don't get what I have to say? Whatever I do I will make it my success and no one elses!

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"- Robert Herrick

I had a choice to make this summer when dropping my third class. I had this, literature and math. I chose to drop math, although I need to take three classes before transferring. I thought I would enjoy this a lot better. Or was I procrastinating? Either way, I did not regret my choice in the issue and I am glad I learned not only something academic from this class, but a little more about myself.

 Carpe Diem!

It took a few days at times to find a muse, or something to write on. Tonight's was easy. I just listened to some music and put my mind to it. It's not hard to reflect on something that has consumed the last 7 weeks of your life and months before paying off student loans to get things back on track. I really feel that finding a subject was the hardest to write about. I wanted to be influential, actually seem like I was working and put some real effort into it.

Politically corrected.. 7/17

Writing tonight is simpler. I am studying through Ms. A's assignment and doing the research exploration. This is actually a lot of fun. How many resources are appropriate though?

I have been using the JSTOR and EBSCO resource databases.

I think the final will be simple? I have actually gotten three of my research questions completed. I am still not sure which one I will use at the end of my assignment, but I am looking forward to finding the answers to this question. Something tells me I will need to write the paper itself with my resources. I find I am excited.

Want a hard passion to find information about? Try being passionate about the Ozarks. I looked further through psychology in the Ozarks. It was harder than I thought. I thought I would be cool and do something tricky, more advanced and elaborate. I have actually found that there are more questions in politics and political science that I never thought to ask. Yes, there is a difference.

Nearing the close of semester. I am sad to leave my blog. I don't want to. However, I really enjoy writing and feel I have a good enough grasp on it as well. I want to share it. Thoughts? Ideas? Please don't say copy and paste into Facebook notes. Is this the type of writing outlet I am led to now?

I still have a yearning to write something meaningful, something worth mention, something that is remembered. Am I destined to be a writer?

This will be a rush of a week, trying to get classes all turned in, getting finals done and moving on to composition 2 this next semester, political science, history and math.. yuck.. the math part, the rest is irrelevant to where I want to be. Yes, math is practical when I want to cook, change the oil or work in my shop. Not here, not in my bread and butter. Maybe I will find some poetic stance about it, but I doubt it.

I am a literary junkie, bound to books, research and being the best I can be historically and politically, its my calling, needles? Not my scene, you medical majors, do well because we need more nurses and doctors. I cant stomach it and I do not know enough about it. Its too clean, or is it? Hospital politics always intrigued me funny enough. I know nothing of the medical field but a guy going into political science, they are always looking for paralegals and lawyers. You know, to quiz each other on legal terms in the operating rooms.. 

No title.. just because.. 7/16

How can one person title a blog before writing it? Isn't this supposed to be something that inspires us, our silent thoughts, and points of reasoning?

I know I have written so far enough blogs that if translated to ink would take up the entirety of a pen.

I am on blog number 25.

I am going to have to free write here soon on three topics for the class and then correlate some research based upon areas of study and then reveal a research question from each section. I am excited to see how my passions will actually play in my areas of study.

Is this to give students an idea of what they want to do in life with their educated careers?

Will I remember this summer? All of this writing? Will it take me somewhere? Will I end up writing an Ozarks column for the News-Leader? Will I be at every Central / Hillcrest match up the rest of my life because I once wrote a paper on how I am passionate about the Ozarks?

What is the use of tools helping me get through college, when will I learn something that will stay with me after college? Where do those lessons come in?

I have been in the workforce since I was 15. I have had a job and had co-workers since I could remember. I have learned the importance of responsibility and being accountable for your actions. I am a smart person or at least I feel that way. Why then, do I feel so dumb sometimes in my reading and lessons? Is it because I am on new level of thinking and process of thought? Or am I really dumb? I'll take the latter.

I am intrigued to see what I learn about myself in the following months. I look forward to walking the halls of MSU this time next summer filing registration papers in a four year university. I'll be part of all my cousins, but none of my parents or grandparents ever went or graduated. My mother never even graduated high school. Has it really been that long since life was that simple?

Crazy what this class has me thinking!