YOUR BODY VERSUS YOUR MIND- REALITY

 

YOUR BODY VERSUS YOUR MIND---REALITY

 

I don’t have to look into the mirror to know I’m old. I can feel it every time I wake up each morning. Yesterday my knee hurt, this morning it doesn’t…now it’s my shoulder. Next week it will be my back or my other knee.

It’s just a new day of surprises each and every day. Oh how grand.

The problem is simple. My mind thinks I’m still about 2 years old, but my body is screaming….” You idiot, do this and you will get killed or maimed or something”

You can’t do the things you did many years ago. Forget about it.

Seems like yesterday I could get on a ladder, go to the top of the roof, no worries, no concerns. Now I take one step up and my brain is saying ‘get down you fool, you could fall’.

Gone are the days when we could stay up until 3am and still go to work in the morning and be on time. Now if we are out past 9pm, we tend to tell everyone ‘We stayed out late last night.’

Tell me you didn’t drive faster when you were younger. I find myself staying within the speed limits at this age of my life. I even let folks in a hurry pass me without getting upset or angry. I do chuckle when they get stopped by the law for speeding. Probably not the most charitable thing to do, but it’s still fun…tell me you don’t?

Somehow, I was transported from age 60 to age 80 without even knowing it. How was this possible? I mean what happened to those 20years?

I used to work out on a regular basis. I could lift some iron. I was strong. The important word in that sentence is WAS. Now trying to suck up a thick chocolate smoothie is a chore for me to attempt. I can’t even exercise enough to get sore and hurt like I used to do. Turning on the treadmill requires me to bend over, which is difficult these days. I find that when I do drop some something on the floor, I always look around to see if there is anything else that I can pick up at the same time.

My git up and go has gotten up and left. Some days I question as to whether it was ever actually here.

But I am determined to keep on going, no matter what. I can walk and talk and chew gum at the same time. Which is a lot more than some folks can do and for that I’m thankful.

Besides I can always start back on that treadmill and weights in the morning. They are always there, waiting for me.

Just waiting and waiting and waiting.

See you next week. Peary Perry

 

ET TU? APPLE?

 

ET TU? APPLE?

I have always been somewhat of a history buff and have enjoyed learning about past civilizations. Makes no difference where it is or what period, I just love reading and learning about it.

I have been a subscriber to several archaeology magazines for many years. I signed up for a dig in Israel many years ago but had to cancel due to some surgery or another, I don’t recall which one.

It has always fascinated me when they post these long articles about finding some treasure trove of pottery shards or pieces of crockery and cooking items. These folks get so excited about what they found and often times they will post a photo of something unusual and ask us to try and identify its purpose.

Yesterday, my wife and I headed off to another town around here and we passed one of those giant garbage mounds that I suppose our towns and cities use for trash disposal these days.

You know the kind. They are all clean and neat with grass on the sides that you can see from the road. Nothing blowing all over the roads like in the past. Thank God for that bit of progress.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about future archaeologists in the 30^th century who will start to excavate this mound of ordinary items in our lives that we choose to dispose of.

What will they think when they uncover multiple pieces of almost new, hardly used exercise equipment? You know the kind sitting in our garages that we bought and tried out for a few weeks until it became boring or too hard. Those heavy metal ‘total’ gym sets that never wear out and will appear to be some sort of torture device used to extract confessions or testimonies of some sort. If you didn’t know what it was, what would you think a waffle iron could be used for?

Obviously, it’s connected to electricity but how would someone a thousand years in the future understand waffle or pancake mix?

I suppose we’ve all seen photos and drawing of tools used in medieval torture such as the rack. Suppose that was just a tool used to straighten someone’s back by a chiropractor back in the 1200’s? We could have gotten it wrong…

Tools and computers will be easily recognized since there is so much history concerning their development. Historians may get confused with trying to decide the purpose between VHS tapes, CD’s, DVD’s, MP players, 8 track tapes and flash drives since they all performed the same basic functions. I’m sure that future PHD students will spend years writing research papers on these items.

But what about that ash tray your elderly aunt gave you for a wedding present? The god-awful orange one that opens and closes when you flick cigarette ash into it? You never used it, left it in the original box and its discovery in 3025 will amaze and astound folks for years. There will be multiple research papers written about it trying to determine what it could be used for.

Plastic toys such as Hula-Hoops should be a thrill to someone in the future. The idea of putting a large piece of plastic around your body and making it spin will most certainly not be understood. Even if they find a picture describing someone using one, I would imagine the next question would be ‘why’? Kind of like trying to explain owning a pet rock to a German. I’ve tried, and it gets lost in the translation. Can’t imagine why.

A couple of other things that should hold up and be worthy of examination in the years to come are Twinkies and Ding-Dongs. These are hardly indestructible and have a reported shelf life of several hundred years.  The people who are brave enough to drink wine from some ancient gourd can try those.

My wife just got a new ironing board. Try and think about what our future historians and archaeologists will think this was actually used for.

See you next week

 

 

So it has come to my attention that getting on to someone's website is a lot easier than getting off of their website.Whenever you Whenever you log on to someone's website to see what they may have to offer, whether it's for information or possibly to sell you something. you create for yourself. A kind of never-ending spiral which is difficult for you to exclude yourself from. For example, perhaps you'd like to start making cheese. Well, the first thing you would do is look up. Cheese products. the next thing that happens is that for some odd reason the people who manufacture cheese products. Also have commercial ties with people who sell Tennis shoes or ties, Taj or perfume. it makes absolutely no sense. so the danger is that once you sign on to one website you end up being automatically a member of a multitude of other unrelated websites. . now you start getting information and emails from hordes of other vendors. Trying to sell you Tennis shoes, perfume and anything in everything. Unrelated to cheese. so when you finally catch on to this. You start to try to cancel or quote unsubscribe yourself. From all of these unwanted vendors and. in today's electronic world. We are told that all of the devices we have are labor saving. . I take exception to that. I feel I spend more time trying to get out of things. Then I did trying to get into things. I find that. I found that when I try to unsubscribe to these various and sundry website. Not only do they put the font so small that you required to get a magnifying glass to try to read. Where the unsubscribed button happens to be. also, the fault is in some form of Gray span. Or inc that is so washed stopped. It is virtually impossible tobreed. You would think if they were serious that they would make the unsubscribed button readily visible as well as a different color or at least put it in bold. once you hpresley, unsubscribe button. Once you have pressed the unsubscribed button and think that you have escaped. Your mission has only started. now you get emails from the originating group that says. Are you sure you would really like to unsubscribe? To which you reply? Yes, I do want to unsubscribe. . and then you start getting inundated with emails and say. Are you really sure you wish to unsubscribe. and then another series of emails? Which say we're giving you a second chance to not unsubscribe. then you get the third chance. To not unsubscribe but to remain a valid and honored subscriber. All of this effort takes app a lot of my time and a lot of my brain power. Which at this point in my life is much needed for everything that is normal, such as remembering to flush the toilet. Pandora, where I left my phone.

One for all and all for me

A Nation of Fools by Peary Perry

(www.pearyperry.com)

One thing good about writing a column about politics is the fact that you can never run out of things to talk about. If you go back in recorded history, no matter how far, you can find the same issues in those days as we face today. Corruption, deceit, incompetence were as prevalent thousands of years ago as well as today.

Years ago I owned a security company and employed several hundred men and women to secure banks, industrial sites etc. The State of Texas passed a law requiring each employee to pass a security test if they were carrying a firearm. We sent all of the applications into the appropriate office and dealt with the problems as they came in. One of our employees, who had been with us for several years, had been convicted of stealing some meat from a grocery in Michigan. When interviewed he told us (and was verified on the police report) that he had been caught when he was taking the meat for his family.

Since the man was and had been a good and reliable employee we took his case to the agency that regulated our industry and tried to obtain permission to keep him employed.

They refused.

I brought up the point that no where on the state approved application does it make any mention or require the applicant to prove they were a United States citizen and were in this country legally. They told me that this question could not be asked and that they did not require anyone to be a legal citizen in order to comply with the regulations. Long story short the man was let go. What he did to put himself in this situation was …in one word…illegal.

Now the point of this story is that in today’s news we have a government sponsored program to provide GPS information to persons coming across the border into this country. This information is designed to give the so-called… ‘Undocumented worker’ directions to safe areas as well as food, water and shelter. Let’s see, isn’t crossing the border into this country without the proper paperwork, clearances or documentation ….illegal? Is there one form of illegal not as bad as some other forms of illegal? Can the government legitimately support turning a blind eye to one crime and not others? It certainly seems that they can.

It seems to me that there is a constitutionality issue to this matter. If someone is in prison for violating a crime and the government who sent him to prison is funding a group engaged in a criminal activity …I think the guy in prison might think this kind of a deal was unfair. I know I would.

It seems we have people in this country who believe it is not only proper but financially rewarding to flout the law and get away with their actions. There is hardly a day goes by that we don’t read of someone receiving a ‘pass’ for their actions which were in violation of a law. How we have come this far in such a short period of time is an amazement to me. I am just hoping and praying we have no passed the ‘fail safe’ point of no return and can reorient ourselves and our political compass to point back in the direction of decency as well as fair play.

For all, not just some.

Comments go to www.pearyperry.com

Is this fair?

Letters from North America/ by Peary Perry

I just realized that it has been ten years since I stopped writing for the newspapers. If you recall I had a weekly column that was published in 100 weekly newspapers throughout the country. I did this week after week for over 25 years.

Ten years ago, I lost my humor and quit. I couldn’t find things to write about.

Now, I’m back.

So, here we go again.

This morning I read that one of the ladies involved in the California college cheating scandal was sentenced to a prison term of 14 days. She is one of many caught up in a large scale fraud investigation. One of the defenses being used is …”they didn’t actually hurt anyone.”

At the other end of the spectrum was a case involving a homeless mother who claimed her son actually lived in a school district where he could get a better education…the mother was convicted and sentenced to five years. Well, I suggest that this mother didn’t ‘actually hurt anyone’ either.

She was trying to help her son, the same as those involved in the California mess.

So if you look at the details on Snopes or other fact checking websites, you will see that they justify the differences by saying…two different courts…different judges…different states and jurisdictions.

While all of that is indeed true, doesn’t common sense work into these situations at some point?

The California defendants are mostly wealthy and white, the homeless lady is poor and black.

I don’t know about you, but this kind of stuff gets my blood pressure up because of the inequity of how similar in crime but different in outcomes based on the obvious, rich folks can afford to hire expensive attorneys and poor folks have to take whatever they can get.

The jails and prisons in this country are full of people who were encouraged to cop a plea so they could get out of jail or a prison sentence and then are forced to live with a felony conviction for the remainder of their lives. They find it hard to get an apartment, a job and all of the other necessary things in our society because they received bad advice or took the only option they thought they had.   

The police and the prosecutors want pleas, not trials since it is less expensive and saves time and government resources. They are not trying to fix the problem, they are involved in the problem.

It’s kind of like a huge whirlpool that spins so rapidly no one (cops, courts and defendants) can escape.

It is small wonder that many minorities in this country see unequal treatment and become resentful and mad over the current status quo.

I’m an old white guy, who used to be a cop years ago and this makes me mad as well.

For those who have never been in “The Life’ …their world is a bewildering place to visit, much less live in. The criminal justice system in this country is a huge industry. Many communities exist on prison employment and the support necessary for their existence.

Do not get me wrong, I am not making a case for freeing everyone from prison.

No, indeed there are some really bad people in these places who should be in there for the remainder of their lives.

What I am saying is, how do we correct the injustice of the example I cited earlier about the mothers trying to get their children a better education?

According to the Vera Institute, it costs anywhere from $31,000 to $60,000 a year to feed and house a prisoner. Would not we be better served if we spent tax dollars on education and housing than locking someone up for non-violent offenses?

If the schools won’t see that our citizens get an education, then when they get into trouble (as they most likely will) then why not take the opportunity to correct them and help them rather than warehousing them for years with no hope of improving their lifestyles when they are released?

Some of this stuff just seems like common sense to me, but it is time we start changing the situation in some way or another.

That’s my take on it this week.