“We who are of mature age, seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.” — from The Razor’s Edge

I forget who wrote the The Razor’s Edge. It was years ago when I first began paying attention to literature, before that, years before this, it was Mad Magazine. Then laughter was more important than thought but we were also judgmental—still are.

At my age there are more important things than school I think. We still have two of our kids in school, and they’re hopefully making the best of it. Of course students today didn’t have Ray Wescott who ran a tight ship even with us in it. But that was then.

Walking past the high school the other day it was nice to see a multitude of students out on the grassy side of the high school. There were two or three teachers conversing with one another in pleasant way, and the students also seemed to be enjoying themselves. We didn’t have that opportunity. There was a road there then.

“At 30, I was a poet. Now I thirst for the lines of a poem when this life turns me to stone. Suddenly I’m surprised by a single drop of rain.” A Rainy Night by To Thanh Thae.

This was a poem from a book of Vietnamese writers that a friend passed unto me. I was able to read it while I waited to see the doctor Monday morning from a Mello bite. Last week our group gathered with others at Plainview where instead of listening to an accomplished published poet we sat in the theater and watched and listened to a recital consisting mostly of dance accompanied by a guitar player, two women and another man maintained to story that originated in a country I couldn’t put my finger on.

Two chefs’ served elaborate food that most of us were not accustomed to for a fair price, along with very tasty wine that we were also privileged to. There were six of us who made the trip. When the players’ finished their part with a little break, the crowd shrunk. There were others, some from Rochester, who read regularly and a new Rochester reader. We were back in Austin safely by 11:30 p.m.

Now, there is just Mello to contend with. Jeanne was going to make it to the DFL convention on Saturday where they would nominate the preferred candidate to replace Gov. Pawlenty. Jeanne didn’t make it and stayed in the cities so I will be going for 12 days without relief from putting up with Mello.

I’m learning that pit bulls, regardless of what other part of them there is they have “more energy,” than most dogs—too much for me and for the cats, especially Ptolme who takes refuge under a dresser in the living room. Echo positions herself in strategic places and has demonstrated her opposition to harassment offered by Mello.

On a sad note it was hard to read about the student deaths reported this past weekend. A 16-year old driver with a car full of friends struck an SUV at 2 a.m. There was another accident with a young girl driving in a car of four, and three of them died and one is in critical condition.

Back in the day there used to be road races, quarter-mile races. I raced a friend myself and almost forced him into the ditch. That was my one time. The state patrol says of the teen deaths, “Enough is enough.”

I’m still finding time — usually at the end of the day — to read “The March of the Folly” by Barbara W. Tuchman that Bud Higgins lent me.

The “folly” is the evolution of the war in Vietnam that seems to caste a similar light on what’s going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan and perhaps still in Iraq. The war in Iraq is another example, I think, of our quest for oil.

LBJ said, before the election: “We are not going to send American boys 9,000 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” “We don’t want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys.”

Six months later American boys were sent into combat. The phrases were easily recalled, beginning the erosion of Johnson’s own credibility.