Dear Reader

I’ve been doing this for ten years, starting in 2014. Getting up. Almost every morning. Writing a few words. Posting them. First on Facebook. Then, in 2020, on my blog. In the beginning, I wrote about nature. Life in my yard. In 2016, I began talking about my wife’s dementia. In 2020, after her death, the focus shifted to grief. Last year, I climbed Guadalupe Peak, the Texas High Point. I sensed another shift.

For the last five months, I’ve wrestled with that shift. What did it mean? Then, last month I went under the knife to repair an aneurysm. The frailty of life became apparent. If I didn’t know it before, I know it now. My days are numbered. Exercise, good medicine, and luck might extend them but there will be an end. So, the question became, what to do with those days, regardless of how many are left. Here’s what I decided.

In the days, months, and years ahead, I’m going to examine my life. See where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and what happened in the world around me. Then I’m going to try and figure out how all that shaped my current view of the world. Why do I think what I think? How did my moral code come into existence. What is my moral code? There may be an argument that it’s too late for that. But, as with my foray into the world of dementia and grief, there may be fellow travelers with the same thoughts, the same issues. So, wish me luck. And I hope to see you down the road.

Introduction: Living in America, an old man’s journey into his past