A Day in the Life of Chaos

Sally Goodloe Christmas and the New Year is a time of reflection. In truth it is simply an artificial line in the sand yet for some reason, it serves as a bookmark, the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one.  A book is a wonderful parable for life.  It has a beginning and an end, a start and a conclusion. When it comes to an end we place it on a shelf where it eventually becomes forgotten.  Perhaps someday, someone will pull the book down and re-read the story, bringing the characters to life once again. We all change in life.  Day by day, hour by our we age and the exterior shape we once occupied ceases to exist.  Despite this fact, sometimes things in life are hard to accept, even hard to look at.  They can be things we love or things we hate.  Either way, there are times when the healing process is so slow the reintroduction of them into our lives takes time.  Sometimes it never happens and we end up dying with the ghosts of our past.  Sally Goodloe

We all have secret little measures that we use to guide and gauge our lives as we make our own journey along the path from birth to death.  They are hidden signposts that measure our progress in our personal journey through life. Henry Winkler "Fonzie" One of mine can be found in a very auspicious place.  It is a face I used to watch along with much of America from the dinner table.  One night a week I remember turning around a TV cart with our color TV to face our dinner table while we ate.  So much for idyllic family communication right?  The show was Happy Day's and each week we would tune in to follow the antics of Richie, Potsie, Ralph Malph and of course, Henry Winkler aka The Fonz.  Happy Days ran from 1974 to 1984 and was a kind of generational show that in truth was simple minded and stupid.  Near the end of the shows run the Fonz traveled to California to jump over a shark pen with his motorcycle spawning the phrase "jumping the shark."  It is the

Last night I was sitting with my son.  With fourteen years of age under his belt he was responsibly doing his homework while I at forty-four I was playing a video game.  I was hacking my way across Oblivion when I felt his finger touch the skin behind my ear.  I imagined I must have had some ugly black piece of crud, perhaps a remnant of nuzzling with the dog.  "I don't like that."  He said. "What is it?" I asked him. I wondered, did I have a cancerous spot or something?  He pushed his finger against my skin again pulling it flat. "It's a wrinkle.  I don't want my pop to grow old."  He said hugging me.  "I have gotten used to the age spots you used to not have yet now do but I don't like this wrinkle." He noticed the distress on my face and added in a consoling way, "I guess you are only in your forties Pop, you are not that old." When you are a child everything seems new.  The girls you know have skin still

Today I was on my way to work driving my blue Nissan Cube 25 miles an hour down a four lane street.  In front of me there was a work truck with a large sticker in the window that said "OBAMA" with a communist hammer and sickle and a subscript saying, "United Socialist States of America." On the radio President Obama was giving a speech talking about wanting to create more jobs and save the middle class.  Suddenly I look to my side and see a giant F-something pickup truck changing lanes on top of me.  With inches to spare I honked my horn jammed on my breaks and he pulled off only to finish his merge in front of me.  I noticed the driver had a cellular telephone on his ear.  He turned, looked at me and gave some pathetic I am sorry wave.  I lowered my window and yelled out without obscenity, "GET OFF THE PHONE!" The man responded by turning, flipping me the bird and yelling back, "WELL FUCK YOU THEN!"  He then resumed talking on his phone. W