Bluebird

Several years ago when I was still "gainfully employed" I used to marvel that my parents would not get up and get going until around nine o'clock in the morning.  First my father would get up, have some coffee and then start breakfast.  Mom would join him sometime later and they would sit down to eat, discuss what they needed to accomplish that day and then around noon their day would actually begin.

Being a working stiff I was used to getting up and dressed, grabbing a cup and a couple of slices of toast, then car keys in hand I was out the door by 7:00.  My routine stayed with me on weekends and vacations.  Up and attum everyday.  We are taught to do this from the first day of school.  Have to get there.  Have to get er done.  Can't stop, better not slow down, someone will beat you to it.  I am reminded of the scene in the movie THX1138 when the hero has stopped taking his drugs and can see everyone running full speed on their assigned missions. I believe Charles L. Dodgson  was the first to notice this trend in our society and put in it writing.  His reference to the Red Queen running as fast at possible just to stay in the same place was  an amazingly accurate description of our times. 

In the last few months I have learned just how delicious it is to leisurely fry a pan of bacon, scramble some eggs, put a slice of Cinnamon-Raisin toast in the toaster and have a long quiet breakfast.  Carolyn and I have been fortunate and are able to do this.  Many have worked just as hard as we did for as long as we did and cannot afford a warm place where they can sit and eat the food they cannot afford to buy.  I have come to believe there is something fundamentally wrong with our way of life.  The wealthy get richer and those less well off - well, they just die.  No matter what we have been taught, I am starting to believe retirement is more a matter of luck than it is of work or planning.  You are born rich;  you make one lucky investment or  make one lucky decision  that changes your life.  After that one event, it is a matter of luck that nothing occurs to take that moment from you.  As luck would have it, there is a force that even now is working to take our luck from us and it eventually will.  And it will do so sooner rather than later.

We have  been taught that the early bird gets the worm.  But around 11:00 this morning while we were eating  our wonderfully slow breakfast I saw a Bluebird that was in our backyard.  It was late in the morning, he was eating his breakfast and he looked pretty fat to me.