Favorite Hang-Outs...

I was born in 1945.

And so, when I talk here about places I used to hang-out, I am talking about the 1950s and early 60s. 

I have never visited this corner hang-out, but it looks like a cool place for friends to gather and chew the fat, shoot the bull, swap lies, or whatever else friends might do at a place like this.

This looks like a fine hang-out.  I could picture the crowd I used to run with eating ice cream cones and passing time at a place like this.

The State Fair...on a hot August night...could be a great place to hang-out.  Eat some elephant ears, drink a lemon shake-up, maybe bite into whatever crazy thing is being deep-fried that year. 

The Soda Bar...on the main street in New Carlisle...I did hang-out there.  During my high school years, the Soda Bar was the place to hang out...during lunch break, after school, after the game.  Great burgers.  Couple pinball machines.  Juke box.  Great place.

Bonnie Doone's was a cool place to hang-out when I was a teenager.  Grape flavored malts...oh yeah, I loved those things.

Not Robertsons Department Store...look further down the street, on the right-hand side...yeah, the State Theatre.  With your girl, that was a great place to hang-out. 

Oh well, nostalgia is a wonderful thing, isn't it?  Are you remembering some of the places you and your friends used to hang-out...back in the day?

My guess is that you are smiling a bit while you do that remembering.

Politics and Religion...Scary Stuff

Everyone of us has heard the warning: Never discuss Politics or Religion!

Its scary what can happen when we fail to observe that warning.  Even though Politics is how we socially organize ourselves, and Religion is how we morally and ethically organize ourselves, it just won't do to have folks talking with each other about those subjects...because...because we don't just hold views on those subjects, we hold positions on those subjects.

And like the really old cigarette commercial observes, "We (Us Tareyton smokers) would rather fight than switch!"

So, no discussion about Politics or Religion from me today...just some pictures.

And just two more...to kinda tone the argument(s) down a notch or so:

Signing out...

Keep It Between the Ditches...

The guest preacher at my church last Sunday said something like, "To get where you want to go in life just look straight ahead, keep going, and keep it between the ditches."
The "it" was the vehicle he imagined himself in as he headed down the road of life.  The "keep it between the ditches" phrase was something his older brother had told him as he was teaching the guest preacher to drive...when both of them were young teenagers.

Look straight ahead, keep going, and keep it between the ditches.  That was his advice to the congregation, as he encouraged us to be about the life-long task of pursuing social justice issues.

Good advice, that.  Hard to pull off, that.

Wonder what it is that each of us is walking straight toward.

Whatever the prize that we have our eyes on up the road ahead, over there in the ditches to our right and left are some very scary things.  So, look straight ahead, keep going, and keep it between the ditches.

Get off track and fall in a ditch and you may find yourself too satisfied with whatever distance you have already come.  You may settle for the status quo.  You just could get comfortable down in that cozy ditch.  Shoot, you could just decided to call off the trek.

Some thoughts offered by others, wiser than me, come to mind:

~I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.  -Lewis Carroll

~God is right there in the thick of our day-by-day lives...trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world.  -Frederick Beuchner

~Journeying god, pitch your tent with mine so that I may not become deterred by hardship, strangeness, doubt.  Show me the movement I must make toward a wealth not dependent on possessions, toward a wisdom not based on books, toward a strength not bolstered by might, toward a god not confined to heaven.
             -portion of a traditional prayer song from Ghana

And this one, from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
~Until you die...its all life.

Look straight ahead, keep going, and keep it between the ditches.