I knew Vaclev Havel was a famous dissident in Czechoslovakia behind the Iron Curtain, that he was a playwright, that he spent years as a political prisoner, and that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he became president of the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution.

My plan is to start reading what I can from Havel and others who lived behind the iron curtain, and to stay vigilant without burning out reacting to every ominous turn in our country in the coming days and years ahead.

My first task is to finish reading Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless, written in October of 1978.

Here is a NotebookLM Deep dive AI podcast using the essay as a source: https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/b7413e6d-37e3-40fc-845c-e381d074876b/audio


Image by Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

AI written Summary

This document, likely an excerpt from Václav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless,” analyzes the nature of power and resistance in a post-totalitarian system, focusing on the unique dynamics of control and dissent in communist-ruled Czechoslovakia. Havel uses the seemingly trivial example of a greengrocer forced to display political slogans as a metaphor for the pervasive nature of ideological manipulation. He argues that such systems rely on living within a lie, a condition where citizens are compelled to conform to official narratives and suppress their true thoughts and desires, while contributing to the system’s self-preservation. The text explores the role of ideology in legitimizing power, the importance of living within the truth as a form of resistance, and the limitations of traditional political models in confronting such systems. It emphasizes the significance of individual action, the development of “parallel structures” that embody alternative values, and the crucial role of a moral reconstitution of society as a foundation for meaningful political change. Havel’s work invites readers to contemplate the complexities of oppression and resistance, offering a nuanced critique of totalitarianism and a call for a renewed understanding of human agency and the potential for individual and collective action.

The Layers

By Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.

When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

Copyright Credit: Stanley Kunitz, “The Layers” from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz. Copyright © 1978 by Stanley Kunitz.  Poetry Foundation reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Source: The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2002)

7 excuses:
1. I forgot
2. I wasn’t thinking
3. I was distracted
4. I didn’t think anyone would notice
5. It worked the last time
6. I didn’t understand what you meant
7. I didn’t read the instructions

7 foods my wife does not want me to eat:
1. Pop Tarts
2. White bread
3. Canned corn beef
4. Fish sticks
5. Frozen tater tots
6. Oreos
7. Squirrel

7 celebrities I have spoken to:
1. Tom Landry
2. Steven Spielberg
4. Tommy Smothers
5. Farrah Fawcett
6. Bill Clinton
7. Roger Ebert

7 jackets or coats I have owned:
1. Parka
2. Dutch army surplus pullover windbreaker
3. Western style Corduroy coat
4. Red wizard’s robe
5. Levis jean jacket
6. Trench coat
7. Uncle Randall’s U.S. Game and Fish uniform jacket

First 7 records I remember playing:
1. Pete Seeger Children’s concert Live at Carnegie Hall
2. Dr. Doolittle movie soundtrack
3. John Denver’s Greatest Hits
4. The Fabulous Johnny Cash
5. Billy Joel, The Stranger
6. Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run
7. Velvet Underground banana album

7 cars I have owned/driven:
1. 1968 Pontiac Tempest
2. 1976 Plymouth Volare
3. 1976 Ford Mustang (Angeleigha’s)
4 1982 Ford Aerostar minivan
5. 1999 Hyundai Sonata
6. 2008 Honda Civic
7. 2012 Kia Optima (current)

7 things I used to use:
1. Typewriter
2. Darkroom
3. Rotary phone
4, pull tab
5. Mimeograph machine
6. Boom box
7. Wrist watch

First 7 jobs:
1. Grocery store stocker, Jewel.
2. Store clerk, Schweppe’s Restaurant Supply
3. Janitor at Willy Wonka candy factory
4. Student journalist at the Daily Illini
5. Projectionist and usher at the Urbana Theater
6. Associate editor, Upbeat Magazine
7. Factory worker, Aeroquip.

7 things I stop for:
1. Roadside historical markers
2. Ice cream stands
3. Sunsets
4. Abandoned buildings
5. Cell phone calls if the conversation is at a critical juncture
6. Logs for my fire pit
7. Tortoise. Pick him up and release a mile later. Otherwise he’d never see that part of the world. But maybe I am breaking up some tortoise couple?

7 nicknames:
1. Prattman
2. Jellybelly
3. DP
4. Chicago
5. Silver Head
6. Big Guy
7. Honey Bunny

7 things I don’t have:
1. Tattoos
2. Enough money in my 401k
3. Hairy chest
4. Wisdom teeth
5. Cable or satellite TV
6. Living grandparents
7. A dog

7 sleeping positions:
1. Fetal
2. On back
3. Scissored legs
4. Propped up on pillows, iPad fallen to side
5. Feet over arm of the couch
6. Car seat reclined, under the shade of a tree
7. On side, legs stretched out as if being pulled by a team of horses

7 bits of wisdom I gleaned from colorful characters:
1.Prison is a place where you have nothing to run but your mouth.
2. When dealing with a lot of problems, attack them one at a time like soldiers coming over a hill.
3. Be willing to burn everything you’ve made and start over
4. Don’t trust the first day of any news story. Day 2 is more accurate.
5. If you try to make everyone happy, no one will be happy
6. Just because I contradict myself doesn’t mean I’m wrong
7. Don’t look in the window if you know it will make you go beserk

7. Things I Have Worn On My Wrist:
1. Wrist watch with leather strap (college)
2. Festival 3-day pass
3. Fake Rolex (post college)
4. Paper band to ride unlimited rides at the county fair
5. Braided leather band backpacking through Europe and for about 10 months afterwards
6. Fitbit
7. String tied to a helium balloon

7 Go To Foods I Make:
1. Potato salad
2. Tacos
3. Lasagna
4. Meatballs
5. Chili
6. Chicken Marabella
7. Cheese with slices of toasted baguette

7 technologies I have used:
1. Magnets
2. Jack hammer
3. Night vision goggles
4. Boomerang
5. Google glasses
6. Water pick
7. Back massager built into a car seat

7 memories of homeless people:
1. Young woman sitting on a Chicago bridge with her dog demanded thst I give her a dollar “for my dog.” After she shouted “asshole” as I passed by I turned around and went back and threatened to throw her and her dog into the river.
2. Woman in downtown Chicago always held a tiny sign on a piece if cardboard that said My kids BURNED up in a fire. This prompted lots of folks including me to give her money. I stopped the practice the day I spotted her going into a bank in Lincoln Park.
3. Stopped with Micky in LA as she gave “her homeless guy” a cup of take out coffee.
4. Took a bum into a McDonalds and bought him a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke. He said he was a former boxer and almost middleweight champion of the world. Wrote it all up as a feature story in the Daily Illini. 
5. On a hot day I brought a guy I passed by regularly on my way to work in Georgetown a cold Snapple and a muffin. He said thanks. He was trying to find shade behind a sign post. Had a tan like you wouldn’t believe.
6. Asked a guy selling magazines pulled out of the trash, ” how’s business?” He said, “Slow. Wish they were Playboys.” I bought an old Vanity Fair for a quarter.
7. Squeegie man and his buddy in Montreal ignored my firm demand to step away from the car in Montreal. They looked like drug addicts. Doug opened his passenger door and made like he was going to fight them while yelling something mean in French. They both shouted profanities in French as the light changed and I sped off. William in the back seat made a memory I am sure.

7 concerts I attended:
1. Willie Nelson 
2. Farm Aid (1st year)
3. REM
4. The Police
5. New Order
6. Billy Joel
7. Bruce Springsteen (next week)

7 recurring nightmares:
1. Forgot to drop a class and it is past the drop date.
2. Taking a test in a class and I never studied or missed too many classes.
3. I broke something and about to get caught.
4. Being chased
5. Tornadoes approaching and i am taking cover in an exposed place or watching them approach behind pane glass.
6.Arguing to the point of shouting, swearing, or physical violence.
7. Something wrong with my body like my wedding ring is too tight or bad haircut

7 animals I hit with a car: 
1. Bird 
2. Rabbit
3. Squirrel
4. Toad
5. Deer
6. Groundhog
7. Snake

7 modes of transport I probably won’t try at this point:
1. Hot air balloon
2. Parachute
3. Downhill Skis (excluding cross country)
4. Hang glider
5. Rocket Ship
6. Mountain climber’s rope
7. Hoverboard (current types)

7 modes of transport I have tried:
1. Helicopter (some of you know that story)
2. Pogostick
3. Unicycle
4. Moving sidewalk
5. Water skis
6. Monorail
7. Zip line

7 things I found with a metal detector:
1. Bottle cap
2. Hammer head
3. Axe head
4. Old butcher knife
5. Little iron scoop
6 aluminum can
7. Mule shoe

7 places I have slept:
1. Friends’ couches.
2.Hiding under a tarp on the overnight ferry to Corfu.
3. In a field in France in the rain.
4. 6 months on a stained worn out futon in my scary landlord’s house in Arlinton, VA.
5. Under the seats in a train compartment through Yugoslavia.
6. In a sailor’s hammock in Dover England when he came home after months at sea and discovered me partying with his wife.
7. 30 days in a tent the size of a windsock as I hitchhiked my way to Pamplona.

7 old people from my past that I still think about (Excluding grandparents:
1. John Martin. Lived to be 98.
2. Estelle Sutherland
3. Rex Turner. 90 Tunbridge Wells, England. Met him in France and knocked on his front door 3 days later.
4. Neighbor Nell in Fayetteville who received countless letters complaining about me from my ex wife over many years.
5. My landlords Fritz and Lois Lenz in Glendale, CA. 
6. Truman Altom who was tough in his youth but a faithful preacher later in life.
7. Nancy’s grandmother in Italy who died last year at age 93 and said I was “good dough.”

7 places I have scars:
1. Back of the head. Hit a concrete sidewalk swinging on a playset at age 5; crashed in a helicopter at 21.
2. Tip of middle finger, right hand. Sliced it off on a meat slicer age 18.
3. Left eyebrow. Wrestling a kid age 8. Slipped on ice and face planted age 9.
4. Palm of right hand. Cut on Snack Pack lid in the first grade. Fell on broken glass trying to water a goldfish in a rainstorm 4th grade.
5. Chin. Jumped on and off a pick up truck and hit the street at the bus stop on the first day of 3rd grade. Also sprained neck. Grad school, kissed a dog and he bit me.
6. Left ankle. Slipped in a locker room at a Tae Kwon Do camp.
7. Right forearm. Had an unsightly bump of scar tissue burned off by my a dermatologist.

7 t-shirts I wear today:
1. BROWN Eggs
2. Piggly Wiggly
3. Bill Murray 
4. Free O.J.. Pray for O.J.
5. Squirrel
6. Baby strapped on front, from The Hangover
7. Those who wander are not always lost

7 belts I have worn:

1. 30 inch belt
2. 32 inch belt
3. 34 inch belt
4. White through brown belt
5. 36 inch belt
6. piece of extension cord, knotted
7. 38 inch belt

7 items I have worn on my head:
1. Football helmet
2. Swimmer’s cap
3. Cowboy hat
4. Straw hat
5. Ski mask
6. Beret
7. Handkerchief

7 Halloween costumes I have worn as an adult
1. Ghostbuster
2. Crazy Italian
3. Jordanian prince
4. 1970s Elvis
5. Braveheart warrior
6. Bob Zordani impersonation (beard made of black yarn, glasses, his borrowed jacket, harmonica, exposed buttcrack while dancing)
7. Mute wizard in red robe

7 kinds of shoes I have worn:
1. Suede round toed Hush Puppies 
2. Vanilla low cut Converse sneakers
3. Pointy toed sneaker-like booty shoes (early 1980s)
4. Sperry topsiders
5. hand me down cowboy boots
6. Black army surplus combat boots
7. Rubber boots with claps worn over dress shoes for Chicago winters

7 Things I Tried Doing and Gave Up:
1. Chewing tobacco (Ida, Arkansas)
2. Member of an African American Church, AME for two years (Aurora, IL)
3. Screenplay writing ( Glendale, CA)
4. Shaved head (Dekalb, IL)
5. Tae Kwon Do. 3 years. (Martinsburg, WV)
6. Online dating (Arlington, VA)
7. Daily baby aspirin and fish oil pill.

7 stories not mine own:
1. Jim Lovel: What it is like to lose you wife and move to Prague as a Good Old Boy in a foreign land.
2. Fritz Lenz: My years in the Hitler Youth
3. Liam: How I trained to become a Dom.
4. Jay: What happened when I saw my ex through the window, attacked them both and got arrested.
5. Crazy Dave: My methods of survival, how I came to have these tattoos, and how I learned to read by reading auto mechanics manuals.
6. Dale Southerland what it’s like to survive being struck by lightening
7. Peter: What it was like to grow up in a cult

7 ways I have left an event or party.
1. Slipped off to bed.
2. Climbed up on the roof of an apartment building and dropped down onto a balcony on the other side.
3. Escorted out the front door by the host.
4. Ghosted.
5. Last one to leave
6. Turned around in the driveway at the last minute.
7. Climbed out a window.

7 memories of being in or on the water:
1. Floating in a sensory deprivation tank in Chicago.
2. Canoeing with Jay Prefontaine, then soaking our sore backs in the rapids.
3. Swimming naked and swinging from a rope with Pinder into the clear, racing creek that flows through the English Gardens nudist park in Munich.
4. Swimming in Greers Ferry Lake in Arkansas where an old highway was flooded after the dam was built.
5. Floating like a cork in the Dead Sea with Shawn Rhodes.
6. Snorkeling in the Red Sea with Shawn Rhodes and Sam.
7. Going down a huge waterslide backwards on a raft with Linus in a ski resort area in Quebec this summer.

7 islands I’d like to visit:
1. Pitcairn Island
2. Sardinia
3. Raoul Island
4. Galapagos Islands
5. Atafu
6. Île Amsterdam
7. Cape Verde

7 life hacks:
1. Put avocados in the fridge as soon as they ripen and they will be perfect for about a week.
2. Create unique passwords by using the first letters of a phrase plus a symbol plus other things I can’t tell you about
3. Add extra eggs to meatballs to make them tender.
4. Feed a cat daily and she or he will run to greet you when you pull up in the driveway.
5. Love is a practice not a state.
6. When traveling, the adventure happens when things go wrong.
7. Don’t skimp on the cost of a mattress. A good night’s sleep is priceless.

7. Interests:
1. Remote islands
2. Dwarves (Little People)
3. Ancient civilizations
4. Cults
5. What Could Go Wrong videos
6. Robots
7. Regional dialects

7 fights I’ve been in or witnessed:
1) Billy. Challenged me to a fight in 5th grade. I punched him in the mouth.
2) Arnie – henchmen to a bully in 7th grade. Pinned him to the ground then ran into my house.
3) The bully who Arnie hung out with sucker punched me in the eye for pinning Arnie to the ground. 
4) Gus knocked my books out of my hands in 8th grade art class. I punched him in the mouth.
5) In Athens, two Greeks got in a fight right in front of me, one taunting the other and switching to English to say, “I just called his mother a whore.” Cops showed up with pistols drawn and hauled both off to jail.
6) Saw a guy get hit over the head with a bottle in Roger’s Rec Room pool hall in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
7) Neighbor 2 doors down in Kearneysville, WV, got mad at me for arguing politics at his party and tried to headbutt me as he escorted me out the door. Tried to talk to him afterwards but he was unwilling to make eye contact ever afterwards.

7 shapes I have seen in the clouds:
1: Pile of pillows
2. Mountain Range
3. Open bag of marshmallows 
5. Scary Face
6 Smiling Face
7. Huge Sperm Whale chasing a carrot

7 things about me my daughter says annoy her:
1. Your extreme overprotectiveness/”helicopter dad-ness”
2. Singing in the car
3. Your incessant need to point things out in the car that I’ve literally seen before a dozen times
4. Arguing politics until you’re blue in the face 
5. Sharing your life story with someone you’ve known for 5 min
6. Wanting to buy practically anything and everything you see 
7. Your constant need to give me “advice”

7 skills that I taught myself:
1. Hypnotism 
2. Speed reading
3. French (forgotten)
4. Tap dancing
5. Potato salad
6. Cat napping
7. Massage therapy

7 songs my dad sang that I sing because they are stuck in my head:
1. King of the Road
2. A Group of Jolly Cowboys
3. Song Sung Blue, Everybody Knows One
4. I’ve Got Bells That Jingle Jangle Jingle
5.Help Me Make It Through the Night
6. Hey Have You Happened to See the Most Beautiful Girl in the World?
7. How High’s the Water Momma?

7 Things I think about on my drive home from work:
1. Think through some SEO challenge at work and how I will tackle it tomorrow.
2. Wonder how Nancy’s day went.
3. Do I have enough money saved yet for Emma’s college?
4. What life must have been like 50 years ago, 100 years ago, during the Civil War, during Colonial times as I drive past woods, fields, stone walls, creeks, log cabins and old houses along I-66, then, beautiful Highway 17 with its horse and cattle farms and vineyards, up to Rt. 50 and past the old mill at Millwood.
5. Places I’ve travelled and what sort of trip I might take in the future.
6. Dead loved ones…my mom, Uncle Randall, Jay. Mom, “hi, Mom” I sometimes say out loud.
7. Is there a God or life after death? Probably not, maybe a small chance but that’s not rational, just have the here and now, no guarantee I’ll live to 80….do the math again, so if I do live that long that’s yet a nice long stretch, but Jesus, I’ve already lived longer than that so in a few years time that’s 2/3rds of the way through…but how beautiful the world still is.

7 things I think about on my way to work every day:
1. Flying cars
2. Is that sedan back there an undercover cop?
3. How I would redesign the roadway where Rt 9 merges into Rt 7 so the traffic wouldn’t back up.
4. What the cost of housing is in this, town, now this town, with the costs rising with every passing mile, and when I would switch from affording a house, to affording a townhouse to affording a condo, to renting a room somewhere but walking to work.
5. How I might get even with tailgaters by pressing a switch and having a box of jacks tumble onto the roadway behind me.
6. Should I take the Greenway today to save 12 minutes but spend $5.50?
7. How come it is so easy for heavy jets to slowly fly through the air as they land at Dulles?

7 ways I am a good roommate:
1. I will tell you stories
2. I will listen to your stories
3. I will be kind to your dog or cat
4. I will do the grocery shopping
5. I will cook some tasty meals
6. I will not mind your clutter 
7. I will recycle

7 ways I am not a good roommate:
1. I will borrow your nail clippers and not put them back where I found them
2. I will use your bath towel and not tell you
3. I will veto most of your suggestions for what to watch
4. I will eat the food you were saving for later
5. I will forget to water your plants while you are out of town
6. I will wash and dry your delicates with my stuff so they shrink
7. I will play too much Bob Dylan

7 terms that seem new to me:
1. Triggering
2. Uber it
3. Dad hat
4. Random
5. TMI (people keep telling me this. What does it mean?)
6. It’s a “thing”
7. Mic drop

7 foods I have tried:
1. Escargot 
2. Paw Paw
3. 1 ant
4. an acorn
5. Chitlins
6. Dry dog food pellet, with beer chaser 
7. Bite of road kill squirrel

7 toe related stories:
1. My grandpa Southerland had one of his toes amputated because it had ridden up on top of its neighbor
2. My high school home economics teacher had all of her toes surgically shortened so they would look normal when she wore sandals.
3. I have jammed my big toe on three occasions while padding through the house barefoot
4. My cousin Jerry crushed the end of one of his toes inside a steel toed boot when a transformer settled on it
5. Nancy likes to paint her toenails different rainbow colors, and always in the same order
6. My teenaged son is suddenly growing hair on the tops of his toes like a Hobbit
7. An armless professor at Virginia Tech whom I met this summer can open his book bag with his toes and pass out papers as easy as you or me.

7 favorite colors:
1. Orange
2. Blue
3. Green
4. Red
5. Yellow
6. Black
7. Pantone #452

7 reasons I stopped eating canned ravioli:
1. Grandma Pratt died. She always fed them to me because when I was 4 I told her they were my favorite food
2. Too many of the ravioli broke apart when I tried to spoon them out of the can
3. Red dye number 7 pegged for causing cancer
4. Read an article in Reader’s Digest about what happens to old Bulls
5. Discovered frozen ravioli one day at the grocery store
6. Ate a whole can by myself once and experienced sudden lethargy
7. Made an explosive mess inside a microwave oven and it was a bear to clean because I waited too long.

7. Ways that I move about:
1. Saunter
2. Stagger
3. Sneak
4. Roll
5. Skip
6. Dash
7. Pad

7 stories about dinosaurs:
1. Liam Painter used to rattle off the names of every type of dinosaur
2. I live near Dinosaurland, a 1950s era tourist trap designed around some life sized fiberglass dinosaurs
3. My cousin Terry Byrd’s son Hunter would rewind and rewatch an animated dinosaur movie over and over again
4. The La Brea Tar Pits has a couple of life sized dinosaur models posing in the tar pits, which look like murky ponds but if you fell into them you might get sucked down and drown
5. For years My dad had a big piece of petrified wood that he picked up from the petrified forest in Arizona in his youth.
6. Lucy, the T Rex skeleton at the Field Museum is worth seeing
7. My mom said she didn’t believe in evolution while standing under the skeleton of a prehistoric whale in the Hall of Evolution at the Smithsonian

7 creatures I don’t see anymore:
1. Leopard frogs
2. Box tortoises
3. Monarch butterflies
4. Garter snakes
5. Great Danes
6. Siamese cats
7. Road Runners

7 places I have hidden:
1. Under a bed
2. On the roof
3. Under a pile of leaves
4. Under a pile of coats
5. Behind a tree
6. Under my desk
7. In a crowd of people

7 disorders I have encountered in other people:
1. OCD
2. Kleptomania
3. Fear of heights
4. Claustrophobia
5. Fainting spells
6. Migraines
7. Narcissism

7 favorite museums:
1. Blues museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi
2. Chicago Art Institute
3. Smithsonian 
4. Country Music Hall of Fame
5. Vatican
6. The MET
7. Graceland

7 First Dances:
1. Free form disco
2. Square dance
3. Slow dance
4. Slam dance
5. Mountain clogging 
6. Polka
7. Country two-step

7 hobbies my mom tried:
1. Candle making
2. Shadow boxes
3. Sewing
4. Crocheting
5. Canning
6. Macrame
7. Painting

7 qualities I have admired in other people:
1. Intelligence
2. Empathy
3. Brute strength
4. Creativity
5. Beauty
6. Humor
7. Green Thumb

7 posters I have owned
1. Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow
2. Casablanca movie poster
3. Farrah Fawcett in a red bathing suit
4. The kiss by Doisneau
5. Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party
6. Bruegel’s Peasant Wedding 
7. Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

7 ways I stay in touch with my feminine side:
1. Bath bombs
2. Have a good cry now and then
3. Listen without trying to problem solve
4. Dark chocolate 
5. Buy a pair of shoes that I really don’t need
6. Scream when I see a spider
7. Dance and sing along to Miley Cyrus singing Party in the USA

7 nicknames:
1. Prattman
2. Jellybelly
3. DP
4. Chicago
5. Silver Head
6. Big Guy
7. Honey Bunny

7 Personal heroes:
1. Fred Rogers
2. Jane Goodall
3. Pete Seeger
4. Barack Obama
5. Bill Murray
6. Jacque Cousteau
7. Martin Luther King

7 heartbreaking songs:
1. Madame George (take 4)–Van Morrison
2. Goodbye — Steve Earle
3. Good Night Moon — Will Kimbrough
4. Cloudy Shoes — Damien Jurado
5. You Can’t Fail Me Now –Loudon Wainright III (Joe Henry)
6. Golden Slumbers — Beatles
7. Someone Like You — Adele

7 life lessons I got from the movies:
1. It’s better to be kind than right. 
2. We all live two lives. The one we learn with and the one we live afterwards.
3. A man who does not take care of his family is not a man.
4. Life is like a box of chocolates.
5. There’s no place like home.
6. No man is a failure who has friends.
7. Wax on. Wax off.

7 haircut stories:
1. 6th grade my dad made me hold a string to my forehead as a guide to cut bangs. Page boy. Worst. Look. Ever.
2. Finally revealed my ears when my mop of hair was razor cut my a stylist in Paris during my post high school backpacking trip through France. Had a photo of JFK on the wall and Douglas Beeson translated my directive. Make him look like that.
3. Got a nice Flock of Seagulls cut from an expensive stylist in Champaign whose Salon grand opening I covered for the Daily Illini.
4. Girl in college cut my hair and then strapped a vibrator on the back of her hand and gave me a scalp massage.
5. Patty Kirk on more than one occasion cut my hair outside with a pair of scissors and just let the cut hair drift into the grass as fertilizer. She learned to cut boys hair in China where she also learned how to make dumplings.
6. After a neighbor shaved my head in my backyard in Dekalb, IL I continued to cut my own hair for about a year to save money.
7. Found a great stylist when I worked in Germantown, MD. He was born in Vietnam, and was half Vietnamese and half African American, as his father was a GI at the tail end of the war. Call me Randy he said. I asked him what his real name was and he pronounced it a couple of times… Hmoung. OK, Randy it is, I said.

7 things I am most grateful for:
1. I have a good and challenging job
2. Good health ( knock on wood)
3. My relationship with the kids
4. Friends
5. Found a woman who truly loves me
6. Good mattress
6. Lived long enough to stream shows on demand

7 wild animals I have come very close to this year:
1. A mangy Red Fox
2. Frightened Raccoon
3. Oblivious Opossum
4. Slow Groundhog
5. Curious Deer
6. Hissing Bat
7. Dead, headless Mouse next to a Cat

7 memories of middle school Independent Study (a gifted program that separated us out of the rest of the student population.)
1. David Parish made a quiz computer out of a cardboard box, wires, and light bulbs. I ran into him at U of I. He was in ROTC and didn’t remember me.
2. I studied by lying on my back looking up at the underside of my desk which I had transformed into the controls of a space ship by drawing some knobs and meters.
3. We made 2,000 piece puzzles together for mental breaks.
4. Our teacher Mr. Habus used to say, “I’m really teed off.”
5. I made my own assignments, made extensive use of the library, and wrote essays using the encyclopedia.
6. Struggled with math, so Mr. Habus had to teach me long division on a little mobile blackboard.
7. Played rubberband gladiators so everybody kept a pocket full of rubberbands.

7 Space related memories:
1. Touring the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasedena
2. Watching the Challenger explosion in breaking news replays in a Greek restaurant on Green Street with Renee 
3. Jim Lovel showing me his reply letter from astronaut Jim Lovel
4. Vandalized and forlorn space capsule mounted on a concrete pad in an elementary school playground in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Probably gone now.
5. Watching satellites go by in the night sky one 4th of July in Ida, Arkansas with Jay Prefontaine
6. Seeing the Discovery Space Shuttle at the Dulles Air and Space museum
7. Looking at Saturn through the telescope observatory on the University of Illinois campus.

7 things I wish I hadn’t bought
1. Electric juicer. Hard to clean.
2. A painting from a door to door salesman
3. Boots a half size too small
5. $5k in landscaping a few months before I sold my house in Dekalb and moved to West Virginia
5. Second shaving brush because I found the one I thought I’d lost the next day
6. House in WV. Lost 1/3 of its value when the market collapsed. Short sale the day before the bank was set to foreclose. 
7. Lettuce anytime Nancy comes back from market with four bags of it

7 sights that give me pause while driving
1. A mangled guard rail
2. Roadside crosses 
3. Traffic is congested up ahead on Google Maps
4. Bulldozers parked in a farmer’s field
5. Run over foxes or cats
6. Abandoned car with cloth rolled up in the window
7. The sheer volume of people reading on their cell phones not just when stopped at lights but while driving

7 drinks, 7 memories:
1. Moonshine as a boy (I was maybe 10) given to me by my Uncle Bud Southerland
2. Mixing various bottles of alcohol from the parents liquor cabinet, then smoking Camels with Douglas Beeson and spinning in circles until we fell over (high school)
3. Franc Rum shots in a town in France. Worst hangover of my life. Used a sneaker as a pillow, travelling with Douglas Beeson.
4. Amaro. Rome. Nancy Polo.
5. Goldschlager and cold cuts in Glendale, California with Fritz and Lois Lenz.
6. Mojitos while staying with Doug Douglas Beeson and Madeleine in a cabin on a lake one summer in Quebec
7. Manhattans in Manhattan with Pinder and his wife Micky. A “I love you, man” moment.

7 things I am not:
1. Color blind
2. Dyslexic
3. Claustrophobic 
4. Hyperactive
5. An insomniac 
6. Left handed
7. Perfect pitch singer

Punchlines to the 7 jokes that I can remember:
1. The doctor said you’re going to die
2. Cisco, doesn’t that calf have a mother?
3. That guy bet me $100 that I could pee on you and make you laugh
4. You don’t eat a pretty good pig all at once
5. Saint Peter, I was the man in the ice box
6. Don’t worry, there’s a parachute for both of us, the smartest man in the world just grabbed my backpack before he jumped.
7. That’s how mommy gets jewelry

7 signs of fall:
1. Wolf spiders roaming the house
2. Pumpkin spice everything
3. Guys at work start talking about football
4. I can finally stop mowing the lawn every weekend
5. Shorts go into storage
6. Deer are on the move
7. It’s dark out by the time I get home from work

7 middle aged problems:
1. Donuts have consequences
2. Need reading glasses
3. Must trim nose and ear hairs
4. Back stiffness
5. Ready to go night-night before the band’s set is over
6. Must take high blood pressure medication
7. Can’t remember actors’ names, among other thing.

7 problems I’ve had with hotel stays:
1. Terrible mattress
2. Noisy airconditioning unit
3. Street noise
4. Noisy neighbors
5. No premium channels on the tv
6. Drains back up in tub or sink
7. Last guest set the alarm clock to go off at 3 a.m.

7 things I made:

1. Wooden deck
2. Brick walkway
3. Plaster of Paris candy cane Christmas tree ornament
4. Wobbly table made from 2x4s
5. Playhouse from tongue and groove boards salvaged from my great grandfather’s house with help from my grandpa Southerland. My uncle Randall later used it to store his hound dogs’ dog food.
6. Fire pit
7. Pen holder

7 things I don’t believe in:
1. Homeopathy
2. Astrology
3. Acupuncture
4. Reiki
5. Ghosts
6. Aliens
7. Chain letters

7 science and technology topics that I follow:

1.DNA sequencing
2.Graphene
3.VR and Augmented Reality
4. AI chat bots
5.Climate change
6.Space exploration
7.Big Data

7 ways you can tell I’m from the Midwest:

1. Use words like pop, sneakers, gee whiz
2. I’m friendly (generally speaking).
3. Love sweet corn
4. Raised Lutheran
5. Believe Lake Wobegon is a real place
6. Driving on snow doesn’t phase me
7. Prefer Chicago to New York City (but it’s cool too).

7 tricks I play:
1. Leave the caps loose on jars in the fridge.
2. Hide behind a door and grab you when you walk by
3. Slow down as you are tailgating me
4. Ask Linus for the hundredth time to play Jack Be Nimble on his fiddle which is a song title I made up (but is a nursery rhyme)
5. Pretend to not speak English when a store salesman or limo hawker approaches
6. Teach little kids words that are made up (Got the idea from Steve Martin)
7. Sneak into other people’s trade shows for free pens and t-shirts

7 books that taught me how to be a man:
1. Huckleberry Finn
2. From Here to Eternity
3. On the Road
4. In Our Time
5. On Chesil Beach
6. The Razor’s Edge
7. Iron John

7 fictional characters from movies or TV that I see myself in: 

1. Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
2. George Costanza
3. Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) on the Waterfront
4. Reggie Kray (Tom Hardy) in Legend
5. Tom Joad
6. Paul “Fred” (George Peppard) in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
7. Andy Hardy

7 daily commutes:
1. Glendale to Beverly Hills 
2. Naperville to Union Station Chicago then 20 minute walk to Randolph St. East of Michigan Ave
3. Dekalb to Geneva, IL
4. Martinsburg, WV to Herndon, Va.
5. Arlington, Va. to Georgetown
6. Berryville, Va. to Germantown, MD
7. Berryville to Centreville

7 things I would do if I were rich:
1. Put 100 bucks in tip jars
2. Fly to Paris for the weekend
3. Buy a forest
4. Hire a personal trainer
5. Throw lavish parties around my in-ground pool
6. Hire a housekeeper
7. Own a vineyard

7 pieces of advice from my wife:
1. Drink more water
2. ⅔ of your plate should be vegetables (WTF)
3. Learn how to make a bed with hospital corners
4. Walk 10.000 steps every day and swim more often
5. Learn Italian
6. Don’t tuck your shirts in. Doesn’t work for you.
7. Buy quality things that will last

Folks…whoever sees this in the next 48 hours…I’m deleting my Facebook account after creating it 14 years ago.

Social media used to be great. I remember adding high school friends, college friends, coworkers, heck even strangers I met on vacation. Used to see all the good stuff from their lives, and it was a way to make connections and stay in touch with other people I would otherwise probably never see again in my life. In cutting the cord, I know that most of you I will never see me again in my lifetime and visa versa, and that’s a weird feeling, but that’s how life was before social media.

Here’s how social media is bad. Too many cat videos. Strike that, you can never see enough cat videos. Nope, it’s the algorithm. The algorithm want to show me posts from “Accounts I should follow” nope. Ads. Nope. Posts that stir up envy, because we want to show people the good stuff, such as luxury vacations, and we start feeling like “why isn’t my life always like that?” Well, none of our lives are always like that, but the algorithm tricks the mind.

Second reason, FB suppressing politics. Yes, we all know we don’t want to fight with people who disagree with us, but there was a lot of purging that happened years ago, when I unfriended nasty posts from people that were more acquaintances than friends, and others did the same thing to me. I used Facebook to organize and activate around elections and causes such as stopping the pipelines. I created or admin’ed Facebook groups that hundreds of people joined, Thunderdome Politics, Indivisible, some of you know what I’m talking about. I joined dozens and dozens of FB groups myself and it all worked beautifully…until it didn’t. I gained hundreds of FB connections this way, but they were tenuous connections. We really didn’t see each other’s cat videos, kid graduation pictures, and fancy meals for whatever mysterious reason of the algorithm. I’m told the algos work around activity. You didn’t like or comment on my posts if you happened to see them and visa versa.

Never joined TikTok because it’s too addictive and therefore dangerous. Instagram is also addictive, but is still entertaining so I’m keeping it for a few more weeks. We’ll see. That one will probably go away too however. Twitter. Destroyed by Elon. Listen, I’m not saying any of you who happen to see this by chance should get off Facebook. It does play an important role for some people to stay connected.

I’m not pulling away from the world. Just here. Don’t feel bad. Hundreds of you will never see this and won’t even realize I’m gone.

I wish you all well!

I work in the central reservations office of Delta Airlines in Schaumburg, Illinois. After more than 130,000 conversations, all ending with “Have a nice day and Thanks for calling Delta—I think it’s fair to say I am a survivor. 

I have made it through all the calls with adults who didn’t know the difference between a.m. and p.m., from mothers of military recruits who didn’t trust their little soldiers to get it right, also the woman who called to get advice on how to handle her teenage daughter, from the man who wanted to ride in the kennel with his dog so he wouldn’t have to pay for a seat, and the woman who wanted to know why she had to change clothes on our flight between Chicago and Washington D.C. (She was sure she would have to make a change between the two cities.)

In fifteen years, I’ve received more than a boot-camp education regarding an astonishing lack of awareness of our United States citizenry. This lack of awareness encompasses every region of the country, economic status, ethnic background and level of education. Calls have included everything from a man not knowing how to spell the name of the city he was from, to another not recognizing the name “Iowa” as being a state, to another man who thought he had to apply for a foreign passport to get to West Virginia. They are the enemy and they are everywhere.

In the history of the world there has never been as much communication and as many new things to learn as today. Yet, after asking a New York woman what city she wanted to go to in Arizona, She asked, “Oh, is it a big place?”

I talked to a woman in Denver who had never heard of Cincinnati, and a man in Minneapolis who didn’t know there was more than one city in the South. “Wherever the South is.” A woman in Nashville who asked, “Instead of paying for your ticket, can I just donate the money to the National Cancer Society?” And a man in Dallas who tried to pay for his ticket by sticking quarters in the pay phone he was calling from.

I knew a full invasion was on the way when, shortly after I signed on, a man asked if we flew to Exit 35 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Then a woman asked if we flew to area code 304. I knew I had been shipped off to the front when I was asked, “When an airplane comes in, does that mean it’s arriving or departing?” 

I remembered the strict training I received—four weeks of regimented classes on airline codes, computer technology and telephone behavior and it allowed for no means of retaliation. “Troops,” we were told, “It’s a real hell out there and ya got no defense. You’re gonna hear things so silly you can’t even make ‘em up. You’ll try to explain stuff to your friends that you don’t even believe yourself, and just when you think you have heard it all, someone will ask if they can get a free round-trip ticket to Europe by reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

Well, Sarge was right. It wasn’t long before I suffered a direct hit from a woman who wanted to fly to Hippopotamus, New York. After assuring her that there was no such place, she became irate and said it was a big city with a big airport. I asked if Hippopotamus was near Albany or Syracuse. It wasn’t. Then I asked if it was near Buffalo. “Buffalo!” she said, “”I knew it was a big animal!”.

Then I crawled out of my bunker long enough to be confronted by a man who wanted to catch our flight to Maconga. I told him I’d never heard of Maconga and we certainly didn’t fly to it. But he insisted we did and to prove it he showed me his ticket: Macon Ga.

Now I’ve done nothing during my conversational confrontations to indicate that I couldn’t understand English. But after I quote the round-trip fare the passenger just asked for he’ll always ask: “Is that one-way?” I never understood why they always question if what I just gave them is what they just asked for. Then I realized it was just part of the hell Sarge told us about.

But I’ve survived to direct the lost, correct the wrong, comfort the wary, teach U.S. Geography and give tutoring in the spelling and pronunciation of U.S. cities. I have been told things like. “I can’t go standby for your flight because I’m in a wheelchair.” I’ve been asked such questions as: “I have a connecting flight to Knoxville. Does that mean the plane sticks to something?” And once a man wanted to go to Illinois. When I asked what city he wanted to go to in Illinois, he said, “Cleveland, Ohio”

Can you stand more? Can I stand more? 

A woman recently threatened to sue us because we scared her dog.

Another filed a lawsuit because we made her purchase “plaid” luggage. She said that each time she called reservations, she was told that her luggage had to be “CHECKED” if it was to go on the plane. So she went to a store and spent almost $400 on new “CHECKED” luggage. When she got to the airport, she was the only one in line who didn’t have a solid color suitcase.

A man said he wanted to leave on October 34th. After advising him there were only 31 days in October, he said, “Oh yes, I’ve got the wrong month.” When I asked for her credit card number, a lady said, “I’ll just give you the first three numbers because it’s so long.”

Another lady said she wanted to go from, as she put it, “This little place here in Kentucky to that little place there in Alaska.” I asked her what little place there in Kentucky she wanted to fly from and she said it really didn’t matter. You’ve probably never heard of it anyway.”

After 130,000 little wars of varying degrees, I’m a wise old veteran of the communication conflict and can anticipate with accuracy what the next move by “them” will be. Seventy-five percent won’t have anything  to write with or on. Half will not have thought about when they’re returning. A third won’t care where they’re going. Twenty percent will never have heard of where they’re going. Ten percent won’t care where they’re going. A few won’t care if they get back. And James will be the first name of half the men who call.

But even if James doesn’t care if he gets to the city he never heard of, even if he thinks he has to change clothes on our plane, or that the plane may stick to something because it’s a connecting flight…even if he can’t spell, pronounce or remember what city he’s returning to…he’ll get there. Because I’ve worked very hard to make sure that he can. Then with a click of the phone, he’ll become part of my past and I’ll be hoping that the next caller at least knows what day it is.

Oh, and James,  “Thanks for calling Delta, and have a nice Day.”

March 8, 1990