I enjoyed your reflections, Bob, your story about Dobie, and his replying. From a ‘writerly’ point of view, there are a few stand-outs:

“There was a weirdness to it. The Dobe-Bob-Doc connection didn’t exist prior to our handshake.”

“Friendship can be very light with you, most of the time.”

“Welcome, Anonymity. I know you so well. But it seems like even you don’t know me.”

“The capitol of the ocuntry of Reciprocity is Character. Dobie lives there. I want to think I do too.”

Pearls, all!

A shout-out to Rick for coming to the rescue with clear-eyed, sound advice to the ReaderS of this, your (too) blog. Thanks. (I can see there are no chinks in the chain of friendship that links you and Bob– over years or over oceans).

As to my response (and, of course I responded!) to the attendant brouhaha– it was stated after that said story (will say no more as I want this entry
to stand as a response to this particular posting by Bob).

One last thing, I KNOW Dobie didn’t plan it this way, but, I cannot help think about that other poor Dobby, the enslaved House Elf (of Harry Potter fame) who later became a Free Elf– and of whom it is quoted of here:

“Dobby was often ostracised for having no “proper shame” about being out of work, the way most house-elves…acted. Dobby was generally pleased to be free, although he did enjoy working (as more of a hobby than a career). He was ecstatic to be out of the abusive hands of….”(…,fill in the blanks)

Yes Dobie and Dobby managed to eek out a happy ending’ after all their struggles…so can us all!

THANK YOU for those kind and sincere words. I’m very glad we crossed paths in this life, and I hope we can continue to do so.

Looking forward to having you on as a guest on The Mothership Connection radio show this coming Sunday night at 8:20 PM Central Time on AM 1050 WLIP in Kenosha, WI. http://www.wlip.com for those who want to listen online. Talk to you then!

Your friend,

Dobie

PS, I drive a Chevy Cavalier.

Glad to hear from you. A coincidence since I just finished reading “Fighting Words” and wanted to talk with you about it. Much impressed by the quality of the writing, much more than I expected and I expected there’d be a lot. Much came across as a polished story told by a top professional fiction writer, as far as vivid descriptions and setting up scenes. Will give you a call.

And, alas, I still need to be rid of those Fate mags. If you could find room for them, that’s be lovely. But if not, please don’t hesitate to say so.

A final note: There are ways now (though I’m not into them) to publish existing backlist print books as e-books. On Kindle and elsewhere. There are people set up to convert print prose to online books and vastly extend readership. Your works could thus reach many more folks.

Cordially,

Tom Millstead

As for changing your own diaper, Don, I appreciate your sharing that, but let’s just say that however that works out in 2040,I hope the diaper changer–should you (God Forbid!) need one,is incredible cute.

From the Left, with devotion,
Bob

I write for me on my Facebook and my blog. I almost never ask anyone to read the postings. If someone wants to read them that’s their choice, I do not impose my thoughts on them in those two places unless they respond. As such, no one is “forced” to read what I write.

To your other readers:

If someone doesn’t like what I write that their choice too. My suggestion has been if that’s the case, don’t read my posts, or instead, get a life! There are many millions of Americans exercising their First Amendment Right. That inalienable right has almost no limits except those types of speech excluded by the U.S. Supreme Court.

American life is not all about getting along, or being passive, or about matters outside our particular scope of concern. In short, it’s easy to find another person who has very different ideas about any particular topic. That’s what great about America, we can all be different, and write whatever we wish (subject to the limits mentioned earlier) as we please.

Many years ago when I first started publishing on the web, I posted controversial statements that also led to a surge of “drop me off this list!”. I dropped them as they requested. It didn’t matter that they joined that mailing list voluntarily, I never added them. But that’s how human nature is, fickle. Some people expect other adults to change their diapers for them. I’m not one of those people who will.

After that Discussion Group web site ended, I never again opened up my next blog to comments. It’s been very peaceful ever since. I still have over 400 readers a day read parts of my blog. Between April 2002 and July 2010 I accumulated over 5 million page views on another part of my website. Some liked what I wrote some didn’t. I wasn’t trying to please everyone. That’s unrealistic.

If a person feels like a strong liberal, good for them. The same goes for a strong conservative, good for them too. All of them, those in-between, and me, are going to be around. That’s how life is.

I know Bob will always be for peace and he is a caring individual. I don’t always agree with him. But we have remained good friends for 54 years and political views don’t get in the way of our friendship. Life has too many other facets for me than to base my associations and friendship on narrow political views.

By the way, I almost never discuss my political views in-person or on the phone. I write them in the manner I described earlier. I don’t believe in coercing someone to listen to my political views. I can’t believe that I ever could change anyone’s mind on their political views and vice-versa.

I hope you see that I am no better or worse than anyone else. If you think that’s not true, then that’s your issue, not mine. I’m not perfect and I gave up trying to be perfect long ago because perfection takes too much energy.

Back to Bob in particular:

As for you, Bob, don’t change your ways of expressing yourself. Sure, you don’t want to spam your loyal readers, but I think you understand better now how to avoid spamming people.

Sincerely,

Don

I would say ‘Hail Mary’s’ if I knew they were directed to Irish Mary in the boat instead of that other nice Jewish Mary in the manger. The Jewish girls I grew up with on the South Side of Chicago, not only would not put up with having hay…and cows…and donkeys…all over their delivery room, but none of them would admit to knowing me, either…Biblically or otherwise.

We sleep, my present wife Joyce and I, in a room with two old dogs and a rabbit, so it does have some semblance of a manger-like quality to it. And in fact, with the Timothy hay we feed the rabbit scattered all around, maybe I should leave the door open for the Three Wise Men if they decide to come by to say hello to us, in Aramaic. Maybe they could give me a hint about a good lottery number. Maybe not.

I looked up “manger” in my ragged dictionary and it’s Latin for ‘chew’. So chew on that for a while.

Passover & Easter fall on the same day this year, a rare thing. Maybe all the stars will align or something. We all have something to wish for.

Happy Easter, Mary
Happy ______ (fill in the blank),Rick

I had my Bar Mitzvah during Passover, 49 years ago this April 13th, a time, place and people who only exist in memory.

Shabbat Shalom, from a contemplative Bob

It will also make Bob very happy.

Rick