Waiting for a train.

Merle Haggard's train finally came in and it has left the station.  Mine's due to arrive in twenty to thirty years if I'm lucky and possibly two and half weeks if I were to have a stroke tomorrow but odds are and if I were a betting man I would say I've got a good ten years of writing left in me.  If I write something every day for the next ten years I win the bet.  It's not love, but it's not bad.

Reading John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.  Incredible read.  And such a joy to be holding an 1878 copy of his great works.  Somebody wrote in handwriting on the inside cover a gift from so and so and then wrote the date, 1878.  Over 100 years ago a man wrote on the inside cover of the book that I am reading today in 2023.  I suppose this would seem like a far off land to that man.  I like going back in time with a book like that.  And there may be not other book like that one.

For one thing it is they say the second most read book in the history of man next to the bible.  And I am reading one chapter of the bible before I read some John Bunyan every day.  Usually just before I go to sleep but sometimes I read a little from my nice new office chair in my nice new front office under my nice new reading lamp in my nice home on the top floor end unit with side window and rear window watchman's post.

Perhaps I shall aquire a cat to enjoy the views with me.  I'll see what John Bunyan has to say about it.  He has already mentioned Jesus Christ which is a good thing.  And the book was  recommended to me by pastor Tony Spell.  So it is an ejoyable exercise and I hope to push through to the end of both works before ten years from now.  For me to have such a privileged life is an incredible thing in my mind.  There are those who have things much worse than I do.

And some who are in prison as I write these words.  Those men should be allowed to have a bible and should be given comfortable accommodations and good food at the very least.  Certainly they have done no violence and they have good people in the community to vouche for them and even the most henious criminal  alive I think should not be tortured.  Freedom removed yes but not tortured.  And I  suppose that may be changed in my mind if I were a father of a daughter who had been raped so yes crime and punishment is an interesting subject.  As pastor Murray would say, put 'em out of business.

And then on the other end of the spectrum you have Steve Ells who founded the Chipotle mexican food restaraunt chain.  It says he made like $20 million recently here just by selling his brownstone mansion in Manhatten that he paid $75M for and sold for $125M or some outrageous sum.  I guess he finally completed his huge mansion project where he tore down three properties to make one big one for himself somewhere right  there in the middle of manhatten.  That's a lot of money from selling burritos.

So I'm down here in the grass but not as far down in the mud as probably the majority probably even the majority right here in the good old USA and certainly I'm thinking in the majority world wide.  I guess there's some pretty terrible places to live in this world and some not so nice places even here in the united states of America.  General Lee lived would have been gone for a few years already by the time 1878 came around.  My John Bunyan book was printed in Philadelphia.  Number 630 Chestnut Street.