The liturgy of the Catholic Church runs on a three year cycle. Readings and gospels are designed to follow a grand plan. Of course, no one explains this to a young boy sitting there with his mother and his brothers.

The post war civil rights movement was well on its way before it swam into my consciousness.

I am a child of the Catholic church courtesy of my mother who took us to mass every Sunday and on holy days. I still have my St. Joseph’s missal…

This is as good a time as any to start talking about religion, the second leg of my youth.

Once again, I’m no social scientist. This is an anecdotal view of our history through the lens of my experience and the family into which I was born.

I have a spreadsheet called John’s Timeline. It runs from the year I was born to the present. It has schools I attended, places I’ve lived, jobs I’ve held and that sort of thing. To help me delve into my past, I’ve also included data about world events.

After Russia, the other post war enemy of note was China. When Mao defeated Chiang Kai-shek, with the help of Russia, there was a big row in the states about who lost China? As if China was ours to lose.

The reunion is over and I’m back to my journey through the history of my world and my life. We left off with World War II. We won. Defeated our enemies. Started rehabilitating them. This allowed us to get back to fighting an old enemy, communism and in particular, the Soviet Union or Russia.

The final reunion is in the books. Anything we do going forward will be informal. I suspect there will be some of those.

Speaking of way back. I’m in Houston for my 60th high school reunion. Although to be absolutely clear, we’re celebrating the 60th anniversary of our graduation from high school. We haven’t actually had 60 reunions.

I’m going backwards a bit. As I mentioned earlier, my initial conditions were family, church, and World War II. But the latter inevitably led to the First World War. Why? Because my grandfather served in the 32nd Field Artillery and went to France.

History can be boring. One of my high school teachers, a football coach, taught history off mimeographed sheets where we filled in the blanks. But generally speaking, I always thought history was a great story.

Here’s a weird thing about memory. Italy was part of the Axis. But sandwiched between the evils of Germany and Japan, Italy came off as an almost accidental villain.

In my youth, the Second World War was almost as real to me as it was to those who fought it.

I was born in July 1946 in New Orleans, Louisiana to a mother from Ohio and a father from Texas. I tell you this because we all start somewhere, and those initial conditions are important.

I’ve been doing this for ten years, starting in 2014. Getting up. Almost every morning. Writing a few words. Posting them. First on Facebook. Then, in 2020, on my blog

I’m putting up the pen for a week. Taking a break. No real reason except it just feels right.

I have a touch of dry eye. An outflow, no doubt, of my recent surgery where I was immobilized for the better part of two weeks. I fell under the lure of the small screen and watched too many videos.

The biggest of the two chinquapin oaks is still largely a tree of bare branches. It’s odd because all of its brethren in the yard, lacy and burr, are on full display.

Rain is a weeders best friend. We had a big one on Tuesday, more than an inch. So, yesterday, after writing about my new enemy the Musk or nodding thistle, I had a beautiful morning with my turning fork digging up the pests.