In remembrance of a life cut short

 

Sometimes I find it very difficult to keep a smile on my face. Even if I stand upside-down my smile will disappear, or turn right-side up, depending on whether you are standing on your head or on your feet. In any event the smile is not there anymore. 

When I was younger, if I felt down in the dumps, I would go down to the candy store – every elementary school had a candy store next door – and fork over a nickel and get waxed lips. My candy store of choice was next to the East Ward School in Schuylkill Haven.  Those lips worked for awhile. I could put a smile on my face, at least  until I needed to open my mouth.  After awhile I would eat the waxed lips rather than throw them out.  I never figured the nutritional value of waxed lips.  I must have devoured a ton of them over the years.

 

Today was one of those days in Schuylkill County that I found hard to smile.  A bright, young man with so much promise… taken away by a member of the taliban in far-away Afghanistan.

             I think I am too old now to wear waxed lips to my hide unhappiness even if I could get my hands on some waxed lips.  I recently heard that Pottsville's Surgeon-General had issued warnings about those wax lips. He said they attract near-sighted Zamundian honey bees. The bees, as we all  know, came to America in 1988 by accident when the crown prince of Zamuda visited the American Way Fair. 

           Most of the candy stores next to elementary schools are now gone and I am too lazy to wait in line at Walmart; even though I get to ride in that store on a scooter, along with so many others who ate too much funnel cake and pepperoni pizza over the years. 

Anyway, today's young people are too sophisticated for waxed lips when they can now get tattoos and collagen lip enhancement treatments paid by their parents' medical insurance up to age 26 or through taxpayer funded medical assistance.

  It is the 21st century and Pottsville’s Surgeon General says it is healthy to express one’s feelings rather than hold them in.  So have sworn off waxed lips forever. I will now express myself. So here it goes....

 My problem right now is the struggle that I have with the disharmony between my search for meaning in life and the harsh realities, cruelties and the sometimes meaninglessness that confront us daily. 

Today was one of those days in Schuylkill County as I stood with so many others in line to pay respect to the fallen young hero.  It was a beautiful and sunny day.  A good day for the Belmont Stakes but certainly too nice of a day for a funeral. 

What keeps me going is the lesson I learned from reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.  One must live as a time traveler passing back and forth in time, focusing on the good times, whether past, present or future, but realizing that bad times will be unavoidable along the way. Just don't dwell on them. 

 

 One must also remain wary of antithetical concepts, such as good and evil.  Most of us would want good, but we must remember that good is defined by the existence of evil.  There is evil out there. Always was and always will be. We just have to gravitate towards the good. Keep a moral compass handy at all times.

Today I did not have to time travel.  Today I saw good in Schuylkill County, right here in the present moment in this county where neighbors gathered together from all the county's small communities. Orwigsburg especially felt the pain.  It was unfortunate that the harsh reality of evil brought it to the forefront but good was there. It was up and down West Market Street. Goodness was visible and evil was nowhere to be found.

 On a day that was too nice to be day for a funeral, the sun was shining but so was the goodness in people.  The goodness was apparent on the faces of the countless people standing in line or the people who slowed down while driving by in their vehicles.

Why even the disheveled street people who roost on the other side of Market Street were curious and respectful.

Please keep the young man, who had so much promise, in your thoughts and prayers. He was a credit to the county and the nation.

Quit dwelling on your facebook pages, tweets and your selfie photographs for just a little while.  There will always be time to update your facebook status later when you can tell the world that you had scrapple and scrambled eggs for breakfast which will trigger dozens of insincere "likes" from your hundreds of so-called cyber friends.  

Yes, there will always be time for fun, maybe even time for a little beer pong now and then,  but do try and do something  positive in the world in the small amount of time you are allotted.
 

                           Don't waste it on all on self-absorption.

 

If the world seems too vast and you are as geographically challenged as me, then just do something positive in this small rectangular speck of the universe we call Schuylkill County.