Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

I am convinced that if they removed Nevada from the map, no one would miss it except for those who gamble and love to go a state that is hot, dry, arid, and desolate. I sometimes thought Wyoming was desolate, but for heaven’s sake, you can drive for hundreds of miles in Nevada without seeing a thing, and then when you arrive in a city, it is way too small. There are no places to shop, no real good places to eat (except for Las Vegas, Mesquite, and Wendover) and you just wouldn’t miss it. I think I wouldn’t mind if Nevada were to secede from the Union.

I looked out the window this Saturday morning. I saw evidence of the changing of the seasons. I guess there is nothing so constant as change, and now the season are a changing. I love the fall colors. I just don’t like the winter that follows the colors. They say that the colors are due to the shorter days and the trees starting to change and prepare for winter. I long for a warmer climate, which I guess is an indication that I am getting older too and that the seasons are changing for me. Is that why we change colors, from uniform beautiful tans to blotches on our arms where we have pigment spots. I love the fall. I just don’t care for the winter.

I saw a machine in Las Vegas which must be the rage of the city. I haven’t seen them anywhere else, but in Las Vegas I saw them in the mall, in the casinos, and in many other places. They are a massaging machine that is run using jets of water to massage the people wrapped in the machine. It was an interesting, but strange thing to see.

I was looking at my blog recently and read an entry that talked about how much weight I had lost. I was a Shadow of My Former Self. Well, that is no longer the case. I am fighting a battle of epic proportions, and the portions that I am eating don’t help me out.

I have gained back some 60 pounds from my former shadow self. I am vowing to fight the good fight and lose the good weight. I will once again be a Shadow. I just need to remember that I have to walk the walk, rather than talk the talk.

My experience recently in a mall in Las Vegas made me think of Barbara Streisand, a 60’s icon the radical left who was also a star of stage, screen, and song. How in the heck would I be thinking of Barbara in a mall in Las Vegas? Well, it wasn’t because she was walking the mall with her husband, or because I heard her songs blaring over some loud speaker.

Rather, it was because I sat there watching people in the mall, and realized that people don’t need other people nearly as much any more, rather, we spend more time watching each other hoping that others won’t interfere with our lifestyles and our trips out to the outside of our homes. We are becoming a much more private people, people not interested in much anything else than what is on their particular schedule for that particular day. We are cut off from each other. We are not people, People Who Need People.

I have been noticing something that really is bothering me right now. This specifically I notice in family, but society has the same general problem. We just aren’t being tolerant of each other. We are too worried about whether we are right, rather than having compassion to each other. My recent foray into politics lead me into the same trap. I sometimes worry that I am getting to settled into one position or another and then believing that I am right and the other wrong, and never shall I compromise.

You see it in Washington. Our national government has come to a gridlock, with each side posturing and trying to convince the public they are right, all for the purpose of political expediency and not in behalf of the people. Both the President and Congress most recently have received all times lows in their approval ratings by the populace. The national media doesn’t help the matter either and we all take sides, shouting at each other, sure that we aren’t right, but not willing to compromise and get the people’s business done. This year, it will be probably the 5th or 6th year in a row that most of the national government funding will continue to be run on a continuing resolution rather than through the appropriate appropriation process. This has got to change.

Whether it is in a family where we might be intolerant of or make fun of another’s views, in a city where we stake out positions for ourselves and don’t back off, or whether we don’t get the people’s business done because we are ideologues more determined to be right and yell and scream, rather than work in behalf of the people we elect. I am just getting sick of this, and we are setting ourselves up as a family to fracture, or as a nation to elect someone (a devious man or a man like the German’s elected in the 1930’s to solve their problems, and see where that lead them) who will promise to solve our frustrations, just if we give him the power. Things have got to change, and we the people have got to demand the change, or as the Book of Mormon says, if the greater number of the people shall not choose the good, we will ripe for the fall of the government that we have cherished for all of these 230 years.

As I have grown older, I have seen more and more diversity in the land of America. It used to be that we were much more of a homogeneous nation, with a couple of large minorities and then mostly white people.

Now, we have all kinds of groups that have come to America, seeking a better life. We have illegal aliens (primarily Hispanics), blacks, Asians, and just a whole lot of other people. We have a man of color who is his party’s candidate for President (Barack Obama). This nation has truly become a melting pot of many cultures and peoples. What we need to do, in order to stay a nation of one, is for each of these groups to become true Americans, speaking a common language, and having somewhat of a common heritage, without giving up what makes them unique.

If you ever talk to my kids, you will sooner or later hear them say that dad was always saying that variety is the spice of life. I am a person who likes variety in life. I don’t like to do the same old thing every day, and be in the same old dull rut.

I was in a mall in Las Vegas recently and noticed the huge variety that was there. Without market restrictions set by a government, entrepreneurs are free to create whatever they feel the public will buy, and they are creating a lot of different stuff. A stroll through the mall allows you to see just how much stuff there is.

Of course, I don’t have the money to buy all that stuff, nor would I want to buy that stuff if I had the money, but just the fact that it exists is kind of fun because the world has changed a lot since I grew up and the variety of stuff out there to buy is an indicator of just how much it has changed. Just walking in a Corelle Ware store was an object lesson on how much “kitchen stuff” there is you could buy. What a great place we live in.

During our recent trip to Las Vegas I was amazed by the just incredible variety of people. They came in every shape and form. They were fat or skinny, white or black, talked English, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, or some other exotic language.

We heard in one day at least the following, German, French, English, Spanish, Mandarin, and various other languages. People were dressed conservatively or outlandishly. They covered a lot of their body, or since it was so hot, more likely didn’t cover much at all.

There were professional people, then others that were professionals of a different kind of persuasion. There were construction workers, waitresses, security people, and vacationers. The Las Vegas strip area is probably host to more varied people than just about any other place in the world. The visitors come from all over the globe, with all kinds of backgrounds, and the people that work and live in Las Vegas are as diverse as the vacationers they serve. It was truly a Menagerie of hosts of different types of people.

Old Age is Creeping Up on Me

I guess I am really getting older. Never mind that I will be 57 in August. What really defines it for me is the fact that I used to never reach my medical maximums on my insurance, and now it seems to be a race to see how early in the year that happens. I used to pride myself on my seeming good health. Now I feel like a medical wreck, waiting for another thing to happen.

Example. On medications alone, I met my out of pocket maximum (which is high now than in many years past) before half of the year was gone. I now have to have the following procedures:

1- Sleep Apnea Study-A study to see if I am getting enough Oxygen to my brain and heart while sleeping, because I stop breathing during the night (or so they say)

2- Ablation-Because of my heart fibrillation, it appears that they are going to have to go in and burn the offending nerve pathways in my heart, and if they do this, and it doesn’t work, then the next step is a pacemaker.

This is kind of disturbing to yours truly. I come from a stock of people that live to a ripe old age. My grandfather Hardy lived to be a 103. I appears that I am not on the same pathway. I have lived a good life. I love my wife and my family, and despite the challenges of life, I feel that I will probably be able to handle the challenges that come my way, given that old age seems to be creeping up on me.