Tag Archives: Seattle

The 08/29/13 Joy Jar

30 Aug

Interstate 5 divides Seattle. It is showing its age. There are actual ruts and chucks of pavement missing as one goes from Northgate through the University District and on the city center. Moi is guessing that many of those who drive Interstate 5 on a regular basis long for a good road. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are good roads.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
Buddha

The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.
Albert Einstein

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble on the road.
Henry Ward Beecher

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
Stephen Hawking

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra

The middle of the road is where the white line is – and that’s the worst place to drive.
Robert Frost

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.
Thomas Sowell

You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.
Oprah Winfrey

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
C. S. Lewis

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The 08/16/13 Joy Jar

15 Aug

Moi walks in downtown Seattle a lot and she has been noticing the buildings with marble exteriors and quite often marble interiors. Moi guesses it is to make the buildings seem grand and impressive. When one walks in neighborhoods, not so much marble, there. The marble is in a variety of shades and conditions. Obviously, the well-tended marble belongs to the affluent for whom, image is important. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the beautiful stone marble.

“The best memory is that which forgets nothing, but injuries. Write kindness in marble and write injuries in the dust.”
Persian Proverb

“Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.”
Henry David Thoreau

“Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.”
Alexis Carrel

“Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.”
Aldous Huxley

“A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.”
Charles H. Spurgeon

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.”
Joseph Addison

“An artist that works in marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, but the man who molds his thoughts in verse has to employ the materials vulgarized by everybody’s use, and glorify them by his handling”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art. In a woman the flesh must be like marble; in a statue the marble must be like flesh.
Victor Hugo

The court is like a palace of marble; it’s composed of people very hard and very polished.
Jean de la Bruyere

“Guido the plumber and Michelangelo obtained their marble from the same quarry, but what each saw in the marble made the difference between a nobleman’s sink and a brilliant sculpture.”
Bob Kall

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A cautionary tale: Riding the 71 bus and the death of Whitney Houston

11 Feb

This is a portion of the Seattle Times article, Whitney Houston, superstar of records, films, dies:

Houston’s publicist, Kristen Foster, said the cause of death was unknown.

Rosen said police received a 911 call from hotel security about Houston at 3:43 p.m. Saturday. Paramedics who were already at the hotel because of a Grammy party unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate the singer, he said.

Houston’s end came on the eve of music’s biggest night – the Grammy Awards. It’s a showcase where she once reigned, and her death was sure to cast a heavy pall on Sunday’s ceremony…

At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world’s best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen….

But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.

“The biggest devil is me. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy,” Houston told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.

It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the United States alone.

She seemed to be born into greatness. She was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin....http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2017485885_apusobitwhitneyhouston.html

The 71 bus was crowded, it usually is. The run is from downtown to the university district. I don’t know how many thousands attend the University of Washington, but they all seem to be riding the bus at the same time. It promised to be an uneventful trip from city center to the “district.”

I was at the end of a seat because my seatmate took over half the bench seat. But, I was happy to be sitting down and not be a strap hanger. I just wanted to close my eyes and think about nothing in particular. The gangly, black guy across from me, said “hey, did you know that Whitney Houston died?” I said that that was the first I had heard about her death. Then I asked, drugs? He said “yeh, probably, but nobody said nothing about it.” I said I wondered what causes people to start with drugs. He began to tell me his story.

At this point, I didn’t know his name or even why he began talking to me. He said that he had taken just about every drug imaginable and had even come back from the dead a couple of times. He once had a wife, children, and other family. He had made a lot of money in the fishing industry in Alaska in the 70’s. Proudly he told me about managing a team of over 75 and being respected for that. “That was something for a black man in the 70’s.” he said he made over $1400 per week back then. What happened, I said. “We were young, reckless, and we wanted to try everything because we thought nothing could touch us.” Eventually he was using heavily and began dealing to support his habit. Other members of his family including his wife were using as well.

He asked me if I worked for METRO, the local bus company. No, I said, I’m a writer. Why did you think I worked for METRO? “Because your jacket has the METRO colors.” I’m guessing he probably likes hitting on bus drivers. The conversation continued. How do you get out of the drug life, I asked. “You die, you relapse, you struggle.” He talked about his struggles. The fact that the AA he liked to attend because it was a small group folded and how hard it was for him to go to a bigger group of thirty or so. Why, I asked. “Because out of thirty folks, about ten of them will relapse and that is discouraging.” He is currently on methadone and his tests have been coming up clean. Now, “I just want to tell the truth, I just want a real life.”

His bus stop approached. I asked him if I could have his first name and whether it would be OK if I wrote about his story. “My name is Ron and I just might read your blog.”

I’m guessing, Ms. Houston never made it to the point where she just wanted to tell the truth.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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