Lifelong friends who will pick you up when you are down are to be treasured.

There is a difference between politician: “one engaged in party
politics, especially as a trade; one who promotes the interests of a
political party, one concerned with public affairs for the sake of
profit or of a clique.” and statesman: “enlightened, disinterested,
and high-minded service to the state or the people of the state”.

We usually have too many politicians and not enough statesmen.

For my daughter when she was in junior high school. If you insisted on
a rule and justified it because the authority figure said so, you
guaranteed a fight. If you gave reasonable reasons for the rule, there
wouldn’t be any problem. I’ve seen reports that up to 30% of any human
population consists of authoritarians. Those in power want mindless
obedience. Even those not in positions of power want to be
thoughtlessly led and will insist on mindless obedience to authority
and punishment otherwise.

We as adults are afraid of things that we as children were ignorant
of. Sometimes we think it would be nice to be back at that age, but
now we are the ones with responsibility.

Growing up from the parent’s point of view.

Friends thinking back to our childhood dreams and where we ended up instead.

Remember christmas cards and sitting down at the kitchen table,
sending out those once a year notes to friends and relatives. Facebook
is not quite the same.

Written for my daughter when she was young and believed that animals
were nicer than people. Sometimes I even think she was right.

After the relationship is over and the fights have ceased.

Expats are temporary immigrants. But there are different types of
expats. Some just treat it as an extended vacation. Others are
seasonal and tend to forget the real truth that they are guests and
the local rules apply. Some become more native than the natives. A
fourth group is more internationalist and are more at home crossing
borders and dealing with multiple cultures than they are back home.

This song is about that last group.

Fall is my favorite time of year. Fall in New England is especially
entrancing. This has also been called a love song.

Memorial to a minor league baseball fan.