As I pour over the headlines from the New York Times and The Guardian every morning, I alternately wring my hands and laugh out loud. Seems like the world may last longer than we've been thinking, but what kind of world?
Maybe serving as a good example is the only sure-fire strategy.
Be the light, share the love. Tell the truth.
Once every generation we're surprised to discover how many greedy folks, willing to do bad things, share the planet with us. You don't fight with love, you just love.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
It's hard to feel threatened by a hurricane almost 5,000 miles away, but old habits die hard. This time, of course, I worry about friends and relatives back home. I worry about strangers, too, not to mention opossums, squirrels, dogs and cats.
In the hours before landfall, that weird, quiet calm that feels so eerie in some way that can't be properly explained. At least I've never heard it accurately described. Every kid in elementary school in Florida reads about how all the livestock behaved strangely before a big blow. At least they did while they were still allowed to read. The Seminoles and the Miccasukee knew.
I feel it now, from this distance, over an ocean, somehow. Now we wait.
They don't know any more about it than you do. That's the secret. I'm pretty sure that the things that made you happy as a kid will make you happy today. Yeah, I'm talking about puppies and ice cream, but I'm talking about love, too.
The mean ones didn't get enough. You know the ones I'm referring to here. Check the headlines.
What's the secret to getting it? Here's where the advice diverges. Some say money.
For every song, poem or play written about money, there must be a thousand written about love. Try to give yours away and see what happens.
As long as folks like me end up with everything they've ever wanted, it's hard to buy into that old "be careful what you wish for" saw, isn't it?
Here on the Isle of Portland, paradise has no interest in being "discovered." I've lost count of the places that I've been where the locals tell me, "Oh, you should have seen this place before it was discovered." Key West, San Francisco, Havana.
Living on a great rock, poking up out of the English Channel, where the wind gusts regularly at 70 mph and isn't even considered a storm, the living is easy. Yeah, a local juvenile delinquent pushed a shopping cart from the grocery store into town the other night, but it's generally pretty quiet around here.
I hope that some day, everyone will have a life as fine as mine.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
There are always going to be things that I just can't talk about. The only way to categorise the things as a subject is to say Old Shep.
There was a time when I was nine or ten years old that I would listen to Elvis' version of the old Red Foley song almost daily. Now I can do it about once a decade, If anyone else is in the room, I don't generally make it to the end.
Maybe if we could all re-set our minds to the factory settings, we would all be living in some Garden of Eden. I seem to have stumbled into just such a scenario. Of course I know when I'm naked and I don't disregard mortality. Nevertheless, I've found paradise in Portland.
Just make sure that you've got the right guide and interpreter before you strike out.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
When you're young, you're afraid of ghosts. If you're lucky and you live long enough, most of your best friends are ghosts. Does that mean I believe in some spirit world that goes on after this life? Well, now, if the vibrations in my mind can conjure up memories that appear to me and speak to me, who am I to doubt their existence?
Ghosts, to me, are like love or joy. Their very existence depends on you believing.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
We're all worried about something. I suppose that's why they sell so much alcohol, why so many Americans have medical cannabis cards. I've tried to train myself to let it go. I paid Maharishi Mahesh Yogi thirty five bucks on the student special deal for my own secret mantra and I've ingested every substance recommended by every fashionable guru to come down the path.
Of course, I would like to think that none of it has done me any harm, but then again, who knows what I might have accomplished with some cleaner living.
My plan for the future is to keep my mind in the gutter and off world events over which I have no control. Vote Bonobo!
One of the things that seems more obvious as I grow older is just how sure of himself the fool is. I've grown cynical of anyone asserting wisdom.
I suppose, at this point, I value kindness above all. Fortunately, I seem to have moved into a hotbed of it. Folks smile here. That lovely British "Sorry," is overheard on every sidewalk, in every grocery aisle.
I'm gonna wok on being gentle and gracious. I'm nothing if not fashionable.
It's a bit greyer than I imagined. Calls have dropped off and the e-mail has dwindled to next-to-nothing. I bid on trinkets on eBay, hoping that someone else will grab them. Somehow, I always imagined that there would be something that I needed. You know, that one car. That one of a kind guitar; that once in a lifetime girl.
I don't mean to brag...well, maybe I do- I have succeeded. I have it all.
Oh, sure, I dream of world peace and I worry about the stray dogs. I'm aware of every school shooting and I cry for the lonely. I just lost another friend this week who just wasn't strong enough to survive the hard part. For the first time, though, I'm almost able to celebrate what she was on the good days. Few of my favourites were designed for this world, these times.
There's an end to every story. It's way too late for mine to be a short story, even though short stories have always been my favourite. I suppose my last worry was that I had used up all my good luck. Of course it just kept coming.
By the way, I got the once in a lifetime girl. She came with the one of a kind guitar and the best would-be stray. I told you I have it all.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Maybe I should have told the tales of my parade of consciousness while there was some small degree of relevance. I suppose I did, in fact, but I don't believe anyone was listening.
New stories are always better.
I'm not likely to shake another king's hand at this point, but three should be plenty, and I've blundered into the cosmic path of the royal personage of Roy, Elvis and Big Daddy.
My favourite stories are all about laughing. I plan to do a lot more before all's said and done.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Bad actors hijacked the language long ago. In the United States the wealthy activists figured out that if you could control the courts, the religions and the semantics while you destroyed faith in the media, you could manipulate the masses into voting against their best interests in perpetuity.
What had been done to the term, woke, was impressive until I arrived in the UK. It is the ultimate slur here. Don't blunder into the corner pub in your Siddhartha Gautama t shirt, mate.
Now, I'll take what I want from your religions- the Golden Rule with a dash of peace and love, and I'll leave what I don't like- an eye for an eye. I would prefer very little of any of your governments at all, except that I know that someone will steal your unlocked bike or pick your unbuttoned pocket.
I'm a liberal, a socialist, an optimist. Show me a better path and I'll take it. I respect your views. I'm pretty stubborn on that peace and love bit, but that's about it.
Do you have childhood heroes? Of course you do. Pretty sure we all do. I probably have more than my share. I never dropped one for the next one. I just kept adding to my list.
Why not copy all the best parts of each of them. In my world Gene Vincent had Elvis and Jayne Mansfield had Marilyn. Muhammad Ali had Gorgeous George and James Dean had Marlon.
Think of the kindest teacher you ever had, the most patient boss, the most honest public figure before that became an oxymoron. Who was the sweetest person in your high school class?
What would happen if you mixed all of the best traits of all the folks who inspired you and smeared it all over you. If you act nice all the time, you're nice. Can you believe it? Try spending some time patiently with a lonely neighbor like you can remember your mom doing. Voila!
Is this the most simplistic, naive suggestion that you ever ran across? Yeah, probably. I can't remember where I got it.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Wouldn't we all like to believe that we're coming back when the ride is over. Don't we all need to hang onto the hope that we'll all be reunited someday with the ones we love.
Just in case that's not gonna happen, let's agree to enjoy every minute with the precious ones in our life. The luckiest of us know just how lucky we are.
Everybody wants to leave before the party winds down. Cloudy eyes and an early bed time. Hope is where love outruns heartbreak. You know all that passion that you've saved up? All those dreams that you put on hold? Check that expiration date, dear friend.
Want to compete? Look into setting some kind of world's record for the kindest person who ever lived. If you don't win, everybody else will.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Maybe there's never any need to panic. Everything that's going to happen is going to happen. From where I sit, it's mostly fools who think they're running the show. How would you like to wake up in the morning and realise, "Uh oh- I'm Vladimir Putin!"
If you want folks to tell you what you want to hear, just throw a few rubles around.
Maybe there's something lower, more boring than politics. I haven't found it.
Oh, there's plenty to worry about. It's called the unknown. My advice is to brush after every meal and try not to dwell on it.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Wise men tell me that time is of the essence. Wiser men explain that time does not actually exist. Who, pray tell, is responsible for running this planet?
You're either with Dr. Einstein here, or Lewis Carroll.
We live in an age where under-educated minorities make decisions that jeopardise the well being of, not just majorities, but the entire universe.
I don't know about you, but I would feel better if AI were being developed by bonobos.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war. While you're at it, give us a break.
My philosophy has always come from the best sources that I can find. Pythagoras, Don Garlits, Mae West, Jesus, Howdy Doody, Grandma, Buddha... you know, the usual suspects.
Recently, while wasting time on social media or doing important research, depending on whether you lean towards Howdy or Jesus, I came across a rambling stream from Brigitte Bardot about the joys of old age.
She theorised that anxiety is nothing but worry about the future. At some point, there is no future.
Once again, I take my wisdom where I find it. She was already on the list. I guess you knew that.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Wisdom, I always assumed, meant an abundance of knowledge. Now, don't misunderstand me- I'm not making any claim to wisdom here. I have to admit that getting older and accumulating a few more facts has changed me somewhat.
If there's anything that I'm sure of at this point, it is that I don't know much. My convictions are all about love and kindness. I suppose they always have been.
Every living thing thrives with love and I'm not sure that the same might not be true for most inanimate objects. Hey, what have you got to lose?
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Cake for breakfast, veggie hot dogs for lunch and now we're putting away the crisps, or potato chips as the colonists say, as though these are the last ones on earth. Don't worry- we spent a good fifteen or twenty minutes at the gym.
If these are the end times that those lunatics pray for, I don't want to leave a tart behind.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
When I filled her prescription for morphine, it was for a ninety day supply. Hansel had told me that she had three months. Every morning, as I took one tablet out, I counted my blessings. By the time that the last few pills rattled around the plastic bottle, my heart was in pieces.
Sure enough, just as we got to the last dose, I knew it was time to make the call. It was the longest three months of my long life and the shortest; the sweetest and the saddest.
These days I notice the level of every bottle of shampoo, every decanter of brandy. I don't want to miss a moment.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
So you are pretty sure that your idea of the world is the real story and that the rest of us have it all wrong, right? The ones who see it the most like you are the ones that come the closest to having it right. Right? Am I right?
That means that only one of us has it right. What if that one died last Wednesday? Or six hundred years back!
You do realise that your odds of winning a lottery, any lottery, are way better than your world vision being the one, right?
What if nobody has the winning ticket? Hey! That's more or less my idea, so that one can't be right under my own rules.
I'm still holding up mirrors to mirrors.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Just when you think luck has nothing to do with it, another pot of gold shows up under some rainbow that you never noticed in the middle of your backyard.
I've heard it all ends. I suppose it has to eventually.
Make hay while the sun shines. That, or do one of those other things that wiser, older folks always suggested.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
I've never understood why the captain or anyone else would go down with a ship, rats included. Now I find myself feeling almost guilty about abandoning the good ol' US of A during these dark hours. It breaks my heart to see the divisions that seem to grow deeper by the day.
Oh, I've been around for long enough so that I remember other dark days. When those four little girls died at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, I was sixteen years old. Two months later President Kennedy was taken from us.
Somehow, these dark days seem to represent something more ominous, if that's even possible.
I have a lot of friends who assume that I left the USA because of the turmoil. Of course those around me know that true love brought me to a new home.
None of us are helpless. It's not about politics or religion, taxes or taste. It's about love. Do your part, then do some more. Smother that hate with all the love you've got on you.
It's all about the luck at the end of the day, isn't it? I suppose I should ask "innit?"
We're all born, at least all of us here. The ultimate "good luck," I suppose, unless you're born into a sad, painful existence. Then it's the ultimate "bad luck."
We're all gonna die. No exceptions so far.
That event must be the opposite of the birth experience.
In between, it's all boy meets girl, boy loses girl stuff. Be wary of anyone who tries to tell you that they have only good luck or only bad luck.
Meantime, enjoy the ride. Don't let the birds sing for nothing. Get your share of the joy and try to get some to your neighbor.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Do you suppose that a moth has any idea of how little time he has? You know Dr. Einstein said that time only exists so that everything doesn't happen at once. Would you consider that the beauty of everything around you is wildly enhanced by the idea that it won't last?
Take care of your memories and make plenty of new ones.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Who knows how many "owners" old Jonathan has gone through at this point. At one hundred and ninety one or ninety two, who's counting, who really cares. I find myself wondering if the old boy misses any of them. Do you suppose that he sits around thinking wistfully, " Humans are so wonderful. If only they lived longer."
Make the most of whatever you've got. Love like crazy and eat pudding.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Neither time, nor god, at this point, is on my side. That's alright. I've dodged every sling, arrow and radiator cap for a very long time and know good luck when I see it. I was always in it for the long haul. I just didn't know it.
Wisdom is all about the realisation that you don't know much.
Everybody's a singer but not everybody finds his song.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. You do what you can. You do your best. Don't miss the magic and the miracles by worrying about other folks' business. Love like crazy at every opportunity. Watch out for the sunrises and the sunsets and play in the puddles.
Take good care of the animals and the ones who can't take care of themselves.
If you find your mind in the gutter, consider it meditation.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Cheaters never win. The meek shall inherit the earth. Those are lies perpetuated by Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and my next-door neighbor. If you can cheat and get away with it, you'll win.
Oh, I hope that doesn't sound like I advocate cheating. It's just that I have my own definition of "winning."
Money is not the root of all evil. Never was. Evil is the root of all evil.
Seems to me, if you do what you do for money, you're missing the point. Try love. Get back to me. Let me know how that works out for you.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Love's like money, isn't it? There's enough to go 'round, but there's a serious distribution problem. We need, somehow, to get it into the orphanages, the animal shelters, Washington D.C., Gaza.
Give it all away. You'll never run out and you'll never regret it. They'll make fun of you. Enjoy every minute.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Well, it's warm over there, I'll give you that. It's always great to see old friends. Of course I miss more than I'm able to see. I'll be back before too long. Meantime, there's no place like home and home is where the heart is. Oh, I could go on and on with the cornball maxims.
These days I live life. I spent the early part preparing. It took all I had to invent George Ronald Elliott. Turns out the Social Security number and driver's license weren't adequate. Schools, jobs and social pressure were never enough to bend me properly.
Now in our Portland, the locals proudly sport "Keep Portland Weird" bumper stickers just like the folks in the other Portland.
I'll do what I can.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
Evidence indicates that I should have done something different with my life. I seem to have figured it out, to the extent that it can be figured out, here in the last few years. I hope that doesn't mean that I wasted the rest of it.
Then again, I'm pretty sure that "wasting it" is our primary function.
Oh, I would save the world if I could.
Love when you can and where you can, just as hard as you can.
Ol' Thomas Wolfe claimed you can never go home. Frankly, I believe it's just all in how you describe "home."
I'm going to Florida in a few days. Tampa. I lived there from the time I was seven years old until about two years ago when I moved to Great Britain.
Going back to Tampa won't be going home, although I'll be glad to see old friends, two-legged, three-legged and four. Coming back to Dorset in a couple of weeks will. Pliny the Elder is credited with, "Home is where the heart is." I'm with Pliny.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
I had to cross an ocean. Now I live. Before I waited to live.
Sometimes I walk in the field and sometimes I ride on the bus. I pet the dog and we're both aware of every stroke. Romance is woven into every scenario. William and Myrna would be well-cast in our fairytale story.
Hold the bubble and squeak, I'm just coming. I'll wade in the Gulf for a short visit soon and I'll drive on the right side for a couple of weeks. I still dream of peace on earth and an end to this dreadful, dreadful war.
Some days it don't pay to get up. What do you suppose snake handlers do on their day off? Boys, I've got better things to do than....
Wait a minute! No, I don't. I don't have a single thing to do. Oh, I could write a song. I could cut the grass. We all know that there are too many songs in the world as it is and I've written more than my fair share. The grass? I don't need to tell you that it will grow right back.
The Christian work ethic was a cruel hoax. I hope I may serve as a bad example to a few of you aspiring layabouts and ne'er-do-wells. Celebrate with me. Tell 'em you're meditating or something.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
We all spend our lives trying to "get back home." The longer you live, the more obvious it is, I suppose. Folks with the means travel. Some seek through spiritual paths and others find the bottle.
In my new role as the poster boy for the quest, home found me. Now, to be clear, without Kate as the delivery agent, I wasn't going to find anything. It took me years to give up my dream to move to England and two weeks to get it back.
Home is where they drive on the wrong side of the street. Home is where Kate lives.
These days I keep up with friends mostly through dreams. When I arrived in England, I wondered if I would hear regularly from the people in my life. I don't.
For a sentimental fool like me, you would think that would be a tragedy of some degree. It's not.
Memories have always been my greatest treasures. These new ones are divine.
I hope this doesn't translate as some idea that I don't miss anyone. I do. I'll see you in my dreams.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
