Who I Am
Hi! How did you get to this weblog?
Just so you will know who's responsible for this outrage, I will tell you.
I arrived on the planet in 1931 in the Nation's Capital, in a hospital that had been built generations earlier for the use of the freed slaves. I was my parents' first-born, after they had been trying for 15 years, and soon afterward they also produced a sometimes annoying little girl, and that was it.
Though for slightly more than half my childhood I lived in Landover, Maryland, I received all my education in the public schools of Washington, D.C. and at Howard University in the same city. There I started my lifelong impractical pattern, by majoring in English Literature and minoring in Classics. After taking time out for a little spin with the U.S. Air Force, in 1958 I graduated magna cum laude from Howard, where at the very last moment they also handed me a Phi Beta Kappa key. It's been sitting deep in a drawer ever since. It's quite tiny, and I have never found a lock that it will fit. I will concede that I haven't exactly been searching either.
I guess people expected that I would be a teacher, but, always having felt that I am unworthy of that genuinely heroic calling, I have successfully avoided it. Instead, my life ever since college is sufficiently described as having been a collection of towering dreams, some of them ecstatically realized, and others tragically unrealized.
My sign is Leo, for what that's worth, and there's a likelihood that in less than a month I will have 73 years, as they say in Europe. I take high blood pressure pills -- most of the time -- glaucoma drops all the time, and that's all my meds. With enough light I can read quite well and see in the distance, though a little fuzzily. I stand at just about 6 feet and though for most of my adult life I weighed only 135, 10 years ago my body apparently thought it needed exactly 30 more pounds for the final haul, and it seems to have plateaued out there. I am nervous, feeble, error-prone, and clumsy. I'm a hopelessly bleeding hearts, habitual non-conformist weirdo who smiles a lot and doesn't owe anybody any money. I have never smoked, drank, dressed presentably, or done anything else that was in style.
I write, paint, hammer, saw, garden, and computer, and I can do other things as well, though these days that involves a lot more intent and a lot less commission.
For the last 25 years my wife and I have lived deep in the sticks of the Virginia Piedmont, close to the Blue Ridge, in a 1,400 sq-ft "green oak" house that I designed and built myself, every nail, board, wire, pane, and pipe -- excepting only the septic tank -- I couldn't fake being a front end loader. It is located deep in the sticks of the Virginia Piedmont, in sight of the Blue Ridge. That's a tiny picture of my house at the top of the sidebar. I am very proud of it.
.
I've been married to the same quaint woman for nearly four decades, and until two and a half years ago we had a child, a son. I've been very fortunate in having them, too.
That's who I think I am, nearly all the time.
Have you managed to pick up any good ideas yet about who you might be? It's not easy!
Just so you will know who's responsible for this outrage, I will tell you.
I arrived on the planet in 1931 in the Nation's Capital, in a hospital that had been built generations earlier for the use of the freed slaves. I was my parents' first-born, after they had been trying for 15 years, and soon afterward they also produced a sometimes annoying little girl, and that was it.
Though for slightly more than half my childhood I lived in Landover, Maryland, I received all my education in the public schools of Washington, D.C. and at Howard University in the same city. There I started my lifelong impractical pattern, by majoring in English Literature and minoring in Classics. After taking time out for a little spin with the U.S. Air Force, in 1958 I graduated magna cum laude from Howard, where at the very last moment they also handed me a Phi Beta Kappa key. It's been sitting deep in a drawer ever since. It's quite tiny, and I have never found a lock that it will fit. I will concede that I haven't exactly been searching either.
I guess people expected that I would be a teacher, but, always having felt that I am unworthy of that genuinely heroic calling, I have successfully avoided it. Instead, my life ever since college is sufficiently described as having been a collection of towering dreams, some of them ecstatically realized, and others tragically unrealized.
My sign is Leo, for what that's worth, and there's a likelihood that in less than a month I will have 73 years, as they say in Europe. I take high blood pressure pills -- most of the time -- glaucoma drops all the time, and that's all my meds. With enough light I can read quite well and see in the distance, though a little fuzzily. I stand at just about 6 feet and though for most of my adult life I weighed only 135, 10 years ago my body apparently thought it needed exactly 30 more pounds for the final haul, and it seems to have plateaued out there. I am nervous, feeble, error-prone, and clumsy. I'm a hopelessly bleeding hearts, habitual non-conformist weirdo who smiles a lot and doesn't owe anybody any money. I have never smoked, drank, dressed presentably, or done anything else that was in style.
I write, paint, hammer, saw, garden, and computer, and I can do other things as well, though these days that involves a lot more intent and a lot less commission.
For the last 25 years my wife and I have lived deep in the sticks of the Virginia Piedmont, close to the Blue Ridge, in a 1,400 sq-ft "green oak" house that I designed and built myself, every nail, board, wire, pane, and pipe -- excepting only the septic tank -- I couldn't fake being a front end loader. It is located deep in the sticks of the Virginia Piedmont, in sight of the Blue Ridge. That's a tiny picture of my house at the top of the sidebar. I am very proud of it.
.
I've been married to the same quaint woman for nearly four decades, and until two and a half years ago we had a child, a son. I've been very fortunate in having them, too.
That's who I think I am, nearly all the time.
Have you managed to pick up any good ideas yet about who you might be? It's not easy!
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 7:48 PM
4 Comments:
No, I haven't. But blogging inches us toward the asymptotic point known as "identity."
I like the photo!
No, I haven't. But blogging inches us toward the asymptotic point known as "identity."
I like the photo!
Mighty fine looking man in that photo. You know, if it wasn't for the fact that I like women, your wife would have some competition!
Thanks, Terette and Rook. It's comical, Rook. I was emboldened to post my picture only after seeing that you had posted yours. I figured that if you could be that courageous, I might chance it, too!
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