bierkergaard

Heading to NYC on Tuesday night. I am ramping myself up by watching the video Empire State of Mind . Many of my fondest recollections of Christmas and the Christmas season come from New York City. My grandparents lived in Queens. The Christmas countdown officially started in my heart's chronometer when seeing Santa wave to the crowd in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Every precious second...tick, tick, tick till Dec. 25. In 1968, my family spent a magical Christmas in NYC. My older brother Mike got all worked up that my grandparents didn't have a chimney for Santa to climb down to give us gifts...the adults telling him that they would leave the front door ajar didn't assuage him. He needed a chimney. So, my Opa (kraut for Grandfather) bought a faux chimney mantle piece. My brother was satisfied that met the Santa spec, regardless that there was no actual chimney going up to the roof. I figured chimney or not, Santa could come up with a way to deliver the gifts...I thi...

I would say one of the most glaring contrast in my nature from youth until now as a middle aged man is that whereas--in my days of yore youth--I resisted taking out the trash, now I embrace it as a cathartic activity; giving me a sense of completion and closure, which is pretty much opposite how my life goes most of the time. Usually, I kind of wait to see what happens in my day-to-day, because often I don't know what is coming, especially true in my job as a school counselor. Enforced flexibility...if you don't bend, you break. Yes it is interesting and exciting always, and just a bit stressful. So, when I see the trash can brimming, I hardly dawdle in pulling the red cord of the refuse white bag and dispatch the trash into the outer darkness. My own Gehenna. Take care of business, take it out, don't delay. Act now. It gives me profound satisfaction. As a kid, this chore caused me to delay until the decay and the smell and heaping overflow compelled action. It was one o...

Yesterday was the day was when John Lennon was assassinated 30 years ago. I don't recall where I was or what I was doing when I heard the news...the Beatles were not a band a paid a lot of attention to when I was in high school. Only until I became older, have I come to appreciate how their acclaim was truly deserved. Something about their music resonates in a way the very little else does. In reading over the various pieces yesterday about John Lennon, I was surprised to learn in the 1970's, he dabbled seriously with the Christian faith, ultimately dropping his engagement. But it was more than just a one night conversion...he claimed to be born-again and even struck up a back and forth correspondence with Oral Roberts the Elder. No fooling. Seems, because of his fame, Lennon stayed inside a lot and watched televangelists. In a sad irony, Lennon sought to distance himself from fame whereas his assassin Mark David Chapman sought fame through an infamous act. Fame is not only ...

No, I am not going to write a piece about Santa but I did want to be seasonal. Yesterday, besides bottling my Belgian Quad and doing laundry, I was updating my "Lists." I am an inveterate list-maker. To some, it might look like a manifestation of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). It is not; it actually something that keeps me from being OCD. You want to see me become a compulsive nail-biting, cuticle pulling, hand-washer? Take away my list-making. I keep a Saturday To-Do List (Saturdays are the day to tie up loose ends and do work that needs to be done...six days ye shall work type of thing), a Seasonal To-Do List updated every quarter, and a general Home To-Do list of things that I just need to be mindful of...like how much Comcast rates are going up and my desperate quest to find another way to have internet service. I also keep a Work To-Do list at school...alphabetical by task and then student last name. That came quite in handy for my Sabbatical replacement last year...