{"id":5360,"date":"2022-12-24T01:16:58","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T19:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/?p=5360"},"modified":"2022-12-24T01:21:04","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T19:21:04","slug":"what-is-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/?p=5360","title":{"rendered":"WHAT IS 60?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Three months ago today, I turned 60.\u00a0 What is 60?\u00a0 I know it’s twice 30.\u00a0 30 years ago it was 1992 and Jeanette and I had moved back to the Belleville area from New Market.\u00a0 We had our two year old daughter Emily with us.\u00a0 Another 30 years on and we have three children and they’ve all graduated from University.\u00a0 Emily is married to Charlie.\u00a0 60 is also 3 times 20.\u00a0 I turned 20 in my first year of University.\u00a0 Frank Sinatra played Ottawa on September 11th of that year.\u00a0 I would rather have been at that concert than have been at Trent in September.\u00a0 That’s a long story I won’t retell.\u00a0 Jeanette, my wife, and my diploma are the best things that ever happened to me at Trent.
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 This blahg got sidelined for a few months.\u00a0 I started writing this blahg in mid-October and now it’s December 23rd and I’m finally getting back to it.\u00a0 It’s been an incredibly busy few months so I think I will wrap up the general theme and get back to the point of things.\u00a0 When I started writing this two months ago I had plans to link it all to a poem I had written several years ago.\u00a0 Let me post that poem then comment on everything.\u00a0 This poem is from September 5, 1986:\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

to old one<\/h4>\n

I imagine one day
\nI’ll be old —
\nand knowin’ me
\none day will be about
\nall I can hack —
\nso I’m writin’ this to my old self
\nnot what I was
\nbut what I’ll be
\nfor that one day<\/h4>\n

I’m tellin’ myself
\nto be happy
\nbein’ old
\n’cause maybe by then
\nI’ll have deserved that
\nbut now I can’t accord any dignity
\nin addressin’ my old self
\nand this’ll only make sense
\nlater on
\nto an old man<\/h4>\n

but old one,
\nthat’s you or I mean me,
\nyer ruptured youth
\nis writin’ to you here
\n’cause we’re two different persons
\nyou and me
\nand you know things
\nI’ve yet to comprehend
\nand you’ve forgotten things
\nI’ve yet to live
\nbut that’s ’cause
\nyer memory and you
\nare old old one<\/h4>\n

and there was a time
\nwhen I needed you
\nto talk to me
\nand tell me
\nhow I got by things or
\nover ’em or
\nthrough ’em
\nbut that’d be cheatin’
\nand I matured into that truth<\/h4>\n

but old one
\nyoung one
\nstill needs you
\n’cause I need to know
\nI’m still gonna be me
\nbut old me
\nand someone new to talk to
\nif only in my mind
\nwhen we’re one<\/h4>\n

so know yer youth
\nold one
\nand keep in touch
\nor get in touch
\nwith this
\nyoung one
\nwho needs not to know
\nyou’re old old one
\nbut old enough to remember being
\nyoung once
\nand writing to
\nyer old self
\nto hear if
\nyou stayed
\nold
\nlong enough
\nto receive this poem
\nwritten by
\nyer young one once<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 I wrote that poem more than 36 years ago.\u00a0 I wasn’t married.\u00a0 I didn’t have kids and I had yet to start any sort of career.\u00a0 I think I was struggling to find out who I would be.\u00a0 I imagined having the opportunity to talk to my old self and get reassurances I’d be okay or hints about what was to come and how to get through them.\u00a0 I never got the hints.\u00a0 I had to age through it all and figure it out for myself.\u00a0 There were some rough spots but I’m still here and happily married with 3 great children and a son in law (and 3 cats) so I must have fared well.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 So why did I get sidelined?\u00a0 Well, my novel “Pippa’s Passing” has taken a great deal of my focus.\u00a0 I haven’t found a publisher so I’m trying to do some promotion by releasing chapters online to read at a few sites.\u00a0 My daughter Abbie has actually taken on this task.\u00a0 First, I asked her to design a book cover.\u00a0 I’m quite happy with it but Abbie is not as enthusiastic.\u00a0 She tends to draw other things and in different styles so she thinks this isn’t her best work.\u00a0 Here’s that cover, judge for yourself:\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s a rationale behind the image on the cover but you have to read the book to understand.\u00a0 Here are links to sites where the first eight chapters have been posted.\u00a0 New chapters are posted Tuesday and Fridays:
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.royalroad.com\/fiction\/61632\/pippas-passing<\/a><\/h4>\n

https:\/\/www.quotev.com\/story\/15375380\/Pippas-Passing\/1<\/a><\/h4>\n

https:\/\/www.scribblehub.com\/series\/634916\/pippas-passing\/<\/a><\/h4>\n

https:\/\/www.wattpad.com\/story\/328479978-pippa%27s-passing<\/a><\/h4>\n

I also decided I wanted to create audio podcast versions of each chapter.\u00a0 So far, I have completed 17 of the 20 chapters.\u00a0 It would have been too costly to hire voice talent so I decided I would be the voice of the narrator and main character, Jeff “Pink” Carter.\u00a0 This meant I had to find computer voices for all of the other characters.\u00a0 I’m happy with most of the computer voices but I’m a perfectionist and I’ve had to mix in sound effects and music.\u00a0 Elvis music features heavily in the entire book.\u00a0 Here is the completed chapter six “Revelations At The Avocado House:”
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\nhttp:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/audiofiles\/chapter6.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

I’ll continue to work on these and hopefully will find some way and somewhere to post all of them online.\u00a0 I’m hoping this type of promotion might spark more interest in the book.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 This will be my last blahg before Christmas 2022 and quite possibly my last blahg of this year.\u00a0 I have no Christmas messages this year other than the same one I quote liberally each year from Sinatra:\u00a0 “In this upcoming year, may we find peace in the world and peace among ourselves.”\u00a0 Oh, and read my book!\u00a0 Merry Christmas!<\/span><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Three months ago today, I turned 60.\u00a0 What is 60?\u00a0 I know it’s twice 30.\u00a0 30 years ago it was 1992 and Jeanette and I had moved back to the Belleville area from New Market.\u00a0 We had our two year old daughter Emily with us.\u00a0 Another 30 years on and we have three children […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[216,214,59,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5360"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6635,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5360\/revisions\/6635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/falseducks.com\/theblahg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}