I had my six month Doctor Visit today, as part of being an Old Man. It went OK. I had to fast beforehand, 8 hours, no big deal. Still it throws my eating regimen out of whack. Usually I eat whenever I want.

Physically I’m doing OK.

Before I went to the Doctor, I went to 8:00 AM Mass at the Benedictine Abbey. The Church there has the world’s worst acoustics. And the priest, if he is not a native English speaker, is often times unintelligible. But I know what he is saying, so it’s not that important I understand every word.

So after the Doctor Visit, I went to AA. That’s another example where showing up is the most important part.

Then J and I had cheeseburgers for lunch. She ordered a salad with blue cheese dressing, too, while I had a bowl of chili. This was at Longhorns. It’s a chain restaurant, I know, but we like the people who work there, especially the server, Lauri, we ask for.

I came home and crashed. I had a nap. Now I am watching a YouTube video from a man who lives on a canal barge in England. Maybe I should try that for awhile, cruising the canals. Seems like right out of Dickens. We have the James River & Kanawha Canal in Richmond, built in the pre-Civil War era. It was intended to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Ohio River and its tributaries. It was a good idea before railroads prevailed in transportation. I wonder if reviving the canal for pleasure craft, or barge tourism has ever been considered. Since it was partially built with slave labour, entrepreneurs would probably have to deal with a reparations issue. That could be a deal breaker.

It is 40°F. (18.3°C) cooler today than it was on Sunday. And rainy. A nice slow drizzle. Seems like I have waited weeks for such a day. Even though we have air conditioning, it much less stressful to have the cooler temperatures.

That’s all folks (Imagine insensitive and politically incorrect Porky Pig stuttering voice).

If Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent, why is he still alive?

To save himself from serious jail time, he could point directly to the Israeli intelligence agency, were he an agent. To prevent such exposure, Mossad would kill him. If there is overlap with the CIA, would CIA let him talk?

The temptation is to inflate the case out of all proportion. The federal prosecutors are seeking to keep this case down to Earth. Sensationalism will serve to help Epstein, if what the jury has to deal with is similar to a plot outline from a James Bond movie.

I’ve spent my life aspiring to be one of the “smart people”. I went to school to apply whatever intelligence I had into an income-producing asset.

Then Jeffrey Epstein came along. He was a really smart guy. And used his smarts to get rich, gain influence, make powerful friends and rape as many postpubescent teenage girls as he possibly could.

And the entire world of the New York and Hollywood cultural, political and financial elites has been put under scrutiny. This coincides with the examination and reassessment of the goals of globalism. Suddenly more and more people are seeing their political and personal autonomy eroded by institutions like the European Union, by free trade agreements that destroy their livelihood and their dignity.

And the elitist talking heads are finally being challenged. Brexit. The Trump Election, the Yellow Vests, the collapse of Angela Merkel. I could go on.

Culture, finance, politics are all providentially, I would argue, being challenged. Great time to be alive. Glad I made it this far.

So I am up. No surprise there. I just ate a slice of whole wheat toast with butter and cherry preserves.

My Ukrainian metal detecting comrades (товарищи) are going through an abandoned house. These visits are poignant, abandoned houses filled with memorabilia and trash. Sometimes there is an icon, a prayer book, the hidden things of the Soviet era.

I watch these posts from Russia 🇷🇺 and Ukraine 🇺🇦. There is antagonism between these two nations, once Republics within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Different languages, and the lesser nation, Ukraine, is fearful of the cultural domination of the other. To be honest, I like the Russians and the Ukrainians both. They seem like regular people. One of my neighbors flies a Ukrainian flag. I think there are Russians in the neighborhood too.

So many of us have Russian souls but do not know it, until we hear the Easter chants and see the Cathedrals, rich with icons. The women hold the lit tapers and their eyes mirror their devotion. In the time of their parents and grandparents, the State set out to destroy their souls. The martyrs were many. Tsar Nicholas was among them. And we, in the arrogance of our freedom, think we have tamed our own Leviathan.

I have switched to trainspotting. There will be an hour, at least, till a passenger train passes through Ashland. A freight, who knows?

I am choosing to be awake. I am mourning the brokenness of our world, like the rift between Russia and Ukraine. It seems so pointless.. But the takeaway is that people need to maintain that sense of who they are. I get that. We constantly cast aside that from which we are alien. The hard part, sometimes, is understanding the people who embrace what we reject, let alone loving them.

I think I’m losing sleep over the Epstein Scandal. The man, if he really is the pervert he is alleged to be, has well concealed the darkness within him. Pray for him. And the millions like him, for whom, as St Paul said, “Their god is the belly.”

And now I am getting tired. But the beds seem unwelcome, There is little comfort in lying down. And who knows who will visit in my dreams?

It would be a relief to see my mother, even my ex-wife. I would ask both how Death is treating them. I would hope they are on their way to Heaven, if they aren’t there already.

There are few demons or monsters from my past that I fear in my dreams. For that I am lucky.

Bedtime, again. In some bed somewhere. Some time soon.

Certain people will think I’m an SOB.

I don’t care.

I prefer heartfelt scorn to phony compassion.

You know who you are.

The railcam, web cam placed at the rail station in Ashland, VA. is on. People walk by. Some know there is a camera there. They will look up and wave. Others go about doing whatever it is that they do. The trains are supposed to be the stars. But the minor players in the show get their moments.

Earlier, a middle-aged man wearing those baggy shorts cut off at mid calf and a blue golf shirt, stood, with a camera on a monopod, taking pictures of the Amtrak train #125, when it stopped. He later walked away. Various women walked in and out of camera view. And some men did the same. They were all headed to someplace else.

There is a black SUV parked in the handicapped space. In a few minutes Train #90, the Northbound Palmetto, will pass through. It does not stop in Ashland. #90 is late. That isn’t unusual.

The web cam is extending its focus Southbound, anticipating the passage of #90 through town. A car crosses the tracks.

Outside my house I hear thunder. There seems to be no thunderstorm approaching Ashland, not yet at least. It is Summer. There are hot days and we all swear it’s miserable. And there will be marvelous, splendid storms, bringing noise and water and static discharges over the landscape, perpetually the L’estate movement of Vivaldi’s Il Quattro Stagione.*

The Ashland scene has no people in camera view, just cars, pavement and tracks, until a person in black pants and a pink top crosses the tracks. It is like an ambulatory Good N’ Plenty candy, the kind you buy in a box at the movies.

The signal flashes, the gate goes down, #90 passes through, on the way to Washington and New York. The camera pans by the lovely, verdant commons that are the Grounds at Randolph-Macon College. In the Southern sky are storm clouds.

Here comes Amtrak #66 headed ultimately to Boston. It stops. The tee-shirted travelers board the train using the yellow Amtrak stepstool. The stairs retract. The door closes. After a minute the train moves on.

Summer. Travel. Fun?

*Post Script:

I decided to listen to the Summer Movement of The Four Seasons. I found a recording on YouTube, performed by a chamber orchestra of young women. And I remembered that Vivaldi was, in his day job, a priest at a girls’ orphanage in Venice. He wrote The Four Seasons for just such an orchestra as this one.

I went to Publix to buy some chicken and other stuff. The chicken breast with bone and skin on was $1.99/lb. while the other kind, boneless and skin was more than twice, so I skinned and de-boned it myself, and the skin and the bone pieces with plenty of meat still on them, I’m making stock with. Aren’t I the clever one?

I bought some local tomatoes too. When I get my Social Security check, perhaps J and I will drive over to the Valley, (Shenandoah) and get some fresh local peaches. Shenandoah Valley fruit is superb.

The motivation issues loom large still. But I did something today, at least.