MLK Day 2025

This frozen morning has cleared all the past away, as I gather my wits & coffee, sitting down to voice my thanks and praise for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The first time I can recall seeing Dr. King was in the multipurpose room of Ash Grove Elementary school, perhaps in the fourth grade, circa 1971.  Our teacher showed all the fourth-graders a movie reel of Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.  We sat on the floor, Indian style.

We were gathered, in this manner, to celebrate this beloved civil rights leader (before it was a holiday) along with a movement that currently had cities bussing kids around, ostensibly to help end racial segregation and in the direction of a more perfect union. 

All of this much to the horror and exodus of good folks everywhere – aided by automotive transportation and self-righteous suburban fervor – whose ‘way of life’ was too precious to allow the racial interplay that had been court-ordered within city limits.

Those of us lucky enough to have undergone such ‘desegregation’ were able to realize among us the good and bad within all strains of humanity.  And stereotypes fall quickly when conversation and hijinks ensue among adolescents, only seeking to get along, obtain their driver’s license & maybe go to college.

Fifty years later, the very gifts these baby boomers received have denigrated into economic & corporate dominion; to paraphrase King, “...time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.” (Letter From a Birmingham Jail) 

Today our new president (deja vu) is taking his oath of office, promising that “this country will again flourish” and that every day he will “put America first.”  He has vowed to see Dr. King’s dream to fruition.  Whether this happens before or after a flag is planted on Martian soil is anybody’s guess.

Also of interest is Trump’s admonition to “let no fear or obstacle defeat your pride.” Which kind of makes me, well, proud.

And it certainly looks like Melania is taking her First Lady duties more to heart this time.  Not sure if I’d like to be one of her staffers, that’s for sure – but I’m sensing a Michael Jackson-esque vibe.

Onward & Upward, our great nation is forever arriving at a more perfect union, like it or not.

III

ENJOY, HERE AND NOW, the height of folly and vexing contemplation.  Despite not working, for nearly six years, I’ve dropped over eighty dollars on a Porterhouse steak I knew nothing about until bringing it home and dressing it for the grill.  Ostensibly a delectable cut of meat, and quite big, I’m doing this just for myself as yet another birthday bonus at the age of 62.  Because I’m selfish, of course.

Despite multiple BBQ coal lighting strategies (plug-in starter, newspaper chimney), it takes a propane torch to get the party jumping; my ambitions right now circle around executing art and making it to Congress Park for outdoor lap swimming.  I have no rhyme or reason, meaning nor purpose as our President’s Big Beautiful Bill is whisked right over the democrats and onto the states to deal with all its wreckage & unintended consequences.

The only observation I’ve gleaned is that Donald Trump is having the time of his life.  And why not?

If politics is the art of the possible, you’ve got to hand it to someone so shameless and grandiose, taking from the poor and enriching all those good Americans who stand on their own two feet, work hard and get what they want, both out of life and of others.  Turning a war on poverty into a war on poor people.  It sure looks like the steam-roller is coming, for so many who have relied upon Uncle Sam for so long – the swan-song of the baby boomers will be sweet music for whatever generations follow.

So unlike what I had dreamed, so long ago – of One World Market, harnessing technology and human spirit to make things better for everyone, planet included.  And all the callous and barbaric actions of wartime powers, right or wrong right now, were certainly never on my vision board.  And it is clear now that an automotive America is all anyone is going to encounter.  A world where nothing is any easier, just alot more expensive.

And yet life is good, with freedom to pursue art & ideas and learning something always & anew.  Right now my anointed term is ‘metanoia,’ which describes  “the soul’s ability to recognoze its true north and turn toward it,” along with “living proof that transformation remains possible, that the soul can always turn toward it’s better angels.” (quotes provided by CLAUDE)

Coals are finally ready, and I’m hoping for another best outcome, as cooking with fire commences. 

When all is said and done, the Porterhouse steak is certainly a large and delectable piece of meat.  Eleven minutes a side, then a rest, then trimmed from the giant T-bone which previously carried it through natural pastures and into a humanely configured slaughterhouse.