Thanks..........

 Once again, I made the dreaded mistake of, strolling, page by page thru the newspaper.  I do so virually every morning, and.... as I finally get to the Comics, I tell myself "I ain't gonna read that crap again", but... I do.

Not real sure why. I suppose, if all them fellers and ladies that 'rushed' West, the OODLES and OODLES of dirt, rock, silt hadn't been sorted, sifted, yada....... there'd never be gold.

Gold happens... but occasionally, can be hard to find.  Flip on The Discovery Channel virtually any night and you can eyeball modern day 'rushers' and their huge machines, that basically do the same thing the old pan-in-hand did............... sift.

For good.

For gold.

Thank you for good.  And you.  And you.

Of course there is the 'oh baby oh baby' gold, good.  I don't mean talk of a romp in the hay. I mean, when one is in the presence of 'her', or 'him' as the case may be - there's a euphoria unlike virtually anything in life.  It's been awhile for me to have felt that, but by golly, I sure do - and somehow life (finally) learnt me how lucky I was.

Friends.

The conveyor belt to screen all the sh*t of life.  As troubles, woes, money worries, health threats, yada...... roll down that conveyor of life -- friends sift it all out and bring us smile.

What better.

As the crap of life is sidestepped, friend comes forward to supply hug, smile, fistbump, handshake, words - to help 'warsh off' (for all my STL friends) ugly.  TAKE THAT ya damned ole Kansas City Star, NY Times, LA Time, WSJ,  Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Boston Globe, yada - any of you rags that bring tears, tummy aches and crap news.

Family euphoria.  Family and human (and blood) go hand in hand. Thank goodness for family,.  Mountains of memories.  You can huff and you can puff, but you'll never blow the family house down.  Sure, sure, sure, division, avoidance, bad feelings happen - but in general we go down our tributaries after riding the same Arc in.

Lest we forget, the 'regular ole regular' Jack and Jills of life who pop in for split seconds, spreading happy.  Akin to always having that can of Fix-A-Flat in the trunk of life. Rarely do we know their names, but 'good' is never forgotten, no matter how fleeting.

Lovers, friends, family, Jacks/Jills = gold.  The accelerators to help us get o'er that hill. The hand(s) to help us cross that brook.

I would say "Maybe it's just me", but I don't think so. I see it, you see it, we see it.  I feel it, you feel it, we feel it.

Life is golden, thanks to folks like you, them.

Love, Victurd