Deep blue light before the darkness
23 May 2022
• Mom's house in Ventana
by Keith Singer • Cool this early morning
Enjoyed time in and around my mom yesterday afternoon. This was the afterglow just before I left for home after dinner. Hit a bunch of golf balls at the driving range in 95 degree sun, then did some summer travel planning with my mom while we tried unsuccessfully to watch 60 Minutes together. It's not the show I once watched with my dad, but time has changed us quite a bit as well. 60 minutes, for me, represented a time to be with family on Sunday evenings, a time we used to watch the same TV show all together and then discuss it. 60 minutes was always liberal leaning, but maybe it was not quite as obvious when the presenters and most of the stories were about people who looked like the majority of viewers. Now the show has become a personification of the race and gender struggles we are still experiencing in the US. Maybe one thing I unkowingly liked about 60 Minutes was it allowed us to consider liberal and other controversial subjects safely within a household led by strong conservative parents. I remember a very, very uncomfortable piece my dad and I watched once about gay teens. I felt the need to reassure him afterward of my masculinity. That one experience took us a far distance from his previous view of such kids as misguided fags. Maybe that's why I enjoyed watching that show with him. It allowed us to connect mentally over political and social subjects we both agreed and sometimes disagreed about, but in a safe and enjoyable manner, with dad's high school aquantence, Leslie, broaching the controversial topics we could not. Ideally we want to find more and more connections with our loved ones and we experience love and humanity through that connection to other humans. This is true even for a loner like me. May you also find and pursue what connects you to your loved ones, dear blog groupies. Peace out.
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