When I walk around our local community there's plenty to see that causes depression. Newly planted saplings snapped in two, the rubberised surface in the kid's playground ripped up, dustbins set on fire - one could go on, and many folk my age do go on. "No respect" they howl. "Bring back the birch, compulsory National Service, the death penalty."

However, the things that they want bringing back in order to restore respect are, to my mind, and to some extent, symptomatic of an even greater lack of respect.

When I was a kid, I had some teachers who tried to instil something they described as respect by beating their charges up. I remember Miss Buller, who used to stand us on a chair to better whip our legs if we got any sums wrong, Mr. Newby who grabbed our hair to bang our heads on the desk, to better pound our backs with his fists, and Mr. Watkinson, the headmaster, who caned me several times for such misdemeanours as reading a history book during a geography lesson.

I feared these adult louts, but held them in the deepest contempt, as did my pals. "Teaching respect" was their cowardly reframe of being in a bad temper.

Those teachers wouldn't hold their jobs nowadays. A better culture reigns - as it does in so many other areas of life.

This morning, our local news programme told of a British soldier who had refused to return to what he felt was a dubious war in Afghanistan. He went awol and went to Australia, where he met a woman with whom he fell in love who persuaded him to return and give himself up to the authorities.

He was Court-martialled, but allowed to produce evidence to the effect that he had also been suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, and charged with going awol, rather than desertion. Not so long ago he'd have had short shrift and been shot at dawn! Whatever the rights and wrongs of his cause, the army has treated him with respect.

I'm reminded hereabouts of a holiday we took a couple of years back to the island of Corfu, in Greece. Whilst there, we visited the Achilleon Palace - a place of almost magical beauty that was built specifically for Elizabeth, the Empress of Austria in 1890. It was later purchased by the Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. I couldn't help but reflect that hundreds of thousands, if not amillion or so soldiers suffered everything from bombardments to trench foot, and laid down their lives by the thousand gaining and losing a few yards of ground in "no man's land" mostly so that that pompous little man could enjoy his Corfu luxuries. Obscene!

I know that there are still nations who's people suffer to sustain corrupt regimes, but in our world, respect rules. Every single warrior slain in their nation's cause in Iraq and Afghanistan is given the fullest honours. Deaths of thousands of our own are not taken for granted, though we could improve with regard to the many Afghan and Iraqi civilians who have suffered through our intervention.

No need for complacency. Things could be better, but, in my experience, they're better than they were

Sometime around 1997 my former wife and I traveled through northern New Mexico. Back then I was extremely OCD. So I was obsessed with visiting all eight of the northern Queblos in New Mexico. My former wife and I had just finished climbing some cliffs to see Anasazi cliff dwellings. On the way out of the reservation I stopped by the community to take pictures. I was hoping there would be some historic buildings or such. However there were only houses and businesses. Turning a corner I came upon some Native American people hanging out on their swing behind their house. I got out and asked them where I could purchase a permit to take photographs of the reservation. Most reservations required this. One of the guys walked up to me and asked me what I wanted to take pictures of. I said buildings. Then he asked me, "Would you like to take pictures of real Indians?" I said sure. What happened after that was wonderful. These people posed hugging each other and having a ball. I took picture after picture. The feeling of love was everywhere. Everyone was smiling, including me.

I got in my car and one of the guys asked me if I'd like to have him take my former wife and I on a tour of the cliff dwellings. I told him we'd just been there. He replied that we didn't learn the history of the place and there was so much he could tell us. I told him we were headed back home to Louisiana. He wrote his address on a piece of paper and told me to send him copies of the pictures when they were developed.

Now it is well over a decade later. I never sent the pictures. However I still remember his name and the reservation he lives on. I called the reservation years ago and was told he still lived there. I still have the pictures. Maybe it's time for me to make good on my promise; if he is still alive and can be found. My life was in turmoil back then. However, it might not be too late to do the honorable thing.

John

The portal to the future has opened. Yet I cannot enter. A few days ago I was offered an apartment where I used to live, and where my ex-wife resides. She eagerly, even commandingly, encouraged me to be her neighbor.

So I have a whole month to sell my condo;perhaps two if I can pay the down payment and first month's rent. However, upon discussion with my real estate agent it doesn't sound very promising. Of the three or so condos put on the market this past year in my complex none sold. Two were withdrawn from the market after months of no sale. One was leased to someone with a possibility of sale in 2012.

My agent didn't think my place would sell in two months, perhaps not even three or at all. The economy is the culprit. Apparently banks aren't financing people to buy condos much now. Houses make for better sales prospects.

My desired residence has so many advantages. It is on a bus line in case my car gives up the ghost. It is near the university, and the bus would take me to my favorite coffee house in less than five minutes. The rent is according to income, sliding scale. I wouldn't be responsible for the maintenance if the AC went out etc. Bicycling is easy on the bike paths and streets.

Where I live now is distant from public transit and no shoulder for bicycling. My only choice would be to gamble on my place selling or foreclose. My current plan is to find part time work which would allow me to stay. Yet the apartment, where I lived over a decade ago for years, feels more like home. It is a community of elderly and disabled people. How I long to return. Sigh...

John

I am numb, dull and tepid.
In dire need of the Smith.
I sense a slicing.
Diced, I dare not do a thing.
The plate, although classic, is cracked:
serving more
than it can dish.
Company calls not.
What function do I have without the tea set?

My neighbor gave me a ring just now to request computer help. I offered my assistance this being the neighborly thing to do. She proceeded to corner me on my views on Obama and his health care plan. I very candidly gave her the scoop on me being a liberal and in favor of the plan. Our discussion proceeded as she coaxed me to to attend one of her Tea Party meetings. The tea party folks are the ultra right wing folks on TV alot. I declined her invitation and she said she'd let me know when to fix her puter.

Why can't people agree to disagree? Seems easy enough to me. I did it for most of my life with my Republican grandparents and parents. Just let politics be a subject forbidden and proceed to computer fixen. Sounds like a plan to me.

John

I'm amazed when I consider how my experience of music has changed during my lifetime. World War Two was raging when I was aged between 4 and ten. Dad was away from home and mum, like many other women, worked to fill a space previously occupied by an absent man. No nursery or playschool facilities in those days, and my sister and I spent weeks at a time at grandparents or aunts.
Aunty Elsie was my favourite, because she had a radiogram - an immense beast that played fragile black discs at 78r.p.m, one at a time, with a needle that had to be changed after a dozen or so plays.

I tended to adopt the musical tastes of the adults around me, jazz and ragtime from the "Roaring Twenties" from mum and Auntie Elsie, and opera from dad. Both were available and I played them endlessly. Looking back, I'm amazed that my aunt trusted me with the equipment, but I cannot remember damaging anything.

A few days ago, my daughter Sue was with us, with her partner Jim. To amuse Benjie I pressed the button on my "jazz player" toy saxophonist, that whent into sinuous contortions whilst playing an old tune. "I like that music" said Jim, who's a bit of a jazz fanatic. Sue whipped out her mobile phone, pressed a few buttons, and up came a web page with the name of the music and a site from which it could be downloaded on to her phone.

OK, that's commonplace to all the youngsters who contribute to this site, but to this old fellow, it's well-nigh miraculous - as is the vast library of the music that delights me that sits on my hard drive, to be transferred at will to a CD to play on long car journeys. I take delight in playing the songs of my childhood from Bing Crosby, "Schnozzle" Durante, Fats Waller that amuse me, to favourite operatic arias that provoke tears, with country western, Greek and other ethnic favourites, so easily obtainable at the click of a keyboard, (and a small dent in my credit card balance!)

Life is good!

My Mom does not get the service she so rightly deserves. My feeble attempts at caring for her fall flat invariably. She truly doesn't deserve the incompetent bumbling aide I attempt to provide. She deserves better.

So perhaps I should propose to her to give me my pink slip. Surely in this burgeoning city she can find better help. Yes it would cost more, that is to say more than free, as I provide. However, as they say nothing quality comes for free. Rather than buying me a sandwich or cooking a meal as a stipend she could with much less exertion simply pay an employee.

This hired help would no doubt not drive all over town with gasoline at their expense as I do. Yet, she wouldn't have to put up with me getting piqued by her outbursts. Surely she has endured much to much from me. No one should have to put up with help who talks back. Sons should withstand contempt and disdain from their masters just as indentured servants have throughout the ages. Time to discharge me.

John

Often nights I wonder about old friends who've disappeared from my life. I feel their presence as memories in the field of my imagination.

I left my hometown in Mississippi twenty years ago. My friends from college and high school have vanished over the horizon of life.

However, one person, and family especially haunts me. He was a man once. However, she discovered her true identity as a woman. We had been friends since we were five years old. Somehow we had hung onto friendship through the ordeals of my mental suffering and our geographic separation.

We had lost contact for years and then one evening around the year 2000 I received a phone call from her. I didn't recognize her as my old friend with her feminine lilt. However, we laughed when I joked that I thought she was one of my woman friends.

I was still in a very tumultuous marriage at that time. My life long friend had extreme hostility toward male sexuality. She also was incredibly intense in her needs and set on our friendship fitting certain criteria. We talked for hours about our friendship over the phone analyzing it till I was on edge.

I visited her in New Orleans and one fateful night we parted never to see each other again. I explained to her that her transgender didn't bother me. However, the intensity of her needs put me on edge. She said she knew what abandonment was like and could accept it if I abandoned her.

We stood in a dark alley in the French Quarter during this conversation. She resigned herself to our parting saying she probably should immerse herself in the transgender/lesbian community.

We spoke over the phone once after that. It was an extremely tense conversation. She realized that if My wife didn't accept her we probably couldn't stay in contact. I never heard from her again.

I often ruminate on the possibility of a reunion with her. Now that I've been divorced for five years perhaps things could change. However, emotionally I doubt she'd be open to resuming contact. The hurt of my rejection of her cannot be erased. Yet I miss her often on nights like tonight. She stood by me through thick and thin. However, I didn't have the strength back then to stick by her. The turmoil in my marriage took all my reserves. If only I could turn back the clock.

John

My family often refer to me (at least part jokingly) as a grumpy old man. If I thought they were serious I'd tell them that they should be thankful that they don't live with some of the old-timers whose views are regularly aired in the correspondence columns of our local newspaper.

They chant familiar mantras of the elderly grump. "Bring back the death penalty, corporal punishment, National Service" etc, all the while stoutly asserting that none of these bygone benefits (leaving out the death penalty of course) did them any harm."

I write my own occasional epistles to try to correct these warped images of old age. I've also experienced what they're pining for, and I'm not aware of any good they did me.

I remember, for example, a clergyman friend who volunteered to stand in for a colleague as a prison chaplain whilst his colleague was on a sabbatical. He officiated at a hanging and suffered what then was called a Nervous Breakdown. He didn't work for six months, and was never the same man again. My sympathies to this day are not only for the inhabitants of Death Row, but the people who take responsibility for them day by day.

Corporal punishment. I remember a headmaster who was rarely know to say anything to his pupils other than "hold out you hand," and the bunch of sadistic bullies who terrorised the kids at my junior school. Gave me anti-authority issues, and perhaps that did me no harm, although they were not on the official prospectus!

National Service? I served my time in the Royal Air Force as an operations clerk, after an initial six weeks during which I was conditioned to obey the most stupid of orders without question. Useful if Authority needs the masses to fix bayonets and charge suicidally at enemy strongholds, but thankfully the nature of Authority has been forced to change, albeit reluctantly, and nowadays one service personel death is treated by the media with reverence and respect that wasn't available for thousands in World Wars One and Two, which makes National Service something about which I feel ambivalent rather than totally against.

Perhaps the reader will note a touch of mellowness now? My next few entries will itemise changes that I've welcomed since my younger days, with just, perhaps, the occasional regret.

This afternoon, I had the rare pleasure of having dinner with my aunt and her family. I hadn't seen her in years.

She asked me if I'd seen the Saints game. I replied that I have no access to broadcast TV, neither by cable nor antenna. She seemed surprised.

Truth be told if the cable company offered me maximum channels free of charge for the rest of my life I'd turn it down. Now I am not puritanical about my entertainment. I watch movies with adult themes or scenes. However, for the three months I had cable over a decade ago, I felt some degree of revulsion by the programming.

When I was young I loved M*A*S*H, the Rockford Files, St. Elsewhere, and Thirtysomething. These shows had an element of intelligence. They didn't barrage the viewer with vapid sex jokes and titillating nonsense. I recall that Seinfeld was described as "a show about nothing." Hence I missed the whole series without any regret.

The materialism and narcissism, which suffuse modern life are reflected in the yuppies who populate our flat screen TVs. I feel no loss at missing the party, Saints games not withstanding.

Yes I do have a soft spot for PBS. However, the deluge of diversions on the other frequencies warrant abstinence from the medium altogether for me.

John

not the color, the person
refreshing povs
compassionate and wise
ummm

Last week Joyce and I took our almost 4 year old grandson Benjie, with his mum to a local park. Benjie sat in the child seat in the rear. He finds this a restricting experience, and, once released tends to let off steam in a variety of ways. We're used to this, and don't pay much attention to him whilst we're opening the car boot to retrieve such items as my walking stick and walking boots. We spent some time in the playpark and went for a walk before returning to the car.

Half way home Joyce noticed that the interior light of the car was on. I decided that a dry comment was appropriate.

"I wonder how that happened," I said. "Looks as though someone has been fiddling with the light switch, though I've no idea of who it might be."

"It was probably me," said Benjie brightly. We all laughed, which he found encouraging enough to try again. And again - indeed we heard "It's probably me" about another half dozen times, with increasing displays of hilarity from Benjie with each repetition.

His first use of the word "probably," and he made sure that he had plenty of practice.