31st August & 1st September, 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Edward Habib McKuen. ©2006 by Stanyan Audio Video Archives

A Thought for Today

Courage is nothing more than absolute conviction that what you are doing is right.

 

FROM the¨BOOKS

OLD HOUSES

I love old houses
             for their smells,
their must and dust and mildew
and for what they've been
to people I will never know.

The character
of caulked up cracks
means more to me
than plastered walls and pretty paper,
walls that play the neighbor's music
when the radio I love
            has gone to sleep.

The faces of the old
are like old houses
every line's a highway
            from the past.

And so I love old houses
and the people who sit rocking
on their sagging porches.

-from "We Touch The Sky," 1979, 1980

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notable birthdays

Thursday 31 August

Richard Basehart o Warren Berlinger o Chad Brannon o Eldridge Cleaver o James Coburn o Theophile Gautier o Richard Gere o Deborah Gibson o Arthur Godfrey o Buddy Hackett o Jeff Hardy o Alan Jay Lerner o Frederic March o Maria Montessori o Van Morrison o Itzhak Perlman o Frank Robinson o William Saroyan o Dore Schary o Daniel Schorr o William Sorayan o Jack Thompson o Chris Tucker o Ted Williams

Friday 1 September

Box Car Willie o Edgar Rice Burroughs o Yvonne De Carlo o Alan Dershowitz o Gloria Estefan o Vittorio Gassman o Barry Gibb o Engelbert Humperdinck o George Maharis o Rocky Marciano o Dr. Phil McGraw o Marilyn Miller o Seiji Ozawa o Walter Reuther o Leonard Slatkin o Lily Tomlin o Conway Twitty o Don Wilson

Rod's random thoughts Success is the blotter we use to wipe out failure.

Only desperation cuts through everything.

Fail and you'll be honored, succeed and you'll be vilified. But, don't try and you'll have to avoid mirrors all your life.

POINT OF REFERENCE

Time is nothing without clocks.
Break the wristwatch
and the aging still continues
but time grows muddled
                         and confused.
Pull the blind on sunshine
and the dark will keep us
in the middle of the night.
Without a calendar
we have only the cold to show us
when the first full winter day
                                      arrives.

The engine coughs, wheezes, stops,
the heart within the body
                            shrinks or slows
then finally halts,
the traffic light still works
or fails on unseen meters
based on timing and on time.
Time is nothing
                              without clocks.

-from "We Touch the Sky," 1979, 1980

 
     
 
© 1970, 1986, 2002, 2003, 2005 by Stanyan Music Group & Rod McKuen. All Rights Reserved
Webmaster: Ken Blackie o Birthday research by Wade Alexander, coordinated by Melinda Smith
Poetry from the collection of Jay Hagan o Sound & Fury: Dr. Eric Yeager o Editor at Large: Bruce Bellingham
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