A Rant Among Many

So banter and tirades are not always easy to literate and yet I will continue to try. The thoughts seem to sometimes bubble up and just as earthquakes relieve pressures in the tectonic plates so must I write this to relieve my own personal subterranean pressure.

I write about this often and get little feedback which tends to make me think many of my reader (no typo there) are guilty of this as well. Sometimes while I ride our many highways I am amazed about how fast everyone has to get somewhere these days. It seems there is little, if no, regard for other homosapiens on the roads. (or on the side of the roads) I am not a saint but I do try to have some sort of formula that keeps me within sensible parameters of the suggested speeds. I say suggested because that must be how most people these days view those signs. Speeders run across all demographics. They can be white, black, Indian, Hispanic, Oriental (ok the oriental speeder is rare but they are out there), male. female and even those in-between. They can be young, boomers and the most disturbing of all speeders OLD. While it is more prevalent as you get closer to the larger cities it is everywhere these days. Now speeding as bad as it is on its own is not all…..there are the woman applying make-up as they speed. There are the knee drivers, eating, smoking, drinking, talking on the phone, texting, reading e-mail, reading the paper, all the while wearing headphones so the sounds of shrieking bystanders or sirens don’t disturb their drive. Let’s throw in GPS’s as well as DVD players. It is getting more insane all the time. I am particularly incensed when one of those minivans comes flying by with all the little crumb crunchers in various states. There can be no larger offense than putting your children in harms way. We don’t need terrorists in this country…..we are doing fine attacking our own all by ourselves!

OK, that felt good. With all the demands put on our time, many self-imposed by the way, people of this generation have to become better time managers of sorts. Prioritizing our needs as well as wants becomes more of a challenge with each passing year. We have so much technology at our hands now that many are on a sort of technology overload. Where once people actually appreciated or at least noticed the outdoors it is quickly becoming just a way from getting from one computer to a cell phone to another computer. I am guilty myself as my wife would quickly point out. Some of what I do is through demands of employment but some (Angry Birds) is most definitely not. A side not, Angry Birds is an evil game. Let’s take a walk. Leave the cell phone at home. Separate technology from yourselves for a few hours. You might figure out you are missing life’s simplest yet most rewarding pleasures. It occurs to me I am writing this on a computer….oh well I am going to try and do this as well.

I could get into politics but that is such a train wreck right now I would not know where to begin. This country is running on borrowed money and continues to write more checks. I only wish I could live the same way.

So to summarize this rant, SLOW DOWN, SMELL THE ROSES, and LOSE THE TECHNOLOGY FOR A FEW HOURS and see if you smile just a little more and enjoy life just a little more.

My Dad....a letter

Perhaps a year or two before my Dad passed I left him a letter (secretly) before I left from one of my visits. As I re-read this letter it seems a fitting tribute to the man as Father's Day approaches to post this. This letter is how I felt when I wrote it ans still to this day feel...and will carry with me forever.



Dear Dad,

I need to write this letter if for no other reason to let you know I love you. There are, however other reasons I wanted to state.

We, as a family, have kind of been atrophied when it comes to matters of the heart. It’s always been that way and it is what it is. I have become much better at expressing those things, at least in writing, Perhaps I have a ways to go in speaking those matters. I know you love me and you know I love you and that should be good enough right? Well what I’ve learned is quite to the contrary.

We’ve been through a lot over these years. I wasn’t always the model kid. I did a few good things here and there but I know I probably never attained my potential in music. You and Daisy did the best you could but my head was not on entirely straight at Potsdam; Water under the bridge now. I couldn’t be happier with my lovely wife and my wonderful daughter. They have meant so much to me and each other that I can’t begin to put it all in words. I think between Karen and Linda and myself, we did a pretty good job with Marlee and I’m proud of that.

There is another deeper reason Marlee did so well. Simply stated it was how her Dad was raised. I have to tell you all the while as I was growing up making you proud of me was my biggest goal. I played the trumpet not because it fell in my lap but because my Dad was a wonderfully gifted trumpeter who I so wanted to emulate. The older you got and the older I got the more I wanted to be like you and that goes on still today. I could not have achieved all I have without your guidance, love, support and a couple times financial help. I look around and see a term loosely used too often but in this case you are quite honestly my true hero.

So as I write this we still don’t know God’s plan for us. We don’t know his plan for you anymore than for me. Not that many years ago I started putting more emphasis on my religion so as to hope to understand at least what his plan may be. I am in steadfast hope of living the right way, the Christian way and ultimately to all have a big Bourey reunion in heaven.

So if you haven’t completely lost your mind after all of this the message is simple Dad. It is thank you. Thank you for all the lessons taught (and some even learned). Thank you for staying by my side through thick and thin. For being there when I needed you even though you were pulled many different ways when you were raising all of us.

I have many great memories involving you Dad. I hope to create a few more while I’m visiting this time. The one thing I will never need to create. The one thing that is as steadfast a truth as there is now or ever was: I love you. You are my only Dad and my one and only hero.

Love, Pete