Warren Bluhm's Blog, page 4

It is time

My Christmas present. Thanks, Red!

The turning of the year always seems to bring out introspection in people. Wednesday morning, Dec. 29, I found myself going back over some of the same old thoughts and propping myself up with the same old motivations with a, shall we say, a new resolve? RESOLVE, noun, with the same root as “resolution.” Ah yes, the same old same old, but I really mean it this time, Mom! We shall see.

I am, living as I do near the shores of the bay of Green Bay, a Packers ...

Because we are alive

Facebook reminds me every year that this is what I wrote toward the end of 2016. It’s always a nice reminder because it is always true, in this year — when we lost John Madden, Desmond Tutu, Phil Spector, Hank Aaron, Christopher Plummer, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Nesmith, Lloyd Price, Jim Steinman, Charles Grodin, Ned Beatty, Richard Donner, Ncni Griffith, Randy Scruggs, Don Everly, Ed Asner, Charlie Watts, Anne Rice, Dean Stockwell, and many others — as much as any other.

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The sleepers sleep

 © Ncaimages | Dreamstime.com

“So many people sleep through life, hardly aware of what’s happening around them,” said the skeptic.

“Oh yeah?” his friend said. “What is it we’re missing?”

“I didn’t mean you, necessarily,” the skeptic said.

“Granted. I’m still curious. What are all the sleepers missing?”

“The beauty of the sunshine. The worried look in their neighbor’s face that could be partially cured by a smile. The fullness of a deep breath. A lot of simple things that add up to...

Days of blank pages

© Alexei Poselenov | Dreamstime.com

The musician famously said, “When I miss a day of practice, I notice. When I miss two days, the critics notice. When I miss three days, the audience notices.”

Miss too many more days, and you almost have to start over again. The momentum — gained by weeks, months, or years of daily practice — is lost, or at least misplaced.

The callouses earned by playing guitar every day have softened. The ability to leap right back into the story you were writing is...

Christmas wisdom from nephew Fred

 © Romolo Tavani | Dreamstime.com

“There are many things from which I might have derived good by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew, “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the yea...

Study war no more

It’s ironic, in a world of constant war and gleeful hatred wherever we turn, that our most sacred holidays celebrate the birth, death and resurrection of a man whose coming was heralded with angels singing, “Peace on Earth, good will toward men.”

Every so often, and especially around Christmas, we pause and consider the new testament Jesus brought, with God’s law condensed to two commandments: Love the Lord your God, and Love One Another. How’s that working out for us?

One of these day...

Christmas Eve

 Christmas Star © Romolo Tavani | Dreamstime.com

Mom would light candles and serve sugar cookies and magic bars, those fantastic concoctions of chocolate and coconut and graham cracker crumbs and sweet condensed milk, and Dad would break out the Bible and read the beginning of Luke 2.

You know the story — from “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world” to the shepherds going back to their flocks and talking about everything they ...

Beyond ‘Refuse to be Afraid’

“They” have always wanted “us” to be afraid, and they’ve stepped up their game the past two years. It’s harder than ever to refuse to be afraid: “They” have “us” questioning every sniffle and worrying about every cough. 

The intensity of it all is enough to make a person angry. Some of the fear mongering is downright infuriating. And so many silly people are taking up the call on antisocial media, a person could stay angry all the time.

And that brings up a question: What if “they” WAN...

Rolling with the disruption

Should I blame the puppy for disrupting the routine around here? Red has been getting up before me, I have been journaling less regularly, and I haven’t published a book since September — when we got the puppy.

Let’s say I have not made the proper adjustments to the routine in order to maintain the publishing business. Changes in the family should not make a radical difference; after all, Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace while he and his wife were raising the first three of their 13 childr...

The short day

Back in June I wrote, “The most bearable part of winter is that the days start getting longer. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year — sunrise around 7:30 a.m., sunset around 4:15 p.m. in this neck of the woods. As dark and as cold and snowy as it can be, the one constant of winter is that we gain a minute or two of daylight every day, so even as we descend into the cold we literally see more light every day.”

Today is that shortest day of the year. Here in the Frozen Tundra...