I’ve been a fool and a wise man both, I figure. But I won’t tell or write about the most foolish thing I’ve ever done because it’s embarrassing. And I won’t mention the wisest thing I’ve ever done either because that would be arrogant and also foolish. All I know is, I’ve done plenty in this life, good and bad and in-between, most of it there, somewhere in the middle.

I’ve been to a few places in my life and met the people there. I’ve been foolish and wise with them and so have they with me. My illusions have melted slowly away and I found, for the most part, that Northerners and Southerners are the same. Some have more money than others but a dock worker in Minneapolis wears his camouflage and hunting boots to work, just like the one in Mobile might. They fish and hunt, drink beer and coffee, go to bars and churches, fall in love and out of it, get into fights and regret doing so. Sometimes they hold grudges and other times they’re kinder than you’d expect.

All the girls are looking for a prince to sweep them away for love and marriage and family’s sake. The guys, they don’t ask for much more than a woman with the heart of Mother Teresa and the body of Scarlett Johansson. But like salmon swimming upstream they dance and mingle until the inevitable happens. Somewhere, a great distance from perfection, they fail and succeed while piecing together their own lives. Like me they look back and rehash the good and the bad then come to erroneous,what if conclusions. Other times they retire to reality and let go of the ifs and maybes because those things are only imagination and there’s plenty of that in the movies.

These days, I watch my own movie. It’s long and boring in spots and unbelievable in others. You’d have to be me to get it and I’m not sure I do. I’d like to draw a line from beginning to end and know why I lived my story the way I did. I’d like to know why I was oppressed by some and lifted up by others. I’d like to know if any of it means anything or was I just doing my time the best way I could. Is anyone else watching or is it just me? It’s been a crazy show and I blushed when I saw the most foolish thing I’d ever done and then I laughed out loud and I shed a tear when wisdom was foolish and an apparent mistake was magical. Sometimes it all makes a little sense if I cock my head sideways and close one eye, my good one.