I was born and raised in Florida, about 110 miles from Orlando and 15 miles from Port St. Lucie. I left there a long time ago but my memories are fresh and fond of the Oceanside city where I grew up on its beaches and baseball fields.

Omar Mateen bought his AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle in Port St. Lucie and drove to Orlando last week. On Sunday, he opened fire at the Pulse night club—killing 49 and wounding, at least, 53 others.

According to the National Rifle Association’s Wayne Lapierre, “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” If only, every man and woman in Pulse had possessed a firearm themselves, because Lapierre says that this is the only effective protection, and Lapierre is an honorable man.

But Ronald Reagan was protected by the finest security detail the world has ever known, armed with Uzi submachine guns and Smith & Wesson Model 66 .357 Magnums loaded with hollow-point rounds. John Hinkley, the would-be assassin, was outnumbered 10:1 by the Presidential Praetorian Guard and still he almost killed the president. Lee Harvey Oswald did kill the president. John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln who was guarded by soldiers from the Federal Army. But Wayne Lapierre says that everyone being armed is the only effective protection, and Lapierre is an honorable man.

But surely a military installation, where soldiers are armed to the teeth, must be the safest place in the world against shooters. But then there was Fort Hood in Texas. Army Major Nidal Hasan, an officer and a psychiatrist, killed 13 and wounded 30 more. Wayne Lapierre says that everyone being armed is the only effective protection, and Lapierre is an honorable man.

Omar Mateen legally bought the weapon. Passed background checks. Was born and raised in the United States. No present law and no law being currently proposed would have stopped him from obtaining the AR-15 assault rifle. The model Mateen used was known as the "Black Mamba," and it has a military-spec trigger and a magazine capacity of 30 rounds. And in Florida, one doesn’t even need a permit to buy, own and carry an assault rifle.

The AR-15 is one of the most popular, and most easily obtained, guns in America. In 2013, the National Sports Shooting Foundation estimated that there are somewhere between 5 million and 8.2 million assault weapons in circulation. Thank God, because, according to Wayne Lapierre, everyone being armed is the only effective protection, and Lapierre is an honorable man.

In a culture of violence, protecting ourselves through gun ownership is the most prudent way, right? Because when guns are legal, surely only the good guys will have guns. Is my logic flawed?

If only the good guys had possessed guns, the worst mass-shooting in US history could have been prevented. Right?

There are a few things wrong with that statement. The Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham released a story on Sunday, June 12, calling the Pulse massacre “the deadliest mass shooting in US history.” He is wrong. He can be forgiven, I suppose, because he is young…and white. Why else would he forget the mass-shooting of nearly 300 African-Americans in Opelousas, Louisiana, in 1868? Thank the heavens that the “good guys” had all the weapons.

On December 29, 1890, 150-300 disarmed Lakota Sioux men, women and children were massacred at Wounded Knee by the white US Army. Among the white soldiers, 25 were killed and 39 wounded. Oh, yes. They were shot by their fellow soldiers. At least, 20 soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their “bravery.” Once again, the “good guys” had the firearms, thus supporting Wayne Lapierre saying that the “good guys” being armed is the only effective protection, and Lapierre is an honorable man.

In 1917, in East St. Louis, 250-700 African-Americans were massacred by the white gun-owners. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that 250 African-Americans were shot while fleeing their burning homes which had been set ablaze by the white mobs. All because African-American workers had been hired to replace white workers who had gone on strike.

A white riot erupted on May 28 only to be put down by the National Guard. On July 2, 1917, the violence resumed.  African-American men, women, and children were beaten and shot to death. Around six o’ clock that evening, white mobs began to set fire to the homes of black residents.  Residents had to choose between burning alive in their homes or run out of the burning houses, only to be met by gunfire.  In other parts of the city, white mobs began to lynch African-Americans against the backdrop of burning buildings.  As darkness came and the National Guard returned, the violence began to wane.

A year later, an investigation concluded that neither the police nor the National Guard had acted appropriately in the defense of the African-American community. But thank the stars that the white community was protected because they had all the firearms. And that, of course, is the only way for the “good guys” to protect themselves.

A thread begins to emerge. It must be in the very definition of “good guys.” Clearly, when Wayne Lapierre speaks of “good guys” and “bad guys,” he is speaking in terms of “us and them.” “They”, the “bad guys”, are the non-white, non-Christian, non-conservatives.

“Deadliest mass shooting in US history”…only if you’re counting white people. According to Wayne Lapierre, everyone being armed is the only effective protection, and Lapierre is…an idiot.
 
 
 
 
 

Muhammad Ali passed away on Friday, June 3, 2016. Of all the punches and jabs he landed in his storied career, his passing was the heaviest blow of all, equaling the intensity of the hit that landed George Foreman on his back in Zaire in 1974.

I was always a fan of Muhammad Ali. I liked the way he avoided being hit in the early part of his career. The photos of Sonny Liston missing Ali by 10-12 inches are still amazing. Boxers like Floyd Patterson and Liston simply didn’t know what to do to counter Ali’s unbelievable speed, his timing and his footwork. His hands were lightning fast and so was his thinking. Before Rap ever became a thing, Ali was rapping to his opponents and to anyone who would listen—and that was everyone.

He was disliked by the press for his fast-talking trash-talking. Even the African-American press ridiculed him. He was called "Louisville Lip," "Cash the Brash," and even "Gaseous Cassius." And that was just when he was talking about his opponents in the ring.

He called himself “pretty as a girl” and said he was beautiful. And that, right there, may have been the beginning of the late 60s slogan “Black is Beautiful.”

He had become instant friends with Malcolm X when the fighter heard Malcolm speak at a Nation of Islam meeting. Malcolm even stayed with Clay as the young contender trained to fight the champion Sonny Liston. While everyone else was predicting a knockout of Clay by Liston, Malcolm X declared that Clay would win. Malcolm said that Clay was “the finest Negro athlete I have ever known, the man who will mean more to his people than Jackie Robinson, because Robinson is the white man's hero."

Those words become prophetic.

Ali’s thinking was as fast as his footwork. He could slip a question with the ease of skipping rope. But he didn’t duck the questions or the insults when, after knocking out Sonny Liston and taking the heavyweight crown, he announced that he had converted to the Nation of Islam and had changed his name from Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. to Muhammad Ali. He was serious and he demanded that he be taken seriously.

It was the first time that an athlete changed his name from a “Christian” one to a “Muslim” one. It would happen again later when Lew Alcindor became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Keith Wilks became Jamaal Wilks but this was the explosive moment.
To change one’s name is to change—at least, symbolically—one’s very self. Muhammad Ali was no longer a child of slavery. He was a man of destiny.

His courage was an unexpectedly huge influence on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Despite Ali’s aggressive speech, he was generous and warmhearted.

During that dreadful summer of 1964, however, 66 buildings, including churches, were bombed by the KKK and their kind. The politics of Black Power arose and Ali became a powerful symbol of that power and change. Uprisings in urban neighborhoods began.

NBC news anchor Bryant Gumbel said, "One of the reasons the civil rights movement went forward was that Black people were able to overcome their fear. And I honestly believe that for many Black Americans, that came from watching Muhammad Ali. He simply refused to be afraid. And being that way, he gave other people courage."

Things got really ugly, however, when, on April 28, 1967, boxing champion Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and was immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. His boxing license was taken and his endorsements disappeared. Ali, cited religious reasons for his decision to refuse military service.

He was harangued by the press and even by students. Ali finally opened up completely and said, “My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me n_____, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. ... Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

It was the most powerful thing he could have said. He looked at one white student, who was challenging Ali verbally about his anti-war stance, “The Viet Congs are not my enemy. YOU are my enemy. You want me to defend you there but you won’t defend me here!”

On June 20, 1967, (less than two months after refusing military service) Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years. Ali appealed and appealed until his case was finally heard by the United States Supreme Court. The highest court in the land overturned his conviction.

In October of 1970, Ali was allowed to return to the ring when the state of Georgia granted him a boxing license. He knocked out Jerry Quarry in the third round.

But the three best years of a boxer’s prime had been taken away. The feet were not as fast, even if the hands were. In March of 1971, he fought and lost to Joe Frazier in the “Fight of the Century.”

Ali discovered that, even though his legs were not what they had once been, he could take a punch. He was pounded by Ernie Shavers, had his jaw broken by Ken Norton (and finished the fight!) and was pummeled for five rounds by that devastating puncher George Foreman.

And that have been what caused, or at least exacerbated, the 1984 diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease which would ultimately led to complications that caused his death just four days ago.

Through the declining years of his health, his mind was still quick and his humor sharp. And who can forget seeing him light the Olympic flame in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? I jumped from my chair and cheered.

When I think of Muhammad Ali, I think of the man who spoke at length of love and the miracle in one’s heart. He was The Greatest.
 

Memorial Day is a strange day. It is a day that I wish need never be remembered or observed. The fact that such a commemoration is necessary speaks to the ills and failures of humanity.

To be certain, we rightfully honor those who gave “the last full measure of devotion,” as President Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address. The fallen, whose memories we cherish and honor, served and gave their all.

President Lincoln wrote the following letter to Mrs. Bixby, whose five sons had died in battle during the American Civil War.

“Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts:
DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln.”

Solemn pride. Ridiculous. One can imagine that Mrs. Bixby would have rather watched the Republic go down in flames than to see the loss of five sons. Some say that she never read the letter, others say she destroyed the letter and still others claim the letter exists yet.

Death is never glorious. It is the end of life—no matter what you may believe may come next—and it is farewell to friends and family and all those we love.

The Roman poet Horace (Odes, III.2.13) wrote “Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori.” “It is sweet and glorious to die for one’s country.” But almost two millennia later, Wilfred Owen—a British soldier in World War I—wrote the poem Dolce et Decorum est which was sent to his mother in 1917 while he still fighting in France. His poem reads as follows.

The old lie indeed. It is not sweet and it is not glorious to die for one’s country. Rather, is the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who are sweet and honorable. I have had family and friends who had the last full measure of devotion robbed from them. On Memorial Day, I do not think of their “last full measure of devotion.” I think of them and honor them and curse the old fools who sent them off to die.

I await the day that we never think of this day again.

I recently reviewed a Jazz album by Adison Evans entitled Hero. In that album, she remembers those who have influenced her, impressed her, loved her. She talks about tenor sax giant Sonny Rollins, her mother, friends. I thought about another kind of hero—someone we may never know or hear about—who has a profound impact on culture. It is not always in creating cultural greatness but, sometimes, in saving it.

Last year, the cultists known as ISIS began to destroy ancient artifacts and architecture: the Assyrian winged bulls, the temple at Palmyra and so much more. It has been happening across the Levant and North Africa and now sub-Saharan Africa. Al-Qaeda has begun doing the same.

Joshua Hammer has written a book and subsequent articles on the librarian who saved Timbuktu’s Cultural Treasures from destruction by al-Qaeda. He is a middle-aged man in Mali who has helped keep the glorious city’s libraries, books and manuscripts safe from occupying jihadists.

Abdel Kader Haidara, 51, is a librarian and book collector who lives in the grand and ancient city of Timbuktu (the place your grandmother used as a reference point to someplace far, far away), in the West African country of Mali.

According to author and journalist Joshua Hammer, “The story begins in April 2012, when Mr. Haidara returned home from a business trip to learn that the weak Malian army had collapsed and that nearly 1,000 Islamist fighters from one of al-Qaeda’s African affiliates, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had occupied his city. He encountered looters, gunfire and black flags flying from government buildings, and he feared that the city’s dozens of libraries and repositories—home to hundreds of thousands of rare Arabic manuscripts—would be pillaged.

“The prizes in Mr. Haidara’s own private collection, housed in his Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library, include a tiny, irregularly shaped Quran from the 12th century, written on parchment made from the dried skin of a fish and glittering with illuminated blue Arabic letters and droplets of gold. His collection also boasts many secular volumes: manuscripts about astronomy, poetry, mathematics, occult sciences and medicine, such as a 254-page volume on surgery and elixirs derived from birds, lizards and plants, written in Timbuktu in 1684. ‘Many of the manuscripts show that Islam is a religion of tolerance,’ he told me.

“Mr. Haidara knew that many of the works in the city’s repositories were ancient examples of the reasoned discourse and intellectual inquiry that the jihadists, with their intolerance and rigid views of Islam, wanted to destroy. The manuscripts, he thought, would inevitably become a target.”

Shortly after the occupation by the cultists had begun, Haidara—a book restorer and fund-raiser—met with a group he had formed 15 years previous.

“I think we need to take out the manuscripts from the big buildings and disperse them around the city to family houses,” he told the association. “We don’t want them finding the collections of manuscripts and stealing them or destroying them.”
Sometime earlier, Haidara had been granted $12,000 to study English in the U.K. in 2012. The grant had been deposited into a savings account. Haidara asked the grantors—the Ford Foundation—for permission to use the money to protect the manuscripts from the hands of Timbuktu’s occupiers. It took just three days to get the money released to him for his revised purpose.

Haidara recruited those he could trust, mostly relatives.

Hammer writes, “They bought metal and wooden trunks at a rate of between 50 and 80 a day, made more containers out of oil barrels and located safe houses around the city and beyond. They organized a small army of packers who worked silently in the dark and arranged for the trunks to be carried by donkey to their hiding places.”

Over the next eight months, Haidara had brought together hundreds of drivers, messengers, packers, boatsmen and more to smuggle the manuscripts “out of Timbuktu by road and by river.”

They made it past al-Qaeda checkpoints and wary Malian soldiers. They made a truly “Great Escape” for the manuscripts and artifacts. Relief came with a French invasion in early 2013. With the cultists driven out, they gathered the artifacts and discovered that they had saved 99% of them. Of the 400,000 ancient manuscripts, 4,000 had been destroyed.

“If we hadn’t acted,” Haidara said later, “I’m 100% certain that many, many others would have been burned.”

I love the written word. The burning of books is the most sacrilegious thing imaginable to me. To attempt killing an idea by burning a book is proof of the insecurity of one’s belief.

Mr. Haidara is a hero of the greatest kind.
 
 

I kept saying “It just won’t happen” or “There is just no way that this guy gets the nomination.” Well, we may not be there yet but things are looking scary.

Sure, 60% and more of Republicans have voted against him in the primaries and caucuses. That margin, however, has been divided between 15 other candidates. Then down to 12. Then 7…6…4…3. Three are now splitting the Republican voters and while Trump may not have a majority, he certainly has a plurality. And it appears that his march to 1237 is all but inevitable.

Okay, maybe not inevitable. He probably won’t win the majority by the time of the Republican Convention in Cleveland, OH, but he will certainly have more than anyone else.

And what if he has the most of anyone and still has the nomination kept away from him by party boss chicanery? Trump hinted at what would happen in his none-too-subtle way last week by saying “There are going to be riots.”

Is this mere bluster? I look at history and it paints a frightening picture. Even recent history.

Look at the violence already when people simply carry a placard or poster into a Trump rally that is not in support of Trump. He heightens the carnival atmosphere when he turns on his cheerleading of thuggery inside the rally venues.

He speaks of wanting to “punch them in the face” when someone dares to disagree. Even observers who don’t quite look like his supporters are shown the door. Hurried to the door. Thrown out the door. And sucker-punched on the way out. Then the hillbilly threatens a lynching if he sees the protester again.

Trump had already hinted at gun violence when he said, “I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and I wouldn’t lose a vote.” Then the descent into madness accelerated when, in a Saturday rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Donald J. Trump yelled to his minions, “We’re going to win with our Second Amendment. We’re gonna win big league with our Second Amendment!”
From threatened riots to assured gun violence, Trump continues to whip up the frenzy. He gives the Trump thumbs-up to armed violence. Say it this way…revolution.

Not the revolution that Grandpa Bernie is talking about. No indeed, Bernie’s revolution is the product of democratic action and turning out to vote in ever-larger numbers. Trump’s revolution would be bloody. And his brown-shirts are mimicking his rhetoric.

Already, Trump supporters have called for protesters to be tear-gassed. They were pepper-sprayed. A Trump supporter drove his Jeep into a crowd of protesters.

Trump’s predilection for thuggery, threats and violence began as demeaning Latinos. Then women. Then Muslims. Now anyone who does not believe in him. Did you see him make his audience raise their right hands and swear fealty to himself? No American leader has ever demanded swearing allegiance to himself.

It looked like the Nuremberg Rallies.

Now he is threatening to unleash the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America to finish what rhetoric alone cannot.

We can no longer say that Trump is simply play-acting—that he is only charging up his base.

I understand what makes a person support Trump. I understand the anger at the way that both political parties have sought to by-pass the will of the voters. I’m sick of both parties. I’m sick of government as much as the next guy. But violence of any sort—especially armed violence—is madness.

As one person said, “Someone should probably tell the Republican National Committee that Ohio, where the Republican Convention is going to be held this summer, is an open carry state.”

Will Trump supporters re-enact the Munich Beerhall Putsch of 1923? Will “good guys with guns” have the final answer to Trump’s insurgency?

Is this how our country will decide its fate—its future? With guns? The cost to our national soul will be dear and it is closer to reality than you may think.

I think I am catching the whiff of beer.

It was a slogan that began with the 1960 presidential campaign, at least, as far as I know. “A vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Republican, and vice-versa.”

Of course, I was far too young to remember that first-hand. But I remember my grandfather and is brother reciting it in the 1964 general campaign between Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson. My grandfather was a southern Democrat of the Johnson sort. Uncle Lonnie—my great uncle—was all for the new conservatism of Goldwater. Neither was going to give in to the other. My grandfather was a huge (not yooooge) supporter of the Civil Rights Act and (later) the Voting Rights Act. Uncle Lonnie was…well…not.

Despite their ideological differences, I remember my grandfather saying the phrase mentioned above to the disgruntled, huffed response of his brother. In the end, they both agreed, a vote—either way—was a vote for the machine. What they both meant was that corporations were the real beneficiaries and controllers. Corporation names like Dupont were mentioned and Bethlehem Steel.

Bethlehem Steel. Sounds like a peaceful, benevolent group. But this was the company who benefitted the most from the devastated steel industries of Germany and Japan after World War II. War was good business for companies like the steel industry and the chemical industry (Dupont).

It had become clear that neither Goldwater nor Johnson were going to extricate us from Vietnam. Johnson won the 1964 election and the war intensified. When Walter Cronkite helped sway public opinion, Johnson—with the campaign in full swing—dropped out of the race for reelection. The famous, “I will not seek, nor will I accept, my party’s nomination…”
In the 1968 presidential election, Nixon was again running for the Republican nomination and for the Democrats it was Senator McCarthy…no, wait…Senator Robert F. Kennedy…no, wait…Vice-President Hubert Humphrey! Wait, what?

Johnson had dropped out after the New Hampshire primary. Robert Kennedy jumped into the race four days later, smelling weakness in the president’s campaign because McCarthy had lost to Johnson in New Hampshire by a margin of 49%-42%. In the polling, Johnson was trailing badly in Wisconsin which was going to hold its primary on April 2. On On March 31, 1968, Johnson was gone. His name was still on the ballot for the Wisconsin primary where he suffered a humiliating loss at 35% to McCarthy’s 56%.

Then Robert Kennedy started rolling up the delegates but was, of course, assassinated after the California victory. Vice-president Humphrey, who showed no intention of withdrawal from Southeast Asia, was not even on the Democratic Primary ballots.

At the convention, Democratic Party bosses managed to sway delegates toward Humphrey, who had not won a single vote in any primary, anywhere.

Clearly, the will of the people did not matter. And they wonder why there was a riot at the Democratic convention in Chicago?

And here we are now, 48 years later, with the same type of machinations going on in both parties. Different slants, maybe, but still supplanting the will of the people. Or so they intend, it seems.

Already, the guru of Republican political calculus, Ben Ginsberg (who helped George W. Bush win in 2000) has laid out the strategy for defeating a Donald Trump insurgency if Trump cannot win the majority of delegates before the convention. And plurality is not majority.

Now, let me be clear, I am not a Trump supporter. In fact, I called him a fascist, remember? No? Good, forget I said anything.

But the party bosses are working feverishly to thwart his supporters and his campaign. Dangerous business, that.
And the Democrats, ironically, are just as insidious. The whole “super delegates” plan was initiated in 1984 to derail the insurgent candidacy of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Now it is being used to do the same to Senator Bernie Sanders. The delegate count as of Monday night was 658 for Clinton and 471 for Sanders…not counting super delegates.

Now yes, those super delegates can change sides but the whole intent of super delegates, remember, is to stop insurgent non-party campaigns. And Senator Sanders is not a member of the Democratic Party’s establishment. To that end, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has pressured Democratic office holders to support Clinton or risk losing DNC campaign funds in the future.

Now this is ironic. The media feverishly covers Donald Trump’s campaign and has, in effect, fueled his insurgency or perhaps even created it. On the opposite side, the media has largely ignored Senator Sanders revolutionary candidacy. MSNBC—the supposed flagship of all things progressive—repeatedly cuts away from Sanders’ speeches and spokespersons in favor of the Clinton campaign.

How odd. The media upholds the centrism of Clinton and the apparent liberalism of Trump in disavowal of Democratic liberalism and Republican conservatism.

I’m not saying that a vote for Clinton is a vote for Trump bit I am saying that I’m not sure that I can tell the players apart without a scorecard.

I love politics, especially the strategies and tactics. But instead of a Grand Prix race, we’ve got a clown car demolition derby in which candidates, media, corporations, party bosses and crazed voters are all crashing headlong into each other.

I have thought about the year just passed and the year that is opening before us. I think about the newspaper I own and edit and what it means to me. I think about my writings on music and culture and what I hope it means to others. But I also think about life and community in a larger framework. I have friends and influences of many political streams and religious currents and, yes, even musical tastes.

One of my wisest friends in the world is a Turkish man named Zeki and likes to quote the poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī or as is better known, simply, Rumi. Rumi was a theologian, scholar, poet and mystic who lived in Persia (b. 1207 – d. 1273). He wrote in Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Greek.

When you read aloud his poems—or hear them read aloud—the sound is intoxicating. It is said that he chose the language based upon the sound of the words, much like the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament often did. Onomatopoeia (the word sounds like the thing it describes) is a wonderful thing.

My friend Zeki has recently passed along two of Rumi’s passages and I cannot escape the thought of them. Rumi’s words are often simple but there is an incredible depth to his thinking.

One such passage was “I have learned that every mortal will taste death but only some will taste life.” One commentator, Imam Shaf’i, added, “Some people have passed away but their character has kept them alive. Others are alive but their character has killed them.”

I have met people—now gone—who remain alive because, indeed, their character allowed them to taste life and has kept their memories alive in the hearts of others. My beloved aunt and uncle were the dearest people on Earth to me. They tasted life well and shared it with everyone around them. Life with them was a feast of love and understanding.

And they are well-remembered. Their lives go on in the hearts and minds of others. My uncle lived to be almost 101 years old. My aunt had died about 12 years before. One day he was asked what was the most surprising thing about living to be one hundred.

His answer, “I didn’t know how hard it would be to live so long without my girlfriend.”

Yet, he lived on and shared life with everyone around him. He would go to the mall almost every day to walk and get his exercise. At the mall, he would meet up with other senior gentlemen and get their rounds in.

One day, his son went to pick him up and went inside to find him. What he found was a huge birthday party in the middle of the mall in my uncle’s honor. But it wasn’t just the other seniors who were in attendance. Oh, no. There were many young women who worked in the mall who were there with him. The old charmer.

But that was him and that was the life he and my aunt created together and shared with others.

Which brings me to the second Rumi quote from my friend Zeki. “Come, whoever you are…come. Our caravan is not a caravan of despair…Come, come again.”

This is the richness of life. To travel together in life and peace and understanding is the caravan in which I want to journey. The interesting thing about caravans—or wagon trains—is that not everyone begins at the same place and ends at the same place. Some people join along the way or drop off along the way. Everyone has their own journey and—for a time—we may travel together.

To those who join with us at whatever point, “Come, whoever you are…come. Our caravan is not a caravan of despair…Come, come again.”

Thank you, Zeki.