One can hope, one can do

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Ghostsniper submitted this as a comment but it appears to be copyrighted material. I’ll provide the (dead) link but it’s best if I don’t publish material not mine or any particular commenter’s.

GOLDEN AGE THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE by EKO
Feb 15, 2025

eko dot substack dot com/p/golden-age

Sorry ghostsniper – I trashed the comment but I thought it was worth letting people know where to go to read it.

As what’s-his-name says: New Rule
Please don’t submit copyrighted material that you don’t own. I’ll post a dead link to the material though.
Thanks

Overland Stage – Part 9 Virginia Dale to Cooper Creek

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Part 9 – Virginia Dale to Cooper Creek is now live.

After heading north a mile or so out of Virginia Dale, the stage line crests a ridge and enters into Dakota Territory. The far side of the hill drops down into the Laramie Plains; a vast valley of fine grasslands with no “civilization”. There is no city of Laramie, no Fort Sanders, no railroad – nothing excepting a small handful of stage stations, scattered groups of Indians from various tribes, and ever-present bandits. The stations are lined up in almost a straight NW line 45 miles to the far edge of the valley just beyond the Cooper Creek station.

Coming up next: Cooper Creek to Pass Creek

Sunday Apostasies

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To which I neither accept nor deny but which I present to simply stir the pot.

I see two possibilities – on the face of which, neither seems likely:
Mankind was “made” … or mankind “just happened”

Could it be that “Eternal Life” is just another form of Hell?

The three religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Jews: It never happened
Christians: Yes it did
Muslims: Yes it did, but it was our guy, not yours

“History records the tragic fact that men have gone to war and cut each other’s throats because they couldn’t agree as to what was to become of them after their throats were cut.”

Christianity: 30% of world – 2.4 billion (about 1.4b Catholic)
Islam: 2 billion
Judaism: 15 million

non-religious: 1.4 billion

Matthew 12
[34] Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
[35] For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
[36] And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

I sometimes think all gods exist: they all sit in a cosmic tournament poker game, playing for souls.

The Old Post Office

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Rural Kentucky

Valentine’s Day

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you love strawberries…

you told me
once
that I taste
better
than strawberries.

♥!♥♥♥!♥♥♥♥

Say please…

We, you and I,
along with them,
will never, possibly sometime,
cautiously once in a while
SCREAM hesitatingly while
requesting not quite boldly
but softer than a whisper…
love me, dammit.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Will be done…

if there
is one
I will
find it.

if there
is none
I will
make it.

a way
to
you.

♥♥♥♥

Feb 13, 19-I Forget

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Most significant other (MSO) & I had a most unusual per-marriage relationship. I can’t really say we “dated” in the usual American sense – although she claims we did a little. I never considered going out with a group of people a date, but she was a foreigner of a conservative culture so in her eyes, I guess we did.

But not for long.

I don’t know what it was – I was in my early 40s and by some definitions, I’d been married twice before … actually had recently broken it off with #2.

But the little voice inside my head told me to not hesitate; this woman was worth the full commitment – I knew it right away. Wasn’t sure she did.

We were in Colorado. Being of vastly different religions – or the same one, depending on how “religion” is defined – and being as Colorado acknowledged common-law marriages, we got married in the eyes of the state.

Turns out the Feds don’t recognize common-law when it comes to things like green cards and immigration processes.

So today is the day we went to the courthouse and got married for the Feds.

So today, Feb 13th, is one of our anniversaries. And it had nothing to do with Valentine’s Day, it had to do with being Friday the 13th.

But we have three anniversaries.

Our family and friends wanted a “wedding”, so a few months later at a nicer time of year, a friend of ours, legally empowered to perform weddings, not that it was necessary, married us yet again in the “proper way” – in front of friends and family. A good time was had by all, music included “They’re Coming To Take Me Away” (yes, ghostsniper, it’ll be on Tunes For Tuesday someday), and I heard the food was excellent – I didn’t get any. And everybody went home happy.

Especially me.

Our apartment was full of guests, including parents … and that one friend that gets too drunk. I was with him when he tried to check into the hotel he and his wife reserved. They took his money then denied he paid – and refused him the room. So he and his wife also spent our wedding night with us.

MSO and I spent our wedding night sleeping on the floor with the other lessor beings; parent sets getting the two bedrooms.

But the anniversary we celebrate is the first one, the common-law marriage where we both committed to each other some 25 years or so ago.

And it seems to still be working out. Wouldn’t trade what I have for anything.

I Was Going To Get All Philosophical Today, But …

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Here’s a train picture instead. I admit to being somewhat of a steam engine groupie. And I like the 1800s versions most of all.

1897

Carnival

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I guess I’ve grown old and … not so much cynical as …

I passed on by.

But teens and 20s? I’d have stopped and spent a few hours doing what boys that age do at street carnivals.

Overland Stage – Part 8 LaPorte to Virginia Dale

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Part 8 – LaPorte to Virginia Dale is now live.

Latham to Laporte was a 35 mile run, reduced to secondary status with the main line running south from Latham – continuing to follow the South Platte – to Denver then running back north along the foothills of the Front Range (a bit west of US287) to LaPorte, re-joining the original trail.

The run north from LaPorte was not the flat lands of the South Platte Route. Not quite mountains but one of the most difficult stretches of the entire route was located in this section. Like the other segments, it had its share of Indian attacks and threat from bandits.

Virginia Dale – the only remaining complete station at its original location – and perhaps the most famous of all – was Jack Slade’s headquarters. Only a mile or so below what was then the Dakota Territory, it was perhaps the most pleasing of locations.

Next: The Laramie Plains

Tunes For Tuesday – Arzachel “Queen St. Gang”

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A sample of some obscure – and some maybe not obscure – tunes from my strange and off-the-wall collection.

Today’s selection: Arzachel – Queen St. Gang

An English psychedelic band under pseudonyms released a single album Arzachel in 1969. This particular cut is aka “Soul Thing”.