General Conversation

 Good afternoon.  Today, the topic of conversation for this Thursday Thought could easily be the weather…hot, sticky, and sometimes borderline oppressive weather has hit this part of the state.  But we’re not as hot as farther south and west where the thermometer easily tops 110 degrees most days.  I’m guessing it’s more of a dry heat, however, in Arizona and southern California, so I don’t have a lot of sympathy for those folks who live and work there.

And besides, we ourselves have gone through that kind of weather in recent memory…2011, I believe.  That year, Wichita had 53 days of 100 degree plus temperatures, lasting well into September.  The average high temperature for the month of July that year was 102 degrees, a full 10 degrees more than the normal.  And the average low temperature for that month was 77 degrees…7 degrees warmer than the normal for the month.

I well remember the evening when a cool front finally came through, breaking the hold that the heat had on us.  I stood outside in our driveway waiting for it…and felt the first few tentative breezes of cooler air from the north, then a more substantial breeze that followed.  I knew that the days of 100 degrees, at least for that year, were thankfully over.

Or, continuing in a weather-related subject, the topic could be the ongoing drought in this part of the country.  We’ve been in drought conditions before…some much worse than this one.  But we are indeed feeling the pinch.  Certainly, we’ve had some good rains over the past several weeks, but we’ve been so far behind in moisture that it will take a good amount in the future to just break even.

Or maybe instead of the weather, we could talk about how short the summer seems to be and that school will be starting in about three weeks.  There’s lots to do in this short time that’s left, for those of us who have kids in school or work for a school.  We’re not sure we have the time to do it all and wonder where the endlessly long summers of our childhood days have gone.

Of course, back then…before the earth got cool…school started after Labor Day and was dismissed in mid-May.  We didn’t have all of the breaks kids have now.  No teacher work days.  No inservice days.  Sometimes the stretch between holidays and days off seemed to be rather long, but we enjoyed well over three months of summer vacation as opposed to about 2 ½ months now.

And school started at 9am and got out at 4pm.  None of this 7am school-starting business back then.  We had time to get up, get a good breakfast, and get to school unhurried.  When 4 o-clock came, we had time to get home and do a few things outside if the weather was relatively nice.  I don’t miss all of the “old days,” but there are some parts of them I’d gladly bring back if I could.

Or perhaps we could discuss the current political situation, both locally and nationally.  Or maybe the international situation…North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Africa, Russia, or one of any number of other hot button points on the globe.  Things seem to be spinning out of control faster than we can put things back together.  We seem to have several places in the world that are run by crazy, deranged people.  We seem to have some of those same folks in the halls of Congress and hanging out in Topeka as well as the local courthouse and city hall.

Of course, those who we believe are deranged may well be the heroes for many others.  It all depends, I suppose, on one’s perspective…one’s world view if you will.  And when it comes down to it, no one has quite the same world view as we do.  Everyone sees the world through a slightly different lens…a lens that colors and biases one’s opinions and thoughts.

Or, we could address hot button issues of the day…the “WOKE” agenda, the “Critical Race Theory” agenda, the abortion issue, the book banning controversy, the LGBTQ agenda, or one of any number of other issues whose supporters try to keep in the news and in front of the general populace as much and as often as possible, so as to garner as much support and money to “fight the enemy,” so to speak, as possible.

The problem with this is that I steer away from these kinds of issues in this venue, preferring instead to deal with things that would NOT tend to further divide us, but rather would bring us more together as a society.

These issues aren’t going to go away any time soon.  They and others will remain as issues, in large part because there are many who gain their wealth and livelihood by keeping these issues as issues instead of solving them and going on.  Think for a moment.  If the WOKE agenda issue would be suddenly solved today, how many people would be out of work with nothing to do?  How many grass-roots groups, community organizers, executive directors, national organizations, politicians, and others would suddenly have nothing to complain about and no cause to raise money for…which, by the way…goes to pay the salaries of those who are employed by those groups and organizations.

Well, I was going to talk about something other than all of these, but my time is about up…so I’ll have to close out this week’s post with a couple of quotes I borrowed from my Facebook Friend Beth’s timeline.  The quotes aren’t related, but are well worth the consideration.

“Sometimes, all it takes is one prayer to change everything.”  And the second quote?  “Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching.”

Blessings.