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Recently, I heard some guys on the radio discussing how much life had changed in the last twenty years. To make their point, one of the guys asked the listening audience to take a moment to reflect on where they, the audience, were and what they, the audience, were doing twenty years ago. “I think you’ll see your life has changed dramatically.”

So, I did what they suggested.

Twenty years ago today, I was driving a semi across northern Wisconsin, in freezing rain, pulling an empty trailer. It was the first time I’d driven a semi in freezing rain and I was moving pretty slowly. But no other trucks passed me so; I guess I wasn’t overdoing it on the slowness.

To make things worse, I had a horrible cold; eyes watering, sneezing, and coughing. So, not feeling well, I just plodded along. Eventually, I got to where I was going—only to be sent back the other way, over the same road. But at least I then had a load, which did help a little. Still, it wasn’t exactly a fun day. I remember thinking “I wish summer would hurry up and get here.”

And now, twenty years later, what am I doing? Well, at this very moment, I’m typing this blog post, but soon, I shall be heading to work. Work will consist of driving a semi across northern Oregon, in what is expected to be freezing rain, pulling an empty trailer. Then, once I get my load, I’ll head back the way I came. I currently have a horrible cold with all the debilitating symptoms along the ultimately lousy feeling that goes with winter. I keep thinking, “I wish summer would hurry up and get here.”

So, not much has changed. So far, not much “new” is happening for this new year.

I couldn’t very well tell my story to the guys on the radio, so I told you! Happy New Year! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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A New Year

2016. A new year. So far, it doesn’t seem any different from the old year to me. This is the fourth day and I don’t see anything that’s changed—other than the calendar. Sure, there are little subtle differences from day to day, but those always occur. Monday is a little different than Sunday, Tuesday changes a little more, and so on. We start new days, new weeks, and new months without much hullabaloo. But for some reason, everybody gets all excited about a new year.

I could understand if the year marks a big event for someone, graduation, getting married, or retiring; something they’ve been looking forward to and waiting on. Maybe the anticipated birth of a child or grandchild would be something to celebrate. But I know not everyone has a monumental moment planned. In fact, I’m pretty sure most people don’t. Still, for some reason everybody gets all excited about a new year.

Also, I’ve noticed during past years that the newness of a new year tends to wear off very quickly. By the middle of January, people are back to the grind, the festive mood of only a few days before all but gone. They go back to their “mundane” life of day to day living; getting up, going to work—or whatever else they do—going home, and going to bed, getting up... I’m sure you get the picture. This continues right through December when, for some reason everybody gets all excited about a new year.

I have my suspicions that it isn’t really the new year that matters as much as the fact that it’s a holiday and people like having time off work and celebrating. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. So, while I didn’t mention anything last week about the new year, I wanted to make sure I didn’t let it slip by unnoticed—because I know how everybody gets all excited about a new year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.  Amazon Profile - www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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That Time Of Year

Another year almost gone. Seems like it just started. I guess it’s true what they say, the older you get, the faster time goes. I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get done this past year and barely made a dent in it. Not enough time. The story of my life.

Don’t get me wrong, I managed to accomplish a lot of things. We are talking about a whole year here. But in comparison to what I have left, it’s like I was on vacation.

The problem is, I schedule about thirty hours of work for every day. And, as you may know, there are currently only twenty-four hours in each of them. At least that’s what I’m told. Seems like it’s a lot less. And every year it gets worse. Drastically worse. If things keep progressing at this rate, by the time I’m sixty, there’ll only be about two hours in the day. And I’ll still have thirty hours of work to do in each one.

Maybe I need a time machine to slow things down a bit. If I could set it to give me thirty-six hours a day, that should do it. It might even provide me with a little time to sleep! On second thought, that probably wouldn’t work—I’d just come up with more things I wanted to do. And the next year we’d be revisiting the same issue—all the things I didn’t get done.

Perhaps a more viable solution would be to consult all those people who spend their entire day and night protesting everything under the sun. They seem to have a lot of free time. Would it be possible to borrow some of theirs? Or maybe all of it? After all, they’re apparently not using it.

Okay, back to reality. While it would be nice to find a few extra hours, unless some Einstein figures out how time being relative can actually help me, it’s never going to change. I’m stuck with a mere twenty-four hours in the day that fly by.

People tell me I should relax, not try to take on so many projects. (Hello? Like that would work! I’d get even less done). Quite often I’m advised to slow down, take it easy, or just stop. I’d have more time, they say. Yeah, right! I can’t do that—before you know it, another year will be gone!

Happy New Year!

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders also serves as the Vice President of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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Current Reads

A Personal Journey To The Heart Of Teaching

John Fioravanti

Through The Keyhole: True Stories Not For The Faint Of Heart

Liz Cowan

Our Lady Of Victory

Shirley Harris-Slaughter

SPOTLIGHT Author

C. S. Boyack

The Cock Of The South

 

April Fools' Day

Happy April Fools’ Day!

The day, also known as All Fools’ Day, is not a real holiday - just in case anybody is trying to wrangle an extra paid day from their employer. April Fools’ Day is known for practical jokes and silly pranks, trying to get someone to believe something is true that is obviously not, or sending someone on a fool’s errand - searching for items, which do not exist. In some places, it’s a day for pointing out the idiocy or foolishness of certain folks or their behavior.

The origins of April Fools’ Day are not known but there are an abundance of theories, none of which seem to make any sense. That in itself is rather fitting in my opinion. I’ve read many accounts on how the day came into practice. Some seem logical, others are obviously pure fiction. Still others are downright ridiculous; stories so preposterous that only a fool would believe them. Fanciful bets with emperors and kings, a mistaken date of March 32, and spring weather fooling with people are just the beginning. Somehow these seem à propos to the day.

The generally accepted explanation is; that the celebration April Fools’ Day can be traced back to the 1500’s in France. Prior to 1582, the New Year was observed on April 1. The adoption of the Gregorian calendar moved the date to January 1. This ruined the weeklong New Year’s festival, which began on March 25 and ended April 1. Some people refused to go along with the change and were ridiculed by the rest of society for stubbornly clinging to tradition.  Sounds good, except the theory doesn’t account for the fact that the day was already widely celebrated before the 1500’s in other parts of Europe and the rest of the world. For example, the ancient Romans had a festival called Hilaria, on March 25. The Persians also had a day of pranking, celebrated on April 1, dating back to 536 B.C . Other ancient societies, including the Jewish and the Greek cultures, had similiar celebrations all on or around April 1. So, to accept the traditional version of the origins of April Fools’ Day would be - well, foolish.

Since there are no definitive explanations for how the day came about, I think I’m free to join in the speculation. Could it be that throughout history there have always been those who were a little less than well-endowed with intelligence? Have people always done things that weren’t too smart? Apparently so. And not just a few. Enough of them that many cultures, dating back to the begining of their existence, set aside a day just for these people. And of course there have always been those who took the opportunity to identify those people - and by extension to prove they themselves were not part of that group.

My theory seems to make as much sense as any other, I believe. It’s reasonable and plausible. Now if I could just figure out whether or not to take offense when someone tells me Happy April Fools’ Day.

Bruce A. Borders, author and songwriter, has over 500 songs and more than a dozen books. Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, his latest books, are available on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. Now also available in print at many online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders