Our month got off with a bang - we had a weekend workshop/retreat with some friends at
Timberlane. One memorable exercise was a Survival Exercise - one with 12 questions like: #8.
An early snow confines you to your small tent. You doze with your small stove going. There is
danger if the flame is: a. yellow (right answer, one I chose) b. blue and c. red. In the rest of the
questions, you were confronted by rimrocked cliffs, darkness, thirst, burning sun, hunger, white
water rapids and being attacked by bears. Getting into the spirit of the thing, I suggested a 13th
Question as follows:
13. You have a chance to go into a wilderness where you will be confronted
by cliffs, darkness, thirst, burning sun, hunger, white water rapids and
attacking bears. You decide to:
a. stay home
b. go anyway
Guess which one I would choose! See, I figure it this way — even in a work-shop, you can have
fun. As long as everyone has a sense of humor. (I occasionally lead a humor-building exercise,
and can quickly spot those completely lacking in raw material. These are the ones who will only
laugh if I appear to do something wrong during the exercise.)
A good friend, C. J. Duet, died early in the month and I went to his funeral at Holy Family
Church. I've known CJ since I dated his daughter Dot in 1955. The first week of June found me
trying to get caught up with my chores around the house and writing my journal of my busy trip
through Texas. The "writing life" as Margaret Atwood writes, is an oxymoron. Writers
understand what that means, namely, if you're writing, life is passing you by. And yet we
somehow manage to eke out time enough to live and to write.
Some people have asked me why I do so many reviews of Rudolf Steiner's books. Make no
mistake about it: these reviews are my study notes, especially for Steiner's works. They comprise
my lesson plan for being able to articulate later the views that are so incomprehensible to others
as they were to me when I first encountered them. I don't have a group of anthroposophically
inclined friends that I grew up with or that live in my
neighborhood. There are no nearby lectures
on anthroposophy for me to attend. I must work through Steiner's lectures and attempt to make
sense of them, and if I make sense of them, then it becomes possible for me to share with others
what that sense is. Rightly understood, this is the reason for the intense work I put into creating
these Steiner reviews. Feel free to skip them. When you're ready, they will still be there.
Skeptics, skeptical folks, are everywhere. I hear them speaking sometime even when they're not
around. Like when Del and I were watching "Vita Bella" or "Life is Beautiful" on DVD.
Wonderful movie. I told Del when the father and son got on the train to the concentration camp I
could hear the voice of a skeptic watching the movie thinking, "Now, he's going to have face
reality. He can't shelter his son from the truth." In the fact of the matter, he did shelter his son
from the truth, all the way to the end of the "game." If he hadn't sheltered his son from the truth,
his son would have died, just like the other children in the camp who faced reality because no
loved them enough to shelter them.
For the months of May and June, we had over 24,000 visitors to the doyletics.com website, a
new high, and climbing each month. At the current rate we will have over 150,000 visitors a
year. Many of those visitors come to read my reviews, so I am in the process of publishing my
first volume of "A Reader's Journal" on-line. This will add about 300 new books and authors for
my readers when it's done and attract even more readers. This month I got all of the Spiritual
Science and Reading for Enjoyment chapters posted on-line. This is sheer drudgery, but the
result is each review is beautiful and easy, complete with a color plate of its book jacket or cover.
To see the new Chapters on-line, click on this link: http://www.doyletics.com/arj1revs.htm#SS
or this link: http://www.doyletics.com/arj1revs.htm#RFE
Have you ever heard about the "smoke test"? That's a technical term we use in electronics for the
final test after assembling a new piece of electronic gear. We turn on the power and see if smoke
comes out of the piece of equipment. If it does, it flunks the smoke test and we must start over.
Now the truth can be told about the smoke test. Through careful research we have developed an
hypothesis that electronics equipment is really powered by smoke. When smoke leaks out, the
power to the equipment escapes and it no longer works. That's how the smoke test works. You
can say you heard it here first, folks. If you think that I just made this up, you'd be close to the
truth.
June is the month for Buster's Creole Tomatoes.
And we love them. We eat them by themselves
using a special tomato dressing that Del created. We use equal parts of mayonnaise and
Wishbone Italian Dressing blended together and pour it over the tomatoes. I slice the tomatoes
over the bowl to capture all the juice. Then we put the bowl in the fridge for a couple of hours
and eat it ice cold. Hard not to lick the plate. Have no idea how this would work on any tomatoes
other than those grown by our dad, Buster. To be away from Louisiana during June would be
unthinkable -- imagine having to wait another entire year for the indescribable taste of creole
tomatoes! (P. S. Don't believe everything you read on labels in a grocery store.)
Filed for Social Security in time for my 62nd birthday coming up July 20th. Had a glitch in my tax
return which had to be straightened out. Luckily we had already filed an amendment to fix the
problem. Kept me busy for a few days straightening that out.
Usually I get up in the morning before Del, but on rare occasions she'll beat me to getting out of
bed. I rolled out of bed about 5:30 am one morning this month and noticed that she was already
up. I called Line 1 from Line 2 and said to Del on the other end, "This is the Sheriff's Office. We
received a report that you beat your husband up this morning." She was befuddled. "Bobby, is
that you?" Then she started laughing as she got the joke. Hey, gotta do the smoke test on the ole
sense of humor from time to time. (If smoke comes out, no sense of humor.)
I was having trouble with the Internet one morning and did a search and found a review of my
review of G. Spencer Brown's Laws of Form, which went as follows:
A 'critical' review of LoF by some guy named John who reviews all sorts of
books in the same superficial manner, can be consulted as an example of the
kind of primary repulsion the book is capable of engendering. A better effort
is owed to Bobby Matherne of the Doyletics Foundation, self-described
newspaper boy, motor fuels tester, physicist, well surveyor, biomedical
programmer, technical writer, psychotherapist, real-time programmer,
manager of software development, compiler designer, computer scientist,
EDP consultant and auditor, massage therapist, Tarot reader, philosopher,
and researcher into the evolution of consciousness! And GSB thought he was
the polymath!!!
The third week of June found us flooded with grandkids as four daughters came over with
their children, and they have a total of eleven children and one grandchild between them. I
cooked crawfish leeks tarts for them the first night, and Grandma Del took them to the Children's
Museum the next day while I cooked up a large andouille jambalaya for them for supper. My dad
and his friend, plus two of my brothers and their wives added to the festivities for that night. On
Friday the two daughters from Texas went across the river to their sister's house while we got
ready for the daughter from Alexandria and her three children to arrive. The next day we had two
birthday parties to go to. When the kids visit, they always seem to leave something behind,
diapers, underpants, toys, etc. This time they left behind a stomach virus and Sunday, which was
to be our day of rest and recuperation, was spent walking around the house like zombies wishing
we had a mommy to come take care of us. Ain't nothing worse than having both of us sick at the
same time!
By Monday I felt better and was able to pick up some friends at the airport and drive them
home. By Tuesday I was cutting the grass and making groceries and back working on my ARJ1
again. Del took it easy a couple of days, but was back at work again by Wednesday when our
son, Rob, called to announce that his new son, Emerson, was born earlier that morning, June 26,
2002 at 4:30 am CDT in Bloomington, Indiana, 7 lbs, 6 oz, and 19" long. We sent flowers to the
hospital. (The third child's birth usually doesn't get as much attention as the first and second, so
we thought we'd make it special for the mom.)
They're building a Leggo house nearby. That's not what they call it, but that's exactly
what it looks like from the street. Large white blocks that are set into place on top of each other
like a Leggo construction. Inside the white styrofoam are metal reinforcing rods inside of a space
into which concrete will be poured to provide the strength for the walls. Wall cost is about three
times the normal wall cost, but that only adds about ten to fifteen percent to the overall cost of
the house. Don't know if I'd like living in a beer cooler though.
On Saturday we visited a long-time friend, Carol, in Florida. Spent the afternoon in
Pensacola Beach on an outdoor patio overlooking the beach and Gulf. After a tasty lunch we
walked the length of the new fishing pier and then took a dip in the swimming pool. 
Drove home
that night so that I could get up early to catch the World Cup match between Germany and Brazil
the next morning. After playing a great first half Germany let a couple of Ronaldo's kicks get
past them and Brazil won, 2-0. Great game.
June was a terrific month. The days have been dry and mild and breezy. The planning
workstation got a big workout this month. And by the end of the month, our normal afternoon
showers returned to keep the St. Augustine grass and the flowers well-watered. I picked up the
sprinkler for the season.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To one used to reading biblical exegeses, the idea that one small book of 76 pages could answer all these questions definitively would be inconceivable. And yet, in my opinion, that is exactly what Ed Smith has done within the covers of this book.
You can safely read the following review, but first look around the room and make sure no kids or grandkids are watching.
Thoreau was a lover of wild apples. In those indomitable tree-sized weeds of early America, he saw the sturdy stock of which he was made. He'd stop under any wild apple tree and invariably find a fruit of unique color, texture, and taste. Sort of what you, dear Reader, can find when you accompany Thoreau on his travels.
How can you do this? Through the magical time machine of writing. Carrying a pencil and paper with him, Thoreau recorded his marvelous jaunts through New England, and his journals are available for a time travel trip at your earliest convenience. Till then, you can always just read the review and tell your friends you read the journal. Go ahead. Who'll know? Thoreau was a lover of wild apples. In those indomitable tree-sized weeds of early America, he saw the sturdy stock of which he was made. He'd stop under any wild apple tree and invariably find a fruit of unique color, texture, and taste. Sort of what you, dear Reader, can find when you accompany Thoreau on his travels. How can you do this? Through the magical time machine of writing. Using only a pencil and paper, Thoreau recorded his marvelous treks through New England and his journals are available for a time travel trip at your earliest convenience. Till then, you can always just read the review and tell your friends you read the journal. Go ahead. Who'll know?
The best source at the best price is to order your copies on-line is from the publisher Random House/Xlibris's website above.
