blog origins

My desire is to share some writings from the past, combined with thoughts from the present. This started when as a child I went from our duplex on Silverlake Drive (Los Angeles) to the corner bus stop. There I engaged my neighbors in talk, the first dialogs beyond my immediate and extended family. From there it was a matter of crossing streets to do the same with the greengrocer at the Silvermart, or Mr. Hoppel at his Mobil Station (and his customers, of course), and at my Father's automotive garage, and at the playground. I later found this to be called the "Socratic method," questions and answers, counter questions, koans to be figured out. The result was an immense curiousity about people, events, history, subjects. I find this curiousity mostly absent in our present life, seemingly taken the place of by huge amounts of information, media and preoccupations; so why shouldn't this BLOG be just a part of the problem? I'm sure it will be to some people. My Don Quixote hope is that it may not be so for everyone.