My Song

I just want to live
to enjoy my life's song
Spring soon turns to winter
life's really not that long

Many live to own things
I've always thought that wrong
I'm attached to living
and singing my life's song

Listen not to others
Your life is yours alone
Follow your heart it's often said
Let it guide you home

Old age creeps upon me
My end days now on wing
But I have my cherished memories
Of the song I chose to sing

Free Stuff

I turned on the TV news. For once, the headline was not the pandemic but refugees walking north to the US from points south.

I am going to set aside my usual humorous look at life and get serious, since this is a very serious issue for Americans today.

I've read, with great dismay, the bigoted rants from many here. "They're coming to take our jobs! They'll get free stuff! They'll vote Democrat! They won't learn English! They don't look like us!"

Puh-leese. No. Just simply no. I have never read such idiocy in my life. It HAS to be coming from the retards (my apologies to the mentally disabled for the use of THAT old bigoted term) at Fox News. The ol' fair and balanced source of stupidity.

Let me start with the easy one. English. The United States has no official language. Or culture. Get that thought out of your head right now. We are a melting pot, and I for one celebrate that. I don't want to live where everyone looks and acts just like me. Yeah, like that would happen. You know what I mean.

What these migrant folks are, are people. Refugee people. People coming here to improve their lot in life. People leaving behind all they knew, friends and relatives they love, to seek a better life away from violence, civil war, a drug culture, and poverty. Some, like a few I've personally known in the past, are fleeing violence in their home countries and are running north to protect their families. One kid I saw on the news was ten years old, traveling all alone. His mom and or dad sent him away. Can you conceive of a parent resorting to such a desperate move?

Imagine being ten, like that one kid I watched on the news, and being told to walk north a thousand miles with just the clothes on your back with a few pesos in your pocket, and relying on the kindness of fellow travelers. Could you do that when you were ten? But he's coming here for our free stuff and to vote Democrat?

Now, Dave comes out, channeling Will Rogers.

The Jews fleeing WWII Europe came here for free stuff and that Hitler thing was an excuse. There was no potato famine in Ireland. Free stuff. Asians didn't flock here to build railroads. Free stuff. Columbus sailed here looking for free stuff. Lewis and Clark were looking for free stuff out west. Go back in time to Moses who wandered the desert looking for free stuff.

We are all on Facebook and the internet why? We're all looking for free stuff.

The US has a space program and we send rovers to Mars to search for more free stuff, since we're running out of free stuff here on Earth.

But seriously... those so-called Americans who think these refugee folks are coming here for free stuff should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. Vote Democrat? Most have no idea what voting means.

To quote a famous American, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.".

I suggest moving the Statue of Liberty to El Paso.

New Blog

Hey, Drift Away blog followers.

I'm not sure why, but I started a new blog.  It is called Observatatin'.  This is about nothing, really, just tidbits of life that I find interesting or amusing.  It will not be updated everyday.  I'm not that witty anymore

The idea came to me while I was ruminatin' out of my apartment window.  But since Ruminatin' was taken, I had to invent a new word.

Check it out if you're so inclined.

https://observatating.blogspot.com/

The Final Book is Available

Hi all.

Not much to say, other than the third and final book in the Voyage of Drift Away series has been published and is available on Lulu, Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, etc.

click here

I apologize for it taking me two years to write, but to be honest, it was difficult to write.

Epilogue: Life Laughs at your plans

I finished my third book in the "Voyage of Drift Away" series, based on this blog.  It has been a struggle for me.

If you followed all 600+ posts in the blog, there is little need to buy any of the books.  But if you do, mail them to me (email me for my mailing address) and I'll sign them and mail them back to you.

But this morning, I happened to think that you regular blog followers wouldn't have the chance to read the final chapter of the last book, so I decided to publish it here for you so you won't miss anything.  

Here you go.

Epilogue:  Life laughs at your plans

Did you ever have a sad day? A day where you just want to shut the world out, and sit in your room with the curtains drawn? That is me today, as I write this.

While editing the final version of this book, I came across this.
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Pam and I never had a plan nor a schedule. When we left Connecticut on Drift Away in September of 2011. We intended to wander south as our mood and circumstances dictated, which we more or less did. However, returning to upstate New York, ten acres of land in the Adirondack Park fell into our laps, just like Drift Away did a couple of years ago.

The land is all wooded except for a road that was put in by the previous owner. We intend to build a house, garage, and barn (for horses) after clearing the land to see the view of Shaker Mountain. As much as I dislike snow, now that I'm retired, I can envision myself sitting in front of a big ol' stone fireplace with a hot cup of coffee and watching the snow gently fall. Gertie is curled up on the hearth, and Chevy and Ruby on the oval rug in front of the fire. There is nothing but silence. Well, nothing but silence now that Pam has finished plowing and shoveling, mucking stalls, cooked my breakfast of bacon and eggs and home fries, and got herself off to her job. Life is good.
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That last part about Pamela was humor.

I was wistfully thinking of our future back in 2012. It was not to be.

We had bought the ten acres of land in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. And we were going great guns. The driveway was finished, the land cleared, the well drilled, and a couple of outbuildings built. Then I had an accident. A tree hit me on the head and broke my neck and gave me a very severe concussion. Life changed. Not for the better.

I was no longer capable of building anything. Those plans had to be scrapped. Drift Away had sold. Pamela and I bought an RV and became classic snowbirds. But then the yearly commute to Florida and back became too much for me. We had a choice to make. New York or Florida. We chose Florida, where Pamela's mom, daughter and grandson lived.

I started writing books. Pamela worked at horse ranches. Something deep inside changed. Our lives were no longer what they were. Of course.

I'll spare you the personal stuff.

Today, my Ruby, my buddy Chevy, and little Dirty Gertie have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Pamela left, taking Olivia with her and another dog we took from a drug dealer, Penelope.

It's funny how life changes, eh? I had the world by the tail for a time. No longer.

The light of my life went out. My joie de vivre, my joy of life, was gone.

This book was hard for me to read and edit. I wrote the first draft two years ago. I had to set it aside. I couldn't finish it. It was too sad for me. Too emotional.

But I realized that to heal, I had to finish it. I hope that with this blog and book, I have touched you in some way. Perhaps even made you evaluate your own life. I needed to share the joy I had found with you all.

So my final words, in my final writings of this “Voyage of Drift Away” series, is that you never know what life holds for you. Grab life by the tail. I realized life could be fleeting and I lived it as best I could, with the loves of my life. I'm so glad I did. No one can take away my memories. Memories that I've now shared with you.

I will leave you with some of my favorite quotes.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 

• attributed to Mark Twain.

Sunrise, sunset.

Sunrise, sunset.

Swiftly fly the years.

Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers,

Blossoming even as we gaze.

Sunrise, sunset.

Sunrise, sunset.
Swiftly fly the years.
One season following another,
Laden with happiness andd tears.

• composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick.

And finally, for Drift Away

Thanks for the joy that you've given me
I want you to know I believe in your song
Rhythm and rhyme and harmony
You helped me along
makin' me strong

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll

and drift away... 

• songwriters Jerry Lynn Williams

My Personal Favorite Blog Entry

I loved writing this blog.  It was personally enlightening.  It may have provided a little bit of entertainment to you, but it showed me that I could regain my creativity.  It was gone for decades thanks to a really bad tenth grade English teacher who said I couldn't write.  But what I learned was that it doesn't matter.  What matters is I like what I write, and by extension, some of you might as well.

I wrote an entry just about every day.  If a blog entry was late, I'd get emails.

"Dave, I'm sitting in my cubicle with my donut and coffee.  Where is the blog?"

So after many years of daily blogs, I accumulated quite a few.  I've been asked if I have a favorite.  Well, pelicans are my favorite bird, so it had to have pelicans in it.  It had to show that I regained the imagination of my youth.  It had to show humor.  This one, from April 3, 2013...

https://trawlerdriftaway.blogspot.com/2013/04/pelicans-and-mathematics.html
Pelicans and Mathematics

Short story.  After Drift Away, Pamela and I moved to a remote cabin in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.  We learned that we had Sasquatch (seriously?  They're real?) all around us.  So I decided to blog about it, of course.  Then I did the improbable.  I turned my blog entries into a book.

"Living Among Sasquatch:  A Primer" became a hit in the Bigfoot world.  It was, and is, a best seller.  It sold so well it was on Amazon's best seller list for a month.

I ran out of things to write about.  At Pam's urging, I wrote a novel.  And then a second.  No facts here, just my imagination.  They don't sell well, but they are also my favorite writings.

You can go to Amazon and search for "Dave Gibson Sasquatch".  Go to the book.  Click on my author name and go to my author's page.  There are all of may books, so far.  Thank you.  This is due to encouragement from you.

Writing fiction, where I can really let loose is liberating.  Exhausting at times, but it removes me from real life and sets me free.  I am in another place.

Why you should go now

Do you want a reason to go now, not later?


About two weeks ago I passed out in the bathroom, hitting the toilet so hard that I broke the seat. I didn't wake up until the hospital. After a week of them saying nothing was wrong and there was nothing they could do, they sent me home.

The next morning, I was hit with some kind of attack and was so weak that I couldn't get off the couch. The landlady found me and called 911 since I couldn't get to the phone myself. Back to the hospital, same result. Nothing wrong. So they sent me to a rehab center for physical therapy. I seemed strange to me, but it was they that figured out that my electrolytes were screwed up, with potassium being especially low. They can't get a handle on it. But they give me blood tests at least once a day and are pumping me full of potassium but it continues to drop. I might be here for a long time, until my insurance runs out.

I managed to take a cab ride home today and fetched some clothes, my phone, and my laptop. Now I'm back in touch with the world.

I am finally back on Facebook. What did I miss? Anything?

I'm at Windsor Woods in Hudson, FL, home of the sinkhole.

BTW, sitting here, I just realized that I have another concussion. One pupil smaller than the other, dizziness, poor balance, etc. I can only wonder if this is just a continuation of the first concussion, the head/tree one. Why would I just pass out?

But I'm afraid it might happen again, somewhere, without warning. I gave my car to Pamela. My car was my one remaining asset. I am now asset-less.

That is, asset-less except for the memories of Pamela's and my cruise.  No one can take that from me.

Do it now.