JPPENS

  This time of year is different from the other ten months whether we want to believe it or not and for so many reasons, great for some and not so much so for others... I recently heard someone express why Thanksgiving was their favorite holiday and simply put she said something like "because there are no expectations and it's just people gathering to talk, listen and eat, no presents, no tinsel or trees".  I began to think about who I would want to sit at my Thanksgiving table but more importantly why I would invite them... Our world is filled with APPS, all we have to do is touch a button on our smart phones and we can read just about anything on the planet or click on YouTube to learn how to fix whatever. So, I decided maybe I and maybe you could use a written individual GRATITUDE TABLE APP just to remind us of the who and the why. Our lives are not about what surrounds us, but about who surrounds us. Here we go...   Type in your search window  WINEINGWITHJACKIE....

Back in the 50's and 60's I was a kid who slept with my glove, had my Carl Yastrzemski bat by my bed and played sandlot baseball until the snow got too deep and my dreams were filled with being a professional baseball player... Back then girls were not allowed to play on organized teams at all but some of us continued to find ways to play the game we loved with the guys.  By the time I was in high school I settled on playing softball. I was as devoted to it as I had been to baseball and was fortunate to be involved as a player, a coach or an umpire for almost three decades. My understanding of the game of baseball was used in my softball life but I never lost my love affair with baseball. The Boston Red Sox were and still are my team.   Strolling down Yawkey Way when the Sox were hosting the Yankees was a lifetime memory. Sitting in the bleachers about as far away from home plate as possible looking over to the green monster always left me in awe.  I kept an eye on t...

                                                                                                                                                             As Labor Day approaches and our summer habits wane we naturally begin to remember what our elementary school teachers asked upon our return to school..."Did you have fun this summer?" By middle school it was more like " How did you stay busy this summer?", and by the time we hit high school summer was pretty much a distant memory. Now, in my retirement years I find that I look at my summer and pretty much all of my seasons a bit differently, kin...

WE THE PEOPLE, will continue to speak up, speak out, reach out, march, shout and PROTEST our present non functioning government that has been created because of the fear of a mentally sick man with money and moneyed friends. THIS can not be a one time thing...it must continue, grow and become frequent for us to get our country back folks.  

                               PRIDE MONTH is the time for me to once again answer so many folks who have asked, why is it so important for gay people to come out of "their closets", to parade and shout...  because it is a designated time for a community of people who have been throughout history told and treated as though we were less than, not equal to...   As the LGBT+ community and other marginalized groups continue to see hate and violence escalate in this country,  I want to call to your attention the frightening historical records of what America actually took part in when the war camps in Germany, particularly Dachau, were finally liberated. When members of the camps were liberated, past criminals included, those who had been identified by the pink and black triangles marking them as "homosexuals, inverts and transvestites" were sent to prisons in keeping with the German law which...

This Memorial Day we must continue to see, hear, read and digest it all...the barrage of hate, discrimination and money grabbing that is happening before our eyes because our Congress, Senate and Supreme Court are fearful of one person. We as humans can not turn our backs, become complacent just because they are wearing us out...this is what they want us to do...they want us to be so tired of their trash that we just shut up and go away...we have to SPEAK UP, STAND UP, PROTEST, WRITE to our elected officials so they will indeed fear coming home to face the people who elected them...On this Memorial Day we need to read our history, remember our dead and fight this epidemic of hate and discrimination. NO ONE IS ANY BETTER THAN ANY ONE human and this insanity of inhumanity needs to be stopped. Quiet, tired and worn out are no excuses folks...please do not give up, we are the ones that can make his approval ratings fall and we know how that really defeats him. We are worth the fight, our...