JPPENS

                                                                                                                                                             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...

 We see, we hear, we read, we feel, we taste, we chew, we spew and we hope... We shout, we yell, we swear, we hurt, we throw, we cry, we try, we slam and we hope... We listen, we care, we feed, we cover, we dream, we call, we write, we fight, we believe, we hug, we love and we hope... and we hope... and we hope... We hang on to it, we trust it, we wear it, we smell it, we survive with it, we reach for it...  It is ours, no one can take it, no one can kill it... Hope lives... In our souls, our minds, our hearts... We own it and share it... Through hugs, through care... The POWER of HOPE, the POWER of HUGS  will get us through the POWER of HELL...

                                       Maybe I look at life differently because I was trained in teaching motor skills and my graduate work was in observation and evaluation but I know for sure that things I see and witness around me are seen through these paradigms.  Having been a coach and teacher of young women and men I know the skills and wanting needed to master any movement to become the best player of whatever athletic event one chooses; to be part of a team is in and of itself I think one of the best paved highways for a person to learn about themselves, their place in their world and the acknowledgement that teams are called teams because it can't be done alone. Being motivated to work hard and learning real discipline for not only yourself but for the good of others as well is huge in my book. Coaches live and work in the preseason, the season, post season and then preppin...