James Eichenlaub

Posted on: Jun 13, 2020 at 11:52 AM

Ad Infinitum

Through the obfuscation of time lay the eternal past and endless future, and in the skies above us are wonder and mystery, and on Earth there is profound beauty and pleasure. Yet in the heart of man alone is the ability to love and hate, to nurture and destroy, to look and not see, to listen and not hear, to give generously to one and disenfranchise the other, to procreate and corrupt an innocent life, and take away life without compunction in the name of peace and security.

Most profoundly, however, is mankind's ability to perceive eternity and by all action deny its existence; to run with opened arms and closed minds into extinction for the sake of fallacious and unsubstantiated ideologies; and all that, for no other reason than to declare themselves righteous, the owners of Heaven, and anointed of a God in whom they claim to trust, and yet, by their might and positions of power, declare themselves to be gods; the rulers of mankind to whom all owe their allegiance.

https://j-oakleaves.blogspot.com

Posting new writings to my BLOG page: https://j-oakleaves.blogspot.com

The name 'Eichenlaub' is German. The Eiche is Oak... The other refers to the foliage, leaves.

Posted on: Jan 23, 2020 at 9:55 AM

Congratulations, John. It's a whole new way of parenting, as you will soon find out. GRAND-parenting, that is!

Posted on: Jan 22, 2020 at 9:29 AM

Posted on: Jul 13, 2019 at 11:12 AM

A couple images of the 'old school' that we attended, taken from the Internet years ago. The one with the line of people, if I recall correctly, was a line of people waiting for the measles vaccination.

Posted on: Jul 08, 2019 at 10:50 AM

Having lived through Don McLean's, American Pie, we are a generation the likes of which will never be seen again, as they say. Our school years were, without doubt, our 'formative' years, and for myself...as one who does NOT recall those year with fondness, I say to all those who belittled, punched, slapped, ignored, laughed at, and ridiculed me: I thank you!

To those few whom I do fondly remember (Randy, Ralph, and Will) I say thank you as well, you made those last few year tolerable enough, and there were so many others I knew only in passing; those to whom I was just another kid in school and who generally ignored me; I thank you for not being unkind.

A special thanks to Ted P., who tried to bring me up in stature and style but was unable to rescue me from my darkness. To Fred C., who was a giant among students and who often kept the bullies off of me, and to Amy D. (with whom I had a torrid love affair, but she never knew about it because we never spoke to one another), and to whom I looked forward to passing in the hall and would walk as near to her as I possibly could, and scurried away when she looked in my direction.

We can attribute our successes and failures, to some degree, on those years we spent together. To some, the happiest years of their lives, to others, just a passing mirage of friendships where hearts and minds connected with one another to form this succession of timeless acquaintances. To some few of us, however; it was a time when we were convinced that we lived outside the norm and standard; the small, the inept, the presumed indolent whose lives sprung from poverty and lacked erudition.

Finally, to Mr. Butler who, during orientation, convinced me that high school was not for me when he said, “Eichenlaub…another dropout like the rest of your lazy family,” setting the tone with which I would attend to the next few years of my ‘learning’. But, as it turns out, those words echoed in my mind through all these years and actually became a proponent of my success. Thank you Mr. Butler.

Posted on: Jul 02, 2019 at 3:15 PM