Tuesday September 18 – Please, not now … I’m trying to listen

Tuesday September 18 – Please, not now … I’m trying to listen


I came back from the library, about 7:45 P.M. Dan and Wendy were already set up for the night. Dan asked how I was this evening and after my walk over the hills of Austin and up the parking lot to our back I could only reply, “It’s hell getting old,” to which there was a hearty agreement.

As I looked to the east, what’s this? The lots were full and all the parking on the street filled. This could only mean one thing … Stub’s was having a concert tonight.

If you were to walk down the hill, due east and past the parking lot and pass the restaurant below and cross the street (Red River) you would find stubs, a Bar-B-Q restaurants that has an outside stage in the back and periodically has some of the better bands come in and do concerts. I mean the quality of what they put on is top notch.

As the sun set the first band started and I tell you, for not paying a red cent I could not ask for a better location to sit and listen. After a few minutes, my Bible totting neighbor stands up and starts reading out of the book of Revelations. Fortunately the band was loud enough, so it was not too much of an inconvenience. He started over to me and asked if he could pray for me. “I’d rather you didn’t,” I told him, and he went to Dan and Wendy who consented to his request.

I have lost patience with the religious proselytizers. Yes, to some degree I used to be one of them, but I was always a “free thinker”. Religion cannot tolerate “free thinkers”. They become a threat, because the more you try to learn objectively, the more the fallacy becomes apparent. And it is not just the religious fallacy; we might just as well include the economic and the political.

You see, the religious need their absolute (God). And whether it is religion or economics or politics we long for something absolute, real, unchangeable. But the fact is, there is nothing absolute, only relative concoctions of “better” or “worse”, and that could be virtually anything. But, of course, whatever we have become accustomed to that is our best, our absolute … and damn the man (or person – PC) who tries to fuck with it.

Prayers ended, the music continues …