Disneyland Closes At 35

Appearance vs. Reality

I taught a class this morning relating to questions about what is real and what is merely appearance, and how anyone could distinguish between the two. I spoke about Empiricism, the view that reality is known solely via the senses. If you can touch it, feel it, smell it, taste it, hear it, or see it, then you might believe that some thing is real. If not, it is not real; thus, Soul, God, Unicorns and Tinker Bell are not real.

I spoke about Idealism, a view which holds that only thoughts are real. We do not experience things in the world as they are in fact, but only as ideas in our mind. Thoughts. Only thoughts are real. Check it out. What can you find in your own head? Perhaps only thoughts?

Getting back to the Blog

I have been too long away from this little blog. School is back in session. I am teaching 4 philosophy classes at 3 different colleges. My life in retirement (semi-retirement) is the life of the wandering professor. I really like the teaching. I'm not so happy about all the wandering about to get to the students.

I spent some time in New Mexico in August, mostly in the mountain town or Ruidoso. I had not been in Ruidoso at any time since 1963 during the summer prior to my Senior year in High School. I was in town that summer to operate a small gas station owned by my Uncle James, the husband of my mother's sister. He was not a blood relative; still, he was my favorite uncle.

Why was I operating the station? James was hospitalized in Albuquerque recovering from a bleeding ulcer.

During August 09 I drove into Ruidoso, up the mountain, from Roswell, New Mexico. Roswell was home to my parents, most of my relatives, and ostensibly two aliens with little bodies and grey skins who crash landed outside town in 1947. It had been 46 years since my last visit, and yet I was able to find the exact place where the gas station had once stood, some quarter of a mile east of the Ruidoso Downs horse racing track.

I met a girl in Ruidoso that summer in 1963. I learned how to run a small business on my own. I went to bed late in an old aluminum house trailer up the hill from the station, and I got up early. I drank beer after midnight with two teens slightly older than me who worked around the corner in their father's mechanic shop.

As I stood on the old gas station site I remembered my Uncle James and his wife Gail. I thought of times that in retrospect seem pure and simple. I guess they weren't, but they seem that way in my memory. I remember the girl as well.