The Big Chief Tablet...

Remember? The quest to stay between the lines - refrain from smudges, and make it legible (a word we didn't even know what it meant!)... Editor's note: being left-handed didn't help in the smudge department as the butt of my hand always dragged over to slur/blur the 'penmanship'! Symbolic mebbe?

Introduction to Life, 101. A blank canvas on the easel. However do will fill it? We must walk through life (those of us fortunate enough to be able to walk) and paint our lives. Some have wonderful guidance, many - none.

Turn here? Work there? What do I wanna be? Is it really possible to pick/find someone to spend the remainder of life with? How do you know?

Some write (right) their life better than others. Some don't care. Some are always happy. Some hate Mondays, and basically orgasm as the clock hits five on Friday afternoon.

Some keep every friend they ever made, some, burn bridges. Most have niches: religion, sports, books, politics, reality tv shows, quilting, baking, kayaking, biking, gardening, writing - things to occupy, fill up ole' Chief.

Children are born. Their own tablets, and the impact of (or not) parents (or grand parents) in guidance to stay between the lines. Force fed on how to fill it, or, live as you like - your call. Our household was pretty liberal, basically we could do whatever we wanted (within reason of course) but once we started it, we must finish it... (Well... "except sex " they said)...

That canvas goes from a good form of anxiety on how to fill it... occasionally, we find that we "wish we'd have written that portion of life in pencil, insteada ink" - but all tablets are filled with errors.

We start writing in life, and it's about "us.".. Midlife comes, it's about others. Aging comes, and there's an appreciation for rereading how our tablet of life has gone and the content within. Memories. The names. School chums, events. Work. Coworkers. Relatives, inlaws, and best friends - those all written in blood.

Our wrinkles are the frayed edges of Chief, our brown spots are the yellowing of aging paper. My grandmother wrote/denoted important events, births, weddings, even simple visits from family/friends, in her bible - her Big Chief. I guess a blog is a form of Big Chief, and remembering back to Mrs. Eldridge's class, I'll probably get another C+!

Saw some lifelong friends in WalMart yesterday... 11 different sizes of balls in their cart. "How many grandkids you have now?"...... "Eleven!"... That's a lotta balls. A lotta memories. A lotta tablets to fill, and a lotta names/events for their own tablet.

I wouldn't erase much. Made some turns, job decisions I shouldn't have. Can't spend money when you're dead... but, perhaps that too is a niche for some.

Hope you've enjoyed filling your tablet, guiding others as they fill theirs. Hopefully, a lotta pages left for us all. Do you think schools nowadays have "Big Chief pads"? Would certainly help avoid left-handed smudges.

The Big Chief notebook. Infancy, to youth, to adulthood, to parenting, grand parenting and beyond. I hope you've enjoyed/appreciated your Mondays within tablet/life. And sure, I hope somewhere along the way you too orgasmed at 5pm on a Friday.

Between the lines (most of my life... some rebel infused)..Love, Victurd.