Yesterday: Lessons from Life

By Robert J. Firth

Yesterday is a book that each of us needs to write based on who and what we were and have become; the sum total of our education and experiences as we made our way through our allotted years. Any of us can do this at any time but, to me, it seemed that in my younger and middle years there was never time. What Yesterday is then is a general reminiscing, a ruminating if you will, over my life and times. It's not about me per se, but rather focuses on those verities and understandings learned along the way that we all recognize to be true.

The book presents those thoughts and memories I felt worth passing on. In a way, writing this was like sifting through the detritus of seventy odd years, sort of panning for 'gold,' letting my collected thoughts and experiences swirl in the pan, looking for those shining bits of value. I'm certain that you too have such knowledge and I know that you too have probably considered setting them down for the ages- so, go ahead, do it!

Do it now. Once your mind ceases to function, overtaken by death or disease, memories evaporate like morning mist, as if they never were. While you can, I urge you to create, draw, film, write, do something to leave your mark. Keep a diary, record your experiences and thoughts. You are valuable, you are unique, don't pass us by without a sound. We need to hear what you have heard, we need to know what you have learned! So, tell us!

Here you will find thoughts on choices and directions, values and truths, morality and relationships. We present a great number of facts and opinions and ask our readers sift though them, taking and using whatever you believe of value, enriching your own thoughts and hopefully, passing them on to others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456612788

Book preview

Florida

CHAPTER 1

Yesterday

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

ways to dusty death." Act 5, Macbeth, Shakespeare

Once upon a day, so many days ago, I looked up into the sky and saw the silver flash of a high jet heading south. I thought of my Father who, at the time, was a senior pilot for Eastern Airlines. Those of us who look back more then most will remember that wonderful company. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, the WW I Ace who flew in the Skies over France in a wood and fabric powered war-kite, started the company back in the 1930’s.

The Great War was well before our time and, in fact, all those who fought in that war have passed on, following the endless lines of soldiers from all the wars …

This book is not even for those who were in WW II, even though there are some of these men still around… not many, and less every day but, of course, there are some still…..

Instead, let’s talk about those millions of us who are just approaching what one might call elderly…

Looking back to yesterday, I often see myself as I once was, young, vigorous, athletic, ready for anything life could dish out and eager for everything life had to offer..… In my early morning dreams, there, just at the edge of awakening, I remember all too well those glorious days……. I take my coffee into the garden and, walking in bare feet on the damp grass, I wander into he long shadow of a great tree……. shielding the morning sun.

These precious moments are like a cool drink of years past. The area is still silent, before the rush of the coming day. I see clearly the beautiful streaming dreams of my youth… there run with me all the friends of those happy days, just as they were…. and will always remain… memories…

In these moments of extraordinarily clarity, the days of my life pass in brilliant flashes… a wonderful photo album, so dear- and so poignant ….. Some mornings, I travel to my days on the River and Barnegat bay... The grey blue choppy waters of the shallow bay were and remain fed from ocean inlets and the river…. The water has a taste of the oceans, but not so much…

The small sailboat was healing further that was safe against the strong gusts of summer wind ….. When it capsized, as it had to, the sail fluttered like a captured bird, killed by the wet waves…..finally, laying still on the surface… The boat, floating on its side, filled with water while we, the two of us, held to the sides…

Others in the race, saw us go over and, after a while, the club’s tender motored up helping us aboard….. My wallet was stuffed into some cubby hole or other and was lost….. I imagine it settling into the soft grey mud of the bay.. carrying my photographs, licenses and Navy ID with a few dollars, to the bottom….. I never found it…..but oddly, it remains a memory…

Once, we traveled in a small rowboat to the headwaters of the river, miles west, through twists and turns, shallows and shadows… The shores were thick with ferns, bushes, cedar trees, dragonflies and birds… In those days there were no developments or houses … Where the river was deepest, the water was dark. We had a very small outboard resolutely pushing us against the current flowing into the bay…

To get the boat under the low railroad bridge guarding the entrance to the river, we had to fill it half way with water and wait for low tide… The smell of the creosote timbers of the bridge remain in my memory and, without difficulty, I can recall in finite detail the underside of that structure…

The trip through the wooded shores to the origin of the river took us two days… Finally, we were brought to a great bog draining into a stream, which slowly gathered strength and became the river….

Seasons and years flash through my mind; I do not need to keep them in particular order... I enjoy playing with them, bringing them to mind like surfing through channels…. A winter day, the sleds and bright wool clothing… a day skating on the wide river in front of the small town… The power of the wind against a skate sail, pushing me far too fast … So many interesting and important moments to remember……One of the great pleasures of age and perhaps, its only consolation…….?

The sun rises higher, climbing over my shade tree and warming the still damp grass... My coffee cup is empty…I head home... I have no thoughts or regrets of where the hour has gone…no sense of time… Is it eight already…?

How do we measure a life...? Is it just a collection of minutes, hours, days and years- all stuck together like strips of a movie film? Can we use our memories in that way, with our minds as the projector, to see where and who we were? What value is such a pastime? Of course, to those with less in front than behind, this is almost all many are left with.

Of course, it is important that we travel back slowly to the beginning, through those winding roads of our lives. This is how and where we make sense of ourselves… This is how we measure where we are, by where we have been, who we are by who we have been. It’s not then purely with meaningless and weepy nostalgia that we examine our past. To remain alive, while we are alive, and to pass on something of value, something that our collective experience has given us as a polished truth, a thing that has withstood the pressures of time and therefore, has crystallized like a jewel…..something of value..

Each of us has some unique set of lessons, different from all others. None has ever walked exactly the same footsteps of those who have gone before. Just as, of the billions of previous lives, none have shared the same DNA and none have had same fingerprints. Our souls and minds are then unique among all men. Each of us can share something that only we can know and that only we can understand…. We have all seen things that no other has. For example, the special sight of an icy mountainside just at the instant the suns rays turn it to diamonds’ or the curious knowing smile of a newborn, seeming to understand what they cannot possibly.

There are more neurons in the human mind that stars in all the universes. This means that our minds are truly remarkable and, in fact, have infinite potential. As humans with this stunning gift, we are then bound by our creator to develop to our greatest capability that which we each possess. We must, and indeed should, reach a considered understanding of what we have learned, experienced and accomplished as we rushed through our early and middle years. By closely examining that which only we can, we will find those special nodes wherein lie that most precious of intellectual gold – truth!

Like paintings on a cave wall depicting men and animals in two-dimensional primitive poses with red imprints of the hand of the artist, we all can take brush in hand leaving our marks in stone for all to find, to wonder over and finally to learn from. This then is our human duty and this is our best reason for existence, at least for all of us who have something to say…

You reasonably ask, what can I contribute, what do I have to say and why should I bother? I say this to you, look deeply into your memories, examine your knowledge and seek out those kernels of truth that you know perfectly well to be unchanging verities. There is no doubt whatsoever that your yesterdays left a unique residue of knowledge and understanding that can, and needs be, passed on. Man climbs always on the collective knowledge of his predecessors. Indeed, there is no other way to advance and advance we must!

The ladder of knowledge we have before us began at the beginning of time and time is not an endless commodity. Every fact in science, mathematics, medicine and, in every school of intellectual endeavor, was and is firmly grounded on the steps immediately below. Each generation contributes as we climb taller and see further….understanding more and more of everything….

I said that time is not infinite- let me explain that. As the entirety of the universe is concerned, time may indeed be endless but, for earth and our solar system, this is most certainly not the case. Our sun will most certainly die and our earth will and is changing. If we stop advancing, the end of humanity, and all life as we know it, is then assured- it’s simply a question of when not if!

For man to continue it’s imperative that, sooner rather than later, we migrate and populate other solar systems. The ladder of knowledge we have built, and are building, then is one that we, each and every one of us, can and must contribute to. For us to abandon our quest for the stars in favor of feeding empty and limited minds is beyond foolish- it’s suicidal and immoral and an insult to our creator!

You can argue that you’re but a simple soul and have no special knowledge to contribute. I argue that you are wrong. Your life is and was remarkable and no one has had before you the special and unique set of circumstances as have you. You have seen things that no one else has; you have understood and understand things that no one else ever has... Open your mind to a gentle inquiry and examine carefully who and what you are. Like panning for gold, as you slowly wash away the silt of years, glimmers of the purest and most valuable bits of truth will remain.

All of us need what you have learned. Millions wander through life in a kind of daze unseeing and unfeeling, waiting for that kind hand to steady them against the brutal winds of life. What you can give to others then may well be that special word, that special understanding that will suddenly free them from their mental prison, illuminating the way out… Imagine, how many minds can be saved, how many lives given purpose and imagine what a plethora of thought can emerge.

Each of us, those who have our yesterdays, have the ability to change the world by changing even one life. A single individual, like Galileo, Leonardo, Beethoven, Einstein and the thousands of others who have so greatly influenced the advancement of humanity were, at one time or another, exposed to the inherited knowledge of his teachers and his teachers teachers. Without this special ‘kick-start,’ many of them may have languished in relative obscurity.

What is it that most distinguishes each of us from another. We all are born looking surprisingly alike- similar bodies and similar likes and dislikes, for example, we all prefer to be warm instead of cold, we all wear clothing, we like to and need to eat and we are, mostly all, thinking beings. The single most interesting characteristic distinguishing us are those unique set of experiences as we travel through the years of our lives. Just as no two of us share fingerprints or DNA, no two are imprinted by life in the same way. We can of course, pass down our genetic characteristics to our children…about this we have no choice. However, in choosing to cull through our lives and pass on those special truths that only we know, in this we do have to make a conscious choice.

When I set out to write Yesterday, I had these thoughts in mind and hoped that I would be able to motivate you to do the same. What parts of your long life can you and would you think of sufficient value to create a written, recorded or visual record such that you can influence and add to man’s collective knowledge and understanding.

For example, one of the memories that I would