It’s been awhile since I’ve visited the Currently theme. Since May, the Wifey has done four Currently posts compared to the last one I did in May. That just goes to show what a busy boy I’ve been. There was one recent spell where I didn’t even do a post for three weeks! Fortunately, for me, the Wifey is yet to fire me…(“,)

So, here goes, Currently, I’ve been…

Reading…

Of course I’ve been reading. Those of you who follow the journey Lynndee and I have been embarked on these past eleven years already know what a bookaholic I am.

The last post I actually did told of my reading the enlightenment age classic Frankenstein, written by 19-year-old Mary Shelley and published in 1818, 202-years ago! Needless to say, I discovered that the monster she wrote of was nothing like the one we saw Boris Karloff portray in those horror flicks we loved as kids.

I also just finished reading a phenomenal biography of H. L. Mencken who was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English. He was certainly quite a character and would have fit right into our day and age of broadcast journalism of talking heads, though he abhorred speaking in public.

But what a fascinating life he led. One of the things he’s most remembered for is his reporting on the 1925 Scopes Trial which came to be known as the “Scopes Monkey Trial”, the moniker Mencken dubbed it with. That’s the trial which pitted Clarence Darrow for the defense against William Jennings Bryan as the prosecutor of a Tennessee teacher accused of teaching the theory of evolution in a public school.

It was pretty well a given as to how this case would be determined. The guilty verdict, however, was overturned a year later, though on a procedural technicality, not constitutional grounds, leading to the entire dismissal of the case. But the case itself added to the legal fame of Darrow while Bryan himself died just three days after the end of the trial, putting an end to his plans of running for president an unprecedented fourth time. This trial was the basis for the 1960 film Inherit the Wind, featuring Spenser Tracy and Fredric March as the opposing attorneys, with Gene Kelly portraying the newspaperman based on the character of Mencken.

The biography I’m speaking of is Disturber of the Peace, by William Manchester, one of my favorite authors, a fantastic historian who has also written biographies of General Douglas MacArthur, Winston Churchill, and the Krupps, the German family of arms manufacturing that supplied the weapons of WWI and WWII to the Kaiser and then Hitler.

But in my opinion, his most important work ever was The Death of a President, a detailed account of the assassination of President Kennedy, a compelling almost minute-by-minute presentation of those four tragic days in our history, a book I’ve read with pure pleasure at least a dozen times.

Next, I’ve been…

Listening to…

Bob Dylan. I have a two-set CD collection of his work. In all honesty, as a young rocker, I didn’t follow Dylan’s early career, though, of course, I knew of his song “Blowin’ in the Wind”, one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar and sing along with.

Still, in maturing not only age wise but musically, I’ve come to love all the aspects of Dylan, from his early acoustic years to the electric version which initially dismayed his followers. Of course, it was the electric version of Dylan I first became acquainted with.

There’s one of his songs that helped introduce the tale of a wrongly convicted man to the public. The song “Hurricane” told the tale of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a Black middleweight boxer wrongfully convicted of murder in 1967. After serving 18-years, Carter was finally released by writ of habeas corpus. The song itself made the Carter case known to a broader public and was credited with building popular support to his defense. Thus, Dylan was still into protest songs and not totally nothing but a rocker concerned with popularity. Fortunately, Dylan is one of the great artists I’ve got to see up close, live and in person.

And, finally, I’m Currently…

DIYing…

As for the term, DIY, I can’t recall the first time I ever heard it or the definition of it, “Do it Yourself”. As for that, though, I’ve been a DIYer my entire life, learning early how to fix and repair simple things and later on truly becoming a real fixer-upper, working in factories my entire career as a member of maintenance departments, doing machinery repairs and electrical work, etc., though I did take one 10-year-stretch of factory work off to do management work at a Putt Putt Golf and Games facility, one of the funnest jobs I ever had.

But DIYing certainly comes in handy around the house. And as for that, I never find myself having to call in any professionals to do repairs. And as of late, with Wifey Lynndee doing all the upgrades around the house, my skill as a putter-together sure has come in handy, for there have been several purchases of new furniture. The thing about new furniture, when ordered online, it comes to the house crated up in a box, just waiting to be put together.

Thing is, there are no written instructions, just pictures along with a list of parts. But over the past few weeks, I’ve become rather adept at figuring things out and put together the following:

A trio of bedroom end-tables, two for mine and my Wifey’s room and one for our son.; a bedroom dresser; a shoe cabinet; a living-room entertainment center; new bed frames for each bedroom. Then I added a beautiful hanging chandelier light fixture over the kitchen table. And to top it all off, I replaced a trio of antiquated sliding-door closet mirrors with a duo of sliding doors, after adding closet organizers to that closet, as well as our sons. Also, to put the finishing touches to Lynndee’s refreshing the abode with light paints, I’ve changed all the door knobs to aged Bronze/Black to go with the white doors.

And, of course, those of you who know of me know that I’ve been…

Watching…

Atlanta Braves baseball! This has truly been the strangest of all baseball seasons ever. With the pandemic ravaging the country, there was initially a question if there would even be a season this year. But they finally worked it out, cutting the season from 162 games down to just 60, not starting the season until July 24th.

There were also some strange changes to some of the rules, which I won’t bore you with. Also, the playoffs have been changed. Still, when all is said and done, we will have a World Series this year, though all the baseball traditionalists out there aren’t too happy with all the changes.

As for me, I’m just happy to see them on the field again, playing fantastic ball and currently holding onto first place where they belong.

And so ends my current Currently situation, but without a doubt, there is more certainly yet to come. See ya then!

Currently 2020 Series:

• Currently…(January 2020) Wifey Edition
• Currently…(February 2020) Hubby Edition
• Currently…(February 2020) Wifey Edition
• Currently…March (2020) Wifey Edition
• Currently…April (2020) Wifey Edition
• Currently…(April 2020) Hubby Edition
• Currently…May (2020) Wifey Edition
• Currently…May (2020) Hubby Edition
• Currently…(June 2020) Wifey Edition
• Currently…(July 2020) Wifey Edition
• Currently…(August 2020) Wifey Edition