Story Behind the Song: I’ll Meet You in the Middle

Story Behind the Song: I’ll Meet You in the Middle

I’ll Meet You in the Middle

By Dale Menten

My first wife died in 2008 after a ten-year struggle with cancer.

In 2011, I married a lifelong friend, Julie Johnson. It didn’t take us very long to discover that our political views were ‘slightly’ at odds: she was ‘slightly’ left of center, and I was ‘slightly’ right of center. I wrote this song in an effort to bridge the gap.

It’s a musical plea for non-partisanship. “We are more alike than we are different.”

Julie and I are happily married, and residing mostly in the middle.

Listen to the Song

Saw This While Walking with My Husband

Saw This While Walking with My Husband

My husband and I are retired, but we understand the importance of keeping in shape. In fact, we used to go to the gym 5 days a week. I say “used to” not because we’ve given it up but because our gym is closed due to the statewide Coronavirus lockdown.

So we’ve started walking every day. We live in California so the weather is pretty predictable and we can see snow-capped mountains and other scenery that, quite frankly, we hadn’t noticed before.

During one of our walks this week I noticed a flyer taped to a telephone pole. I’ve seen a bunch of take-out restaurants posting flyers but this one was different. It wasn’t professionally done and there was no menu. I stopped to read it. It was one of our neighbors volunteering to run errands for neighbors who were homebound for one reason or another. I looked at it more closely. There was no price list for services. This person had offered to do this for free.

My husband and I talked about this while we continued our walk. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw someone take the time to write and distribute an offer to volunteer help for no remuneration whatsoever.

I’m not sure if this has any earthshaking significance, how long these kinds of things will last, or if people will abuse this person’s kind nature. All I know is that it made me feel better about my neighborhood.

And got my husband and I thinking about something we could do to pitch in too.

Comment Note: If you don’t see the “Submit Button” below, it’s there. Just hover your cursor one row below the bottom input field, and to the right. Love to hear from you.

Searching for Good News During the Coronavirus Lockdown

Searching for Good News During the Coronavirus Lockdown

Some people consume media, others are consumed by it.

Every day I do a search for “Coronavirus good news.”

One of my favorite articles comes from the Harvard Medical School website and is entitled “Is there any good news about the coronavirus pandemic?” Another article I liked was in the LA Times (Why this Nobel laureate predicts a quicker coronavirus recovery: “We’re Going to be Fine”). It’s an article/interview with “Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist, who has been analyzing the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide since January and correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted.”

I’m not talking about just going to sites that say there’s nothing to worry about, but rather sites that acknowledge what is and what is not true, and try to keep people calm, not complacent.

If something seems too good to be true I check it out on one of the debunking sites like www.snopes.com. For example, Snopes took a look at a popular Facebook post (Is This ‘Good News’ List About the COVID-19 Pandemic Accurate?) and found it to be “Mostly True.”

I also get daily information from the John Hopkins University of Medicine website and, because I live in California, I get daily updates from the California Department of Public Health.

The bottom line is that I do my best to get information without political comment or apocalyptic rhetoric. Information I can use to keep myself and those around me safe. Not information that confirms my hatred for people I didn’t vote for.