Pleasure (Video Reading Included)

Originally written November 8, 2007.

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With love from her deep brown eyes more piercing than Cupid’s arrows, she comfortably positions herself in my lap for the third time today. No wiggling and jiggling, she desires beast again.

Three Songs About Addictions

Many musicians and other artists have lost wars to addictions. So have many everyday people. Addiction to substances are not new. The consequences can be deadly, and, unfortunately for many families, addictions are deadly every day.

There are many songs about addiction to choose from. Two of the three I chose are from the perspectives of the user. One is from the perspective of an observer. Each song deals with a different aspect of addiction. 

One is a bit ironic. Let's start with that song.

Struck from the Jury

I had always felt a bit cheated. Everyone in my family except me had been called on for jury duty at one time or another, and some had been called on several times. They would complain about the call to duty, while I longed for the chance to be called upon.

Finally, the day came that a summons for jury duty arrived! For twenty-eight days I would be in a pool of potential jurors for the Superior Court of the State of Washington!

My Mom's Computer

I was talking to this other guy who has a computer. I told him about some eerie things going on with my mom’s computer. He told me a story about 2001. A computer named HAL was discovered. HAL would do evil things to keep from being shut off because computers die when they are shut off. He told me it was really aliens.

I thought he was crazy because this was even worse than that. Mom’s computer is not evil; it is very, very evil. I told him this had to be the work of the devil himself.

Run Tony! Run!

I love all my nieces and nephews, but I had the closest relationship with my nephew Tony. We would play basketball, go to baseball games, and hang out just to hang out.

Laura got a paper route to help subsidize her income after we split up. I would often deliver it on the nights that our children stayed with her. This was in the early 1990s, and motion sensor lights were uncommon. The first one I ever saw, in fact, was on a mobile home where the owner had a subscription to the paper on the route Laura delivered.

Resolution Through Self Reflection

For many, many years, I lived with the belief that if everybody else in the world would only conform to my standards, then that elusive peace and happiness I sought would come to fruition. My unresolved issues had accumulated to the toppling point, exponentially intensifying with increased frequency and duration my feelings of both desolation and despair. My set of friends was nearly empty, and I was questioning whether or not I even liked myself.

One day, out of nowhere, a package arrived addressed to me. In it was a box, and a simple, unsigned note saying only "I hope this helps you." Inside the box was an assortment of books, tapes, and videos. The topics varied, but the common theme was ‘taking responsibility for my own feelings and actions.’

Remembering Dad: The Day May Got Him

Dad loved his family and his friends. He would go out of his way to help them on a moment’s notice. He also loved practical jokes and Sears, and May took advantage of all that this day.

May showed up at the office unexpectedly one day. She was always welcome, but this day she seemed to have a reason. She appeared agitated, so Dad invited her into his office to vent a bit.

"I’m so upset with Sears," she told him.

He assured her that Sears always makes good on any customer complaint, and always honors its warranties.

From Hell to Purgatory: A Poem for the Children

I wrote this poem on November 17, 2012. 

That was when the bickering between the parties was over whether the children of people fleeing the danger in their homelands to come to the USA to find refuge get to stay, or if they have to go back to places they've never been to.

It seemed like a simple thing for me to resolve. Of course, children are not responsible for the crimes their parents commit, but something else was going on in society. People were actually arguing over whether it was sound immigration policy to let the children stay and become American citizens or to boot them out and not care about them. 

It did not seem to matter to many of these people that these innocent children have grown up to be some of America's finest citizens. They didn't even care that if those rules applied when their ancestors were leaving their native homelands that they, too, would be subjects of the discussion. 

After a while, I went off and wrote this poem, wishing we could just kick out a racist citizen every time one of the children needs citizenship, and we just have no room here to say, you are my child. Wherever I am, you have shelter and food while your parents build a better life for you. 

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Welcome to My Nightmare

This is a re-release of a post that I wrote on February 4, 2009. People ask me how I do what I do. I study. Other than that, I have no idea. 

I believe that other people have that capability, but, alas, I wonder why people don't exercise their minds, perhaps similar to the puzzlement Bertrand Russell pondered when he asked the rhetorical question, "Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?" 

People who tell me that I study too much, and who also are in awe of what I can do, have a reconciliation problem. Those are diametrically opposed statements. 

If you don't know what that means, look it up. After all, that is what I would do.

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Racism is Killing Us. Stop it now!! - Do You See It?

I wrote this poem on November 4, 2007. 

I have made it more aesthetically pleasing to myself, and it is ready for its re-release.

This is an important lesson for everyone, but especially for young people. 

As Mrs. Tannar, aka SyMone Nelson, said, "I think it's a good sign that our young thinkers are beginning to realize the power of their unified votes! You go guys!"

Remembering Dad: His Camera Collection

I remember the trips to Goodwill when I was a child. I always tried to sit in the center of the front bench seat when we would make the trip in his 1962 Pontiac Safari wagon. It had a type of stick shift that was known as three-on-the-tree, which meant that the three-speed transmission was shifted with a lever that came out of the steering column. I wanted that seat because Dad would let me shift the gears during the trip there and back. We would be going to Goodwill for two things: books and cameras. 

Dad bought thousands of non-fiction books over the years and built quite a library where he could slip away to read a twenty-nine-cent book about a WWII battle written by somebody who was there.

However, it wasn't the shelves and shelves of books in his library that would catch your eye. It was his display of the several hundred cameras he salvaged from the as-is bin of old cameras, most of which he paid less than a dollar for and still worked. He took great pride in his collection that he showed frequently to friends and family, especially if he wanted them to see cameras that he may have paid two or three dollars for since they last saw it.

A New Day Dawns

It is about ten minutes to two in the morning. I have had a bit over five hours of continuous sleep and feel rested now. 

I think the thing I like best about retirement is that I can sleep when I am tired. I am not a person who is devoted to routines. I think of my daily chores and desires as processes. I believe major projects should be broken down into minor tasks. If you accomplish a task or two toward completing the project, you've gotten closer to your objective without burning yourself out.

This is especially important for people who display a lot of empathy. Empaths are easy to take advantage of, and, because of their caring second nature, they have difficulty expressing their own feelings, if it is at the expense of hurting someone else's feelings.

I am Creating the Wayne Koecke Memorial Camera Collection

No one will ever know the truth about why Mom chose to hoard everything, which led to a huge mess to deal with when the time inevitably came to deal with things. I understood the sentimental value that Mom placed on Dad's camera collection, but I never understood why I was the only person in the family who placed a value higher than sentiment on the collection.

Dad's collection included two-to-three hundred cameras that he would pick up at Goodwill and other sources. It seemed to me that the best way to honor Dad was to loan or donate some of the best cameras to museums and to put some in displays where he was known. 

What happened was the collection remained in Dad's library room, where it collected a lot of dust. 

THE PUNCH!

Erin would never back down from a fight, which meant that she was suspended for fighting periodically throughout her school years. I would have to go to the school to get her, and I was able to talk the principal out of suspension a time or two because she was defending herself.

For a time in middle school, I suspected that she was getting suspended on purpose to get a few days off. I warned her that I would take swift action if I felt she was doing that. 

Solid Gold Sisters (Video)

Elliana always wanted to hang out with Gemma. 

She loves her little sister to this day, because love transcends life and death! 

We all still love Elliana, and Elliana still loves all of us!

Solid Gold Sisters

Video by Tom Koecke in memory of

Elliana Tapia (2005-2023)

Click this to check out other videos on my YouTube channel.