WELCOME
Welcome to GlenSpeak! As I am writing this in the late spring of 2020, it is hard for me to believe that I have lived in nine different decades where I have been able to enjoy and appreciate God’s beautiful creation. (Of course, the 1940’s and 2020’s are not complete decades.) Where has the time gone? With this in mind, I have decided that there is no better time than the present to document and share some of my life experiences.
I consider this site to be private or at least not readily available for viewing by the general public. As I am not looking for clicks or selling anything, I do not covet web traffic. I purposely have not advertised this site to the public as I am trying to avoid the web crawlers and the search engines all together. I want to keep this site safe and working properly. Unless you have reached this site strictly by chance, you are one of my friends or a friend of a friend! I do sincerely welcome you!
What is GlenSpeak? I refer to the sometimes rambling, sometimes babbling, but always engaging and always riveting writing style that I employ as “glenspeak”! Why did I create GlenSpeak? After reading my longer posts on Facebook, some of my friends and relatives commented that I should write a book. After serious consideration (about 5 – 10 seconds), I concluded that in lieu of writing a comprehensive book, I would simply share some of my personal lifetime events, memories, thoughts, opinions, photos and articles in a website/blog/memoir/tribute/pictorial. (One must be careful what he/she wishes for! Also, I think this is a fair compromise between simply doing nothing and authoring a long, in-depth book about my lifetime!)
Some of my justifications for developing this site are 1) I have a lot of free time on my hands and I definitely need to keep my brain engaged; 2) I like to write and need a depository to store and organize my articles; 3) creating a website is a challenge that I readily accept as I enjoy learning new software and troubleshooting all the technical problems that are inherent with such an endeavor; 4) I will enjoy the challenge of creating fresh content to share; and 5) a website provides me with a unique opportunity to share and keep in touch with my friends.
For those visitors that may not have the inclination to read this website in its entirety, I am providing the 5-minute audio below highlighting my 72 years. (Perhaps, the phrase “sharing pertinent slices” may be a more appropriate terminology than using the word “highlighting”.) Either way, I am including this audio for anyone having any interest.
When I recorded this audio, I never even considered the fact that the Covid-19 Virus would become a political football. In my opinion, the shutdowns and mask mandates are more based on political science rather than pure science. My best guess is that we now will have to wait until a new administration is sworn in to return to normalcy. (As I am a member of one of the most vulnerable groups, I have received my two Moderna vaccinations and the booster!) Our economy is really taking it on the chin from the virus and the ridiculous rioting, burning, and looting. I continue to pray for our great country.
Technical Details: I am using WordPress as the platform for this site. GlenSpeak will be a combination website/blog having both static and blog-type content. I will include several of my longer articles on the static pages; however, I do intend to provide new content on a periodic basis (most assuredly not daily) in the Blogging in GlenSpeak section. As this is a one-person operation, please ignore all the grammatical, typos, and/or technical mistakes that I have already or surely will make in the future.
Let’s now talk about how GlenSpeak is organized. There are three levels of division including sections, sub-sections, and chapters. There are ten sections. There are five sub-sections that appear under both the That’s My Life and the Kelly High School 1965 sections. (No other section has sub-sections) These sub-sections can also be reached by selecting links inside the main page of the specified section. All of the sections have chapters with the exception of the Welcome and Blogging in GlenSpeak sections.
As you will see if you are viewing this on a personal computer, there is navigation along the left sidebar of each page. Note that the menu items include Welcome, Blogging in GlenSpeak, That’s My Life, Educating Glen, Kelly High School 1965, Military, Sports, Travel, Politics, and Other. Also note, as aforementioned, that the That’s My Life section is further divided into the five sub-sections including My Family, My First 24 Years, My Post Vietnam Years, My Work Life, and My Retirement Years. Likewise, the Kelly High School 1965 section is further divided into The 65 Graduates, The ’66-’70 Grads and 1965 Faculty, The Music Programs, The Sports Programs, and The Organizations, Clubs and Royalty sub-sections. Each of these sub-sections can be accessed from either the main menu (by clicking on the ∨ across from That’s My Life link or the Kelly High School 1965 link on the main menu) or from a link inside either of these section’s main pages.
If you are viewing this site on a iPad or cell phone, there will be three small parallel lines on the top right side of the screen. You can press or touch these three lines and the menu will appear. Select the section or sub-section that you would like to view.
Feel free to browse each section and stay as long as you like. I do hope that you enjoy your visit here. Please note that this site is optimized for and works extremely well on a windows laptop; however, I have made a conscientious effort to code the site in a manner to facilitate its viewing by tablet and cell phone visitors. This, however, is an almost impossible task for an inexperienced coder like me. (To make it work, I had to compromise on the placement of many of my photos. That is why almost all of the photos are now center-aligned! Initially, the alignment was more aesthetically pleasing, ie., appropriately left, right, or center-aligned.) Although this site worked relatively well in all device types in my testing, I cannot guarantee that this site will function properly on your tablet or phone. I certainly am far from an expert in html, php, or non-windows products. I can only wish you the best.
I will forewarn you that I am not politically correct and can be opinionated and sarcastic. I apologize in advance if I offend anyone as it certainly is not my intention. We should respect each other’s opinions even if our views are different. Come back often, as I intend to keep providing fresh content.
Authors note: I am well aware that I am writing and coding this website/memoir/pictorial for a very limited audience. I am building it specifically for my very close family and friends as I realize that the vast majority of readers will find its contents very boring and uninteresting. (And I am certain that many of my relatives and close friends will also!) I look at this project as simply a challenge that I had to accept. I can assure you, in advance, that you will be disappointed if you are expecting a juicy tell all. I approached this project just like Sergeant Joe Friday of the TV series, Dragnet, would have. By that, I mean that I will provide, as Sergeant Joe would say, “just the facts, mam!” It was never my intention to write a flowing and flowery autobiography that captured every moment of my life in chronological order. I do not have the patience, tenacity, or desire to write at that level of detail or specificity.
I view this project as simply a sharing of random memories and pictures that presents some of the highlights of my life. It is readily apparent to me that my writing aptitude has noticeably declined in these last few years (due to age and lack of practice) and, as such, I will apologize in advance for some of the random, babbling “glenspeak” and the lack of any apparent order (time perspective) to some of the events that I have included! I suppose that, at this stage of my life, I am just too lazy to try to correct that shortcoming.
As this website is composed of more than 100,000 words, more than 800 pictures, and more than 300 screen pages (400+ printed pages), there will be repetition and overlap across sections and sub-sections. Further, I do consider and have written each section and sub-section as an independent, standalone article.
I will discuss some of the obstacles that I have had to face in my life and I will address how I adapted to, overcame, learned to accept, minimized the outcome, or simply acted stupidly to many of those fears and barriers. Although this project never was intended as a self psychoanalysis, it, at its most rudimentary level, may provide some clues as to what makes Glen tick. In the end, however, I do eventually concede that, like everyone else, I am still a work in progress and that God is not finished with me yet!
Now, let’s forget all of the above psychobabble. At this project’s most basic level, my main objective was to simply provide any interested party an opportunity to ride down Memory Lane with me, using this document as our vehicle! As I do love reminiscing, I suppose that I may be the most excited passenger on this trip. Enjoy the sights, sounds, and the scenery of this 73 year journey. All aboard.
May God bless you all!
Glen
Comments should be emailed to gmo@dr.com or posted on my facebook page. For security reasons, I am not allowing comments on the blog posts.
Exercise your first admendment right. Promote Free Speech!
HAS GONE AMUCK (or AMOK)