The great philosopher Yogi Bearra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Indeed, so. All of my adult life, I’ve disliked early August as an unwelcomed fork on the calendar. August meant Summer was ending. Even in the South where the heat lingers through October, the end of Summer closes a state of mind and being. This August 2025, I’m keenly aware of big forks in the road of life and history.
After the Funeral. This week my wife and I returned to my father’s People in West Tennessee for the funeral of my cousin, Allan P. Bowden Sr. His death leaves a huge hole in our Clan. Allan was a leader for our annual family gathering in rural Tipton County, TN. The descendants of Florence Ellen Maley Bowden (1855-1943) haven’t missed a year since annual reunions were re-started in 1970.
Maley is Scot-Irish. That’s why we’re a Clan. Don’t have a plaid – they’re actually a 19th Century English marketing ploy anyway – but shared bonds of kin we care for in common, oral history, culture we were brought up in, and committed Evangelical Biblical faith.
Allan’s funeral filled a large church because of the Christian manhood he lived. His gregarious good nature, kind smile, and ready laugh were icing on the cake. Everyone celebrated, not kidding, his move to eternity in Heaven – even though his absence is an acute personal loss for so many living.
No greater fork in the road than when life ends.
Yet, if Allan’s grandchildren’s grandchildren share our Biblical Christianity and our sense of family as Clan, then a woman who was born in 1855 will touch people who are living in 2155.
Before the Briefing. Mid-August I’m going to the Pentagon to give a briefing. If it is accepted, I’ll take the fork to a very busy stretch of life for at least half a year. Maybe more. Or, it may come to naught. Either way, I see a big fork in the long beams of my headlights.
Inflection Points in History. The point where history moves in a different direction can be sudden and stark or on a gradual curve. Another good history metaphor is a mountain cusp. At the cusp of change. Or, history can be like the unseen, slow shifting of the tectonic plates inside the earth until there’s a sudden shift and the earthquake is experienced in the extreme.
The migrant invasion of Europe with special emphasis on letting Islam come in like a Trojan Horse will boil over – sooner or later – in a peasants’ revolt against the ruling European elites. I’ve written about the coming Jacquerie a lot.
Will the black veil of barbaric, savage Islam draw across all of Europe heavier than the weight of the Iron Curtain cut off Eastern Europe from West?
The bad seeds of Islam’s disruption and dissension from Western Civilization are already sown in America and growing rapidly in Canada.
Where is the fork in the road for the global US-CCP War to come? Can it possibly be avoided for the remains of this century?
Can the huge American working and middle class coalition that elected President Trump continue past the quadrennial election fork for another administration or two?
Another Summer. Even though my true favorite season is the short burst of color and calm of Indian Summer – early November in Tidewater – I cherish Summer. Not ready for this fork in time.
Let Summer linger longer. More kayak time on The Bay. More bright, beautiful days. More cloud castles in the sky. More flowers growing fast and bursting with color. More brilliant dawns and Andrew Wyeth-colored sunsets. More hot, humid days making the marsh’s fetid fragrance smell like home in Tidewater Virginia. More time to share time with family and loved ones. More gratitude to the Lord God for the gift of this life.
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