ALTE and You and Me
The little kids from Lake House Music are rocking it out on the north end of the Asbury Park Boardwalk, but I shall digress from my reverie to bring you up to date on all things ALTE. If I wait until I get to the end of my musings, you might stop reading. So, expect the next issue of ALTE to be released in September. The theme, again, is father. If you haven’t looked at the older issues for a while or at other ALTE content, here’s the link.
https://www.altegettingoldtogether.com
. We are still interested in short written submissions, poetry or prose, on fatherhood/being a father, father time, Father Christmas, historical fathers, biblical fathers. Use your vast imaginations. We otherwise have ample written submissions. We are also interested in graphics. The deadline is August 2, 2024. Expect to see the theme for the next issue of ALTE and a call for submissions in the fall.
We are in the planning stages for some upcoming in-person ALTE events. Keep reading our weekly Substacks to find out about those. We love to see your shining faces. And don’t forget the ALTE Facebook group for those who cannot get enough of social media.
We would love to publish your short essays on Substack too. If you think you might be interested, let us know. Send all your submissions, queries, expressions of interest, comments, etc., that are related to ALTE to altetogether@gmail.com. I’m the one who checks the email, and sometimes I am, admittedly, a bit slow. With retirement I have lost a sense of urgency. But I DO read all the emails and respond as appropriate.
Back to the beach, in my somewhat macabre way, as I was out walking and enjoying this almost perfect evening and thinking how nice it would be to have a drink at “Salvation,” the bar on the roof of the Asbury Hotel with its unobstructed view of the Atlantic, and, of course, observing that I am responsible for my own salvation as are we all, I began to imagine the future. In the future, people would not come to the beach. No, thanks to AI, they would create a hologram of a beach and swim and sun and picnic without danger or obstruction. There’s already a simple one on YouTube. Our descendants would never know actual sand or waves or sea gulls. The real beach would be deserted and forlorn, ravaged by climate change.
This is what happens when one is whipsawed by the world. I don’t need to give you the list. You know it. This week has been particularly crazy. But the kids playing music are pretty talented. They are using actual instruments and they have drawn a bit of a crowd, and maybe the future will be ok for them. Maybe they will do better. I hope so.