Who Am I?

I am James Patrick Miculka. My family knows me as James; almost everyone else knows me as Patrick, and I sign most things as J. Patrick Miculka. As with so many things in life, there is a long story behind the names, just as there are a lots of other stories that have accumulated over my life. Don't worry. I'm not going to impose those stories on you with this website. However, they help define who I am, and how I react to what I see around me, as do my inherited genetics.

I retired a few years ago after 6 years of technical programming followed by 25 years of technical writing. None of the jobs I had were particularly creative, although I enjoyed most of them. In fact, creativity was almost always frowned upon in both of the worlds I worked in. This was especially true in technical writing, where I wrote manuals describing the software used internally by the employees of various companies, usually in the oil business. The target audiences for these types of manuals simply wanted to find out how to do something efficiently, and were not looking for or wanting entertainment. And the various people who reviewed the documents while they were being developed definitely weren't looking for entertainment, either—they didn't want smiles; they just wanted the manuals to be CORRECT.

But now that I am retired, I can enjoy writing for the sake of writing, and I no longer have to worry about the utilitarian purposes of the writing. In other words, I can write about what interests me, not just what interests some unknown users that I will probably never meet or even hear from—and if I want to make it funny, I can. Or not. As I wish.

I wrote poetry in high school and college, and I even won third place in a college-wide student poetry contest at Texas A&M University—two of the judges thought my entry was much too derivative of the work of T.S. Eliot—but the third judge had written his doctrate dissertation on T.S. Eliot, and would not agree to their first and second place winners, unless I got third place. (I knew one of the first two judges personally, and he told me what had happened.) Who knows... perhaps I will threaten you with a few lines now and then.

The wasted, angry warrior struggles up the hill into the waning sun.
His shadow stretches back to the village
Forever.

Since my interests are wide ranging, many different areas will eventually be included in the website, which is why it is named "Imagine This and That." There will be some very liberal political writing, photography, poetry(?), and various other bits of this and that.

One thing I have long wondered about is the Miculka surname. The World Wide Web is a wonderful way to find out basic information about such things as this. If you are interested, take a look at what I have found so far: Who Are the Miculka's and Where is Palkovice? And I even discovered that there were Robots way back when, too.

‍By the way, that is a picture of myself taken just a few miles away from where I live now, and only eight or so years ago. But it feels like it was taken long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Also, I find it interesting that there are four people named James Miculka living in Texas, plus another named James Michulka, as well as a James Michulka in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And there is only about an eight year age difference between us.

But What About the Unicorns?

Then the unicorns came out of the sea.

Those, of course, are lines from the most famous book by Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn, first published in 1968. The Atlantic has called it one of the best fantasy novels of all time. Wikipedia reports that "[The Last Unicorn] has sold more than five million copies worldwide since its original publication, and has been translated into at least twenty languages (prior to the 2007 edition). In 1987, Locus ranked The Last Unicorn number five among the 33 'All-Time Best Fantasy Novels', based on a poll of subscribers. The 1998 rendition of the poll ranked The Last Unicorn number 18."

Peter S. Beagle is one of my favorite authors. He has written numerous books of fiction/books of fantasy during his long life, plus several short story collections, and edited collections of fantasy short stories. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of them. As the New York Times Book Review wrote about him, "Peter S. Beagle has both opulence of imagination and mastery of style." I wish I had his imagination and his style. Or at least a little bit of them, now and then.

“I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, although I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret.”—the unicorn who was known for awhile as the Lady Almathea

Unicorns have been seen in many different countries around the world over the years, although they may appear to be different creatures, depending on where and when they are seen, they are all unicorns; it is because of our imaginations that we see them differently depending on who we are, not on what they are. There is the western unicorn, that is seen primarily in Europe, the United States, and Canada. When seen, it looks like either some European horned horse or a goat/deer hybrid with a long straight horn with spiralling grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat's beard. There is the k'i-lin—also spelled qilin and chi lin in Chinese and kirin in Japanese—which has been reported in China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. The qilin often appears as a sort of dragon with either one or two horns, but its body may appear like that of an ox, deer, or horse. In any case, it is thought to punish the wicked, while its appearance brings good luck, protection, prosperity, success and longevity to those who see it. There is also the karkadann of Persia, north Africa, and India, which looks remarkably like an Indian one-horned rhinoceros. It is ferocious and murderous, and so very unlike either the western unicorn or the Chinese qilin. Marco Polo reported seeing thousands of them as he crossed India on his way to China. In whatever form they take

"...they leave footprints and dreams, never their bones."

As for me, I agree with what Lal said in Beagle's short story, Lal and Soukyan,

"Let be, do not trifle with old people. Old people are dangerous. Old people don't care."