Category: Life

All Messed Up: A disturbing discovery

I don’t remember what day it happened. I was walking in the dark. Right before dawn. I should have waited.

I lost my bearings. Veered from the footpath. Couldn’t see. I walked right off the edge of a 4 foot high retaining wall. For my feet, no big deal. You’d think.

I remember the fall, but not thinking anything except for “shit!”

I don’t know how long I was out. A man was standing over me, asking if I was alright. I couldn’t get up. Pain was everywhere. Broken bones were involved. Blood was everywhere. I couldn’t use my left arm. I very hazily reached up with my right and asked for a handle. He pulled me up and walked me, holding me up, to my door. I was sick with the quickly building pain. I knew my thumb was broken but something else was wrong. It didn’t look right. It hurt beyond my ability to comprehend.

My leg was bleeding. My right foot was just weird. The worst was the right side ribs.

I spent all day in the ER. Y’all know how much fun that is.

But ever since conglomerate Johns Hopkins took Howard County General in, the ER has been a hostile place. They don’t give a damn how hurt, how much pain, how severe. You’re there for the duration. One nurse gave me a Tylenol for pain. Or maybe it was aspirin. I was there for her entire shift.

I saw her twice. She’d said “I’m your nurse…” When I arrived by ambulance.

I saw other nurses who gave me a urinal. Near nightfall, a nurse came in with IV bags. I’d been pissing all day and sipped a drop when taking that token pill. Obviously I’m beginning kidney failure. I was filling urinals while taking in no water.

Meanwhile the pain got worse. That 1 to 10 scale? Fuck that. They think you’re lying. That you want dope.

This was a month ago I guess. By the time the imaging was done and I was told my thumb was broken and dislocated, this old man was pissed. A nurse quipped, “What do you expect, it’s an ER.” What does that mean?

But all day they hadn’t released a single patient and it was silent in there except for lasciviously weird conversations. How calloused we have become when inappropriate talk is freely done where patients can hear!

I’m not fond of knocking nurses. I’d prefer not to need to. But after one surgery in 2006, I heard one black nurse leave my room, go to the nurses’ station and talk total shit about me. I seethed. Seems she hated white people.

I’ve been in too many hospitals. Met too many professional and courteous nurses. I’m not ever going to take that shit again. I don’t have to and I’m not going to.

The pain didn’t, to me, fit between 1 to 10. I’d never, since my last heart attack, felt such severe pain. One to ten? That’s a joke.

Late in the day an orthopedic doctor came in. He just had to touch the thumb. He popped it back in place then put a half cast splint on it. I left with a few 5 mg of Percocet. That will not touch bone pain. I later saw my PCP and he gave me 30×10 mg Percocet. That got me through the worst days, but about a month later I’m still in agony. And nobody cares.

I had also, before the fall, thrown a different EKG (it was already abnormal) and had to see my cardiologist.

A receptionist dogged me going into the exam room and coming out with a ream of papers bearing my balance.

Before my follow up for an echocardiogram, I got an email stating that I had to bring $800.00 with me, or pay it before, I’d be seen. I called the office. Despite such a rude ultimatum, I was willing to set a payment plan. But I got voicemail. I boiled!

“Hey, I got your nasty message so ya don’t even answer your phone? Well here’s a message for you: fuck off, I don’t need you.”

And despite the doctor being excellent, I can’t go back. And his bloody bills can go to the bottom of my incredible stack of bills.

And this is our healthcare system before the shutdown and whatever deals Democrats are making with the Devil.

I don’t walk right. Maybe I never will. It’s funny, the right one drags a bit. My ribs on the lower right posterior hurt like nobody’s business, I lie in a heating pad most of the time, I need dope and if I ask for more, I will be flagged as an addict. Look, I don’t like the shit. I merely need it.

All this time, I’m feeling like a big pussy. But then it struck me, and hard: you know you’re old, you know injuries hurt, you know they’re slow to heal, so shut up already.

Now, I am not schizophrenic. And I don’t hear voices. I’m not delusional. But that inner voice scolding me, what’s that?

I’ve “heard” it before. I talk to it. It answers or whatever. It’s me.

After all this time. So many years, decades, of things I didn’t understand, wasn’t even aware of at times, now it came to me.

I was ashamed. I hated myself again. I didn’t want to talk about it but I had to, and I trust my friends.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

This is not multiple or split personalities but I accept that you might want to call it that.

I never believed in it and the one case I was presented with in a friend, well, I got sick of her. A faker who pretended when it was convenient.

Well I don’t know about her, we parted under less than friendly circumstances.

But I knew there was more. For two years I’ve had an almost steady deep southern accent. It wasn’t quite…right but, I couldn’t help it. After the fall, I returned to my light southern accent. “The Cowboy” was gone. I realized that he was me, but a different version, one who protects. I had him start up during a conversation on the phone after I figured out what was going on. I was able to control and stop him.

He’s really not a bad version of me, there’s no difference except the accent which sounds tougher and less vulnerable than me.

But there’s more. During any particular traumatic event in my childhood, my brain did this thing. I don’t fully understand it, but it goes something like this.

I’m being striped with my father’s belt. He doesn’t stop until he’s exhausted. His rage is uncontrollable. I’m bleeding across my forearms where I tried to protect my back. That didn’t work.

I scream and cry, but he’s not spent yet. That’s when, either that moment or not long after, a different identity is formed to come in and protect me. How it works in the brain, I don’t know, but hate, anger and guilt contribute. Anger because this just isn’t right, and I know it, hatred because of course a kid hates his life being nothing more than a sex slave and whipping boy to sick parents who don’t love him.

And finally, guilt, because brainwashed kids of trauma ceaselessly love and obey their abusive parents. Want to guess how many kids wind up dead that way?

The guilt gets carried by another identity, and so on, every time it’s necessary. Now the sexual abuse. This is something I really never knew happened. Yet another identity formed to handle that. That version was pure evil. An asshole. Sneaky and vindictive at first, it never even occurred to me that it was a sliver of me driven to exact revenge on enemies or innocents alike. Broken windows, slashed tires, cursing out a poor guy trying to make a living in an ice cream truck. Didn’t matter.

It seems like he vanished at some point. He didn’t. I just got better at holding back his trigger, which is deep anger. Rage.

That’s when, around 2010, I looked back and for the first time noticed a pattern of destructive behavior that went way back to the late 1960s. I was a runner, a sabateur of friendships, not only mine, but others’ relationships. When triggered, this runner would burn bridges, run away or insult friends into leaving me alone. I was so hurt that I didn’t want to risk rejection of any kind, so no friends, no hurt. By the summer of 1972 I was forbidden to play with any neighborhood kids. I’d done it. I’d left my mark.

This sliver of my soul would seem to be controlled but it never was. I became the Running Man. If someone left the place I worked for greener pastures and they had a get-together, I didn’t go. Especially if it was a friend. It hurt too much.

I spent a lot of time working just to stay away from my wife. Fuck her. She did everything she could to humiliate me. And she was good at it. Finally I sabotaged my marriage. I was tired of her screaming at me. I’d check on the kids and sure enough they’d be in their beds, wide awake. I loved them too much to let it go on. I just jammed the gears and stopped them from moving. I was on my own.

The DESTROYER

This guy somehow got out of my control. Perhaps because I put it down to behavior, before I knew about PTSD affecting not just veterans of combat but victims of rape, child abuse, and all manner of violence. Maybe not knowing let him loose; I’d say that’s a good guess. Anyway, it happened. I noticed aberrant behavior especially on social media. Triggered by anger or hurt over insults, whether real or misunderstood, he would block friends, talk horribly about them and they have been gone from my life since.

But I did it to people I knew in person too. And the worrisome part is that I don’t remember most of it.

I find out later when approached, or they ask a mutual friend what the hell is going on. The Destroyer wrecks shit up. But there’s a bright side to this. I can’t undo what wrongs I’ve committed. But now I know. And I’m in control.

It’s really a matter of holding on and pushing them away. I don’t need protection anymore. I don’t need to hide or run away. So if I feel angry I can pray. That always works. He may not heal me; that doesn’t always happen. But He does, with faith, help. Jesus is real. His life, death and resurrection happened. Even the insight into DID was a miracle; I could easily have died not knowing. And my behavior wouldn’t have changed.

I am in pain. My brain has trauma damage. Those things are true. And this is a thing I find bizarre and embarrassing to write about. But I have shared my life on this site. Nothing was off limits unless it would have been unproductive. My mission remains: tell others what I’ve been through. If they see me in themselves, I hope to be an example, an inspiration to get help. You can live with things that hold you down. A bit of faith, and lots of hope and courage are all you need. And you can accomplish the impossible.

Today I made a New Friend

Some of you who have followed me for a while know that I overreact and overthink.

That’s a defense, and sometimes it’s a good one, but there are times when I have cut myself off from people who really meant no harm.

There are misunderstandings.

I’d had misgivings about a neighbor. You can guess why. I even had a false intuition about her.

That’s a shame, because she’s a very neat kid, and when I approached her to ask about something I had jumped to conclusions about, she had no idea what I was talking about. In other words, she had never meant any harm nor insult. She felt bad, I could tell. She said she would be more careful in the future, but that’s not what I want. I was satisfied that she was sincere, and I don’t want her to change. I want her to go about her business as she has been doing. I understand her now.

A man she was with heard her say, “At least there’s some things around here that are nice to look at.” She definitely wasn’t referring to me, but there was enough light for me to see him turn his head, look in my direction to laugh, but that didn’t bother me. What bothered me was that I thought she was talking sarcastically about me.

At first I went inside angry and hurt. Then I cried.

This young woman, beautiful and full of life, well, it mattered what she thought of me. I don’t know why; I just need her to like me. If she doesn’t, I would be very hurt.

With this weighing heavily on my heart, I asked her what had happened and told her that she has the power to hurt me. I told her that she’s special, a really neat kid, and that I adore her. That I’ll always have her back, always be her friend. She kept saying she would watch how she interacted with me and I said, “no, I understand you now. Just be yourself.”

When you have questions about someone don’t sit on it. Ask. Be nice. Show sincerity, open yourself to more hurt. Wear your heart on your sleeve, because that’s not a mark of weakness. It’s a sign that you can’t help but love people. Love makes you vulnerable but also strong. It negates all the hatred, fear and judgement you may otherwise be feeling.

Ask. Don’t stew. Never be afraid to love. Your soul is in danger if you don’t love.

Today I looked up at the blue sky and I thanked God for a wonderful life full of blessings and miracles. The nightmares don’t define me; what I learned from them does. I’ve endured too much. Yet I come away from it thankfully, and I want you to know, I may not be happy, but I’m not unhappy. I’ve been alone for many years now, but rarely ever do I feel lonely. I have too many friends for that.

I swore to God that I would give my life to save another. I will never betray such an oath. Never.

And imagine: I confronted a fear. I’m not too old for that. I came away loving a good kid, and I’m proud to be her friend. And one can never have too many friends.

It was a very good day.

There’s something special about each of you. It’s not something you have to live up to. Just be you. And of my new friend, I say, be young, go places, have fun, be safe, and remember that you are a treasure.

Today, I made a new friend.

I wish I were younger.

I’ve Got Your Back

Yesterday, after posting my YouTube video, I had a headache, the kind, although not a migraine, that will have anyone close to tears.

I had to borrow money.

I went to the store and got a 24 caplet bottle of acetaminophen and a small box of Alka-Seltzer. The combination works for me. I bought a generic 16 ounce bottle of water, went outside and sat on my favorite bench.

With the Alka-Seltzer fizzing at the bottom of the bottle, I took a swig and swallowed the caplets. Relief was surely minutes away.

My friend Travis came into the area and asked for a smoke. I gave him one but he wandered off out of my sight, around a corner, but not far.

I drained the bottle, and shit, here came this tall Frankenstein’s monster of an old geezer, dressed even more disgustingly than I would ever be seen. Stains on the shirt and all. I heard him shouting, “Why don’t you find somewhere else to hang out?” And he repeated it. Then, “Nobody wants you here. They all know you. They all hate you. You’re a drug addict! You’re a drug addict!”

With the seconds it took for him to run his hateful mouth, my anger had risen to a point where letting it go any further would have been extremely imprudent; I know that anger from my past, and it’s dangerous.

I got to my feet and went around the corner, and the Frankenstein geezer shut up immediately. He didn’t need to see my eyes (my prescription glasses are sunglasses). Even an ate-up old fucker like him can sense danger.

And he had fucking pissed me off to where I was ready to take off my hat and glasses. No one has ever made me do that. If they had, I’d have hurt them really bad. Hospital bad.

This shithead was MAGA, there’s no way he could be anything else. His last words to Travis, repeated like everything else, “Get a job!” was still working its way up my temper. I didn’t want to attack. You never attack, that’s for the bad guys. Me, I defend.

In the back of my mind: old men hit harder than the young. One punch will make you a believer. And you’ll have plenty of time to memorize the fact while being fed through a tube.

Also, he outreached me. By way too much. I dared not engage. Combat would have ended in his death. I never want to kill, or even harm in any way. That’s the last resort of a lesser man than I. I’m supposed to be peaceful, and to keep my temper.

But I know that I have limits. In defense of another, yes. I can kill. Old men may fight like schoolyard kids, but I can’t. I’ll maim or kill. It’s that kind of world, and it always has been. Take another man lightly, and you’ve put yourself in serious danger.

Using effort that I was impressed with, I calmly said, “Travis, come over here with me, get away from him.”

He sat on the bench, smoking and trembling. I told him, “Don’t stand there and take abuse from a dickhead like that. You need to learn to walk away. If I’m around, I promise I’ll have your back. Let me stop whatever’s going on. You have every right to be here. That’s why there’s benches, tables and chairs.”

Travis said, defeated, “He’s right. I’m a grown-ass man. I should get a job.”

I don’t think he will get one. He’s been damaged, and I don’t know how.

And that old geezer judged. Judged him exactly as I used to.

He’s not a drug addict. He’s not an alcoholic. I doubt that he even has an ID card. I hope so.

I’m not judging on sight ever again unless there are visible signs of danger. Even then, all I would do is avoid such a person. I have nothing to say. I’m not a bully. The reason I don’t fight at the drop of a name is because I know how it would end. Names? A shove? Those are not reasons for violence.

But when it comes to defending a friend, an innocent, a victim?

I’ve got your back.

Training Wheels

I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t.

****

Christmas. I got a Monkey Wards Hawthorne spider bike. It was a golden metallic color. It had the raised chopper handlebars but no sissy bar for the banana seat. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. But I didn’t care; the tricycle days were long gone, and I felt like a big guy.

Of course, it had training wheels because it was my first two-wheeler. I didn’t know how to keep those things from hitting the ground, but I still rode every day there wasn’t any foul weather.

Finally, on a cloudy, cool spring day, I had been riding with the training wheels off the ground. They were raised just enough so that if I got off-balance, I could lean on one. I wasn’t doing that anymore and, being very brave considering how beaten down I was, I went up the driveway and inside the house to my father’s office. I was terrified of the man. He’d terrified me for years, as far back as I could remember. That goes to age two or three, which I still have memories of to this day. He would have me sit on his lap, but I would cry for mommy.

It was never just his belt. It was also his yelling, which often preceded the belt. Yes, fathers do beat their toddlers with belts. It leaves lash marks, too. Of course it does.

I was brave to voluntarily walk into his downstairs office and ask, “Daddy, I can ride, would you please take my training wheels off?”

He didn’t seem annoyed. He was building a trucking company up from scratch, and so busy that we kids knew to give him a wide berth when he was in the office. His temper was as short as it could be.

But he got some wrenches and came outside, trying to hurry up and get back to work. The training wheels off, he guided me by holding the rear of the seat, down the driveway to the street. He pushed me along to gather speed, then at some point he let go. I didn’t know exactly when I left him behind or how far he went. I rode a short way and turned around, expecting him to be watching and smiling. Or something.

He was already gone.

Nowhere in sight.

Back inside.

My gut fell. My heart fell. For a few minutes, he really was “daddy,” and I loved him despite everything he was, everything he had done. But he did not stay. He did not share my joy that I could ride. Didn’t show pride. No boy ever wants anything as much as a father’s pride in him.

He never said anything.

A friend later took a ride on the bike and broke the seat clean off. It wasn’t his fault the sissy bar was missing. That’s half of the support of a banana seat. My father was enraged. He hated my friend. My bike sat in a corner of the car port for a couple of years.

By then my older half brother Joe was staying there, along with Ed, the oldest of the half-siblings. Joe washed the bike, took steel wool to the rust spots on the chrome wheels, and put a new and better seat and a sissy bar on it. My brothers, from then on, were more like fathers to me than my real father. They became like dads.

There are little things in a child’s life that matter so much more than grownups think. I wish more fathers could be daddies. I wish their moments as daddies weren’t measured in minutes, and if you have or had one of those full time daddies, be grateful. Remember the good, remember the lessons he taught you, harsh though they felt at the time. Those lessons helped make you the unique, special person that you are. Thank God for having him.

I did go on to learn many things from my father, harsh lessons with very damaging consequences. Not only for myself, but every person I have encountered since, especially those I loved but wasn’t good enough to be close to. Being socially involved is difficult when everything you’ve learned adds up to the hardest and saddest truth of all:  I trusted no one and made damn sure to prove myself not to be trustworthy. That’s complicated and sick. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s a life sentence.

I’ve struggled with that ever since. Push people away so they can’t hurt you. Hurt them first because you love them and it scares the devil out of you. Arm’s length. This far, no farther.

Someone says “Hi, Mike,” one day in high school. My response: “Fuck off.”

I don’t wonder why my girlfriends broke up with me.

I wonder how they ever got close and how they put up with me as long as they did.

All this is not because my dad turned back into a demonic father so quickly and wasn’t there to smile or say something positive the first time I rode without training wheels. It’s not that.

But it is a memory that I can’t get out of my head. I don’t cry; not for that.

I cry because the man who gave me a push my first time riding without training wheels was himself a casualty. He must have been very hurt and badly damaged to have done those terrible things. I weep for the kindness he was capable of, not the cruelty and abuse, and the passing of his life, and for the lonely ending he had.

Forgiveness is not about another person changing their ways. Most can’t do that. Forgiveness is about taking anything and everything good in you and, even if you still remember and are still haunted and hurt, letting go of your hatred and anger. It is about you. Not someone else. It has to come from your heart.

And maybe one day, hopefully before I die, I can forgive myself for being someone who had no fault in being hurt. I hold myself guilty of everything. It’s wrong. How do I manage that?

Training wheels. Do kids use those anymore?

I wonder.

Do kids even want or get bikes?

If you think being haunted like this is easy to get rid of, or that I want to be like this, then today might be a good day to look in the mirror. Don’t look at me, I’m just an asshole. Look at yourself. Your life. And then give thanks to God for all of the blessings you’ve had. And have. They’re there, you just have to look for them.

May God bless you and forgive you on this Easter weekend, and may you forgive yourself for the things you aren’t responsible for.

Be well my friends.

Jane F. Hunter, 1983-2025: Rest in Peace

She was one of the most courageous people I have ever known.

I met her in 2008 on the former social media site “MySpace.” It seems like a lifetime ago now.

And maybe it was. Today I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything. I loved her so dearly. I got to know she and her mother well. I wanted to travel, pay them a visit, and meet them in person. But it never came to be. Money and health problems were always in my way. Now….it is too late. I can’t even travel no matter how much money I have. A spine condition and a shoulder which will end up with me in surgery is looming, and that’s even without my lung and heart condition.

I still want to go. To hug her mother and give her my good shoulder if she ever needs one.

I can’t. This is as heart-rending as news of Janie’s death. All my life I’ve wanted to help, even when I was being an asshole. It was there, inside my heart.

Jane was a former user who beat her beast by sheer strength of will. But there was tragedy and trauma behind her. Sometimes those can never be outfought, not by the strongest of us.

It’s tragic that a rapist changed the course of her life. It’s tragic that she could not, in the end, outrun something that took place so early in her life.

She was beautiful and loved writing poetry, discussing politics, and photography. She had a keen awareness of fashion, and was eager to love, and be loved back. One wonders, what could she have done, this passionate, empathetic and starry-eyed girl could have accomplished had things gone differently for her.

Back when I first met her, I saw such a promising young woman, and so much potential. I expected to see her do great things.

And she lived up to everything I had seen in her.

In so doing, it wasn’t necessary for her to do anything special.

Because what she accomplished in her short life was to give everyone she touched an example of how to treat others and make sure kindness showed in her words and in the things she wrote about on her MySpace blog.

Even when my own brand of madness drove others away, she treated me the same as always. I loved her for that, but then, I already loved her.

Life was very unfairly hard on this woman who was always quick to laugh at even the most lame jokes. She literally lived through Hell and kept her sense of humor.

It was very hard at times on her mother and her brother. He’s a fine young man with his own potential for greatness.

Together, the trio had dealt with the deaths of friends and family. Jane lost her father, an uncle and had one grandmother left. That’s a lot for people to go through.

Jane always took things like that hard but was quick to come back and try to be strong for others. Anything less just wouldn’t be her.

She wrote freely about rape and inspired others to fight just a little harder and hang on a bit longer.

She wrote poetry to melt the most hardened of hearts, and she loved computer graphics. Not even living in the most haunted house in Brooklyn could break her even if it did take its toll.

She loved cats but had a love for all animals and even told me once about a raven that waited for her outside of the house and then followed her everywhere she went. While people like myself would have been spooked by such a thing, she saw it as special and a wonder. She could see the world in ways I never could. She was like that.

She was imperfect, as we all are, but taking on her own demons and winning is something so few of us are able to do.

And she was always wiser than her age.

Prayer

Abba, we are heartbroken at the loss of our dear friend, and though we must grieve now, we must also celebrate her life. We were truly blessed to have known her at all. Please be gentle with her spirit, as she was so gentle with others. She was a good friend and a Christian, and we pray now that her suffering is over. We thank you, Lord, for her life, for she enriched the lives of so many others.

In the name of Yeshua, your only son, the redeemer, amen.

Thank you all for reading. You may not have known her, and that’s a tragedy, but you can rest assured that here was one of the best people I have ever known.

It’s a Beautiful Morning

Oh, I was up at different times in the night. Wanna see something funny? Camp out on an old man’s sofa. An old man who just got put on Lasix. Remain awake and count how many times he rushes out of bed to take a leak. Hilarious!

But sunrise was peaceful and beautiful. It promised heat, but who expects otherwise? I’m accustomed to environments more hostile than anything Maryland throws at me.

But it’s still mighty lovely out there.

I felt good enough to go shopping. I got some frozen buttermilk pancakes and real maple syrup. I bought too much heavy stuff with it. I couldn’t reach into my pocket for my keys, so I tried to set the bags down. One fell. Yup. Maple syrup everywhere. Spent 20 minutes cleaning up.

There was a time when this would really have upset me. It’d ruin my whole day. Not any longer.

See, that’s a little thing. You gotta remember, you don’t sweat the small stuff. Ever.

Doing so takes away your focus and your energy. It’s not worth it. If I’m ironing a shirt and I scorch it, I can always use cleaning rags.

Little things can’t be allowed to trouble you. You have enough to deal with. I praise God for each day I live to see another beautiful morning. It’s a blessing.

Trigger Night in America

Do you want to have some fun? Roll a lit cherry bomb under a hammock with a sleeping veteran. Yeah, it’s really funny.

If he doesn’t die of a heart attack, you might die. At his hands. And, guess what? He won’t even know who you are.

I flipped out once. I don’t remember why or what happened. Anyone who was there will never forget it. Even on a psych ward, so many were scared so badly that they checked themselves out. Yeah, you can do that. It wasn’t prison, after all.

I wish I could remember. Where I went or thought I was. I wish that a trigger that powerful was something I didn’t forget so quickly. At least, to my knowledge, that never happened again. Except for one night a year.

4 July. Better known as Independence Day, it’s a stupid holiday when people are off work, sit outside in bikinis and speedos, and get wasted on Corona or Bud Light, depending on their region. It’s our country’s birthday. Or that’s the crud they tell stupid little kids in school. That, like bikinis and speedos and beer, are what we call “traditions.”

I just wish I could take a hefty tranquilizer. I mean one with real meat on its bones. Be floating in the air above it all, detached and free. But they’ve tightened down on schedule II drugs to the point that those who need them cannot get them. Like, oh, sure. Restrict an elderly woman from narcotics because she night get addicted. She’s got bone cancer! American medical care is barbaric. Simply evil.

But back to the ward at the hospital. The next morning, in a goals for the day meeting, I’m told that I said my goal for the day was, “I want to learn more about pussy. I want to know everything there is to know about pussy.” I don’t remember it. It was out of character. You can laugh; I give you leave. But I never have. The recovery time was staggering. I couldn’t figure out what happened, and the doctors couldn’t tell me. Or they withheld it. I got sent to a state hospital after that.

But you would be surprised at who you’d find in a hospital psych ward on any given day. There are state prosecutors, high-powered attorneys, and corporate types. Everyone has been there.

Because back then, what was happening? America was involved in two wars. Thousands of our troops had died. George Bush was stumbling with his tongue the way Gerry Ford used to do without using anything. Four years after the WTC attacks, we were all frightened, and everyone had their breaking point. They sought a bit of rest and help. There’s nothing wrong with that and everything right with it. I wish more people did this when they felt like they were too close to the edge.

But I had been the guilty one that night for taking peace from them. I was told that I screamed for my sergeant and threatened to “kill them all,” whoever that meant. Security responds like lightning when this dumb stuff happens. They bracket you, bind you, stop to let an intrepid nurse put a needle in your hip ( I don’t know why they call it that. They take a needle for elephants and shoot your butt cheek full of something. Must have been mild because in that little room, the kind that used to have pads on the walls, I remember coming back to Earth throwing a mattress around like a kid’s dodge ball.

Now, vets don’t need to have been in a theater of war. And they can still have enough triggers to call for their sergeant for reasons they’ll never remember and that nobody else can see. Those who engage in the simplest black-op, those who had a history before they enlisted, and more….can be just as bad as a veteran who spent years in the Gulf War and Afghanistan, that one place on Earth where nothing happens but nightmares, and Vietnam….you really think they like fireworks? Because even if a few are okay with them, there are more who aren’t. And the closer they are to him or her, the worse they react. Their bladders empty in their pants, and they don’t even know it. They hit the dirt for cover. Or worse.

If they stay with it, they’ll at least hope that whoever just lit that cherry bomb blew all his fingers off.

Every year that happens: someone gets to the ER blinded or with hands mangled. Burned, deafened in one ear. Howling in pain, crying like babies. Some have to be taken straight to the morgue. Not often, but it has happened.

And even planned, major fireworks shows have mishaps. A barge full of mortars and black powder blows up. A fire breaks out. Whatever.

Then there are those who just can’t resist shooting firearms. Need I say more?

How is all of this a celebration? Don’t veterans get dumped on enough without this unnecessary crud?

We don’t celebrate Independence Day. We cook on grills (mostly, this year, I suspect, hot dogs, because a pound of ground beef will cost you a gold ingot). We stare at babes in bikinis at the beach. And hey, ever see an old man in a speedo standing at the grill, flipping steaks? If you get the chance, do watch. There’s a better than even chance that something wonderful will happen that will make this grotesque activity worth your while.

Hey. Idea: Throw a firecracker at him.

It’s likely that next year, we will see Trump back in the Oval Office. So I hope that you enjoyed scaring the pee pee out of veterans yesterday. Next year could see cherry bombs exchanged for frags.

Just saying.

And to all those disgusting people who said, “Donald Trump can molest me anytime” or whatever slogan that was, you’re too old. What he really wants is early adolescents. And some KFC.

This is the part where I usually send you off with a hopeful saying and remind you to keep your faith.

So look at the bright side, keep the faith, and screw the vets. While you’re at it, count the elderly, the chronically ill, and all those sick in heart and mind.

Business as usual. Let em die; God will sort them out.

Right?

Those Roman candles look like flares to me. Nothing more.

I Faced Her and Listened

A neighbor just returned from a trip to Italy and Greece. I saw her near the mailboxes and greeted her, and asked how her trip had been. Right away, I point out the title to show that I not only was interested but that she had my full attention.

That’s the only way to keep a valued friend. Face them, look at them, and then listen.

I suppose I got this way early in my life, working around truckers who had tall stories to tell. Some were just lonely from too many hours spent behind the wheel, driving along in the dark hours to keep early morning delivery schedules. Sometimes, back then, even a CB radio could offer no distraction from white line fever. Drowsiness and using speed (Dexies) are mutually destructive. One never beats the other; they compete all night long, every mile a driver could endure.

There was another battle, and that became sleep. Driving drowsy but awake, dependant on speed, was just the way it went. But when it came time to sleep, too much coffee and “black beauties” would keep them tossing around in their sleeper compartments, never really getting to sleep.

When they came into my father’s terminal, they had idle time before going out again. For distraction, because they might not be able to sleep, or they had managed to sleep with a little bit of help from some downers, they’d be chatty. I liked most of them and was always ready to hear a tall tale. They told the best and worst stories.

In a trucker’s life, little things mean a lot. I was a kid, but being able to talk to another human being was one of those things I thought was small, but now I realize it meant a lot to them.

And to me, too: they got me through some tough times.

I wanted to give my neighbor the same kind of attention. She’s not merely a neighbor but a good friend of ten years. And, I really wanted to hear about Greece, one of the few places on earth I’d really love to visit. She had seen the Parthenon, the Acropolis, a statue of Zeus, a museum with ancient busts. Visited a few of the islands and sampled some of the finest Greek cuisine and wine, and being on a cruise, had met some good people who, I’m sure, she will never forget.

After playing AC Odyssey, an open world game set during the Peloponnesian War, I was smitten with Greece. What beauty that game held, with dynamic storms that tossed the ships in the Aegean and transitioned the seasons, was unlike anything I had ever seen. Riding a horse is done every bit as well as RDR 2, or the Witcher 3. And my friend had been there!

Well, we talked until dark. I had the odd question or two, apologized for interrupting, and mercifully let her get back inside: these mosquitoes! Is it me, or do they get more vicious with each passing year?

There are benefits to giving someone your full attention. Big ones. They remember why they enjoyed your company. They grow fond of you and will often approach you even if it’s just for a quick greeting and to inquire as to your health. That is priceless to me.

I, like my trucker friends of so long ago, also get lonely. At times, I can feel it dragging me down.

That’s when I tend to stray from my path. Distractions ease loneliness. But then again, every one of them takes me away from the Lord. I ought to be praying, strengthening my faith, and seeking to restore my heart with the Holy Spirit. But I instead get weak. I go to other things, and they never do anything but take me further away from God.

That’s worse than I thought it was. In the following short clip, I learned that some distractions are worse than others. The price for those is much more than I could ever bear.

I don’t mind recreation. I spent an hour yesterday sharpening and polishing my Crocodile Dundee knife. That thing is sick. The blade length is 12 inches. It’s over two pounds in weight with a thick 440 stainless steel. The reason I bought it was because every tree surrounding this area is dying. A sickly-green fungus visible on the bark is attacking them and leaving them open to attacks by insects as well. Huge, dead branches are always falling during high winds and storms. If a large branch falls, I may need to chop it into smaller pieces to move it. It was this knife or a machete, and I’m going to skip that in favor of a cordless saw. But that’s down the road, and I don’t want to be distracted by wanting things. But using whet stones seems to be a lost art, and the distraction was fun. I’m still learning.

Even a history book is fine, and movies are sometimes okay, depending on content. I’ve come to hate nudity and sex scenes in films because they’re always awkward and gratuitous. They subtract from an otherwise good story. Even violent content is going overboard.

When it comes to distraction, though, the cell phone is unequaled. It’s too bad and far too late to stop it. I’ve seen people have accidents that way. Kids and adults alike walk around with their eyes glued to the screen, oblivious to everything around them, even danger. I get worried about women doing this, unaware that they’re being stalked by someone about to cause them harm.

In this short lesson,  we hear what distractions do to our faith and why Jesus hates them.

Let’s take a look:

I pray that those listening will take this to heart. I pray we will face Jesus, listen for our names to be called, and accept whatever He wants us to do.

Maggie May

For Maggie

I’ve loved many women in my life. None were ever going to work out. It’s just the way things went for me.

Two, I never told. I loved them too much to do that to. I was not good enough, and somehow, without knowing exactly what or why, I knew that something was wrong with me. I would have brought them down, and when you love someone, really love them, your own needs and desires have to be put on the back burner. They come first. That’s what love tells you to do.

None of the women I’ve loved, though, put up with more than you did. I look back, and I see that I’ve caused the exact damage I had always hoped to spare the women, the people, the family I was so blessed to have had in my life.

I was always in turmoil. Always having crises. It never stopped, and I was too stupid to see that it never would. I thought I could pull off at least one good thing in my life. The condition I’m in, have been in, means that I may have begun my life with potential for great things and a soul mate, but wound up with nothing at all.

That’s not my fault, I know, but it’s how things turned out for me. The damage is too severe, much more than I thought even six months ago.

They say PTSD gets easier to quell as time goes by. For me, the opposite. I would have been a burden and a source of deep sadness for you. I couldn’t do that to you. I thought when you went silent after I wrote critically about Taylor Swift that the betrayal I felt was justified. But I know that people have their heroes, and to put those down is a source of anger to a fan.

You’re allowed to feel however you do. We can seldom control how we feel. It’s okay.

I also became aware that I was inadvertently coming between you and your daughter. You two needed time together and you still do. I refuse to be in that picture. You’ve both been through so much, and it’s time for some together time and healing.

I hope you can heal. Both of you. I hope you get all of the good things that you deserve. You’re such wonderful women.

Anyway, I’m not getting better. I don’t need someone to complain to, nor do I need anyone to pity me or sympathize. Neither will help me. Right now, I need prayer and absolution.

You have been a true blessing in my life. I think only good things about you. I will forget anything negative and I will be left with only good memories.

I’m sorry for the times that I hurt, confused, or dragged you down. You didn’t deserve that, and I will always regret it.

We never got the chance to say goodbye. I think it’s better that we didn’t. I don’t believe I could have endured such a thing. My heart has broken too many times. That’s selfish of me, but I know it’s the way sometimes, and I accept it.

I’ll never love again. It’s not possible. One man can only take so much. It’s time for me to be alone and make peace with that. May God continue to bring you miracles and happiness.

Men With Canes

What is the last thing you learned?

Yesterday I was in the market and I saw an elderly couple turn toward an aisle. The woman kept a pace that the man could not match. He was pushing the cart, and his cane was inside the cart, which he had to push with both hands. I was almost behind him as I passed the aisle, headed for checkout.

I said, “Hello, sir. How are you today?”

He paused and answered, “Okay, how are you?” His voice made me stop. Usually, people have exchanges like this, and as such, I would have said, “Fine, thank you, sir. Have a good day.” I would have moved on quickly. Well, I would have kept going, but not quickly. I, too, use a cane. He raised the handle of his and said, “I’m about to…” I couldn’t make out the rest, but his voice when he answered my query as to how he was held some quality of gratitude. An almost lonely tone turned to joy that someone had noticed and greeted him. Here was a man who knew little happiness. I get fast with that kind of perception; I myself know how it feels all too well. I try to put on a good show in public, though, as being positive for a few minutes doesn’t cost me anything, and it can, on occasion, make others feel better. Thinking that I have done that, well, in my life, which I’ve told you has been so full of pain? Making someone feel cared for, happy, or positive, those things give and have given me the most positive and good feelings I’ve ever known. With my children gone, if I have nothing else, nobody else, then showing kindness is good medicine.

I asked the man, “You wanna race?”

He chuckled but said sadly, “Not today.”

“You have a nice day, sir,” I said, and with a lighter voice, he said, “Thank you. You, too.”

It took seconds. I knew, though, that his wife hadn’t heard the exchange. I think that made a difference to him. I don’t believe that she has much patience with him.

I’ll never forget him. Ever. I finally did get wet cheeks later, the good kind of tears that only come when something special, however slight or brief, takes place between people.

I wonder what he’s like. What life has done to him. I know he’s in pain on the outside, but I doubt that others ever notice his emotional pain or question where it comes from. These are things others shield themselves from, and that’s a crying shame. It shouldn’t be like that.

But it is.

I’ve made the unforgivable mistake many times of taking the silence of others personally. Whenever I did, I regretted it. Mostly because I was wrong most of the time. So, I’ve developed the determination of being patient and waiting for the right moment, then initiating a quick conversation. I usually just ask, “How are you?” I don’t know how, but most can sense that my question is not casual: I really want to know the answer. I want to hear it. And I’ll gladly listen to complaints, stories, recent experiences, anything. I’m sincerely interested. I care.

The fact is, being an asshole is easy, but the price is too high. I remember 8th grade at a junior high school in Pasadena, Maryland. I was in drawing and painting class. On the first day, we had to do a still life. Pencil work was old stuff to me. I remember there was a propped up guitar with no strings as part of the composition, but not the rest. The teacher, whose name escapes me (although I do remember others), walked around the classroom, checking out our work. When he got to me, he cried, “Farm out!” It was good. Really good. A girl across from me at the next table asked me to hold it up and show her.

At that time, I was nothing but a shy (more like petrified and socially dysfunctional) abused little kid who hated compliments and praise. I hated myself. I couldn’t imagine deserving notice or praise.

Her name was Nancy St. Cyr, a beautiful girl with flaming red hair, and I certainly couldn’t talk to pretty girls. I said, “Go someplace,” which was ’70s politically correct slang for ‘Go to Hell.’

The incredibly intense hurt was shown instantly in her eyes, replaced by hate in seconds. She never spoke to, nor looked at, me again, which still grieves me to this day. Once done, an act of brutality, in word or deed, may never be forgiven. I did not blame her. I still don’t. But I’d give anything to be able to apologize. We just don’t get a lot of second chances, especially when we’re assholes.

I don’t know if God ever forgave me. Sometimes, we cause so much pain that we wonder about that. It is a hurt for us that can’t be healed.

This may make you wonder if I’m a bit more kind and sensitive now because I feel the need to do penance. Well, of course I feel the need, but that’s not why. I got sick of being a cause of pain. I’ve been in pain since I can remember riding in a stroller. Pain. Terror. Then CPTSD because abuse leaves weeping, open wounds that cannot be healed until God brings us back with new bodies. I don’t know much about forgiveness, but I do believe that God counts our every tear, hears every cry of pain, and every prayer. In the meantime, I can’t take my own sins away by doing anything. I just know I need to get back to the narrow road that I left so long ago. I also know that won’t make my life any better. I’ll still be in pain. I’ll still have the regrets of the past. I’ll still remember Nancy St. Cyr and her look of pain. Of all the people I’ve hurt since 8th grade, I don’t remember one of them looking at me like that.

But I’m small, and my part of this universe is too tiny to measure.

Out there. In the world. It is horrible. People do things that others can scarce imagine. A decent person does not have the capacity to picture war crimes. Crimes against humanity. Slavery or mass murder. The constant horror of being terrorized.

It’s all happening right now. It has never stopped. It won’t stop until God’s intervention happens.

But there is still kindness. There is still decency. In a conversation between two old men in a grocery store, with one showing respect, interest, and sincere care to another, there is more that is holy than there is in five years of Joel Osteen’s “sermons.”

Keep the faith. When it is weak, seek the crepuscule: that short time of the day after sunset but before dark, when the reds, oranges, yellows, and purples are painted just above the horizon and a hush seems to fall around you as the day gets closer to leaving.0

The day may hold stress, the night loneliness, but twilight is like God saying, “You like my painting tonight? Remember when you were in art class? It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, so don’t forget me.”

I’m about to turn an age I never thought I’d ever see. And unlike the song, I have no worries about being fed or needed. It’ll just be another day.

I’m fine with that. Because that means I’ll do something nice for someone. I just learned that. I can be nice any time I want to. Whether you want to or not is up to you. I have had enough of dealing out pain. I have too many ghosts for that. I can’t make them go away, but God willing, I won’t pick up any more.

“It wasn’t the airplanes.  It was beauty killed the beast. That, and one bad choice.”

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

I was recently faced with the statement that some past events that had occurred had been because of fate. In fairness, I can’t remember what was said or by who, or even what it was about.

I don’t always file bullshit away for future use; it gets put into the shredder that an old man’s mind regretfully keeps in “standby” mode.

The main idea I tried to get across to the person was that I no longer have such a belief. It’s bullshit and a protective thing we use on ourselves to soften the bruises to our egos after a failure.

Maybe there was a time. I don’t want to think that I did, but if I once believed in fate, then I didn’t understand what free will is.

Fate is a concept. Oh, it works well in assuaging guilt, calming the tears of a broken heart, or soothing the mind after finding out that the one person you’re really into doesn’t like you at all, but rather holds you in contempt. That’s the hurt before getting far enough to even get a broken heart. It’s called rejection and scorn.

But let’s say for a moment that maybe, if not fate, there are some pretty cool or weird things that happen, which we utterly fail to understand. Because of course there are. Random, whether we think so or not.

And if you believe in God, then tell me how fate is decided by him. Does that mean that he is always holding you by strings like a marionette, reading from a script that he laboriously wrote before time existed?

The evidence that God is real is all about; one has only to be willing to see. Hawking and others devoted their lives to proving that the Big Bang was random and spontaneous, but they failed, all of them. Einstein himself wasn’t exactly a believer but did write in a letter, “There is a God, but he is never listening.”

Bitter experience in his early years and his subsequent exposure to science prompted him to call scripture many things such as a book of lies used to condition children and a bundle of myths from various cultures in ancient times.

He did, however, believe that the universe had an order and a beauty that seems to be a description of a Creator God’s work. The fact is he changed throughout his life and deeply regretted writing the letter to Roosevelt that started the Manhattan Project. He said if he had known what would happen, he would have been a watchmaker.

Here we see a burning question: was the atomic bomb an inevitable creation? A matter of fate?

If one believes in the multiverse, then at least one Earth, parallel to us in time, never had the H-bomb. It’s possible that World War Two never happened.

The concept of different timelines or parallel worlds is fringe science at best. If there is no way to prove a theory, the concept remains just that. However, in this world, what if Hitler never took power, and the Empire of Japan never decided that war was necessary to get what they needed? What if it had favored trade instead of a military expansionist economy?

The possibilities are infinite.

World War Two did not happen because of fate, no more than any other war in world history. It happened because men chose things that led to it. Their actions and verbal abuse, and speeches of racial supremacy did it.

When the American Army found its first concentration camp, high command had been hearing through military intelligence what amounted to rumors, but ultimately, intelligence had confirmed that something terrible had been going on. It did not help that the troops who found the camp had not been told. They were in shock at the sight of men emaciated and pale, all but dead, some dehydrated to the point where their sobs terminated in their throats. And that first camp was a work camp, which wasn’t even an extermination center where Zyklon B, which superseded the original Zyklon, was used to kill Jewish people, political dissidents, Christians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, especially mental disorders, and others. Jews bore the brunt of Nazi hatred, though no one can explain why it went that far. Heinrich Himmler was suspected of being more cruel and far more sinister than the others who decided that the use of the pesticide was a humane way for a “civilized” nation to kill its enemies. The war crimes trials at Nuremberg proved otherwise. Antisemitism wasn’t new; the Nazis just industrialized their hatred. It was not humane (as if war crimes ever can be). It was an agonizing death.

These camps were to be visited at Eisenhower’s orders, later, by command officers. In one instance, General George Patton refused to enter a shack with dead bodies stacked in it. General Omar Bradley communicated, “Georgie wouldn’t go in. He said he’d throw up.” That’s a quote from memory and not exact, but I can’t stomach researching it right now.

George Patton was a true-blue, cocky, tough son of a bitch. I’m not so sure that the allies could have ended the war without significantly more casualties without him. He knew that the German people, military and civilian, would be massacred by the Soviets who had suffered horribly in Leningrad and Stalingrad and everywhere between those cities and the border. The Soviet Army shelled Berlin mercilessly before moving in, but when they did, anyone they found in house-to-house searches was shot, the women raped, random torture was used, and Patton knew that all of it would happen. He hated it. Protested the splitting of Berlin. Out of this, a myth was formed: Patton wanted to invade the Soviet Union. In fact, he knew better and was a keen tactician and historian. What he wanted was to get them back across the border. To put them in their place. George never liked the Soviets and he bristled at never getting the chance to fight them.

The result was that the war in Europe ended. The Soviets declared war on Japan, but before they had the chance to do much, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war.

Einstein lived ten years past those bombings. He lived to see the Soviets use the same dreadful weapon in tests. Thus, we have his final words about regret at not being a watchmaker.

There is nothing whatsoever that I’ve written in this thought experiment that lends any credibility to the concept of fate. Himmler was a sadistic man with power, and he did what all sadistic men with power do. All his choices speak to that.

While I believe God is real, I see from history that he simply doesn’t control the affairs of humans. All of humanity has the gift of free will. Only one man was ever born for a set purpose. Yet, he still could have easily saved himself from the cross. He chose not to.

When each of us wakes from sleep, we don’t really consider how many choices immediately present themselves. For the needy, the poor, imprisoned, and the infirm, there are fewer possibilities than other more fortunate people have, but, yes, there are still choices. We choose with our free will.

But wait! There are so many things that can influence that will. You need to shower and go to work. That’s routine, right? Not so fast. Maybe you don’t feel well. You’re tired, sore, and you have a headache. Is that an excuse not to go to work?

Not sure? Well, wait until you step out of the shower. More tired, lightheaded, and no appetite. Little bit of nausea downstairs, too. You’re awake fully now, and your body is sending signals to your brain: don’t make us go.

What’s your choice? Call in sick, or go to work?

This decision is unique to every person and their jobs, their supervisors, their economic situations, their modes of transportation, and more. What they choose has nothing to do with fate.

Some people believe, as do I, that opportunities and chance encounters are the presentations of a higher power. In other words, God does not control your life. There is no fate. But consider how and when you met your spouse. Which types of things had to happen leading up to your crossing paths with each other? Now you see the complexities of life. You meet, but do you ask that person for a date, or do you let them go out of your life, most likely forever? Is that the right one to be with? Are you the right one to be with them?

A chance encounter can lead to happiness or misery. Did God drop a gift in your path for you to choose to take or refuse? Think of what that person makes you feel. How can you know even then?

The answer is simple: if, as many believe, there is true evil out there, and I promise you that there is, then is there not also good? God and Satan. The former wants what’s best for you, but ultimately, you’re the one who has to choose, as the latter puts tempting but destructive people and things in your path.

God gave us free will. He didn’t want to create just another animal. Even the earliest humans chose, developed, lived in peace, or became violent as a matter of choice.

This freedom is extended to our beliefs in him. He didn’t want us to automatically love him without deciding to. If that were so, we would be nothing more to him than what a child keeps trapped in a bird cage. The parakeet may appreciate getting food, but it can’t tell the child that it loves him. In fact, it has never known freedom, but at the first opportunity, it will fly away. The old saying applies: if you love it, let it go. If it comes back, then you can probably keep it. If it doesn’t, it never belonged with you at all. We can’t force love. We know if a dog loves us because they express it. But if that dog shows no affection, you have to let it go to someone it will be happier with. That’s what I think God’s dynamic with us is.

We are free to love. Free to choose.  With that said, so is everyone else. So what they do isn’t up to you. Bad or good, they affect us. Sometimes, it’s not his will for us to suffer. Prayer goes a long way, and he does give us miracles, but pain can teach us things we never would have known. He sees that. He may know how we will be treated and what we will do with what pain teaches us. But that doesn’t mean that he controls it.

“Fate” is a false concept that we use to give up, take a pass, or deny our part in something negative. And all we really have is our faith and each other. That is why love and kindness are so important.

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”- Jesus Christ

King Kong didn’t have to climb up the Empire State Building with a woman he could never mate with. He chose that irrational action. And then he was killed for it. But he was an animal. We are not, and we shouldn’t act like one.

God Forgot About Me…

I know that life can be brutal. It’s all here in my archives, and it’s stuck in my head. I know the feeling of pain in mind, spirit, and body. I’ve been through so much.

I often wonder how one man could take it all and yet keep living. I’ve been dead, went to a deep, dark place with eternity all around me. Alone. Just suspended in darkness that could not be defined nor described except to say that the pitch-black void had no boundaries and above, below, front and back, and side to side,there was nothing. I couldn’t move, but I felt that I would be able to after time. Without seeing or hearing, there came an awareness that below me, to my right rear, a curtain moved as a breeze I couldn’t feel came from the other side of it. Foul, evil things were beckoning me to go and join them.

It was not a place of comfort. I believe Hell could be entered through that curtain.

I did flat-line, but for how long, I can’t say. Time meant very little there in the dark place. All I can say for sure is, I don’t want to go back.

Before that, I had littered the east coast with my blood and a few small body parts.

You name it, and there’s a chance I’ve been through it. It’s not anything to brag about or to be proud of. And I only survived by the grace of God because nothing else explains my being here except the word “miracle.”

My soul, my body, my mind. Sick, through and through. And I am never free from my anguish, pain, regrets, or broken heart.

And still I go back to wondering, Why am I still alive?

Anyone else would have given up the ghost. It’s not that I’m tough. Not that I am strong. Not even that I was lucky.

Because luck wouldn’t be so cruel. You have to figure, after a while, luck would let you off the hook.

Or maybe that God would.

Oh, he’s up there, alright. And he’s forgotten about me. I’m sure of it.

I used to think, until recently, that God had saved me, kept me alive, and had done so for a reason. Maybe so that I could, by sharing my life, help someone in a crisis to say, “If he kept going, then it can be done. I’ll do it better than him.”

And I wish that could be the case. The thing is, though, I wouldn’t know if I had. That’s another way that life can be brutal. So many of us have asked, “Really, Father, is there no more to life than this? If not, then it’s a joke.”

We really shouldn’t, but yes, at one point or another, we do ask. Fortunately, he’s patient with our lapses of faith and our stubbornness that makes us try to strike out on our own. We always fail when we’re on our own. Even when we don’t think we’re failing, he’s ready to catch us if we return to faith in him.

Still, how could he have forgotten me? I’ve been ready for a long time. But I’m alone all the same, and the demons I couldn’t outrun taunt me, taking turns at making sure that I can find no rest, no peace. I knew when my son died, following his sister to an early grave, that my foreseen death, alone and with no one to hold my hand or kiss my cheek, would come true. The only one there will be Christ. He will lead me to a place to await the day when God sentences me.

I just hope that he remembers on that day that days like this with news like this truly affect me. I hope he remembers that an asshole like me cares about the women and children of the world and hates that evil takes their lives so readily. And I hope that he remembers that the killers like Vladimir Putin and Netanyahu never believed in him at all and that all sinners have been warned that they would be judged equally. A one-time murderer will still suffer just as Hitler is, although the degree of suffering each get might be different. But eternity in suffering is still suffering to infinity, so why seek it so intensely?

For the wages of sin is death. Hmm, I don’t know what to make of that. Does it matter? I think not. Because death and hell may be different, but without God, who needs it? I don’t hate myself enough to think about choosing such a thing.

I’m an asshole. That’s the truth. I don’t let myself off the hook because of PTSD and other conditions; I take complete responsibility for my own life, and refuse to claim that “PTSD” or “the devil” made me do anything. I did those things. It is not about me so much as the people I’ve wronged and hurt. It doesn’t matter if I acted out of conditioned fear, triggered by a horrible memory. I’ve pushed people away and knew that it would hurt. I acted anyway. I regret doing so.

The most important things in all our lives are love and how we treat each other.

We sure don’t act like it, do we? I don’t. I know better, but I constantly fail. The post I wrote about pro wrestling is full of expletives and acidic rage. I stand by what I wrote. Former wrestler Kevin Nash has taken to the defense of Vince McMahon, and that shows me what kind of man he is. I never liked him anyway, but I’m not supposed to judge him. How, though, can I avoid it? Vince and others like him have ruined lives. He will reap the whirlwind without my help, but why am I so outraged at them? God will repay. Vengeance belongs to him. Right?

Except that, yes, while we live, we have a duty to stand up for the hurt, the injured, and the wronged.

If we are neutral, uncaring about the pain others go through, then we are as evil as those who hurt people. I can’t be that kind of man. I refuse to be that kind of man.

I hate what predators do. Having been a victim too many times, I can feel their victim’s pain. I can almost hear them when they weep. And they all weep. Their pain is forever. And if good people do nothing, they get covered up in the same sulfurous stink of evil as those who do evil.

I’m sorry that I’ve lived my life being hurt and seeing others hurt. This race we call “civilized” is capable of incredible horrors.

But I’ve seen beauty too. I’ve known love, and I still get to feel it, even when I’m alone. I still watch the sunrise and sunset, hear music, see people being kind. That makes me more sad than happy; kindness is such an amazing thing, awesome in its power to do everything from making someone smile to saving lives. Yet cruelty is so often chosen over it, and that is plain to see. It’s everywhere. Vladimir Putin grows more evil and more powerful with each passing day. A terrible food shortage already exists, and it will get worse. Governments of the world refuse to help. They’ll send weapons and ordnance before they’ll send food.

I’m sorry that I’ve had to see that as a fact of life, a policy of death before life. Don’t you wonder if God expects better? Does anyone? I don’t see people trying to take him into account, yet he asks so little: be good to those who use you. Pray for your enemies with your heart. Do things to help others. Give to those who have nothing and do it quietly without expecting anything in return. Be humble and listen because you never know when God might just whisper in your ear. If you’re busy yelling, you’ll never hear him.

I’m so tired. I’m always so tired. And yet here I am, still alone, still in pain, inside and out. I have nothing to offer anymore. I’m sure that I never did. Stormy romantic relationships got to me so much that without choosing celibacy, i chose to stop everything. I was meant to be alone.

We suffer while we’re here. Through that, we learn. What we learn, the most dreadful of lessons, we are obligated to pass on to others. We do this through music, like composing a sad violin concerto, writing a book or blog, podcasting, word of mouth, a song that tells a story, a poem, or by just being nice to others, which teaches by living an example, an ideal, which, in the end, has usually been learned from pain. Long, drawn-out, and intense pain.

What matters most? Love. Love, and how we treat each other.

I am tired, but I’m not going to curl up and surrender. I would never treat another person as I have in the past; haven’t I felt the pain that the cruel so easily inflict?

Whatever I say here, however full of anger and outrage at what I see, I won’t mistreat another. Venting and social commentary end on this site. I can’t allow myself to be a villain. I haven’t lived through so much to let that happen. I am a sinner. But I trust God to know what’s in my heart.

I also trust him not to forget me for too much longer. Sometimes, though we fight on, folks do get a bit tired, you know?

The Big Red Machine

Sometimes, in this rotten world, we have a little bit of power. Not just the rich, or the famous, but all of us. If we just let ourselves be ourselves, that power can be used. We don’t know when it will happen. We usually won’t know when it’s happening. In the most unfair way, we won’t always even get to know what happened afterward. Have you ever, just in being yourself and treating another kindly or maybe just in being friendly in a casual way, stopped after the fact and wondered, Did I help that kid?

Usually, we don’t. We ask ourselves why we bothered in the first place or we just plain forget it. It’s nothing, right?

Well, here’s an example of someone who was conscious of what he was doing, his true person showing in full view, with no reservations, and made a difference. Watch:

Kane, a.k.a. “The Big Red Machine” was a wrestler in the WWE who wore a mask and flame-themed costume. A big man, he was sometimes billed as the most feared wrestler in the WWE, formerly the WWF. His back story involved him being burned, hence the mask and red costume. He was a heavyweight and a badass, but I knew that the actor inside was a good guy. A good man.

The next time you have a chance to show that good side of yourself to someone, and it may seem like a small thing, do it. No matter how small, do it anyway.

It is always worth it, I promise you. And if we are allowed to hear about it, you’ll honor and give hope to jaded men like me.

Thanks to whoever shared this. You made my day.

And Kane, thank you.

Damned if I Do…

This is always how it ends up. I delete my account. I break all contact. Because I never get anything right.

I’m too fucking old for this shit. I invest time and effort to help people. Offer encouragement. A kind word.

There’s no payoff. I just fuck it up. When will I learn that I can’t be on forums or social media?

I think I just did. Got slapped in the fuckin mouth. Another account deleted, another app uninstalled. I don’t ever want to go back, either. Cause this time, it got me nervous and then it got scary.

Because some people are fakes, wolves in sheep’s clothing. Everywhere, and you’re best off keeping to yourself. Don’t encourage others to be safe. They take offense. How dare a retard like me give anyone advice?

And if someone claims that you’re okay just as you are, don’t believe them. If they meant it, they wouldn’t have to say it. Beware the liars who have no criticism of you. Soon enough, it will change. Now you have a bridge you can be certain is worthy of being burned.

There are those who attack you, no matter the forum. Then there’s those two-faced ones with nice chat who suddenly hint that you’ve overstepped with your questions or assumptions. They’re going to hurt you. A person like me should never have friends. I’ll fuck it up. Then comes the part where they bitch slap you.

I was meant to be, and to die, alone, friendless, forgotten. I finally know how to do it. So there’s that. I only have family as friends on Meta. That…is as far as I go. No man can avoid his destiny. And I’ll never try to again. I’m just one of those dense motherfuckers who is slow to learn and slower still to apply that knowledge. This time I’ll get it right.

Kindness Never Hurts

What’s the trait you value most about yourself?

My brain is full of nightmares. That’s true. It is also a constant truth that I have emotions like anger or rage, and it’s clinically sick.

As in fucked up.

If, among my childhood traits, there is one thing that I managed to salvage, it is that I was polite, courteous and very sensitive: I cried at not just my own pain, but also that of others.

When I looked back at pictures of when I was a child I saw bright eyes and a beautiful smile. I remember losing both. I tore up and threw away every picture I had.

They turned me into a monster, out for revenge. I turned into an avenging asshole. I caused unknown amounts of money in property damage, said horrible things to innocent people, ran from the bullies, sabotaged close relationships, isolated myself, became more bitter than I could bear, and was totally lost.

The world did not believe children like me existed. They did not care of things they knew nothing of. I grew more sick every day.

Sometimes, by age 14 I took everything out on people I knew. I’d write hard-core porn with them in it. They did things that I saw, in my twisted mind, as humiliating to them. So far as I know, none involved in those stories ever read or heard about them. But I’m not a hundred percent on that.

I was good at it, too. Long before reading Penthouse Forum, I wrote better stuff.

It was revenge, all of it. For being ridiculed, marginalized or insulted, and ultimately ignored. And those stories…got more evil as time went on. They weren’t sadistic, there was never violence, I couldn’t go that far. And I have always hated violence against women.

Unhealthy outlets are usually the result of severe abuse. A child’s normal development stops, replaced by horrors.

By the time my parents were arrested, though, it was not about revenge. Oh, I had planned my revenge: I was going to buy a shotgun at Bart’s Sporting Goods on Ritchie Highway and shoot my parents with 00 buckshot. It was all mapped out. I had only to get in my car and go.

Fate, or God, intervened. A nephew living in their house was being abused. I passed on the message that my sister only had a certain time to move out, then bad things would happen. She didn’t. Bad things did follow.

But I’m proud that I wasn’t acting on rage and revenge, but for a child’s welfare. My siblings who testified with me boosted my courage. It wasn’t about me. It was about justice and a child who deserved better than what we had gone through.

In the decades since, I’ve struggled with worsening mental health. I nearly ended my own life 3 times. I became more racist and was violent to the point where if someone spat while looking at, or just after seeing me, I wanted to kill them: You think I’m scum? You won’t when you’re dead, motherfucker.

Today, I’ve had it. I’m sick of being sick. There’s no cure for any of my conditions. I’m slowly dying. I don’t care much.

But I have found things that I do care about.

I try to stay away from the news. I’m limited and cannot handle that mess. I try to keep busy. And I have decided not to bring more pain into a world that’s just had enough of it.

God blessed me. I used to think of my survival as a curse, but that was never true. I was blessed with experience others had but could not voice. Maybe, I thought, I could help. Offer support and kindness. Perhaps insight. Hope.

I have no wish to harm. I’ve returned to courtesy and friendliness, but with much more experience than way back when I was having my innocence taken by evil people.

I do not see myself as noble, honorable or even worthy of living, I stand alone except for family, none of whom have time for me or are in their own health crises. I know I’m loved and that’s enough. God’s love was always there with us, and still is. That’s why I’ve chosen a gentle path.

I still cuss and lose my temper over those taking advantage of the poor; over the press telling us how stupid we all are; of abuse.

I don’t need meditation or zen stuff. I’ve made my choice.

I challenge you to do the same. Start with a random, out-of-the-blue sharing of kind words. Gentle encouragement. Praise when it’s deserved, but never flattery; that’s shallow. Loan someone ten bucks and don’t expect to get it back. It spreads. You’ll even see it, if you’re lucky.

And remember: one kind word can save a life, where an unkind word may end it. Life is delicate and we must remember that, if we truly hope to fight the evil that makes so many just give up. You can change the world. Yes, I do mean you.

And I know how hard it is to smile. Don’t worry. If you’re sincere, others will always know that.

I’m a realist. I have no lofty thoughts and I caution you not to, either. This life can tear you up. I am sorry for that. But do you or I have any right to make that worse?

Looking back at the pain and chaos I caused and knowing why I did it hurts. My age back then, my mental health, and all other things considered, I regret so much. I hurt people I loved. Or hated. I never felt justified. For a few moments, maybe. But smothered in guilt and shame, I longed to be clean. Feeling as if you were born already soiled, knowing you had some good qualities, is difficult to reconcile. How can you process a thing like that? I fear no one can know. We just do the best we can.

And the question I’ve asked bears the same answer: none of us has the right to make the world a worse place than it is.

Choose what’s right. You’ll know what to do. I have faith in you.

I Hate Crackers

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

Actually the title is bait. But I really do hate crackers. Ritz, Saltines, Wheat Thins, all of them. I don’t care if you give me the most expensive cheese or Beluga caviar, I will not eat crackers.

That’s what the title really means. But it may not be the way you saw it.

That’s because once upon a time, it referred to a hillbilly, a dullard with no education and a hatred for freed slaves, usually African Americans, and this hatred was absolutely deadly. The expression, a derogatory slang, once conjured the image of an old man wearing a battered straw or felt hat, shirtless beneath bib overalls, bare of foot, a corn cob pipe hanging from a mouth with no or few teeth, and in his hands a side-by-side double-barrel shotgun.

More recently it’s been used as a derogatory name for any Caucasian, used by African Americans.

Down in the southern and in the midwestern United States it is more prevalent, but since the late 1990s has faded further north. But you can still hear it.

Racism is everywhere and is a part of everyone’s life, whether we want to believe it or not. You may not think that you are racist, but no matter how you may try not to be, the need for and effort itself means that there is something within you that’s being fought, something you try to bury deep, crammed into shadows you never dare let see the light of day. That’s a great thing. It is noble, this fight, and remember that many before you have fought the same personal battle, each one of them making the world a slightly better place. No brave effort is ever wasted.

Of all the regrets I have that haunt me most, being a blind bigot is at the top. I’ve hurt people, almost exclusively with words. I would sling the “N” word from my mouth as often as the word “fuck”, and that goes way back to childhood.

In my school in elementary grades, what they call “primary” school now, there was one African American girl. Same grade I was in. And did we ever punish her. Also the girls who never washed or bathed, who showed up in white blouses that went as unwashed as they, well we gave them hell too. I got bullied, but when it was the rare girl who set her cross hairs on me, I would be shocked into frightened silence, and the sickening language I used on others would come back to me, but strangely, because there was a certain finesse and panache added in. I hated Cheryl Gant and admired her at the same time for being sick, but eloquent in her loathing for me. After a time, she became attractive to me!

I could never figure out why she hated me, and it spread to her mother, who had the balls to knock on my door after I passed her once on North Shore Road. I thought that was funny, but let my mother handle it because at 17 years of age, I had no way of holding back my emotions and I’d have used language like “cunt” on her. Yep. I’d have done that. Maybe worse.

What Cheryl did, unknowingly, was teach me that hate can come from anywhere. It isn’t restricted to race, gender, religion, or any other factor. Sometimes, it’s just there.

Other times, it’s taught. When parents are both southern bigots, true racists, you do what they do. You say what they say. You feel what they’ve taught you you feel. Being young in redneck Pasadena in the 1960s, lots of prejudice existed, and if a black family moved into the neighborhood, they’d be shunned by most, befriended by few, and invariably suffered vandalism. I rarely heard of violence, except on Walter Cronkite in 1968.

Maryland went into panic as riots broke out in Baltimore City that year, and Governor Spiro Agnew activated the MDARNG. A conservative, Agnew would go on to be Nixon’s vice president before being caught with fraudulent tax records. He was replaced by Gerald R. Ford.

These riots, so close to the cloistered suburbs of Pasadena and North Shore, scared my father silly. He kept a .22 revolver with a 10-inch barrel loaded. Ready for (“the ‘Ns'”) to walk into his yard.

They weren’t coming, but his blind terror of blacks rendered him hysterical and unreasonable. I felt the fear that he did. It made an indelible mark on my soul, and I got worse. If I was a mentally ill loose cannon before, I became a monster later. And the African American girl in my class suffered additional reactionary punishment not just from me, but others. By sixth grade, she’d grown an impressive bosom. The girls wanted to be her because they had nothing in the breast department. Weren’t supposed to, really, but everyone matures at different rates.

By junior high, the bussing situation threw together kids who weren’t prepared. Shock naturally occurred, but with dire consequences. Rednecks regularly carried switchblade knives, and came very close to murder. Fights, rumors of riots,fistfights in the hallways were more limited to the redneck guys, but other scenarios happened. It wasn’t a conducive learning environment. And I hated black people more until I finally got suspended for hate speech. Several times.

I didn’t care. Not for decades would I feel differently.

Being grown, working every day, I was always going to interact with people I’d been taught to hate.

And slowly, ever so slowly, I became less fearful. I interacted with customers, asked stupid questions, but always, they understood and praised my eagerness to learn, to overcome. I wanted the hatred and fear to end, to be no more. I began to see beauty in all people of all races. Women whom I’d never have paid attention to became ravishing. And almost always, and to this day, women of color are nicer to me than most others. They sense things in me: no threat, no danger, always sympathetic and ready to listen, not a man seeking a relationship, but a friend.

And the girl in my class all those years ago, who alone had to bear racism from white students surrounding her?

One night I read a newspaper article. She’d made the headline. Babysat one night. And the baby wouldn’t stop crying… she tortured and killed it. I never knew, and never will, if what she went through in school, because of boys like me, played a part.

You know what I’d like to think.

But the abuse we piled on her for years would almost certainly be part of her hell.

All actions and words have consequences. And the potential to harm, and harm greatly. I wish I could have learned that lesson much earlier. Then, maybe, though damaged and full of my own sorrow, rage and bitterness, I could have learned respect and how to love…instead of having so many hurt left behind me in time. A painful lesson that hurts more because I took so long to learn it. I often think back to those who I had hurt and hated. Too late to apologize. Too distant. And some are long gone. As is one infant whose name I will never know.

I Guess I Misjudged the Path

Being saddled with mental illness ain’t fair. Life isn’t fair, never was. It’s what we do on the trail that counts. Sometimes all the lines alongside that trail get smudged or covered over. It’s part of the deal. Finding one’s path, being brave enough to make another trail, well that’s the hardest part, isn’t it? And also not fair. There’s no way to know what you’re getting yourself into. And so, you have to pay for mistakes and you have to endure mistreatment.

Part of life.

Ain’t that right?

But what if you’re an asshole, and you know you didn’t get that way on your own? What if you were made into one, like something Victor Frankenstein wouldn’t even dare face, once the deed was done?

And what if, after escaping from the lab, you keep on being an asshole, because that’s all you really know?

And what happens when you’re such an asshole that you end up hating yourself? What if you can be treated by a shrink, but need counseling and you can’t get it, and every day you just hate yourself more, in spite of believing that some people might actually love you, and most of all, God in heaven?

What happens when that’s just not enough?

I can’t answer things like that. I’m sorry that nobody can answer those kinds of questions, and that untold numbers of people have died by their own hand because no one doctor, no cocktail of medicine, nothing, absolutely nothing can help everyone. And there’s a book, euphemistically called the “bible” of psychological disorders, and every year some point or other gets argued over, and some maladies of the mind have been removed or recategorized because too many people claim disabling disorders. The political right hates that.

I haven’t written much about this, but this summer I haven’t written much of anything.

This certainly ain’t been because I was busy.

I think I hated myself so much that it caused, and is still causing, a different person than who I was to take over.

Still a friendly neighbor, still kind of heart, and still sympathetic, but…someone…different.

In some ways tougher, more callous about evil jerkoffs, wishing I could fuck them up for hurting others.

In other ways, dissociated from other things I hated about myself.

I just changed the path I was on. I didn’t do it consciously or deliberately; I just became someone else. This probably is because of a dissociative personality break. Plus, I’d have to add a bit of a psychotic break as well. The process began when my daughter died. It accelerated when my son died. It became a matter of survival: I could kill myself or be someone I could like, if only a little bit.

I believe it’s still in progress. Personality changes don’t just exist in made-for-TV movies of the 1970s. They’re all too real.

When I began to believe that I had been lied to and preached at, I said things that caused a friend to “unfriend” me in real life. Months later neither he nor his wife speak to me. Not even so much as a “hello”. This doesn’t hurt me; I had it coming. And I learned a new lesson.

That lesson is, not even neighbors who are Christians and pastors want anything to do with a cruel man.

I want to say that I won’t let it happen again. We both know it’d be a lie.

The new me tries to sleep at night now. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This me has a deepening and pervasive southern accent. It was always there; my Maryland experience just got me to mask it with what others sounded like. I can’t make it go away, nor do I want to even try because it’s useless. Before we reach the end of the trail, we always end up back where we began. If not in location, then perhaps in our battered breasts and stricken minds.

I think maybe that’s okay.

But I’m still an asshole.

Laissez-faire

There is, first, a mental breakdown. My nerves crumbled to dust inside me. To my horror, I did not know who I was. I still greeted neighbors but not by name. I did not know their names. If they called me by name, fine. But that name meant nothing to me.

My home became unfamiliar and I skipped meals. I remember now that I stopped playing games, that I watched movies as if seeing them for the first time.

It was at the least as if I were in an alien world; it was at the most terrifying. I checked my identification constantly: was that really me?

It had happened before but never like this. I came to realize how significant it was. That if it keeps happening, one day I may not get myself back.

Along with this came a feeling of solitude, loneliness and the realization of just how worthless I am. Feeling worthless is not new to me either; I’ve always felt it to some degree or other. But feeling completely useless is different, and it is worse. I’m not out of that yet. I’m only now becoming hazily aware of my identity.

Not that I care; I may be less frightened, but that’s about all.

I’m aware that I had depended on others too much. A loss of contact made me feel helpless. Social media friends did not help; unawares and unintentionally, they made it worse. Trigger after trigger, even if I can’t remember what they were, caused a cascade into despair and madness. I remember almost nothing after my last post, and unless I go back and look at the date, I won’t know how long I was “gone”. Maybe it was a week? Damned if I know.

To lose oneself so is an indignity. To be reduced to nobody, that’s a cruelty not easy to take.

Nobody even noticed. That’s the worst part. If anyone questioned me, I feel as if I would remember it. I don’t.

What I’m seeing here is the need not to depend on others for any kind of friendship or support. Having a friend is not the same as needing a friend. As long as one is needy, true friends will never be real.

I’m going to try my best to let things go. Just sit back and detach, watch others chase their tails and to keep away from politics. Laissez-faire.

I have no one to talk to. People never listen. You’re supposed to listen to them, though. Oh, yes. But but if I talk, people say “I don’t want to talk about this” or they cut me off with more of their own problems.

My listening can’t help anyone. Me talking, well that’s different.

I will never make that mistake again.

Alone? Yes, But Not Always.

The times of day I feel the least crazy, the least afraid and the least alone are twilight. Usually the passage from day to night, when a sort of hush falls over the world. I see distant lights come on, but they don’t hurt my eyes. There’s a few minutes of calm in the world. No distant wailing of sirens, signaling some disastrous event. The birds begin to settle down for the night, squirrels climb to their nests, frogs slowly begin tuning up their section of the orchestra, preparing for the night’s symphony, and there remains nothing from the day that can hurt me. I’m safe.
It’s magical. Like God made this little space just for me, enough to keep me sane for one more night.

Then…either at sunrise or when the night closes in…it’s gone. I feel the weight of more than half a century fall on me. I feel deep sadness that I can never hold on to those few moments when I was granted peace, when I felt alive, connected to Mother Earth and God above.

When I wasn’t afraid anymore.

When I stopped crying inside.

Someone once told me that I was only sick because I wanted to be.

It’s a cruel thing to say. To anyone. No one would say such a thing to a cancer patient; why are the mentally ill presumed so different?

But that person only knew part of my story. They could not know the rest, and I finally came to understand that no one can.

I’m not anything like I wanted to be, nor can I ever be, but that’s okay.

People will always need people like me. They know we will understand, and that even if we don’t, we will be there for them anyway. After such a life of pain, we get a second wind. And we can carry a bit more because we love so much. Only the most battered of hearts can do that.

We will always tire again. Some of us will fall. Some will run away, but never stop believing in us, the weary, the beaten, the true walking dead, who don’t give up. We will come back. We always do until that day Mother Earth claims our twisted shells and our souls go to the Father of all.

Because until that day, we have our moments, the times when the sky is not yet dark, and the creatures of the night or the day have not yet broken the stillness…

The times when we are finally able to feel light and unburdened, to feel peace and see our places in the cosmos. And know that we are not, after all, alone in it.

Prisoner of the Night

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

Above this line you see today’s JP prompt. Well I hardly needed a prompt for tonight. Yeah, it’s after 00:30, so it’s really morning. I know, but it’s dark, and still well before the hour of shadows. Which I think of as the hour I most feel that I’m really all alone.

Why I always revert to an opposition of circadian rhythm I do not understand. I’ve joked about it for years: “I’m a vampire”, “a werewolf”, whatever. But jokes cover up our true selves and lead us into a habit of not letting the worst of us slip out and give others a glimpse of who we really are.

Because doesn’t that part of us serve to cage our pain and fear? Isn’t it easier for me to let measured pieces of that pain and absolute terror out than to give them full vent and risk what can happen to me? To feel it all, everything, at once, knowing it could kill me, because a heart broken so many times should already have killed me?

And true, raw, pure terror, you can’t feel that all at once. So many years of it, decades of seeing evil, doing and speaking asshole things, but first having all of that done to me….nobody can survive remembering and feeling all that at once. We know that, because sometimes memories get distorted and become unreliable. That’s a built-in protection we have which allows us to survive.

But most of it, the worst stuff, we can never forget. And therefore some of us just can’t heal. Doesn’t mean we can’t move in a forward direction, just means we carry so much of what others would leave behind with us, every day, everywhere. No one knows. They can’t see it. They can sense it, and mostly they leave us alone. Somethin wrong with that old boy. He got hisself baggage, the heavy-duty kind. I ain’t even gonna look that way til he is gone.

For decades, I had big problems relating to and mixing in with anyone. I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not good-looking, not funny, I’m mental. Who’s ever gonna want a piece of shit like me?

Amy loved me. She did everything but throw herself at me, but I wasn’t good enough. I knew that. I let her go. Never even kissed her.

She was the last one. A wild girl who drove a rig for Bob’s Transport, then Keyway, here in Maryland. Being wild, she intimidated me while making herself all the more beautiful to me. I loved her because she was beautiful and wild and free. She could never be told that I loved her right back, but that I wouldn’t ever be good enough. Never be enough. That I was damaged. Terrified. Of everything.

I never loved like that again, and that level of pain I don’t want to ever feel again. I realize that she let me go because I had the power to hurt her with a spoken rejection.

I

On this night, I go outside to light a Marlboro, exhale smoke toward the sky. I linger. I ask the sky, “What is love, anyway? Is it even real? Is it a lie we invent because we’re so alone in a crowded world? Well? Whattaya say?”

Of course, there’s no answer. If I got one I’d go straight to the fucking hospital, and you know which ward.

Tonight, I’m bitter. I can’t even answer my own question. And I thought I knew the answer. This proves that I am honest when I say I don’t know anything at all.

But isn’t the question important, valid? I mean, doesn’t it deserve an answer?

I reckon not. That black sky is mocking me with its silence.

II

I went to the doctor yesterday. I told you about passing out, falling. Well I don’t really see a doctor. It’s a nurse practitioner. She’s not friendly and doesn’t give a shit what’s wrong with me. The first thing she did was pick a fight. I’d had an MRI two years back. Degenerative disk and spinal disease. That “Degenerative” part means it gets worse.

Well, it’s worse. She argued that, no, my insurance provider did not deny coverage on my MRI. Look, I’m the one who got the notice after it was done. She said that the imaging (corporation) that performed it had to make sure it would be paid or they would never have done it. Well maybe that’s true, but later I got the paper notice that it was decided that I hadn’t secured permission from them first, then that it was determined I didn’t need it despite the dire findings. They would not pay.

Trying to talk to an NP who thinks she knows everything is like trying to talk to a MAGA republican: you’re essentially talking to a wall.

In spite of passing out and intense back pain, she seemed very unconcerned. She recommended physical therapy, muscle relaxers and a steroid. What a fucking quack. Anyone can see, I need to be cut. But expecting professional behavior, common sense and God forbid, compassion from anyone in the medical field is plain stupid. It’s a stupid thing to do. They don’t care about you. You’re a paycheck and that’s all that you are. If you die, they get a new patient. Maryland used to have world-renowned medical care. I’m telling you, stay away. Just stay the fuck away. You’ll live longer.

III

Another Marlboro. I’ve doubled my consumption of tobacco since yesterday morning and that’s counting the trip to the doctor, and afterward, a stop at at my favorite restaurant, Trattoria E Pizzaeria da Enrico, where you can get real Italian food and New York style Pizza pies that you’ll never forget. I ordered a 14″ double pepperoni, and attacked it like a ravenous wolf. Or werewolf. Whichever you prefer. I think Gianni was impressed. He is a friend, a good man, one of honor and decency and hard work. Makes spaghetti pie, too. Come on, who could do better? To hell with Domino’s. Forever.

The pizza was delicious from the first bite to the last. I began to feel better.

I slept soundly until 22:30. Good, peaceful sleep. But I awoke sore, bitter and in pain.

Asking questions of the night. Questions I want the answers to, especially on this night, when I dare ask them with insolence. With more of a demanding tone than I think prudent. But I’m too bitter to care.

02:48; almost at the hour of shadows. I ask that stupid black sky, “Okay, let’s forget about love. You don’t know shit anyway. But what about honor? Huh? Honesty? Kindness? Decency? What are these things, which I’m starting to believe aren’t real? Tell me what they are. Or that I’m right. That there are no such things. I’ll believe you and be on my way.”

IV

The little girl had survived a gunshot to the head. She was clearly in shock, but the reporters surrounded her like vultures anyway. They barraged her with questions in condescending childlike voices. How did it feel? Did you see your daddy? What did you say to him?

“I said I love you daddy, I hope you’re okay.”

And what did he say to you?

Jesus Christ, lady, you’re a really cold bitch. Leave that child the fuck alone!

I’m outraged. They didn’t just put her face all over the world. No, they showed the world how insolent, cold and sick the American media really is. And they piled trauma upon trauma on this poor little girl. Before long she stopped talking. Just nodded her head. She’d had too much. They were killing her.

A basketball had rolled into some asshole’s drive way. The details are hard to assemble, but someone came along and shot the girl, then shot her parents. Her daddy was still in the hospital. And she was out, not knowing that mainstream journalists had turned into sleazebags like the paparazzi. Scummy, suffocating, relentless, not an ounce of respect or compassion between the lot of them. No ethics, no boundaries, no humanity.

I fucking hate reporters. If they ever try that shit in front of me, they won’t like what will happen. There’s no joy in it for me, saying something like this. It’s dark and it’s wrong. But if we really stop caring about children then we are a doomed society, surely to be consigned to Hell. I would die protecting a child. There’s a big difference between that and what those assholes were doing.

V

The sky has no answers. It mocks me with a slow, cold wind. The night that I cannot sleep through because that’s when the bad things used to happen has thrown the gauntlet at my feet: join me or die.

It is the hour of shadows, but it’s almost over.

“You haven’t answered my questions. You know nothing. You hide the evil that happens in shadows. You never liked the light. I may be your prisoner, but it’s easy for me to choose death over you. One day I’ll live in the light. God will wipe all of my tears away. My sorrow won’t need to be held back ever again. And if this world doesn’t know love, that’s okay. The next one will.”

The Rise Of Nazi America

No, I’m not engaging in hype. Nor is the title a joke. In truth, this has been coming for a long time.

I read an article. Does anyone remember the SCORPION Unit? The Memphis Police Department 40-man unit accused this January of beating Tyre Nichols to death? The “SCORPION 5” were the five officers of the MPD unit involved in the death. The unit was disbanded. The fallout was inevitable. Under pressure, MPD buried the SCORPION.

But there’s a problem. It’s two-fold: crimes and the public fear they generate, and a police department unable to handle it with no more fallout. How can such a balance be possible?

There is no way. It’s gone too far. So when talk of a new, smaller unit to calm the youth crime problems reached the public, well….

Let’s just start at the beginning.

When SCORPION was involved and held responsible for beating Nichols so severely that he died, there were some who didn’t care, and of course that’s always true in any case of injustice. But questions had to be asked: how many police “special units” had done this type of thing? How did special units always seem to devolve into something less than what they were intended to be? How many times had people been killed by special units, especially in urban, high-crime areas, such as the ones SCORPION was charged with patrolling?

Those kinds of questions don’t get much in the way of answers, but we know the root cause. That is, if you give any military or police unit a designated task and the area of operations is open to attack or is in high crime or free-fire zones, all hell breaks loose. Most people know that power corrupts. The more power given, the more corrupt the empowered become.

Given specific designations, then placed in areas where soldiers or police are under extraordinary stress for almost the entirety of their tour or shift, everything necessary for extreme conflict is in place. You know what happens next.

The few men and women with law enforcement or military operations charged with keeping order while under constant pressure, or fear, inevitably cross a line that they become less concerned with each time they go out. More research must be done to help military command and police training and supervision understand and therefore more capable of mitigating the circumstances that cause the horrendous results of their own failure or ability to train and dispatch personnel.

You immediately think, Hey, just weed out the assholes, but it’s not so easy. Of course, there are trainees that fail to make the cut, but it is sobering to stop and be careful with a judgement like that. Some trainees do very well under controlled conditions, and they do equally well in initial field conditions.

They may even distinguish themselves as exemplary. But under fire, or in a high pressure, dangerous area, usually for extended shifts or days, they can and do overreact to the point of displaying a desperation and self protection that clearly is not warranted. It happens to soldiers and police and even security guards. Fight or flight goes out the door, replaced with no choice but to fight. At that point, fear and rage overtake the person and adrenaline courses like a high surf through their brain. They cannot think.

Those situations I understand because so many of us have been there: an impossible task, a wrong turn, a few random variables, and suddenly we are there.

What I do not understand is two or more police officers beating or shooting one individual to death. In a suspect who is on drugs there lies the potential for extreme danger. Hey, we get it. They don’t react to tasers and stun guns. Forget bean bags, pepper spray and gas. Nothing but a split second stands between you and death, or another person’s death, as is the case with a hostage when there’s no time for talk. That kind of decision I hope you never have to make. I’m glad I never did.

But then, even when a police shooting is clearly justified, what happens? The media. Soon, they have you questioning what you can see right there on the screen.

And then there is the nightmare stuff. Brutality and excessive force. I remember the night I saw the footage of the Rodney King beating. I had never seen anything like it. I knew that violence would follow. It did. And it was terrifying and sickening. It was never close to the ’65 and ’68 riots, but I didn’t remember much of those because there was less footage, most was on film, and reporters couldn’t remain in an area for long.

But after Rodney King, it kept happening. Then smart phones came along. Everyone had footage.

But there was immediately a problem. Both police and civilians edited the footage. And the media made everything worse.

Prior to the early 1970s, I rarely ever heard of a police officer getting shot. It happens all the time now.

Cops are in extreme danger every time they hit the streets. No matter where they are.

Republicans won’t do anything about the gun problem. The National Rifle Association was regaled by republican party dicks recently. Mike Pence was there. His reception was almost comical. But the scariest part is, the NRA was vetting candidates. And that’s a joke because they’re pro-MAGA and so are all republican politicians and voters. Because if by now you still call yourself a republican, you’re a MAGA party member. The NRA just wants to know who to support. Because mass shootings are too common and people are on the edge. Responsible gun owners are also involved because right wing media has brainwashed them into believing that if democrats get majority numbers in the House and Senate, their hunting rifles will be outlawed. Squads of police will come to take away their boy’s BB rifles.

This is a terrifying truth. They believe the lies. They really believe them.

Now that guns are open carry in places, the nuts can feel much safer buying what they want. AR-15 style rifles have more accessories than an Armani wardrobe. They’re often the weapon of choice in mass shootings. Gun sellers are not held to common standards of even the slightest responsibility in background checks and identification. Gun manufacturers will never be liable for the use of their products. There are no consequences to anyone except victims and their families. Even insurance companies refuse to pay out under whatever circumstances they care to quote. The families often get left to pay hospital bills, specialists, ambulance bills, funeral costs and more, making them victims all over again.

With guns everywhere, crime rising because of rising costs, drugs and more, we can see why the police are overwhelmed. And let’s get one thing straight right now: we all know that law and order meant something well before it was the title of shitty TV shows and spin-offs. We need our police. Life without them is not life. It’s death.

But solutions aren’t forthcoming, obvious or even reasonable when presented. And making it all worse, there are cops on the job who are idiots and racists, itching to take a shot at anyone in any groups or races whom they hate. Courts have convicted some killer cops, but for the most part, they get let free, and some get to go back to their jobs. The innocent cops are ruined even when exonerated. They will relocate, perhaps changing their name, but doomed for the rest of their lives to look over their shoulders.

The SCORPION Unit may be gone, but the MPD has conceived a new unit tasked with countering the “influx of calls” regarding teens and young adults in the city who are engaging in things like “soliciting” or selling candy, playing loud music and dancing.

It may be difficult to understand one side of this, because that side – the police side – has set vague guidelines for the small unit. Eight officers under two sergeants and a lieutenant would have to decide who to detain, and it gets more confusing when you read that there would be a prohibition against officers taking a detainee to a residence. The juveniles would be taken into custody until parents are called. But parents stand to pay a high price; upon taking custody of their child, they would be issued a court summons. That almost guarantees a fine or worse. And if parents don’t show up in a timely fashion in the eyes of officers, they would be charged with neglect or child abandonment and have that child handed over to CPS!

At the root of this is teens scaring or intimidating or disturbing citizens in some way or another. That goes on in every city in the entire country. But what inevitably follows is racial profiling, stop and frisk, questionable detentions because of judgement calls by officers who, by nature, would be overwhelmed from the minute they started up. Judging who has the radio that’s up too loud, trying to round up dancers in the street, or breaking up a basketball game is risky. It’s unconstitutional to take certain actions anyway, but who decides what inappropriate clothing is? They would call it indecent exposure and come on, now. That’s too thin. Republicans in Washington have banned their own (politicians) women from going sleeveless while in session. Are arms indecent now? This really makes no sense. Republicans typically behave worse when it comes to sex, but scandalous or just not caught yet means everything. If Donald Trump paid Stormy Daniels hush money it was because he was pandering to the religious conservatives who have quickies and never remove their clothes during sex, so they can get back to their daily scripture reading as quickly as possible. And it doesn’t matter if they download porn in their pastor’s study, or if they are pastors: they fear “religious oppression” and will bankroll conservatives every time. Main reason: they make a lot of money off parishioners and that is something more important than faith any day, and every day in-between. What is indecent exposure? Who decides? Conservatives.

Don’t get me wrong here: if a person is stark naked in public, they’re breaking the law. If some guy pulls out his weenie to piss, and someone sees it, that’s indecent exposure. A park flasher should be taken away for a full mental evaluation, no doubt about it. But look, conservatives take basic truths and twist them into pretzels. So a guy wearing boxers and low riding jeans may not show good taste, but if you see no skin, that is not indecent exposure.

I’ve heard men at shopping centers yell at young women to go home and “put some clothes on”. But there was never a law prohibiting cleavage and legs. Even though some don’t approve, mostly because insecure men don’t want to see what they can’t have. It scares them. Then they go home and beat off. Fucking headcases.

How does it look to the world that sees this country as a nation of barbarians in the first place, then reads progressively worse news stories in articles in their own country? European free countries have always, in general, thought us a bit eccentric in our mores and sexual hang-ups. But imagine police in America patrolling in cruisers, looking for kids wearing miniskirts and low-riders. Fascism, or nazism?

The issue is not, ultimately, law and order, it is actually going to turn into one of backlash and civil unrest. And while some will believe that eight field officers and three supervisors might not be able to cause much trouble, we have all seen what one rogue cop can do.

As of this writing, the city officials denied that this unit was even in existence and that it was a concept that was proposed but never approved. Yet names of officers clearly appeared in at least one source, either a written draft or in a MPD video. It is a likely testament to the power of outraged civilians howling in protest that the unit’s existence is being denied.

That same outcry occurred just days ago in Missouri after an 84-year-old white man shot a black youth through his closed front door. Arriving at the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers around 22:00, the man answered the door, said “Don’t come around here again” and shut the door. Then he fired two .32 caliber rounds through his front door, nearly killing the black boy who only wanted to get his kid brothers home safely. A piece of shit Saturday Night Special.

Originally the police arrested the elderly maniac, but let him go because (of a law no one really understands) said he could shoot his gun at anyone who caused him to fear for his personal safety. It’s either legally or euphemistically called the “Stand Your Ground” law.

But there was immediate and serious backlash from the Kansas City residents. They gathered, chanted “fight back!” and their numbers grew. The shooter’s house was vandalized. The police knew that it wasn’t going well and thought the matter through a bit more. Nobody shoots through their front door. And firing twice, scoring two hits, including a head shot? That’s not luck. That’s someone whose senses are remarkable for anyone at that age. A maniac with intent and ability. And a whole lot of racial hate.

He was arrested on charges of attempted murder and some bullshit misdemeanor which he’ll plead down to and serve 6 months house arrest.

But whatever comes of it, he will have to relocate. His life will only be worth one round of 9mm ammunition. Nothing more. Because things are building up to a point which I don’t want to imagine, but have anyway, hundreds of times.

There is no way to avoid it. Neither party is willing to bend. Gun control is not possible. Republicans argue that in Nazi Germany Hitler restricted all firearms in the civilian population. This is utterly ridiculous and it was the Weimar Republic that did that, but the Third Reich actually allowed civilians belonging to the Nazi Party to own guns. Political dissidents meanwhile, whether German or not, were shipped out to prison camps. Any not being so condemned were not just restricted from owning guns, but had other tortures held aside for them. Being monitored by the Gestapo arm of the Schustaffel would have been shameful and full of constant fear. Neighbors would spy, even lie about one’s activities to score points for themselves and some kind of favor.

Back then, what is often overlooked is that it wasn’t just Jews who got sent to die, by machine gunners, by Xyclon B, medical experiments, being cooked in ovens, or starvation and exposure, but also gay men and women, bisexuals, the mentally ill, Christians and anyone who, by Himmler and Heydrich’s standards were not fit to breathe German air.

Many falsehoods exist concerning the German Nazis, but with all that they did, using them as an example to use against gun control is lame, a lie that today often gets used by Republicans here in the US. The argument is illogical at least, comical at most. It assumes that an armed citizenry prevents tyranny. No source backs this up; the evidence is to the contrary if anything. Using the Revolutionary War doesn’t work either. The further reasoning is that if they use this argument, democrats will see reason because they fear tyranny most of all. While, plainly visible but never admitted aloud, republicans are the party choking out personal civil rights. The proof is in the stacked Supreme Court laying the groundwork for abortion to be banned in every state. It reversed the Roe versus Wade decision and handed the right of individual states to allow or ban abortions.

In extreme cases it is illegal to get an abortion even if pregnancy is caused by rape and incestuous rape. A minor cannot abort her father’s baby. That’s how it used to be, and it wasn’t that long ago. For a developed country yes, World, we are barbarians. In Nazi Germany, abortion was legal but had to be approved. That’s not to extoll the greatness of a mass-genocidal regime; merely to illustrate how we are headed for something far more oppressive. And that should terrify everyone, but they don’t see it coming. They don’t even think it’s possible.

Other restrictions are adding up by the day. The state of Florida will never be the same after DeSantis leaves the Governor’s mansion.

He’s signed the “Don’t say gay” bill and expanded it to all grades. It prohibits all sex education teaching and is aimed mostly at gay and bisexual kids. Because you can, of course, teach kids not to be gay. If they can’t be taught what it is, or accidentally read about it in some library book, they’ll never think about being gay, right? Right?

And if you ban “harmful drag queen story time”, then….

I can’t finish that sentence. We’re going the same way all oppression forced on societies throughout history has gone – into absurdity.

He’s also banned any history classes on African Americans and their culture, and the term “climate change” has been banned. Also, books vanished from all school libraries because his restrictions on literature are impossible for anyone to understand, much less use as a guide for picking which books are acceptable (hint: the answer is none anyway).

It is the republican party that draws us closer to any form of Nazi or fascist, totalitarian government. They refuse to save children from guns but will not help a rape victim care for her baby with government assistance. They want social security and all other benefits immediately banned. People dying by the numbers will not be enough for them. People imprisoned for not having jobs because they’re disabled is not far-fetched. Not anymore. Global warming will not be a problem for them either. They simply claim it is not real. Restricting the causes is not as important to republicans as providing tax breaks to the worst conglomerates who cause it.

For years I’ve repeatedly claimed that we were at a crossroads and that serious problems had to be addressed.

Nothing has changed unless you consider things getting worse a change.

There are innovative ways people are working on to help, but the problem with global warming is that when consumers are offered choices, they often resist change. And they’ve been misled because most electric power is generated by burning fossil fuel, so charging an electric car just adds to, rather than alleviates, the emissions of carbon.

Confused people also can’t decide if wind farms are good or bad because of men like Donald Trump who claimed if the wind stopped your favorite TV show wouldn’t continue, that birds by the millions are killed by them and that dangerous fields surrounded them. But there’s always one way to figure the truth out for yourself: Donald Trump never tells the truth. About anything.

Nor do his acolytes, who for reasons of having power or not wishing to be ostracized, will back him up ceaselessly.

The oppression and the deceit builds up. It never makes any sense, but it’s happening. It will get worse. Like a snowball in a cartoon, rolling downhill, movements like this get bigger, build speed, and become incredibly powerful.

To conclude, oppression and tyranny are coming to power and will rule this land with no fucking mercy. In this moment, we still have choices. It’s critical that we make the right ones, because tomorrow, our freedom of choice could be taken away. Our allies will not help. They will turn away. Men in power and weak, crazy women who act as their false prophets (looking at you, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert) will relentlessly hound people like generic liberals, progressives, and single out the LGBTQ+population as well as Blacks and Hispanics and persecute them relentlessly. They clearly hate Pride Day, MLK’s birthday and Black Lives Matter, and have already silenced the Me Too Movement. Partly, of course, through media silence, partly with cash and partly with threats and intimidation. Ron DeSantis has targeted Disney, his own state’s biggest attraction and generator of business and tourism. Because Disney stood up for LGBTQ+ rights. That is mind-boggling, going to war with that which keeps your state taking in money. Madness!

I have been fortunate in my life to have known many gay and lesbian friends. They enriched my soul and taught me great lessons. Of the friends I’ve left behind, as we all do throughout our lives, they were the most understanding and loyal, helpful and protective. Their souls were radiant, and I miss them all. Had I grown up in a bubble as my father wished me to, I would never have known and gotten close to great friends. I would not have learned anything. To have hatred and bigotry limit your potential friends is spiritual suicide. And most of my friends, the ones I can count on?

Well, they’re black. I’ve shared rent in a two-bedroom condo with my closest friend for almost 9 years now. We don’t fight, don’t argue. We don’t share food or a budget, but live separatey, yet we are friends, respectful and honest. We can go to each other for help, and either one of us would give his life to save the other. We mourn together when tragedy strikes. When my son was alive, having been raised by a racist grandmother, mother and step-father, Larry was able to show him that respect and decency still counted. My son loved him, and even asked how he was doing when he called me. When he visited, they brought out the best in each other with playful, nonsensical banter. After Mike Jr. passed away, I believe it hurt Larry very much, but he fights hard against some of his emotions. He’s suffered loss too, a lot of it, too much, really. He realized Mikey would never visit us again and he didn’t know how to handle it. I told him softly, “Man, did that boy love you.” And he looked as if he understood. But he still never spoke about it.

All we have in this life is each other, you, me, and the Larrys and Michael Juniors of this world. In whatever time we have here, we’re supposed to make a difference. We have no right to make things worse or to hurt others. What my son and best friend shared opened Mike’s mind to reality and a world he had not seen before. And love. It’s the greatest thing any two people can share.

What a shame it is that so many miss out on that. What a horrible thing to aim hate at people you’ve been taught to mistrust. It makes whatever is looming in our path more inescapable. It seals a fate none will enjoy.

America will never become a Nazi power.

It will be far, far worse. Do not allow that.

Heaven

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I will not survive another decade. My health has declined to a point where, if I did survive, I would be unable to do much of anything. I do not forsee myself allowing this to happen. I have no wish to be a burden, nor to die screaming in pain. If my life has held so little honor and dignity, then I would like very much to have it end with some measure of it.

Of course assisted death may be unnecessary; the next heart attack would be too much for me to survive.

We all make decisions, millions of them, and some will always be very poor. Smoking and a poor diet have taken their toll and the damage is done. Mental illness from a traumatic and horrifying childhood has been a curse for all of my life. I have had quite enough of it. Yet, despite the physical effects that go along with it, I have tried to be patient with myself and others, and of late I have at least had the desire to gain honor; perhaps because I perceive it to have been taken from me, or to gain what I have never truly possessed. And someone told me not too long ago that the search alone is an honorable thing.

When I am gone, in ten years, I have no illusion that I will be remembered because only great men and women ever are; and that is sometimes good and sometimes terrible. I will be forgotten and that gives me peace now, something to keep me grounded.

Millions have come before me, to be left to history as nothing more than a name on Ancestry websites. Most did the best they could in an unforgiving world, under unforgiving conditions. Most lived and died with a quiet sort of honor, raising children and passing along wisdom gained through often unbearable pain. We could have learned so much more from them, but that is not the way of this life. We are left to ourselves to learn the greatest lessons through the worst of experiences. And that has certainly been my lot.

What comes next, I don’t know. Will I be allowed to spend eternity in Heaven? Will the bad outweigh the good and condemn me to the Pit?

How strong will my faith be on the day that I die?

“How we face death is at least as important as how we face life”– Admiral James T. Kirk

No matter what happens, I want all of my friends here to know, I realize that it has been difficult to follow this blog. I have rarely been positive, but my mission never changed. I pray that someone will still read my life and say, “If he survived, I can do it, and a lot more.” I’m thankful to have had you allow me to be a small part of your lives. That has been one of the greatest honors I have ever had. Thanks for everything. Be well.

Answer to Prompt: My Friend Harry

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

I don’t have goals.

Saw my good friend Harry today. He’s wheelchair bound but has the courage and humor to make him indomitable. He stopped on our way in to the Harris Teeter to bend over and move a 20-lb propane cylinder out of the way of foot traffic. How cool is that? He cares about people. He’s an inspiration to me, and I never pass up the opportunity to tell him he’s got a forever spot in my heart and that when we talk, it’s always a good day for me. We were discussing health issues. I’m so messed up he asked, “What do you plan to do about it?”

I replied that I don’t make plans “because every time I do, all hell breaks loose.”
He said, “There’s an old joke, if you want to make God laugh, make a plan.”

What a treasure he is. Ladies and gentlemen, please raise a glass to Harry, my friend. If you like, please say a prayer for him. An Every day hero. A teacher. A great philosopher. A great man. A great friend.

Excuse Me, God, But Did You Say My Name?

I know that I have come a long way in a short time. But I’m not worthy of this. This is troubling.

I’m scared.

If you’ve backtracked my archives, or been reading for some time, you know where I’ve been. You know my past, my problems with living, when I’m tormented so by my life and so many things I’ve tried to write about.

You know of my history of being abused, but being a believer from an early age. How a simple faith helped me have the strength to keep moving. How PTSD plays a huge role in my life.

And you know that I’ve suffered ever since childhood. A bad marriage, a string of lost jobs and girlfriends, only to be topped by losing my children. People told me nobody should have to bury their children. But there were no burials.

They were just gone.

My ex asked if I wanted “some” of their ashes, as if they were some sort of trophy. No, I don’t want some of their ashes, and thanks for acting like anyone who had them all were getting some sort of prize.

Thanks, you macabre witch. Did you even love them?

I don’t want ashes.

I want my kids, back here, alive and well. I want to take their place.

But I can’t. Only bad movies work like that. Life ain’t a movie.

Then there’s the supernatural junk. Plagued by bad luck, a life full of dysfunction and sin, it began so long ago when I was three-and-four-years-old. Something was in my bedroom, something that loved scaring me. It fed on fear, and only demons do that. Oh, there were others. Strung throughout my life. Then, once I knew what they were, I also knew they had been the drivers of many nightmares. They were doing that for years.

I could differentiate between PTSD nightmares and demonic ones: the latter were always more real to me, more vile and full of torture and true terror. Then came the woman. HER.

By the grace of God, I have not seen her in dreams since the last time I recorded one here. I believe that someone prayed for God to intercede; it’s an intuition I get, and I did ask others for prayers, because I’m not very good at praying for myself. It seems selfish to me.

That’s thanks to self-hate over all the guilt I carry. I’ve asked The Lord to forgive me, but low self esteem continues to be a real part of my condition.

But I’m also humble. I believe that if I overthink too much, I’ll get careless with my faith. I’ll be corrupted. My simple faith might change to my thinking I actually know something, when I know nothing.

Recently, a very dear friend, a pastor named Jerry, asked if I would be willing to visit homeless people with him, to tell them my story. To give people hope.

That is a call, loud and clear, from God. There is no misinterpretation possible; Jerry is the real deal: rock-steady in his faith, unwilling to engage in high profile stunts like Joel Osteen, or that devil, Kenneth Copeland. That guy needs to repent. He’s driven a lot of people away from God because of his obvious brainwashing, the mark of a cult leader, and his greed for money.

Jerry doesn’t know that, while I’m in his presence, I know that we are not alone. The Spirit walks with him, and our conversations have been a source of comfort and happiness for me. It’s not my imagination, either: not many people, not that I have met, have ever impressed me with the sheer joy that a conversation can bring because the Spirit is with him. He’s a good man who I’d be honored to call my friend no matter what, pastor or not.

The problem for me is, I’m scared. I know I can’t refuse the call; it involves me doing penance, and I get that. I haven’t told Jerry that part yet.

But, I started this blog because I wanted others to see, in raw descriptions and language, that they can survive anything, but more than that; that they can live.

That they can live.

So many victims go through life, and many do better than I have done, with a weight on them which, no matter what, takes a horrible toll on the mind, body and soul. No one escapes it. No one.

If I’m growing ever more tired, and I am, and if I did start this blog to unflinchingly tell of my past, then that, plus my condition, makes it imperative that I answer the call. That, scared or not, there are people out there I may be able to help. Lord knows, this blog doesn’t reach a lot of people. Some subscribers don’t even read anymore. I understand that easily enough, that’s how it works. I write for free. I have no donors, no patreon, and ads that appear here I take no money from. Because too many people charge for what should be free, especially in the name of helping people, or trying to. Because, isn’t helping each other our responsibility?

I think, how I really feel, is contained in this song.

May God bless. Be well, folks.

The Crime of the Ancient Asshole

Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, doomed to tell of his thoughtless crime until he died, so here am I; skipping a year only made everything worse.

And, like the wedding guest in his epic poem “The Rhime of the Ancient Mariner” (It is an ancient Mariner, and he stoppeth one of three), I now stop you, dear reader, and grasp you by your arm. You are trapped, bound by fate to read my true story of Christmas, tragedy and loss, and of warnings concerning things not yet come, but which surely will. Sit back, and give me your attention.

It was Christmas Eve, 1994. I was recently separated from my wife, forced out of home, away from my children, Beth, age eleven, and Michael Jr., age seven. It was hard on them as well as myself; we were so close. I packed their lunches, took them to school, picked them up, made snacks and ran and played outside, I helped with homework, and read stories at bed time. You can’t be closer than that. And when you get pulled apart, there’s no pain like it. At least that’s what I thought.

How wrong I was would become clear.

That year, that first year, I did not want to see them for Christmas. I had no money for gifts, not anything at all to even resemble a gift. And so, after years of lighting up Christmas morning with toys, this year I wasn’t going to feel much like a daddy, and certainly not a man. It was cold that night and for some reason, darker than any night I had ever seen in desert or mountains. It could have been my perception, probably was, but my heart was equally dark. Black, lacking any of the sentiment or cheer I had felt when I was with them. I was not going to visit them.

I had an infection in my left eye. I would awake every morning, a Krispy Kreme glaze of white over my eye and eyelid, I’d steam it away, and have to repeat cleaning it several times in a day. I planned to go to the hospital, so after work at Papa John’s, I killed time so that I would get there very late and there wouldn’t be too many people in the Emergency Department waiting room.

Having Christmas tips, (enough that I indulged in a Wendy’s Triple for dinner), a friend told me about how my plan for avoiding my kids on Christmas sucked. He was young when his parents divorced, and he would visit his dad every Christmas. He said, “I didn’t care what he gave me, or if we sat and just watched TV. I just wanted to be with my dad”. That was the first lesson I would get that night.

I arrived at John’s Hopkins Bayview Hospital at eleven or a bit after. The waiting room was stuffed with sick people and, worse, many were children. I felt guilty as I signed in. Told that it would take time to be seen, I went outside to smoke. It was dark there in the parking lot, and this time not merely by my soulless perception. I lit a Winston and a soft but pathetic voice behind me made me jump: “Got a light?”

I could only barely see him, there in the dark. He lit the Bic I handed him, and in its glow, I saw something I have never forgotten: a black man, black as coal, the face being lined and aged as that of one who has been to Hell and only halfway come back. Part of him was still there. I was filled with pity. My fear of him was gone. Here was a man I wanted immediately to hug. I often wish that I had.

“I’m here trying to get committed,” he said, and the sadness poured from every word. Like the Mariner’s wedding guest, I would hear his story; I was helpless to do otherwise.

“I’ve been — I lost my family. I lost everything.  I had a wife, two kids, great job, house, two cars, even a boat. One day…”

One day his wife and children were killed in a car accident. Three lives were ended so suddenly that no human on this planet could ever tell him again that God is real, that it was fate, or that any reason under the sun had a part or explanation in or for such a horror.

“I went into the bottle after that,” he said, “and I never came out. I lost my job. Then my boat. Then my car. When the sheriff came to get me out of the house, I swung on him.”

He had lived on the cruel and merciless streets of Baltimore ever since. And aged grievously. Here was a man so beaten down by tragedy that he was not living, but merely surviving. He was so tragic to me that I felt tears in my eyes. A security guard came out and yelled at him to get inside. He was supposed to be on suicide guard, and the guard had let him slip away. And was castigating him for it. Before he turned to leave me, he said the saddest thing of all: “I just want my kids back.”

Well. I never saw him again. Next morning, I called my ex. I said I had nothing to give the kids. I didn’t feel right visiting. She put my daughter on the line. Beth was far wiser and kinder than anyone I’ve ever met. She said, “It’s okay, daddy. Your gift can be that you love us.”

She melted my heart. Standing at a public payphone, I silently wept. And I remembered the two lessons given me the night before.

And so I crossed the Francis Scott Key Bridge, went to visit, and we did lots of hugs and talking and I never again looked back, except Christmas time, when I honored my teachers: a friend who taught me that no gift is equal to a father’s love for his children, nor is their love for him, and one very broken man who pulled his heart out and let me see the ghosts of Christmas Future.

I skipped this story last year, but this year I realized that I never told it for myself.

Because it does no good to me. I learned the lessons and I acted on them.

But that’s not the point of the story. Like the Ancient Mariner, I am bound by honor and fate to retell this shamefully selfish plan I had in 1994. The man whose face was blacker than a New Mexico night taught me about boundless love, unbearable loss, and how he just wished he could have another chance, how he wished his children could have another chance. I could not feel his grief, but he did make me feel guilt.

The story I tell is now identical to his. Although many Christmases and birthdays would pass after 1994, and we made great memories and and went on epic adventures, the times came for me to lose them both. And that is why I’m writing this.

I want you to think about this: you never know how much time you have with any loved one, be they family or friend, and now, especially now in these busy, frightening times, you should always put them first and spend every second you can with them. Because tomorrow, they may not be here anymore, nor ever again to pass our way. You will be heartbroken. Feel guilty. You will cry endlessly. And the holidays. Oh, the holidays! They bring a special pain, one you cannot escape. No amount of alcohol and no drug can deaden it. Can’t even moderate it. Substances merely make everything worse.

You may find yourself even hating this time of year, full of bitterness and unable to see any good in the world.

Beth died in 2012, Michael Junior in 2018. The last time I saw him was Christmas Day 2017. I spent years never being able to control my anger, my grief, my bitterness. When my son died, we had mourned Beth together. When he died, I was dropped into bewildered despair. I went crazy and I went to Hell. I started this blog afterward and tried to give an accounting of myself because I hated myself and I secretly wanted everyone else to hate me, too. I wrote terrible things. What I wrote was always true and as faithful to memory as I trusted them to be.

Now, after trying to reconcile with other family members, and in so doing help them to see that the hurtful things I said after Junior’s death were uttered or written by a man no longer sane, I’ve regained what little bit of honor I had before my children died. An apology when forced is difficult to utter; but one truly meant chokes up the throat and releases tears of guilt you never should have retained at all.

Yes, mental illness does play a part in this tragedy, but so do other things.

Things like remorse, pain, loneliness and emptiness. Regret. Guilt. Ever looking backwards, living the past again and again and again, a prisoner in my own mind.

But it does not do to trap yourself so, holding yourself hostage for terrible things for terrible reasons. You cannot live; you’re merely surviving.

It is far better to live as best you can, and, like I, finally climb a peak where the air is fresh, vision ahead is clear, and to my back there is only the best of what I left behind. The climb stripped me of regret, remorse and guilt. I am not on the highest mountain, but neither am I still in Hell.

I prefer to remember a time when I was younger, and I ran with my children under gray skies and blue, laughing every step of the way. We were so free.

Now, I have faith that they live in Heaven.

Still…this time of year…I do miss them.

And so, my story. And my fated mission. I hold it to be an honorable one: I never told it for me.

Dear friend, I tell it for you.

Every day, tell those you love how you feel. Hug and kiss them when they’re with you. Resist argument and bring the subject up: what if you didn’t have each other? There’s no time for fighting. No tomorrow. Nothing to take for granted. Remember that.

I release you, friend. Go in peace share this post, tell others how loss truly feels. Especially with things left unsaid. Life is like that. It knows how to be cruel.

May the season bring you joy, and a bit of peace. God bless; be well.

Life

I’ll tell you, that hit when I fell, it’s got me screwed up. It hurts and hurts and hurts. There’s no sense seeing a doctor because there was no sign of trauma like fluid or blood in the ears, blacking out later, impairment, swelling, vision changes that were dramatic, a goose egg, nothing.

My nightmares increased. Every one of them involved dead people. As in, I was talking and interacting with them. In one, William Shatner was confined to a wheelchair and I was helping his nurse buckle him in so he could go to the ramp and board a flight….to the final destination.

It’s okay, he missed the flight, but these dreams involve my deceased parents too.

I had already decided to put regrets and stupid relationships that really weren’t relationships behind me. I have no room for regrets.

There is no time left for them. So when I finally caught on that emails to and from a general manager and my fiction blog for Halloween were really a source of discomfort for them, I blocked the site, the email address and was done.

Ordinarily I’d feel like a fool. Not this time. If I’m making someone uncomfortable or if I disturb them, I expected them to tell me. But I learned. I learned that I don’t know anything at all, that others do not behave as I have expected in the past, and there is no way to know what they’re thinking. I can understand someone disliking me. Most people I’ve met or come across in my 60+ years did not like me. I get it.

So tell me. But, they rarely do. Some just pretend to either like or respect you, an act I find more hateful and disrespectful than telling me to “fuck off”.

You don’t like someone? Don’t communicate. Okay? If they persist, try for once to be honest and genuine. I’ll respect that, and what’s more is, I’ll appreciate it. My respect for you will never fade. Honesty is the honorable and right way to handle things.

I consider what the people who acted the part most recently to be dishonorable, disrespectful and rather cruel.

As a Christian, I forgive. Anything. Everything. I may hate an act or a statement but never the people who do those things. I’ve come to far for hate and regret to drag me backwards.

At the same time, I have no choice but to give others trust. Knowing full well how it may turn out can’t stop that. Trust will often get you hurt. But without it one lives a dark and lonely life, full of anger, fear and with no room for God to help.

This is a choice people make — that I have made. I believe it leads to Hades. We were created to evolve, to learn, grow, do new things, but never alone.

I will always trust, love, get hurt, and do it again. That’s life.

And yet, as I sit here in pain, I still must claim to know nothing. Oh, I have questions, of course I do. But no answers. There is nothing to do but keep going, and to take each day — each minute — one at a time, and know that, somehow, I am blessed.

That I am blessed.

If you have read this far, you are part of that blessing, and I thank you.

Be well.

New York City Confidential: The Visit

Warning: The following contains graphic and disturbing material and it contains triggers. This is intended for mature readers only and must be read with caution.

Present Day

In a hospital somewhere in the Big Apple lies a young man near the end of his life.

It is just another day in the city that never sleeps: the patient will, without a miracle, die. And it will not matter, nor even be known, to any but the handful of doctors and nurses treating and tending to him.

And one earthly angel who knows how beautiful he truly is.

Because they adore him, these nurses. He is mostly silent, but despite his condition, despite his loneliness, his sadness, he is polite and warm.

And on any given hospital floor or ward, patients like him always seem to affect one nurse, perhaps more. In this case, more. He received no visitors.

There came no calls inquiring as to his condition or prognosis. No one cared. Nurses tend to feel at least some sorrow or anger over such things. For some, their necessity of a disconnect fails. No one should be left alone to face death.

And it did look bad; his kidneys had failed. His recovery from a coma was a great development, but the young man was in critical condition. He still is. He had HIV or AIDS before, but treatment had made the virus undetectable in his lab work. Then he contracted COVID-19 and the virus returned. Now, but for the Grace of God, he would already be dead.

But who knows? Perhaps God keeps the dying alive for a reason, because there remains a chance that they can find peace before death. And, just maybe, He plans on a miracle because He loves us all, equally, and does not want us to perish in the Pit.

I cannot say, but without speaking for God, I nevertheless have faith in His unfailing love and forgiveness.

If ever a young man needed a miracle, it’s surely this young man.

His story begins in Texas, where far too many horrible stories seem to start.

His father was the pastor of a church, and his mother was a nurse. Neither should have been so employed, for the father was far more evil than good, and the mother was his carbon copy.

His father the preacher man sodomized him while his mother held him down.

She held him down.

And there is more. When he came out as gay, his father called him a “faggot” and beat him. Whether he was kicked out or ran away is unclear but it does not matter.

Eventually the young man wound up in New York. In his ears it must have reverberated, his father, who routinely sodomized him, calling him a “faggot”. The damage was no doubt extensive. There is no reason given for his attraction to New York, but many gay men move there, most seeking acceptance and some type of human compassion.

But for him, if ever he found it, nothing good could last. Haunted by his past, he could not find lasting friendship nor any other relationship. At one point he wound up in a mental health facility. It is easy to see why. What is more difficult to see is that some part of him, despite loneliness and severe depression, wanted help, wanted to survive.

While he was there, a young woman was also a patient. She had clearly been through a hell of her own, and she was still in it. He decided to not only befriend her but to watch over her as well. And this he did, because his own broken heart hurt even more to see someone trying to fight back from a break, from loss, from addiction, from too much time spent hounded by demons.

The two bonded, improving over time, each very much a part of the other’s recovery. Then, she went home, and although they exchanged phone numbers, and did talk from time to time, the miracle girl he had watched over began getting very serious about finishing her recovery.

The system of replacement therapy is rigged, as I’ve said before. Rigged to keep you dependent on methadone so the clinic keeps getting funded. She emerged from a life-threatening breakdown to realize that the only way to regain her life and her soul was to fight the battle of a lifetime. And she argued with the clinic about stepping down her doses. They would alternatively encourage and discourage her and, with most, that strategy of manipulation works.

But the young woman was never going to be tricked again by the system that would not let her go.

Consulting a doctor not affiliated with the clinic, she did receive support, but also caution. Yet, in all his years of practice, he had never seen anyone so determined who might actually be able to do what she claimed she could, and would do.

Just like she said, exactly as she had said, she stepped down her doses rapidly. The clinic fought her but she was not having it. Finally she had had enough, and got her intake of methadone so low that despite her doctor’s concern, she ceased taking it. Silencing every critic and every rule of the system, what she did would not seem astounding to you or to me, but for her it was the drug equivalent of jumping from a second story window, landing as gracefully as a gymnast, and getting the winning score. And her doctor was astonished. What she had done, in the time in which she did it, with no lasting effects, was something he had never seen before. He was proud, but not of anything he had done; it was all her, she who possessed the fighting spirit of a tigress.

And that analogy is not off: a tigress is among the fiercest fighters in the animal kingdom, an apex predator with almost no fear of humans. The young woman had put up a fight, the like of which few have ever survived.

That fight was not short nor did it come without pain.

She continues to fight. Every day. But the entire time she was suffering, prayers came from all directions including her priest, who lit the tapirs and said the rosary in her behalf.

Her past was known to the priest. A violent multiple rape while a young teen. Comfort sought in hard drugs. Dysfunctional relationships that only lowered her closer to the abyss. Until death and shock and trauma piled upon trauma broke her and she met the lonely young man in the hospital.

She had lost her way. Lost everything she was, everything she thought she knew. The lonely man was there to help her get that back. These things are never chance meetings. God knows when two lost people need each other. He leads them to the quiet waters but never forces them to drink. That’s always up to them.

I always found in my worst stays in hospital that there was one person I could be comfortable around. It’s funny, that. And it always helps.

But as time went on, the young woman began grabbing her life back. An awesome man came into her life and a romance began. She made fast friends with his family and his friends. She had begun to live after decades of being a prisoner.

Then came a day when she found an unknown number on her phone. A number she did not recognize. Usually she would let such a thing go, but not this one. She felt strongly about it and knew she had to return the call.

It was the lonely man she had been watched over by in the hospital and he’d come out of a three-week coma and was very weak. It was difficult to speak because of the tube he had been sustained by, but she knew: he needed to see her and she needed to go to him.

Her boyfriend made a stop along the way, took her to the hospital, but because of covid protocols had to remain in the car.

Upstairs, the lonely man lay, withered, 60 pounds lighter, weak, fearing death. His friend walked up to the nurse’s station and one nurse smiled and said, “I’m so happy to see you. He’s had no one come in or even call and he’s so sweet.”

She went into the room, greeted him, and had to lean close to hear him. Clad in protective gloves, mask and gown, she listened.

He said he was happy that she was here. She gave him the stuffed unicorn she had bought on the way over. He loved it. Bending low she heard him say, “I’m scared of dying. I’m scared I’ll go to hell.”

She assured him that it wasn’t true. He would not go to hell. God knew the kindness of his heart, and would never allow such a kind soul to descend to the pit.

She asked him if he would like to talk to the priest they had both met before. He said yes, he would, and he seemed comforted by the suggestion. She said she would get the priest to come and see him.

After a few more moments that I will leave private, he thanked her for remembering him, for answering his call, and said, “I think I can sleep now.”

Before leaving home, someone had asked her why she had to go see this guy. “Because,” she said, “he’s my friend. He looked after me and protected me, and now he needs me.” It wasn’t about owing him or feeling obligated; it was love that drove this extraordinary woman to go. And nothing on this earth is more powerful than love.

This truly heartbreaking story is also a reminder to us all that no act of kindness, no show of friendship and loyalty ever goes unnoticed by God or under-appreciated by those we give the kindness to. We were given a command: love each other. When we fail, things happen that hurt. When we do it, the world is better for it. You and I may not feel it, but I know it’s the truth.

Have a great week, and God bless.

New York City: Too Much Is Sometimes Asking For Punishment. This Man Begged For It.

He still doesn’t know what he did wrong.

Because rich people never do.

I am often personally offended by the audacity of the rich.

The balls it must take to flaunt the trappings of wealth to the whole world.

First of all, it really pisses off those who have to watch how much the people around them suffer from need and want. Not of material wants. No, just a meal and a pillow to lay their heads down on. Even a bowl of gruel is a feast. That’s just wrong.

And we all know that there are things that can’t be counted. The poor around the world is a population that never gets numbered at all. Mainly because they are invisible to people because they are homeless. How do they get heard or seen? Can you count them by the bodies bearing the stench of death gathered by the hapless who draw such duty?

No.

Can you go through an alley, the stink of waste necessitating HAZMAT suits, doing a headcount?

Of course not.

How about by the number of people evicted from housing or put to the streets by foreclosures?

Hell no.

Then how? How to count those squatting in shells of condemned buildings? You’ll never find them. Police can’t go there. A fire built for warmth in winter on a frigid night in the row homes with no cars ever parked there, a city block driven past by day but never at night, spreads. Out of control, it could build for far too long before anyone in the distance sees flames from the roof and calls in to 911.

Only when the adjacent occupied buildings on the next street out back are threatened does anyone care. They’re evacuated in the cold night and stand, bitterly smelling of smoke, enraged that an abandoned building has disturbed their sleep. Until that moment they had forgotten about the place. And what about the squatters? If found dead, it’s a crime statistic. People shouldn’t squat; it’s illegal. If found alive, the people want blood. The squatters are charged with trespassing and arson.

Just another statistic for the crime blotter. The Red Cross helped the displaced. They’ll either be okay, or, in short order, join the ranks of invisible men and women and children who huddle under blankets and piss all over the sidewalk. They stink of zombies, making passersby in the day gag or heave.

Then they are never counted again. They are not people. Not human. The only way they are identified is by default, an unfair one. Drug users who have refused housing or been kicked out for violating the conditions of the program that placed them are everywhere. One street in the Bronx grows to three; in Brooklyn and Queens it slowly rises in a literal Fibonacci sequence. In Winter the police round up these wretched and take them to shelters in a van. Some hide. In the morning if the night stayed below freezing long enough, they’re just dead bodies. That’s it.

By summer they get methadone in the morning, then with panhandled or stolen cash, follow the replacement drug with heroin, pills and anything else they can. Used needles litter the streets and gutters. They’re everything you want to avoid from their stench to the savages they morph into when coming down from fentanyl-infused pills and smack. And the glass pipers are the worst of the lot.

In New York City, you get to know where you can walk, and that your route to the train, market or McDonald’s might change tomorrow.

Most of those are dual-diagnosis patients, once evaluated as having a mental illness and drug or alcohol addiction. The law prohibits keeping them hospitalized beyond 72 hours. Then they’re back and once again the scary things that give others nightmares.

It is hardly fair. But then, neither is it fair for evicted people who don’t have substance abuse problems to be avoided by association. They need help. They beg for it. But most often there isn’t any. Housing for poverty-level families and individuals is short. By lottery they are called to interview and biased people judge who is and who is not “desirable” or “qualified”.

It’s all chaos. Cruelty. Those two mix, and people suffer.

And then they die.

In all this, the concrete and asphalt canyons, is it any wonder then, that the man who still doesn’t know what he did wrong, and worse, tells himself that he did no wrong at all, became a victim?

It hardly baffles me, because such a man is arrogant, and in his arrogance, reaped a bit of what he sowed.

Or did he? That is a valid question right now.

During a livestream sermon, Brooklyn preacher “Bishop” Lamor Miller-Whitehead (he’s not really a bishop. He took the title!) was interrupted by two gunmen and robbed along with his wife of jewelry. The take: one million in fine jewelry and gems including rubies, emeralds and diamonds. The thieves were spotted in a white Mercedes.

Say what?

A Mercedes…

That just seems off to me. However:

The so-called pastor with the qualifications of a tech school certification is crying out for vengeance. He calls it justice but I know that if this is really a legitimate heist, he wants more than arrests. He is thirsty for revenge. His offer of 50 grand for information on the thieves seems odd to me. The man must be tripping in money.

How does that happen?

Because when it comes to religion, the gullible sheep, hungry for hope and for Godly help have been conditioned to give money to get something in return. Lies about riches from God pouring down on them are old lies perpetuated by the likes of Joel Osteen and other rich preachers who care nothing about us but very much about our money. They don’t speak for God, they speak only for themselves.

Is that the case for Whitehead?

Yes. Obviously so.

For appearances he’s brought in a therapist for those present. In light of his lifestyle, he just doesn’t want to lose paying parishioners. I doubt very much that he gives a damn about them.

Known for having custom clothes, each suit likely costing two or three mortgage payments, the man flaunts his wealth and possessions in direct opposition to Christian doctrine. Christ said “A man cannot serve two masters, God and money.”

He followed up with “I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” That’s one very dark warning. The eye of a needle he spoke of had nothing to do with sewing. It refers to a gate, usually arched but extremely narrow and with such low clearance that a tall beast of burden could not pass. In other words, Rich men will rarely go to heaven. In his travels, Christ warned, “Woe to the rich, for they already have their reward.” They would go no further. Death was the end of the line for them.

Leading by example, Yeshua ish Nazareth lived on what he and his Apostles could scrounge or the food offered them. Yet he never failed to serve others first. He washed the feet of his own followers, went hungry, and Judas ish Kerioth was the purse keeper who up until his betrayal was otherwise a seemingly well-intentioned man. Even then, Christ insisted on giving to the poor.

Such humility and kindness is never to be seen these days. Charitable people make a big deal out of it. There are exceptions like Spike Lee and Taylor Swift who do great things you’ll never read about. The best of us can’t boast. Silent are the ones who give from the heart with love and compassion. Rich clergy are not among them.

I’m going to pray for Mr. Whitehead. Not for him to gain revenge or to recover what was stolen. No, I cannot be put upon to do something so petty in prayer. Instead I will pray for him to see the error of his materialism and the sin of misguiding the children of God, stealing from them all the while. For the present, he has no idea what he did wrong.

The question, in the end, is, did this ersatz bishop get so arrogant about his wealth, did he flaunt it so much, that even during services he was bound to be a target?

Or was it a setup for insurance money? If so, it almost had to be public. Perhaps that explains the getaway in a Mercedes and why the video has vanished.

As he put it, “this is about me purchasing what I want to purchase.”

It’s not.

Leading a church is not about that. It’s about giving people hope through the example and sacrifice of Christ. It’s about helping them, not fleecing them of their money. And it certainly isn’t about a leader adorned in rings, pendants and custom suits.

But then again, you can only reap what you sow. A lesson to be learned and held close to your heart.

May you be well and at peace until we meet again. God bless.

Sources: CNN, New York Post

Endangered America

On October 31,1880, in Denver, rioting broke out and Chinese people were attacked, one killed, although I believe more died but were hidden in the reports. White “superiority” had always been around, but this event was something that needed an apology for.

More irresponsible decisions over mask mandates have come from major air carriers like Delta. It’s also a drop in mandates for Uber drivers and passengers. A federal judge struck the mandates down in a show of classic superiority from a bench. It also reflects political corruption. Judges are expected to be informed but fair and impartial. This one is neither informed nor impartial. Someone got to him. We’re talking bribery. No, don’t act surprised or as if my accusation is farfetched.

Florida’s problem with CRT is getting way out of hand.

We’ve never been more aware of the problem with Republicans and racism. Now it’s way out there. Approximately 41 math textbooks reviewed in the Sunshine State have been rejected because they use references to CRT. I think the hypocrisy here tells us all we need to know about Republicans. They scream about “cancel culture” when CSA monuments are removed, but banning books and the word “gay” are more damaging than a statue of Robert E. Lee being relocated to a museum. Florida has become a place where bigots, homophobics and women-haters can take refuge with their own kind.

I hope this summer, you will remember this, and boycott the entire state by traveling elsewhere. A country with so much to explore can certainly provide you with plentiful fun, from breathtaking scenery to amusement parks and hiking, camping and fishing or bike riding. Florida doesn’t deserve your hard-earned dollars. Carolina beaches are every bit as nice, and some nicer, than any in Florida. From the Florida state line to Massachusetts, there are awesome beaches.

Fentanyl overdose that killed Mac Miller in 2018 was sold by a dealer who just got sentenced to ten years. It isn’t enough. Ryan Reavis dealt counterfeit oxycodone that contained fentanyl. It killed the rapper. His attorney says he’s sorry (that he gets to see his family and Miller does not). That statement doesn’t work when a man is dead.

Miller died the same year as my son died, from the same drug. The rich and the powerful have caused people in pain to search for opiods on the streets — an inexcusable result of wrongful death and malpractice cases directed wrongly at honest physicians (and also at) pharma corporations. Recreational use and responsible use by individuals with chronic, debilitating pain are two different things, and overdoses, especially fatal ones, from drugs like oxycodone were either never tracked or were incorrectly classified. In fact, I can’t find specific numbers for any group except teens, and fentanyl overdose fatalities weren’t even tracked until recently. The rise of fentanyl as an additive to counterfeit drugs does coincide with the loss of accessibility of pain medication to patients who really needed it.

In other words, the restriction of pain treatment drugs caused desperate people to look for relief elsewhere, with high mortality rates being the result. And tracking those deaths is impossible because it was not done or it targeted teens only. I’ve read no source and seen no data I consider accurate in the least. The NIH reports are centered on teens. The CDC is preoccupied with COVID-19 and if they have been tracking fentanyl overdose deaths, I found little evidence of serious research.

People I know are currently suffering unbearable pain, myself included, and are being denied relief. They are labeled “addicts” and if one should have a mental illness listed in their file, the answer will always be, ” no, it’s all in your head.” The compounded stigmatization is humiliating and shameful and can cause people to end their own lives. Better that than lying about, useless, embarrassed and groaning in pain.

Meanwhile, deaths from China White climb. No one wants you to know this. If you know, you can take that information and throw it in the faces of the men who control prescription drugs.

We are a nation (United States) of barbarians and corrupt leaders. Republican politicians get all the pain medication they need. All the kiddie porn their jaded souls can take. Even street drugs are no problem: give them all drug screens and watch them howl in protest. They’ll refuse. But let an everyman or everywoman have a verified medical condition. One that keeps them in pain so intense that they go to street dealers. They’ll all die, of course. No one sheds one tear. Better to have them off the Medicare rolls than give them legitimate treatment, right?

Because that’s what it comes down to. Making millions suffer because they’re afraid of lawsuits. Looking up the arses of doctors and preventing them from actually being doctors.

And whether you like it or not, corrupt judges exist and corrupt politicians are part of our reality. Our focus should be on those who clearly don’t care about the people who voted for them, or anyone else. Republican politicians routinely challenge or violate the Constitution. And where do you think it will end?

I’ll give you a hint: you won’t like it. Please consider this when voting. Heartless Republicans — or Those who have fought them. Fascism or liberty? Humanity or barbarity?

You have to choose.

HER Again! I Tried To Kill Her, But She Just Laughed.

Hold up. Let me explain. I’ve written about “her” before. I don’t like the post because it took too long for me to get to the point and then I barely touched it. But the “her” I refer to is not a real person. She comes to me in nightmares so disgusting, terrifying and drawn-out that I never forget a single one. Friday or Saturday night was the worst.

I’ve been sleeping at night for about two weeks now. That’s very unusual. But it’s been okay. Then I was awake for over 40 hours because the pain in my spine was too intense. I couldn’t walk, stand, sit or lie down for long because it hurt, and I always had to move, shift or whatever.

When the time came to go to sleep, when exhaustion took me down, I slept nearly around the clock. I got out of bed after 16:00 and was only awake until 02:00. That’s all it takes. A period of long sleep, restful and restorative, followed by sleeping again within 12 hours. That’s when She comes.

But–

She is not merely a dream figure. Not a real person, either. I’ve long since concluded that demons, or, if you will, evil spirits, can get into our dreams where they are much more free to torment us. In dreams we are defenseless. We do not use our senses of sight and sound. Our brains remain active, but our bodies are shut down. So if God can give people messages through dreams, then certainly, so can the Evil One. But his message is madness, relentless torture and terror.

The demon in my worst nightmares is always a woman and she is always different in appearance. Last night, like most, she was a petite brunette who tapped into my need for female companionship and my loneliness. It began, as always, with her in charge, but this time kissing me passionately. I was immediately revolted and pulled away. I knew that it was Her.

I’ve never seen the house I was in before, and I believe it to have been She who put me in it. Sometomes our minds cooperate by partially rebuilding places we’ve been or seen. She did the rest. I guess, after she left, it filled in more, but was never complete.

She arrived at the door and knocked but I would not let her in. She got in anyway. Sweet, acting innocent and more desperate romantically than ever, she tried to touch me. I backed away, got a sword and ran her through. Twice. She vanished, only to show up at the door again. This time I let her in so I could use the sword again. She laughed at me, “you can’t kill me.”

When She was gone, I found myself living with my father, the most evil man I’ve ever known, even to this day. He gave me a handgun. It was a small caliber revolver that held five rounds. I shot her with it without any effect except for her leaving again. My older brother took me to his garage workshop and quickly assembled a .357 magnum. The same kind my father held to my head in real life. Back then I wish I’d demanded that he shoot me.

The magnum did not work either. I shot her six times in the center of mass and she laughed at me. Somehow she came back with help. Another woman, posing as her mother. Two demons in one dream. People, I’ve long suspected, die during such harrowing nightmares: we often hear of fatal strokes and heart attacks in sleep and say, “At least he or she died in peace.” How arrogant are we, making such a conclusion like that? Because, of course, we cannot know. What if they were tormented in a nightmare so terrifying that a cardiac event was triggered?

Demons are not amusing. They’re nothing to underestimate. They hate us, they’re jealous of us and they have one mission: bring us down, hurt us, get us to renounce God, blame him for our pain. Our losses. Our loneliness. To turn us away from the light.

In movies and books and paranormal TV shows, they’re portrayed in an over-the-top fashion. In the real world they come in where we’re vulnerable, like cat burglars, quiet, unassuming at times. They know how to do it. They know what we like, what we don’t like. If working one side doesn’t get them in, they just change their approach. If they can’t get you to give in to your vices, or to dark emotions such as hate, lust, anger and sadness, then they will try something more direct. And resistance only gains more testing. They use every trick in the book. To them, there are no boundaries and faith itself is their lone enemy, their sole target. They will attack it relentlessly.

I believe that is why She keeps at me. She appears as a beautiful woman, with lust and false love. Of all the women I have loved, most never knew, even if they suspected. My condition, unknown to me in its true nature, kept me insecure and unfit for romantic relationships. I was certainly afraid of rejection and, sometimes, even had to consider just how much I really loved them. If I found that I did actually love a woman, I was objective; I was not the right man for her. I respected her.

Out of loneliness and guilt and bitterness at not being loved and feeling “dirty” because I had been/was being raped by my own parents, I guess She was born. Sorrow, anger, hate directed at myself were things I believe Satan knew about very well. And if anything, he’s good at using such things as weapons.

I do not remember how the dream ended. That part was lost as I was coming awake. But I know it ended in stalemate as usual. And She has returned.

Last night She appeared as an ex-girlfriend. The “mother” from the last dream was with her. They were making me relive the dark days which ended my second attempt at fleeing my father.

They kicked me out on the street. Then wherever I was living vanished. I was looking for things I owned to put in my car. They mocked me in disgusting ways. Then my car disappeared along with both of them; her mother had it towed away. I was somehow told where to look for my car and it was not a safe or easy trip. Drawn out, full of choices on this street or that. Once again into a labyrinth.

The dream ended with me paying men in a shop a few dollars to get the car back. They were Muslim men who felt pity for me. They offered food and drink, tried to calm me down. Never got the car back but the significance of those kind men were ultimately the end of the dream. The car did not matter; the kindness and respect shown by the men did. God knows us all as His children. No one is loved more than another, and all people of real faith serve Him. They kept me busy, looking on this lot and that, looking for my car. They were protecting me. She was not going to get past them. Perhaps they were angels.

She will return. I’m on a drug that’s known to help PTSD nightmares. She is immune to it. But my faith is stronger every time I am granted the miracle of waking up and living another day. I went back to Twitter to get quick news updates, especially about the criminal invasion of Ukraine. How I pray for those poor, yet courageous men and women, protecting civilians and dying in the attempt. They have exceeded all the world’s best hopes. The evil they have faced with honor is unspeakable evil.

On Twitter, a site I once called toxic, I had my faith in people restored. I’ve never felt that I mattered, not to strangers. Now I do. You know my fight for them. You know my desire to help is an honest one. I won’t post a link here; it’s on a previous blog already. It’s easy to find in my archives. But for now, this post is about renewed faith. There are wonderful people in this world. Amazing people who want to help save us from extinction and offer up great strategies. There are compassionate people who you’d never think would offer help. There’s love. There is still decency and true faith. And I’m grateful to be able to see that.

Evil will be with us to the death. How you think of this post is up to you; it’s here to offer you something to think about. What I know is that racial and religious bigotry keeps half the world out of our lives. I’ve worked with Muslims and I’ll never forget them. They were so good to me. On Twitter, I left comments on Joel Osteen and Franklin Graham’ posts: “Go and sell all that you have, give the money to the poor, then take up your cross and follow Christ. Then, I will listen to you. The eye of a needle, sir.”

I was not being harsh. There’s no hatred or enmity. But our jobs as Christians is to keep loving and supporting one another as Yeshua did. He left us an example to live by. Tall orders, but ones that must be adhered to. Will we sin anyway?

Yes. But if our hearts feel true repentance, we escape the furnace. We escape our personal demons.

That is what Easter is all about, is it not?

If you have strange dreams, recurrent ones in which you are tormented by an enemy who comes to you like a lover, only to leave you in a shambles, you’re not alone. Just leave a like or a comment. I’ll pray for the demon to let you go. We have each other, and Yaweh has our backs, always.

Please enjoy the rest of your holidays. And may God bless!

This post is dedicated to Abba, the Holy Father, to His Son, with gratitude and humble praise.

It is dedicated to the suffering, the poor, the haunted.

It is dedicated to all the women I’ve loved in my life, especially those who never knew, and didn’t know how much it hurt me to love them from a distance.

It is for Margaret, Jane and Kevin, and my friends, wherever they may be. Last but not least, for Jerry, his wife and his family, without whom, this post would have been impossible to end with hope. He allowed the Spirit to work through him to open my eyes. I couldn’t be more grateful for his help. And to Jack Flacco: thanks for all that you do.

Amen.

Goodbye my loves. I’ve always wanted the best for you.

Simply the best. Goodnight everyone. God bless.

A Child Of The Night

*This post contains references to suicide. It’s a thing so final and dark that reading this could cause readers distress. If you or someone you know are thinking about suicide, please call the Suicide Prevention Hotline. Click here for a phone number or online chat.

What is it, Catullus? Why do you not make haste to die?

A famous line, from a famous poet, it seems pathetically straightforward, but it is not. He was a contemporary of Julius Caesar, and was not bashful about including sexual imagery in his poetry. He also took humorous shots at Caesar. Coming from a family of some wealth and prominence, Gāius Valerius Catullus smeared the esteem of Caesar in the public mind. However, the two apparently reconciled. So, who is it then, the man in the curule chair, who tests Catullus so? Who is this ruler who sits in an official’s (curule) chair and makes Catullus question why he is slow to commit suicide?

***

I went out yesterday to get, I hoped, a loaf of bread, some cream for coffee and a 2 litre bottle of zero sugar cola. To my shock, and since the items were generic, I had enough money.

The sun had set. I don’t like being out or even awake during the day. The light hurts my eyes, stabs them like kabob skewers. Everything hurts, but cataracts cause the refraction of light to screw up my vision. I constantly see as if through a dirty window, only pain is involved.

I wish I could say that the walk did me some good. As if it lifted my spirits. Sometimes a walk does that. Not this time. It felt too cold, even with a denim jacket. The crisp air put me to sleep; I napped fitfully with nightmares, then was wide awake. Still dark. Still before midnight. Doomed to rise like a vampire to exist only in the hours when others sleep.

Oh, I know: you think I’m using hyperbole. But I’m not a poet, nor a journalist who needs to use lurid or silly words. Unless, of course, I feel I can use the help. But I’ve actually been accused of being a vampire, because, damn it, people notice weird things like seeing me in daylight only rarely or for short periods, but can easily look from their windows at any hour of the night and see me out front, indulging in a Marlboro. I’ve no doubt also been seen getting my mail at some weird hour.

I like the night. Several jobs I’ve had required me to work exclusively after dark. When driving a tractor-trailer rig, I grew to love those peaceful hours even more; less traffic, fewer speed traps, and definitely, at least on the Interstates, fewer last-call drunks.

Oh, and one more thing. I heard lots of stories about drivers being passed by women in cars. Women in various states of dress. What I mean is, skirts open, no pants, even nude. Now, it has to be pointed out that truckers are, generally, full of shit. When I worked around them as a teen, they told stories, mostly scary stuff, and I’d find out years later that the CB radio had been an internet precursor for urban legends and what we call “Creepypasta”. It was all bullshit.

And I, in the tall seat of a truck, had never seen any women doing what others claimed. Alas!

But one night, perhaps around 03:00, I was on Holabird Avenue, just leaving Lever Brothers with a load of soap and detergent, negotiating a sharp curve and preparing for the steep climb up a ramp to Interstate 95 toward the Fort McHenry Tunnel. A car came up on my left and passed me in the curve, and I looked down to make sure the driver was giving me space since I had to go wide. As I looked, he passed under a powerful street light by the GAF plant and what I saw proved to me just how unfair the universe was. First, because I saw it. Second, I was both jealous and in shock at the same time.

It was a guy. Too late for leaving a bar after Last Call; only after years passed did I face my experience and deduce that he was probably just a pervert.

This dude was hung, and I mean, he looked like a mutant, he was so big. I mean, it could have been a medical experiment gone horribly wrong. These explanations flashed, no pun intended, through my head. Folks, this guy’s penis looked like a hose from a fire engine! It was longer than his thighs, which were naked!

I called in sick the next night. I wasn’t triggered, because I didn’t know that word yet. I felt as if I’d been purposely targeted, like the timing of passing under the light. Felt as if I’d escaped a close call with a fucking tyrannosaurus.

That was my luck. When I delivered pizza, the guys would talk about women answering the door naked. I got the men whose bathrobes just happened to come open while they handed me cash.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not homophobic, and in the service, I’d been okay showering with other soldiers. You get used to it. You take your shower and get out. It’s nothing.

But on the road or at someone’s door, no, I didn’t like my luck. I wasn’t very sorry to leave trucking and pizza behind. Hell, I think it was five years before I even ate a pizza.

***

The night has its hazardous side. But it has a beauty few ever truly dare explore, and more is the pity; it is quite peaceful. The world takes the life out of you. The night is a tonic which restores you, whether you are asleep or not.

The worst things I went through growing up happened at night. Just writing that sentence sent me back there, and now I’m struggling to stop it. But I believe that’s when I developed a fear, not of the night, but of the bad things that came with it. My sleep pattern was changing and in school I had to fight exhaustion along with mental illness.

PTSD doesn’t wait to develop until after all ongoing traumatic experience has ceased. It occurs the instant the first trauma is inflicted and gets worse from there.

***

Catullus was asking himself why he had not killed himself when politicians abused their power. Things must have looked grim. Julius Caesar would go on to be assassinated, but raw and unbridled corruption would ever be present in Rome and the Empire it would soon create. Anyone who saw what it truly was could not have been anything but angry and frightened; enough so to contemplate suicide. And not that long after his time, another man who was unworthy of authority would sit in a curule chair and judge an innocent man, sending him to the cross. Not because of a reasonable doubt, but because he was threatened and had to do it. People cannot often see that they abuse or misuse their power. But most do. Baron Acton wrote:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

I may not believe that his observations are absolute, but to those whom this does not apply, there must be the awareness that they are exceptions to the rule.

Senator Mitch McConnell and others have given themselves over to evil, using power to continue the threat to American democracy long since begun, but exacerbated by Donald Trump. Ted Cruz feigned indignation at someone’s Nazi salute. He asked the Attorney General if that was legal. The answer: of course it is. We know Cruz (whose I.Q. is that of tepid water in degrees Fahrenheit), was attempting to catch Garland in some trap. It’s such a lame attempt that I wonder how the man ever survived this long. I picture him amputating a hand with a can opener and say to myself, That could happen.

People influenced by the initial Trump reaction to COVID-19 and his constant attacks on reporters and news outlets, along with the Trump Party movement and lies by anti-vaxxers, have been in school meetings screaming about mask-and-vaccine mandates for their children to be able to go to classes. Screaming. So much so that I’ve read reports on how children are being savagely affected. Yes. Traumatized. Most kids have no problem getting covid shots and wearing masks; it is the parents who are acting like meatballs. They do not ask what their children want. And more than one mother has called compulsory shot mandates “rape”. They obviously don’t know anything about either one. The ignorance is stupefying and utterly ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the political right, both Republican and Trumpian politicians, have set out to shut true democratic processes down.

The United States is currently in the process of a coup.

It’s so severe that in a public meeting, some dickhead asked if it was time to shoot the winners when Republicans lose elections. And the response he got wasn’t exactly a “no”. It is quite staggering to have lived from the Kennedy administration to now, look back and ask, What happened?

Global warming is so terrifying because it’s real. But again, right-wing politicians and the ruling boards of corporations sat on, ignored or bribed around reports from scientists and their recommended solutions that would slow it. That’s criminal conspiracy, and billions of U.S. dollars later, the true picture they knew would come true is coming true: from oil companies to toy manufacturers to farmers, the consumer base is shrinking. By now, even pay raises will not offset the cost of living because the funds to pay more is blatantly passed on to the public: inflation just gets worse. Wages for the majority of workers never have kept up with inflation; now it will get worse.

5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. Rev. 6:5-6 kjv

In the Chesapeake Bay, on Tangier Island, there’s a bed and breakfast inn that would be charming and great for tourists. But the owner has himself in a bad place. The purchase, the taxes, the renovations, every cent, will be lost. The island is shrinking. Some islands have already vanished beneath the surface. The last holdout on one described what I can only imagine was heartbreaking. As temperatures rise, water is added to by melting ice from the land. Iceberg melt doesn’t do it because they already displace the amount of water that the melt water would occupy. Fresh water glacier melt can’t be replaced by snowfall fast enough and large slices fall into the sea or melt and drain through watersheds. That and the warmth trapped in the oceans (warm water has expanded molecules) causes water levels to rise. Can’t be stopped. The island I used to see when fishing in Tangier Sound will one day vanish.

There is no longer any way anyone can look at all that we face and not come up with, “We’re fucked“.

Every generation since the first century CE has played with predictions of when the “Apocalypse” will happen. Everyone including Christians honestly believed that every war, every natural disaster, every drought followed by famine, were all the beginning of the tribulation, or the end time predicted in apocalyptic writing, and there were more books written in that style than most think.

People have sold or even abandoned homes and literally gone to the hilltops to await the event called “the Rapture” even though nobody can pin down exactly what that is or whether Jesus mentioned it. He didn’t, but text attributed to him implies the famous “one will be taken, the other left.”

The Great War. The second World War. Before those, there were Genghis Kahn, the Empire of Rome, huge volcanic events, history changing earthquakes, the Bubonic Plague, the Crusades.

I don’t think I can say what’s true or not in the Bible, but after Pontius Pilate put Yeshua of Nazareth to death, the final and longest Jewish Diaspora began. And the persecution of Jews would eventually end up in the mass death that was The Holocaust. Jesus probably did predict that. It began when General Titus had legionaries kill Jews and tear down the temple, some thirty or so years after he predicted calamities that would follow his death.

Ever since 1946, Israeli agents have hunted the Nazis who escaped the trials at Nuremberg. Slowly, methodically and with vengeance burning inside each.

Each generation, no matter its race or religion, has faced the question, “Is this the end?”

Those who had to stay on hilltops until nightfall brought cold and chilling dampness, because Jesus never plucked them up and took them to Heaven, have suffered the ridicule of others when they asked for their old jobs. Or had to borrow food or money. And the next time their crank priest predicted the end of the world, he climbed the hill to find fewer people (perhaps they finally understood why Jesus said to his Apostles, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even I, only the Father.”).

But global warming has made me rethink the above verses from The Book of Revelation. Because, note that it isn’t what it seems. On a glance, it’s easy. Inflation, one measure of wheat for a day’s pay. That’s Inflation.

Except it’s more than that. It also indicates famine, and global warming will make (already is) crops fail as climate zones change. In other words, what will grow in a certain region (in this case grapes for wine) will no longer do so. Prime land for grapes will move north, and the north will yet still be hostile as far as rich soil.

We’re not sure which kind of oil is being referenced but it isn’t petroleum. Most likely olive oil, and olives will wither in their groves, burned on the branches and starved for water.

But there’s more to the horseman on the black horse, the only one among four which rides forth with instructions. This means that doing no harm to oil and wine indicates only the very rich and greedy will be able to have such things, and they’ll reap the whirlwind. Greed and power will show the poor in those days exactly the kind of men they have been following.

Greed and power, corrupting absolutely. The poor are spat upon by them. Men like Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell never cared about anyone. McConnell and others, when told that if food assistance programs were stopped, a lot of people would die, replied to the effect, “Let them die.”

The people who support men like them are brainwashed by idiots on Fox News and the men themselves. They believe everything they’ve been told and now, to keep their ilk in power, are contemplating the assassination of anyone they don’t like who wins an election. Men sit in seats of power, the curule chairs, and the world has never seen anything like what’s coming. I wonder what Catullus would write now: would he give these monsters the literary pasting they deserve? Would he become hopeless and hang himself?

I think not.

I believe he would fight with written and spoken word and serve up great helpings of blunt truth laced with very colorful words.

I can’t see the light. It hurts. From dark things I’ve come, to live in darkness, to think from darkness, to see only darkness. I see bad things coming. Things I hope I’m wrong about. Things I pray that I am wrong about.

But it’s not always so bad. It’s peaceful here at night. So very peaceful.

I am doomed to be a child of the night. Born from darkness, only to end up fearing what the night would bring as I grew up. I may not drink blood, but I am absolutely undead, a vampire. A survivor who just can’t seem to fall down and die. I do not hasten to it.

Sometimes I wish I were a poet.

Lord knows, I should be. But then again, Catullus and Poe have already been here. How could I ever top them?

Thank you for being here when I need you. Be well.

Seasons Change, But I Never Will: The Truth About Autumn Leaves And Depression

What a spectacle. From mid-September through November, the eastern United States puts on a grand display of color that, in favorable times, makes people go out for hikes, drives to scenic overlooks and to picnic in state or national parks. It’s something to see, no matter where you are. Anywhere deciduous trees are found, you’ll see a show never again to be repeated. No two autumns are the same; weather, sunlight, soil moisture–all vary, even if only slightly, every year.

If you’ve noticed, and I don’t say this with any condescension because never thought about until I was in my 40s, summertime as much as the spring itself plays a part in what we see in autumn’s breathtaking show. Drought, prolonged heatwaves and more all have a say in what we’re going to see come fall.

The weird part: most of the fall colors were always there, have been since spring, but we couldn’t see them. The yellows, golden yellows, oranges and browns? Yeah, all summer long, you and I walked right under them and never considered such a possibility.

And why should we? They’re trees. Terrifying to some, who think of trees as condos for bugs, snakes and birds, not to mention nasty squirrels. Ignored by others, haunted by birdwatchers, trees have two indefatigable predators: fire and ax men. The threats posed by tornadoes, hurricanes, landslides and more are nothing compared to fire and man.

They’re fighters, though, trees. They somehow “communicate” to nearby trees of whatever species they are, so if one is attacked by a common pest, it sends a little message and others produce defensive measures. Neat, huh? And even from an ashen floor after a fire, life will come again. It takes decades, but trees will return.

But I’m way off the subject. I was talking about the colors of autumn. A gift as nights grow longer, something to lift one’s spirits before the bleakness of winter sets in, causing seasonal depression for many who aren’t even aware of it. Because unless it snows, or after the lights of the holidays come down, everything settles into a monotony of colorlessness and darkness. Even the winter sun seems to hate us; neither warming nor comfortable on the eyes as diffusion differs in colder air, it holds no respite from the horrible dreariness of everything around us.

It seems like magic, then, that for only a short time before winter, nature gives us something so beautiful, then takes it away.

For the same reason that chlorophyll and photosynthesis hides those colors during the summer, the leaves must die and fall. As nights grow longer, photosynthesis is slowed, sugars clogging the stem. No longer able to live, the chlorophyll is stopped, and the color changes, and the stem goes dry and fragile.

That’s when it’s time to break out the rake. Except that, leaf falls are beneficial to the soil. Unless you live in a community that requires a limit on grass height, mulching your trees and raking leaves, you should just let them lie. Or, rake some in early fall, then ignore the last of them.

Now, don’t mistake me for a hippie tree hugger. I’m not putting hippies down, but I once saw a video of teenage girls sitting, encircling the stump of a recently felled tree, sobbing and choking out, “I am so sad right now” and it’s every bit as silly as it sounds.

However, I too am a bit sad. Wildfires and deforestation continue to grow ever more prevalent. That’s the future, dying more each day.

This year, the colors are muted. Some have yet to change but so far, the colors are dull and mottled with brown. Here in the lowlands between the Appalachian mountains and the mighty Chesapeake Bay, most days all year have turned into degree days. That’s when you use the heat or air conditioning. The NWS may not recognize as many degree days as there truly are, but that’s too bad. People might need air during the day, heat at night. Everyone is different, and what feels comfortable to one, another may find distressing. Even body temperature is not a constant norm at 98.6° Fahrenheit. Normal is different. It just is.

The days seem short with the earlier sunset. The leaves offer no comfort. For me, the wonder of fall colors ended in 1970.

The golds, reds and oranges were so perfect that year. In crisp air, the sun shone through them and dazzled me just a year before. But I never again simply gazed at them in awe. Never again saw those colors the same way. The last shred of my innocent soul had been replaced with a darkness and vileness which remains still, unyielding and implacable in the seasonal displays of fall leaves, Christmas lights or music. Seasons change, but I never can. I’ll always be out-of-sync and detached. I can see beauty, but even that ability is being taken from me by age, time and a life lived in shadows, nightmares and unbearable pain. Just because I’m still breathing, it doesn’t mean I’m not dead.

Why I Don’t Shun Halloween

I’m a Christian. Flawed, failing, broken, but still a Christian. I cuss, smoke and have my own demons and a past that damaged me beyond repair. All true.

Halloween is a time when networks show scary movies and people dress their kids up in costumes to go out and get candy.

Many Christians have no part of the holiday. They regard it as purely evil and forbid their children to dress in a costume and go trick-or-treat for candy. They believe that it’s an open invitation to evil, to incur the wrath and a curse of God.

I was fortunate that my true horror was contained in my house, but I was allowed to go out in costumes and get tons of candy. It was a night I always looked forward to.

My costumes were superheroes: Batman, Aquaman…never anything sinister. And these costumes, by a company called Ben Cooper, were perfect for small kids: a facemask secured by a rubber band and a one-piece costume with string ties in back.

The 1960s Ben Cooper Batman costume.

Only when I was made to go to church did I hear that Halloween was “evil”, and for some, it is. My Halloween short story “The Last Soldier of Bravo Company” isn’t getting many views.

But I’m here tonight to reassure you that it’s scary, but there’s a reason for that.

In this awesome article by a church pastor, there is a wealth of wisdom. I hope you’ll read it and understand that writing horror serves a good purpose, when done a certain way. As he points out, most horror stories were about good versus evil. Victor Frankenstein played with being a god and was duly revolted at the result. Dracula taught us that a thirst for power over the grave was as unnatural as we could ever get. Doctor Jekyll was good and bad, demonstrating that we all have both inside us and must be careful.

He points out that many horror stories fill whole books of the Christian Bible. He cites the Book of Daniel in particular; indeed, that is one scary read. But it serves, to some, as prophecy, and others, a terrifying Good vs. Evil story. I rather think, I must say, that it is both.

Today’s Christian is challenged by much larger issues than Halloween. Far-right extremists have always plagued the Church, putting the rest in a poor light. History has brought us to a crossroads; the time to choose between good and evil is upon us and the future has never been more frightening. While faced with world hunger, global warming, a pandemic that won’t go away, what are they doing?

Putting up signs in their windows.

Quite rude and menacing, they say things like, “We are Christians and we don’t do Halloween. Don’t come here looking for candy. Trump had the election stolen from him. If you want candy, go see Joe Biden.”

I would rather die than put a sign like that up for children. It’s wrong. It’s a horror. It’s grotesque and cruel. It’s a veiled threat, and yes, kids understand those. Scaring them like that while calling yourself a Christian is sick. It’s a sick thing to do. It’s evil.

Love your neighbor. Do as Jesus committed his Apostles to. He bade them come to a higher calling, and that goes for all of us in turn.

If you are adherents to other religions, I’m commanded to love you and respect your needs, feelings and thoughts. That is non-negotiable. I can’t sit here and pick who I will love when commanded to love everyone.

However, evil–truly evil people, whether they act in God’s name or not–I know to avoid. I’m weak. Full of temptation. Easily led. And I’m not going to yield my faith to extremists.

So, yes, let your kids dress up. Set the rules, no soaping windows, egg throwing, no vandalism. No tricks. Just treats and a fun couple of hours with friends. Better yet, have a Halloween party. Have activities, pop some corn, participate and make it safe but fun. It’s okay. Reclaim the day as a good one, not for demons and damaging property and using ouija boards.

Be a real parent and most of all, teach the lesson of good vs. evil. And superhero costumes? Princesses, Snow White? Go for it.

Oh, one more thing. Read my short story. There really is a point to it. You’ll see.

I don’t tell you this often enough, but thank you for visiting my site, for allowing me to be a part of your life.

Seven Years A Friend

It was still dark. In the eastern sky, a hint of gray. It was quiet. My favorite time of day. I was leaning on the handrail at the top of the steps. Just smoking in peace. My best friend Chris, who lived next door, came outside for his morning cigarette, a glass of black coffee in hand. He said good morning, as he did on all mornings. Asked if I’d had coffee yet. I had not. But I’m okay without the Colombian brew until that first burst of nicotine is coursing through my head.

Strangely, he went inside, slamming the door. He never did that and loud noises, especially unexpected ones, make my PTSD activate at full speed. Shaking, I was in another place when suddenly he was beside me. By then coffee laced with rum couldn’t have calmed me down. He said, “I’ve got something for you,” and it was a multi-tool, one that opens up into a pair of pliers and which has other useless shit like a screwdriver and a half-inch knife.

He said he’d see me later because we always end up coming out for a smoke at the same time at least a few times in a day.

But this was not any day.

This was going to be a very bad day.

At about 08:30 a van parked out front. A crew of women began carrying boxes, bags and big Coleman coolers into his house, where he lived with his widowed mother. I remembered Chris had said they had extra junk that needed to be hauled away. I thought that’s what must be going on. Sure, that was it.

But then, an hour later, the moving truck came. The women had packed a lot of things and they were being loaded onto it, and I didn’t see Chris so I texted him: Are you moving??

Then I saw them carrying even his canes to the truck. I texted: They’re taking your canes!

No response. And it shocked me. An hour later I texted: Thanks for telling me.

30 minutes passed. No response.

They were moving out. Best buddies for 7 years and he hadn’t told me anything. And he still wasn’t. And he was smoking out back, I could tell. I blocked his number.

Because, fuck him. That’s a chickenshit thing to do. To a friend and neighbors who care about you.

He didn’t answer text messages. Didn’t call. Did not ring the door bell.

A couple of times later, after dark, I knew he was sitting out in his chair smoking. I remained hidden by my porch; I had nothing to say. I had even been so sick that I’d taken the multi-tool to one of the movers and lied, “I saw the guy drop this. I guess it goes on the truck somewhere.”

The “gift” felt fake and very hollow to me. I wanted nothing to do with it.

What was that, anyway? A going away present? I don’t need it. I didn’t mind their moving, either, especially if it’s for the best. But being sandbagged, being kicked in the gut by not telling me, so I didn’t know until the moving van arrived? That I do mind.

Once more, a lesson I should have retained from decades ago: get close to someone, and they’ll hurt you.

I forgive it, and I’ll miss our many deep conversations and his stupid jokes. But he can never hurt me again. He’s not a friend now.

In my posts about burning bridges, I described shamefully doing this to others, but I was never quite this slimy about it except with siblings because they had triggered me. Even that, however, I truly regret.

This is different. A betrayal or a knife to the back. A cowardly cut that I understand and forgive but which will prevent me from even greeting him in passing, should such an incident happen.

I’m just too broken for this. I’ve lost too much and too many. And I don’t want to lose any more. How much can one man take?

I hope not too much more.

I’ve had enough. Enough chickenshit, betrayal and the refusal of men to behave like men, with just a little bit of honor.

Word around the hood has it that his mother was afraid people would start rumors about them.

Well, fail, because nobody’s interested in creating stories. They’re too mystified by the simple truth. It was a strange, sickening and disturbing end to 7 years of trust and sincere friendship.

It’s a shitty world. Because of the way we’ve treated it–and each other.

I don’t see that changing.

How terribly sad life truly is.

Neighbors: So Hard To Say Goodbye

It hurts. They’ve been kind to me. They’ve lived here for years now, but they’re leaving. I overheard the daddy say to his little boy that he was putting something in the car to take to the new house. That was two nights ago. That’s how I knew. As I’m posting this in the morning in my timezone, it was last night, a few hours ago, I could hear them packing more things in the car. I walked over, not too close, but I had something to say. If I left it unsaid I don’t know what that would have made me, but do I need any more misery?

I’ve talked about regrets. Lord I have so many. But letting good people leave my life without saying what I wanted to would have been a big one.

Because I’ve often been outside having a smoke, and seen them in the distance going to their cars for work. And I remember when they brought the wee baby home. He’s already to the age of being eager to talk, and he’s as articulate as he can be. He is a breath of fresh air, and seeing him grow, watching him with his parents, simply melted me.

I told them I was a child of abuse. Didn’t go into detail but I did say my kids were gone, and how I wish every day that they were here. And I said, “When I see extraordinary parents like you, I’m full of admiration and I only wish I could have had parents like you. The things I might have done…”

You can’t let people you admire, even if you aren’t close, leave your life without telling them what they’ve meant to you.

If you do that, you’ll regret it. And who knows: perhaps you’ll have said something that they will never forget, something they take to heart, a bit of another person’s love they can keep forever.

Remember not to be the kind of person I’ve described myself as on these pages. It is noble to love and freely express it. There is nothing wrong with showing emotion, especially when it is positive. I just kept it simple but made sure my words would not easily be forgotten any time soon.

And I wanted it this way. It hurts to know they’re leaving. They’re special. I just had to tell them.

I hope that you too, wherever you may be, will tell someone how much you admire them, to tell them that their efforts have been seen and appreciated, to remind them that they are blessed and loved. The opportunity will present itself. When it does, please don’t let it go.

I’m done burning bridges. I prefer a heartfelt goodbye and words from the heart. Life is so short. When I find anything positive in me, I feel better.

I hear babies crying,

I watch them grow,

They’ll learn much more,

Than I’ll ever know…

Goodbye, my friends.

You made a difference, and I can’t thank you enough.

The Eyes Of A Child

I remember being a kid. I had a terrible time, in some ways had to grow up too early and that messed me up. But I like looking back on summer days that stretched into what seemed like weeks. I like remembering dappled sunlight on the road after a thunderstorm and how the street steamed and puddle jumping was warm and fun.

I remember Brenda Snead asking if I liked Dark Shadows and I didn’t know what it was. I remember her running home to watch it and how I was left out and left alone, standing in the sun until I got out dinosaurs and Army men and my imagination had them fighting a pitched battle.

I saw the world through eyes already weary of the cruelty and the craven, the terror and the nightmares. But if my development was interrupted, there was always make-believe and anything was possible.

That was 50 years ago. Half a century, a lifetime. So many horrors in my life have come and gone. Every day I look for reasons to keep going and find none. If I survive it is only my faith in God and my ability to, occasionally, look back at the world with my child’s eyes, making the complex seem so simple.

Brenda, I remember you all. Scott, Milt, Allen, who gave in to cancer, and Ronny and Guy and Barry, Sandy, Kerry, and many others, I’ll never forget you. There was a time when my life was a nightmare and without knowing it, you helped. What wonderful friends you were.

It is well that I can look back on positive things, the fun days of play, seeing through my eyes as they were back then, when the world was big, exploring it essential, and play was innocent and fun.

We all need to remember that we were children once, and in so doing, see through a child’s eyes because our grownup eyes have seen too much.

And if I didnt get to go kite flying, then at least I knew how a palace could be an orange box for a sister’s Barbies. But I did know how to be a cowboy fighting out a duel. And that was awesome.

Life is so fleeting. Find the eyes you had way back when and see through them once more.

Before it is too late.

One Time, I Helped A Neighbor Change A Tire…

People are travelling for the Christmas holiday. They do this against the advice of experts, doctors and their local officials. They are lonely and don’t want to be lonely on Christmas. After being lonely for most of this year, I understand the feeling. It can be a sad thing to feel like you’re alone. Sometimes people who are alone hurt themselves and I understand that too, because I’ve done things to hurt myself. Bad things, bad enough to die. I don’t like it when people feel so alone and sad that they hurt themselves, sometimes not ever living another day because of it. It’s sad and I can’t help. That’s another bad feeling. Being unable to help someone who is in danger. Who just needs someone to make them see that they’re priceless and can’t be replaced.

But there have been times, too few, I fear, when I did help someone. Sometimes we help but we don’t know what happens after that. Sometimes I think about them, and I hope they’re okay. I hope that they are happy.

What really does happen after we’ve helped another person?

Only they and God can know that. We don’t. All we get is the feeling, which never seems to last long enough, a feeling that feels nice. It comes from neurotransmitters that hook up with things called “receptors” in our brains. These cells get to soak in dopamine and serotonin and give almost a “high” of goodness. Better than any drug, at least to me.

One day in early 1981, a neighbor in the apartment next to mine was trying to change a tire, and I felt sorry for her. She obviously needed help. So I changed the flat for her spare, put away the jack and lug wrench and she thanked me and I hurried back inside.

Because I wasn’t really as nice as I should have been. She was not pretty but we were both single and I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

Sometimes, at night, I used to hear her crying. She must have been very lonely. I felt sympathy for her. But I avoided her.

A kind word, a simple greeting, could have helped to make her feel better, but I didn’t want to do those things. Looking back, it shames me. Maybe I always felt ashamed because that was a long time ago, but I can’t forget that. I hope she found someone to love who would love her back. I hope she’s still out there, that she’s happy and healthy.

I’ve never really regretted being nice to or for helping someone. I’ve very often regretted turning my back on someone in need. Or being very mean to others. That wasn’t part of my soul. It was because I was hurt and I was very sick. My help had meant nothing.

One time I was in my father’s dispatch room routing deliveries. It was very early. A young man came in from the parking lot with flowers in one hand. He began to speak with a lisp and asked if anyone would like to buy flowers. At the time, Moonies were still around and that means he could have been in a cult. I didn’t like Moonies or their leader, a fake “reverend”, and I was mad that he was in there. I was also a conservative and had a problem with the stereotypical mincing, lisping man who must have gotten up very early to try to sell flowers just so he could eat. I yelled at him, “Get the fuck out of here!”

He was shocked, probably as much at the implied violence in my tone as by what I said. He stammered, frozen. I stood up and walked toward him and this time shouted something even worse. The truck drivers were also shocked. It wasn’t the me they knew. It scared them. When the young man fled through the door a couple of them asked weakly, “Why’d you do that, Mike?”

I said something about the guy that was so awful that I’m not going to say what it was.

To this day I regret the words. It would have taken seconds to hand him some currency and take a flower. But my hatred and bigotry prevented it. I gave full control to that hatred and bigotry and it haunts me still.

One time I saw an older black man outside the supermarket just opposite a liquor store. He asked for some spare cash. I could see in his face–on his face–why he had asked. He needed a drink or he was going to drop. If he made it to the hospital alive, I knew they would give him small doses of liquor. If he didn’t get it he could die.

I did not judge him for being an alcoholic. Or black. Or asking for what he needed. I gave him fifteen dollars, which came close to cleaning me out, but it was plenty for a pint. I never saw him again but I remember the tears of gratitude in his eyes as he thanked me and said, “God bless you.”

I’ll never forget it. That…was a good day for me. Did I help him to live another day? Probably. But he wouldn’t live much longer and I knew it. That hurts. He was a good man, I could tell. He was just as nice to me before he got the money as he was after. I recognize gratitude when I see it.

One day I ate a meal in McDonald’s and was going toward the trash can on my way out. A woman with a child beside her came in, and of all the people in the lobby, she walked straight to me. She had even more kids in the car as well as an elderly man. I believed that they lived in that car. She asked if I could help feed her kids. I had no cash but told her to order what she needed. It was strange. She ordered a lot of food. The total cost was 19 dollars and change and I swiped my card. I left but as I turned around she said “thank you” but returned her gaze quickly to the people getting the order together. She was starving. I had gladly helped, but I oftentimes have thought about her. I put a band-aid on a gash and felt good about it. I don’t feel very good about it now. I hope she got help. I hope they have a roof over their heads, pillows to lay their heads on, and full stomachs.

The misery in this world can swallow you alive. And I’m very grateful for the people who taught me these many years that cruelty is evil, compassion divine, and all we have to do to learn the difference is to make mistakes, usually emotional ones. Mistakes that haunt me helped to keep me from turning into a monster; which is what I once was becoming. I’d been so unloved, so demeaned and so violated that I began to fear everything, hate everyone and I had no idea why I felt so much awfulness all the time.

But feeling worse when I hurt someone never left me. And sometimes good people crossed my path and taught me how satisfying it was to be treated with kindness, liked for who I was in times that I needed it most. God knew that I was hurt. He knew how angry I was. How sick I was. He never reached down from heaven and cured me, but he gave me the miracle of being able to learn in spite of the things standing in my way. To learn what to do with the better part of ourselves is a true miracle, a gift. The kind of gift we can share with each other.

One very important way we can do that is to not travel this Christmas. Stay at home, do video calls, and avoid putting family and friends at risk for Covid. It will hurt you for the rest of your life if one of them died and you think you may be the one who made them sick. Ask yourself if it’s really worth the risk when you could wait and everyone can celebrate next year, happy, healthy and whole. Ask your higher power what’s right.

I love and appreciate my followers and my friends. This morning I got to help some of my friends work through a problem. Maggie had her phone freeze on her and didn’t know what to do. I texted her daughter while she used Messenger on her tablet. I merely acted as a go-between but it was very touching to see this family of three come together to solve a problem. They are truly a close family and I’m so blessed to know them. They live in New York but are all far apart. Even if they weren’t, they will not be getting together on Christmas. As a close family I can see that this makes them very sad. But they love each other so much that they refuse to put each other at risk.

That’s love.

That’s caring and compassion.

That’s sacrifice.

They set examples for me even when they don’t know it. They are some of the people who shaped what I am and made me think back on mistakes and learn from them. Every day I learn from them. Every day I love them more.

Be a family like their family.

Stay safe, and may God be with you in your lonely times.

It’s Amazing How Creative And Inventive People Are…Bra History: How A War Shortage Reshaped Modern Shapewear : NPR

I often find myself amazed at our history. Look at the wondrous things we’ve invented, built, or crafted.

It is sobering to think that the everyday things we take for granted are part of billion-dollar industries yet their origins were very interesting, but rather humble. Everyday people invented them. I often become offended when people claim we could never invent or build something without extraterrestrial technology or influence. Two handkerchiefs and a piece of ribbon…what could you invent with only that?

I’ll bet you can make anything you want to.

https://www.npr.org/2014/08/05/337860700/bra-history-how-a-war-shortage-reshaped-modern-shapewear#:~:text=Caresse%20Crosby%20patented%20the%20first,%22%20%E2%80%94%20poked%20through%20her%20gown.

Today Is Not A Good Day

Today is not a good day.
Today I am in more pain than yesterday. I feel like being mean to others because I am hurt and I am angry.

I am angry because I hurt. I see no reason to hurt. I feel I don’t deserve to hurt. I think that maybe I have had too much pain in my life. Too much hurt.

It’s okay if I feel that way. People can take a lot of pain but in truth, there’s times when it gets worse than I can bear.

I don’t think it makes me weak. I don’t think it means I’m a bad person. I think it means that I’m human, and nothing more, and nothing less.

I think it’s okay for me to be angry at Donald Trump for making Congress and the Senate limit the stimulus money to so little money for individuals. I think people aren’t sure who to blame for it when it really is Trump who wouldn’t sign the bill if it was different.

I think people are angry because they’re scared. They don’t have enough money, and they’re out of work, and they get worried that they will not be able to stay in their homes and apartments, and it’s okay to be scared. And it’s okay to feel angry.

But sometimes we need to do something with that anger so it doesn’t make us sick because too much anger inside is a very bad thing.

You can go into the woods and scream at the sky. You can take a walk and end up running even if you’re not dressed for running.

I don’t think it’s okay to be mean to others just because they believe in things you don’t. That already causes enough trouble. It’s always made all of our problems worse.

So you can see why I’m angry too. I’m in pain and I’m very angry. I’m also very sad. It’s a lot to try to control all at once. And that’s how life works.

But why am I angry? I don’t know. Maybe because of the pain. Maybe from my memories. Maybe from something else too.

And why am I sad? I know some of the reasons. One is that my children are not alive now. Unnatural death of a loved one hurts and shocks us and we never get to say the things to them that we meant to say. Things like “I love you”, or “I’m sorry I didn’t do better”. They leave us with no feeling that we can put it behind us and deal with our sadness that they’re gone. A lot of people talk about something called “closure” and I don’t know what they mean by that.

Because after someone we love is gone from our lives, we feel the same way no matter what. Sad and angry and very hurt. And I think they need to see that it’s okay. No one ever leaves our lives without taking part of us with them and leaving questions that we ask unanswered. It’s a part of life.

But that’s okay.

And what we do with our anger and our sadness can change the whole world. Sometimes that happens. A person who feels sad all the time can be famous. Like Abraham Lincoln. He had a lot of sadness and anxiety. He had trouble sleeping because of it. Yet today the United States exist because of what he did with his sadness and his anger.

Some people wrote beautiful poems and concertos because they were so sad. And we never stopped loving them because we still read those poems and listen to music when we feel sad. The right words and the right notes can make us cry, and that can help heal pain and sadness.

I think doing nothing at all is okay too. Some people just need to rest and sleep. That’s a big part of life.

Later on, those who rest will do things that might even change the world. That’s a blessing. Out of pain and anger we can all be healed. The things that hurt us the most are the things that make us what we are and who we are.

We all need to heal as Christmas is upon us, and I think it’s okay to play the songs we love and put up lights and give a gift, even if it is not much to you. To someone else it will mean a lot.

It’s also okay to dream. Good dreams about what we will do when we feel just a little bit better. It’s okay to dream about Santa Claus and flying reindeer and it’s okay to believe in unicorns and fairies and magical things.

It’s okay if you have pain. It is a part of life. Even death is a part of life. It is okay to be angry. So angry that you feel like hurting yourself or someone else.

What matters is what you do with that pain and anger. That’s up to you.

It always will be.

I feel angry today. I’m in a lot of pain, way too much. I don’t like it.

But I think it’s okay anyway. Tomorrow I might be able to handle it better. I might not even have this much hurt.

I Never Dreamed Of Jeannie, But I Knew A Guy Who Did, And He Was Just Not Right

Sometimes I think I’ve lived too long. The memories, I mean, damn. When you’re old, there’s so much that comes back to you at the strangest times. Once hit by a random memory, I forget what the hell triggered it. These aren’t bad memories; they’re weird, a bit sick, and downright hilarious as a rule.

In fifth grade at Bodkin Elementary School, I was a fuck-up. I goofed off and drew pictures and did a lot of dissociative thinking. Teachers called it “daydreaming”. That ain’t what it was but who knew back then what else to call it?

I forget who taught what. Mr. Guzzo was my homeroom teacher. The rest I can’t remember, but one, either English or Science, she was nice. It took a lot for her to get riled. Can’t even remember her face. But there was this kid, he sat at the same table as I did.

We had tables with Formica glued on and plastic pastel chairs in green, orange, blue and yellow. Weird place.

And of course you’d never have seen that shit anywhere but the fucking 70s. Pastel colors, hard plastic, with aluminium legs. On carpet, no less, so every time you walked up to one, especially in winter, you’d reach out and get a nice static shock, and everyone wore long hair, and I swear, it was like they’d just rubbed inflated balloons all over their heads. Something like having to sit in a class full of Pennywise clones.

This one kid, what folks would later call a “nerd” of the scary kind, he had this bottle. Tall thing, amber glass, for liquor, probably some kind of cognac as it had a long thin neck and fancy barrel. I didn’t realize at first that I was about to see the process of something creepy and funny and nuts being created.

Yes. The title gave it away: he was obsessed with “I Dream of Jeannie”, a really awful sitcom which had been cancelled a year earlier.

Yes, I truly loathed that show. I loathed everyone in it and wished Dr. Bellows would institutionalize Major Nelson, the Blue Djinn would gut Jeannie in a live episode and that Roger Healy would shoot himself.

Wait, you think I’m dark?

Shit. After the first two seasons I’d get nauseous hearing the theme song. God what an awful show. I don’t blame it on the witless Sidney Sheldon; Screen Gems put out some real vomit back then. Sheldon just wanted to make money, and was it his fault people buy garbage? No. You ever seen the inside of a thrift store? Or smelled one? And the cash registers are always full. Now I could see maybe finding a Dickens leather cover and paying 5 bucks for it. Helluva deal. But someone’s old sweatpants? I mean, really?

After the American public had had enough of Jeannie, and before I even noticed the show was gone, right in front of me was this kid who would probably a let her go.

I’ll admit it. I did some weird shit when I was a kid. That’s all too true. But this was bizarre even to me.

It was over that winter that the bottle changed gradually with paint into Jeannie’s bottle. By the time it was finished, he had even put wadded fabric inside for her bed. And a paper cutout of a crayoned Barbara Eden. And, every day, carried it to school.

He talked like she was real. No, I’m not kidding, he would talk to her. During class. He’d close one eye and look down the neck of the bottle and talk to a piece of paper!

And the bottle was ridiculously hand painted with plastic jewels glued to it. And it definitely did not look like this:

But one day the teacher seemed to get suddenly freaked out by it all. She was fed up and she broke. She yelled at him to pay attention, and she walked to the back of the classroom and took it from him. He tried to order her to give it back, but that was the wrong move. Incensed, the teacher threw it away. He cried like a baby in the grip of colic, and he never saw the paper Jeannie again. I remember little of what she screamed at him, except that it was “creepy, the paper inside was not alive”, and she would be contacting his parents.

I laughed all the way through that shit. Laughed at his distress, anxiety and crying, at the embarrassment of being yelled at almost hysterically, laughed because the teacher was freaked out, the other students laughing, all of it.

It wasn’t really for me to think one way or another, since we were kids, and I was so fucked up myself, but I did get the feeling that winter that the whole thing was sick.

Obsession isn’t funny though. It’s scary, and I believe when it’s aimed at a real person, it can get fucking dangerous. The woman who stalked David Letterman was eventually going to get violent. She finally got locked up but there was an incredible length of time when she was free and even broke into his house. Celebrity? Why would anyone want that? Stalkers obsessed with you to the point you fear for your life? Is anything worth that?

I know the paparazzi give stars a bad enough time. Sometimes even that shit gets violent. It’s fucked up. No one should have to live like that. No one.

I’m not sitting here worrying about it, but I know it’s a thing. That’s sad.

Still, the kid with the bottle broke me up.

And later on, I saw something even more creepy.

I knew a guy in the Army who had a glossy 8×10 black and white portrait of Judy Garland on the inside of his locker door. Now that was creepy as hell. Mainly because Judy Garland died in 1969.

I don’t know why the sarge ever overlooked or chose to ignore it for so long, but the private turned into a shitbird on an inspection and the sarge threw everything out of his locker. He turned around before walking away and said, “And what the fuck is Judy Garland doing up there? She’s dead! Get that creepy shit down right fuckin now, goddamnit!”

But I can’t forget that once, I knew a kid who was sick. Who talked to some paper and Crayola at the bottom of a crudely painted booze bottle and did not dream of Jeannie, but thought she was real.

And his captive little friend.

I hope “Major Nelson” grew up to get help and live a prosperous and good life.

But I rather doubt it. And I still can’t even look at a picture of Barbara Eden. I tried once.

No good.

To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before

Some people never get to experience love the way they want to in their dreams. Too many movies. Too many books. Too many TV shows…

We’ve dreamed because of them. While the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales and most of the origins of plots to even Disney classics were more horror stories than anything else, we’ve gone and watered them down, let them dry and coated them in sugar. Like donuts.

Eat too many donuts, and if you’re like me, you don’t want much else; coffee and donuts have often been my breakfast–and my dinner. But that’s no good. Everyone knows that, but we want what we want. We don’t buy things we won’t eat. You’ll never find butternut squash in my shopping cart.

Reality intervenes. Life ain’t no box of donuts.

What I mean is, we get unrealistic expectations and we settle on behaviours that harm us in the long run.

I’ve focused too much on the past. It’s because I’ve been stuck. Mental illness is not easy for those of us who suffer from it to deal with, and we’re all different. We have different backgrounds, different types of illnesses, and yet, like everyone else, we are expected to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and go to work.

Some people do just that, as I did, undiagnosed and unmedicated. For 30 years I did that, driven by guilt, pressure and an outdated understanding of the many kinds of mental illness by the medical community. I was there. I lived through it.

Any behaviour that was considered notable by other children in school got you labeled as “weird”, “creepy”, “stupid” or a “retard”.

Besides, if you had a problem, you had two ways to go: lone wolf or class clown. Sometimes I mixed both but it never worked; I just looked like an ill-behaved “retard”.

I’m not crying about it. I can’t change it any more now than I could then. History gets to stay where it belongs. But now, in treatment, there are a few things I can look back on without bitterness. Without pain, even if PTSD does keep me stuck in dark places often.

Dreams of who and what I could be when I grew up got crushed early on. Soon I couldn’t even say what they were. Was it a cowboy or astronaut? Jet pilot?

One thing I did dream about was being loved. I grew up feeling alone, scared, and believing what my father screamed at me, that I was retarded, stupid, useless, a waste. That I was never going to be able to do anything normal. You hear it enough, from an early age to your late teens, and you believe it.

But if I wasn’t loved, I could dream about it. Most girls later on I wouldn’t dare approach; I was simply too scared of being hurt.

But first, there was Barbara. Thin and leggy like a foal, she dazzled me by honestly being pretty and loving me. Third grade. We spent a whole summer together, inseparable. We didnt care what we did. We loved simply being together.

How quickly that summer passed. All too soon, gone. We considered summer to last until the first day of school, then it was autumn. Lake Shore Elementary School in the 1960s already seemed old to me. It smelled bad. Some kids who lived in the sticks smelled bad. Hell, some of the teachers smelled like roadkill.

One had a constant downstairs-type of odor that I can’t forget to this day. I believe it’s curable now…

First day of school. Every kid was dressed up. Girls had new dresses with bows in the back, their hair in curls. Shiny new shoes, all the best stuff from Sears or Monkey Wards. Boys, well, some anyway, wore white shirts and ties. Not me, man. Blue jeans and T-shirts and P.F. Flyers.

There was a blacktop out back. When the bell sounded, we’d get in lines in front of teachers who called us by name. Until then I guess we just milled around, nervous. Barbara’s older sister, Susan, had worn black hose and one knee was ripped out, bloodied skin exposed, and she was crying. Kids laughed at her. Kids are sometimes way too cruel.

Barbara and I saw each other after school, visiting and playing until it was time for dinner, homework and a bath. Then we parted ways.

It was the only time I remember being unconditionally loved with no restrictions, no expectations, just innocent and wonderful. Nothing like that would ever come my way again.

She was gone before I knew it. Moved to Thailand because her father went to war. Most B-52s and strategic fighter-bomber aircraft sortied from carriers or Thailand. I hid the day her father brought Barbara by on their way out of town to say goodbye. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t look at her, knowing I wasn’t ever going to see her again. There was no internet. No cell phones. No Skype. For one so young, you’d think it’s not possible to have a broken heart. Or for kids that age to truly love each other. But they can.

It was okay with her dad, stopping by like that. She asked him to. Told me a week before that they were going to stop on the way out. I just couldn’t.

I flunked that year. All my friends advanced. I rarely ever saw them again.

The second time around for third grade was little better. I had a girl in my class named Lee Ann, who I immediately loved, but never spoke to. Not that year, nor through sixth grade. After that I never saw her again. But I liked it that way. I didnt have to be hurt by losing another person I loved and had gotten close to. By that time too, I also knew I was a mess. I was showing visible patterns of behaviour I couldn’t understand, nor could teachers or friends. I held Lee Ann too close to my heart to take a chance on causing her any trouble. Or to get made fun of for liking me. And I figure that meant I respected her. Her best interests meant something to me.

Oh, others followed. Mostly crushes that were fleeting. Then high school. Two girls in two years loved me in their own way, but one has haunted many thoughts ever since.

My marriage was beautiful at first. I ruined it. Maybe she did, too. We made better friends than lovers.

There’s only been two women since who I have truly loved, and only one that I have trusted. She’s the last. My time here is limited, and the best is always the last. I’ve lived a messed up life, but it has led me here, and on this Thanksgiving morning, I’m very thankful that my heart has loved so many, whether they knew it or not.

Each filled my soul with light in the darkest of times. Each filled my head with peaceful, innocent dreams. And I’m so grateful, because each one had a part in saving me.

I’ve outlived some. Lost track of most. And most never even knew how much I cared. I have no regrets. Only gratitude.

So, to Barbara,

Lee Ann,

Kerry,

Donna,

Julie,

Phyllis:

You will always be in my heart and never far from my thoughts.

This is for you.

Happy Thanksgiving, and may you and your families be blessed with God’s help in these days of so much turmoil. Life can surely hurt sometimes, but you have touched people, and you each had an awesome part in my life, my dreams, my soul.

Thank you.

I Wish My Friend George Was Here…

Three years ago today. I’ve been thinking of late, wondering how long it’s really been. I couldn’t tell, couldn’t remember. Although I’m in “Facebook prison”, my memories are visible; I just can’t comment on or like posts, or set out anything new. But at least I got to see this.

3 years ago…

I just went outside to smoke. My good friend George (it’s strange, isn’t it, that everyone should have a friend named George?) came walking past with his morning Starbucks. He wanted to know how I was doing. He knows I’ve had a rough time lately. But when I answered him, he said, “I kind of knew it was going to happen sooner or later, but I’m meeting my wife at 12 to be put into a nursing home.”

Shock. I just asked, “Why?” But I knew. I just couldn’t fathom how fucking heartless she really was.

“Well, I’m gettin’ to where I can’t do a lot of the things I used to do.”

What do you say to something like that? I knew he’d been diagnosed, and I’d seen him once when he looked like he really was lost. One day he walked past me and didn’t recognize me at all.

It was only months ago. In the summer. He would come by while walking his dog, and stop for a visit. I fed his dog bacon treats, and it had taken two years for me to get her trust; she was a particular kind of hunting dog and her instincts were sharp. She was always on guard.

George talked about painting, taking a class at Howard County Community College. He told me how he used to work on defense systems for fighter jets at Northrup Grumman. He programmed a flight simulator that was really groundbreaking. He’d been all over the place doing so many good things.

I gave George my phone number. Of course, I’ll want to visit him, but I know he won’t call. I know I’ll never find him. I know I just said goodbye to him for the last time. Very soon, George will not be George anymore.

I already miss him. I’m already crying hot tears that mock me while they roll down my face. Big, burning tears that tell me I’m weak, that I got too close, and once again, I got hurt. That I should never open my heart, or wear it on my sleeve the way I do. That I am a fool and a cupcake.

I’m not just crying for myself, though. I’m not that selfish. I cry for George, because of all the unfair things that can happen to a human being, this disease may be the most unkind. To lose one’s own identity and life’s memories a little at a time is a cruel, vicious fate.

I’ll miss him terribly. Today the world is a sadder place. And once more, my heart is broken…

****

And that was three years ago. I never saw George again. His wife still walks by with the dog, but I can’t even pet the animal who still looks back at me when they’ve passed by. Dogs never forget. She knows I’m a friend, but she doesn’t understand why I don’t rush up to her, bacon strips in hand, ready to give a neck scratch. George’s wife never seemed to like me much. She doesn’t like me near her dog.

I don’t care. I miss my friend. I think of him often, and I wonder if there are any days left when he remembers me. I wonder if he still paints. I wonder a lot of things.

I surely do miss my friend George…

Freemasons

My jokes come back to haunt me. Always. Years ago, when I was on AOL, and you didn’t have to give your life’s history to leave comments on news articles, there was a story that inspired me to comment that Freemasons were spiking municipal water supplies with estrogen in order to boost sales of Viagra and bring it to non-prescription status.

Never one to miss a chance to overdo and run a joke into the ground, I began leaving this hilarious conspiracy theory all over AOL news posts. I didn’t get any responses, and when the thought of it no longer made me collapse in gales of laughter, I dropped it. No more use for AOL, and they began restricting comments anyway.

Months later I see an article that says hormones had been detected in the water supplies of major cities. Someone got the idea of testing the water specifically for hormones!

Of course, hormone levels were nowhere near a hazardous mark, but I always wondered, and still do, if my joke had anything to do with the tests being ordered. I’ll never know. But I’m very suspicious that I rolled a snowball downhill.

I’ve made other jokes. They usually are ignored. However, some trust me so much that they believe what I post. That’s sad. A joke is not so funny that you should risk losing a friend over it.

I’ve got a twisted, dry sense of humor. It comes with an appreciation for Monty Python. It comes with the risk of laughing at things which will get me punched. For my part, I’ve always wondered if I made it onto a local Lodge’s shit list, and maybe they’re watching me. I can’t have that.

I’m now administering automatically generated electric shocks to my nipples via automotive batteries and hotshot cables every time I get the idea that anything about a spiked municipal water supply could be funny.

Like Freemasons giving the men in America limp dicks with estrogen pumped into reservoirs, LOL!

SHIT FUCK SHIT that hurt!!!!

I’ll be going now. I have to look for my right nipple.

A Promise Kept…

About three years ago, I stopped and said hi to a new neighbor. She’d just had a baby girl. Later that day I saw her again on my way up the footpath to the shopping center. I stopped and said hi again. I scared her. Or just creeped her out. Sometimes that happens. I look like I just walked out of Folsom after half a century. Okay, actually it happens all the time.

One night, maybe the same night, she walked by with her husband. I was sitting down the steps by my door having a smoke. He stopped at the top of my steps on the main sidewalk, kissed her passionately, and that was sweet. It’s something I’ve seen before, though. It’s a guy thing. A signal to another guy. Or guys: stay away.

I left them alone after that. I understood. And there’s never anything you can do about it; a wall has been put up. It was okay with me.

A couple of months ago, I was outside talking to my next-door neighbor. He lives closer to them than I do, so they know him. It seemed awkward for me to be standing there while the mom and the girl, now walking and talking and as precious as she could be, said “hi” to Chris but not me. It was still okay, I understand these things. And I’ve probably gotten far less pretty these fast few years. I’ve taken to shaving with the lights off. So, it’s all good.

One day the girl mistook me for Chris. Which I took as a heartwarming compliment. Oh, to see through a child’s eyes. I remember what that’s like. I said “Hi” to her and and Chris came outside and so we both were talking to the mommy and her girl.

I even met the mom’s dad, an Asian-American man close to my age, and I liked him and his infectiously wonderful laugh and easygoing nature. I got to know the family just a little. And that’s how the promise got made.

The girl’s mom mentioned that her daughter loved Christmas lights. Funny. I’ve had lights up every year I’ve lived here, but last year a section of one string didn’t light, so at the end of the holiday season I took them down and tossed them. And with my son gone, I figured Christmas was a bad day for me anyway. Christmas day 2017 was the last time I saw my son alive. I guessed it was just time to put it all away.

But when I heard my neighbor say her little girl loves Christmas lights, I said, “Well, I wasn’t going to put lights up this year, but you know, just for her, I will.”

Her mom is young, but I found her friendship touching. Her husband is a strapping, really sturdy guy. I thought of him as a type-A male with an attitude. But he’s been nice. It’s good to know names and be okay to say hi when you see someone. Because that’s what makes life easier, less lonely. And it’s how I wish everyone could be.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours washing windows and stringing the lights, which have to be run on the inside because the condo has no outside outlets. I saw the mom as I was taking a break. She and the little one were outside and I had not seen them in a couple of weeks. She had been sick. I said I was putting the lights up. She pointed to them and the girl’s eyes went wide, and she smiled.

After dark, when they were on, there was a knock on the door. Mom and the girl were there and the girl said, “Thanks, Mike!”

And my heart melted.

It isn’t much.

So here’s where I’m going with all this. Sometimes making friends takes a while. Be patient. Sometimes, good things really do happen.

Two reels of Christmas lights: $50.00

One extension cord: $9.00

One package of tinsel: $0.99

Seeing a child smile and say “thanks”:

PRICELESS.

Harry

I stopped by the Harris Teeter supermarket for a Starbucks blonde pour-over with steamed half and half. I saw my good friend Harry sitting at a table in his wheelchair. He said, “You should pull up a chair and join me.”

Harry was once involved in an accident. His injuries should have killed him, but he made it. Somehow, he made it. He had a head injury. It affected his motor movement and speech center. It takes great effort for him to talk, but he can definitely hold a conversation. And every time we talk, I learn something simple, yet profound at the same time. His speech is not unlike that of a person with cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy. There will be higher pitch where none is intended. Breaks. But he’s sharp and he’s a wise man. He asked what I’d been up to. He lives close by, but I rarely cross paths with him. I need to change that.

Harry is extraordinary; confined to a wheelchair yet he propels it with his legs. Ain’t an ounce of quit in him.

He talked about his parents and how, even at 67, he needs order, a routine, rituals. Like an afternoon nap. His folks were alcoholics.

He asked me to remove my glasses, they made him uncomfortable. But they’re prescription, with three different strengths and grinds. They’re also the darkest sunglasses I could get. My sight is getting worse despite prescription drops, OTC drops and my best efforts to stay out of direct sun.

But my glucose levels must have been spiking because my visual acuity keeps getting worse. I explained this to Harry. He continued the conversation. I remained even after finishing my coffee; they never make it hot enough and even steamed creamer doesn’t matter.

Harry laughed. Joked. Was positive. If he, without the full use of his own body, can be positive and inspirational, then so can I.

I shook his hand, and he has a steel grip. I like that. A strong and self assured man. I bade him good day but stopped and said, “Brother, I want you to know, it’s always a good day when I get to see you.”

I’ve surely done more than my share of burning bridges. Not this time.

Harry…is my friend.

A Hug

I saw a neighbor last week. Walking her little boy in a stroller. He’s the right age to be able to voice his discomfort but still unable to quite express it as well as he wishes to.

They were on their way in and he was out of the stroller when I was on my way to the store. I stopped and spoke to the mom, because I like both she and her husband, although I think it matters none at all; I don’t matter to many, and I do prefer it that way. Sure, it gets lonely. But that’s fine because that is, at least, peaceful. But I spoke. Asked how things had been with the family. Said hello to the boy, whose name I obviously have no business using. He gave me a hug.

There’s a time on a rare day, when someone gets to experience something unexpected and pure, something one shall never forget. That was such a moment. I thanked him and told Mom that my heart was moved. Not wishing to cause undue worry by lingering, I bade them goodbye and moved on.

Sometimes it occurs to me despite being in the throes of depression and hopelessness that all hope need not nor ever should be abandoned until that time when one’s last breath draws too close to avoid. Our hope rests in the souls of the little ones. I perhaps should have told Mom to be more careful in teaching her son about people he doesn’t know, but I’ll trust that by now she has done so. It’s simply not that kind of world, nor was it ever, when the innocent ones could be let out of sight.

I am grateful for the hug. So seldom does one like myself ever get a gesture of simple, innocent friendship and trust, that it was unforgettable.

For a time, I did not cry. It takes so much effort to shop that after I return home, I am depleted in every way possible. I usually eat and then fall asleep. But that afternoon, I thought back to the hug. I cried.

Can children be that powerful and not even be aware of it?

To an extent, yes. But they grow up at different rates and with various influences guiding and shaping them.

Often they surprise others with a keen understanding and ability to express it, and many were the times they changed, as I know in my heart, history from what it may have been to what it is now.

We should not underestimate them. But more importantly, we should never hurt them, nor spare any effort to save them from harm. We should, all of humanity, be ashamed of the terrible harm we’ve caused. Refugees across the world suffer while seeking freedom from harm. And racism, religious bigotry, and pure evil stand in the way. There, wherever it happens, the voices of the young are not to be heard. There is only the silent pain or the sobbing. How will we account for our terrorist actions against them?

Occasionally when one speaks to us, to our collective conscience, their words carry considerable weight.

I’ve read many articles like this. Who can forget “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus”?

It gets brought out every Christmas season like the old multicolored strings of lights handed down to us from parents who bought them for a dollar back in 1958. Not to mention that most unforgivable invention, the horrifying Elf on the shelf.

The hearts of the little ones need to have good things to feel. Their minds give them voice to touch our own hearts, to call our own minds to aspire to better things. To have hope in them, in the future. What a shame more of us never answer that call.