tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55801321160955201442024-03-13T20:21:26.190-04:00The Voices in My HeadI write what I know, and the suppositions of "what if". This place incorporates the two aspects of my life: the real (or my perspective of what is "real") and the fiction. Sometimes it's profane, confusing, sad, sweet, bitter,and funny- or just plain boring and stupid, all at the same time, but it's mine.
Teacher, writer, amateur bass player, observer of the world..
One other thing:
My dad passed away August 15, 2013 from Alzheimer's. I hate Alzheimer's. Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.comBlogger234125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-43514232773110363882022-02-03T14:56:00.005-05:002022-02-08T15:20:57.205-05:00No, You Don't Know Him.<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Every time I think I’ve been able to put it behind me, it rears
it ugly head and bites me again. Yesterday an arrest warrant was taken out for
my small town sheriff for sexual battery on a prominent <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place></st1:city> judge. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And with that news the people came out of
the woodwork who don’t believe he did it because, “I’ve known him my whole life."</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I thought I
knew male members of my own family too, but two of them sexually molested two
minor family members, and half of my family won’t even admit that it happened, even though one of predators (and yes, he groomed an underage girl for years so
he’s a predator) tearfully begged me to forgive him and, “Please, don’t tell my
wife.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had no concern for his victim,
just himself. The half of my family that thinks that my not wanting
to be around this predatory family member is just because of politics can kiss
my pale behind. Every time I read about a man doing something like my sheriff is accused of doing,
I get angry. I know how many women and girls aren’t believed and I know what
they have to live with. Every time I hear women denying that sexual assault happened
to other women, it cuts me to my heart. If women can’t even support their fellow
sisters, what is to happen to us?</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let justice play out, but if my sheriff is guilty, hold him
accountable. And don’t make excuses for him because “I know him so well.” No,
you don’t. That's not a defense.</p>Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-72695901231343495032021-11-07T13:44:00.006-05:002021-11-07T19:39:24.067-05:00The Times They Are A'Changin'<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">My twelve year old granddaughter and I are several generations
apart. She begs for Roblox gift cards and spends her days in worlds of her own
creation. She’s boujee and frenetic and carefree. She dances and throws her
arms with abandon. And she wears Mom jeans.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My teen years
in the 70s, with its free love and marijuana smoke hanging heavy over concert
venues while cops just winked at us as we toked, was just as carefree, but thankfully
Mom jean free. AC/DC sang about wet patches on seats, Fleetwood Mac’s
Gold Dust Woman addressed drugs, Rush sang about dystopian futures, Ted Nugent
growled about Wang Dang Sweet Poontang, and REO Speedwagon sang about a barely legal
teenage girl. We sang loudly and didn't give one thought to what the lyrics meant. It was only decades later that I realized what these songs were really about.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then the 80s exploded and sexual lyrics became even more overt (or maybe I was just noticing more). Women started singing about sex right along with the men. Madonna
sang about being like a virgin and Pat Benatar challenged men to hit her with their
best shot, and Joan Jett owned her Bad Reputation. There was sweet romance with
Heart and clean good fun with the Go Gos. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were Footloose looking over our shoulder
for that Man Eater or those Betty Davis Eyes while Simple Minds reminded us, “Don’t
Forget About Me.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Police glorified stalking
with Every Step You Take and we sang along at the top of our lungs. Boy George moaned,
Do You Really Want to Hurt Me and we felt the pangs of broken romance to the
core of our young wounded hearts. While this music was blossoming and booming I
was in my early twenties, just starting my life with a clean slate and a fresh optimistic
view of the future and of my role in the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That was almost forty years ago. I’m now a bit jaded and suspicious
and careful. My heart has been broken so many times it has deep fissure cracks
in it and I don’t trust as easily as I once did. I walk in a mine field in a
society molded by social media that has us grappling with politics and religion
and justice and equality and truth. A world where science isn’t real, families are divided, a pandemic
has killed over five million people worldwide in a little over a year and a
half, cops kill young black men with impunity, disillusioned
fear soaked people storm our Capitol building in D.C to overturn an election, people attack flight attendants on planes, conspiracy
theories leave us reeling, and we’re split into our own insular communities
that internet algorithms have created. A Brave New World. </p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="background: white;">I still listen to 80s music so I can re-live a time when worries were
fewer and the future was secure with hard work and hope. Meanwhile, my
aforementioned twelve year old granddaughter skips down the road on our walk to
the store singing loudly, “I always feel like somebody’s watching me!” a
song released in 1984 by one hit wonder band Rockwell. 1984, the year I became
a mom for the first time and my rose colored glasses began to slip. </span> "Yes, baby," I want to tell my granddaughter as she skips
gleefully, “they are watching you. So be very careful, but meanwhile dance,
dance, dance! And don’t listen to W.A.P until you’re old enough to understand
it." </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZjV35WweHir2YzrYwJBi9790ZxuoNrMuhneUlqm6nrcPHTMbnVUxCjJHChGHZGWDNuF3lP7399sw7OqrjWUCQ7kuHxjLInC8ez4SOVKI6uY8aakqmvsAG2f7LoNbbw8b4SQZOeb76ctg/s1200/mtv_broadcast.0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZjV35WweHir2YzrYwJBi9790ZxuoNrMuhneUlqm6nrcPHTMbnVUxCjJHChGHZGWDNuF3lP7399sw7OqrjWUCQ7kuHxjLInC8ez4SOVKI6uY8aakqmvsAG2f7LoNbbw8b4SQZOeb76ctg/s320/mtv_broadcast.0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-2452772749216206842021-03-01T15:19:00.004-05:002021-03-01T16:31:08.195-05:00Insanity: AIDS vs Covid Response<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444;">I’m re-reading the book “And the Band Played On” by Randy Shilts
about the AIDS crises in the 1980s and it’s bringing back memories of that time.
It’s also showing me that we haven’t learned much, which is why the Covid response
has been so scattered and ineffective. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When AIDS
hit <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:place></st1:city>
in the early 80s, there was a movement to shut down the bathhouses because
risky sexual behaviors in the bathhouses were spreading AIDS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The owners of the bathhouses didn’t want them
closed down because they’d go broke, so they put money above public health and
instituted a movement to keep the bathhouses open regardless of the health
implications. There was a clear cut divide in the gay community concerning this
issue. One side wanted to pretend that nothing was happening and to keep living
their lives as if there wasn’t a deadly new virus worming its way into the
community. Then there was the other side that was looking into the future at the
long term consequences of keeping bathhouses open as AIDS exploded and starting
killing off many talented, loving, productive good people. Then there was the
straight community who listened to Jerry Falwell and couldn’t be bothered with
the issue because "<span style="background: white;">AIDS is a lethal judgment of God on the sin of homosexuality and it is also the judgement of God on America for endorsing this vulgar, perverted and reprobate lifestyle" (Falwell, 1987). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blood
banks didn’t want to cause undue alarm and hurt their profits, so the blood
bank lobby pushed back against testing donors by hiding behind a false concern of
how testing donors would impact the gay community (which was a real concern during the homophobic 80s). Blood banks didn’t care
about the gay community though. They cared about profit. So for love of profit masquerading
as “my rights,” outraged morality, and blind ignorance, there have been over
700,000 AIDS related deaths since the early 80s.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>We’ve heard the same “my
rights” arguments about closing establishments and wearing masks in public since
March 2020. Money over public health. “My rights’ over public health. I thought
we’d be able to put that thinking behind us by learning from the mistakes that
were made during the AIDS crises, and that we would be mature and responsible
and concentrate on the health issues and not the “my rights” issues, but sadly
I was wrong. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a government doesn’t
take responsibility for a health crises and give needed assistance to the people and the economy,
we break under the non-responses. Our elected leaders
have to take the lead, and the sitting U.S presidents during the start of the
AIDS crises and the Covid pandemic did not lead. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we don’t embrace the fact that we have a societal
obligation to one another and that no person is an island unto themselves, we’ll
keep fucking up our responses to major epidemics and pandemics. Insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Reagan and Trump both took the wrong page out of the playbook. I only hope
future administrations that deal with the next pandemic (and there will
be another one) burn that page and that people start seeing this country as a
collective of people whose behaviors impact one another and not separate
islands of “my rights.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="color: #444444;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444;">As of this writing there have been 513,821 U.S Covid deaths, and still counting...</span></p>Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-35712021422861629302021-01-20T14:24:00.003-05:002021-01-20T14:24:53.172-05:00My Country 'Tis of Thee<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">This day is a new start for me and my country, Americans and
non-Americans alike. A day of renewed hope, a day to repair the many principles
and norms that were broken over the past four years, a day to reassess, to rededicate
ourselves to the principles of what it means to be an American, what it means
to be a country, a democracy. After four years of being dragged daily through
hate, uncertainty, and temper tantrums, today couldn’t come soon enough. We are
bruised and battered, but we are not down and out. 45 did not destroy us. What he
did was expose white supremacy and hate in all its forms. He showed us what
lurks in the souls of men (and women) and now as we move forward it is not our
job to excuse or ignore that white supremacy and hate, but to defeat it with common
sense love, compassion and strength. There can be no healing without justice and
accountability. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like roaches that scuttled out of the dark
crevices during 45’s administration, we must squash the hate and division with
our boot heel and make certain that never again are they allowed to threaten our
democracy and our forefathers’ vision for this country. We must be better. We must
not ever again allow division of our country based on color, race, religion, sexual
orientation, or sexual identity. Every one of us, rather we live on the shores
of Oregon, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the rich lands of California,
the sprawling Midwest plains, the heat and music drenched south, or in our glittering
cities on the hills, is an American, and as such it is our responsibility to safeguard
what we have been gifted and never ever allow another four years to happen like
we just lived through. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is time
to break the chains that corporate America has on working Americans because those
Americans: the truck drivers, the military, the teachers, the fast food
workers, the nurses, the lawn care crews, the factory workers are what keep
this country functioning. This nation was not founded for corporations, but for
the people. By the people, for the people. And right now people are struggling
to keep a roof over their heads, access healthcare, and buy food. People are
losing their homes. Climate change is a world emergency. Covid has decimated
the foundations of our economy. The <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> has more homeless children
than any other developed nation on earth. The house is on fire and if we don’t put
out that fire right now, this nation will fall to ash. But today I have a
renewed hope. We can do better. We must do better. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Education
costs, housing, health care, food, have all outstripped wages. My hope is that a Biden administration
will address these economic issues and more. I know that the problems can’t be fixed in
four years, but we now have a spring board to create legislation and laws that
will benefit the working class and not just the ones who hold the power and the
money. Climate change, inequality, injustices for people of color, low wages, for-profit
healthcare, and Covid-19 response are issues that won’t just go away on their
own. WE have to help fix them. And we can’t become complacent again. WE cannot ever
again say that our one vote doesn’t matter, because each and every vote DOES
matter. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stay involved, continue to hold our
elected officials accountable, be the voice you want to hear. We came far too close
to our voices being silenced by the voices of hate and division. Stay alert,
but be compassionate. As President Biden said today, “Our better angels have always
prevailed.” Let them prevail now. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJxEsDDp7QCYL5b-3EvcmCplRMYroUF1dMQ8kA7NMNc1C5FnV6jAFvfBrzqScqJbkPdttzLU9DcWvGG2qlz0iAUZWGbB5_DveivDgdax7IRpONhSCyCrJ3TZwkDP-3BOM_V2DHcdWqKkw/s700/we+the+people.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="700" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJxEsDDp7QCYL5b-3EvcmCplRMYroUF1dMQ8kA7NMNc1C5FnV6jAFvfBrzqScqJbkPdttzLU9DcWvGG2qlz0iAUZWGbB5_DveivDgdax7IRpONhSCyCrJ3TZwkDP-3BOM_V2DHcdWqKkw/s320/we+the+people.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-55194136891207995912020-12-31T13:50:00.002-05:002020-12-31T22:09:39.108-05:00Goodbye 2020, It's Been Real.<p> In 2020 we saw the theatre of a mock impeachment for a
sitting president, we witnessed a president downplay a virus and berate
scientists who warned that a pandemic was ensuing, and then we watched in
horror as Covid-19 put a stranglehold on NYC. And still our president did
little other than pontificate and bluster and make excuses and hand out false promises.
But we felt relatively safe in rural <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>. We weren’t <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city>. It
wouldn’t touch us. There’s no way the virus would move in on the rest of America
in the same way as it did in New York City where bodies were stored in
refrigerated trucks because the morgues were full. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except it did touch us with its rotting death
fingertip and now almost 350,000 Americans are dead.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In my little rural <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region> county of 12,838, we rank as
the 59<sup>th</sup> worst county in the nation out of a total of 3,143 counties
to be hit by Covid-19 cases. In the United States 98% of the counties are
faring better at containing Covid-19 than my county is. Every time I walk into
a local store and see people unmasked I have to stop myself from screaming at
them. Three weeks ago I went into a local popular butcher shop and as I got to
the cash register there was a cashier with her mask under her chin. I asked
that she please put her mask on because I was on my way to pick up my mom from
breast cancer surgery. I shouldn’t have felt that I even had to explain that,
but I did anyway. She looked at me as if I had just asked her to show me her
tits. She pulled her mask up over her mouth, not her nose, mind you. Before I even
finished checking out, she had pulled the mask back down under her chin. I got
to my car and phoned the manager and complained, all the while feeling that I
was somehow in the wrong. Of course, nothing will be done to the cashier and I
will have to make a decision if I want to risk exposure by going back into that
place of business, but there are several restaurants and stores in my town that
I’ve had to make that same choice about because they refuse to follow any sort
of Georgia Dept of Health Guidelines. (Private email me and I will let you know
the names of these businesses). My experience at the butcher shop is just one
example why my region of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region>
has no ICU beds left. And why 2020 sucks donkey balls.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This year has been defined by listening to a president deny
the danger of a new virus as thousands of people kept coming down with Covid
and thousands died, Tiger King binge sessions (WTF was that???), making sure I
have my mask whenever I leave the house, forgoing travel to visit my sons,
making sure my can of Lysol and hand sanitizer is in my car at all times, and not
getting together with friends or family for holidays. On a grander scale I have watched in horror
as the social fabric has been ripped by our president and white supremacist
groups like the Proud Boy, a president who denies the democratic election
process, economic destruction for too many middle class American families (the
super wealthy are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch), and an ugly division
among Americans not seen since the Civil War. History will judge this time and find us
lacking in common sense and compassion. 2020 will be remembered as one long
Purge movie come to life. Through a dark
lens our perplexed ancestors will study us, much the same as I’ve tried to
study how the world could have stood by as Hilter murdered 6 million Jews with
impunity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>I’m holding on to the promise of 2021. I’m holding on for a
president who can effectively run our infrastructure to get the vaccine into
the arms of Americans so we can conquer this virus, for a re-formation of a
National Pandemic Unit so we can be better prepared when another novel virus
happens again (and it will), for a serious evaluation of how many Americans are
merely living paycheck-to-paycheck in the richest nation on earth, a raise in
the minimum wage and increased worker protections, a complete overhaul of our
for-profit health care system into a system where every American will have
access to healthcare, water and air protections so my great-grandchildren will
have a clean planet, climate change action on a national level and a budget
that stands behind the exploration of alternate power sources (sorry, big oil,
your time is up), and lastly for people to reach inside themselves to try and
find that part where compassion resides.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2021, I
will not jinx you by saying that things can’t get worse than 2020, because I
know that they can. I only hope, 2021, that you will be more forgiving of our
human fragilities and defects and that you give us the time and space to try
and set things right.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Yq30ZFW5vVE6i0S1GtT4sV98J4Er7nwfBjoAh51g2_s6pzG1HkuZfFBpKqvGQIY74KIMLoZp7_2eiAEiDByQgdQUlRDOuInJCC4aOlMVPthwiTx6iDnynVJ0TCn6FhbSC7qxANjjJyI/s1280/worst-year-2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Yq30ZFW5vVE6i0S1GtT4sV98J4Er7nwfBjoAh51g2_s6pzG1HkuZfFBpKqvGQIY74KIMLoZp7_2eiAEiDByQgdQUlRDOuInJCC4aOlMVPthwiTx6iDnynVJ0TCn6FhbSC7qxANjjJyI/s320/worst-year-2020.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-4113532714415705282020-11-07T12:59:00.007-05:002020-11-07T13:48:16.777-05:00A Letter to Trump Supporters After the AP called the election for Biden<p> Trump supporters, please. Let me put your mind at
ease about a Biden/Harris presidency.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>You don't make $400,000 a year so your taxes
won't increase.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>Oil prices might go up a bit, but that money will
be invested in renewable resources so maybe my grandchildren will still have
planet to live on when they're my age.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>There isn’t going to be a flood of immigrants
coming to take your jobs (immigrants do everything from picking your
strawberries to operating on your duodenal ulcers- our strength has ALWAYS been
our immigrants), but the Dreamers who have contributed so much to this country will
finally be able to say, “I’m a United States citizen!!"</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>Education will not suffer. In fact, more monies
will be appropriated for public education and hopefully that money will be
divided fairly so that majority minority Title I schools can have actual working
a/c, new text books, band equipment, computer technology, and after school
programs.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">And your health insurance? Please. If you're
paying $600.00 or more a month for private health insurance, how is paying the
same amount through an exchange so EVERYONE can have health care going to hurt
you? It won’t, and costs and will go down. The only ones that universal
healthcare will hurt is YOUR private health insurance company and MY private
health insurance company who are helping to drive up costs as I type this.
They're the ones lobbying HARD against a healthcare exchange for all. They
know their profits will shrink. Healthcare should NEVER be tied to profits.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>And then there’s the word “Socialism.” Settle
down, it won’t bite you. You’re so scared of the boogeyman word
"socialism" that you fail to look at the way socialism impacts your
daily life for the better: </p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>Public roads and highways</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Law enforcement</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Public libraries</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Public schools</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Social security</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Medicare</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Earned Income Tax Credit</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Section 8 Housing</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Housing for Persons with Disabilities (HUD)</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Worker protection laws, including child labor
laws</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Fire departments</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Pell Grants</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Public water</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Job Corps</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Family Planning</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Legal Aid Services</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Headstart</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">The electricity that comes into rural homes </p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">The <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hoover</st1:place></st1:city>
Dam</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">National Parks</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">The military</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Garbage pickup</p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Public transportation</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>So, sniff up your tears and calm the fuck down.
You’re going to be okay. I’m going to be okay. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you know who will throw a temper tantrum? The
uber wealthy in this country (like Zuckerberg, Bezos, the Walmart family, and 50 Cent),
that for some insane reason you keep defending. The tax increase is not going to hurt them except they might not be able to buy a fifth extra mansion or another yacht. Their turn is over. They've reaped disproportionate profits while the lower and middle class have lost substantial ground. It's time that the lower class
and the middle class - the backbone of this country -have policies enacted to help
THEM. </p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>And that science stuff? It’s real. I don’t care
if you read some Facebook post about how a virus was made in a lab and
unleashed upon an unsuspecting world (it wasn’t) or watched a YouTube made by some dubiously
educated doctor saying masks cause illness (they don’t). I’M listening to the doctors who have spent
their lives furthering their education and who have dedicated years to gaining
knowledge through actual research: doctors who have published in prestigious
medical journals and have won numerous awards in their fields, doctors who have
worked in their fields, who have started at point A to get to Point R and not
worked backwards from Point R to prove Point A (because that’s not how science
works). </p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Oh, yeah, and Climate Change? That shit is real too and human actions have sped it up exponentially.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon who I referred to earlier, saw his wealth
rise by $48 BILLION dollars during the pandemic, a sum that is unfathomable to most people. Meanwhile
in a Center for Budget and Policy Priorities report, that was updated on
November 2, 2020, it was found that due to Covid-19, 1 in 7 adults with
children lacked sufficient food in the last seven days. Nearly 1 in 6 renters
are not caught up on their rent and are risking homelessness. This is the
greatest nation on earth?</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>Meanwhile, the virus continues to ravage not only
our economy but our citizens and our country. The virus spreads unchecked under
a current president who has decided to effectively ignore the virus. Biden won’t
ignore it. His virus task force (who by
the way believes in science) will hit the ground running on day one.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>The rich are growing vastly richer and average
Americans are sliding into poverty at dizzying rates. The virus is running unchecked.
Unemployment is mounting. The disparities in income have become a huge chasm. We
have to start building bridges over that chasm or we will collapse into that
oblivion.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Joe can start the bridge building process. WE
can start that process, but it’s going to take everyone being informed about
what is really going on. Read books. For God’s sake, just read some freaking
books.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>I recommend the following list as a jumping off
point:</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nickel and Dimed</i> by Barbara Ehrenreich</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> T</o:p></i><i>he Working
Poor: Invisible in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region></i>
by David K. Shipler,</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>The
American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take it
Back </i>by Elisabeth Rosenthal</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i><i>The
Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System and How to
Fix It</i> by Natalie Wexler</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i><i>Hand to
Mouth; Living in Bootstrap <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region></i>
by Linda Tirado</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>White
Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism</i> by Robin
Diangelo</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i><i>The Warmth
of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s
Great Migration</i> by Isabel Wilkerson</p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><i>Dark Money</i> by Jan Mayer</p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">With Biden as president, you won't be subjected
to late night rage tweeting, watching a president suck up to dictators, sitting
by as a president makes millions of personal dollars off taxpayers, hearing a
president refer to people with childish schoolyard nicknames, or being slammed with headlines where a
president has blasted an allied foreign head of state out of pettiness. </p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
The wealthy will pay their fair share, minimum wage increases will mean you
don't have to scrape to buy food or get a new pair of glasses, and renewable
energy sources will mean JOBS! Our national forests and parks and wildlife, the shining diamonds of our country, will again be protected.</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p>So, how's that looking for you? </p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">Turn off Fox News and OAN and start
reading/listening to award winning journalism like Associated Press and Reuters.
Facebook memes aren't news. Twitter isn't news. Learn to practice discernment.
Learn to shift the bullshit from the truth, even if you don't like the
truth. What’s the old saying? The truth shall set you free. However, you
must first be willing to look at the truth and not flinch. Do you have the
courage to do that?</p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">I’m betting on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Are you? </p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">We're still here, baby!!</p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNvKy1zm4Hl05OrofR1727LKTrpwgbtsUugOagAasMYyMOSd9vfVOVHK7BIXbUG-PftwRt9bOdFYpZSO0JRPOGpyix9PBclI6a60asjWuM4IWg9Bb-U0XMJQiyXZFLvrsCBp_Dr_LHdCA/s660/flag_20191218130040_ZQ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="660" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNvKy1zm4Hl05OrofR1727LKTrpwgbtsUugOagAasMYyMOSd9vfVOVHK7BIXbUG-PftwRt9bOdFYpZSO0JRPOGpyix9PBclI6a60asjWuM4IWg9Bb-U0XMJQiyXZFLvrsCBp_Dr_LHdCA/s320/flag_20191218130040_ZQ.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"><br /></p>
<p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-41144541584121888812020-11-03T13:56:00.006-05:002020-11-03T21:02:31.849-05:00Why I Vote. Tuesday, Nov 3 , 2020 1:56 p.m<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law
The Equal Pay Act of 1963. I was almost five months old.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On August 28, when I was one year and seven months old, The
March on <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state></st1:place>
occurred with the keynote speaker, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his now
famous “I Have a Dream” speech. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was one year and ten months old when President Kennedy was
killed in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Dallas</st1:place></st1:city>
on November 22, 1963. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-family: Arial; font-size: 7pt; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-family: Arial; font-size: 7pt; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background: white; color: #181818; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">I was three years old when in 1965, President Johnson signed The Voting
Rights Act that halted efforts to keep minorities from voting. </span>That same
year the Supreme Court ruled on<span style="color: #282828;"> </span><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/griswold-v-connecticut-3529463"><i><span style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black;">Griswold v.
Connecticut</span></span></i></a><span style="color: #282828;">, that struck down a law restricting access to
contraception for married couples.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">In 1967, when I was five-years-old,
President Johnson amended Executive Order 11246, which dealt with affirmative action, to include sex discrimination on the list of prohibited employment
discrimination.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On April 4, 1968 Rev Martin Luther King Jr. was
murdered in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Memphis</st1:city></st1:place>
at The Lorraine Hotel.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">On June 28, 1968 when police tried
to arrest gay patrons in New York City at the Stonewall Inn for simply being gay, the patrons rioted for three
days. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">In late summer 1968 I came to </span><st1:country-region style="color: #282828;" w:st="on">Georgia</st1:country-region><span style="color: #282828;"> school for first grade while my dad went
to </span><st1:country-region style="color: #282828;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #282828;">.
I saw school and other social racial segregations for the first time in my life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">On </span><span style="color: #282828;">November 22, 1971 when I was nine-years-old, the<b> </b></span><span style="color: #282828;">Supreme
Court case </span><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/reed-v-reed-3529467"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">Reed v. Reed</span></span></i></a><span style="color: #282828;"> declared
sex discrimination a violation of the </span><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/womens-rights-and-the-fourteenth-amendment-3529473"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">14th Amendment</span></span></a><span style="color: #282828;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">When I was ten-years old in
1972, the senate approved the Equal Rights Amendment and it was sent to the states
for ratification (to this day, it has not passed). That same year, the American
Psychiatric Association finally agreed to remove homosexuality from its list of
mental disorders. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled
on Roe Vs Wade, giving women, for the first time, the legal right to reproductive
choice. I was eleven-years-old.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I was a senior in high school on
October 14, 1979, when 75,000 people descended on <st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state>
for a National March on <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state></st1:place>
for Lesbian and Gay Rights.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">In 1980, the year I graduated
high school, </span><span style="background: white; color: #111111;">Paula Hawkins
of <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Florida</st1:place></st1:state>, a
Republican, became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate without
following her husband or father in the job.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #111111;">When I was nineteen-years-old in 1981, the first woman Supreme Court Justice was confirmed. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">On June 26, 2015, when I was fifty-three
years old, the United States Supreme Court ruled same sex marriage legal in all
50 states.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">In 2017 when I was fifty-five-years-old, thousands of immigrant children, including infants, were separated from their
parents by our government. To date, over 500 children have not been reunited with
their families. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I was fifty-eight-years-old when
George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were murdered by law enforcement officers.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I was fifty-eight-years-old when 231,477 Americans had been reported dead from Covid-19, a virus that our leadership failed to address. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I vote so that we might protect
the rights that women, blacks, and the LGBTQ community have fought so hard to obtain.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I vote for all Americans no matter
the race, creed, age, sexual orientation, sexual identity, or religion. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I vote so that all Americans will
have equal protection under the law. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I vote on the right side of history.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I vote for unity and not division. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I vote for social justice. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I vote so that all Americans might
have healthcare. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I vote so that education is equally
funded for every child.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">I vote Joe Biden because our
country will not survive another four years of Donald J. Trump. We are standing
on the precipice. This is our moment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;">See you on the other side. </span><span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEyNEpMCvRJUD7u3USQgMjCAHCUiPztBGA3WLb36Bm-o7XmyzNj2MHL-h_u4l-3B0o-OjvQOV1swoacRVL8oepW06Qhxr4fWsUKMi-ozoTr1-BMF5JkdLEAUzwAwSlzVIDzxPgSfhis4U/s246/unity.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="205" data-original-width="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEyNEpMCvRJUD7u3USQgMjCAHCUiPztBGA3WLb36Bm-o7XmyzNj2MHL-h_u4l-3B0o-OjvQOV1swoacRVL8oepW06Qhxr4fWsUKMi-ozoTr1-BMF5JkdLEAUzwAwSlzVIDzxPgSfhis4U/s0/unity.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #282828;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #282828;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-40413455962889800972020-04-16T23:49:00.002-04:002020-04-18T03:03:04.104-04:00The Road to Being a Humanist (Or "You're Going to Hell, Lady!")<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I was a little girl my mom and dad taught me this bedtime prayer: </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Now I lay me down to
sleep</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I pray the Lord my
soul to keep</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
If I should die
before I wake</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I pray the Lord my
soul to take.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Parents for generations have taught their children this
prayer, and maybe for some of those children the prayer was a comfort. But for
me, the overactive imagination child who created fictional characters in blank
notebooks and would kneel over ant mounds for hours and watch the ants as they went
about their little ant business, this prayer was disturbing, and perhaps my
first hint that organized religion and a belief in an invisible man in the
sky might not be for me. “If I should die before I wake”? Wait, hold the prayer. I
mean, what the hell? Every night after I fell asleep was a chance that I,
through no fault of my own, might never wake up? That blew my little child mind
to smithereens. Might be why I have always dreaded going to sleep. Even today, I
have to be utterly exhausted to give into sleep.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then there was <st1:placename w:st="on">Vacation</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Bible</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">School</st1:placetype>,
Baptist style, the summer my dad left for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>. I was six-years-old,
impressionable, and wanted so much to please the adults and be a good girl, so
for a solid week in the summer of 1968, at 9 a.m, I dutifully walked down the
road from my grandmother’s house to attend a little white clapboard church
where I was indoctrinated by adults, some of who probably had never even
finished eighth grade. There were Popsicle stick crosses to glue together and
colored macaroni bead necklaces to string interspersed with tales of God
drowning people in a great flood, the death of babies if their parents forgot
to put a red X over the door, and a burning bush that talked. None of it
made any sense to my pragmatic mind, but I was just a kid and all the adults seemed to believe
what they were telling me, no matter how preposterous it all sounded, so who
was I to question? Then after all the stories and the crafts, we’d sing as loudly as we could:</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Jesus loves the
little children.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
All the children of
the world.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Red and yellow, black
and white,</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
they are precious in
his sight,</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Jesus loves the
little children of the world.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
That fall I started first
grade in deep south rural <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and there were no black children anywhere in the entire school. I knew blacks lived
in the town because I had seen them. I had also seen black children. On the
first day of first grade, I registered that I was awash in nothing but a sea
of white faces, but I couldn’t quite put two and two together. I just knew
something wasn’t right and I didn’t possess the vocabulary to enable me to
express what I was feeling. One day not long after while my mom drove- we were
probably going to put flowers on my grandfather’s grave- my grandmother pointed
out a run-down red brick building and she informed me the building was where
the black kids went to school. My school building was new and crisp and fresh
with new text books about Dick and Jane and a grass carpeted playground with all the
latest play equipment. The black children's school looked as if it was slowly crumbling along
the edges and the playground consisted of a weed-choked, dusty dirt plot with
rusty, broken swings and slides. Jesus loves the little children? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t put
my finger on it. So it got buried like a seed.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We moved the <st1:place w:st="on">Crete</st1:place> when
I was in third grade and we lived downtown for a year. The upstairs Greek lady
was very nice to me and would invite me to her apartment for grape preserves.
She had a different looking cross in her house hanging on the wall and every
time I rode the bus and it passed a church all the Greeks on the bus would
cross themselves, and I learned to do it by watching them. I can still do it expertly
enough to fool any Greek Orthodox Bishop. I didn’t equate the hand movement
with religion; I just thought it was a polite way to say hello to the church as
we passed by. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fast forward to <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state>
a few years later. Sixth grade. The school bus didn’t come past my house so Mom
paid a lady a small weekly sum to take me to and from school in her fifteen passenger
van. I wasn’t the only kid on that van, because driving it was how the
lady supplemented her retirement income so the van was packed with kids. Some even sat in the aisles on the floor. When we’d get to school the Van Lady wouldn’t let us off the van until we had prayed to Jesus, then every afternoon when she picked us up,
we were again led in prayer. Then one day she introduced us kids to a young,
long haired, hippy looking man and his equally hippy looking young wife who
started telling us kids about “being saved” and how we were living in the last
days, and one day soon a rapture was going to happen where all the righteous in
God would be caught up in the clouds to return to him before God unleashed a
multitude of evils upon the world. They explained that the only way we could
return to God was to “be saved” and that entailed saying a prayer in which we
asked for forgiveness and invited Jesus into our hearts. Poof! That’s it.
Magically we would be transformed and have a one way golden ticket into the
clouds for the rapture. I pictured the saved people flying up into the sky
while a lot of confused people left on earth watched as the saved floated away like
helium balloons. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The poor Jews, Hindus, atheist, all those people who had
lived before Jesus or lived in remote parts of the world and were never “saved”
would be tossed into a fiery pit of eternal fire and damnation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once again, maybe the adults knew what they
were talking about and I was just a dumb kid. The Van Lady gave me little Bible
tracts to insert in doorways and hand out to my neighbors. The tracts were
always cartoons depicting how one evil person, who not only smoked and drank and
did drugs, but also fornicated (I wasn’t really sure what that was, but it
sounded pretty bad). By the end of the cartoon booklet the evil person knelt to accept
Jesus as his/her savior and he/she was transformed in the blink of an eye into a
shiny new person who had Jesus in their heart. And that made Satan pretty
angry. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since my dad was in the military and we moved so often, I
was desperate to fit in somewhere and I began to respond to the Van Lady and
the Hippy couple and feel a “burning in my bosom” (admittedly a still flat
bosom). By the time the Van Lady invited me and some other kids on a weekend
retreat with the young hippy couple, I was ecstatic. Why my mother ever let me
attend that weekend is beyond me. She didn’t really know those people. Today it
would be unthinkable for a parent to allow a child to go off for a weekend with
people they barely know. At the retreat we sang songs, sat around a bonfire and
roasted hot dogs while the hippy guy talked about Jesus and played guitar, and
I got saved. But the doubts lingered and I thought that since I had doubts I
just wasn’t being a true believer. It must be my fault. It couldn’t be God’s fault
because God was perfect. So I struggled with my child faith and passed out more
tracts and even built a fort and tried to convert the neighborhood kids. But no
one seemed really interested. After about a year we moved, and since my new
house was closer to the school, I could walk. Van Lady and my conversion became
a distant memory. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A few months later Mom and Dad decided we’d go to church
and they started taking us to a church building that in a previous life had been a fried
chicken restaurant. I could almost feel a thin coating of leftover cooked
grease lingering in the air and on the pages of the hymnals. Everything was
okay until one Sunday about three months later when a woman proceeded to fling
herself on the floor in the middle of the service and started babbling
nonsense. Mom later told me that the woman was “speaking in tongues.” We never
went back. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that was the end of my
limited childhood exposure to religion.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Later, after I grown up and married and had two children, my
then husband became interested in the Mormon church and I felt an attraction to
their family values, especially since my own marriage was rapidly
disintegrating. Maybe they could help me save my marriage. Here, I must digress,
because I still have friends who are members of the church. I am not trying to
make fun of or undermine their faith. It just didn’t work for me, but I’m glad
it works for them. I’m just as skeptical of Baptist, Catholic, or Islamic
fables, so don’t feel singled out. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I was baptized into the Mormon church, my ex was baptized,
and when my oldest son was eight, he was baptized. The more I learned, the more
the old doubts from my childhood roared back to life. Golden plates that were
translated in a hat? An angel? Underwear that was supposed to protect me?
Secret ceremonies? Different levels of heaven that I could only get into with
the help of a husband?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I just
needed more faith. So I became very active in the church, teaching teen classes,
and giving my testimony openly, while my then-husband graced the church doors
sporadically due to his work hours. One month after I gave birth to my third baby, I decided to have my tubes tied to prevent any more pregnancies. The
patriarch of the church found out and berated me for my decision. That was the
first crack. It was my body. Who was this old man to tell me what to do with MY
body? </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It slowly fell apart from there over the next three years.
I found myself divorced with three children to take care of and a nagging sense
of a God who had turned his back on me mostly because I was just a lowly
female.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was angry for years.
Desperately angry but I didn’t know who I was angry with. Until one day I
decided not to be angry anymore. I started calling myself agnostic because I
didn’t have any answers and I knew I didn’t have any answers. But I also knew
that other humans, some not as intelligent as me, didn’t have any answers
either. From my experience it seemed that most of them were just pretending
they had answers. For some reason, my acknowledging this calmed my internal
voices a little for a few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
final straw came when a Baptist preacher refused to marry me and my now husband
in his church. It stung a little but I now thank that preacher for what he did
for me. He allowed me to truly question what it was that<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I</b> believed. Not what the Baptist preacher believed or what the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Vacation</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Bible</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">School</st1:placetype></st1:place>
lady believed or what the hippy preacher believed or what the Van Lady believed
or what the Greek lady believed or what the Mormon patriarch believed, but what
I, Teri, believed. It was a process, but one day I woke to find that I didn’t
believe in any god with a capital G, and an internal peace washed over me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One I had been searching for my entire life. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>People ask me how I can NOT believe. They are incredulous
because my not believing causes them discomfort. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t understand how what I believe should
matter to them or even be any of their business. They ask me if my life is
empty. They ask me if I’m scared to die. I answer by saying that THIS is what
makes life works for ME. My life is full and peaceful. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I receive comfort from kindness, openly questioning,
and from continual learning. I’m not scared to die, well, not any more than the
next person, because I know that I won’t know that I’m dead, just as I didn’t
know that I didn’t exist before I existed. This is the only Merry-Go-Round I’ll
ever ride, so I try to squeeze every single drop of wonder and happiness and
meaning out of every single rotation before I’m returned to cosmic stardust. I
search for beauty in newly bloomed flowers, in cotton wisp white clouds, in
bright stars against an ink jet night, in a fire reddened sunset, or the loving
touch of another human being. I cry, I rejoice, I hurt, I long, I create, and I
live. Every single day I understand more and more how interconnected we all are
across time and space. We are each a ripple that contributes either positively
or negatively with our thoughts and our actions to the chain that is life
itself. We are here to learn and apply what we have learned and that’s about it.
If we don’t learn and contribute positively, then we have wasted a precious and
rare gift from the unexplainable ever-expanding universe, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that</b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
</i>is the only fiery pit of eternal fire and damnation that exists</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Signed, </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Your Friendly Neighborhood
Humanist </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br /></div>
Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-37166445111678929422020-03-16T16:24:00.001-04:002020-03-17T11:07:39.914-04:00Days of Covid-19. Help Me Out, People<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life in the face of Covid-19. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, to be more specific: life of a high risk person in the
face of Covid-19. My poor body has fought against autoimmune issues since April
6, 2001. One day I was healthy, the next I wasn’t. I’ve been diagnosed with psoriatic
arthritis, Lyme disease, and now doctors think I might actually have Lupus (the
hits just keep on coming). My last two tests for Lupus markers were positive, so off I
go to a teaching hospital in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Augusta</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">GA</st1:state></st1:place> soon. My rib cage and sternum feel like I have a small elephant named Louie sleeping on my chest all the time. Louie is not cute. He's a demonic, lazy ass elephant with razor sharp teeth and no sense of humor. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 2005 I tested positive for TB exposure and went on year long
treatments through my local health department. Also that year I was hospitalized
for cytomeglovirus, which normally doesn’t make people noticeably ill, but it took
me out of commission for three weeks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
2013 I was bitten by a tick and came down with a nasty case of Lyme that went undiagnosed
for way too long. In the past three years I have battled sinus issues that have
not been resolved through surgery and I’ve had surgery for <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Freiberg</st1:place></st1:city>’s disease on my right foot. The foot surgery
didn’t work out and I sometimes limp like a drunk wounded pirate on a rolling ship,
so it looks like I’m headed down the foot surgery road again shortly. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Growing up I easily had three bouts of strep throat almost every
single year and was hospitalized for a severe case of double pneumonia when I
was fifteen (I missed Black Sabbath over that- something I will never forgive
my body for). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not giving you my
medical history so you can gloat over what I hope is your own fantastic, wondrous,
untarnished health (oh, go ahead- gloat away. I'll wait), but to show that there are reasons that people like me are
just a tab bit more concerned about being exposed to Covid-19 than maybe you are. I’m 58 years old
and I’m high risk. I don’t relish the idea of getting Covid-19 because I know
it won’t go easy on me. A virus like that would spiral into my body and my lungs and proceed
to knock the last vestiges of my fragile immune system out of the ballpark. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, if you staying home for a few weeks is
going to help people like me, and there are A LOT of people like me, then damn
it, stay the hell home. Listen to the medical experts. Do it for your next door neighbor who has heart issues. Do it for your cousin who is taking chemo for cancer. Do it for your child's teacher who has M.S. Do it for the choir director at your church who has rheumatoid arthritis. Do it for the cashier at Walmart who has the beginning stages of COPD. Do it for your best friend who has Type 1 diabetes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The libs aren’t trying to destroy your churches by asking you
not to go to services for a few weeks. Yes, I’ve heard this is part of Satan’s
plan, but I assure that Satan has nothing to do with this (he told me he didn't). The libs aren’t trying
to dismantle this country by using the virus to do our evil handwork. We aren’t
trying to politicize it against a totally incompetent president who didn’t take
appropriate measures back in January when he had the opportunity (You know I
had to go there, right? I’m pissed). The virus will not discriminate based on social
standing, race, religion, or if you prefer Coke over Pepsi. Covid-19 isn’t going
to ask your political affiliation before it latches onto you or your grandmother
or your beloved uncle who keeps peppermints in his pockets just for the neighborhood kids.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Social distancing, which is what the CDC is asking people to
do, is just plain common sense, just like washing your hands is. Social distancing is an effort to try and slow down the spread
of the virus. There is no vaccine. There is no treatment. When cities across the
nation are closing down bars and restaurants, when Disney takes off the mouse
ears, when schools are shuttered, when Canada has bolted its border to the United
States, when the stock market is in free fall, when stores like Nike have either
cut their hours or locked their doors completely, when the world famous Metropolitan
Museum of Art pulls in the welcome mat, when we have absolutely no idea how many
people in the U.S might have Covid-19 because there aren’t enough test kits and people are contagious before they even show symptoms, then the situation just might be more than “hyped up” and “fake news.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On Monday the number of people in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region> who were affected by Covid-19 was about
20. A week later that number is over 100. That number is going to keep
climbing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stay home, people. Don’t go to bars. Don’t go on nonessential plane
trips. Don’t go to family reunions. Don’t take your kids for play dates. Don’t
go visit Aunt Thelma in the nursing home. Don’t go to church. Don’t go spend
the day at the local Barnes & Nobles. Don’t go the E.R for your hurt pinkie. These
measures are all temporary, but if you decide to ignore the CDC warnings about
social distancing, then you just might make it permanent for someone like me or
for someone that you dearly love. And I’d really like to hang around for a few
more years, and I’m sure your loved ones would too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.S Wash your damn hands. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2244nwwtIYI-JwMLXfgAIDE6x2hn_EOp-_3e5kCJvFTkw-etVBbNt-WcsrhAvTQFDlTLM_50HSqS7-mQi_dMxwT53O_fWx3dY3rJCrWSNsvvxyxm-D5D-0ZmEqT5iJ9key3xn9Gq3Lxc/s1600/coronavirus-us-cases-map-promo-1583277425489-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-v121.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2244nwwtIYI-JwMLXfgAIDE6x2hn_EOp-_3e5kCJvFTkw-etVBbNt-WcsrhAvTQFDlTLM_50HSqS7-mQi_dMxwT53O_fWx3dY3rJCrWSNsvvxyxm-D5D-0ZmEqT5iJ9key3xn9Gq3Lxc/s320/coronavirus-us-cases-map-promo-1583277425489-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-v121.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
(map: New York Times)</div>
Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-84908015907784063742020-02-25T20:16:00.001-05:002020-02-26T17:29:17.180-05:00Brain Souvenirs <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Memory is a slippery beast, especially as a person becomes
older and stores more memories in the crannied, gray recesses of the brain. It
seems that the brain would eventually run out of room for new memories, but no, it just finds new dark hideaways, like maybe behind the recipe for your
grandmother’s biscuits or underneath the dusty blanket that covers the time the
dog tried to bite you when you were four-years-old. And during our day-to-day
life of going to school, working, raising children, paying bills, most of those
memories stay locked away, but come night as our body relaxes and inches
towards the oblivion of sleep, some stubborn random memories refuse to stay
shut away. They want to breathe again and they pop out like Jack-in-the-Boxes
without the warning music:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Talking to my latest teen crush when a bird flew over and shit
directly on my head.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My high school German teacher insisting he smelled Grape
deodorant in the classroom, when in fact it was the reek of marijuana.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sea urchins with their black spines poking up from the salty
Mediterranean sea foam like <st1:place w:st="on">Neptune</st1:place>’s goth
needles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A flash of Angus Young jumping high on stage in his school
boy outfit while he made his guitar scream the rift to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Whole Lotta Rosie</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The backyard clothes line undulating like some twisted
Escher painting as waves from the earthquake turned the land to jelly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Searching hopelessly for Tippy whom I’d been told had run
away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The small contractions that singled the birth of my first
child and me thinking naively “This isn’t so bad.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Weeping to a former lover that I did indeed want him back,
when I really didn’t.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The crease-faced old woman in Crete giving me the gourd
canteen her grandfather had used in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Turkey</st1:place></st1:country-region>/ Greek war.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are the words I wish I had said, words I wish I hadn’t
said, people I wish I hadn’t hurt. Shame flames and inches up my body to my
cheeks until they are on fire.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An old love who turned into my worst enemy and anger
flares.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My dad's lopsided smile, as if he couldn’t decide if he should smile or
not. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I take each memory out as they push to the surface and
examine them individually before locking them away again, never knowing when
they will again reach up from the depths of my brain and assault me. I go to
bed every night wondering which ones will crawl forth like a wet mewling
newborn demanding to be reborn as I slip towards sleep. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is the purpose of these memories? Couldn’t I function
just as well, or maybe better, if I could somehow purge them? Why can’t I
remember important happenings in my life yet recall insignificant ones in
detail? The little brown dress with the alphabet across the bodice. The way my
mother’s face twisted when she realized I had snipped my hair off
unevenly with her scissors. The placement of the candy dish in one childhood
home- the candy dish that never held candy. The location of nearly every
bathroom in the 30 odd houses I’ve lived in my life. How after the Robin
Trower concert everyone sounded like Minnie Mouse and I humiliatingly ran face
first into a pole. My phone number in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state>
rises from around a dark corner of my nearly asleep brain, as does my ex’s
social security number. I can summon up the sharp reek of brown bottled rush
(ispbutyl nitrate), see against the backs of my eyelids as the Texas air turns to rippled green silk, hear the low hum and throttle of a teen boyfriend’s
motorcycle as it rounds the corner to my street. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why in the hell do these
memories bubble to the surface just as sleep begins to overtake me, grabbing me
so violently that I am shoved away from the line that denotes the conscious
world from the unconscious one, only to slip back down again after I examine
the memory thoroughly? And where do they go afterwards? Back into the same hiding
place, or does my brain construct new boxes to hold them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So many boxes of different sizes. Some with secure
locks and some that aren’t secure. So many hidden corners and crevices and
hidey holes and dark closets. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When my brain’s electrical impulses are interrupted like a
t.v signal suddenly switched off, those memories will also cease to exist
unless I tell someone about them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I just put a few of those memories out into the
universe. Now, in a way, they’re yours too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-25305420742393812102020-01-18T23:12:00.001-05:002020-01-19T10:59:34.198-05:00Empowered Women Empower Women<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I spent my 58th birthday today in Washington, D.C at the
Women’s March surrounded by thousands of like-minded women and men: cis, gay,
straight, trans, black, brown, white, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, atheist,
young, and old who descended upon Washington and other U.S cities to uphold
women’s reproductive rights, demand immigration reform, and fight for climate
change legislation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw sign carrying women
in wheelchairs pushed by more able bodied sign carrying women, pig-tailed little
girls barely out of toddlerhood carried high on shoulders, men
marching with pink hats perched on their heads (my husband one of them!), hijab draped women standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Christian women
demanding equality for all, and an umbrella carrying woman who blocked counter protesters
with her umbrella who were trying to engage a woman holding a pro choice sign.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I met two
other women who were also celebrating their birthdays and another woman whose
almost twelve-year-old daughter was turning thirteen next week. I saw tall,
gorgeous drag queens, beaded and feathered Indian women and men, and several women
dressed as 1920s era suffragettes. I saw a woman who stood in one spot for
three hours dressed as a handmaiden from Handmaid’s Tale and a man wearing a
Trump face mask and orange jumpsuit holding a newspaper whose headline screamed
“Trump Jailed!” I met women from Virginia, Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, and even fellow Georgians.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Women who had traveled all night to attend
the march and who were heading back out tomorrow so they could be at work Monday
morning. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those thousands of strangers left<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>me feeling renewed. They gave me a feeling of
commonality and community toward a greater purpose. They recharged me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I attended my
first Women’s March in January 2017 in New York City and I remember the pervading
sense of loss and sadness that was thick as fog that day. It was a day where women
held one another up almost physically while tears were shed, including my own.
We were afraid. Afraid of what this new president would do; a newly electorate college
chosen president who had no experience in public service in any way, an ego bigger
than his newly opened grandiose Trump Hotel, and deep personal financial connections
to Putin, one of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>most pro-oligarchy fascist
dictators of the 21st century. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three years
later our fears, and more, have been realized. Standing in Freedom Plaza today as
the march gained momentum, I didn’t feel that sense of loss or fear. No, today
I felt strength and justified anger over children in cages, individual reproductive rights of women being
slowly chipped away, and a world increasingly being altered by climate change. Today,
standing side-by-side with my sisters (and brothers) in arms, I felt hope that
all of our hard work of marching, writing letters to our elected representatives,
voting, and being vocal the past three years is paying off at long last. We
have proven that we won’t be ignored or dismissed, and with that comes a simmering
rage over the audacity and criminalizing hijacking of the White House. OUR White
House. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This year,
women’s voices were clearer and their voices stronger. There was courage in those
voices. Martin Luther King’s son, Martin Luther King II and his wife Arndrea Waters King, spoke to a rain soaked crowd reminding
everyone that it was 100 years since women have earned the right to vote and
that we must be vigilant to protect the rights that we have gained. Ms. King reminded
us that there is yet so much work to be done for the next generation of women. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For my granddaughters. And yes, for my grandsons. The Civil Rights movement and Women's Rights have been closely intertwined every since abolitionists first gathered in numbers. Now we stand together in numbers again and there is hope. Hope for a country that will one day respect individual reproductive rights, a country that will address long overdue immigration reform, and a country that will use scientific data and research to effectively tackle an exponentially alarming climate
crisis. Yes, there is hope for 2020 and beyond.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Today
as snow lazily drifted over Freedom Plaza and the wind chill factor dipped into
the 20s, and a woman standing next to me said, “I can’t feel my fingers,” I listened
to the Chilean performance group, Las
Tesis perform “A Rapist in Your Path” and the raw emotion nearly blind- sided <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">And it’s not my fault, not where I was, how I
was dressed.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">And the rapist was you<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">and the rapist is YOU<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">It’s the cops<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">It’s the judges<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">It’s the system<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">It’s the president.</span></i><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
About two hours before the march I
told my husband something I’d never told anyone except my daughter: when I was
nineteen years old I was sexually assaulted at Keesler, AFB hospital during a routine
gynecological exam by two white coated men who said they were doctors. I always
felt it was my fault because I didn’t stop them. I was nineteen and it was only
my third gynecological exam. The men's laughter and their sneering sexual whispered
remarks washed over me and turned to deep shame. <span style="color: black;"> </span>I left the hospital that day and in instinctive flight or fight mode, I put the experience into a mental box and
locked it away and I didn’t think about it for over thirty-five years until the
#MeToo movement hit with full force. It took the collective voices of women across
the United States for me to finally open that box. Today I loudly, sang, “And
it’s not my fault!” I couldn’t have done that three years ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> Now sitting in my hotel room </span></span>with my fingers finally thawed and my feet sore
and aching, I almost relish the physical discomforts that remind me that, yes,
I am 58 years old, and I’m happy and energized and hopeful that tomorrow or
tomorrow or the day after will see sanity restored to this country, but even if
it doesn’t, I can fight and I can march and I can ignore writers’ cramp as long
as needed, even to my last breath because this is MY country and every human
being deserves dignity and to live without fear and with truth.</div>
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-31079222023989218032020-01-06T20:40:00.000-05:002020-01-14T22:52:45.962-05:00The Drums of War<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Each new generation has to have its war. A war in which boys
who hold fast to the illusion that they are a warriors and only need a war to
prove it, march off into battle fields with eyes bright. They come back home at
best jaded and disillusioned and at worst shattered, used, broken, and angry.
They come back to a country that has yet to take care of the thousands of vets that
were broken in past wars. They come back to words such, as “Thank you for your
service” and 50% off meals at IHop on Veteran’s Day, but still have to fight
the powers-that-be to make an appointment at the V.A when they’re feeling
suicidal or when chronic acid reflux caused by the toxic Iraq waste fires burn their
esophagus. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“War, what
is it good for (to borrow a phrase that dates back to my childhood)? The answer
of course, is nothing. Diplomacy, level heads, and compromise should always be
the natural order before war is ever even considered. War should not be fought
impulsively amid dreams of grandeur by powerful
men in their safe towers and $2000.00 suits who lust over<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>having their names immortalized in history
textbooks. War should be reserved for justice, and not revenge and not glory and damn sure not as a diversion.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The United
States is still trying to fly high on the after effects of World War II in which we
were the heroes, the saviors of the world who helped demolish two nationalistic and
authoritarian governments of Japan and Germany, but that glory is tainted and
long burnt to ash by a disastrous war in Vietnam, the Iran Contra Affair, Iraq,
Afghanistan, the United States coup in Pakistan, the War on Terror, and other
overt and convert inferences in other countries’ autonomies. We have become what
we profess to hate. We are war mongers and can’t, as one of my students used to
say, “Get over ourselves.” We aren’t “all that” anymore. We are just one cog in
a great machine, granted we are a powerful and wealthy cog, but a cog
nonetheless in a world made smaller by the development of the internet and transportation.
We are part of an interdependent modern world in which each country relies on
others for their economics, trade, safety, sciences, and technologies. Yet we
still flex our muscles and beat our chests and shout about how great we are
while we bomb civilians, line the pockets of the industrial war complex, and turn
our backs on the helpless in which just and necessary wars might be fought. In a little
over seventy-years we have taken the good guy reputation that we earned on the
battlefields of Europe and the waters and islands of the Pacific, and carelessly
traded it in for greed, power and political gain. We’ve made fresh enemies the world over and
created more and more terrorists with each bombing of a civilian village or
assassination of a leader.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We have
tipped over into the pinnacle of lust for power and strength that toppled <st1:city w:st="on">Rome</st1:city> and the <st1:place w:st="on">Soviet Union</st1:place>.
<st1:city w:st="on">Rome</st1:city> was never able to recover, and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> is currently trying to recover, to the
determent of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United
States</st1:place></st1:country-region>, but that’s for another discussion.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I believe
we crossed a line with the assassination of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>’s
General Soleimani on <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>
soil, a nation who was an uneasy ally of ours in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle
East</st1:place>. Notice I wrote “was” because I don’t think that’s the case
any longer. I think we’ve made Iraq our sworn enemy again, as well as Iran, and there’s no going back.
We went uninvited into a sovereign nation and assassinated a well known general
from another country with whom we canceled a nuclear deal. What is the end game? I don’t think there is
one. I think that history will prove that the assassination was the act of an unfettered and ill
advised president whose impulsivity got the better of him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I remember
my dad being deployed to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:country-region></st1:place>
when I was a child. I remember how, at the end of his life, Vietnam haunted him. I
sent my own son off twice to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and my best friend’s son served multiple nightmare tours of duty in that
country at the height of tensions. I comforted my then three-year-old
granddaughter when her father was deployed to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. I was an Air Force brat
until I was nineteen and I thought everyone stood at attention for the
National Anthem in movie theaters. When I was a child my friends and I would
stop playing hide and seek to stand at attention in the evening as the colors
were lowered on base. I bleed red, white and blue; I do not however bleed
nationalistic blood because that is the color to degradation and failure.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While we
beat our drums of war and spread the falsehood of patriotism being dependent upon support of war, no matter if it’s an unjust or impulsive war, we are preparing to
line up our young men, our not-of age-to-smoke-or-drink young men, and almost
physically feed them into the war machine and spew them out at the other end as
cannon fodder. The young don’t know any better. They don’t have the experience
of living through this same scenario again and again and again. The drums and
the pats on the back and the flags and the crispness of new uniforms will mar
their vision. It is only when they are entering the last decades of their lives, and history has written the truth across the sands of time, that they will wonder why their government lied to them, and they will either
bury that knowledge deep within, because to take it out and gaze upon it in the
glaring light will cause confusion and pain, or they will be able
to say, as my father did, later in life, “They lied to me.” </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Don’t
confuse patriotism with nationalism. Don’t confuse truth with propaganda. Don’t
confuse historical lessons with shiny rhetoric. Don’t confuse flag waving with morals. Don’t confuse military strength with common sense. Don’t send our
children off to die in order appease a leader’s lust for an historical
footnote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Have we learned nothing at all?</div>
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-22415202963138558772020-01-01T01:24:00.000-05:002020-04-18T03:14:58.418-04:00How an Auld Lange Syne Becomes a Love Letter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Twenty years ago, at just about this moment, ten minutes after
midnight, I had just breathed a sigh of relief knowing that the Y2K scare had
been what I suspected all along: a load of horse manure, and I was wondering
what in the hell the recent ex was going to do with all the Ramen and canned
meat he insisted we store (hoard) in our walk-in closet. Thankfully, I left him
in July, six months before Y2K, and the divorce was final in November of 1999. I
guess he ended up having to eat all that potted meat all by his lonesome. I started
the new millennium out on a clean slate in a nightclub filled with strangers,
feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life. I didn’t know anyone in the
club. Two minutes after midnight, yelling into my blind date’s ear over the fading
notes of Auld Lang Syne, I told that puzzled man to take me home and I never
saw him again. </div>
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Regrets, I’ve
had a few, but in the end too few to mention. Good ole Blue Eyes (Frank Sinatra
for all of you born before 1980). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been a helluva ride. In 2000 I started
work as a high school teacher, in 2001 I came down with autoimmune issues, (thanks
germy kids), 9/11 happened, and my house burned down. Nowhere to go but up, right?
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The next five
or so years were a blur of trying to raise three kids, work, juggle bills, and
trying to get a handle on how my body was betraying me with almost constant mind
numbing fatigue and pain. Work, rest, work, rest became my life. I just got out
of bed every morning and made it through One.More.Day. I had to. I was a mom.</div>
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In 2005 I
met My Jim. We went on our first date to a jazz club in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Macon</st1:place></st1:city> on July 9, 2005. Three years later, on December,
21, 2008, I married him in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York
City</st1:place></st1:city>. I knew a good thing when I saw it. The past fourteen years have been a roller coaster of traveling to places I never dreamed I’d
go: Midway Atoll, <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hawaii</st1:place></st1:state>,
touring every museum in D.C four times, the Met in NYC five times. We’ve sat
in the pews of the majestic <st1:city w:st="on">St. John</st1:city> the Baptist
cathedral and celebrated Winter Solstice, we’ve had salt water spray in our
faces on ferries to <st1:placename w:st="on">Ellis</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Island </st1:placetype>and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Ocracoke</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Island</st1:placetype></st1:place>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Together, My Jim and I have pilgrimaged to probably fifty
independent book stores, even driving hundreds of miles out-of-the-way to buy books
and cuddle yet another bookstore cat. We’ve been to Broadway shows and <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Niagara Falls</st1:place></st1:city>. We’ve sat
in smoky jazz clubs in <st1:city w:st="on">New Orleans</st1:city> and <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city>. We’ve eaten
in Chinatown, Nathan’s Hot Dogs on <st1:place w:st="on">Coney Island</st1:place>,
and run-down roadside BBQ stands in the Mississippi Delta. We’ve put more miles
on a car in one year than most people put on a car in five. We’ve flown, rode
on trains, and stood on crowded subways. </div>
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We lost our
beloved dog Truman, and mourned his death together, and welcomed two new pups
who had no homes and gave them love and laps to sit on. We’ve welcomed six grandchildren,
and though they aren’t of My Jim’s blood, they are of his heart. My Jim helped
me pack when I wanted to go teach overseas, he held me when my dad died an
agonizing death, he told me everything
was going to be okay and that it wasn’t my fault when I became too ill to teach any longer, and held me up after I delivered the eulogy at my best friend's funeral two years ago, and I held him up when his only sister recently passed away.</div>
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These are the moments that make up the years, that make up a life. All mixed together like raindrops on a spring day splashing into a sun soaked puddle.</div>
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This started
out as a look back on the past nineteen years and how I’m looking forward to the
next two decades, but it ended up being a love letter to My Jim because he has been a part of almost every day of this millennium that matter the most to me. He's made
the past fourteen years worth living and has turned each and every day into a supreme, exciting
adventure. He loves me with short or long hair, sick or well, purple hair
or blonde, blue jeans or dresses. He loves me with a picket sign in my hand or when I’m writing late
into the night on a short story that I have to write NOW.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> He loves me when I bring home a new dog and when I ask him to go out late at night because we've run out of dog food for the dogs or chocolate cereal for the grand kids. He loves me when we're both sitting quietly reading or when I'm bouncing around the house talking a mile a minute over a news article that's gotten my dander up. </span></div>
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And because I was all alone on New Year’s Eve
2000 in a nightclub filled with drunk, happy confetti throwing strangers and
was more lonesome than I’d ever been in my life, tonight I cherish 2020 even more.
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Here’s to many more decades, love of my life..</div>
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-30661919493315238842019-05-29T14:11:00.002-04:002020-01-01T01:49:45.159-05:00I Know Too Little of Life. I Know Too Much of Life. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I know too little of life. I know too much of life. </div>
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What I don’t know:</div>
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I don’t know why sometimes love doesn’t last. I don’t know
where the age spots on my hands came from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t know why women wear thongs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know what happens after we die. I don’t
know why people hate. I don’t know why children have to grow up so fast. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know why people say “I understand”
when they don’t. I don’t know how tornadoes form. I don’t know how to surf or
ski. I don’t know how a child’s face can get dirty two minutes after it’s
washed. I don’t know how the internet works. I don’t know why I sometimes cry
when I’m happy. I don’t know why puppies have puppy breath. I don’t know how three quarters of my life has passed by so
quickly.</div>
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What I do know:</div>
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I know that a heart can be broken. I know that a cup of hot tea can make a bad day seem not so
bad. I know that a child giggling will make me giggle. I know that sneaking
candy into a movie theater is an art form. I know that good dogs die far too soon
and that gardenia blooms never last long enough. I know that love can change and
that people can hurt others unintentionally. I know that winters can be too long and
summers too short. I know that music can heal and that war can destroy. I know
that sometimes the only thing I need is a hug. I know that friendship lasts
forever even after one of the friends has gone. I know I cry at sad movies. I know
a heart can be healed. I know that there’s a lot I don’t know. <br />
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-84873140706195908082019-05-27T22:57:00.000-04:002019-05-28T12:15:13.440-04:00The Zen of Baking Cookies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There’s something infinitely soothing about baking a batch of
homemade cookies late at night while the world sleeps. I sift, measure, add, and
stir, and each step of the process slows the beating of my heart and gives me a
sense of control over an oftentimes uncontrollable world. I shift the flour, baking
powder, and salt in one bowl and then slowly and methodically cream the eggs and
butter with the sugars in another. Then I blend both batches together and mix and
mix until my wrist is aching from the exertion- no electric mixer for me; that’s
cheating. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Next I knead in the chocolate chips, like small raw pearls, into the dough. The heat of the
oven escapes as I open it. I place the pan of raw cookies inside like an offering
to a god. Do your magic, God-of-the-Oven, turn these chunks of raw dough into cookies
as golden as a summer morning.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the cookies turn the soft tan of a tabby cat, all crisp on the edges and gooey warm in the middle, a small quiet victory
pushes all my thoughts away from politics, death, taxes, bills, and hurt. There
is just this moment and the cookies, soft and hot from the oven, the sweet sugared
chocolate melting over my tongue like a prize. </div>
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-36287016138056881582019-05-25T23:40:00.000-04:002019-05-25T23:40:41.312-04:00Who Says You Can't Buy Love?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My fifteen-year-old Maltese dog, Truman, passed away last month at the ripe old age (in dog years) of fifteen. An aunt of mine bought Truman when he was just six weeks old from a breeder and shortly thereafter she discovered that he was much more trouble and work than she had bargained for. He was virtually ignored until the day I went to her house to visit and she asked if I wanted the dog. She gave him to me. A six-hundred dollar dog with papers was just given to me for free. I took Truman home, changed his name (I refuse to utter his Before Me name) and lopped off his tangled Bob Marley fur to reveal a black nosed, black eyed dog who would be my friend for many years through the empty nest saga as my kids left home one by one, my new marriage at the age of forty-seven, the death of my father, and the loss of my teaching career due to a chronic illness. Through it all my True Man was there. </div>
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On April 6<sup>th</sup> 2019 after fourteen years of love and in-sickness-and-health with Truman, a relationship more committed than some of my relationships with humans, I knew the end was close for my furry friend. Over a three month period I had watched helplessly as his health had rapidly deteriorated. We had made several vet visits, one of which was to have his eye removed due to an ulcer. Then his herniated disc in his neck started acting up again and this time it wasn’t getting better. I had stayed up three nights straight while Truman whined in pain and fought to find a position in which he could find comfort. He could no longer climb up and down the steps to go outside to use the bathroom in the backyard, so I would wrap his dog bed around him to cushion his aching body while I carried him gently down the steps and placed him on the grass in the yard, but he still yelped out in pain every time I touched him. The last day of his life, his one remaining milky black marble eye looked up at me with a trust so raw that it made the blood in my veins almost freeze with the weight of responsibility. I owed the little dog nothing less than a graceful, painless exit from this world; this world in which he had been my friend and my champion. He had loved me unconditionally and in return I owed him this one last gift. To say that letting Truman go was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done would be an understatement.</div>
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The drive to the vet took forty-five minutes and I held Truman the whole way as my husband drove. Once inside the sterile office the vet inserted an I.V in Truman’s front leg. The vet gave me time to say goodbye and I held Truman against my heart and thanked him for being part of my life. I cradled Truman in my arms and when I nodded to the vet she injected the killing combination into the I.V. First the medication to relax him. Truman gazed at me with complete trust and then closed his eyes. Then the vet injected the medication that stopped his heart. A second later Truman’s head lolled back in my arms and he was gone. My little Truman had completed his earth’s task; to be the best dog in the world. </div>
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At home I felt as lost as Gretel in the woods with no breadcrumbs to follow. No more looking under my feet to see where my friend was so I wouldn’t step on him, no more scooping him in my arms at night to place him on his dog bed that stayed beside my queen sized bed, no more running when he barked for me because his failing eyesight made it difficult for him to locate me anymore. His blue bone patterned dog bed now lay empty and his food dish sat undisturbed on the kitchen floor. I couldn’t bear to put them away. His ashes arrived from the pet crematorium and I placed them on my study bookcase with his dog collar looped over the plain white plastic container. I placed a photo of Truman beside his ashes. I found my eyes straying to this mini-memorial several times a day as I attempted to write. I found it hard to write without my Truman curled beside me. My fingers would freeze on the keyboard. For fourteen years Truman had been by my side. He had been my friend long before I even met my husband, Jim. After Truman died, Jim started telling people that he didn’t know if he could stay with me now because when he had met me I had been a complete package: me and Truman. Now I am half of a package. I knew that Jim was only half joking. He missed Truman as much as I did.</div>
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Two weeks after Truman dies I find myself scouring pet rescue websites. I keep telling myself, “I’m only looking, not being disloyal to Truman.” Not long after, on a Saturday, I stop in at PetSmart when I know they are having their pet rescue adoption day. Just inside the doors ten varying sizes of dog crates line the front perimeter of the store. The dogs are big, small, long haired, short haired, old, young, brown, black, skinny, husky, napping, awake. Some pace their crates, others look out at the people inspecting them with curiosity, and some gaze out in trepidation. Some even seem to be trying to ignore their surroundings. There are three Dachshund looking dogs in one crate: two young, yippy, energetic short-haired light brown ones that I dismiss as too active for a long-past middle-aged woman like myself and one quiet one curled up in a ball of black silky fur. I kneel down and the ball of fur raises his head, unwinds his body, and stares motionless at me. Soft brown eyes peer into my blue ones. The dog is small with squat stubby legs and he has dashes of gold above his eyes like perfectly formed eyebrows. I ask the rescue lady if I can hold the dog and she identifies him as a long haired Dachshund mix. The minute the lady opens the cage the dog pushes his nose out and cautiously, with his tail between his legs, approaches me as the crate door is closed behind him. He slowly crawls into my lap while I hold my breath. He places his head on my chest as a sigh escapes his little body. I exhale too. Ten minutes and two-hundred dollars later I am holding the squirming dog while I try to fill out paperwork that will ensure that we belong to one another forever.</div>
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Now <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan- </st1:city>named after the often overlooked king in the Shakespeare play <i>Macbeth- </i>sleeps at my feet while I write this. He inherited Truman’s dog bed and his bowl. <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan</st1:city> is a young two years old and when we go outside he likes to dash around the yard in every expanding circles until his tongue lolls and he is panting with exertion, yet he never lets me out of his sight. He runs so fast sometimes that his legs outrun his body and he tumbles head-over-tail across the grass, but it doesn’t slow him down. If Jim and I go away for a few hours I put Duncan in his crate with his stuffed squirrel, otherwise he scratches the paint off my study door in a panic. When we arrive back home Jim has to go into the house and let <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan</st1:city> out of his crate while I wait outside. Jim opens the back door and <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan</st1:city> barrels out looking for me. When he spies me he lands at my feet, rolls over onto his back, and gushes a stream of urine into the air in a perfectly formed arc of joy. That’s the reason I stand outside, but Duncan and I are working on solving that problem. At night <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan</st1:city> creeps into my bed and sneaks over Jim’s snoring body and curls on the pillow above my head like a cat. I pretend not to notice. When I walk out of the room Duncan’s little feet pad behind me, he buries toys under couch cushions, and dances on his hind legs like a performing bear in a circus when he sees me putting his food in his dish. He snuggles on my lap and demands my undivided attention, which I give willingly.</div>
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Would Truman mind this new dog in my life? Would he be hurt because I have replaced him, so to speak? Knowing Truman I don’t think he’d like <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan</st1:city> much merely because Truman never tolerated any dog, but I do think Truman would approve that another unwanted dog in the world is now very much loved and wanted. So, I will love <st1:place w:st="on">Duncan</st1:place> just as I loved Truman. They are two different dogs and <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan</st1:city> will inhabit a different era of my life than Truman did. There will be new memories and new challenges. There will be times when <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan</st1:city>’s fur will be wet with my tears and times when I will laugh at his silly dog antics. There will be trails to walk together and games of tug-of-war and catch to play. Maybe he will outlive me. Who knows? I only know that if I am still around when <st1:city w:st="on">Duncan</st1:city> is old and ready to go home, I will be there to help him on his journey as painlessly as possible and with as much love as possible, just as I did for Truman because that is what dogs have taught me: how to be a better human being.</div>
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-86519017448862024722019-03-20T21:43:00.003-04:002019-03-20T21:56:23.336-04:00To My Great-Great-Granddaughter, Whoever You Are.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Every now and then I pull out crinkled family photographs of
people I never knew or only knew slightly for a brief time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scalloped-edged black and white photographs
that are fading into sepia tones. Photographs of my great-grandmother, a
great-great aunt, or women whose names are forgotten to time. Women in long
shirtwaist dresses and wide brimmed hats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Women holding a child by the hand or laughing beside a handsome young
man. Women frozen in a moment- one moment spliced out of an entirety. Women who
lived their lives during a time that was in some ways simpler, but also a time
when women, especially the women of the rural south where my fore-mothers were
born and lived, had very little control over their lives. Those women seldom
went to college, in fact they rarely even graduated high school and they sure
didn’t ponder aspirations of becoming engineers, writers, or scientists. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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My maternal
grandmother quit school after sixth grade to work in a cotton mill. My paternal
grandmother never got past third grade. Women of that time and place didn’t
have access to birth control or other reproductive health care, they were
stymied when it came to buying a house or car in their own name, they would
never have dreamed of going off for a weekend with their friends without their
husbands and children. Their political opinions mirrored their husbands’
opinions. They served their husband’s dinner and then they ate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They existed on the periphery of racism and
homophobia and xenophobia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They knew
little of sex when they married. My paternal grandmother told me that she had
two children before she understood how she was getting pregnant. She was
thirteen when she married my eighteen-year-old grandfather. Today an eighteen
-year-old man marrying a thirteen-year-old child is illegal, and rightly
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither of my grandmothers ever
drove a car. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My maternal
grandmother, Ma, died in 2003 after a short illness, She was eighty-four. My
paternal grandmother, Mamaw, the thirteen-year-old bride, passed away just two
years ago. She was ninety-four-years old. I often wish my granddaughters, now
that they are getting older, could<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>talk
to my grandmothers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish I could talk
to them. There are so many questions I didn’t ask, so many stories I didn’t
hear, so many memories that left the earth with them. There are no letters,
only a few birthday cards with their scrawled signatures. There are no diaries. There are no videos. There is nothing but memories, and after I die and my
cousins die there will not even be those. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We rail
about the evils of social media and the internet. I know I do, but still I am
an active participate. My social media footprint is large: Twitter, Facebook, a
blog, posts on news comments sections of the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal,
and New York Times. I ponder this: what if my grandmothers had had access to something
like social media? How many of their thoughts and fears and hopes would be
preserved for my granddaughters to read in their adulthood? Imagine going
online and Googling your great-grandmother and reading the thoughts she had of
her children, her life, her fears, and her dreams. Was she scared when war
broke out? How did she feel about becoming a mother for the first time? What
were her favorite meals to prepare? Who were her closet friends? What jokes
made her laugh? What tore at her heart strings? What books did she enjoy reading? All of that is lost to my
generation and the ones before me. I will never have access to any of that
information because it died with my grandmothers and my
great-grandmothers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But many many years after I am
long gone my granddaughters, great-granddaughters, and great-great-granddaughters
will, for better or worse, be able to dig into my social media presence. and in a way get to know me. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They will
discover that I cussed like a sailor at times, that one of my favorite books
was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse</i>,
that I believed in a woman’s right to her own reproductive decisions, that I thought
everyone should read Voltaire’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Candide</i>
at least once, that I loved the color blue but that most of my clothing consisted
of black, that I found the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pulp Fiction</i>
riveting, that I mourned deeply when my father was dying of Alzheimer’s, that
social justice mattered a great deal to me, that I traveled as often as possible,
that music was like oxygen in my life, that I loved my country but didn’t
always agree with my government, that the notion of a supreme god made no sense
to me and I was comfortable with that, that I could be unreasonable and opinionated
and kind and good and shortsighted and stubborn and funny and scared and loving.
In other words, I was a human being. In a hundred years my great-great-granddaughter
could read this very blog entry and think, “We aren’t so different after all.” No,
sweetheart we aren’t. Now go conquer your world. </div>
<br /></div>
Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-15732063760510745632019-02-13T22:00:00.000-05:002019-02-14T23:23:30.656-05:00Short story: Moving Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Moving Day</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“Wrap those frames tight in plastic
and tape ‘em shut before you pack them. I don’t want to lose the pictures of my
great-grandmother! Melvin-John come here and get those boxes on the truck. We
only got it for another two hours. We got to get moving! And label the boxes if
you want to see your things again.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Big
Granny is rushing around yelling and stomping and giving orders like an old
time police officer, back when police officers were still human and not
cop-drones. I know how real cops used to yell and kill because Big Granny told
me how they used to just shoot people for no reason. Just shoot them dead. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she was a little girl her father was shot
and killed by a human cop. Big Granny said human cops used to scream and get
all nervous. Pop, Big Granny’s father, was going out to his car one morning to
go to work and a cop responding to a break-in saw Pop and thought he fit the
description, even though the description was for a forty year old short black
man wearing a white jacket and Pop was a young, tall black man wearing a dark
blue electrician’s uniform. Pop had a screwdriver in his hand that he had found
by the front stoop. Uncle Bobby must have left it there. Big Granny said when Uncle
Bobby was a little boy he was always getting into Pop’s tools and forgetting to
put them back. Pop was probably running late for work and didn’t want to go
back inside, so he had the screwdriver in his hand. The cop saw the screwdriver
and later swore he thought it was a gun. He shot Pop dead in the driveway. Big
Granny said the cop-drones they use now are better because they can scan for a
weapon and tell the difference between a harmless tool, phone, or other object
from a gun. No one is ever cop-killed on accident anymore, but you also know
you're always being watched. Some of my friends had gotten to where they’d
build their own drones and battle the cop drones and knock them out of the sky.
Then they’d run like hell. Marcus had fifty-one downs to his name. He was hot
shit at school. But I suspect he’s going to end up in a youth work camp if he
ever gets caught and then he won’t be hot shit no more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
I won’t be seeing Marcus or anyone else in school for that matter for maybe
forever. The entire town is packing up and moving inland to camps in the Mid-West
and <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state>. We
applied for residence in three of the towns and now we just have to wait to be
approved. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people in the camps have
been waiting for a couple of years. But we have to leave. There’s no choice
anymore. The waters are already lapping over the sea wall and have eroded most
of land down by the river. At least they’re letting families stay together. I
heard that when <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Miami</st1:city></st1:place>
was drowned out that they just shoved people in trucks and lots of families got
separated. But that was twenty-five years ago and the government has gotten
better at relocation. It’s just the poor being relocated now though. The rich
left long time ago. Government bought their land out and they had the money to
leave and start over. Us poor people who rent houses or live in government
houses don’t have nothing to sell to get a stake to start over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Granny
comes over and pops me on the head with her finger. “Girl, what are you doing?
Get a move on. That truck ain’t gonna wait forever. Remember to pack a backpack
to take with you and one big suitcase. Only one, but pack well. We won’t be seeing
that stuff in the truck for a long damn time.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An hour later everything is packed. The truck with
our furniture leaves with all the other moving trucks and we wait in the front
yard for the relocation buses. Uncle Bobby’s grandson, Kendall, plays in the dirt
with his plastic toy drones. I sit on my government issue suitcase and read the
e-reader the school gave us last week. They loaded all kinds of books on the
readers for us and it’s solar powered so I won’t have to recharge it. Uncle
Bobby is in his wheelchair under the front porch awning. He has to be kept in
the shade because the hot sun makes him sicker. Uncle Bobby is always talking
about how cold it used to get in winter. I’ve read about how cold it used to
get in north <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Florida</st1:place></st1:state>,
sometimes in the 40s, but I don’t believe it. I don’t think I’d like it anyway,
if it were true. I wonder if it’ll be cold where were going. It’s a long, long
way. Might take us days to get to where we’re going, wherever that is. That’s
why Big Granny packed a lot of sandwiches, apples, cornbread, crackers, and
water. All they serve on the buses are those gooey energy packs that taste like
dog shit, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When
we were told we had to leave three months ago, the government man gave Big
Granny a pamphlet with a listing of the relocation camps. There’s two in <st1:state w:st="on">Iowa</st1:state>, three in <st1:state w:st="on">Montana</st1:state>,
two in <st1:state w:st="on">South Dakota</st1:state>, three in <st1:state w:st="on">Wyoming</st1:state>, and one in <st1:place w:st="on">East Texas</st1:place>.
We don’t know which one we’re going to. I hope it’s not the <st1:place w:st="on">East
Texas</st1:place> one. I heard water is hard to get there. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iowa</st1:place></st1:state>
gets so cold in winter that you can’t go outside for two months out of the year
or you’ll freeze like a popsicle within minutes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
camps are big. The pamphlet said that at least 200,000 people live in every
one. There’s barracks to live in and schools and parks and jobs. The jobs are ones
like keeping the camp clean, cooking food, painting, fixing stuff, but it pays script
money. Real script money that we can use in the camp stores. They don’t let the
residents leave camp. I don’t know why. I heard it might because the people who
live in the towns close by don’t really like Flooding refugees. They call us
Flooders. That’s okay, though. I don’t think I’d feel safe in a town full of
rich strangers anyways. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
look up from my e-reader and see that Big Granny is holding onto one of the
pillars of the porch. Her hand is caressing the paint flaked pillar like it’s a
soft kitten,. She’s lived here for fifty years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The roof is sagging in places and the bathtub needs replacing. There are
only three bedrooms for the six of us and the back door stoop is about ready to
cave in, but this is Big Granny’s home. Mine too, I guess. The only one I’ve
ever known anyway, but I’m glad to be leaving. Big Granny ain’t so happy.
There’s fat tears falling off her face into the dirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I close my e-reader and put it in my
backpack. I go over to Big Granny and lean into her soft body. Her hand snakes
into my braids and pulls me close. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It’ll
be an adventure Big Granny. A really big adventure,” I say, trying to comfort
her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’m
too old for big adventures, Girl, but I reckon I’m too old to swim too. That
water will be up in the yard in just a year or so. I got to get y’all to
safety. I told your Mama I would.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sure
am going to miss this old place though, and I never thought I’d say that.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><st1:place w:st="on">Kendall</st1:place> sees us and stands up. His mama, Trayler, brushes
the dirt from the seat of his pants and says something to him. <st1:place w:st="on">Kendall</st1:place> walks over all solemn, the way only a four year
old can. He goes right up to Big Granny and stares at her, his brow all
wrinkled like a little old man. “You okay?” he asks. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh,
yes. Lil one. Big Granny is okay,” she says, “Why don’t you go see if your
Granddaddy Bobby needs a drink of water? Go along.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><st1:place w:st="on">Kendall</st1:place> stares up at Big Granny for another second or two
like he’s trying to figure out if she’s lying to him, before walking away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Big
Granny pulls a piece of cloth out of her pocket and wipes her eyes. “No more crying,
Girl.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Trayler
is on her cell phone using up all her minutes talking to that Odum man that
she’s been seeing. Since they aren’t family, they can’t go in the same bus or
even the same place, and Trayler has been moping around for weeks. If he’d
marry her it’d be okay, but he won’t. I heard her talking to Big Granny one
night about running away, but Big Granny set her straight real quick. Big
Granny told her that she had a child and where in the hell was she going to run
with a child? How was she going to live and feed Kendell? After that night all
the light went out in Trayler’s eyes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
hear a rumbling and look up to see a caravan of dark blue government buses
round the corner kicking up dust in their wake. They split off and a few go off
towards <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Burgundy Street</st1:address></st1:street>
and <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Law Street</st1:address></st1:street>,
while four screech to a halt in front of our complex. People start picking up
suitcases and the bus doors open. A line of semi-trucks pull up behind the bus
and seventy-two military men and women with guns get out of one. I know there’s
seventy-two because I count each and every one of then as they climb down from
the truck. Another semi-truck pulls up and out spills more uniformed men and
women, but they don’t have guns. I don’t bother to try and count them. A booming
voice comes over a loudspeaker that’s perched on one of the trucks. The voice
tells us to get our suitcases to the curb. The men come and tag out suitcases
with our wristband I.D numbers and then stack the suitcases by the buses. They
let us keep our backpacks for the bus trip. I get scared thinking I might never
see my suitcase again and I pull my backpack tighter over my shoulder and pat
my pocket to make sure I have my cell phone. There’s only 120 minutes loaded on
it so I can’t watch Youtube anymore. Big Granny told me I had to save the
minutes in case of an emergency.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Suddenly
I’m scared. I look around and see my friends getting onto buses with their
families. I rotate and try to take it all in. The housing complex looks like a
ghost town. Someone’s dog is howling. I hear what sounds like firecrackers and
then the dog is silent. We were told that animals wouldn’t be allowed in the
camps. Trayler took Big Granny’s yappy <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chihuahua</st1:place></st1:state>
to the animal control last month and Big Granny cried for days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. Nelson two streets over drowned all his
cats in a big metal barrel full of water rather than take them to animal
control. He said he did that because that’s the way nature would have killed
them with the rising water anyway. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
look for Big Granny. She has her arm around <st1:place w:st="on">Kendall</st1:place>.
Trayler is pushing Uncle Bobby’s wheelchair to the handicapped bus behind us.
Uncle Bobby will have to ride without his family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve been told that they will be sure he
goes to the same camp as the rest of his family, but now I’m not so sure any of
this is right or that anyone is telling us the truth. But I can’t do much about
it. There’s too many trucks and men with guns. And, where would I go if I ran?
I’d be alone. There are uniformed people holding tablets running through lists
and lining us up beside the buses. I make sure to stay with my family. Trayler
takes my hand. Melvin-John has his arm around Big Granny. <st1:place w:st="on">Kendall</st1:place>
leaves Big Granny and slides up and pushes his face into my leg.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
climb into the bus clutching Kendell’s hand and for a minute I can’t see
anything but shadows while my eyes adjust to the dimness. We stand in line
while a green uniformed lady asks my name and I give it. She checks my name off
on her tablet then hands me a small plastic pouch and instructs me to move
back, keep moving back. I slide into a dark blue upholstered seat and <st1:place w:st="on">Kendall</st1:place> slips into the seat beside me. Big Granny and
Melvin-John are seated in front of me, and across the aisle Trayler is seated
with an old fat lady in a red dress. The blue fabric covered armrests are dark
with grime and oil. Stale air is circulating in the bus, and the smell of
bodies and fear and uncertainty perfume the bus. Everyone is dead silent. Not a
whimper. Not a sound, except for shuffling feet as people find their seat. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
bus doors close and the grind of gears lurch the bus forward. I open the
plastic pack that the uniformed lady pushed into my hand. I find a small bag of
Kleenex, three silvery drink pouches with straws attached by a thin piece of
clear tape, three energy bars, a bag of chips, a Hershey candy bar, a miniature
plastic bottle of hand lotion, a pad of yellow Post It Notes, and an ink pen
with the words <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">U.S Government </i>embossed
deep into the black plastic. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Unexpected
tears slide down my face as the bus passes by my old school. <st1:place w:st="on">Kendall</st1:place>
reaches up and brushes his fingers across my cheeks to dry them, and then he pushes
his plastic toy drones across the back of the seat in front of us as the miles
start to slip away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<br /></div>
Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-67280824261213924582018-10-08T17:44:00.002-04:002018-10-08T17:45:26.618-04:00This P.C World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know many good people. The good people in my area of the
rural South are usually self-professed Christians, go out of their way to help one another,
wouldn’t say an unkind word to your face for anything, will bring deviled eggs
and potato salad to a funeral gathering, and pick you up on the side of the
road after you’ve had a flat tire. Salt of the earth people, good people.
People who visit shut-ins, people who babysit in emergencies, people who wave
to you in town, people who will give you $1.60 when you’ve come up short in the
checkout line, people who go to church every Sunday and pay their tithing
without complaint, people who rescue stray dogs, people who hug you after a
loved one has died. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But these same good people sometimes have a problem with
tunnel vision. They are unable to see the world from anyone else’s perspective
from their own. They take their own experiences and their lives and superimpose
them over everyone else. This is especially true if they live in a very
homogeneous society. If you live and work, and go to church and school, and
socialize with people exactly like you, then there’s never any opportunity for
dialogue on how it might feel to look though the world though another set of
eyes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a white woman, then you have no idea what it’s
like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a young black male in an urban setting, then you
have no idea what it’s like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a Muslim man, then you have no idea what it’s
like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a young teen with two children out of wedlock,
then you have no idea what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a family seeking political asylum in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region> because it
is too dangerous in your country to live, then you have no idea what it’s like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t gay and had to struggle all of your life for
some kind of acceptance, from not only yourself but from society, then you have
no idea what it’s like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t an older woman on a fixed income who lives in
an apartment in the city, then you have no idea what its like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a victim of sexual abuse, then you have no
idea what it’s like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a black woman, then you have no idea what it’s
like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a teenager coming to age in 2018, then you
have no idea what its like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t afflicted with a serious illness or chronic
condition, you have no idea what it’s like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t Asian, you have no idea what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a fifteen-year-old scared girl who has just
found out she’s pregnant, then you have no idea what it’s like.. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a school age child who was in school during a
mass shooting, then you have no idea what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a young white male, then you have no idea what
it’s like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’ve never experienced generational poverty, then you
have no idea what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t handicapped, then you have no idea what it’s
like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a person who has no health insurance, then you
have no idea what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you don’t have a mental illness, then you have no idea
what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t indigenous to this country, then you have no
idea what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a young couple trying to raise children today,
then you have no idea what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t confused about your sexual identity, you have
no idea what it’s like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you aren’t a member of a particular group of people, then
you have no idea what it’s like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m going to go in another direction right now, but I assure
you that it ties in which the above narrative. Bear with me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The term “politically correct” gets thrown around a lot, But
if we were break the term down, what does politically correct mean? Some
synonyms, words that mean the same as politically correct are: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unbiased</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">neutral</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">appropriate</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nonpartisan</i>. So to be “politically incorrect”
is the opposite: <i>biased, partial, inappropriate, and partisan. </i>Those sound like negative
attributes to have. Wouldn’t it be more positive for everyone to want to be
unbiased and appropriate, and therefore actually want to be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">politically correct</i>? To be politically <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in</b>correct is to be a person who doesn’t
care about who they offend in society. Which are you? Politically correct (unbiased
and appropriate) or politically incorrect (biased and inappropriate)? Believe
it or not I’ve actually heard people brag that there’s no way in hell they’d ever
be politically correct. They’re politically INCORRECT and damn proud of it. These
are the so-called “good” people I started this essay talking about. The salt of
the earth people. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there juxtaposition
here? How can good people want to be inappropriate? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why are some people going around yelling and complaining
that the country is just too politically correct? Do they think being unbiased is
a negative quality? I have a theory. The people stomping their feet and making snide
remarks about how awful it is that “everything has to be politically correct
nowadays” can’t get used to the fact that polite society no longer sees humor
in jokes or comments that are racist, homophobic, xenophobic, or sexist. If a joke
or comment or meme is mocking an entire group of people, then it is not appropriate
and should not be posted or said. In other words, just be polite. We don’t get
to tell people what they should and should not be offended over. It doesn’t
work that way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As for the people who make fun of and deride the women
marchers or the football players who kneel, you have no right to say what is
right for that group of people either. You have no right to say how they choose
to make their voices heard. You have no right to tell them that their fears and
experiences are not real. The Civil Rights marchers of the 60s were beaten,
killed, mocked, cussed, and murdered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>History now teaches us that the rights the Civil Rights marchers were
fighting for, were the CORRECT rights to be fighting for. In other words, rights
that any human being should have. And just like the Civil Rights movement,
history will judge us for where we stood at this moment in time, but it will
judge us harsher, and some of us, through the magic of digital social media
footprints, will be found woefully lacking. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-50351832393416457722018-04-16T19:31:00.000-04:002018-04-16T22:04:53.581-04:00!@@!%$!@ and %!@#$^%<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
Four years ago you could
not have convinced me that America’s leading newspapers, The Wall Street Journal,
New York Times, Washington Post, et al, would have to even entertain the question
of whether or not to publish utterances by a presidential candidate that
included the word “pussy.” </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
Can you imagine the
conversations in the newsroom?</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Tom:</i> The word pussy is in this piece you wrote, Dick.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Dick</i>: Well, that’s what he said.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Helen</i>: But can we actually print the word pussy if it’s not
referencing to a cat? Maybe we can use dollar signs for the letter S.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Dick</i>: That would look like graffiti, not journalism.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Helen</i>: Again, do we really print the word pussy?</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Tom:</i> I don’t know. What did The Wall Street Journal do?</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Dick</i>: They printed it.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Tom</i>: No shit?</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Helen</i>: No shit.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Dick</i>: (mutters) I wasn’t allowed to write the word “damn” at the
Boston Globe twenty years ago.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Tom</i>: My journalism degree didn’t prepare me for a presidential
candidate saying the word “pussy.”</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Helen</i>: Mine either. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Dick</i>: Oh, it’ll be a one time thing. It was an audio that he thought
was private. There is no way he would say anything like that that in a public
speech.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>One
year later:<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i>Helen:</i> He called the football players “sons-of-bitches.”<span style="background: white; color: #282f2f; letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Dick</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: Really?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Tom</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: He said that publically?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Helen:</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;"> Yes, in a speech in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Alabama</st1:state></st1:place>. Can we print it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Dick</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: I guess so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Tom:</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;"> I don’t think there are any
rules anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Dick: But what if he says “cunt”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Tom:</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;"> We print it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Helen</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: What if he says “fucker”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Tom</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: We print it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Dick</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: I need to retire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Helen</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: Tell me about it. I feel like I
write for The National Enquirer now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Two years later:<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Tom</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: Can you believe this?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Helen</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: He actually called them “shithole”
countries?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Dick</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: Durbin was there and confirmed
it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Tom</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: My ten-year-old called his
baseball coach a pussy the other day. When I punished him, he told me it wasn’t
a bad word because the president said it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Helen</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: Oh, that’s nothing. My
two-year-old is running around chanting, “Porn star, porn star!” I left the t.v
on during the news and she heard it. Now she might get kicked out of daycare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Tom:</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;"> You left the t.v on during the
news with a child in the room? Are you crazy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Helen</span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">: I know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">Dick: </span></i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">I miss the good ole days when all
we had to worry about was one word: “blowjob.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">So is it any wonder that yesterday when I was reading
the news, lo and behold, there was talk of a “taint team” being assigned to go
through Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s FBI seized materials. I’m a fifty-six-year old woman but sometimes,
especially when it comes to gutter humor, I have the brain of a twelve-year old
boy, so when I read the words “Tiant Team” in a headline yesterday, I
immediately turned into that twelve-year-old boy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .15pt;">I have so many jokes for that. So many jokes that I dare not tell, but please, give yourself full permission for your imagination to go wild with this one. Go ahead. </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-15849333990239359482018-04-09T21:24:00.000-04:002018-04-11T18:48:53.641-04:00The Keeper of Secrets (a short story)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I am the Keeper of the Secrets in a town of a little over five
thousand. Five thousand-two hundred and sixty-seven, to be exact. Secrets run deep in small towns and even deeper in the South beneath the suffocating summer heat when everything is as still as a corpse and the drone of mosquitos drill into your brain. Secrets as deep
and muddy as the Tallahatchie and Ocmulgee Rivers. Secrets as deep as December winter evenings when the sun sets at five o'clock and shrouds the world in a premature darkness. Secrets as deep and dark as the grave. I know the secrets. I keep the secrets.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tessie Burrell has a grown child that
doesn’t know that her real father is the insurance man in town. Gretchen Crown
has a slight problem with kleptomania that has led to her being banned from the
Family Dollar, no small thing in a town with only four stores. We’ve been
working together though, and she swears she hasn’t stolen anything in a year. At
least she hasn’t been banned by one of the twenty-six churches. Now if she
would just talk about her addiction to prescription drugs, most noticeably Xanax
and Percocet. She skirts that one every time I try to bring it up. Wonder if
she’s stealing them?</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then
there’s Robert Hollister who had a complete melt down in my office one day and
confessed to once having had a love affair with a horse that Old Man Frank owned;
Chester Richards and his proclivity for peeping into the windows of teen girls
at night; Mavis Fordham and her fascination with WebMD.com- yesterday she swore
she had leprosy; dear perpetually white attired Bertha Noles who brings me
baked goods and proceeds to cry over Fred, dead these past fifty years. They
weren’t married. Bertha just had a crush on him. When he married Carla Morris
and then two days later was killed in a farming accident, Bertha swore that
Fred had been planning on leaving Carla and taking Bertha away from her
father’s oppressive house. Our own Miss Havisham.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’d rather
not know all the darkest recesses of people’s souls, but it’s what I’m paid to
do. I am the only therapist within a fifty miles radius. A Licensed Professional Counselor. I was born and raised
in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this town. I am the equivalent of the
old small town doctor who used to make house calls, except I don’t make house
calls unless my patients have been carted off to the E.R after trying to
overdose or slice their wrist with a rusty razor, they’re being held for psych
eval at the local jail, or Miss Howard has a fresh baked apple pie she wants me
to pick up from her house. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miss
Howard won the State Fair pie competition five years running. I do love pie.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went to high school in this town, drank
myself into drunken teen stupors by the river, went to the prom, played pool at
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Howie’s Pool Pub,</i> and ran up and down
the streets in my ‘68 Camaro. That Camaro was outfitted with a 427 cubic inch
engine and a glove box full of weed. I’m still scratching my head over the fact
that the same people who knew me as a hell raiser in my youth can see me in
another light now that I’m more than a few years past middle age. I guess
because I’m one of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They trust me
with their lives. I mean, literally their lives. I could ruin 65% of this town
either through direct knowledge or indirect knowledge of their secrets. Just think of all the
blackmail material I possess. I could cash out those secrets and buy a place in sunny Spain. Te gustaría otra cerveza? But, my patients pay me, or their insurance company does, a pretty legal penny to hear
their confessions. Enough to live on. In this Southern Baptist town I guess I’m the closet thing
they’ll ever have to a Catholic priest. So I am the Keeper of the Secrets. All the secrets. Go forth my son and sin no
more. Fifty Hail Mary's and ten Our Father's. I've heard it all.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Russell
Overstreet was sent to me because he killed all of his ex girlfriend’s
Vietnamese pot bellied pigs- all twenty of them- when she broke up with him. He
told me that he a was bit “miffed” when he found out she had screwed Lester
Mitchell while Russell was away at a job training seminar in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place></st1:city>. He said he had every right to kill
those pigs since he had bought all of them. Judge didn’t see it that way, so
now Russell has to come talk to me every two weeks for an hour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s over his ex girlfriend, in fact he has a
new girlfriend named Fran that he met in Macon at a bar two months ago, and he
was best man at his ex girlfriend’s marriage to Lester in October, but he still
has nine months on his court ordered counseling session, so we usually just
play a few hands of poker. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>James
Winsome is the mayor and he sneaks into my office through a back alley door so
no one will see him. James is what I would call a special case. He thinks the
Mafia is after him and that if they catch him they’ll make him a sex slave. His
story on why they are after him changes every visit. One time it was because he
had impregnated the Don's daughter with a two headed cat and another time it
was because he stole a shipment of cocaine from them, stuffed it up his rectum,
and it’s still there. He says he can inhale with his rectum, so he pretty much
stays high all the time. And this is the man running our town. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Poor Mrs.
Tippley, who was my fifth grade science teacher, believes that very well
endowed aliens kidnapped her one night and did sexual experiments on her. She
suffers from PTSD. Seventeen- year-old Logan Kitchens is a pyromaniac who burnt
down the American Legion, and I suspect the storage shed behind the First Baptist Church He didn’t get any jail time because he is the son of
the richest man in town; Buster Kitchens, the owner of the paving company. Ken
Unger, the local undertaker, thinks he’s a donkey; Mrs. Marshall, the
librarian, believes that there is a very tiny man living in her head; Bill Carswell,
the president of the Farmer’s Bank, is a coke addict; Fanny White, a housewife,
has nothing wrong with her. She just likes me because I actually talk to her-
her husband is a deaf mute. June Reynolds, the secretary at the elementary
school can’t stop herself from sleeping with every man in town who asks, me
included. Don’t report me to the state licensing board. It was a very long time
ago in high school and involved a pony kegger at the river after a football
game. I have lines even I won’t cross. Anyway, when June sleeps with a man once
she loses complete interests. It’s the chase that thrills her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I can’t
even look half the town in the eye if I see them in the grocery store. I have the
drug store deliver my prescriptions and I hired a lady to do the food shopping for
me because I truly dread running into my patients outside of work and having to
make small talk. I mean what does one say?</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>Oh, hello, Mr. Browning! Smoke any meth
today?”</i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You look perfectly lovely today, Janice.
Remember, don’t binge and purge!”</i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Great to see you, Billy Bob!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see you got another White Nationalist face
tattoo.” </i></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My job has
its dangers. J.C tried to choke me to death at the jail when I went to evaluate
him. Damn near killed me. And I still have to see the bastard when I go pay my
water bill. He’s the clerk at city hall. Two years ago Nathan started stalking
me because he thought I had stolen his soul in one of our sessions. He stopped
when I gave him a Ball canning jar filled with antifreeze. I told him that I
had taken his soul in order to clean it for him and now that it was all shiny
and clean I was returning it. He left me alone after that. Glenda Victors fell
in love with me, and it might not have been so bad if she hadn’t been
eighty-nine years old. When I gently refused her offer she took a .45 from her
purse and held it up to my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another
patient knocked on the door and scared Glenda so badly she dropped the gun. I
kicked it under the table and then bolted for the door. After Glenda bonded out
of jail she felt so bad that she baked me a plate of chocolate chip cookies. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ernestine Whitehead roofied me when I left the
room for a minute and she stirred Rohypnil into my sweet ice tea. I came to about
three hours later and she was gone. I staggered over to the E.R and when I told
them what had happened, they tested me. Seems Ernestine had tried that shit
before. No one warned me. I stopped seeing her as a patient and thank God I
don’t remember one thing that happened after I took a few sips of that
tea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want to. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m sitting
here now waiting for my four o’clock to show up. Benjamin Garrison. I always
schedule him last because he has dementia and half the time he forgets he has
an appointment. I’ll wait for an hour, catch up on paperwork, and then go home
if he doesn’t show. He’ll phone tomorrow and apologize profusely and I will
tell him not to worry about it. If this were the city he’d be charged for the
appointment anyway, but this is my town, my people so I forgive and forget. At
least he hasn’t tried to kill me. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I smile
because I am the Keeper of the Secrets. I smile because no one told me when I
received my LPC license that the people in my home town were so much like the
text book cases I had read. It’s rather disturbing how people can hide behind
masks. Maybe I am Keeper of the Masks. The masks get ripped off in my office
and then carefully put back into place as my patients, my friends, my
townsfolk end their sessions. They go home, they eat, they play with the dog,
they take a bath, they watch T.V.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
all the while their mask is set firmly in place. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Believe me once
you’ve seen behind all the masks you can never forget. I wonder, when I die
will the town bury me in a spot near the very back of the city cemetery under the old
magnolia? That area is carpeted in soft bermuda grass and it's hidden halfway by a wall and great sloping branches. Hidden in the
shadows.</div>
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-87860627294118493992018-03-15T17:12:00.001-04:002018-03-16T00:02:37.422-04:00Eulogy For My Friend Barbara Asbell Bryan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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On March 11, 2018 my best friend for the past 40 years, Barbara, passed away. She had been ill with heart problems for some time but we truly thought she'd pull out of this latest hospitalization the way she always did. When I received news of her death in the early morning hours of March 11, I couldn't even cry. I tried to cry and couldn't do it and felt like I had betrayed her because I was unable to shed tears for her. My mind refused to believe what my ears had heard. </div>
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Later that afternoon I got in my car and drove down a back country road with the music blaring "I'm Still Breathing" by Green Day, I screamed and I cried and I yelled and I finally allowed my heart to feel her loss. Today was her funeral. It took me three days to write her eulogy. Her eulogy from a friend. I just hope I did justice to Barb and her memory. Here is the eulogy for family members who might like to have it.</div>
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My heart goes out to her family: Mike, Phillip, Becky, Will, Miss Sue, Angel, Andrew, Alex, Emily, and KatieLynn. </div>
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Barb will be greatly missed.</div>
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<b>Eulogy For My Friend </b></div>
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I met Barb when I moved to Cochran
in my eleventh grade year. We become friends almost immediately. In our senior
year, due to my dad being transferred from <st1:city w:st="on">San Antonio</st1:city>
to Keesler AFB in <st1:city w:st="on">Biloxi</st1:city>, I found out I would
also be moving to attend <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Biloxi</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">High School</st1:placetype></st1:place>. I remember telling
Barb in school during second period class. She ran out of the classroom into the
bathroom and I followed. She was crying her heart out. When I asked why she was
crying she stammered, “Because you’re leaving.” As an Air Force kid I had never
had anyone cry when I moved away. She had my heart from that day to this. Before
school was over our senior year I was able to come back and graduate from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Bleckley</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">County</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">High school</st1:placetype></st1:place>
with Barb and the rest of the class of 1980.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is the hardest thing
I’ve ever had to do. I never wanted to stand before you and talk about Barbara,
I still don’t want to, but I do want you to know who Barbara Elizabeth Bryan was.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want you to know what she was like. I
want you to know what she loved. What she was most proud of. What she dreamed
of. What she hoped for. The things that made her human.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Things like what a huge wrestling fan Barb was in high
school. She came to school one day clutching a photo of herself with some
wrestler named Ric Flair. I had no clue who he was, but she was so excited you’d
have thought she’d met all the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. She kept that photo
in her notebook for awhile and then tacked it on her bedroom wall. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Barb somehow acquired an orange and white Bobcat car in her
senior year. She’d pick me up for school in the morning and we’d always be late
because I am NOT a morning person. We’d be late for school and Mr. Smoot or Mr.
Harmon would get onto us. Barb would get mad and threaten to stop picking me
up, but she never carried through on her threat. That old Bobcat was something
else. We thought it was kind of cool. I look back now and realize it was one
ugly car. We’d turn the radio to Q 106 and drive around after school to see who
was in town, try and run into our crush of the week, and find who was riding
around with whom. At night we’d park at Bohannon’s or across the street from
the old Otasco. Everyone would. There’d be eight or nine cars parked side by
side with us kids milling around talking. There wasn’t much else to do in
Cochran on weekends, except hang out at Bogies, the local quasi arcade, and
play Space Invaders or <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Pac</st1:city> <st1:state w:st="on">Man, o</st1:state></st1:place>r go the river.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like most of girls in the late 70s, Barb wore her hair in
the famous Farrah Fawcett hair style. She always had a can of AquaNet in her
purse and she’d spray her hair every so often throughout the day so not even a
single feathered hair fell out of place. The wind would gust and her feathered wings
would stand straight up then lay back down like nothing had ever happened.
There was an art to wearing that hairstyle and Barb had it down to a science. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>People keep telling me how sweet Barb was. She was that way
even in high school. The word sweet is used so often that it has become a cliché, but
she WAS sweet. She never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings. She would allow
people to hurt her before she hurt them. I saw that happen many many times over
the years and it drove me crazy. But she didn’t know how to be any other way. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When I moved back to Cochran from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Biloxi</st1:city></st1:place> in 1983 and became a mom, Barb was
already a mom, and she’d babysit my oldest son, Adam, while I worked a few
hours a day. Adam and Barb’s son, Phillip, became close. Barb called Adam <i>Adam Bomb</i> and to this day Adam still calls
her Ma Barb. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I know many of you remember when Barb was the librarian in
town at Tessie Norris. She loved her job because it allowed her to connect with
people. She loved having the children come in for story time. I’d go by the
library after classes when I was attending college and we’d talk. I miss those
talks. We talked about new books coming out that she should order for the
library, raising kids, stretching our meager budgets, problems we were having
in our personal lives, and how to effectively get rid of stray mustache hairs. I
insisted plucking was best. She preferred bleaching. She’d throttle me if she
knew I’d told you that. But I always warned her that if she went first I would
tell one tiny little secret. I thought maybe if she knew that, she’d try to outlive
me. So there, Barb, told you I would do it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Many people don’t know this, but Barb was an excellent
writer. While working as the <span style="background: white; color: black;">Acquisitions
Supervisor at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on"><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Mercer</span></em></st1:placename><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></span></em></st1:place><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> she earned her degree, and
she was published in the Mercer University Literary Magazine<b> “Regeneration.”</b></span></em></span><em><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal;"> </span></b></em><em><span style="background: white; font-style: normal;">She blossomed at
Mercer.</span></em><em><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal;"> </span></b></em><em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;">I remember how proud and energized she was about writing
then<b>. </b></span></em>Last year she talked
about wanting to write again, but didn’t know how to get started. I told her,
“Just write, it will come, I promise.” I don’t know if she tried. That was
about the same time she started having a lot of problems with her eyes and
couldn’t see well enough to know when to step over a curb, much less write, so
those stories probably went with her and we’ll never <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>get to read them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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One of the highlights of her life was when she traveled to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Guatemala</st1:country-region></st1:place>
as part of a Mercer University Mission program. Her and other Mercer students
and professors visited an orphanage in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Guatemala</st1:place></st1:country-region> to lend a hand in
whatever was needed. While she was there, Barb became enraptured by one little
boy. His name was Pablo. She wrote to him for a long time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Barb had a kindness in her that was a quiet kindness. She
didn’t toot her own horn about it. She didn’t draw attention to herself. She
just acted. When her son, Phillip, was stationed in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>, all three times, she started
a coloring book and crayon drive at Mercer. She would collect the books and
crayons and ship them to Phillip’s unit and they would give them out to the
Iraqi children. She did it for the children, but she also knew that if a U.S
solider handed a coloring book and crayons to a child, then the relatives of
that child might have a harder time shooting that soldier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Phillip just told me about that the other
night. I never knew. She never told me. When Phillip drove to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Houston</st1:place></st1:city> after the most recent hurricanes, Barb
supplied him with toys to take with him. Some of those toys ended up in the
hands of a seven year old little girl who was having a birthday and had lost
everything she owned. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Barb liked to rock out to Molly Hatchet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just listening to the song <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bounty Hunter</i> took us both back to the
old days and even as recently as two years ago we jumped in the car one day and
went for a drive while we played that song full blast. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She loved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Walking Dead </i>television show<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>and
would tell me about the latest episode while I listened in bewilderment,
trying my best to figure out why some dude named Negan carried a barb wired
covered bat. Barb also loved her cats, Jack and Grayson. She called them “The
boys.” One day her and Mike said something about buying some food for “the
boys” and I thought they meant Phillip and Will. Took me a second to figure out
that they were talking about the cats. A few years ago the black cat, Jack, got
really sick and Barb phoned me in tears worried, she might lose him, but
somehow Jack pulled one of his nine lives out his cat bag of tricks and he lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Barb talked to that cat as if he were human,
and he listened as if he were human.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Barb and I traveled to my mom’s cabin in <st1:place w:st="on">Hiwassee</st1:place>
a few times. Once to see Bad Company and once to see Molly Hatchet, both at the
Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds. We actually met the members of Molly Hatchet who,
when they found out we were from Cochran, started peppering us with questions
about people they had once known in Cochran. This past November we went back to
the cabin to spend time together without real life interfering. When we left
Cochran that day I told Barb I had a new Green Day CD and would she like to
hear it. I knew our musical tastes were different, but she said sure. The song
started playing and after the first verse I looked at Barb and she was crying.
She grabbed my hand and clutched it tight throughout the song while she cried. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of the lyrics to the
song are:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "arial";">I'm like a child looking off
on the horizon</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I'm like an ambulance that's turning on the sirens</span></span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Oh, I'm still alive</span></span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I'm like a soldier coming home for the first time</span></span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="background: white;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I dodged a bullet and I walked across a landmine</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "arial";">Oh, I'm still alive</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">As I walked out on the ledge<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Are you scared to death to live?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">I’ve been running all my life<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Just to find a home that’s for the restless<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">And the truth that’s in the message<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Making my way, away, away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Am I bleeding am I bleeding from the storm?<br />
Just shine a light into the wreckage, so far away, away<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">'Cause I'm still breathing<br />
'Cause I'm still breathing on my own<br />
My head's above the rain and roses<br />
Making my way away<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">My way to you.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the song was over, with tears streaming, she turned
to me and said, “I’m still breathing.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That weekend we ended up
watching comedies, cooking, grilling on the covered porch in the rain, eating, junkin’,
and laughing. A storm hit the third night we were there. The wind howled and
shook the cabin and we went out on the covered porch and watched the trees sway
in the moonlight and the wind chimes go sideways. There was so much energy in
that storm and Barb and I just stood there and took it all in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t talk as the storm rose and then
eventually died out. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t need to
talk. I didn’t realize what a treasure the memories of that trip would be one
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She and Mike went to the
cabin last month for their third anniversary. There’s a chaise lounge in the cabin
that I bought that I always claim as mine. Barb knew this. So what did she do? She
texted me a photo of her sprawled on that chaise lounge claiming it as hers.
The last time I saw her, the Friday before she left us, we talked about going
back to the cabin in April after she got her strength back. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Barb had so much love inside
of her. So much optimism. She always believed the best of people. She always
had faith that things would work out. She hid her health problems so well that
a lot of people had no idea that her health was as precarious as it was. Barb
took care of everyone and put everyone else before herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she had her first heart attack at age 36
it was the middle of the night, but she didn’t want to bother anyone, so she waited
until morning when she knew her mom was awake and then phoned her. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Barb adored her mother so
very much. They had a very quiet, loving relationship. Barb was Miss Sue’s
number one caretaker until her own health wouldn’t allow her to care for her mother
anymore, but she went and saw her often and would always fill me in on how Miss
Sue was doing. One of Barb’s greatest achievements was being a mother to her
boys, Phillip and Will. She always talked of “my boys” (not the cats), how worried
she was when Phillip was deployed, how happy Phillip and Becky were together,
how they had given her a granddaughter, KatieLynn, her little “mini me”, how
well Will was doing in his job and how very grown up and confident he had
become. Whenever I’d see Will at his job I’d text Barb and she’d text back,
“Hug him!” Will remembers when he was a little boy and had trouble going to
sleep how Barb would lay down with him until he drifted off. Phillip told me
that his Mom instilled in him the belief that you don’t give up. You keep
fighting for what you want, just the way she did. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She fought for her college
degree, she fought as a single mother, she fought paying her bills, like so
many of us. She fought her health problems, she fought trying to stay at her
job at Mercer even when she was so sick and worn out that she was nodding off
while driving to Macon everyday. She fought the feeling that she would never
have the love of a partner who cared for her the way she should be cared
for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then she found Mike.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or should I say, refound him?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Barb loved Mike. He’s been
her rock. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was teaching in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Nashville</st1:city> <st1:state w:st="on">GA</st1:state></st1:place>
in 2014 when she phoned me one night and asked if I remembered Mike Bryan.
Remember him? He spilled red punch on my dress at the prom. He had been her
date at that prom. Of course I remembered him. She told me that they had
started emailing after she had found an old email address of his while she was
cleaning out her inbox. She didn’t know if he had the same email but she wrote
anyway and much to her surprise he answered. Next thing I knew they were dating
and she was gushing and calling him Yogi to his Boo Boo nickname for her, and
then he asked her to marry him to which she replied with an enthusiastic “Yes!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was at their wedding, and when I saw her
standing at this very altar with Mike as they exchanged vows, I knew he’d take
care of her and love her, for better or for worse. And he did. To the very end,
he did just that. They went on trips together and dressed up silly every
Halloween. They double dated with me and my husband to a concert by an AC/DC cover
band. Mike made sure she took her medications, he took her to doctor appointments,
he sat with her hour after hour every time she was in the hospital refusing to leave
until she went to sleep. He put a smile on her face and gave her the safety and
security she had always longed for.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love Mike because he loved my friend.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Barb tried to warn me that this day would come. That one
day I’d lose her. I didn’t want to believe it. I still don’t want to believe
it. What Barb failed to tell me was how I was supposed to live my life without
her being a part of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Barb and I
shared secrets that no one else will ever know. I kept hers and she kept mine.
I will still keep her secrets because that’s what friends do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I told her that I was supposed to go first so I could donate
my heart to her. She would protest and say, “No, I don’t want you to go
first.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I’d try and joke and remind
her that my heart was in a lot better shape than hers and she better grab it while
I was offering. She would always cut the conversation short and change the
subject. Well, it turns out she took my heart anyway when she left all of us
here to figure out how to live the rest of our lives without her. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I love you, Barb. BFF and always.
I promise. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-37546549667217896402018-02-20T00:10:00.001-05:002018-03-16T00:01:50.752-04:00The Monster That Lives Inside of Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Once again I have completely sunk back into the hole where the monster lives. . I’ll have one or two days of feeling almost human, almost normal, and
I’ll think,</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Maybe I can do something.”</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Maybe
I can go somewhere.”</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Maybe I can clean out that closet today.”</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Maybe my brain is clear enough to actually write a short
story.” </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Maybe
I’m getting well.” </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And then I feel it.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Slowly, like a sharp claw reaching underneath
my rib cage and sternum, drawing its talons down against my muscle, my tendons, and my bones, it travels quickly. The claw closes and rips at me. It tightens its grip and my body drips into weakness like someone has encased me in concrete, and then I begin to tremble like the last fall leaf on a tree. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Try to take shallow
breathes because it hurts too much when my rib cage expands. Little sips of air. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Tiptoe into the back yard at night, slip down into the dew grass, and cry where no one can see me. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Curl up into a
tiny ball and rock myself in time with the pain that pulses with every beat
like a toothache in my body. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Tell myself I’ll feel better tomorrow. That the doctors
will call me and shout, “<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Eureka</st1:place></st1:city>!
We know how to treat you and give you your life back!”</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> One day </span>I’ll go back into a classroom. I’ll teach again. I’ll
stay late after everyone has gone home, creating lesson plans that will turn literature
into magic for my kids. After we read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of
Mice and Men</i> one kid will take his time gathering his books when the bell rings
and then shyly come up and ask me why, with tears in his eyes, Lenny had to die, or her eyes will flash
when she howls her anger after Jack has killed Piggy, or he will pretend
to be Mercutio sword fighting Tybalt.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But none of that is ever going to happen again, and I open
my eyes. I am in the backyard alone. The moon is a slice of a fingernail and
the stars are teasing me with their sparkle. They mock me. The night air smells
of tea olive flowers and the world is still and beautiful, and I am trapped in
my own pain. It is wrapped around me like a thick quilt that suffocates. I want
to breathe in the tea olive. I want to swim in the white beauty of the stars
against the inky sky. Star light, start bright, take my pain away tonight. But I can’t unwrap myself from it. The pain beats like
dead drums. Thump! Thump! Thump! The pain encapsulates. My brain is one entity.
My body another. They are forever battling for control. Little sips of air, always tinier sips of air.
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Years and years of internal cuts and slices that lap over one another like
waves on a shore, a nightmare time-stumble that is circuitous. One year bleeding
into the next. Doctors. Xrays, MRIs, injections, infusions, toxic medications. Hopes
raised, hopes dashed. Family and friends:</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“But you don’t look sick.” </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I saw you yesterday and you were fine.”</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Aren't you well yet?”</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fuck them. Fuck them all.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I want them to slither their brain into my body and tell
me how to live, how to continue, how to open my eyes each morning. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want them to show me how to not feel the
pain, how to ignore it, how to get my life back. Against all odds, against all I think I can do,
I somehow wake up. Each morning I am ripped from my dreams where there is no pain
and where I am able to breathe deeply and run among wild colors and clouds and
I can hop off deep cliffs like an astronaut on the moon. I am free.. until I
open my eyes and then my body engulfs me and my brain screams as it registers
the sharp pulses under my skin.</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another day. Another day trapped. </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The pain and exhaustion and trembling and weakness will
not kill my body like cancer or leukemia or any other number of fatal illnesses,
but it chips away at my brain. It clouds my thinking and makes me sink into
deep chairs and stare out the window for hours. It saddens me. It angers me. But there is
not one damned thing I can do to control any of it. Maybe pain is supposed to be my life
lesson. Maybe pain will bring me to some sort of enlightenment or actualization.
Then again, maybe it will just chip away at me until there is nothing left but a
sliver of bone with a bit of rotten tissue attached. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-83179206778686215012018-02-15T16:51:00.003-05:002018-02-15T22:50:00.861-05:00 Bang bang, that awful sound.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was getting caught up on the daily news yesterday, like I usually do a little before 4 p.m, when breaking
news of an active shooter inside a high school in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Florida was announced on abc news</st1:state></st1:place>. I watched live
footage as law enforcement stormed the high school. I saw kids running out with
their hands over their heads. I saw a sheet covered body being loaded into an
ambulance. I saw <st1:place w:st="on">EMS</st1:place> checking over the bodies
of teens for injuries. I saw shaken teens running to their parents in tears. I saw raw
fear and incomprehension on the faces of not only the high school students who
had been in that building and heard the screams of their classmates in between
the loud pop pop of the rapid fire gun shots, but I also saw fear etched into
the faces of teachers, parents, emergency personnel, doctors, and law enforcement.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I also
saw anger. Anger at a system that would continue to throw up its hands in resignation
and say, “Well there’s nothing we can do about it,” when there IS something we
can do about it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The shooter
in Parkland (17 dead) yesterday, like the shooters in the Aurora movie theater
on June 20, 2012<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(58 dead), Sandy Hooks
Elementary school on December 14, 2012 (27 dead), the Pulse Night Club on June
12, 2016 (49 dead), San Bernardino on June 16, 2016 (14 dead), the Las Vegas concert
on October 1, 2017 (58 dead), and the church in Sutherland Springs on November
5, 2017 (26 dead), ALL used an AR 15 due to its ability to fire rapidly. But
the AR 15 has been used in lesser publicized American shootings:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">Oct. 7, 2007: Tyler
Peterson, 20, used an AR-15 to kill six and injure one at an apartment in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Crandon</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Wis.</st1:state></st1:place>,
before killing himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FAFAFA; margin-left: 30.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-line-height-alt: 11.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: list 27.0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">June 7, 2013: John
Zawahri, 23, used an AR-15-style .223-caliber rifle and a .44-caliber Remington
revolver to kill five and injure three at a home in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Santa Monica</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Calif.</st1:state></st1:place>,
before he was killed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FAFAFA; margin-left: 27.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-line-height-alt: 11.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: list 27.0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">March 19, 2015:
Justin Fowler, 24, used an AR-15 to kill one and injure two on a street in
Little Water, N.M., before he was killed</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 7.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FAFAFA; margin-left: 27.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-line-height-alt: 11.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: list 27.0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">May 31, 2015:
Jeffrey Scott Pitts, 36, used an AR-15 and .45-caliber handgun to kill two and
injure two at a store in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Conyers</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">Ga.</st1:state></st1:place>, before he was killed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FAFAFA; margin-left: 27.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-line-height-alt: 11.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: list 27.0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333;">Oct. 31, 2015: Noah
Jacob Harpham, 33, used an AR-15, a .357-caliber revolver and a 9mm
semi-automatic pistol to kill three on a street in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Colorado Springs</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Colo.</st1:state></st1:place>,
before he was killed. (Source: <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">USA</i></st1:place></st1:country-region><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Today</i> February14, 2018).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"> Is there
anything we can do to help slow down gun violence in this country? Yes. We can outlaw rapid
fire weapons like the AR 15 so that civilians can’t own, buy, or sell them. Those
guns are meant for one thing and one thing only: to kill as many people as
possible in as short a time as possible. Will outlawing rapid fire weapons
solve the problem immediately?</span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span><span style="color: #333333;">After
all, the NRA estimates that there are some 8 million AR 15s in circulation in </span><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="color: #333333;">America, other less conservative figures put that number at 15 million</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #333333;"> (and that doesn’t even take into account other types of rapid fire weapons). So, no, outlawing
those types of weapons for civilian ownership won’t solve the problem
immediately, but in five years there will be fewer of these types of weapons on
the streets, in ten years there will be still fewer, then in twenty years still
fewer. We have to start somewhere. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FAFAFA; margin-left: 9.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-line-height-alt: 11.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333;"> And don’t give me that Second Amendment
bullshit. If you are one those people who hold your “rights” to own a rapid
fire weapon higher than the rights that American children have to live and
breathe and grow, then you are part of the problem. And if you continue to
insist </span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span><span style="color: #333333;">that you need those weapons to
protect yourself from your government in case it goes rogue, then you are deluding
yourself if you think you could defend yourself against military tanks, Apache
helicopters, or weaponized drones. If you distrust your government that much
then maybe you should get off your ass and actually DO something constructive, like staying in touch with your senators and representatives, and voting (half of voting age Americans didn't even bother to vote in the 2016 presidential election). Maybe you could actually DO something that would help make you feel safer, rather than just stockpiling weapons. The NRA has
spent billions since 1975 to lobby in Congress. Recently their lobbying efforts
succeeded in scrapping a CDC proposal to study gun violence in </span><st1:country-region style="color: #333333;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #333333;">. The
NRA isn’t protecting your rights. They are protecting gun manufacturer’s,
seller’s and buyer’s financial interests. They don’t care about you. And they damn sure don't care about American children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FAFAFA; margin-left: 9.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-line-height-alt: 11.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333;"> What can we
do to help make </span><st1:country-region style="color: #333333;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #333333;">
safer for kids to attend public school and for you to go to a mall? We can make
our existing gun laws stricter. We can increase the wait time to own a gun. I don’t
mind waiting longer to buy a gun if it will save the life of a child (and yes,
I own a gun). We can establish a federal database to keep track of people who have histories
of violent crimes and domestic abuse, and make it illegal for them to own, buy,
or sell a gun. We could raise the federal age to buy, sell, or own a gun to twenty-one</span><span style="color: #333333;"> (if we won't let people buy alcohol until they are twenty</span><span style="color: #333333;">-one then why the hell would we allow them to own a weapon</span><span style="color: #333333;">?).</span><span style="color: #333333;"> We could make it illegal for anyone on a terror watch list or no fly list to own, buy,
or sell a gun.We can do away with the </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-size: 7.5pt;">“</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">gun show
loophole.” Most states do not require background checks for firearms
purchased at gun shows from private individuals -- federal law only requires
licensed dealers to conduct checks (Source: governing.com). My youngest son
sold a gun four years ago in the state of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region> through a want ad in the
local sales paper. This type of gun transfer should be illegal. We can hold adults fully responsible when children gain possession of guns owned by adults. And finally, we can create stiffer
penalties for people who break gun laws. </span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FAFAFA; margin-left: 9.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-line-height-alt: 11.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333;"> I am a retired teacher, and way back in 2000 when I was
student teaching in a small rural </span><st1:country-region style="color: #333333;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #333333;"> town, three police officers
walked into my classroom and asked that I take my ninth graders across the hall
into another classroom. I told my students to gather their belongings. One of
the officers stopped me and said, “They can all go, except for those two,” as
he pointed to two students. Later I found out that one of those students had
had a gun in MY classroom. The other kid had known about the gun. The officers escorted the students out and I didn’t see
them for the rest of the semester. </span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FAFAFA; margin-left: 9.0pt; mso-line-break-override: none; mso-line-height-alt: 11.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333;"> Thanks to that experience, the entire time that I taught high
school, in the back of my mind, I was always on the look out for any sign of
guns in the school. The only time I never thought about guns in my school was for
a brief period when I taught in the </span><st1:country-region style="color: #333333;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United Arab Emirates</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #333333;">. That was the
only time I ever felt completely safe in a classroom. There simply were no guns
to be worried about. I am glad I am retired now. I don’t know if I could teach
in the current atmosphere of fear that permeates our public schools. And I damn
sure don’t support arming teachers. Teachers in this country are overworked and
over stressed and underpaid and over medicated. You want to give teachers </span><span style="color: #333333;">guns to keep up with when most can’t even keep
up with their cell phone in class? My cell phone was stolen from my classroom
twice in my career.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"> I have six grandchildren who attend public school in
three different states: </span><st1:state style="color: #333333;" w:st="on">Florida</st1:state><span style="color: #333333;">, </span><st1:country-region style="color: #333333;" w:st="on">Georgia</st1:country-region><span style="color: #333333;">, and </span><st1:state style="color: #333333;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Arkansas</st1:place></st1:state><span style="color: #333333;">. There is not a day that goes by
that I don’t think of my grand kids and hope that for one more day they will be
safe at school, that no one will run into their schools shooting, that my
grandchildren won’t die by a bullet tearing into their bodies. And what about the other members of my family? Will one of my grown children be shot down while shopping at a mall? Will my husband be shot and killed in a movie theater? Will I be shot at a concert? Who knows anymore? Not me and not you. Thirty years ago I could never have imagined the state of
fear that we live in in this country in 2018.</span><span style="color: #333333;">
</span><span style="color: #333333;">If we don’t do something proactive to solve our gun problem, and we do
have a gun problem, what is it going to be like in thirty more years? I shudder
to imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">And for those who say that now is not the time to talk
about this; They’re right. We should have been talking about this after the
first school shooting. We should have talked and talked and talked, and not stopped talking until something was done. Maybe if we had,
there wouldn’t have been eighteen school shootings in the past seven weeks. Maybe
if we had talked about it back then, the people in that </span><st1:city style="color: #333333;" w:st="on">Aurora</st1:city><span style="color: #333333;">
theater wouldn’t have died or the people at the </span><st1:city style="color: #333333;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Las Vegas</st1:place></st1:city><span style="color: #333333;"> concert shooting wouldn’t have
died. Maybe the 17 dead teens in </span><st1:place style="color: #333333;" w:st="on">Parkland</st1:place><span style="color: #333333;">
would still be alive. Maybe we would actually feel safer. Maybe there wouldn't be grieving and shocked parents in a Florida town making funeral arrangements for their children as I type this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5580132116095520144.post-90778934018205613412017-10-09T17:08:00.003-04:002017-10-09T22:18:43.849-04:00I Yield the Blog to my Husband.. To Take-a-Knee or Not to Take-a-Knee? That is the Question.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Americans Are Free to Protest</div>
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<br /></div>
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A couple of years ago, I read an article from a recent
immigrant from China. She was amazed that in America, one could legally burn
the American flag. In China, she would have been executed by the government
with no trial for burning the Chinese flag. She now lived in a country, the
United States, that was so strong that without fear citizens could speak out
against their country and government. She wanted to live in this kind of
country.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In contrast, in Nazi Germany, common citizens were expected
to give the extended right arm salute and pronounce “Heil Hitler” to each other
as a matter of greeting. The straighter you extended your arm and firmness of
your voice the more patriotism you displayed. Not following this ritual, at a
minimum you would be publically ridiculed and it was not uncommon to be beaten
by a mob, or arrested for suspicion of being a traitor. German citizens,
blinded with nationalism or the fear to express otherwise, provided the power
to Hitler and the NAZI party... and you know the rest of that story.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I think the most important ideal that this country has is
freedom. The freedom to make choices, to express opinions, to peacefully
protest or exercise civil disobedience towards policies or the government. And
when we feel that the government or country is not living up to ideals and
principles of what we are supposed to be about, we have not only the freedom,
but the obligation to express that something is wrong and it needs to be fixed.
There are many examples of this in our country’s history, when citizens joined
together to right a wrong. One example are the marches and demonstrations of
the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, protesting state governments that
legally allowed segregation and other racial injustices, and a federal
government that for many years turned a blind eye.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When I teach civics in high school, I emphasize that the
freedoms in the1st Amendment of the US Constitution are the most important of all
the amendments. Each of these freedoms is
why the American colonies revolted against the English government – every one
of these freedoms had been denied to the colonists, even though they were loyal
British subjects. When these freedoms and rights are denied to us, then we no
longer have a United States of America.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When I was a senior in high school, my classmates knew what
I stood for. I knew that I wanted a career in the military, to serve and
support my country. My classmates knew that I supported the Vietnam war –
especially when one Sunday night with another “war monger” friend, we did a
recon raid onto the school roof and hung a banner in the court yard proclaiming
“Bomb Hanoi.” All knew who did it when they arrived at school Monday morning.
When I was asked why one of my closest friends was a radical “hippie” and
another a conscientious objector to all wars, I explained that it was because I
wanted to defend a country that allows its citizens to disagree; both of my
friends were true in their convictions and I was proud of them.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When, then presidential candidate Obama was chastised for
not wearing an American Flag pin he explained that he did not think it was
necessary to wear a pin to express patriotism or loyalty – instead it was your
actions. I understood exactly what he meant as I did not wear a flag pin either
for the same reason. It was and still more important to me that people know who
I am and what I stand for – by observing my actions and demonstrations of my
pride in being an American – not by wearing a piece of metal or plastic on my
lapel, or a bumper sticker next to a car’s filthy exhaust pipe. Patriotism is
actions and spirit, not jewelry, cloth, or stickers. When I choose, I do wear on
the lapel of my coat an American Flag and Eagle, Globe, and Anchor; usually for
an occasion or ceremony where I would normally have worn my uniform when on
active duty. Of course, both of my biceps are adorned with my Marine “tats.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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I choose to stand for the National Anthem and salute the
passing color guard during a parade. When I lead my high school classes in the
Pledge of Allegiance I stand tall and straight as if on a parade field. When
there are students that want to talk during the pledge, generally it is only
because they are talkative lazy teenagers and they have not settled down to
begin the school day yet, not as any protest. I instruct them that one of the
great things about this country is that we have the freedom of expression and
choose whether they want to recite the pledge to the flag, but I expect –
require – them to remain silent out of respect for their classmates that choose
to recite the pledge. I remind them that many American citizens, such as myself
and others have served or are presently serving in the military, some in
combat, to protect their rights to make choices and express their views. This
usually clicks with them, gets them thinking, and I notice that next time all
is well. They realize that they have choosen to stand and recite the pledge
because they want to, not because it is demanded of them. In the same way, after
the pledge we have a “moment of silence.” I also ask that again, that all of us
out of respect for our classmates to remain silent for those that choose to
privately pray, meditate or contemplate, or day dream.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So, when I see our so called president screaming that those
that do not stand for the National Anthem should be beat, and demand that NFL
football players should be fired for the same, I am reminded of a fascist
dictator, I think of the examples of the Chinese immigrant amazed at our
freedoms and German Nationalism that demanded a salute and “Heil Hitler.” This
is not my America. This is not what makes America Great.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I have seen many veterans from WWII to the current wars
express that although they might not agree with “taking a knee,” they
fought for the right of these Americans to express themselves by taking a knee
or holding arms in solidarity. If I was on the field, I too would link arms to
support the freedom to protest or express our views. If these ball players were
yelling or screaming, disrupting or trying to prevent the National Anthem from
being played or sung, then that would be disrespectful. Instead, they are
making a quiet protest – not against the flag or country, but against what they
perceive as failures to live up to what ideals of their country is supposed to
be about. They are showing their respect to those that want to sing the
National Anthem.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I hold all the freedoms and rights for our Constitution,
especially all those in the 1st Amendment dearly. Without any one of these, we
do not have a free country. Because I am a patriot and love my country, I
served in the Marine Corps, and now, when I see injustice or when we fail to
live up to our ideals, I have the right and I do protest peacefully. I marched
in NYC for the Women’s Movement in January, I have marched in Savannah, and I
have participated in rallies on the Washington Mall, and in Atlanta. At all of
these I have stood with veterans that feel the same as I do. We all look at
this as a way to continue to serve our country and protect the Constitution. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I will never deny or belittle your feelings, please do same
for me. That is why America has always been Great. We don’t need to Make
America Great Again, it already is.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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Semper Fidelis, Jim</div>
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<br /></div>
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(Photo taken at March for Immigrants Atlanta, Ga)</div>
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Litihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18005157434370433298noreply@blogger.com0