Horseback

I’ve learned to compensate for the absence of a wife and family, in that so many of my personal needs are become internal. Instead of having people around, I’ve learned to compensate with creative endeavors, and a workable Spiritual interaction which is very personal to me. This doesn’t mean I never get lonely. Of course I get lonely. I’ve only gotten away from despair. I can take it.

Do I sound like a priest? Far from it. I end up turning to the ways of a bachelor, without any let up. It’s obvious to me that I’ve found a way to live along, without driving myself stock raving mad. Soon, I’ll be relegating my attentions away from the ladies altogether, since I get enough negative feedback to ignore even the most attractive ones. I’m still a man, you know, with masculine feelings.

My habits have all turned to the computer and to cyberspace, to my writing, and to those things which do not require a lot of strokes from others, to be significant to me. Having given myself a good, firm footing in classic music and classic English literature, I find the man, himself, to be tolerably well self-contained. I’ve ended up alone, and it’s OK. It’s really rather virtuous of me, if I must say so myself.

I had a successful relationship as a young man. The day came when it ended because God said it ended. I get my directions from Him. I only did the breaking up, to make God’s wishes into reality, not to say that the breaking up with the girl didn’t break my own heart. It’s just that I suffer from my father’s illness, which means I’d never be employable. It was a heart rending moment between us.

The only thing that I could see coming, was a parade of state hospitals, and years of baby after baby, which I would be unable to support. My premonition became a reality, too, and I never knew the next time I’d need a hospitalization. I spent a long time starving, because I couldn’t provide myself with the drugs I was using, and provide myself food too. I was a slave to the drug dealers.

That little romance of mine was one joy in my early life. The young lady responded to me like no one ever did, except for her. I hardly know how to describe what we had together. I do so much crying, I figure I owe it to myself to be in a positive state of mind, every now and then. The Great One does marvelous things to uphold me. I can see those things, day after day.

I would like to see pictures of Wyoming. It seems so far away and mysterious, but I’m having a lot of fun rounding out my fantasies about the place. There are so many things I’ve read into the story I’m writing, which exist only in my imagination. I’ve deliberately kept from naming the woman in the story. I’ve wanted to keep her as unilateral as possible, not willing to give her much depth.

It’s a matter of making my own reality more bearable, to keep the loving woman single-dimensional. She’s only a shadow of the happiness I’d find on horseback. In spite of the fact that I’ve got an internal hip prosthesis, which would serve to keep me off horseback irrevocably, there are some facets of the whole scenario that I cannot seem to ignore. The idea of having a relationship is too much for me.

Spending most of my days and nights on the indoors, at assisted living, but tomorrow I’ll be seeing my therapist, whom I find to be a conspiratory soul. I find I live for my times with her. Many of my hopes and dreams are talked over, when I’m in that office. I still mount my proverbial steed and dash in and out of battle with the war bonnet of the eagle feathers. For a brief moment, I’m Crazy Horse.

The noble war chief rides in and out of battle, with nothing to protect him but his personal power. I’m whole again, and young, strong. The horse and rider are one and the same, having ridden together for a lifetime. The war chief knows that this is only a singular battle, and that a total victory is impossible, but he rides nonetheless. Surely, if there was ever a champion of freedom, it was Crazy Horse.

The allure of the wide open spaces of the mid-west beckon me as if it were a seductress. There are plenty of visages to behold. The horse and rider are, by definition, one and the same. It’s similar to that fat-tire Schwinn we rode once, in that never, never time. There, and forever young, are a tandem of youthful riders, always in love, forever smiling the simple smiles of a lingering childhood.

In our mutual setting, there was never a time one of the riders became put off with the behavior of the other. We were always enamored with each other. We never needed, nor accepted, any surcease from our idyllic romance. There was never a time either of us regretted what we’d done, which would force us apart, because nothing ever happened. The years went by, but our offspring were not to be counted.

It was the one shadow of our relationship, that we never knew children. It became an inexorable part of who we were, like the horses we rode out of the stables. As a couple, we grew closer and closer. It took a doctor to tell us that it wasn’t her body, it was my own which wouldn’t introduce children into the world. Then, we looked to adoption, and brought someone else’s baby home to hold between us.

The boy hopped on the unicorn’s back, and took a trip through time. He was exceptionally careful to avoid interrupting the space-time continuum. Someone had obviously talked to the boy, to give him such valuable information. The boy watched wide-eyed at the various events which transpired before his very eyes. The boy understood he was there only as an observer, and was content.

The unicorn stopped flying and landed some, but the boy sat steadfast in his perch. There was not much time to see, when the unicorn stopped flying. It seemed the magical unicorn had a need to rest itself a moment. It seemed that the passage of time was effected by the flight of the unicorn. Presently, the unicorn was up and at ‘em again. The passage of time went along without interruption.

The boy wanted his home to be there when he returned. It was. There were all sorts of scenarios the boy felt he might have been able to influence, as he watched the passage of time, astraddle the unicorn’s back, but the boy understood it was all a temptation, that he should resist it as thoroughly as he could. The unicorn was small, about the size of a gazelle. Only a child could have ridden her.

The boy felt thoroughly familiar with his roll in the passage of time, with his mount, that his home’s stability was at stake, as he wandered through the annals of time. The boy marveled at all the wars that were fought, and all the fortunes which were won and lost. The boy realized all these images were for his instruction, and he should not be overly moved by them. He was an impartial observer.

The boy was only a witness to many events, past and future, which occasions he kept having to remind himself of, as he traveled and traveled, with this very unique mount of his, it was none of his business. The unicorn was only a vessel, which had all of the annals of time to unveil to her rider. The situation was kept pure, because someone had explained the parameters of the flight to the boy ahead of time.

When the unicorn finished displaying the better part of many more events throughout the annals of the ages, the boy turned the mount homeward, and the boy was magically there. The unicorn took the boy for far more of a ride, offering him yet another panorama of the magic of time travel, but the wonders were seen by the boy’s eyes alone. One might wonder what the boy saw.

There was the relationship between the ride and rider, the wise little boy and his illustrious, prophetic unicorn. These were as many as the other relationships we’ve referred to today. We’ve been listing a merge between one individual and another. This kicks all that tradition to the curb, and depicts a pure union between boy and unicorn, with a special twist to add to the tale. His adopted parents knew.

At last, we have a man and his God, who gets along in a bachelor setting, with a semblance of faith no one can fathom. His God has been known to visit this man in his heart, to help the man understand the various concepts he had too many misconceptions about. The man’s heart has not been visited regularly by his Maker, nor does the man overtly crave perpetual instruction from the Almighty.

The Almighty is a very busy deity. There is little one can know about the actual activities of Almighty God. God does as he pleases, and makes whatever into something glorious. These are the dynamics of the relationship between the pious man and his Holy God. There are more things to know about the man’s Maker, but will omit them from this discourse. Suffice it to be said that relationship abounds.

The idea of ceremonies among the righteous is something to wonder about. The man understood the basic idea that the Holy One was trying to show him. It might seem outrages to others, but to him it seems plausible. The man goes comfortably along, containing his truth. There are things he must to do in this world. The man has become something more than anything he was before. It is a new era.

I’ve learned to compensate for the absence of a wife and family, where so many of my personal needs are become internal. Instead of having people around, I’ve learned to compensate with creative endeavors, and a workable Spiritual interaction which is very personal to me. This doesn’t mean I never get lonely. Of course I get lonely. I’ve only gotten away from despair. I can take it.

My habits have all turned to the computer and to cyberspace, to my writing, and those things do not require a lot of strokes from others, to be significant to me. Having given myself a good, firm footing within classic music and classic literature of the ages, I finally find the man, himself, to be self-contained. I ended up alone, and it’s OK. It’s really rather virtuous of me, if I must say so myself.

I had a successful relationship when I was a young man. It ended because God said it ended. I get my instruction from Him. I only did the breaking up, to make God’s wishes a reality, not to say that breaking up with the girl didn’t break my own heart. It’s just that I suffer from my father’s illness, which means I’d never be employable. It was a heart rending moment between us.

That little romance of mine was one of a joy in life. The young lady responded to me like no one ever did, except for her, and I hardly know how to describe what we had together. I do so much crying, I figure I owe it to myself to be in a positive state of mind, every now and then. The Great One does marvelous things to uphold me. I can see them, day after day.

I would like to see pictures of Wyoming. It seems so far away and mysterious, but I’m having a lot of fun rounding out my fantasies about the place. There are so many things I’ve read into my story I’m writing, which exist only in my imagination. I’ve deliberately kept from naming the woman in the story. I’ve wanted to keep her as unilateral as possible, not willing to give her much depth.

It’s a matter of making my own reality more bearable, to keep the loving woman single-dimensional. She’s only a shadow of the happiness I’d find on horseback. In spite of the fact that I’ve got an internal hip prosthesis, which would serve to keep me off a horse irrevocably, there are some facets of the whole scenario that I cannot seem to ignore. The idea of having a relationship is too much for me.

Spending most of my days and nights on the indoors, at assisted living, but tomorrow I’ll be seeing my therapist, whom I find to be a conspiratory soul. I find I live for the times I see her. Many of my hopes and dreams are talked about, when I’m in that office. I’m still amount my proverbial steed and dash in and out of battle with the war bonnet of the eagle feathers. For a brief moment, I’m Crazy Horse.

The noble war chief rides in and out of battle, with nothing to protect him but his personal power. I’m whole again, and young, strong. The horse and rider are one and the same, having ridden together for a lifetime. The war chief knows that this is only a singular battle, and that a total victory is impossible, but he rides nonetheless. Surely, if there was ever a champion of freedom, it was Crazy Horse.

The allure of the wide open spaces of the mid-west beckon me as if it were a seductress. There are plenty of sights to behold, no doubt. The horse and rider are, by definition, one and the same. It’s similar to the fat-tire Schwinn we once rode, in that never, never time. There, and forever young, are a tandem of youthful riders, always in love, forever smiling the simple smiles of a lingering childhood.

In our mutual setting, there was never a time one of the riders became put off with the behavior of the other. We were always enamored with each other. We never needed, nor accepted, any surcease from our idyllic romance. There was never a time either of us regretted what we did, which would force us apart, because nothing ever happened. The years went by, but our offspring were not to be counted.

It was the one shadow of our relationship, that we never knew children. It became an inexorable part of who we were, like the horses we rode out of the stables. As a couple, we grew closer and closer. It took a doctor to tell us that it wasn’t her body, it was my own which wouldn’t introduce children into the world. Then, we looked to adoption, and brought a baby home to hold between us.

The boy hopped on the unicorn’s back, and took a trip through time. He was exceptionally careful to avoid interrupting the space-time continuum. Someone had obviously talked to the boy, to give him such valuable information. The boy watched wide-eyed at the various events which transpired before his very eyes. The boy understood he was there only as an observer, and was content to be just that.

The unicorn stopped flying and landed a time, but the boy sat steadfast in his perch. There was not much time to see, when the unicorn stopped flying. It seemed the magical unicorn had a need to rest itself a moment. It seemed that the passage of time was effected by the flight of the unicorn. Presently, the unicorn was up and at ‘em again. The view of the passage of time went along without interruption.

The boy wanted his home to be there when he returned. It was. There were all sorts of scenarios the boy felt he might have been able to influence, as he watched the passage of time, astraddle the unicorn’s back, but the boy understood it was all a temptation, that he should resist it as thoroughly as he could. The unicorn was small, about the size of a gazelle. Only a child could have ridden her.

The boy felt thoroughly familiar with his roll in the passage of time, on this mount, that his home’s stability was at stake, as he wandered through the annals of time. The boy marveled at all the wars being fought, and all the financial fortunes which were won and lost. The boy realized all these images were for his instruction, and he should not be overly moved by them. He was an observer.

The boy was only a witness to many events, past and future, which occasions he kept having to remind himself of, as he traveled and traveled, with this very unique mount, to be none of his business. The unicorn was only a vessel, who had all of time to unveil to her rider. The situation was kept pure, because something had explained the parameters of the flight to the boy ahead of time.

When the unicorn finished displaying the better part of many more events throughout the annals of the ages, the boy turned the mount homeward, and the mount and boy were magically there. The unicorn took the boy for far more of a ride, offering him yet another panorama of the magic of time travel, but the wonders were seen by the boy’s eyes alone. One might wonder what the boy saw.

There was the relationship between the ride and rider, the wise little boy and his illustrious, prophetic unicorn. These were as sacred as any of the other relationships we’ve referred to today. We’ve been listing the merge between one individual and another. This kicks all that tradition to the curb, and depicts a pure union between boy and unicorn, with a special twist to add to the tale.

At last, we have a man and his God, who gets along in a bachelor setting, with a semblance of faith no one can fathom. His God has been known to visit this man in his heart, to help the man to understand the various concepts the man had too many misconceptions about. The man’s heart has not been visited recently by his Maker, nor does the man overly crave fresh instruction from the Almighty.

The Almighty is a very busy deity, as far as deities go. There is little one can know about the actual activities of Almighty God. God does as he pleases, and makes a whatever into something glorious. These are the dynamics of the relationship between a pious man and his Holy God. There are more things to believe and know about the man’s Maker, but I’ll leave those for another time.

The idea of ceremonies among the righteous is poignant. The man understood the basic idea that the Holy One was trying to show him. It might seem outrages to others, but to him it seems plausible. The man goes comfortably along, containing his truth within himself. There are things he has to do, in this world of a thinker. The man has become something more than anything he was before. It is a new era.

Trucking

 For a long time there, I really enjoyed driving the roads of central Maryland. I used to go all over the countryside, enjoying the sights and sounds of the road. I suppose one day I’ll get tired of talking myself out of doing the driving, and go for broke, the way I used to do when I was younger. Whenever that sort of thing happens, Maryland and Virginia can look out. I’d go back home, to see some old, familiar places, like taking a little summer’s drive, if only doing so for a few hours of time.

I can see it all in my mind’s eye now, the way it should be. Scoring a Virginia driver’s license, I’d rent a car every now and then, to keep my costs down. I’d be doing some local driving, trying to get my bearings in my new neighborhood. I’d like to take myself to get me some St Louis ribs, find a new overland route to China in my travels, I just betcha. I’ll obscure my project from my brother, who’s such a worry wort. He doesn’t want anybody to do anything around him. It’s too risky, he says.

He’s over-protective as a big brother, and is too certain his little brother is incompetent.

I’d drive, and tooling around locally, to get my sea legs under me about this town, then bite the bullet and head off North. I’d take the highway, and travel back to those old, familiar roads back home, carrying a night-time, and morning-time dosage of my medicine, along with me, along with a pair of pajamas and my med’s. I figure, how wrong can I get, with only two doses of medicines to take? I’d get a motel room, and indulge myself in some driving up around home, where I know the roads so well.

I’d go just were my little old heart desires, and soak up some fresh country air, with the window to the car down, to breathe better. I’d have to tell the rental car company I was planning to leave the state, and see what they say. There’s no sense in lying, since the fact of the matter is as it is. I’d probably go up to Harford Co, just to see if our old family homestead was still standing. I realize it’s closed down and condemned now. I’d like to get an update on if it stands or if it’s been taken down.

The Ripkins bought the farm out back of our old family homestead. They built a minor league baseball stadium behind our house, condemning the place where I grew up. They turned the whole town into a beer garden, to get the money to support their baseball project. It’s just as natural as falling off a log. Baseball and beer, beer and baseball. I never was one for sports. I had to give up beer.

I guess the old Rock Run Park is still there.

The old Rock Run Mill might still be in business, giving used for sightseeing for tourists, as curious parents and bored children, would try their best to be witnesses to a part of antiquity, long gone and forgotten, in spite of the strong stone structure. Rock Run would still be there, along with the Mill pond, where the young people used to gather after dark, to talk to each other in the darkness, partying.

Darlington would still be there, where I first learned that a girlfriend wasn’t all that big a deal.

It would seem to me, after all these years of not having a wife, I’m not missing that much anyway, eying all the couples with all the brats in tow. This world’s got too many young brats to have to reckon with as is. I’m well out of the entire mess. I was incapacitated during the years I would have had to provide for children anyway. I’m just as well out of it. Kids don’t like me all that much anyhow.

I’d like to see the horse pastures on the hill at Noble’s Mill road, as well as the Deer Creek. I’d like to see whether the old trestle bridge remains standing, or if it’s gone by now. I’d like to go to dirt roads I know well and wander around, like the care free boy I once was, trying to see what I might not have seen, when I was under the influence, when that part of my life has not been a part of me in thirty years. I’ve already conquered what I’m straining to see, and like the tourists, I’m looking for a slice of life that no longer exists.

Maybe I’d drive the whole way down the Harford Rd, toward the city, and go across the way to the Double TT Restaurant that I used to habituate. Maybe there’s be a waitress or two, still working tables, that I haven’t seen in awhile, It would be a journey, to get all the way across to the Double TT, from way up in Darlington way. The issue arises that I happen to be a free man, and as honest as the day is long. The only thing standing between me and making this road trip in reality, is the pluck.

The bunch of us used to get behind the wheel of a small fleet of rental cars at the BWI pick them up, then truck them down to the auction sight, individually, all the way to Fredricksburg, VA. We’d run them on an all-out basis, going along I95 at about 85 or 90 mph. I thought all those other drivers were nuts, till I found out I was the lead man. I thought it was dangerous driving, but then, I haven’t seen a high speed accident since the early 70′s. I don’t know that they ever did, once I resigned.

I thought it didn’t matter, but I’ve always felt I betrayed the crew. They were honest people, trying to make a living. One day, I broke up the team. I hope they’re all getting along OK. The other thing is that I’m going to stay away from the mountains of North Carolina. I spent enough time there, three sheets to the wind. I might embarrass myself going back there. Might get myself busted on general principles, too. The same cops still patrol there. If I grow my hair, I’ll get some red necks.

I’m definitely going to grow my hair.

I left them all high and dry, once my disability set in. I’d need a medication change, and the casualties would be far and wide. The best road trip is taken at low speeds, with the driver’s side window down, to let in the sweet country air. Ride passed the bean fields and the shoe-peg corn fields, when the corn is higher than the car. One has to watch for wild deer in the high cornfields on the sides of the roads. Then one goes into the woods, with the stony brook off to the right, up home.

The best dirt roads are in Harford Co, where the real estate is as antiquated as the cars you used to drive. I know the roads up there by second nature, and can imagine each one, by simply thinking about the neighborhood. There was the tank testing grounds by the side of the Deer Creek. Sometimes, you’d see a tank. A public, dirt road passed by the place, on it’s way to nowhere, with a fence in between. Seems like there were some pretty places back in there.

Doug Cooney and I used to drive around those roads, drunk late at night, and pop frogs with our tires, that happened to be sitting in the road when we happened by. We were a couple of sadistic kids that way. We’d load up the car with beer, and no critter was safe from the likes of Doug Cooney and me. We’d go to the king’s house, because the king would always give us beer, and we’d get a buzz on.

I only use his name because he’s gone. The cancer took him a lot of years ago now. Too much beer.

Belair, is the county seat of Harford Co, and has changed so much there’s hardly any point in going there at all. Of course, the flower shop where I worked has survived all these years. I gave them a good launch. But the features, the roads have all changed so much, since last I was there, it’s all a different place. Then, there’s that boom town down from Grandma’s that sprung up out of the clear blue one day. Who knows what that place is all about? It’s another part of Harford County.

All I want is one more piece of that abundant love that was there, once upon a time, but I’m not certain the roads themselves have that love, all by themselves. I think the love came from my Mom, my Aunt, and my Grandma. I think what I seek was part and parcel of the tender loving kindness, which was a part of my home life in those days. Why it was I squandered that love with reefer and beer, I’ll never understand. I already know they’re long since dead and gone. I can go hither and yon, looking, but I really believe that what I seek has gone on to Glory.

Fantasy

I find that, if I try to write fantasy, I have a very strong tendency to become whatever that fantasy is, in a miniature psychosis of my own, which becomes difficult for me to counter, once I’m well into the storyline, itself. I think such a thing happened to me last evening, when I was in the process of writing a story, and in the process of writing a story, and writing to a friend at the same time.

On time one of my old friends did her level best to encourage me to write fiction, back when she was coaching my writing, but fiction seems to give me some of the same problems fantasy does. I’d go right on into the storyline itself, as though I’m stepping out of time, and reality can be damned. This is more dangerous to me than it would be for anyone around me.

I might end up living inside of my own story, as if it were a separate reality, when the story line might have no semblance of reality to it whatsoever. This may very well be a creative closet, where unreality is served on a platter, with alacrity. In fact, one may very well envy a frame of mind like the one I suggest, if it did not have the ramifications of a psychosis attached to it.

There are things I do that don’t make much sense later, like how on earth I thought I was invited to take a trip to Wyoming escapes me utterly. It’s a wonderful fantasy, to think I could go halfway across the country, to see a friend I know only online. Sure. Everyday. Not very practical, though. Besides, the presumption that I talked like this online is down-right humiliating!

How my friend could have stood it, I have no idea. In fact, I was talking to a lot of writers, who might have understood my insanity exactly, but who’s to say? The young lady in question seemed to handle the situation, almost as if it weren’t happening. We had a conversation back and forth for quite some time, and she didn’t seem even phased that I was presuming an invitation that had not been offered.

She must have wondered what I was thinking. To answer the question which has not been posed, I was not thinking. I was writing, creating a story. I was only writing an elaborate fantasy I was presenting to myself, while I wrote to her. It had little to do with what’s real anywhere, as I wrote with a certain amount of madness. I’ll admit I was doing a lot more with my story than I was with reality.

Psychosis is the persistence of an all-pervasive unreality in the mind of a patient. It is a clinical condition which sometimes gives one enough of a difficulty, one might find it necessary to go to a psychiatric hospital forthwith, in order to make an adjustment in medications, with the object of putting an end to one’s perception of the unreality in question.

When one is singled out for inpatient psychiatric treatment, one finds it necessary to focus entirely on the environment one finds himself in, clinically. This environment can decay without notice, according to the wishes, and whims, of the staff on duty at the madhouse. One is put into a position to have to reconstruct reality, as the doctor does his part with adjusting the person’s medications.

One is never quite certain how to get an entire set of reality contacts on the ward, nor that he is necessarily in a state of psychosis in the first place. It is literally simple to have a person, who suffers from a psychiatric diagnosis, who might have a confusion at the moment. That confusion can precipitate several weeks in a laughing academy, where otherwise he’d go home.

This is making the assumption that a clinical condition exists in the first place. I write stories and articles all the time, but the idea that my writing is, of necessity, in a state of pathology, borders on the absurd. I utilize the fullest extent of my imagination all the time, and do it safely. In fact, when I was an inpatient with severe mania, one of the few things I did which grounded me utterly, was to write.

When that happens next is that one is presented an entire ward of the most impossible people to have to get along with. Plus, it would frequently be at least a one month commitment, and could be even longer, all things considered. The time commitment of an inpatient is utterly out of the control of the patient’s input, even though that time period reflects on the inpatient directly.

Also, when the perspective patient considers the mixture of whomever might be on the ward, as well as the time commitment, of our perspective psychotic patient, is entirely out of his control. When the patient considers the ramifications of what it means to submit himself to another hospitalization, because he’s had a stimulating writing session, it is not an attractive scenario.

To submit to going into another madhouse, on those terms, seems more like an imposition than anything positive. Besides that, one must leave their home for the entire length of the hospital stay. To take on it, when one is considering a little bit of temporary psychosis, why bother? It would be time better spent, to go see the doctor, if the doctor doesn’t pack one off to bedlam.

Some people consider a state of psychosis to be a dangerous state of mind, for those around the psychotic patient himself, but I continue to maintain a history of harmlessness, in all states of being, as in any state. In fact, personally, I have a considerable history of remaining harmless altogether, regardless of everything around me and within me.

The idea that I’m about to go gallivanting off anywhere, to see or do anything, is a more remote concept for me than ever before.I find myself more of a homebody than ever before in my lifetime. I can’t even see how I’d ever get myself a driver’s license, it’s a mind boggle concept that not even I can deal with. The idea that I might literally drive or fly to anyplace is a pipe-dream, from my point of view.

I find myself indulging in my pipe-dreams from time to time, as I sit in my suite writing to be writing. Who needs an invitation, to consider the various flights of fancy that my mind goes through? To mend fences is something I’ll have to take up later. I happen to be writing my drivel now. One would wonder, after all this, whether I can hold it together, but please, don’t concern yourself.

In fact, I’ve been holding myself together for a long time. There are many things I can consider when I write, and keep my thoughts together at the same time. One can only wonder why I’d go psychotic enough to be hospitalized at one point, and manage to pull it together, another. I’ve often considered this point myself, and know very well that it takes a doctor to diagnose the issue.

Childhood Revisited

The commentary on the abuses of my childhood, though numerous, are really not all that interesting to read, I don’t believe. The thing that is interesting about my maturation is that not only did I make peace with my own childhood, I never did become a criminal in the process of doing so. My therapist of twenty years remarked emphatically about this phenomenon. He tells me it is most remarkable that I did not become some kind of serial something or other, justifying the most ruthless brutalities by some pathological thought process no one could ever unravel. I did manage to avoid that, however.

I’ll tell you some of my horror stories to back up this claim, and maybe you’ll get the gist of my childhood in the process. When I was in the womb, my dad had a violent nervous breakdown, and broke down the bolted front door of our house, to which he, for some reason, didn’t have a key. I got a real dose of all that fear my mother suffered at the time, for the well-being of my fetus, as well as for the well-being of both of my older, but very small brothers, of the time.

When I was two or three, my mother was summoned to the Sunday School room at church, where I was found screaming uncontrollably. I remember the occasion well, because what I was screaming about was that my father, whom I knew to be a monster, was a Methodist Minister, and my mother had given birth to no less than four innocent children, whom it was obvious she planned to do absolutely nothing about protecting any of us from our father. It was a mad, mad world I was born into.

At my tender age, I was completely incapable of articulating such a sentiment, though I remember thinking some such a thing when I was imprisoned in my bedroom for disrupting Sunday School. It proved to be a mixed blessing that my father was attempting to be the pastor of a Methodist Church. For one thing, I have always been surrounded by some attempt at speaking the Gospel of Christ, which was not entirely wasted on me. At a very young age I developed a faith in what I call the Holy One, notwithstanding the fact that I refused absolutely to cooperate with anything else my father wanted.

By the time I was five years old, I was big enough to sneak out of the house, which I continued to do throughout the years my irrationally violent father was living in the same house with the five of us. I can remember moving from town to town every year, until I was 13, but my keen sense of direction solved the problem of locating an ever-changing location of a parsonage, to go home to, only to find a regular beating from my father, who only craved to be absolutely obeyed, and sometimes I found a withholding of food for the aberrant child who was absent so much of the time, uncontrollably.

Somehow, I was able to reason that if I were obedient to my father, I would become like him, which was a prospect I was unwilling to embrace. I knew I could not stop his beatings, since everyone in the household was victim to them. The only thing I was able to control about the beatings, was when I would be getting them. Even in my adulthood, my father, who no longer lived with us, found that he had to except me as I was, or lump it. Since he lived in Florida by then, and I lived in Maryland, he learned a few manners toward me by the time I was an adult. Sounds backwards, doesn’t it?

There were a couple of times during those years that I wandered the streets of endless towns, while the Methodist Church tried everything to “work with” my father, that things did not go well for me, or for my father. None of his parishioners seemed to like him, because he was always trying to snow his congregations with his voluminous vocabulary, and he always ran his church services over by at least 15 to 20 minutes, with all his big words that were designed to confuse his congregations about the fact that he was preaching philosophy rather than the Gospel. In case you’re wondering, I heard the Gospel from Sunday School teachers. It ultimately held me in very good stead.

The types of things that did not go well for me in some of those insignificant towns in Southwestern Pennsylvania, were things like bullies beating up on me in alleyways, which happens to just about any boy anywhere, and a couple of times I was sexually abused by some of the people in the towns where I happened to live at various times throughout my childhood. On one occasion I was actually gang raped, which was something I could not remember at all for most of my lifetime.

The memory of this most difficult trauma did not come back to me until I had been sober for about 20 years of my adulthood, having had a drug habit for many years of my youth, and I remark about this type of trauma, because something in my childhood precipitated my perpetually odd behavior toward little children, throughout the time I’ve been an adult. This last fact has been one of the factors that has contributed to keeping me single and unattached to a marriage for my entire adult lifetime. I can’t claim to be having much fun, as you might imagine.

Being alone all my life has been difficult for me, but I reflect that all the beatings, etc, while I was little have resulted in my building a wall around myself that no woman, except for one, have ever succeeded in breaking down, even temporarily. Even the one person who did manage to help me let down that wall of perpetual rejection I’ve always been treating everybody with, throughout my entire life, eventually found that I could not continue with her, and, though she has moved on, I haven’t.

Though I’ve been in psychotherapy for the better part of a lifetime, I’ve still not been able to learn to behave like other adults do toward the little one’s, though I’ve never violated anyone, and can safely claim that my odd behavior is not dangerous. Many friends and strangers over the years have ostracized me and left me out of participating in activities involving their children, but I have searched my memory in therapy and in meditation faithfully, and have found myself to be faultless, nonetheless.

This issue grieves me deeply, and I have often been sadly misunderstood in this regard, entirely. I’d like nothing better than to be normal, but something that happened to me a long time ago has made me this way, and there’s just no undoing it. I really don’t even know which of my shocking childhood experiences has made me this way. I’d like to know my little niece here in town, and be able to go to the west coast to see my sister and my nieces out there, but such a thing is just not practical. So, that’s the story of my abused childhood, and the consequences I’ve had to live with in my adulthood.

Save the Children

I know, I know. I’ve been away awhile. But I’ve got something to say, anyway. I’ve watched the news just about enough to get good and hopping mad. I don’t know why anyone else isn’t saying what I’m going to say here, publicly. What’s happened to this country, anyway?

All of this national debate by the NRA and so on, about gun owners rights, and all these crazy people shooting up peaceful assemblies of American citizens, or walking into elementary schools and killing little kids, like it’s some kind of issue about the rights of American citizens to bear arms, makes me mad. What’s going on here? What are you talking about?

Don’t you get it? People are dying in our sacred America for no reason whatsoever. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness don’t mean anything to Americans anymore. Who’s going to put a stop to these enemies of Freedom? What’s happened to our national backbone? Where are all the people who are going to fight back in this Stronghold of Freedom, anyway?

These idiots who are shooting up the place, all over our precious USA, whenever they want to, are violating International Law. They are committing acts of war without a formal declaration of war. Anybody with any conscience who is anywhere near where these things are happening ought to be doing everything within their power to stop this, on the spot.

The retalliaters ought to be given immunity to prosecution, too. They ought to be heralded as national heroes. Anybody who ignores International Law in our precious America ought to be neutralized, anyway possible. Beat the crap out of them. Hit them over the head with anything handy until they’re stone dead. Fight back, People. Who cares who gets hurt? Fight back. Isn’t anything in this country worth fighting for anymore? Where are the fighters around here, who have any principles?

What? Anybody can come into America and kill anybody they want to, and there’s no consequences? It’s only another debate about gun control? Another debate about due process of law? That’s a lot of nonsense. This is a free country, not a free for all. It’s not a matter of due process of law or citizen’s rights to bear arms. Somebody is violating International Law.

It’s a state of war, right then and there. Somebody ought to be fighting back, and that’s all there is to it.

These enemies of our nation ought to be executed. Shot. Killed. No arrest, no trial, nothing. I don’t care how young they are, or how much psychiatric treatment they need, or anything else. They’re taking the lives and health of peaceful, law abiding American citizens for no good reason. They ought to be destroyed. Taken out of commission. Neutralized. Killed. Do it anyway it takes. Stop these animals with violence for violence. Force for force.

Has no one in America got any concept of what to put up with in this world anymore? When the Imperial Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, everyone in America got so hoppin’ mad; every man, woman and child got busy doing everything possible to totally defeat the Imperial Japanese and the Nazi’s that America couldn’t be stopped. Everybody fought back. A lot of Americans got killed in the process too. Nobody cared. Freedom and Decency were causes worth fighting for and dying for.

Americans gave it all it took. Americans thought every life, every strength, every talent, every once of blood in America should be put on the line, to defeat those animals who were violating International Law back in the 1940′s. Millions died before the Nazi’s and Imperial Japanese were defeated. Where’s that Spirit in America now?

Isn’t anything worth fighting for anymore? Why didn’t somebody beat the crap out of those creeps who were killing little kids? Why didn’t somebody kill these bastards? What’s happened to America, anyway? Somebody killed a whole classroom of first graders. And all they can talk about on the TV is gun owner’s rights? Nonsense. Bullcrap. I’m struggling to keep from cussing. Wake up, America.

I’m a peace loving, law abiding citizen. But there’s a limit. These enemies of America aren’t citizens of this country. I don’t care where they were born or where they’ve lived all their lives. They’ve violated everything this country has always stood for. They deserve anything they get. Stop fighting on foreign soil, and defend our own soil. Put your lives on the line for Freedom – here.

Get off your duff, America, and put your own life on the line to defend something worth defending, or we’ll all have this great creation called America taken away from all of us, by Spiritual Decree. Freedom isn’t free, and it isn’t only trained soldiers who have to fight for freedom. You don’t understand anything about history, to stand idly by and let these things happen without trying to stop them anyway you can.

Do you really think Freedom was just handed over to us, and that we’re not responsible to put our lives on the line to defend it? Wake up, people. I’ve never been in a combat situation, myself, yet. But I have principles and values that mean something to me. There are things in this country worth putting my own life on the line, if I’m called upon to do it.

What? Was Vietnam so damaging to our National Values that nobody cares when some crazy bastard kills our little kids in a public classroom? Is nothing so sacred in America that something’s worth putting your own life on the line to defend anything anymore?

Lilly liver Bastards. Don’t talk to me about how you had a hand gun on the scene, and didn’t return fire. Don’t talk to me about rights, until somebody puts his own life on the line to defend somebody else’s rights in this country. That’s what Freedom’s all about. That’s how we got Freedom in the first place. If this nation doesn’t start defending Freedom at home, God’s going to take it away from us.

Mark my words.

Pivotal Moment

From time to time there comes a moment, in the lives of certain, key people in the Great Spirit’s world; a pivotal moment, when a person is put into a position, by the Great Spirit, Who is the most Powerful Individual in the heavens, where the chosen person’s life would either terminate, permanently, or change, depending on their next move in life.
For the fortunate ones, like my sister and I, the Great Spirit has offered few of us, the intelligence that our next decision would either cost us an untimely death, or our lives would be forever changed. Her wake-up call came to my sister, as she walked in the middle of a street, and was given opportunity, by the Great Spirit, to die just then. She turned Him down.
The Great Spirit came to my heart, when I was miss-behaving in the woods, out of doors in a psych hospital, where I had two doctors certificates against my sanity. The Great Spirit spoke to my heart, and said, “You take one more swig off that beer, George, and you’re a dead man.” I was fascinated. Here I was, the Great Spirit was offering to slay me, over one more swig of a beer.
I was curious, so I asked Him, in my heart, where He had just spoken to me, inaudibly to the men around me, where he would put me, if I took that next swig. Well, the Great Spirit must have thought I knew enough on that subject. He remained silent. I’d been taught, the destruction of the Spirit, causes the absence of God for the individual, forever. His silence to my question was a taste of that absence.
I thought to ask him what would happen if I never took that next swig.
The Great Spirit said, right away, He said to my heart, “Well, that do present mind boggling possibilities.” I have never had another drink of alcohol, or any other mind altering substance.
It’s coming up on thirty years since, and life has never been better for me.
There was a time, when I was about twenty eight years sober, where I had to be taken off all my psych meds, because there was too much of a concentration of my psych meds in my blood. I was sent to a first of two rehabs, for the medical staff to monitor my withdrawal. The second rehab, to learn how to walk again, after shattering the ball of my right femur, in a bad fall. I was transferred from the second rehab, when I learned walk again, with the use of a walker.
But the Great Spirit spoke to my heart again, and comforted me. This was in 2010. I was treated and released from the second rehab, smoke free. By that time, I’d given up a three pack a day smoking habit, of forty years, tobacco smoking of cigarettes.
I think that’s not too shabby.