Waiting on the Flat Line!

hat's your peak graph look like?
I don't know about you but me, I keep reinventing who I am...did you know I used to vote Republican? Now I wouldn't even if you threatened to cut my throat..lol  It's funny how we become intolerant of what we once accepted; as I age it seems easier to tell anyone who is running in a different stream than me to "take a hike".  I guess as we age we feel we've earned that right to know what and who we want around us pretty fast. 

I can be, and am, naive to a point then one of those light bulbs pop up and I whisper to myself "ohhh I get it now". It's okay to blame your raising, for who you have become, up to a POINT then its on your shoulders, those blaming mama for their problems have not peaked into adulthood they are stuck in adolescence! I'm thinking some people never actually do grow up...I heard this saying on a TV drama and it explained a "place of being" I had been seeking words to describe and that word is Peaked. It's like Peter Pan for eternity.

People peak as different stages of their life I won't say ages cause even some 60+ yr old friends of mine are signing up for online dating...I don't understand that but I guess they still haven't peaked sexually, emotionally, socially or maybe they have not peaked in confidence, or they have not peaked in enjoying their own company?  Can't help but insert we come into and out of this world alone so get ready. 

I am one of those people who spends a lot of time thinking!! I try to figure out the why, what for, and where fore of life around me looking for answers to those inner questions of what makes me tick and then that could give some insight on what makes others tick too! 

I think there is a peak in all stages and in each of our senses and in every  part of our life.  Our friendships peak, our relationships peak, our talents and abilities peak, our very life peaks then disappears.
If you lay it out graphically it would look like the Alps as we rise and peak and then drop to less than, but its not just one graph its so many parallel graphs; finally the parallel universe we speak of has been found.  Each of us has our peak graph just as we have our own DNA, our life line, our life span.

I think the trick is recognizing when you've reached peak and when you have not...like learning the same lesson over and over till you finally get IT! It will keep coming back to reteach you till you do.  

Visually I peaked in my 30's then in my 40's I'm wearing glasses, now I can barely see with glasses...everything is a blur so what I think I'm seeing is mostly my brain playing memory tricks on me.  It tries to bring into focus what it thinks the eyes are seeing.  My son has a photographic memory and I wonder if it's peaked yet?

Physically I peaked in my 40's and started down from there...what was once easy is now difficult to do if I worked out and put more time into it maybe I could improve a couple of degrees on my graph but I could never reach peak again...I can still sing fairly well so vocally I may be peaking this year, should I record a song just for prosperity? 

Financially I peaked in my 40's, I should have been $saving$ more then... romantically, where the heart is involved, I peeked in my 30's that's the age I should have been seeking my soul mate...not at 21 like I did.

Emotionally I think Im on the verge of either a complete break out or an epiphany or some kind of enlightening...as my tolerance for anything that rubs me wrong is as short as the fuse on a July 4th firecracker!  Emotionally I'm still learning how to cull out the good from the bad. Will I be vacant of feeling once I've peaked or so over joyed at the relief I will be brimming over with love? I'm so ready for this one to materialize! The anger, the disappointments, the expectations will soon be humming on a nice straight line...I will have peaked emotionally!! 

So as we peak we draw close to or withdraw away from certain behaviors, certain philosophies,  and we recreate the inner self over again.  We peak and move on to something new, someone new, something more challenging; another peak to reach...ebb and flow, ying and yang, wax and wane.

I think the worse thing that could happen to someone is to peak in life too soon, like the tv show said, "he peaked in high school". Finally I had words to put to a feeling I had about some folks who hung onto childish behaviors well into adulthood and I just couldn't put my finger on it!   If we peak too soon it's like in STONE, done, formed, over and out.  Some peaked or reached the top of their maturity in high school and never progressed beyond that point! It had me negotiating my past wondering what parts of me peaked in high school? I'm not searching that one too hard for fear of what I will find-;o(

I do not socialize well at all anymore I talk too much or  
I shy away because I can't bear being around people socially BUT I was NOT like that 10 years ago...FINALLY answers to my questions. If  you can't sit in silence with someone and feel at ease and comfortable socially you have not reached your peak...and when you do its all down hill from there you will enjoy your alone time way more than the time you spend around other people you will engage your inner self more and you will welcome the introvert in you. The extrovert will cower in the corner as you feel peace, comfort, and tranquility no matter if you're in a room full or with one...aw finally i believe I am reaching my social peak! 

Maybe if we had more of an understanding of our psychology we would be better human beings more tolerant and less judgmental... "oh I see you haven't peaked yet...now I get it". 

So how's your life graph has it flat lined yet? Sure hope so!!

Friday 13th goblins!

e peel the onion...and shed our tears...
Today was Friday 13th! I think know I am superstitious more so than most. I knock on wood, it has to be good wood my favorite is Maple..and If a black cat crosses my path I will curse aloud and it leaves me visibly shaken! Bad things always come in 3's...and I watch for the evil goblins to make things go bad on Friday 13th, just to name a few of my weird and strange idiosyncrasies.. 
My mom is 91 and losing her memory, it has not been slowly coming on it came on like a freight train...very rapid! At first it did only affect parts of her memory like repeating things she had told me over to me again and then again...but now its affecting all her thoughts... she can't remember how to do simple things like the laundry...its as if her thoughts are incomplete...she will declare she understands and at that moment she does...then seconds later she will have no memory of what we just discussed.

The problem is I fall into the trap of taking for granted she is understanding...like today we had a shopping trip to do I really NO longer enjoy taking my mom on shopping trips and these days shopping for our household means groceries and basic necessaries.  We don't really bother with much else..

On the way she found a $100 dollar bill in her wallet she thought it was a $10. SO I told her she should have just left that at home...but she said that is her lucky $100 bill...okay I understand Lucky and Unlucky! :o) so she tucked it into a secret flap in her wallet. 

So Mom wanted to go into Roses its a small discount store right next door to the grocery store so I got her a cart, took her inside the store and she reassured me she was fine I should go on and do the grocery shopping while she browsed inside the discount store...I kept saying are you sure, "Yes Im fine, I will wait right here for you to come get me when you finish." 
So I shopped and put the groceries in the van, and headed to Roses...I went in and she was right by the door waiting..I could tell something was wrong instantly..

"I've lost my pocketbook"! I don't even know if I had it with me when I came in here." She did cause I made sure it was in her cart...
So I asked where she was when you realized she didn't have it?
She was at the check out and when she went to get her wallet her purse was gone.  So I said let me ask if a purse has been found, cashier said nope..so then I tried to help her retrace her path...she had gone to the bathroom.  That's the first place I checked no bag...then I went back to where she waited and one of the store employees asked if I had lost a bag since one was turned into the office...
It was found in the ladies room....

Every thing was inside, but poor mom was so shaken she could barely stand up all she could think of was her $100 dollar bill!!

So that was probably the last trip alone in a store for mom it makes me sad to see the layers of independence being ripped away one by one...

But we decided to blame the Friday 13th Goblins instead!!

Expectations and other hard lessons

hat can you do when your expectations don't match up with the reality?

ANSWER=complain, learn, and move on lol...

I have learned a very valuable lesson! Sometimes I'm naive to the point of being ridiculous.  All I've done since my arrival back home after a 2 and1/2 month wonderful trip is clean, clean, clean! And as soon as the rain stops I have a huge yard clean up to do as well...

Why you say?....OH.... glad you asked...especially since I did have a house sitter, that was my first mistake!

I have been a house sitter in the past sitting at my sister's house and I never left anything for her to do in the house, or outside either, on her return...until they hired a yard service so I no longer had to do the yard clean up...but if limbs fell in the yard between the weekly yard service visits I would always have that picked up by the day my sis would arrive home...Nothing feels better to come home and all is "right"!  Well nothing could be farther from the truth with my experience when I came home on Halloween day. 

Sure it was trick or treat week...but really? And this person is was a friend!

 I totally expected way more for 2 and 1/2  months of room and; board (leave it better than you found it right?)...I had to mop the kitchen floor twice before we could walk on it barefoot  here is the RINSE water!

...my recliner was broken on one side and the foot pedal would not extend...it was fine when I left it.   It took me 2 days to get it fixed!  

 The wood floors felt sticky as the sitter has used "wet swiffers" on the floor...I told her I only use Murphy's Soap on the wood floors.  There was long grey hair all over the bedroom rugs, the bathroom floor, tub...no dusting has been done...she moved things around from where we keep it like our glasses, silverware, she left half eaten containers of food in the fridge, cabinets and on the counters...and SHE LEFT MEAT IN MY FRIDGE AND FREEZER! omg--she totally knows we do not eat meat SO WHY leave it FOR me to throw out? She brought in different cutting boards and left them on the counters as if to say "these are my choice and should be yours"...I ended up cleaning up behind her, tossing all that out! She put my dish cloths in the drawer without laundering them I think she rinsed, hung them up to dry, and then put them back in the drawer...

The recycle bin in the kitchen was heaped to overflowing with dozens of 2 liter soda bottles, milk bottles, processed food packaging...and yet I had instructed that recycles must be taken to the center weekly! And there was another large garbage BAG FULL of the same type stuff on the back screen porch laying in one of our porch chairs.  I have bins in place for this with lids because in the South you can't leave stuff such as that out..it draws vermin and bugs!

None of the 3 porches had been swept up. I left my important plants in the screen porch for easy watering and I asked her to move them inside if it turned frosty She moved them in (it was not frosty) and she stopped watering them all were dry and droopy...

She was to fill the bird feeders, and make sure the bird bath was filled.  Okay when it rains bird feeders need to be cleaned & dried out cause rain gets in and it gets all funky and moldy...I don't think she fed the birds period she allowed the seed I had put in to get low,  then it rained and the last remains got all soaked and moldy and then the day before I arrived she dumped fresh seed on top of that NOT one bird was at the feeders cause there was no way for them to get seeds out thru that gunky mess...the bird bath was green with algae and slime as well as all my yard fountains...the hummingbird feeder was left out to mold and mildew instead of being brought in washed and put away...she told me around Oct 1st that the hummers had left so I said Okay no need to fill that anymore...I guess she is the type that you have to explain every minuscule detail to but to me... an adult knows better!

The front and back yards are littered with limbs, sticks, pine cones...like a trailer load!!  I pick up sticks daily and I showed her the bins I use to do that with...and that was to be part of her chores...because I know how it can collect if  you don't do it daily...if you do it daily it takes about 15 mins a day! One wheel barrow had been half filled with sticks then left sitting on the lawn to collect rain water it was infested with mosquitoes...the firepit was full of standing water cause the drain hole was clogged...all the yard benches were 4" deep with wet leaves...

She left burnt scented candles in jars in the living room? WHY? I should have said NO candle burning... she had put in one of those plug in Glade scent thing...we don't use those type things it uses electric unnecessarily...and smells like perfume..yuk.  

She made several long distance phone calls to some man she knows...yet when I tried to call and let her know our itinerary for returning home she never bothered to return my call. She finally contacted me via an email 6 days later! I never saw it until I returned home.

So never again! In the future I will close the house down, ask my neighbors to keep a watchful eye out and hire a yard service to keep the  yard up that way I would have had nothing to do but relax when I returned and I'm sure it would be cheaper than 2 months of utilities we paid for her to be in the house including satellite TV we had planned to have put in vacation mode.

my yard birds appeared immediately after hanging the cleaned feeders.

But since I chose to have her come here I have the house cleaning and yard work to do.  I was trying to help someone by giving them a cozy place to stay for 2 months since she has no permanent residence.  On the positive side she took the household garbage away, she swept the floors, she changed the linens in the bedroom but left her used towel on the rack in the bathroom, the kitchen was straight and counter tops and dishes all clean but the floors have to be mopped weekly WE live in the country where no paved walks exist so just coming and going makes dirt..the electric bill was about what it normally is and the water bill was lower than average...so I guess in her mind she helped us... in my mind it was a bad idea to have her here.  I guess I expected more in return I didn't think I'd have to come home and clean up behind her. 

My expectations were way out of proportion to the reality. I think Im about as picky as the average bear.... I thought I may be able to save someone else from having the same experience, so fair warning and beware!!

4 score and so long ago!!

Hen different views collide the point can get lost in the bloodshed...

I have some time to contemplate I realize I have neglected my think tank blog. As a serious thinker it's necessary to have down time to exercise that option without it then no thinking gets done only doing...

I have not been watching the news on the Confederate Flag controversy not wanting to get sucked into the debate here in SC.  I am originally from Tennessee, but some of my friends have strong opinions about it and have shared their feelings.  

I am southern born and raised, family roots I have traced all the way back to Europe and the 1624 sailing of the ship Anne from England on which my 10th Great Grand father and mother were passengers on their way to Plymouth, Mass. When they arrived the population of Plymouth was 36...they were granted  land (that did not belong to KING JAMES I, but none the less was granted to them) and they helped create this country...by so doing they also helped to do the wrong thing! They multiplied, and helped push and eradicate the native population and they helped the slave trade!

One line of my family fought in the Revolutionary War against England, some were sailors, some were foot soldiers, some went on to become trappers and guides alongside with the likes of Daniel Boone, and as the roots of the family tree spread west they settled in TN, some moving onto Missouri and Texas.  Some of the kin in my line fought with the TN volunteers for the C.S.A.  Some fought for slavery some against we were a house divided as many were. Some were killed, some wounded, some deserted, some did not fight but it affected all their lives. 

When the unrest between the North and South began some of my ancestors had slaves in their homes, some had one some had as many as 11. It was a common practice through out the New World. Just as the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for 300 years after the building of the pyramids; slaves from Africa were brought to the New World and sold at the Maryland Slave Auctions, and later the Washington DC slave auctions on a regular basis.  It was the Dutch traders who brought the first African slaves to Jamestown colony in 1619... so slaves arrived before my forefathers did, before the fight for independence, before the Constitution!  Even while the Constitution was being written "All men created equal" slavery was going on...so I think it meant all WHITE MEN are created equal by the rights of King George III 

As crops of cotton and tobacco were exported to the old world at the same time goods were being imported; all this was dependent on the tradition of having indentured servants then slaves to keep up with the demands.  It was with the use of slaves that Southern land owners became rich and with such wealth comes power and control.

 When the still new Union of the United States saw how well the Southerners were doing they decided to capitalize on this wealth by enacting tariffs to help build up the treasury ...it was seen as giving the wealth earned in the South to the industrializing of the North and the budding expansion of the West.  When Kansas-Nebraska territory was being admitted to the Union, much ado was made of whether it would be a free state or slave state as most northern states had become free states by 1806.  

Abolitionists such as John Brown wanted a slave uprising he tried to arm slaves with his attack at Harper's Ferry and the South saw this as a Northern supported sign of aggression against their way of life. After the Wilmot Proviso was approved declaring the lands taken from Mexico in the Mexican-American Revolution would be paid for with 2 millions dollars from the US Treasury and that this area would be slave free; the South no longer had the representation needed to continue expansion of the idea of slavery, they were outnumbered since representation was determined on the volume of land being represented.  The ultimate tipping came in 1850 when California was admitted to the Union as a free state, now slave states totaled 15 anti 16.
The idea of sovereignty where each State could decide its own way of being slave or no slave was already in discussion by the southern leaders and during the Nashville Convention GA and SC had agreed secession was the best course, as  Abe Lincoln, an abolitionist, was elected President in 1860.  The South saw this as the death to their way of life, and South Carolina seceded the Union in December of that year.... the Civil War began 4 months later... 
The rest is history.  The Civil war was a result of almost 60 years of non agreeing factors north, south, and then west.  The South thought, "if we can't beat them we won't be part of them," so they tried to sever their left hand....in a way. 

I understand the history, I do not however agree with it.  I personally would never think slavery of any kind is okay and would never have been party to it, some of my forefathers thought differently, they didn't want to change the way of life they had grown accustomed to, so they fought to keep it. In my opinion they were wrong...slavery is wrong, stealing land is wrong, destroying the culture of native tribes was wrong, fracking for gas and oil is wrong, fighting in Iraq and Iran for oil is wrong, killing over religious differences is wrong, so many wrongs do NOT make us right.

The Flag of the CSA represented a rebellion of the South against freedom and change. So by continuing to fly it was to me saying we STILL rebel against change...I'm glad its gone, now there will be other axes to grind, but that one of the Flag can be laid to rest finally, alongside the blood that has not dried on Southern soil.  Pride is most of the time foolish. 

Home On the Range?

hat are they thinking?

I was surfing google maps wondering where along a certain route I may be able to see birds came across this green patch on the map, 
The Pawnee National Grasslands...
SO I said "AWESOME" went looking for more info and found this review (I copied and pasted) from someone who visited a yr ago:

avid Auerbach

11 months ago-This used to be a beautiful, peaceful prairie with nothing but native grasses, sunflowers, llizards and other wildlife along with the Buttes seemingly popping out of nowhere. That was about 5 or so years ago. We just went back there again in spring 2014 and it's a sad sight. The Pawnee National Grassland could now be called the Pawnee National Gasland as it's become an industrial wasteland thanks to fracking EVERYWHERE. Drilling, flaring, waste pits where "produced water" aka carcinogens are evaporating into the air you breathe. Not to mention big rigs burning their diesel and hauling wastewater, flying across every dirt road around with no concern for speed. It's a shame we live in a corporate controlled country that allows this to happen to our lands.

and from a visitor 5 months ago:

Brandon C

5 months ago-I have only been here while working for a fracking crew. I quit months ago but i had a hard time working on a national grassland; helping to destroy what was once beautiful land. It has become arid and dusty with little to no wildlife due to all of the activity and traffic the fracking has brought.

Samantha Teng

a year ago-Black and the other day to see you are not the way

And it brought to mind this...

"never is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day"

This is extremely discouraging to me, I've been waiting my whole life to have the chance to explore and travel, I will be 62 in about 60 days and finally I will have the time and hopefully the funds to travel at my leisure, while I've been whiling away my time paying into a tax system, look what they have been doing with my money?

All I can say is "THOSE BASTARDS" Im sorry but this is not acceptable...
How sad is this? RUINED before I could get there to see and enjoy it...
Wonder what else I will discover that I IN TRUSTED to my government, has not taken care of with my tax dollars? GREED brings nasty, nasty Earth, nasty Sky, nasty Words.
*SIGH*

Can we fix Nasty?

Raising Mom

hy do we try to live so long?
My mom is almost 91 I'm almost 62. I've spent the past 8 years trying to help my mom grow old without killing herself. Since that time she has been hospitalized for pneumonia, with a long rehab of over 30 days, her right hip fractured and had to be replaced that was a 65 days ordeal, she has been to the ER on countless trips for breathing problems, heart problems, and then the left hip fractured and we went through yet another hip replacement with a long rehab time... its Dr's almost monthly and dealing with pain daily! She finally lost her ability to walk unaided 4 years ago....she is on oxygen and she takes a ton of medicine for different ailments.

Teaching her how to grow old is not an easy lesson to learn since now her mind is starting to let her down...the change has come suddenly or did we just deny the early signs? She started putting milk (almond milk) in her potato salad recipe...and she cooked the onions and green peppers.  That was a sign... as her recipe is  for non cooked veggies and certainly no milk. 

She insists on still writing 2 checks per month...I pay all the other bills online....and yesterday the electric company called to say she didn't sign the check...if I hadn't witnessed that call she probably would  have forgotten all about it....
I've been telling her to let me write the checks... her writing is so bad you can't read it and she normally rips up 3 or 4 checks to get one ready to be sent I did check that one, but before she signed it, I could read it;  I handed it back for the signature and I guess she didn't; I realize I really can't take anything for granted at this point. 

 I have made out a new one and its ready to mail this morning.
I constantly nag her about being safe..."always have a phone in your walker so you can call if you need help."  I have my cell phone number on a piece of paper in the walker she can't remember how to use the directory buttons on the phone... but she knows how to dial.  If I'm not home she is supposed to call 911...normally I'm within ear shot MOST of the time but not all the time, how can I be?
2 days ago she thought it would be a good idea if she took a walk into the old pasture; she has a sturdy gizmo called a YuGo for walking outside it has large wheels, brakes, 2 handlebars, and a seat for when you need to sit.  Even with this contraption she caught her toe on an exposed root and came down like a ton of brick face down on the dirt path.

I was in the front yard trying to clip the hedges that had overgrown the front steps and I heard her faint call...I thought she was in the house---so I said "what?" Then she basically screamed H E L P..I realized the sound was outside the house and looked to see her flat on the ground just at the gate area...

She is bruised all over has one large skin tear on the right arm I think she tried to catch the gate on the way down and it ripped a hole in  her skin about 2 inches by 2 inches.  Skin tears are almost a daily thing with her.  The hard part was getting her back up on her feet. Thank goodness I have EMS training and part of that training was moving and lifting people.

My back and my abs are so sore from my effort and with the help of unseen forces I lifted her 136 lbs off the ground with my 2 yr post fractured wrists and now they are aching with pain.  I rolled her over onto her back and then helped her get into a sitting position after we had checked and saw no obviously fracture or injury other than the skin tear...after I got her in sitting position I ran to the house for a bandage to put on the arm...I had her to try and calm down while sitting then I told her exactly what I needed her to do so she could get up....I had her spread her legs in hindsight I should have put one foot between her legs and on off to the side, but I had her spread her legs I stood in between them.  I had her lock her arms around my neck as I leaned down, I wrapped both my arms around her waist and I grasped the waist band of her pants in the back with my hands and lifted using my forearms under her arms and I yelled "STAND UP" to encourage her help in any way. The problem came when she clamped her knees to my legs and nearly caused me to fall on top  of her, I was not expecting that!! That's why I say next time one leg outside her legs. 

Hell I don't ever want a next time...This is the 4th time I've had to get my mom up...only once did I have help and that was when I had my right hand in a cast!

I have decided my job as the parent is MUCH harder than her job was as a parent, she raised a child I'm raising an adult..in 8 more yrs I will have given her the same amount of time as being a parent to her as she gave me...as I left home at 16, and honestly my older sister took care of me and I took care of my younger sister so Mom did very little child rearing. 

I have told my 2 sisters I need help so if they don't help me I have no idea whats going to happen, I can't go on not having a life of my own and trying to lift her when she falls or when she cant get up steps...etc.  I am also aging rapidly-her mind is no longer the sturdy trap it was she asks me if I fed the dogs over and over and she obsesses over the dogs in a strange way she has to know what every scratch is for she has to know what room they are in at all times, she has to  know they are fine. 

 I can NOT stop her from falling I can only be there to pick her up and dust her off and let her keep going. She DID NOT have a phone in her walker when she fell so If I had been away in town doing our shopping she would have had to lay on the ground till I returned!! (normally tho when I go out I say YOU are NOT to leave the house, but she has done that before!!) NO ONE else would or does come by we live in a very rural place and no family lives close my sister is over 2 hr drive away and the other is 2,000 miles away!  She was obscured by heavy woods from the sight of the road in front of the house...IF I had been gone on a half day excursion, as I sometimes do, what would have happened to my mom laying there in the dirt on the ground she couldn't even roll over onto her back without my help.  Ants, or no telling what could have gotten on her!

She is constantly "breaking the rules" I've laid out to try and keep her as safe as possible.. she has been up 2 hrs this morning she has yet to put the phone in her walker...IF I don't do it she never thinks of it, yet she says she can live here alone, I want to move back into my own house its 300 ft away from this one...I bought out my X in the divorce, have been working on it for those 3 yrs and now its almost ready to live in only the bathroom remains gutted.  My son was going to rent the house and move in next door I was thrilled cause it meant more hands to help deal with mom...but his job changed and now his workplace is even farther away so no good moving here.

*sigh*... the difference between raising a child and raising a parent is a child learns, the parent does not...I go over the "rules" all the time its like taking to a wall...I can ask her within 5 mins what did I say about her not using the walker, and she won't remember...the memory loss and the A.D.D. is getting worse by the minute.
She is supposed to go to my sisters house for a month leaving tomorrow...I can only hope she will be safe as they are not as aware that they have to remind her of everything over and over not just once and she gets it she never gets it...and they will take for granted that she has her facilities...when she does NOT she was there 2 weeks ago and fell in their office room due to her sitting in a chair that rolls!! SHE knows she can NOT sit in a chair that moves in any way...but she did--and when she tried to get up it rolled away and she fell Lucky my sister was home for lunch from work, as her husband had gone to run errands normally he is home he works from home...

I will of course remind my sister of this and hope she reminds the BIL and hopefully mom will be safe...I need the break and can't let it worry me as my anxiety is through the roof as it is.

This is not a rant or a bag of complaints its my way of debriefing the situation. 

Growing up In the USA, then.

Ell I always thought we were going to be annihilated by Russia, SO as a youngster all I thought about was the day the Bomb would fall on us, gotta get under a desk and cover your head that will save you from the commie bastards and their  atomic blast--JFK, LBJ, Tricky Dick....
Okay....need I say more? I grew up during the era of the Vietnam war, heard the reports of the attacks, the death, the soldiers in huts in the jungle on the old black and white tv with its rabbit ear antenna while I did my spelling homework on the floor, my daddy cussed the war...and turned the channel to Lawrence Welk.  
Man walked on the moon or did he? IM not so sure...and then the cold war.  Boys I had crushes on in school disappeared into the draft right after graduation...never to be seen again! We had peace rallies, and anti war protests, we made posters, "Ban the Bomb" "Stop the War" "Give Peace A Chance" "Make Love Not War" 
We smoked pot and listened to heavy metal, we spiked our punch with vodka and black beauties...and we dodged the bomb...
We read stories about back room abortionists, "Legalize Abortion"...

When I was 9 or 10 we, my sister who was 7 and the boys next door, dug a bomb shelter.  To us the threat was very real...We had seen the one below our Post Office and we had marched single file from the Elementary school down there during a "drill". It was such a bag of horse manure.  Im watching this PBS special about the day the 60's died.  It's bringing back harsh memories of how much we hated the "Establishment" Four Dead in Ohio....
"Stop the Draft" then in the middle of it all here in the South race relations grew hot...even in a small town like ours there was racial stress...a march headed north up Highway# 1, sheriff Hector Debrulh turned a group of about 100 marchers around he set up a road block had deputies armed with shotguns and he told them they would not be allowed to march through our town...they turned around.
A few years later he called my mother said "do you know what they got our kids reading down at that high school"? They confiscated our reading assignment "the Scarlet Letter" they actually came around and took our books Away!! (freedom of the press?)

We were the baby boomers but I was on the tail end of it, I was a flower child who learned to play guitar and sing songs like "Leaving on A jet Plane" in the 70's we sat in the grass and complained about the war, the government, Nixon, Agent Orange, our parents and how they didnt understand us...we spun records on our players and we had our battery operated transistor radios...16 yrs old and we drove the family wagons after we did the dishes and took out the trash...down to the Burger Family and Dairy Queen, and we went to the drive in Theater, or the Little on Saturday night...we sneaked out with college aged boys and made out in the back seats and drank Vodka from a bottle.... we rolled our hair with soup cans.
"HELL NO WE WON"T GO" and we passed out. 
Some of my girl friends got pregnant and had to give up their babies for adoption, they never smiled much after that...and they went right home from school no partying anymore...
We graduated! 1971 some went off to school some went to work, some got married, some died! Some became drug addicts, some were wife beaters some joined the military voluntary, some became guitar players in well known bands,,,,me  I was 16 and ran away from home and hitched a ride to NYC and worked on the race track walking hots and galloping race horses and listening to John Denver!! Nixon re elected? Couldn't believe it, I wasn't able to vote till the next election. 
Iranian Hostages we don't negotiate for hostages....finally Carter got them out...Iran-Contra....didnt know what the hell that was about...then we grew UP....became our parents working raising kids up with the Iran/Iraq wars, Saddam Hussein, and the Shaw of Iran...Read My Lips, our kids grew up and found hard times trying to find work, the America they have so very different from the one we gave them.

"growing up in little pink houses,
making out on living room couches,
blowing that smoke on Saturday nights 
we're a little messed up but we're all alright"
Kenny Chesney-American Kids

Good Intentions or Self Destruction

hen you and your life clash what to do?
I wrote on Facebook, my life is a paradox.  It is so true but what is really going on is my life INSIDE my head is not whats going on outside my head! 
It's not just me...most everyone I know and read about has this struggle going on, the who you want to be  up against who you in reality are or are becoming or where you are headed..

Take me for instance I want complete freedom, yet I don't have it so many others depend on me, I feel chained in place.  My do-good-i-ness has almost absorbed me, Im now a solution...all mixed up.  While planning one thing it creates a completely new path NOT on line with the original plan...and sometimes not even leading in that direction...so is it the plan that's flawed or my problem solving that has driven me to the impasse...the paradox?

The path to freedom is paved with good intentions I hope!