The Things that Really Matter

In the next few months,  we will be embarking on a quest to house homeless Veterans.  This will be no easy feat,  but it is achievable.  The biggest and best hope is an informed people, who lay aside political hyperbole and false narratives.  But what are these narratives?  What are the options?

Feeding our own poor,  who truly do need our help.  Not senseless rioting, raping women and girls.  Money that goes to the various social dichotomies,  SAIN kits and policies that help victims of those heinous crimes.  It is the women who suffer the vagaries by deed, police interviews and the court.

Ex-President Obama,  was big on campaign promises (immigration) and short on real initiatives.  The choke point was the Sequester. Well what about it?  Nestled in these obtuse proclamations,  was money that was diverted to (illegals, healthcare reform and the fish that saved Pittsburgh).   None of these were Republican issues per se, but they are real.

Filipino Superstar.  Coming to US  and supporting local and international causes. Video by Wish 107.5. All rights reserved by 107.5.  Listen .

The bargaining chip was the suspension of military pay and benefits.   Paring away needed support and doing an end run.  Two billion dollars which were earmarked for Veterans and to the VA , to pay for illegals.  Americans are watching us.  What are doing,  what is being done?  Nadda and more of that nada.

The people that matter and the funds to get this done.   Not five hundred dollar handshakes, the release sensitive documents and rapes that go unpunished.

More is going is to be said and done. Coming very soon.

 

Chills, Spills and other things. Roads to now. Are you here?

I felt the sun’s virtually as unabated heat in the white sandy beaches of the Florida  panhandle and the smell that permeated that area from a nearby Paper Mill.   It’s sickly sweet smell hung in a florid sky and the aftertaste of scallops made me feel nauseous and trapped.

The Frozen Rainbow.

 

I guess things happen for a reason and behind the doors of our dreams are cryptic answers too complicated to comprehend.  Especially for a child.   The Northern Lights breathed a luminous landscape in the night skies and the cold winds were a knife with a lethal cut.

Sad moments made the frosty chills breathtakingly painful and unforgettable.  The lonely heart of my many nightmares both real and dreamt cascaded over me,  sealed by the ice and recorded in fragments of memories.

The Rainbows here were made of AU with Santa’s helpers nearby,  ready to conference with that white-bearded Totem handing out candy and coal.

I was lost one day in a row of sleepy trailers which billowed out smoke from wood-stove fires and dangerous old space heaters which either warmed us or ignited other kinds of fire.

My Journey seemed to have no end.   With a runny nose and rubber boots I languished in this maze,   seeking out some answers from a random neighbor.    This story somewhere between a dream and my fear of being permanently lost.   The smoldering ruins of a fragmented world.   Like elevators in towering skyscrapers chased by Gremlins and the free fall of a damaged psyche trying to make amends for being hurt.   To be hurt less or no more.

Life always seemed to be changing.   Starting over again and again with the approach of a train, a car or a bus,  we were Gypsy’s not long for anywhere.  And each mode of transportation offered Rockwell scenes,  with pop tarts,  Corn Chips,  Sandwiches and Koolaid.

 

Texas was the land of tumbleweeds, tornadoes and tacos,   where watermelon festivals and PTA meetings and Open Houses happened in a school with disagreeable teachers and paddles with holes in them strategically located in plain site.

At our home in Burkburnett we had a storm cellar and one day a boy who is a few years older than us wanted to show us younger kids something.   He showed his ass (literally).    Getting upon a large electrical spool inside the storm cellar, he showed us his wares,  so-to-speak.   Or the lack thereof.  (underwear).   I had to be careful with that term.   LOL.

Now as far as his crime,  it was not his own but the influences around him.  Probably at home or somewhere else.  Nothing wrong with the human body,  especially the coming of age stuff.

When you’re an adult and violate the vulnerability of your kid or someone else’s,  you set in motion a disaster.   Roles are confused with adult behavior in a life whose coming of age is thwarted for a time.

   Anger bleeds with wounds so deep you fail to thrive.  Your life is bits and pieces and crashing bells.   You cry silent tears of rage and people getting too close makes you want to fly away to a place no one else can land.   You dream of leaving on a train like the Box Car Children or in a clean space station dressed in white where angels cannot find.  You dream of stories where you are the hero and you can control the volume and the brightness.

Sad songs make you happy because at least they are real and the clouds and the dark skies are a kind of revenge,  control over the storms.    You cheer the rain and people wonder at your skills to know but what they do not know,  that these are your sanctuary.    Snow Days are a thrill, a hedge against consensus. A road painted in white,  radios calling it a day.

One night you wander in your dreams, falling down to the Earth and walking back to the camper where you hung out.   The next morning your bleeding hand started to heal and the following night you punch out a window.    Your dreams and your reality clash and the rebel yell resounds.    Heart beating to rhythms unheard cloaked in allegory.

The ending of a story with buildings punctuating the end.   Times will never be the same.   Love?  Happiness?  Your own shame,  mix in a vortex of purple and green hues.   The Cowboy left bleeding in the sand,  his hand no longer the fastest,  the mask going gray along with the retreating clouds.  The wary veteran reporter no longer finds a smiley face but a dearth of wisdom and the prickly thorns of conscience.

 

My two cats are my sentinels and they know the sounds to make with purrs laced with loyalty and a home where a home might not be.   A car,  an alley or a truck stop day room,  your car at least has your friend.