Archive for the ‘Looking Back’ Category
In the past I’ve been known to take a few potshots at politicians, both local and federal. I don’t ever intend to stop doing that but in all fairness I thought I’d quote a few presidents of both parties to show all of you that stupidity and wiseassiness is endemic to both.
I think it’s fairly obvious in this day and age that the office of the presidency has lost some of it’s sparkle. We no longer assume that any president has all the answers or in some cases has any answers. They’re just regular people who were for some reason elected into an extremely important office and they spend most of their time trying not look stupid. Unfortunately for us the majority of the time they’re not very successful.
I’m listing these quotations in no particular order. I think it’s only fair that I leave the Presidents speak for themselves so you can make your own judgments.
* * *
“Even though most people agree… I’m presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind-meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.” —President Obama, mixing up Star Wars and Star Trek references while discussing working with Republicans in Congress (March 1, 2013)
”I was under medication when I made the decision to burn the tapes.” —Richard Nixon
‘‘Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.”—President George W. Bush, Sept. 6, 2004
”Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.” —Lyndon Johnson
“Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
”I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” —President John Kennedy, at a dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere, the White House, April 29, 1962
‘‘Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.” —Ronald Reagan
”If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.” —Lyndon Johnson
”If I had to name my greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility. Greatest weakness, it’s possible that I’m a little too awesome.” —Barack Obama, at the 2008 Al Smith Dinner
”My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.” —President Jimmy Carter
”Being president is like running a cemetery: you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.” —Bill Clinton
”He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met.” —Abraham Lincoln, referring to a lawyer
* * *
I don’t see anything all that impressive in this posting which doesn’t surprise me in the least. Presidents are just as silly and stupid as the rest of us except they dress better and have a nicer place to live. Hopefully “We the People” will never take them as seriously as they seem to take themselves, that could be a serious mistake.
You know, there is a time in your life when you’re forced to deal with getting older. It’s a little difficult because mentally we all still feel like we’re in our twenties. As in growing up there’s a process that you must experience and when growing down (aging) you must again go through a somewhat similar but more depressing process, like it or not. I think it’s just a way for us to slowly over time confront and accept the reality of our mortality.
It really began to bother me a few years ago when I received an email from a former high school class president requesting I attend my 45th high school reunion. I read the email and never seriously thought about attending. You see, I hated high school and really had no desire to see any of my former classmates. I had two close friends during those years and both have passed away. The first died just months after graduation in a nasty car accident and the second died about twelve years ago during liver transplant surgery. Any old girlfriends with their accompanying sexual adventures have long since been forgotten.
I was given a webpage to visit created by my old classmates that had updated information on just about everyone in the class. I took a look around the site and the only thing that caught my eye was the death list. It was a huge shock to see that almost forty percent of my graduating class had passed away. It was surprising but not totally unexpected. I adjusted over time to the shock and began to deal with the reality of it. I never attended any of my class reunions that were held over the years because I preferred to remember my classmates as they were and not be slapped in the face with the new reality of what they are now. Too damn depressing.
Time goes on and age continues to creep up on you. You can see and feel the physical changes as they occur and you adjust. Aches and pains continue to worsen and again you adjust. You spend a great deal of your life adjusting to changes that you knew were coming but really didn’t take all that seriously. It’s a slow and never-ending shadow in the back of your mind that you try to ignore but can’t. Every time you have a quiet moment it pops up to let you know the process is continuing.
You’re probably wandering what prompted this depressing monologue so let me explain. Yesterday I was given some news that at first didn’t shock or surprise me but later kept coming back to haunt me. My ex-wife of many years had remarried shortly after our divorce and had given birth to a son. We’d been divorced a couple of years but she still made the effort to meet with me because she wanted to introduce me to the boy. She and I had tried for years to have children but could not. We met for just a few brief minutes and I held the little guy in my arms for just an instant. Before I knew it they were gone and I never saw either of them again. That little baby boy now 31 years old had just died from a lethal drug overdose.
Life as always goes on but it was just another reminder of how quickly and easily life can be taken from us. Sorry about the depressing post but I needed to tell someone about it. No one is exempt from this aging process and I’ve done my part to remind all of you of that fact. Live your life to the fullest every blessed day. It could end tomorrow.
A long time ago in a blog that is now far, far, away I posted a four part list of the one hundred things I hated the most. I spent a lot of time compiling that list and after posting it I went on about my life. I never thought much more about it until yesterday when I spotted a few websites indicating everyone is hating something these days. After reading through almost a hundred lists I had an epiphany. All of a sudden I seemed like the calm, reserved, and thoughtful person and the rest of the world appears populated by a new generation of haters. Some how I’d been dropped very far down the list of haters and that pissed me off a little.
I took a sampling of a few things that seem to show up on many of the lists including my own. I’ll list a few to give you an idea exactly what I’m talking about.
Know-It-All’s
People Who talk Over You
Google Obsessed People
People Who Don’t Get Sarcasm
Tyra Banks
STD’s
Back Seat Drivers
Web Page Ads
Discourteous Public Bathroom Users
Liars
Loud People
Politicians
Commercials
Procrastinators
Drama Queens
Evangelists
Bad Drivers
OBX Stickers
Global Warming Idiots
Mimes
Some of those items are funny, some seem to make good sense but most are just ho-hum or so it seems to me. Since “I HATE” being left behind I thought it would be cool if I brought my list back from the archives, updated it a bit, and send it your way. After going through that process I discovered that I’ve mellowed a great deal in the intervening years and my list has shrunk to only 52 items. I was forced to revaluate the old list with the eye of a retired person. Many things that used to piss me off no longer bother me at all. It’s all just slightly amusing to me at this point in time.
So, here’s my newly revised list. It’s a very cathartic process doing a large list like this, you should try it yourself. Don’t be afraid, no one will really HATE you for doing it. Just don’t use any real names and your good to go. So here I go.
Stupid People
Rosie O’Donnell
Unibrow Women
Homeless People
Dirty Finger Nails
Criminals
Funerals
Backward Baseball Caps
Large Groups of People
Penn & Teller
Dumb Cashiers
Stinky Feet
Hairy Bushes
Terrorists
Know-It-All’s
Hospitals
Oprah Winfrey
Will Ferrell
The Smell of Urine
Women Missing Teeth
Political Correctness
Liberals
Boogers
Clowns
Liars
Ear Hair
Doctors
Large Aureoles
Dirty Toilets
Roadside Death Shrines.
Extra Toes
Nose Hair
Jehovah Witnesses
Salesmen
Vegans
Ass Kissers
Autopsy’s
Stinky Breath
Illegal Aliens
Democrats
Wet Farts
Performing Artists
Ugly Feet
Sean Penn
Stinky Garbage
Arrogant People
Inverted Nipples
Noisy Radios
The French
Hairy Nipples (On Women)
Yellow Nail Polish
Gossips
Baby Pageants
Texting While Driving
Granny Panties
Penis Caught in Zipper
Tail Gater’s, Stinky Arm Pits
You’ve been the recipient of the Official Every Useless Thing Hate List for 2014. Make up your own list. Once you get start listing it becomes almost a living thing. You just keep on going and going and going and you have to force yourself to stop.
Odd Thought: I have a question. Does it mean anything at all that January is Self-Love Month? My follow-up to that question is this: Does it mean anything that the last week of the month is set aside as Meat Week? And lastly does it mean anything at all that the last Saturday of the month is National Seed Swap Day? I was just wondering, that’s all.
I have a lot of questions like that and they never seem to get answered. What possesses people to do questionable and rude things? Is it sheer stupidity or is it a complete and total disregard of every other person on the planet? In order to find answers to that question I usually spend a little time cruising around Walmart. It’s amazing just how many rude and inconsiderate people can be found in that one building.
This has been a week of Walmart for me. I was almost run down and injured by a rather large woman with a cart full of merchandise that was so full it was overflowing and falling on the floor. She pushed me out of the way in order to get 4 feet ahead of me in line at the checkout register. Being the calm and polite person that I am I quietly asked, “Ma’am just what the hell do you think your doing?” She gave me a rather dirty look, turned her back to me and began throwing her merchandise onto the register counter. I was then forced to wait even longer when she had an issue over the use of an EBT card. That’s a food stamp card for those of you not in the know. She was pissed off that the cashier was questioning her purchases of alcohol. Go figure.
How many times have you sat and patiently waited for a parking spot to clear and then have some A-hole pull in from the other direction in front of you? It happens all too often for my liking but unless your willing to risk some sort of “road rage” incident your forced to swallow your pride and just “let it go”. How many times does it have to happen before you flip out completely and create a huge scene and argument? In my younger days I was one of the guys who wouldn’t put up with that crap and came close to fisticuffs a number of times. That was when I finally became aware that there are large numbers of people out there who are total and complete morons. And don’t get me started on the rudeness displayed with cell phone usage. That’s a whole other posting that will be addressed soon.
I’m not just picking on Walmart customers because these incidents occur with people driving those big expensive SUV’s as well who think that we peons are just inconveniences to be dealt with when we interfere with their activities. More inconsiderate well-to-do A-holes.
Years ago I spent a few bucks on adhesive paper that fit my inkjet printer and printed up a number of of small bulletin cards for addressing parking lot rudeness, driving rudeness, and other sorts of inconsiderate activities that pissed me off. If someone blocked me in or parked in an inconsiderate manner I’d slap one of my adhesive bulletins on their windshield directly blocking their view from the drivers seat. It took a little elbow grease and a lot of cursing for them to remove those bulletin from the windshield but it was oh so satisfying for me as I drove away.
I think it’s time to reinvent my bulletins. I’ll refresh the wording a little and make them even more polite than usual. It has much more of an effect on rude people when you politely tell them they’re rude and inconsiderate. I’ll start carrying a supply of them with me again and begin making their lives as miserable as they make mine. By doing it this way I avoid those dangerous confrontations while still getting my points across.
Once I start passing them out I’ll keep you posted on the results. This is the only safe way I can think of to make them aware of my unhappiness and just how stupid, inconsiderate, and ignorant they seem to be.
Revenge is sweet regardless of what all those the do-gooder’s tell you.
P.S. And yes I understand that they may think that I’m rude and inconsiderate by my actions. Consider for a minute the source of that criticism and then “let it go”.
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.”
I’m exhausted today. I was up half the night, not from insomnia, but from an e-book I’ve been reading. I downloaded the book from Amazon on a whim never thinking I’d be all that interested once I started reading it. Boy was I ever wrong.
I’ve always been an admirer of a number of this country’s forefathers but there were three that interested me more than the others. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and of course Benjamin Franklin. Without those three individuals we’d probably still be under the thumb of the British Empire and never have turned into the superpower that we’ve become. That’s the primary reason that I downloaded the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, written by his own hand, and in the language of the day. I wanted to get to know him a little better.
I have to admit I was expecting very little from the experience but after reading just a few pages I knew I was hooked. I’m now 400 pages into a 2000 page autobiography which started when Mr. Franklin was 5 and I don’t know where it ends because I haven’t finished it yet. It supplied me with a brief but detailed description and history of his immediate family and included a laundry list of his closest friends and acquaintances. It absolutely boggles the mind how things fell together for this man and the number of movers and shakers in the colonies at that time who he’d met and exchanged ideas with.
”Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
I can now understand why his influences were felt throughout the colonies, in England, and throughout Europe. His elegant way of writing is what brought him to the attention of many and now I can be included in that number. He writes in such an honest and simple fashion but conveys so much more than he actually says. It allows you to peek into his brain to understand why he did the many things he did and the decision-making process he developed. After reading just 400 pages I feel like one of his best friends and I’m sure that’s the same effect he had on the people of the time. He loved reading and writing and voicing his opinions and did so whenever possible to whoever would listen. Fortunately for all of us he knew what he was talking about and much of what he said and did was for the benefit of us all.
I’m at the point in the book now where Mr. Franklin is about 22 years old. I can’t put the damn book down and I can’t wait for him to age a few more decades so I can listen to his experiences as a politician and inventor and his extended assignments in Europe which later proved to be crucial to the war effort.
“At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty the wit; at forty the judgment.”
I just downloaded a second volume containing stories and memoirs of his life again written by his own hand. I can’t wait to read that as well. I’m looking forward to at least four more late nights in order to finish this first volume. I’m taking my time and trying not to miss any of the details or nuances he so artfully fills each paragraph with. I realize subject matter like this will bore some of you and that’s okay but I’ll still be mentioning it because for me it’s exciting. When I read I actually feel like I’m there as he’s writing his book. I feel like I’m standing behind him looking over his shoulder in the candle light as he struggles to put his thoughts in some kind of logical order. I can’t wait for tonight when I can go back to the colonies and sit with Ben Franklin and learn a few more things.
Another night of weird dreams. I said WEIRD not WET, so get your mind out of the gutter. Over the years I’ve slowly and steadily learned to love my dreams. Everyone loves to take a nap or to sleep soundly through the night but not me. If I don’t have a really good dream as well I’m truly disappointed. I’ve developed the ability over time to remember my dreams and what is even more amazing is returning to an old dream on multiple occasions I remember streets and directions in these dreams making it possible for me to visit them again and and again and actually know my way around. It sounds stupid but it’s really pretty cool.
As I sit here this morning I began to let my love of science fiction kick in. I’m looking for answers as to why dreams are the way they are. How can it be possible for a human mind to create places and people we’ve never known and then revisit them multiple times in dreams. I understand that seeing, meeting, and talking with people from our past in dreams is possible. We carry millions of subconscious memories in our brain that are available for it’s use. Can the brain actually create these weird stories filled with even weirder people without any help from our conscious self? If it can’t then it takes this discussion to a whole new level.
We’ve all seen the movies, The Matrix and Avatar, and enjoyed them. Let me throw this idea out there. Maybe our brain really isn’t creating these scenarios at all. Can it be possible that the life we live and perceive to be our reality is anything but. Could this reality be nothing more than a giant computer generated program populated with we humans who are nothing more than avatars being used by someone else in their own reality. Maybe the portions of our dreams we don’t understand are just fragments of memories from the host person or thing whose avatar we are. They’re living our lives through us and when they’ve finished playing their weird little game they exit from the program and go about their lives. During that down-time is when we in our reality get to sleep and dream. Our brain retains fragments of their lives and combines them with our own for really strange and sometimes scary dreams and nightmares.
It would explain a lot of things that I have questions about. In fact it would be very similar to those computer generated role playing games on the Internet in this reality. People have become so immersed in them at times that their real lives and relationships have been adversely effected. Those computer generated lives become so real to them that their real lives become secondary causing a serious shift in their reality. Is that what’s happening when we dream? Is that why I have dreams and relationships in my dreams with people and places I’ve never experienced in this reality? I really don’t have the answers but I really enjoy asking the questions and exploring the possibilities.
That’s how my mind spent a few minutes this morning while my better-half was droning on about her schedule for the day. I was deep into this train of thought and almost got myself in serious trouble when I was accused of not paying attention to her. Maybe when she reads this it will give her a better understanding of how weird my mind works at time and not to take it so personally.
I decided to brave the cold this morning just to get out of the house for a few minutes. Everything was fine until I made that one fatal mistake. I turned on a local Maine radio station and within two minutes my blood pressure was soaring. There was a young lady being interviewed who sounded like she might have been twenty-one years old. She was a “Journalist” and I use the term loosely. She was going to explain to all of us in the audience about the eight million senior citizens in this country who are “food challenged”. That supposedly means they don’t have the proper food with the proper vitamins and minerals to maintain a healthy life style. She was also concerned with seniors living in northern Maine in agricultural areas she termed “food deserts”.
Please someone just take a gun and shoot me, please!!! I understand now why at a certain point the very elderly get tired of living. To be in your eighties and to have been force fed political correct crap for 40 years can send you over the edge. What boggles my mind is that everyone you talk to hates political correctness. Many of those same people must be either disingenuous or big, fat liars. If everyone hates it so much why is it thriving in this country?
The following list of quotations are from both celebrities and intellectuals. I realize that the people who fawn over celebrities are more likely to be some of the “politically correct weasels” who say they hate it it but really don’t. Many of these quotes are for them.
“Don’t ever call me mad, Mycroft. I’m not mad. I’m just … well, differently moraled, that’s all.” ― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair
“A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.” – Clint Eastwood
“The greatest enemy of clear language is insincerity.” ― George Orwell
“I got a feeling about political correctness. I hate it. It causes us to lie silently instead of saying what we think.” – Hal Holbrook
“You’re not allowed to call them dinosaurs any more,” said Yo-less. “It’s speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons.” – ― Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Bomb
“I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.” – P. D. James
“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.” ― Gore Vidal
“Whether it’s people walking off ‘The View’ when Bill O’Reilly makes a statement about radical Islam or Juan Williams being fired for expressing his opinion, over-reaching political correctness is chipping away at the fundamental American freedoms of speech and expression.” – Eric Cantor
“I know that even now, having watched enough television, you probably won’t even refer to them as lepers so as to spare their feelings. You probably call them ‘parts-dropping-off challenged’ or something.” ― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff
“The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one’s peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.”
― Lynne Truss, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door
“Political correctness has become a straightjacket.” – Gary Oldman
“The old restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed.” ― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics
“When political correctness first started coming around, it ruined Andrew Dice Clay and Eddie Murphy’s stand-up career. Sam Kinison died at just the right time, ’cause no one was going to tolerate what he was saying anymore either.” – Artie Lange
“The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.” – Juan Williams
“I think you have to judge everything based on your personal taste. And if that means being critical, so be it. I hate political correctness. I absolutely loathe it.” – Simon Cowell
“Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect” terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any “oppressed” group but come from privileged strata of society.” ― Theodore Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future
“Can’t call ‘em zombies anymore,” sighed Manny. He seemed almost wistful. “Now we gotta be all politically correct. It’s like the Cold Wars never happened.” ― David S.E. Zapanta, Posthumous
In my opinion there’s nothing more to be said on the subject. For all of you “politically correct weasels” out there . . . KMA.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1940 in Sussex, England, of a heart attack. Six years and one month later I was born. Approximately 12 years later I read my first Sherlock Holmes story and saw my first Hollywood movie version starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I’ve been hooked ever since. It wasn’t until I was stationed in Korea in the 60’s that I happened upon a complete volume of Sherlock Holmes Adventures in the boudoir of a young Korean women. Since she was unable to read English I took immediate possession of the book and read it so often I wore it out.
In the intervening years I’ve read the entire Holmes collection many times. After leaving Korea I joined the Pennsylvania State Police which also helped prepare me for my thirty years of investigative experiences. I’m not saying that Sherlock Holmes was my total inspiration for my career choice but I couldn’t begin to guess how many times when initiating an investigation I thought to myself, “Watson, the game is afoot”.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to differentiate between Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. Holmes has always seemed much more real to me as he as does with most of his dedicated fans. The official-unofficial date of birth for Sherlock Holmes has been argued about for years but the general consensuses is January 4, 1854. That would make him 160 years old this month. That’s quite an accomplishment and life span for a fictional character who is widely recognized as the individual solely responsible for the worldwide development of forensics as a tool in criminal investigations.
Just recently I bought myself a new Kindle e-reader and the very first purchase I made was the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries. That’s four complete novels and fifty eight short stories. It gives me a sense of security knowing that I have those stories readily available at a moments notice. This new e-reader is small and easily carried in my pocket and I can take Sherlock with me everywhere, now that we’re both retired.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHERLOCK
P.S. If you happen to be in Europe this month why don’t you swing by Riga, Latvia for the Sherlock Holmes birthday celebration.
Check it out at: Riga, Latvia Sherlock Holmes Birthday Festival
It’s finally time for me to step up and put in writing the things I’m pledging to do at some time in 2014. I tried to keep these resolutions as reasonable as possible so I at least have a chance to live up to them. Here they are.
1. Read five books a month.
2. Teach the grandson one curse word per month once he begins talking.
3. Keep the number of F-bombs below 100 a week.
4. Drink less brandy than last year but more than next year.
5. Spend less than $300.00 at Dunkin Donut for the entire year ($25.00 per month).
6. Stop dancing naked near the picture window in the living room. It scares the neighbors if their complaints mean anything at all.
7. Fight to my last breath to keep chickens and goats from becoming part of my life.
I could have listed a few more but why set myself up for complete and utter failure. I did that last year and I should be learning from my past mistakes, you’d think.
* * *
I tried to convince my better-half to give me her list for 2014 but I ran into a brick wall. She appears to be a believer of never putting anything in writing regardless of who makes the request. I even tried intimidating her a little. I attempted to make her comply by threatening to post a few crazy resolutions and tell the world they came from her. I won’t repeat her reply since I do try to keep this blog at a PG rating. I admit she has a pretty effective way of intimidating me and that will also stay a deep and dark secret.
AHHHHH ANOTHER NEW YEAR HERE IN PARADISE.
Since I’ll be taking a few days off from blogging to enjoy the family Christmas doings I thought something important needed to be discussed. Being a former soldier, the holidays have much more meaning than just just gifts, Christmas trees, and family traditions. I’m all too familiar with that lonely feeling when you’re away from home on Christmas for the first time and the dull ache it leaves in your chest. There’s regular homesickness of course but being separated from your family, friends and comfortable surroundings on Christmas is a different kind of “hurt”. I always think of our service people spread around the globe and I remember them everyday but even more so at this time of the year. Here is a heartfelt poem from an unknown serviceman I received some years ago from a friend. It struck home with me then and it still does to this day. It may have been a different war or different time but the feelings expressed remain the same. Enjoy this and think of them tonight and never forget . . . .
Soldier On Watch
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
my daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep
in perfect contentment, or so it would seem.
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eye when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
and I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old
perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
“What are you doing?” I asked without fear
“Come in here this moment, it’s freezing out there!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your arm,
you should be at home, this cold could do harm!”
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts,
to the window that danced with a warm fire’s light
then he sighed and he said “Its really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night”
“Its my duty to stand at the front of the line,
that separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I’m proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ‘Pearl on a day in December,”
then he sighed, “That’s a Christmas ‘Gram always remembers.”
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘Nam
and now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I ‘ve not seen my own son in more than a while,
but my wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
the red white and blue… the American flag.
“I can live through the cold and the being alone,
away from my family, my house and my home,
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat,
I can carry the weight of killing another
or lay down my life with my sisters and brothers
who stand at the front against any and all,
to insure for all time that this flag will not fall.”
“So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright
Your family is waiting and I’ll be all right.”
“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
Give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
For being away from your wife and your son.”
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget
to fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone.
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
to know you remember we fought and we bled
is payment enough, and with that we will trust.
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.
ONE SHOPPING DAY LEFT
HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS WITH YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
EVERYUSELESSTHING WILL BE BACK ON 12/26/2013
