Writing for Sanity's Sake

It’s just my opinion, but I believe that each of us lives within our own “Universe” inside this beautiful mind that we have at our instantaneous beck and call. We are all simultaneously on a journey with those around us, while we are also on our own very personal and very unique trip. We should be respectful and tolerant of everyone’s individual journey here on Earth.

Condemnation of each other for our individual beliefs is not what we need. If another person is not on the same “wave” which you are on, move on and let them alone. You can always find balance if you seek it.

I walked around the neighborhood again yesterday for a little while. Our little town is a small mill town, population about 1600 or so. Used to be, back in the fifties when I grew up around here, most of the houses were owned by white families whose owners worked in the local cotton mills. They kept the houses up pretty well. The black people had their own part of town which was over on the west side side of town, on the left hand side of the road headed out of town. The school is up that way now. They had their own cemetary also, up behind the black church. There’s some kind of business in that place now.

As I was walking, I guess it was around noon, the only people I passed were Guatemalan’s. There was two Guatemalan Mothers out walking with baby carriages with their kids in them. That was over by the Town hall as I was walking down to the river. I passed a Guatemalan lady and her little child coming down the hill on the sidewalk as I was walking by the tennis courts. As I went up the hill going up towards West pine street, I walked pass a couple of Hispanic men in a work van, getting out to do some work on one of the very numerous rental houses in our town. They had a sign on the back of their van, said “handyman services” They nodded and said “hello” as I went past them. I’m thinking that probably more than 50% of the houses in my little town are now rental houses. A lot of them are owned by the same people. There’s some people here in town that make a good bit of money buying up the old mill houses that the white families used to live in, and renting them out to the Hispanic people who work in the mill here and in the mills over in Dalton and other places. I see a lot of them getting in their cars about 6 am for the hours ride to Dalton. I’d say most of the rental houses in this tiny town are now rented by Hispanics. When I go to the school to pick up my four year old pre-k kids I see a lot of little Hispanic children going to school there. Quite a few.

I came back home and I thought about it. How’d it get this way? It’s super complicated I believe.

I remembered back in the late eighties and early nineties, I had to go to Laredo, Texas a couple of times a year because the company I worked for had a warehouse there and I was in charge or Quality, and we had to audit that warehouse. We’d go across the border into Mexico and I remember seeing signs there advertising for people to go to work in Dalton, Georgia in the carpet factories. All the way in Nuevo Laredo…imagine my surprise. There were phone numbers on the signs too! A lot of the Mexicans took the big industries up on their offer and came to work over here. The Hispanics came from other countries also. They came here because they were “invited” to begin with. A lot of them lived in squalor and poverty and military supression and war in their countries, and they wanted a better life for their children and themselves. America seemed to offer that life. I remember back in the ensuing years as they worked in the factories, I would see them going to the Post offices every week and sending money back home to relatives who were left behind. I talked with a lot of them who worked for me who were saving up money to go back home and live. I had this one Guatemalan guy who had already bought a home back in Guatemala city and was fixing it up. “I got a big kitchen with a stove and refrigerator already” he said.

So, it’s a lot different walking around here, than it would have been back in the fifties and sixties when the white middle class was still building and growing, and Pete the truck driver was the only Hispanic I even knew who lived in this area. Things change. Our economic system was raped and pillaged by politicians and billionaire who didn’t care about middle class Americans. They destroyed our status quo and rearranged it to be as it is now. We mostly stood by clueless as to what they were doing until it was too late. Our parents and us got to where we were making too much money, and the profit margins for the super rich wasn’t high enough, so they decided that fact must change! They invented “voodoo” economics. They brought in workers who they could pay less than they could us. They started sending jobs out to other countries in order to make more profit. They closed factories in America, and opened them in China and Mexico. I know for sure that’s what they did. I was a witness to it. The place I worked at in the 1990’s started sending our Purchasing agent to China on a regular basis. Next thing I knew, we were getting goods from there. Quilts, blankets, throws. From Mexico too. That’s why I had to go to Laredo to check the quality of the goods which were coming in from Mexico. “We are making a hell of a lot more money on that stuff, than if we had to pay to get it made here” said our purchasing agent. Yep, there were. But, we started to lay people off back home. Many of our looms were shut off. We “downsized” Yes, that was the phrase back then to describe a company who was farming out their goods to another country, “downsizing”

So, I don’t buy the bullshit about the Hispanics coming over here to America and “taking our jobs away” I know better. I was there, and I saw what was happening.

They sold our “medium” sized business to one of the mega huge carpet companies in 1999 and I was laid off in another one of those “downsizing” events.

But, back to walking around. I started wondering about “internment” camps.

If we “round up” all of the illegal immigrants who are here in America now and send them back “to Mexico” and build that big huge wall, we are definitely going to have to have interment camps to hold them in until we can work out how we are going to get them back to wherever it is that they came from. Maybe Nuevo Laredo. I know that people have been fretting about our current president building “internment” camps for his entire presidency. They have been worrying about a lot of stuff he was going to do. I’m including a link about all that stuff.

You can let me know next year after the elections, when Donald Trump may become President, because everyone is “angry” how many of the things on the conspiracy list have come true. I still have my guns…do you still have yours?

I wrote a post yesterday about Donald Trump, but deleted it because frankly, I don’t like to make other people uncomfortable. I heard a speech online yesterday by John Kennedy, which I had never hear before and there was a quote which he referenced by the Greek lawmaker Solon which decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. Ostensibly, this particular speech by Kennedy is often cited by conspiracy theorists as being the one which got him assassinated. I listened to it, and it could be.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-Newspaper-Publishers-Association_19610427.aspx

In any case, Trump continues to gain power and become more and more the despot, and we have to ask ourselves if we want a despot for a leader. He rails on and on about this and that, but never really says anything much in any of his speeches. He simply incites people. He now threatens there will be rioting in the streets if he is not the Republican nominee. Blood in the streets!

I’ll probably go for a walk again today. I’m going to continue to go, no matter who passes me by on the street as I go, whether it’s a white person, or a black person, or a hispanic person. I know that things change. Life changes. There is very little that we as single individuals can do about it. Only when we band together in logical protest against the systems which have been instituted to destroy our society, especially our middle class, only then can we start to improve things. If we continue to let the demagogues (and you know who they are) incite us to hate other peoples, other groups, different thinkers,…if we continue to let them make us hate and want to murder, and want to harm, then…we are lost. Our country will disintegrate into anarchy.

Just my opinions though folks, formulated while walking around town….

I am finding more and more solace in the fresh air every day, and the continued ability to be in this world and be a part of it.

My faith in a creator is being renewed within my heart.

I see with crystal clarity how I personally should believe.

It’s encouraging to find a spark which I thought had gone out, has not been extinguished.

Perhaps it was just hiding and biding it’s time waiting for me to rediscover it, and by gently fanning it, bring back its glow and it’s warmth.

Some days I feel like a hypocrite without a purpose.

A rebel at a peace conference. A teacher in an empty room.

A wanna be spirit without a womb.

An idea without a purpose. A dissatisfied customer of the happy store.

An unwanted stranger outside tomorrow’s door.

Tick tock goes the clock…..

I have laid my watch down in my driveway several times when I have gone for a walk. It has always been there when I got back. It’s never chased me around the block. All that has ever happened to that watch has been a change in the “hands” on the inside. They move. They measure time. And they always run forward.

For almost four years now Paula and I have been babysitters for Eli and Rue. Any of you who are my friends have seen their pictures. Tiny little tots they were when they first came to us….changing magically into toddlers and budding students.

I looked over at Rue today as she was sitting in Paula’s lap taking her nap. She has always sought solace in Nana’s lap for her naps. She’s being “weaned” off of “sassy” gradually, and she can only have it at nap time. So she’s laying there with her sassy in her mouth sound asleep and I suddenly am struck by the realization that there won’t be many more naps like this one.

Both of them are going to Pre-K next year, so they won’t be here during the day. School is out in May this year, so days of Rue napping in Nana’s lap are dwindling. The days of Eli and me going over to the church parking lot and kicking around his little red rubber ball are dwindling.

Those two have fought like brother and sister, but love each other like brother and sister.

And the hands on my watch are still moving, and won’t stop. And why the heck are there tears in my eyes while I’m writing this? I think I’m getting soft in my old age.

There have been memories with these two that I will never, ever forget. Those days will be one’s it will be hard for them to remember though.

There’s been days I could scalp them, but I miss them as soon as they walk out the door. Go figure.

Ahh well, it’s not as if they are dropping off the planet. They will still be around plenty…and I walk and walk every day to try and lengthen that time, and slow down those hands on my watch. Love will get you to do things you didn’t think you would or could.

Baby Evie will be down next week for a trial run with Nana and Papa. So, a new chapter joyfully begins while one of the previous chapters begins to wind down. And we turn the page, and wait for the hands on the watch to move ahead into the future.

When you become a parent and your children are small, you think: “one day they will be grown and I will not worry so much about them getting hurt, or being sick. I won’t have to worry about the day to day things, or whether they are eating right or taking their Flintstone vitamins.” You find along the way that this philosophy is incorrect. You never quit being a parent. You never quit being a child.

I think I fought my Dad and Mom tooth and nail on this manner of thinking. Yet, up until the week my Dad died, he was still asking me how I was feeling…how was work going? Was I getting enough sleep…was the stress getting to me? “I’m feeling Ok, work is work, I’m sleeping lousy as always, and yes things are stressful” “Well,” he said, “try and take care of yourself” and then the next week, he was gone…..

I guess there is no more unique relationship than that of a parent and a child. It can go good, and it can go bad, and it can be somewhere in between most of the time. It’s like a game of tennis you don’t finish until someone is no longer there to hit the ball back over the net. You find yourself getting so used to that relationship sometimes that you take it for granted. Really, I guess most of the time. That’s something you will probably live to regret…as a child…or as a parent.

I have done fairly well since my folks died back in 2010…I have stayed conscious of the fact they were gone up until one day last week. I was thinking about one of Dad’s cousin’s wife having passed away, and was wanting to go see the cousin. “I’ll have to ask Dad how to get to his house…” I started to think….and then…I found that I had slipped up. “I don’t think he would answer me” I muttered.

But..you never know, as my wife told me. Not with that man. He might answer me still! A lot of times we have things that are moved around out of their “normal” spot, or something is running that we are just SURE we turned off. My wife will say: “Tarpy did it” “Yep,” I say “playing another practical joke” He loved to tease and poke at ya’, and would laugh like mad if he got you.

So…as I child or as a parent, take all the chances you have to talk. Just talk. It doesn’t have to be anything monumental or deep. Just conversation.

A Tribute to Life.

Walking into the warm westward blowing wind this afternoon early, with the sun breaking through the thick gray clouds, I have never felt more alive. Yet I thought if I could let my soul slip away, in that one tiny silver of a sublime moment, I might do it.

But I still have much to do, and many to hold. I still can give of myself without regret, so I will wait for that one day in the future when the same wind blows and the sun shines bright and I am truly ready to go.

I’ve known some honorable people in my life. Not as many as one might think. Many people have some honor, but not many have great honor.

When an honorable person speaks, they speak the truth, even when what they say is not popular. They do this while trying to be kind.

An honorable person is also loyal, even when they are tempted by money or other types of personal rewards, to be disloyal. Honor trumps dishonesty.

An honorable person has empathy for others, even if they are an opponent, or someone with whom they have little in common. No one with true honor thinks that anyone is beneath them because of any physical, cultural, financial, or religious differences.

A person with honor will give of themselves or their resources with no expectations of receiving anything in return. Many times they give anonymously.

An honorable person will stand up for what they think is right, but will listen openly to the opinions of others, and may be convinced to change their mind, if enough good evidence is presented. Being honorable does not mean being intractable.

A truly honorable person will be able to forgive others for almost anything, while seeking forgiveness when they have wronged others. Being strong does not preclude forgiveness or contrition.

It has been said that the “knights of old” were the most honorable of men. While there are still “knights” of honor in our day and age, they are few and far between, and getting even more rare with every passing day.

I still watch Survivor, and tonight was a wacky episode. Young all “twenty something” group called the “beauty” group won the prize challenge which was a food reward of three laying hens and a big rooster. They take them back to camp in a custom coop designed for the lain eggs to roll out a chute in front. Discussion starts: “How do we get eggs?” Says one girl…”the rooster has to do something right?” Another girl…”I’m not sure, does the rooster have to make them have the eggs” Supposed country boy: “No, it’s like you have eggs too, you know.” “Oh, yeah..” say three of the girls and then sit there looking confused. “Can’t believe they didn’t know about eggs.” Says quasi country boy “Everyone knows eggs came first, cause dinosaurs had eggs and they were here a long time before chickens.” He then gets up, grabs one of the LAYING HENS and kills it by pulling it’s head off, even though they have machetes, cause they have been using them to cut coconuts. Rooster still sitting in the cage. Sweat beaded up on his brow cause he knows he dodged a bullet. Maybe they are keeping him to wake up by. Cooked the hen up on sticks stuck in the fire. Beware America, all of those kids are coming back here after the show is over. That is, IF they survive. Sheesh….I’m a little fearful.

A sleep deprived mind is a terrible thing. The neurons don’t fire like they should and sometimes you don’t think “normal” like you should. I think that may end up being the case with me. After all I sleep with this mask contraption strapped to my head that’s supposed to help me sleep better. I look in the mirror sometimes at night after I “suit up” and I remind myself of something from outer space. It’s connected to a machine that blows air through the mask and keeps me “pumped up” at night. It’s a non-snore machine. It’s really kind of weird that anyone could ever think of something like this.

I feel rested though, so what the heck.

They have a saying about drugs that a “Mind on Crack is a terrible thing” I think in my case it’s a “Crack in the Mind is a terrible thing.” My brain is cracked and nobody minds. Weird things come out of my mouth. My body doesn’t do what I ask it. It does what it dang well pleases. Is it age related? I hope not, because I ain’t getting any younger.

I have been thinking about world events, but I really don’t feel like talking about them. Talking about world events is like walking through a pasture full of cow pies blindfolded.

I really don’t feel much like talking about religion or existentialism, either. That’s like walking through a cow pasture full of “pasture pudding” and land mines.

Dang…I don’t know what to talk about.

I got any idea though. I’ll do a post about the things I don’t want to talk about and put it on and don’t tell anybody that’s what it is about until the last line.

That’ll do it.