On a More Serious Note

I never was a big fan of President John Adams (I'm more partial to Samuel Adams, actually) but my ride today put me in a serious frame of mind and coming across this quote of his, I thought I'd share something that has been weighing on my mind since the entire Brett Kavanaugh debacle began.

I've posted a bit of my politicial views on my personal Facebook page but run into the problem of often when I do, friends and acquaintances tend to hijack my posts and spew their own views all over my page.  This tends to turn into name calling on both sides of the Great Divide where it veers into an exercise in emotional, idealistic keyboarding.  But if truth be told, one of the many reasons I stopped writing on this blog two years ago was because after the election of 2016 there was a time when I just couldn't wrap my head around what happened enough to write about it.  I was in such a state of incredulous shock that it was hard to fathom that our nation which began with such high hopes and ideals all those many years ago could have become dragged down to the point of electing a pompous, lying, misogynistic wind-bag of a failed reality TV star as our president.  Yes, we did elect the actor Ronald Reagan as president but at least he was honorable.  As much as I didn't agree with all of his policies, at least you knew they were coming from a place of real honor and belief.  I'm sorry, but try as I may I can't find any honor in this small minded pissant "we" have elected, I just can't.  And yes, I put "we" in quotes because he won the electoral and not the popular.  I'm truly convinced that this entire endeavor is not about "Making America Great Again" but about "Making Trump Great Again".  The recent revelation of how he defrauded the government and received so much money from his parents (not the $1 million he claimed) just shows why he doesn't release his taxes - he knows he's not as wealthy as he says he is and if someone really investigated them, he would probably go to jail.  Nevertheless, this piece of filth America "elected" is going to rape our country and use it for the profit of himself, his family and his benefactors and when the dust clears the rest of America will be left worse off than we've been for decades.  And it will take decades to undo the evil he will cause.

And yet, my posts tend to get hijacked because of the many and diverse people I know and have reconnected with via the magic of Facebook.  As much as it can become a time and energy suck (and really piss me off when my obstinate "friends" continue to spew their Trump-induced delusions) for some people, it has become a blessing in that it has allowed me to "rediscover" some of my old friendships.  Having been an "Army Brat", my family and I moved around fairly regularly.  The only two places where we stayed longer than three years was Fort Ord, California (seven years) and Fort Hood, Texas (where dad eventually retired).  Other than that it was a constant move and as we searched for the perfect place to live with our ever expanding family (due to family issues my cousins and my grandmother eventually moved in with us) within those three years we would sometimes change housing as well, necessitating finding a whole new group of friends.  All of this happened well before the advent of the internet so when the novelty of writing and receiving letters wore off, the friendships tended to fizzle out.

Let me say here that while I have learned to be gregarious, it's not really my natural proclivity.  I don't really party all that much and I'm not great in going up and making lots of new friends.  It's not my natural inclination but rather something I've had to learn to do over the years. I would be very happy sitting down by myself and reading a book, or working on my bike, practicing the guitar, or doing some other solitary activity.  As much as I liked riding with the Huntington Bicycle Club for a few seasons, I much prefer riding alone where I don't have to be beholden to the schedule and whims of another.  But I digress, back to the point of moving and friends.

I've always been on the small side.  When I graduated high school I was 4' 11" tall and weighed about 125 pounds, mostly muscle from trying to be a "jock".  I was small for my age and also smarter than most of the people around me, as evidenced from the fact that I was skipped a grade (first to third), so not only was I smaller than all of my classmates, I was smarter than them which caused me to get bullied - a lot.  When we lived on Fort Hood I was often chased home by groups of kids.  When my mom and dad split up it got even worse.  Dad wasn't home as much (due to his schedule in the military and his working a second job to pay the bills) and the kids knew I had no one at home, so they would try to get to my house before me and wait for me so they could beat me up.  The problem for them was I had about seven different routes home so they never knew which one I would take as I kept switching them up.

After my father remarried it got even worse.  You see, it was the early 70's and there was a lot of hatred against the Vietnamese people and Asians in general, which was odd since California has had a very large Asian population since the Gold Rush and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.  Anyway, some people (including my next door neighbor and best friend) took exception to the fact that my father had married a Korean woman and bullied me even more.  They took to calling her my "housekeeper" and other demeaning terms.  I don't know if my parents knew about this but before long we moved a small distance up the coast to the town of Marina, California.  My home in Fort Ord was the only one I'd ever known and now it was time to make all new friends, something I'd never had to do before.  So at the age of eight I had to figure out had to make friends.

I had once heard someone say that if I ever needed a friend, I should find a firefighter.  Perhaps it was from one of those "meet your friend the firefighter" days at school, I'm really not sure.  But once we moved into the apartment in Marina I found myself with no friends and no one to socialize with except for my books and the collection of the World Book of Knowledge (which I read ever volume cover to cover).  So I went to the local fire house to find some friends.  Seemed like a logical thing to do at the time.  They were very nice and sort of made me their "mascot" and let me hang out there after school with them.  Yet I still didn't manage to make a lot of friends because no kids my age lived in the apartment complex.  Then one day they introduced me to a group of teens (I think they were fourteen or so) that some of the firefighters knew lived in the apartment complex.

At first it was very cool.  I was hanging out with the big kids and I could hold my own in conversations with them (primarily because I was so smart). And they were into model rockets!!!  A couple times a week they would take their model rockets to the football fields (there were three of them all together for the various practices) and shoot them off.  It was so cool!  They let me watch and then started talking to me and then told me that if I got one they would let me launch it from their launching pads.  I talked my dad into getting me my own and the older kids gave me pointers about how to build it, paint it and what engines and other things I should get.  It was so much fun and it really made me feel like I had something to do.  And then it wasn't fun anymore.

To this day I can't tell you his name, I can't tell you where he lived, I can't tell you the apartment complex we lived on, hell I can't even remember the name of the elementary school where I attended fourth grade.  What I do remember is the afternoon we were going to meet over at his apartment to repair our rockets.  Although they had parachutes to help them "gently return to earth", a lot of the time the chutes malfunctioned and they just crashed down so some of them were a little worse for wear.  Since it was a rainy day, were going to meet over at his apartment and rebuild, repair and repaint our rockets.  When I got there he told me the other guys weren't going to show up so it was just the two of us.  Me, being eight years old and naive (although precocious at the same time) I didn't think anything of it - we were going to fix our rockets!

It wasn't long before things got weird.

Firstly, he pulled out some porn magazines he had.  Now, this being the early seventies they weren't nearly as explicit as they are today, probably just some Playboy magazines and I really don't even remember the month so looking it up wouldn't help.  But then he started touching me.  Not in a sexual nature but more like rough housing.  None of the guys had ever done that with me before and not having had older siblings I really didn't know how to react.  The next thing I knew he had tackled me, thrown me down on the ground in the hallway and rolled me over onto my back.  He then proceeded to sit on top of me with his knees on my chest.  I cried and asked him to let me up because it hurt.  I know some other things were said at the time but all I can remember 47 years later is when he asked me, "have you ever had a guy's dick in your mouth?"  When he said that I immediately closed my eyes tight and clamped my jaw shut and tried not to open my mouth even though it was hard to breath with him sitting on my chest.  It was then that I heard him unzip his pants and I felt the flesh of his penis rubbing on my face.  At that moment I really started bucking like crazy trying to get him off.  He started laughing and moved just enough so that I could wriggle out.  I didn't even look back but rushed out of his apartment as soon as I could.  I left as fast as my feet would carry me and never bothered to go back to get my rocket.  I just told my father that I lost it one day, that when it went up it drifted into a tree and I couldn't get it down.

I saw him and the other guys around the apartments but always at a distance, I never tried to get close to them and if I saw them coming I would go another way.  It wasn't long after this happened that my father received orders to report to Fort Gordon, Georgia so we moved away.  I never told my father this happened to me because I was afraid he would be mad that I left my rocket since I had told him that I lost it.  And to this day, I've never told anyone else, not even my wife about this.  I guess I just did.

What has had me thinking about this so much lately is that a former student from my high school has been trying to deal with her own sexual abuse as a child.  I won't reveal her name here because that's not my place.  However, in confronting what happened to here she has essentially lost her family because they don't want to acknowledge that it might have happened.  They have essentially shut this young lady down and left her on her own for trying to open up and confront the demons in her past.  She is a huge advocate of The Mama Bear Effect, which is a group dedicated to (among other things) trying to help those youngsters who have been sexually abused deal with the trauma and scars of that abuse.  I wish I would have had something or someone like that to turn to when it happened to me.

I've lived my life the best I could and I've tried to do what is right.  I've not always succeeded and I've done things in my life of which I am deeply ashamed.  But I've also gotten my ass kicked standing up for teenage girls when I was in middle school in Georgia - standing up for them because their redneck boy friends saw nothing wrong with smacking them around because that's the way you treat(ed) women back then.  I've tried to live a good life, and sometimes I've succeeded.  I've tried to make up for my transgressions, and sometimes I've succeeded, sometimes I've failed.  But I've never intentionally hurt someone.

And yet all of this talk that has been going on since the Brett Kavanaugh allegations have come to light have opened up all of this from my own past.  And the way Trump's Republican base are willing to whitewash this atrocious act makes me wonder when we lost America's soul.  To see women standing up and saying they think it's okay, that sometimes girls have it coming because of the way they dress or the provocative way they behave, or even because the girls were drunk is beyond reprehensible.  To hear college professors, even in jest, have said that if you didn't assault a girl when you were a teenage boy then you're not a man just defies all belief.  To see the president of this country lower himself to the point of heckling and mocking this woman in front of a crowd of his brainless, soulless acolytes who then proceed to laugh at her makes me truly sick to the depths of my own soul.  When did we become such a cruel, heartless, godless country?

And their main argument?  The main proof they have that Kavanaugh couldn't have done what they said?  He and his friend say they have no recollection of doing it and she herself can't remember the small details.  I'm pretty sure the young man who tried to shove his penis in my mouth doesn't remember it.  And I can't remember the kind of details our pristine Senate would want me to remember if I sat in front of their Grand Inquisitor.  And yet I KNOW  it happened to me.  But since I don't have proof, even if it WAS Brett Kavanaugh who abused me, it wouldn't matter, no one would care.

And apparently America doesn't care.  Not enough to give this woman a REAL investigation, not enough to find out more of what this man is really all about.  Senators like Jeff Flake and others who know Trump is wrong on this (and so many, many other issues) just bend over and do his bidding while inside their own souls are rotting.  Someday, when this judge shows the true misogynistic being he is and begins dismantling all the rights and protections women have, just as his lord and master desires him to do, they will understand too late what they have done.  And yet, probably still won't care enough to try to redress their wrongs.

So this president and this court will never represent me and if there is some way I can fight them, I will.  I'm pissed off and I realize that posting on Facebook doesn't do anything because all that happens is people hijack your posts and then spout their Grape Trumpaide induced psychotic babble.  America is not being made great again, it is becoming a nation where people have no empathy and no care for their fellow human beings.  All because we elected a man who thinks of nothing but himself and his own ego.

If any of my acquaintances read this (and trust me, this is only part of the things that have happened to me in my life) and still don't get me and why I can't live quietly in this dystopian society that is Trumpworld, then I guess you don't really know me at all.  Do us both a favor and unfriend me on Facebook so you no longer have to read how I really feel, because I'm done being silent.  The truth is, I'm not always sure what I am and who I may some day become, but I know who I don't want to be - just like you!

Just like You

Three Days Grace

I could be mean
I could be angry
You know I could be just like you

I could be fake
I could be stupid
You know I could be just like you

You thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be
Just like you

I could be cold
I could be ruthless
You know I could be just like you

I could be weak
I could be senseless
You know I could be just like you

You thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
You were…

Well friends, stay well and I'll see you on the road.

Back in the Saddle Again

Wow, it's hard to believe it has been almost two years exactly since I last posted something on this blog.  A lot has happened in those two years, both in our nation and in my personal life.  In the coming weeks (God willing) I will try to touch on a few of those things and share my ponderings.  For now, I'm just glad I can finally start getting into the habit of commuting by bike to school again as my entire schedule was completely thrown off kilter last year.  Speaking of Offkilter, it's long been one of my favorite bands and every time I think of the phrase off kilter I can't help but think of them;

Nothing like a little heavy metal bagpipe to start your Monday morning.  Anyways, the big thing that really threw my schedule for a loop last year and kept me from riding was the class I was taking out in Yaphank at the Suffolk County EMS offices.  Twice a week (Mondays and Wednesdays) from 7 - 10 pm I was there as a member of the very last Emergency Medical Technician - Critical Care certification course to be offered in Suffolk.  Since I usually have rehearsal until five o'clock and it takes nearly two hours in rush hour traffic to get there riding on Mondays and Wednesdays was not possible.  And then, by the time I got home, wound myself down and got to bed it would often be 1 am and I would wake up too tired to ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  That left Fridays, if I was lucky and didn't have something else I had to do on the way in or way home.  Yes, I know - nothing but excuses - but I fell into the bad habit far too easily and allowed myself to just stagnate for the year.  And there was that thing with my knee the first half of the year as well.  I eventually had to have it drained but once I was able to start riding a bit in the spring it started feeling better.  But, I still allowed the excuses to pile up.  You know, "just a little more sleep......just five more minutes...." and before I knew it, it was time to drive if I were going to make it on time.

And there was that little issue of taking on a second job last year to help pay for Sarah's room and board at Carnegie Mellon University.  She was accepted to her dream school for costume design and the very last thing I wanted was for her to not be able to attend because of the money.  So, last summer before we went on our family vacation to Alaska (yes, I'll DEFINITELY be talking more about that in another post) I began working as a District EMT for the Commack Volunteer Ambulance Corps.  I took the job as a way to possibly get some more EMT experience for the class I was taking and as I way to make a little extra money to help the family finances. There really are some amazing EMS people there both paid and volunteer and I'm very proud of being a part of their organization.  I've learned a lot from working with their paramedics but I have to admit, nothing will ever grab me like the people I work with in Northport, my second family at the NFD.  If it weren't for their support and the amazing Paramedics who are as much medical practitioners as educators, I wouldn't have made it through the class.  Anyways, I've been working two to three times a week there, mostly overnights from 11 pm to 7 am which gets me to SHS just in time to teach my first period class - which I often have to do in my EMT garb.  I think after a little more than a year now people are getting used to it.  It's like I have to do a little jig to keep all of these activities straight in my head.  Or if not, perhaps a little Dubstep, set to bagpipes:

Sorry, my ponderings are all over the map today, primarily because of the fact my iPod (yes, I still use an iPod on my morning ride instead of my phone, cuz I'm a luddite) was dead and so all I had to keep me on tempo this morning was my own thoughts and Green Day's "Holiday" which was playing over and over in my head.  Partially because William had phase two of his Eagle Scout project yesterday and the kids kept singing this:

Hey, it's catchy and has a good bpm for pedaling, so I kept singing it in my head (and sometimes out loud) on the ride in.  Speaking of bpm, did you know that the standard for CPR is no longer 100 bpm but instead is 120 bpm?  They used to teach us to sing "Stayin' Alive" in our heads to keep up that bpm.  As a matter of fact, I once worked an arrest in the ER in which one of the duty nurses was singing that out loud in order to get the orderly to go faster in his compressions.  I didn't have the heart (no pun intended) to correct her at the time.  However, in my own head, when I took over for him, I had this going through my head:

Well, I think that's enough weirdness and convoluted mental meanderings for one day.  I'm just glad to be back on the bike and I'll be trying to post every day when I commute on two wheels.  I WILL try to get to all the other happenings in my life (Alaska, Sarah going off to College, working four jobs, a year in CC school, and the state of our Country) in future posts.  For now, I'm just going to leave you with the original singing cowboy, Gene Autry:

Stay well my friends, and I'll see you on the road!