WHAT A LIFE!

There has been much going on in my life lately. In a life that was basically humdrum, I have turned it upside down and back up again. I have enjoyed the change but I will admit that change is often a bit scary. Sometimes I wonder, what if? But then I think of how I was not doing anything before. I was not happy at my job, I was not happy with my boys' decisions. I had a few joys like my grandchildren and then they moved.

So my own move has been good and it is always good when you realize you still have room to grow. I believe the biggest part has been that I really do have dreams left in my heart. I have hopes for myself that I did not find possible that suddenly have become reachable. Shocking, life is truly a mystery and a joy. So what I would say to most is don't think you are ever at the end or stuck, something will happen to change it, if you only believe that it can happen.

CHANGE, THE AMERICAN WAY

We are nearing the dawn of a new president and change he says, he will bring to this country. The country needs change but in what form? Do we need children in schools having to think about issues like the contents of the Pledge of Allegiance? Do we need to bail out BIG BUSINESS that has managed to pay themselves millions of dollars in salaries but now cannot keep their businesses afloat?

Changes like these are far from what our fore fathers would have ever thought possible for our country to deal with in a government venue. The Pledge of Allegiance was established to encourage our sons and daughters to believe in this great country. To take one word from it would be a disgrace to all who have toiled in and fought for this country.

Bailing out BIG BUSINESS is just a coward's way of getting through a bad situation. That has not been the way of the AMERICAN. We have not ever chosen a coward's path. We came to this country and founded towns and government. We travelled into the wilderness with women and children, young and old to create more opportunities for our families. In saying that, we did not make wise choices in all our endeavors going west. We surely should have taken more pride in the original AMERICAN, the INDIAN.

So change will happen as it always does, but we need not sacrifice our core beliefs to make some happy or fulfilled. Not everything should be an issue to bring up before God and country. Let the little children say their pledge and stay young and let the old bastards that got themselves into trouble work themselves out of it.

Rural Vermont

There is a small town in Vermont that is making headline news across the country. Apparently a grade school is making its children that want to say the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE leave their classrooms and go to the gym so the children that don't want to say it do not have to hear, ONE NATION UNDER GOD. Parents are upset on both sides of the coin.

Personally I like the idea that this controversy has brought the school as a whole together as an assembly into the gym or even outdoors to say the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE. In my mind its message rings with such strength seeing those young children lift their heads, hands and voices in unison to the sky. Perhaps this was God's idea, his simple twist of fate, the non-God lovers wish not to hear ONE NATION UNDER GOD, so instead the heavens hear a joyous rendition of the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE by the those intended to state the words, the young Americans who will one day continue on with the traditions of this great country.

The Beat Goes On.

A few days have gone by since the passing of my father and the family celebration of his life. It has been a time of sadness and joy mixed with not believing it happened at all. I relished the afternoon with my family, we hugged and cried but mostly we laughed. We spent time getting to know each other again and remembering times when my Dad was present. It was a perfect day for my father and I am quite positive he is happy with the outcome.

Death is not something anyone is ready for, we don't really prepare for it yet we know it is looming in the back of us, ready to tap us on the shoulder. When it is time, there will be no easy words or sermon to preach over the grave. I can attest to you that hugs from your family and your loved ones makes the transition a little easier. Within the hugs there seems to be some strength that is transferred to the wounded and a small light of warmth glows and somehow you feel better. Loved.

I can say mourning had its place in time, my Dad had the right idea, a celebration to the life he lived and lived well.

Pick up the Pen.

My grampa told me there is not much he could do, he had been through this twice. He is speaking of living through the death of my Uncle Steve and then the death of my gramma. He said that the pain is unthinkable and one day you wake up and throw your legs over the bed and realize you are still breathing, still here. That is when you realize it is time to start living again.

My father passed away yesterday morning.

It seems like five years ago, it seems like it never happened at all.

I sit here pondering if this is the ending of a life or a chapter or an era and realize that it is much more cyclical. For from this event my father has possibly launched my writing career, a better relationship with my family and shown my two wayward 20 something sons that it is time to grow up. For what he could not articulate in his life he will guide in his death, the very love he has for all of us.

My youngest son was going to school and working part-time. It was not working out for him as he has two young children to raise and finally he came to the realization that he needed to work full-time. He had been looking for a job and looking.

Today he and I went all over town and just happened to stop at a new construction site. The guy at trailer told him to read the sign at the door, they were no longer hiring. He came out not dejected but still determined. Out the door comes a guy yelling and asking if my son needed a job. The next thing I know my son is at a job site talking with this same man and the foreman. I watch from a distance. I see a posture I know. It is not that I see my Dad there but I see the workings of the man there, as I have seen a million times before in my life. My son got the job.

Turn the Page.

A new president has been selected and this evening I sit and wait for the telephone to ring. I knew this evening would arrive one day but did not expect it now. My Mother and Uncle are speeding over a mountain in Vermont to reason with a man who has spent his life being in control and using common sense. They will try to convince him that the breathing tube is necessary if he wants to see his girls one last time. It is not what he wants but he may falter at the mention of the girls.

As you, yourself, get older you really don't think about the people in your life dying. Somewhere in the back of your mind, it is obvious it will happen, but it is not prevalent in day to day life. Your parents seem so infallible so when they age and then become weakened by disease it is shocking. My mom called only days ago to say he was in the ICU. He needed assistance with his breathing and today she tells me that he would need life support to sustain his life but he will not accept that. That much I had figured out already. I know this man well.

This is a man who I have seen fell trees and build a building by himself. I have watched him throughout my life take care of his family and his home by getting up early every day and working hard. I have seen him at his toughest and at his weakest. I have watched him help people who could not help themselves and make people laugh when they were sad. I have gotten advice and ass-kickings. I have gotten his support when I needed it. He taught me how to rely on my head and my abilities to get a job done. When I called him today, I could not bare to hear his voice through the breathing machine. It was not him.

Forty nine years. That is what I have had with him. I pray my Mother and Uncle do not ask him to do something he doesn't feel is right just to see the girls one last time.

I asked him today, "Do you remember what you got us one Christmas that you had to hide in the shed?" and he said, "Yes, and so do you." I replied, "Yes, I do."

This is the time I want him to remember. This is the time I want him to return to in those final moments. I wish for him to go back in time and embrace the girls again when they were young, hold tight and then calmly go home to God.

VOTE!

Fellow Americans, VOTE. We have will have no one to blame but ourselves if we do not like who is in the White House. It is your civic duty and should be your honor. It is your heritage arising from the landing at Plymouth Rock and extending to this day where our sons and daughters fight on foreign soil to keep this, our country, FREE.