Sidetracked Charley

Bench in Winter MAD. I am just MAD. Mother, forever the Kansas City Cub reporter even if she never wrote another article, would correct me. She would say, "No, dear, your are angry." Me, ever the smart ass as she would say, replied, "I am so angry I am mad." After the ACA procedural vote I am livid. And I hate white men. "Now, dear," Mother would say, "Isn't hate the wrong word?" Loathe. I loathe white men. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell were in my nightmares last night. The better part was when I had them on the rack. Must have been a good dream because I slept in. There is an old Lone Ranger joke which has him and Tonto surrounded by hostile Indians and the Lone Ranger asks, "How are we going to get out of this one, Tonto?" "We, White Man?" Tonto replies. Part of me really wants to be Tonto this morning. I want to grab my guns, pile into pickup with the fur kids and head for the hills. Dad, the one white...

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Chapel I was one of the generation which found the rituals of our parents no longer valid. We are the Vietnam Generation. How sad our lives should be defined by a war. Some of us went to war and some of us went to war against war. A lot of us in our way questioned the older generation and its wars and rituals. And now we are that older generation. Many of those who fought in Vietnam and survived their tours of duty are now dying because of exposure to Agent Orange. It is bringing us all to places we thought in our youth we would never be. Friends and clouds gathering We celebrated the life of Steven Ryan Oliver on what would have been his birthday. Steve would have been the first to tell you he did not want a funeral. He was a Buddhist and a Vietnam Veteran. No doubt he faced the possibility of a death in a nameless jungle in a country we all did not know existed until our friends started vanishing into it. Just another missing in action. But he ret...

Steve Oliver by Janet Oliver My neighbor and husband of my best friend died the 10th of July. Eight and a half years ago he was diagnosed with a deadly cancer caused by Agent Orange. It is currently taking out a huge number of our Vietnam Veterans and not in a gentle way. Steven Ryan Oliver would have been 68 this August. And like his service in Vietnam as a Marine, he beat some long odds to make it this far. May he rest in peace. My experience with having him and my friend as neighbors was eye opening about the American way of death and dying. If you do not have an extended family being a care taker for someone with cancer might just kill you. The statistics are against you. I long ago dedicated myself to helping Janet through this ordeal. And she has had to totally put her own life on hold because of the care and attention he required. Even at those times when he seemed to be functioning well to the community. Until you have been there you have no idea. On Good Friday th...