Month: August 2016

I keep telling myself to stay away from the controversy of the day but sometimes I just have to get things off my chest.

There are plenty of people angry that Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the National Anthem in protest. He took a measured and principled stance to draw attention to problems occurring across this great nation, a stand that very well could end his career. As a veteran of the US Army and as a patriot I fully support his protest because he is exercising his rights as a citizen and is participating in the true spirit of this great nation. His is a conscious act meant to make a statement and I respect that. What angers me though is that so many are attacking him for his protest but I guarantee you at any given sporting event if you were to film the crowd at the stadium you will see people talking, hats on heads, concession stands open; a large number of people completely not caring one way or another, not in protest but because they just do not give a shit. If you were to take the cameras into the homes of all of the tv viewers watching these sporting events, how many people would you find standing in front of their tvs with their hands on their hearts? Which is worse, caring enough to make a statement or not giving a damn to start with.

Back at work, in the office. Unfortunately driving a rental car, but being at work gives me some semblance of normalcy. With the rental car and parts for the mini, I am hemorrhaging cash still with no end in sight which is a bit disconcerting but this type of stuff seems to happen so often that I have resigned myself to working for at least 3-4 years after I die of old age.Sometimes I think that the stuff that keeps happening is just too unbelievable, I feel like I am living Clark Griswold’s life between his vacations. It is all good though as my blessings far out weigh anything else.

In stripping off my roof I am amassing shingles, nails and tar felt around my house. I was going to use my wheelbarrow to start cleaning up and the handles both broke and the tire has dry rotted. So I thought well I will just buy new handles and a tire, be good to go for another 10+ years. Did you know you can buy a brand new wheelbarrow for the same price, unbelievable.

I understand that doing the right thing is difficult, especially when you make a mistake. But actions have consequences and things in life do have a way of working themselves out eventually.
So to the anonymous person who struck my rental car in Little Rock, AR I forgive you and I pray that one day you will own up to your mistakes and start taking responsibility for your actions. I may panic along the way a few times as I try to come up with the deductible amount in addition to the money I still need to spend to fix my car, but I know that God will provide and his blessings will overflow. I thank God that for all that has gone wrong this week Phoebe and I are safe, maybe a little worse for wear, but we made it through this just as we have made it through so many other things before today. As I told someone this morning this has been a bit rougher than normal weeks, but not that unusual or different for us.
So I will pray for you anonymous parking lot person just as I will pray for the 911 operator who did not dispatch police or take our police report over the phone, leaving us in limbo for 2 1/2 hours. And I will pray that I grow from this experience.

That I am laying on a bed in a Holiday Inn express in Fulton MS, two blocks from the autozone that will have the replacement thermostat housing for my broken down Mini Cooper by 11 AM tomorrow. We were going to drive straight through to Oklahoma to see my Uncle Gordon who has stage 4 lung cancer. I am still trying to come to terms with that fact, was a shock to talk to him on the phone a few days ago and hear my dads voice, that was very hard. I am somewhat angry that I did not know earlier, but that is what it is. As with so much of my family there is distance and disfunction, my lack of communication seems to be a family trait.
That my car is broken down though is just another bump in the road and I am not upset, not angry. That we had to ride 20 miles with some weird old wrecker driver who’s casual racism, pride in not getting drafted in 1967 “because now everything is made in Vietnam and we ought to bomb their weapons plants so they can’t make ak-47s”, and fear that trump will get us all killed.
Can not watch tv because the hotel has direct tv and the thunderstorm that I walked two miles in earlier today has caught up and now flicker, boom and darkness and silence has filled the room as the power has left the building.

Sometimes these things just do not seem real, but one thing is certain my new medicine definitely works.