Tag: blog

Roads Not Forgotten

jamie

It feels kinda like coming out. Not from the closet, but from a self-imposed isolation. From my cave, so to speak. Hibernation for self-survival. That’s why I’ve been avoiding it. Coming out, I mean. Maybe I’ll stay here forever.
I haven’t been quiet. I post a lot. Shouting into the void, really. I’m…Just not social. In real life, I don’t talk to most of the people I think of as friends.

Old friends of mine are off, living their lives. Or dying, in a few cases. As a theme, Death is becoming more frequent in my life. So, well I don’t ask about their lives. They don’t ask about mine. We’re both satisfied, living in our memories. I guess. Or maybe we are just scared of hearing bad news.

You can ask. It’s ok. No, I’m not dying. Just reflecting. At 63, I’m not ignoring the obvious either. Nothing is forever. Except memories, I think.

If you think about it, well, memories are all we have. We each spend our lives collecting them. We cultivate them, in part to understand them. To make us feel better. And it works. Until it doesn’t. I’m pretty sure old friends don’t remember things exactly the same way I do. Details may be blurred. Maybe we don’t remember them at all. Because we each shape our own memory.

Memories are therefore fleeting and ever changing, blurring the past and future, tainted by the present. It seems as if almost any scenario in the past is now plausible. If someone from back then challenges my current reality by telling me I did something insane that I don’t remember, should I believe them? At this point I would, probably. If it sounds plausible. There were some CRAZY times.

Back in the real world, the once unthinkable keeps happening. Again and again. Some days I assume the world must surely be departing it’s axis, and spinning off into the void. Chaos is everywhere, it seems. Plausible? Every scenario seems “plausible” anymore.

But not here. Here on the farm, all the chaos spins around me. Here I am frozen in this moment. This place. This magic place, in the middle of nowhere, Upstate NY. Three hours from everywhere, on the border of sanity and oblivion.
I enjoy just being here. I plan to enjoy the peace of this place until my last breath (hopefully not any time soon). I treasure the love and company of my wife, and all of our animals caretakers. We may feed these beasts and birds, but they take care of us. Our nest will never be empty, though our path and the paths of our loved ones may diverge from our shared journeys.

I will forever recall the ones who made a difference in my reality; friends who walked alongside me on my journey to Here. This precarious perch of Reflection. Never forgotten, as we all fade into the future. Together apart.

I’m not sure we were ever on the same journey. Perhaps our paths crossed for a moment or two in time. But now, time has dragged us each through our own separate battlefields. The minutes we shared have been aggregated into moments. Key scenes and trailers of our lives, rather than the actual footage. Replayed less frequently, as each of our libraries keep growing. Faded, but not erased.

So what can we do, but journey on, together in our fleeting, ever-archiving memories? If we’re lucky, we may meet again. Maybe this Ride never ends, or maybe one day we’ll travel together around this sun again, for a little while more. But even if the stars explode and the planets all die, the memories of the journeys we shared are forever written into the DNA of the Universe.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
~Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken

The War on Fishermen

jamie

Once upon a time, there was a clear boundary between war and peace. War had to be declared, against another nation, by Congress. Otherwise, peacetime rules of engagement applied.

Since 2001 and the declaration of “war on terror” our leaders no longer respect the boundary. War is peace. Peace is war. People are making a LOT of money selling weapons. It’s good for business.

The result is, the USA is now the largest terrorist army in the world, and this administration is using it to strike fear in other nations, so that their people and resources can be plundered by the billionaires. It’s organized crime backed by nuclear weapons and the strongest army on the planet.

I don’t care if the cartel leader was on those fucking boats. You take him into custody, along with the evidence of criminal activity. Put him on trial, and imprison him if found guilty.

You don’t blow up the boat, kill everyone including survivors, and destroy all the evidence. That’s what criminal terrorists do.  Inflicting fear. Abusing power.

This isn’t about drug cartels or the supposed “war on terror”. Trumpy just pardoned the Honduran Ex-Prez who was, yeah you can’t make this up, convicted of DRUG TRAFFICKING. A convicted narco-terrorist. Yup.

Be Not Afraid. Socialism is Everywhere.

jamie

ALL GOVERNMENT SPENDING IS SOCIALISM. Every penny.

They just use that word “socialist” (often erroneously paired with “Communist” or “Marxist”) to convince you (using FEAR) that it’s better if they spend YOUR TAX DOLLARS on tax breaks for the few, the wealthy and privileged. And maybe a few for-profit prisons to lock the rest of us up in (if we get high to try and forget the atrocities done by these miserable sons of bitches who are running this country).

Most people in prison are there for non-violent DRUG POSSESSION. In for-profit prisons, many of which hire them out for a fraction of minimum wage. Modern slavery.
Why? Profit. Exploit ordinary citizens for their own gains. People go to jail, or die, but they make money. So it’s OK.

They don’t make as much money if the government decides feeding the poor, or housing the homeless is a better use of the money. Because it helps people, they call it “charity”. The only reason they give to charity at all is for the tax write-offs and PR.
They call people who need help LAZY.
They say refugees who need help are ILLEGAL.
They say children who need help are EXPENDABLE.
All excuses NOT TO HELP

Like walking past a disheveled person asking for help on the street. Don’t look at them. Ignore the problem. Make excuses not to help.

Folks, THEY blame the poor, but the RICH are the problem. The WEALTHY have set up this system to exploit us, from cradle to grave, and they keep turning the screws, hoping we die. Less LAZY ILLEGAL EXPENDABLE HUNGRY mouths to feed, equals more profits for THEM.
Pure Capitalism is CRUELTY.

It’s $38 Trillion Now


Socialism recognizes the things people need to survive and thrive, and tries to guarantee those things to all through government ownership of those resources. Food. Medicine. Clothing. Housing. Education. Police. Fire Dept. EMTs. Energy. Military defense. Research. Good stuff for ALL. Democracy decides what’s important to us.
We all chip in to make sure everyone has what they NEED to survive and thrive. Importantly, innovators can still get rich selling people NEW creations and advances. For as much profit as they can. Things people WANT. Not what they NEED to survive.

In either Socialism or Capitalism, those with more must give more. That’s the social contract.

But Capitalism must be regulated to protect the social contract. Socialism IS that contract. Democracy decides. Capitalism doesn’t go away. It just gets deprioritized over survival, and human decency. Profits are NOT more important than the social contract to help each other.

Getting rich by exploiting what people NEED to survive is IMMORAL.
Getting rich by imprisoning people for profit is immoral.
Getting rich by controlling all of the food production and constantly raising prices to ensure “economic growth” (aka increased profits) instead of eliminating hunger, is immoral.
Getting rich by sending our children off to die, protecting “economic interests” (aka oil profits, weapons revenue) is IMMORAL.
Getting rich by controlling (for profit) all of the ENERGY society needs to exist and grow is Immoral.
Getting rich by deciding who deserves medicine by how much they can afford to pay is IMMORAL.

This is NOT a RED vs. BLUE situation. The two parties are BOTH working against US, The American People. This is a HUMAN DECENCY issue. Greed vs. Kindness and Decency.
This is a HAVE-TOO-MUCH vs HAVE-NOT-ENOUGH situation. Most of us fall into the SECOND group. We should start acting like it.
Towards THEM, and especially towards Each Other.

Stupid Shit I Did

jamie

Back in the 70s, we lived near Buffalo. I had a Canadian friend who used to get us all into a lot of trouble. I recall we smuggled fireworks and beer back from Canada one time. Stuff like that.

One such time found us in Fort Erie, Canada, right across the Niagra River from Buffalo, the Peace Bridge connecting the two countries there.

International Railway bridge to USA, Fort Erie Canada

Just north of the Peace Bridge there’s a railroad bridge, crossing the teeming Niagra River several miles above the falls. That one summer day, I found myself in a parking lot just downstream from the bridge, drinking beers and probably smoking weed. I had no idea what was about to happen.

This isn’t a story of tragedy. No one was ever hurt. All the more reason to say, specifically to my kids, but also to yours, Kid’s don’t try stupid shit like this.

Now, I won’t draw things out, I’ve embellished enough.

Before I knew what we were doing, we found ourselves walking out into the railroad bridge, our Canadian guide assuring everyone he’d done it many times before. When we reached the appropriate spot, he started climbing, up above the track level, where we all stood watching him climb.

A good 20 feet over our heads, he suddenly stopped, yelled something I don’t remember, and threw himself off the girder, into the wind above the rushing current, his curly blonde locks trailing behind as he flew through the air.

He seemed to fall forever, and I remember him doing a flip about halfway down. I’m not sure if that really happened, or if it’s just an embellishment that grew into “truth”, as I retold this story over the years. What seemed like a couple minutes later, he hit the water and disappeared under the dark green rushing waters.

A couple of guys immediately jumped from the platform right after he hit the water, taking them slightly less time falling before disappearing beneath the dark waters.

They all came up eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime. They reappeared above water about half a football field downstream from where they hit, and started swimming hard towards the breakwall, and the ladder to safety. Miss that ladder, and who knows where you would be able to get out of the river, before being washed downstream towards Lake Ontario. Over the falls.

This is a story about peer pressure. There was no going back. Accept the fear. Then jump. They made it to safety. We all figured we could too. And we did. I swam harder than I’ve ever swam before or since, to make sure I caught that ladder.

I told myself it would be ok. Then I jumped. The fear was gone. So we’re the excuses. Just me against the river. Cliche I know. But those moments where you MUST succeed. Do or do not, there is no try. Those moments change you. Forever.

When I finally hit the water, I remember wondering, “How deep will I go?” as the momentum carried me deeper and deeper. For a second I wondered if I would make it back to the surface. I’m not the most buoyant person. The water was dark, green and cold, and I started swimming across the current, toward the ladder even before I eventually surfaced.

I swam so hard that I reached the wall way above the ladder, I had to tread water and wait to drift downstream to it. Some of us went for a second round, and a couple people tried the higher perch to jump from. I remember walking back onto the bridge, watching them jump, and then walking off the bridge again, to dodge a train coming through en route to Buffalo. I guess I didn’t want to tempt my fate twice.

I think about what would have been, if I had chickened out, and never made that leap of faith into that river. Maybe it gave me confidence later in life. Or perhaps it just made me more cautious. Either way, every big decision I’ve made since has probably been affected by this one moment.

I find myself reflecting about it, not to encourage myself to cheat death, but to remember to live. To be not afraid to leap into destiny, with enough faith in ourself to come out the other side better for the journey.

I’m pretty sure it’s also one of those moments that remind me not to be such a dumb fuck.

If I was a Simpsons character…

[Disclaimer: The Bridge is only 22 feet above the river, and the shipping channel is pretty deep so, perhaps my memory embellished the experience and potential dangers just a tiny bit).