BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
The Virtues:
Auctoritas: "Spiritual Authority" The sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria.
Comitas: "Humor" Ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness.
Clementia: "Mercy" Mildness and gentleness.
Dignitas: "Dignity" A sense of self-worth, personal pride.
Firmitas: "Tenacity" Strength of mind, the ability to stick to one's purpose.
Frugalitas: "Frugalness" Economy and simplicity of style, without being miserly.
Gravitas: "Gravity" A sense of the importance of the matter at hand, responsibility and earnestness.
Honestas: "Respectibility" The image that one presents as a respectable member of society.
Humanitas: "Humanity" Refinement, civilization, learning, and being cultured.
Industria: "Industriousness" Hard work.
Pietas: "Dutifulness" More than religious piety; a respect for the natural order socially, politically, and religiously. Includes the ideas of patriotism and devotion to others.
Prudentia: "Prudence" Foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.
Salubritas: "Wholesomeness" Health and cleanliness.
Severitas: "Sternness" Gravity, self-control.
Veritas: "Truthfulness" Honesty in dealing with others.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
From Robert Stone's essay on "The Father of All Things,"Tom Bissell, NY Review, 11-22-07:
"The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the whole army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained." Exodus. Nobody completely returns from a war, especially a lost one.
"A person who has lived through a great war is different from a person who never lived through any war. They are two different species of human beings. They will never find a common language, because you cannot really describe the war, you cannot share it, you cannot tell someone: Here take a little of my war." Ryszard Kapuscinski
"It was Heraclitus who told us that no man steps into the same river twice because it is never the same river and never the same man."
"He also wrote that that a 'beast moves in response only to blows and, hauntingly, that the kingly power is like the power of a child.' Perhaps he meant that struggle is at once inevitable and ultimately ineffectual, a pessimism that we have all be admonished to resist."
"the largest house can be entered by its smallest door."
From Robert Stone's essay on "The Father of All Things,"Tom Bissell, NY Review, 11-22-07:
"The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the whole army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained." Exodus. Nobody completely returns from a war, especially a lost one.
"A person who has lived through a great war is different from a person who never lived through any war. They are two different species of human beings. They will never find a common language, because you cannot really describe the war, you cannot share it, you cannot tell someone: Here take a little of my war." Ryszard Kapuscinski
"It was Heraclitus who told us that no man steps into the same river twice because it is never the same river and never the same man."
"He also wrote that that a 'beast moves in response only to blows and, hauntingly, that the kingly power is like the power of a child.' Perhaps he meant that struggle is at once inevitable and ultimately ineffectual, a pessimism that we have all be admonished to resist."
"the largest house can be entered by its smallest door."
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
"There comes a time when time passing becomes time remaining."
I had no idea what I said. Here's St Eve's first reply.
This is a complicated statement and requires some thought to unravel. The passage of time is a perception that depends upon cause and effect occurrence in the physical world and the apprehension of those causes followed by their associated effects. The batter hits the pitched ball. Then there is the memory of those relations and their order of occurrence. Sight of the ball and sound of the bat hitting the ball this becomes the sensed passage of time. So when the time remaining to our lives becomes the sensed moment of times' passage; it is the last moment-end time. Now some might accuse me of being philosophically narrow and bending the meaning to my own ends but if you think about what time perception is really all about then my conclusion seems unavoidable. If this is not clear I will gladly restate it.
Ss
Gross asked for a restatement. So here's St Eve's second reply or re-statement.
Inherent within the above statement, there is a structure to time. There is past, present and future time.
Time coming is its emergence out of the future to become the present moment. No matter how brief that moment is, it lapses and becomes the next moment. As it passes it becomes past time. Historical time and future time are infinites with present time sandwiched in between. Time passing from future to present to past is the accepted linear configuration in western society.
In the second part of the statement, “time remaining” has to be assumed to be a personal subset of future moments that constitutes the finite period of the person’s life that they have left to live.
So when that packet of future time, the remainder of one’s life’s moments becomes passing time, and entering the past then one's life is over the next instant. When the time remaining to one's life passes it is all over.
To restate the notions related to the perception of time embedded in the above statement is less . This perception is complex and comes from our senses which record in memory happenings sequentially with antecedent and subsequent events. They may be cause and effect but as Katz has pointed out may just be sequential.
The order of occurrence and their recording on RNA and reading that order may be how we know that events are past time and we are able to place them in their temporal order by their physical placement in the RNA molecule.
There are many exceptions to time perception which are intriguing.
Time passing fast, passing slowly: time standing still, athletes in “the zone “with altered time perception and increased performance abilities.
When my understanding improves with research I will pass it on.
ss
"There comes a time when time passing becomes time remaining."
I had no idea what I said. Here's St Eve's first reply.
This is a complicated statement and requires some thought to unravel. The passage of time is a perception that depends upon cause and effect occurrence in the physical world and the apprehension of those causes followed by their associated effects. The batter hits the pitched ball. Then there is the memory of those relations and their order of occurrence. Sight of the ball and sound of the bat hitting the ball this becomes the sensed passage of time. So when the time remaining to our lives becomes the sensed moment of times' passage; it is the last moment-end time. Now some might accuse me of being philosophically narrow and bending the meaning to my own ends but if you think about what time perception is really all about then my conclusion seems unavoidable. If this is not clear I will gladly restate it.
Ss
Gross asked for a restatement. So here's St Eve's second reply or re-statement.
Inherent within the above statement, there is a structure to time. There is past, present and future time.
Time coming is its emergence out of the future to become the present moment. No matter how brief that moment is, it lapses and becomes the next moment. As it passes it becomes past time. Historical time and future time are infinites with present time sandwiched in between. Time passing from future to present to past is the accepted linear configuration in western society.
In the second part of the statement, “time remaining” has to be assumed to be a personal subset of future moments that constitutes the finite period of the person’s life that they have left to live.
So when that packet of future time, the remainder of one’s life’s moments becomes passing time, and entering the past then one's life is over the next instant. When the time remaining to one's life passes it is all over.
To restate the notions related to the perception of time embedded in the above statement is less . This perception is complex and comes from our senses which record in memory happenings sequentially with antecedent and subsequent events. They may be cause and effect but as Katz has pointed out may just be sequential.
The order of occurrence and their recording on RNA and reading that order may be how we know that events are past time and we are able to place them in their temporal order by their physical placement in the RNA molecule.
There are many exceptions to time perception which are intriguing.
Time passing fast, passing slowly: time standing still, athletes in “the zone “with altered time perception and increased performance abilities.
When my understanding improves with research I will pass it on.
ss
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
I've been feeling sorry for myself for several years. I've thought that I didn't measure up to the successes of many of my friends. If you've been reading this blog you've noticed that I often write about my failure, my inability to help my children in the way that I see some of my friends doing, the fact that I can't travel in the "manner to which I am accustomed."
This whining must stop. It's really childlike, it's the cry of a spoiled child, or an old man who never grew up.
I look around myself every day, and see how well I am am living for God's sake. I live in a three bedroom beuatifully decorated apartment overlooking the ocean.
My children aren't starving. Yes, they're in a tougher place than I ever was, but so are many other people in their forties. It isn't as easy for my kids as it was for me. Did I make mistakes? Yes, you bet, in every way. But that's past, and I should be over it, and accept my life for the way it has turned out. I ended up with a great wife, I can still read, and the sun still rises and sets everyday. I see every sunrise. And that ain't so bad...
The paths we take don't always lead to our destination -- but this is where I am and where I belong.
I've been feeling sorry for myself for several years. I've thought that I didn't measure up to the successes of many of my friends. If you've been reading this blog you've noticed that I often write about my failure, my inability to help my children in the way that I see some of my friends doing, the fact that I can't travel in the "manner to which I am accustomed."
This whining must stop. It's really childlike, it's the cry of a spoiled child, or an old man who never grew up.
I look around myself every day, and see how well I am am living for God's sake. I live in a three bedroom beuatifully decorated apartment overlooking the ocean.
My children aren't starving. Yes, they're in a tougher place than I ever was, but so are many other people in their forties. It isn't as easy for my kids as it was for me. Did I make mistakes? Yes, you bet, in every way. But that's past, and I should be over it, and accept my life for the way it has turned out. I ended up with a great wife, I can still read, and the sun still rises and sets everyday. I see every sunrise. And that ain't so bad...
The paths we take don't always lead to our destination -- but this is where I am and where I belong.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
The screed is NOT the opinion of the writer. What follows is my reaction to it.
Tomatoes and Cheap Labor CHEAP TOMATOES?
This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent From a California school teacher - - - As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.
Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools. Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more DO have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK) I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America . (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them 'Putas' whores and throwing things that the teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc., etc, etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements? To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs. Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases etc., etc, etc.
For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes. We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it. Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return? It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to assimilate, and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about 'political correctness' that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
If this makes your blood boil, as it did mine, forward this to everyone you know. CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage. Consumers don't want expensive produce. Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase 'cheap labor' is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as 'cheap labor.' Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an 'earned income credit' of up to $3,200 free. He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent. He qualifies for food stamps.He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care. His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.He requires bilingual teachers and books. He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense. He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits. Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his. The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up. Cheap labor?
YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people! THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING TO THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE S FOR EITHER PARTY. 'AND WHEN THEY LIE TO US AND DON'T DO AS THEY SAY, WE SHOULD REPLACE THEM AT ONCE!' THIS HAS GOT TO BE PASSED ALONG TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE OR WE WILL ALL GO DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE A FEW DON'T CARE.
Here's my reply to my poor innocent sister.
Dear Sister:
Here is a poisonous, propagandistic screed probably written by Heinrich Himmler, reincarnated, sent to me by my dear and loving sister, an innocent who passes on more than she knows, and whom I am sure hasn't given much thought to the subject before passing it on. I recognize some of the names on the address list, they are all multi-millionaires, most of whom continued to build the empires started by their parents or grandparents.
They are rich and hard-working, and although each of them could stop working, they seem to have forgotten where they come from, and they forget what was once the rich Jewish tradition (and American, for that matter) of compassion and fighting for the underdog.
Somehow, although America welcome immigrants, we distrust them, fear them, it is the fear of the stranger, xenophobia over all.
America is of two minds when it comes to immigrantion-- on the one hand we open our arms in welcome, but on the other we distrust the strangers who come here in search of a better life, a roof over their heads, some food to put on the table. And when they look different or speak differently than we do, why then the fear turns into witch hunts, like "the yellow peril" of the late nineteenth century, the "red scare" and the Palmer raids after WWI, the internment of Japanese Americans during WW 2, McCarthyism of the fifties, and right at the conception of America, the actual witch hunts of Salem.
Here's your homework, get a DVD called Sacco & Vincetti, you can get it through Netflix or your library. And see if there is a DVD of the Maxwell Anderson play that was made into a film, called Winterset.
And finally, I shall remind my dear sister that our grandfather was caught up in the Palmer raids, and might have been shipped back to Russia with the rest of the unmannered-filthy-Jew-immigrant-anarchist-radicals
The screed is NOT the opinion of the writer. What follows is my reaction to it.
Tomatoes and Cheap Labor CHEAP TOMATOES?
This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent From a California school teacher - - - As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.
Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools. Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more DO have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK) I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America . (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them 'Putas' whores and throwing things that the teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc., etc, etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements? To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs. Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases etc., etc, etc.
For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes. We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it. Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return? It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to assimilate, and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about 'political correctness' that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
If this makes your blood boil, as it did mine, forward this to everyone you know. CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage. Consumers don't want expensive produce. Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase 'cheap labor' is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as 'cheap labor.' Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an 'earned income credit' of up to $3,200 free. He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent. He qualifies for food stamps.He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care. His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.He requires bilingual teachers and books. He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense. He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits. Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his. The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up. Cheap labor?
YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people! THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING TO THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE S FOR EITHER PARTY. 'AND WHEN THEY LIE TO US AND DON'T DO AS THEY SAY, WE SHOULD REPLACE THEM AT ONCE!' THIS HAS GOT TO BE PASSED ALONG TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE OR WE WILL ALL GO DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE A FEW DON'T CARE.
Here's my reply to my poor innocent sister.
Dear Sister:
Here is a poisonous, propagandistic screed probably written by Heinrich Himmler, reincarnated, sent to me by my dear and loving sister, an innocent who passes on more than she knows, and whom I am sure hasn't given much thought to the subject before passing it on. I recognize some of the names on the address list, they are all multi-millionaires, most of whom continued to build the empires started by their parents or grandparents.
They are rich and hard-working, and although each of them could stop working, they seem to have forgotten where they come from, and they forget what was once the rich Jewish tradition (and American, for that matter) of compassion and fighting for the underdog.
Somehow, although America welcome immigrants, we distrust them, fear them, it is the fear of the stranger, xenophobia over all.
America is of two minds when it comes to immigrantion-- on the one hand we open our arms in welcome, but on the other we distrust the strangers who come here in search of a better life, a roof over their heads, some food to put on the table. And when they look different or speak differently than we do, why then the fear turns into witch hunts, like "the yellow peril" of the late nineteenth century, the "red scare" and the Palmer raids after WWI, the internment of Japanese Americans during WW 2, McCarthyism of the fifties, and right at the conception of America, the actual witch hunts of Salem.
Here's your homework, get a DVD called Sacco & Vincetti, you can get it through Netflix or your library. And see if there is a DVD of the Maxwell Anderson play that was made into a film, called Winterset.
And finally, I shall remind my dear sister that our grandfather was caught up in the Palmer raids, and might have been shipped back to Russia with the rest of the unmannered-filthy-Jew-immigrant-anarchist-radicals
Saturday, November 10, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Hal is fighting back with his usual bravery. He stands up when you might think he would lie down and take a "well deserved rest," as he used to say. I watched as a physical therapist wrapped some elastic bandages the length of his leg, right from the verge of his groin to his ankles.
She needed to make them tight, so that they would apply pressure to his leg, something to do with his lymph nodes, something she explained to me, but which, unlike Hal, I just turned off, so I can't report to you the exact details of Hal's problem. Perhaps he can.
But as she wrapped them tightly around his leg, I can report, factually, that there was no complaint from our friend. He took it. It was what had to be done, and in Hal's world that means that you do it, and you don't whine, or complain as certain people, this writer, for instance, would. I saw a small part of his scar, an ugly reddened tear that started on one side of his thigh, entered his groin which was covered by a black cloth (thus I didn't get to actually see the oft mentioned massive family jewels) and reappeared on the other side, something like a red gravel road coming out of a black tunnel.
Hal lives in a beautiful home, Mary has done her best; anyone who enjoys artfully designed settings would appreciate how Hal and Mary live -- and Mary! Wow! she has lost a lot of weight, looks very smart, and, well, she could be a trophy wife... She looks great. Hal should be very proud of her-- Mary created a small studio in a second, separate building that had been a garage, she has an outdoor living room at the front of the house, a huge indoor living room, a dining room, a guest room and of course a master bedroom. Hal explained to me that the style is 1930's Hollywood overlayed by a contemporary touch. Mary says she used a lot of her old things, but I would say that she mixed them so well, that unless she pointed the old pieces to me I didn't know which they were. It is a grand setting.
mek
Hal is fighting back with his usual bravery. He stands up when you might think he would lie down and take a "well deserved rest," as he used to say. I watched as a physical therapist wrapped some elastic bandages the length of his leg, right from the verge of his groin to his ankles.
She needed to make them tight, so that they would apply pressure to his leg, something to do with his lymph nodes, something she explained to me, but which, unlike Hal, I just turned off, so I can't report to you the exact details of Hal's problem. Perhaps he can.
But as she wrapped them tightly around his leg, I can report, factually, that there was no complaint from our friend. He took it. It was what had to be done, and in Hal's world that means that you do it, and you don't whine, or complain as certain people, this writer, for instance, would. I saw a small part of his scar, an ugly reddened tear that started on one side of his thigh, entered his groin which was covered by a black cloth (thus I didn't get to actually see the oft mentioned massive family jewels) and reappeared on the other side, something like a red gravel road coming out of a black tunnel.
Hal lives in a beautiful home, Mary has done her best; anyone who enjoys artfully designed settings would appreciate how Hal and Mary live -- and Mary! Wow! she has lost a lot of weight, looks very smart, and, well, she could be a trophy wife... She looks great. Hal should be very proud of her-- Mary created a small studio in a second, separate building that had been a garage, she has an outdoor living room at the front of the house, a huge indoor living room, a dining room, a guest room and of course a master bedroom. Hal explained to me that the style is 1930's Hollywood overlayed by a contemporary touch. Mary says she used a lot of her old things, but I would say that she mixed them so well, that unless she pointed the old pieces to me I didn't know which they were. It is a grand setting.
mek
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
On the illness of two lifelong pals:
This should be really tough; but it isn't. I'm no callous youth, understand please that even as a child I knew, I expected, that Mr. Death would come for me and my friends sooner or later. As we grew older, we each made our bets and beds, now we prepare to count our winnings, balance our losses, and lie in our graves. Some closer to the mud than others, I guess.
I can still hear the dirt raining down my grandfather's coffin, and my Dad's, It's a common sound no matter who we are.. Last year we read Everyman, and that was a peek further down the road than most of us had seen before. Now we drink the Grapes of Roth.
My father didn't want to go, my mother did. She had a sense of humor about it, he didn't.
They both went in their time, but it wasn't the time of their choice. Mother insisted on being taken as soon as Dad was gone, but Dad was hanging on like a boxer on the ropes--he wouldn't go down. He rallied, slowed, and rallied again during an everlasting period of a year. Dad, as I knew him, was a quiet man, easy going in most things, but not this. He was always strong, and in his final illness even stronger. There was a rope holding him up, and some iron force in him fought back, he pushed Mr. Death away, tore the mask from Death, looked at it, stared it in the eye sockets, and Dad simply chose not to go.
He wasn't ready.
But defeat came and after it my mother was immediately ready; and she was upset that God, or Mr. Death had passed her by so many times. There was one time when I looked out her hospital window and saw a figure wearing a cape and a slouch hat astride a black horse trotting down Federal highway.
Mother tried to look down and see it, but her macular degeneration had gone too far; she asked me to open the window and let him know she was here -- and impatient -- ready. She brushed her hair and asked the attendant to put her make up on. She would be presentable on her dark journey. But Death didn't take her that day. He made her wait another two years and she was bitter, angry at God, for forgetting her and taking her lover and leaving her behind. She had no purpose now, she had seen her husband through his times, but now, she thought, she should leave this life, and go on to the next --or to nothing-- as the case might be.
She was ready.
mek
On the illness of two lifelong pals:
This should be really tough; but it isn't. I'm no callous youth, understand please that even as a child I knew, I expected, that Mr. Death would come for me and my friends sooner or later. As we grew older, we each made our bets and beds, now we prepare to count our winnings, balance our losses, and lie in our graves. Some closer to the mud than others, I guess.
I can still hear the dirt raining down my grandfather's coffin, and my Dad's, It's a common sound no matter who we are.. Last year we read Everyman, and that was a peek further down the road than most of us had seen before. Now we drink the Grapes of Roth.
My father didn't want to go, my mother did. She had a sense of humor about it, he didn't.
They both went in their time, but it wasn't the time of their choice. Mother insisted on being taken as soon as Dad was gone, but Dad was hanging on like a boxer on the ropes--he wouldn't go down. He rallied, slowed, and rallied again during an everlasting period of a year. Dad, as I knew him, was a quiet man, easy going in most things, but not this. He was always strong, and in his final illness even stronger. There was a rope holding him up, and some iron force in him fought back, he pushed Mr. Death away, tore the mask from Death, looked at it, stared it in the eye sockets, and Dad simply chose not to go.
He wasn't ready.
But defeat came and after it my mother was immediately ready; and she was upset that God, or Mr. Death had passed her by so many times. There was one time when I looked out her hospital window and saw a figure wearing a cape and a slouch hat astride a black horse trotting down Federal highway.
Mother tried to look down and see it, but her macular degeneration had gone too far; she asked me to open the window and let him know she was here -- and impatient -- ready. She brushed her hair and asked the attendant to put her make up on. She would be presentable on her dark journey. But Death didn't take her that day. He made her wait another two years and she was bitter, angry at God, for forgetting her and taking her lover and leaving her behind. She had no purpose now, she had seen her husband through his times, but now, she thought, she should leave this life, and go on to the next --or to nothing-- as the case might be.
She was ready.
mek
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