HURTING KIDS AGAIN

    I don't really know doots about sports...maybe that was evident the day my sister in law and niece asked me to drop them off for a Pirates game and I pulled up to the wrong stadium...relieved that there was so little traffic.  I still remember the way they both looked at me...in spite of the fact that I knew how much they loved me.  I'd rather go to another Wayne Newton concert than sit freezing at a football game or roasting at a baseball game.  My other half...Mr Big Shot was riding to a sports event in Philadelphia with clients when he had to whisper to me on his cell phone..."quick...what sport do the Lakers play...I'm on my way to a game..". That one was easy...I told him I was pretty sure that it was football.

   For the life of me I can't understand the punishment for Penn State handed down this morning.  These guys on the football team didn't do anything wrong...did they?  There are certainly guilty people here...and quite a few of them...and they ought to be punished for sure.  Anybody who hurts a kid, and anyone who knows about it and doesn't do anything about it ought to be locked up.  These kids who play football at Penn State are being punished...hurt...for sins they neither committed nor had any knowledge of.  This would be a whole different issue if the team members had been involved in the crimes...but they were not.  Every one who loves Penn State...and football is also being made to suffer...and even though I'm not at all interested in the sport, and have no ties to Penn State...(HAIL TO DUQUESNE)....I think this punishment is misdirected.  It would make much more sense to me to keep digging deeper into any cowardly adult who stood by while kids were being hurt, but hurting a whole lot more kids makes no sense at all.

HEARTBREAK IN COLORADO

Once again I have my morning coffee with tears in my eyes. It's a rainy and foggy morning, and the "Breaking News" is once again from Colorado. Such a gorgeous state where even the official flower the "Columbine" no longer has the same meaning. For the next few days the news will be of funerals, broken lives and dreams, and questions about motives and warnings. "The Dark Knight Rises" has been the talk of the town lately, having been filmed in our city, and hyped all over the country with it's midnight premiers. Now just as that beautiful little state flower has had it's innocent image tarnished, the movie will also forever be tainted with tragedy.

Lots of us have been anxious to see the film...tempted to head out for a midnight adventure that is such a fun part of the magic of movies, and such a nice escape from most nights with the DVR or Netflix. We'll still go to the movies, critique the story, and point out the landmarks we grew up with, and probably try unsuccessfully to avoid thinking about what happened to a similar group of moviegoers in Colorado.

It's going to be a steamy day here in Pittsburgh, too humid to do much in the garden, too depressing to keep watching the news, and too familiar to be all that shaken by another mass murder. My gentle and incredibly strong and dedicated neighbor at the cottage works with severely troubled kids in Erie. Since we're both therapists by trade, we seem to be able to sense when one of us has had a rough day. Every so often we'll sit together by the lake and just support one another without a lot of words...just a shared understanding of what he calls the wretchedness that is so prevalent in our world. We ran into each other the day after 9/11, and simply exchanged hugs...no words at all that day. I'll see him later this afternoon, and our moods will mirror one another again I'm sure.

Lives were changed in Colorado forever last night. The tears shed there will flow like a soaking rain, and the rest of us will mourn as well. If we were indeed all islands, we'd surely escape the overshadowing grief of days like today, but indeed we are not. I read once where someone asked a question about wars....about whose side God was on...and the reply was that God is on the side of those who suffer...they'll need God in Colorado.

There's a certain wonderful innocence about heading out for a midnight premier of an exciting new movie. Seeing that shattered and lost in a matter of minutes is such a demoralizing experience. ...heartbreaking for every one of us...and all too familiar.

SWITCHING SIDES

Since I've always been a pretty liberal guy, and concerned about social justice and world peace, I've decided that maybe I should continue to evolve and make some changes. I'm thinking of voting Republican in the Fall. The more I listen to certain high profile Republicans, the more I'm convinced that they have a point. Maybe Michelle Bachman has a point about investigating congress...maybe they do have some un American ties to terrorists, especially if they have close connections to Hillary Clinton.

Glen Beck makes a lot of sense lately too...his theories about anti American activity seem more and more plausible...and people like Rush and Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity seem to know a lot more than I do. The more I see my new party wanting to let wealthy people get big tax breaks the more I understand than when they have more money they'll probably use it to make new jobs for people...they won't just hang on to it or invest it to make more.

Our own Rick Santorum made me think twice about a lot of things too. Maybe women ought to stay home and have babies instead of working, and realize that sex is really meant to have kids. The Republican party also wants to stop women from terminating pregnancies..and the best way to do that is probably to force them to undergo a lot of tests and jump through some pretty tough hoops. Using birth control really does go against nature when you think about it.

Mitt Romney also wants to keep gay people out of the military, and would bring back Don't Ask Don't Tell...which seemed to work just fine before. He's also never going to let gay people get married...which is in the Bible after all. When the Boy Scout recently re-affirmed their no gay scouts or counselor policy, I felt bad for my neighbor who was an Eagle Scout and also gay.... he feels awful about this, but I can still love the sinner and hate the sin.

I saw Dick Cheney the other day when he was trying to stop the cuts to the military budget, and all of a sudden, I started to really like him. He still says the Iraq war was worth the money and the blood, and Donald Rumsfield feels the same way, and they aren't exactly stupid people.

All in all, if Donald Trump is on to something about Obama not being an American, and he's also a smart Republican, I wouldn't be surprised if he's right. People tell me that social security is "socialism"...but that doesn't make sense. Rick Santorum always wanted to tie it in with the stock market...and I wonder how much more I'd be getting if he would have been able to do that? I also don't remember President Bush using up any "surplus".  Obama was the one who started all the financial problems as I remember. The economy was fine when George Bush left office...I think.

All in all it seems time to end this blog. I'm feeling a little sick to my stomach and I'll just bet that some of you are too. Tongue in cheek is one thing, but the above nonsense is really what I hear from far too many people. Woof has been reading over my shoulder this morning....and she suddenly looks as if she REALLY has to go out.

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE

BLUEBERRIES

There's something kinda wonderful about OCD. One of us has it here and it isn't me and it isn't Woof.   My suggestion that he check and see if the blueberries were about ready to be pickedresulted in a harvest of about ten million berries.  It reminded me of the afternoon at the cottage when he borrowed a power washer to clean the cement deck. About eight hours later he had cleaned not only the deck, but the cement walls, the outdoor furniture, the landing, and I swear a little part of the neighbor's rock garden. Give him a vacuum cleaner and he'll really go to town...out the kitchen door...down the steps, out the sidewalk, back to the porch, a quick once over...until either the belt breaks or I run out with the hedge clippers threatening to cut the electric cord.

He is just recently recovered from a fringe phase. He found an old glue gun and an insane woman who runs an old upholstery shop on a back alley in Erie, and he began adding fringe trim to every lampshade, nightlight, and ceiling fixture in the house...then he started on the cottage. When I suggested that he was creating a bit of a Miss Havisham atmosphere he finally relented.

He is no longer permitted to "trim" any living plant in the area. Before I learned of the severity of his condition I asked him if he'd trim back the Holly and the Lilac bushes. Twenty minutes later they had all but vanished, save for a few small stumps...the poor devil just can't help himself.

As I'm writing this a few other tidbits have bubbled up for me...like the dentist telling him that he was wearing the enamel off of his teeth...or how many times a normal person could watch " It's a Wonderful Life" ....or listen to Wayne Newton sing " Danke Schoen". ( That's really how you spell that? ). Everytime I'm on line he'll suggest I look up Steve and Edie Gorme, to see when they're performing...which they never are...and never do anymore. We used to take turns picking a concert to attend at the end of the summer, and when it was my turn I forced him to sit through the Verdi Requiem ( not for the feint hearted ), so the next year he picked good old has been Wayne Newton. Half way through the evening the older gentleman sitting behind us said " He stinks".

Now I'm not complaining....just gaze upon the blueberries in the message to follow and imagine the wonderful pies and muffins and pancakes to come. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can sometimes be a wonderful gift....or just the thing to drive the rest of the world stark raving mad.
  MY SINCERE APOLOGIES FOR NO PICTURE HERE...ALTHOUGH I AM A PERFECTLY ORDINARY PERSON WITH NO UNUSUAL DIMENSIONS TO MY PERSONALITY, I WAS DISTRACTED BY A PANTING DOG, AND AN APPOINTMENT TO PICK UP AN ARC OF THE COVENANT AND A KNEELER.

MANY A TRUTH IS SUNG IN JEST

My high school class reunion is coming up in October....class of 1962. Jeeze.

My friend Ray and I are on the planning committee and a surprisingly high number of our former classmates are sending in their deposits. The list of deceased members of the class is sobering as well...those were also the Vietnam years...with the war just beginning to crank up. My handsome locker mate died early on over in that miserable conflict.

Our team leader in the planning group sent out questionnaires last week for some basic info from all of the class members, and I completed mine last night.

I was impressed that he'd handled the marriage question by asking for our "spouse/partner"s name. I wondered if he had spent some time pondering the wording on that...or if he had assumed that I was obviously not married, or gay, or that his wife had suggested the choice. Since South Catholic was an all boys school, I would have expected a "wife's name" kinda thing.

Funny that it took me a little while to type in my answer. There is this internal homophobia that doesn't go away...maybe it never does. Once I typed in my partner's name, I breathed a sigh of relief and then came out like a rocket when I answered the next question " Can you share a few thoughts about your high school days." .....to which I responded.

" LITTLE DID YOU GUYS KNOW THAT WHEN I CONVINCED OUR SENIOR CLASS TO DRESS IN DRAG AND SING " THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A GUY " THAT YOU'D ALL ACTUALLY BE THE CATALYST FOR ME TO COME SPRINGING OUT OF THE CLOSET A FEW YEARS LATER...THANK GOD I GOT OUT OF GYM CLASS."

So when people think that eventually being able to say  " I'm Gay" is the final moment of hesitation and the grand finale to accepting and embracing who they really are..they just might still have a little surprise or two coming...fifty years later.

underpants

There is something that always strikes me funny about underpants. I guess it's partly because most adults prefer to say underwear, and that's generally how I refer to my uncool Jockeys. Yesterday's paper had almost a whole page in the editorial section written by a post graduate college student and her underpants. The gist of the piece was that she'd left the Mormon church and in spite of her family's disappointment, she has stopped wearing her special Mormon underpants.

I learned that the Mormons called their underpants "garments" and that they consist of a white kinda tee shirt, and longish fruit of the loom pants. Part of the reason for these garments is that it keeps their outfits "modest". Part of the picture is also the "sacredness" of the garments...unlike my family where my brother and I were always warned to have clean underpants at all times because we might be injured somewhere and taken to a hospital where we'd be exposed to the world in our underpants, and my mother could end up embarrased.

Now I know all religions have some kinda quirky ideas...like us Catholics who have St Christopher medals in our cars even though they tossed him off the official saint log a long time ago, or those godly Baptists who picket fallen soldiers funerals, but having my underpants considered sacred seems really unusual. Woof and I were talking about it in bed last night...like how Mrs Romney was able to sort the laundry with all those men in the family who wore exactly the same underpants...maybe by size at least until the boys were all teenagers.

The woman who wrote the article left the Mormon church for an undisclosed reason...but it definitely wasn't about her underpants...she made that clear. When I see Mitt Romney now I hardly listen to what he has to say...I spend more time wondering if he's hot with those jeans on with his special underpants. My partner and I went to a wonderful concert at Chatauqua a while ago when the Tabernacle choir sang...and they were magnificent. While I only thought of them with the Battle Hymn of the Republic, they actually did great old show tunes and a wide range of perfectly blended music. I talked with a few of the handsome young tenors afterwards and told them that they were so good that I'd decided to vote for Romney. One of the singers whispered to me "stick with Obama". I don't know...sacred underpants just might be that one issue that I'll end up running with in the Fall. I hope these thoughts don't offend any Mormons...I also learned that they have a thing called " blood atonement"...or execution. Maybe I should hit the delete key.

HANDY MAN

Neither my father nor I was ever "handy"...you know like being able to fix simple things..or hammer a nail.  First of all we never had the right tool to work with. ( I always used an old hammer with a loose head that would sometimes fly off...until a lesbian friend of mine stopped by and nearly had her head knocked off while I was making some repairs on my outdoor manger...which sent her to her one thousand piece Craftsman set in the back of her truck for a real hammer which she said to keep.
 I suppose my lack of skill was partly due to being afraid of most of the men who lived near us when I was a kid...either they were building really intricate victorian fretwork for their porches which looked like it was going to be a lifelong project, or they were like Beecher who lived next door and could fix all kinds of motors and stuff...all of which looked explosive and capable of exploding.  He'd sometimes invite me to help him in his garage with a giant compressor or something, and he'd yell at me the whole time and tell me about some dirty pictures he wanted to show me from a National Geographic.  The pictures seemed almost as scary as Beecher was.  It wasn't long until I hid from him in our forsythia bushes when I heard his car screeching down the street.  He always had a knife with him and a piece of rope hanging from his jeans. Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to him....actually I'd like to beat him up.
  My Dad and I once tried to build an addition to our dining room table which was actually an old table with two tapebig sheets of plywood on top...(covered of course at all times with a gorgeous lace cloth....after all we weren't exactly savages ).  My partner was entertaining his college friends and as the guest list swelled my dad and I decided we needed an extension for the table. Since we couldn't find anything to work with except for a hacksaw and a hatchet. We both were like two morons sawing...hammering nails (with the hatchet) that were way too big, and both using words we didn't normally say in each others presence, and giving up the whole project about fifty times. HOWERVER...we did make this thing...attached it to the table with duct tape (naturally)...and out came the good china and the over the top centerpieces and the fake silver candelabras. The crowd came and ate like field hands...drank everything in the house, marveling the whole time about the big spread...while I was sweating bullets...imagining an eminent collapse and blood curdling screams. All went well....the crowd finally dispersed, I cleared the table...anxious for the post mortem discussion with my mate, then of course when I slightly moved one of the chairs the whole marvelous addition collapsed in a heap.
   My dad and I never did a project again...but we talked about our big semi achievement for years...and future elegant dinner parties had definite limited numbers for the rest of our lives.