Tunes.

I want to write something. Got nothing to write. Listening to Steve Earle. Copperhead Road. What a song. I love the old Highlander pipes in the beginning.........

McKee's Mills.

I remember my great-uncles on my mother's side in Canada. The ones who fought in WWI. Those guys were something. I remember three of them. There were five or six all together. I think I remember three of them. I know for sure that I met two of them. One of them in particular, A.J., I spent a summer with in 1971. He was an old man even back then. He lived in a cabin on the Little Bouctouche River. One of my grandmother's cousins lived upsteam on a farm. I called him Uncle Earl and he taught me how to shoot that summer. An old bolt action single shot .22 with a scope mounted on rings that held the scope an inch or so off the top of the rifle. I was an excited nine year old. I was going to shoot like the big guys, with a scope and everything. I sat on the bench behind that rifle that was nestled on some small home made sandbags on an old picnic table. Several targets were stapled to the old barn about twenty-five yards downrange. I could see the small bulls eye clear as day through that scope. Earl quietly put some tape over the scope and directed me to use the iron sights that were visibly accessible through the scope rings. The small bulls eye was an even smaller black circle off in the distance now.

"The top of that front sight blade on the bottom of that bulls eye circle. Keep it centered in the rear. Breath out slow, and squeeze."

Earl taught me the basic fundamentals of good marksmanship that summer. Earl also taught me how to handle a weapon safely. Earl took me fishing on the banks of that Little Bouctouche River. We also went fishing in the little flat bottomed boat out where the river gets wider, closer to where Uncle A.J. lived. Yeah, Uncle Earl was a steady, confident and patient teacher. Uncle A.J. on the other hand, Uncle A.J. was a little different.

Uncle A.J. had a shit eatin' grin as wide as that river just down the hill from his cabin. Uncle A.J. liked to show off his bearskin rug and tell you how he killed that bear with a Broom Handle Mauser that he took off a dead German in the trenches back around 19 something teen. That bear chased him up a tree and he dropped his rifle of course. Now he would be the first to tell you that climbing up a tree is not the thing to do when running from an angry bear, unless you want to lure that bear to an early demise with a couple of magazines at point blank range. Even then the bear didn't die right away. Uncle A.J. had to track that bastard almost two miles before he came upon it and finished it off with a rifle round to the the chest. And don't get me started about the Moose. The rack that hung over the door to that cabin seemed like it was ten feet across.

I had a real nice time in Canada that summer when I was nine years old.

Those guys were good guys.

April? continued.

Yeah, after I said "April?" and must have sounded surprised, and said something about being put on hold on the suicide hot line and not getting any respect (I love Rodney Dangerfield. He was a funny bastard.) the girl took my particulars after asking me to hold on while she checked with someone who turned out to be a Psych. Nurse who called me back the next morning. I wasn't home so I had to call her back. I just got around to doing that today. Well I have not done it yet but I will as soon as I'm done with this. Did I mention that sometimes I put things off? Anyway, it's all good. I am to speak with someone today who will "interview" me telephonically.

Is that even a real word? Telephonically? I would sometimes write that in police reports back when I did that sort of thing.

The witness was contacted telephonically at his place of employment and interviewed briefly
via the aforementioned telephone. The witness did state that he (the witness) did observe an altercation that took place at the aforementioned location on the aforementioned date at the aforementioned time. The witness did further state that he (the witness) did clearly see the aforementioned alleged perpetrator known commonly on the street as "Meat" strike the victim with a telephone numerous times about the victim's head and shoulders. The victim was in fact beaten.........telephonically?

Okay. Not really, but you get the idea. We really did use the word telephonically. Maybe not that often but we used it. And I did once know of a guy called "Meat". I never met him but I know someone who did. Oh yeah. The assault with a phone thing is actually fairly common. It's a readily available weapon, frequently used during domestics.

Hey Tommy. I have to go call the Psych people back. I'm fine.....Really.

April?

So last week I called the mental health section of the local hospital to make an appointment. I'm not sure how it works. Do I need a referral from my doctor? The answer is no. After asking me what kind of insurance I have they tell me I do not need a referral. Guess I have one of those "Cadillac Plans" that congress wants to tax.

Yeah, that's a great idea. Lets tax hard working people who have insurance while the plugs on Wall Street continue to pay themselves millions of dollars in bonuses with our money that many of them still have not payed back. Hey, are those useless skells in Washington going to pay taxes on their insurance plans? Are the plugs on Wall Street going to still be able to claim private jets and fancy vacations as business expenses? I have to be honest here. If the tax burden is equally shared, with every American shouldering his or her responsibility based on what we earn and what we can afford then I am all for it. I just have a sneaking suspicion that that's not what's going on here. Call me a cynic. I'm just sayin'.

I digress. It just occurred to me. I don't need therapy and we don't need health care reform. At least not the kind of reform that's being discussed. Not one single Washington skell is really looking out for us. They are all looking out for themselves and their rich friends, the plugs on Wall Street and the Insurance Vultures. The President wanted health care reform. He had some ideas that he wanted to implement. He talked about those ideas during his campaign. We The People put him in office. We gave him a majority in Congress and he decided to ask Congress to write the health care reform bill. He wanted the losers, the minority in Congress to have a say in the matter. When did the minority, when they were the majority ever give a rat's ass about what the minority thought? Never.

No. I don't need therapy and we don't need health care reform. What we need are pitch forks and torches. (That's a metaphor. Just trying to make a point.) Next time we go to the polls we need to throw them all out. That's the only way that the organized crime families, excuse me, the two major parties in this country who control everything and neatly divide and share power in a way that makes it look like they are adversaries even though they are really just the same big organization with one goal in mind and that is to screw We The People every chance they get, that's the only way they will ever get the message. Thank God for run on sentences and shit.

Okay. I'm done. So the girl who answered the phone at the mental health center said none of the doctors are available until April. She asked me if I could call back then.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with our health care system.

Can't Think.

I never wanted this to be a blog about me. It was supposed to be like a journal. Random nonsense, stuff like that. I don't how it got here. Well I know but I don't like it. This blog was supposed to be my way of scratching my writer's itch. Nothing more than that. Now I've gone and put some real personal stuff out there. Can't say I'm happy about it. Don't want anyone to think I'm feeling sorry for myself or looking for attention. Having read some of what I've written I can see why someone might think the opposite.

I will get help to deal with the past. I'm just not sure that I want to write about it anymore.

Hey Tommy. Not much to say right now. I'm more than a little embarrassed. I think I'm just gonna keep this simple for awhile.

10. Already?

Yeah. So it ain't been great. What can you do. Three posts started in the last six months. All of them remain incomplete. That orange word draft stares back at me every time I look at this blog.

My father did pass. It sounds stupid, everyone says it but it's true. He was suffering horribly. He is at peace now. My mother is adjusting. My oldest nephew lives at her house now. He works and goes to school. He is doing a good job helping out his grandmother. She gave him my father's Chrysler. He needs it to get to and from. It was a good thing to do. Give him the Chrysler.

My wife is going through a lot these days. The chemo left her with arthritis in every joint in her body. We have to drive all the way to Altoona for that doctor. They put her on meds for that too. She had her ovaries removed to prevent her body from producing estrogen. Estrogen is the enemy when it comes to breast cancer. She still has to take an estrogen blocker because the body still produces a small amount of estrogen in the fat cells. That happens in men too. All in all it's safer than Tamoxifen, for her anyway. Everyone is different. This seems to be what is best for her. Six different heavy duty meds now. Actually seven when you count the antibiotic she just started, but that one is temporary. Hopefully it's an infection and not something else insidious like bladder cancer or liver and/or kidney damage from the other powerful meds.

I am not always what is best for her. I have not been taking care of her like I should. I moved out in September at her request. I moved back home just before Thanksgiving. The Sunday after Christmas she asked me to leave again. On New Years Eve I moved back. It was an hour or so passed midnight. New Years Day I guess.

She had real reasons for asking me to leave. We were arguing too much. Well, it's more like I was arguing too much. She is going through, and has gone through life changing, body scarring, mind altering situations that are hard to imagine. I have stayed the same.

When I think real hard. On those very rare occasions when I'm totally honest with myself, and I'm talking rare. Like maybe twice in the last thirty years kind of rare. When that happens I have to admit that not only have I stayed the same while my wife goes through all this, I have been the same since about 1972.

I promised her I would go to therapy. I have not done that yet. I have not done much of anything except run away and avoid stuff, since about 1972.

So here it is. 2010. A guy from my old high school is a governor. Another guy is a best selling author. Those two guys are my age and I would have graduated with them had I actually graduated instead of quitting. Running away. I did not know either of those guys. I didn't even know their names. I don't recognize their pictures. It's a big school. It was even bigger back in the seventies. I got my G.E.D. and a bunch of life experience. I enlisted. I became a cop. It was all about running away...... Pretending...... Falling...... Pretending...... Falling.

My father was an alcoholic. He spent the better part of his last twenty years here on earth sober. He was very involved in AA. He helped a lot of people on their own paths to sobriety. For that I am proud of him. The rest of it, growing up like that. The only boy. Catching the beatings. I fell. I ran away from all of that.

I was molested by an older cousin when I was ten. I ran away from that too. I don't even like writing it here.

I have talked about these things in private. Shared them with my wife and a couple of close family members. One best friend. I still run away. I still pretend. I still fall.

So I'm broken and hard to live with. Honesty scares me. Now you know why my wife has had enough. She no longer has time for my bullshit.

I have used this blog in the past as a vehicle. Run away. Pretend. Falling. The events described are true. My truth is not. If that makes any sense.

If I click on the orange button. If I publish this post I will still be running. Still falling. Still pretending to a point because it is anonymous. I won't be able to take it back. Maybe that's a start. Maybe I'm still lying to myself. Pretending. Falling away from the truth.

Only time will tell.