Sounding off

Twenty Five Years

I’ve looked forward to this day for 25 years. Never sure I’d see it. To be honest, on October 28, 1993 I wasn’t sure I’d see October 29th, let alone 25 years.

I’d had a disturbing phone call the night before. My doctor, a friend, and drinking buddy, called me.

He simply said, “Bill, your liver enzymes are through the roof, triglycerides too. You are in end-stage liver failure. You are going to die.”

Being told I was going to die didn’t seem to phase me. My life at the time was ugly and dirty and violent. The threat of death seemed to be a pretty much accepted daily occurrence. I asked Frank, my doctor, and source for some primo pharma, how long he figured I had left. He said if I did nothing maybe a month, maybe six weeks.

Six weeks would be my daughter’s birthday. I really didn’t care much about dying, I didn’t want to die on her birthday. [Read more…] about Twenty Five Years

The Caravan

I know this kid named Oz. He’s from Honduras. One of the finest young men I’ve ever known. A good, solid, honest and decent and trustworthy man.

At one point in his life he was “illegal,” he’s now a proud American citizen .

My friend Carlos, he was illegal too, he’s been a citizen since the 90’s. A man with a deep understanding of what it means to be an American. Another good man, a man I’ve been proud to call my friend for many years. [Read more…] about The Caravan

Songs From a Nursing Home

A cappella hymns, sung with conviction.

Ancient lips, stumbling on every other word.

Trusted words betrayed by confounded eyes.

An ocean of hands waving high, each to its own lost beat, grasping at empty sky.

Wailing to a silent and distant God.

Singing The Old Rugged Cross and What A Friend We Have In Jesus.

Shaking hands, old hands with wrinkled skin, trying to hold onto something, feeling nothing.

Jesus ain’t coming again tonight…

Wheelchair-bound for the last ten of ninth-five years, hoping these gestures please a cruel God, unwilling to take them.

The fight, and the years…

You play golf and baseball and basketball. You play tennis. You play football and soccer.

You don’t play boxing. You fight. You win or you lose. You break bones. You bleed.

It’s really that simple.

Watching the young men in the gym now. The grunts, the deep thud of thick gloves on heavy bags. I smell sweat and mold and blood.

Young hands move as fast as light.

My hands are slow now and arthritic. Even wrapped and in gloves, they hurt on contact. Too many broken bones connected to too many broken bones.

I used to be fast as light. I used to be impervious and unmovable, a stone wall.

Walls crumble.

But these boys now, these young men who picked it up where the old men laid it down, Jesus, they are fast.

Remembering Fear and Terror

What I remember most about 9/11/2001 is fear. Everyone was in shock and afraid. I was at a tech expo that afternoon.

We all stood around waiting for the next wave. About an hour in we all decided we should be home with our families, not some marketing event.

My friend Rich Long was at my house hooking up a hot water heater. I think he’s the only person in America who worked that day.

The days after I heard really scary things, patriot acts and rounding up people in putting them in prison without trials.

I listened to President Bush talk about the need to make us all safe and secure.

I thought about what Ben Franklin said about a man willing to sacrifice his liberty for security will soon have neither.

About three weeks after the day I was out for my morning run. There was an eerie feel to the day. I’m running out of Montgomery toward Stewart airport, I didn’t see a single plane, you always see planes taking off, flying over Montgomery.

Fire alarms started to sound.

I turned around mid-run, convinced that’s we were again under attack. I ran up to my front porch and grabbed the paper. The front page was black and in giant red letters it read:

“TERROR”

I threw the paper down, knew I’d been played and said LOUDLY, so the entire neighborhood could hear me…

“FUCK THIS!”

Remember the daily, sometimes hourly ”terror alert levels?” Orange was bad, red was really bad, I think, I forget…”

I never believed another word I heard about it.

Yes, never forget they are playing you for a fool and pandering to your fears.

That is how they own you.