Category Archives: family

Beautiful people

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Last weekend I watched the beautiful people, athletes of the NFL Playoffs vying against one another on a football field, and stars of the Golden Globes. The thing that hit me was most of them are not what they seem. The straight teeth, smooth skin, perfect bodies, eyes without glasses, it all gives us the illusion that they are real, perfect, and what we should all aspire to be. But really, do we all want to be those beautiful people on the outside? Or is it what’s inside that counts?

Every day there are people with crooked teeth, glasses, bad skin, built like pears who make businesses run, families flourish, lives grow, all because they care, they try. Sure, they worry about what others say, but they just keep going. They don’t get accolades from newspapers, million dollar contracts to play a game, or pretend to be someone else. They have to live in their own skin every day and they do it and keep doing it. Without them, our businesses, our military, our country, our families would be lost. In addition to the Golden Globes (for they will never go away) we should have a Golden Person award. But we don’t. So here are a few. If you get a chance, e-mail them and tell them how much they mean to you, to us, to the world.

I attended a charity party for the High Park Fire last summer and met Erin Mounsey. He’s a burn victim who turned his life around, and became leader of local Red Cross.

http://www.firesprinklerinitiative.org/resources/faces-of-fire/erin-mounsey.aspx

There are leaders in the world who have Asperger’s syndrome. Yes, you would be surprised. And they don’t shoot people, or dogs, or kids.

I have Asperger’s; I am just like you

By Michael Ryan, CNN
updated 5:40 AM EST, Thu December 20, 2012

Find a mentor, write and be brave, says one man who has Asperger's syndrome.
Find a mentor, write and be brave, says one man who has Asperger’s syndrome.
Ever wonder how a woman, much less and Asian woman could make it in the US Marines? Esther did.
FOR COUNTRY: I wouldn’t have changed a thing!

John lost his son Sean to suicide, and ever since has campaigned tirelessly to promote both Pieta House and the idea of talking with and supporting those who feel suicidal. Pieta House is Ireland’s first community based centre for the prevention and intervention of suicide or self-harm.

http://www.bettertogether.ie/content/john-quinn

Mr. Kinsman, who is now in his eighties, helped establish a cultural exchange in the early 1970s between black children from Mississippi and white children from Wisconsin called Project Self-Help and Awareness (PSA)

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/10/11044/food-rights-network-interviews-food-farm-hero-john-kinsman

These are the opposite of perfect, the imperfect people of everyday life that make the world a place we are proud to call our own.

I’m sure you know people like this, or may actually be one of them. Give them a hug, pat yourself on the back and keep going. You are what makes this world a better place every day. Thanks.

Milt

PS. Next week I will come back to the gun theme. You might be surprised.

 

How to get rid of guns: The 3-year plan

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So here we are, one week after Newtown, one week after 20 children were killed in minutes by another man with a gun. Do we have any new laws about guns yet? Ummm. No.

http://www.phillytrib.com/cityandregionarticles/item/7131-mayors-call-for-tougher-gun-laws.html

Lot of talk. Yibber, yabber. “Make all those automatic rifles illegal.” Yeah that’ll do it. Probably get passed in 2013, or maybe 2014 or 2015, or maybe never, depending on what the NRA says to all those Congressmen who want to get elected with NRA money, depending on how many Texans and their oil money contribute to TV ads about why changing gun laws won’t matter. After all, “Guns don’t kill. It’s the people who pull the trigger, particularly crazy people.”

If there wasn’t a trigger to pull, however, no one could kill 20 kids in minutes with a gun. Not crazy people, not smart premeditated sociopaths, not teenagers with a grudge. Of course there are still bombs. There you go again, trying to change the subject. Let’s concentrate on guns.

I’ve got a great proposal to get action faster, in the next year instead of a decade. You see, I know how hard it is to get things changed in people. I see it every day. Ask someone to stop smoking to prevent a heart attack, a stroke, lung cancer, or worsening asthma in their kids. Nah, Doc, I like my smokes. But when they actually get that heart attack, or stroke, or lung cancer, or their kid almost dies in ICU from an asthma attack? Everything changes in a Marlboro minute. You just need motivation. Ask any mafia boss: Threaten their lives? You get action.

So here’s my Mafioso suggestion: It’s a three-year plan, gives gun owners a chance to get used to the new world. First year, the kicker year: Put a trace on all registered guns. Find out where they are in the community. Put their names on the internet. Top of the list, put anyone who owns an automatic weapon, be it rifle or pistol. At the same time make a law that they have one year to turn those automatic weapons in, or go to jail. If you turn it in in that year, you get a tax deduction. Nice one, too. Gotta make it nice. The deduction will be the largest the sooner you turn it in. But still pretty good on day 364. After that year, stroke of midnight, not a second longer, all those guns are taken, confiscated, by force if necessary, and the owner jailed, five years for every automatic weapon confiscated that is registered. Any illegal ones found—life sentence. Any resistance, shoot ‘em. If they are in public office, other than a legal gun-toting law enforcement officer, they get fired, no pension and put in federal penitentiary for treason along with a front page mug shot on the New York Times, and of course the internet.

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_by_the_fbi

Now I’m telling you, once this gets going, pretty quick, instead of 300 million guns there will only be 200 million. Second year: go after all rifles. Third year: go after all the handguns.Of course there will be holdouts, illegal ones at that. They get death sentence if illegal. Others, double time in jail, no parole.

After three years you might have a few hundred thousand guns out there. Now that’s action.

What about people who hunt? They can only rent a gun from a bona fide, licensed outfitter, and only for the time they are hunting. They can only practice at registered shooting galleries, be they outside or in, after first renting the gun there.

Who will enforce it? Why those we trust in law enforcement and the military. You do trust them, don’t you? You better. They will soon be the only ones with guns. As it should be.

Maybe a little harsh? Ask any parent of a Newtown kid killed. They will agree, and may want even worse, like maybe shooting the owners first born.

Just think, what would it be like in a country without guns? How many police would we actually need? The police we had might actually be able to concentrate on the illegal guns. There might be a lot more urban families with fathers.

Granted, after the first year you might have more crowded jails. But I think if you were really serious, and the gun owners saw that, maybe they would give up quicker. Of course maybe you would have a war on your hands. But at least the war would be about something important, saving kids instead of oil.

Milt

300 million. Guns or people?

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Yesterday, the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut struck me and many other parents hard. My wife wept. President Obama shed tears at a news conference. Gun control advocates across the world harangued. What did the NRA do? Hid in a closet. No comment. Don’t call us to your gun control debate the morning after, Chris Hayes, because we want things to settle out before we say anything.

What do you think gun owners did? The same thing they did when Obama was elected president, when there was a mass shooting in Aurora, when Gabby Giffords was shot, the same thing they did and will do after every bad thing that happens related to guns: They go out and buy another gun, or two, or five, especially something that might be outlawed soon, like an automatic rifle.

So the question I keep asking myself is what can we do now, right now, to keep another Newtown from happening in two days, or two weeks, in my town, to my daughter or my son the teachers, to my grandson with his whole life ahead of him? Can we take away every gun from every gun owner? Hardly. So there will still be three hundred million guns out there, in another two weeks, probably way more because all the current gun owners will go out and by more, fearing stronger gun laws in the near future.

Should we give every teacher and principal and movie-ticket counter a gun to shoot at anyone who starts opening up? Nope. They’d probably shoot the wrong person, or freeze up when called to action. Even trained police officers freeze and their aim is off when confronted with an assault rifle-toting madman.

The whole purpose, according to NRA members, for allowing us to carry guns is the second amendment: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” supposedly to prevent the military from taking over, allowing citizens to fight off an unwanted police state, to make those gun owners feels safer. Yet, over the years, Americans amassing three hundred million guns has made a culture where we feel just the opposite—more afraid—and it is not from the military, or the police, it’s from everyday ordinary places: a movie theater, a grade school, a high school, a McDonald’s. We are afraid to send our kids to school without a cellphone to let us know if something bad is happening. We sit at the theater in an aisle seat to be able to run if someone starts opening up with an AK-47. And now we all want to homeschool our kids. They will never leave our sight.

 

Almost old enough to go to preschool.

How do you change a culture that believes they must have guns to protect themselves? You make that fear go away. You develop laws that prevent the police and the military from taking over. Haven’t we done that? Or do we still fear the police? The military? The government? If we trust the government to do the right thing, because, after all this is a democracy, THE DEMOCRACY, where we elected those officials we trust to do the right thing, then why don’t we let them protect us and we throw away our guns? “Not unless you pry the gun from my cold, dead hands,” says a gun owner.

We won’t get rid of the guns we have, won’t let the government come in and take them, so we’re left with three hundred million guns (Oh, yeah. I forgot, much more in a few weeks).

All I can think of is we bump up security in every place there might be a possible mass murder by a madman. We require everyone to go through a metal detectors at all schools, movie theaters, sporting events, super markets, department stores, restaurants, train stations, bus stations, business meetings, etc., etc., etc. We hire people who won’t freeze up when they must fire their guns, prior military; those that would be mercenaries in foreign countries will be back here, protecting Americans, and contributing to the local economy. Lots of jobs would open up, help immensely with the recession. And all those gun owners with the need to use their gun against a bad guy would be able to do just that.

Of course, there might be one or two bad apples in those security mercs hired to protect your kids at Columbine High School. They might have had an issue with one of the teachers when they were there, before they went off to Afghanistan, and now can get rid of a bunch of teachers in one fell swoop.

Hmm. Beefing up security might not work. Maybe it boils down to changing the culture, teaching people to deal with disagreements, with adversity by using something besides violence. And maybe it would help if we stopped selling weapons of mass destruction, like AK-47’s or other semi-automatic guns. Maybe, just maybe, if we three hundred million people learned to get along with each other, disagree without hurting, work out differences by talking and looking for peaceful solutions, maybe we would ignore those three hundred million guns, they would rust and become antiques. And if the United States of America, the most powerful country in the history of the world, could do that, maybe other countries would follow our lead.

I guess, in the end, it boils down to both things. We must beef up security right away, as much as we can afford, prioritizing the right places to hire extra people, the right people, and put in metal detectors, or personnel searches. At the same time we have to work on the culture of violence and need to have guns. It must come from leaders as well as parents, teachers and anyone involved in teaching about dealing with adversity, and anyone involved already with guns. Rethink why you own one, what would happen if the wrong person got it. Agree that we must tighten the laws of gun ownership so 100%, not just 60% of guns bought have a thorough background search of the potential owner.

We must continue to push basic human values of respecting one another without getting in their face. After all, what’s more important, those three hundred million guns or three hundred million people? A little love might help. Add music, some dance, and pretty soon we would all be partying instead of shooting. One could only hope.

And then there’s cookies.

Don’t fight. Have a cookie.

Have one, you might chill out. And if you haven’t hugged your grandson, your daughter, your son, your spouse, your friend, do it now. Trust me, it’s much better than holding cold steel.

Milt

Fathers and sons.

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These excerpts from “Dan’s War” witness a soliloquy by Dan Trotter, the main protagonist, a man who has a hard time with emotion, sees prime numbers the same way he sees his loved ones, in pastel colors. Yet, he does feel for his son, Jeff, as you will read.
I’ve included this video again as I think it is so powerful and adds so much to the book.

[This is Dan speaking.]
“What is a father’s love for a son? I’ve had some time to think about this … ”
“You might say it is, at first blush, the love of a name–my name, carried past death; a celebration of his birth realizing the continuance of a line, a pedigree. How stupid is that, right? It’s only a name.”
[Then Dan watches a little boy (whose name I will keep secret here) fall, not cry, but push up and run and smile at Dan.]
Dan grinned. “Yep, the boy-things I loved next. We were both guys, so we did rough and tumble things, testosterone-enhanced, like football, rugby, baseball–pitting strength, one against another.”

It was a long hike, but we got there! Lawn Lake

[Dan follows the little boy around a garden, a garden that is special to Dan and this book.]
“The next part is a bit complicated, but bear with me.”
[The little boy gazes in an open-mouthed smile, dimples and all.]
“I hoped he would be better–in the areas I failed, he would excel. So I pushed to make sure that my failures did not become his, that his life abounded in new opportunities. Then it happened, he grew into himself. I had to accept him as his own person: a different contribution, not only to the daily human conundrum and the DNA of life, but to the future. Whether I liked it or not, he traveled in his own direction; he was the future, and he would do it his way.
[The little boy does some things that make Dan cry, something he has done maybe twice in his life. The toddler then shows how smart he is.]
“You’re as smart as he was. After I accepted Jeff him as Jeff, not Dan’s son, it was cool to see him puzzle a scenario in Resident Evil, show Katie how to solve an algebra problem, and feel his strong arms hug me. I didn’t always lik hugs, you know. Or him caring enough to show affection in public.”

The next bit will give away too much, so you’ll have to read it in the book.

The love a father for a son can be as strong as any emotion on the planet. Of course the love of a daughter is just as strong, only different. And yet we still send our sons and daughters into battles to save our asses.
Why is that?

Two days old.

I remember singing this song to my son, my daughters. That was way before Cat Stevens became Muslim. But it still applies. Maybe more so after 9/11 and so much hate has erupted between us and Muslim countries. Now I sing it to my grandson.

Hug your loved ones, today, now. DO IT! They may not be here tomorrow.

Milt

On Kindle Prime now–Amazon:

REVIEWS: http://tiny.cc/mt6b7

$1 of each book goes to Veterans

A Little Thing

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Three years ago and some change, something happened.

Two days old.

It was a little thing. Good things sometimes start small. And, this was definitely good.

You live your life thinking, Someday, maybe. Then, that someday comes and it’s better than what you thought it would be. And worse.

It’s better because it is real. It’s now. It’s here. No kidding!

Worse because of all those stupid thoughts about what could happen.

I’ve been a father for over thirty years. That’s if you count the age of my oldest child. But, really, you’re a father when you find out your love is pregnant.

The same holds for being a grandfather.

It happens something like this:
The longing beforehand—Will it ever happen?
Disbelief when it actually happens.
Realization and celebration that a piece of you is going to live beyond.

There is a saying, perhaps Native American, perhaps just a Michenerism from Centennial: “Only the rocks live forever.” That might be true in regard to individual humans. And I certainly don’t want to live forever if I have to live like a rock. But, in reality, you live forever (and not like a rock) as long as your children have children.

When I say it was a little thing, I mean little. A little strip of paper that has a little line that turned blue when she peed on it. Mind you, I wasn’t there for the actual viewing. I just heard the story.

My daughter said, “I didn’t believe it the first time, so I did it again, the next morning because I’d heard that was the best time. And, well, there it was.”
And, I thought, Yeah, there it was. And, soon it will be.

The problem is that it can be Good or it can be Bad, depending on where your standing.

Sometimes life can be so putrid that you don’t want to have the kid. I mean your life is completely whacked-out. There seems to be no hope for the kid to have even close to a good life and it’s going to screw up your already stinking fried life even more. At least that’s what you think.

But, on the other side of that fence, you see that if you just keep pluggin’ away and hoping for the best, working hard and taking time out for those little things—you know, like children and families—it will all work out. You just gotta have…I guess you gotta have faith.

You have to believe in yourself and your ability to overcome and that you can raise a child that will contribute something to the world. He might be another Einstein, or Lincoln, or maybe just be a great guy and a great father. Maybe she will be another Indira Gandhi, Rosa Parks, or maybe just a wonderful loving woman, mother and sister.

However it works out, as long as you perpetuate that love, it will be okay.

Probably John Denver, or Jimmy Buffet

That’s where I come in. Me, well really I should say We. Me and my wife. That’s where we come in. She’ll probably be there more than I will. Always has been. Rescuing and helping and patient and loving. Sometimes all I am is sleepy and grumpy and demanding.

But, every now and then I Get It, too.

I Got It that day. I’m gonna’ be grandfather!
We’re going to be grandparents. Gonna have another baby around. It had been awhile. Twenty five years. A quarter of a century. Since the last baby we had.

You know what? You never forget.

There’s that baby smell—fresh, new. Even if they’ve pooped their pants, all you’ve gotta do is move your nose up to the crease between their chin and neck and take a deep sniff.

Just thinking about it brings it right back.

I’m there, with my wife, in the hospital, three days after out first baby, realizing that a new part of our life has begun.

Even now, over thirty four years after that first one, still, thinking about it, makes me cry.

People say, Life is Hard, Life is Crap, Life is a Bummer and then You Die.

People say a lot of things. But when it comes right down to it, what we feel is Thankful.

Thankful for those moments when things have turned around on us from a bummer, the shits, the crappiest day of our life. When that little miracle is presented to us, after nine months of hope and anticipation, we realize—we’re just thankful to be there.

So, I’m gonna revel in this moment…I mean roll around in it, get it everywhere. Down deep.

For no one knows what comes in the future. Time is an elusive, uncontrollable, happy-sad enemy of hope. The best way to combat it is to forget about it. It can’t beat you if you ignore it.

Enjoy the little things.
Now.

Watching the hot air balloons go up

Milt

I was sad that day

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Fern Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park

It was about four weeks ago. A beautiful day. I camped with my son at a high mountain lake, after a hike the day before that tested my knees and stamina. The morning brought glittering spider webs, round and symmetric, new as the first rays of sun that illuminated their wonder. Why did a spider make them so beautiful, their rungs so perfectly even, the concentric circles almost exact enough to have required a compass to trace them? An osprey glided over the lake, its chirping call common to most Americans, except in this mountain haven. An osprey at 9500 feet. Cool!

Golden fish with blood red lower jaws cruised the shallows, searching for breakfast—greenback cutthroat trout, nervous at any moving shadow, instinctively aware of osprey, or other predators. That would be me, a fly fisherman. I caught a few, hungry gulpers that pounced on the fly the instant it hit the water. Quick release and back they cruised, wiser to subsequent flies, but still strong, vibrant in color, an integral part of the beauty. High mountain peaks surrounded me, a few white valleys only small remnants of glaciers of old, before the world warmed. Glacier melt cascaded in rivulets down the mountain cliffs, filling the lake, gaining in strength down the valley, and finally quenching our thirst in the Front Range. 85% of the water we get comes from the mountain runoff.

At that thought, I was sad. The Cache la Poudre River was clean until the High Park Fire seared and glazed the earth so that water no longer seeped in, but flooded into the Cache la Poudre River, making it as black as soot. What caused the fires? Maybe it was too hot with too little rain for too long. Ya think?

 

Up here, miles from the High Park Fire, half the pine trees are rust-colored, dead to a beetle that is another harbinger of warming; not cold enough in winter now to kill them, so they kill the forest.

High Park Fire sunset from our back yard

Cache la Poudre River runs black with High Park fire soot after flooding rains

 

I was sad because my son who loves this wilderness as much as any, may never have his own children see these things. If the globe keeps warming, the snow will melt sooner, more fires will engulf the beetle-killed forests and the beauty, the world I’ve known, will be gone. Another fire may make all the biggest ones in the past piddling things. We could lose the fish, the moose and the coyotes.

All because humans, that would be us, must have energy to build, to drive, to heat, to seemingly survive in this twenty-first century. Yet, my son and I camped without electricity, without heat or AC, and still lived, though much more simply for a few days.

It was beautiful but I could not wait to drive my car as quickly as possible down the valley next to that glacier-fed river to get back to my comfortable bed, to be cooled by AC and enthralled by a movie on TV. That weekend I cut my lawn with a power mower. This winter I will stay comfortable, heating my home enough to roam the rooms in shirt sleeves.

Can we actually live well for more than a few days without all these things we deem necessary?

For my sons, daughters, and grandson’s sake I hope so. All those working on solar power, wind power, cars that run on natural gas or anything that leaves little carbon dioxide behind, keep trying. It’s worth it. I don’t really want a terrorist to make it happen like in Dan’s War. But if we keep it up, it could.

Milt

40 years

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So here we are, summer winding down on the Front Range, cone flowers peaked,

 
wildflowers in the mountains a memory, and I’m coming to our 40-year Arapahoe High School reunion. Back then we’d come off a state championship in football in 1970. Unfortunately, we were far from state in the ’71 season—don’t I know. The summer of ’72 cruised in. Mark Spitz won a record seven gold medals at the summer Olympics. Then he was asked to leave the Olympics early because he was Jewish, after our first big taste of terrorism, the Munich massacre, overshadowed the games with Israeli athletes kidnapped. It only took thirty-six years for Michael Phelps to beat that record. I got fat, got white hair, my football knee doesn’t bend, and my ear hairs are out of control. Okay, not quite that bad, though it feels that way at times.

In 1972 we worried about a scholarship to college, or would we get drafted to Vietnam. Some already had a scholarship: football to Colorado University or Colorado State University; academic to Notre Dame. Some knew they would not graduate from high school. But the rest of our lives would be on us soon. We had to make plans.

What has happened to the rest of your life? Do you want to share that with others? This reunion is a way of reconnecting, completing at least one circle of life. Funny how things come around. I remember a guy, who I fist-fought in grade school, then later he was a friend and a revered teammate in high school basketball. He passed the ball to me; I passed the ball to him. Maybe I’ll see him.

Do you remember your concerns in high school? Who would go to prom with? Would your zits ever go away? Would you pass the course in history? How could you ever finish that English term paper before the end of the week?

Times were different. I took the bus to school or walked a mile through the cemetery unconcerned that a madman would hijack the bus or a pervert would kidnap me. I could even take in the latest movie, The Godfather, or Jeremiah Johnson, and not worry that a guy dressed as a mobster would come in the theater and open up with his tommy gun.

Did you need thick leather gloves to come to grips with your life then; maybe now; or the in between spots? Can you remember? Do you care to? I have a medical school classmate who does not even know his son, and will soon die of Alzheimer’s. Remembering can be a good thing.

I knew a girl in junior high, but only tangentially as the pretty locker partner of my girlfriend. In high school I dated that pretty locker partner. Then, she became my locker partner for life, my wife. We’ve been married for 36 years, had children and now a grandson. My grandson will not likely go to Arapaho High School, but, if I live another thirteen years, I will reconnect with high school ways, through him. I will see him grow through things I did, or didn’t. I hope to have more time with my grandson than with my own children. I was too busy to really enjoy their high school experience. Friends, work, make money, all those things vacuumed my time away forever.

Now we have different worries. Will the fracking going on in what used to be a free space behind my house contaminate the best-tasting water in the world? Will my daughter ever be able to buy a home since the average price of homes has gone up ten times—$27,500 in1972 to $275,000 now—and the average salary of a elementary teacher has only gone up four times from $12,200 to $50,000 a year. Will my grandson see the mountains as my son and I did when we camped in Rocky Mountain National Park?

Now beetle-kill trees, almost beautiful in the fall with their rust-colored hews offsetting the apple-green and yellow aspen, and what’s left of dark green pine trees, are ninety percent of the forest on the Western Slope. Here, just north of Fort Collins, the High Park Fire consumed over 25,000 acres, racing through beetle-killed trees and drought-crisp forests. Subsequent rains flooded the hillsides and turned the Poudre River black with soot, killed thousands of fish and destroyed entire mountains. Is there global warming?

High Park Fire made for beautiful sunsets.

What the heck am I going to do about those darn aspen trees coming up through my lawn?

But, hey, some things don’t change. We still have wars that take our children’s arm, or eye, or even worse, their mind so they can never enjoy the world in any form for the rest of their lives. Vietnam just changed names.

And, if my fourteen-year-old Labrador retriever poops in the house again . . .

Awh. Look at that face! She won’t do it again. Honest.

So, I’m going to the reunion to escape the current worries, have a great meal, get drunk and . . . okay, not really. I want to reconnect to a time of less intensity, when you had time to think without a tweet or cellphone bleep interrupting your thoughts. Or, maybe I want to at least put those times in perspective. They were different, and in some ways much more joyful, easier, simpler. Though, at the time, those pimples and getting that certain girl to notice me seemed pretty damn serious. For God’s sake I might have never had a family. I could have been a lonely bachelor and lived as a hermit in a time machine like Dr. Who. Hmm.

I’d like to see you, talk with you, find out where your life has gone, what has happened with you, discuss and laugh at the old times and perhaps share your current hopes and dreams over a pint of Easy Street beer, or a wee dram of Glen Morangie Scotch, or maybe just a Diet Coke. All these things are what make life interesting and what make us human beings. Our social nature cannot be denied. We learn lessons from others, and who knows, others might learn from us. The collective will grow.

So give in. Have fun. Reconnect.

The summer of our life, just like the cone flowers, will eventually wilt and turn brown; the stems weaken, the petals fall. At the 50-year reunion things will look much different, if I’m even around. I might be sucking Ensure through a straw wondering when the next morphine dose will come.

But for now, the flowers are still blooming and my grandson is a joy.

I hope you have joy. I also hope to see you at the reunion.

 

Milt Mays

Are there Miracles Anymore?

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You don’t have to look far. Even the mirror will do. But, you can go to your local hospital nursery, or talk to any new parent. Human beings are born every day. If you don’t believe that’s a miracle, just think about it.

Somehow two random people in a world of seven billion find love and create a new person. If the mom is in Iran or Syria or other hot spot where wars revolve around oil ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_military_conflicts ), to have that great little miracle she must simply avoid starvation or getting shot.

She could be having fun gardening in the good old USA, in Colorado, and smoke from a drought-induced forest fire invades her back yard for days causing coughing attacks that lead her to premature labor. Maybe she lives in New Orleans and is swept away by the next hurricane, or develops typhoid fever from poor water supply.

These could all be due to energy problems, global warming. Or not. What do you think? The next link may take a long time to review, but keep it. Lots of good stuff.  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071116112401AArGExE

Okay, so about a mile away on my farm, an oil company fracked a well. No big deal, right? Hey, I own the mineral rights on that land. In fact, if I didn’t get the money from the oil company for fracking, my pregnant wife would be eating rice and ham, and we would have to forget going to the doctor since I couldn’t afford health insurance anymore. I heard that contamination of the water supply by fracking is very rare, so why not? My wife can get that great medical care, she can eat good nutritious foods, and we’re on our way to a healthy baby boy, or so says the ultrasound. And, to top it all off, how great can it be that I’m doing the patriotic thing for my country, making us energy independent. Right?

Joe, my neighbor invited us over for spaghetti last night. That’s not what the MF wanted, though. He flicked his Bic lighter and the water flamed on from his faucet. He’s blaming me and my fracking well. Hmm. Could the water be contaminated from fracking?

Okay, so forget about babies for a minute. I am, by virtue of my middle class USA standing, in the top 1%, economically, of human beings in the world. My son graduated from high school. He’s done well. He’s used those one-hundred billion neurons in his brain to rank him in the top 10% of the top 1% of humans in the world. I wanted him to go to college, but he wanted to serve his country. Why not? He goes to Iraq. I’m a very proud parent. He goes to Afghanistan.

Then today someone knocked on my door in full dress uniform and had an envelope in their hand. Yeah.

Yes, miracles occur every day. A human is born, creates a painting, writes a song, or maybe despite being raised by his mother after his worthless African father runs off, he becomes President. And he’s got a weird name like Obama and he’s black. Or maybe a baby boy I loved my whole life goes off to war, and doesn’t come back. Don’t guess that last one was a miracle.

For some reason we ignore all those daily miracles by doing stupid things to preserve quick and easy energy for the USA. We have become a nation of quick and easy—news, money, food, energy. Has this translated to quick and easy lives of the few that we risk for the quick and easy comforts of many?

Are we willing to modify our comforts to make sure those human lives are not put at risk?

Would we be willing to give up two hours a day of lights, or instead of driving to work all by myself carpool with three other people at work?

Power is in numbers. If only a few do it, nada. If millions do it then we may no longer use so much oil every day, need so much coal for energy, and perhaps, just perhaps we could become energy independent. We would not need to frack our country to death.

Do would not need to kill thousands of human miracles every year to maintain our comforts or would we be willing to do a few simple things to keep us from having wars over oil?

Milt

What is an American Patriot?

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Are you flying your flag? Are you planning hot dogs, hamburgers and apple pie on the 4th? Did you fill your SUV with $100 worth of gas and pull your camp trailer to Rocky Mountain National Park, wade with your grandson in an ice-cold, gin-clear mountain river, hike with your daughter to a high mountain waterfall and catch a few cutthroat trout?

Okay, yeah, I did that. Been there. It was fun, too. And I’m ready for the next tee shirt.

Maybe you did much more. You believe so much in your constituent’s cause that you allowed their lobbyist to pay for a guided trip for superb bone fishing in the Bahamas, dinner at Café Matisse and after-dinner cocktails watching the sunset over the Nassau. So what if that constituent is Big Oil, who despite making billions of dollars of profits every quarter wants you to continue their government subsidies? After all, without oil, how would we ever defeat all those terrorists? Those pack of jackals waiting to take over the USA.

Or maybe you decided to give up something that no one else has, or ever will, something so dear that there have been debates for centuries about its price, something you are willing to sacrifice for all those who want to enjoy a walk around the block without a bullet creasing their hair, or a night of rest without worrying about being whisked to a concentration camp because they didn’t agree with a clause in the constitution, allowing them to sit with family and enjoy fireworks over a lake whose black mirror reflects deaths of millions and a celebration as old as our country, and something your wife and son may never understand—you were willing to give up your own life.

There are patriots, and there are those who call themselves patriots. If you call yourself a patriot, examine your reasons. Is it to get a pat on the back at a veteran’s pancake breakfast? Do you want to be handed thousands of dollars from our government for twisting your back in boot camp? Do you think because you have lots of friends in Big Oil that you must have the government give them more money so we can fight a better war?

I suggest that if you want to be called a patriot, you are not one. A true patriot gives up without asking for thanks, gives up for those he’s never met, gives up for an ideal most of us have never really thought about.

What are you willing to give up for the freedoms that we all enjoy?

If you want to give up driving that SUV for six months of the year, lighting your home for 2 hours a night, or keeping the AC at 70 instead of 74 all summer, then maybe you can do something to keep more soldiers from sacrificing their lives in war.

The wars we have experienced in the last two decades have mostly been about oil and energy. We want to drive our cars to work, without anyone else inside carpooling. We want to never sweat a drop in our own home in summer. We want to watch our TV, run our computers, listen to our stereos into the wee hours of the morning.

We want, we want, we want.

When will we start giving, giving as much as a true patriot? Probably never. But we can try to prevent them from giving their lives for us by giving at least something that causes us some pain. Every day.

Or, then again. Maybe not. Fly your flag, eat your hot dogs, have a little more ice cream on that apple pie, and drive your SUV. Patriot.

Milt

Buy it now–Amazon: Kindle e-book on sale now for SUMMER BEACH READ

REVIEWS:  http://tiny.cc/mt6b7

$1 of each book goes to Veterans

Barnes and Noble:http://tiny.cc/htmrb

Smashwords for all other e-book formats:http://tiny.cc/o0nh3

New Short Story only a buck! All proceeds go to US Veterans More at my Facebook Author Page:http://tiny.cc/sumdo

Contact me at www.miltmays@gmail.com

Fire, Wind, Water. Can Disaster Change Your Life for the Better?

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In the midst of what will likely be the worst forest fire in the history of Colorado, The High Park Fire, I think of Hurricane Ivan in Pensacola, the disaster that brought us here, and my first post on this blog.

Those suffering from this fire: These are times that will not only test you, but can break you.

Don’t let it.

Can disaster change your life for the better?

September 16, 2004 I awoke at two a.m. to pitch black, wind howling outside, and a curious sound in the bedroom: my dog lapping water. But our wonderful blond lab, Maggie, lay at our feet, sleeping. The sound was swamp water percolating under the baseboards. Rolling off the mattress, my wife and I waded into stinky water, floating Purina Dog Chow and paper shredder confetti–welcome to the parade.

I’d had a great year: both daughters got married, I caught a 150 lb. tarpon on a fly rod, started a promising practice with great docs, and my son had orchestrated a surprise fiftieth birthday party. I was writing my first novel, a horror, techno-thriller about fictional events after 9/11, sure to outsell Steven King.

The day before the water came, the news said it was a monster: Hurricane Ivan, Cat 5 in the Gulf. I smashed one thumb and nearly fell off the ladder boarding up the second story windows. This made the inside a tomb of darkness, the garage door the only exit. Lynn and I discussed leaving the state. We filled the bathtubs, organized canned food and peanut butter (I could live off peanut butter and honey sandwiches for weeks), then moved the computer upstairs along with the important papers, dog food, fresh batteries in flashlights, etc.

At 7 p.m., in purple-olive twilight and paltry wind and misty rain, I played fetch outside with Maggie. No big deal. The news announced Ivan would weaken to Cat 3 at landfall. We decided to stay. Yes! No waiting for a week after the storm to get back over the bridge while looters had a field day, or water leaks went from tiny to disastrous.

We hunkered down—that’s hurricane talk—in our upstairs bedroom. The wind howled, trying to tear off the roof … right over our heads. No thank you. We trundled everything back downstairs, including a mattress, to the bedroom our son vacated last week. After all, our neighborhood had never flooded in recorded history. Who needed flood insurance? Our house had survived two other Cat 3′s with piddling damage. No prob.

Right. We’d never been in the northeast quadrant. Apparently we forgot.

For weeks afterwards we survived in a post-flood environment that reminded me of Sarajevo: feral dogs, fetid piles of rubbish, no water or AC, roving, camouflaged National Guard Humvees, and Red Cross water and food tents. I nearly lopped off a leg chain-sawing shattered trees, screwed up a knee replacing wallboard, and continued to work forty-hour weeks, sitting in rubbish-removal traffic jams for hours.

It shook our hearts and souls like a dirty rug. But we couldn’t get clean. The neighbors had the first, and last, Tiger Point trailer-trash party in their camper on their driveway next to the POD that held all their worldly goods. Their home was unlivable.

We sang, we drank, but we all knew: Never again.

The biggest lessons we learned? Things can be replaced. Loved ones cannot. Go after your dreams. Now.

My wife and I moved to Colorado, closer to roots and family. I wrote and guided fly fishing. She became a hooker—wool art hooking, okay. We camped in Yellowstone with Maggie. Then I realized I was not Steven King; gas prices skyrocketed; the adult kids moved back; guiding fly fishing made no money.

Time to go back to what I knew best, doctoring. I went to work for the VA.

Hurricanes and fire are nothing compared to war. War crippled our best, their bodies and minds. But not their souls.

Veterans taught me disaster can change your life for the better. My next novel, Dan’s War, was born.

Dan’s War is an award-winning techno-thriller with literary heart, about the end of world oil . . . in two weeks. Cajuns and one lone computer geek try to save us against an ecofanatic and his army. There’s love between a geek and a hottie Marine, a father trying to save a son, nanobacteria eating oil, and weird characters that will take you on an adventure to far away lands, and keep you turning pages wanting more.

Buy it now–Amazon:
Kindle e-book on sale now for SUMMER BEACH READ

REVIEWS:  http://tiny.cc/mt6b7

$1 of each book goes to Veterans

Barnes and Noble:http://tiny.cc/htmrb

Smashwords for all other e-book formats:http://tiny.cc/o0nh3

New Short Story only a buck! All proceeds go to US Veterans More at my Facebook Author Page:http://tiny.cc/sumdo

Contact me at www.miltmays@gmail.com