But I found myself a ways away from the cabin around lunch, and close to my favorite sushi restaurant anywhere.

When I say this place has the best sushi I have eaten, I am not lying. I have eaten in California, Seattle, around most major cities, and nothing compares to this place in a little strip mall at the foothills of the mountains. Sushi is not just about the freshness of the fish, though that is a key component. The rice and even the way the fish is cut can affect the flavor. A bad white tuna tastes flat, fishy, and has a rubbery texture. A good piece cut at the right angle and just the right thickness is like a light version of the most tender of kobe beef soaked in butter. Decadent.

Today I sat quietly at the sushi bar, the only one there. Two of the four chefs were working lunch, one was my favorite of all of them. He was always too busy to talk the other times I had visited, but not today. I watched as his long knife cut the seaweed, his hands constantly being washed, then dipped in water, then shaping the rice. The many times I have been in before I have tried to catch his eye to say hi, to say I appreciated how well he worked. Sometimes I would, other times not.

Even in his white smock and white hat, always impeccably clean, he had a hard look about him. He seems almost unable to smile, his attempts at smiling looking almost dangerous, his eyes hard, and cold.

“Everything okay?” He asked when he had a moment to slow down as Chopin played gently on the speakers overhead.

“Yessir. Every time you make it, it is always outstanding.”

“Thank you,” he bowed, his heavy accent coming through his soft, but gravelly voice. “You sometime not here often.”

“Yes, I live 35 miles away up in the mountains.”

“Oh,” his eyes narrowed, harder. Analyzing. His brow wrinkling, gray hair at his temples bristling. “Why here for lunch?”

At that moment a regular patron wandered in and sat near me at the sushi bar. The wait staff came over and filled his water glass, exchanged his disposable chopsticks for some quality ones, and began asking about why he had been away lately. He liked the attention. I would, too, though my disposable chopsticks were fine. He began talking loudly about the new videogame he had started playing, some sort of fantasy role-playing quest. The chef’s eyes turned colder as the loud man stood up on his stool and stuck out his hand to shake the chef’s hand, which was engaged in rearranging the fish in the case. The chef shook his head no and issues a curt, “sorry.”

He moved closer towards me. “So why for lunch today?”

“I’m leaving for military training in a few days. I will be gone for at least a few months and I know I won’t be able to have any food this good while there.” Glasses in the seated area of the restaurant clinked away as new groups settled in at their tables. I enjoyed my little corner away from the crowd.

I began to notice the worry crease between his brows was not natural like mine, but rather inked in the green of an old tattoo. As his hands busied themselves, I saw characters that didn’t seem to be Japanese on his arms and hands. Then came another of his grimacing smiles, enough to frighten a child. “I train for military too. I miss it sometime.”

“The military?”

“No. Only training. I train in Thailand for one year.”

“That sounds great,” I added while he tore a strip of paper from the machine next to him detailing his next order. He dipped the paper in water and laid it on the second level of the counter in front of him.

“Is that where you learned about this?”

“No,” he said, his eyes losing focus, drifting to another place. “No, I learn fight.” He seemed to pause for a moment in thought, though his body did not slow down. I could see his physical presence while his mind abandoned this place for a vivid memory long past.

“…aaaaand the chicken chow mein and a couple of those sushi piece things,” the loud patron at the other end of the bar called out to the waitress.

I saw the chef come back to the moment, anger in his eyes that dissipated in a flash.

“Which army were you with if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Cambodia. After Thailand I fight in Cambodia. Seven years. It was bad time then. That war not good. I had to leave.”

“Seven years is a long time to be fighting.”

His eyes drifted again, harder, reviewing. “Yes. Too long.” He came back to the present for a moment, “What is your name, please?” I told him, he repeated it and tried to smile again.

“What about yours?” I asked.

“Tom.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Tom?” Another grin/grimace. “What’s your real name, if I may?”

“Sah-rhin.” I repeated it, attempting to mimic his intonation and accent as closely as possible. He nodded his approval at my pronunciation. “It easier for most people say Tom.”

“Thank you for trusting me Sah-rhin.”

I opened my fortune cookie. Okay, it’s not at all Japanese, but I’m eating sushi made by a Thai-trained Cambodian war fighter who probably witnessed, and, from the intensity of his gaze, may have participated in some horrible things. Inside were three fortunes:
Your family is young, gifted and attractive. – no comment. Not much of a family here.
You will soon be crossing great waters on a fun vacation. Well at least that means I won’t be deployed right away, unless the ’stan is turning into a tourist hotspot.
Your surrounding friends will take good care of you. Yes, I get the hint everyone, Michele, Chou, etc.

I laughed. “Three?” Sah-rhin asked. I tried to show them to him, but he said, “Oh no, I not read that small with bad eyes.”

I nodded.

“You come back again before you leave?” he asked as I signed the card slip for my meal.

“I don’t think I’ll have time.”

“Maybe you can. We talk more.”

“I will try, then.”

“It good we talk.” Perhaps I could hear more about the tattoos.

“Thank you, Sah-rhin,” I said with a slight bow. “I won’t forget your name.” He set down his knife, rinsed his hands and bowed towards me. Then he stepped forward, reached across the counter and presented his hand to shake. His grip was coarse, hard, firm, almost like the wall he placed around himself.

“Even if you not come back many month or year I not forget your name, RSM.”

I don’t doubt it.

The past weekend was busy with one wedding, and another. The first was the marriage of the “supercouple.” Two people, both recently minted lieutenants who excel at everything they do, found each other.

For some reason they decided to be married in a town in which neither had any real connection, I noticed. I asked around. One of the things, though, is that I can’t seem to get away from certain things. On my way down I came across an accident, fender bender with some broken glass and some crying children. I helped out until the ambulance arrived, but managed to get a little blood on my shirt.

Then once at the wedding some of their friends… well, my friends too… let me know they had a photo presentation ready to show, but they didn’t have any way of showing it. I happened to have a projector in the Jeep. And a laptop. And cabling. But I didn’t have a needed extension cord, so off I went on a trip into the wilds of an unknown rural town, eventually finding a cord at an auto parts store, the only place besides a grocery store still open. I leave town, drive 100 miles and still have to do both medical and audiovisual work.

Of course everything was beautiful, especially the bride and all the bridesmaids. It was an outdoor wedding with perfect weather.

The next day, another wedding, this time with some other friends and very few of the same people present (I cross many “friend” lines and run in a number of social circles.) This time, another outdoor wedding, but it began to rain a couple of hours before the ceremony. And it rained hard.

However, after an hour it went away, the field suddenly cooled, and out came the chairs. And another beautiful ceremony of some wonderful people I feel close to. I had no idea how they were going to pull off the bride’s arrival in the middle of this large field, which was where they first met years before.

No worries. Someone was very creative. The bridal party arrived in a large, covered, horse-drawn carriage. Pretty cool. After the ceremony and the walk through the swords, this couple loaded up together on the carriage and off they went for a while as we enjoyed their reception. Eventually they showed up.

The most heart-wrenching moment: The groom’s mother is confined to a wheelchair now, degenerative disease slowly destroying her muscles. The groom was not about to miss the chance for his dance with his mother. He walked over to her, gently picked her up from her wheelchair, helping her stand, then held her tightly, essentially carrying her for their entire dance. They talked in the middle of the dance floor, isolated from all those around, all the eyes on them unable to overhear their words. The intensity of her face as she whispered in her son’s ears left me trying not to imagine what her words were, reflected in the mist of his eyes. When the song came to an end, he gently placed her back in her chair and held her hand as he knelt next to her, his bride joining them for a moment.

Eric of Straight White Guy (like any of my readers don’t know who he is) was eating a sandwich recently next to a field of cows. He commented it was curious that the cows came over to him like a bunch of paranoid busybodies.

I felt it was my duty to finally speak out and warn Eric how close he came to death.

Cows are naturally docile animals, timid like deer. Viewing the video I saw what amounted to a sudden flashback and I must confess my sins. Eric very nearly became the victim of Zombie Cows.

In the early 1970s I was one of several “brains” singled out to work on a government project that, to this day, is continually being reclassified as secret. Granted, I was only 3 years old at the time, but many considered me to be a slightly advanced child. However, I can hold my silence no longer and will risk the consequences. (hell, the New York Times can get away with it.)

Richard Nixon was occupied with Viet Nam and trips to China. Henry Kissinger was the real mastermind behind Cold War strategy. Kissinger wanted to create a race of supercows that could be introduced into the Soviet agricultural economy. These cows would serve in normal bovine capacities including milk production, lumbering gaits and stinky poos. However, once complacent with the new livestock, the Soviets would pay the cows little attention, and that’s when they would spring into action.

The Supercows were to disrupt grain shipments, plant explosives in certain key infrastructure facilities such as communication towers and along power lines, and they were even to be licensed to kill their brethren.

However things went horribly wrong in the process. We had to kill off many of our experiments. Unfortunately a number of them JUST WOULD NOT DIE. Try as we might, we could not make the cows die. They would rise up from the ground, often regenerating dismembered parts, only each time growing slightly more green and rotted.

I lost several friends who let their guard down when close to a zombie cow. Once one in the herd attacked and got a taste of brains, it seemed to communicate this to the rest of the cow coven. Within minutes all of our Zombie Cow Herds would aggressively seek out live brains, especially those within the human cranium.

Again, we couldn’t kill them off. We tried burying them and they would rise up from the ground like a zombie horde, which is what they were technically, so maybe that analogy doesn’t work. We then tried concrete bunkers, but it turns out zombie cows are quite adept at mining, though, much like photosynthesis, we are not sure exactly how it is done. Burning did no good as the rotted flesh would just grow back.

Naturally we hoped to find the positive in the situation. Self regenerating cows? we could feed the world… at least the red-blooded-American world. That was a huge mistake. Tom Partin was best friends with Matt Groening, one of our lead scientists who later went on to create The Simpsons. Tom ate zombie cow flesh. The next several days were spent in writhing agony as the flesh attached itself to the walls of his stomach and finally regenerated itself into another zombie cow which grotesquely tore Tom apart as it grew.

“Don’t have a cow, man!” was actually a dire plea to our coworkers to stay safe. Groening has disgraced the memory of his friend by making it a punch line.

All we could do with the cows was leave them in fields. We picked parts of Tennessee. The key to survival of Zombie Cows is to stay away from them. That’s why we fenced them in.

* Zombie cows do not have the same jumping ability as regular cows do, thus the light amount of fencing in the video.

* They also cannot discern shades of gray, though red attracts them. No doubt the varied nature of Eric’s aging head of hair confused and disoriented the Zombie Cow Herd for a few minutes. This is also why Zombie cows do not attack the elderly but seem to go after small children in Easter clothes with a vengeance.

* They will do anything they can to trick you into coming within their grasps so they can eat your brains, going so far as to mimic the 1967 album Johnny Mathis Sings. (It was another freak accident in the lab, don’t ask.) Knowing Eric’s fondness for the multicultural crooner, I was surprised they didn’t lure him from his car. Only the blasting of music in his car saved him by masking their siren song.

This is my story, and to the world, I am truly sorry I stayed silent for so long.

My friend brought up some things that still crop up in my life from many years ago. There are sights, sounds, smells that linger in the memory, too harsh to forget, too pointed to endure so they dull the flesh they pierce over time. It still bleeds, but I feel it less, recognizing the pain with detachment, growing stronger from the scars.

One of the most desperate times I experienced was over 12 years ago. A large assembly was gathering for a weekend of fun at a group campground. There were over 150 of us there, families, friends, distant relations. The weekend would include food, campfires, activities out on the lake, in the fields, etc.

That first evening, night was settling in as people drove to their cabins and began unpacking. I was on the western side of the camp with my cabin-mates, getting ready. We had some contingency plans for problems. This was in the days before the ubiquitous cell-phone so we had small radios for communication across the site in cases of coordination or emergencies.

A panting voice came over my radio. “Leslie fell down. We need a medic.” That was a demand for me to drop what I was doing and head over. At first I was asking questions about what was going on, thinking I had another twisted ankle to deal with, but the responses made me change my pace from a fast walk to a concerted run.

There was a circle around a long body on the ground. As I came closer a couple of people were kneeling next to her, shaking her. She was twitching. She wasn’t breathing. Her beautiful hair was bunched up at the back of her head on a pile of dirt where she had clearly fallen. “Sixteen,” I thought. “What could be wrong with a sixteen-year-old? Where’s her mother? Has anyone called her?” I knew Leslie was there with her mother and stepfather, both good friends.

I leaned in. Definitely not breathing, her color, from what I could see, had turned ashen. Someone else felt for a pulse, someone who had received some first responder training. I tilted Leslie’s head back and tried a first breath. It was my first scar of that night. The first responder told me she had a good pulse. I think it was desperation. Leslie was twitching slightly, but I didn’t believe there was a pulse. I turned to one of my friends and gave him a look and shifted my eyes off to the left in a clear, silent statement of “GO!” He turned pale, wide-eyed, but ran to find a telephone. Leslie let out a gurgling sigh. Those around me gasped in hope, I felt mine dropping. Agonal respirations. These are irregular breaths sometimes coming once or twice a minute. They aren’t real breaths. They usually mean the brain is dying of lack of oxygen or else there is a great deal of fluid causing pressure on the brain.

Another breath in and her lungs forced it right back out. I felt for a pulse, there was none. I started the chest compressions. Where was her mother? The sounds around me faded in my head as the world focussed downwards into this sweet, tall girl. I pulled another person over to do the chest compressions as I breathed for her. The occasional twitch gave me a little hope. I know it went on like that for at least 15 minutes but that eternity passed in an instant in my memories. At some point her mother was there, shaking. Then the ambulance.

We loaded her quickly onto a stretcher. They had not sent an “advanced” truck, the county did not have one available. It wasn’t their fault. We put her in the back. I informed the crew that I was also a certified EMT currently practicing and would be willing to provide an extra set of hands. They quickly agreed, a little unsure of what was happening. Leslie’s mother climbed in the passenger seat after being told she could not get in the back with us but could come along.

The oxygen bag came out. As we rumbled across the gravel and dirt for several miles leading to the highway, the hiss from the oxygen whistled in my right ear. The EMT with me was “in charge” and I let him know that, but while he was older, it was clear he was a little less experienced. His registry numbers on his patch were many digits higher than mine, indicating he received his certification very recently, years after me. When Leslie’s brain misfired and she again gurgled and sighed, he looked hopeful and stopped squeezing the bag, a glance at me. I put a hand on his between the compressions and shook my head “no,” squeezing the bag for him again.

Then came the next scar. As the ambulance finally made it to the pavement, through the wail of the siren I heard a scratchy, extremely level, desperately calm alto voice about to break. “S? Is my daughter still alive?” I still hear that question at odd moments.

The medic with me looked at me, nodding his head, eyes wide. They didn’t have an ECG on this truck. It was the most basic of trucks, but I was still holding out hope. However, we are taught to never lie or give false hope. “We’re doing everything we can,” I said.

They had no meds to give but we at least tried to get an IV and eventually established one.

The local hospital was a rural facility that mostly dealt with children with bad colds and the occasional elderly heart attack victim in one of its three rooms. The doctor was a weekend ER fill-in from a nearby university town. He knew what he was doing, in my opinion. The EMT with me gave him report and the doctor asked who I was. After vouching, they let me stay in the trauma bay with them.

The nurses were in shock from the long, tall, beautiful girl that lay on their stretcher. The doc wasted no time, immediately calling for an endotracheal tube, ECG and additional IV lines. The nurse next to me looked around, scared. Unfortunately I abruptly pushed her out of the way, went to the wall and pulled down a 7.5 F tube, “One of these,” I murmured gruffly, passing by her. I saw an intubation cart in the corner and pushed it in place. “Keep up the CPR!” the doctor ordered her to action. Handing the doctor the laryngoscope, I moved toward the ECG probes, grabbed the sheet of twelve little stickers and started tearing open Leslie’s clothes to put them in place. Another gasp from her, first one in several minutes, and then the doctor set about settling the tube in place.

We started drugs, we monitored for a heartbeat, we pushed on the chest and squeezed pure oxygen through a bag into her lungs. We were sweating hard for over an hour. Normally a “code” will be over in minutes. Doctors and emergency personnel know that with the brain death within a few minutes, there is no point in prolonging the situation. Including the time we started CPR back at camp, we worked on Leslie for well over 2 hours.

During the period in the ER, we had additional time to talk, to learn about who was in the room and I was able to explain who Leslie was. I think I earned the trust of the staff. Eventually the doctor looked at me. “I know you know the situation, but we can keep going if you really want. You make that call.”

Another breath from Leslie, the first in five minutes, and just as useless as all the ones that had preceded it. I knew where we were. Leslie was gray, her lips blued, her pupils “blown” and eyes already fogging over, with early indications of blood pooling. There was nothing, no sign other than that helpless breath.

Sometimes I curse the doctor for putting the call on me. It was his responsibility. On the other hand, I feel he never would have tried so long if it weren’t for my presence in the room, my attachment to this girl and her parents. I was 23 years old. How could I make that decision?

The nurse slowed down the chest compressions, the EMT slowed down squeezing the oxygen bag. And I stepped back with a silent nod. Another scar.

And again, another agonal respiration. “Damn,” the doctor said. “I hate that that happens.” We knew we couldn’t leave the room yet. We had to stand there with Leslie, waiting for her body to finally give up trying to grasp for the soul it lost some time ago. We couldn’t have her mother in the room if it happened again.

So we stood, waiting. Every couple of minutes another guttural sound, then, a very long pause. Ten minutes. Still nothing. The ECG machine was off. The tube clipped, and there we held vigil as the last of the chemicals in her system released, let go. We looked at each other. We talked a little. The EMT left to rejoin his partner and go to another call. Eventually, it seemed safe enough.

I walked out another exit, hoping to avoid my friends and Leslie’s mother for the time being. Someone drove me back to the campground. I can’t remember really how I got there. Everyone had a hopeful look on his face. I said the words to the crowd in the dining hall with no emotion, no buffers. “Leslie died three hours ago. There was nothing we could do.” Another scar, and immediately I became the rock. I was devoid of personal feelings, only facts about what happened and a shoulder for support. I tucked my grief away until later, after the wake, after the funeral, after I had shoveled the dirt for a half an hour into her grave, seeing her to the end. In that period, I had my final break with my father as well, he having gotten on my last nerve while he was drunk, I calmly telling him that he needed to walk away, he trying to beat me up again, but failing. I only speak to him coldly now, many years later, but at the request of my grandfather before he died I still speak.

It turns out Leslie had an undiagnosed condition which led to a weakening of the aorta and eventually an aneurism. From what we were told, even if she were in a hospital at the time she collapsed, it was still very unlikely that she could have survived.

And so things move on, yet the memories of every one of my patients crop up at odd times, thoughts of Leslie and the helplessness of that moment brought recently to my mind as I listened to some of the soldier medics. And there are the scars which I hide, but bear because I was called to that vocation, and I do not regret it: the sound of a mother’s voice searching for answers and hope I could not provide, the memory of standing there, hoping her lungs would stop struggling so we could get all this over with, a happy goth girl who hours before was listening to Cocteau Twins played loudly from her cabin, roughly knocking aside a nurse I barely saw who was unfamiliar with the equipment in her ER, the smell of red clay mixed in with the dirt at her grave. And worst of all, leaning down and forcing air into her dying form. Sometimes I can still taste her.

Partway up a long mountain pass I saw a van to the side of the road and a small contingent of girls in bonnets running up a hill while a man in a large hat and plain suit worked on the engine next to a teenager in a similar plain blue suit. I pulled over and backed up to them. Getting out I asked if I could be of any help at all or if they needed someone to go ahead to the next town and get some supplies or parts. The older man looked at me a bit distrustfully, but said, “actually, if we could get a jump off your battery, that would help since ours is a bit worn down here. The traffic on the highway was light so I managed a middle of the road on a one-way rotation and pulled on up.

I stood by as they continued to work, eventually the engine turning over and finally catching. I huge cloud of black smoke arose from their exhaust and an overflow of antifreeze gurgled forth. We disconnected the batteries, their engine still sputtering and attempting to live. The climb up the mountain passes must have put some great strain on the situation. The girls were still high up the side of the mountain looking amongst the rocks and scrub.

Stepping back I stood by. The men were quiet, still going about their tasks. Finally the older one came over to me and looked me straight in the eye. “Thanks for stopping. How much do I owe you?”

I was stunned for a moment, caught off-guard. “Oh, nothing at all, sir. Please be safe. If you don’t mind my asking, are y’all Mennonite?” In all seriousness he nodded his head. I nodded back in understanding and told him the county I grew up in in Georgia where we had a sizable Mennonite population. Suddenly his eyes lit up and he smiled in recognition. “I always had good friends in their conference so being able to help others is a blessing.”

After I started away I drove slowly to ensure they were able to keep moving. Ironically, the next large town I came across was Erwin, Tennessee, where the Good Major and I started our Appalachian Trail Adventure last summer.

Finally arriving in the remote mountain towns of Western Virginia, I was able to secure a room at the one motel in a 30 mile radius. There was also no cell coverage and no high speed internet in that radius, but it was a good place. The room held all the magic and styling of a 1950s motor lodge with cinderblock walls, hexagon bathroom tiles with the overhead heater, and simple lever switches on all the light fixtures, nothing on the walls. The owners even maintained the green astroturf outside the rooms on all the walkways.

Going through some of the family motions was a little trying. I can tell my grandmother and my father are no longer getting along at all. I tried to help her away from him some of the time in order to give them both a break.

For my Uncle Joe, it was a very simple service. He was specific in that he didn’t want much of a service, no lengthy prayers, no eulogies. Aside from the staff, 10 people showed for his funeral, mostly just the distant family members who lived in the same town, my grandmother, and Uncle Joe’s only remaining blood-relatives, my father and me. The service took all of five minutes. After Uncle Joe was secured in his crypt space, I saw my grandmother wanting to wander over to another car that had just pulled up. I feared it was some distant relative hoping to find out if they were in the will.

Instead it was two of my grandmother’s best friends from high school. They thought she might come to her brother-in-law’s funeral. It had been a while since she had her last round of medication so she was a little extra shaky from her Parkinson’s. They started talking. I stood by listening, fascinated as they began gabbing and reminiscing. It had been so long since my grandmother had really had a chance to talk with friends her own age. They started recalling stories of staying over at each other’s houses, sleeping five to a bed. I found out my grandmother was a starting forward on the basketball team back in high-school. I had no idea.

My father walked up to me to warn me to get her going otherwise she’d talk all day. I told him it was okay. “Yeah, but you have to be on the road before dark and we have to take you back to get your car.”

I said, “She needs to talk. She is smiling wider than I have seen her in a long time. I can wait.”

“She has to think about others, she’s blocking the cars.”

“The cars can go around just fine without driving over anyone. Why don’t you go have a cigarette? Let’s let her enjoy this time without any fussing or rushing.”

He wasn’t happy but went walking off.

On the ride back to her sister’s, she told me many more stories of growing up, though they were always, of course, with her negativity attached. I’ve learned to tune that out.

Finally heading home, I stopped back by the cemetery for a few more minutes at Uncle Joe’s crypt. Then I picked up a few flowers from his and took them to all of his brother’s burial places, leaving one at each, finally ending at my grandfather’s crypt. My grandmother’s name is already engraved alongside with her birthdate, only her death date left to be filled in. Something tells me I will be back again soon.

And while my blood relatives family are not as important to me as they are to so many others… considering the pain, abuse, and, quite frankly, complete bullshit of them… I will continue to respect them out of honor to my grandfather who made a request to me before he died.

It was not a joyous occasion, but Uncle Joe was someone I feel I understood. It was good to be there.

My grandmother is in her mid 80s. She has been coping with Parkinson’s for over 7 years now. I’m her only grandchild. I don’t talk with her enough but it is hard to do so, not because of the disease but because of all the harsh words from many years ago. I’ve come to accept them as just her way.

“I’m not good for anyone anymore. I don’t know why I’m still here,” she tells me. I know this is fatigue talking. Earlier in the evening she was full of life and was proud of the fact that of her siblings still alive, she is the oldest and yet looks the youngest.

Earlier she was sharing with me a Christmas card and letter from one of her former students. He was an anxious child, undisciplined in the days before we diagnosed ADD. He walked into my grandmother’s classroom 30 years ago. The letter credits her with the success he became in life because of how she applied discipline with a heavy dose of love and believed in him, in his ability. I walked her over to that letter as a reminder as to why she is still here.

She takes 8 prescribed pills per day. That’s it. Her house is still immaculate, even more remarkable since she let me know the fine younger black woman who used to come by to help her every week had to stop coming by about a year ago. She’s 84 and slowing down, according to my grandmother, who had to go back to doing for herself.

I am grateful for her church. My dad does not come by nearly as much as he used to. She is growing quite lonely, I am sure, but a few of the men in the church come by to check on her, ask her how she is doing. I am far from being one to do that.

For most of my life I was expected to reach out to her only to be told what I was doing was no good. She never came to visit me where I lived. She pretended things my father had done to me never happened. A few years ago after my big promotion, her holiday wish for me was “Well, I hope you can manage to hold on to this job.” (For the record, the one time I was fired was when I was 21 and I told my boss that I was quitting. She replied that I couldn’t quit on them, I was fired. “Sweet!” I replied. “Now you have to pay unemployment!”

Earlier tonight, though, I was asking and even taking notes on all she had to tell me. I was wanting to know more about living through World War II, the rationing, how it was in a coal miners’ town. She spoke of her second oldest brother and how he fought in France, but when he came back, he just wasn’t right anymore. He drank heavily. He would go into rages and fight his shadows, leaving holes in the walls. He died in his 40s.

It’s Christmas again, and my Christmas used to always be spent here, in this house, in this den. We would come here after a long day of work at the family store. I look over to where my grandfather’s chair used to be, looking for a magazine rack to the side that was overfull with atlases and road maps. I developed that passion from him early.

So many other things have not changed in these almost 20 years since I was last here during the holidays, from the gold edged mirror to the books on the shelves to the large credenza stereo high-fi turntable along the back wall of the den.

Earlier her sink was backed up. I went to the grocery store for some liquid drain cleaner. I ran into several people I had known for many years, one of whom lived next door to my grandparents and for years we would spend our summer days hanging out, playing Atari, running through woods and going through reams of graph paper designing starships. He was the master of the outer hull, I the specialist at drawing the schematics and floor plans based off his design.

Standing right in front of them, no one had any idea who I was, not even a flash of recognition. I graduated high school with 40 other people. Most classes had 20-25. We knew each other. But I am gone, a ghost, no longer even an image of what I once was. They remembered someone else and I am not that person. Almost all had my grandmother as their 3rd grade teacher and she is still easily recognized though her hair is now white and her spine has betrayed her into a shaky stoop.

I now understand one of the feelings going through me. While aspects of this place are still a part of me, I have long since ceased to be a part of it.

“It’s the finest one I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something. It’s glistening.” Under the scattered pine trees of the state park she looked so beautiful in her lace wedding gown, flowers throughout her hair like a Celtic maiden. But it wasn’t the dress of which we were speaking.

Keri and I had been friends for years. She became like a big sister to me when I first moved to the city. She lived in the same complex, the next apartment building over from mine, and it was easy enough to wander over there, or she would wander to my place where eight of us lived. It was a different, youthful, crazy time in life with those first real adult bonds of friendship forming amongst a large circle of friends.

One night at a party at a huge house, we were hanging out, drinking, talking… like you do. The noise was pretty loud in the big main room so I wandered off to one of the larger bedrooms where a quieter crowd gathered to kick back in a slightly more mellow zone. Our friendship was strong and allowed us to be very straightforward with each other. Attraction-wise, it just wasn’t there for us. I wasn’t her type, she wasn’t mine. In fact, the one I was attracted to at the time was at the party and had already rejected my flirtations.

Keri knew. It was cool. Lying on the king-sized bed with her and a few others watching some friends play cards, she rubbed my head. She had had an okay time at the party as well, but was getting tired. I couldn’t resist messing with her.

I let out a sigh, looked up in her eyes using the sad but hopeful gaze, and said, “Keri, we’re friends, right?”

The pause and subtle movement of her eyes let me know I had played her just right. She was getting worried she was about to have the uncomfortable “I really like you but…” conversation.

“Yeah…” she said with some trepidation.

Taking her hand, I looked away and said, “I uh, I just. Well, I wanted to ask you about something…” I think the room started getting a little quieter, others sensing what might be happening.

“ooookayy…”

Looking back up at her with all seriousness and earnestness, a glint of tears in my eyes, I asked, “Keri, if I told you you had a beautiful clitoris, would you hold it against me?”

There was a pause, then some of the most heartfelt, loudest laughter I have heard from any person. She leaned down and kissed me on the forehead and said, “oh you little fuckhead.” I replied only with my impish smile.

Since then one of the most common greetings she has for me is, “Hey, baby! How are you? How does my clitoris look today?”

Depending on the mood, I might reply, “Gorgeous,” or, “a little sad.” She usually would add in, “Well I worry, you know, because it grew a nail.”

“Barely noticeable,” I’d assure her. (yes, her husband knows and laughs right along, adding his own commentary: “Honey, tell him about how it got snagged on the couch…”)

Why bring this up? Well, Keri is now pregnant with her first child. I’m excited for her, but even more excited for the child. That is a baby that will always know what it is like to be completely and totally loved while being properly cared for.

Congratulations, ma’am. I’m sure your clitoris is glowing.

My father showed up today, giving me only a few hours notice that he was coming. I’m… tolerant. I see some of the things that are similarities between us and it makes me worry. If those things are similar, am I capable of the same level of violence against those I love? I hope not. Am I as susceptible to alcoholism? well, I will only drink when there are others around and when I am NOT upset.

He often spoke to others of his dreams of a mountain cabin. I have one now, right in the area where he used to like to hike, secluded though not isolated. There are other things such as how I sound when I sneeze; minor things, but a man is the sum of such trivialities.

It has been many months since I last talked to him, over a year since I last saw him. Apparently he was hospitalized with pneumonia but no one thought to let me know. It certainly took a toll on him. He seems to have aged 10 years since I last saw him.

I made my attempts at being pleasant, keeping the conversation on he and his girlfriend. He says he just works for fun now, part time doing data processing for a bank. I’m sure that after he sold the business, but held on to the property and building, he does not require money so much. I can see he’s trying to reconcile after all these years, I just don’t feel that I have it in me, as bad as that might seem. He mentions he is not long for this world and wants to know what things he has collected that I might want. I try to stress that I have everything I need, and those things I might want are not to be found in a storage shed.

But I try to be nice. It’s the best I can do.

Chatting with a friend tonight, he was noticing all the people he had put behind in his life, leaving his home and moving south to start anew with new friends, new jobs, new direction. He didn’t look back, but now is longing for his past.

I think I have hit the reset button like that several times. I know when I moved back from Colorado I left that entire life behind, the people I met, the friendships I made. Granted, 9 years later I contacted one of the great ladies with whom I used to work when I found myself back in Denver.. We talked about the changes since we sat next to each other, typing our stories for the paper, then drifted away again. We had lunch. I saw pictures of how much her kids had grown in 9 years, and again, on I moved

My friends from college, mostly gone from my life, though my fraternity brothers have been reactivated in an online group, and I look at the discussions with at least 40 to 50 posts a day on politics, sports, etc. The fact that these mid-30s men are STILL using our strange talk from those days makes me wonder and feel well-isolated. For example, we referred to desires, wishes, needs, etc. as actual people named Bob. Stay with me here: Hungry? You were Bob Feasters. Disagree with my statement? Bob Dissenters. Want to go smoke? Bob Tokers.

I feel sure I grew out of that… like 15 years ago while I was still in college.

I broke ties again when I left the rural ambulance service and moved to the city. Going back to that county where I was known, I can walk right up to people with whom I used to work, people with whom I spent days at a time and they don’t recognize me, the changes to both my physical and mental states are so drastic. Truth is, I’m proud of the changes, the reinvention, the renewal.

But there are threads of constants, a few chosen friends who stand fast with me through the years, even when a year passes between contacts. There are people I cannot leave behind, the impressions on my heart too deep to let those go, though many times it seems they are already distant memories fondly warming on cold, soulless nights.

The constants have usually been military or paramedic folks. Strange how I keep coming back to that. Talking with Butterbar over in Iraq over the weekend, I knew he was a point that I will hold on to. Same with the Good Major in Korea.

I know of people who spend most if not all their lives in an area and they seem so happy. They have figured out a secret I cannot grasp no matter how obvious.

Weeks ago I joked I go in 3 year cycles and was due for another shift, but I doubted it would happen this time. I think I spoke too soon.

Back off.

It’s no secret I want to live for a very long time… Methuselah-like*. I want to watch the changes in the world. So many things have happened to dramatically shape our civilizations since I was born, and I want to see what else is out there, what all the great and horrific things to come are.

The other reason is simple: there is just so much to learn. Try as I might, I can never get beyond a lightly gouged surface, and ever since a head injury years ago took out part of my brain, it takes longer to digest each subject. It’s like I am scrambling to get as much in before the clock runs out. And it’s not a matter of fatalistic denial of anything more spiritual. I’m confident that when I pass on from this world, I will only be working even harder in service to make things better for some. Right now is my time.

October 1 is my official blog birthdate. This site was a birthday gift (started one day after the fact) from some friends who wanted to see me writing more often and also wanted to be able to keep up with what was going on in my world since I moved away from all the city centers. We have dispersed about the globe like dandelion seeds in windswept valley.

But birthdays are not great reminders to me. I have enough memories of the past ones that I get a little tense on those days. I could usually be guaranteed a punch or a smack at the minimum no matter how much I tried to fly under the radar. Apparently I was always being selfish on my birthdays, the worst event happening on the evening when it became clear someone suddenly remembered it was my birthday and he hadn’t done anything about it. I didn’t want anything. A high-school friend had given me a really cool book only a nerd would love, having worked to save up the money for it, and I was busy reading and taking notes when the birthday card fell out.

I do still remember my second birthday and the party my parents and some of their friends threw for me and a friend born 12 hours after I was. She hated the clown. I discovered Colorforms. She went on to become one of Al Gore’s personal assistants. I guess both of us being Libras didn’t mean a thing when it came to what we would mature into.

My friends in the know try hard to make it a better day for me as if I could recreate and relive the times as a child. It won’t happen. But their attempts mean more to me than I express in my stoic countenance.

And one year of online writing what do we have? I have met some amazing people, found some illusions dispelled, learned about new subjects and new ways of thinking a book could never teach, made some friends I truly respect… some I probably never would have spoken with otherwise, and I have rediscovered my love of writing along with the discipline required to improve.

Thank you all**. I sit here, woods quieting as the colder night air silences many of the crickets, a large woodpecker pounding out an echoing tattoo to find the dormant, sluggish creatures he so desires, and I thank you.

—

* … or Lestat-like if we had to give up something for it…

** Especially you delicious grape-jelly providers out there… you know who you are and it all arrived right on my birthday safe and unharmed…

Regular readers will be able to point to the friendship I have with my mother. I clearly like her, not just love her, and I respect her. These bonds formed when I became an adult.

Okay, we’re done with gushy family goodness. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

She and I even decided a number of years ago we would not do holidays with people who, if we weren’t related to them, we wouldn’t spend time with them; there’s no reason for it. And she will be the first person to tell you I am who I am in spite of, not because of, my upbringing. The childhood years were far from hugs and puppies.

There’s a reason I almost never mention any other family, nor do I talk much about my time with my mom growing up. I have a cousin I feel very close to. I know my grandfather truly loved me, only grandson or not, though he rarely showed it. And there you have it. Others… not so close. I’ve managed to tune out my grandmother’s constant negative comments. It’s just her way of showing affection. I’ve managed to deal with my mother’s absence while growing up. Which part of the parental units am I leaving out?

There’s a reason I’m so sensitive about the front of my neck. I once punched a girlfriend in the head 3 or 4 times before I realized what I was doing when she touched me there while I was sleeping. I had warned her multiple times and felt incredibly bad, but of course things didn’t last long after that. When punishment, or even just having a bad day and needing to take it out on the kid, includes choking, sometimes to unconsciousness, the kid develops some sensitivities.

There’s a reason I have not been comfortable around men until my 30s. There’s a reason when people grow close to me, I tend to put up my guard even more, often pushing them away, constantly suspicious of their real motives. It’s even happening right now as I type. There’s a reason when I finally am close to people I sit with envy at their table. It all comes down to family.

I envy greatly the bonds between Butterbar and his little brother and I know the details of the strains on relationships between other siblings of my friends, though I still envy the connections. They have something I never will. Never. But I can be the safety boat for those adrift once in a while, pulling them from the cold depths, keeping them secure for a time, helping them get warm until they get back to shore, to their ties.

However, I have friends, a few very close friends. Sometimes months might pass between contact because of geography but it never feels that we grow distant. These are whom I rely on for my sense of family and belonging at times, though I still feel I am not completely a part of those lives. I cherish pictures of them and their children. Often the pictures make it to the big wall.

That will have to be my family for now, but I welcome your stories. As proof of the purpose of this day, families eating together, I very rarely sat to eat with anyone in my family. When I did it was usually tense and silent. I don’t begrudge you, perhaps a little jealousy, but I am here to listen. Hug your children. Show them how to love each other. I know it’s not all smooth-going, but you are together.

The Straight White Hunter let me on his site to guest post, and that started the process.

Eric, thank you for both inspiration and a forum.

And this is what started it all… and this is how we met…

As I was reading to catch up on the news as well as the email of the weekend, there were others across the nation memorializing the moments when each plane struck with a moment of silence.

That’s not how we do things around here.

Windows opened out into the morning mist and cool air in offices around town otherwise sealed tightly. At the times when others called for silence, we FELT the moment. The cannon boomed, louder than normal, shaking the buildings just a little… more than a fleeting thought but a feeling of the moment to the core. People opened their windows because they knew it was coming, they didn’t want to miss the moment as they went through their day.

It seemed only a few minutes later when the next canon shot. And again, a few minutes later. And again.

A little after noon hundreds gathered together on the field to remember, to honor our friends and family whose lives were shaped by that day, calling them to service.

Finally the moment of silence, which we broke again with the 21-gun salute followed by taps.

This is why I am here.

In tribute to the victims of 9/11, many of us are taking one or two and writing about them. Some of us can find information. Some of us, such as Michelle, have very close ties to many who were killed that day.

I’ve heard from other places that it is time to get over this, time to move on, put it behind us as a nation. Our grandparents didn’t mourn Pearl Harbor every year for years afterwards, they say. Actually, they did for a while. And they also came together as a nation to fight a war to rid them of the enemies. We seem to be fighting an internal war to forget the enemies and undermine the fight, our courage left behind. And for the most part, almost none of us make any real sacrifices for this war. We wrap ourselves in the cloak of self-victimization as if we gain some moral supremacy because we had to wait through airport security. Even worse, those of us who dishonor the memory of our fallen and injured for dishonest reasons, serving our own political agenda which actually undermines what they were fighting for, and puts their brothers left alive in further jeopardy.

That’s why we have to remember Isidro.

Unfortunately, there is not much to be found about Mr. Ottenwalder. He was nearly my age when he was murdered, probably single, like me. Judging from the few comments left at memorial sites by distant relatives, some who never knew him, he was of both Spanish and German backgrounds, probably an immigrant to our country who had distant relations here. He could have been from Europe, or South America just as easily. And he worked at the Windows on the World restaurant in the Trade Center Towers.

Each day that he went to work he must have been fascinated and appreciative of where he was, living in New York, working at a place where he was able to meet and greet people from all over the world, and having a constantly commanding view of all around him. He was doing his job, pursuing a plan, and he was in America, contributing to what we are. To work at such a place means he had to have excelled at his work. Such a restaurant is a far cry from a chain restaurant in the food court of a shopping mall. He was an individual, perhaps not even a full US citizen yet, but wherever he was from, he was in a unique place. There was nothing else in the world like the top of one of the Trade Center towers, except, perhaps, its twin next door, both a memory.

I wonder if he saw what was coming. I hope he did not suffer. I pray each time I think of those so desparate, the images almost NEVER displayed though they should be, of our fellow men and women deciding to jump to their deaths rather than be burned alive. Those are the images I remember most.

But I will not forget. I am not nurturing wounds, but am full of determination that, however I can, I will not let myself lose sight of the type of people who murdered him and so many others, ever vigilant, ever pursuing the next step in the war, protecting those I can, serving those who protect me.

But this is about Isidro and the others like him, who went to work one day, with hopes, fears, fantasies, worries, but never imagining what would happen that morning, life interrupted for no reason other than an accident of location when men so wrapped in dogma committed evil. On this, there is no debate.

“There is no trauma in life so bad that a good nap won’t help ease the pain…”

Nikolaus – July, 2001, roughly translated from “hphhhghwoooooorowwrr”