Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?: This Is Not My America.

Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?: This Is Not My America.: What does America need to right itself? Answer: An end to this "political correctness." We real Americans are sick and tired of ...

This Is Not My America.

What does America need to right itself?
Answer: An end to this "political correctness."
We real Americans are sick and tired of tip-toeing around these left-wing wet noodles who bow down to every small interest group with an axe to grind.
 I get it, some bad apples do spoil the whole bunch, but, come on. Shouldn't we be trying to weed out the bad apples instead of throwing the whole bushel away.Why should we let the minority of the population have the loudest voice. Wasn't this country based on majority rule?
 Don't get me wrong I know prejudice exists, but remember it goes both ways. Black people hate white people too. It's not a secret. They feel slighted by the white man. What they won't tell you is slavery was around way before black people landed here on American soil. As a matter of fact the English and Dutch traded more white slaves than black slaves many years before the first black slaves arrived in Europe. The tribes of Africa would make the conquered tribes the slaves of the winning tribe. Yet not one black person will acknowledge this fact. Hell, it happens to this day.
 The sins of omission. The blacks will blame white people for their problems, yet the Irish, Chinese, Italians, and Germans all lived in ghettos in America. Fact is "ghetto" is an Italian word. Look it up.
Something goes sideways in a black community, they riot, loot, and burn down their own neighborhood. Then the press moves in. They start pointing fingers, adding fuel to the fire.
 Same thing happens in a low class white community, they rally together for a candlelight vigil.No shops robbed, no burning buildings, no cars tipped over, just people coming together for a cause.
 So why is it that people whom act like animals suddenly become the victim?
I'm tired of "white guilt". I never owned a slave.
 I've worked for minimum wage most of my adult life. I made it work. I didn't get assistance from the state or federal government. Most of my life I've been a slave to corporate America. You don't see me robbing businesses, burning cars, or shooting cops. You want to find the person who is holding you back, look in the mirror. Don't blame others for your short comings, take responsibility for your own actions. Like my grandfather always said " the world needs ditch diggers too."
Not every one can be Donald Trump, not everyone can be rich. Some of us are better suited to work for the rich in order to make the rich, richer. If everyone had the skills to be a millionaire, we all would live in huge homes. It takes all types of people to make a country great, it has nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with skills and there ability for you to draw a paycheck.
It's not a black and white thing. It's a " I want to make America great" thing. Accept who you are, own it, be the best "ditch digger" you can be. Have pride in what you do, if not for yourself, for your country.  

Peace Starts With You.

  I get tired of being bombarded by news of killings and other violent crimes daily. My heart aches for this country divided by it's own inability to love one another. We have bigots, paranoid nut jobs, and a government that creates fear. What has happened to this once great country?  Why have we gone so far off the deep end?
  All I know is that we enjoy freedoms most other people in this world will never see. Most people are content to gripe and groan about the way things are without a willingness to see where change starts. Change comes from us not our political leaders. We must stand up and fight for our freedoms against the powers that truly ruin our freedom...the greedy and the evil.
  I could talk all day long about the two powers and give you biblical examples of why we must fight, however most of you that will read this don't own a bible or believe in God. Most of you would rather try to govern yourselves in a self serving fashion.I know this to be true. I've witnessed the Godlessness of this country first hand. Non-believers try and crush the believers at every turn. I'm sick of hearing how it's the believers fault we are in this mess. Evil knows no God, it only knows it's own selfish desires. Greed knows only it's selfishness.                                                                                                                                        We are not fighting a war of the flesh, we are fighting an enemy that is unseen. We are fighting dark forces that control those who wish only to serve themselves. God commands us to be servants of our brothers and sisters in His name. We are told to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We are not told to fear or disparage each other, we are told to love and care for our fellow man. We shouldn't judge a flock of real believers by the actions of a few people serving themselves in the name of God, we need to know believers by their good works. Anyone call call themselves a Christian, it's those who prove it by good works that should be our example. Christianity is not about lip service, it's about action in Christ. It's about what we do to continue the ministry started by Christ. Our ministry isn't about showing up to church on Sunday sitting in a pew and waiting for the service to end so we can get on with our day. Our ministry starts at home by living in the Word everyday, even when no one is watching.
 Christian or not a moral code starts with you. If you depend on your own righteousness to tell you right from wrong then all you are teaching is selfishness. Good works can be done without faith, however those good things can easily be undone by selfishness. A selfish work glorifies yourself and nothing else. What good is a grand house if it's built on mud? You must have a strong foundation from which to build. A moral code without God is worthless. Personal morals can change like the wind. Godly morals are set in stone by the words of the Almighty. Man distorts the words of God for his own profit, Gods word is without change. Gods words are in black and white, it's called scripture and scripture is found in the Bible.
  I want this world to change, I want this country to change but without a Godly world I'm afraid my prayers fall upon deaf ears. I will not give up on educating a non-believer why I believe, I too at one time ignored God. I know hearts can be changed by being a living example of a morally upright man, it happened to me. A morally upright man ( also my best friend) led me to Christ and my life has been better for it. I now speak with a voice that is based on a strong foundation and will do so even when no one is watching.
  We live in a violent world without peace (Gods peace), and yet I hear the Godless express their desire for a peaceful world. Well my friends I tell you this, Gods peace starts with you. God Bless.

....Of Poets and Madmen Pt.3

       Some readers have supplanted in there minds that I am not taking responsibility for my bad decisions. Truth is I am well aware of the poor choices I have made in my life, starting with losing my family at age fifteen. I'm the one who screwed that up, no one forced me to throw my young life away but me. For many years I have made bad choices and left money on the table time and again, this is my fault. I have filled my own head with self entitlement, grand delusions, and a false sense of pride. I have left many a good job just because I felt under appreciated or under paid. These things are my fault, I'm the one who walked away from perfectly workable jobs without compensation. I messed up my future by being a boorish snob without reason to behave like that. I'm nothing special yet I acted like a childish ingrate and pissed off a lot of people in the process. I have worn out my welcome in more than one business in many different towns. I screwed up.

     There have been some exceptions to this meteoric rise to the bottom of the food chain however. My last place of  blissful employment was Dollar General, a nine dollar an hour absolute joy. The people I worked with were great. The manager Jose was somewhat a kindred spirit. I loved that job even though I never made a ton of  money, it was a great place for me. That company had many plans for me going forward, up to and including a position in management. They sent me to open other stores in other states, I was moving upward quickly. i worked every hour that was available to me night or day. I got up at five in the morning and sometimes didn't get home until late at night, I worked my ass off for them. Why did I leave you ask, quite simple, I became homeless and the only people who could take me in lived many miles away. I don't own a car or have a way back to Torrington where Dollar General is located, so I had to leave that job. It broke my heart, but what could I do, I had to leave. Without a roof over my head and the state dragging it's feet to help me, the right move was made. I left behind two jobs, (the other job would have been K Mart, but they too were slow in hiring me), and the comfort of knowing I had finally found a place I felt appreciated. i fought hard to keep my place in Torrington, but alas, I failed in all attempts.

    Next was a job working for an old Greek couple at a  pizza place in Southington. I went back in time to my roots for this one. It's been almost twenty years since I stepped foot in a single owner restaurant. I begged my way into this place and worked everyday, every hour they wanted me there. I showed up early and tried my best to turn back the clock to when I was younger. I sweated behind a five hundred degree oven in a kitchen without air conditioning enduring twenty-two days straight of ninety plus degree summer heat. I toiled daily the best I could trying to keep up with the fast pace of this busy award winning mom and pop diner. I felt pressure I had not felt in two decades, yet I pushed on. I thought I was doing well even though the owner rode me like a prized race horse every chance he got. to me it felt like home. Most people would have packed it in week one, I just kept plugging along. One day I walked the two or three miles to work only to find the owners had replaced me with a much younger friend of the family. I was let go. I was told I wasn't what they were looking for and seeing how I was being paid off the books, my last day was that moment. They kicked me a little extra money (which was cool), alas, I was still left unemployed. That is where I am today, jobless and being turned down by such "exclusive" place like Dunkin' Donuts, McDonalds, Rite Aid, Blimpies, and Walmat, just to name a few.

   So don't tell me I'm being lazy or that I'm not trying because it's not true. I want to work but poor choices and bad luck have clouded my future. I am trying, that's why getting mental help has been so tough, no one believes I'm depressed because I do get up in the morning and look for work, I'm doing the right things. I've been told I should be lathargic and not be making good choices, I just want to survive. This has been determental to me getting the help I need, because my will to survive over rides my want to stay in bed and sulk. It's okay not to like my new found "darkness", it's just not cool to be chastising me for your misconceptions. I've had to swollow enough shit from Lucy's family and their cronies, I don't need other people piling it on. I can't force people to hire me, I wish I could. I've bugged people so much that I've been told to stop calling or showing up on several occasions. I've made plans to move on, I just need to catch a break and I may be able to move on. Until such a time I will deal with my situation the only way I know how...airing out my frustration in this blog.

....Of Poets And Madmen Pt.2

  It's funny how everyone has the answers to solve your problems without being in your situation. They love to expound about how they can put you on the right path even though they no nothing of how fractured your mind has become. Once in the grips of depression and pain even the most brilliant mind can fall victim to the disease. Depression hurts deeper than just what you see or read on the surface. When failure is the norm no matter what is a simple answer becomes a monumental task. Sometimes just getting up in the morning or falling asleep at night becomes a chore. Imagine never being able to feel happy for fear that something bad will come from it. Just picture yourself never getting joy from being around friends or family. Never feeling like you are good enough to achieve anything because you are always expecting the worse. No amount of words or macho bravado can comfort someone who expects to fail. When failure is your track record and bad luck your totem, you only expect bad things to happen. It's a cycle of self fulfilling prophecy that never ends. One who has never tasted an ounce of sustained success in life can not be expected to find solace in the words of other people unless they to are failures. Unsuccessful people only know the taint of failure and it's cruel twisted irony. Faith is lost and God seems so far removed from a person whose life has been plotted and shaped by failure.

   In many ways the constant failure begins to mark those who seemed a once normal person. They become sullen and angry at the world around them, never fully reaching any potential once thought attainable because of the expected failure or impending doom. They become contented in knowing that any success is short lived and that failure is right around the corner. Most people who suffer through this mindset fight themselves daily just to keep from exiting this life by their own hands. They have to find comfort in things most people try to avoid thinking or doing. The darkness become a cudgel to ward off the overwhelming feelings of self imposed hatred.

 That self-hate can lead many failures to destroy themselves by way of suicide. Many failures see this option as a way to stop the negative behavior that never seems to go away. When you live in a darkened world, light, becomes the enemy. Positive emotions only become a Siren Song leading a failure to his doom on the jagged rocks of life's torturous shores. Success for a failure is as foreign as a snowstorm in the Tropics. A failure doesn't expect to succeed therefor, they never do. Self-loathing and self-hatred undermine any shot at happiness. Many failures find the only way out of this maze of negative thoughts is to shut of the brain permanently. The only exit they find is self destruction. Through self destruction they finally find the peace they so desperately seek. They leave behind a cold cruel world and settle for a vast nothingness. Once again, the darkness wins.

  Do not read into this anything but the author trying to expose those out there, who do not suffer this kind of mental war, to the reality of someone fully ensconced in this kind of disability. Maybe then the enlightened masses will stop trying to impose their own opinions of what a person who has never felt happiness or success should do. When God seems like the enemy and Faith a fairytale, sometimes it's just enough to let a person suffering from this kind of malady know you are still a friend. Sometimes these people can seem distant and cold, just know they don't realize any other way to behave. You can't expect a failure to just snap out of it because years of felling like a failure will not go away in a moment. Sometimes it never goes away. No amount of rehashed catchphrases or religious passages will ever crack the hardened walls these people have built over the years. Just be a friend. Tell them they are loved despite their negative outlook and nurture their need to slowly evolve out of the darkness. Stand by them and let them know you care on a human level. Harsh words and Faithful diatribes only reinforce their belief that know one understands them. Try to understand this malady and go through it with them, refocusing their dark behavior in a kind and understanding manor. This disease will not go away overnight, try and hang in there when they relapse and don't get discouraged, you may be surprised what a sympathetic shoulder can do to change their mind. Let them know you are there for them, that is all most of them ask for to begin with.

....Of Poets and Madmen Pt.1

  When you are young, people never tell you that being a failure is a reality. We are filled with hopes and dreams that one day success will find us. We are never prepared to fail. The streets are filled with people who never realized the potential of their youth. Why?

  People lose sight of themselves and fall into the trappings of a society obsessed with beauty and wealth, never taking the time to discover the true meaning of who they are. They get caught up in the falsehood of the so-called American Dream. That dream becomes a nightmare with the realization that not everybody can be a success. People fail all the time never arriving at the top of any mountian, the mountian ends up on top of them. They fall into a state of dispair and spend the rest of their lives trying to unbury themselves from the tons of shit piled upon them, never finding help from family or friends or getting very little help from anyone. They become lost in a system of self lothing and depression, never able to step up to the challange of recovering the warm fuzzy feeling they had before they became failures. they wallow in the muck and mire of an unfulfilled potential that crushes them like bugs on a windshield, hopes and dreams are dashed by the wieght of  a cruel reality and a heartless world. Their pain becomes the only thing that they live for, living in a mass darkness which consumes every moment of their lives. The pain is the only thing that they can relate to, happiness is just a lie told to them by other people. Why does everyone insist on comforting others by saying "things will get better?"  How does anyone know things will improve?  Where is your proof?

   In a life filled with failure and pain the hope of a better tomorrow is just rubish. When all you know is heartache and disappointment, that is all you expect...nothing more. The darkness becomes sunshine to the ones who have done nothing but failed. Loss and grief becomes your daily sustinance. A world of a loving God becomes a fairytale to those who can no longer pick themselves up off the floor one last time. Why get back up when you're only going to fail again and again?
Despite what you are told by everyone else FAILURE IS AN OPTION. Failure happens everyday. There just comes a point in your life when getting back on your feet seems like a fruitless endevor. Sometimes it's just better to stay down and accept that you are a failure. Self lothing almost feels as good as a hug, darkness shines as bright as the sun and words of hope become useless background noise.

Ode To Lucy

Sometimes life throws you curveballs. On August 17th 2011 life threw me one. I lost my lover, my friend, and my soulmate Lucy Friend. She died leaving behind many people who loved her including her young son Reed. I miss her more with every breath I take. She was more than a partner in my journey called life, she was a teacher, a poet, and the kindest soul I have ever met. She inspired me to become a better father, friend, and in general a better person. She made me feel whole for the first time in a long time. She took a broken man and helped put the pieces back together. She was loving, kind and patiant to a man who had become bitter and angry over many years. She gave me purpose, hope, and helped me to find peace in a turbulent mind. She breathed new life into me. For everything she gave to me I am thankful. In a thousand lifetimes I could never repay her for the loving grace and kindness she gave to me. Lucy was a special person whos kindness echoes in the memories everyone who knew her will carry the rest of their lives.

She was a wonderful mother whom gave her son Reed everything she had. She taught Reed kindness and strength and in return Reed gave Lucy his heart. Reed loved his mother so much. Reed gave his mother a feeling of joy and happiness. They shared a special bond that can only happen between a mother and her son. Reed is a special kid with a heart that overflows with love and compassion. He is an obediant child who cares more about helping others than he does himself. He has grown up in the arms of loving parents and a mother who invloved herself in every aspect of his life. Reed was Lucy's life.

She lived not the life of kings and queens yet lived each day to serve others above herself. We lived a simple life together spending each day as if we were millionares. We did have the luxuries of the wealthy instead we fill our lives with the treasures of love. We were, in the truest definition, soulmates. Where one left off the other began, when one of us stumbled, we picked each other up. The world could not harm any of us as long as we were together. She anchored our family, giving us all the love we needed and more. She was our strength.

Now my journey has begun anew without my soulmate by my side. The waters have been rough yet I continue to push forward into the great unknown. Each day presents new challenges for me to overcome as I move forward witout her. I no longer have her physically here to help guide me through the tough times, so I can only pray that from Heaven she will continue to help me take on lifes unending tests. For now her voice is the wind in my ears, her hope the smell of spring blooms. Her strength will be the little voice in my head driving me on and her love is a warm blanket on a chilly night. Lucy will never leave us as long as we remember her boundless love and selflessness. I miss my one true love and will try and carry her flame with me to find my way in the darkness the is the forever unknown. Rest well my queen as for one day we will be reunited in the house of God and spend all eturnity together as it should be.