Pretty Perfect

I’m up at Torch Lake for Memorial Day weekend at my Sisters place. She and Bob have a really nice setup out here. There are three cottages on the property. One three bedroom, a two bedroom and a single bedroom which allows any of their invited guests plenty of privacy if needed. I’m sitting out on the dock overlooking this amazing body of water. You should really look it up on the web. It’s right up there with the best of them.

The water is cold as hell so I can’t really get in. I tried to put my feet in earlier and almost had a coronary. The clouds are starting to roll in and it’s blocking, what was, a wonderful warmth given off by the sun that was sort of hypnotizing. I was the only one out here for quite a while but a group of six people split evenly among children and adults just came down to look at the water. It always amazes me when kids just walk into the water, no matter how cold it is, and act as if they’re in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Adults, on the other hand, are barely able to put a toe in without freaking out completely.

I’m sitting out at the end of the dock in a little beach chair I took out of the shed just looking out across the lake. I have the IPOD in and it’s playing random songs in no particular order. It’s pretty cool how sometimes things just fall into place. It’s so peaceful right now, the water is hardly moving. It’s incredibly quiet and calm and Rod Stewart’s version of “Country Comfort” just started to play in my ears. It just fits.

There’s a guy on a one man Kayak standing straight up about one hundred yards away from me. He’s got a paddle that’s barely touching the water. He seems to hardly be moving. As he gets closer I wonder if he’s feeling what I’m feeling right now. I just yelled out to him, “Pretty perfect huh?” he responded with, “It doesn’t get any better.” I think he gets it. As he gets even closer I notice that he’s not on a kayak at all, it’s a surfboard. He’s just floating. Pretty perfect.

These are the moments, however fleeting, that you need to take stock of. It’s literally no more than 30 seconds in length. It’s that one flash in time where everything falls into place. It’s important that you take a picture of it in your mind and put it away to use at a later date. I’ve got about 10 or so stored up and they all involve being near the water. I don’t know if when I find myself in that certain moment I lose one I had in my past, I hope not. They happen so seldom but it’s such an amazing feeling that I really want to save them all for as long as I can.

Hey! What Are You Doing Back There?

One of the tougher things that come along with age is sickness. The body starts to break down at a certain point and it gets harder and harder to keep things feeling right. Being completely out of shape obviously doesn’t help the situation but even those who take care of themselves find it a little harder to move than they did when they were young.

I go to the doctors now and the exams that get done are so much more invasive than they used to be. Not that that’s a bad thing. I kind of look forward to certain aspects of it. (Just kidding mom). The number of things they check for now are things that, when I was young, I never dreamed even existed. Of course the things that can go wrong are also greater than while young.

Actually, before I go on, I should put in a little warning. Parts of this might be found to be offensive to some. I may get a little more graphic than you may be used to. If that’s going to bother you then I suggest you get out now while the getting’s good.

I don’t know how to start this next part so I’ll just say it. The Prostate exam is nothing like you ever think it will be. Each one has it’s own special charms. From the moment I turned 40 it’s like a bell goes off in every Dr’s. Office I visit. The gloves come out and I’m told to turn around and put my hands on the table. Now, I’ve never been searched by the police, but I think I’d almost prefer that.

I remember the first time it was done. At the end of the exam, with a Dr. I’d known and been friendly with for 10 years or so, he asked how old I was. When I said I had just turned 40 he smirked and reached into the drawer for a new pair of gloves. He said,” Kevin, you’ve now reached the age where I get to legally violate you and, best of all, you’re gonna pay me for it.” He also told me it was going to bother me a hell of a lot more than him.

He wasn’t kidding. I would think it goes without saying that this is not something one would normally enjoy. Well, normally. So this became an uncomfortable, yet common, occurrence for me whenever I’d visit a Dr. for a normal checkup. I would actually try to avoid going just to not have to deal with it. I mean, think about it. It’s really odd, especially if you don’t have a regular Dr. that you know and have a relationship with. Not that kind of relationship! Get your mind out of the gutter.

There was a time, around 10 years ago or so, that I had an actual scare. I found that when I went to the bathroom there was, as the medical profession would say, blood in my stool. It was pretty scary. I went to urgent care and the Dr. happened to be someone I had never seen before. He was much older than I was used to and of course he had me strip down as he put on his magic gloves. He had me turn around and started doing his thing.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but when someone has something poking him or her in places they’re not used to, it would seem that a normal reaction would be to “tighten” up as it were. Well, that’s what I did. My good Dr. seemed to have a problem with that. He asked, and I will never forget this, he asked if there was something wrong? He said I seemed really uncomfortable. Here was some old man, elbow deep in my ass, and he couldn’t figure out why I was “really uncomfortable”? Give me a break. It turned out that I was fine but it was an experience that, to say the least, was not one of my finer moments.

So now I have some serious questions about how I’m supposed to prepare myself when I go get an exam. I mean this man or woman, whomever it may be, is touching me in places that very few have gone before. I know, you’re all quite thankful for that, and you should be. But should I dress any nicer than I normally would, or might that make both the Dr. and myself a little uncomfortable? Should I wear nice cologne or maybe some fancy underwear? What if I dress down? Might the Dr. take that as a sign of disrespect and make the process much more painful than necessary? Wouldn’t that be a poke in the ass?

Sorry; I couldn’t help myself on that one.

Scrambled Eggs

I took my bike out the other day. It’s only the second time I’ve used it since I’ve moved here and the first time I left the development. I went out towards the campus and once I got away from the major roads it was a real nice ride. One of the things I like when I ride off the main streets is that I can really get lost in my head. By that, I mean I can just start thinking about anything. Today’s thoughts were all over the board.

For some reason I started thinking about Rodney King. I lived in southern California when the police beat him up and it was shown all over the world. I kept getting that picture in my head of when he made the infamous statement that we all laughed about, “Can’t we all just get along?” I remember that I, along with millions of others, laughed when he said it at the time. It was great fodder for late night television shows and you can still hear it said in any bar or social gathering on a regular basis.

Then, of course, I started thinking about that question. I mean, there’s the obvious, I don’t like you and you don’t like me but does that mean we have to do some sort of violent dance until one of us either agrees that one is better or possibly gets hurt? Easy answer, of course not. Maturity usually brings us to the point of either resolving our differences or simply agreeing to disagree.

I think most right thinking folks would agree that the question is one that should never have to be asked. That being the case, why is it we have such a hard time getting along with each other? I’m not talking about other countries, just right here at home.

We’re in the middle of an historic Presidential Race where, odds are; we will have either a black or a woman President. I swell with so much pride just thinking about it. Then I see some of the exit interviews from the West Virginia primary and I’m embarrassed to be of the same species as some of these folks. There were three in particular that I think need mentioning. The first was a woman who looked like she was just coming out of the mall, nicely dressed and by the looks of her, a relatively intelligent person. After saying she had voted for Hillary Clinton she was asked why? She stated, “It’s the racial thing, we’ve had problems in the past.” Her only stated reason for voting for Clinton over Obama was that Obama is black. Well, I guess she at least gets points for honesty.

It gets better. The second woman, asked about her vote, said she also voted for Hillary. When asked why she said. “Because he’s a Muslim and I could never vote for a Muslim.” Has this woman read a newspaper or seen any news program in the last two years? It has been stated numerous times on many stations and in scads of newspapers that Barak Obama is not a Muslim. If he were, the whole Reverend Wright controversy would never have happened. Apart from the falsehood of the statement, religious beliefs should be irrelevant when it comes to elections in this country.

The third person interviewed was another woman who, when asked why she didn’t vote for Obama stated, “I won’t vote for Hussein, we’ve had enough of Hussein.” And that was the end of her statement. Kind of makes you want to propose an intelligence test to be able to vote. John Stewart of “The Daily Show” showed all three interviews and ended the segment with a sign that said, “Welcome to West Virginia. Please, No Interviews.” How embarrassing.

I don’t mean to pick on West Virginia here, I’m sure there are people all over the country that have these same types of thoughts. It just goes to show how far we, as a nation, have to go until we can “all just get along.” I’m willing to bet that, in most cases, the very same people who won’t vote for a black or a woman will tell you that they are very progressive people that hold no race or gender bias. This ingrained racism is something that’s been with them for as long as they could possibly remember. It’s easy to let your fears control you once the curtain closes and it’s just you with your head in that voting booth.

Let’s be honest though. It’s not simply fear that causes these thoughts to go through ones mind. Sad as it is to say, there are a great many who still feel that men are smarter or better than women and Whites are smarter or better than Blacks, Hispanics or any other group that’s different. Does anyone really wonder why we “can’t all just get along?”

Please don’t think that I pretend to be above the fray. I too have my own prejudices. I’m not proud of them and I’m not even sure I can admit to all of them but I know they’re there. Of course I’d like to believe that I don’t let them influence my daily life but I’m sure they do. I do like to think that I know how ridiculous they are and that I constantly work on myself to not let them define who or what I am. I certainly would never go on television and use them as my reason for choosing the next leader of this country.

Anyway, that’s the kind of stuff I was thinking about when I took my little bike ride. I should really try to work on paying a little more attention to the road but that’s not nearly as entertaining.

Where Does Evil Begin?

The second essay for my original blog that I wrote was about my running into someone that was convinced that the Holocaust was a fraud. I wrote of my utter amazement at the whole concept. Since that time I have done a good deal of research on the computer about that time in history and I have also seen a number of documentaries about the subject.

I‘ve visited a number of white power sites and just shake my head at the things I read on them. I think most of you remember David Duke. He’s the guy that put a corporate face on the White Supremacist movement. Clean cut, business suit and educated. He actually won a seat in the Louisiana State House of Representatives. Oh, by the way, he was also the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

David Duke brings up an interesting point about these hate mongers. At some point in his life, he was just a guy. Someone we’ve all known in our lives. Someone we’ve gone to school with, played games with or had a beer with. He was once a child without a care in the world and somehow, somewhere, there was a disconnect from what I, and many others, feel is a sense of decency.

What made me think of this was a program I saw the other day about a German Officer during WWII by the name of Karl Hoeker. Someone had held on to a personal photo album of his and sent it to one of the Holocaust Centers for display and study. The photos were of him in social and “work” situations. The social ones were of him with friends, on picnics and out having something to eat with fellow officers. Just your basic scenes from what seems like a normal life.
That’s the part that gets to me. At some point, something happened. When the thought of a madman is brought up in this country the first name that comes to the mind of many of my generation is Charles Manson. Though in fact, he was never convicted of killing anyone, he is the epitome of evil to many. Guess what? He was a baby once, just like you and me. Where did it go wrong? Is there any way to find the point that the above folks’ minds went to the “dark side”?

Of the three names mentioned above, the one I find most fascinating is Hoeker, the German officer. Being Jewish, I have an emotional investment to the actions of the Third Reich. Apart from that though, he is the only one of the three that wasn’t at the head of the class per se. He wasn’t in charge. He was, though this is not excusing him in any way, taking orders from above. Does anyone really think that at that time in history he could have survived if he refused any of the orders given? It’s easy to say, sitting here right now, that you or I would have never done any of the things those people were told to do. We weren’t there. We don’t really know what it was like.

We all read in amazement when some hate group destroys a church or synagogue but let’s imagine that the vandalism is state sponsored. Imagine that you are told, day after day, that the cause of all your problems was this group or that group. Actually, I hadn’t thought about it until now but we get a lot of that kind of talk about illegal immigrants right now. Alright, try to put yourself in the steps of an unemployed worker. You’re having a really hard time feeding your children. The electricity is on the verge of being turned off. The stack of bills on the table only gets bigger. You turn on the news and you hear about some report from the government that says the reason for all your troubles were people with the letter P in their first name. You think, that’s crazy. But then you find that every day it’s all over the news, all the politicians are making speeches about it. All your friends are talking about those damn P people.

Reading the above scenario doesn’t do the issue justice. It seems so ludicrous to think that we, or anyone, could fall into this type of brainwashing. But it happened. Nobody can truly believe that all the citizens of Germany were these horrible people we see in all the old films. Something happened. There was a point where the switch was flicked over and lives changed forever. They came to believe that the Jews were the cause of all their problems. At some point though, they were just a bunch of guys.