Mark Vonnegut, MD: Insanity. Managed Care. And Me!

I have written a review of this book on Amazon, which you can find here. Please do me a favor and mark the review as 'Helpful,' because I lost about 3000 points by not keeping my reviews up during the personal, family, and societal crisis of the past couple of months. 
In addition, if you don't WANT to read the supplemental personal commentary, go to the Amazon review and don't read this. Or, you can read the indented material below, which consists solely of the Amazon review.
Last preface comment: I'm trying to determine how many people are pleased to sign up for notification on the email gadget (top right). If that worked for you, could you send me an 'I got the email about your blog' message? My email address is PapaPatPatterson at gmail dot com.

Sometime in the past week, I posted in Sarah's Diner a note, saying that I was going to review, in the near future, two challenging books. Both of these were written by people with a first name beginning with the letter 'M,' and both of these people had parents who had been A-list science fiction authors. However, in a mostly impotent attempt to emphasize the value of the work itself, and not the 'child of Famous Author writes book,' as if that were the only value available and the progeny were limited to being a monkey on a chain, dancing to the organ grinder and collecting tips, I resolved NOT to mention the Famous Author.

Now, I must somewhat amend my position. In the first place, the author of THIS book bears the same rare last name as his father, so that's a dead giveaway. In the second place, SOME of the story (but not all)  is largely a function of the fame of the Famous Author Parent.

And in the third place, I eagerly purchased and read THIS book because I had read and purchased Mark's FIRST book, "The Eden Express," about forty years ago; and my initial interest  in that book was because I was, in fact, a huge fan of his father's works.

So, in this case, Famous Author Parent does have some bearing on the story, and thus, must be mentioned.

However, shortly into my perusal of Eden,  it didn't matter to me who Mark's father had been. His story was that of a semi-normal person, a part of the post WWII Baby Boom, who rejected the conventional society and tried something different. With friends, he started a self-sustaining subsistence farm, which was pretty much the ideal for drop-outs of that time. Things seemed to be going along beautifully, until he does not come down from an acid trip. It was the first of three psychotic breaks he experienced in a three month period in 1971.

 And that was a close enough parallel to my own experience that it was almost intimate; he was saying things that I had been thinking and feeling; however, he was doing it without shame, and with self-examination that I found to be impossible at the time. My difficulty, and his ability, to describe to others this cataclysmic interlude is likely due, at least in part, to the difference in our ages. Mark is six years older than I am, but I started using drugs earlier. Thus, I was 16 in 1969 when I had my first break; Mark was 24 in 1971 when he had his. He also had the structure and support (yes, I know that's a two-edged sword) of an inpatient hospitalization on each of the three occasions when the voices and delusions were overwhelming; I was given a shot of Thorazine and sent home.

And thus, our stories diverge a bit, but still hit some of the same high points. Mark accepted his insanity, took the medications he was prescribed, and talked to the professionals he was given to be his helpers. I, on the other hand, just stayed bughouse nuts for the next decade or so, but I hid it well. He and I both did some school; I did a hitch in the Army. We both got married (once for him, twice for me). We both started professional careers, him as a physician, me as a counselor. And, over a period of years, we both developed into alcoholics. And then, we both got sober.

That's why the book speaks to me so strongly.

Here is the review I posted on Amazon. If you already read that (and voted 'helpful') you can skip this.

Maybe forty years after reading his first book, 'The Eden Express,' I stumbled across this.
I had to have it, even though my budget doesn't really permit purchases, which is why I stick with Kindle Unlimited selections. This however, had to become an early Christmas gift I gave to myself.
His earlier book describes a somewhat confusing childhood, but then, it was a somewhat confusing time, and he had a somewhat confusing family. I've made myself a promise not to tout the name of his father, because the value of the story is not at all derived from any background views we get into the world of a Famous Author. Yes, those glimpses are there, and the book IS a must-read for fans of Mark's father, but this is MARK's story. The value comes from the compassionate self-observation of someone who has experienced a psychotic break, recovered, rebuilt a productive and professional life, and then gone freaken nuts one more time.
It may be a quote from 'The Eden Express:' "Insanity is a rational response to an insane world." No one who has experienced a psychotic break says anything like that. There is NOTHING as trivial as that statement when you are insane. He describes how a one-time acid trip triggered his psychotic break. I had a very similar experience, and it took over ten years for me to get completely free of some of the insane ideations that came out of that night. I was FUNCTIONAL for almost all of that time, but when I got fatigued, it was pretty easy for the bughouse-nuts thoughts to come creeping out. But, like Mark, I got better.
I started to say, there is nothing RATIONAL about losing your mind, but that's not true. It appears, from the inside, to be an extremely rational process. Mark addresses this as one of the most unsettling aspects of the break he experienced after a gap of 14 years. He found it rational, and he was utterly convinced of the logic and the pressing moral rightness and need to run down a hallway, and throw himself out of a third story window. He had been given the information, in his conversations with God, that this was a needful act if he were to prevent the death of his son. It was RATIONAL. It made perfect sense. And it did have a good outcome, in that he was finally hospitalized, where he could be medicated and helped through his own intentional self-induced withdrawal from alcohol and tranquilizers.
That's clearly what triggered the last break. Mark had gradually increased his tolerance to alcohol to the point that it took more to get him where he wanted to be, in a relaxed and comfortable state, and he had adopted a benzodiazepine as a supplement. When he realized his life was unmanageable, he stopped them both, cold turkey. It drove him nuts. That might very well have been me, too, had I terminated TWO psychoactive drugs at once. I never stopped more than one.
While the book is PRIMARILY linear, it's more like a grapevine than a pine tree. There is a bit of a kaleidoscope effect in his writing, which would not be the style to take, were he writing simply about his pediatric practice, or his problems with the state of medicine as is practiced today. However, the main story is how he struggled to put his life back together after having three psychotic breaks, and how he encountered his fourth, and what his life has been like since then. That is a story that accommodates some creativity in the prose.
I don't know if he could tell the story of his pediatric practice without including references to his mental health journey. I don't know if his passionate distaste for modern managed care would read so strongly, if he had not been a patient himself. However, I do know that if he wrote those books, I would want to read them. And I know that if he had been in my area, I definitely would have chosen him as my kids' pediatrician.

A message from Mark to writers and artists:

The reason creativity and craziness go together is that if you’re just plain crazy without being able to sing or dance or write good poems, no one is going to want to have babies with you. Your genes will fall by the wayside. Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas?
Vonnegut Md, Mark. Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir (pp. 6-7). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.  

Peace be on your house.

I think I Have Email Notifications Available Now, But I Lost Barbie

WARNING! This is NOT one of the reviews I have promised in which I review books written by people who have parents who were A-list science fiction writers.

Concerning those two forthcoming reviews, just to pique your interest, one of the authors is a male, and his name starts with the letter M. The other author  is a female, and her first name ALSO starts with the letter M.

However, I only include that to demonstrate that in a universe full of random occurrences, you are much more likely to accumulate a random grab-bag like that, rather than win the lottery. They probably statistical events of about the same probability, but the outcomes are far different.

Based on what I know about lottery winners, it usually ruins their lives.
Based on what I know about the two books by the authors 'M,' it is quite likely that you will be stressed and blessed, and perhaps through the books, you or someone you love, may be started down the path to be set free from crippling trauma.

That is NOT the purpose of this blog post, however.

THE LAST NAKED BARBIE IS MISSING FROM HER POST! 11 months ago, I wrote a poignant, sweet memory-post about the aging of my children, entitled 'The Last Naked Barbie,'  which you may read here. My gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, and I, have been involved in raising girls (and, yes, boys, too) for some 40 years, more or less, and our youngest resident female is now an adorable young lady of 11 years old, ensconced in middle school, and so we have had to regretfully, AND gratefully, close the books on certain sweet childhood rituals.

One of those was the presence of a dozen or so naked baby dolls in the tub and on the bathroom floor. Without making a big deal out of it, Alicia gradually stopped needing a bucket of toys to take a bath. Slowly, perhaps in the middle of the night when we couldn't watch them go, they seemed to migrate from the floor of the bathroom to her closet, where they will wait until a little girl needs them again.

All except for one. The Last Naked Barbie, as I explained on my blog of December 31, 2016,

"lies on her side underneath the bookshelf in the bathroom, her head twisted at an angle that would be uncomfortable for a human."

And, as I also explained in that blog, if I had anything to do with it, she was going to stay there forever, so I could remember all the times when my little girls needed help getting the soap out of there hair, or forgot to bring either a towel or clean clothes with them, so they needed me to conduct a rescue mission, throwing pajamas through a tiny crack in the door without peeking; Or the many, many times, I stood my Beautiful Princess Bess, age 4, on the bathroom counter, with her waist length hair towel dried, and I used the hot air blow drier to make her hair fly up in all directions as she gazed into the mirror and we both laughed at how beautiful and silly she was.

BUT: as it turns out, I DON'T have anything to do with it. Which is to say, I might have had something to do with it, but not everything.

Because sometime in the past couple of weeks, the last naked Barbie has disappeared from the floor under the bookshelf in the parents' bathroom, where it has rested for some time in excess of a year.
No foul play is suspected. Alicia Ann has had a couple of different young ladies over for a sleepover, we FINALLY (after 11 years!) have a new grandDAUGHTER, the third to accompany the nine grandsons, and we have also had sleep-overs by some of our youngest grandsons. While they tend to prefer their own, well-chewed sleep toys, I believe I would not distort 4 1/2 year old Heath's position if I were to proclaim that 'a lovey is a lovey,' and it's entirely possible that The Last Naked Barbie got grabbed up to provide a sleep companion to Heath, Eliott, Trey, or the beautiful little girl, Nyle.

For a week or so, I've been hoping that she would re-appear, but that's not the case. We had 21 people at the house for  Thanksgiving, and 10 of them were children, and might have rescued her from her cramped viewing of bathroom wallpaper, and she is lovingly ensconced in a bed, drawer, or closet somewhere. When she shows up, I will then have to make the decision : do I return her under the bookshelf in the parents' bathroom; or, do I rely on something else to make me appreciative of the joys of parenting a small child, as well as the joys of parenting an adolescent?

That's not a trick question, by the way. Every age contains parenting challenges, and every age carries parenting joys that you can't get anywhere else. So, whatever decision I make, I will NOT cling to the memories of being a parent to a little girl and little boy, at the expense of the joys of being a parent to a young lady and a young man.

BUT THAT'S not the purpose of this post, either.

EMAIL NOTIFICATION: That's what. I recently discovered that I get daily email notifications for SOME FEW of my favored blogs, but not from others. To pick one of my favorites that I have to chase after, Peter S Grant's blog, "The Bayou Renaissance Man,"  is CERTAINLY something I'd like to read and feed on in the morning, BUT, I didn't know how to make that happen. As it happens, I discovered that blogs printed on the WordPress platform send me emails with each new post. Two examples of that are Mad Genius Club, and Cat Rotator's Quarterly. And, blogs printed on the Blogger/Blogspot platform, do NOT send me an email with every new post. That includes Peter's blog and MY blog, this one right here, Papa Pat Rambles.

With advice from several people, I THINK I found out how to change that. Effective immediately, IF IF HAVE UNDERSTOOD AND FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS, there will be a Gadget in the top right of my blog post which says: 'Follow By Email:'

I THINK! I did it. See the arrows? That's where you enter your email address.

I've only gotten this thing put together in the last 2 hours, which included coffee, water, yogurt, bagel, and cat, not to mention narcotics and amphetamines for that well-rounded experience, so I'm asking for a couple of you (or a lot of you) to serve as freshman psychology students, and apply for the experiment, by entering your email.
Promise: The ONLY reason I am doing this is so you get a notification in your email when I post something.
So, if you would, enter your email into the box, and hit submit. Tomorrow I will post something else on the blog, and if this works like it's supposed to, you will get an email to that effect.
If you agree to enter your email, would you let me know by sending me an email to that effect at papapatpatterson at gmail dot com? Or, if we are Facebook friends and you prefer, you can contact me that way.

And it might take a couple of attempts before it's right, but it LOOKS like it ought to work.

Peace be on your household.

Keeping up with other blogs: WordPress and Blogger

A few days ago, I asked for advice on how to keep current with the blogs I want to follow.
Some blogs sent me an email every time a new blog was posted. 
Other blogs did NOT.

As an example of a blog that DID send me an email every day something new was posted, I mentioned the Mad Genius Club, written by the conglomerate of people who know how to write and can explain it.

As an example of a blog that did NOT send me an email every day something new was posted, I offered Peter S Grant's fascinating Bayou Renaissance Man, where he shares wit and wisdom on pretty much everything that exists.

Well, today, I believe I discovered the answer to my question, as I was listening to the music of Gregor Joseph Werner, suggested as good Sunday music listening by the aforementioned Peter S Grant (see? told you: pretty much everything that exists).

The blogs I get an email notification for, are all Wordpress blogs. The blogs I DON'T get an email from, are Blogger.

When you post a comment on a Wordpress blog, you have TWO notifications boxes to check: 
"Notify me of new comments via email."
"Notify me of new posts via email."

Now, if you check that second option, even ONE TIME, you will forever get email notifications when new posts appear on that blog, until you change the setting.

Blogger, for some reason, doesn't OFFER that second option.

There are at least two ways to provide a sorry substitute for an affirmative notification, and I did them both many moons ago. 

One is to bookmark the blog; I've got a tab on my browser labeled 'Writing, Reviewing, and Blogs,' and that's where I store those bookmarks. To read the blog, I have to remember to DO it, and then to click two more times, once on the browser tab, then on the name of the blog. That's remember, click, click. Can you guess where the weak spot is? Yup. Remember.

And the second method I just discovered today. On my blog page dashboard, the left side of the page has options (most of which I never use) which can give you information about page views, traffic sources, etc, AND, if you scroll down, there is an item called 'Reading List.' 

I never paid any attention to it before, but today, since I was looking for a way to generate daily email notifications, I clicked on that, and BEHOLD! It contained those blogs to which I had subscribed, which used the Blogger platform just as I do, and which have never emailed me. To access the blogs this way, I have to have my blog open to the dashboard, scroll down, and click the selection. That's remember, click, click to open blog dashboard, scroll, click. And, once again, can you guess where the weak spot is? Yup. It's still Remember.

Having JUST discovered this feature this morning, I don't know if the Reading List will only contain blogs written on the Blogger platform, or if I can add WordPress or some other platform to my Reading List. I will attempt to determine that over the next week or so.

My goal, however, will be to see if I can find some way to have any blog I'm subscribing to send me an email. Someone suggested I apply to an RSS feed, but I've never done that, and don't know what it is or what it does. I prefer an email, because It's friendly, not intrusive, and I can ignore it if I want to, as I scan the list of similar emails.

And I may want to consider switching my platform from Blogger to WordPress.  If I am finding reading WordPress blogs easier, because it's just a click on an email, perhaps others have that same experience. And, since I've been blogging for four years, nine months, and one week, I wonder if I have accumulated followers? I know there are a small number who are following me, but there are a lot more readers than that. Four out of the last five posts I made (all except the one I wrote yesterday)  broke 100 page views, and one broke 360.  I'm wondering now if perhaps those numbers would be a little bit (or a lot) higher if I provided email notification.

It's an interesting thought.

Fellow bloggers: have any of you changed platforms? For those of you who use WordPress, do you think that platform brings you any other advantages/problems? Any other advice you can offer?

Peace be on your household.

A Brief Post-Thanksgiving Meditation with the Beach Boys

I was watching a movie last night, and was impressed by the excellent background music. What first got my attention was the Allman Brothers' song, "One Way Out." Later, after more people got shot and beaten, and more great music, they played 'Sail On, Sailor,' and to my surprise, discovered that this song I've been listening to for 40+ years, and attributing to the Doobie Brothers, was, in fact, sung by the Beach Boys.

And then I waxed nostalgic for a bit.

First, I thought about the tragedy and perseverance of Brian Wilson, who was one of those few who have psychotic breaks triggered by drug use. Mark Vonnegut, author of 'Eden Express' and 'Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness, Only More So,' is another, and there are many more.

Second, I thought about an article I read recently concerning the recent spate of sexual misconduct charges. The point of the article was that this was a logical consequence of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and really a small manifestation of the purposeful destruction of the family. Somehow, Third Wave Feminists (never heard that term before, but then, I am purposefully ignorant of modern culture) are to blame for this; although it seems to me that what they are describing as Third Wave is more a product than an architect.

Third, I continued meditating on memories of Thanksgivings Past. I hated them, as a general rule, starting around 1960, because they always seemed to be the occasion for visits to/by authority figures who seemed invariably to find fault with me. And the oven-roasted turkeys always resulted in dried-out white meat, which had to be salvaged by copious amounts of gravy. I suppose gravy-flavored straw is better than plain straw, but still...

My brother-in-law Chuck changed Thanksgiving forever for me, sometime in the early to mid 80s. He first introduced us to smoked turkey, and later fried turkey, which redeemed the bird as a food item. Thirty years ago this year, I cooked my first turkey in a smoker, and it was outstanding, so good that five adults and two children consumed almost the entire bird in one meal.

That 1987 Thanksgiving was also the occasion in which I received the third of the three wake-up calls, which confronted me with the truth that I was powerless over alcohol, and that my life had become unmanageable. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't drunk when it happened. It was the statement by a relative who was in the early stages of recovery from drug abuse that the fact that I still drank invalidated my claim to be a recovering addict. It made me take ALMOST the last look at my behavior, before I took my last drink about five weeks later.

I still don't like the holidays. I suppose I like them better than I used to; Thanksgiving is an occasion when I can truly be thankful for my sobriety, and I've outlived the worst of my critics. Being the host of the dinners also permits me to have influence over the guest list, and no one with a penchant for negativity is invited. And at age 64, I can plead infirmity and get away with it, when I'm tired of the conversation, and go sit in my chair without regard for whoever is still in the house; they can chat as long as they want, and go home with plates of food when they are ready to leave.

Or, we can do this:

Peace be on your household.

PS: Here are the Beach Boys performing the song, "Sail On, Sailor" in 2012. The harmonies still are moving.

Saint Joseph, Patron Saint of Happy Passing and "Minds of Men"

As you can see, this isn't only about St. Joseph. It's also about the book "Minds of Men," written by the amazing KC Ezell.

Amazing, you say?
Yes, amazing.

She flew helicopters in places where it mattered, and that speaks to my medic bones. My first company commander was a First Lieutenant who flew medevacs in Viet Nam, and drove a white Corvette, and had a gorgeous wife, and that sort of sets the stage for the way I feel about chopper pilots. (Umm...on the other hand, I also knew a staff sergeant, a former warrant officer chopper pilot in Viet Nam, who had more rows of medals than I could count;  he was as ugly and as pleasant as my next-to-last dog. YMMV.)

Her stories grasp the nature of being, and service, and I guess all that comes natural;  and what doesn't is something you learn when you are driving a truck through the air with the tracers reaching up for you, looking for the green smoke at the LZ and yelling for your crew chief to turn off those ***ing alarms because you are only going to bounce once, and we'll fix it when we get home.

I first met her as a character in John Ringo's series 'Paladin of Shadows,' only later discovering THAT person was based on a REAL one. Then, I read her work.

She writes stories of cheerleaders who carry guns, and are determined to have a life that matters.
She writes stories of terrifying choices, where there is NO good outcome, and it just doesn't seem clear where your path vanished.

How glad I am, to be well past the fires of youth, else I would SURELY have a crush on her; and she is married with two daughters. As it is, I look fondly and with pride on her, as one of my favorite children/grandchildren/Loyal Companions.

"Minds of Men" is Book One in the series 'The Psyche of War,' and it addresses the role played in warfare by women who have the ability to communicate telepathically. It's set in World War II, at a time when bombers launching from England to strike military and industrial targets had to manage their own defense, since there was no long-range fighter support available.

As a result, they took some terrible losses. Imagine flying straight and level during a bomb run, while flak and German fighters swarm the flight path: that's the sort of thing that the WWII B-17 crews experienced at this stage of the war. The first mission in the book reports the loss of 17 out of 30 B-17 bombers on a single mission.

And then a miracle happened.

Y'all ain't gonna BELIEVE this, but: General Durant, the United States Army Air Force commander, is personally acquainted with the as-yet-not-public ability of certain women to communicate via telepathy. His wife is one of the ladies with that ability. The amount of institutional resistance that is thus avoided, is enough to permit the introduction of selected women with psychic abilities into the crews of many of the bombers still targeting the German war effort.

Evelyn Adamsen (Evie) is one of those women.

The story follows her through her introduction to the crew, and their immediate mission the next day. Her ability to reach into the thoughts of the crew is instrumental in gaining their acceptance, as is the practical value of her efforts while in the air. Bombing accuracy is increased, and she is able to to act as a sort of psychic medic when a crewman is wounded. (Speaking as a former medic: the FIRST thing you tell a wounded person is that they are going to be okay. Say that directly into someone's head? Any medic would give a body part to be able to do that.)

And the crew continues to fight the war, with Evie a full member of the team.

The bad guys have psychic women, too, although they use them differently. Not having read the book, they are unaware that they ARE the bad guys, a valuable trait when fighting a war.

German psychic Adalina Sucherin (Lina) serves as an interrogator, and is usually able to gain necessary information without resorting to the more brutal techniques advocated by her superiors. Driven to seek revenge on Allied forces by the loss of her family during a bombing raid, she welcomes the opportunity to serve alongside soldiers with a similar history. They form a specialized hunter-killer team, seeking out downed Allied airmen.

Evie and Lina's paths cross.

The book does NOT end with a cliffhanger; HOWEVER, it does include the promise of more to come, and some bits of that are even now in the process of being delivered.

And one of those bits is a short story I've been given the privilege to preview. I'm not sure it's up yet, but I will add the link and a synopsis when it's available. Until then, some backstory:

Joseph the carpenter, husband of Mary, and the earthly father of Jesus, has (at least) a double role as a saint. First, he is the patron saint of workers, which is entirely appropriate, since he was a skilled tradesman.

Secondly, he is the patron saint of happy passings. To clarify, 'passing' is a euphemism for dying; I don't know if it's a term Yankees are familiar with, but down South, when my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, references the death of someone, she says 'they passed.' So there's that.

Now: the 'happy' part. Joseph is not referenced in the New Testament after Jesus was 12 years old, when he went missing for three days in Jerusalem (Luke 2:41-52). Though we aren't given any specifics, the traditional interpretation is that Joseph died in the 18 years between that event and the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. The not-unreasonable assumption is made that when Joseph passed, he did so in the presence of Jesus and Mary.

Although my church tradition is sadly missing almost all of the appropriate honor due to Mary (an unfortunate side effect of the Protestant Reformation), I am yet capable of seeing what a fine thing that might be: to have your transition between this existence and the next witnessed and eased by the divine Son of God and His mother! Thus, the role of Saint Joseph as the patron saint of Happy Passings makes perfect sense to me.

And it is in this role that he is featured in the soon-to-be-released story in "The Psyche of War" series. It's a lovely story, and it has that distinctive KC Ezell touch of a nightmare reality which can only be endured by a firm grip on the transcendent. You MUST take advantage of her offer to provide the story to people who sign up for her mailing list! It will NOT be an onerous task, and the story is an item of high value.

Final note:
Ezell is pleased, but somewhat surprised, that I 'get' her work, and that I am such a fan. For that, I offer some Kipling and a picture, and an explanation.

The Kipling (from memory):

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier!

And the picture:

SGT Eli Jordan Patterson, USA (Ret)
Picture taken April 2015

And the explanation: 

This is my first-born son. When he was wounded in Afghanistan in 2013, he was not left on the plains for the women to cut up.

Instead, KC Ezell flew a medevac mission, scooped him up, and took him for treatment; and when it was clear that he was broken, she flew him to the US Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and later flew him home.

Now, it was NOT KC herself, in person, that flew those missions, but that's because she wasn't on that particular duty roster that particular day. But it might very well have been her.

And whether it's hauling beans, bullets, or broken bodies, the guys with boots on the ground DEPEND on flyboys and flygrrrls, in order to accomplish their mission.

And KC stepped up, and said "I can do that."

Mechanics, avionics techs, medics, radiomen, cooks and clerks and the Sergeant-Major's band. Remember them on Friday, and wear RED: Remember Everyone Deployed, until they all come home.

Peace be on your household.

On The Occasion of Kenneth's 13th Birthday

There is a lie, quite commonly circulated among parents, that as soon as kids turn 13, they immediately transform into soul-sucking vampires,  desiring nothing more than the immolation of their parents on the pyre of their own self-destructed bodies.

This lie is utterly and totally untrue, for three reasons:

1. The transformation is not immediate. it takes anywhere from a few weeks to a year to take full effect.
2. It starts before they are 13. 
3. They do not desire destruction for its' own sake; they are just seeking independence, the way that a drowning swimmer seeks air.

If you can grasp the truth of item #3, you have a chance to see the teenage years as a good thing. Otherwise, you, and your kids, are likely to be in for some unnecessary and enormously painful conflict.

I speak from experience. I am 64 years old; I was 43 years old when my first-born son became a teen-ager.  I was 51 when my youngest bio-child reached that milestone.

And today, this very day, my son Kenneth (grandson, really, but he's my kid and I'm his Papa) has also reached the landmark. Today is his birthday. He is 13 years old today, and he left for the school bus this cold morning wearing shorts, a nice jacket, and a Red Hot Chili Peppers necktie knotted around his neck over his T-shirt.

So what is my advice to myself, having all this parental experience, plus three college degrees in counseling and psychology, and 16 years experience as a middle school counselor? What do I tell myself to do?

Well, the FIRST advice I give myself is to relax, shut up, and sit down; it's too late to do anything drastic. 

He's been my son since he was six years old, and before that, he mostly lived in a house full of adult and semi-adult women. So, from the beginning, I have been systematically pouring myself into him, attempting to make up for the years he wouldn't remember anyway, when I would have changed his diapers and rocked him to sleep at night and given him a bath. I missed that part.

Because we had missed a lot of important moments, at first, he simply didn't have a history of doing what he was told, particularly not by a male. He WAS the only male in the house when he was little, and with the high-energy adult and semi-adult women in his environment, he had learned that if he tuned everybody out, they would usually go on to something else and leave him in peace.

That wasn't going to work with me. 

So, I had to explain the rules, and the reasons for the rules to him. I was amazed at how fast he picked up on the program:

1. First time obedience; 
2. Logical consequences; 
3. Spankings in case of wilful disobedience or physically dangerous behavior (although we didn't have any of that; it's usually just to train toddlers not to run into the street). 

Within a month, he was happily progressing along with the business of being a first-grade kid in the burbs, with a yard and a cat.

He stumbled ONE TIME in his behavior at children's church, when he refused to do what the teacher told him to do; she wisely brought him to us. I took him to the truck, explained that he was not permitted to be disobedient to ANY adult we put him in the care of. Then I paddled his behind, and sent him back, and he never had any problem at children's church after that.

He stumbled ONE TIME in his behavior at school. He had not yet learned that he COULD control his anger, and so when he felt he was being treated unfairly by the other students, he responded by telling them he was going to get a gun and shoot everybody. The school called me. I showed up for a conference with the principal, checked him out of school,  took him across the street, and explained that it was okay to be mad, but not okay to make threats (particularly since I have a houseful of firearms). Then I paddled his behind, and checked him back into school for the rest of the day. That was first grade. It took some extra work for him to learn things he could do when he was upset, but he never got into trouble for losing it again.

I taught him how to act in church, by telling him to watch me, and do what I did. If I stood up, he stood up. If I sat down, he could sit down. I was having some problems walking then, and I asked him to let me lean on him from time to time. It was good for him. It was good for me as well. Nothing makes a parent behave like knowing their kid has INSTRUCTIONS to do what they are doing.

In short, as I said earlier, I have been pouring myself into him. While I primarily identify as Redneck Biker, I am also a man of the Book. Because it is something I do, Kenneth also does Bible study. He handles the money at church, so he will understand about tithing. Because he is of an age, he has moved up from the children's church to a youth-led program, and because my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, and I participate in a church small group for mutual support, Kenneth (and his sister Alicia) have their own small groups that they attend at church.

And now he is 13, and I'm pretty much an interested bystander from this point on. I knew this was coming, and I thought I was ready.

But then, some things happened. 

I'm not going to go into all of them, because it's not all my story to tell, but let me sum up: by the end of August, I was beat down into the ground from a combination of health issues and events involving family members and other people I am close to; and I was also pretty disgusted by the way my fellow citizens rioted in Charlottesville, VA, and other places. I wrote about some of that in this blog.

And then, I get hit by two DIFFERENT health crisis within two weeks. And, at the moment the second crisis was happening, without knowing what I was going through, Vanessa FINALLY quit her job, which was absolutely the right thing to do, should have done it a month earlier at least.

And then, my brother in law became deathly ill, in a very short period of time. And my dear, dear sister had to make some hard decisions, with no guarantees; and they had to be made immediately.

And I want to make sure this comes across: while these hugely significant issues were going on with us, there were other people who are very important to us, who were also facing very hard times. And because I care for them, my emotions were jangling.

So, one Sunday, at her request, I visited my beautiful, sweet, gifted sister in Macon, who was daily sitting with her husband in the ICU. Afterward,  I stopped by for a visit with my beautiful and genius mother, in the pleasant care facility where she lives out her battle with Alzheimer's Disease.

And that afternoon, I pointed my truck north toward Woodstock, and if my emotional state came with a warning gauge, it SURELY would have been redlined. And I had no outlet for my stress.

Because I abused it so badly during my youth, I am denied the comfort many find in a relaxing drink of their favorite adult beverage. Same thing goes with ganja, man; it's not available as a solution for me. If I had been home at that moment, I could have gone to the range and taken consolation in poking small holes in pieces of paper; but home was miles and miles away.

So, I am proceeding north on the interstate, my emotions just racing away, just like an engine that is maxed out without bearing a load. It is an alien feeling to me; I have an IMPRESSIVE toolbox for dealing with stress; nothing, however, matched up with the circumstances of driving north on I-75 into Atlanta on a Sunday afternoon.  

And then something else happened.

Maybe it wasn't an intervention from God. Maybe, I just figured this out by myself. I know that I am an astoundingly wise person, but I don't think I am wise enough for the insight I got next.

I realized I was all  wound up, because I had all this emotional energy, and there was nothing I could do with it. Under normal circumstances, when I'm under stress, I quickly can identify the cause, and that almost always leads me to the necessary steps I need to take to resolve the problem, find acceptance, or just wait it out.

 And I have that skill set because I have DECADES of experience in solving the problem; not only theory picked up in a hundred classrooms, but 30 years of recovery from alcoholism, 34 years of being a parent, and every other type of life experience that has come my way.

Ready for the punchline?

I realized my dear son Kenneth was about to launch out on an emotionally churned journey, where he would frequently be living in a helpless, whizzing, buzzing emotional state, very similar to what I was at that moment experiencing. However, he would have no way of knowing if it would pass, or if he would be that way forever.

Somehow, I was able to make the connection between my momentary emotional state, to the life-cycle ride that Kenneth is going to be hopping on and off for the next few years (followed closely by his sister). I need to remember this insight: he ain't crazy, he's just disturbed.

There is a difference:

Several years ago, I was visiting my best buddy Mylon at his house one summer evening. As he and I stood talking at the back of my truck, a bug flew up my nose.
IMMEDIATELY I started yelling and jumping around, and slapping at my face, while Mylon just stood there, wondering what in the heck was wrong with me.
Seemed like forever, but it probably wasn't more than 15 - 30 seconds, before I was able to blast the critter out of my nasal passages.
Mylon thought it was funner than I did.
But it has given me a never-to-be-forgotten illustration of the difference between acting crazy and being crazy. Sometimes, I ain't crazy; I'm just disturbed.

And, on this occasion of Kenneth's 13th birthday, I remember how I felt with all those powerful emotions running through me, without having something to harness them to.

And as Kenneth struggles for his independence, I hope I will remember the difference between being crazy, and being disturbed.

And I hope that the love and wisdom and integrity I have poured into him since he was six years old will have been enough;
And that he (and I) will keep a sense of humor;
And that on occasion, now and in the future, he will allow me to be his friend.

Kenneth on his birthday three years ago

(on the way to the gun show)

Peace be on your household.

The Reality of Monsters

In the near future, "The Last Closet," by Moira Greyland Peat will be published. In the book, she talks about monsters. She expects to be criticized as a result of the publication.

I expect that's true.

The monsters she discusses are adults who sexualized children for their own pleasure. She speaks from her own experience. I am not strong enough to tell you her story, but if you follow this link, you can read it for yourself.

Now, you MAY be inclined to think that her story has been sensationalized; that while there may be a slight element of truth there, that NOBODY could abuse their child in such a way.

If you think that's true, you are wrong. Yes, it is rare that such monsters exist; but they do exist. I have met them. I was a middle school counselor for 16 years.

Let me give you one example of a monster I encountered: he started having sex with his oldest daughter when she was 12. When his actions were discovered, he committed suicide in the family living room. The family chose not to disclose the reason for his suicide.

I thought about listing other cases, but frankly, it's just too painful to do so. If I thought it would help, I'd do so anyway; I spent years of my life helping children in crisis, and I know what it cost me to do that, and it's a sacrifice I chose.

That's not my task today, though. I am not providing direct services to people who have been targets. Instead, I am simply lending my endorsement, for whatever it's worth, to the testimony of Moira Greyland Peat.

She has faced monsters. She escaped. And she is determined to describe what she knows to be true.

I doubt you will find her words to be pleasant and refreshing. You may wish for them to go away; resist that. Perhaps, in reading her book, you will discover a way to combat the monsters.

Peace be on your household.

Our country fails us, morons blather, and we weep: Sutherland Springs

A wicked person kills children, parents, and grandparents in church on Sunday morning.

The morons started blathering immediately, long before any more facts were known. Those of us who aren't idiots held off, until there were more facts available.

Forty eight hours haven't passed, as of the time I started writing this. That's not very much time, but even so, certain facts are clear about what happened at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.

The blathering continues unchanged, despite facts.

Here's the series of events, as understood by me at 8 AM Tuesday morning:

During the Sunday 11:00 AM service, a 26 year-old man with a rifle fired several shots into the windows of First Baptist Church from the outside. He then entered the building, and continued shooting. As of Tuesday morning, reports state at least 26 people are dead and as many as 30 more were wounded. More than half of those killed were children.

He exited the building, and was engaged by a good guy with a gun, who shot the bad guy twice, causing him to drop his rifle. The bad guy then entered his vehicle and left the premises. The good guy with a gun recruited a good guy with a truck, and they closely pursued the subject, maintaining telephone contact with the police during the chase.

Several miles down the road, the shooter's vehicle left the road. The good guy with a gun maintained an overwatch until authorities arrived on scene several minutes later, and took charge. The bad guy was dead on the scene.

More about who, how, and why.

The shooter had been an enlisted man in the Air Force from 2010 until 2014.
However, for (at least) the last year of that time, he was incarcerated by the Air Force. In 2012, he was convicted by a general court-martial, the most serious level of military courts, on two counts of domestic violence. One count was for violence he committed against his step-son; the second was against his wife.
His wife divorced him around the time of his conviction.
He could have served as many as five years, but made a plea deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to one year. In 2014 he was released from incarceration, given a bad-conduct discharge, stripped of rank, and forfeited all pay and benefits.

So: who is he? Among other things, he was an unregenerate domestic abuser.

How does this guy get a gun? Short answer: our government failed to protect us.
His name SHOULD have been entered into the National Instant Criminal Background System (NCIS)  database. It was not. 
On four separate occasions, in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, he completed background checks, and was permitted to purchase a firearm from the holder of a Federal Firearms License. This is NOT a fault of the person/company who sold him the firearm. It IS an egregious failure on behalf of the United States Air Force to follow procedure.

Why did he kill people at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs?
He got married again in 2014. There hasn't been anything I've seen about his relationship with his second wife, but there are many reports that he sent hostile texts to his mother-in-law, including one the morning of Sunday, November 5. That was her regular church. My conclusion? He was going there to kill her. Fortunately for her, she wasn't there that morning. Her mother was, however, and she was one of the people he killed.

Concerning those who blather. I had the misfortune to listen to a short commentary this morning by a person I know nothing about. He reviewed the statements made by various politicians, who gave assorted versions of 'our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Texas.' He repeated the phrase, and although he professed that certainly thoughts and prayers were needed, he clearly showed by his tone that he thought more was called for. What that might be, he did not suggest.

But in this case, I agree. More needs to be done.

First and foremost way our nation failed us in this case. We MUST make sure that no other person convicted by a general court-martial goes unreported to the NCIS. If this was a one-time error, that's one thing. However, if we discover that there has been a failure to implement this safeguard on a systematic basis, I want to know who is going to pay for that. This is an easy fix.

Second, and more important, we have no coherent mental health program. The shooter was crazy, and nobody could do anything about it.  We made the decision as a nation to get out of the mental health business decades ago.  I say it's time to fix this thing. It's going to cost us money. But we are paying for not fixing it anyway.
It's personal for me. I have a family member with a mental illness. I can't tell you how many nights I have spent wondering if he had a warm bed to sleep in. He's a wonderful person to be around, but when he refuses to take his medication, the voices tell him things, and after a while, he listens. And there is currently no provision in law to force him to take his meds, and so we wait, until we get the next phone call, and we hope that it's just that he's going to jail because the voices told him to spit on the lady's car, and not that we need to come identify his body.

My church is renewing a commitment to develop a crisis response team. That will mean, among other things, that we don't have to wait for the good guy with the gun to come from next door, as he did on Sunday, or to go out to the parking lot to get his own pistol. We MUST count on ourselves for self-protection. That has to come first. But we also need to hold our law-makers accountable for implementing the plans which exist, and for developing new plans when the need arises.

Peace be on your household.