THOUGHTS OF A POET IN THE RAIN

1) Followers: The GreenLand Diaries began to follow my blog back on April 7, 2015  http://en.gravatar.com/greenlanddiary. Greenland Diaries is a book, I think because there are reviews located at  https://greenlanddiary.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/early-reviews-of-the-greenland-diaries-days-1-100/

Human Relationships is also following me as of 4/7/15. http://human–relationships.com/                   Problem is that while there is a neat picture there is nothing written unless you count the links in the side bar which I didn’t explore

2) These past few weeks have been very odd. It started with the death of a friend, Dan Anders, who had survived Vietnam, a sudden illness that came out of nowhere and almost killed him, then came the anthrax exposure which he survived, the pancreatic cancer brought the end. But why? How could this be?

After all he was being followed by not only the VA but the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control, the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA. No one learned where or how he had been exposed to the anthrax.

There was an autopsy up at Bethesda. He was buried in a family plot near the woods he loved while a grieving widow stood and watched.

It happened fast. Four months back the cancer was discovered. They gave him 7 to 9 months. Then two weeks later they revised it to 3 months. A week later it was 3 weeks. Then he died 2 weeks later. I was in the hall at the Hospice unit at Bay Pines.

Then Chuck Van Durme. Chuck had sixteen air medals, a bronze star, and a purple heart. He died of a heart attack in the middle of the night. He had gotten up and walked down the hall on his way to his bathroom. His wife, Brandy, told me she heard him fall and went to help him. She got him to his feet and then he fell again taking her with him. He was pronounced DOA at the hospital.

I wrote a story about Chuck. It will be in the Soldier of Fortune magazine in September. It is about the night that his helicopter was shot down on a mission to rescue part of a Special Forces Team in Laos.

3) A new literary magazine: http://www.805lit.org         It is being produced by the Manatee County Library System.  It has art work, short stories, and poetry. And a subscription is free. Excellent writing there. I have a poem there.