Category: memories

Catatonic in Milwaukee


Stiffness of mind can be a problem and should be noted to tend along with a great deal of anger. I deal with anger. I have problems with anger. I can be very un-nice with anger when it overtakes me and lately it has been  near me too much. I think it is just that the world is moving at such a strange pace and what I hope for is not actually happening but the reverse is. Maybe that  holds true for you as well. In any case being catatonic would be a problem not only in Milwaukee but in Bradenton  as well.

I wonder if people can really change or is it just backwash that we get when we think we changed and then something happens that drags us back into all the same shit. I don’t know. I just known that when looking at my life I can see too many mistakes.

Its a new day and hopefully a day where anger doesn’t creep in to my life or yours.

Oh, and I have never been in Milwaukee but I understand they brew a very fine beer there.

 

WHY DO WE TEACH LIES TO CHILDREN?


Why is it that we teach children to lie? Why do we tell them lies? Santa Claus! Adults think it is cool to tell children all about Santa Claus. Kids get around older kids and the older kids berate the younger kids making them feel foolish and then the heartbreaking truth is revealed that the adults … parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles….lied to them. And you expect them to learn to be truthful doing this? What about the Easter Bunny and egg hunts? …..bunny = eggs?

THE DAY THAT HEMINGWAY DIED


I will never forget the day that Hemingway died

Nor of how he died on ‘61’s second day of July

I was sixteen years old way back then

And far too much to the universe tuned in

I will never forget the shock that filled me as I cried

Deep inside a wounded creature not knowing why

Not even knowing much about the man I stood

Alone in silence surrounded by living woods

That were more than silent that day he died

To me they were, to me they were and yet

The world still moved and went its passing way

But in my heart, I knew something broke that day

Something strange that day had come and gone its way

The day that Papa died, yes that day on ‘61s second day of July       1/14/17

Battle Flag


Battle Flag

 

The battle flag sudden snapped and swung up to fly in the wind

Above the post on the hill that even God had not known about back then

On a hot and sticky day where boys waited amid the baking heat

All seemed to stand still in the sudden roar of quiet to those there that day

Broken by the Sergeant’s sudden shout of “guns up!” that tore the silence apart

Rifles swung up then their muzzles pointed out and down across the clearing

Where men of difference moved so quiet in the sea of grass

Then, with hearts beating hard in all the chests of those there that hour and day

Searing rounds were sent out for the human shearing

A burst returned ripped holes in the flag that flew in the wind

Blood and mud spattered, its fabric so worn and so thin

That flew above boys that day sudden turned into men

It snapped and swung up to fly in the wind

Above the post on the hill that no one, not even God knew about back then.                

6/10/13 edited 12/22/2016

Poem from Standoff: Bare


STANDOFF  is a book of poems that I will be publishing soon. This poem is one of them: BARE. I simply decided that I would post this one for the time being. I hold the copyright on this. 

BARE

Flesh laid back,

Bare!

Raw, no cover to protect

From salt thrown upon there where the whip struck

Beneath the layer thin and thick

Atop with matted hair that hides

Emotions deep run and amid course shall stall

As the owner fails to know the path laid out

Laid out, but not in common diagram of visual plane

Leaving the direction needles spinning mindless there

Nor can one tell or master the storms drifting path

Should path be there hiding beneath a lacquer veneer while

The stronger weather yet to come as emotions gather

As they gather well before the bow that dips deep

So very deep, and then sliding down the hill so steep

Deep down, deep down, falling into the trough beneath emotions towers

Towers without sight of top, nor bottom have

Crashing then they upon decks wet awash with memories tossed

As the pilot fights to stay the line invisible before them

And fails to see the coming of the loss of light

As clouds of thought weigh down the saddened soul

While deck and hold covers fail to stop the rushing waters in

The ship stalls, shudders, shatters from within, rolls, and sinks beneath a wall of tears.

10/3/2016 Copyright GORDON KUHN ass rights reserved.

I wish I could play a harmonica.


I wish I knew how to play a harmonica. For that would be grand to sit on my porch and let the sound slip out towards the sky. I wish I knew how to play a violin, for that would be awesome as I love the sound of such. And then there is the guitar. What a wonderful song it can sing. At last I come to the piano. How fantastic a sound like a band singing all to itself with ups and downs of emotions that can only be reached and touched by a soul inflamed with the love of music. I’ve bought a dozen or so of those cheap harmonicas only to throw them out in time. Oh how I wish I could play the harmonica but its like the flute I have that lies dusty on the shelf and only is picked up when I wish to feel so foolish as to try.

An Uncomfortable Situation, Dealing with Death.


I find myself once more dealing with death.

The past few years have brought more than one sad occasion into my life. I find with each death that it doesn’t get easier with time. It used not to bother me. It does now.

Being uncomfortable with it at this stage in my life is odd. I never would’ve expected that. I guess it’s because the deaths that have occurred primarily have been among friends of mine, or, in one case, the father of a friend of mine who recently passed.

Suddenly I find my world being rocked by an intrusive factor that neither you nor I have any control over. We all know we cannot escape death. That’s not the issue. It’s the hole that’s left in our lives and those of our friends. It’s holding a friend’s hand and wishing that you can alleviate the pain, or help the survivors, or simply trying to make sense of the situation. It’s talking to a friend who is really unable to respond, leaving the room for a moment, and knowing that as you just stepped into the hallway that the friend died.

There is no more communication.

It’s attempting to help the widow or the widower and not knowing what to say. I think that’s the hardest thing, not knowing what to say to the person who’s dying or to the survivors.

In any case, I find myself now struggling as yet another friend has entered the cycle. He and I don’t get along on some issues. We’ve had some rather blunt conversations. Even so I never would have wished this illness on him.

Two months ago he was fine. Then suddenly he contracted a terminal illness: leukemia. Oh I’m sure that the disease was present and had been present for some time, but it just seems to have suddenly appeared. It’s a fast-moving strain. I’ve seen similar before. I spoke with him tonight. I spoke with him and didn’t know what to say. I spoke with his wife and didn’t know what to say. I phoned another friend and didn’t know what to say. I stared hard into our bathroom mirror tonight and didn’t know what to say to myself.

 

 

 

 

COPYRIGHT IN PLACE


Please be aware that this blog and all that is in it is under my Copyright, and that I dearly will take exception for someone to take and use anything that I have written or anything that anyone else has written that appears on these pages or are associated in anyway with my work here.

About July Fourth & an update on Predator.


Surviving the Fireworks

Well, we survived another fourth of being hammered with explosions and pieces of burning munitions falling from the sky. I’ve not been out to look at the screen porch. Hopefully it is okay. Some people just don’t understand that what goes up has to come back down. Fortunately it rained before the rocket show as some people were shooting from the woods where a fire had broken out a few years back when a bunch of kids shot off fireworks. The fire department had to come out and put it out before one of the houses burned down

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Our 11 1/2 year old Great Pyrenees had a tough night. On the 3rd I gave her 1/2 a pill for anxiety and it knocked her down. I’ll never do that again. She was so out of it that she couldn’t get up. Only gave her 1/8th of the same medication last night and it helped calm her without knocking her flat. I will have to let the vet know.

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Predator, The Man Who Didn’t Exist

Well, the killer is still sitting in prison in a 6 by 9 foot cell for 23 hours a day with no one to talk with. His attorneys are still looking at filing appeals. They want him off of death row. Too bad. He beat one woman to death and is a suspect in another grisly murder.

The book is now at 420 pages and that is with my cutting here and there. I have been working on this book now for 3 years. I think it needs to get done.

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Upcoming

A fellow Vietnam Vet wants me to write a book about his tour of duty in Vietnam.

What was left of the helicopter.6.12.15. What was left of the helicopter after being shot down.

We are waiting for Soldier of Fortune to print Shot Down In Laos. It is a story about a rescue mission that went bad in Laos in 1969. Unfortunately the man the story is about died just a few weeks back. His funeral was just a week back.

 

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New Followers

derline   

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Dr. Joseph Suglia

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Thanks for stopping by! But, don’t forget http://www.805lit.org!

 

 

SERGIO


Last Saturday, April. 4,  my wife and I had to say goodbye to a friend who had been with us for 11 years. His twin sister was at home. We couldn’t take her to the Vet’s to be a part of it and it would have been cruel to do so. Sergio and his sister are Great Pyrenees. They are about 120 lbs each. We picked them up 11 years ago at a horrible puppy mill that should be shut down and the owners jailed. It’s location is up at the top of Missouri

We went there with a pickup attached to a 14 foot horse trailer. I had never driven such as that. A dually and a trailer. We drove through the rain, past where tornadoes had recently touched down, and saw two accidents where people had died. One took place in front of us…..right in front of us. Flat nosed delivery truck ran into the back of a stopped semi. The delivery truck penetrated the back of the semi and crushed the driver and his partner.

But this is about Sergio and not trucks or accidents. It is about our friend who we had to let go. And, I think it is about you out there that will read this wherever you might be.

Sergio was diagnosed with bone cancer. God help me that cancer is painful and Sergio was stoic and never really let on how much pain he was in. It kills me to think that he was in pain. That great dog with that great heart and in pain. I thought he was limping from a sore foot. The vet couldn’t figure it out. We put him on some pain pills and the event passed and then about six-week back it came back. The limp. The odd look in his eyes that said something isn’t right. Back to the Vet, more x-rays and then…..and then he told us he thought it was cancer and sent us to the oncologist and she told me he had a tumor that was destroying his left front leg and there was nothing that could be done about it. And the pain. God the pain. It had to be horrible. But he never whimpered. He never cried out. His just limped until last Saturday and he couldn’t put his foot down. He couldn’t stand. But that dog…..that dog tried and he went out and urinated and then sat down and looked at me.

Jan and I called for the Animal Ambulance in Bradenton. We called the Vet. Terry Clekis at the Braden River Animal Hospital. He had given me his cell phone on Friday as we were worried about the weekend and he had told me that if something happened over the weekend to call him but his office was open that Saturday morning. He told us to come on in.

The people from the Animal Ambulance were extremely kind and carefull as they loaded our 120 lb buddy into the ambulance. I rode along side him on the floor and Jan drove my truck behind us. It was a sad drive and he was in pain but showed nothing but love for me as I lay next to my buddy on the floor. The great guy who could stand on his hind feet and put his paws on my shoulders and touch his nose to mine. This incredible animal who helped me rescue a bunny from the claws of two cats once and who stood next to a 12-year-old girl in a wheel chair whose left leg was going up and down over and over again and he leaned up against her and she touched him and her leg stopped moving. He moved away and the leg started again. He moved in and she touched him and her leg stopped going up and down and the parents stood there in amazement and said she had never, ever been able to stop that leg from going up and down. He moved away and it resumed, he moved back in once more and looked at them and me and she touched his back and the leg stopped once again. The father said, “We need to get her a dog.” With that Sergio resumed the walk we had started.

And so, last Saturday was our last walk and it was so very painful. So painful for him, frightening, and so horribly sad for Jan and I.

I am sitting here crying. I don’t cry. But over him I can and do.

I sat and watched as two shots were given to get him to go to sleep before the kill shot. It took two shots. I will never forget how his head  slowly went down and all I wanted to do was scream stop it, stop it. Please stop. There must be a better way. Terry said, “You are doing the right thing.” Jan was in tears. I was trying to hold it together. I can do that at times. I’ve been around death many times but this was killing me. Deaths of pets do that to me. And this was my friend. This was Jan’s protector, her guard, and he was in pain and it was all we could do. We had to help him and that meant saying goodbye and that hurt. You have no idea how much that hurt and it still does.

So, we have his ashes next to our other dog’s. Her name was Tifton. We found her in Tifton, GA years ago the side of the road on I-75 covered with fleas, ticks, a rope imbedded in her throat. About seven months old, starving, and pregnant. She was a fantastic dog and because a buddy to Sergio and Suzie when we brought them home.

We we got them we could hold them in our hands little ball of fur and they were so sick that we had to pull into a Vet’s office in the same town where the puppy mill was to get meds. We weren’t sure if they’d make the trip to Florida. We had four of them, we bought two: Sergio and Suzie. The other two went to another owner who moved to Texas.

Now we just have Suzie. She’s sleeping on the floor not faraway from where I am sitting. She is snoring her head off. She has hip and knee problems and I know her days are numbered too. And I’ll cry for her just like I am now for him. The tears are also for Jan and I for the loss and the memories but we did the right thing. I know people who keep their pets until the dog simply dies and they have been in pain for months. Why? Why do that to them? Even the length of time from the “I don’t know” from the vet to the final shot was too long.

Sergio, we loved you and do love you and we wish you nothing but peace. Please come and visit and bark so we know you are there from time to time when you can stop playing tag with Tifton who comes and rattles shades on the doors and makes things move. Peace to you our great friend. We’ll all meet up again one day and there will be no more pain.