Friction and Harmony

Son, you rock! I’m incredibly proud of you. Stay safe, proud and mean!  Hooah!

The Warrior Song

I’ve got the reach and the teeth of a killin’ machine,

with a need to bleed you when the light goes green

best believe, I’m in a zone to be, from my Yin to my Yang to my Yang Tze

put a grin on my chin when you come to me,

‘cuz I’ll win, I’m a one-of-a-kind and I’ll bring death

to the place you’re about to be: another river of blood runnin’ under my feet

forged in a fire lit long ago, stand next to me, you’ll never stand alone

I’m last to leave, but the first to go, Lord, make me dead before you make me old

I feed on the fear of the devil inside of the enemy faces in my sights:

aim with the hand, shoot with the mind, kill with a heart like arctic ice

I am a soldier and I’m marching on

I am a warrior and this is my song

I bask in the glow of the rising war, lay waste to the ground of an enemy shore

wade through the blood spilled on the floor, and if another one stands I’ll kill some more

bullet in the breach and a fire in me, like a cigarette thrown, to gasoline

if death don’t bring you fear, I swear, you’ll fear these marchin’ feet

Come to the nightmare, come to me, deep down in the dark  where the devil be

in the maw with the jaws and the razor teeth,

where the brimstone burns and the angel weeps

call to the gods if I cross your path and my silhouette hangs like a body bag

hope is a moment now long past, the shadow of death is the one I cast.

I am a soldier and I’m marching on

I am a warrior and this is my song

my eyes are steel and my gaze is long

I am a warrior and this is my song

now I live lean and I mean to inflict the grief,

and the least of me is still out of your reach

the killing machine’s gonna do the deed,

until the river runs dry and my last breath leaves

chin in the air with a head held high,

I’ll stand in the path of the enemy line

feel no fear, know my pride:

for God and Country I’ll end your life

I am a soldier and I’m marching on

I am a warrior and this is my song

my eyes are steel and my gaze is long

I am a warrior and this is my song

Hat Tip: Blogfather Harvey over at IMAO

This post has been sitting in my Drafts bin for a while. I’ll post it finally, ’cause frankly I could use a pick-me-up and ska music can be my irresistible force.

First, something that drives a little…  How about a Buck o’ Nine?

Here’s some “fluff” – Madness is “ska-light” I guess, but this was one of my favorites from them, and a lot of fun.

Likewise, another something fun, this time Mighty Mighty Bosstones:

And one more time, picking up the beat with Rancid:

Rancid -Time Bomb

There, I feel better already! 

Somewhere on Facebook, I attempted to contribute this short story of my experience with Colon Cancer – the disease that took someone dear from me.  I don’t know if it made it or not.  When I pressed “Submit,” everything disappeared, and Farce-book crashed.  I don’t know even where I found the Colon Cancer survivors group, but I figure if it was meant to get out there, it will.  If not, that’s fine too.

Fortunately, I had the foresight to Cut-Copy my text to a document before sending it off to the bit-ocean of the Internet.  Here it is, mostly for me, but if someone needs to read my words, I figure the Holy Spirit knows how to direct a Google search: 

(I’m sticking it below the fold — )

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I found a way to satisfy the Birthday tradition of signifying one’s age in candles atop a birthday cake AND keep the Fire Marshall from having to issue a permit:

My lovely wife is this many today…

And she is so NOT amused by my creativity! 

Please – distract her for a second while I make my run for safety do stop by and wish her a Happy Birthday!

Getting there.

I talked with PVT Goob this weekend.  Things are going well.  He’s enjoying the letters he’s gotten from friends, family and even our blogger friends.   He’s trying to write back to everyone.  I told him that it’s damn near impossible to pick him out of his unit website pictures, ’cause everyone is in full battle gear – they all look alike – so he sent me this.  Looks like Private Goob has squared up a little!  He’s lost that scared, “what the HELL did I DO??” look.   Nowhere near perfect yet, but definitely getting there.

Lucky Goob – his 19th b-day is next week, which he gets to spend in Army BCT.  Why lucky, you ask?  Three words:  belt-fed weaponry!

I’m so jealous. 

I moved in with my Grandma, shortly after she suffered congestive heart failure.  She was 84 years old and had been living alone since my grandfather passed away a few years earlier.  We were told she could no longer be expected to care for herself, and in fact, the prognosis was grim:  we would be lucky to still have her by Christmas.  It was Easter week, 1997.

What followed were six of the most wonderful years of my life.

You see, until approximately two years before, I had never in my life known my Grandma, or even where she lived or what she looked like.  Likewise, she hadn’t even known I existed (though I believe strongly that she suspected).  I had been given up for adoption, and it wasn’t until I was 29 years old that I met her for the first time.  Turns out, I was one of fourteen grandchildren – but none of them ever knew her so well, nor played with her the way I did.

She loved to tease and laugh, and she got a kick out of hitting me.  Grandma would laugh hysterically at my reaction, since she refused to believe that she was physically able to deal any damage.  I think she really did believe I was putting on a show for her benefit – but her bony little fist would catch me in the solar plexus and knock the wind out of me damn near every time.  And for a little old church lady, she was quick!  But I would laugh with her.  Afterall, what was I going to do?  Can’t hit your grandma back, it’s against the rules.  The only time I lost my cool was when driving home from church with her in the back seat, and WHAP!!  My ears were filled with a bone-jarring THUD and I saw stars as I crossed an intersection at 40 miles per hour…  She had wanted to get my attention – by cold-cocking me in the back of the head with a 3″ thick hardbound book!

Then along came Santa.

Our first Christmas there, Mom put out her 4-foot tall Santa Claus to stand next to the tree.  Mom was proud of her Santa.  It was an expensive gift from the Attorney she worked for, purchased by the attorney’s wife.  The detail was remarkable; he carried miniature toys in his bag, a tiny stuffed teddy bear, a few wrapped packages, and a doll.  His suit was velvet with ermine lining, and he wore tiny wire-framed spectacles with glass lenses.  His hair and beard were – I hope – synthetic, but it looked real enough.

From birth, it seems, I have always hated clowns, dolls and ventriloquist dummies.  I had to spend a few nights as a guest in someone’s house, sharing a bedroom with an antique Howdy Doody puppet, which sat on a tall dresser and watched me try to sleep.  Antique or not, I ended up stuffing him in a drawer.  When I was no more than five, an amusement park clown tried to garner laughs from a crowd by having her puppet try to take my ice cream from me as I tried to shrink into my mother’s side.  As the creepy little fucker came in, snapping at my treat, adrenaline kicked in and I did what was natural…  I shoved the ice cream cone in the dummy’s face and ran like hell away from my psychotic adoptive family, since they had obviously turned against me and were laughing and playing to this demonic torturer…  But I digress.

Soon after that Santa was put out, it was clear to me that I had inherited my sensitivity to creepy shit from my Grandma.  Santa was placed to stand between the Christmas tree and the old RCA console television set, facing the chair where Grandma always sat to ritually knit while watching Wheel of Fortune.  After supper one evening, I sat down in the chair next to her, and I realized that Santa was looking past the TV at the hallway door.  He had been rotated about 60 degrees away from the direction of Grandma’s favorite seat.  Mom rotated Santa back, but Grandma didn’t say a word – she pretended not to notice.  I noticed, however, that she avoided looking at him, and I understood why.  Behind those cute, authentic-looking corrective lenses, he had dark “coal-like” sparkling eyes, that looked less playfully mischievous than impishly evil.  The glasses gave the effect that he was staring at you, no matter where in the room you moved.  And of course, he would never, ever blink…

Midget Santa was a fucking creepfest!

I was tickled that she was as unnerved by the thing as I was, so I decided to have some fun at the sweet little gut-punching octagenarian’s expense.   I would move Santa ever so slightly when she was out of the room.  A little at first – an inch closer at a time, like a cat readying to pounce.  Grandma didn’t flinch.  Santa would be back in position the next evening when I came home from work, staring at the hallway door.  The game went on wordlessly and without any reaction for a few days.  He even slid behind the tree a little to stare at her through the branches.

Until finally it happened.

My alarm went off on what was certainly a Monday morning.  It was early, still dark, and time to get up and get ready for my 60 mile commute to work.  I rolled over to hit the snooze button to buy a few precious extra minutes sleep.  As my eyes tried to focus on the digital glow of the clock face, I saw a small figure standing next to my bed, eye-level with me where I lay, staring at me in the near darkness.  The only thing that could possibly have added to the intensity of my fright would have been the glint of a sharpened axe blade raised over his little Santa hat!

Grandma wouldn’t acknowledge that she ever noticed Santa move.

Checkmate.

She didn’t make it to 90 without skillz.

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I guess since Mrs. Who posted about Buck’s mission with the Young Marines at Barrancas National Cemetery, I should also mention that I participated as well.  We are, after all, a patriotic and thankful family!

I rode with the Gulf Coast Patriot Guard – a fine bunch of folks with a lot of great stories.  While I didn’t carry a camera myself, it looks like the local FOX news affiliate was kind enough to do the job for me.  (In fact, you can see me riding at 22-24 seconds in the clip.  I’m the one with the largest head — go figure.)

The Mobile, Alabama ceremony was smaller than the one Mrs. Who and Buck covered in Pensacola, but it definitely had a very personal feel.  All the Patriot Guard Riders (with the exception of yours truly) were retired, former or active military.  At the cemetery, we were joined by three members of the Vietnam Vets MC.  Soon, a Korean War Veterans Color Guard (the gentlemen in the light blue jackets in the video) joined us, and it was amazing to witness these generations of warriors past and present as they shared an intrinsic bond.  To my humble amazement, I was enveloped in their circle as they traded stories and of course, some good-humored rivalrous jabs, steeped in a warmth that was undeniably the Brotherhood of Service to a truly Great Nation.

We have a new mission before us – one that I won’t get to participate in firsthand, but will endeavor to support in whatever way I can.  My adoptive father was a WWII vet, and I would have given just about anything to have been able to send or even to escort him on an Honor Flight.  Our PGR unit has been asked to escort Mobile’s first Honor Flight in May, 2009.  (We’ve also been tasked with helping raise money to cover the costs of transporting elderly vets and their escorts to the WWII Memorial in Washington DC.  If you feel inclined to donate to such an honorable and worthy cause, please do so at gulfcoastpatriotguard – dot – org. or with your local Patriot Guard Riders.)

I just discovered Jackie’s VLogs on YouTube.

I have a new virtual friend.

Before I say anything else… Thank you, everyone.

The outpouring of love, well-wishes and prayers from our family, friends, parishioners, and all you who have touched our lives and hearts through the blogosphere has been and continues to be profoundly moving.

We knew our little one would have to overcome a great deal to make it “all the way”… We were surprised and overjoyed at her mere (albeit surprising) presence, which touched our whole family and all our friends so deeply. Her loss was not so sudden. It was the desperate, tragic and dwindling loss of hope which made losing our baby so terribly painful… I tried to deny it as long as I could. I tried to tell myself that our baby was never really here, so it couldn’t be so painful as it felt deep inside. Perhaps I could have continued that charade for a while…

Thankfully, tonight we lit a candle to mark our loss, and to honor the little soul that I feel with all my heart awaits us in Heaven. It wasn’t until I saw the expressions of grief around me that I knew I could fully acknowledge my own.

Each of our children displayed their own sadness at the loss, consistent with their unique and wonderful personalities.  Goob – our gentle-hearted “rebel” – laid his head on my shoulder and hugged me.  PrincessNo – our tender, sweet and dynamic little girl on the brink of being a stunning young lady – silently cried, tears streaming down her face.  Eraserhead – our likely future attorney whom seems somehow genetically compelled to plead for fairness and justice wherever he encounters the slightest iniquity - pleaded this time for hope, demanding that our collective joy should not turn to loss so quickly.  And Buck – our future Marine – quietly, stoically clenched his jaw and stared the “thousand yard stare,” deep into the living room wall.

Mrs. Who and I quietly wept, held each other and dreamed of the beautiful, smoochable, loving and bright little one we might have had… If only. Then we held hands and prayed as a family for our family’s newest Ambassador to Heaven.

While her name was perhaps never to be written in this world, it is forever etched in our hearts, and in His.

Goodbye for now, little one.  You are one powerful little soul to have touched our lives so deeply without us ever having had the chance to count your tiny fingers and toes, smell your sweet hair or blow kisses on your tummy while delighting in your laughter…  You only had to be for a moment to lift all our hearts.  And what a precious moment it was.  You made us One.

Until we see you, Sweetheart, one bright and joyous day…

We love you.

My Lord, our baby is dead!

Why, my Lord — dare I ask why?  She will not hear the whisper of the wind nor see the beauty of her parents’ faces — she will not see the beauty of Your creation nor the flame of a sunrise.  Why, my Lord?

“Why, My child — do you ask ‘why’?  Well, I will tell you why.

You see, your child lives!  Instead of the wind, she hears the sound of angels singing before My throne.  Instead of the beauty that passes, she sees everlasting Beauty—she sees My face.  She was created and lived a short time so the image of her parents imprinted on her face may stand before Me as their personal intercessor.  She knows secrets of heaven unknown to men on earth.  She laughs with a special joy that only the innocent possess.  My ways are not the ways of man.  I create for My Kingdom and each creature fills a place in that Kingdom that could not be filled by another.  She was created for My joy and her parents’ merits.  She has never seen pain or sin.  She has never felt hunger or pain.   I breathed a soul into a seed, made her grow and called her forth.”

I am humbled before you, my Lord, for questioning Your wisdom, goodness, and love.  I speak as a fool — forgive me.  I acknowledge Your sovereign rights over life and death.  I thank You for the life that began for so short a time to enjoy so long an Eternity.

– Mother M. Angelica