November 22, 1984

[gypsyjoker]

It seems to me war is getting a bad rap
how wrong can it be
it has got us this far

Herodotus
I will probably never read that book again

But I remember the bit about the tribe that
kicked everybodies ass,
conquered themselves a
nice piece of real estate,
river bottom land
fertile as a crescent
in a valley
long ago and far away.

Then they settled down,
grew their hair long,
started wearing earings,
learned to play the guitar

and that was the last anyone ever heard of them.
oh well that's the way it goes
first your money than your toes
love peace and taco grease
and all that bullshit

but who knows
maybe they are still there in that mist shrouded mountain valley
Watching Lost Horizon for the first time
on a black and white tv
snuggled up with my true love
spoons
she fit my body like a lock to a key
a double helix embrace
but I let her slip away
because I was born to follow
a mama's boy if there ever was one
I make jack kerouac seem like a mensch.


Pardon me
I got a lot to talk about today.

Where where you at sunrise on thanks giving day nineteen eighty four?

[Arcadia]

mmm... 1984... I was sixteen and I doubt I knew what thanksgiving was..!

[Andeh]

3 or 4
With a dad out to sea or war

(didnt even plan on the rhyme, or did I?)

[mnaz]

War has never quite earned a "bad rap", at least not so far.
It just keeps going on. And on.

Look at all those kids signing up, you know, to go to war.
That is, if they have to. And you know they will. Free will.

I remember in nineteen-85 it snowed. A lot. In '84 I had just started working so I was pretty much gone, kind of like the impending now. There is little literal snow to speak of, even now.

[stilltrucking]

The winter of 84-85 San Antonio Texas had a storm that dropped a foot of snow overnight. A record. There was also a comet that winter.

Speaking of 16
November of 1956
I met my true love at her sweet sixteen birthday party, I can still remember what she wore that night, we went together for five years, she wanted to marry me, I asked my mother like a mama's boy that i was, and she said, "oh jackie don't do it, there are plenty of fish in the ocean" Of all the times I broke my mother's heart, she only broke mine once. Nobody's fault but mine.

Thank you both very much for replying.

I think you are right about war mnaz...


Nothing to do with this, I just enjoy hijacking my own thread, I do it to everybody else so I figure I got it coming.

Reading "Reckoning" a history of Iraq (Mesopotamia) going back 5000 years. Interesting factoids, for example the British used poison gas on the Kurds in the 1920's. Geez, where was George Bush when they needed him?

[Lightning Rod]

I can't get Nov 22, 1963 out of my mind
I was in the Jr. High School cafeteria
eating a rubbery public school hamburger
the principal came over the P.A. system
said the president had been shot
by fourth period, we knew he was dead
there was shock and tears
my sorrow was mitigated because I was a republican

[stilltrucking]

my sorrow was mitigated because I was a republican

She used to tell me I was honest to a fault. So are you Clay.

[izeveryboyin]

I was probably being fed a bottle... having only been about 9 months old at the time. How terribly insightful.

--k

[stilltrucking]

And when she was gone there was one child left to carry on

Andeh and izzy thank you for taking the time to reply.

Thanksgiving day, I was sitting by the side of her bed watching the sky grow light, and just as the first rays of the sun came through the window and illuminated her face she was gone. I have heard that many old people die at sunrise. There was a mirror on the wall opposite her bed, perhaps my imagination but it seemed as she was looking into it with a look of recognition. And then her expression changed to one of acceptance as if I could hear her say. "Oh that's okay" and she drew one last breath but I don't remember her exhaling, then she died. And I got up and covered the mirror with a sheet because that is what my family always does in a time of mourning. We would cover the mirrors. Not sure why.

___________________________

Yes I can't get November 22 1963 out of my mind either Clay, it was the day I come within a pubic hair of killing my mother. I still remember the feel of her throat in my hands, the pulse in her carotid arteries, the look on her face. Not fear, something else, sorrow? comapssion? whatever it was it stopped me.

Suicide by matricide.

Years later (1972 I think) I sat up talking with her all night, me tripping my ass off on acid her clueless with a nice glass of tea and bagel. She told me a joke about the Jewish boy who murdered his mother. A horrible crime, he cut her heart out with a butcher knife and went running down the street with her heart in his hands. Then he tripped and fell and the heart said "Oi vey son did you hurt yourself?"

And for the last twelve years of her life she was my best friend again.

[hester_prynne]

I love this Still....fabulous write.
H

[Doreen Peri]

Where where you at sunrise on thanks giving day nineteen eighty four?

I was married, a happy stay-at-home mommy with a two year old boy, oblivious to the fact that in one and a half short months, my entire life would do an upheaval, I'd have to go to work full-time, find daycare for my son and figure out how to make it on my own. It dawns on me that nothing much has changed in 24 years.