It's time

It is time for Afghanistan to stand on its own, but my goodness, the rocky road they face ahead was foreseen, but the end of the Afghan government came to a screeching halt so fast, do dramatically, and so sadly.

Yesterday, President Biden forcefully made the case for our departure. I agree with him. We spent two decade trying to prop up a government that lacked the convictions to stand for itself. 

I am conflicted. Angry, Sad. Worried. Scared.

Pray for the women. Pray for the girls. They have known some semblance of freedom for the past 20 years. Their police force and army have thrown them under the bus.

I served in Kabul for 15 months. I loved the people. 

We trained their Army and their Police. We equipped them. We befriended them and still they just did not seem able to take that final leap to fend for themselves. So, as their government collapsed on Sunday, those of us who served there are scratching our heads in disbelief, dismay with tears and reticence.

Any of us who served there knew this would be the end result but hope to be proven wrong.

The Afghans are a proud, beautiful people. But I believe they are not united enough to act as a nation but instead a group of disjointed tribes which has made it easy for the Taliban to once again take control. 

One thing is certain, they deserve better.

Pray for Afghanistan. 

Pulling the rug?

Right now, I am thinking of a woman who I interviewed when I was stationed in Afghanistan. She was a Major in the Afghan National Army and by trade, she was a pharmacist. While I was interviewing her she thanked me for being here and I told her I was only doing my job. And she corrected me by saying, “no, not you… your people, your Army.”

She continued by saying that when we came here and threw out the Taliban, she was given hope and she could return to her job instead of being forced to stay at home. You know the mentality, barefoot and pregnant. 

That is exactly what the Taliban expects of their women.

Women will not be educated. Young girls will not attend school. They will return to the past where young girls will be forced to marry anybody who the Taliban deems it. Women will have no voice, no say so. Forget about love. Forget about freedom. Forget about a future crafted by self-determination.

An outdated, archaic 10th century religious dogma will rule! A country led by a bunch of hate-filled, frightened men who think our future is 12 centuries in the past. 

The Major told me that by our presence there her daughters had a future.

Now, where is their future?

I am sad.

Futility?

The news from Afghanistan today is disheartening. As many of you know, I was stationed there in 2008-09. In the 20 years that we were there and we haven’t left yet, we trained them, we equipped them, and now it deeply saddens me to see their armed forces lay down their weapons and let the Taliban take over without a fight, without a whimper.

I mean, if they won’t even fight for themselves and their own country, why should we?

While I do believe it it’s way past time that we have left, I fear for the women and the young girls in that country. I fear for anyone who attempts to stand against the Taliban once they are back in power. If they do not capitulate, they will be treated harshly or killed.

And it saddens me more that we spent trillions of dollars, countless lives injured—both on our side and the Afghans, and countless deaths and more in the order of 3000+ of our troops died.

Was it all for nothing?

Rest in Peace, Tom Reim

 

This photo is dedicated to the memory of my friend Tom Riem. Tom and I served together as co-directors of our church, First United Methodist Church, weekly volunteer operated food pantry for five years. We made a great team, something I have sorely missed doing since I started my job at WorkOne two years ago. We had a great deal of fun working together. I had always hoped that when I retire I would resume my duties working with him at the pantry.

Tom passed away unexpectedly this weekend (probably Sunday). He was a couple years older than me.

Let me tell you some recollections about him. Tom was a loving father. He often talked about his two daughters and I particularly remember when his daughtier graduated from college three years ago and they went to Florida to celebrate.

He was dedicated to his parents who had, up to the time of his father's death, been married to his mother for 81 years (he was 102, his wife 101). He visited them often. They lived near Traverse City, Michigan, I believe, and I never heard him complain about those long trips up.

Tom was always the first to arrive on Tuesday mornings to set up for the pantry. As you can imagine, COVID played havoc on the pantry's operations and Tom was on top of it. The week-to-week goings on went smoothly in part due to his dedication to the serving those in need.

Tom loved the church, and he had a wry wit about many things related to church, life, and people in general. He and I often traded gentle jabs with one another. He was a Trump supporter and I not even remotely. If anything can be said, it is that friendship and our dedication to the pantry transcended politics... Washington, are you listening? I am a Ford man, he an Audi enthusiast. We almost always parked our cars together (to prevent anyone from dinging our car doors).

I noticed Tom was absent from services two weeks ago and I thought that odd. Strangely enough, I even wondered if he was ill... and now I know.

So... Tom... God bless. I am going to miss you, our church will miss you, and I know your family and friends will.

Please keep a good thought or two for Tom's family.

Joy? Justice

I wish I could find joy in Derek Chauvin's triple guilty verdict earlier today. Don't get me wrong. Today's historic verdict was the right one. It was the only verdict possible, and yet it was the verdict many of us believed might have a different outcome. 

How many times have we seen justice not awarded? How many black men (and women) have been killed at the hands of the police and when facing a jury gotten off with nary a slap on the wrist? I suspect we all feared that would happen one more time today.

Joy? No. Mr. George Floyd died. The man should not have died, but he did. He was wantonly killed by a police officer, Derek Chauvin, who lost sight of his job, but more importantly, his humanity.

What I can find in this verdict is a resolute satisfaction knowing justice has been set in motion. 

Perhaps this verdict will send the message that brutality from the hands of those whose motto "to serve and protect" can once again be realized. Maybe this verdict will see that accountability can be dealt. Maybe this verdict will award the mantra 'black lives matter' the beacon of hope it so rightly deserves and earned.

Today's verdict was correct, gutwrenching, nervewracking, necessary, and up to the moment we all heard it, far from certain. And I believe it will serve as a step towards healing.

Joy? No. Elation? Also no. Celebratory? Yes, only in the fact that, for this significant moment in time, justice has been realized, but not yet complete. Ask Floyd's family how their lives have changed. For now, I am sure some hope has shown its face, but their prayers have been only partially answered.

In two months, Chauvin will be sentenced. For now, we will all have to wait and see if accountabilty will be realized too. Joy? Maybe then.

Springtime Confession (with apologies to the Grass Roots)

I have a confession to make—Um, did that get your attention?

Three actually. First, I have lived in my home for 25 years and I have only raked the autumn leaves, maybe seven or eight times in all those years. I am usually content to let the winter winds take care of it, or I use my lawnmower to mulch them in the spring.

Tonight I raked leaves and I am sooo going to pay for it as it took me three hours to do the deed. This year, upon learning the city is doing a spring pickup I thought I'd do them. There is another ulterior motive--one I'll let go unsaid. Needless to say, I am sore tonight and may be even more so tomorrow. I think if someone walked up to me right now and gently poked my chest I might fall to the ground screaming in agony. LoL!

Second confession: That is going to get me in trouble with a couple of people (grin). Generally speaking, my idea of a nice yard is a freshly mowed lawn. Period. Sure, I love a landscaped yard, but I have had but the slightest interest in doing any landscaping. In more recent years, I planted a few flowers here and there. They all died. Roughly 15 years ago, my son Wes planted a dozen or so shrubs and trees and a few flowers. In fact, I actually blame him for all the raking I did tonight. He planted all those trees and left the raking to me (thankless child... HA!).

Years ago, Wes and I planted a small fir tree. it grew to a lovely 15-foot tall majestic tree. Alas, four years back some ass stole it in the dark of night around Christmas-time, and the only other tree I myself have planted--and done well with--is a tulip tree given to me by my friend Jim and his father.

Recently, my boyfriend mentioned--in his words--"I need help (Hush! No funny snide remarks from the peanut gallery)." He thinks my yard is in dire need of a redo. I won't argue the point. I am sure it does. Also relatively recently, someone who is near and dear to me commented, "it's too bad I don't know anyone who does landscaping for a living."

Here's the crux of the matter. I know incredibly little about plants. I am lucky I know what irises, lilies, daffodils, roses, marigolds, tulips, and poison ivy * look like. Ask me the name of a flower and I may know what it is, but it should surprise no one that most likely I would be baffled.

* I can play naked in poison ivy and suffer no ill effects. Lucky me... and really, no one wants to see that!

A few years ago, I planted a tiny bed of what would appear to be wildflowers, and they kind of, in spite of my kiss of death to plants, seem to have done okay, but they need help too.

Years ago I made two boxes to grow strawberries. They (the strawberries) no longer exist. They couldn't get enough sun where I planted them in my backyard. Last year I planted two tomato plants. They also suffered from a lack of sun until I moved them.

Confession three: I am a bit embarrassed to admit this. As I gay man, I have absolutely no sense of how to establish a coherent landscaped lawn. I might, just might, admit to that same issue in regards to the interior of my home. Thankfully, I know a few people (kinda like the adage "I know people who know people")... and that I am willing to be putty in their hands.

Back to the comment of "it's too bad I don't know anyone who does landscaping for a living." If you are ever in need of a great landscape artist, call my Uncle Garry. He has elevated the job to an art form. In fact, his business is called "Earth Art." Yes, a shameless plug.

Anyhoo, spring is coming, spring is here, and I have to do some things to spruce up my yard. I'm glad my boyfriend "has ideas for my yard (and my house too)."

Good thing, I need help!

Ain't love grand?

For years and years and years, my diet has been pretty "plain Jane," consisting mostly of sandwiches (wheat or rye bread only, thank you, and never ever with mayo or ketchup), I have eaten lots of tuna mac & cheese, or I'd throw a can of kidney or dark beans on the stove.

When Wes lived here at home while he attended  Notre Dame, I cooked a bit more. And after he moved on, I found cooking for one difficult, and a crashing bore, actually.

Occasionally, I make a crockpot of homemade chili or nice salad and every once in a great while, banana bread. My idea of adventurous cooking was spicey chili-parmesan popcorn. 

It wasn't so much that my diet was unhealthy, in fact, quite the opposite but it was insanely bland (no salt, almost no spices.

Since I have been dating since last July, my love of cooking and baking has been rekindled. 

One thing I have always detested was certain canned vegetables. Store-bought canned green beans are the worst! They taste like sterilized wet waxed cardboard... okay, they just remind me of wet cardboard. 

I grew up cooking for eight. I recently mentioned I still struggle with cooking for one. If you saw my fridge, pantry, and freezer, you'd think a large family lives here, so when I get the opportunity to cook for us on movie-dinner date, I am in heaven... or a basket case when I am trying something new (like last Friday).

I like experimenting in the kitchen. Tonight I bought a large batch of fresh green beans. Traditionally, I almost never eat them since I have this bad mental image of them but this time I tried something different. I steamed them and threw them in a "cold bath." Afterward, I cut them up and threw them in a skillet with melted garlic (another new item in my cooking repertoire) butter, cooking them on high heat. I added three or four heaping teaspoons of diced white onion (I just lost my friend Shane 😁 there) and fried them--sort of--for about five minutes. I then threw them in a bowl and sprinkled parmesan cheese on them.

All I can say is... O M G! 

If I keep this up I am going to have to start up a youtube cooking show ala Chef Mappín. Ha!

Carnage in Washington, DC

I had not planned on the comments below being the first for this year. I had hoped to speak to my hopes and expectations for 2021. I had hoped to talk about our hopeful future once we conquer COVID-19.

I had hoped to speak to how happy my life has been for my past six months. Instead of talking about those things--and more, the events of January 6th, 2021 have pre-empted the comments I wanted to address. So I will save them for another day.

This Wednesday will be a blemish on our country's history. The theatrics of it all need not ever have happened, but they did.

Some thoughts about today: I woke up to a world where it was apparent the Democrats were going to take control of the Senate. I was elated. That balloon quickly was deflated with three huge pricks after hearing that the Donald's son and Rudi Giuliani whipped up the ugly crowd to a frenzy, prepping the crowd for the Mafioso-in-Chief. When I heard his remarks, his delusions, his pomposity, I was dumbfounded... not surprised in the least, though.

And then the unthinkable. The desecration, the violence, the outrageousness of this day. 

I  gave 21 years of my life serving the whims of the Commander-in-Chief, eight of those years under a President I disagreed with. Doesn't matter. I served. I gave an oath to defend our Constitution, our country from enemies, foreign and domestic and to follow the orders of our Commander-in-Chief. Lord, I am thankful I retired from the Navy the year before he took office.

I never actually thought those attacks would come from within, Maybe I should have. Timothy McVeigh was American, after all. And surely, I would never have thought such violence would be instigated by a delusional despot sitting in the White House.

Am I angry? No. But I want to be. What I am is sad. I am shocked. I am appalled, and I am weary of the drama we have been through for the past four years. But that will change in two weeks. Now, that said, President-elect Biden has a rough road ahead of him. Trump has laid countless land mines that are going to be with us for quite some time. Biden, Vice-President-elect Harris, and the Democrats had best be on their toes.

All I can say is, I pray for kindness. I pray for peace. I pray for unity. I pray for us all.