On The Wing

Editor’s Note: Vince Allen shares another memoir with us in this homage to his grandfather.

My Grandfather:  John Edwin Leatherwood

By: Vincent Allen

Since I recently became a grandfather I frequently find my thoughts returning to my maternal grandfather, John Leatherwood, because he was such an enormous influence on my life before he died. Although he was an imposing figure, he was perhaps the most steadfast family man that I have ever known, and he still managed to be a ton of fun whenever it was appropriate.

Leatherwood, as his friends and co-workers called him, was the epitome of a weathered, tough, and scarred blue-collar warrior that had been forced to work hard all his life in order to provide for his family. By anybody’s standards, he was a large man, standing six feet two inches tall with a ramrod straight back and broad, strong shoulders.

He weighed well over two hundred and twenty five pounds, but there was never a time that he actually spoke about his weight because it was just not one of the things that he focused on during his life. He almost always wore a gun-metal gray worker’s uniform that had full length trousers and a button up short-sleeved shirt.

During the work week his shirts still had the white embroidered patch over the left breast pocket with his last name, Leatherwood, in red letters like the ones that were worn by mechanics and service station attendants. On the weekends, he dressed pretty much the same way except that the shirts would not have the name tags on them.

The natural expression on his face could best be described as a scowl, but old injuries made it seem much more menacing than it really was. He had worked in a bomber factory during World War II and had fallen victim to an industrial accident that scarred his face diagonally from the bridge of his nose slanting upward across his left eye, and it had also damaged and blinded him in that eye.

The damaged eye was scary to little kids and gave him the look of a really tough man, which he actually was in all of the ways that mattered.  He had also lost half of his right index finger in another work-related accident and jokingly referred to it as his nub. He always laughed at the smaller children in the family after he would perform a slight of hand maneuver that made it look as if he could make that half of his finger disappear. All of these physical imperfections combined with his ruddy complexion from working outside most of his life left strangers with the impression that he was not a man to be trifled with, and they would have been right.

If there was ever a person who gave credence to the old saying, “Never judge a book by its cover”, my grandfather was certainly that person. Despite his gruff exterior, he was the most devoted family man that I have known in my life. A large part of that devotion was consumed by the need to work hard all the time to earn a living but strangely enough I remember the other aspects of his devotion much more clearly.

As a young boy and his oldest grandson, he mentored me in all of the many crafts, skills, and trades that he had learned over the years. He taught me how to paint, how to use hand tools, how to do some simple car repairs, and how to install wood paneling. He absolutely insisted that I attended school and took my studies seriously. He did the same for my siblings, cousins, and other family members that sought his support, but somehow I always felt that I had a special relationship with him.

He never hesitated to help other family members when they were down and out. He did not give handouts, make no mistake about that, but instead he would provide exactly what the person needed to help them meet whatever challenge they were facing at the time. He provided food, shelter, and transportation to work for my mother several times during my younger years when her marriage to my father ended and she was left to support four children on her own. Without the help that my grandfather provided to us at the time, our situation would have been very dire and there is no way to predict what would have become of us.

He was just as strict as he was supportive and while his discipline was old-fashioned by today’s standards, he did not have to resort to those measures often. He expected that everybody knew right from wrong and that if you did wrong then you should have expected to get punished for it. He did not take any joy from punishing his grandchildren but he certainly did not shirk that responsibility either whenever it was appropriate. He was also just as quick and took enormous pleasure in rewarding good behavior which is a balancing act that I never fully appreciated until I became a parent myself.

Just because he looked scary and was serious about his family obligations did not mean that my grandfather lacked a sense of humor. He possessed a rapier-like wit which he would use when fencing with insults and teasing other family members. It was a rare occasion when one of us was able to get the better of him when trading jibes across the living room or dinner table. Each of us was tagged by him with a funny nickname that was usually the result of his observations regarding one of our least desirable personal traits. My own nickname was Harum-Scarum because when I was younger I would charge into things without thinking about them first which frequently resulted in some kind of accident.

His nickname for my mother was Queenie because of her sometimes superior attitude. Nobody in the family went unscathed when it came to my grandfather’s nicknames. I remember having fun when my grandfather was in a happy mood and would start to sing some of his favorite old vaudeville or country songs. He had a good voice that was loud and the tone was very deep but he carried a tune well and he would sing some funny songs when he was happy and he felt like it.

Some of the best times that I remember having when I was a boy were the hunting and fishing trips with my grandfather. He bought me my first shotgun, took me on my first hunting trip, taught me how to bait a hook, and was there when I caught my first fish. It was a dark, foggy, morning out in his small fishing boat on the lake at the Flying S Ranch when I hooked a small largemouth bass and reeled it in. We did not catch a lot of fish that day because the weather was bad, but I still remember it as one of the most fun times I had with my grandfather.

There is hardly a day that goes by when I do not think about my grandfather because of something he said or something he taught me about life and family. I am very fortunate to have been able to know my grandfather very well and even luckier to have lived with him and my grandmother during my teenage years, when his guidance helped me to make me into the person I am today. I very much want to be able to “pay it forward” and create memories with my grandchildren that they will cherish as much as the memories I have of my own grandfather, John Edwin Leatherwood, a giant of a man in all of the measures that really matter.

We Know Nothing

by Aleathia Drehmer

What does one do with unforeseen guilt?  I sat, unsuspecting, in my nice suburban apartment content with my neighborhood, and somewhat oblivious to the generosity that fills my home.  I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt,  that at that moment I had taken my existence for granted.  Something began to happen to me as I sat at my table folding small press magazines….something humbling and honest and heartbreaking.  I started to watch a documentary called “Into the Arms of Strangers”.  I didn’t know what it was about when I chose it, but the title was interesting and the picture sad and haunting.  I planned to more or less listen to the film rather than watch it.

It started showing me faces of German Jewish children from the beginning of Hitler’s reign.  In old voices, the stories of these children began to unfold.  They spoke about the Kindertransport in 1938—a grand evacuation of children from Germany to England.  I remember seeing this type of transport, though more covert, briefly touched upon in “Schindler’s List” and I could appreciate the effort and valor of transporting children out of Germany to save them, but the connection for me seemed to stop there. The enormity of the situation was never fully understood.

Sitting at my table, I began to listen to the voices of survivors whose parents loved them so much they sent them away. My heart swelled and ached at the thought of ever having to do that to my own child and the mere idea of it caused me grief.  These survivors recalled their tragedy so plainly and clear that it hurt just to hear their words. Some of them were so very small, but they knew then that their parents told them lies about how they too would soon follow them.  These lies they kept in their hearts like a hope.  For some it was the only way they carried on despite knowing the truth.

Soon, my fingers stopped creasing paper and I migrated from the table to the couch engrossed in this horror, this forced orphaning of over 10,000 children who were sent to a place they had never been whose customs and landscapes were nothing they had ever seen before.  They went to live with families they didn’t know.  They did not speak the language and could not be understood, but they recite memories of their grateful hearts for the chance to live.

It became harder and harder to think that any problem I have ever had in my life could amount to a single day in the life of these children, who went on to be adults, knowing their parents sacrificed themselves to keep them out of concentration camps. It became harder and harder to imagine that sort of bravery.  I thought about that burden and how its intricate heaviness must settle around their hearts like a stone as it now does mine.  It left me feeling helpless and empty and powerless to change the past. It left me unsure about the future in these times of war that have lasted the entirety of my child’s life.  Not one day has been free of it.

It made me think about the fact that much of this life is directed by a tentative navigation.  We are all ill equipped captains of our own destiny in these shaky political and economic times.  Life is something we have to balance and test and feel each day—to be conscious of its breath and how easily that breath could stop without warning. Life calls out to be noticed and respected.

This film showed me something about myself.  It showed me the characteristics of my own being that allowed me to survive my own personal ordeals in these last 37 years. I believe survival is achieved, in part, by knowing that somewhere in the world someone else has it worse off than me.  This has been a mantra in my life that I find sometimes falls quiet until I am reminded in the smallest of ways.

All my trivial thoughts were rendered into a sauce laden with compassion and sadness and mistrust of the world, but even with that present and heavy on my mind, I know that nestled in the folds of tragedy and sorrow there are treasures of heart and humility that can never be ignored.

Aleathia Drehmer 2010

Editor’s Note: Andrew Bowen asks questions out loud that are often whispered in places of worship if spoken at all. Not one to shy away from inquiry that  challenges belief systems to their very core, his is a voice in the contemporary lit scene that invites discourse, prods polemics and seeks to illuminate the tenets of  faith wherever they may lead.

He is founder of Divine Dirt Quarterly , an online literary journal that provides a forum for theological discussion, narrative, inquiry and debate.

His work has appeared or is forthcoming in places like Prick of the Spindle, Metazen, decomP, Wrong Tree Review and more. His first novella, Tits and Tats, is coming soon from Rebel Satori Press.

Is God Pro-Choice?

by Andrew Bowen

According to a Gallup poll taken in May of 2009, 51% of Americans now claim to be “pro-life”. The score for “pro-choicers”: 42%. That’s the first time since the folks at Gallup began asking this question back in 1995 that pro-life has taken the lead.

Does this mean that the religious among us are turning the tables on policy? Well, that depends on who you ask. LifeNews.com conducted a poll in September of 2009 which pitted conservative Christians and the views of their liberal brethren against one another. Their findings? 60% of conservative Christians believe abortion should be illegal without exception while only 26% of liberals believe the option should be available, no holds barred.

But what about other faiths? According to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by The Pew Forum in 2007, Muslims were split down the middle. Jews, Hindus, Buddhist, and minority faiths on the other hand leaned heavily toward abortion’s legality, while Protestant Christians held only a slightly higher percentage in the pro-choice camp.

So what does this mean? Nothing really, unless you introduce God’s opinion.

If anything, the previous numbers display an ebb and flow in how the disposition of God’s people and the traditional views of God himself are indeed very different.

Let’s look at a few verses of scripture:

Bible/Septuagint: Exodus 20:13- “Thou shall not kill.”

Qur’an: Sura 17:31- “You shall not kill your children due to fear of poverty. We provide for them, as well as for you. Killing them is a gross offense.”

The Dharani Sutra: “There are five kinds of Evil Karma which are difficult to extinguish…the third is abortion.”

The Vedas: “Wipe off, O Pushan [Lord], the sins of him that practiseth abortion.”

So the consensus appears to be that no one “upstairs” likes abortion, and truth be told, no one down here really likes it either. Ask any pro-choicer if they enjoy the idea of killing a fetus and the answer is usually no. The argument for them is the freedom of a woman to determine what happens to her body. Interestingly enough, in nearly every religious camp, exceptions are made for abortion by adherents when it comes to the health and safety of the mother.

So where’s the problem? The religious right who, according to the numbers, holds the current majority on this view and are pulling on moderate America. And they argue, packing round after round of scripture, that God Almighty is on their side.

But what about issues like capital punishment, war, the environment, and other issues right-wingers traditionally support that extinguish life? I digress…

At any rate, these folks make a sound point with regard to God’s will as it should affect abortion policy. In all faiths reviewed, word from on high unanimously agrees that killing kids is bad. But there’s one caveat: free will.

This explains how religious right tendencies shift from policy to policy regardless of the plain language of “Thou shall not kill.” We get to choose. But we can’t just pick on “the right”. I would challenge any left-leaning pro-choicer who supports the Ten Commandments to submit themselves to the same irony in their beliefs.

Ask any Jedeo-Christian-Muslim what God’s crowning achievement was in the design of Man and they will more than like reach the consensus of free will. Humanity is unique in nature in its capacity to determine its own fate despite instinct. Suicide, over indulgence in everything from food to sex, masochism, and relentless curiosity—these are idiosyncratic traits of humanity…all because God got bored and decided to liven things up a bit.

Sure, some constants are present: one plus one will always equal two; the speed of light is constant; Wiley Coyote will always end up falling off a cliff. These are aspects of Creation that in a linear infinity will always have the same result.

But on a cosmic level, predictability gets old and apparently, God likes rebels. In every religious tradition we are provided with creeds, precepts, commandments, etc. that are designed to regulate life, but humanity has a knack for breaking the rules. So why is God pro-choice? Because, in the beginning, he gave us a choice: roam the garden or partake of the forbidden fruit. The entire premise of our creation (according to the Middle Eastern traditions) is fellowship with the divine by free will, not forced subservience. Throughout theology humanity is always presented with a decision, and God—because he created us as free agents—is obligated to honor his blueprint lest he become a tyrant.

In the Qur’an, Sura 2:256: “There is no compulsion in religion.”

Bible: Luke 23:34: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

We killed Jesus. We shot Martin Luther King, Jr. We broke the sound barrier. We surpassed gravity and flew to the moon. We get drunk and call our ex’s. With our choices, we do both great and deplorable things, all by design. We must resist the urge to view the divine as overly anthropomorphic and put words in his mouth or intentions in his mind. In doing this, we fall into the trap of creating idols of one’s own opinions and interpretations.

Consider ourselves as parents: we set perimeters for our children for their protection and development, however that isn’t to stop them from performing a forbidden act. In fact, we expect it. Similarly God, through revelation, sets down guidance in how to live our lives, though he cannot force us to comply, no matter how detestable an act we might commit. In the same way God, as the scriptures above clearly show, holds life as precious, but with the institution of free will he cannot force us to stay our hand.

With this in mind, I must conclude that God is in fact pro-choice. Although he holds the life of his creation dear, the greatest gift he bestowed upon humanity was the freedom to choose. If God then sees fit that we are stewards of our own fate and thus outside of his own sovereignty, does a government have any more right to tell someone what they can and cannot do with their bodies or to use the name of God as a pawn to further political agendas? Certainly, consequences befall all decisions be they positive or negative; however in a universe of innumerable constants which leave entire landscapes cold and lifeless, the right to chart one’s own moral course is an oasis unto static desolation.

Talking Heads. Blah Blah Blah.

By Kim Urig

I have decided not to use his name, because the talk show host I reference already approaches demi-god (demagogue) status in popularity. I prefer not to build on that. I’ve used his name several times on my Facebook page in an attempt to understand his appeal, and few of his fans have accepted my invitation to explain his appeal.

The best/only answers I received are “he is funny”, “why does he make liberals so mad”, and “liberals have the rest of the media”.

If mocking those you don’t agree with and ridiculing them instead of engaging in sincere dialogue is funny, he is indeed funny. I think that is why I am most angry. My views are reduced to a scornful, scathing label. I am now simply one of those liberals. I am angry at the lack of respect that is encouraged by such media kingpins. I feel defensive around family and friends in ways I never did prior. My friends are encouraged to speak up in such a way that attacks me personally. I cannot tell you the amount of hateful forwarded email and posts I receive with the demand that I answer these charges, because I am one of those liberals. The contempt for my opinion hurts. Instead of dialogue, it is about name-calling. Political differences have taken friends away from me. I would blithely like to reply that “they weren’t that good of friends anyway” but that is not true. They were, it stings, and I miss them.

I have a lifetime of experience that predicates the way I lean and the values I hold close to my heart. I do not insult other peoples’ walks in life; mine is no less valuable than theirs is. In college, I ran for a student government office. A good friend of mine was managing my campaign and advised me to learn to keep my temper under control, that anger and disdain for those who didn’t agree with me would hurt my chances. I learned that lesson years ago and even though I did not win the election, I won something much more important. I won the ability to listen to and respect everyone’s view.

As far as the having a lock hold on the “rest of the media” goes, I beg to differ. That implies that only one side uses the media, buys television time and appears in the newspapers. Our current administration is in place largely due to grassroots efforts, not mass media. Absolutely, as the stories gained momentum, the media reported them, but the media reports what is happening. The same thing has happened with the tea party movement. I do appreciate op/ed pieces and I read both sides, but when one side continually engages in divisive behavior intended to turn us against each other, I stop listening. Incidentally, I no longer listen to Michael Moore, either, because I found the title of his book Stupid White Men to be utterly insulting. To borrow from Forest Gump, stupid is as stupid does. Moore engaged in the same disturbing behavior and subsequently lost my respect. I am not interested in listening to anyone who uses insults to pull us apart.

What most stuns me is his attack on religions that support social justice; the straw that broke my back. I take my faith very seriously. Slight and belittle me, but when my core belief is insulted, watch out. I want to throw my hands up in disgust. Instead, I will try to repair my broken back and build a bridge. My upbringing as a Christian indeed emphasizes social justice, yet I do not feel anything close to a Communist or Nazi. Such statements insult the real spirit of Christian generosity. As a Christian, I know not to store up riches on earth, to share with the poor, and to help my brother or sister however I can. I do not view such choices as a ticket to eternity but rather instructions how to make the world we live in today a better place.

My faith gives me hope in what at times seems to be a hopeless world. But beyond that, what if we substitute the word nice or kind for Christian? What if we just are nice and kind to those we encounter, in every step of our daily walk? What if we do such things not in the framework of an organized religion, but simply as a member of the human race?

God, Guns, and the Golden Rule

by Ryn Cricket

What is the connection with being Christian and owning a gun?  Most of the VERY Christian people I know own guns –proudly, but I have yet to find the passage in the Bible that says owning a gun is important, having a gun is important, or protecting yourself or your stuff is important.  I’ve seen plenty of “Thou shall not kill,” but it doesn’t say “Thou shall not kill unless someone is stealing your TV, or someone is attacking you.”  It does however say, “turn the other cheek,” but many people seem to skip over that part.  It also says that it is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle.  Why?  Because we aren’t supposed to be materialistic.  Christianity gives you the idea of heaven as a final, after-life paradise so that death doesn’t seem so scary.  And yet, it seems, Christians with guns are afraid of EVERYTHING!

If you are Christian, and you die, the common belief is that “that was your time to go.”  God is in charge of these things, and we can’t or shouldn’t get in His way, or try to change it.  So then why do some people want the God-like power to end someone’s life?  Do they think they are Gods?

But wait!  The Bible says, “An eye for an eye.”  Yes, it does.  So if someone steals your TV, you have every right in Christian thinking to go steal theirs –well except for that “thou shall not steal part.” –Damn!  Well, you can always turn the other cheek, but no where, no one in their right mind will think that ANYONE’s life is worth a TV or a wallet.  These are Old Testament writings that also included killing an ox if you told a lie, and getting your father drunk and fucking him so that you can have children.  It’s in there, so do we just pick and choose?

Or do we go to New Testament writings, and the teachings of Jesus.  But as I recall, as he’s being tortured and put to death, he says, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”  He doesn’t tell his apostles to seek revenge nor is it in their mindset.  It’s not a Christian idea.  In fact, it’s anti-Christian.  Can you imagine Jesus telling his assassins, “I hope you die?”  Or what if he was given a sword and fought back.  I mean he was in danger for his life and he knew it.  He knew that wasn’t in God’s plan.  Do you think it is in God’s plan to have anyone kill anyone?

Many people twist ideas and words and call guns, “peacemakers.”  I have never understood this.  Someone comes into your house, you shoot them, and now you have peace?  Do they have peace?  What about their family?  What about yours?  What if you can’t prove it was self-defense, and you get thrown in prison, where’s your peace?  Do you sleep more peacefully knowing that there is a gun under your pillow, or do you have nightmares of having to use it?

And statistics show that more people –especially more children –are killed with their own guns, or guns in their houses.  That is never what anyone expects, or hopes for, but it is the reality.  Where is the peace in that?

The irony is that these same Christians are so against abortion, because in their eyes an unborn fetus has more rights than a living, breathing person with a name, experiences, and memories.  If the mother shoots herself in the belly, would it be ok with them?  Maybe that’s going too far, but there’s a very huge disconnect that can’t seem to be reconciled.  Why, in so many other countries, is abortion not an issue at all, and no one owns guns?  Are they backwards or are we?

Maybe Christians feel they are more patriotic and American about it, by following the 2^nd Amendment, but the 2^nd Amendment was written before we had a standing army.  It was written when every man was expected to defend his land from the British, the wild animals –oh, yeah, and the natives.  So yes, we have this right, and at the time it was written, it made a lot of sense, but it was also written in the same document that separated church and state, so I ask again, where is the connection?

Editor’s note: Hazar Worth is a learned man. A wounded man. A man who worries. He bleeds like other men but most certainly does NOT think like other men. He is an angry man. Why is he angry? That is for him to know and you to find out.

Sex, Voudon, Death: How Capitalism WANTS YOU (Part 2)

By Hazar Worth

Eisenhower warned us about It. JFK took the bullet for It. Conspiracy theorists call It ‘Illuminati’. Reagan had many people cozy to It. Bush and Cheney flaunted It. Obama dropped to his knees and stroked It. The mainstream media wouldn’t ever shut-up about It. Wall Street was shat out by It.

It. It seems to always come down to It.

The Greed. The Corruption. The Hypocrisy. The Deception. These are the bastard children of It. Ignorance. Intolerance. These are the Left and Right hemisphere of It. Rush Limbaugh, FoxNews, and Reality Television worhsips It.

Wendy’s, McDonalds, BurgerKing love to sell It to you. The Religious Right and Jihad always are sharing It. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissenger used It to justify their occupation in Vietnam.

It exists in ways that you hear when you are standing in line at the supermarket; at the DMV; driving to work and listening to AM radio; returning home from work and watching the evening local news. At nights, when you are having trouble sleep at nights, you can feel It jamming your thoughts with so much over-abundance of noise that many of you will find a good pill to take because the pharmaceutical industry loves It so much….

Wolf Blitzer at CNN, Keith Olberman at MSNBC, and the Today Show and Good Morning America loves to celebrate It.

At the onset of all children’s births, they are innately against It. As they continue to reach into the angst and fury of their teen-years, they are constantly trying to strangle It. This era of personal development gets many parents very worried about It. Because their sons and daughters should be more receptive of It instead of distrusting It. And the worries, oh the worries by these parents about their sons’ and daughters’ relationship with It.

In Israel, they are killing Palestinians in the name of It. Israel was created from the clever thinking of It.

It consumes, and It devours. And It remains elusive, to the point of almost being invisible – a phantom that seeks the shadows and that seeks to deceive the light.

It seeks to short-circuit the Universal union of profound energies flowing across the illusions of temporal space and distances; It seeks to sell us the continuing illusions of fear and paranoia until we are left with some vague taste that there must be more than this before the next commercial on our flat screens comes to inform us of the wisdom and kindness of It, who knows what you want and how much you want of It.

You want to know how to recognize the tell-tale signs of It? You want to know what this It might be? I can only speak of It in the context of what I have observed of It, and I can tell you that to recognize It you must first disengage from what you might want to see, and see what remains evidently apparent and abundant to your senses. When you have done this, and continue to do this, then you shall have the It at your bekoning mercy.

And a missing joy, full of mirth and swagger, shall return like the promise of the Full-Moon.

Not So Quiet Desperation

by Ryn Cricket

We all know that politicians and news reporters regurgitate statistics like a frat boy on Sunday morning.  We also know that statistics work for us to push our point or cause, because they are both easily manipulated and easily believed.  So the statistics for unemployment have gone down from 10.2% to 9.7% this month.  What that doesn’t take into account are people who have been out of work for more than six months (and therefore not collecting unemployment), people who have given up looking for a job, or people who are underemployed and therefore way below the poverty level –yet still employed.  If these people were included, I am sure the number would be staggering.

And then there are crime rates.  “Crime has gone down in the cities.”  (We swear!  Please don’t move out!) The politicians plead.  Ask any police officer if crime has gone down.  What has changed are the definitions.  Well, that and the number of first-time offenders.  Desperate times create desperate people.  A few weeks ago, a house blew up a few blocks from where I live.  This caused 10 families to be homeless.  The original house was abandoned and foreclosed.  Scavengers had taken all the copper piping out, and the gas company seemed to have forgotten to turn the gas off.  Which I find awfully ironic, because they are so quick to shut the gas off when you’re behind on your payment, but this house hadn’t been lived in over a year.  No one reported that theft, so thefts are down, right?  Actually, these foreclosed homes are often completely gutted from anything of value, but those numbers don’t fit in.

Here’s another, bit more personal example.  Last week, the night of my daughter’s third birthday, someone (or more than one) person broke into our home –while we were sleeping, and robbed us.  I am not going to go through the million “what ifs” that have plagued me for days now.  But the police officer, who arrived in amazing time, explained a few things to us.  We used to live in a district that they used to fight over because nothing ever happened.  However, according to him, it has gotten really bad, but he added, that it has gotten really bad everywhere.  He lives in a quaint little prestigious suburb and his building has been broken into three times recently.  He said they have been overwhelmed with first-time offenders who would never have done something like this, until they couldn’t feed their family.  That’s not who robbed us, but that is a reality.  The ones who got us were well-practiced.  The jails can’t hold all of these people, so the non-violent ones get off lightly, or no time at all.  Here’s the crux.  They won’t classify our type of break-in as aggravated anymore.  We were home.  A few years ago the charge could have been a lot higher but we don’t want to scare those city-dwellers away, so we don’t have violent or aggressive crimes.

The criminals know the laws probably better than we do.  They know what they can inevitably get away with.  Our visitors took around five hundred dollars worth of electronics (T.V., cell phones, iPod, camera).  They did not take our computer or credit cards.  Why? Because that classifies as identity theft and carries a much stronger charge.  In fact, they took my purse and left all of the cards in my wallet neatly stacked on the kitchen table.  They took things they could sell fast and easy.  With all of these second-hand game and music stores, there aren’t any questions asked and it’s legit.

But, here’s another misnomer.  If we claim it on our renter’s insurance, the premium goes up, and there’s a five hundred dollar, deductible, so we receive nothing anyway.  Therefore, even insurance companies can’t give accurate statistics; because I am sure so many go unclaimed.

We have gotten eight thousand pieces of advice since this happened, and almost all of them aren’t valid.  “I keep the lights on at night.” So do we.  “I make sure the doors are double locked before I go to bed.” They were.  They came in through the bathroom.  “I make sure I have security lights outside.” We live in an apartment building, it has all of that.  “I would get a dog or a gun.”  This happened to my brother while he was at church on a Sunday morning in broad daylight and they drugged his dogs.  A friend of mine had a gun, but it was also stolen.  I, personally, would rather pay for a nicer, new T.V. than be responsible for anyone’s death.

I’m not looking for advice,  given or received.  But the truth needs to come out.  Desperate times create desperate people and this economy is breeding crime on a much larger scale than anyone is really aware of.  And no politician or news reporter is going to tell you otherwise.

Editor’s note: We are not all rant and rave at On The Wing.  We are always intrigued by those very real and quirky things that happen daily to each of us. The strange and unusual occurrences that enrich the human experience. This is precisely why we love the personal essay. Essays showcase our vulnerabilities in a very personal and engaging manner. Told from an emotional place, the personal essay allows our readers to connect with situations that they might not otherwise have the chance to experience. That is certainly the case with Nicole Hadaway’s piece that follows below. A stranger in a strange land, she tells the tale of how even a pampered spa experience can be a real eye-opener.

European Spa, American Body

By Nicole Hadaway

Three short years ago, my husband, an engineer, was placed by his company on a project located in Monaco.  So we, hubby, kiddo (nine months at the time) moved to the French Riviera.

Wohooo!

I finally would use that French I’d studied for six years!

Funny thing – back when I studied French (in the late eighties/early nineties), they taught things they thought might be useful in trips to the Patisserie, the Train Station, or inviting your friends over for a sleepover.

The trip to the European Spa was not one of those things.

So Hubby’s company thought it might be a nice idea to treat all the wives to a great day at the spa, at the Monte-Carlo Thalasso, wherein they specialized in seawater treatments.

I went to book my appointments and picked out from the menu (written completely en francais): a mud wrap, the douche a jet (which, with my French I translated to mean “high-pressured shower”), and a massage under a shower of sea water.

Sounds great, huh?

Let me just say here that before I moved to France, I knew that there were different attitudes towards body shame, nudity, etc. I went to the spa with the mindset that I might be baring body parts I wasn’t used to in a spa setting. But I had no idea what awaited me.

I never had a mud wrap before, and they are not my thing, but I thought I’d give it a try – it was free, after all.  So I get to the spa, change into the fluffy white robe provided for me, and pull out my bikini when the lady supervising me shakes her head, “no,” and gives me a pair of paper underwear bottoms (the Brazilian kind. Oh yeah, and they’re white) and a shower cap to wear.

And that’s it – a white paper thong and a shower cap. Then I got coated with mud, all over.  I mean, everywhere.  After that, she wrapped me in a plastic sheet, just like they do before they kill people in mob movies! Then she belted an electric blanket around me, as if I were an enchilada, turning on the heat.  If you have any kind of claustrophobia or fears of cooking to death whilst tied into an electric blanket, then I can tell you — this treatment is not for you!

After 20 minutes of relaxing thoughts like, “What if they forget about me here and I bake down to a muddy, desiccated corpse?” The attendant came back, unwrapped me from my plastic corpse-bag, and then motioned for me to go over to the shower next to the table. She took the hand-held shower head and hosed my back, while I was allowed the dignity of doing my front all on my own – wohooo!

Next, after my oh-so-calming, mob-style mud treatment, I wrapped myself in my fluffy white robe and sat and waited in the waiting room for the douche a jet. Having been coated with mud by a complete stranger, I looked forward to standing by myself under several shower-heads as they massaged my body with warm, relaxing sea water.

Uhm, no.

So a guy – yes, a male – leads me to my next treatment. It’s in a long, white-tiled room, with a stool near the door, what appeared to be a fire hose (white) wrapped on the wall next to said stool, and handrails and a drain at the far end of the room. I’m thinking, “Oh, no. No, no, this can’t be right.”

The guy gestures to the stool, upon which is laid a shower cap and another set of white paper Brazilian underwear. He says to me, “Je vais retourner,” and smiles as he leaves the room. I’m thinking, when he said, “I’ll be back” that he meant “A lady will be back because you’re a girl and you’re going to practically be naked during this treatment and that would just be plain awkward even though this is Europe and we’ve got more liberal attitudes regarding nudity over here.”

Oh, how wrong I was! He comes back – the guy — and it’s me, my shower cap, and the white paper thong against guy with the fire hose. I kid you not. Have you ever seen that movie Silkwood, where Meryl Streep’s character gets contaminated and they have to hose her down? Yeah, people apparently pay good money for that treatment at a high-class Euro Spa!

If I closed my eyes and concentrated on the high pressured water massaging my feet, legs, arms, and back, it was nice and did work whatever kinks I had in my muscles out.

To his credit, the guy was nice. However, it was a man who was not my husband nor in the medical profession, hosing my nearly-nude body down as if I were a piece of garden furniture getting washed after a weekend of pollen.

The last treatment was actually nice – a back massage – by a girl, thank heavens!  Sea water gently cascaded down on top of me.  This was my idea of a cool spa treatment and I did enjoy it. Whew! Finally.

And that was my visit to the swanky Monte-Carlo Thalasso.  All in all, I was glad to have the experience, because it certainly makes for interesting (and funny) conversations and of course, it gave me something about which to write!

Editor’s Note: I love how the U.S. continues to allow for spiraling health-care costs to bankrupt not only hardworking middle class families but the entire nation.  People are going to get sick and need care REGARDLESS of whatever system we have. For all those opposed to reform, ask yourselves this question: What costs more, accessing emergency room docs and welfare clinics where the taxpayers foot the bill or having reasonable access to preventative care  where costs can be better managed and people can stay healthier? Don’t get me started on tort reform and the cost of malpractice – everybody sues everybody and the lawyers are the only ones who get rich. OK, I’m ranting. Ryn offers a better argument than I do, so read what she has to say.

Sick Over Health Care Reform

by Ryn Cricket

You want health care reform?  We’re not going to get it.  It doesn’t matter what the politicians say or what the public wants, we will never get a reformed health care system even comparable to many third-world or developing countries until we banish the idea of lobbying and lobbyists.  It’s not a political thing, it’s a greed thing.  The insurance companies’ goals are not to help us, they are the same goals of any and all companies –to make a profit.  We cannot get rid of the capitalist insurance system until we get rid of the legal bribing or the lobbyist system.

I live in Cleveland –home of the world-famous Cleveland Clinic which is in a neighborhood surrounded by government project housing, and rentals filled with people who can look at it, but never enter.  This past May, the National Association of Free Clinics organized a three-day free clinic at our county fairgrounds.  They had set up 300 volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists and ophthalmologists who would see people –no questions asked –on a first come/first serve basis.  IT was predicted that thousands of people would sleep in line for even more than a night waiting for the opportunity to see a free doctor set up in a horse stall or tent.  How is this better than a third-world country?  Who is fighting to keep this system?  (By the way, the clinic got canceled because of the H1N1 outbreak, which I find ironic, but there were other very successful clinics held all around the country.)

Let’s talk about “death panels” and all of those other stupid rumors that politicians, lobbyists and spin doctors created to push their own agenda onto what they thought were unthinking masses.  The reality is:  my parents wanted to get the H1N1 vaccine last fall, and they were denied at three separate places because they were over 64, apparently not a priority.  It wasn’t a question of insurance or money in their case, but unethical discrimination enforced by our “highly advanced” medical system.

I have classes full of international students who are shocked to know how much it costs to have a baby in America –even with insurance.  They don’t understand why it costs anything when in the majority of their countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, they get paid an average of $10,000 American dollars by their governments when they have a baby in their countries.  I won’t even get started on maternity leave, but I’m beginning to think that we are the only country in the world that does not support  people who want to have children and raise them well.

These same students also go through an interesting culture shock when they realize that if they are sick or hurt, they can’t just walk into any hospital or clinic, see a doctor right away, be given medicine and go home.  That’s how it is in their countries.  We may have the best doctors and best hospitals in the world, but they’re also the most expensive and inefficient.  What makes them that way?  Insurance companies.  Who keeps the system status quo?  Lobbyists in D.C. paying off politicians –on both sides of the aisle –to push their agenda.  And we could add that to our own apathy for sitting in our Lazyboys, drinking Pepsi, eating a Big Mac and not complaining.

So it’s nice that these government politicians with their five-star insurance and always enough money in their pockets for a damn co-pay want to pass a law that insurance companies can’t deny you if you have a pre-existing condition, but that’s not reform, that’s humane.  That’s sticking bubble gum in a crack on the Titanic.  Medicare for all –now that’s reform.  –But I also wouldn’t mind seeing the unemployment rate got up because a couple thousand lobbyists are out of jobs either.