Sneaky People

Sneaky people are those that will do something that they don't want you to know about.  They will plot behind your back and smile to your face.  They will ask you questions that you wonder why they are asking only to find out later they that they needed more ammunition.  Once they have pulled off their plot or committed some act of evil against you that they think that you don't know about, they remove themselves from whatever entity they think you can look them up in.  I have what I call acquaintances, that have unlisted their telephone numbers from the phone company.  They have removed themselves from the different social networks.  They have gone to a lot of trouble to hide from those they have offended.  When they have done this, you know that they realize they have done something hideous to you and they are not man enough to face you.  They no longer have the balls to come out into the light.  Whereas, if you are a friend of mine and I tell you something that I don't like about what you are doing to me, if you are still my friend, you will stop the act that you are committing and remain my friend, understanding the fact that I didn't like your offense.  Those are true friends.  The ones that have been caught, admit it and then go away, never to return.  Good riddance.  Even my older sibling brother has removed himself from the white pages, has no visible social media page, and thinks I cannot locate his address in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Too bad for him.  With my access to "tools" on the internet, I have already found his address and the piece of shit house he lives in in Arkansas.  Arkansas.  The poorest state in the union and why anyone would want to move to the poorest state in the union is beyond me.  For my brother thinking that he is so well educated that he has to ridicule the very people he works around in the hospital he works at, if those people are so dumb and stupid as he says they are, why stay there?  If they are so poorly educated, why not take a stand and help to promote better education there?  It's so much easier to complain about something than it is to fix something.  It's so much easier to ridicule someone than it is to help them.  I haven't met a nurse yet that doesn't think they are better than anyone else walking in an upright position.  Most of my high school classmates have become unlisted as though they think I am going to find them up one day.  Who gives a rat's ass?  Why would I ever want to reminisce such a horrible experience in my life?  Why would anyone?  By the way, I found them all anyway.  Away from them, I have become a better person, enjoyed life more, appreciated people better, and am able to decide in a short span of time whether I want to accept a person or not.  All of those people have taught me a great lesson.  They have taught me how to read a person.  Too bad that all of those people are taking such a long time to die off.  The best Karma there is, is the fact that they are all dying off at a younger age than myself and I am continuing on enjoying life.  My only hope is that I can teach the younger ones how to handle all of the maltreatment that they receive.  I certainly don't need a degree or book sense to realize when I or anyone else is being treated badly.  My advice isn't professional by any means.  It is life's experience and how mean and cruel people can be to one another.  If you want a true and loyal friend that will be by your side through thick and thin, that can read you like no other, that will love you unconditionally, get a dog.  To find a mate that will love you unconditionally, those are far and few between.  I have finally found a mate that does just that and she and I have been together for over twenty years now.  Unconditional love.  That is what really matters.  She doesn't try to change me.  I don't try to change her.  She is my best friend and my go to person.  She is my person.  That is the mate one should try to find.  Not one just because you are lonely.  Why find one that treats you badly, rather than be alone?   I have never understood that.  That only tells me that someone is lacking in self respect.  Love one's self first, then love another.  When you begin to love yourself, then you begin to find the one that you want.

Ohio School Shooting

This school shooting that happened on February 27 is exactly what this blog, what my book, "The Train Runs No More", refers to.  It refers to children that are so disturbed by something in their life that they strike out with the only thing that comes to mind first without thinking about the consequences.  Some of these children don't have a real positively influential parental figure in their life to start with.  They can only observe what others have, what others do, and wish that they had that in their life.  These kinds of children are nice up front.  They are nice to talk to, some are polite, but rarely do they speak intimately of their life "away" from the everyday norm.  The only parental figures in this poor kid's life committed spousal abuse against each other.  The mother reportedly is a drug addict.  The father, if he wasn't beating up the mother, he was assaulting another woman or a police officer.  He had no close example to follow.  He had been deemed a loner by news reports.  Most likely he was a loner because he was embarrassed by the home life that he had.  In his humiliation he didn't want to express such disappointment to his classmates.  Who wants to hear about such negativity?  He failed to find one true trustworthy person whom he could call a friend.  He lived with his grandparents because he didn't have any place else to go.  Giving them the benefit of the doubt, his grandparents probably did the best they knew how about raising a child again.  At the same time, T J Lane, the kid, had to go to school with classmates that were living with their parents, not people that were much older practicing parenting.  Maybe TJ was bothered by this.  He was "different" from other students.  Having no outlet about the goings on in his life, he expressed his thoughts by writing them down, but he probably didn't re-read them with an unbiased opinion to see what he could have done better or handled the situation better.  Instead of confiding in one tangible person, he confided in a vast number of intangible people from Facebook.  There is no closeness there.  There is no intimacy there.  There are no emotional responses from people that "see" from a different perspective there.  

Some children fall victim to playing morbid video games where they shoot, maim, and kill people.  These games are played so often by children that some fail to find the difference between fiction and reality.  I am not blaming the video game producers.  I play them myself.  I enjoy them to no end, but there is a limit to everything.  When these children are placed in real situations, it becomes hard for them to decipher which is real.  To compound the issue, a high percentage of homes in America have to have a handgun for protection.  Usually this handgun is kept within quick reach and kept loaded.  The people serious about protection keep their handgun locked up somewhere so that when a situation does occur and usually at night, they have to leap from their bed, go unlock the safe, load the weapon, and by the time they have done that, they have been found by the perpetrator and assaulted or killed.  Others just reach in the night stand by their bed, grab the gun and shoot from where they lay, or go find the perp, and when they see something move in the dark they shoot.  More likely they have shot at the wrong person and as luck would have it, they killed the person they were shooting at and it was probably the wife whom heard a noise long before you even woke up and decided to investigate herself.  Getting back to the poor, "disturbed" kid, this is where the gun was ascertained from and then taken to school. 

One thing I have never been able to understand is the satisfaction of physically harming others.  What satisfaction is gained from that kind of action?  That kind of satisfaction is like taking drugs.  It feels good only for the moment, but when the moment is over, you have to do it again.  It doesn't last.  What is gained by taking another innocent victim's life whom had no interaction in the "role" that these kids play?  In my own life and experiences I have been backed into corners with no way out at times, but I have never resorted to taking the life of others.  Maybe my own, but never others.  Only at that last moment did realization take over, and yes, even "the hand of God" reached out and showed me that my life was more precious than I realized.  For not being a "christian" or practicing Christianity, this was an astounding moment in my life.   I have always thought about others before myself.  I have always helped others before I helped myself.  I always care for and about others before myself.  It was at that moment that God reached out and asked me just to think about myself for just one moment and visualize what I was doing.  I stopped in midstream of trying to take my life and I have been the happier for it.  Although I still do not practice Christianity, nor do I even wish to promote it or any other religion, I do not take my life for granted nor anyone else's.   Each life is precious, no matter how small a role in this vast, disappointing world that we live in.  I do not take it for granted.  To the dismay of others whom do not feel that or try as they might to keep me from having any importance in life, my retribution is that I have continued to live on where other classmates have passed away earlier in life from one of life's diseases.  That is my Karma.  That is their Karma and all it requires is just a little time and patience.  For these kids, we must chip away at the ice that contains all that emotion.  We must defuse the bomb that is ticking away inside.  Become these kid's confidant.  Help them.  Invite them into our lives sometime.  Throw water on the fire that is burning inside them and help them discover "things" from another perspective.  As the old saying goes, "Two heads are better than one". 

Now, more lives were taken than has been realized.  Not only the injured students, the ones that have been killed, but also the innocent by standers, the witnesses, the survivors, the parents of the attending students, even TJ Lane himself.  He may have been a "good" kid as described by one of his classmates, but now, he will be warehoused as "damaged goods" for the rest of his life.  A kid with good grades in school that will never be able to amount to more than a hill of beans outside the joint.  He will never see the outside again.  So, rather than striking at the desired subject that he wanted to strike at, he misfired and caused more damage than can be realized.  If people could only write down their emotions, put them down and come back and read them again when they reach a better frame of mind.  Or, at least let a trustworthy friend that can be confided in and allow them to read them.  If that could only be done, there is so much "pressure" that could be released, that one cannot realize the relief that can be gained.

Finding Solace

As described in my book, The Train Runs No More , once I fell in the dirt in and after high school, it followed me every where.  But once I left San Antonio, Texas, it began to shake off.  Still, every once in a while, a pile would show up; and it did again in St. Louis, but only for the moment.  Then I began to find a new interest since the wife decided to kidnap my children.  Yes. Kidnap.  As long as children are removed by one parent or the other without the permission of one parent or the other, it is called kidnapping.  I could understand it if I beat the hell out of them on a regular basis, or molested them in some form or fashion, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  These two kids were my pride and joy.  So, she took them with intentions of crushing me like a bug and expecting me to just roll over like a dog in the street with my legs up in the air.  I didn't.  I wasn't going to give her that energy.  I was treating her just as though she were one of the bullies in my school.  I refused to give her that energy of being hurt.  I had the money.  Why not keep myself distracted from the pain and hurt?  So I did.  I turned to some friends right down the walk from me at the apartment that I had first moved to.  We were always doing something together every evening.  If I wasn't there, then I turned to some of the night clubs across the river, in Illinois.  I found solace there and much more.  My book describes in detail what I found.  What I found is really defined as adult content and is advisable for parents that read my book to decide whether they want their harassed teenager to read it and find out how I was able to release bad energy.  I began spending more of my time there because that was my release.   Everyone has their own way to find release.  This was my way.  Some may stoop as low as indulgence into drugs and alcohol.  I would not condone that method too much as that way is too easy and does nothing because you have to come back to the real world.  My release happened in the real world.  It was suggested that I sit and journal.  But I resisted that method thinking not only do I not need to do that, but that won't do any good.  I am not understanding of psychology too well, but had I performed that method at that time, I might even be a better person than I am right now.  Somehow, writing something down like that is like taking the top off of a pressure cooker.  As I say, I don't understand how, but it works now, and it would have worked then.  I didn't do it and I was plagued not only but the childhood dream in my book , but other dreams began to crop up because my wife had kidnapped my children from me and got away with it.  Satisfaction for me.  I began finding satisfaction and it worked for me.  I was determined not to dwell.  However, the sibling brother whom hated me from birth, began to interfere.  And interfere he did.  To this day the hateful person that he is still believes he has done nothing wrong.  Karma will come his way.  Sooner or later, it will come.  It always does.  It may not look like it will come soon enough, but belief and prayer to whatever entity that one believes in, will make it come.  All it requires is a little patience.  In the meantime, if you constantly wish for one's death, you had better build two coffins, because it will eat you up inside if you let it.

Karma

I grew up next door to an only child that was about 2 years older than I was.  His parents spoiled the crap out of that kid and if he did anything wrong, they never lifted a finger against him.  "My child didn't do it" syndrome.  In front of his parents, he was always an angel.  Once he was away from his parents, always causing mischief.  One time, it was just he and I playing with his Lionel railroad set outside in what was called the carport.  After a time, he became bored so he caught a green lizard.  He disconnected part of the track so that the leads of the rail were sticking out.  He turned the train on just enough so that there was electricity flowing through the track.  He forced the lizards mouth open and held it to the leads.  Immediately, the lizard began to contort and change colours.  I told him to stop because I think he is killing the lizard.  He wanted to see what happens he said.  The lizard was looking worse.  I couldn't stop this kid because I was much smaller in stature and he was a bully anyway.  I don't even know why I was over there except that he was just next door and I had no one else to play with.  I couldn't stand watching him torture one of God's creatures, so I left.  Along Six Mile Creek, someone must have had a lot of time on their hands.  They had dug a series of tunnels into the bank of the creek.  One of  them even had a radio installed into the wall of one of the tunnels.  The next door neighbor kid and several others rode our bicycles to the creek to do some exploring.  While crawling through one of the tunnels "Mr. Mischief" let's call him, was having one of his moments.  He had caused a cave in.  It was not a serious one, but for a child of our age, it was serious enough.  He couldn't stop what he had caused, so he climbed on his bike and rode home; not to get help, but to pretend that he had nothing to do with the situation.  The rest of us were left to dig out the poor sap that was covered up.  Another time, we were riding our bikes through an old grave yard.  We all got off to walk our bikes through for a better look at the grave stones.  We all came upon a bee's nest that was on the ground.  We had the good sense to see the swarm swirling in the air and to leave it alone.  We gave wide clearance for the swarm.  I had noticed that "Mr.  Mischief" had turned around and went back, but I didn't pay attention to why.  It wasn't but a few seconds later and he had run by us like he was running for his life. I wound up getting stung by a couple of the bees and we ran like hell also.  He had gone back to poke at the nest on the ground and stirred the bees up good.  By the end of the day my arm where I had been stung, began to swell.  The next day my arm was twice its size.  My father was asking questions and I couldn't tell him because I wasn't supposed to be so far from the house.   I didn't have his or my mothers permission to ride for miles away.  On the third day my arm was so swollen that the skin on my arm began to split and look nasty.  My father said, "Ok.  That's it.  I'm taking you to the hospital".  It turned out that I was allergic to bees and I had to have a shot of antihistamine.  The swelling had gone done in a couple of days.  Years later, this same kid and a group of other bad asses from school that this kid was hanging with were out at the property that his parents bought for him to go deer hunting on.  I never heard all of the story because few ever spoke of what actually happened, but as the story goes, they were sitting around the campfire after a day of hunting.  All had been smoking grass and doing other "stuff".  Someone had a shotgun laying across their lap and pointed right at the head of the kid sitting next to him.  The gun accidentally went off.  I'm sure that after looking the situation over, they decided that this kid was surely dead.  Too much of his head if that was his head, was missing.  Rather than take him to the hospital to be pronounced dead, they just took him straight to the morgue.  I never did catch who all was involved and it really doesn't matter.  Later in time, "Mr. Mischief's" father was looking for his guns.  "Mr. Mischief" had stolen them and hocked them at the pawn shop to buy some smack.  He was an addict.  Probably trying to forget what had happened with the kid.  His parents later sent him to a rehabilitation clinic, he married, had a kid, and divorced.  He found a job up in Dallas, Texas and was working up there.  One weekend on his drive home, he stopped off at one of his friend's home because he was so tired he would have never made it home safely.  His friends made him a pallet to lay down on and go to sleep.  He did.  At thirty three years old, he had done enough smack to wreck his body.  When he went to sleep, he never work up again.  Karma. Karma always comes around sooner or later.
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