My Grandfathers Lugar, Drones, and The State Of My Nation

Almost a million years ago, when I was probably six, my Grandfather Paul Cure was my Hero. I knew he had been to war. I knew we won the war; and I knew it was because of him. I knew we weren’t really allowed to ask about the war and that he never talked about it, but downstairs, in the room that held the furnace and a freezer, and a very scary septic tank, was a trunk.

Inside that trunk was an old Lugar Pistol, Uniforms, some very colorful scarves, exotic flags, letters, papers, medals, and pieces of silk in brilliant colors that he had brought home from the war. We, my brothers and I, would sneak into this trunk and rummage around; our voices whispered and eyes sucking it all in.

Even at that age I knew I was touching things that were not only forbidden to be touched by the grubby hands of a 6 year old, but were sacred, and important. I knew these mementos had meaning and I knew that my life was like it was because my grandfather and thousands of me just like him had done what they had done.

Time passed and Grandpa spent more and more time sleeping; on the sofa, under the picture window, of the  yellow brick farmhouse that he had built, with his own hands.  Usually he would wake up long enough to give us a butter scotch candy, and that was about it. More time passed and we didn’t go to the farm to visit anymore, and then, when we did, he was gone.

They told us, my brothers and I, that he had passed away. I didn’t know what that meant until I was older. I didn’t know about chemo, and radiation, and lung cancer, and the pain my Gramma (Rosetta Cure) endured, and no one really discussed it. We just knew he was gone, and that made us sad.

Later I asked my Mother about what Granddad had done in the war. I can’t exactly remember all that she told me but she did tell me that at one point Granddads  job had been to pick up enemy troops and transport them to the places where they were kept until they could be processed. She told me that one time Granddads boss told him that they didn't have any more room for the enemy soldiers, and to take them somewhere else and just make sure they didn't come back. She told me that they meant Granddad should just take them somewhere and kill them. Then she told me Granddad wouldn't do it and that he had almost gotten into trouble for this.

Why wouldn't he do it? I asked. Because, that’s not how war is done, she explained. There are rules even in war, and those rules say that shooting someone who has surrendered isn't allowed. She said there were lots of rules, and she didn't know them all but they helped to protect everyone during wartime. She then asked me how it would be if Granddad had been captured and then they had just killed him? I understood that would be horrible. Like I say, my Granddad had been one of my 1^st Heros.

The thought of Granddad having the chance to kill people, being told to kill people, when he didn't need to, and his not doing it, made me even more proud of him then the thought of him killing the enemy.

See I was told, and I believed, and still believe, that WWII was about freedom for the whole world. Freedom for me and my brothers and family, and freedom for lots of other nations and people, and that if we didn't fight them, we wouldn't be able to be free either.

I believed that America was more than just the states, and more than our borders. I believed that our soldiers brought freedom, and defeated people who tried to take that freedom away from other people who wanted it too.

In my young mind I believed that we were the good guys, and that the Germans, and Japanese were the bad guys. I understood that the Germans were the bad guys because they kept taking peoples countries away, and killing lots of people for no good reason at all. And I believed the Japanese were bad because they had bombed Pearl Harbor for no good reason at all and killed lots of our Soldiers and sunk lots of our ships. I believed that the Germans and the Japanese wanted to take over the whole world and make everyone live like they did, and that the war had to be fought until they would just go back home and leave us alone, and I believed that my Granddad had fought to make this happen, and he had won, and the proof was that I was free, and so were lots of other people.

Even at that young age I had an understanding of freedom. Freedom meant you could go anywhere you wanted to go in the whole United States anytime you wanted to. Freedom meant the police had to leave you alone unless you were doing something wrong and that no one could come on your land unless you said they could. Soldiers were for war or disaster only and they weren't allowed to hurt people in the USA, unless it was an enemy that was invading.  Freedom meant you could have a gun if you wanted one. Freedom meant you had the right to go as far in life as you wanted to and that was based on how hard you worked. Freedom meant you could go to any church you wanted to or not go to church at all. Being a Free country meant you didn't go around trying to take other peoples countries away from them and they weren't allowed to try to take yours away from you. 

I understood that if your country declared war on someone else’s country then you either went to their country to fight or they came to your country to fight. I understood that no matter what you did the law said you were innocent unless you admitted you had done it, or a jury decided you had done it, and this was how we made sure people who were innocent didn't get locked up or shot by cops. I understood that people who worked extra hard or were extra smart by going to college had plenty of money and people who didn’t just had to be poor.

In the eyes of this boy freedom was good, and worth dying for, and if your country wasn't free then you just had to figure out a way to move to one that was.

But now, all these years later things are just all fucked up.

1^st of all I don’t feel free. None of the things that made me feel free as a kid seem to exist anymore. Police can do whatever they want to. They can come on your property anytime they want to and do any damn thing they want. In California I have to drive through check points to get in and out of my State, or if I fly I have to be screened, fondled, x-rayed, and approved. Now you can’t just have a gun if you’re over 16 and passed your hunter safety course (which was free). Now you have to apply for a permit and you might be allowed, and it seems the Government doesn't want anyone to have guns, except cops. Now we are having a war against terrorism which could be anywhere, or anyone, and today I learned that America has decided it’s legal to kill people, even American people, if we think they might be a terrorist with a drone. So to me that means no one is innocent until proven guilty. Also I don’t feel like the people who work extra hard or go to school to be extra smart get to be richer because the Government takes more of their money to give to poor people so they won’t be so poor.

I know at 6 or 7 kids see in mostly black and white, good or bad, free or not, but as for me I always felt that being free was good. Being free, made me proud, and put me on the high road, but now I don’t feel proud, and I don’t feel free, at least not as proud and free as I used to; and that just sucks.

They (the terrorists)  flew planes into our buildings to kill some of us, now we have the right to fly things into their buildings, and kill them. They aren't free because their Governments oppress them, while our Government oppresses us. They can just pop up anywhere at any time and kill us, and we can do the same to them.

I guess it’s just getting harder and harder for me to see the difference between them and us, and I realize that when we become like them, instead of them becoming like us, or just agreeing to leave each other alone, then the war is lost, even if the battle goes on.

I wonder how it will be in 60 years or so when the next generation looks into the trunks of their grandfathers, will war mementos still have meaning, will the Grandchildren look at today’s soldiers as hero’s and saviors of the world or will they just look upon the mementos with the same indifference as if they had found and old briefcase or an Amway catalog.

First hand True Story From Prison 09203-031

A hundred years ago I wasn't the same man I am now, but it was still me. The parts of me then have all jelled, fermented, aged, and calcified to make me what I am today. I open with this statement as a way of disclaimer.

See, I don’t want to embarrass my family, and for some reason this blog has garnered more attention than anything else I have ever put on line. It’s not that I have secrets from my family because I don’t, they know all about me, and love and accept me in spite of it all. But people who know my family, probably don’t know all about me, and if they read this, (and it’s possibly that they will) they might look at the people I love differently.

If you are one of those people please don’t be like that. Please don’t judge my family because of my past, I have been on the straight and narrow since I've been blessed with their association, and none of them have done anything but make me a better man by simply not tolerating or accepting anything less. To be clear I have risen to their standards and they have never, ever, tolerated or come close to mine before I met them.

Judge me, ask me, question me, or treat me poorly, but don’t mess with them. 

See I’m a lot like an old guard dog just lying on the porch, I’m easy to ignore, and convenient to step over, as you notice my ears twitching, and hear me sigh in the heat of the sun.  But don’t be fooled, I’m guarding, and if I were to think you were doing something to make them unhappy; I will bite. Hard.

So with that out of the way I want to share with you one of the many, many, things I learned while I spent four years in Prison for robbing a bank. My number was 09203-031.

The thing about the Federal Prison System is that it has teeth. When the Feds get you, they have you for a while, and my four year sentence was nothing compared to the prison terms of most of my associates.

Now I could tell you about some of the worst situations and people I met, and I saw plenty. Or, I could tell you about beatings, or corruption, or cruelty, or drugs, or violence, or even death by suicide, or murder. I saw all of those things and I imagine if I stick to this blog long enough I probably will. But today I want to tell you something I learned about the human condition.

Some humans are buoyant.

I met this old timer named Harvey. He had been inside for 22 years, he was sentenced under the old law and his sentence was life. I don’t know what his crime was but I know he had the opportunity to see the parole board once while I knew him, and he simply didn’t go. I asked him why and he said that with his crime he would never be granted parole, so he just didn’t see any sense in wasting their time or his.

Now I never asked him why he was in Prison. It’s an unwritten rule that you never ask someone with a 40 year or longer sentence what they are in for. If you have less than a 40 year ticket yourself you are after all a guest in their prison and you must keep that in mind all the time.

But, and here is the point. Harvey was a model prisoner. He had accepted his life and actually had a positive attitude about it. He never bothered anyone, kept to himself, and read everything he could get his hands on. He had a little Job in the warehouse as a clerk, and his pay was about 30 dollars a month. I never saw him send a letter or receive a letter, and he took pride in keeping his shoes shiny.

I kind of watched him in awe because the first year on the inside was the hardest year I’ve ever done. I counted the days down, I watched the news, I read the papers, I cried, I was scared, I had my ass kicked, and I kicked a little ass.

I moped, I hated, I felt sorry for myself, I grew frustrated, I was angry, I hardly slept, I barely ate. All of these feelings washed over me and every day was a lifetime.

But still I wondered how Harvey did it. How did he live, and smile, and endure knowing he would certainly die behind bars.

One day I asked him.

He explained to me that they couldn't take some things away from him and he just focused on them.

Like what? I asked.

I like having the nicest shoes on the yard. I like it when the sun shines on me when I walk on the track. I like to watch the news. I enjoy playing Gin.

In some ways it’s easier, I don’t worry about things I can’t control and I can’t control much. So do you want to play another hand before lock down or what?

So we played some more cards and time passed and now its a hundred years later and I’m here and I don’t know what happened to him.

Before I left I asked him if I could write him after I got out and he just said no.

I’ll never forget Harvey, and I’ll never forget what he told me about worrying about things I can’t control.

Looking back I think Harvey had some kind of magic in him.

I see people every day who are unhappy, or unsatisfied with their lots in life. Sometimes I am unhappy or unsatisfied and then I think about Harvey and how despite it all he somehow rose above.

He was buoyant.

JS

Nipples, beer, and a new kind of cigarette..

As I sit here lighting another cigarette I wish there was a new kind of smoke, one that was bolder, or different. I light this one not because I like or even enjoy it but because it’s what I do. Call it addiction, or habit, or slavery, or whatever; it is what it is.

I think part of getting older is a dulling of the senses.

I remember when I was a boy and my brothers and I would snitch one of Moms cigarettes, sneak it down to the basement, gather around the hot water heater and roll up newspaper, and light a fire from the burner to light the stolen cigarette and pass it around. Damn that was a good smoke. That was a good time.

I think I was about 16 when I went into a grocery store in Cimmaron Kansas. I don’t remember what I bought but I remember when the clerk bent over I could see right down her top; the image was seared into my brain and even now a thousand years later when I close my eyes I can see the plain white bra that was a little too big and the hint of nipple that peeked out at me, as if to say “Oh look at me, didn’t expect this did you?”

I remember the first time I jerked off. I remember the first time I got my finger wet. I remember my first dance, my first feel, my first sex, my first lover, my first BJ, my first dirty book, the first time I fell in love. I remember my first broken heart, my first car, my first computer, my first gun, my first crime, my first prison sentence.

I remember learning to drive in a monstrous pink ford Thunderbird. 

I remember my first car crash, my first job on a shrimp boat. I remember my first flight. The first time my 1^st wife cheated on me and the first time I cheated on her.

I remember my first apartment, my first job, my first car and first truck. So many things and I remember the magic of every one of them.

As I look back over my lifetime so far; at all of the different J. Swaneys I wonder if my changes are coming to an end. Have I finally crystalized once and for all? Or will I again cocoon up and re-emerge different and exciting.

I’m older and supposedly wiser, and quite frankly I miss the high. The rush of something completely new and unexpected. Life has become predictable and I can understand why some people do foolish things when they are my age.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy or dissatisfied. Honestly I am one of the luckiest people I know. I have a great family. I live in a beautiful area. I can’t remember the last time I was hungry. I am actually surrounded by, married to, and related to beautiful people, the kind of people I never even imagined having the nerve to speak to. I’m a lucky and appreciative man.

But..

I can understand a mid-life crisis. A sports car, a young lover, cocaine, a small business, political obsession, strippers, whores, alcoholism, or any of the other things that trip men my age up.

I see it all around me and recognize it for what it is, so I’ll take a pass, but I can understand it. 

I remember when I was younger and working in Brownsville Texas in this huge un air conditioned tool and die shop. It was so fricking hot. You don't even know. Brownville TX in the summer has temps over 100 degrees, with humidity above 80. Anyway this buddy and me used to get off work, go to this store that he knew of that had a walk in cooler that had beer that was like 30 degrees, we would buy a 12 pack get back into his truck, drive to his house, sit in the driveway, crack open the cans, pour salt and tabasco sauce on the rims, and then slam the beer. It sounds lame but it was simply amazing.

Remember the first time you ever shot tequila, licked the salt from your hand and bit the lime? The burn of the alcohol, the bite of the salt, and then the explosion of the lime; it was like a roller coaster for your mouth wasn't it?

But… if I jumped on my bike, went to the store bought some top shelf tequila, stopped at the market, bought a few limes, drove home, and did some shots, or even went to the bar, right this second… it just wouldn't be the same.

Is my tongue different; is the tequila? Or is it me?

                  

Anyway, there really isn't a point to this post or a moral to this story.

I guess I’m just ready for the next best thing, or at least a new kind of cigarette.

J. Swaney

If you're a daughter here's a little unsolicited relationship advice...

There is wisdom in some expressions, one of my favorites is ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’. I am also intimately familiar with the expression ‘We all have skeletons in our closets’, truth be told; I have an entire walk in closet, a few garages, and 3 or 4 rented storage units just filled with bones.

So this brings me to this blogs thoughts.

A young woman that is very close to me is having some issues with her Father. He made some poor choices in the past and she is so angry about it.

He now has a new wife and new daughter, and he is doing the best he can with them.

Now, from what I know he is a good man. He never ever missed a child support payment, and always made himself available to see her. At about 15 she decided she didn't want to spend weekends with him and so they grew further apart after that.

Fast forward 10 years, he now has a daughter from a subsequent marriage that is about the same age as his other daughter was when their relationship became strained. So, the second Daughter is getting to do things that the first Daughter never ever did, so now there is this whole jealousy dynamic.

Anyway Daughter number one honestly believes the way to deal with this is to talk it out, but the Father isn’t too crazy about this idea because talking it out amounts to him being chewed out for things he can’t change, and basically allowing himself to be chastised by Daughter number one, when it was she who chose not to spend time with him during those years and not the other way around. As a man with a mans pride I can completely understand his reluctance.

So, when they attempt to talk, the talks don’t go smoothly, and the rational discussions become nothing more or less than accusations. They both have hurt feelings about the past, and neither one of them can change a damn thing.

So, what now?

Some would say that they need to have some family counseling to resolve their issues.

I say, leave the past in the past and move on.

Life is full of choices, and one of those choices; as an adult, is to choose who we do, and do not, want to have a relationship with. Now I am not saying that she should stop having a relationship with her Father, but she should accept the fact that no amount of rehashing, debating, discussing, or delving into, issues of the past are going to undo what’s been done.

So she needs to either close those bones in the closet forgive and move forward, or terminate the relationship completely.

This may sound extreme but the alternative is just sabotaging what relationship they do have.

It would be nice if hurting someone could make us hurt less, or if confronting someone about our injuries could somehow make them heal faster, but the sad truth is neither of these things are the case.

As I see it, he isn’t hurting her right now, actually he wants to take back the hurt and make everything better but he just can’t do it.

Honestly I kind of feel bad for the guy, not because I really know him but because I too am a guy with a non-traditional family dynamic, and further more I came from a family with a non-traditional dynamic. I carry the scars from it too.

My greatest fear is that her relationship with her Father ends up like my relationship with my Mother and Father.

The relationship with myself and my Mother and Father is strained and civil, and honestly I can’t imagine it ever being any other way. I wish it wasn’t so but it is what it is. I don’t like my Mother, and my Father and quite possibly my Mother don’t really like me. We just went in different directions and now we are so far apart that I doubt we will ever find a common ground, and I don’t know that I would really want to.

This is so sad….. My greatest fear is that my relationship with my son and daughters ever becomes like my relationship with my Father and Mother. I may as well be an orphan, and it hurts me.

With that said here is my advice to this young woman who is so close to me.

Please, try as hard as you can to forgive and forget. Do everything in your power to stay in your Father’s life no matter how far you live apart, try telling him how important he is to you instead of telling him how he has hurt you or how you have been hurt by your relationship.

Embrace today and hope for a better tomorrow because life will move you both along, days turn to weeks, weeks to months, and then months to years, and then one day you realize that the piece of your heart that should be occupied by your real Fathers love is empty, and although you can fill it with other things it just won’t be the same.

You will find that you can never ever be loved by too many people but it is very possible not to be loved by enough.

Guns, Hawks, Warmongers, whore-mongers, and Yeats

I’ve been worried about the world lately, well not the whole world, just the piece of it that I claim as my own.

I've been trying to listen to the news in a new way today.

I am trying to hear past the liberals, to screen out the ultra conservatives, to somehow hear past the bias from the networks, and the venom of the hate mongers. It hasn’t been easy. All of my usual sources are disqualified, or have unwittingly recused themselves, with past rants and raves.

In desperation I turned to social media.

I found funny pictures, amusing meme’s, sarcasm, idiocy, good and valid points from the right and the left. I saw people from both sides bullied and humiliated, as I ghosted into and out of chat rooms. I read comments, and verbal blood bathes, threats and insults, humor and passion, the bitterest salts and the hottest peppers.

But I still didn't find what I was looking for.

I don’t want to phrase this personally because my family actually reads my drivel so I will just tell you a story….

Once upon a time this man married this woman. She had children and so did he. She had a significant life before him, and he had lived long before her, but they fell in love, made a commitment and married.

It wasn’t easy.

Her children didn't like him very much, and they had seen their Mother hurt before. He was proud and arrogant, bold and brash, he couldn't hear anything anyone said because he was shouting, her children grew even more frustrated because they weren't listened to. Things went from bad to worse.

But She…. His wife, was the voice of reason. She listened. She listened to him, and she listened to them. Careful, she wouldn't take a side. When one faction got out of hand and began to say things that shouldn't be said she would advise caution. When one side stopped speaking she still always invited their input. She always insisted that she was on the side of the family, and refused to alight herself whole heartedly with either the right or the left. Some nights she would cry, but even as she cried she still loved. She avoided absolutes, she embraced compromise, with calmness and deliberation she led her reluctant crew straight north. She stressed the gray and denied that anyone was black or white, or evil or perfect. Her cause was a higher one, her calling almost divine. She embraced the big picture. She recognized the squabbles and storms were just life, and that as long as everyone remembered that there would be plenty of other days, and that they would probably be better than these, than things would get better.

Like water smoothing the edges of the Grand Canyon, she watched the storms come and go.

Without her that family would have imploded, verbal nuclear options would have been explored, impossible ultimatums would have been laid down, truly hateful things would have been said and done, seeds of trust would have blown away on the wind, others would have been drawn into the disputes to take one side or another, at some point things would have just gotten so big, and out of control, that winning and losing wouldn't even have mattered anymore, the barbaric goal would have simply become destruction, and every day would have been celebrated simply because it was another day to do more damage, to do more harm.

I've been in wars like this. I've been married before, and when it was over I know how it would have ended, just a smoldering ruin where a family had once been, and scarred survivors carrying around grudges and hate.

See… what I was looking for today on the web, and in the news, and on social media, was a voice of reason, a semblance of mutual respect and understanding; someone, anyone, to just say ‘our Nation is’t red or blue, it’s red white and blue. All the colors make up the flag, and all political parties are equally important. I searched for a piece of cilantro to balance the bitter and the hot.

I didn't find it. I didn't read it. I didn't hear it.

Our politics and our Nation, are a lot like a blended family, and unfortunately, no one seems to be putting the family first. Not the Republicans, the Democrats, the far left or the far right.

So what does this mean? Does this mean that we as a nation are on our way out? Is the United, in United States gone for good?

I suppose it could be. No nation lasts forever. But if it is; I’ll be both sad to see it gone and honored to have been a part of it.

And I’ll tell you what I’m going to do tomorrow, or tonight, online, or the next time I’m asked or tempted to tell….

I’m going to look hard for a middle ground, and if the only middle ground we can find is that we both love things about the United States, well then that’s something. If enough of you do it, and it spreads, it just might save my world, and your too.

I’m going to leave you with a few lines from a poem by Yeats, and I hope the next time you discuss politics, or current events, that you encourage compromise, and that you listen as well as you speak, and you realize that these are the glues that hold us together, and that without them inevitably we will come apart.

“The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”

The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

Have a great night, or morning, or day, or whatever, and as always Thanks loads for giving me a few minutes of your time. I know it’s your most valuable resource.

Until we meet again…

JS

Accidental Gift, Strippers, Tablecloths, Real Sugar, and Wal-Mart

Accidental Gift, Fancy Tablecloths, and real sugar.

It’s been a few day since I posted anything on this blog and I blame life. Oh, I wish I could think of wonderful, entertaining, and insightful things to write about every single day, but in truth I just can’t.

Some days you are just going to get a slice of the life of Swaney. Hairy belly, bald head, strange dry crusty skin thing I found on my leg the other day, that I have no idea what the hell is, and everything else.

Right now it’s a little after 11pm; Coast to Coast is playing on the radio (I love am talk radio). It’s the last hour of my wifes birthday, and it’s been just too damn cold for Southern California the last few days.

So, this morning I wake up and my plan is to go pick up some flowers for her Birthday. Now that may not sound like much, but we’re just not really that good at exchanging gifts here at Casa Swaney. We’re fortunate in the fact that if we need something, we usually just go get it, or save a few weeks and then go get it. I mean, we’re both grown, and independent, so, well that’s just the way it is.

Anyway, my plan was to buy flowers, even though I always secretly feel like they are a sucky gift because in a week they are dead, and even if she dries them out, well they are still dead, just dry and dead.

So, anyway I tell her I’m headed to the dry cleaners to pick up our comforters, and dry cleaning, and I hop into the Marshmallow (it’s a 2013 white Fiat 500, that we picked up last week, my 7 year old Grandson says it looks like a Marshmallow, and the name is sticking) and head up to the cleaners.

The proprietor greets me by name, gathers our stuff, and tells me how thrilled she is that we came in today. She shows me all of these clothes, quilts, etc etc… that people simply haven’t picked up. She tells me how she has some bills due, and it’s been a very difficult month, with people not picking up their cleaning in Dec and Jan.

I start to feel bad because out stuff has been in for quite a while, and with 2 comforters, and several shirts, our bill is about 90 dollars.

Anyway I’m looking at these two tablecloths, and wondering how the Mrs. would feel if I got her tablecloths instead of flowers.

Marie is hard to buy gifts for because she is just too kind. I’ve figured out in all of our years together that I could give her a dead cat with a bow on it for a present and she would claim she loved it and had always wanted one just like it. It’s only later when you realize that your gift has disappeared into the closet, which seems to have a Bermuda Triangle section in it, to never ever been seen again, that you figure out that maybe she didn’t love it quite as much as she said she did.

So, as these thoughts are running around in my head like puppies chasing their own tails, I look closer at these tablecloths. The more I look the more I like, this is some really fine fabric, tightly woven, with lots of different colors of threads, and some glass stones, somehow sewn into the fabric. I don’t know where they came from as I’ve never seen anything like them. (Now I’ll admit I’ve never really paid a whole lot of attention to fabric but I know this is really cool.)

So anyway I bring them home and she’s thrilled… I know she’s really thrilled instead of gift thrilled, because the tablecloths are immediately put to use, where people can see them and it’s not even suggested that they go to the closet.

So YEA Me!

Well one other thing and then I’ll let you go.

For the 7 years, or so I’ve been trying to eat a little healthier. I’m not getting too carried away but I can say over all we eat healthier then we used to and when I imagine the crap we ate as kids I honestly don’t know how I lived to this day. Now these aren’t major changes, just things that seemed like a simple change and hopefully they add up. We don’t buy 80/20  we use 93/7 ground beef, and eat lots more chicken. We use olive oil. I try not to eat things that I really don’t know what they are exactly, like hot dogs, or bologna, or margarine, or coffee creamer, or instant or decaf coffee. If I can buy something that doesn’t use high fructose corn syrup, I usually do. We eat chips once or twice per month instead of weekly or daily. We use real mayo instead of miracle whip. It’s just little things and I’m as fat as ever but I still feel a little better because I’m eating less things that I simply can’t identify and more things I can.

So, anyway a couple of years ago I started buying sugar in the raw, 2 or 3 times a week I drink coffee with some sugar in it. The things I like about sugar n raw was that it wasn’t bleached, it was just sugar. The thing I didn’t like about it was that it was ground so coarsely that it didn’t dissolve as well, and the last ¼ of a cup of coffee was just too sweet.

So anyway today while we are shopping I find some sugar that is the same as sugar in the raw, just made by another company, but is ground much finer.

It’s real sugar, tastes the same, is ground closer to the same, dissolves the same, but is just un-bleached. So it’s like would you care for some bleach in your coffee? No thank you.

Anyway I picked it up at Wal-Mart, (which I hate and hold pretty much responsible for the race to the bottom in retail customer service, but that’s another subject) which are pretty much everywhere, so give it a shot the next time you shop there.

Well it’s the end of this blog and I appreciate every single one of you who take a moment to read what I write.

If I was a stripper, and this blog were a pole, every single time it’s read is like slipping a dollar into my g-string, except of course I can’t use the dollars to buy drugs, and it probably won’t lead to a career in porn, and I don’t have the protection of two or three huge mean looking guys, to remind you not to get too handsy, and I can’t do private dances, and I am not required to wear pasties, and their isn’t an onsite ATM machine that has a 10 dollar service charge, and I won’t be coming around to your table asking you to buy me a drink, and you won’t have to come up with some excuse for your husband or wife about where you’ve been and what happened to your money.

Until we meet again.

JS