What amazing things have you guys done?

I always find it interesting that the everyday regular people you meet and know, always seem to have interesting stories in their background. You can't judge a book by it's cover. It's usually when you get to know someone a little that the interesting stories come out. Like my friend Bob. He's a kindly older looking fellow, overweight, white haired, pillar of the community type of person. But, get on the subject of Vietnam and you find a totally different person. Or I remember a friend of my Dad's who was a small town doctor, GP, who I knew and respected as a kindly old doctor. My dad preached his funeral, where I found out this man hit the beach with the first wave at Normandy and survived. You never know from first meeting a person what they have experienced or who you are really dealing with. I try to treat everyone with respect, until or unless they prove they don't deserve it.
 
Thanks to SilverFoxknows and Fed for the best, and Rusty too.

.. ...

I once ate a quarter ounce of very excellent hash and made it half way through a formal dinner with the Chancelor before the flying figurines drove me off.

I killed an antelope with a single shot from my .308 at a many times measured distance, with feet and odometers of two vehicles, of about, plus or minus 20, 400 yards- offhand. Right below the shoulder. With or without my new bad eye I'll never do that again.

I worked psych nursing for 10 years in two locations considered the snake pits of the earth- and hope to God I made a difference to some poor soul at some time, though we never know.

Maybe the best thing was listening to my friend and neighbor for a year, mostly just listening and getting yelled at occasionally, after his 17 year old son shot himself in the man's motor shop. Then his cancer flaired up and I spent another year on that. He died.

There's some great men I miss very much and wonder why they're gone and I'm still here. I hope there is a reason. I have to hope that.


munk
 
I stayed alive for almost 70 years. Got email from Brother Fred this AM telling me that one of my old buddies bit the dust a day or two back. He was 68 and didn't smoke or drink.
 
Back in the 80s I lived and worked in a lot of the countries you read about in the newspaper today. I had a lot of adventures but I was never a hero, I just learned and became a better person.
The biggest lesson I learned in my travels was that when you sort it all out there's no place on earth better then the USA.
 
"The biggest lesson I learned in my travels was that when you sort it all out there's no place on earth better then the USA."

I'll sure as hell drink to that. I learned the same lesson and that's why I think mandatory foreign service in any capacity would teach the kids more than a million books and 20 years of study.
 
Good stuff from everyone. SilverFoxKnows-- your wife is lucky to have someone as caring and understanding as you. I don't think what you posted was out of line at all.

--Josh
 
"I'll sure as hell drink to that. I learned the same lesson and that's why I think mandatory foreign service in any capacity would teach the kids more than a million books and 20 years of study."

And I'll sure as hell drink to that ! Your right on target there.
Six months of doing a real job in a third world country will open their eyes in a hurry. Let them learn what it's like to try to make something out of nothing and where there are only two classes of people, those that have and those that don't.
It'll also give them an idea of what it's like to be hated for having been lucky enough to be born an American all while they suck up to you and smile.

But you know, I'd do it over again if I could.

Warren
(orono)
 
Munk, if you've got 10 years in Psych Nursing and I've got 10 years in Social Work doing Child/Adult Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation work, ( mine was spent five + years with the state and the other five on the reservation ) then we understand each other very well. And what it does to your soul.

I think Uncle Bill and Yvsa call me brother because they too have reached that point where you can't keep going without knowing others are with you in their own way.

I sit here trying to put the right words together, and I think all of us have reached the point where being allowed to serve others is a priviledge, a soul in torment trusting in our help. Maybe I'm suffering delusions of grandeur but in cherishing those opportunities, I think we begin to understand something of what drove Mother Teresa. We are being allowed to pay forward the times others have touched our lives. And sometimes it is vice-versa, when allowing ourselves to be needy and accept help from others is sometimes the greatest gift we can possibly grant to others.

Heck with theology and philosophy. "Time to go kill something" like the cartoon with the two vultures sitting on a rock says.

( if the rest of you can puzzle out what I'm trying to say, then you're welcome to include yourselves - there are too many of you to name and I don't want to leave someone out. )
 
I can not hear any stories of child abuse any longer- five years with the criminally insane and sex offenders were enough. But when people are hurting inside, I've always tried to help. It's been that way since I was small. They just figure a guy as broken hearted, or just plain broke, knows something.

Guess what happened today? An old Marine sent me a handmade wooden cross. He'd started making it long before my recent disaster. You Budhists can call that Karma. I see the Great Heart in motion again.



munk
 
Same here I don't want to hear stories of child abuse and neglect, and if told, I shed it like drops of water off Tsimi's back.
 
In my life I've saved a couple of kids from drowning even though one was a little smart aleck that needed a scare so I let him wait............just long enough.:)

I didn't kill my old man bare handed when I was 15 although I would've if it hadn't of been for my Mom begging me to stop before I did kill him.
Took me a lot of years to finally realize I did the right thing.

I didn't kill my 1st ex-wife in a horrible way although she deserved it.

I've saved a couple of people from suicide and I'm quite proud of that.

I've helped several people who were abused as kids to have a better life and that gives me the best feeling of all.
Many times people wonder why such things happened to them, in my case I used the experiences to help.
 
Being abused when I was younger was why I went to the Marine Corps in the first place. My grandmother is the one who kept me from killing my grandfather. That abuse is what made up my mind that I would never see such crap in my house. A spanking is one thing but, getting beat with 2" x2"'s, 2" x 4"'s and ash limbs is something else.
I even got knocked off a stack of bailed hay once and had to go to the doctor three times a week because my back was so out of line. The first couple of weeks was hell to walk.

Nowadays the man would be in jail for some of the crap he pulled on Grandmother and I. I guess the Lord can forgive him. May the Lord have mercy on his soul.
 
I have a fondness for those who've been to hell and back.

They listen to you. They understand somehow. And they accept you, rather than running you off, They don't tell you what you ought to do, just offer a suggestion or two when you pin them down, etc. And there's a humility to them.

There seems to be an awful lot of them on this forum for some reason. Part of it's charm.

edit: The Gordon Lightfoot song Rainy Day People seems to fit the folks I'm reffering to.
 
I have a fondness for those who've been to hell and back.

They listen to you. They understand somehow. And they accept you, rather than running you off, They don't tell you what you ought to do, just offer a suggestion or two when you pin them down, etc. And there's a humility to them.
---Rusty

Hey Rusty, perhaps if we went running through town, striking individuals viciously in the head with crowbars, we might facilitate this process quicker...you know, forced introduction to hell? For their own good.

...

I got some good news yesterday with a real Doctor. Almost everything the first one said was either wrong or incomplete. My pupil will probably heal! ( I don't wanna jinx it...) The Bruks membrane was ruptured in the retina. This will scar over and heal. Best of all, my eye is starting to see again a little better, and my nose is OK. Gosh, that blonde PA was so adorable...sniff sniff.. reminded me of my wife when she was that age.

Oh, and I was told not to fill the eyeglass prescription the first one wrote. I specifically asked the first doc that over and over; will it still be a good script if my pupil heals? "sure it will' he said. The first doc did not see the ruptured Bruks membrane, nor the numerous hemorages still apparent. With doctors like those, I should practise medicine.


munk
 
The Bruks membrane is attached to the retina. When it ruptures, it is always in a curve, the Doc said. I kept thinking of melons dropped on pavement and the large curved cracks...

The Doctor said at least three times; "you had to be hit real hard to do this."

You know how they fix a detached retina that has gone beyond torn? They fill your eyeball up with air, which forces the retina back into position against the back of the eye and the optic nerve.

Then you hold your head in the same position a few days..and are advised not to fly in airplanes as the sudden pressure spike will do the same to your eyeball!

Eventually, the air is replaced with fluid again by the body.

There is some small chance blood vessesls will grow into my eyeball through the ruptured membrane...and have to be cut out! They don't know any better; they think they're supposed to grow into tissue and provide nutrients. Sorta reminds me of lawns I've hated to mow.



munk
 
munk

Glad you are healing up OK. It takes time. I hope that bastid who stomped you gets his someday.

Semp --
 
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