1963 and Jackie the Tomboy Runaway

In 1963 we lived in Glen Ellyn , a suburb on the outskirts of Chicago...the suburbs were exploding with WWII vets and their families carving out the American dream.

We had two car garages and enough room for a neighborhood par three in the adjoining back yards. We had neighborhood barbecues and gangs of kids on Schwinn bikes and swing sets dotted the property lines.

Most of all, we had freedom. We kids roamed our neighborhoods as if we would inherit every house, every tree, and every stone on the ground. On summer days, we would jump on our bikes in the morning and disappear until lunch...grilled cheese, hot dogs, Campbell soup and a bowl of grapes...the meal of explorers.

I knew every good climbing tree, every stream and where to cross it and whose back yard you could cut through. I knew the yards with friendly dogs ( I always carried a treat for them) and which dogs you stayed away from (no treat for you!).

I was 6 years old then, and still convinced I could fly...I used to jump off a big boulder near our house wishing it so.

This is the year I mastered the two-wheeler NO TRAINING WHEELS THANK YOU VERY MUCH...

it was the year I remember seeing my mother weeping at the dining room table over the newspaper which held the details of President Kennedy's assassination,

it was the year I cut myself grabbing a broken Noxema jar out of the stream near Mahoney's yard , leaving the first scar I ever had.

It was the year my sister and I met Jackie the Tomboy Runaway.

At the top of Hackberry Lane, a new house was being built, otherwise known as an attractive nuisance by my mom...we loved to explore in new houses, wondering who would move in, would there be kids our age, would they have cool bikes, would their dog be nice? We always found things left by the workers, coke bottles, cigarette butts, and pieces of wood I just knew we could use in our fort in the woods...but we never expected we would find a person.

One afternoon while sneaking into the new house, we were surprised by the presence of a girl, about 15 years old, dressed in jeans and a dark jacket, she had a bandana on (the first I'd ever seen NOT on a cowboy)…she had a chain on her wallet and short black hair and Beatle boots.

We were startled at first when we saw her, but she had an easy smile and in the most disarming way said "Hi" as if she was supposed to be in this house...

I looked at my sister Ellen (at three years older she was the boss of me), and took her lead that this was okay and we started up a conversation.

Jackie was a runaway, she didn't say from what.

She was living on the road and a bit hungry. She was going to stay for only a few days then be on her "Jackie Kerouac" way.

Ellen and I, eager to be a part of this adventure, immediately rattled off the contents of our refrigerator at home and how we could sneak food to her NO PROBLEM. We are pros at this stuff, we think.

Jackie smiled.

We ran home and assembled PB&J sandwiches, bananas, apples, cheese... your typical rebel food...and on the walk back I asked my sister why Jackie dressed like a boy..."Because she's Tomboy, that's why" ...it was the first time I ever heard that term...Tomboy...wow, new word, new friend, this is what being 6 is all about.

We got back to the Tomboy runaway hiding place and proudly displayed our "get" for Jackie, all the while bragging about our stealth operation and how we told our mom we were eating lunch al fresco, translation: in the woods at our fort.

We watched her wolf down her food and then she pulled out her jackknife to cut her apple…ANOTHER first...a jackknife! This Tomboy Runaway was getting cooler by the second; free of her parents and rules, out on the open road, cool bandana, owner of a jackknife...I bet she knew one of the Beatles, she wore their boots, you know.

We walked home in inspired silence...this was more fun than any Pipi Longstocking book...this girl smoked that Eloise at the Plaza...

I couldn't wait to get back to the construction site the next morning...I had more stolen food and Bazooka bubblegum to give her. I couldn't wait to tell her what she missed on The Ed Sullivan show the night before and that we were trying to sneak a pillow and blanket out to her...

but the house was empty, no one answered when I did the secret knock...one two, one two.

Jackie was gone.

No note, no nothing, just gone.

I backed out to the dirt filled front yard, and stared at the unfinished house so like Jackie, a work in progress, yet to be defined.

The walk home was a long thoughtful one, heavy footsteps full of letdown.

I think I checked back one or two times later that week, but Jackie the Tomboy runaway was gone. She became a staple in my prayers, Dear God please bless so and so and sorry for not cleaning my room and help Jackie find her way home.

Pretty soon Jackie the Tomboy Runaway just became a story we would tell the other neighbor kids, and then something my sister and I would reminisce about as adults...we still can't pinpoint why we never alerted our parents about her.

Jackie would be close to maybe 65 years old today, that's if and it's a big if, she survived her life on the road. Or maybe Jackie the Tomboy Runaway was just a kid from a nearby neighborhood who wanted to scare her parents, to finally get them to stop forcing her to wear dresses and corsages and grow her hair long like the Lennon sisters. At least that's how my 6 year old mind defined the terms of hurt ... as an adult, I imagine there may have been a more sorrowful story behind Jackie.

Who knows.

All I know is that she felt alone enough to run from the place where you should feel safe and above all, loved. She felt compelled to risk whatever unknowns just so she could be, or find out, who she was.

God already knew who she was, he already counted every short black hair on her head, she just didn't know that.

And I knew who she was, she was Jackie the Tomboy Runaway, the most exciting thing to happen on Hackberry Lane, and maybe , just maybe, in our simple act of bringing food to her and listening to her with such awe, she felt special enough to stop the running.

An Open Letter to NBC News with Brian Williams

Dear Sirs or Madams,

Did I hear Brian Williams correctly tonight...did he use the word "insurgent" when referring to the mostly Tea Party candidates in his report tonight?

What incendiary biased influence peddling was that?

While the word "insurgent" may be somewhat of a word search moment, he most obviously knew that those watching would key in to the word as one used to

describe hostile combatants of US Troops in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Insurgent is also akin to the word terrorist in our modern newspeak.

Mr.Williams has lost all credibility as a newsman to go as far to tag Americans who are exercising their rights as "insurgents".

He has certainly flown his preference flag and has lost the honor to wear the mantle of the neutral newsman.

His bias cheapens the broadcast.

You have lost a family of viewers, respect, and credibility on this one.

You are not above reproach...you have insulted many Americans with this elitist eyebrow lift and boorish vocabulary call.

Yours truly,

Invisi-Gal

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The falsehood of audacity and the time bomb that is Iran...

In a not surprising speech this week, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for U.S. leaders to be "buried" in response to what he says are American threats of military attacks against Tehran's nuclear program. His particular words of insult were specific death threats in his native tongue.

All this less than a month after Holocaust denier, and resident madman, Ahmadinejad spoke at the United Nations declaring 911 an inside job, a direct and astounding insult to us as a nation...

I am amazed that I still hear snickers among American, just like the ones we heard as we watched the rag tagged Taliban fighters in the black and white training videos from Afghanistan shortly before 911....little did we know they were systematically plotting the most horrific assault ever on US soil.

We treat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a spoiled out of control toddler in the checkout line at the grocery store, snicker, point and ignore.

In 2009, I had issue with the fact that President Obama was willing to engage in talks with Iran without pre-conditions, not because I don't believe in diplomacy , but because I was stunned by his audacity.

Did he really think that he would be the ONE who would convince , through his super ultra intelligence, this rabid Iranian leader to put down his unwavering beliefs and weapons and listen to him? Did he really think he would step in and show us how it's done..that the leaders and diplomats before him were rubes, and he was so much smarter then they?

Who did this half term Senator-Oprah-book-club-pick-idealogue think he was fooling? I guess he was banking on the fact that if we were naive enough to elect him to the highest office in the land, that we were indeed not as smart as he.

Obama, along with David Axelrod, packaged a finely tuned Too Smart For the Room campaign. Levied by hatred for Bush and buoyed by the promise of a decent candidate post John Kerry, they slid this inexperienced man right on through to the Oval Office.

The mere mention of negotiating with mad man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed no working knowledge of foreign policy and left half of the country thinking..."Does this guy read the newspapers?".

What kind of open dialogue can you have with a Holocaust denier, Sharia stoning death enforcer, and someone who wishes to "wipe Israel from the face of the earth"?

As this administration fiddles, Iran has slowly and PUBLICLY assembled the biggest nightmare imaginable; nuclear capability owned and operated by an unstable hateful theocratic leader... Ahmadinejad can't wait to fire the first shot and it won't be across the bow...

In the meantime, Obama has conducted drone wars in Afghanistan, pulled down troops in Iran and distracted the country with a deeply flawed and, according to 67% of Americans, unwanted Health Care Bill...

he turned Washington into his spending-taxing-cash printing press...

bolstered division among parties through speeches,

and sunk to a new low in popularity polls among his own adoring fans...

and we watch as his economic advisers,

like the proverbial rats jumping ship over their own failure,

trip on each other as they run from the White House,

His leadership as CIC saw the deadliest 18 months in Iraq/Afghanistan since the beginning of the war

...and faced with opposition and exposure of his term's failures, he draws George Bush like a loaded blame gun every chance he gets.

Which can only cause this voter to say."You need to cowboy up and stop the whining and get yourself some help from people who know what the hell they're doing, because you certainly don't."

Sure, along with Ashley Judd, Obama is a Harvard grad, and he's a great community organizer, but to put it in plain speak...I would rather have the licensed qualified surgeon who's operated before do the operation than the guy who studied a book on medicine and has the audacity to raise the scalpel, and bluster his superior knowledge of the procedure he's never done.

Our president now faces a real and dangerous threat from a man capable of carrying it out...the rest of the world, who has no delusions about the intentions of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his sinister nuclear ambitions, waits to see if the leader of the free world will stand by his title.

My guess would be that president Obama, whose leadership negating liberation theology, is uncomfortable with the responsibility of having to vanquish this enemy and become in turn, a benevolent victor.

So we are left as a nation, led by the falsehood of audacity and the time bomb that is Iran.

Stink Bug-a-Phobia and perfect irony.

Yeah, that's me, Chicken Little...I knew these things were bad news...there were too many of them and they stink when you kill them, plus no known predators...who has no known predators ?

I kept saying last year, this is not good.

I was whipped into entomological submission by google searches, and experts in the media...
"they are innocuous, they cause no harm, they're like lady bugs, don’t kill them it causes stink, just ignore them".

So last year, when I saw a small invasion inside my house, I basically relocated them outside and ignored them...I tried to view them as lady bugs, who actually have a good purpose in the garden in eating aphids...but their crusty shield like bodies just didn't seem non-threatening like our orange spotted friends. Something in the back of mind was telling me "This just stinks".

Now this year, we come to find out, the stink bug is decimating the apple crops in several states and it's worse than before...they make the dog puke when she eats one (that's been a bed of roses to deal with) and I spend the better part of sunny afternoons killing and disposing of these invaders...and cursing my own insectal wussification that allowed me to not aggressively get rid of those bugs last year.

I should have followed my instincts and eradicated them with abandon last year, not giving them a chance to get a foothold in my yard, my home, my life.

The whole time we've had major clues as to their mission...they are shaped like shields, they stink, they eat cash crops, and nothing wants to attack them for fear of the stink.

We sat around and watched it happened with our eyes wide open....

So I'm hoping not much damage has been done, and we can get rid of these things, and next time, next time when something doesn't SMELL right, let's use the history of this, and do something about it from the start, and don't be bullied by an inaccurate media.

In a twist of unromantic irony, turns out chickens will eat stink bugs....so my role as Chicken Little has greater meaning after all, the perfectness is not lost on this little chicken.

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A Bend in the Road.

We live on a hillside up above a busy road, a busy 4 lane road with a long stretch of highway and a big bend. It makes it attractive to those who like to speed.

We are also near some businesses, so we're used to hearing delivery trucks dumping loads at the local garden supply...we love living here, we call it the city cottage, 8 minutes from downtown but on 4 acres of land.

On cool nights we love to sleep with the upstairs windows open, sometimes the crickets are so loud, they overpower any vehicle noises.

Since we have lived here, 14 years now, we have heard the screeching of tires and the subsequent hard clunk of metal to alert us that an accident has happened. It always happens right at the bend, the bend where speed and alcohol fail to mix.

Usually it happens in the middle of the night, and I call 911...they know me by name now. It used to be a common occurrence when the bar down the street was open. It's been closed now for almost a year and the accidents have ceased. The only vehicles we hear at night are the occasional trucks or a speedster with a loud muffler.

Except for the one two nights ago.

There was a loud thump, like the sound of a dump truck load hitting the ground and then the shake of a trailer...my husband and I both heard it and fell back to sleep. Neither one of us even opened our eyes or looked at the clock, so when I awoke later, I had no idea how much time had passed....I awoke because of flashing swirling lights below...up I rose to the window.

Below on the street in total silence where five patrol cars blocking off the road and two EMS vehicles. It was an eerie quiet because there was no talking, no rushing, no sirens...just silence.

The EMS vehicle stood still, no dashing off to a hospital.

Whatever happened below was serious enough to require all these vehicles, but it was final in it's stillness. No one was walking away from this, no one was recovering, no one was alive.

After awhile I got back into bed and prayed and prayed for the soul of this person for whom all the lights are flashing.

They were there from a little after 1am until 6am....cleaning up. Long clean up.

We found out later it was a motorcycle accident, he failed to negotiate the bend, hit head on into a utility pole, then the rider and bike flew 15 feet and hit an empty trailer that was parked in the adjacent parking lot....that was the sound that woke us up, what we thought was a truck unloading, was this horrible last moment of someone's life. The rider was killed instantly, blunt force trauma, a severed leg and lacerated aorta...he completely bled out.

There was no warning of this accident, no screeching of brakes, or honking horn or loud voices, nothing...just the sound of the hit. There were barely skid marks to the pole which is now a fractured roadside memorial dressed with flowers and wreaths and a flag.

All weekend long, there has been a steady stream of motorcyclists slowly riding by, a strange survival observance, and the occasional stop to add to the memorial.

It was a local man who leaves behind a young daughter and grieving family.

I won't go into whether he wore a helmet or leathers, what does it matter at this point? I heard the police asking someone visiting the scene if they knew where he had been, had he been drinking? I suppose an autopsy will clarify that one.

I don't know why there wasn't the sound of tires squealing before he hit that pole, I don't know why for the first time, ever, we slept through an accident.

I don't know why it seems that the change of seasons seems to accelerate events.

I never get the answer to any of those things, and I'm all thought-out. I see it as a tender mercy, that God is in the details and the details are none of our business.

All I know for sure at this point, is that a little girl lost her dad, her life forever altered by a bend in the road.

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It's all in the Non Answer.

I've interviewed quite a few people in my career on TV and radio...and the one thing I came away with was how to spot an insane/pathological liar/addict.

They are all the same and their modus operandi is identical...they NEVER answer your question directly, they veer off into their pre determined agenda, which is one of manipulation...and depending on how crazy or addicted or pathological they are, you can bet it's a trip up interview hill you don't want to climb.

I witnessed Oprah, as the master she is, interview Sarah Ferguson and never once get a straight answer from her...Sarah, the former Duchess of York, is in royal hot water for selling access to her former husband Prince Andrew to an undercover reporter for half a million pounds.

She appeared doped up and never directly answered even one question...I watched Oprah patiently probe and circle and cross examine with the patience of an air traffic controller...fielding in rationalizations, dive bombing half truths, and meandering replies.

I think Oprah's patience was rooted in the fact that she was facing a woman in crisis.

Fergie admitted as much, but there was an odor of insincerity as in, "I know all the repentant press crap jargon,.. how's my hair?"

Oprah knew she was watching a women about to hit bottom, and felt no need to kick her as she was down.

Oprah is a better person than I am or at least more of a pro...the crew would have been tasked with prying my hands from around Fergie's neck and drag me away as I scream at her "You tremendous neurotic waste of time!!!"

I would have realized I could've have handled that one better and where, oh where, is my nine iron...

That is why Oprah gets the big bucks and I play golf instead.

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Nashville shows its class...

It's been hard to watch the treatment of Tennessee and Mississippi during this horrible devastation.

Tornado activity and flooding has ravaged these areas beyond belief.

The media all but ignored the situation even though news feeds showed buildings floating down the interstate in Nashville.

In an act of sincere contrition, CNN's Anderson Cooper is publicly apologizing for the snub.

The President, himself, didn't acknowledge the devastation until four days later and he did so in a tweet..a tweet? WTF...
of course I know there was a massive oil spill and a foiled terrorist attack..but this is the nature of the job and the CIC needs to to show up...for pete's sake, send VP Biden or another lacky.

For someone who made it a campaign clarion call to point out the mistakes of Katrina, this was CIC Barack Obama's big chance to show how much better off we are with him running the show...hello?

Nashville showed it's class by not complaining or pointing blame, they dug in immediately and HELPED THEMSELVES...they know FEMA is all but depleted of funds...due to the outrageous number of politically motivated Fed assist calls by Obama in one year...

They never brought up the fact that maybe this treatment is some passive aggressive "red" state payback...but I will...yes I will go there...
and during the help Nashville telethon , which was NOT televised nationally as was the Katrina telethon...not one celeb pulled a reverse Kanye West by declaring "Barack Obama doesn't care about white people."
For those who need to be reminded of his statement at the Katrina telethon, Kanye blindsided his on air buddy Jimmy Fallon by declaring "George Bush doesn't care about black people".

Maybe folks now will see the absurdity in that original comment.

Nashville sees beyond the politics, they are too busy digging out of the mud to swipe at anybody.

They have way too much class for that...and maybe I don't for raising such thoughts, but the truth is we learn by contrast.

So my hat off to the folks of Nashville for staying above the fray and taking care of business and showing the rest of the country, that we the people are the government and not the other way around.

To quote The One himself, "Let me be clear: Tennessee seems to be handling this disaster quite well. This is not a call for Federal aid to rush in and start to screw things up - it’s the symbolism attached to knowing the President of your country is aware of what your state is going through." Really?

They will rebuild and stand on their own two feet, I only hope they have the voting booths up and running first.

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The reason behind the reason

We all procrastinate to some degree. Especially when it comes to taxes.

This year I was really dragging my feet...I mean really digging in and not getting them done for some reason.

Then yesterday, I swallowed deep and started the process, about ten minutes into it, I realized the reason behind the procrastination.

As I waded through travel receipts and generally reliving 2009, piece by piece I came across the gas, Ez Pass and food receipts from all the trips back and forth to visiting my dad as he laying dying in the hospital in Atlantic City, and finally in Philadelphia.

I realized it had been awhile since I woke up and his passing wasn't the first thing on my mind...and now it was all rushing back.

Here are the receipts for the coffee and oatmeal I had each morning with my sister as we drove through Margate on the way to the ICU in Atlantic City.

Here are the receipts for coffee on the turnpike.

It's all filtering back how my cold hearted stepbrother piled up all my father's belongings in the corner of the living room and told us to come get them.

How awful it looked, his life tossed in a heap in the corner by the front door...

Here's the Sam's Club receipt in Linnwood where my sister and I bought boxes and bubble wrap and tape...my stepmother contributed $20 then asked for it back, she thought it was extravagant to buy packing supplies....she never complains about the price of gin as I recall.

It brings back all the secretiveness in their actions, and the unkind words they spoke. I won't go in to details, and you don't want to hear it.

As I'm doing my taxes I can still hear my stepbrother loudly declaring, in between gulps of a cocktail in the largest tacky plastic cup I've ever seen, how Obama was not going to raise taxes, especially on the middle class, and what an idiot I am for thinking differently...wait til he does his taxes next year, and starts paying the VAT tax too...I guess I do have some satisfaction here.

This is the reason why I was stalling, somewhere deep in the great subconscious of my mind, where I keep these things under lock and key...my mind was sending out an SOS...don't go back there, it's a sad reminder.

Here are receipts for my father's memorial, the flowers we ordered to float in the ocean with his ashes during his Naval funeral ceremony.

There's the receipts for framing his WWII medals, the photo montage we made, the week we spent at Ocean City saying goodbye....

So I decided to counteract it all and put on Frank Sinatra, my dad's favorite ...and I am trying my best to not think about the callousness of our step relations...in fact this is a bit of a lesson for step families...if you don't like them, don't go to their funeral or if you do, shut up and let others grieve.

People who study the brain say we hold more bad memories because of the emotional process that happens when we experience something bad or traumatic, it's deep in the brain stem ...so we actually have to work at choosing the good ones...and I'm workin' here.

More counteraction, I think about my sweet Aunt Sis and Uncle Jim who welcomed us in their home and fed us and let us stay with them while my dad was in care in Philadelphia for patients on ventilators. Their home was an extension of our family, with family photos everywhere, and books on the family history...

I choose to remember the sweet friends and family who travelled so far and showed up at the funeral and my friend Janet who sang, her beautiful voice filled the church...and our cousin Patty and Aunt Sis, who spoke so elegantly from the lecturn.

Here's the receipt for all the big band music I purchased on iTunes to play at the reception after the funeral.

I catch myself smiling as I write this...this whole choice thing is working.

Well, now Stardust is playing and Frank is singing, and I am healed just by hearing this beautiful music . ..and I am holding the thought in my heart how thankful I am that my dad played this music and it filled the house when I was a child.

I am choosing the good reasons behind the reason...

And the receipts of 2009 and the unkind times are melting away into a Stardust memory, just like they are supposed to.

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Where's the mess in your life?

Life is messy...anyone with a child or dog certainly knows that, and no matter what we do to try to control it, the laws of nature always take over with a snicker.

Tiger Woods has been snickered at on a grand scale lately.

We have watched his career and life in a collective awe. His mastery of the game and his seemingly perfect life. Major endorsements hundreds of millions of dollars, a model wife, two healthy children...so where's the mess?

Well now, there are at least twelve main messes in different cites scattered through the country and possibly more in the world. The messes in Tiger's life are his women, and apparently, vicodin.

At first when the story broke that Tiger had been in a car accident in the wee hours of the morning right outside of his home... and a golf club was somehow involved, the mess reared it's ugly head. Tiger and his "people" tried to control and contain it. But you can't do that anymore today. Cell phones and cameras everywhere, digital trails of your life everywhere and money...oh money can make the dumb talk ,talk ,and talk.

The irony that this all started on Thanksgiving evening was not lost on those of us who may be struggling with losses of some kind, whether it be loved ones or financial or perhaps, faith. We look at Tiger and his great abundant life and think "What more did he want...geez, he had it all"...including big uncontrollable messes.

We viewed Tiger as early as 2 years old on the Mike Douglas show with his father, showing the country his wunderkid golf skills. His life would become a series of disciplines ever since. His father used to shake a can full of rocks near Tiger's head as he would swing at the golf ball to teach him to stay focused, and not get distracted from the game...control, don't let it get messy.
Tiger had a ritual of what he would wear during tournaments, he would have his clothes chosen and laid out according to color for each day of the competition...control, don't let it get messy.

Had his affairs been about one mistress and perhaps some love involved, we all would have understood what it means to be a fool...but once it was revealed to be multiple trysts, it became about him and how he can control everything in his life except why he can't be a good husband and father.

As he will learn, you can't control another person...nature...a toddler or a head strong boxer dog or...the mess you have created...until you are willing to admit you have created a mess.

Having said that, my closet is a mess...I created it...no more shoes or purses for me. There I am cured ;)

Of course now the only way for Tiger to turn this around is to head to a sex addiction clinic (hahahahaha) and hide for 28 days..then come out swinging.

He needs to realize the turmoil this has created for his family, not him or his image, his FAMILY...and the two little children that God has intrusted to him need him to man up and be a father or get out of their lives...He has basically forfeited his father role by humiliating the mother and spending millions of their college/inheritance to impress and now suppress the lowlife sluts he has created this mess with.

His career will recover, of course, but never back to the level it was. The worst part , however, is that his family will never recover, it's out of his control.

The mess has won.

.... And when you are at the end of your days ( yet another time you have no control over), facing down the messes in your life, it won't be your career sitting next to you in hospice, or the nursing home, or the hospital bed...it will be your children...or not.