Yesterday and today marks the 40th anniversary of the last U.S Military withdrawal from Vietnam. A confusing times – personally and nationally! The Kennedy’s had been shot, the War was not going well. The USA never lost before – It wasn’t part of our self-image! Hollywood and John Wayne had never allowed that to happened! We had never thought about that option! The thing that I recall the most was – “The Draft”!  Hey You? –You’re IN! I was a senior at FSU and about to graduate, when I got a letter from Uncle Sam – Be at the Tallahassee Trail-a-ways” bus station at 6:00 AM for a trip to the Jacksonville Naval station.  As our bus pulled in to the Naval station, carrying we – “draftees” as the Fellow dressed in Military fatigues called us – FSU + FAMU students + Locals young guys from Tallahassee and the smaller towns surrounding it. I remember the excitement of the Locals after seeing others in the fields, as we were driven to our drop-off point!  “Look at that guy…Look at his rifle  -  WOW!” “There another Rifle…. Like young men at a strip show! There’s another---some more…. Really excited!  I didn’t get that excited – I though –“sorry clowns -  the other side, maybe shorter and Asian but they had guns too! Having been the beneficiary of a Student Deferment, which was about to run out! I was SCARED! They had me! Well not that fast!. Eventually after being the beneficiary of additional deferments: Married, Fatherhood, Teacher exemptions – I never served!  Many went to fight in a war to which they didn’t volunteer and may not have understood for a country that was conflicted with it and many did come back! While the fall of Saigon two years later, with its indelible images of frantic helicopter evacuations, is remembered as the final day of the Vietnam War, March 29 in many ways marks an anniversary that holds greater meaning for many who fought, chickened out, protested but  otherwise lived it. God bless the fallen and damaged and Eric Tucker, a student of mine from Miami Central H.S.

Yesterday, while on-line – (Computereze for “Dumpster Diving”), I found a comment from “The Donald”. Now I know that “Wallet Weighting” is a way to determine correctness in our culture! If you got it – “Ching, Ching” – Yes, sir you’re right! And the Donald does awfully well in “Wallet Weighting” catagory plus he has a lot of hair – two things with which I’m impressed! Not to mention his latest wife – That great looking automaton! Oddly, The Donald must be so distracted with flashes of “Not Al’s" but "His-heimers” to fulfill his promise to produce documentation proving that Our President was fathered from the Loins of Beelzebub or from a burned out star or untitled Asian island but BOTTOM LINE-“Ain’t no American”! Fortunately for we who may find him out of touch but comical, he belched out another non-sequester: TOPIC: Baltimore and it’s problem:  "Our great African American President hasn't exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore!" Plus the Mayor! - Now that we are pointing fingers, the ineffective Baltimore Police who have allowed the city to be destroyed, “Are the U.S. taxpayers expected to rebuild it (again)?…" The world is watching Baltimore, President Obama, you have a big job to do. Go to Baltimore …with proper leadership, It can be done! Do it!”-And that’s a COMAND! Is anyone surprised that our urban underemployed, under educated, racially isolated citizens are angry? Violence should not be the answer and may only feels like a form of relief – But when did the Donald or any of us think of these problems before the repeative explosions? Made any suggestion, did any foot/hand work? Open our wallets, our heads, our hearts and come up with some ideas + solutions! Probably NEVER! God, I’m like the Donald – Huh! – Opinioned but Uninvolved! Dammit!

I’m confused! Emotionally and Politically! Bet you never thought that you’d hear me say that! Confusion is for the weak! Well not only – Could be that Thinkers get confused and hoist themselves up, on their own petards – sometimes – maybe often to be honest!  I’m usually for the ‘Little Guy” – the poor, the powerless, los descamiseros but…On Monday, a judge in Lexington ruled in favor of a print shop refusal to print Tee-shirts for a gay pride festival based on the shop owners’ religious views but which was NOT based on the sexual orientation of its requesting clients but on the requested message: advocating “Free Sex/Love”!  It was a “faith issue”! I get hot under the collar when I hear about racial or economically abusive denials of services to others but I’m less certain when it comes to differing “philosophical or political points of view”! If I were a Rabbi, could I not have an anti-Semite removed from the Temple – swastika, brown boot and all? Or if a Priest, reject a contract to rent the parish hall to a Pro-abortion group,  ETC. – Restaurateurs refuse service based of the failure of some to meet a dress code. A bartender, stop serving a person they think had more than their share. I know that these are decisions based on “facts” but Blackness, Gayness, Pro-Abortions are facts! I’ve argues that if licensed by a community to do business and/or provide services – You are to do business and/or to provide services to everyone in that community – Ultimately and democratically, “everyone” gave you the right to do business there! - SO EVERYONE CAN BE YOUR CUSTOMER! … But Conflicting Philosophical Questions-Searching for TRUTH!  – That's a different matter? Dam-it – They maybe the exception!

Today after Sunday mass, Lynn asked if I would like to go to the movies? Remembering that it not “good to be negative” and I like movies, so off we went to the Tower Theatre in Little Havana and saw – “The Salt of the Earth”, which was about a Brazilian photographer, Sebastião Salgado who has been travelling through the world and witnessed and photograph some extremely selfish act of one group against another pitiful groups. Most were major events of our recent history, which have faded from concern or memory! i.e.: the massacre in Rwanda or a cholera epidemic in Ethiopia or problems which Doctors Without Borders were and are helpless to solve. He photograph graphically and was able to record the event. Brutal dictatorships + and careless Western countries seem almost routine in his photogenic experience, and so are the outrageous examples of man’s inhumanity to man: international conflicts, starvation, and exodus! Ignored! He photographs in Black and White which seemed to emphasize the ugly and darker side of those experiences. He made his point – Painfully Clear! In attempt to escape our self-made “Black-White Guilt Trip”, we went off to Key Biscayne and the Rusty Pelican, attempting to camouflage the emotional downer - worked slightly!  Not sure that I’d recommend the movie – Those things occurred during my adult life and apparently I had forgotten – inintentionally or deliberate – I’m not sure! God, Help us and others!

I complain about not being busy and when I get a chance to be busy - I screw it up! There is a Men's group with which I am a "Luke Warm" associate member, "Emmaus". It's purpose is to associate with other Catholic men and share our faith experience and understandings. Frankly, i don't find it as rewarding as I once did. Bottom line: There was a retreat and a breakfast in a church complex in Hialeah - +/- 10 to 15 miles from my home.  I was reminded last week by email of the event - figuring that I might be of some help - I went to help serve breakfast last Saturday - Opps! I was a week early! Today - Saturday, I tried again! I got there +/- 8:15 am and was told that the breakfast had been served at 7:00 am - Opps again - Dammit, I can't even be a Nice or Helpful Guy! Thanks God - I know it - I need the humility and you are real good at providing it to me!  

Last night-“Oklahoma” U of M Ring Theatre – Very Good Production by those who are so talented! We enjoyed it! Not having been much exposed or aware of the musical as a younger teenager when I was allowed to join others as unpaid counselors in 1956, at a place, then in far off undeveloped South Dade, called Camp Matacumbe  (since re-named Boy’s Town of S. Fla. and which served the incoming Cuban refugee kids whose parents were not permitted to leave Castro's Cuba as the Pedro Pan program) Some of the more talent and knowledgeable counselors re-wrote the lyrics to OKLAHOMA to match up with the name of the camp – “MATA – CU - BE, where we all go walking down the Trail”!  Exciting time for me, grew up a little (OK, Very Little!) Might have been more significant than I have thought and I will have to consider that time and the influences on this “Old Complainer”! Thanks Fr. Claude Brubaker, John Hemmer and Maureen Bennett, et.al. - You to God!  Owe you all a lot! Belated: Thanks.

William Paul, the 22-year-old son of 2016 presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was cited last Sunday for driving under the influence of alcohol after rear-ending a parked car. "Our Opinions" are tough to sanitize and apparently are always skewing-up our thinking – either positively or negatively but selfishly! I read about this incident with a partial joyful reaction – WHY?  I oppose Rand Paul and his Republican ranting – but that’s not the kid’s fault! He got caught doing what many of us could have been stopped for - but weren’t! (Or maybe you were - not me - yet!) No one asked if the arrest was proper or the arresting officer acted within the law - or looked for or thought of any mis-handling, excess violence, overreaching political overtones, NOPE! Not yet and I’m not suggesting that there were any either. But our  “Closely Held Biases” aka - Oyr Free Thinking!" seem to re-morph reality somewhere beteen our eyes and our minds. The more partisans or hating we are - the more the re-morfed thought becomes, 

I have to keep an eye on that and check it  personally and more frequently  – Do you?