I was in my winter break in Campo, California about 50 miles west of San Diego, slowly dying of diabetes, kidney failure, high blood pressure, and a plethora, of other ailments and just waiting for my inevitable demise. Was as good a time as any I surmised as I’d been in pain since a 30 day coma I’d had in 2006 and I was pretty much exhausted especially over the Covid panic of the last couple of years which caused me to lose 10 years worth of investments in both the Philippines and South America .. went from helping the poor, creating jobs, scholarships, to helping myself to to another shot of rum whilst watching Mexicans hop the border wall from the back porch at the place I was house sitting in the California desert. No neighbors for miles around and that was ok by me. Not how I’d planned on my ending to come as I’d been ready for it for quite some time. I’d been dying since 06 but for some reason I kept coming back to life. My sister (a nurse practitioner) once said that she’d never seen any one like me. I’m really good at dying but I really suck at staying dead. A medical miracle. I prefer to think of it as a medical disaster but I digress. It became so prevalent that my friends all start a pool on what is going to kill me this year. I love those guys… haha..
So there I am sitting on the back porch drinking Bacardi, Smoking a camel, and contemplating my investable demise with but one regret, I’d always thought that when the end came, when the pain became unbearable, that’d take one of my long boats out into the South China Sea and drink a concoction of various herbs and elixirs that I mixed up, washed down with some pain killers until I was shaking hands with the plankton and slip into the sea and let the cool waters wash over me.
Seemed only fair as I spent many years as a fisherman and consumed a lot of fish, now I’d reciprocate that favor.
Much romantic crawling off into the desert having my body picked apart by snakes, coyotes, as well as my pockets picked apart by passing newly arrived illegal aliens on their way to the promised land but what is a boy going to do?
Wasn’t going to whine or cry or say “why me?” I knew exactly why me. I was there. I remember most of it, regret little, and was actually surprised I made it this long.
It was there on that porch, in that desert, staring at that wall, drinking that rum, that I had an epiphany. I was having an allergic reaction. I’d lost my inspiration. I’d been planning my retirement for 10 years with so many contingency plans it would have made Bobby Fischer envious and yet here we were.. one move away from check mate. The one move I hadn’t planned for? The collective ignorance of educated people in large groups. I was allergic to global stupidity.
And we were suffering an epidemic of ignorance.
It had won, I’d been defeated, throwing in the towel, when all of a sudden… providence!
The news came on the radio.
Started out with the same old blather that me like most Americans, and most of the world I imagine, we’re getting rather bored with, but this was different.
The Russians had been saber rattling with Ukraine for years.. nobody really expected a full scale invasion as that would be?… stupid? Yet here we are.
I was a bit taken aback as I was listening to the claims by Russia about Ukraine being a neo nazi regime when they had a Jewish president (clever nazis?) and all this back forth of conflicting accounts from our own media with little or no push back and I couldn’t help but think that they both can’t be true and then … snake island.. 13 border guards were told by the Russian flagship Moscova (Moscow) to lay down their weapons and surrender or they would be killed…to which the border guards replied “Russian warship .. why don’t you go fuck yourselves?”
Ok .. now you’ve got my attention .. I’ve been telling people this all of my life and now I’ve really found a people I can relate to (turned out it wasn’t actually true but so what? It was a good story nonetheless)
5 minutes later I booked my ticket to Warsaw.. TBC
getting a tank for North Dakota next week