ER Warriors

So they come to us in pain and agony.
Shorn of their boyhood John Wayne dreams of glory, mud, battle.

These warriors, these few mighty warriors,
Reduced in their age but still to fight,
In their dreams,
their daily lives.

Pierced by hot velocity lead,
Claymores spit their scars of money for the profiteers of war
Who cloak themselves in the guise of patriotism and protection of the
motherland.

Yet no innocents these my fine young men. Killed or killing,
Died or dying,
They know the crack and thump and hiss of life and death and war.

These are my comrades,
Though I know not of war
But all too much of their pain.

David McCullough

Is aviation security mostly for show? - CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/29/schneier.air.travel.security.theater/index.html

In the air at 38,000 feet over Memphis and found this great article
when reading a Twitter post from Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly publishing.
Thoughtful and I found myself in agreement.

Happy New Year to all.

David

Memory

Visiting my brother, his wife and son this Christmas I chance upon my
grandfather's old brown leather bag holding all of his old marbles
from childhood. The grandfather I never knew, who, because of my
mother's historical memory editing, is far more perfect in death then
any of us are in life. Despite this, the old brown leather bag
inscribed with "The First National Bank, Bagley, Iowa" lures me in
with its promise of memory, the colored handmade jewels of childhood
spilling forth a sea of my own childhood memories in a rush of history
and longing for a never known grandfather murdered by the cigarette
corporations, longing for my father murdered in his own turn by the
same carnivorous bastards and so it goes.

So they spill upon the table for me to weigh in the palm of my beating
heart, listening to the whack of marbles, echoing. Suspended now in
time, those children's voices merge into our own.

I see the broken marbles, the ones who are whole, glass and ceramic.
Uneven in their magnificant beauty, they are the bearers of ancestral
memory and I hear the voices of who we were, are and will be. Cracked,
yet unbroken they were made for a time and country much less
interested in perfection then practicality. They betray themselves
with simplicity of purpose, in being rather than just appearences.

I long for family, family that never was, family that died too early
from corporate greed, and I long for the faint promise of what has
been and might be.

I roll the marbles.

David

I'll cease thinking
Just to remain in your orbit
To do what's feeling right
To watch and feel you
Slide through fantasy.

Oh yeah baby.
It's you I want
Ain't got no reservations
I love you baby.
Full speed!
No brakes!

You my fantasy baby
Knowin it's not real
I'll take shelter in your cove of delights.
The hell with life preservers
I'll throw it away
For a night with you.

Be gentle with me
But rough in your love
Oh yeah baby.
You the one I want.

John Gibbs from Hawai'i one of my closest friends on the planet. At
the Russian River Jazz Festival, September 2009.

Upon the eve, this twas my thought

I wish
that you would come to me tonight.
To make me forget
the harm and hurt and pain
of life's trespasses.

To wash me clean
in a spiritual paroxysm of your skin
gainst mine heart.

Tis this ideal
that no one alive shall nor can meet
nor I can hope for.

I need no saviour
but your touch, your skin, your mouth
your spirit
upon my heart.

Tread gently
I bite hard
cry at death
revel in the struuggle of blood , death,
anger.

I'll possess thee
but you shall consume me
in sex love passion consummation
of all that we dreamed and life gave unasked for.

You do not know me but we do…
late as it is
I think of you.…84 as you were
I'm in love with you
and much as tho you were kissing me in that secret place.

Oh yes my love.
You are not dead to me
each night I am with you
and a thousand years
is spent in your eyes, and arms and lips and thighs and mind.

And more and more and more till I am lost in you and me and us.

Written September 25, 2009.

Ocean Beach reminding me of Hawai'i home looking across thousands of
miles. How I long and miss it and Fiji!

I'm listening to a Fijian musician named Saikiusa Bulicokocoko and it
carries me back. Nice to be alive to have those memories.

With recent visitors from Hawai'i and Fiji I find that familiar
tugging of my heart and mind for the warmth of the islands and people.

What is to be done when my heart is split in half? Whither shall I
wander?

David

Data Points

We are nothing but streams of data,
analog in life,
digital in death.

I've come across your life,
in its digital glory.
Black and white
attempting dispassionate exclamation of loss and gain
the color of personality
drained and forbidden
in the realm of zeros and ones.

we thought we knew you
the color and smell and vividness
swirling round you.

then your data stream abruptly terminated,
your records, data, zeros and ones, a life
liberated, flushed, set free, erased.
Hard disk Full,
reformatted to live again.


David McCullough
August 26, 2009

Random Thoughts

I have always wanted to be or at least somewhat fancied myself as an aspiring writer. However, the discipline required for constant output appears daunting to me much of the time. Even more important is whether or not one has anything important to say and then the skill to say it well. At least now (in comparison to the past) I have the experiences, knowledge and 'time under my belt' to actually have something to say.

I am not sure what prompts these musing this day. In part this is due to the sudden death of one of my coworkers. Not known well, he was patient, polite, very considerate and a good worker. I will miss him as will many of us in the Emergency Room. We see people die or heal every day but when one of our own goes it hurts more than usual and sadness pervades for a time.

I will be writing more often and I hope of value to at least someone besides this writer.

Thanks for reading,

David

California Budget Woes? Raise our Taxes

I might be among the minority but since I am not holding elected office (and hence do not have to worry about being re - elected) I think that the California Legislature should raise taxes. For years we have listened to the drumbeat of the Republicans chanting big government, no new taxes, cut taxes and so on and so forth ad nauseum.

Yet Californian's and people in general, continue to expect the services they have become accustomed and in some cases feel entitled to. The populations continues to increase but the services decrease and public infrastructure continues to erode.

This is not justifiable. The business of government is the people, not as big brother but rather, in service TO the people. I do not advocate just blindly raising taxes but the careful implementation of taxes to serve the people.

This would include a public health care plan option in addition to private health care plans. It would include rebuilding the public infrastructure, making education the best in the nation and adequately funding police and fire companies.

Raise our taxes for if we are to survive we must do the right thing and be willing to pay.

Mum and son

Mom and I just after I returned from a false alarm fire call at Fort
Ross.

Write my Heart

It is in the sadness of the night
that I write my heart
to set down the clean, clear lines of my love for you.

although you my love, leave my love unrequited,
discarded upon the shores of your soul,
beached, waiting, hearing the hiss of tonal silence
in the water upon sand.

Wordlessly (for I long ago became speechless),
I sing my heart
to the stars of people's eyes
the stones in their hearts.

Yes.
I was blinded by you.


David McCullough
Sometime in late 2008

Untitled Plea

I may not be able to write music for you.
I will write this poem and more upon your heart,
if only to hope they will find their way upon it,
and you to them,
to guide your song of love for me.

Love you once did know.
Fear of loss
whether I or another,
I want to comfort and tell you that love is not yours to lose,
but only to gain, to lose and gain again.

We encounter love upon our travels and travails,
only to hold and cherish while it takes up temporary residency in our heart,
unconcerned over which borders it violates,
love cannot be owned.

Love refuses to be bought,
while as ants upon their teeming home,
we seek to buy the impossible
love cannot be bought.

It will only be granted in full measure,
to those who know themselves,
and in that, can begin to know others.
Love may come to those who are true, honest and virtuous.

Nevertheless, while we think we know this in our mind,
it must be lived in our heart and soul and blood,
before and if it is to have true deep meaning.
To live love, hearts must be gently loved and hurt, love torn in half
and lives turned inside out.

Then, then we shall see what remains, Yes?
The true unconstrained pure hard fire of love, honesty, truth and virtue?
Or a shadow of what could be,
faint echoes restrained by a restless unknowing heart
wandering upon sandy storm beaten stones.

I have walked many such coves,
stumbled over such hardened stones and beaten my head upon them!
Across the world I have wandered,
in search of love and all its attendant pluralities,
and all along I had it in my hands.
I thought I could own it.

In the end.
It owned me.
Taught me what it is and is not.
Showed me for a fool to have thought at all.

David McCullough
Copyright June 2, 2009
Rewritten from a March, 2004 poem.

Mountain bike ride - Pacifica Beach State Park. What an incredible
day, reminding me of Hawai'i Nei! Aloha.

Sunrise @ 0630.

Updates

Aloha, a brief update - I am still living on the Ridge Ranch on the Eastern side of Salt Point State Park. I finally bought a 1994 Ford Ranger Pickup from my forester (who is a personal friend and I have great regard for so that is nice). Just in time, as my 1992 Volvo 740 Turbo wagon finally 'blew' the heater core all over the inside of the car - I had an inch and a half of coolant on the front and back floor. I bypassed the heater core and since I was very luckily in town was able to get to the auto parts store with help since I could not drive my car. So now it waits for a rebuilt engine and a new heater core.

I may be up for a part or full time job at the San Francisco VA in which case I may be down here more. I continue to look for housing on a boat in exchange for some maintenance or slight rent if combined with the maintenance.

Till I get my debt paid, the Volvo paid off and the house rehabbed and everything put away I don't plan on leaving the country. After that I will leave.

Summer waits, long days beckon and sometimes, joy abounds.

Thanks for reading,

David

It is in the dark of night
by this warm fire
I look up.

These stars are endless I think,
like staring into the eyes of a lover.

I track a satellite
which I cannot see when I stare right at it,
but shifting my gaze to the side,
follow its path across heavens heart.

What will it take to track my love across the universe?
Must I avert my eyes from my heart to know where it leads?

Flames and wood crackle,
their own starry explosions of liberated carbon
floating above
warming my bones and toasty toes.

I'm not alone in this universe - that is a for sure statement.
So while I feel close to humanity in sharing our essential humanness,
I feel alone or lonely in this star filled night.

I wanted to be with a lover but this night,
too busy with her own life to think of me and what I need, want and desire.
Ha, I am so shallow a fellow of a man though . . .
I always think I know what I want yet in the end my action is louder
than the tears of lonely man's heart can ever be.

David McCullough
April 18, 2009

This house is across the road from the house where I live. It is one of three houses on my family Ridge Ranch. It was built approximately in the 1860's, probably after the Civil war. This was estimated when the couple who live there moved in about 1972 and in the process removed newspapers that had been tacked to the walls for insulation. Some of the interior boards are old growth redwood more than 2 inches thick and almost two feet wide. Give the cost of Redwood these days . . . that is amazing.

Pitt biplane

Aloha!

Flew this yesterday with a friend at the controls. A couple of rolls -
it is a Pitt biplane for acrobatics. Gorgeous yes?

A two hour ride today. Stopped at the dock on the lake we think was
created by the 1906 earthquake. The San Andreas fault is right here
and less then a mile from my house.

It always bothers me that Bush denied stem cell research 'to protect human life but then invaded Iraq. Hundreds of thousands Iraqi deaths, Americans die and he wants to protect human life? We contribute less than 1% of our national budget to foreign aid and he wants to protect human life?

Now at long last, the corrupt, idiotic and misinformed policies of the past will be consigned to the ash heap of history.

My Rejection by Medincines sans Frontieres

Aloha - I realized I had not written that Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors without Borders) had rejected my application. I flew back this last January (2009) and interviewed. I watched a very good half hour video of life in the field which resonated greatly with me. I was interviewed for another 45 minutes by one person who was a Water/Sanitation engineer and then given a chance to ask some questions. I left and heard from them approximately a month later that I was not considered. The letter was sloppily written (printed crookedly) and was a form letter consisting of three sentences.

I knew within the first ten minutes that she (the MSF interviewer) did not like me. It should not depend on that but there you have it. No panel interviewer, no interviewer that had anything to do with medicine or nursing. When asked for feedback, her response was to say, "We don't give personal feedback". Nothing? I asked? "Correct". Well, how about non personal feedback then? Her response was, 1) Learn French, 2) Get more management experience and 3) Get more developing country experience.

All good advice but difficult to get very quickly. As you may have guessed or wondered, she was French. I know the American's can be offensive but really, her attitude was horrible and very unprofessional. With the three things she said, they knew ALL of that before I ever went back to New York, even paying my own way! If that was the cause of my rejection then they should have rejected me and saved me a trip to NYC.

I am in touch with an MSF staffer in the field. She does not know French and was never told she MUST learn French. She also has Peace Corps experience.

All in all, it was an offensive experience to be treated without much respect or kindness. All organizations have their challenges and perhaps this is the best approach they have found over time. Nonetheless, I am not convinced as to its efficacy or professionalism.

My plan is to learn French as best I can, get more management experience and somehow get the developing country experience that is more fresh than my Peace Corps service some 23 years ago. I also am in touch with James Orbinson and hopefully he can put me in touch with someone in MSF that can independently review my qualifications. Even if rejected, it would be nice to know exactly why.

I am open to suggestions and constructive criticism. Thanks for reading.

David

Visitors from Hawaii!

John & Peni Gibbs, visiting from Hawaii. Among my closest friends on
this planet. We had a grand time!

Words upon a Distant Shore

I'll see thee upon a distant shore
Not of thine own imagining
Yet as real to me as you are to fate
Caught between the real imaginings.

Do not let the distance between us
Lessen the bonds of humanity
For those ties that bind
Give us our humanity.

David McCullough
February, 2009

Would Love be Mine Again?

Would love be mine again
And thou mine heart
Betwixt love and hate,
Sundered no more?

I would thee love again
If thine hate transformed,
Would'st renounce thy hate,
To hate all else
Cept it's own reflection.

So these words I scribe upon thine heart,
To set free and adrift
To hope it lands
Upon thy heart
Thine soul
Alone
No
More.

David McCullough
February, 2009

Check out this other beautiful blog!

Aloha - I met someone who writes a much more focused and beautiful blog than myself. I thought quite a bit of her and was inspired by her blog - inspired as to what I am not yet sure but want to make my blog more beautiful perhaps, more disciplined?, more focused. Her blog is at:

www.changesandcolours.blogspot.com

Be sure to check it out, linger, enjoy, have a cup of tea and partake of a keen wit, great observational skills and an appreciation of art, beauty and life.

Jan 2009 ride!

Suggested Book to Read

I just finished reading An Imperfect Offering by James Orbinski, M.D. who worked with Medicines sans Frontieres (MSF aka Doctors without Borders) for many years. It was one of the most moving, frightening and thought provoking books I have ever read and quite the inspiration. I needed to know what it might be like if MSF hires me. Now I know, at least intellectually and it scares yet thrills me that I might be able to do something so meaningful. Try I must and eventually I know that I will go with MSF or no MSF. The title is an apt one and yet it resonates with me in that I feel like my 'offering' is also an imperfect one. There is some hope in that.

Thanks for reading.

D.

A man, his dog and mountain bike (a Santa Cruz lite).

Klari Hands! The night before leavetaking. Late night good friends
good wine.

What could be better!?

My interview with MSF

I have had a day or part of one to reflect upon my interview with MSF. In retrospect I think I may have appeared too eager (but how could one not be?). I would be excited to be a part of MSF and consider it an honor to even be interviewed. I was asked the usual questions one would expect . . . why MSF? Why now? My answer to why now was that I am now ready, ready with my skills, in my personal life but most importantly I can no longer afford to NOT go. By that I mean that my conscience demands action. When I see people, friends, whoever it might be react to the archetypical 'suffering' image in the news with pity, sadness or tears, my reaction is one of frustration, I think some disgust, some anger in that what use is pity (if that is truly what it is)? Is not action better? Pity and sorrow sometime come cheaply and all too easily. Empathy is a better thing but it too remains meaningless without concrete steps.

So how can I stay where I am without becoming less human than I strive to be? I cannot say what is true and right for others confronted by this choice. I have no children or family of my own. In part, whatever legacy I leave behind, whatever memories I create . . . I want to have meaning, to have mattered, to have made a difference. In the end analysis, it is a selfish thing but if much good is accomplished, if I have proverbially touched the life of another human being to give them a chance at life - then it is enough at this moment in time. I will have lived a life with meaning and given something, however small, back to society, to something larger than myself.

When it has become easier to take action by leaving to do humanitarian work then I know it is time to go. It is increasingly untenable and difficult to simply stand by even though I work as a nurse in the San Francisco Veterans Hospital. Need exist everywhere but the degree of need differs so greatly.

Did I do justice to my motivations in my MSF interview? I partly did but I will reflect more and in my thank you letter I hope to further and better articulate my motivations but also to ask better questions. My hopes are not up at this point but I know my references are good, truthful and will give them a true picture of who I am, what my skills are and they will not 'sugarcoat' the excellent recommendation they will provide. So whatever lacked in my interview I hope will be made up in my letter and subsequent discussions with those who support me.

As a bicyclist (both mountain and road) I like the saying I have seen on bicycle jersey's, "Shut up and ride". I am applying this attitude to myself now.

David

Ceiling of Union station, Washington DC. Familiar ground, albeit last
seen in 1989, a lifetime ago.

View from NYC's Penn station.

In line for the Amtrak Acela train to Washington DC. Just finished my
MSF interview. Felt true, right and good, like a culmination of my
life skills. However, I remain plagued with second guessing on how
well I interviewed. Specifically, did I ask the right questions of
them?! In my heart I know this is my correct path and I remain
committed. Thanks for reading.

David

This is what I love - my head, dreams, conceptions - all cracking open
in a heady rushing confluence of life. Challenged and cherished. Into
NYC tonight, my super shuttle driver is also super nice (from Haiti
originally). So I joke with him, we laugh, I help with bags and soon?
The beginnings of friendship. He drives miles out of his way at the
end of a long day to pay our respects at the World Trade Center site.

I'm out of my 'comfortable' life. Duty, empathy and witnessing calls.

David

Aloha,

I'm flying East to NYC for my interview with Medicines sans Frontieres
- I'm at 35,000 feet with full Internet access at $13 for the flight.
I'll simply upload this missive later. What a difference with a new
plane (airbus 320). . . flying on Virgin America with an outstanding
flight crew. They are very professional yet still retain that joie de
vive and friendliness that are clearly hallmarks of those who love
their work.

Just finished reading Hope in Hell (by Tom Bortolotti) about MSF. A
great but very sobering read so I highly recommend it. I'm also just
beginning to read, An Imperfect Offering (James orbinski) by a past
President of MSF.

So in the height of luxury I ponder where and how I will be in six
months.

More soon. Thanks for reading

D

Sunset, Hwy One & Meyers Grade Road.