Zip's old man ride

United States Veterans Day

I received a letter from a friend about Veterans Day and what follows is my response:

Aloha . . . thanks for thinking of the vets today. I worked the ER today at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Hospital Emergency Room, so of course they were on my mind too.

I liked Born on the Fourth of July but my only caveat is that it does a great disservice to the VA as it exist NOW. Since the time that the book/film came into existence so much at the VA has changed and is now known for the level and quality of its care. I saw this quality when I was hired and as I learn more I am only regretful that I cannot obtain my care at the VA. The rank and file of the Republicans/Tea Party mad hatters rail against Socialized Medicine but this is exactly what the VA is and does so very well. Even the neocons and the rest of the anti-intellectual movement in this country will usually praise the VA (perhaps because to Not do so would be considered unpatriotic in their minds).

This is not to say the VA is the best or perfect. But I will say we are good, we are dedicated and we care. There is not pushing people out the door due to insurance, we have had electronic charting for almost 20 years and most of all, the vets want to be here and are very satisfied (for the most part!) with their care here.

We have asked these brave women and men to do terrible things for their 'country' , their corporatocracy (I cannot help but inject my own opinion into this of course) and I believe that we owe them the care promised them by a 'grateful nation'. If I discuss this with old line warriors they are among the most vocal and vociferously antiwar folks you will ever meet. If only the ones that send those into war were the first on the ground with their families . . . then war would be shorter but it will never cease.

We will always need those who are willing to step into the breach and I will always thank them for their duty. But that duty, however well executed, does not excuse anyone from my our duty to speak up and condemn the war machine, the military-industrial complex, death and the dark desires that drive men to kill, rape and destroy.

I treat veterans of World War II that at this moment, sixty five years later are having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) rear its ugly symptoms for the first time or reoccur after so many intervening years. My job is secure - as long as Presidents, Prime Ministers and leaders are mongering for war - my job is secure. We all pay for sins of our leaders in one way or another.

I'm not sure why I have said so much but perhaps it is my way of working out my own demons from what I have done, seen and heard from the people I serve. I'll take any chance at all to extol their service and sacrifice while I object to violence and war itself. I do not believe these things are mutually exclusive.

Thank you for reading this and for your activism and service. It is appreciated.

Aloha,

David

I am reading a very good book now called:

Best Care Anywhere - Why VA Health Care is Better Then Yours
by Phillip Longman

It is not for me that I write these word my love
Although I love you.
The dawn breaks in spite of my love for you
Yes, I want it to stop
For my love to rule all
And you to know
That in spite of my love
The moon will rise
Oceans arms encircle Jupiter
Love will not conquer all
And the love borne for you
Means nothing without being borne out by action.

Yes, I'll stroll the beach
To whisper platitudes in your ear
Nibbling at the edges of your hearts
Round stones polished by wave and tide
Hardening my heart
Breaking my love.

David McCullough
October 6, 2010

Every time someone dies it seems that the death adds to the burden of sadness and pain that one accumulates through life. The tears I've shed cease to be just for the one that has died but are shed for the many and perhaps for myself.

I have had intimations of my own mortality.

I have had intimations of my own mortality.
Not willfully but thrust upon me by life's cadence.

It's endless march of life and death
The slow wheeling of the seasons.
A crisp river frozen In moonlight,
Birds nest hanging
Bird in flight

Your face leaned over me in ecstatic repose
Drinking in life without delay.

I suppose we do all possible
To escape that day,
To live again without thought or care
In time but not of it
Imagining and struggling to loosen it's meaningful bonds that tie us to each other
To the earth where we will rest
To once more become part of that
Whence we came.

I have intimations of my mortality
And struggle for acceptance
Yet to stave off death may not be so sweet
As the moments and years and decades that make a life.

It is that time between death and birth
That drives us in our search for meaning
For love
Fulfillment
Commitment to a cause greater than ourself
To a life filled with meaning and
A death that has been filled with love
A life that has been well lived

Echoes of our own mortality
Intimations of my own mortality
Resound upon the water
The meadow
My heart held by your love
Eyes locked to yours
Hand to hand
Heart to heart
Beating
Holding
Loving.

David McCullough
September 17, 2010

My drive to San Francisco!

A poem on My mothers Death

Thanks for letting me share this with you. I hope that everyone is happy and well.

Our mother died today
1736 time marked out by her last breath
So our memories flow freely now
Unencumbered by her rattling breaths
A valiant heart struggling to maintain
What cannot be.

Memories of her sun soaked tea
Sweet pickled watermelon rinds
Endless baked treats brought to
Endless 4-H meetings
Ferried about as we were by her
Our lives hers
Her life was ours and now…
Now we are alone with her body
And our memories
Of what it is
To be our mothers sons.

David Michael McCullough

Toward the very end my mother would try so hard to say thank you to anyone who helped her. I'm here next to her at this moment, holding her hand at 3:30 a.m. Death seems a peculiar kind of loneliness. She is not alone but is on this journey.

My mother's brain so beautiful in it's constant creativity. Now invaded by bony cancer sending her thoughts careening into unimaginable places. Weaver, writer, artist, teacher, cook, wife, mother, sculptor and more. Not yet gone but fading away as I watch and wait.

At times it seems these days pass as if in a dream while one close to you dies.

The light upon the water,
Rays of sunlit joy upon the salty seas of home,
All these things shall last
As I will not
As my mother will not
As my brother will not
As my father did not.

But this caring of mine?
It will not last nor should it
For others should care.

Others should gaze upon sunlit rays wandering upon the oceans
The fish underneath
The stars wheeling overhead
In their timeless Soaring dance

As the seasons
As you
As I
Disappear into the sandy shores
Distant islands as souls
Scattered upon their star studded shores

The waves lap and careen and crash
I'll be waiting somewhere I think
I'll want to know you see
What happens to it all

To you, to me, the world
The people we loved
And once were.

This sun, through clouds,
Burnishes the golden Bridge
Carrying me home
Where memory lives.

Post Holiday Blues

The dreaded post holiday blues are back. One wonders how one can exist faced with the somewhat dull humdrum repetition of ordinary existence. Grateful in one second yet filled with the angst of god how I wish it could all be different and exciting ALL the time instead of just sporadically.

I AM glad to be back. Really I am, good if not great to see my mom. Dying as she is so gracefully she is not in any pain. All those frenzied preparations I made prior to my departure on holiday were not in vain and things go better than expected. But I come 'home' to grey skies in the San Francisco area, overcast, cold, cloudy, dull, boring. We hates it forever as Gollum from The Hobbit would say.

So I feel petty in the same moment feeling this way. Not that my life lacks meaning because I have so much meaning with my work and especially my friends all around the globe.

I am back to not having enough time in my day to accomplish everything I need or want to. I live in two places at once when I just want to live in one place which is on the Ridge, the coast, safely elevated above the fog for much of the time!

All in all I lead a happy life not consumed with worry about food, water or safety. That means a lot. It is a charmed life in so many ways and one I am grateful for. Yet I yearn for challenge (other than that of my mother dying) and an opportunity to live more simply and to give more to others. That is what partly drove me to Peace Corps over, dare I say it, THIRTY years ago and continues to drive me till the day my death comes.

What it Means to be Back

It is good to be back but I find myself longing for that sense of Peace Corps excitement and purpose, that frisson, so to speak of unknowing and the excitement engendered by it. Working overseas provides that, at least for me and I find myself still longing for it . . . and I realize that I will for the rest of my life.

This is the challenge many of us face - how do you reconcile the needs of life - i.e., what you must do versus one's dreams? This is said with the full knowledge that simply having this chance to even wonder is a gift in and of itself. I don't struggle for food, water or shelter. I don't worry about armed conflict or bad people coming to take me away in the early nightmare hours.

Times will change for America with the inevitability of the centuries passing . . . but I do not see this coming down for years. If I am lucky, I'll be dead by then.

Home it's said, lies where the heart is. While mine lies in no particular place I've come to realize home is where my love lies. That is with the people that I love and they are scattered across the face of this planet. I may favor some physical locations but truly I am tied to people who have imbued places with memory and meaning.

View from my stool in Budapest

Need I say more? Ahhhhhh!

The Beach - Southern Turkey - July 2010

Hot and very humid but truly beautiful, I would more likely visit this place in late Fall or Spring. The white wire cages cover up turtle eggs buried in the sand to protect them from us. Hard to believe eggs can survive that heat - I could see the shimmer of heat lifting off the sand most of the day. Mid day we would often retreat to the shade and even air condtioning of the room. Most people, residents and visitors, did the same.

Hotel (Otel) in Alachati, Southern Turkey

In the last ten or so years this Southern Turkish town has exploded in growth and this hotel is only four years old. Beautiful hotel, great service and staff with wonderful and healthy food. Still, it is a resort town and full of local and international tourist. I would not go here again unless I knew someone. Keep in mind that I spend over two years in Fiji and eight years in Hawai'i dealing with the impacts of tourism and I know the rotten deal tourist can get. Still, all in all it was a beautiful place and I would gladly stay here again.

Tomorrow we catch Pegasus airlines to Izmir fir one week. More tourist. Like me. Want the country side, small towns, no damn shopping. Well it will be what I make of it.

Eating at a restaurant in Istanbul over glass roof below our table into rooms/vaults from the Byzantine era. Going below you can see the layers of history of course and arch after arch receding into the dim recesses of history.

Puts one in place.

A Glass of Raki (ra - kuh) for a late night apertif overlooking the Bosphorus sea between Asia and the European side.

The Sultan Ahmet mosque or the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Humbling thousands of years of history!

On our way to the Hamburg Airport early this morning. Grump kids and adults, me not wanting to say goodbye but having to once again leave people I love. I understand the attraction of not ever leaving so as to avoid this pain. Can one see the world by staying? Learn about I am sure but to have your soul changed and challenged? I know this to be impossible. It is the 'foreign' that enriches.

As I write this we are high over Germany flying to a country I've never been to yet would like to visit if not live. Such it is for almost any place I've ever set for in or even read about. The Congo scares me as do all the warring factions and shear butchery occurring there.

I send my greetings, respect and aloha to any reading this. When and I'd you do travel please check out the following books.…mine is: Istanbul: The Collected Traveler. An Inspired Companion Guide, edited by Barrie Keeper A Vintage Departures Original.

There are more in the series. It is a very great read, fascinating, informative, luscious and eminently readable in a long sitting or simple, easy delicious bites.

www.vintagebooks.com

You will not regret getting this. It is not a guide but full of history, fun, food, culture and so much more.

A Hui Hou.

David

Final Dispatch / Bremen, Deutschland

Wie Gehts es Ihnen? Sehr Gut!?

Tomorrow I fly from Hamburg to Istanbul. The last two days have been incredible romps through the past. More on this later but I visited my family childhood home in Florsheim Am Main (village) from 1965-68. I met the woman we rented the house from and she remembered us fondly. It looks so different now but still 'our' house. Then I hunted down some old friends not seen in the past 42 years and they remembered me at first sight. They were incredible then and still are. Heinz and Anna - had a DVD of an old 8 mm film of their wedding and there was my family, Mom, Dad, Paul, myself and even my grandmother. How beautiful we all were so long ago. I cried a lot, with some melancholy, joy and thankfulness.

Also saw the Gossens and they are just incredible and wonderful people whom I hope we will stay in touch with.

Much more later but so good to see old friends.

Tschuss -

David