Creepy

[susandennis]

It does not appear as if Mom is going to be weened off the morning phone calls. She sends email but usually only once a day in the late afternoons. I send her email every night thinking that she will get back with the program, but nope. It's not going to happen. Oh well. I call her on my cellphone. My plan is the minimum 300 minutes. But unlimited time on nights and weekends and web surfing. And 'nights' don't end until 7 a.m. My weekday calls to Mom are all before 7. Last month my total was 405 minutes total but only 148 into that 300 bucket.

But that's not the creepy part.

This morning Mom said that the least favorite of her sitters was Patricia. "She was always bored." (Ok, I don't know Patricia but I watching an old woman live when she is bed ridden has to just a teeensy bit boring, I think. But, Mom has always had a thing for anyone who complained they were bored. When we were little and tried it, her response was always 'well, why don't you go clean up your room?')

Now, Patricia has a new job. "I'll bet she's REALLY bored now!" She's sitting watching General Westmoreland. General Westmoreland is pretty much a broccoli these days. But, back when Mother and Daddy first moved to the place, I used to see him walking around and in the dining room and it always creeped me out.

I look at his face and see dead friends and years of fear. I see the seed that has grown into my distrust of anything military.

Nearly every single night from the time I was about 18 until I was out of college, his face was on the evening news telling me about the war in Vietnam - how many young men, my age, who had been killed. How important it was for us to get some more to go over there and get killed.

I was a slow learner. And it took me a while to learn to think for myself. General Westmoreland taught me. I would look at his face on TV every night and look at my parents' faces and my teachers' faces and the faces of most every other adult I knew at the time and I would see that they were all fine with this. My country - the government I was supposed to feel all red, white and blue about - was killing my friends and bragging about it on TV every night through the mouth of this man.

It was a giant sized virgin edition of What's Wrong With This Picture??? And it has colored my feelings about country, patriotism, war and the military to this day. And the colors aren't pretty.

The first time I saw him at 'the home' he was tall and distinguished and surrounded by people with a cocktail in his hand having a loverly time. I seriously wanted to go up to him and smack him in the face.

Even after it was clear he was clueless and he had become stooped and would walk down the hall as kind of his wife's appendage, I still wanted to smack him.

Wonder if I could get Patricia to do it for me?

Just now I was going to take this and put it over his face and I couldn't stand the idea of having his face in my journal so all you get is the circle with the slash.

Comments

[nezbitthecat.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the time I met "Tricky Dicky" - I wanted to vomit on him. He seemed artificial and soulless anyway. He was a neighbor of my mother's.

[treebreeze.livejournal.com]

wow...all I can respond with is wow.

and I am Proud to know such an independent thinker.

[estis.livejournal.com]

So General Westmoreland is at the same home as your mom. You have met some "interesting" people in your life. Personally I blame Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ and Nixon for all the deaths tho' Westmoreland should have known the war was unwinable. We knew. Was just reviewing my memory of events at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/index.html A very useful resourse.

[frl.livejournal.com]

My morning routine consists of waking up, emptying my bladder, making sure I have ample water in my glass to take my morning medications (the night before I usually make sure there is enough water in the glass for in the morning - that way I don't have to walk to the kitchen) and sit down in front of my laptop which resides on a desk in my bedroom. I check my regular news sites first, usually being greeted with whatever suicide bombing has occured that day (I find it horribly sad the workd we live in today and that there are bombings each and every day).

This morning the first site I went to was cnn.com, where there was breaking news and the first thing that I thought of was your mom. I find it somehow ironic that you have made two posts this month that had General Westmoreland in them, this entry having the most impact on me.

This morning I am sure that the home is all abuzz and your mom will have something to say about his dying.

In the CNN.com article, Bishop Gasdan is mentioned in the second paragraph. I find it strange, just how small this world is - to find out that he lived in the same home as your mom and that a mere 8 days later is gone.

I was never a fan of General Westmoreland, although my dislike of him came later than yours did, while in high school in the early 80's and studying the Vietnam War. I can remember him being on TV in the 70's when I was a kid but I never really understood at that time what war was/is or why we were in Vietnam because I was far too busy playing with my trains/lincoln logs/legos, reading, going to school or just plain being a kid.

This man, having had such a deep impact on your life and now being gone somehow is fitting in a very strange way. I just wanted to say "thank you" for sharing what you do online with all of us. It serves to show just how small this world really is.

At least now, you don't have to wonder if you can get Patricia to smack him for you.... ;-)

[susandennis]

Thanks for this...

I'm trying to remember now why it's not nice to speak ill of the dead. :)