Millions of Sparks

When the things that occupy most of our thoughts concerning our world are mysterious entities with no definitive source or solution anxiety results. The most pressing topics of our times, Covid 19, Climate Change, The Ukraine Invasion and Free and Fair Elections create division, not because they themselves are divisive; rather these topics are not defined by anybody with enough authority or credibility to be taken seriously.

We are lacking the One Voice that can be trusted. The governments that represent the people are corrupt, the media that informs the people biased, the providers of Healthcare are beholden to powerful insurance and pharmaceutical entities and the people themselves divided into separate categories that blindly vote for their side while ignoring the other.

The common denominator keeping us in chaos is the absence of reliable, definitive information. Journalists are activists, politicians pundits, doctors tools of drug companies and our friends and families victims of their bias of choice. Whatever thoughts and opinions we develop are easily confirmed by experts whose expertise is for sale.

Without honest, reliable data what our minds produce is a reality enabled by whichever source we choose. Left leaning, right leaning, centrist, progressive, conservative, libertarian, Democrat or Republican, none of it means a thing when the official message from these platforms is based on whatever suits their respective agenda.

Who will break through the nonsense and convenient truth? Will it be whoever manages to lie their way into the candidacy for President? Will it be a captain of industry whose power is derived from the success of their brand? Will it be activists with their agenda the only focus or lobbyists paid to promote their employers needs?

Until We the People band together and demand the truth concerning the origin of Covid 19, the lead up to the Emergency Use Authorization that allowed covid shots freedom from liability and a monopoly on controlling the epidemic, exactly why we are funding an endless border war in Ukraine, who is actually eligible to vote and how those votes are counted and if the earth is actually doomed, and if so do the governments of the world have the authority to cripple the populace to slow it down we are doomed to live in a state of never ending turmoil.

By creating mistrust through deception and lies of omission the powerful have succeeded in controlling the powerless. We do not thrive in the dark. Demanding somebody turn on the lights will not illuminate a thing. It is far past time we figure out how to do it ourselves. Every one of us has inside of us a spark that is being ignored. We need to find it, and let if free.

The power of millions of sparks is immeasurable, and not knowing where that energy will lead is a mystery worthy of embracing.

Whatever it takes . . .

I used to worry about an atom bomb ruining everything. I honestly believed that “The Russians” would some day figure out how to obliterate us, and we them, and everything we knew would end. In school we would hold end of the world drills, where we would crawl under our desks, put our heads between our knees and wait for the ceiling to collapse.

Then we had lunch, and even better, recess.

I grew older, and wiser, and as my awareness of world events grew I knew without a doubt that my life would end in a rice paddy in Cambodia. How could I think otherwise? Every night the Nightly News would report from Viet Nam, and give the day’s body count. American soldiers were dying by the thousands, and there was no doubt in my twelve year old mind that I would be an American soldier. I just hoped that I died well, preferable flat on my back, full of bullets with a smoking, empty gun in my hands.

Eventually I came to the understanding that I would, in all likelihood survive the world’s madness. It was then that I created my own. I’m not really sure if the culture of the seventies propelled my drug and alcohol use into the stratosphere, or if my fatalistic world view developed by the events of the sixties did it, but something in my adolescent brain clicked on – or off, and into the world of escape went I. It was a full fledged assault on my life, and there was nothing I wouldn’t try. Hallucinogens, opiates, beer, uppers, downers and all a rounders, it didn’t really matter as long as what I put into my body allowed me the escape from myself that I craved.

Turns out, there was no escape. I’m stuck with me. Some days it’s hard to get out of bed. Others I can’t stay in it. I’ve been searching for the middle ground for sixty years now, and am no closer to finding it now than I was when I crawled under my desk in kindergarten. All I crave is peace and serenity, but that inner peace, when found is fleeting. Try as I might it never lasts more than a few minutes, and then it’s back to the mind’s rat race.

The closest I have come to being at peace with myself is when I am caring for another. My career in the fire service allowed me to become a lifesaver, and in the process save my own. It is said that the things we see, and the ghosts of those we didn’t save drive us to drink, drug, and pull the plug. I don’t see it that way. I was damaged goods long before I put on the uniform. It was the very things I saw, and the ghosts of those that got away that saved me. Without purpose I had nothing. Without the satisfaction of being a difference maker in somebody else’s life I was lost. Without the opportunity to do something great I would have sank lower into myself, and the bottom would have introduced itself before I was able to make sense of who I feared, who I was, and who I wanted to become.

Life is hard. Living is something that we all know will end, one way or another. Living well is a choice. For me, learning how to do it it well is taking a lifetime. Some days the answers I seek are so close I can feel them, and almost touch them, and know I’m almost there. Most days I’m lost in a world of conflict, trying to stay positive while surrounded with negativity. It is those days that I cling to my sobriety with everything I have, and remind myself just how fragile my perception of reality is.

I’ve run long enough. Now, I stand still, and face my life, the people in it and the events I cannot control without hiding under a desk, or dying in a field, or numbing myself with substances that offer little more than temporary asylum. Now, I understand that I will never understand. And now, that is okay.

Thanks for listening.

Vitamin D is Essential

Vitamin D deficiency is epidemic and contributes to far too many health problems. UV light is nature’s way of creating proer levels. Melanoma is a possible side select of overexposure. Underexposure creates far more problems. Back I 2010, long before people lost their trust in nearsighted medical professionals and the WHO my business was destroyed by the very same kind of people who created chaos with their Covid 19 response.

My book tells the story. I wrote it long before our health care system was exposed as the corrupt profiteering system it is. I saw it in living color when I testified at The Rhode Island State House and successfully kept a rabid group of highly educated lobbyists and activists at bay.

And it’s still a good hearted, amusing story rhat will stay with you long after you read it. Thanks for giving it a chance.

The Unconscious Man Mystery

The game is afoot!

“Dr. Watson,” I adressed my companion,. “We have an elderly male lying on the floor in his rent subsidized apartment, dressed only in his blue, sailboat patterned pajama bottoms.”

I took a puff from my pipe and scanned the room.

“Numerous large prescription bottles on the kitchen table lead me to believe this man has multiple medical problems.”

I tapped the pipe on the kitchen table, lit a match and reignited the pungent tobacco, disguising the stale aroma of urine.

“The television is tuned to the Spanish Channel, I must surmise that this man speaks no English, thus the dull look when I asked him his name.”

“Inspector!” Watson looked up from the patient, alarmed. “See here. A scar runs down the middle of his chest!”

“Elementary, My Dear Watson,” I said, stepping toward the prone patient. “Look closely. The scar is neatly formed, perfectly placed and exactly six inches in length. This is no diabolical organ thievery, this man has had open heart surgery!”

“Of course! That explains…nothing really, why is he lying on the floor?”

I crouched lower, touching the patient, looking for more clues. His skin was cool and clammy. I gently shook him, he only moaned in response. Using my penlight I looked deep into his eyes. the pupils responded.

“Dr. Watson. Prepare a field glucose test. We need more information!”

As Watson drew a small droplet of blood from the mysterious man’s finger I looked for more clues, first assessing his vital signs, then giving him some supplemental oxygen.

“Inspector! His glucose level is dangerously low!”

“Of course it is my good man. Prepare to solve the case!”

Now that the mystery was nearly solved, other clues became apparent. Diabetic medication was mixed with cardiac pills. A glass of orange juice, spilled next to the patient, an open and empty sugar package nearby.

Dr. Watson prepared an IV while I drew up some medication. We pushed the D-50 into the mystery man’s veins and waited. A minute passed. Slowly, his eyelids began to flutter.

“I believe we are well on our way, Doctor,!”
I said, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the cramped apartment. “Well done!”

The patient regained consciousness, sat up and looked around. He spoke no English but was oriented.

“We have to take him in for questioning,” I said as we cleaned up the scene. We helped him onto our stretcher and locked the door behind us as we left.

Another mystery solved, in a city full of them. Not long after we sat in my den on Baker Street ruminating. I swirled my brandy and watched the amber liquid briefly cling to the snifter’s glass before reforming at the bottom.

“Cheers, Dr. Watson,” I said as the glasses in our hands met with the sound that has warmed many a celebration throughout the centuries.

I drained the snifter as Watson sipped, and we sat amicably whist waiting for the next one.

It never takes long…

Reporters Shot

Thoughts and prayers for the Spectrum 13 News crew that was shot while covering a shooting story. One died, along with a nine year old girl. Another reporter is in critical condition.

News reporters and their camera crew cover the same incidents we respond to, get in their vehicle and move on to the next one, never having a chance to process what they witness. Talking helps, but my guess is there will be other stories to cover before the horrific event of the day fades into the shadow of the next tragedy. But the memories never really go away. They linger, and wait for an opportunity to join the rest of the nightmarish sounds and images that have accumulated, taking space in our minds where other, better things belong.

The news was on when I got home after a long shift; a 3-year-old boy had drowned in a swimming pool. The efforts of the police, firefighters and EMTs were not enough to save him. A neighbor was interviewed, and she said all of the usual things. At the end of the short segment the reporter, a young guy whom I had seen a number of times over the last year, stood in front of the day care, alone, and summed it up.

I already knew a boy was dead. I did not want to know about his parents, his friends, what school he went to, if he had a brother or a sister at home. I did not want to see his parents when they learned what had happened. I had the luxury of focus: pinpoint on the problem, know as little about the life that was lost, and get up the next day and do it again with a clear head.

News people are trained to have a stone face while telling the world what happened, and to keep their emotions in check. He interviewed the neighbors, tried to talk with the parents, was talking with our chief, piecing together the story. And when all was said and done, it was just him and the camera on a lonely street where a little kid had just died.

What he learned showed on his face. His sadness may not have been visible to most, but I saw it, and once I did, I couldn’t see much else. He was at the hospital when the family of the boy learned the news, and he heard the scream of the boy’s mother.
Those screams must be echoing in that reporter’s head still.

He did not have the luxury of knowing that he made a valiant attempt to save a life. He did not have the understanding and respect of the community, or a mandatory PTSD (post traumatic stress debriefing) waiting. He had another story to cover in a district that spanned three states. He is in the business of uncovering the truth, and the truths that reporters uncover are heartbreaking.

Like responders, the news crews are simply people doing their jobs, and while the police, fire and EMTs are seen as heroic, reporters are often forgotten, or worse.

Being on the outside looking in will never endear you to the group you are peering at, no matter how well you do your job. We are a voyeuristic society that oddly enough loves its privacy. When it is your job to pick away at that privacy, there is bound to be some irritation.

In telling the story, the reporters give a lot of themselves, and the pieces that they lose are difficult to get back. First responders know how disillusionment and cynicism can sneak up on us, and disappointment in society can permeate our consciousness if we allow it. We know that “the job” can take more than it gives, and that a little bit of our kindness, empathy and innocence is lost on every call. But we have something that the people who tell our story do not; each other.

An informal support group exists between people in the news industry. There is commiseration, camaraderie and an occasional after-work venting session, but nothing formal. By admitting vulnerability, the reporters and support staff expose themselves to the scrutiny of their peers.

There isn’t a more competitive market than the news. Any chink in their armor can be perceived as weakness, and a weak reporter is a reporter who is going nowhere.

The people covering the news need to know that they are appreciated, and it is OK to get some help when the weight of the news they cover becomes too heavy.

There is no shame in that: Sometimes the soul just needs a break.

The Station Fire Lingers

Even now, two decades later people with lifelong scars cross my path. “Joanne” survived the Station Nightclub fire where 100 people lost their lives a few miles from my home. What the survivors survived is unimaginable.

“Don’t you make fun of me!” she shouted at the supermarket customers who walked past her. People came and went, some gawking, some ignoring, some just glancing our way. A spilled gallon of milk rested between her legs, a bag of groceries sat next to her, filled with what she had planned to be the ingredients for a “nice night.” A 1/2 gallon of ice cream, some steaks, a can of veggies and some boil in bag rice packages were supposed to be put together for her and her man. Fate intervened. “A friend” offered to “split a pint.”

“Joann, why did you do it?”

“To kill my pain.”

Last week I found her at Kennedy Plaza, unconscious at Bus Stop K. We get a lot of drunks there, usually homeless men, worn out from life on the streets. A blond, young woman stood out, even lying down. She stirred when I shook her but was unable to get up, or even get on the stretcher. We lifted her, she struggled. Somehow during the struggle her shirt and bra lifted, exposing her torso. 80% of her body had been burned, badly. Her breasts were there, but instead of smooth skin and nipples something that resembled wet particle board had taken its place. Any nourishment or pleasure that may have come from her body burned away.

The people continued to stream in and out of the store. Normal people doing normal things. Things Joanne should be doing, rather than drinking a pint with another desperate soul at five in the afternoon.

She lay in the stretcher, covered now by a few sheets but still semi-conscious. I sat in the Captains Chair and watched her sleep. The fire spared her face, but her hair had to be carefully combed to hide the bald spots where the grafts prohibited new growth. She was pretty, troubled and scarred, emotionally and physically.

“I have to take you to the hospital.”

“Can’t I go home?”

“You’re drunk and high. I don’t think so.”

She told me her address.

“Is anybody home?”

“My man.”

“Will he be mad if I take you home like this?”

“A little.”

They would have let her ice cream melt if I took her to the hospital.

And thrown away her dinner.

And her man would wonder where she was.

And I think she has suffered enough.

I took her home.

Workers finalize details at a memorial in West Warwick, R.I., on Friday, May 19, 2017, at the site of The Station nightclub fire that killed 100 and injured more than 200 people in 2003. The memorial is scheduled to open during a ceremony Sunday. (AP Photo/Michelle R. Smith)

The Rest of the Story

I pull as close to the door as I can, help her out of the car, find something she can hold on to, tell her I’ll be right back and leave her there, struggling to stand.

It took her three hours to get ready for this trip. Multiple Sclerosis has changed everything. What once was a life lived with ease and freedom has become burdensome. She depends on me because she has nobody else. Nobody understands that MS is a disease of the brain, and try as she does to work harder, be mindful, tough it out and accept things the way they are the disease is relentless.

So there she stands, watching as I park the car close, knowing that her legs will give out any second, and she will collapse, her spirit crumbling along with her body. Sure, she could have used a wheelchair, but to be able to walk, albeit slowly and with help is one of the last things the disease has left her.

I put the handicapped placard on the mirror and get out of the car, ignoring the disapproving stares and muttered comments of my fellow shoppers who believe I have somehow trampled their right to a better parking spot.

Sometimes they leave notes on my wiper blades.

Honestly

My daughter’s first job after college was at a restaraunt. It was a lively place in a trendy area, a place to see and be seen. She saw a lot there; high rollers and the sycophants who surrounded them, drugs and debachary on parade nightly. She was convinced that the world was a crooked place by the time she left, and nothing I could say from my modest little corner of the world would change her mind.

“Everybody is up to something,” she would tell me. “And the people who are honest don’t stand a chance.”

I couldn’t help take her views personally. I had been working eighty hour weeks for years, drove a twenty year old car, looked older than I was and owned one suit, reserved for weddings and funerals.

It was difficult to argue against her position. My own world experience showed me a similar view. Working as a firefighter on an EMS rig in the inner city was an eye opener. The culture I encountered was “take what you can get away with, and leave the crumbs for the suckers.” There were winners, and there were losers, and the people good at playing the game appeared to be winning.

I had one advantage though. I saw behind the curtain. I witnessed first hand the price paid for the illusion of success. I saw fatherless children living in crummy tenement houses, women struggling to provide, waiting for the first of the month for their government checks so they could fill their refrigerators and put a little gas in their unregistered, uninsured vehicles.

I saw the boys masquerading as men playing the game, strutting through the ghetto like kings in their fancy cars with tinted windows. I saw them on the streets in their little gangs, wheeling and dealing, in and out of jail, sometimes shot, sometimes shooting.

I had to let my daughter learn for herself that the players were being played. Theirs was a short term strategy, one that never ends well. Theirs is a world of tricksters and illusion, fast cash and faster crashes.

The world I choose to inhabit is an honest one, one with small daily rewards, one that values integrity and avoids deception. My world is built on solid ground from which a foundation is able to strengthen with slow, steady progress of productive achievement and does not collapse when hardship finds me. And hardship finds all of us eventually, even the people all dressed up playing the look at me game with money on loan from a bank of dishonesty that has no mercy when things get difficult.

The world is indeed a crooked place, but ultimately those who can find the straight and narrow path through it will find peace, freedom and satisfaction at days end. My daughter got out of her first job with her integrity intact, and is now raising her family the right way. If you must be up to something make that something honestly, because in the end, that is what matters most.

Image of my daughter and grandson taken in my little house that I obtained through honest hard work. Me and the little guy fixed a lamp today, seven years old and he solders better than me.

A Glimmer of Hope

I see the neighborhood mostly through the rear windows of Rescue 1, the images traveling past me going backward. Glimpses of city life witnessed through fleeting glances, snuck between patient care and the paperwork that goes with it. We travel these roads often, cut-throughs between Providence’s busy main thoroughfares, shortcuts learned from years of taking people to hospitals. To us they’re just streets—tools, if you will; means of travel. For the people who live on them, they’re home, often disturbed by speeding rescues and piercing sirens. Sometimes gunfire precedes these interruptions.

As we rush to the scene of a child struck by an auto, I think of the last time I was on this particular street. That time it was for a kid from the neighborhood who didn’t make it out. The last time I saw him, I was standing in the pouring rain in somebody’s backyard. He had a bullet hole in his head. Rain thinned the trail of blood that ran down his chin and onto his t-shirt, making it look fake. I felt for a pulse, felt the skin cold at my fingertips—no radial, no carotid, nothing. His eyed rolled back in his head. I wanted to close them like they do in the movies, but it was a crime scene. I backed out, careful not to trip over the gun that fired the bullet that ended his life.

A few days later I saw his face again. I had to look twice at the picture; he didn’t belong on the obituary page. He was a young guy, long braided hair, his mother dead, raised in foster care. He left his foster mother, a brother and two kids without a father. It was strange, but the picture on the obituary page didn’t differ much from the mental image I had from the day I saw him dead. Going through the motions of life is far different from living.

Life for the rest of us goes on. As we passed the house where he died, different people sat on the deck, enjoying the summer five feet from where a young man ended his life. I looked out the side window and remembered, then focused on the kid who needed us more.

They had put her in the grass, 20 feet from the road where a slow-moving car had run her leg over. She had been playing, enjoying the day with about 20 people, grill fired up, cold drinks full, an inflatable bouncy tent in one of the backyards. A crowd had formed around her; we had to squeeze our way through as her relatives slowly gave ground. Her father had to be moved away from his daughter so we could do our work. He reluctantly let his baby go and watched a bunch of strangers tend to her. She screamed in fear and pain while we splinted her lower left leg, crushed, bleeding and swollen. But she said, “It’s OK, daddy,” her own pain secondary to her worries about her distraught father, as we lifted her onto our stretcher and rolled her away.

A crowd had formed, as it often does in the inner city when flashing lights and the trucks that run them make an appearance. More times than not something violent has preceded it. This time there were no hostilities. It’s a little different when the victim is an innocent 7-year-old and the injury an unfortunate accident rather than an act of aggression or revenge. The crowd stood by respectfully, watching as we did our thing, stabilized the patient, calmed her fears and tried to ease her pain.

There are differing philosophies regarding family members in the treatment area during emergencies. My own is to let the family in and have them close by to offer comfort, especially when children are involved. The little girl’s mother entered our ambulance through the side door and sat on the bench seat, watching as we got ready to go. The leg had been packaged; only some gauze was visible under the blanket that covered the child.

“What is her name?” I asked the mom.

“She doesn’t speak English,” from the little girl, calm as could be.

“Well, then, what is your name?”

“Magneline.”

“Madeline?”

“No. Magneline. M-A-G-N-E-L-I-N-E.” Talk about grace under pressure.

She told me her date of birth, her correct address and everything else I asked her. And she told me she was worried about her father. “Where is he? Is he OK?”

We got rolling, Hasbro Children’s Hospital less than a mile away. Her father followed. Once inside the hospital, the nurses took over. In the small treatment room, with the girl’s mother still close by, they undid our packaging. When the mom saw the injuries, she broke down.

“Don’t cry, mama,” said Magneline, soothing her mom, letting her know it would be OK. Then her father joined them, and little Magneline comforted him too.

Then they administered morphine, and little Magneline rested.

I cannot imagine Magneline sinking into the same black hole that draws so many of the inner-city kids into nonproductive existences. The allure of quick money, street cred and popularity takes initiative away and replaces it with instant gratification that cannot be maintained and often ends violently, sometimes with a bullet in the head.

Some of the most promising children are tempted to join gangs, live on the fringes and develop contempt, anger and mistrust of society. Others have a certain something and manage to overcome the allure, stay focused and in school, and make something of their lives. In doing so, they help the rest of us see that even in the bleakest of places, there is always a glimmer of hope.

Thank you, Magneline.

Atop the Bay

So here I am sitting some forty feet above the bay, Conimicut light in the distance, swans and seagulls keeping me company, Mr. Wilson by my side. The Great Narragansett Indian Tribe once fished and hunted here, no grocery stores a few miles away, nothing but clams, fish and deer to eat on these cold February days. Asparagus grows along the shore of the cove behind me, no idea if there is any left, or if it would keep long after fall’s harvest.

The land provides, if we are willing to figure out how so. Rabbits are abundant, coyotes ramble around, eagles and ospreys fly overhead, keeping things in order, I suppose.

An owl is hooting in the distance, weird at this time of day, maybe it’s an imposter, or an Indian hiding in the brush luring prey into his sight so he can feed his family.

Those seagulls, so tranquil a moment ago have taken flight, making a racket as they fly to parts unknown. It’s a signal for me to wrap it up, and head back home. Darkness is descending, and coyotes hunt in packs.