DEPRESSION AND HELL....One and the SAME PLACE. TRIBUTE TO ROBIN WILLIAMS: PART TWO.

When I started school... it was Catholic School...My first day was a huge embarrassment for me and my brother because I was one those kids who CRIED, AND CRIED AND CRIED.

They had to call my two older brothers from their classes to try calming a child who'd drowned just a year and half earlier and was so traumatized by that event I couldn't handle being away from my mom...fear is a powerful motivator...oh and nuns do NOT appreciate you wailing like some diva actress in their faces. That first day set the tone for my years in grade school that would follow. All the other kids in my class thought I was either a wimp...or a mama's girl. The latter was the closest to the truth, but they would never know about my dying...I also learned the religion might TALK about long ago miracles but they did NOT want to hear about me flying with the angels and living to talk about it. 

Instead of a scarlet A across my forehead, I developed an invisible "L" for LIAR across mine...from Mother Superior down to the other odd ball kid in our class who peed his pants the first day. "He lived down his stigma by the second week...mine carried on through till I left Catholic school when I graduated eighth grade and move on to public high-school.

LIAR...everyone called me that..so I was the kid over at the very edge of the fence, sitting in the dust watching the other kids play at recess when I couldn't figure a way of hiding in the bathroom when we were farmed out for recess.

Sounds bad, right..and it was. Abuse by teachers is accepted as normal coarse in Catholic Schools. 

No...I was not one of the kids most viciously abused by being a student there...

The worst was when one of the lay teachers...they're the NON-NUNS...Looking back I think she must have had a rough night before. 

I was a straight "A" student which of course made them all the more furious with me for being a Liar...but that's not what set her off.

I grew up with chronic tonsillitis. Every other week I was burning up with fever and unable to speak comfortable because of how hue my tonsils grew.

The doctor wanted to get my tonsils out by the time I was seven...I STILL have them. My mother refused to allow mine out because they'd had my eldest brothers out...Bob is NINE years older than me. His grew back so mom wasn't about to pay to have mine out and risk THEM growing back too.

Because of that I got severe attacks every other week...I was out of school sick, a LOT...another thing that made the other kids think I was either a freak or...LYING.

When your tonsils swell large enough to block your throat they began moving in and wage war against your ears. I am deaf in my left ear, and partially in my right. 

The lay teacher was talking to me, I'd learn much later, but I could not HEAR her...something we would again only learn much later.

She thought I was ignoring her. So she picked up a desk closest to where she was standing and threw it at me. 

I was in a cast for several weeks after that, but I made certain to never relax for the rest of my year with her. I'd diligently watch her lips and eyes. Even though I could NOT read her lips if she was looking at me and her lips were moving I politely responded "Yes Ma'm." I rarely answered correctly, but at least she did not think I was ignoring her again. (I was 16 before we learned I was partially deaf because of the repeated tonsil infections throughout my childhood.  I STILL get tonsillitis, but not every week...The last time was in 1981 when my own children were five and six...and was so bad I was in the hospital for a month because I was not responding to IV antibiotic. (At that time I was told they don't take out adult tonsils...so I was stuck in agony until the infection began responding to antibiotics...a whole month IN the hospital fighting something that should have been taken care of when I was a child...in the hospital...not with my precious children...Sometimes I think Depression and its cause and effects are really boomerangs.

The strangest thing is that despite my weakened hearing I was a STRAIGHT A student...I wish I could say my A laden report cards gave me a sense of pride...

PART TWO...Isn't odd to think that something like your tonsils can be the catalyst for bouts of some of the most emotionally isolating bouts of depression a child can have to work their way through?

Oh I understand why Robin Williams' pain could make him feel so unworthy of breathing the same air of those sitting beside him, or applauding him so adoringly from the audience. How do you see/hear past your own pain when the demon of depression has such a stranglehold on you?

I NEED to donate all my royalties for the rest of 2014 for my $0.99 cent e-book LIFE'S JOURNEY and donate it to Suicide Prevention in HIS, ROBIN WILLIAM'S name...

AND we need to star talking about depression, tear away the dark curtains we all hide our pain behind so help can find those who need it BEFORE we take that step we cannot undo.

I thank you for taking the time to read this...and please remeber I am doing all this because Robin shared his troubled humor to us with love...help me show his spirit how much he DID for us now.

Part Three of my Story is coming.

In the mean time here are the direct links to my books' Buy Pages at my publisher's MUSE IT UP PUBLISHING, INC

and

AMAZON.COM

LIFE'S JOURNEY IS ALSO AVAILABLE WHERE FINE E-BOOKS ARE SOLD.

DEPRESSION AND ME...NEVER PERFECT TOGETHER...PART ONE.

My History with the demons of depression...

I wonder if it's hereditary.

My mother was 19 when her beloved father died unexpectedly at the very young age of 45. Grandpa's death devastated her. Prohibition was in full swing and Mom found a shield for her to hide her pain behind beyond the hidden doors of Speak Easy s and alcohol.

I was never told WHEN Mom slipped into full blown alcoholism...but I know she drank the entire time she was pregnant with me. (She was 34 when she had me...She and Dad met in a Speak Easy when she was 20...they both enjoyed...alcohol...although I'm not sure that's accurate...Dad ENJOYED drinking...for Mom I think it became a way of life...from the moment she'd awaken till she passed out for the first time, only to regain consciousness and repeat the pattern all day, every day. (I have repeatedly said if my Grandmother had not lived with us I would not have had a Mother...this is why...Mom was rarely sober. Nonnie, thank the merciful God, raised me. She gave me the ONLY love and unconditional acceptance I would know throughout most of my life. She died when I was 11...Mom didn't stop drinking...and Dad? Dad hated females. He was the only boy, with three sisters, one older, who happened to have been one of the first pro women wrestlers in the United States, Aunt Stella, and the others, thorns in his side the entire time he was growing up.


I promised to share MY journey through the dark pitfalls of Depression as I further pay tribute to Robin Williams and try to explain why it is so important for me to DONATE ALL MY ROYALTIES for my 99 cent book LIFE'S JOURNEY IN ROBIN'S NAME for all sales of it from now until the end of 2014.

I hope you will bear with me as I explain my journey and why ROBIN'S brilliant comedy gave me surcease from some of the intense pits of despair I have battled over the years.

This is PART ONE...

I will turn 63, Robin's age, on December 12th of this year...Battling Depression is NOT an overnight process and like an angry sea the waves will pummel, subside, calm, only to rise up and pummel again.

I will try to be diligent in sharing a slice of MY Depression pie right here, every day from this point on...so please come back...but also remember I am doing this so I can make this donation in

Robin's name so someone in the future, dealing with the viper's bite of depression can reach out to the two agencies I have chosen to receive this donation will help someone down the line from feeling the darkest war any soul will ever have to face, alone.
Two damaged people got together to create the next generation of damaged people.

At the end of this posting I will copy the information you need to be one of Robin's angels and my heroes.

LIN'S JOURNEY INTO HELL'S OCEANS.

I was the first of my parents children to be born in the hospital. On December 12, 1951 at 11:05 PM...Mom squirted me out right there on a gurney in front of the nurses station...her previous yells for attention ignored by the hectic bustle of shift change.

Mom never made it to either the labor or delivery rooms...before there was me...9 lbs 2 oz...of unhappy baby.

I was born with blood tumors between each of my toes and fingers and a good size one on the right apple cheek of my butt.

Dry ice was applied to all tumors, burning them off, leaving behind angry skin...skin a baby cannot keep her pee from scoring into every time said baby has a bit of a nature event. (I was a very unhappy, screaming baby...not at all peaceful to have or be around.)

Eventually the wounds...surface...wounds healed...the scar on my right butt cheek...was never pretty...but became the source of much...odd entertainment.

First it convinced my parents that I wasn't really THEIR child, but the spawn of Satan. How they used to brag about my demonic parentage to anyone who came along to visit.

Most people pooh pooh such a claim when made by tellers with scotch or whiskey glasses in their hands...so my parents would call me down from my bedroom, make me pull down my pants,turn  and  bend over to show one and all the symbol of evil, verifying  most visually what runs in my genes.

I learned to hate visitors...I became shyer with each exposure and learned to hide my pain behind a frozen mask that allowed no emotion to show.

Friends? How could I let friends into my life? If I did that I risked THEM learning of my evil mark and the truth.

Sleep overs? That would mean possibly bathing together...NO WAY could I risk that.

I became a loaner. Shy, afraid, timid, and insecure.

My ONLY friend after my Grandmother died, throughout my young life would be my dog Heidi...I could tell Heidi anything and know she'd never stop loving me. Heidi gave enough of her joy to me, I managed NOT to slip so deep into the insanity of my parent's cruelties to give in to the voice inside my heart and soul,  telling me the world would be better off without me.

Heidi made me believe I had SOME value in life...some GOODNESS, she could see...she gave me a reason to HOPE I wasn't JUST what my parents wanted me to believe.

 I was NOT the cause of Dad's heavy handed anger. I was NOT the cause of Mom's deceit about that not JUST being Pepsi in her glass...a glass that had odd fumes rising from it that never rose from the glasses of Pepsi I poured for myself.

I wasn't responsible for the fire my brother started in the attic of the garage even though Dad swore it was me, not Don that dropped that lit match into the hay bale..despite the two octogenarians two houses down swearing I was with them when the fire happened..

Heidi happily leaped into the pool with me and played water sports with me with a grin on her face and a twinkle in her eyes even thought it was ME she was palling with...

Still there were times when I hid beneath the blanket on my bed listening to the fury escalating between my parents downstairs, certain I'd done something wrong and their fury with each other was my fault...a belief Dad would reinforce the next night when he'd get home from his job, pick me up eager to tell me what I'd done wrong, something I could never remember doing, while threatening to toss me into the nearest wall so I'd remember to behave myself next time.

(Dad actually only hit me once...I was seven...It took a month before I could sit...and in that month when dad was home, I'd hide behind the couch praying he couldn't see me.

SEVEN!

Some of you might want to know where was Nonnie when dad ripped into my body with his angry hand...

In Michigan for a rare month visiting her sister, my great aunt.

(Dad never hit me or tossed me into walls when Nonnie was around...

I never knew why, I was safe when Nonnie was around, except when she died...a very strange thintgs happened...for the first and ONLY time in my life, I saw Dad cry. (Nonnie was not HIS mother...she was his MOTHER-IN-LAW, but she is the only woman he ever cared  for...teased with gentle affection...He called her "Toots" in such a soft, loving tease...I think he LOVED her...so much so he CRIED when she passed on.



That's it for now...PART ONE. is complete.



Now please remember 100% of the sales of my book LIFE'S JOURNEY...(Nonnie's in this book)...is being donated to Suicide Prevention causes in

ROBIN WILLIAM'S NAME.

Help me honor this genius...Please.

Thank you.

And check back for PART TWO of my Journey Through the rising and Falling of MY Battle with Depression.

LIFE'S JOURNEY is available at my publisher, Muse It Up Publishing, Inc for $0.99

At Amazon.com for $0.99

And where quality e-books are sold.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story and I hope you'll continue following me as I honor

Robin Williams the only way I know how

Again...Thank you Robin...you made me laugh...I can never thank you enough for that..

To Robin Williams

There But For the Grace of God..and thankfully I have received that Grace: Now it's your turn. 

But let me tell you MY odd tale.

Several Years Ago I had quite a lot of surgeries to repair some of the damage done to me by my ex-husband. I KNOW depression...I have heard its voice inside me many times since I escaped from a marriage my ex fashioned in a hell I never wish to revisit.

I don't respond well to general anesthesia...the fact is I went into cardiac arrest and died on the table, a time or two...at least.

What I experienced during some of those..."light's out in the old ticker," has made me know I will be more than ready when it is my time to go home, and stay.

I was given a choice in my last one. I wrote about it in my short paranormal book LIFE'S JOURNEY. This is a 99.9% true story.

This was not my first trip beyond the veil. 

I was four when I drowned. Four year old's know no fear, so I just bravely walked out into the lake, not realizing speed boats further out would be sending me waves strong enough to lift my little body and submerge it..letting child-like panic settle in. 

When they found my floating body and got the water out of me they delivered my weary little body to my mother's arms. Years later she told me I looked up at her and said, "Mommy, I was flying with the angels. I called your name, but you didn't come."

My best NDE...Near Death Experience happened when I was 34...like Robin Williams I am on the cusp of turning 63...on December 12th. 

I "awoke" while my body was in full blown cardiac arrest, and I was nestled in God's Arms. 

I know there are those who say if you see God's face you die...well I was already dead...but I never saw God's face...I was in His arms surrounded by wave after wave after wave of unconditional love washing over me and such peace.

For the first time in my life I knew I had a Father who loved me. I deserved being loved, and despite the things my ex did to me, I was still precious to Him...My Father, and not tainted beyond value by the scars I carry...some very easy to see...some implanted on my soul.

I know, at this moment, My Father is encompassing Robin William's battered spirit in that same sea of His Unconditional Love for Robin, His very troubled Son. 

"Robin heal well.  Soak up the unswerving sea of love up there with Dad, and know we are all sending our love your way too."

Okay before the naysayers chime in...I know the theory about what happened to me has to do with lack of oxygen to the brain during those moments in time. 

I don't care. 

I know what I felt before and how I feel now. If it's a delusion, it's a delusion I'll happily continue holding deep inside me for the rest of my flesh life and beyond.

LIFE' JOURNEY is a short book that tells the story about what I experienced during my second Near Death Experience and is available in e-book at Muse It Up Publishing right now at the link above for $0.99.

100% of my royalties for this book for the remainder of of 2014 will be donated to Suicide Prevention/and Help Lines in Robin Williams' Name.

Robin, I truly wish I could do more.

Suicide Prevention If you or someone you know has ongoing thoughts of death or suicide—or if a suicide attempt has been made—contact a doctor go to a hospital emergency room immediately or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you or someone you know is living with depression or bipolar disorder, you understand all too well that the symptoms may include feelings of sadness and hopelessness. These feelings can also include thoughts of self-harm or suicide. Whether we have suicidal thoughts ourselves, or know a severely depressed person who does, there are ways that we can respond with strength and courage. Understanding Suicidal Thinking The most important thing to remember about suicidal thoughts is that they are symptoms of a treatable illness associated with fluctuations in the body's and brain's chemistry. They are not character flaws or signs of personal weakness, nor are they conditions that will just go away on their own. Depression and the depressive phase of bipolar disorder may cause symptoms such as the following: intense sadness hopelessness lethargy loss of appetite disruption of sleep decreased ability to perform usual tasks loss of interest in once-pleasurable activities Taken together, these symptoms may lead someone to consider suicide. However, with proper treatment, the majority of people do feel better and regain hope. Recovery is possible! During severe depression, the systems that regulate emotion become disturbed. People in the middle of a severe depression often think only of things that are dark and sad. Physicians refer to this as "selective memory"—only remembering the bad times or the disappointments in life. This type of thinking is a symptom of the illness; it does not define who the person is. And with proper treatment, the individual will start to remember the good times and develop a more positive outlook. The following two agencies deal Nationally here in the United States with Suicide Prevention.

Thank you for reading this and helping me honor a GREAT genius the only way I can...with YOUR Help.

Direct Link to Muse It Up Publishing's BUY PAGE for this book

Direct Link to Amazon.com's BUY PAGE for this book

WHAT IS THE MEASURE OF SUCCESS?

I have long believed the amount of bucks in your bank account is a poor measure of your success. My father married money. If I measured his life's success, I'd have to say, thanks to the money he acquired when he married my mother, a functioning alcoholic...sort of...he could manipulate HER bank balance reflecting the success of my great grandfather and great uncle...not Dad's own, or for that matter, my mother's own efforts.

Kat and I barely have more than a pail to dunk our sponge mop in, and yet...in the last three years, since we released our first books at MuseItUp Publishing we have acquired a rather impressive array of awards...some for our books, some for our blogs, and some just because we try very hard to help others coming along this path behind us.

What do you think? Wanna see some of our awards?

I, L.J. Holmes won the 

FIFTH place award in the Preditors and Editors 2010 Readers Poll for my debut book SANTA IS A LADY. 

Not bad for a newbie. This book released Dec. 1, 2010 so was only out and qualified for three weeks before the voting began. Being new I had no idea what this Poll was or how anyone went about getting their work into the running.

In 2011 Kat Holmes, my brilliant daughter took 

TENTH place in the MYSTERY category with HER debut MuseItUp Novel 

THE LIGHTHOUSE.

So we're doing good right?

In that same year because I found out I can blog like nobody's business I took a bunch of awards...

A LOT of awards right?

And this year 2013, Kat and I have taken between us SEVEN top ten P&E awards:

Yeah..this one won in TWO categories.

So here we are...with our awards for top ten and blogging...but what does it mean? 

Can anyone tell us? All this work to make OUR place...but what does it mean? NINE total top ten P&E awards and THIRTEEN assorted blog/friend awards.

BAD COVERS AND SOME OF WHY

This is an ongoing post because bad covers are like that bad penny.

So let me start...When you get a mockup from a CA who has been doing your covers for over a year...and knows your authorial name...your one and only correction should not be a glaring mistake the CA made

So you end up on that CA's crap-list and you get this...

I'm sorry. at no time should font be almost impossible to read, and as the author, I'd really have liked to have my title at least be legible...but it also would have been nice if you could have read my name too.

What cover will I expose next? How about CRIMSON WATERS?

This is the bleached version the CA promised was the start of fixing the issues Kat had about the original...

This is supposed to be Poseidon, but he was not a black torso...yet the full bleaching including getting rid of the blood which is just downright gruesome...but was never done...the black torso was passed on through. BAD, BAD, BAD cover.


Before I move on with the bad, wanted to show you 

TWO great mockups for one of my soon to be releasing books. Both are fantastic...

no errors...just professional magic.

Absolutely breathtakingly amazing!

The Why Of Hate?

Confusion, Sadness, those are emotion that rose within me when I learned of the bombings at the Boston Marathon. What madness drives anyone to destroy the future of so many innocent people and why would anyone be so uncaring about those lives?

I remember how I felt when I saw people jumping to a certain death from the Twin Towers to escape certain death on 9/11. What trigger inside their brains determined leaping to a death smashing into the concrete below would be better than facing the searing destruction of remaining in the building disintegrating around them?

Hate...I fully understand the power of indoctrination.

I was married to a man who spent the entirety of our eleven years together chipping away at my identity, destroying any of my beliefs in who I might think I am because to have any belief in my own worth would mean I might not agree that no one would ever look at me and see someone who possessed any beauty...

...therefore I was so very lucky my husband tolerated me enough to once in a awhile lash me with his bull whip until I bled enough to be lubricated so he could rape me wherever he wanted and give me moments of dubious pleasure.

I should be GRATEFUL his attention tore my flesh beyond repair because at least he gave me love.

Hate...I got away because despite his attempts at brainwashing...somewhere deep inside I knew he was wrong...somewhere deep inside I knew I was me.

I got us out.

Hate...I have justifiable reasons to hate all men. See my ex did not limit his violence against me to just him...oh no...he shared me. I honestly do not know how many he shared me with...so by the rights of the damned I should hate all men...but I have a glorious twist...he also shared me with women...some of the worst pain I endured came from women...women know how to hurt other women better than men do because they know the right spots.

Hate...I should hate EVERYONE! Why don't I.

I've been asked that very question. Why don't I hate all men after what my ex did to me?

My answer is simple. Why should I hate everyone for the deeds of few? Yes a lot did unspeakable things to me...things I will never recover fully from...but in the overall scheme of things, they really are only a few.

I sit here on planet earth one of God's children among many of His children. Yes they are misguided children, and they are in need of God's mercy, but there are others, good, loving, caring children, who are like me, confused by the violence, hurt by the rage, saddened by the misery, and disheartened by YOUNG children... YOUNG CHILDREN being so angry THEY resort to bombing innocent people.

If I do not hate after all I've been through...what could possibly drive children to commit such an act of extreme violence.

My heart bleeds...

MEMORY OF POLITICS...WHY IT SHOULD NOT BE SHORT-TERM

Lies...I know both parties pile them on like they are appetisers before the main event...all out deceit...but I have lived long and have yet to succumb to the delusions of short-term memory waffling.

Looking back to the years I have walked this earth my memory, is, unfortunately, too much intact.

My eldest brother was born in 1942, during the meteoric advances of Hitler across Europe and less than a full year after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

Bob came into this world during the presidency of FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT...FDR...who served as president from March 4, 1933 through April 12, 1945 when he died. Roosevelt was a DEMOCRAT and the only politician ever elected to the office of the presidency more than twice. In fact his stellar and consistent return to office is WHY the laws changed limiting all future presidents to JUST two terms.

How pathetically terrified the opposition must have been to create a law about something the Founding Fathers did not feel important when shaping the government...and yet most of them were the equivalent of today's Republicans.

Moving on...I was born in 1951, The Korean War was devastating America's military and Truman, another Democrat was in power. I know we had to fight the Korean Police Action because of the communist stain spreading across the planet after our Russian allies at the end of WW II became our number one enemy...but a police action NOT a war? What is that about? You can call it anything you want, but it WAS WAR!

Truman assumed power upon the death of FDR but he remained in power until January 20, 1953 when Dwight David Eisenhower, the first Republican in nearly TWENTY YEARS claimed the highest office in the land.

So what else did Dwight D. Eisenhower do for us? He gave us Richard Milhouse Nixon as his Vice-President.

In the years to come Democrats will be vilified for their behind their zippers conduct, but let us not forget Eisenhower, a GENERAL serving under his DEMOCRATIC Commander in Chief, Roosevelt, brought along HIS mistress from that engagement, to service HIM during his Presidency. I may have been a child during his terms but I know I would have remembered if word about Eisenhower's adultery had made the news. My parents would have argued over it with the same rapid viciousness they argued over EVERYTHING political.

What DID make the news is Eisenhower telling his party it would be political SUICIDE to tamper with Social Security...a program Roosevelt, a very rich man, put in place to help the American people because he learned during the DEPRESSION the importance of caring for ALL his people.

Eisenhower...a die-hard Republican WARNED all politicians, current and future to LEAVE Social Security alone! Eisenhower  served TWO terms...now the limit thanks to the new law enacted after FDR died shortly after he was elected to his FOURTH term in office.

I was just beginning Middle School when John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Milhouse Nixon. I remember watching his inauguration on television. He looked so handsome and Jackie so beautiful. Camelot...but as with any smoke screen Camelot had its dragons, snakes and vultures.

Kennedy could not keep his zipper up any more than FDR or Eisenhower could. Our politicians were MEN and as such HU-MEN. Do I care if they let their zippers dip below half-mast? ONLY if it interferes with them performing their duties AS my president. My religious beliefs and relationship with MY GOD are my own and have no business in politics...a point the framers of the Constitution were adamant about!

Kennedy established the PEACE CORP, he confronted and successfully dealt with Castro and the build-up of Russian arms in Cuba JUST off the Florida coast. He gave his complete support to the US making it to the MOON. He launched the Presidential Youth Fitness Program. He also instituted one of the largest tax cuts in history.

Yes, he also agreed to send our military into Viet Nam. History would prove that not to be one of his better decisions.

President Kennedy took on the issue of racial discrimination and Civil Rights. Yes he dropped his drawers a LOT, but his sexual prowess or lack of marital commitment had nothing to do with his job as President of the United States. He may have been cut down early in his Presidency, he, a super rich man, still managed to put many things in place to aide and comfort ALL of Americans...and isn't THAT what being President is supposed to be about?

November 22, 1963...I was not yet twelve...and technically in Middle School...my middle school happened to share the same building as our high school. (I grew up out in the Country...not backwards, just spread out with not a great need for TWO buildings...at least not yet...that WOULD come.)...and know exactly where I was when news of Kennedy's assassination brought many of us to our knees, and Lyndon Baines Johnson into the Presidential position. (I was threading a movie projector in the AV Center for Mr. Elvin the Social Studies teacher....Bleieve it or not, back then I was NOT technology challenged...I was ahead of my time.)

I did not like Johnson. I cannot say why...except something I saw in his eyes made me dislike him intensely, and I always trust my gut feelings. They rarely let me down.

Johnson came across as a hard man...cruel...and devious. He empowered the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. To this day there are many who do not believe the Warren Commission really DID a thorough job. Yes...I'm one of them.

As a Texan, he showed great courage signing the Civil Rights Act, and in signing the Economic Opportunity Act to fight the war on poverty. Johnson...a rich man...SIGNS a law to FIGHT poverty!

He signs the Food Stamp Act making it possible for the impoverished to EAT.

He initiated PROJECT HEAD START to give ALL children the opportunity to learn from the early stages of development, before our learning patterns are locked into place. He escalated our commitment in Viet Nam..not a war...another frigging POLICE ACTION. Why is it two Deomcratinc Presidents declare not a war , but a frigging POLICE ATION? It doesn't really matter what you call it...war is war!

He brings HUD into being, and endorses laws to aid with Higher Education for ALL.

He dealt with riots in Watts, Chicago and Detroit during his term in office...racial unrest was feverish...he also funds Public Broadcasting giving us such programs as Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theater.

He also signed the Gun Control Act of 1968. GUN CONTROL and HE, a Democrat FROM the South, got it done! Admirable, but I still didn't like or fully trust him!

Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy are assassinated during his administration.

On November 3, 1964 Johnson wass OFFICIALLY elected to his FIRST term as President making Hubert Humphrey...another man I could not like...he seemed like an over inflated BLOW-HARD...our Vice President.

Again, I reiterate...I did NOT like Lyndon Johnson...my opinion DESPITE his accomplishments has NOT changed. I believe he was a CRUEL man, and nothing he ever did proved my belief wrong...except he DID get a lot done for the Americdan people and I cannot deny him that.

He too had extra-marital relationships. (Is it being in politics that makes it hard to keep the zipper zipped? So much temptation, much like Hollywood?)

Richard Milhouse Nixon...other than being a crook what I most remember about him, other than his "I AM GOD" Syndrome, is the number of corrupt men he made his vice president during his two terms...oh and Of course WATERGATE, but on the positive side he DID do good...he created the first EARTH DAY. He also started the EPA, signing the Clean Air Act into law, and established the NOAA, and DEA.

And boy howdy do I remember all the badges and/or other perks he gave BIG Stars...like Duke Ellington who was awarded THE MEDAL OF FREEDOM...I'm not sure for what...maybe you who are reading this can tell me? He also awarded the astronauts that returned safely from their failed mission the same Medal of Freedom. I could see praising them for their courage in the face of what looked like a nasty end to their lives, but every soldier sent to fight the Police Action in Viet Nam faced the same chance to die in a nasty way...How many of them received such medals?  

The massacre at Kent State University happened on HIS watch with HIS National Guard opening fire upon the students because they were protesting the Viet Nam Conflict, as is our right under the Constitution all presidents are elected to enforce...NOT interpret.

On December 21, 1970 Nixon meets Elvis Presley in the Oval Office and bestows upon him powers and a badge making him a law enforcement agent...a man known to be a few flakes short of a full loaf. Why?

Right before his resignation, Nixon replaces the very corrupt Spiro T. Agnew, (under investigation for tax invasion) and his latest embattled VP, with Gerald Ford.

August 9, 1974 Gerald Ford is sworn in as President and says "OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER." The WAR..err I mean CONFLICT? No!

One of his very first acts as president is to FULLY PARDON Richard Milhouse Nixon. Unlike the rest of the crooked coterie involved in the break-in and then cover-up of the Watergate break-in, Richard Nixon can never be brought to justice. Cannot be impeached...cannot have his rights and privileges as a former president revoked. In other words, the tax payers would continue to support this corrupt felon for the rest of his life. Let me repeat The US Taxpayers would PAY for Nixon, guilty of condoning felonious acts and then covering up HIS part in breaking the very laws he was elected to execute is never going to be brought to justice.

The American people were NOT given the right to watch the system work because HE, Richard the First was above the law?

THAT was Gerald Ford's first action upon becoming President. After that there was little he could do to convince me and many others he cared about honor and/or justice, and or what really is best for this Country.

Other than pardoning Nixon, the only thing about him my memory can recall with ease is his inability to golf without beaning someone!

Did he accomplish anything? He did try to regulate campaign fund raising and spending. I wish he'd succeeded.

He signed the Privacy Act, and in his State of the Union Address, he claimed the State of the Union is not good...because...MILLIONS of Americans are out of work...Hmmmm Does any of this resonate with what has taken place in the last two decades? Millions of people being out of work?

Perhaps because of Ford robbing the American people of their right to seek legal action against Nixon, Ford was NOT elected to his own presidential term. On November 3, 1976 Ford concedes to Democratic Presidential Nominee Jimmy Carter.

In 1976 I had just given birth to my daughter, the second of my children. I held onto so much hope for her future and her brother's. Surely we'd learned our lessons and Americans would never forget the hard won battles and equally hard fought losses. Wouldn't we?

Short Term memory is a really disgusting ailment...and one mankind has been plagued with since the dawn of any kind of civilization. Just look at the corruption and eventual fall of all the major empires throughout history.

1977...Jimmy Carter is sworn is as America's thirty-ninth president. Although Ford played with the idea Jimmy Carter is the president who actually pardoned those who evaded the draft during the Viet Nam Conflict. Morally I look at that decision this way...Ford pardoned a president that committed multiple felonies because he was trying to rig the elections in his favor. The draft evaders objected to dying for a non-declared police action because they objected to killing without honorable cause. I'd rather pardon those who objected to killing than those who knowingly, and with delusions of self importance committed crimes against the very Constitution they were elected and/or sworn to uphold. 

Carter, another Southerner and also a well heeled man, signs the Covenant on Human Rights. The Three Mile Island disaster happened during Carter's administration, the biggest nuclear disaster at that point. But regulating the energy industry was no more popular nthen than it was recently during the Gulf Coast debacle. Rather than hide from it he he still faced it head on denting his popularity tremendously.

Okay he also had to deal with having a cartoonish brother and his Billy Beer, but who doesn't have family members we might not always want trailing behind us with their peculiarities hanging out for the world to see?

Jimmy Carter lost his bid for re-election because of the long battle over the Iran Hostage situation. Did he do the right thing? I have no idea. I wasn't there in the War room...nor had I moced to Washington, D.C. yet where I would REALLY get a lesson in politics...but I do know once out of office he and his wife founded Habitat for Humanity stepping into the fray to help build homes for the poor.

If nothing else, that tells me what kind of a man he is at his core. Making the world better for the less fortunate was NEVER just a bit of campaign rhetoric for him. I think the Country lost an opportunity to create a richer future by making Jimmy Carter the scapegoat for the Iran Hostage Crisis.

January 20, 1981 Ronald Reagan in sworn is as our fortieth president. At this point, I have now lived through the drama created by seven presidents.

Many have touted Reagan as the best president in the twentieth century...which I fail to understand. How convenient it was for Ronald Reagan that people fail to remember a person's moral fiber JUST because it happened years ago.

Ronald Reagan made Nancy, his SECOND wife...a woman he blatantly cheated on his first wife with...our first lady. Let me see if I have this right...Ronald and Nancy commit adultery, but he's of the right moral fiber to be the PRESIDENT? The same moral fiber future President Clinton is NOT possessing?

Okay I suppose I can accept this...after all I've repeatedly said a man's ability or lack thereof in keeping his zipper zipped should not be the measuring stick we use to judge his successes and/or failures leading our Country...so lets look at what he accomplished...or failed at.

First he named George Herbert Walker Bush, a former head of the CIA, as his Vice President. 

I knew little about the string bean who stood behind Reagan as the man in direct line for the presidency. I guess being CIA meant secrecy or at least not popping up on too many radars...(until his son George W. Bush became president...but that's another issue for further  discussion in this recitation.)

I cannot help but wonder why the hostages were finally released on the very day Reagan is sworn into office. Having lived for two years up close and personal with Washington, D.C. perhaps I am looking back with too much suspicion of such a coincidence\, BUT, they do say hindsight is 20/20...so maybe not.

Reagan created a LOT of commissions to review things. He also delivered a LOT of speeches.

The US Embassy in Beirut is bombed during Reagan's watch and 32 people are killed. (I want you to read this again! The Iran Hostages are returned, but The US Embassy is bombed and 32 people killed...I know I have always been considered JUST A DUMB BLONDE...but I see a correlation...maybe the Middle East is becoming a cauldron?)

Assassination attempt...yes Reagan was shot...others surrounding him KILLED, but the Brady Bill is not allowed to have the kind of teeth needed to finally control who needs guns and what kinds of guns can be purchased...indeed it fails. Why? Our President nearly dies, but we don't need to have better gun controls?

Strange though while guns here in this country were not allowed regulation to secure the safety of Americans, under the cloak of subterfuge and yes, treason, the Reagan/Bush administration illegally began arming the Iran Contras...and got caught.

Once more I am forced to weigh the issues of a man not keeping his boxer shorts covered or committing overt illegalities in the name of the US people. Which is more offensive? Which should be prosecuted and NOT whitewashed by claiming EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE?

George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and Samuel Adams must be spinning in their graves.

Oddly, and I've never been able to figure this one out...Reagan is credited with bringing the Berlin Wall down. All those years we were sitting here in terror of the Red Menace...who'd have thought all it would take was Reagan in his actor trained voice demanding the Soviet government "...tear down this wall." to convince them to do so. Guess we were wrong to worry about Russia all those years and spend those gazillions building up our arsenal of deadly weaponry against them. 

Before we move on, let's do a recount...

FDR...launches Social Security.
Truman...starts and thankfully ends the Korean Conflict
Eisenhower brings us Nixon.
Kennedy...launches Peace Corp...calms the threat of nuclear war being launched from Cuba...and yes, begins sending the military into Viet Nam.
Johnson...escalates the Viet Nam War.
Nixon...escalates the war then ratchets it down...but also gives us WATERGATE.
Carter works on human rights, but fails to bring the Iran Hostages home.
Reagan sells arms illegally to the Iran Contras and makes Oliver North his scapegoat.

Onward to George Herbert Walker Bush. He gave us Dan Quayle for Vice President.

Bush ANNOUNCED a lot of things during his administration. He also did a lot of things making him a FIRST...such as the first president to speak live on Chinese TV...Bush begins negotiations with Mexico for NAFTA. He is also the one who announced his initiative to implement free trade covering the entire Western Hemisphere.

He DID sign the Americans With Disabilities Act...a revolutionary step forward in honoriing the rights of the disabled and a law I wholeheartedly applaud...just wish it had more teeth.

On August 2, 1990 the Iraqi forces invade Kuwait. Six days later Bush deploys American forces, and after receiving approval for the United Nations on January 16, 1991 the First Gulf War begins,..and is called Operation Desert Storm.

Let us not forget the Savings and Loan failure that took place during George H.W. Bush's watch...and even involved one of his many sons. This is the beginning of the break down of the banking industry.

Bush failed his bid for re-election losing to the charismatic, and forever wrapped up in a scandal involving his fluctuating zipper, President William Jefferson Clinton.

A Willie with an active willie, Bill Clinton came into office amid scandal concerning his extra-marital dilly-dallying, but did any of that prevent him from executing his duties to me as MY president?

Did it deter FDR? Now THERE was an amazing man...locked in a wheel chair and braces he guided this country through the Depression, the Second World War, and still managed to dangle his parsnip outside his marital bedroom.

No wonder they elected him to FOUR terms.

That man deserves some kind of a posthumous award...probably NOT the Medal of Honor...but if we could bottle his energy and sell it today we'd ALL be ga-zillionaires.

Truman...I was a little kid...barely out of my mother's womb...did he dip his stick in a crank case not attached to his wife? If he did, obviously he was far more discreet.

Eisenhower had his little driver whose tank he oiled quite regularly.

Kennedy...the man's extra curricular activities are probably not totally known yet...he DID get around and with loads of help...but none of us will forget Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday Mr. President in that gown she had to be spray painted into.

Johnson...the idea of any woman sharing that curmudgeon's dalliances makes my skin crawl...but power will blind the most discerning woman to the man's toxicity.

Nixon...When a woman drinks as much as Pat Nixon...still...ewww but he believed he was our new King Richard so why not have them worship at the throne of his little Dickie Bird?

Ford...I really don't know. Was he too busy beaning people with golf balls to let his more vulnerable balls out for air?

Carter...he admitted lusting in his heart but there has never been an actual scandal involving his little Jimmy that I know of.

Reagan...we know he cheated on his first wife with Nancy.

George H.W. Bush...I don't know. There isn't much about him I would have to admire, but I really Do think he loves Barbara...and probably enough to be faithful.

Alas Bill Clinton...I liked him as a president...didn't admire the man, but I didn't need his morale center working for me as my President.

The Republicans set out from day one to bring him down. I'm surprised they didn't send little nanobots in to check the consistency of his and Hillary's feces...they attacked just about everything else...only to come up with him lying in a deposition for a lawsuit Paula Jones should not have been allowed to bring against him while we was a sitting president.

IMPEACHMENT because he lied about getting a really BAD blow job? I mean come on, if it had been any good there would never have been a tell-tale stain to catch him in his lie. I personally felt bad for him...if you're going to cheat and do so while under such scrutiny to get drawn to someone who cannot perform a simple act with better aplomb is sad...and hello...what mother makes her daughter KEEP such a dress?

Clinton gets Impeached for a lousy blow-job but Nixon was pardoned for the illegal break-in and then cover up of the Watergate mess? AND while the hearings are going on Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, a staunch Republican has his wife sitting behind him on one side and HIS mistress sitting behind him on the other side?

Yes Clinton DID act inappropriately, but hell, the Republicans had been hounding him since he first tossed his hat in the ring. Whether you approve of his morals is irrelevant...he delivered as our President...even leaving the LARGEST surplus in the history of this Country in his wake...and that is what I, as an American needed him to do.

Clinton has been accused of being the force behind NAFTA...but it was George H.W. Bush that started that ball rolling. Clinton inherited it.

Yes the first attack on the twin towers happened less than two months after he was sworn into office...and yes the Branch Davidian attack in Waco happened soon after.

I have a question for all those of you wagging your fingers over the events that unfolded at Waco, at Clinton... let me ask YOU something?

If you are dealing with a mad man what should you do?

Until you've walked in the shoes of someone who MUST make such a decision...just like arm-chair athletes THINK they have the wisdom to berate the pitcher for not tossing the ball and preventing that steal on time...you are nothing more than a side-line mouthpiece wanting just to hear your own voice.

Clinton signed into law a bill creating 1.5 billion dollars to help college students repay federal student money...NOT by writing it off...but by having them WORK at community service positions.

NOT a free ride!

Clinton SIGNED the Brady Act into law...remember Brady...Reagan's former Press Secretary who was paralyzed during that assassination attempt all those years ago...you know...back BEFORE George H.W. Bush's presidency? Finally we have a law monitoring the sale of guns.

Getting back to Paula Jones...how many people do you know who are allowed to file A FEDERAL lawsuit for a civil lawsuit against a sitting president?

Could you or I file a federal case against our boss if his suggestive innuendos made US uncomfortable ALL those years ago? She was just the only way the faltering investigations into Clinton's non-existent criminal behaviors surrounding Whitewater could be ratcheted up to the point they could FORCE a sitting president to testify under oath for anything!

Newt Gingrich flexing his muscles institutes a partial shut down of the government, but Clinton STILL wins a second term in office.

Ironically, although the House wants to Impeach, the Senate acquits. Unlike Nixon, Clinton stayed the course and faced his accusers.

November 2000, George Walker Bush becomes president ONLY after the Supreme Court steps in and makes the decision, beating Al Gore by a questionable margin inheriting the biggest surplus of funds ever.

Clinton DID what we needed him to do as Americans. What happened between him and the women he strayed from his marriage with, that concerns Hillary, Chelsea, and the women...not me...not you.

I don't want to talk about Bush's administration. We were repeatedly lied to. He used a national attack to employ an agenda he had long before he took office, and he gutted the rights of Americans under the Constitution.

His VP shot a man in the face and never had to pay for that assault...He called it an accident? If you or I had committed such an ACCIDENT we'd be in jail faster than we could say our own names.

They outed an active CIA agent...the agency Bush's father directed, because her husband would not perpetuate the lies coming out of the Bush/Cheney administration...and the debt? Where the hell did that huge surplus go? It was already gone BEFORE the attacks of 9/11, so whose got it?

WMD's? They're still MIA because they did not exist except as a smoke screen.

Osama Bin Laden would NEVER have shared power with Saddam any more than Saddam would've shared power with Osama. They HATED each other, as meglomaniacs do!

I loathed the tactics used by Bush against honorable war vets during his second campaign to win that election. He demeaned those who served during the Viet Nam war...and although he served back then, in Texas, I have no recollection of the Viet Cong INVADING Texas...and trust me they WOULD have stood out...so Bush evaded the war as effectively as those who crossed into Canada. but "honorably" because he avoided the draft.

My brother avoided being drafted into the Army...by enlisting for six years in the Navy. Bob's ship suffered one of the biggest losses while in the Viet Nam theater, but he DID avoid the Army too.

Some say history will show Bush to be the best president we've ever had...All I can say to that is...

NO WAY!

History will say Bush got away with not being Impeached because the Country was tired of the false investigations that cost the American people billions against Clinton...Bush and Cheney raped the Constitution...if that is honorable, George Washington, John  Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and Samuel Adams aren't just spinning in their graves, they're arming a revolution to greet these traitors when they cross over.

Just as I know where I was when Kennedy was assisinated I know where I was when two planes flew into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. I lived in NJ...my son worked close enough to the border between NJ and NY that day was not just devastating to me because our Country suffered a crucial blow to our arrogant belief we were safe all the way across the oceans from the fear the rest of the world has lived with since the rise and fall of Hitler, but because I could not make contact EITHER of my children.

The Middle East has been a powder keg since long before the birth of Christ, but prior to 9/11 America felt as safe as we did prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. We're a continent away from all the unrest over there...but it came here then and it's here now.

So given our new reality, where is the sense in the Bush Administration wanting to sell our ports and harbors to Dubai?

This is the son of a former Head of the CIA and a former President...and selling our ports and harbors to Dubai makes sense to his administration after we are attacked on 9/11?

Bush jogs and rides his bicycle into trees, much the way Ford beaned people when he swung his gulf clubs. Ford escalated the Viet Nam Confict...Bush initiates a PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE against Iraq because they have WMD's that still have not materialized? And as a respopnse to Osama Bin Laden's attack on 9/11? 

The Banking Industry splinters, cracks, and needs the government to bail it out...Bush makes it so.

Bush inherited the biggest surplus in the history of this Country, but he leaves the biggest deficit also in the history of this Country when he leaves and the debacles from his handling of Katrina, The Gulf Coast Spill, the War in Iraq, losing sight of why Osama Bin Laden should have been the focus of our war efforts, devastating unemployment, and more headaches than any one man should be expected to fix as quickly as the current president was expected to fix.

I'm an Independent. When Minnesota elected Jesse Ventura, an INDEPENDENT to be their governor back in 1999, I had hopes that maybe his election would make the parties take notice and realize we need change to how things are done. I'm still hoping.