Keith has gone thru tremendous loss in the past year, first his beloved mother and baseball fan Marie Olbermann in April 2009 and her famous run in with Yankees infielder Chuck Knoblauch.
Now as we all know Keith has gone thru the pain of losing his father in a very public and painful way, yet instead of keeping it a private moment, Keith did what Keith does, he educates his viewers and anyone else who will listen, and he invoked a very powerful message this time, it affected my family and me. For that Keith has earned a very special place in my heart, my Jack Cafferty coffee cup can go to the back of the cup board now. Being a disabled vet I collect some strange things, I have a LOT of free time and I used to spend it writing snarky responses to all of the cable channel news shows that asked for viewers responses.
One morning when Jack was still on the CNN morning show with Bill Hemmer, he made the question if we had ever done anything we ever did that we really regreted doing. I wrote in that I wish I had never raised my hand to volunteer for this program chemical weapons and drugs, human experimentation the fact that the Army lied to all of the volunteers about it was beside the point, I really regretted volunteering for it. Jack and I became sort of pen pals after that and he sent an autographed coffee cup that sits on my book case with other keep sakes.
After my exchange with Keith a few weeks ago
Call them! Write them! (219+ / 0-)
My mother went to a doctor a week for the whole of my life. The first time she told me she might never see me again, she was in a hospital and I was starting the 4th Grade the next day. And then three or four years ago she gave up on them. Last March she collapsed getting out of bed and was dead in ten days with never-diagnosed breast cancer and five lesions in the brain. Later my sister realized our mother had hinted there was something wrong. And yet we never knew.
Even after the three of us convened two "life panels" - one for my Dad and one for my Mom, who was still alive - even after I got his instructions and we felt like twenty years of burdens had been lifted from our shoulders - even then, as my father got sick last August he told no one. He was already on the floor where he had slid off the bed, pinned there by weak knees, and he phoned me aboutt something and still didn't say anything.
Your kids can be schmoes or just under-informed but you'll never know till you tell them. Contact me and I'LL write the letter. What's the worst that can happen? It's what's already happening to you, and unknowingly to them, right know.
Sorry to be blunt but as I said they may be bad kids and they may be moved to goodness by finding out - but none of us kids is a mindreader, at least not one with a perfect track record!
"If you're going through hell - keep going!" -- Winston Churchill
by Keith Olbermann on Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 09:43:27 PM EDT
I have been in contact with my children since this, my eldest daughter Susan has taken to the point that she now calls weekly just to say hello, which is a major improvement.
I am not nor was I ever the worlds best parent, I was gone a lot due to military service, I also "cope" with PTSD which is another word used to coverup being an alcoholic, many mights the only way to beat the demons is to drink them to sleep, and my family paid for it, and everyone else I came into contact with. I stopped drinking in 2000, and I seldom have a social drink now and I have not been drunk since Jan 2000.
My family knows my wishes of no "heroic measures" to keep me alive, my body is worn out, when they pour me in for the long dirt nap this body will all be used up. After 55 years and 2 wars and all of the practice in between for them and 17 years of delivering mail I have worn it flat out, and I have no regrets other than Edgewood Arsenal the intent was good, the fact that the recruiters flat out lied about the safetly of the tests, the difference between consent and informed consent, and the forgotten 9 Nazi scientists who worked at the death camps from the mid 30s thru 1945 might have stopped all 7120 of us from "raising our hands" to volunteer.
But Keith you have brought my family closer together while yours was leaving you, and that is a gift no one is more grateful for them I am. Keith you will always be a hero to me. My family comes from a long life of military volunteers going back to 1775, none of them have ever surpassed your selflessness and heroics, and I am sure they all would agree with me on this SALUTE dear sir, you have earned it.