Good morning folks, welcome to the Thursday edition of Morning Open Thread.
First the boilerplate:
We're known as the MOTley Crew and you can find us here every morning at 6:30 Eastern. Feel free to volunteer to take a day - permanently or just once in awhile. With the auto-publish feature you can set it and forget it. Sometime, the diarist du jour shows up much later, that's the beauty of Open Thread...it carries on without you! Just let us know in the comments. You can click on the Morning Open Thread "heart" if you'd like us to show up in your stream every day.
Doing one of these diaries is a good way to get your feet wet if you have been hesitant about writing a diary. You can write as much or as little as you want. The audience here is always supportive.
Well,that was easy enough.
I am James, aka exlrrp. I have been here on kos for quite some time now and know a lot of people here. I come here every day, usually in the early morning, then I'm off for the day. I have had my causes and my eras and this is a good place to comment on them.
I'm 63 years old, retired, disabled veteran. I live in a small town in Oregon a little ways north of Eugene (the only town in OR most people know besides Portland) I am a native Californian, lived most of my life there, but moved here in 2005. My wife, then my girlfriend, and I sold our properties right at the peak of the bubble (as history proved) and bought a 10 acre spread. (Largest check I ever wrote!)
I just love living in OR, I wouldn't live anywhere else. Gotta live here to understand that but here's just one pleasant reason: no sales tax. Another one: Blue State, and one that balances its budget every year. I knew I could live here when I saw all the Kerry signs. I can go to the beach one weekend, go skiing the next, I live within an hour and a half of both. Its also got a mellow vibe----you get badvibed for being a Californian sometimes (like down South) but everybody likes Oregon. They have a vision of forests and rivers and waterfalls and trees and mellow people living in yurts and log cabins---and thats EXACTLY how it is too! (;-O)
I live on a hill in the middle of a 50 square mile tree farm. I can't see my nearest neighbor's house, 3/4 mile away. People who know me from SMHRB know I'm always fixing up the house. Welcome to the Lazy J
See below:
I am a lifelong Democrat(first presidential vote: McGovern) and anybody who knows me knows I am a liberal, its how I self identify. Its why I came to this site originally. Do not take this as a blanket approval of Democrats, however, especially lately. But thats the way I vote and its the way I will ALWAYS vote.
Its been a very interesting life, I can say from the safety of old age and security. I've traveled far and done a lot. I was a US Army paratrooper for 3 years(43 jumps,) spent one of those in Vietnam in the airborne infantry and the lrrps---which came to be known later as Rangers.
I am on the left in this picture, in the Ia Drang VAlley, not far from where the We Were Soldiers Battle HAd taken place couple of years earlier. We were then surveilling what was known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail which was actually a huge road system and infrastructure.
I went to Vietnam thinking we'd win but left knowing we'd lose from what I saw there. When Westy made his Light At the End of the tunnel Speech I knew we'd lose.It was obvious we didn't have a handle on the situation at all, as the Tet Offensive, which I lived through, proved. Pretty damn prescient for a 19 year old but there, as the saying went, it is. ( I love it when I'm right all the time, hehe)
I got out in Jan 69, went to college just in time to get into the protest movement. Living in Berkeley (I was going to a CC: DVC in Concord) I saw a lot of this played out right in front of me.
I was a minor functionary of the Student Mobilization Comittee, settting up rides to protests and fund raising events like rock concerts (met Carlos Santana, Boz Scaggs and others) Later, when I returned to Vietnam in 2003, knowing I'd protested the war made it a lot easier to look the VIetnamese in the eye when I returned to Vietnam.
I went from there into heavy construction as a welder in power plants and refineries. One thing being in the Army had done for me was to get me off the block and into airports, traveling wordwide. By the time I was 20 I'd lived 2 years overseas in Panama and Vietnam. I liked that and it wasn't so common in the 60s as it is now. I worked and lived in several places in the 70's including Hawaii, Alaska, Louisiana, South America.
In 1981 a life changing event occurred for me: my son was born. I was on my 2d wife by then, living in Chico CA. She was a professor of Spanish at CSUC and we traveled a lot through Latin America, especially Mexico---she was an expert on the literature, knew several authors. I got better than bueno at speaking Spanish. I got my CA General Contractors License then and that was how I made my living from then on untill the mid-90s--building and remodeling houses and buying them, fixing them up and selling them. In the mid 90s I got into home inspection and did that untill I retired in 2003, when the VA kicked my pension up to 100%.
I moved back to the SF Bay Area in the late 80s and lived there in several places untill I moved here.
Since I retired, Ive traveled a lot---Europe, South America, Asia. My son, now 30, lives in Santiago Chile. He owns two restaurants. I go there every year now, I have 2 granddaughters there, Sigrid and Luciana. Sigrid's picture is on my profile (which I need to update) Luciana's latest picture is below. Note Grampa's clever use of subliminal messaging
So now I spend my days working on my house, golfing, traveling, going to the gym. I feel very very fortunate just to be alive. (see sig) 3 years ago I went through brachytherapy for prostate cancer ( and boy was THAT a pain in the ass, literally!!) 2.5 years ago I had an almost fatal heart attack---if mrs e hadn't pushed me into the car and headed for the fire station I would be dead now, and that is no bultaco! That was the same day Michael JAckson died, I watched it from the ICU, no bul there either. I walked away 4 days later but he's still dead. Very sad, it can be truly said too much money killed him.The VA paid for every dime of both of these, BTW, though I spent 4 days in a civilian hospital ICU (total bill: $94,000 and public money was never better spent!).
Seeing as how I have 3 brothers and there's no trace of heart problems (iskemic) in my family, nor any trace of prostate cancer, I must conclude that it is Souvenir of Vietnam. I even get extra pay for NonFunctional Organ (I'm not going to say which one)
The picture I'd like to leave you with is me in Pleiku 2003. I'm the one in the red shirt. I had a blast while I was there. The surest way to always have a good time when you go places is always take a good time with you!
OK, so enough about me. Its an Open Thread, open up some threads