The Culture that has been here all the time

I hope anyway. I know it is a long shot, but if I win the lottery, I will wrap up things here and on my move to Switzerland to visit my family in Iceland.

I dreamt the winter was snowy and very cold in the old days. My best friend and I discovered the large pond at the bottom of the abandoned clay mine was frozen solid. We took turns on an old metal runner and wood sleigh dashing down the rim of the pit onto the pond, and it was a swift and long ride. When we got tired, we made a sail out of an old sheet and sailed around the pond. We then got our ice skates and returned to skate until darkness approached. The chill at that moment was getting inside our marrow, and we debated whether to go home. We simultaneously gazed at the old pump house shack and noticed a metal chimney reaching up for the sky. We skated over to the door and were delighted it was not locked. We went inside.

Out of the winter wind, it felt better instantly. We immediately spied the amal pot-belly stove in the middle of the room—benches on either side and a table against a small window. There was a pile of kindling and some larger pieces of wood for the stove. We found a yellow newspaper torn two pages from it, made a crumpled ball, and put it inside the stove. We put some kindling on top of the paper and truck a wooden match from a jar on the table next to a kerosene lamp. Soon, the stove had a warming blaze, so we placed more significant pieces of wood inside, sat on the benches, and relished the new warmth in the shack.

Smoke swirled outside the window, and we warmed ourselves, especially our hands and feet. The pleasant aroma of the wood fire and the warmth were enjoyable. The sun was setting, so we lit the lamp and rested.

I woke up in my warm bed, but the room was cold, and the sun had not yet risen. All was dark.

It is a new year, but all my efforts to find ways to get help as a caregiver for my wife have all ended with nothing. She still can walk (shaky) and eat, so there is no HOSPICE, and our doctor hasn't prescribed the necessary evaluation.

I lack funds for private help, and our tiny retirement fund blocks most, if not all, extra aid beyond regular Part C Medicare.

Is this what the US is becoming? The space patrol sends Flash's* best friend to investigate a planet where it is reported that mercy is a crime and the weak are exploited. . . . —David Bassler

*)

Dreaming about being free enough to sit in a restaurant and have someone serve me and someone else wash the dishes. It hasn't happened for years. The thought brought up my memories of working sound and lights for Richie Havens ant the Cafe Wha several times in the 1960s.

Lonely times damaged me, and I may be too far gone.

In the present, we see groups of people on Earth that could be classified by potential based on how much intelligence they manifest: 1. Brilliant and 2. Not Smart at all.

One professor in college explained it this way without any reference to race: In one culture, intelligent people were not permitted to marry and have children, but in another culture, intelligent people were encouraged to marry and have children. He explained that the result was that in the culture where smart people were encouraged to marry and have children, that culture had increased numbers of smart people. And the level of intellect grew higher as well.

This, coupled with negatives such as criminals passing on their negative tendencies as well as cruelty, was passed on in some cultures in a similar manner. The examples were not racial but vividly based on culture.

A friend told me once, "Some people should not be allowed to reproduce based on their behavior." Simplistic and dangerous, yes. Mainly because who gets to decide which people are worthy of reproduction and which are not? We know of one time during the twentieth century when this was extreme in Europe.

Have you ever decided not to think about or participate in intimate sex?

Is it easy? It is for a little while, but suddenly, like being caught in a snare, something or someone traps you. He or she lures you into that lust-filled ache feeling within you that was sleeping. 

What if then you have no choice because you do not have a lover?

For me, endure and give up. It will pass, and I will fall back into the nothing I was lured out of.

Place yourself back when you were young, and the thought of finding the right soulmate filled your heart and mind. OK, some of us let our youthful hormones rule us, and we seemed out of control with sexual desire. However, even after a wild youth, a wild time in the army, and two marriages and two children, I finally settled down. Circumstances as to why my second marriage ended were outside the norm and affected by having a son with a serious heart defect. His mom, an RN, truly believed he would die young and left us.

Even in the most distracted years of my youth, I hoped for that one true love. Aside from the health issue of my son, the first two marriages were also in trouble because of things about me I failed to recognize clearly. That all changed when I became a single parent with my 18-month-old son and was gifted my 14-year-old Madonna clone daughter. Even her abusive boyfriend enlightened me. The stage was set for a new life.

My third wife, with a boy and a girl of her own, connected, and we repaired our two damaged households the best we could. The other parents were not as disciplined, so it was as if we were the bad guys many times, back to romantic love.

We began hardly knowing each other but were willing to learn, adaptive, and put an effort into communication. We shared many mutual experiences with our kids, but when just she and I focused on our relationship. We built trust and memories a little at a time and, over forty years, managed to avoid past mistakes, and we worked through challenges in child rearing, job losses, and almost losing our home twice. Yes, the forty-year shared journey that began with 'Let death do us part and remains so even as I care for her with amplified dementia (ADA).

No, it isn't happiness. It is a form of contentment, knowing I can keep my word without receiving any benefit beyond that.