I was encouraged by the news at the end of the year that Karl Rove was going through a divorce and Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital near death. Could Dick Cheney's spontaneous combustion be far behind? My first thought?...maybe God does answer prayers. I'm teasing of course. We all know that God doesn't answer prayers. In fact if I didn't know better sometimes I think God enjoys bitch slapping a few of us every now and again just to get our attention. The decade just passed was that way for me but more of a kick in the head than a slap. It started with a devastating divorce and ended with an economic disaster rivaling The Great Depression. Kudos on the Karma, Yahweh. In betwixt the beginning and end were two deaths in my family within months of each other, Katrina shortly thereafter and then the slow and painful realization that my employer of 34 years was going under and belly up. In many ways the Decade of The Multiple Zero was just that for me. Adversity with a capital A and zero headway. There's a quote that I like to reference every now and then, by Victor Hugo and it says, "Adversity makes men, Prosperity makes monsters." This past decade serves as proof of that statement. Let's take the last part first...prosperity. In and of itself it is not a bad thing. It means you're doing well and living comfortably. There's nothing wrong with that unless that same prosperity becomes a means to defraud the masses and thereby designate them as acceptable casualties of what we laughingly call democracy and the free market sacred cow. As the smoke has cleared we can finally see the monsters for what they pretend to be. Ambitious, devious, amoral men who disguise themselves as honest politicians and well- meaning public servants; human demons posing as good hearted business men, Wall Street Wizkids and captains of industry...stacking the deck against the average joe. To be fair, it is a system that we all agree to, if not by clear consent certainly then by our apathy and silence. And unfortunately it is this system that feeds the monsters and allows them to grow. It gives them their power and corrupts them so completely that their wickedness becomes an awesome thing to behold. They own it with dark glee. Prosperity turned to extravagance and excess and insulated by privilege and power. Is it any wonder that in this past decade the top 1% of Americans accumulated the largest share of total income since the 1920's, and paid a much lower rate of income tax than 80 years ago. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. And when you consider that 10 million more workers are competing for the same number of jobs now than in the year 2000 it becomes clear that the majority of us have been had. To quote an enlightened source, "power is a drug on which politicians are hooked. They buy it from the voters, using the voters' own money." Sound familiar? I strongly suspect that even the voting is rigged these days. Politicians and Capitalists ...if you say it fast enough, they almost sound respectable. If God did answer prayers, as a genie grants wishes, He would strike them down for me with impunity as an example of what Supreme righteousness will tolerate from disobedient children. But that will never happen because God does not interfere. He leaves it to us to respond and fix. Which brings me to my next point...which is me. The adversity that I personally suffered over the past decade revealed a part of my nature that had never been tested before. I would stop short of saying that my life had been previously charmed, but for the most part it was easy and fun. Few complaints. Beginning in 2000 though that suddenly changed and the one quality that I possessed that helped me through it all was my odd sense of humor and absurdity. The divorce was no picnic. I drank alone and way too much. I cried and spent many hours of each day feeling sorry for myself and searching for some kind of comfort but there was none. And then I finally woke up and got mad. Good and bad at the same time. I could tell you stories about my behavior back then that would make you laugh and then nod your head in disapproval.
Suffice it to say that certain members of local law enforcement got to know me well. It was during this period that I briefly (overnight) saw the inside of a jail cell for the first time. The officer who supervised the jail was a friend of mine and lovingly referred to his facility as Oz (like the TV show.) I later gave him a "Wizard of Oz" poster to hang in his office as a thank you gift for his hospitality. Soon after, I started my body building phase where I resolved to become a hunk.
After all, I had to get back out into the social scene again and proof to myself and everyone else that I could still hang. I'll just say this. Anger is a great motivator. I got tremendous results and positive reinforcement from those around me. I got the attention of several women...attractive women. It was a new experience for me to be approached and asked out by women who barely knew me, but it happened and it made me cocky once again. It lifted me out of my divorcee mentality and back into a more reckless attitude left over from my youthful single days. But it was short lived and I was uncomfortable with that mindset. I was, after all, a single parent raising two young boys on my own, with little assistance from their mother at the time. It actually got a little dangerous after a while too, because those who went out with me had old relationships that were still warm to the touch. Not quite over yet. I think that was the problem with all of us. We were trying to show others that no serious damage to our pride or ego had been done and that we wouldn't skip a beat between one relationship to another. To be honest I just didn't have it in me to go back to that lounge life on the weekends. It was depressing. Too much time had gone by. I wanted my life back as it had been but things got worse. I developed a hernia that needed fixing and that slowed me down even more. There were rumors at the time that I had fallen deathly ill and was in the hospital. But it was only a hernia repair. My ex laughed and told me that I had been working out too hard. Thanks for the input dear. There was a healing process that had to take place both physically and emotionally for me.
What I had recovered in self confidence was offset by my inability to trust others. I had been so completely blindsided by the betrayal.
As I healed I also made the conscious decision to once again act responsibly as an adult and father. I don't think my children , who were 11 and 8 years old, noticed much at the time. I never showed them that side of myself and I vowed silently to never give them any reason to be ashamed of me or ,for that matter, doubt my love for them. If there was any good thing that came out of the divorce, it was that I stepped up and did the hard work of rebuilding our lives.
It was that same resolve that got me, and my sons,
through the Katrina disaster as the storm ripped through our world, with it's brutal winds and sideways rain, and for awhile I felt as if I had truly been transported to Oz . We had stayed through the storm, and it was magnificent in its ability to destroy all that was familiar to us. There were no witches or munchkins, just destruction. I remember on that particular day when the three of us decided to leave town, not knowing if we would be able to find enough gas to get to a relative's house far enough away to feel like we were back to reality and normalcy. It was a frightening prospect that we might actually find ourselves stranded out in the middle of nowhere. But we did it and when we returned, I took on the awesome responsibility of cleaning up the monumental mess at home and at work. In many respects it was my finest hour as a father and a human being. It made me get up off the floor and do what had to be done.
As the decade ended I again found myself in a world unfamiliar to me. My job was gone and prospects were dismal for finding another. It was a humbling experience and one that I continue to struggle with. I get a strong sense these days that the world is changing for everyone...maybe more dramatically for some than others. But I think the day we'll come in the very near future when we will all have to examine our priorities and step up to the changes facing this country. I hope to have a say in those changes if I am able. One first has to get angry and look at what they are, and then decide what they want themselves, and the world around them, to ultimately be. This decade has provided many of us with what can best be described as the moment of truth..how things really are and what they should be. I hope I can step up.
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