Thoughts of a Common Man

You’ve probably seen the photos by now. The grand American Fair to celebrate 250 Years of Freedom is an absolute bust. Virtually no one showed up. Most of the photos I’ve seen show such a limited number of people that you can actually count them. And of course, we are being told not to believe our eyes. “It’s packed!” The now adjudicated rapist posted. It’s not. They showed the food stands, where the people who yell, “You can save money by not going out for lunch or order a $5 coffee,” were willing to sell you a $9 bottle of water. As I said in an earlier post, I vividly recall the bicentennial celebration back in 1976. Proud Americans, lining up for parades, waving flags, and telling the world that we are the best nation in the world. Now. Crickets. We won’t ever hear the true number of people who showed up. We’ll be told there were hundreds of thousands of people, when I don’t think I counted more than a few hundred people…total…in all the photos I’ve seen. It’s embarrassing. I’m not...

The Bills made a decision I finally agreed with: They aren’t putting Orenthal James Simpson’s name on the wall of honor or ring of honor or whatever the hell they call it when they move into their billions dollar palace. Yep. They took the high road, deciding not to honor a man who nearly decapitated two people. I didn’t  believe it was much of a question, but turns out I was wrong about that. The billions we spent as welfare for the billionaire makes people believe that they should have a say in what happens, and from the comments I see, O.J. should be honored. “We are bending over backwards for the politically correct libtards! The Juice was the greatest Bills player ever. The incident after he retired shouldn’t have no bearing on nothing!” The grammatical disaster of the last sentence aside, I think this genius is pissed about it. And referring to a double murder as an ‘incident’ might show how uncaring people have become. Zero empathy. Totally unhinged. Yeah, the fact that he m...

It’s weird that life just keeps barreling forward as you try and navigate BIG things. I remember thinking exactly that when the boys were born. I stepped out of the hospital back then and saw people doing routine shit, and I recall wanting to yell: “Hey! Slow down! I became a father!” And now, as I go back and forth to the hospital, I see life moving ahead and I’m apt to yell: “Can I get a time out?” On the very day of Kathy’s surgery I received an email with an exclamation point telling me that it was really important. I answered by telling them about the situation and that I wasn’t available. The response was: “Hope it all works out! Do you have time to jump on a quick call to discuss?” I was a tad infuriated. I didn’t respond. But that’s how things go. Everyone has an agenda and their big problem needs to be addressed right FREAKING NOW! And it’s funny, but people also put their own judgement on a private situation. I didn’t golf today, which the world believes is the right decision...

I have the reputation here at Camp Clifford as the guy who wants to live the same week every week, with no change. Awake at the same time. Morning routine is the same, and you can set your watch by how my day winds down. We’ve been in obvious turmoil because of the hospital visit, and I spent two days wandering around the halls  of Buffalo General. I heard a couple of families who were absolutely crushed by the words coming out of the doctor’s mouth. My routine days are just gigantic ‘to-do’ lists and every day I play a game of ‘Beat the Clock’ to see if I can finish everything. There are no ‘to-do’ lists when someone is recovering from what turned into a major operation, and all that is going outside the windows of the perfectly polished halls, doesn’t mean all that much. So, I stayed even keel, and shit-canned thoughts of doing everything else. I filled the water glass, moved the blanket, checked the blood pressure on the crazy monitors hanging behind the bed, and Kathy spoke to ...

It’s truly incredible. The lie is tested out. “It was vandalism.” The reporters don’t push back, but everyone kind of laughs about it, and mentions that it’s insane to even try to tell such a whopper. Step two is to work on the lie. “It was a knife. No wait. It was a box cutter because I told everyone that a knife couldn’t cut it.” 200 feet isn’t a large enough slit to make all the water turn green. So I’ll say it was 300’. Then I’ll mention we arrested people, and are investigating it. So, they try a new lie. “It’s sick. Vandals. They definitely loved Clinton and Obama. Sick, sick people. They jumped in and made a 350’ slit down the floor and started ripping up pieces. Then they ripped up the lawn. That was a fan of Comey, he’s a crooked cop. And Barrak HUSSEIN Obama, who is stupid. Sick, sick people.” The media tries a couple of questions, just for fun. “There is camera surveillance of the reflecting pond. Did they not see the vandals?” “It’ll come out during the investigation.” “We ...

We downplayed the surgery all week. “Everything will be good. You’ll feel better.” On the way into surgery Kathy reminded me, “I’m not done torturing you yet.” I brought a Michael Connelly book, and we arrived at 5:30 AM. Just a procedure. The time that she was in surgery was a lot longer than either of us expected and as I sat there, I heard the doctor break some very bad news to a family seated in the waiting room next door. Tears of disbelief. Heart-wrenching sadness… …and I was getting texts that said, “Still in OR.” The doc came out and gave me the news: “It went well, as expected. Give it some time, and a nurse will come get you.” Back to Connelly. Hiding in a fictional world, where I do all my best hiding. Was finally time to see the patient. Turns out, I wasn’t ready. I had flashbacks to seeing my Dad in the hospital bed when he had kidney surgery. And all the days of seeing my brother under the covers with tubes and machines. Now Kathy was there, and she was out. “Few more hou...