Just sayin’…

Let me tell you that Sarah is still with us, still maintaining her own indomitability as you Malamutes are apt to do. She remains a joy in our–David’s and my–lives. No, Sweet Melissa, she has not replaced you. She is simply (or gloriously) a loving, giving constant in our lives. She does, like you did, remind us that things of supposed great import to the world, pale against what we have come to know as the inveterate worth of dogs.

I suppose I should tell you that Berkeley Lake –the circumference of which we–you and me, Sweet Melissa–would run every morning (little did I know then that arthritis had infested your joints, and that probably every single step you took was taken in agony) has become a veritable wasteland. They, the city has drained the lake and have apparently hired contractors to do what was encompassed in the now years-old bond issue that promised so much for the lake, the park. That is fine. But, I do wonder, now that lake is drained, where the Night Heron sings. Ah, yes… I’m sure the critters who called Berkeley Lake home, or just tarried there for a while have found other sites for their particular respite, their sustenance.

Oh, forgive me–I know you, as well as Sarah–do wonder why such nonsense should enfold. But, I must tell you that the little female squirrel who first approached us almost two years ago (she was unafraid, she was perhaps unlearned in the ways of most human beings) as a very small, newly born innocent, and who inched up to my hand in which I held a peanut, is still here, visiting our back porch at least twice, sometimes three times a day. Yes, I give her almonds, peanuts, cashews and macadamia nuts. She eats from my hand. She is absolutely unafraid of me. Indeed, when I took this pic, my camera chose to flash its strobes against her tarry on the roof of the shed. She didn’t even blink with the unsettling flashes. She is getting fat, now that it is fall and (she may be pregnant)–surely she knows better than us–that winter is chugging this way. She is fattening up. I’m sorry, Sweet Melissa, but this gives me joy, too. Sarah shares what I’m sure would be your response to this “idiocy”–for heaven’s sake, they are just tree rats!–with what I know you would not so much discern as a distaste for me feeding the little critter, but rather a distaste for the attention I give to her. As I have told Sarah, she is still my “main squeeze”–and feeding the little critter is, well, just incidental to the simple gifts life has brought to me. Sarah doesn’t buy it. I suspect you wouldn’t either.

The Autumn Blaze maple we planted in the back yard atop your earthly remains has begun to show its stuff. All the leaves will soon turn, the beauty of such a thing so reminiscent of you, dear heart. It is a robust tree, now–after five years–asserting its intent to surge upward and outward. I do believe I may have to trim it back a bit before the first snowfall. Each glance I give to the tree provides only a dip into that space and time when you were our “perfect princess.” And you were perfect, Sweet Melissa. So perfect. But–as I believe David would say–you knew that. You had a sense of yourself as potent as the inclination of a tree to rise and spread, quite ambivalent to the mere caprices of the human animal.

I do not believe that I’ve told you about my horse (another critter that I’m sure you would not take kindly to) who has, for the last two years, consumed my time, my attention, my love. Suffice it to say, this little boy, has become another singular joy in my life, even though he has dumped me (bucked me off him) twice, the second time resulting in the very real possibility I would end my days on this earth from the injuries inflicted.

But, I remain committed to his well-being. And, even though my trainer had suggested I never ride again–even the gentlest of horses stumble on occasion–I pursue a future for this little guy, beyond just retiring him and classifying him as a “pet.” Horses deserve a chance to be useful, productive; they deserve a future full of possibilities. And, to that end, my trainer has delved into the possibility my little guy, Shy, might become a jumper–a horse ensconced in the joy and adventure of leaping wooden posts, of flying, just for a moment, across and over the wooden barriers set out for just such a thing. I pray he takes well to this new adventure. I know that I will probably never ride him again. I regret that, Sweet Melissa. But, hell, you already know that.

Sleep, play, run with the rabbits, Sweet Melissa. I suppose I envy what joy you are experiencing at this time. I do not wish to join you anytime soon. Still, there remains my urgent wish, my mantra, that at the end of my days on this earth I will see you again; I will see you free of the arthritis that plagued you; I will see you as I remember you–that indomitable presence that so enriched the world, our world, our little world where you insisted that you were Sweet Melissa, equal to none, champion of our bare understanding of things more potent, more intense, more important than that thing we, humans, call ego.

Be well, Sweet Melissa.

We loved you then, we love you now.

Rolling Stones, “Sister Morphine”

Can you ride or not?
Hell, yeah, I can ride.
I was riding when I fell off.
I’m a regular buckaroo.
Certified damn bronc peeler.

Paraphrasing Cormac McCarthy, “All the pretty horses”

I do not know where four or five days of my life during the past month have gone. There is that inarticulate haze through which I am able to see snippets of visions, sounds, nightmarish traipses to very dark and dangerous places, of voices that ebb and flow, telling me one thing or another that seem at first to make sense then don’t. The haze, however, is not sufficiently substantive to allow me to snatch those four or five days back whole, safe and sound, to the place we call memory. No, they are essentially gone. Whatever substance they may once have had slips further away. Even now as I write this, I still feel the slip, slip, slip of it all, of those days, those accumulation of moments I shall never be able to retrieve.

It all began simply enough. On the morning of Friday, July 23rd, I drove to the stable where I keep my horse, Shy. He, as always, was waiting for me, knowing that my arrival meant copious amounts of candy would be palmed for him to lip up. Whether or not he also anticipated some satisfaction in the grooming–the brushing, the picking of the feet–is unsure. I suspect he does enjoy it. After the grooming, I worked him in a large round pen, snapping a lunge line onto his halter, and moving him in circles with the occasional crack or simple twirl of a whip at his hindquarters. He responded well. He was a little lazy, a little mellow through about twenty minutes of lunging. No Ya Yas (kicking, bucking, disrespect for me) emerged as I worked him to a canter.

It did not at first occur to me that it had been almost one year exactly that Friday morning, the 23rd of July, since Shy had dumped me. Yes, on July 20th, 2010, I came away from the stable in an ambulance. I would spend only three or four days in the hospital with three fractured vertebrae, including my sacrum, and another six months recovering from that accident. But this year, on July 23rd, that unfortunate incident a year ago had not even crossed my mind. Over the past two years since I had acquired him, Shy had shown himself to be a sweet horse, a smart little guy who rarely spooked, and when he did it usually encompassed nothing more than simply standing his ground, studying the new or different phenomena that had crossed his senses and then, after satisfying himself no threat existed, moving on.

So, on that Friday, nearly a month ago, after the grooming, after the good lunging time, I had a choice: I could either tack up Shy and ride him around the stable property, or just walk him up to his favorite grazing spot and let him eat grass for a bit before I put him back in his stall, with me heading for home. The somewhat inordinate amount of time I spent making that decision now, after all that has happened, hints that there was a prescience to those several moments of decision making. I did not understand the depth of that prescience. And, in not understanding, I tacked up my boy, put on my helmet, and pulled on my Luccheses. I inched Shy toward the mounting block, held my reins tight, gently voiced a “Whoa,” put my left foot in the stirrup and swung my right leg up and over his hindquarters.

It is, of course, axiomatic that if your horse is going to blow up the best place for you to witness such a thing is not on that horse’s back. When a horse blows up there’s usually a lot of bucking, kicking, and a very determined effort by that horse to skedaddle from the source of what they perceive to be a danger, a threat. Suffice it to say, I was atop Shy when he blew up Friday, July 23rd, and managed to maintain my balance and hold on for two bucks. The third buck sent me flying off Shy’s left side. I hit the ground hard, landing mostly on my left side. The fact that I was able to move my legs pretty much immediately after the fall–I had, after all, been through this before–convinced me (wrongly, as it turned out) that I was relatively intact…no fractured spine, no broken bones.

Of course news of a dumping spreads pretty quickly through a stable, and I was soon surrounded by my trainer, the owner of the stable, some stable hands,  and a couple other fellow owners/riders. Since I was relatively mobile, the ladies left it up to me to decide what needed to be done, whether or not I felt I needed the emergency room, an ambulance, or just transportation to medical care. I chose the latter, and a fellow owner/rider was kind enough to take me to the nearest Kaiser complex.

At Kaiser I complained of left side and groin area pain. X-rays of my ribs and pelvis were taken, revealing three fractured ribs, 5, 6, and 7. The picture of the pelvis looked fine. I was sent off on that Friday to recover with a goodly supply of Percocet to ease the pain that would surely infest my life for some time to come.

David had, of course–God love him!–taken a cab from work to the stable, and was waiting to drive me home when I arrived back at the stable from my trip to Kaiser. I don’t recall us discussing it on the way home, but I’m sure my continued horse riding–or, at least, my continued interaction with Shy–was surely on both our minds as something needing resolution before I managed to break my neck in some future mishap.

Through Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the fractured rib pain persisted, but so too did the groin discomfort, and soon another little twist emerged. My abdomen seemed to be either swelling or tightening up. I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. And with that ever increasing discomfort, I dug out the leftover supply of Dilaudid from my first accident almost exactly a year ago, and began popping those little devils in preference to the Percocet. By Monday, I was feeling pretty miserable, and when David came home from work I reported that I had thrown-up several times and that I thought I should go to the emergency room. Something was not right. Sure, I had fractured ribs. But there was something else going on, something…well, different than what one would expect from just fractured ribs.

David took me to St. Joe’s, where I was seen relatively quickly. It was then, beginning at St. Joe’s where time began to lose its substance for me, the place where those four or five days of my life’s moments, now lost, began to slip, slip, slip.

I remember distinctly a trauma doc and a nurse hovered over me, one’s hand over my eyes, the trauma doc’s voice telling me I needed a tube to my stomach that would relieve the pressure in my abdomen. I remember the tear of paper, a measuring out of the tube, the nurse saying something like, “I really like the silicon ones,” then the doc admonishing me that once the tube cleared my sinuses (they stuck it up my nose) I needed to “Swallow, swallow, swallow, swallow, George, just keep swallowing.” I remember experiencing their delight in watching the profusion of liquid emerge from my stomach, up that tube and into the jar-like container to which they’d attached the other end. I remember them asking me if what I had thrown-up earlier had tasted like feces, and I remember responding that I didn’t know, that I’d never tasted feces. (To this day, that question from the docs seems, oh, at least strange, a little odd.) From then on, if you can believe it, things pretty much flowed downhill. I’m sure I was beginning to be infused with morphine, fluids and god knows what else, as I was soon transported from St. Joe’s to Good Samaritan Hospital up north, toward Lafayette. St. Joe’s is not a “trauma” hospital, and Kaiser’s trauma patients are therefore sent up north to Good Samaritan. I had spent three or four days at Good Samaritan after my accident a year ago, and surely, oh, most surely preferred Good Samaritan to St. Joe’s.

Snippets. Incomplete scenarios played out, over and over again with no particular end and no particular beginning. The comings and goings of sweet-faced nurses demanding I use the wretched plastic device that somehow–how?–would save my lungs from pneumonia which I already had, not to mention the lower lobes of my lungs already damaged from my fall. (It would be only after I emerged from those four or five days of viciously sublime ignorance that I learned of my true physical state.) Nurses poking my stomach with needles full of Heparin–”A little poke, a little burn….”–then injecting something into my I.V. line, then admonishing me over and over again to use the despised plastic thingy to breathe, breathe, breathe. My legs were swelling with fluid, becoming twice as round as they usually were. I did not care. I floated in and out of awareness, never really understanding all the fuss. Soon I was told that every ten minutes I could inject myself with morphine: “See, every time this light comes on–it’s kind of a bull’s-eye, see?–you can press this button and get more morphine. Very simple. Every time you need it just press the button.” And I did. Oh, I did take comfort in Sister Morphine…over and over and over again.

The dreams, the nightmares were the worst. I do not know if I ever really slept during those four or five days. I suspect I did. A little. I do know that over and over I crept to the edge of a very dark place, a hole where, on my hands and knees, I looked over the edge and saw… I do not remember the details. I do not remember the specifics. I only know that what I saw was more fire than ice, dark, dark scramblings of viciously unkind creatures intent on inflicting pain, hideously celebrated pain. Then I recall, in more lucid moments, seeing my old friend Tom Bonner who, just a couple months before, had died from the effects of bacterial infested lungs following surgery to create a pseudo-esophagus (his esophagus had been found to be cancer-laden, and required excision and recreation from stomach tissue). I recall acknowledging something like, “Tom’s lungs did him in. Your lungs, Georgie boy, your lungs are about to do the same. Bon Voyage, Georgie boy. Bon Fucking Voyage.” I never did see Tom’s face beckoning me to… I suppose, no, I know it was a comfort that Tom did not urge me to join him…wherever it was he had gone.

David tells me that my first week in the hospital had me on a surgery ward where not much in the way of extraordinary effort was put forth on my behalf, on behalf of the continuance of my life. David tells me that he had no reasonable alternative toward the end of that first week but to get “butch” with the whole medical team at Good Samaritan, and demand something, just something on my behalf. David believed I was dying. Perhaps I was. And, whatever “butch” he was able to exert did bring the attention of the chief internal medicine doc at Good Samaritan to peek in on me. By that time, as David tells it, I had balled myself up in a fetal position, and had turned “blue.” The chief internal medicine doc observed it all with the determinable conclusion that I needed to immediately be moved to the ICU where I would spend a week.

This is all second-hand from David: 1) All those fluids they were infusing me with were discontinued, or diminished significantly. If your lungs aren’t working, you’re not dispelling fluids–thus the swelling in the legs. 2) A breathing device was brought in and, each night, a kindly technician placed what I, in my stupor, called a “Captain America” mask (a goggle-like face piece) that when turned on pushed, pushed, pushed oxygen into my lungs in what seemed like a totally random rhythm, not mirroring my normal inhalation/exhalation at all. 3) Massive–no, I don’t know if it was “massive” or not–doses of antibiotics were fed into my I.V. line. My feet and ankles were encase in soft, comfy open-toed sock-like thingys that attached to a compressor unit and, through the night, inflated and deflated, thus encouraging blood flow through my legs. Doctors came and went–the chief internal medicine doc, the chief surgery doc, the chief pulmonary doc, physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners, aides, technicians, priests and preachers, all passed through my door. And, it was on the second or third day I was in the ICU that I emerged from that dark and dangerous place and time where nothing was guaranteed, where oblivion was valued simply because it provided comfort away, oh so far away, from the reality of the world.

I do not, to this day, know the extent of the physical damage done to my body from the second fall from my horse. I will visit with my primary care physician soon and may, just may get some idea of the progress of my aging feebleness, exacerbated by my latest horse accident. And now that I reread what I’ve written, I hereby take pains to absolve my boy, my Shy from any responsibility for what happened. He is a horse, for goodness sake. He witnesses everything, and if he witnessed a threat during the my mount on that day, almost a month ago, then so be it. He responded as a horse. I do not condemn him for that. It was what it was. Period.

I have visited my boy Shy once since the accident. David came along, as I was/am not yet comfortable handling my boy. David brushed him out, but, as always, drew the line at picking his feet. That’s fine. I’m sure my trainer will take care of his feet. I haltered Shy, attached his lead rope, and let David take him up the hill to his favorite grazing spot. I followed behind, breathing more quickly, more forced than usual. It was good to see my boy. He’s as handsome as ever, and seems to be filling out–his musculature along his loins and hindquarters, shoulders is notable.

The upshot (what a peculiar word!) to all of this and, perhaps, to what those of you who are horsepeople have already concluded, is most certainly what my future is with regard to horseback riding and, specifically, what’s to become of my boy Shy.

Firstly, I have determined that another fall from a horse–Shy or any other horse–would, most likely, end in my demise. I do not believe I would survive it. After two serious falls, after the shake and bake my lungs, my gut, my heart, my innerds  have gone through over the past two years, I do believe I will leave fate as a lonely hunter with regard to my further tempting of the same upon the back of one horse or another. (I just learned today that a recent x-ray of my lungs still, STILL shows fluid where, of course, fluid should not be.)

The crux, the sad, sad crux of this whole thing is what to do with Shy. Oh, I do so love my boy. I do admit, freely, I have wept a few times into my pillow knowing that Shy’s fate is really not in my hands; I understand that others are now left to take a look at my boy, to size him up, to consider his potential, his history, to simply consider his worth as a horse in service to human beings. Oh, what bullshit, I think this all is. What utter bullshit this all is when it comes to Shy, my boy, the horse with the kindly eyes I gathered to my soul two years ago on those scrubby hills of South Routt County, Colorado. I chose him for his eyes, and the allure of a black-faced bay, a want so terribly urgent, so terribly enticing that no horse, ever, could have clouded my desire for this particular horse this shy horse who, from the moment I saw him for the first time, stole my heart…lock, stock and barrel, as they say.

Okay. Truths. I will probably never ride a horse again. Even the most gentlest of steeds may, on occasion, trip, falter, spook. I have become a fragile partner to a horse. My horse, my love, Shy is up for sale. Oh, lord knows I would give him away to a good home, a good owner, a good horseperson who is able to see his potential, his utter quietly intense view of the world about him. I do not know why he blew up that day. All I know is that he’s blown up only twice in the past two years. (Unfortunately, I was on him both times.)

I am a romantic. I will not deny it. Sure, my life has probably been significantly shortened by the unexplained caprice of a horse. (Caprice is probably not the correct word. Reactive stimuli from a perceived threat, maybe?) I do regret that. But I will tell you here and now that if I would have had it any other way, I would never have chosen anything other than the privilege of the stomp, the clomp, the determinable kick or buck or heavy snort or blow from the precious mien of a critter who witnesses everything of this earth, who sees every nuance, every snippet, every event of this earth with an eye guided sure and swift by something, just something that we, as humans, have lost along the way. If there is a God, a horse’s snort, a horse’s blow is a simple prayer, an utterly sublime prayer that the earth is good, that life is good, that the urge upon urge upon urge to run, to be free is good, is fulfilling, is…

I’ve gone on too long. I apologize. I hope you get the point of all this. Be well. And, please, don’t fall off your horse.

P.S. The comment from Mary, below, is enlightening, sadly encompassing much of what I experienced in the hospital. It brought me back to an incident after David raised hell with the docs. The head pulmonary doc–obviously, now that I think about it, was pretty completely befuddled by my dire condition–and certainly understanding David and I were “together,” had me sign a release for an HIV blood test, and kept talking a about a bronchoscopy with lavage. Now, having lived through the emergence of HIV/AIDS, I knew what a bronchoscopy with lavage entailed–an invasive procedure where the lungs are “washed” via a tube inserted in the bronchus and a dye injected therein–and recalled someone who’d had the test done describing it as “…a little drowning.” And, I knew absolutely what the pulmonary doc would be looking for–Pneumocystis carinii  pneumonia. This insidious pneumonia is common to HIV/AIDS patients. Yes, with the HIV test and the pulmonary doc talking about a bronchoscopy, I knew where she was going with this. Sure, she was baffled by my condition, and she’d put two and two together: this man is a homosexual, and by golly, by gee, (light bulb popping on!) I’ll bet my hunch is right on–he’s got PCP. Suffice it to say, even in my deepest stupor, I absolutely refused the bronchoscopy. Yes, I let her have my blood to rule out HIV. But, to let her stick a tube into my lungs, “wash” my lungs with fluid (the lower lobes of my lungs had, by this time, collapsed) was something even I knew was dangerous and unnecessary. I didn’t need any more trauma to my lungs. Thank you very much. 

What was and remains curious to me, however, was the pulmonary doc’s assumption. There I was, a 62 year-old gay man, who’d been in a monogamous relationship for nearly thirty years, and yet the pulmonary doc’s assumption was Gay=HIV/AIDS. She didn’t even inquire about my and David’s relationship. She just made her assumptions. It was left to the internal medicine doc to ask that pertinent question about David’s and my relationship. It was left to the internal medicine doc to assure me that, no, we will not do such an invasive procedure if you do not want it. I do believe the internal medicine doc’s conclusion was–unlike the pulmonary doc’s–okay, no way this guy is suffering the effects of HIV/AIDS. There is no way “…a little drowning…” is called for, or necessary, or in the best interests of the patient. (“First, do no harm!”)

I promise this is the end of this post. No further updates will be forthcoming. I’m on the mend. Slowly, slowly getting myself back up to speed…sans horseback riding. Sadly, sans horseback riding.

(Denver Police Chief George L. Seaton with Joe Louis, circa 1970, at a Police Athletic League function.)

The Denver Post, in an April 8th editorial titled, “Look externally for new top cop,” opined that, “We hope the new mayor will strongly consider the value of bringing in an outsider to lead the Denver Police Department.

“A new leader with neither baggage nor allegiances within the department might be best positioned to make a break from the status quo. The erosion of trust between the department and the public is palpable, and must be repaired.”

I have heard that our mayor-elect, Michael Hancock, has not ruled out the possibility he will follow the Post’s editorial board’s advice and look “outside” the DPD for his chief.

We’ve all heard Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Okay. In this case the “…over and over again…” becomes “…twice…” In recent memory–”recent” being the last fifty years–a mayor of Denver has gone “outside” the Denver Police Department  to seek a new chief only once. If hizzoner Hancock does it, then, of course, the word “twice” becomes operative.

Some history. (What follows are personal reflections from George Seaton who was chief of the DPD from January, 1968 to June of 1972.)

***

Harold Dill had been a Denver policeman since 1936 and chief since 1963. (Our time frame here is circa 1968.) He was a hard-boiled, straight-laced cop whose loyalties were with the uniformed officer, the cop on the street.

The new mayor, Tom Currigan, appointed Dill as his first chief in 1963. Currigan’s motives in making the appointment were crystal clear to everybody. In 1963, the department was recovering from the burglary scandal–Goddamned sonsabitches, Cops! pulling burlaries all over the city–that had covered the front pages of the newspapers well into 1962. It had all surfaced around 1959, and before it was over and done with fifty police officers were indicted and forty were convicted.

The aftermath of the scandal spelled the downfall of another chief, James Slavin, who had been brought in from Kalamazoo, Michigan by Mayor Dick Batterton in 1962. Batterton was fighting for his political hide with the obvious liability that he had presided over the city during the time cops were pulling burglaries. Slavin had excellent credentials. But he was an outsider. Most of us (cops) wondered how in hell this egghead from Kalamazoo was going to sort out the goddamned mess that had been festering for over twenty years or more within the department. You didn’t need a goddamned brain surgeon to figure out Batterton’s feeble effort to clean up the scandal by bringing Slavin in would not defuse the issue during the mayoral campaign of ’63. The City Auditor, Tom Currigan, would be Batterton’s opposition in the spring of that year and you just knew that that red-headed Irishman, Currigan, would make political hay out of the scandal. Currigan was a decent guy. And he was a hard-driving politician.

Once Currigan was elected in ’63, he understood the department was demoralized from the scandal. Hell, you’d have to be blind not to realize it. Consequently, one of his first appointments was to get a chief to head the department who was respected by the rank and file and, more importantly, was from within the department. The new chief could be none other than Harold Dill.

I think Dill’s legacy to the department from July, 1963 to January 1, 1968 was his persistent, unflagging support of the cop on the street; the front line cop who needed the pat on the back that Dill gave them. Dill had a pretty straight forward, simple philosophy about police work: “The uniformed man on the street,” he said, “makes 90 percent of the arrests–not detectives, technicians, clerks or computers.” And the department, under Dill, reflected that philosophy and eventually regained its self-respect.

The decade of the ’60s would expose the American policeman to the world. Never before had the American cop been scrutinized as closely by so many people as he would be in the sixties. And that scrutiny would cause more than a few people to conclude the American cop was an unprofessional, reactionary storm trooper; a violent, sadistic sonofabitch whose inbreeding over the past two-hundred years had demanded only one thing from any person who wanted to qualify for the job: that they be a bigot. The reality, of course, was that like every other occupation on the face of the earth, there were some good cops, there were some bad cops, there were some cops who gave a damn, and others that didn’t.

You didn’t need a goddamned weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing in Denver and throughout the county by the time Tom Currigan won a second term as mayor in 1967. Hell, the evidence was clear. There was no special providence protecting Denver from the consequences of minority rage that had, since the summer of ’65, ravaged American cities. The word “ominous” was on a lot of people’s minds beginning in ’63. And by the end of the decade, people would look back and use phrases like “social catharsis” to describe that ten-year period from 1963 to 1973. And right in the middle of that “catharsis” was the American policeman who dealt with–and was expected to deal with–the violence, hatred, frustration, rage of American citizens too long denied the American dream.

During the summers of ’66 and ’67, Denver had been spared the serious, violent confrontations between minorities and police that had characterized those long, hot summers in other cities around the country. But in Denver more than a few people were talking about “bottled rage” and the “ominous” message that had been communicated to the nation over the past several summers. Mayor Currigan took little comfort in the fact Denver had seen little major violence. He realized Denver was not immune to what had occurred in other cities. And specifically he realized the Denver Police Department under Harold Dill was not ready or, perhaps, willing to prepare itself for the social revolution ahead. There was also some notion that if the department was prepared and adequately trained to deal with the social violence that had been played out all across the country, it could be avoided in Denver. I guess you could say that Currigan was coming at it from a proactive point of view. One thing was clear: the status quo maintained by Chief Dill in his second floor office at 13th and Champa was simply not acceptable any longer. The American policeman’s role in society was mandated to change. And that change had to come about as quick as a bat out of hell if Currigan’s proactive agenda was to be realized.

Harold Dill was “forced” to announce his retirement in November, 1967. Although Currigan vehemently denied he demanded Dill’s resignation, few of us believed it. In fact what came to be known as the “Plaut Report,” signaled for most of us the end of Dill’s career.

The Plaut Report, commissioned by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and the Colorado Advisory committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, detailed instances of discriminatory behavior by several Denver city agencies, including the police department. Dill’s response to the report was simply to pooh-pooh it, saying that “Most of the charges and innuendos are petty,” he said. “These statements I’ve read and heard so far are typical of those who just don’t like policemen.”

Dill’s rhetoric would not, of course, fly very high with Tom Currigan.

My appointment to chief came after a pretty extraordinary move by Currigan who–after demanding the resignation of my predecessor, Harold Dill–announced that a new chief would be appointed only after a comprehensive written and oral examination had been completed by each candidate seeking the job. Currigan set-up a special seven member board to oversee the examinations and to provide professional advice to him and his newly appointed Manager of Safety, Howard K. Phillips. The final decision on who would be Denver’s next chief of police, Currigan insisted, would  be left to him and Phillips.

Fourteen of us–all of us from within the department, with the exception of a retired former captain–were given oral interviews by Currigan’s committee that was headed by Clarence Kelley, Chief of the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. Kelley was a hell of a guy, who would later become Director of the F.B.I. under Richard Nixon. The other members of the committee were Bob Yegge, Dean of the University of Denver College of Law; Joe Dinan, Secretary of the Civil Service Commission; outgoing Manager of Safety, Hugh McClearn; Minoru Yasui, Director of the Denver Commission of Community Relations; and Jim Hickman, President of the Denver Chamber of Commerce.

By December, ’67, the oral interviews were concluded and the committee had given Currigan their findings. It was the first time in the city’s history that a merit-type examination had been administered to select a chief.

I became chief on January 1, 1968.

There is always a case to be made for police officers supporting one another against the consequences of their actions whether perceived to be legal or even proper police conduct. You hear talk about the “brotherhood” or the “thin  blue line.” Sure, cops are isolated from the rest of society by the very nature of the work they do. They’ve got to stick together; they’ve got to support one another. No one can understand the kind of life a cop lives except another cop. Not the psychologists. Not the sociologists. Not the politicians or the priests. It’s a simple as that. But let me tell you one thing: when a cop is wrong, he’s wrong. That was my philosophy when I was appointed a patrolman in 1946, and that was my philosophy when I retired as chief of the department in 1972.

  ***

George Seaton never apologized for any facet of his administration of the Denver Police Department. He professionalized the department. He reorganized the department. He prepared the department for the civil disruptions that would surely–given the nature of the times–erupt within the city. By luck, or by simply standing firm on the notion that the rule of law in an ordered society was absolutely necessary to preserve and protect that very society, Denver saw no major riots during those dark and dangerous times when the whole world seemed poised, quite ready and willing to leap into the abyss of chaos.

George Seaton did, however, reflect on the notion that an “outsider” would be best suited to take the helm of the Denver Police Department in troubled times. He noted, “To believe that some pin-headed sonofabitch from Kalamazoo (a reference to James Slavin) could have any goddamned idea what a cop in Denver is up against is just pure horseshit. You can’t bring in some guy who has never ridden the streets of Denver, who doesn’t know the worth of his partner, or his sergeant or his captain. You can’t expect an outsider to understand the long-time finagling of the brass, most of whom have nothing much on their minds except to someday become chief. There’s more fucking politics going on in the Denver Police Department than anything the Democrats or Republicans have ever dealt with. You can’t just plop some outside sonofabitch into the chief’s chair and expect they’ll have any goddamned clue about what’s going on in the department. Whoever sits in that chair has got to understand, from day one, the nature of the department’s underbelly, its history. You just simply can’t change the culture, the essence of the department without knowing what the hell you’re dealing with. You can’t wait two, three years before the sonofabitch figures out what the territory is. He’s got to know from day one what the territory is. Anybody that tells you different has got their head up their goddamned ass. Period.”

I suppose an apt conclusion to this post is simply to observe that, in my experience, Denver’s mayors–at least for the past three administrations–have believed that anything or anybody that isn’t part of the current bureaucracy (including the police department) is ipso facto more qualified to bring those “better ideas” to the forefront than the existing workforce. This is a dangerous and potentially debilitating presumption. Indeed, “To believe that some pin-headed sonofabitch from Kalamazoo could have any goddamned idea what a cop in Denver is up against is just pure horseshit.”

Although it’s probably a given that hizzoner, Hancock, owes the Denver Post a few passionate kisses on the backsides of the said publication’s editorial board, I can only caution our mayor-elect to consider this “outsider” idea for a new police chief touted by the Post to be, yes, horseshit…unadulterated and, yes, quite difficult to scrape from one’s shoes once you’ve stepped in it.

Oh, one more thing… Our mayor-elect may want to consider repeating what Tom Currigan did in 1967. Yeah, I suspect Hancock–if he pursues this merit-based selection of a new chief asking only current Denver cops to apply–will load his selection committee with all kinds of liberal reformist types. But, see, in the end he’ll get a chief who knows the territory, who knows what it is to be a Denver cop…underbelly and all.

My childhood conclusion about the Garden of the Gods was that is was something of a sacred place, holy in its mien, plopped down just outside Colorado Springs for the undisputed purpose of giving the faithful (my mother was Roman Catholic, severely Roman Catholic) substantial evidence that God is good, God is great and Wowser! ain’t these sandstone and limestone formations just pretty rock-hard evidence that God graced the earth with his largesse.

My partner’s parents have, for the last three visits to Colorado from their home in Yakima, Washington, consistently expressed their desire to visit/revisit the Garden of the Gods and, perhaps, to affirm their belief that, yes, God is good, God is great.

Just last week, the in-laws arrived and, once again, their desire was to revisit the Garden of the Gods. Ahem…

  Okay. I can see the allure. There’s certainly nothing like this in Yakima, Washington. (Have you ever been to Yakima? Yes, they’ve got all kinds of agricultural stuff going on there: so many fruit and hops-bearing fields that one is quite taken aback by the, oh, God-given magnificence of it all.) But, the Gloriousness of God’s good work, is surely more evident at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, rather than the verdant fields of Yakima. And, of course, the Garden of the Gods provides a clear and quite awesome view of Pike’s Peak rising in some triumphant spectacle to the west of the park.

It was only this year–last week, as a matter of fact–that I realized (silly me) that the naming of this park was not intended to celebrate the Christian God and His good works, but rather was given its moniker to, quite aptly, describe a fitting place where the Gods, plural-the mythical Gods–could celebrate their, um, Goddum (I know, that’s not really a word sanctioned by Merriam-Webster) while, most likely, appreciating Bacchus within their midst, while chugging brew and laughing like hell at the inane fascination of mere mortals with the juts and crags of the formations that, most likely–as we are told by Wikipedia–were provided by “…the immense mountain building forces caused by the uplift of the Pikes Peak massif.”

Now, as to the name of this place. Again, we are told by Wikipedia that, “The name of the park dates back to August 1859 when two surveyors helping to set up nearby Colorado City were exploring the nearby areas. Upon discovering the site, one of the surveyors, M. S. Beach, suggested that it would be a ‘capital place for a beer garden.’ His companion, the young Rufus Cable, awestruck by the impressive rock formations, exclaimed, ‘Beer Garden! Why it is a fit place for the gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods.’ The beer garden never materialized, but the name stuck.”

An assemblage of the Gods. Again, plural. My epiphany was complete. Now I understood. Whether or not my Yakima in-laws–quite fundamentally Christian–understand the nuance here is unsure. I won’t ask them. Perhaps they’re comforted by a perception of the place that harkens back to my childhood understanding of what the place represented then, so many, many years ago. Such is the egomania of Fundamentalism. That’s okay. I don’t mind. If it gives them some little comfort in their beliefs I surely don’t mind.

Here are some others images of the Garden of the Gods I captured just last week. Enjoy. I know my in-laws enjoyed them.

Notably, the “Denver Players” prostitute service noted on its logs that Hancock used pay phones to arrange the alleged trysts. A smart move by a smart man. Also notably, today’s Denver Post story includes the observation: “Additionally, Hancock’s cellphone was frequently in use at times when the appointment logs [of the "Denver Players"] alleged he was engaged with a prostitute.” May we then make the assumption that a “John” does not use his cell phone going to, coming from or waiting for his, um, encounter with a whore? Maybe. Maybe not.

I’ve noted in a prior post on this blog that “It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that radio talk show hosts are the most prolific whores on the face of earth who revel in humping to death each and every half-baked, bullshit issue that happens to tickle their nose hair.” And, of course, I was focusing primarily upon Peter Boyles, KHOW’s early morning “whore,” who has worked this Michael Hancock story to climactic heights. In spite of my earlier observation, I am, in this case, torn between allegation and truth. And, I must admit, that the “truths” Michael Hancock has provided to the Denver Post in the guise of his cell phone records rings (I know, I know: cell phone-ring) inadequate to a full refutation of the allegations against him.

I have, understandably so, become quite a cynic when it comes to politicians and their incredibly haughty inclination to feed their immense egos with the most unsavory of traipses through the underbelly of life’s pleasures. Indeed, since Nixon–who pleasured himself with the assumption that his power, his position was sacrosanct, invincible, above the law–I’ve turned a skeptical eye toward any politician’s sanctimonious platitudes that wreak, for me, of something dark and damning behind that closed door where “allegations” of misdeeds are kept as something to be manipulated, corralled, disingenuously disavowed as though–Can I get a Hallelujah!–the words I am not a crook ring reasonably true to partisans, to those who are blinded by their loss of reasonable doubt. A loss engendered by the illusory conclusion their man is above the paltry urges of mere mortals.

I do not know the truth about this imbroglio. I certainly wish I did. And, alas, the truth may never be known…except by Michael Hancock himself.  “Such is the egomania of democratism,” William F. Buckley, Jr. tells us. To paraphrase: “If one is disturbed about Michael Hancock’s explanation, refutation of allegations, then one should be worried about one’s self, not about Michael Hancock.”

NOT!

Finis…for now.

Let’s pause here for a moment and look at Hancock’s 58%, shall we. This was an all-mail election with 300,601 ballots sent to eligible voters. About 41% of those ballots were returned, or 122,756. Now, if I’m doing my math right, Hancock was elected mayor of Denver by about 23% of the Denver electorate. Ahem… No, nothing unusual here. As a matter of fact, I suppose a 41% turnout for any mayoral election in recent history is probably better than or at least not a lot worse than prior turnouts. Majority rule? Democracy in action? A mandate for Hancock? No, of course not. Rather the ignoble reality of apathy amongst voters. Or perhaps a kind of a who cares mentality from many Denver citizens who realize that Democratic rule of our dear city–no matter who is at the helm– will result in a business as usual mentality that espouses all those lovely Democratic principles we all know so well…that is, if the official “kitchen cabinet” that has served the last three Democratic mayors–the law firm of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Shrek– approve of the same. Incidentally, there is a fellow named Bruce James who is a managing partner in that august law firm, and, Surprise!, is Michael Hancock’s attorney in this little carnal imbroglio.

If you want background, here it is: Complete Colorado, Denver Post. Although I don’t watch local news stations, it’s my understanding there are numerous videos that address Hancock’s, um, pickle.

Okay. Please know that I don’t have any inside track on whether or not the allegations against mayor-elect Hancock are true or false. I voted for him, for heaven’s sake, not because I believed he would bring anything different to the mayor’s chair than those–at least the last three–who have preceded him there. No, I voted for him because it became apparent to me that Chris Romer, his opponent in the runoff election, was a wee bit more oily, a wee bit more, oh–how should I say this?–sleazy than Hancock. I never shirk my civic responsibility by not voting. I always vote. And, alas, most of the votes I cast are for the lesser of two evils. (Yes, I know, I’m not much different than the majority of folks who, like me, exercise their civic responsibility by pinching their nose and pulling the lever that is less stinky, less unsavory.)

Yeah, I know. Do any of us really expect more or less from our politicians. That’s not a question. I already know the answer. Is this where we are with Michael Hancock?

I cannot help but hearken back to the classics of politicians’ denials: I am not a crook! I did not have sex with that woman! I have a very wide stance! Ahem…etc. etc. etc.

I guess the upshot of all this is that Michael Hancock promised the Denver Post and Nine News that he would expose–in the interest of complete transparency, and to vindicate his good name–his cell phone and bank records for the period he is alleged to have visited–a kind word, visited–these high-priced whores. However, Surprise!, Hancock has reneged on this promise, citing his right to personal privacy, and, again, why should citizens of Denver believe a pimp rather than the mayor-elect.

I have to say it: Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!

No, I’ve not made any conclusions about this whole thing. But then, well, who among us cannot help but assume that, yes, politicians will be politicians; the power elite will protect its own, and powerful men will, inevitably, seek confirmation of their virility in one way or another.

Guess I’m left only with the wisdom of one of my heroes, Waylon Jennings. The song: ”Yoyos, Bozos, Bimbos and Heroes,” with the pertinent words:

“Reigning like fine politicians
Dressed up in perfect disguise
Pushing their science and fiction
Mixing the truth with the lies.”

What more can be said at this point? Not much, I suppose. Transparency, Michael? Yes, that would be refreshing. Really, really refreshing. In fact, if that transparency were to be forthcoming, then surely we could rule out any suggestion that your essential character tends more toward the yoyo, bozo and bimbo category. We might even consider the hero thing. Well, maybe the hero thing.

An Irish Prayer

May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.
May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.

Today I will visit with my horse, work him a bit, feed him cookies. I will walk him up the hill where, just the two of us, will pause here and there and take a good look at the hills to the south, the Front Range of the Rockies to the west (Mount Evans still dusted with snow). I will talk to him–this horse I call Shy–and tell him things that I would probably not share with any person. We have that connection, my horse and I, that transcends any reasonable conclusions that horses are just critters, unable to understand the travails of the world, my own travails on this particular morning. I will tell him about Tom Bonner who was my friend of twenty-seven years, who now, today, will meet his death when his family decides it is time for the inevitable to occur. I will tell Shy that I will miss my friend. Oh, how I will miss my friend.

No, that first picture does not reveal Tom drinking a beer. A recovering alcoholic, Tom enjoyed a non-alcoholic beer now and then. We would give him his “pretend” beer, and he would savor it with the same indomitable passion he savored life itself. Indeed, when I cover the broad and bumpy ground I shared with Tom, I am always brought back to Kierkegaard. “Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is paltry; for it lacks passion. Men’s thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace, they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers. The thoughts of their hearts are too paltry to be sinful. For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbor such thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God. Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy. They do their duty, these shopkeeping souls… Out upon them! This is the reason my soul always turns  back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. I feel that those who speak there are at least human beings: they hate, they love, they murder their enemies, and curse their descendants throughout all generations, they sin.”

No, Tom didn’t murder his enemies, or curse his descendants. But he was a human being. He loved, he hated, he lived with a particular passion that became so infectious, so strident, so ultimately charming, that few who knew him could not resist the urge to emulate him…or, at least, attempt to. Tom was, after all, one of a kind.

I believe Tom was born in 1945. He was a lifelong Denverite, born into an Irish family where surely Catholicism prevailed; where surely the hard-nosed, no-nonsense mien that he would later assume was honed on the hard edge of not only the precepts of the Church, but the imperative that nothing is given to men but the opportunity to rise above the paltry concerns of mankind, to live passionately, honestly, hard-as-nails commitedly in an attempt to celebrate the good, and to condemn the bad as a kind of inescapable raison d’etre that could not but otherwise enrich, elevate, celebrate the human spirit.

I could tell you so much about Tom. I believe, though, Tom would want me to share his little immediate family with you. Oh, his extended family is quite large, scattered around the country. But the family he returned to each day, all of whom he cherished as individuals with their own particular quirks, is, as I said, something Tom would want me to share. (I apologize for not knowing all of Tom’s children’s names.)

This is Kennedy. Tom’s beloved Lab, Kennedy. Suffice it to say, Tom was something of a Roosevelt Democrat: A fighter for the little the guy, the dispossessed, the needful. There is no mystery why he would name his precious Lab Kennedy.     Now that I think about it, I could never keep up with all of Tom’s cats. There were just too many he cared for, so many that passed through his life…some still living and, I suspect, one or two of those I’ve shown are now gone.

Tom lived for his friends. No, that isn’t exactly right. Tom lived for others is such a way that even if he had just met you he had that unique ability to make you feel special, important. Yes, he had no use for the self-important, the egoists in the room. Indeed, the self-important, the egoists soon learned that Tom Bonner could and would rip you up one side and down the other, exposing your haughty facade for what it was…a worthless commodity in Tom’s universe. Tom lived to celebrate the little guy. Those were his people. Those were the ones he touched with his wisdom, his humor, his care, his urge, upon urge, upon urge to even the proverbial playing field where ALL had an equal chance to succeed.

Just a couple more photos.

Tom Bonner passed at almost precisely 2 p.m. today. His malady: complications following treatment and surgery for esophageal cancer. He was my friend, and I will miss him.

Tomorrow I will again walk my horse up the hill, maybe ride a trail into those hills. I will talk softly to Shy–as old men are want to do with horses–and perhaps tell him more about my friend who I will surely meet up with again in time. I will hold Shy back a bit from wanting to trot–he is a young horse, with a youthful gait–and tell him, for now, we have all the time in the world, that there is no need to hurry. I will tell him that life is precious, and it requires only one step at a time–a lesson Tom taught me many, many years ago.

This occurring after an on-air tirade in which she used the N-word, I believe, eleven times.

Okay. So she hasn’t enjoyed the promise of the First Amendment for all the years she’s spewed her particular message across the airwaves, hither and yon? She wants to “regain” her First Amendment rights? Where did they go, sweetheart? You just woke-up one morning and they were gone? Methinks, my dear, the fallout from your callous, stupid N-word rant piqued that part of your psyche that holds no room or comfort for the proverbial taking of what you dish out. I mean it’s just inconceivable you could be WRONG about something. Right?

Let me just re-post my take on Dr. Laura written several years ago. And I’ll just leave it at that.

The Problem with Dr. Laura

I suppose if one really doesn’t like Dr. Laura, then one shouldn’t listen to her. I don’t like her, but I used to listen to her faithfully every day. What’s wrong with that picture?

My problem was that in spite of her whining, judgmental, snippy, hurtful, arrogant radio persona she was grotesquely, absurdly entertaining as were ninety percent of the people who called her; something like the visage of two-headed pigs, or frogs with seven legs that tend to fascinate us all. I continued to suffer through her baloney at least twenty minutes, five days a week during my lunch hour because, alas, she kept reminding me that all was not well, all was not safe, all was not  peachy-keen in a world where so many faceless voices declared it was an “honor” to be able to speak to her. I listened to Dr. Laura because she kept reminding me—and we all should be thankful for that reminder—that the idolatry of this hurtful woman is downright scary. Vigilance is required.

And after having said that, there is another reason I kept listening to Dr. Laura: She was right…sometimes. Yes, I said it. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Dr. Laura was occasionally Right On! Dr. Laura was right when she harped on about kids needing discipline. Yes, and she was right about how gossip and holding grudges and that kind of crap is really wrong and stupid. It’s the other stuff she talked about that was hellishly entertaining and, in being so, guaranteed this hurtful woman her ill-got fortune.

I’m a fifty-five year old gay man who will, this year, celebrate with my partner twenty-two years of companionship, friendship, and love. There are, of course, more nouns I could roll out here to describe what we’ve shared—boredom, excitement, joy, sadness, life, the deaths of family, friends; pretty much just the essence of every committed relationship, man or beast, gay or straight; pretty much just the essence of the sharing of life itself.

Dr. Laura loves me, sight unseen, as a person, but condemns, hates, despises my lifestyle, sight unseen, categorically, necessarily, because I am gay.  Sound familiar?  Sound sort of…Christian?

I believe Dr. Laura became a Jew after having been raised Roman Catholic. I came out as a gay man after having been raised Roman Catholic. Go figure. I guess we all just kind of slip-slide into what we really are; what we were born to be. I am absolutely comfortable with my sexuality which, by the way, I did not “choose.” But, Dr. Laura seems to assault her “chosen” religion in some effort to be more Jewish than the rabbi; a kind of God thing, a kind of sitting at the right hand thing—a reasonable replacement for that namby-pamby Christian Jesus Christ. With unabashed temerity, Dr. Laura revels in the if God were here, this is what He’d say persona. Messianically [sic] inclined, I’d say.

James Lipton, while hosting the television program Inside the Actor’s Studio, ends each segment by asking the invited guest (usually an actor, sometimes a director) a series of pre-formatted questions. One of those questions is, “If heaven exists, what would you want God to say to you as you arrive at the pearly gates?” The best answer yet, came from Robert De Niro. His answer was: “If heaven exists, He’s got a lot of explaining to do!” I am fascinated by the image of De Niro standing at the base of His throne, gesticulating wildly while spitting out the questions: “Why Biafra?  Why Nagasaki?  Why the Black Death?  Why cancer?  Why war?  Why polio?  Why crack?  Why the infliction of the ten million demons you have visited upon the human race?  Why Hitler?  Why Stalin? Why AIDS? Why Sadam? Yes, and Why September 11, 2001?”

Dr. Laura’s hurtful condemnation of working parents, gay parents, gay men and lesbians, and just about everything else under the sun that doesn’t wreak of apple pie, the flag and Judeo-Christian precepts, is a valuable commodity in the curious market of radio airtime. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that radio talk show hosts are the most prolific whores on the face of earth who revel in humping to death each and every half-baked, bullshit issue that happens to tickle their nose hair. And in this context, it is notable that Dr. Laura has found her comfortable corner in espousing a kind of megalomaniacal matriarchy where the self-satisfaction of sharing a pervasive “feel good” mentality (“I am my kid’s mom!”) does indeed tweak the brain cells of comfortably situated, heterosexual, white Christian folk who have nothing better to do than, yes, feel good about themselves.

Dr. Laura’s “schtick” is kids. Who can argue with her about the worth and value of kids? Nobody. The problem, though, is that if you’re not a comfortably situated (good job, nice house, two cars) heterosexual, you just can’t meet Dr. Laura’s expectations for being your kid’s mom or dad. Indeed, how many times has a poor and desperate soul called in to Dr. Laura to relate that 1) she’s not married; 2) she’s never been married; 3) she’s got two children; 4) she’s on welfare; 5) she’s got to work to keep a roof over her family’s heads, food in their stomachs and shoes on their feet; 6) and, AND! her children are in day care. Dr. Laura’s response: Stay home with the kids.

“Ah, well, okay, but how am I going to better myself so that I can get off welfare?”

“Get one of those work at home jobs. Use your computer at home to make a living.”

“I don’t have a computer at home.”

“Well, you’ll figure it out. Your children need a full-time mother. You’re the one who chose to get knocked-up twice without being married.”

Oh, our Dr. Laura was clever. I wish I would have thought of getting on the radio and espousing the worth and value of raising kids in a two parent home where God is in His heaven and all’s right with the world. I’ll bet she’s made a gazillion bucks off this tidy, feel good “schtick,” that brings smiles to all godly folk who don’t happen to be poor or desperate or sick or not beholdin’ to Judeo/Christian precepts which, by the way, is about three-quarters or more of the world.

Lordy, lordy, lordy.

So, Dr. Laura keeps babbling and I kept listening. I remember one woman who called her and told her that their family’s cat had had kittens and she, the mother, had told her husband and her children—after giving away all but two kittens—that they could keep only one of the remaining two kittens and no more. The husband had decided that he wanted to keep both of the kittens. The mother, while her husband was at work, (yes, she was a stayathome mom!), gave one of the two remaining kittens away, thus enforcing the decision she had made earlier. When her husband returned from work, he was angry with her for giving one of the two remaining kittens away. Her question to Dr. Laura:  “Did I do the right thing?”

Suffice it to say, Dr. Laura took this question seriously. I don’t remember what her conclusion was, but suspect she took the side of the stayathome mom. Ah, if only life were really that simple; that easy. Dr. Laura’s daily theater of the absurd amused, frightened, and elicited animated verbalizations from me as I would drive to and from lunch every day.

God bless this little snip of a woman and her lovely child and her lovely husband and all that lovely money she’s made on the backs of good people just trying to make their way through a world that is not as tidy, as comfortable, as black, as white as it is for Dr. Laura and her minions. Yes, and when Dr. Laura gets to the Pearly Gates, perhaps God, who is probably a three-hundred pound black dyke who doesn’t shave her legs or armpits and just loves little Jewish ladies; perhaps God will stare Dr. Laura right between the eyes and say: “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, beeach!!!”