It was the Best of Times..........

It was the best of times ,it was the wost of times. This was another name for my years at a Catholic school.St.Paul's.

This will be an ongoing story about my years in the blue uniform and under the instruction of the Catholic Church and a wonderful group of Nuns.

We went to Confession at least once a week on Fridays or was it every two weeks?  Sorry but I just can't remember.  It was done during school hours so everyone had to participate. If you are not Catholic ,Confession is the rite that you used to confess your sins in front of a priest and ask for forgiveness from God. The priest gave you council and a list of prayers to say as penance. It was done in a small cubicle so the priest could not see your face.

Our teachers would prepare us every week by listing kinds of sins that most young children would be tempted to commit. I was a good son and caused my parents very little trouble. I did have a hard time some weeks trying to think of more than one or two sins I had committed. I don't know what other students did but I usually made a list of small sins and confessed to them. I did not commit most of them but it seemed safer to confess to a moderate list instead of acting like a saint in the confessional.

My  list of sins was fairly consistent. I would confess to sins like lying to my parents,  using bad language, and a few others. I always ended with confessing that I abused myself 10 times a week. I was not sure what that meant but it sounded good.  I always changed my voice in case the priest would recognize me. I copied the voice of Alfalfa from the Little Rascals on TV.

Because we were in a Catholic school we had no sex education.  I had no idea that self abuse was masturbation or the fact that almost everyone else did not consider it a sin but normal behavior.

In the 7th. grade a nurse gave our class a talk where I was able to connect self abuse and masturbation as the same thing. You must remember I was not always the sharpest tack in the box.

When I put two and two together I thought " Holy crap Gary you have confessed to masturbation hundreds of times to the priest.  He must think you were a little pervert."  Then I remembered my Alfalfa voice and relaxed. Alfalfa was the perv.

Later, as I grew I never confessed to any sexual act or dalliance. I figured I had already confessed to far too many sins I did not commit. That is why I have always been a big believer and supporter in Sex Education in the schools. Children should never grow up ignorant and always be armed with the truth and facts on every subject.

People think the founding fathers wrote a perfect document. They did not

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. This is the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. One sentence that has caused so much controversy over the years. I would like to use a little common sense in a very small post today.

People think the founding fathers wrote a perfect document. They did not.The Cinstitution did not allow anyone other than men with land the right to vote. Women were not allowed the right to vote. People of color were not granted freedom from slavery. They were not even counted as a full human being for the purpose of representation. Citizens were not even allowed to vote for their own Senators. The office was often sold to the highest bidder.

The one thing they did right,some may even say the genius of the document,was the ability to change it in order to make it relevant to the times as the country grew. By doing this the Founders were trying to write a Constitution whose rights were not intended to be absolute.In fact,many of the mistakes in Article one were corrected with Amendments 11 through 27.

Any person with half a brain must admit that these Founding fathers could not have envisioned the kind of weapons we would develop today. Any person with half a brain must see that by closing gun show loopholes and stopping the sale of assault riffles or guns with clips tat hold 40-50 shells is not infringing on a citizens right to bear arms .  Could we all agree that some steps need to be taken since 50% of all guns are sold without a background check. Common sense gun laws are even an issue supported by a majority of NRA members.

When the hell will we wake up and stop this madness. President Obama must grow a spine and do something. The country is behind him. At least the sane ones are.

Wake up Dummies !

As I crawled on my knees in the dust of our attic I saw the old brown looking suitcase in the back corner.  I reached for the handle and pulled it closer to me. I brushed the dust and dirt of many years of non use and slowly flipped the latches to the open position.  As I lifted the lid I remembered the childhood toy hidden inside.  It was an old puppet of a man dressed in a suit with a wooden face . As I placed my hand inside the back he opened his mouth and screamed at me "  Wake up Dummy"

As he continued to speak I started to listen to the words. Social Security and Medicare are not in trouble. Without going into details he said that Social Security was solvent and running a surplus with only a 1% administration cost.  Medicare problems could be fixed by controlling the high cost of care ,drugs,and increasing the FICA cap from $106,000.00 to a million.

He explained to me how the lower middle class and the working poor relied on these programs to live out their years with some security and dignity. These people did not invest in Wall Street. Wall Street ,on the other hand, had greedy eyes on that money and wanted control of all of it. It was as simple as that. The Republican party had always hated these programs since many of the wealthy did not need them and resented having to support them with their money.  All they had to do was to scare the public with debt talks and slowly burden these programs until they just fell from their own weight. "Brilliant "he said. When will you dummies wake up?