A friend of mine named Gene who happens to be a published writer and a playwright with an extensive degree in our English language asked me a question. I know for a fact that I infuriate him with all my grammatical errors. My sentence structure is atrocious and my rambling thoughts can take me to places I shouldn’t go. Gene asked me “why do you write?”

I find that in life, I do not get a lot of opportunities to express what I really think. In many cases it would probably get me in trouble as I can tend to spout off to much without giving it enough thought and then expressing myself thoughtfully and constructively. Often I just keep my thoughts to myself and let them percolate deep inside until I just let them go.

I think my blog here has been my attempt teach myself how to express myself better. I’ve never expected anything to come from it. Nor have I ever expected to have thousands of readers, (of which I don’t). What it has done is make me feel better about myself. If I wanted to draw more attention to myself I’d write more often about current events so my key words might get picked up and I’d go viral. I think I write more about things the “common man” or women might think about and I hope what few people do read it, agree with me. It’s also my attempt to let my family and friends know whats going on in my life as I said, I don;t always express myself. I also do not get opportunities to see my family and friends that often so hence the blog and my thoughtless abandonment of sentence structure and proper grammar and spelling probably.

I do enjoy the process overall and I think its somewhat a form of therapy for me as I can’t afford a therapist. More often, it’s usually the posts I do that I get very emotional about that I get the most responses about. For some reason I grew up thinking that I should hide my feelings, and my thoughts. That I shouldn’t let people know when I was hurting that I had to be strong for my family.

So for those of you that continue to read my posts here, which there are hundreds of you I appreciate your kind words and thoughts about my rambling on’s.

So Gene, where you do it for a living I do it to get it out of my head and share the rawness of my thoughts and feelings otherwise, I’d probably self implode.

In three months I’ll be turning sixty five. Physically, I feel like I’m turning sixty five but mentally I’m still in my twenty’s and thinking dumb thoughts, doing stupid things, and trying not to show it. Being older and wiser though I can’t help but notice people doing stupid things. I use to get angry and wanted to tell them what idiots they are and how they should get their act together. Now I sit back and laugh more often at the comedy of what they have done. It also reminds me of myself and the things I did when I was younger. Except when their stupidity impacts you and your health.

Over the last two years I have written a few times about the medical community and the fact that they are still practicing on us. The fact that I can have more knowledge about the impact of their decisions and have the audacity to challenge many of them, has probably made me a pariah in their eyes.

Unfortunately, their actions haven’t been funny to me. I have proposed before that they should require all people wanting to enter the medical field, to have to go through the procedures that we have gone through. They should have to endure mistakes being made about their care. They should make little mistakes, like give them allergic reactions that won’t kill them. Just to make them see how easy it is to make mistakes because of their actions without serious and through analysis of each of their decisions before taking action on a patient.

How often have we discovered a doctor really wasn’t listening to you. Maybe they were thinking about their upcoming vacation or maybe their bonus from the insurance company if they don’t order certain tests. Or maybe it was something more emotional bothering them to distract them or maybe they were to arrogant to listen to someone questing their decisions and suggesting something they read on the internet.

MIT has found that a computer can make more effective decisions regarding patient care. A computer can not be affected by the emotional distractions that can impact a doctor. A computer can read all the information published on a particular subject in the world and take that all into consideration with all the data/history of a patient and make a better diagnosis and treatment plan than any human being. Hell, we can take those arrogant overpaid doctors and make them nurses aids where they actually might learn something. Yes I know there are exceptions to the rule regarding doctors, but those great doctors are far and few between. I hope MIT will bring those computers online soon. I think most people would agree on this opinion of mine.

NBC just came out with an article on President Trumps proposed Military Parade. On the high end of estimates it’s at 92 million dollars as a cost for this event. This makes it even harder for me to admit that I actually worked for this idiot. Yes, I worked at one of his hotels in Gary Indiana at his Casino at the time. He has lost every casino he has been involved with over the years. He’s really not that good of a business man and is even proving himself to be an even poorer example of a President with decisions to spend this kind of money on this kind of event.

Can you imagine what could be done with 92 million dollars? Now I could make a long list of options that would change lives, cure diseases, feed hungry, help with education, and maybe wipe out the killings in Chicago. The list goes on and on and many of my friends have even many more ideas.

This is just another example of how out of touch with reality someone like him is with this kind of thinking. You need to be known for having a parade that was bigger than France’s Military Parade?

How many companies are going out of business because of the tariff wars he has started? How many people are losing their jobs because of increased costs for these goods we are importing? Yes, he’s trying to correct an imbalance that has been there for years but, there are better ways to fix the situation. The idiots that he has hired who have no experience, no clue, and no intelligence are going to make recommendations for our country’s future? Eventually most of them are either running away from their jobs before something happens or they are going to jail in my opinion.

In reality, we had no choice for President during the election and I was dumb enough to think that this was going to be a show to end all shows if he got in office. I was right. But now this Trump Variety Show has turned into the “Trump Your Worst Nightmare Movie” and it doesn’t end it just keeps on giving for years to come.

Ahh yes, let’s split up more families and rip the children from their parent’s arms and give those children nightmares. This is what happens when you put people in power who have no idea of what the ramifications of their decisions are nor do they care. When someone’s life has been to make a profit at all costs and kill the competition and anything that gets in your way to improve your personal financial situation then what else can we expect from someone like that.

We now are going to have the Trump Space Force and soon will be the local Trump Militia coming to a town near you. Maybe taking control of the media like in Russia or China. Watch out for the burning of books too.

I’ve known George for 15 years. He comes to our restaurant frequently with guests and sometimes we break bread together at lunch. George is a few years older than I and is quite heavy. Being a bit shorter than I am, he looks heavier than I do in the weight department. He has had a number of health issues some of which has had him in the hospital several times in the last year.

To some degree George and I are of the same mindset in that we just can’t seem to shall we say push the “Start Button” on getting healthy. Oh I did smoothies for a while and they actually did help. But then life and time gets in the way and suddenly you stop smoothing and continue on. Same thing with George.

Unfortunately for George his wife liked the smoothie idea and also began trying vegan. George is not a happy man now. He has not taken well to things like “tofu meat loaf.” I think he comes to our restaurant more often now to escape from that existence. Maybe to cheat a little as he doesn’t seem to go too overboard to his credit.

Though George is passed retirement age he prefers to stay busy and still comes to work every day, though he has delegated many of his past duties to staff in his office of his company. So his pace is a bit more relaxed but I will never expect to see him sitting in the rocking chair at home.

I like George a lot and we have had some deep conversations about life, work, religion and family. Many of these conversations I have never had with another man or for that matter even my wife. So he and I have become close.

I offered a little over a year ago to bring my bicycle down to work and he and I could ride together along the lakefront here in Chicago during our lunch. I know it helps to have a friend like this as it makes it easier to push that start button I mentioned earlier. George turned me down. That has bothered me and concerned me more. He also stated to just keep praying for him. I told him I would and that the wife already does for him every day.

This week he came over for lunch and his voice sounded very different and he stated he had some type of infection and it would get better. But my Spidey Sense was acting up and I steered the conversation where I didn’t want to go. I discovered that he is at peace and accepts whatever comes his way. He is a religious man and goes to mases several times a week and he does pray a lot. George is ready to die, he’s at peace with it, whenever that will be. Despite the fact that if he would walk a block or two extra every day or ride the bike with me it could possibly reverse that direction, he is unequivocally happy with the way his life is now. To me it’s like he wants to go to the great beyond. He is committed to his belief in god and that there is a life after and he is looking forward to that happening when its time, he said quite calmly to me.

Of course I asked about his bride of just a few years, is she OK with this? I knew the answer before I said it and it was the same as mine. I wouldn’t be comfortable with George going either, especially before what we think his time should be. I’m scared of death, always have been. I have had more experiences of deaths with friends and family, in fact more than most. At the same time, I admire George with his calmness, his steadfastness to his beliefs. To have that, takes away the scary part that so many of us are afraid of. George you are what Jesus spoke of in that you believe in what you can’t see. Whether or not what he believes is true, he at least my friends, will not be living what present life he has in fear.  George you are a better man than I, as you are really living /enjoying your life you are blessed. That is something that I and many others can’t say, because we are living our life in fear.