The Real World

Riana was born in May, 1982. Her mother and I were already broken up for six months by the time she was born. I had three young children with me half time.

I wrote to the California Bureau of Adoptions to sign a waiver of confidentiality so that if my birthson ever wanted any information about his origins, he would now have plenty. I sent pictures of myself and his 2 sisters and his brother, Josh, along with a lengthy explanation about what happened and who and where we all were and how happy we’d all be if we were ever to meet him.

I kept making salsa full time, working up to 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. In 1983, my birthson was 18 years old. Maybe now he’d begin his search to find me. I couldn’t be that hard to find, could I be?

I met a woman named Lana in 1988. She had 2 kids and I had 3 or did I have 4 kids? I never knew what to answer when someone asked me how many kids I had. I felt bad saying I have 3, leaving out my first-born child but then when anyone asked about him, how does one say, “I don’t know anything about him. As a matter of fact, I’ve never even see him.” On the other hand, how do I say I only have 3 kids, leaving out a child who I fathered?

Were Lana and I going to have children of our own (I think I figured it out!) was answered when we moved in together and lived with 5 teenagers. That lasted 2 and a half years before we broke up.

Occasionally I would attend an ALMA meeting and quickly get discouraged at all the phone calling and tracking it took. This was before personal computers were readily available. The 500 miles from where my birth son was born alone, made it seem overwhelming.

In 1989 I managed to track down Marissa in Los Angeles. After many phone calls and much frustration and after very much persuading, Marissa finally agreed to meet with me. It had been over 20 years since we’ve seen each other. She was only willing to meet at some “neutral” place. That is, not at a place that I suggested but rather at a place she chose. We agreed on my brother’s house in Diamond Bar, CA. As I anxiously waited for her arrival, many thoughts passed through my head. How would Marissa look now? Would she still look beautiful? Would she think I looked the same? Will she be happy to see me? Will she be friendly and helpful in finding our son?

Marissa walked into my Brother Richard’s house at 9:30 PM and did indeed still look quite sexy. She still had a great figure and beautiful brown skin and long black hair and eyes so dark brown that you could not see her pupils. She brought along her 10 year old daughter who she adopted on the black market from Columbia. Her husband died from a heroin overdose and she had since become a Jehovah’s Witness. She hadn’t gone out with a man in 7 years. Hmmm… I thought… Well…maybe…we can…..hmm…..?  (Hey, I know how to use birth control now!)

That thought quickly dissipated when, after a few niceties, I asked Marissa if she would like to help us work together in trying to find our son. Marissa opened her mouth and out shot anger and hatred for what had happened to us 24 years before. For the next 2 and a half hours, Marissa berated and condemned me as she sat there drinking from her whisky bottle and I sat there completely dumbfounded. Finally Marissa’s daughter piped up and asked if she “could please lie down.” As I looked over at her and was saying, “Sure, honey…” “No!” Marissa yelled at her, “I told you, that if you came with me, you’d have to just sit there and now, damn it, that’s just what you’re going to have to do, sit there and be quiet!” Marissa angrily pointed her finger at her daughter for emphasis. Then Marissa looked at me and said, “What right have you got to think he wants to have anything to do with you?”

If I were thinking clearly at the time, I would have answered, “What right have you got to think he doesn’t?”

But, of course, I was in such a state of shock to finally see Marissa again and have her react this way, that at 12 o’clock midnight, I got up, shook her hand and quickly walked out the door. I looked up at the dark, midnight sky and thanked God several times for the choice I made many years before. I never heard from Marissa again.

All I could do was to attend ALMA meetings and register my name on any triad (the birth parents, the adoptee and the adoptive parents) registration lists and hope that sooner or later my birthson would take the initiative to also register on one of the same lists and we’d be matched.

In the years following my meeting with Marissa, I would occasionally meet a birth mother or an adoptee and we’d have a lot to talk about. They were always glad to see a birth father who was interested enough to actually be searching to find his birth child.

I went through another divorce. A few years later, my children were leaving home (I still had them half time as a single dad) to attend college. I now had more time and I could focus more on solving problems that seemed unsolvable before. Suddenly, 4 years after I bought a computer and had been on the Internet almost daily, it hit me: I’ll see what I can find regarding finding people on the Net. I searched the Net for adoption, adoptee, birth parents, finding lost people, etc. I came up with more lists. I registered with all of them. I went on line early in the morning until late at night. I posted inquiries on several bulletin boards searching for lost family and friends. My girlfriend, Darla, began to wonder what I was doing on line all the time. Was she with some kind of Internet freak?

I thought I found my son. It was the right birthday, the right year, the right sex, the right city and just had to be the right person. How many babies could have been born on the same day, be the same sex, in the same city and have been adopted? Evidently more than one because it was not him.

There are a lot of people offering to help find people on the Internet. They charge various amounts of money. The question is who to trust? I didn’t need to feel any more discouragement than I already have felt for 35 years.I talked to several search angels. They all promised success. I talked to a birth mother, Holly, who had a search angel help her find her son. She said hers was the best. I contacted Betsy, the search angel Holly recommended. Betsy was obviously very busy as she didn’t respond to my email right away. Soon Holly asked me if I wanted Betsy to search for me. I said yes and gave her the only information I had. That was my name, the name of the mother, the birth date and the name of the hospital he was born in. That’s all I had. I did not know what his name was changed to on the amended birth certificate once he was adopted. Marissa named the baby after me at birth.

Holly emailed me a few days later to tell me that Betsy was hot on the trail and asked if I wanted her to keep going… She had Johnny traced to 1990, then to 1994, then to 1998… When Betsy had the date for 2000, Holly told me to call her. I called Holly and it was nice to talk to someone who experienced it herself. She was excited for me. Betsy said, “I’m very sure it’s your son and it was not easy to find him as his name is very common, especially in East LA.”

I called Betsy back to talk over my thoughts about how to contact Jimmy. I was very excited. She suggested I call Holly back. I called Holly back. Holly said I should call Johnny myself as it could be the only time I ever hear his voice in case he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. I nervously dialed the number for the second time after much pacing.

“Hello” a voice answered that somehow sounded vaguely familiar.

“Hi. Is this Johnny?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Ahh…. Is your mother’s maiden name such and such?”

“Yes, it is…..

“Ahh… Is your father’s name… such and such?”

“Yes, it is. Who is this? Is this my boss? Are you making a joke here?” he asked laughingly yet obviously sounding more than a little nervous himself.

“No, I’m not your boss.”

“Are you sure this is not my boss? This sounds just like my boss.”

“No, I’m not your boss.

“You’re not?”

“No…..Ahh… Hmm….. No, I’m not your boss… Ahhh…Did you know you were adopted?” I finally blurted out very nervously while sweating in the cool February evening.

“Yes…I know I was adopted… Who is this? This is my boss, isn’t it? You’re playing a joke, aren’t you?!”

See Part 3 to be posted soon.

It was early 1965. I was 17 years old, living in East LA with my parents and my older brother, Richard. My girlfriend, Marissa, was pregnant. She was 16 years old as she looked at me with her lovely dark brown and sad, desperate eyes and asked: “Can’t you find a job that pays at least 80 dollars a week so we can get married?”

This was before The Pill was available to women who were not married and before safe abortion was available at all. I knew Marissa and I were not going to stay together. No way were we ever going to be able to make it. We fought all the time. It seemed like that’s all we ever did besides having sex or maybe it was the same thing. I can’t seem to remember. I knew that if we got married, the baby was going to grow up with a single mother in East LA. We didn’t get married. Instead, we put our baby up for adoption.

Six months later, I got drafted. 5 months after that, I was in the middle of The Central Highlands of Vietnam with The First Cavalry Division as a medic.

Johnny, (after 35 years of not knowing what his name really was, Johnny is what he is called) was shocked to hear from me. After getting his name and address from Betsy, my “search angel” (a person who helps you find someone), I was surprised at how nervous I was at actually calling the number. I waited until the next day to have more time to think about what I’d like to say to the grown man on the other end of the phone line as he answered the phone.

I called and a woman answered the phone. I asked if this was the home of Johnny Ramirez. “Yes, it is,” she answered. “Oh, you must be his wife.” I replied. “No.” she answered. “His girlfriend then?” “No.” she replied again rather bluntly. The quiet, one-word answers left me unprepared. “His daughter?” I struggled. “No.” she replied again rather impatiently. I struggled to find someone else to guess she might be. Finally I said, “His room mate then?” expecting the confirmation. Instead the woman answered, “No, but I have to go now.”

“Well, what time will Johnny be home?” I blurted out before she had a chance to hang up. “6 o’clock” she said as the phone went dead.

I sat there excited yet confused. It was 9:30 in the morning. I had the entire day to wonder if I had the right number and whether Johnny was going to be receptive or, for that matter, even know if he was adopted.

The day dragged on as I nervously tried to find something to get my mind off the only thing I could possibly think of: Is this really my birthson? How is he? How has he been? What has he chosen to do with these past 35 years? He was born on April 19, 1965. Less than a year and a half after President Kennedy was shot. Four months before the Watts riots. Before the height of the Civil Rights Movement. “The Sound of Music” was just released.

The hard edged, let it all hand out, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones was the answer to the sweet, love ballad “Michelle” by The Beatles. Both had just been just released and were burning up the airwaves.

Since Johnny was born, I survived Vietnam, came back to The States, became a hippy, broke up with his mother, hitched hiked across the US, both from North to South and from West to East and back again, graduated college, got married, had another baby we named Joshua, moved away from Los Angeles to take a job as a social worker in Ventura, CA. I left that job 3 years later to move up to Chico in Northern CA to return to college for another 2 years. That was in 1975. Johnny was now 10 years old.

I joined ALMA (Adoptee Liberation Movement Association). I attended a few meetings that lasted for hours and learned that it was going and take a very determined effort in order to “find my son.” I even met Florence Fisher, the founder of ALMA, while I was attending the national convention aboard The Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, during summer, 1977.

It was going to be a full time job if I was going to succeed. And, legally, I had no right to any information whatsoever, as not only was he not 18 years old yet but I was not even required to sign the relinquishment papers agreeing to put the baby up for adoption. That was done by his mother when he was 30 days old. Marissa had seen the baby only one time. The nuns at St. Anne’s Maternity Home, where Johnny was born said to her at that time, “What do you want to see him again for? He’s not yours. You’re not keeping him. You’re giving him up.” Marissa cried every time she recalled that story as she said, “Oh, Phil, he’s so pretty. Can’t we keep him somehow?” My gut wrenched.

My gut wrenched further every month that went by and I panicked again asking, “Did you have your period yet?” What would we do this time if Marissa was pregnant again? Another adoption? Keep this baby and tell him/her that we gave up his brother for adoption? Why did we do that if we kept him/her??

In 1976, I lost another family.  My marriage fell apart. The next year, I fell madly in love with a girl who left me a year later. Devastated at another loss, I quit school and hitched hiked across Europe and Israel to search for my roots. I met a lot of people on the road but came back to Chico later that year. I took a job at Chico Natural Foods Co-op as a manager. I left that job after a year to start my own business making the first fresh salsa available anywhere on the market. It soon became available in natural food stores all over the US. It sold very well. It was hard to keep up with the orders. That was June, 1980. My birth son was now 15 years old. How was he? Where was he? Never did April 19th pass without my wishing happy birthday to the son I fathered out there somewhere.

I met a woman named Christina and she became pregnant. (I know, I know — Doesn’t this guy use birth control?! Yes, I do. But, evidently, you have to use it every time.) Were Christina and I going to get married? We fought much like Marissa and I fought.

Christina looked into adoption. I about died. I could not live through another adoption. My daughter, Nadia, was born in March, 1981. She had 2 brothers. One in Chico and another one who knows where? Hopefully it was in some nice, healthy, comfortable family somewhere with everything he needs. Christina and I were just about to break up when she became pregnant again. (Ditto, above parenthesis.) Now what?

I’ll post Part 2 tomorrow.

 Phil at 17.

“So, then I couldn’t find my clothes. I guess my boyfriend took them with him so there I was feeling like an idiot stark naked.”

“Yeah, I guess that does beat my embarrassing story. So what’d you do then?”

“Well, what could I do? I walked up to the girl who I assaulted, apologized and started crying.”

“Yeah, what else could you do?”

“Well, then the girl smirked at me and walked away, leaving there feeling like a complete idiot.

“And that was it? She didn’t want to beat you up? How’d you get home?” I asked.

“No, that wasn’t it. And then the cops came.” she answered.

“Oh? Wow…”

“Yeah, oh, wow.”

“And, ahhh…”

“And they told me to put on my clothes but when I told them my boyfriend stole my clothes, they put a blanket on me and handcuffed me.”

“They take you to jail?”

“The girl I beat up came over and said, ‘She’s crazy but I think she’s sorry enough so I don’t want to press charges besides I got her pretty good too.'”

“Really? That was nice.” I said.

“Well, yeah, she did get me pretty good too.” she said as she showed me a scar on her forehead beneath her bangs. “And she offered me a ride home.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she lived a few miles up the road toward Santa Barbara on the beach. A nice a place called Summerland. She invited me in and gave me some clothes to wear. She offered me some food and we ate and drank and talked all night and then we became very good friends.”

“Nice. So whatever happened to your boyfriend?”

“Oh, that jerk? Haha…I dumped him and so did the blond he was hitting on at the party but enough of my embarrassing story. Now tell me you most embarrassing story. And it better be better than the last one you told me.”

“No way out of this, huh?”

“No way out.”

“Okay, here goes. I was in the first or the second grade. I don’t remember which and the teacher was mean to us kids. After lunch she made us take a  nap. She made us lay our heads on our desks and told us to be quiet for 20 minutes and then she said, “And I don ‘t want any of you to get up for any reason, including going to the bathroom.”

“Yeah? That doesn’t sound so bad. I mean I worked in a grammar school for a while and the kids are never quiet and they’re always getting up and going to the bathroom and fooling around.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t one of those kids. I was a quiet, shy kid people would call bashful. I was practically invisible.”

“Yeah? Alright. Go on.”

“So I had to go to the bathroom real bad and I’m not talking just going number one. I’m talking I had to go number two real bad.”

“So….?

“So I sat there with my head on the desk trying to hold it with all my might when suddenly it occurred to me that since I had underpants on — you know some of us wear underwear — that I could just poop in my pants and clean it out when I got home.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I wish I was kidding.”

“You crapped your pants? In school? In the first or second grade?!”

“Yeah, I crapped my pants but that wasn’t the worst part.”

“It gets worse?”

“So there I am sitting in my dirty pants and feeling pretty conspicuous when the girl sitting next to me said, ‘Eau, what stinks?'”

“Really? This really happened to you? You’re not making this up?”

“Look, let me just finish the story and then you can make me feel worse about it, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, go on.”

“So, it was time to get up and sit on the carpet by the teacher for story time. So I get up and I felt the poop rolling down my pant let and falling out onto my shoe and all over the vinyl floor.”

“You gotta be making this up!”

“I wish I was making it up.”

“And then?”

“And then the teacher looks at me incredulously and says, ‘What’s that?!'”

“I stood there more mortified than I’d ever been in my sweet short life and I answer, ‘Poop poop balls.'”

“This didn’t really happen. You’re making this up.”

“Look, if I was making this up, it would be a lot less mortifying than it was.”

“So what happened next?”

“So the teacher practically screams, ‘Oh, my god! Well, go into the bathroom and clean yourself up!”  So I go into the bathroom and I can hear all the other kids whooping and hollering and laughing in disbelief while I’m trying to clean out my underwear and one boy is climbing over the partition and laughing at me and calling me a poop poop ball head” as he laughed hysterically.

I sat there feeling embarrassed all over again and tried to smile at my date.

She sat there for a moment and said nothing until she faintly said, “Well, if that’s a true story, you’re right, that has got to be the most embarrassing moment of your life.”

“It was” I said and then I looked at her and said, “Who’s idea was this to share embarrassing stories anyway?”

“Yours. You must have really wanted to share your poop poop ball story, huh?”

“Not really. I just felt like I promised you I’d tell you mine if you told me yours. So there it is. I told you mine.”

She looked at me intently and I said, “I can tell what you’re thinking.”

“Oh, really? What am I thinking?”

“Well, you’re probably thinking I might be a little too crazy or maybe a little too self-disclosing for you.”

She sat there, quietly drinking her wine, shook her head, chuckled, looked at me and finally said, “Wow, that is a hell of a story.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” I said.

She finished her wine, gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “It’s a nice night. How bout you and me go to the beach and go for a swim in the ocean? That way I won’t know if you go poop poop in your pants again.”

 Phil in the first grade.

Killing Our Planet

 Home sweet home.

Millions of people believe that the next life they live will be better than this life here now. Someone I love and respect very much once said, “You don’t have to worry about what’s happening to life on the planet today because Jesus Christ is coming back soon and he’ll take care of everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, everything.”

“When’s he coming?”

“He’ll be here within 75 years.”

“So we don’t have to worry about the destruction of the planet until then?”

“No, don’t worry about it. He’ll be taking care of everything.”

“Well, he’d better get here quick cause I’m not sure the planet can hold out that long.”

Meanwhile the planet is being assaulted by billions of tons of pollutants destroying our air, our water and chopping down trees by the millions and killing animals and our human health that has been protected for millions of years by the Earth’s fragile atmosphere.

It’s obvious from the extreme weather patterns happening by looking at the planet from the North Pole to South Pole, and everywhere in between with flash floods and mud slides, more frequent and severe storms and wild fires and droughts that the planet is warming. Globally, the mercury is already up more than 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.8degree Celsius), and even more in sensitive Polar Regions. And the effects of rising temperatures aren’t waiting for some far-flung future. They’re happening right now. Signs are appearing all over, and some of them are surprising. The heat is not only melting glaciers and sea ice; it’s also shifting precipitation patterns and setting animals on the move.

Some impacts from increasing temperatures are already happening.

• Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland, and Arctic sea ice.
• Researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the decline of the Adélie penguins on Antarctica, where their numbers have fallen from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000 in 30 years.
• Sea level rise became faster over the last century.
• Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have moved farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
• Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on average.
• Spruce bark beetles have boomed in Alaska thanks to 20 years of warm summers. The insects have chewed up 4 million acres of spruce trees.

Other effects could happen later this century, if warming continues.

• Sea levels are expected to rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 and 59 centimeters) by the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could add between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters).
• Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
• Species that depend on one another may become out of sync. For example, plants could bloom earlier than their pollinating insects become active.
• Floods and droughts will become more common. Rainfall in Ethiopia, where droughts are already common, could decline by 10 percent over the next 50 years.
• Less fresh water will be available. If the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru continues to melt at its current rate, it will be gone by 2100, leaving thousands of people who rely on it for drinking water and electricity without a source of either.
• Some diseases will spread, such as malaria carried by mosquitoes.
• Ecosystems will change—some species will move farther north or become more successful; others won’t be able to move and could become extinct. Wildlife research scientist Martyn Obbard has found that since the mid-1980s, with less ice on which to live and fish for food, polar bears have gotten considerably skinnier.  Polar bear biologist Ian Stirling has found a similar pattern in Hudson Bay.  He fears that if sea ice disappears, the polar bears will as well.

Source for climate information: IPCC, 2007

The atmosphere is about 6-30 mi high, with significant concentrations of ozone, formed by the effect of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation on oxygen and also present in trace quantities elsewhere in earth’s atmosphere. Ozone strongly absorbs solar UV radiation, causing atmospheric temperature to climb to about 30°F (0°C) at the top of the layer, and preventing much of this radiation from reaching earth’s surface, where it would injure many living things.

Chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, and some other air pollutants that diffuse into the ozone layer destroy ozone. In the mid-1980s, scientists discovered that a “hole”—an area where the ozone is up to 50% thinner than normal—develops periodically in the ozone layer above Antarctica. This severe regional depletion, explained as a natural seasonal depletion, appears to have been exacerbated by the effects of CFCs, and may have led to an increase in skin cancer caused by UV exposure. Restrictions on the manufacture and use of CFCs and other ozone-destroying pollutants were imposed in 1978. But those restrictions are not doing anything to the pollutants being discharged by the billions of tons into our ozone.

I realize the global warming deniers say the problem is not caused by human behavior. It just so happens that most of those folks benefit or hope to benefit by keeping things the way they are.

But if the ozone is made up of only gases and we’re pumping billions of cubic tons of carbon monoxide and other pollutant gases into the mix, how can it not have an effect on the ozone? And that fact has been proven by 99.9 % of all scientific studies.

Then there is the Hugh Garbage Patch in the ocean The size of the patch is unknown, as large items readily visible from a boat deck are uncommon. Most debris consists of small plastic particles suspended at or just below the surface, making it impossible to detect by aircraft or satellite. Instead, the size of the patch is determined by sampling. Estimates of size range from 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) to more than 15,000,000 square kilometers (5,800,000 sq mi) (0.41% to 8.1% of the size of the Pacific Ocean), or, in some media reports, up to “twice the size of the continental United States”. Such estimates, however, are conjectural given the complexities of sampling and the need to assess findings against other areas. Further, although the size of the patch is determined by a higher-than-normal degree of concentration of pelagic debris (a fine-grained sediment that accumulates as the result of the settling of particles to the floor of the open ocean, far from land) and there is no standard for determining the boundary between “normal” and “elevated” levels of pollutants to provide a firm estimate of the affected area.

 A tiny part of the Great Garbage Patch in the ocean.

In 1978 when I was on a ferry boat going from The Middle East to Europe, I happened to be sitting at the very back of the boat looking at the ocean when someone from the kitchen come out with three huge wooden boxes of garbage that he could hardly see over or carry, of everything that was considered waste from the ship and he tossed it all off the back of the ship, boxes and all, seemingly without even thinking about it. And then he came back carrying several more boxes overboard. I’m sure that trash is still in the ocean today along with millions of tons more garbage of all  type dumped since.

I guess the people who don’t believe global warming is caused by human beings (and corporations) hope that they can still benefit from the release of more pollutants into the air and water and onto the land if they can keep up the production of the problem. And, of course, they are going to be just as affected by the planet being degraded as everybody else is.

But, then, I guess there are some people who want to believe that someone is going to come and save us all within 75 years.

But wait a minute — the person who I love and respect very much —  said that more than 40 years ago. What’s that leave us? Less than 35 years? Hmmm…. I hope he makes it in time.

She looked at me, finished her wine and smiled. I could tell she was debating how much she wanted to tell me when she finally said, “I need a little time to think about it.”

“Alright. I understand, you’re afraid. I’m glad I didn’t tell you my most embarrassing moment.”

She looked at me, chuckled and ordered another glass of wine and said, ”This Saturday night I’ll pick you up and take you to dinner and I’ll have a good story to tell you at that time but you gotta tell me your most embarrassing moment then too.”

“Hey, I’m cool with that.” I answered.

“You better be.” she answered.

Friday evening, the phone rang and I answered it. It was the lady who said she’d take me out to dinner Saturday.

“Oh, you’re there?” she said sounding surprised.

“Yes, I’m here. Are you calling to cancel our date for tomorrow night?” I asked.

“Nope. I just wanted to make sure you’re gonna be there and be ready with your most embarrassing story.” She said.

“I’ll be here, ready and willing.”

“With your story, right?” She asked.

“As long as you’re ready with your story first. Don’t forget, I already told you a story. Did you forget or are you chickening out?”

“I’m not chickening out but you better have a better story than the one you told me.”

“I got a better one but you better too.”

“I’ll pick you up at 7:00. You like Thai food?” She asked.

“It’s my favorite.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said.

She picked me up at 6:59 in her 1968 cherry red Chevy pickup truck and drove me to West LA. We got out and and walked into a place called Melanee Thai Cuisine. We sat down and ordered drinks. 

“Hey, nice place!” I said.

“Well, I figure this is going to be fun so let’s do it in a nice place.” She said with a smile.

“I like that.” I said.

“What do you like?” she asked. “Soup? Curry? Noodles? Sushi?”

“All of that. They sell sushi here?”

“Think so. We’ll see.” she said.

“Okay, you ready to tell me your most embarrassing story?” I asked.

“Let’s order first.”

“Cool.” I said.

“Let’s start with appetizers.” She ordered Siam spring rolls and wontons stuffed with shrimp.

“Sounds good.” I said.

“What do you like?” she asked.

“Well the shrimp and mushrooms in a lemongrass hot & sour soup sounds good and so does the papaya salad.”

“Okay, good, let’s have both.” she said and she signaled the waitress, looked at me and asked,  ”What else you want?”

“Well, I like seafood.”

“Okay, good. I like that too. Let’s get the seafood combination. That sounds good. And another glass of wine for me and another beer for you?”

“Sure.”

We ate it all up and drank some more and then I looked at her and asked: “So, you ready to tell me your story now?”

“Yeah.” She finished her wine and said, “I was with this guy I liked a lot when I was in high school. He was a jock on the basketball team. He was my first lover. We were going out for a few months when he asked me to go with him to a party in Malibu.”

“Yeah? Well, that sounds nice but ah…where’s the good part?” I said.

“I’m getting there.” she said as she ordered another glass of wine.

“Well, we got to this party in this fabulous house on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It was a very nice party with a lot of rich people there and some very good catered food and some great live music.  It was pretty warm with the sun shinning bright and pretty soon everybody started jumping in the pool but some people didn’t have bathing suits so they jumped in their underwear or in the nude.”

“Yeah? That’s nice. I’ve done that, so…?”

“So I wasn’t wearing any panties or bra.”

“Oh, nice.” I said with a smile.

“Yeah, nice but I felt a little less than comfortable when I took off my clothes and noticed some of the men there checking me out.”

“Well, hey, why not? That’s what it was all about, no?”

“Well, maybe so but then I noticed my so-called boyfriend couldn’t stop checking out this blond on the other side of the pool. He was drinking pretty heavily and pretty soon he swam over to her and was talking to her sitting on the love seat and ignoring me for like 20 minutes.”

“Well, you know…..” I said with a laugh.

“Yeah, I know but I was drinking pretty heavily too and pretty soon I thought I could see them playing footsies so I got up and went over to them, all of us completely naked and I said to the girl: “Look, honey, this is my boyfriend. Keep your eyes, hands and feet off of him!”

“Well, you know, that ain’t so bad. I imagine your boyfriend might have done the same thing if not worse if the tables were turned.” I said.

“Yeah, maybe so but he jerk looked at me and said, “Honey,  you’re drunk. Go sit down and sober up. And then he smiled at the blond” she said.

And then she added, “Or maybe he said ‘Sit down and shut up.’ and then I just lost it. I kicked him where it hurts and I threw my glass of wine in her face. She got up and slapped me on the face hard and called me some nasty names and I grabbed her and we fought on the love seat until we both slipped off the love seat and I slammed her head onto the concrete pool wall a couple of times as we went under the water. We were pulling each other’s hair and scratching and screaming at each other and gasping for air until we finally came up and I called her every name I could think of.

“Oh, now I see…” I said as I saw her in a different light.

“Now you see what?” She asked with a frown.

“Huh..? Oh, now I see you got a lot of guts.” I smiled and then I added,  ”So what happened next?”

“Well, my boyfriend pulled me off of her and I could see blood dripping down her head onto her hair and face and arms and I was still yelling at the both of them and then I kicked at him again and called him names and said, “I never want to see you again, you jerk!.”

“Okay. Well, I can see how that might be a little embarrassing. Or maybe it gets even better.”

“A little embarrassing?! Are you kidding me?! That was totally embarrassing but that wasn’t the end of it. My boyfriend said, “You’re crazy! I’m leaving you here!” and he grabbed his clothes and drove away leaving me there.”

“Oh…Fun huh? So then what’d you do?

“So there I was, completely naked and drunk with everybody looking at me and I realized I was bleeding on my face and my arms too.”

“Ahh…nice….” I grimaced. “So…?”

“So, then I couldn’t find my clothes. I guess my boyfriend took them with him and there I was stark naked, feeling like an idiot.”

“Yeah, I guess that does beat my embarrassing story. So what’d you do then?”

“Well, what could I do? I walked up to the girl who I beat up, apologized and I started crying.”

“Yeah, well, what else could you do?”

“Well, then the girl smirked at me and walked away, leaving me there feeling like a complete idiot.

“And that was it? She didn’t want to beat you up? How’d you get home?” I asked.

“No, that wasn’t it. And then the cops came.” she answered.

 Malibu, CA

I’ll continue the story with Part 3 coming up.

People who are complaining about the idea of Obamacare should realize that the problem is not President Obama trying to make health care more affordable. The real problem is the high cost of health care, which is kept extremely high due to the middleman, the insurance companies, that make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profits basically shuffling paper. And a lot of that shuffling is done trying to not pay their customers medical bills.

Of course it’s easy to point the finger at Obamacare rather than taking a look at the real problem, which is the exorbitant price of health care in this country and a lot of that cost is in the insurance companies taking a very big piece of the action to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

The solution, that seems obvious but is made confusing by people and corporations (that the Supreme Court now calls “people”) who benefit from the system the way it is, would be to make the system fair. How can we do that?

If every person in the country paid only 50 dollars a month to a nonprofit agency (not an insurance company) that would be more than 15 billion dollars a month, which should be more than enough to have a computer program shuffle the paper and do the job insurance companies should be doing; paying the medical bills of their customers without making billions in profit doing it.

But, of course, the insurance companies bottom line is not delivering health care, it’s delivering as big a profit as it can to insurance companies and they seem to be doing a very good job doing that.

And they also seem to be doing a very good job pointing the finger at Obama who, in reality is trying to improve the system but is being badgered by people who want to keep things the way they are, and of course, there are a lot of people who can’t stand the idea of having a black man in the White House. I guess they’d rather have a dumb white guy in charge rather than a smart black guy.

But, of course, we’re over racism in America today so the Supreme Court says we don’t need the Civil Rights Voting Act anymore to protect against discrimination because we know discrimination doesn’t exist anymore in America today. Yeah, right.

The Texas Senate passed new abortion restrictions that Gov. Rick Perry has just signed into law. The new law requires doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, allow abortions only in surgical centers, limit where and when women may take abortion-inducing pills and ban abortions altogether after 20 weeks. That will close all but five existing abortion clinics in Texas, which happens to be the second most populated state in the US.

Even if they were able to stop abortions all together, which, of course, is what they really want, they wouldn’t be happy with that. No, no, no. They’ve already begun working on restricting birth control. Well, you know, their attitude about sex; it’s okay for them but it’s better if you don’t have any. And if they could succeed at stopping your birth control, they still wouldn’t be happy.

Basically, they’d like woman to be second class citizens much like they were in the 1950s; staying at home, taking care of the kids, cooking, doing the house work and bringing the man of the house his slippers when he comes home from slaying dragons. Or, if she did have a job, it was at some low paying job and she was still responsible for doing all the aforementioned duties like a job wife should.

Still, that wouldn’t be enough, next would be, just like the Taliban, you have to be of the right religion, which, naturally has to be the same religion they are (and the right sect). So, if you happen to be something other than what they are, or god forbid, you happen to be an atheist, then, of course, you don’t believe what they believe so you’re going to hell and they’d like to help you along as quickly as possible.

I believe it’s a slippery slope from the restrictions and intolerance of the Tea Party Republicans to the Taliban. Not even that steep a slope either. Maybe a mid-sized step.

What scares me the most is that they’re evidently doing a good enough job of pandering to and getting so many people to buy into and vote for their emotionally charged agenda with their self-righteous, hypocritical tactics.

Of course, there are millions of people who don’t bother to vote at all, which makes them just as culpable.

Whatever happened to the Republican Party supposedly being the party that wants freedom from government? I guess freedom for women having the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion is not included. And you know they do not intend to stop there.

“Have you ever been asked to share something that embarrassed you?”

I was eating at a Mexican restaurant when I asked something my date didn’t seem too eager to answer. It was our first date and I thought it was a good way to get to know each other. She looked at me coyly and said:  ”I’ll tell you one of mine if you tell me one of yours.”

I thought about it for a moment and then I told the story:

“After high school I went to college for a few months until I got drafted into the army for 2 years. One of those years I was as a medic in Vietnam.”

My date looked at me and nodded and seemed interested so I kept telling her the story.

“After the army I returned to college and it felt like a cakewalk.  It was 1971 and I was walking down the hallway going to my favorite sociology class at Cal State LA and loving it. Life was good and I was enjoying myself very much after the army.

I was admiring the dozens of beautiful pictures someone had posted along the walls.  I noticed one picture in particular that I couldn’t keep my eyes off every time I walked passed it. It was pinned to the long bulletin board on the wall by four push pins. I loved the colors.

Everyday while walking by the picture I stopped and gazed at it that was of two women sitting on the sand at the beach on a tropical island next to a palm tree. One woman was wearing red shorts and a black tank top. The other woman was wearing a green bathing suit and playing a beautiful brown guitar with the blue-green sea in front of them. They both seemed to be singing.

One day while walking down the hallway I noticed that a couple of the pictures were missing. As the days passed I noticed that some of the other pictures were also missing. I was glad to see that my favorite picture was still on the wall. But how much longer would it be before it too would be gone?  I thought I’d better take the picture myself before somebody else took it.

Later that day upon leaving my favorite class I went up to the picture and noticed that no one else was in the hallway. I carefully pulled out one of the bottom pins that held my favorite picture to the wall and looked around to see if anyone saw me doing it. No one saw me. I pulled out the other bottom pin and still no one was around. I quickly pulled out the top two pins and surprisingly the picture was still stuck to the wall.

I was getting ready to pull the picture off the wall when I heard footsteps and suddenly a professor came up beside me and looked at the picture with me saying nothing and just enjoying my favorite picture.

A moment later another professor came up and joined us looking at the picture. Still the picture stuck to the wall.

Then the professor from my favorite class came up, nodded hi to me and he also joined us silently admiring the picture. No one spoke as we all looked at the picture.

At that moment the picture could no longer hold onto the wall and very quietly, as if magically by our gaze, the picture dropped to the floor by our feet.

After a moment of surprise all the professors slowly looked at me knowingly as I walked away as if nothing happened.”

My date looked at me and said: “Yes, I can see how that could be a little embarrassing.”

“A little embarrassing? It was very embarrassing. What about you? What embarrassed you?”

She sat there quietly eating and drinking her wine.

“Oh, you got a good one, huh?” I said.

Still she sat there and said nothing.

“This has got to be a real good one.” I said with wild anticipation.

She looked at me and said. “You gotta give me something better than that story before I tell you one of mine.”

I looked at her for a moment and I said, “Naturally that wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of my life but it was one I felt I could share on a first date. I have stuff much more embarrassing but I think I’ll have to save that for another time. So, what embarrassing time are you thinking of?.”

She looked at me, finished her wine and smiled. I could tell she was debating how much she wanted to tell me when she finally said, “I need a little time to think about it.”

“Alright. I understand. I’m glad I didn’t tell you my most embarrassing moment.”

She looked at me, ordered another glass of wine and said, ”This Saturday night I’ll pick you up and I’ll take you to dinner and I’ll have a good story to tell you at that time but you gotta tell me your most embarrassing moment then too.”

“Hey, I’m cool with that.” I answered.

“You better be.” she answered.

I’ll continue the story tomorrow with “You Call That Embarrassing? part 2 of 3.

May 17^th 1992, a day that changed my life forever.

Twenty-one years ago on May 17th, 1992, my mom passed away. Could 21 years really have already passed without me seeing or talking to or being with my mother? Could that really be possible? I had just turned 46 years old ten days before she left us and it was right after Mother’s Day, 1992.

A lot has happened since then. Her four children and her 11 grandchildren have all gotten 21 years older. Some grandchildren have had children of their own so Mom would be a great-grandmother now were she still alive. Of course, were she still alive, she’d be more than 100 years old. 107 to be exact.

Dad passed away four months later. Those were the saddest two events of my life. It was like a double blast from a shotgun. Bang! Bang! It took years for me to accept the loss and I probably still haven’t accepted it completely and I probably never will.

To be able to dial 213 283 8776 on the phone again and to hear Mom or Dad say, “Hello” would be wonderful. To be able to get in my car and drive the 8 hours to LA and knock on the door and see them come to the front door and hug and kiss them. That would be heaven. To watch them moving about the house on Violeta Drive in Alhambra and going about their day, wow, that’d be so wonderful!

To watch Dad watering the lawn and his tending little tomato garden and see him taking a nap on his bed would be like magic. To go into Mom’s room and see her watching TV and reading one of her magazines and look up and ask, “How you doing, hon?” with love in her eyes would be so wonderful and yet while they were alive, naturally, we all took it for granted because they were always there. It was incomprehensible to imagine them not being there and yet, it’s been twenty-one years.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and do a double take because I think I see my father. To think they never saw my children graduate from high school and graduate from college and go on with their lives becoming strong, happy adults involved with their lives with relationships and jobs and homes. Sometimes I look at my children and think, “Wow, they are my Mom and Dad’s grandchildren.

And to think I’ll never see Mom or Dad again for the rest of my life?? Unfathomable! And yet, that’s how life is. Time passes and we get involved with our lives and we’re busy and we do things we believe are important and things change. I remember a song by Bob Dylan, called To Ramona,  where he sings: “Everything passes, everything changes, just do what you think you should do.” And I guess that’s how life goes, so in order to make sense of it we have to accept and respect what it is and go on doing what we believe is important and try to make the world a better place.

Of course I now realize everything that Mom and Dad did for us. They brought us here and worked hard all their lives and did everything for us and I often find myself sitting back and offering gratitude for all their hard work bringing me here and helping me become who I am and giving me everything I have which is quite a lot. I wish they could have met Trudi who I’ve been with now for 12 years. I wish they could see our home and how their grandchildren are doing.

But maybe like Trudi says, if there’s anything to religion, maybe they’re looking down at us all right now with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts like they always did while they were alive. If that’s true, I’d just like to say, thank you Mom and Dad. I miss and love you very much, Love, Phil

 Mom and Dad as newlyweds

I thought I might be in trouble when I turned 18 years old and I had to register for the draft.

I got there 5 minutes after the place closed on my birthday and I knocked on the double glass doors and a lady looked at me from behind a counter and without getting up she shook her head and yelled, “Come back tomorrow.” I got there late because I had been with my girlfriend and that seemed to have a  higher  priority than registering for the draft. I thought, “oh, oh, am I in trouble?” but I found out they gave you 10 days to register after your 18^th birthday.

I found out years later that a lot of guys never even registered for the draft but I was still in high school and I guess I didn’t think I had a choice. I graduated high school the following month. It was summertime in LA and we liked going to the beach to play in the sand and jump in the waves. Time felt like it was standing still and like it would be summertime forever.

Money was tight so I got a job at a factory working the graveyard shift making Styrofoam Christmas ordainments working from 10 PM to 6 AM and then went to my girlfriend’s house to sleep during the day. She wanted to get married but even working full time I was making less than 80 dollars a week take home pay. How do you support a family on that? We were always worried about her getting pregnant and every month I was afraid that we were in trouble.

Since I worked nights, I began going to East LA College full time during the days. Naturally after the first semester I found out I in trouble when I was put on academic probation because I wasn’t able to keep up my grades. Evidently I had to get at least a “C” average and naturally without studying, I wasn’t making it. Basically in high school all you had to do was show up. They actually expected you to study in college! Hmmm… Imagine that?

My mother told me that I better do better the next semester otherwise I’d be in trouble, get suspended from school and I’d get drafted. I remember saying to my mom: “Ah, mom, I don’t have to worry about that cause they don ‘t draft people until they’re at least 23 years old.” Where’d I get that idea?

Working night’s full time made it impossible for me to get good grades going to school full time too if I actually had to study, so I dropped below 12 units, which made me eligible for the draft.

My mom said: “Phil, don’t forget, there’s a war on now. Do you want to get drafted?”

“Ah, mom, they’re not going to draft me. I’m too young.”

The following week I received my draft notice telling me to report for induction into the US Armed Forces. I thought, “Oh, oh, I might be in trouble now”.

 Phil’s first couple weeks in the army.

After basic combat training I was glad that I was assigned to combat medics school because I thought that I might actually learn something. Then I was told by our sergeant that quote: “90% of you will be sent to Vietnam and 50% of you will be dead within 3 months.” I thought, “Oh oh,  I might be in trouble now.”

Somehow or other I made it through Vietnam and I went back to school at Cal State LA and this time school seemed like a cakewalk and I got very good grades and graduated with a BA in Sociology. The draft was still going on and since I grew my hair long and grew a beard, the professors accused me of going to school to keep out of being drafted. And I was actually studying! They wouldn’t believe me that I’d already been in the army and to Vietnam so I had to carry around my discharge papers to prove it to them. They were always surprised.

After graduating college I got a job as a social worker at the Seabee base at Port Hueneme, CA, next to Oxnard and near Ventura. My job was counseling troopers and their family. Problem was they all wanted to get out of the Navy – and since they saw me with long hair and a beard, they thought I could help them get out of the Navy – but my job was to keep them in the Navy.  I thought, “Hmmm.. this  might be trouble.”

 Phil as a social worker at Port Hueneme, CA.

After working as a social worker at the Navy base and living in Ventura for 3 years, I moved up to Chico to get my master’s degree. I got married a lady who didn’t appreciate my style and soon I had 3 children and was a single father. Again I thought, “Oh, oh, this might be trouble.” But like Zorba the Greek said, “Life is trouble. Only in death is there no trouble.” So I guess I was happy to have a little trouble in my life to remind me that I was still alive.