SOUTHERN BY CHOICE, MOSTLY

I LIVE IN THE South. Flat out I love it.

Sometimes the people make me nuts. So kind in general, etiquette is incredibly important to them, unless you choose to turn around in their driveway without notifying them first or ring their bell without calling ahead, then they will shoot you dead and not blink twice. They will make a dish for your memorial though, and check up on your children until they are grown with children of their own, bless their hearts, poor things. They will invite your kids to call them memaw and papaw <insert last name here>. In short, you couldn’t pick a more genuinely loving group to be cold bloodedly murdered by.

Sometimes the weather makes me nuts. I know every place has erratic weather. The South has its own brand of climate though. We don’t just have OUR erratic weather, we have EVERYONE’S erratic weather.  Eight year long droughts? Yep. Got it.  24 inches of rain in 24 hours? Ha! The DOT has no choice but to replace or repair all those washed out wobbledy ass bridges they have been ignoring for years. God making government work, we love it! Blizzards? Been there, done that, thunder snow and all. Hurricanes? All. Day. Long. So often that hurricane parties are really a thing, and plywood is our best friend. Subzero temperatures? We scoff, -9 for a high isn’t unknown every 30 years or so. Wanted to change out those water pipes anyway… Fire season? I told you about the droughts right?  Tornados? A given, everyone has a designated safe spot. Ask any 3 year old and they will tell you where to go if the sky starts turning green or it hails. 105 degrees? Yawn, it’s why God invented ice cream and sweet tea and swimming holes. Throw in massive ice storms every few years, a random earthquake or two, floods, 84 degrees in January and 45 degrees in June, and you start to get the picture. The old jokes about first spring, real winter, second spring, last winter, third spring etc all occurring in March are truer than you know. Weather men and women are roasted mercilessly, especially by people who come from places where fall is more than any 5 random days between October and December and snow lasts more than 2 days. And, it’s true, we CAN’T drive on ice, but you know what? We see those miles long pile ups on the news, we got real channels and everthang down here, hyuck hyuck, you guys can’t either.

The food will make you fat at best and definitely kill you slowly, but with love. It’s just so damn good! Buttermilk makes everything it touches better, duh.  Pecans and bacon go in just about everything. Pecans and bacon with brown sugar? Manna from heaven dontcha know. Beans cooked with ham hocks, corn on the cob, and squash from the garden along with eggs from the backyard chickens make summer time a glorious time to be alive and a foodie. Tomato sandwiches (as well as peanut butter and banana) are on most people’s top ten lunch foods, guaranteed top five when the tomatoes are still warm from the garden sun and doused with salt and pepper. Southerners love seasoning and aren’t afraid of a little heat.  Too much salt might kill you but apparently not from boiled peanuts. Black, red, cayenne, green… we love ALL the pepper. Corn bread, hot and dripping butter, was surely found first in the Garden of Eden! Hush puppies are corn bread that needed an oil bath, because fried fish, ‘nuff said. Sweet tea, known as tea down here, is a whole cultural thing.  People have their own recipes (yep, for tea with sugar and ice) and are divided into two camps, team tea with lemon and the withouts. I am team lemon myself, but I am sad to say one must always ask for tea with lemon, we are definitely in the minority. Barbeque enthusiasts are a subset of our culture, and not to be confused with those that like to grill out. Once again, I seem to fall on the minority side, enjoying grilled pork chops and chicken way more than the same barbequed or smoked. I will probably lose my southerner card because brisket is meh to me. I do love me some ribs, any style, wet and messy and tasting like they were cooked by the angels on a giant green egg in the sky. Oh yeah, southerners aren’t afraid to eat with their fingers and gnaw the bones of something like the above mentioned ribs. A roll of paper towels on the table isn’t laziness, it’s a sign that your host knows this meal is good enough to use way more than one cheap paper napkin.  If your chest or lap isn’t spotted with dibbles and crumbs, if you don’t have to groan and pop a button or two, if you don’t say ‘I couldn’t eat another bite’ while greedily accepting a slice of homemade lemon pound cake,  your host will feel like you didn’t really enjoy the meal and vow to do better next time. Oh, also, they will talk about you once you leave. Everyone does it, but we aren’t afraid to claim it.  

Sometimes southern art makes me crazy, just angry crazy. Rebel flags, ‘Gone With The Wind’, overly ornate ceramic belles and beaus, mammies and lawn jockeys, in short, things that have disappeared from most places still can be prevalent here. Not only are most politically incorrect which should be enough to put them out of favor, they aren’t attractive, a lot just plain ugly. Like giant trucks and spittoons they are outdated and tawdry. On the other hand, I LOVE primitive art and it abounds here. Sculptures made out of old farm equipment, windmills from shovel blades, chickens made from gourds, I love them all. It isn’t at all unusual to be driving through the mountains and happen on an impromptu front porch or parking lot concert featuring blue grass and country music or classic rock by insanely talented ‘big boned’ guys named Bubba or Mike. Every little store is overflowing with homemade soaps and pillows and pottery and candles and wood worked with divine inspiration that could sell for a million bucks anywhere. You are likely to find phenomenal chutneys and salsa and pickled garlic on a shelf at the local hardware store, between the boot scrapers and the chicken feed. Home grown and homemade is EVERYWHERE and I hope that never changes.

Like I said, I flat out love the south. I have lived a lot of places, and a lot of them outshine us in some things, but for me, the genuinely caring and talented and dedicated and well fed people keep me here. The random day in the dead of winter, when all of my cold and dark fed demons are on full display, that dawns sunny and warm enough to open all the windows and KNOW summer is right around the proverbial corner makes it all worthwhile. If you haven’t visited us, do. Every bad thing you ever heard is probably true to a degree but the untold abundance of good things will astound and amaze you.

OH! And watch out for deer!

Me and Thee --

I think that I shall never see

Anything as lovely as me and thee

From our jutting bones to our fat shrouded hips

Our too narrow or chapped or bee stung lips

Our firm round flesh, our sagging jowls

Our sports ability or karaoke howls

Our hair that shines, that frizzes or curls, that hangs lank and colorless or tumbles and whirls

That used to be there or that wafts like thistles

To our body’s odd pops and ratchets, our booms and whistles

Green eyes, blue eyes, brown and black

Fat on the front or fat on the back

Short or tall, wide and narrow

Sturdy bones or those of a sparrow

The newborn, the aged and all in between

The most glorious artwork I've ever seen.

I Ain’t Never Going To Die

Okay, we all want to live longer. Better living is fantastic but longer living is where it is at. Even people who think they don’t change their tunes when the Grim Reaper comes-a-knockin’ at their door. I try to do the right things. I eat legumes and dark leafy greens, I walk or exercise (almost) every day, I am married and have a pet, I wash my hands and keep my environment clean. These should allow me to live my allotted years in a general state of good health. 

I don’t have the oomph though, to do more. I had resigned myself to living out my 80.18 years proscribed by the government’s data (http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa/life-expectancy-white-female) and then bidding this mortal coil farewell and leaving my well regulated and dog hair covered, barely toned yet well-scrubbed and moisturized mortal shell behind... 

But Wait! While I was cruising the internet  this morning I read an article that got me re-enthused about longevity  because I discovered that I can live longer, so much longer that even Methuselah would envy me, just by waking up every morning and being myself!

Ibuprofen is the miracle it seems, and can add up to 15 % to my life span! (Basically 8.2 years) that’s right! I am now looking at 90 almost. Why do I take ibuprofen? Because sadly one’s body starts to break down a bit with use, or no use as the case may be, we are screwed every which way! I have arthritis so I end up taking a giant horse pill at least every three days and sometimes two or three times in one day depending on the weather. I can’t imagine what the numbers will actually be since the longer I live the more my joints will degenerate and the more I will hurt thus forcing me to take more medicine… this might be the snake eating its tail infinite magic of modern medicine. I missed my calling. I should have been a doctor!

The second miracle drug is coffee. Coffee can add up to 15% more to a woman’s life span (http://authoritynutrition.com/how-coffee-makes-you-live-longer/). Hello 98, you are looking fine! I drink a lot of coffee. I drink it mostly because I hate to be cold, it hurts my bones. I take my ibuprofen with my coffee so I figure that is like 15% squared! That being the case I can add 225 YEARS to my age… screw 98, 300 is staring at me in my rear-view mirror. I love mathematics and what you can do with it.

I am not a heavy drinker, and although alcohol is the 3^rd miracle drug, with numerous studies saying that drinking the hard stuff will extend your life (http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/health/a-sobering-truth-drinkers-live-longer-than-non-drinkers/article/363956  or http://www.themarysue.com/drinking-makes-you-live-longer/) not one of them gives me a percentage, so I am going to have to make an educated guess.  I don’t see myself aging drinking cold drinks (arthritis) but I do love a wee bit of Irish whiskey or cognac (Oui oui!) in a cup of good hot coffee. I will happily use that concoction to swallow my Ibuprofen which I will need to take a ton of for my 300 plus year old joints. I am going to say, what the heck, an additional 15% can be gained through this practice. Okay mathematics fans… we now have 15% cubed or 3,375 years, plus my original 80.18. 3,455.18 years. Move over Methuselah you old bastard! I have you beat by a pretty good margin, plus I am pain free, hyped up and  more than a bit buzzed to boot.

Seven Sure Signs of Success

I keep seeing lists on line… silly lists like 43 cool things to do with the Elf on the Shelf or 11 pictures of Batman through the ages type of thing. There are the lists that promise to make life better in one way or another, for instance you can find the 10 best cookies, the 7 habits of happy people and the 5 rules to success. There are funny lists too, the 23 worst architectural mistakes, the 15 best church signs, the 18 worst logo design concepts or 50 worst family Christmas photos.  I admit it, I love the lists! I decided I could make a list of my own, the __ ways I knew I was making it in life. I can’t put a number to it yet because I just don’t know how many I might think of!

1.    MY BANK BALANCE HAD NUMBERS IN FRONT OF THE DECIMAL AT THE END OF THE MONTH

I kid you not here. I wasn’t measuring in the thousands or even the hundreds! I was measuring my success by the number of dollars over nil that I had managed to finish my month with. Until you have finished a month with all bills paid and no one starving to death with 12 cents in the bank you simply cannot understand how empowering it feels to see a figure like, say…$7.83 staring at you from that ending balance line on your statement.  Of course, I took that fortune and blew it on gas station red wine and a Hershey bar and a magazine…. A girl’s got to have some fun, right?

2.    MY HOUSE CONTAINED MULTIPLE PAPER PRODUCTS, i.e., PAPER TOWELS AND TOILET PAPER (2 PLY BABY, 2 FREAKING PLY!) AND KLEENEX AND COFFEE FILTERS, TOO!

I can tell you that the cheapest white paper towel, torn in half makes a decent coffee filter for a 12 cup pot, and that the same amount, wetted in the sink, will wipe a babies butt just fine! They work as Kleenex too, as long as you can stand the feeling of sandpaper ripping the skin off the end of your nose! Two ply TP was a miracle unto itself and I have to say I moved up to that amazing creation when I started having multiple months with more than a few cents in my account at the end of the banking cycle. Coffee filters are a whole other story! You can use them to soak up grease under fried foods, to clean your windows and even to blow your nose into, it feeling more like fine grit sandpaper than the cheap paper towels. I won’t say which kid suffered the indignity but I even used them on occasion, wetted in the sink, to wipe a babies butt in a pinch. When my balance started showing double digits, that’s right, numbers like 18 whole dollars at the end of my 30 day banking period I added the most generic nose-blowing material to my shopping list. They were still pretty horrible but had the paper towels beat all to hell. I still feel rich when I see boxes of the good stuff, with lotion no less, in every room of my home.

3.    I COULD CONSIDER A PET

I don’t mean I could have a pet, I had a dog by this point, and two cats, I just mean I could actually consider them. I could take them to the vet once a year. I could buy food with pictures on the labels, not just a white bag with black lettering that said DOG FOOD or CAT FOOD on the front. I had to hit the 3 digit bank balance regularly before I felt okay doing this. By this time I had developed a healthy fear of single ply TP and sand-papery paper products. I was living the good life and wanted to keep it that way!

4.    I COULD EAT AT A RESTAURANT THAT DID NOT HAVE PLASTIC FURNITURE BOLTED TO THE FLOOR AND GARISH PRIMARY COLORS EVERYWHERE I LOOKED

Now don’t get me wrong… fast food was a miracle as far as I was concerned. We never got to have any of course, unless my mother took pity on the kids and treated us to paper wrapped cardboard tasting crap which we all adored and craved intensely since it was as foreign and unreachable to us as, say, platypus steaks or monkey brains. When we regularly hit the double digit ending balance I took the kids about once a month for a terrible yet horribly satisfying greasy tasteless lunch. When I realized that I had finished my current month, and the one before and the one before that with close to 100 dollars (Say what? No way? Money money money I was rich, yeah baby come on!) I decided we would eat at a real restaurant, with dishes, and drinks other than soda and iced tea and actual waitresses that had to be nice to you even if you came in with 4 loud and excited children. At this point the neighborhood’s bar and grill was fine freaking dining and we jumped in with both feet! To have a cold beer, a bagged salad, a frozen piece of fish was deeeee-vine! I knew the food was less than so-so but someone else cooked it, served it, listened to the kids whine about it and cleaned up after us.  The day I could take us all to a decent Mexican restaurant or an Applebees or TGI Friday’s was the day I decided I was happy where I was in life.

5.    I OWNED MORE THAN ONE PAIR OF SHOES

Can I find any words to describe the joy of buying a pair of shoes JUST BECAUSE?  Of actually thinking about what you want instead of just what you need? Of buying shoes because they are sexy or stylish or God forbid trendy? Of course the dog ate the shoes but that isn’t the point! I had options! Along with this goes buying shampoo which has a better selling point than being non acidic and not harmful to your eyes… much, of buying mascara someplace other than the Dollar Tree, of going to Great Clips and getting someone to wash and cut my hair that wasn’t me with kitchen shears in the foggy bathroom mirror while the kids yelled “Mommy where arrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee you? I’m (fill in the blank—lonely, hungry, dirty, bleeding, bored)”

 

6.    I COULD GIVE MONEY TO CHARITY

I absolutely cannot describe to you the joy of giving. For years and years I had been the recipient of other people’s charity. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the local food bank and emergency services and Lighthouse ForThe Blind all came to my aid more than once. The Marine Corps provided all of my kid’s Christmas presents one year. The local Fire Department brought food one Thanksgiving. All of these groups helped me when I needed it most. I knew what it felt like to be hungry, to be unable to get the bare minimum for yourself and your children.  I needed this help desperately, and I appreciated it more but I felt so humiliated, so terribly useless accepting it that it haunted me to think about it and kept me up at night. The year I was able to drop a really nice stuffed animal, and a scooter into the Toys for Tots box at the mall was the year I crossed a major hurdle and my perceptions on charity were changed forever. It felt just so damn good to give. To think of a woman, like myself, who was doing everything they could and still couldn’t do enough to make it being able to give her children something real and good and fun for the holiday made me burst into tears. I want to tell her that it really does feel good to give and they shouldn’t worry about it. It is from my heart to hers.

7.    I QUIT WORRYING ABOUT THE END OF THE MONTH BALANCE IN MY BANK ACCOUNT

It hit me a few months ago that I don’t even check that balance line anymore. For years I opened each statement with a knot in my gut, hands shaking and sweating and blew out huge sighs of relief when it was over 0, even if only over by 13 cents. I worried literally about every single dime I spent. If my kids found money on the ground I had to bite my tongue and put my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t snatch it from them and scream mine mine mine! No more bill collectors call me… I can always pay my mortgage and keep the cable on. I am not afraid to open the mail box, to see the pastel envelopes which announced to the world or at least the entire staff at the post office that I was behind and in danger of losing power, water, gas or worse. I worry about too many things but not about having food on the table or being able to go to the doctor if I need to.

In the end I think you make it when the bare necessities are met with little thought. It doesn’t mean I am touring Europe or buying a new car or dressing in designer clothes. It doesn’t mean I eat caviar or drink champagne and hob nob with the wealthy. It does mean if I want steak I buy steak without wondering if I will still be able to keep the electricity on if I do.

Main Stream Media ==> Better Late Than Never...

The World Health Organization (WHO) finally did a comprehensive report on suicide and my local paper picked it up. Thank God!

I have been seeing headlines every day for the last month or two claiming that traffic deaths, police shootings, domestic violence, and all have all been decided to be suicides or murder/suicides. This doesn't even cover all of the lost and lonely souls that take their own lives quietly in a way that doesn't bother people during their commute or disrupt their work day.

Having lost my husband of 18 years to suicide in 1994 and my baby boy, my grown little man of 21 years to suicide in 2008, my son's best friend, my pseudo son to suicide this past month I can say with all confidence that this report, these facts and figures give you the shocking reality of the sheer numbers of suicide but cannot even scratch on the surface of the emotionally tossed and ravaged sea the survivors are afloat in.

We need your help! We need your attention! We need caring and giving, NOT shame and scorn and fear. Suicide is not contagious but it is often seen as a solution for other's that might be suffering and are afraid to make their issues known and see no other way out. We need to give them other solutions. We need to be available and open, not turning our backs on those that need it most. We need to have safe, clean well staffed places where people can go and get the help they need instead of leaving them sitting alone in their rooms or looking for answers and peace on the streets with drugs and guns. We need to be able to express our grief at the loss of these loved ones without feeling like we have to lie, to prevaricate, to mumble something, anything acceptable to the general public.

If you are thinking about suicide or are afraid that you might attempt or commit suicide, you can call the national hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) and/or find other sources for help HERE

If you have lost a loved one or friend, co-worker, student, neighbor, ANYONE to suicide you can start getting help HERE

If you think you may have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD (a major cause of and a reaction to suicide of a loved one) you can get information on the disorder and suggestions for dealing with it HERE

Many county health departments and state agencies also have help available, you need to search, or ask a loved one to search them out. Many of these offer low to no cost help including counseling and in and outpatient groups and settings as well as referrals to even more organizations that exist to make suicide a thing of the past.

If you feel that SOMETHING, ANYTHING needs to be done but you are not sure what you alone can do you can donate to the American Foundation  for Suicide Prevention through my team (named after my son), TEAM HENRY ROGER GRAMME HERE or donate directly to the Foundation at afsp.org

For too long I have felt like I was in a pitch black room, banging on locked doors trying to make people hear, to care just a teeny bit. This is the first glimmer of light.

More Than 38,000 People Commit Suicide in America Every Year

This is a shocking statistic. Men and women of all ages, races, creeds and political belief take their own life every year. People don't discuss it, yet it is as prevalent as breast cancer. There are no inspiring commercials for 3 day walks, no special medical facilities advertising on cable TV, no miracle cures, no breakthroughs in medication. It is a plague that is cloaked in silence and shame. THIS MUST CHANGE.

In 1994 my first husband, William Yves Gramme Sr., took his own life. He was Bi-Polar and had been battling the condition for years when he finally just got too tired of the struggle and ended his life. He left behind four children who loved him and a wife who would have done anything to keep him around roiling about in a sea of confusion and despair.

In 2008, my son, Henry Roger Gramme, succumbed to the same ailment. After fighting for almost six years he found himself in a place he did not think he could escape and also took his own life. He left behind a devastated mother, step-father and 3 siblings who loved him dearly.

William Y. Gramme Sr. and Henry R. Gramme, 1987

Both of these incidents tore my family to shreds, leaving lasting scars and issues which will never be resolved. We know we shouldn't but it is hard not to dwell on the Why's of it all, to not blame ourselves for not being able to stop either one of them. We are not alone. 

Bring this out of the darkness, talk, share, open up. if you have lost someone to suicide respect and honor their memory and struggle by telling people about it. Share your stories, it encourages other people to share their's.

Team Henry Roger Gramme will be joining with thousands of people nationwide to walk in the Atlanta Walk, benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), and we would appreciate any support that you give for this worthwhile cause.

You can donate to Team Henry Roger Gramme here, or find walks, outreach programs and information and tools for coping at www.AFSP.org

At Grandmother’s House

I grew up in a military family. My dad received orders to move us, lock, stock and barrel, every three years like clockwork. Before we moved we made a trek from wherever we were to Louisiana and to Georgia to see our grandparents. These visits were so vastly different, one place and one family and one lifestyle to another that it always made the trip interesting even for a kid that was furious she was leaving her friends (hard won, I am not a social butterfly)  and her school (which I always loved, no matter where it was) and her home (incredibly important, that sense of home) yet again.

We would go to southern Louisiana and eat crawfish, play with deadly animals, listen to good music, smoke Picayune cigarettes down by the river under cover of massive live oaks dripping with moss and generally run free and wild with our cousins. My grandparent’s house was tiny, the cousins were too many to count and the spaces outdoors so inviting and untamed as to make staying indoors a ridiculous notion. We were wild Indians, little heathens, crazy animals and every other thing people called roving bands of dirty, smiling kids and we loved it.

From there we went to Georgia, to a house not much bigger, also out in the country but so ridiculously different as to slam our headlong rush of gaiety and abandon into a massive stone wall (quarried and built by my father and grandfather’s hands).

While my Louisiana grandfather still worked a bit, my Georgia grandfather had retired literally from his job onto his back porch with his bourbon and Fresca and the Braves on the radio. His goal was to keep us quiet so we didn't bother my grandmother. 

My grandmother liked the concept of children, of having a family who adored her, but the reality of it was too much for her to deal with. Kids were dirty, noisy, always wanting something and in general a pain in the patooty, especially 8 of them at one time. Her furniture was covered in plastic. For me that summed her house up, sterile, stiff, unwelcoming. We stayed outside there; playing in the woods, riding the horses which the grands had ‘liberated’ from a neighbor whom they felt didn't care for them correctly. This fact, that they stole horses, was the only thing that gave me hope that they were more than they seemed which was a cranky inebriated couple of unwilling old folks, doing what societal dictates told them they had to do.

My mother somehow grew into a glorious grandmother. She was always welcoming, inviting, open-minded, loving. Not a single grandchild, and she has a ton of them, would say a bad word about her.  She didn’t cater to them. She certainly knew the word ‘No’, but she loved them. They were always interesting to her. She could talk to them, play with them, and feed them with love. The candy jars were full, the Disney movies beckoned, the badminton net was set up close to the big swing in the yard where she would sit with her children, their parents, and watch the kids be fun and free and wild and happy. She and my father ended up in the cold stone house in Georgia but while they were there it brimmed with emotions, with people, with family history being retold and made anew.

Now that I am a grandmother (Many times over, number 13 is due this fall) I find myself trying to emulate her. I have a candy bowl, which is the first thing the kids and their parents hit when they come over. The Disney movies stand piled haphazardly on the cabinet holding the TV and the video games. Yes, I WILL do Wii dance with them, and try to kick their butt at bowling too! We bought a house with a pool and huge porches out in the country. We both like to swim but our first thought on seeing this place was family memories that last forever can be made here. We encourage the kids to play outside, to run in the woods, to find deer tracks and worms under rocks and bird’s nests in the trees. They can use our computers and read our books and nap in the guest room if they want. These little people mean the world to me.

I can’t help but think how sad it is that my own grandparents didn't get to know my brothers and sisters and I. We were cool kids. Kids are funny and smart and loving and beautiful in form and mind.

The Worst Thing For A Person To Do...

The Worst Thing For A Person To Do... is (apparently) watch daytime TV. 

If you want to feel terrible about your homemaking skills, your appearance, your decor, your friends or your family just tune into any one of the shows composed of women speaking to women supposedly in solidarity. Ouch! Makes me wish I was a man and seriously this is new because I pretty much love being a mom and a wife and a career woman.

I was watching (and this is so painful to admit I am hanging my head) the Wendy Williams show yesterday because I was bored with reading, cooking, cleaning and gardening. I was so shocked and offended by just two segments I had to write a letter, something I have NEVER done before and hopefully I will never have to do again as I am once again vowing to never watch day time TV.

Since I felt a bit better after writing it, but still not clean again I decided to post it up here and see what YOU think! Let me know if you agree with me or not. I can take it, I am tough. Enjoy!.

Dear Wendy or Wendy's minion sorting through e-mails,

I am a newly retired individual who tends to avoid daytime TV but was suckered in yesterday when I saw your show was on. I haven't watched it often but I do like it so I settled in with a cup of coffee for what I hoped would be a nice bit of entertainment.

I tuned in right at the beginning of your talk about Amal Alamuddin's appearance, laughingly chatting about how you went through 'hundreds' of photos and the one you had on air was the only normal or decent one. I found this incredibly cruel and catty, and your only justification for this derision seemed to be that she was now engaged to a famous and handsome man. Talk about stabbing a fellow woman in the back, and letting the entire world know that contrary to everything we push on teenagers, appearance really does matter more than anything and people can be demeaned and humiliated if they don't fit the mold. I was surprised, I was ashamed to be a fellow woman just listening to the whole thing. Appalling!

The fact that you followed it up by vilifying a man who is a terrible racist, judging people solely by their physical appearance made it even weirder. At least his rant and cruel remarks were supposedly in the privacy of his personal communications and not on a syndicated TV show.

Honestly in 54 years of life I have never written to a show but damn, this was just too cruel and such an obvious juxtaposition of messages and images that it has stayed in the forefront of my mind and this is the only way to deal with it constructively and banish it to where it belongs, forgotten (hopefully) and a ghost file in my deleted items folder..

Because when you are proud of a kid...

I am going to do something utterly and completely grandmother-ish. 

How many times have we all posted something we regret? Even I, a stellar human being of high morals and character (those of you that know me, please put your fingers in your ears and quit making gagging noises) and exemplary behavior have, on a rare occasion, posted something that I  wish I had not. 

For me it is grammatical errors or perhaps a misspelled word slides by, quietly into the mystical land where nothing ever dies, forever haunting me, taunting me. HOWEVER; I know that many of you have posted worse, much worse.... really much much much worse. Backpeddle is the app for you then:

Because some images you can't take back

Oh yes, the star, the absolute Oscar worthy actor in this little youTube commercial is my grandson. 

The Percussive Nature of Aging

My fingers sound like castanets, my toes they follow suit.

My hips, each step a metronome, keeping time for creaky bone.

My ears they ring, my teeth they grind

And my knees are kettle and snare.

On occasion the music startles me, 

Who left  that duck call there?

What's That Growing In Your Head?

For various reason, none of them having to do with common sense or regular health care checks I went to a neuro-ophthalmologist so that I could get an official letter which says in short "She really, really, really can't see worth a damn. She has not been faking for 54 years so cut her a break."

I HATE going to the eye doctor. I have a rare genetic condition so they always get all excited, put me through a multitude of test to prove yet again that my vision is laughable, charge me an arm and a leg, demand follow-ups and gleefully rub their hands together in a Simon Legree sort of way while they say "Whoa Nelly, your eyes are horrible and there is no fix. Sucks to be you!" If I hadn't needed the letter for work I would have happily gone on, staying in familiar places and firmly holding on to my seeing eye people for the next forty or so years.

I arrived begrudgingly, agreed to a test that maps one's vision with a curt nod, sat in a horribly uncomfortable chair with my chin in a cup and my head in their machine and waited for tiny lights to start zooming around, clicker in hand. When you see a light, you click the button. This is simple.

The woman helping me was sweet and quiet for a minute and then asked did I not see any at all. 

"What? What? You started?"
"Just click the button when you see the light flash."

Crap. No lights, I stare straight ahead willing the little points of light to appear. As if by magic three or four bright flashes appear in a row, top left, click click click. Then, nothing.... 

Quick! three or four bright flashes appear in a row, bottom right! Click click click.... I do an extra click just in case I miss counted.

Nothing! I can't cheat since I do not really know where or when the flashes will appear, but I would, if I could. Test over. The lady is now smiling at me with a touch of pity. 

"You did real well."

Liar! I want to beg to do it again. I stare balefully at the machine, sitting there like a piece of modern sculpture, taunting me. I want to cry.

The last time I did this test the map it made of my eyes looked like a target, circles of no vision radiating out like waves from the center. This time it looks like a butterfly, with the wings and body having no vision at all. It looked bad, and dark and absolutely terrifying to me.

My vision sort of resembles this Rorschach ink blot

The doctor, wasting no time, not being gleeful and not rubbing his hands together says, "Yep, you definitely have  genetic neuro-scatomatas. HOWEVER..." 

I feel myself shrinking.

"Usually when we see this 'tubing' it is caused by something pressing against the optic nerves"

I shrink more. I feel like I am six.

"Usually an enlargement of the Pituitary glad. Maybe surgery is an option. We can't fix the genetic defect (No shit Sherlock) but sometimes reducing the pressure can help to return the vision to it's pre-swelling state."

I feel like a toddler walking out, lost and alone, looking for my sister who has driven me here. Everybody in the waiting room is acting like nothing has changed. Everybody in the waiting room is reading, toe tapping, finger drumming, waiting to get their new prescription and get in their cars and drive off into their normal life. 

The right side of my brain is saying "This is bad, this is serious, this is NOT GOOD" The left side of my brain is saying "Oh look! A butterfly! (Here the left brain shrieks and makes an about face. I suddenly do not like the looks of butterflies) I want a cookie, maybe a couple of dozen. Isn't the sun nice! What shall we cook for dinner? I like red, it is such a pretty color. That machine has a nice rhythm. Doodly doo doo doo doo doo."

By the time I got home my right brain was speaking in a much firmer tone of voice... "THIS IS BAD, THIS IS SERIOUS, THIS IS NOT GOOD!" and the left side had retreated into a corner, fingers in ears saying "LA LA LA LA I can't hear you" but had given up the good fight. I turned to Dr. Google and looked up swelling in the pituitary.

I read a lot of articles, spending roughly three hours on different sites but the end result was always the same. TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR. Oh crap and eff me.

The good news? Tumors in the pituitary are self contained, not malignant. Bad news they can only be treated by radiation or surgery, and the underlying cause can be treated, sometimes, depending on what it is. I was not a happy camper.

I am having two MRIs this Monday, one with contrast, one without. I am hoping (Yes, with my left brain) that this has all been a giant scare and that the next time I take the test from hell I will once again have lovely targets of blindness and the evil tubing will be gone. Wish me luck!

After the Storm

Clouds, yellow green and ominous cover the sky in its entirety. Five columns of black descend destroying everything in their path. They are thick, heavy, solid, dark and bent on destruction. I watch them, rooted in place and horrified by the damage they wrought. As the biggest, the blackest, the most solid bears down directly on me I wake with a start; my heartbeat shakes the entire bed. My breathing is shallow and I feel frozen to the bone even though I am well covered.

I turn toward the rock that is my husband, wrapping myself against his warm back, tucking myself into the curve created by his bent knees. As he reaches in his sleep and pulls me nearer still I begin to relax. Once the pounding in my chest and the blood rushing in my ears subsides a bit I can hear the steady loud chug-chug of the air conditioner a scant three feet away. I hear the noise of people that wander the darkness outside the window with its stiff bright orange, yellow and green curtains. The heavy covering for the old mattress a thousand people have slept on is folded and wrinkled and uncomfortable under my skin. The pillow is flat and not soft, not welcoming as a pillow should be. Instead it is a harder by the minute brick on which my head lays. Tear soaked and smelling like someone else’s laundry it is the pillow that finally drives me from the warmth of the bed and into the cold white tile of the hotel bathroom.

I realize I haven’t got any clothes except those I had on when the tornado destroyed my home, turning me into a weather refugee. The Red Cross had given us coffee and dinner and called around to hotels for me. A $75 dollar gift certificate redeemable just about anywhere had been pressed into my hand but I was too distraught and could literally not let go of my husband to go shopping. I feared if I did he would blow away, dancing in the sky waving to me as he rotated and flew off just as my wedding dress, my pajamas, my winter coat had.  

I drew a hot bath, scalding water, pouring the teeny bottle of body wash in it to make it feels smooth on my skin. I rolled up a towel and stuck it under my neck as a make shift pillow and sunk chin deep into the tub. I couldn’t hear the rattling AC unit in here, nor the whores outside, nor my husband snoring, sleeping well cocooned in the wrinkled and bleach smelling bed. I closed my eyes and began to drift off, again and again, each time being jerked awake by the wind, the malevolent wind. After the water cooled I rose, pulled on  my dirty clothes and slipped outside for a smoke.

Conundrum

I find myself, not for the first time in my life, with a conundrum (a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma). I thought I would take the problem to my readers, my friends and family, and find out if what seem to be questions without answers for me is a simple matter with a clear solution for all of you. In short, I am picking your brains, I am ASKING for advice and we all know that doesn’t happen too often.

Allow me to set the scene.  As you probably all know by now, (I do, on occasion, whine about it) I am legally blind. ‘Legally’ because there is a clearly defined and recognized range of vision (or lack thereof) that makes life a pain in the patooty. In my case I top the charts at 20/400. 20/400 is the top range they measure because, really, after that point what difference does it make? 20/400 means that if a person with normal vision can see, say, a rampaging elephant, at 400 feet, that same elephant would have to be 20 feet in front of my face before I would notice it was there. Even then I would not say, Gee an elephant, but rather, What is that? Is that a building?  No, it moves! A dear? When said elephant was about 15 feet away I would be saying Holy cow! That’s an elephant! By the time the fact registered and my brain figured out I was about to be mowed down by an elephant on the little dirt road by my house where I almost never even see a car, said elephant would be scraping me out from between his toes and looking for some other blind sucker standing in his way.

I try to maintain a strictly controlled environment and lifestyle in order to live with this ridiculous issue. I can avoid furniture not in its place (most of the time) and unless I am having a really bad day I don’t walk into walls or anything. Stairs have an irritating way of turning into ramps and vice versa and I look at signs as a personal attack on me by whoever hung them in the first place. I do not drive (you can say ‘whew’ out loud, I know the thought of me controlling 1500 lbs. plus of metal and plastic at high speeds is terrifying) I do not go into strange places by myself, I avoid crowds because I do not want to lose track or whichever kind soul is my seeing eye person at that time. When company is coming I vacuum in all the corners because I just assume that cobwebs have invaded that space.

My family is invaluable to me when it comes to living a mostly normal life. They read print that is below 14 points, they either vacuum or offer to in a kind and gently way that lets me know my house is turning into a pigsty. They point out steps, ramps, and cracks in the sidewalk. They describe things to me without being asked. For example, one of them would say ‘Holy cow, that is a rampaging elephant! Run!’ And the best, the very best thing they do is act like I don’t have an issue at all. They assume that I can do anything I want to, until they see otherwise.

One of the things they have always assumed I can do is work, hold down a job and do it proud. And I have! I have worked so called real jobs since I was 19 and moved back to the United States. I have done just about everything a person could do. Before I went to college I held down jobs as a maid, a fry cook, a telephone sales person. I cut grass, and stocked store shelves. I worked in a gym, I typed up lunch menus for the local paper. I babysat, and cared for and walked dogs. Once I got a college education I worked on computers.

Working on computers, for me anyway, is much easier than say wrestling a neighbors one hundred pound dog into submission while keeping track of three toddlers on a 100 degree day in August in Georgia or cooking 2000 pieces of chicken in a hot as hell fryer in an eight hour shift. Computers are inside, in air-conditioned buildings and computer jobs pay enough that you can finally pay someone else to walk your own 100 pound dog. If I pull the screen to my face, leaning hunched over about two inches from it I can see everything I need to, to do my job and do it well. Of course I can’t get to where the computer jobs are without help from my loved ones, or complete strangers on occasion, and public transportation.

I have ridden with FBI agents in rattle trap old cars held together literally with wire and duct tape. 

I have ridden with Health Department officials who spent the whole long commute trying to tell me how to fix my eyes because they assume, I guess, that I stay blind for the fun of it (so annoying, I can’t even describe it). 

I have ridden with co-workers who have alternately spoken to their mistress and their wife on the phone while speeding and shouting invective's at passing motorist. Do you want to know what is scary? Having the person whose hands in which you have placed your life out of necessity screech to a halt on the interstate while cursing and threatening some other jackass who also screeched to a halt. Blind woman, never driven, sitting in a lane of traffic while cars zoom past at eighty miles an hour honking and yelling watching two fools duke it out on the roadway in front of her.

As I am sure you can imagine I have not always been able to get a ride into work. My employers, a state agency much reviled by the general public, have worked with me without question and without too much resentment for 15 years on this issue. Oh happy day when I was allowed to do my work at home. I could log right into the system and write my code, run my queries, design databases and develop mailings, make calls, email, everything that I do at the office. Being at home means that when my eyes start to burn and water from fatigue I can walk outside for ten minutes and give them a rest. Being at home means that I can work late or log in early.  Being at home means that I can work nights and weekends if necessary. Being at home means that I can work when the office is closed due to inclement weather or water main breaks or bomb threats (much reviled agency). Being at home means that I can avoid the flu when 2/3rd s of the office staff is sneezing and snorting and coughing and choking all over each other.

And now, finally, we reach the crux of my conundrum.

Three weeks ago I was notified that no one would be allowed to work from home any more. This turns out to not actually be the case but I guess they thought it sounded better than your particular group will not be allowed to work from home anymore. Being reasonable I went to my boss and said, boss, you know I need to work from home sometimes for many reason, all relating to my (Lord I HATE this) disability. I can’t drive so unless the stars align and my husband can get me to and from my bus I can’t come in. (I was still smiling at this point.) NO. Boss, you know I have 15 years of good and excellent reviews with this much reviled agency, I am always available when teleworking (duh, I can’t drive dude, where else will I be?) and always get my work done. NO. Boss, you know when I am in the office I sit at my desk because roaming around is a bit difficult when you can’t see. I never deal with the public. I always deal with my users by phone or by email just like when I am home. NO.

At this point, I admit it, I lost it just a wee bit. What the hell? I demanded a reason and got the following: People think it isn't fair. Oh really? You want fair? Let them all coat their eyes with petroleum jelly for 54 years and try to manage. That would make it fair for me. The final result is NO NO NO NO NO. If I can’t work from home, I will not be able to keep this job.

Okay. I can quit and apply for disability. I qualify too, due to the whole rampaging-elephant-toe-picking thing. I mean, let’s face it, I really do have a disability, as much as I try to deny it. Working is a pain in the behind and eye balls and just getting me there and home involves a lot of people whom I do not really give a choice to. I would have some income and a lot of people could quit organizing their schedules around me.

On the other hand, I have always worked. I started babysitting and dog walking when I was 12 for God’s sake. I pay my own way, and except for in the very worst of times I manage to do it pretty well. I don’t like working but I do like getting that paycheck which I earned, despite my handicap. I am terrified of being utterly dependent; it goes completely against my grain. I have paid into the Social Security system all of these years but somehow I thought I would be old and (more) gray before I had to collect.

What to do, what to do? I am asking here for advice, for possible courses of action. What would YOU do in this situation?

Its that time of year again!

Join us in Piedmont Park November 3rd for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Atlanta Community Walk.

Team Henry Roger Gramme

PTSD Or, As I Like To Call It, Hell On Earth

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not for sissies. Imagine the worst, absolute most horrific moment of your life. Now imagine living it over and over and over. Living Color, smells, sounds, the whole 9 yards. The movie you never want to see again on an eternal loop in your brain. This is my best explanation for PTSD as I know it.

I am not speaking for anyone but myself. I hope it isn't like this for others but I really do not know. If it is high five and a shot of tequila to all of you. You deserve it.

The source, or sources, of my particular hellish state of mind are the death of two of my children. 34 years ago I awoke lazily, the sun shining through the blinds across my face. I stretched luxuriously and then realized something was horribly wrong. I jerked up, ran to the crib in the corner and touched the stiff cold back of my 2 1/2 month old son. I saw his purple face, frozen in a grimace, white spittle on his chin.

I was in a state of shock for four days. Family was called, arrangements were made, leave was taken. I could not look at my daughter without crumbling but I felt split in two. The part 'dealing' with it, and the part that was frozen in a block of ice that I feared would never melt. Not sleeping was my only option. If I closed my eyes I found him again, and again, and again. I never knew a head could hurt that much. I never knew there were that many tears. Every night for years when I lay down I would see him swimming in front of me, my glorious little fella his lively smiling self and then he would turn blue and cold. I woke to that same panicked sensation every day. Every single day for about four years I knew no peace.

From time to time throughout the years that little blue face would come back to haunt me. I would wake in the middle of the night, that vision in my head, my heart pounding so hard the bed would shake, tears streaming down my face and my own choking sobs sounding like the wail of all the dead in my ears. My life was busy, my other children growing and changing and LIVING kept me occupied during the day but the nights and early mornings were a descent into a painful swirl of dread and fear and pain all over again.

Who do you discuss that with? Psychologists wanted me to talk about it. I would sit there and say yep, I feel terrible, I feel worse than terrible. I still see him, I hear him, I feel him but he turns cold every time. What is there to say after that? What do they want to hear? Talking about it doesn't change it. Bringing it out in the open did not lessen the terrible sense of loss and overwhelming fear that accompanied the visions. I knew why I felt the way I did and it didn't take a lot of education for me to decipher it. Over time, with the help of my growing brood the fears and panic attacks eased bit by bit. I still saw my boy, still saw the grim blue visage ut I had wonderful images too, they swirled together making the awful ones easier to bear.

In August 2008 my youngest son took his own life. He put a gun to his head, right in front of me. He looked at me with the saddest, most sardonic smile, he shrugged, and he pulled the trigger. I had turned away I couldn't reach him, my husband was trying to get there but we were both mired in the quicksand of tragedy while he seemed to be in fast forward. I will never forget his smile at that instant. My husband begging and crying, my son's girlfriend shrieking and screaming and falling to the ground. I made the call to 911. I remember the lady asking where he shot himself, and I kept screaming his head, his head. She wanted a location.

It took him two days to die. Two days for us to say our goodbyes. He was conscious but on a ventilator, his spine shattered just below the base of his skill, his poor destroyed head and face swathed in rapidly bloody bandages as he tried to nod in answer to our questions. do you want to die? Do you want to turn off the machines? Repeating over and over that we loved him. You really cannot say it enough, ever, and certainly not under those circumstances.

I found out that the hospitals have Ethics Committees. We can't get congress or our state legislature to go for ethics committees but hospitals are all about it. The question was, basically, is it ethical to let someone who tried to kill themselves die.

We explained how tortured he had been, how his mind was so far in another dimension most of the time that to leave him with the only truly alive thing being the one thing that made his existence sheer living hell would be the cruelest thing any human being could do to another.  I still thank God daily that the doctors listened to us. They spoke to him, they gave us the go ahead. to remove the machines.

We were a crowd. I couldn't touch him. Not because I didn't want to, but because he could not feel anything and I did not want to touch him without him knowing. It seemed almost criminal so I didn't. We spoke to him, we told him it was okay, that God and his grandmother and his big brother were waiting for him. We watched the monitors as his heart went crazy for a minute or two, then slowed and stopped. I ran away.

The moments that haunt me are not these, not his dying moments, but his last truly alive moments. The gun being raised and that horrible sad sad smile. They come to me morning and night. They come to me in the darkest nights and the sunniest days. They come to me when I least expect them and bring me to my knees with such loss, such sadness, such hatred for the moment that stole my boy away from me.

I can talk about it, but like before, it doesn't change the fact and the fact is a soul killing one. That image twists like fog in and around all the good memories, all the good times, all of the pleasant moments in my new normal.

I wrote this because today someone made an offhand remark and I found myself fighting the demons again. One second everything is fine and the next I am fighting to stay afloat in the sea of despair that is my loss. That image comes unbidden and I just want to run away but I know I can't. I wrote this instead, to allow my children to walk this earth for a moment again, and to help myself to breathe.

The Wheels On The Bus

A comment on a popular social network site made me think about all of my hours spent on buses and trains and car pools and van. I have used mass transportation all over the world and I came to realize that people who use mass transport are always the same. It doesn't matter if you are in Europe, the South or in megalopolis areas like New York. We all fall into certain categories with very few, if any, exceptions.

First, and it wouldn't be a bus ride without this fine example, you have the Talker.

The Talker generally sits right behind the driver, leaning forward so that his mouth is in the closest possible proximity to the driver's ear. He rambles on and on about one of two things; Politics of which he knows nothing but thinks he knows everything, or sports, of which he knows just enough to be annoying and thinks he knows everything. The bus stops and starts, doors open and close, people talk to the driver yet none of this stops the Talker from droning on and on and on. On occasion, an Antagonist will have boarded the bus, sitting as far away from the Talker as possible and interjects a few statements that he knows will irritate the Talker no end and make sure that the ramble never ceases. At first the other passengers are always happy that the Antagonist irritates the Talker as badly as he is irritating them. If this goes on for more than a stop or two, however, the other passengers either put on headphones or yell "shut UP!" or get off 6 miles early because walking in the heat, rain, snow, chill has got to be less painful that the two annoying creatures going at each other in full voice.

Similar to the Talker is the Self Conversationalist. In the good old days people gave the Self Conversationalist wide berth because it could only mean one thing, i.e. CRAZY. A city bus is a confined space and being next to a verified lunatic is not pleasant for someone just tying to shlep their groceries home from the store. With the advent of cell phones and Blue Tooth devices the Self Conversationalist is now often confused with the Rude Asshole. I actually feel bad for the crazy people who now must wonder is the Rude Asshole hearing the same voices they are? Does everyone now hear voices? While the Self Conservationists voices are talking murder and mayhem the Rude Assholes voices seem to be saying nothing at all, just listening to the constant ramble about doctors visits and evil relatives, sort of like the bus driver. Are the voices simply passed away Talkers who feel they must leave their mouths close to someones ear and ramble on and on about sports and politics for eternity?

The Tired Mom is a fixture too. Aged looking women anywhere from 16 to 56 surrounded by wide eyed children who don't want to sit together take up several rows of seats. One is always crying, one is always sniffling and coughing, one is asking questions of the Somnolent Drunk (Another fixture. Could also be Jittery Addict, closely related and more and more common) next to them about why he isn't shaven, hey mister you smell funny, and why do your hands shake like that. Sometimes Tired Mom totally ignores her brood, glad to have them in an enclosed moving space and therefore confined giving her a short respite from constant vigilance. Sometimes Tired Mom looks on in pride as they terrorize the other passengers. Sometimes Tired Mom yells at the Self Conversationalist for terrifying her offspring but usually Tired Mom just dozes in and out and thinks about everything she has to do once she gets home and wishes, how she wishes, that she had a damn car.

What I like to call Thug Lite is next in this line of characters. Thug Lite would be really really scary except, well lets face it, he has to ride a bus. That means he isn't old enough to drive yet (Thug Lite Junior) or isn't a good enough drug dealer or burglar to afford a car. In other words he is often caught because while many people think public transportation brings a bad element to their neighborhood, it is a bad element who face thirty stops and starts on their omnibus getaway. Thug Lite is also often holding up their britches so they don't fall off in front of people they are trying to frighten. Seriously? How scary is someone who can't run without their pants sliding down and the whole world seeing their Mickey Mouse drawers? Thug Lite tend to travel in small herds and take up the back seat because even on mass transport the wanna be cool, bad kids sit in the back of the bus.

Thrill Seekers are an annoying fact for those of us that ride every day. Thrill Seekers ride a bus once, maybe twice in their life. They ride to say they have, they ride to give the kids a life lesson, they ride to prove that they are the same as Somnolent Drunk, Jittery Addict or Thug Lite, no better, no worse, all God's children after all. Thrill Seekers always look excited, sweaty palmed, red faced, benevolent shaky smiles as they clutch each other, sitting three to a bench seat and avoid eye contact with everyone except Tired Mom's kids. They ride a few stops and then hop off, relief coming off of them like a sickly sweet perfume as they hail a cab to finish their journey to wherever.

Freaking Liberal comes next. He boards jauntily after taking five minutes to hook his 2,000 dollar bike to the front of the bus. He is wearing all wrinkled cotton shorts and a defunct bands' t-shirt and shoes that are buy one, give a pair to some stranger in Africa. He has a reusable bottle of water which he clutches like a sword, waving it about as he gets into a discussion with the Talker about bicycles and the economy of road repair and the flat tax. Freaking Liberals all have facial hair, just enough to make Tired Mom want to yell at them to get a damn razor, were you raised by wolves? Freaking Liberals are doused with cologne from Abercrombie or Gap, mixing it with the sweat pouring off of them after biking through the city in the heat and the residual aroma of Starbucks. This effectively creates an envelope of odor that surrounds them, blocking out Somnolent Drunk or Thug Lite and their strange and quite uncomfortable scents compo;ed of malt liquor and cheap cigarettes  lack of soap or an abundance of cheap cologne and weed.

The Rider is another common figure. He is on when you get on and on when you get off. He is on day after day after day. He is quiet, looking out the window of nodding off, never seeming to notice anything going on inside the bus unless the Self Conservationist, Tired Mom and the Talker start going head to head. He hums on occasion, he smiles or makes faces at Tired Mom's children. He will on a rare occasion give up his well worn seat to an elderly man or woman and always to a pregnant woman, sliding quietly back into it when they depart. His description is that he is nondescript, white, brown, black or yellow he is always dressed innocuously and never interacts unless he has too. He could be a serial killer, a modern day hobo, an international spy or someone riding the bus for warmth and a few hours of protection. He is boring and intriguing at once.

Last but not least there are people like me, The Havetas. I haveta ride because I can't see well, I have friends that haveta ride because they have lost their license  they crashed their car or don't own one, sociology experiments, college students haveta ride to get to and from class because their taxi money went to beer and books. We get on, smile, wrinkle our nose at the smell, greet the Rider expecting and getting no acknowledgement, chuckle at Thug Lite, ask Tired Mom to move one of her kids and slide into our regular seat as we make our way back home.