Dreams Don’t Go Away

By: William M. McCurrach

I dreamed of peace. I dreamed of joy, I dreamed of things like all little girls and boys.

I dreamed of  love, I dreamed of caring, I dreamed of a family full of sharing.

I dream of all that could be, why couldn’t my dreams come true for me?

My Dreams were like every other child’s,

A World of fun, love and things so wild,

I did not dream of what happened to me,

I did not pick my mommy and daddy!

I did not ask to be brought into this world,

Any more than any other boy or girl!

I did not dream of living in fear,

I did not dream of siblings, who would not share,

Or,  a mother and father who had no care.

I did not ask for the beatings I got,

I did not ask to be hurt and threatened to be shot.

I did not ask for the memories I got,

Where I wake up running and sweaty from who knows what!

I dreamed of peace, I dreamed of joy,

I dreamed because I was a little boy.

The years of dreaming have gone by,

But I still feel the pain and see the beatings in my mind’s eye.

I see the poker coming down on my head,

His big hands,  grabbing me, and pulling me from my bed.

I wake up sweaty, my body trembles, my  mind races to survive,

My dreams you see were real for me,

Back when they were alive.

So, as you raise your children today, think of the pain of my memories and how they won’t go away!.

Please treat your children better is all I can say!.

Go back in time now and was fun remember when, television and people weren’t dumb and bread cost twenty nine cents a loaf. When children ran through projects and color meant nothing to anyone, because, we were all on the same income level and struggling to survive. The Elementary School days of classrooms and playgrounds when nothing mattered but learning and playing for all of us, weren’t they great!

           Television back then was all black and white or color had just started and no one knew what cable was or had heard of it. But the shows that ran on the three main networks were fun to laugh and made kids think and grow up safely. Not every show was violence field back then; the comedy’s ruled the world of television in the 1960s. God Bless those for that, for today the children who watched those programs and learned the lessons from them are still here to teach tomorrows children.

           The comedy’s ruled and we laughed, the shows were made that way on so many networks we all loved them. ABC/ NBC. CBS and even Multimedia 5 out of New York ran great programs. We had all the characters and actors playing them who would make people smile and hold their interest for hours at a time. Variety Shows were king back then too, Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin, ah the good old days. We had Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, The Wonderful World of Disney and others. McHale’s Navy, My Favorite Martian, Car 54 Where are you and more. The Incredible Hulk, Little House on the Prairie, The Mod Squad, Combat, and more. Shows that told stories of fun, adventure and laughter. I miss those day folks, we all marveled at them then and now we all get nothing but violence and live shows. What the hell happened to the good old ones please? What happened to I Love Lucy, Alias Smith and Jones and others? The Mod Squad showed all working together, Charlie’s Angels, Cannon, and Barnaby Jones ah the good old shows. Perry Mason, Five O, and many more, where have you gone.

             Today you have two choices when you turn on your TV, Live contests of some sort, or Soap Operas they now call dramas. Let’s face it folks American TV is programing us, not us it.  Yet no one speaks up and looks for decent programming anymore, there is no Captain Kangaroo, or Mr. Rogers anymore, is there? Sad isn’t it folks, but America’s core values were taught in those programs, and taught through Adventure, Comedy and Variety Shows and it worked.  Can someone please tell me who let American Television become violence, drugs, killing and crime shows, interspaced with live contests? What is happening America to the Television Networks and what is being fed to our children/ DO we really pay attention to it anymore? We should for sure!

Little Secrets of Males and Females      

 

   There are things in life, men and women have some differences on and different needs in many ways, and there is no way to change it. Would we want to really, I doubt it all. Stop and think of the differences and the reasons for them and it is really an examination of not only physical differences but mental ones too.

             As we all grow up there is a stage we all notice the opposite sex, and it happens at different ages for sure. Some of us go thru puberty at different ages and the results come out differently too. If you stop and think of that, well you may have the reasons for some of the people, who are strange or different who walk the planet, right?

            As we know each sex, male and female have their own little secrets they don’t let out or they try to hide as long as possible.  Everyone is a little different right, I mean, females don’t tell us men everything and vice versa, we tend to hide certain things we do, or act like we don’t know something when we really do to make the opposite sex feel more important to themselves.

              Women tend to do this by asking the man around how to fix the door, the bathroom, the window or whatever breaks. Then they stand about and watch you do it, like they never did it themselves before and congratulate you on getting it done, but they just did it themselves the year before. What makes a man think a woman can’t change a tire, put in a new car battery, or fix a toilet for instance, a woman does!. She stands there all helpless looking, bats her eyes, and wiggles and jiggles until the man says ok I got it. Female secret weapons include, and are not limited to body parts, cleavage, curves, rear ends and smiles and big eyes or colorful ones. They get equipped at a young age and learn how to use their charms to get what they want done. Yet us men have found ways to avoid these womanly ways especially if you have been married a while.

                 Stop and think men and women, am I right or not, don’t you think we are stereo-typed into believing things we shouldn’t believe? For instance let’s discuss the Presidential Election for one. Remember 2008, Hillary vs. Obama, the fight to be President, what fun. It did prove that women have much more skill than they will ever admit and the Hillary Clinton is one hell of a woman and smart as a whip, didn’t it. She didn’t believe for one moment she couldn’t be President or that the Democrats wouldn’t give her the Nomination. She kept at it again and again, until, the numbers got to she and she had to admit defeat. I will tell you one thing, if Hillary Clinton had become the First Female President of the United States, we would have probably been a lot better off, today. Where ever you go, no matter where in the World, Hillary Rodham Clinton is admired, and loved and thought of as the brilliant woman she is, because she is aggressive when needed, she is laid back as needed, and in the end a producer of results. Not many men can say the same, and many tend to fumble along and think with the wrong heads, if you get my drift! Sad isn’t it, that a person so damn smart, logical and who had such fine solutions and ideas, got pushed aside, in a critical race that could have and would have changed the world and America forever!

              Now when I talk differences between men and women, male and female, there is also a communication gap we like to believe in. That’s bullshit and actually a myth and story we humans use to hide behind. Do you really think a woman can’t use a tool or fix her own car? Just walk away once and come back, they will do one of two things, 1) learn to fix it on their own, or pay to have it done by a man. If they are broke they use their bodies to attract a man to get things done for them, things they know damn well they can and would do on their own, if they had to.

             On the other hand we men are not stupid as women like to think we are either. We too play mind games and pretend to have hearing problems and more. It’s a matter of fact between men and women we have our different ways of handling life and each other.

                We, men do the following and women get so pissed at us, it drives them crazy. We tend to act like we didn’t hear them when we did. We tend to not know something when we do, but choose to keep our mouths shut, because we know if we open it, wham, we will get the job and we really don’t want it. There are many little things; men won’t admit to knowing just as women do, the difference is men use our so called lack of knowledge, or abilities and the stupid act to get out of what we don’t want to do.

           I will give you a for-instance; do you women really believe us men can’t cook or do laundry, I mean really. What the hell do you think we did before we met you, pay for it all to be done? Or dishes do you really think men don’t know how to clean a dish, glass, cup or pot or pan? If you do, go to your boyfriend’s apartment or home someday unexpectedly, if you think you will find him living in a mess, well, his momma would kill him if he did silly. Unless of course the guy is totally, and I mean totally lazy and useless, then you wouldn’t want us anyway would you ladies?

             So when a husband walks around a store, going yes dear, whatever you want dear, yes you can have it dear, yes I know I can’t buy nothing, we don’t do it to look stupid, we do it so we don’t get nagged, beaten up or hear about it for weeks, or end up sexless or on the couch, and no other reason. Men usually have excuses they use before they get something done, one of our favorites is, when I get round to it! I used to use it a lot and it got me out of so many things I could put off and not bother with, like: Dear Paint The Bathroom, when I get round to it!. Then one day my wife got smart, I went to sit down and play video games and I found a piece of round paper on my seat. I picked it up, it said Round to It, get to work, laughing, it’s true she caught on.

              Anyway the point is simple, we men aren’t as stupid as we act and you women aren’t as helpless as you make out to be either! It is indeed a world of little secrets for both sexes isn’t it! Hahahahahaha!

 

 

 

It is ancient history so to say now, as to when the first video game appeared on the world market and the electronics craze really began. The 1980s is now decades ago when companies like Atari, and Commodore Computers came about. All hooked to a TV antenna on the back of your television and or with a monitor of its own and keyboard and silly joysticks. It now seems so long ago after all the inventions and progress since, doesn’t it. Pong, Table Tennis and then graphics came about as children and adults got fascinated by Intellivision and then PlayStations and X-Boxes and personal computers. Lap Top computers became the craze and now Tablets and E-readers abound, everywhere a person goes is someone reading, or playing or working on an electronic device. Amazing isn’t it folks we have become total and unashamed electronic geeks who love having video games to play and watch.

         As a kid born in the fifties and raised in the sixties and seventies, we never had game consoles, computers, e-readers or video games. We had erector sets, microscopes, dolls, rings, jacks, jump ropes and balls. We had puzzles and paperback books and hard covers, and a little TV if we were good. Today’s children live and die with electronics and it is sad when you removed it from the kids they get lost and don’t know what to do anymore.

          Such is the preamble to what happened to a child born in 1982, little Gerald McLaney. A young boy who by the age of fibe years old was given a controller to an Atari Console and got lost in simple games like pong and table tennis and grew from there. His parents didn’t think anything of it, it calmed Gerald down when he was upset, it made him quiet and happy and they could hear him in the next room each day, laughing and making fun sounds as he played for hours.

            His days were spent staring at a Television screen full of pixels and shapes and laughing and yelling and sometimes crying when he failed to beat the games. Never though would Gerald ever give up no matter how many times he was beaten by a game he always went back to play again, to prove it was beatable to him. Usually Gerald would figure it out even at five years old, a small boy who’s brain sped as fast as light pixels across the screen. He mastered games like pong in no time, tennis in no time, Mario Brothers by 7, and was on to games of Champion Tetris and puzzles and more.

                His days were spent going to school, coming home rushing through homework, finishing it and on went the Television and the game console and Gerald would be lost once more to the world, in an electronic wasteland staring at a screen of colored pixels now that moved at the same rate as his brain cells fascinated by the games invented to play with. Gerald never worried about making friends or going out to play and his parents saw no problem letting him do as he wanted and what made him happy. After all Gerald was happy as he was and no one cared if it was the video games and Television screen keeping him company, all they knew is Gerald was a happy kid and never caused trouble.

            His life went on and on as the video games grew, he went from Atari, to Intellivision, from Intellivision he graduated to X-Box and Play Stations. The games went from simple games like pong and table tennis to games of more violent natures now, war games, battles, battleships and planes and then the shooters. Yes the all-time favorites for Gerald, his shooters games of war now allowed to be played across the internet now, as servers sprang up and blood and gore and sounds of explosions and fights and yells of death filled the room Gerald played in. Gerald staring at the screen to see a dot move and shoot and duck as a player’s pixeled characters head exploded 300 feet away in the game and the scores rang up and awards He joyed in being able to kill as many opponents as possible and being the best on the score boards around the world now. Yet behind the screen as others were being beaten and seeing Gerald’s pixel character in the game come up victorious and win, no one knew the real Gerald who was now home alone always with no one to watch him. He was snacking on so many things over time that between the age of 7 to 17, Gerald had somehow grown to 300 pounds and could barely move. Yet he refused to put down his controller and stop his game playing for it was all he knew. He ate whatever he wished, no his parents didn’t pay attention, nor stop him as long as Gerald didn’t bother anyone and was happy.

            The video game sounds could be heard in the halls with Gerald’s door shut as he played on and on seldom stopping except for bathroom breaks and to get snacks. He would rush as fast as he could across the hall to the bathroom to go and then wait when no one was looking and get food and drinks and run back in and play more. He lived for the video games each day, looking online for new ones to play, buying and downloading what he could on a credit card. Each game was more complicated to win, each shooter more violent and gore filled as Zombies died, and Soldiers and Hit Men and Mobsters all at Gerald’s hands. As Gerald sat back in his chair in his room his eyes filled with the colors and pixels of the screen his thumbs and fingers gliding effortlessly across the controllers, smiling and never caring about anything else.

               The pressure from the weight and his lack of physical exertion began to get to Gerald each day, slowing his heartbeat down and causing bladder and bowel problems, but Gerald didn’t care much, he wanted to just sit in the dark stare at the screen his fingers and thumbs sliding over the smooth buttons on the controllers and watch pixeled characters on a screen bleed and die left and right as he worked through each map and screen. It was after all Gerald’s whole life now, he knew he couldn’t run and play with the other kids now. Gerald could barely make it to the bathroom 100 feet away and the refrigerator 200 feet away downstairs once a day. He would sneak down when no one was looking with a tray and climb slowly back up the stairs, with the try loaded with drinks and snacks and junk food.

               Once a week Gerald would get up and empty the trash when no one was home from his bedroom. Bags of trash he stored like a rabbit storing food, until no one was around and then disposed of them. No one knew Gerald existed except for the fact they kept feeding him food and drink and hearing the sounds of the games in the hallway and down the stairs throughout the house. This went on for a good 5 years and at times only visitors would wonder how Gerald was to his parents, but when they asked to see him, Gerald would tell his parents, he was too busy doing things and the game sounds would get louder. Slowly but surely over the next two years the gaming sounds from Gerald’s room would fade a little at a time. Becoming less and less to be heard from Gerald’s room daily. His own family tended to believe Gerald was fine, because the sounds did keep coming and going on and off and he never ever complained of anything.

              Finally, after five long years, Gerald’s family began to wonder how come they didn’t see or hear from Gerald much anymore, what was he doing now a days. Was he really ok in that bedroom of his and  why didn’t he come out  or answer anymore?

              One day, they decided it was time to see Gerald again and make sure he was alive and ok. As they pounded on his door there was only video games sounds inside and no verbal response from him.  They knocked harder and harder but no response still. So they tried to open the door to Gerald’s room, and failed not once but three times. Now worried frantically, they dialed 911 for help.

             10 minutes later the fire department and police arrived to find out what this was all about, Amazed they listened to how someone wa sin this room and had been for so long no one knew what was happening, with him. They knocked first looking for response like everyone else did, but nothing. They asked for a key to the door but no one had one to let them in. The Police decided to try to break the door down by their shoulders yet it did not budge. 

               The Fire Department brought in a saw and they cut thru the door to Gerald’s room. They found Gerald who was now 400 pounds and leaning against the door as the door gave the rest of the way under his weight. Gerald died 400 pounds, happy with a tray of snacks, sodas and his video game controller in his hand! Sadly Gerald never bothered with anyone but the gamers online and ate like he did to do so, but he never interacted with real people in the outside world either.

                 Three days later they buried Gerald McLaney in a piano box, to hold his 400 pound body and before they tossed the dirt over his casket, they threw in his X-Box 360 and a controller!.

 As his family walked away from his grave site, you could hear his mother cry, why!!!!!! Why did this happen to my son!  From the father came the answer, we should have watched him closer and never let him have a video game, they destroy kids and adults a like. The final statement of his father was probally the best one as they stepped into the car to leave the grave yard, Video Games kill folks, just ask the russians, who invented Tetris!  And as they looked back at the grave one move time before leaving, they watched the grave being refilled, and whispered Good-Bye!

 

    Feb. 1, 2015, Super Bowl 49 day has arrived. There will be parties and people staring at the game for hours watching and cheering on each team and each other. Berating one another, and verbally fighting out which team will win, in home across the USA and world too. The bottom line is the Super Bowl is an Event many sports lovers love, period. Win lose or draw as a fan, you love to see the teams play a pretty competitive and equal game, and have a climax to it all that make sit worth watching. Thats Football Baby as they say!

Whether you are a Seahawks fan, or a Patriots fan or just a Pro Football fan period, the game will be the center of your Sunday Night tonight. Some will have chips and dips and food and scream and yell at each other over who is winning or losing and what play was fair or inbounds will always thrill a crowd. Football folks especially the Super Bowl is not just for men, women have fun with it too, and they get involved if you let them, so enjoy for tonight there will be one Super Bowl Winner and Champion!

As 2015 begins after one month is gone, we shall start to see in February, the political season start to heat up. Already Mitt Romney has said no to a third run for the Republicans, so the season begins for both parties. Before it gets fully underway folks, I think America needs to get ready to say good-bye to the Obamas. While Barack and Michele have done a fine job of representing Americans around the world, and The President has made some good choice and bad ones too, we have to say thank you to them for their leadership of the country, period. So before you pick a new President lets give some Respect and Honor to the President and Michelle Obama for their loyal service and convictions to their country. even if you disagree with some of his laws and ideas and what he did as President you must Respect the man and his wife for their service to the United States of America.

The Biggest questions now facing America is Terrorist, defenses against them, America’s protection in the world and our allies protection too. Then we run into the Debate of who our next President will be and if America believes fully a woman can lead America in this day and age. I refer to Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of the toughest political in fighters around and a woman who has earned a chance to run America in many ways. I believe she will run, for she is in my opinion the best option for us all. I may be wrong on whether she can win or not, but I am a loyal Hillary for President Supporter in my own mind and heart. So time shall tell thats for sure!

I hope and pray whichever political party wins the White House next, will realize America needs jobs, needs to take care of it’s people at home and abroad, yet, we have to interact with the world in a way to better it and our futures too. Co-operation, compromise, understanding must happen folks, and so much the elimination of terrorist and their power and threats. So, if a man or woman can come forward with a way to save medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, create jobs, make Healthcare better for all and lead with our head held high and gain back the respect we always had, it’s fine with me. We need a Leader who is not afraid of making decisions and sticking with them, as well as doing so responsibly.  I think Hillary Clinton is the one, but the process is just beginning and she has not declared yet, so I shall wait and see what surfaces.

 

 

 

     Yesterday January 25th I turned 59 years old and celebrated it by taking the State Exam for Life Insurance Exam and passed it. Adding another accomplishment to my life and moving on and hoping, to keep going a while longer.

I have survived many things in my life, from a brutal childhood filled with beatings, threats, and screaming, to a three-year stretch in high school and dropping out to slowly coming back from that. Going on to an Equivalency  Diploma, and joining first the Army, then the Army National Guard and in the end The Navy for the final twelve years of service. I have survived a Medical Discharge and becoming a Disabled Veteran and going through a Divorce, and bounced back. I went on to going to College and getting an Associate Degree in Hotel Management, and Restaurant Management too. 

I have now written plenty of stories and made them into small books on Amazon’s Kindle E-books for sale. Then I married for a second time, and moved on more. I gained a great wife, a home and love, and a step-daughter and grandkids, and regained my daughters and their children too. I came a long way folks.

So life shall go on and on for me as long as God is willing, Thanks all and God!

      Some of us say very little about ourselves, and we don’t tell everything to everyone, we hide facets of ourselves from the world so they can not judge, or pity us or laugh at us or whatever many do. We tend to keep good times as well as bad times close to our heart and we tend to smile when in pain or say nothing at all. Such has always been my way in my life, I never said to anyone what I really thought, I was taught to say publically one thing and privately keep my real thoughts to myself. You might call it a family trait, handed down through both parents. One did it to control all around her, yes dear old mom, the other did it out of being an introvert and shy and being passive. But in the end both had the same way of doing things and it showed when they died.

Personally, for me it started at five years old and still exists in me till this day at almost 59. I don’t force myself into conversations, nor do I try to dominate them. I stand by and wait my turn, when in groups, or at least until someone asks for my opinion. I have never been one to take control or push anything unless I ha dto, like in the military when they look at you and go your the higher rank, you have to do it. So I did.

 Here is the point of this conversation for you all. Would you if sick, tell everyone, or if you knew what no one else can know about your own health, broadcast it to everyone you knew? Some maybe would, me I just do what i was taught all my life, shut up and handle it quietly on my own. So,  thats how life goes for me, I cough my head off, and rip the protective layer from mt throat each day, I vomit in my own throat and swallow it and say nothing to anyone, I suffer and find it hard to breathe at times when I walk or run to my own mailbox on the street, yet I keep going. Do i worry about it, not really for I was taught at a young age, we all die at some point, and we all have our own time to go. have I thought about what could be on the other side when I die, of course doing we all, but I believe we do not control our time here on earth, we only live it till our mission we were put here to do are completed by us. Then we return to from which we came and rest until needed again. I know  many don’t have the same thoughts or ideas on death, but these are mine, and thats all there is to it.

As I close in on 59 years old in January, and see things slowly changing health wise for myself and knowing my family history on the medical side, well I know what is coming in my mind at least. As my throat fills with vomit and bile and my stomache aches and my bowels stop up some I know, I can’t last forever. I know, a body can only fight so long to save itself, unless it’s own protection systems stop reacting properly and shut down on you. It’s just a physical matter of fact folks, the human body is a miracle yes, but it wasn’t created to last forever was it? It does begin to fail over time and such is the case of mine really. My Attention deficit disorder in my youth started it slowly and I overcame. It was preceded by Seizures as a baby, 199 in all, they were overcome by accident when I fell from a high chair. Yet, I kept going, I was never accepted by my family or the neighborhood kids or kids in school. It was just me, i was an outcast to many for sure. yet I survived that too.

Point being, it was the same all my life struggle through, survive and make it work. In the end what carried me through to this far is something my step-father told me as a child, and I quote, ” You can do anything you put your mind to to do, if you stick with it and see it through!” He was right and I admired him for saying so back when I was a kid and I lived my life by it. Thanks Dad, you were there, although not always right in how you did things, that one you got right! If it wasn’t for my Step-dad’s being there who knows what I would have become or if I would have even survived to this day. 

But what would you say today Dad, to my being here still going on 59, and outliving you who died at 58, or in catching up with mom’s age at her death, or my out living my real father? What would you say to me today dad, if you saw my home, or knew my second wife, or saw how my daughters and grandchildren are today. What would you say to me surviving 6 herniated discs, PTSD, and more. What would you say to my surviving Lung cancer and still kicking today? I think I know, how you would stand there hands on hips, that serious look on your face with your goatee and bald head and smile at me, and say good job. That is who you were, tough but fair to a point and proud when ya saw us all do right. Thank You!