Memorial Day

Lt. John "Jack" Kipling, 18 years old, killed in the Battle of Loos in France in WWI, 1915

'My Boy Jack'

1914-18

---

"HAVE you news of my boy Jack? "
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Has any one else had word of him?"
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind---
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP0GBLk5MjE

There's a line from the film My Boy Jack from Jack Kipling's mother Carrie, after his parents found out what happened to him. I'm not sure if I have it quoted exactly right, I didn't find any video of it online and haven't watched the DVD recently:

"He was 18 years and one day old. He died alone in the rain, I can't see any glory in that!"

No glory, Carrie. There is no glory in war, only death and destruction. Memorial Day is about more than parades and barbecues, it's a day set aside to honor those brave souls like your son, who risk or even sacrifice their lives so the rest of us may live in a free world. I post this in honor of those brave men and women who have taken that risk or made that sacrifice. May they never be forgotten.

(In case you're interested the DVD of My Boy Jack should still be available on www.shoppbs.org.)

Trying out new template

I decided that pea-soup green background didn't really look all that good so I thought I'd try something new. What do you think?

Back from vacation and then everything went nuts

OK so I came back from my vacation after having a great time with my daughter in the Caribbean (pictures and details in an upcoming post) and what do I find in the mail when I get home? A summons to court! My ex is (unsuccessfully) trying to get custody of our daughter, in hopes of using her Social Security Disability income to pay off his debts (he hasn't been working since November and from what I hear is about to get evicted from his apartment). Now this is the same guy whose psycho nutcase girlfriend has been filing false abuse claims against me for the last 10 years, actually she just did it again a couple of months ago. After our most recent court date last week the court actually filed an abuse and neglect report against him, from what it looks like his best friend is a pervert who may have actually molested my daughter. :-( The social worker from the Department of Children and Families who interviewed her told me there may be enough evidence to have him criminally charged, and I agreed to have the case turned over to the District Attorney's office for review.

My ex actually used to be a nice guy, not the sharpest knife in the drawer but not mean or anything like that--ever since he started hanging around with the local town loonies he's changed, it's like he's a puppet and they're pulling the strings. It's cruel what they've made him put his kids through, and the rest of his family and mine as well. There are a lot of people whose trust he's betrayed or he's otherwise hurt somehow, and it will take a long time, if ever, to heal those relationships. Hopefully all this legal stuff going on will make him realize that he needs to get away from these people who are trying to destroy his life and are ruining his relationships with everyone who's supposed to care about him. In a way I'm mad at him for doing all this but on the other hand I feel like he's as much a victim here as the rest of us, the real perpetrators are his girlfriend and their other friend. With friends like that who needs enemies, huh?

I haven't been doing any crocheting for my Etsy shop lately either, just too distracted with this other stuff going on I guess. I'm starting to feel like I'm not sure if I should bother continuing with it, I've only had a couple sales from it the entire time it's been open. Maybe I need to rethink what I want to sell, recently I got the book Drawing for Dummies and I'm working on the exercises in that, maybe if I can get good enough I'll add an Art section to my shop. I've been thinking for a while about trying beading and pottery too, but haven't found any local classes to join yet. We've only been back from our vacation about three weeks and I already want to go away again! Need to get away from the stress, you know? Maybe the kids and I can go away for a weekend after they get out of school or something, I'm not sure what we'll do yet.