The New Year: 2016

By REV JIM PURCELL

As this upcoming year represents my half-century mark, it is a time to take stock.

Am I where I thought I would be, doing what I thought I would be doing? Are there people in my life whom I thought would still be here? Am I living in that awesome place where I thought I would be at this age so long ago?

Well, as that list goes, I am not looking too badly. Not shabby at all. But, life didn't go the way I expected to get here, and most of my big plans for myself fell apart at one time or another. So, while I may be in that space, that place, where I thought I would be -- I took the strangest route I could have imagined.

Isn't that what life is anyway? Like the old saying goes: Men make plans and God laughs. Well, with me, he must have been rolling on the floor. So, why couldn't I have just taken the wide, easy path to where I am now? Why did it have to be so damn hard?

Well, adversity builds character, real character. When things get hard and times are trying, those are the moments when people learn empathy, forgiveness and real determination. No, it is not the kind of determination that Rocky showed against Draco in the montage scenes of Rocky IV. It is not the kind of determination to climb K2 or Mount Everest. Sometimes, the hardest thing to do for someone is to lose something they loved and treasured and then just wake up the next morning and get out of bed.

You know, as time clicks by, I have had a few friends and loved ones leave this world. Of course, being at about the same age, there are some of these friends and loved ones who died young. I noticed, though, that something my friends who passed early have in common is that they smoked and drank to excess. They lived life badly, being angry or scornful. They refused to change inwardly from their youth, and growing old and living crazy is not a match made in heaven. Not finding peace with yourself and living healthy will send you to heaven, for sure, but dying because of something like smoking too much is just prolonged suicide.  Someone is just biding their time, in that case, to leave this world as soon as they case.

For the past three years I have been working hard on my recovery from alcohol and anger, both of which consumed me for many years. I believed I was unfairly cheated, robbed of things that were precious to me. Well, there is something else about life we each learn at some point or other: It isn't fair, not in this world. Not yet. But, the knack to living is being able to go on and still search for whatever makes us happy.

More than money or position, land or jobs I always wanted peace and peace of mind. It has been a successful life in that I have found my piece of peace. I do not wish to to great things anymore, and while I like to work no one could characterize me as ambitious anymore. I learned that it is better to be at peace with one's self and their surroundings than to be fighting for the top spot.

In the end, somehow I have always knew, that we will not judge ourselves on how much money is in the bank, how big the car was, or how grand one's house was. In the end, what we each will judge ourselves is how we lived our lives, what we learned from those lives and how much peace we were each able to find in our hearts. Don't get me wrong -- big houses and cars are great. Yet, they are only things, which rust and breakdown and they do not shine forever. Only the human spirit shines for ever, and making that spirit brighter will shine forever.

Happy 2016 for everyone who visits the Chronicles, enjoy the year and blessings to you and yours.

The KKK Strikes Again!

Hello, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. Dateline Chesterfield, VA: A young woman goes to her door and finds a pile of poop there with a note, informing her it was left there by the KKK and they don't like her because she is black.

Are you kidding me?

I'm surprised they didn't ring her doorbell and run away.

Bear in mind, this is the same KKK that was such a national pain in the ass throughout most of the 20th century: hangings, shootings, cross burning, marching down Main Street with their moron robes on. Yeah, these are the guys -- and they left a bag of poop on a woman's doorstep and ran away.

What were they trying to do, terrorize her? The last time I pulled the ol' 'Leaving Poop On Your Doorstep' thing was when I was seven years old. My neighbor, Paul Fiquet, and I left a bag of poop on a day care's front doorstep.

When someone came they just threw the bag in the outside garbage: No big pay off with someone stepping into it. OK, that was the beta testing phase. So, Paul came up with a fool proof idea -- we light the bag on fire and then ring the doorbell and run away. Someone will see the burning bag and stomp it out. So, they would have poop on their shoes then, you see. Only problem was, no one was there -- it was Sunday. No one came out. Our careers as scalawags was over and it was a miserable failure.

Flash forward 41 years. What Paul and I learned is being repeated, only by the KKK, as a means to strike terror into the heart of this poor woman. I don't know her name, but I know her cousin and he told me the whole thing. How do they up the ante? I fear they might try to toilet paper the tree on her front lawn, folks.

Hey, obviously, everyone knows who and what the KKK is -- no need to go over it. They are a bunch of hooded scumbags who have created more unnecessary suffering in this country than anything else for more than 150 years and -- they suck.

I will laugh at these evil hate-mongers resorting to a child's prank to "make their point." I like it a lot better than how they were making their points in the 1920s through 1970s -- and I think everyone will agree on that.

No longer threatening to march 200,000 strong down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, they have 'adjusted their campaign' for the 21st century. Listen, if the most anyone ever hears from the klan again is this nonsense I can't see it's a bad thing.

But, remember, Mr. and Mrs. America, once upon a time in this country most Southern office holders were card carrying members of the klan (circa 1910s through 1940s). Afterward, while they were not outspoken in their beliefs, many kept good relations with the klan. These people had power and what did they do with it? They killed people. They corrupted the office holders of our nation (which didn't take too much) and they gave every American a bad name because of their actions.

The klan killed NAACP President Medgar Evers, they dogged the footsteps of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. before a klan sympathizer killed him. They made their presence known on television screens around the country, evoking sheer terror because of their borttomless evil against minorities and anyone else who sided with equal rights.

To my surprise, someone who I considered almost a friend in Franklin, North Carolina told me he used to be a klan member but "...the group petered out here. Now a lot of us just meet for coffee now and again but no one is doing anything." I couldn't speak. I was in shock. Are you kidding me? He never heard from me again.

Meanwhile, in the 80s when I was a young soldier at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the damn klan used to have breakfast as a group every Sunday at this breakfast place I used to like. No shit. Right out in  public. I left and never came back.

Some hate organizations try to make their sickening message more palatable with a smile and a wink. Well, screw the smiles and the winks. They're a hate group and one with a long history of violence. My question of the day: Why the hell are these groups allowed to exist?

This isn't the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Masons or the Knights of Columbus. They aren't having drives to help good causes. No, while the once mighty klan is lowered to doing childish tricks today, I would just assume they not exist at all. And, this is something of substance law enforcement can actually get done. It's just a matter of the national will to want it.

Well, I am casting my vote now: I'd really like them gone forever.

Again, thank you for letting me rant my old man rage. Here I am, getting stirred up and swinging my cane. I best watch it or I'll knock over the glass with my teeth in it.

I've done my best at putting my opinion where it's not asked for enough today. Thanks for coming by and, as always, seeya later alligators.