Tag: family

Crabs in a Big Brown Bucket

Meet Rafa. He has lived with all of his life until last night.

We are in Costa Rica wondering exactly what happened. But really we know. It’s gonna take a while to process.

Rafa’s Dad came to live with us over twenty years ago. He was living in a man camp. And kept getting fired from all of his jobs. I met him when a man building my fence asked to hire him. When I saw how Nestor held a hammer I knew why he got fired all of the time. I took the hammer from his hand. ‘It’s OK.”

He came to live with us. He got married. He had two children. We lived here like a family. Many things have occurred. We have been through a lot together.

Rafa graduated high school and wanted to go to college. I believe Rafa is an exceptional person with a high I Q.

His parents refuse to let him attend the University. We offered to pay for his tuition. He is now working as a laborer. He is now a laborer who belongs in academia. He wants to be in academia. I didn’t make this up for him.

His parents have moved to a Nicaraguan “hood”.

There is much racism here in Costa Rica. The general consensus is Nicas are not smart. Drunks. The women are loose. And they will never get anywhere. I have experienced a lot of racism dumped on this kid. And now I have seen it dumped on him by his own parents.

Unbelievable. They sincerely believe he needs to stay out of school. No education for Rafa.

Continue reading Crabs in a Big Brown Bucket

The Way They Were

Daily writing prompt
What were your parents doing at your age?
View all responses

Papa rolled his stones. Six feet under and no one was thinking about him. MaMa was hanging on. She rolled in dough. Controlling with the point of a finger, a smile, good food, love, narcotics and alcohol. That’s the way I remember it. That’s two fascinating people right there.

New/Old Story

Morally indefensible – Disrobe your social self – What you reveal and conceal – Luck; residue of design.

I purchased On The Road. A 24 dollar book with miles of entertainment for my brain. I am on page 56; still in the introduction. A foreword describing the process of Jack Kerouac’s writing and publishing. His personal thoughts on what drove him. He was divergent. Something that people for the most part do not want to be. I believe it was natural to him. He was a product of Catholicism, jazz, travel and drugs.

Continue reading New/Old Story

Whitehouse/Westside

These are Whitehouse/Westside – Riverside ladies. My relatives and ancestors.

From the baby Suzanne, in her mother Naomi’s lap. To her mother Nell Sallas who came out of the woods and moved uptown to Riverside. To her mother Mary Elizabeth Lowe to her mother Eliza Parrish Lowe. Five generations of Westside girls.

Nell was a quiet lady. Like my grandmother, her sister. Stoics.

As a small child, I played Bingo with those two at the Jacksonville Trail Riders, on Halesema Rd. The bingo hall looked like a huge military bunker. I had actually forgotten about those excursions until now. Old memories resurface. They began the games with a prayer and a bowed head. This was part of my introduction to the world of Baptists. We were Catholic. The neighbors were pagans as they were not a part of the One Holy Apostolic Church and we were unsaved because the pagans thought that we did not know that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. That’s what the neighborhood kids explained to me as we raced our stingray bikes. My mother reiterated the pagan concept as we passed the little corner church. I asked questions. I wanted to know.

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The Family Farm

The Westside – Blair Rd.

In Jacksonville if you head west out Normandy Blvd, you will cross a line of demarcation. A boundary, a separation, a distinction.

The people that grew up in this area know that border. As you cross Fouraker Rd. you are on different terrrain than the other areas of Jacksonville. The land has now been quartered and re-quartered. Subdivisions have been built on what was once sprawling pasture land.

It is no longer recognizable as the majestic acreage that it once was.

Cattle grazed under massive oaks. They lumbered to the creek for their daily water. They gave milk and beef, complimantary to the garden vegetables. Biscuits were a staple. No one knows biscuits like people who were raised on the Westide.

Even in my life time it was not uncommon to see someone traveling on horse. ( That was me! )

Many of us, whose family’s have been there since the 1840’s know we have a different history.

Peculiar personal histories.

Continue reading The Family Farm

Change and Elevate

I am on the other side of a rough 4 1/2 years. Two of those years were spent with my daughter, Aislinn. She had cancer and toughed it out, getting chemical treatments and willing herself to live. It was so hard. But we had such wonderful times together. We experienced a beautiful closeness. The following two years were engulfed in Red Bulls. After having started drinking them to get myself through her life celebration, I had a serious addiction. Quit them October 20th, 2022. Then another six months, three in Fernandina and three in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica has saved me from myself. The air here is clean. You can feel the health as you inhale. I’ve just been quietly passing my days, playing with my kids here, swimming or Cross Fitting. I feel like a different person.

I dread going home. I look forward to seeing and being with friends. But I cringe at the thought of amped up tourists and new-to-the-island Yankees. It’s a prejudice.

A long time renter has moved out and that has left a void.

But I have some over-the-top neighbors that helped me tremendously. They let me wander around and be crazy. Reaching out to them. Making a nuisance of myself.

Trying not to become a recluse.

My family is shredded.

But I have a plan. I had hit a bottom when I arrived here January 1, 2023. I am going to adapt once again. I am an artist and I have been painting and woodworking. I have to do something to flee from any and all negativity. I want to be the best person that I can be.

It’s a tough road to navigate. But I am up to it.

66 – Thoughts on Bull Shit

I called a legitimate sister to discuss yet another sister who has showed up on our 23 and Me Ancestry. I don’t know why she would find it a hard to believe that this is our sister. Joan Ariel. DNA does not lie.

Continue reading 66 – Thoughts on Bull Shit

Day 153

This is day 153 of the year 2022. There are 215 days left. And I am here in the moment. En Route 66…………….

“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?” – Marcus Aurelius