How would you like to die?

Living well is best. Dying well is next best. Living badly is worst.

On Valentine's Day of this year, a horrible person murdered 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, kicking off an enormous clash about gun control, almost immediately.

The murderer was 19 a years old man, and had been identified as a dangerous person before. In fact, friends and counselors had called the FBI about him. He slipped through. It happens. He committed these crimes, and no one else is blame.

During the murders, there were heroes. A coach who shielded the bodies of children as he died. A 15 year-old ROTC student who held the door to get more kids evacuated out of the building. There were others.

One of those heroes was not School Resource Officer Scot Peterson, who "took a position" outside a door of the building where 900 students were, and listened to the shooting continue for four minutes. To make this clear: this man was an armed, sworn deputy, who was made aware of shooting in a school, where his primary duty was to see to the safety of students there, and he did nothing.

There are those who would argue that a man with a pistol has little to no chance against a man with a working AR-15. As a rule of thumb, it is true that any rifle is superior in a gunfight to any service pistol. And I could argue right back that in a majority of the cases in which a shooter was confronted by armed response, the shooter has either given himself up, or killed himself, ending the killing in either instance, for the vast majority of the cases.

But the odds are not the issue. The duty is. Each shot is potentially a student dying. Each moment's delay can mean yet another mother's child being taken. It is imperative to not-walk-but-run toward the sound of that gunfire, and stop the killing.

This deputy has trained with his weapon for over twenty years. If he hadn't settled this in his head beforehand, he was criminally negligent in his duties.

Some might say that the issue was his training. Back when I went to police academy in 1994, the training was to form a perimeter, and wait for SWAT. Certainly a single officer wasn't supposed to go in alone. (I clearly remember sitting in the back of the classroom, and thinking that this was a hill that I would die upon; I would take whatever write-ups they cared to throw at me, but I was going in.) The massacre at Columbine High School in 1998 changed that doctrine forever. The doctrine since the turn of the century has been to go in hard and fast and take the shooter out. We are specifically trained to step over and past the wounded, to rapidly close distance with the shooter, and take him out without any warning. This is as it should be. It is not a secret. It is how you help the bleeding and those yet unwounded.  How could a man or woman assigned to the duty of being a School Resource Officer not have studied this topic?

It is rare in one's life that one can recognize such an important crossroads, illuminated so clearly as this one.  One could absolutely guard one's own life, forsaking his moral duty to act, and die several decades later in one's bed, aware for the remainder of his life that he was living the life of a coward. One could swallow one's fear, and attack the killer, and fail. This would be horrible, because it would mean that one didn't stop the killer. But it's a worthy death, to die in the attempt to stop the murder of children. In fact, if an officer stopped the killer, but the officer was killed as well in the engagement, that is not a failure.  It is sub-optimal, but the goal was achieved: the killer was stopped. Dying while SAVING the lives of children is so much more preferable than dying of old age, after failing to even try. I am not suggesting that one should martyr one's self; I'm simply saying that one should fear the long life of a coward, rather than the quick and worthy death of a peacekeeper.  

My excellent friend and colleague LawDog said it better, here.

I was discussing this with friends recently, and one good friend cautioned (correctly, of course) not to give the impression that one should hope to find such an event occur. I agreed, but shared the following:

Back when I was a rookie working evening shift, I caught my first Sexual Assault case. My chief happened to drop by the police department at that time, and he took it off my hands. I had been flustered and out of my depth. My chief at the time was an expert at such cases. He said afterwards, “I am sorry that the event occurred, but I am so glad that it happened when and where I could do something about it.” He had skills that the average beat cop did not. He applied those skills to take care of the problem (the actor got 20 years, IIRC). I probably would have muffed it.

Living well is best. Dying well is next best. Living badly is worst.

Choose wisely. And train.

This is not who we are.

This is indefensible.


This is abhorrent.

No police officer can defend this action by Michael T. Slager, formerly of the North Charleston, S.C. Police Department. Happily, I haven't seen a single officer try to.

Go to 1:35 in the video, and watch as Slager tosses a black object down next to the body. Immediately after cuffing the dying man, he is seen jogging back to where the struggle began, and at 1:08 he picks up that object. I will bet you a month's worth of paychecks that the object is a Taser. I've seen them and handled them for years. It is a gun-shaped black item, seen when he drops it to be a figure L.

So, seconds after the shooting, Slager is tampering with the scene. Hell, that's a third degree felony here in Texas.

And about that shooting. Even before Tennessee v. Garner (1985), this wouldn't have washed with regard to the Fleeing Felon doctrine.  But even if it were legal, it isn't right. You don't kill a man whom you have identified, just because of brief struggle and he ran away.

That video is hard to watch, but I'm so glad that it was made, and released. Because it will help us seek justice. It won't be enough, but it never is, in any shooting of any human.

That's not us.

End of watch.

In a medium-sized county, you don't know every cop, but you eventually hear about the recipients of the clown awards. We had a local guy pass, and I didn't know anything about him. Ergo, he wasn't a bad egg.

It was time to go pay my respects.

I took my wife, at least partly because she had never been to a cop's funeral, and might need to know what to expect. And for the company, because I'm selfish.

The place was packed with family and friends, and with police and fire personnel, along with dispatchers and EMTs and paramedics. A lot of us parked on the grass.

The ceremony went as they go. There were prayers and testimonials and a few funny stories. Having not known the man, I tried to pay attention. Finally, the deceased officer's chief directed those of us with radios (I was in uniform and thus was one of them.) to turn on our radios and monitor the officer's agency's dispatch frequency. As I did so, I realized what was coming, but my wife did not.

The chief called dispatch under his call number, and we waited. County dispatch beeped an alert tone, and called out the deceased officer's radio call number. No answer. Dispatch called it out again. No answer. Dispatch called it a third time.  Dispatch then announced the officer's end of watch date, and thanked him for his service.

The room, filled with a disproportionately high number of young-to-middle-aged men, pretty much as one ducked our heads into our hands to wipe our eyes.

That end of watch call* always gets me.

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*Here's a version that I found on YouTube, which was vaguely like what I heard today.

Controlling one's own destiny.

Well-known and well-thought-of firearms trainer Louis Awerbuck passed away this week.


I never met the man, but I’ve friends who knew him (like Tam and Rich). I have of course read his stuff for years.


There is something to be said for placing no dependence upon others, if that is your greatest fear (it is not mine). There is yet more to be said for going out on your own terms.


The freedom to decide how we meet our fate is ultimately what most of us who meet here and at my other haunts are talking about. No sane person wants to get into a gunfight. But nobody wants to have all of their options taken from them, either. Louis Awerbuck, it seems to me, made his career out of helping others to maintain their options. 

Dispatches from the front.

Imagine your own descent toward death, and blogging it.


3BoyMom takes us a long way in one single moderate post.


She boils it down, so it's actually not dreary.


But you can taste the copper in her mouth as the blood drains away at the realization that the news is real, as the explanations become very hollow and distant because it all is a sum that equates to death.

When it hits you.

Usually, I can distance.

"Hey, it sucks to be them. These things happen."

And they do. Happen, I mean. Tornados are pretty low on the list of things that kill us, nationwide.

But I watched this video, and found myself putting myself into the place of the parents looking for their missing child at the school, or of the teachers having to round up kids for a count.

And suddenly I'm in tears. And when I try to discuss the impact with my wife, she refuses to discuss the issue with me. So here you are, Internet: my raw and exposed nerve.

I ask you to watch the very short bit of raw video above, so that you will not do as I was doing last night and this morning, and distance with a flippant dismissal.

Those people are you and me. Their loved ones are yours.

They found her.
From The Oklahoman. Retrieved 21 May 2013.  

So, I'm texting some money. It's all I know to do. They are up there. I am down here.
Maybe you could text some, too. *


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*"This has been a major disaster, and the Red Cross will be there for the people in this state and this community. People who wish to make a donation can support American Red Cross Disaster Relief, which helps provide food, shelter and emotional support to those affected by disasters like the recent tornadoes in Oklahoma and Texas as well as disasters big and small throughout the United States by visiting redcross.org, dialing 1-800-REDCROSS or texting REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation."

One does not simply walk into Moscow...

...and kick the Russians' butts, playing their own music, during the Cold War.

But that's just what a modest gay kid from Louisiana and Texas did. A graduate of Julliard, Van Cliburn had always wanted to go to Russia. In 1958, the 24 year old went there to compete in the first International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Consider the era. The Soviets had just launched Sputnik, and felt that they were on a roll. They started this competition to show the world that the U.S.S.R. was not only technically advanced, but culturally the world leaders, as well. And, frankly, when it comes to virtuoso pianists, the Russians have a long and proud history.

Cliburn played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3.

And he blew them away.
He won first prize, in an upset that in some ways was akin to Jesse Owens excelling at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics.

Give the Soviets this: They reportedly applauded him for eight minutes, and then gave him the prize. He came home to a ticker tape parade, and a family friend presented a check for $10,000 to begin a piano competition in Fort Worth, TX, named in Van Cliburn's honor.  This was one of the things that has made Fort Worth a significant artistic destination.

Cliburn quit performing publicly in the '70s, when he felt that he couldn't give the quality that he believed that he should, anymore. But he continued to act as a cultural ambassador, acting as a servant of music. He lived in Fort Worth, TX until he passed away at 78.

We lost an icon, yesterday.

Amazing article in the Huffington Post.

Radley Balko does a very nice job of presenting the readily-obtainable facts from the FBI's U.C.R., which are easy to digest and which clearly refute our vice president's contention that police today are outgunned.

"There were fewer police being murdered, fewer police being outgunned when the assault weapons ban, in fact, was in existence," Biden said.
That last sentence simply false, on both counts. So is Biden's general premise.

Go read. This is a very clear, very easy-to-understand article, with simple graphs.

And so we lose another.

In a week where people are all worked up about one Armstrong's continuing problems, we lost another Armstrong altogether. Frankly, we fared poorly in that deal.

It seems odd that the first man to walk on the moon, who was a superbly-fit specimen of humanity in the most powerful nation on the planet, and who was an international hero without notable vices, should pass away at 81. I know-- 81 isn't exactly young, but the overall life expectancy for a United States citizen is now 78 years old*.

"I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer," he said in 2000. 

Yeah, and you flubbed your line, too. But we forgive you for that, Neil. You gave us more than a soundbite.

Hot jets, rocket man.

_______________________________
*Yes, I know that's for one born now, but the average life span goes up for people who survive to a certain age. Also, I get that I used the combined male/female average. Work with me, here.

Emotionally draining, that.

I didn't want a cat. Really, with kids already, and a house to take care of and grad school and a full time gig as a cop, I didn't want any pets. The thing about pets is that they are a responsibility. They are a monetary drain. They are a time drain. They are an emotional drain, eventually, when they die or get sick.. And they add an extra mess to my cluttered life.

I didn't want one, but my wife did. She took the kids, and they picked out a kitten from a litter of barn cats, and brought him home. He was too small even to step down into the living room. I tried to hate him. My theory wasn't working.

Cat & Mouse Games.

Even when he interfered with my laundry chores, I couldn't really hate the stand-offish cat that seemed to get along with me better than anyone.


He got fat. We made names about it. FatWad, Butterball, etc. But his given name was Oliver.

I cut a door to the garage, and from the garage to the outside world, because I will not put up with a box of crap in my house.

And he lived with us, getting fatter and only affectionate when he wanted things, for about 3.5 years.

And one day, he got sick. Urinating blood. Having trouble passing water. I dutifully took him to the vet, and spent a LOT more money than I would think possible for me to spend on a cat. A month later, I did it again.

He got sick again this week. He went missing. When we found him 2 days later, he was stove up, off his feed, not drinking. I locked him in the bathroom, and tried to bring him back to health. No good. My wife and I talked. We made a decision. His kidney problems had gotten too far. He was clearly suffering.

I explained to my almost-14 year-old and 10-year-old daughters that we were putting him down. The elder daughter held it together. The younger one lost it, bad. She sprinted out of the room, tripped, fell, sobbed hysterically. She plans  to be a vet. I think that she'll make a good one. She loves animals. She asked me some hard questions about killing a family member. These are not happy questions, but they were fair ones for her to ask, even if the answers were unfair. I somehow held it together. Mostly.

I called the vet to see when I could bring him in. Yes, I could do it myself, but I wanted to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he simply went to sleep. I may have broken down just a bit on the phone.  It was 11:00 AM.  The vet could see me at 2:30PM.

We watched a movie. Rubber, about a sociopathic serial killer tire. I thought that a humorous flick would be good. Look, it wasn't my best decision. When they got to where people died in a lengthy scene by poisoning, I realized my incredible error. My conversation with my 10 year-old resumed.

I got a pick and a shovel. and ran water to break up the hard pan, and dug a grave in the back yard. I put the cat into a carrier, and got a box and put a towel in it. And then it was time to go to the vet. The girls said goodbye to the cat. Goodbye to Oliver.

Mom drove me there, because my car was in the shop. What with construction delays, we arrived late. About 2:40PM. I went in, and the receptionist greeted me cheerfully, until he saw what I was there for. He showed me to an exam room, and asked me if I needed some time with the cat. I started to reassure him that, no-- I was already late, and had held them up enough, and... and.. and I broke down into a sobbing, blubbering fit, the likes of which I haven't committed in years and years. He left me alone for a bit.

The doc came in. She looked at me, and immediately began examining the cat. "Look," she said, "he's got an abscess on his heel, here." I had seen it (he must have gotten into some kind of a fight with another cat or some critter), but mentioned that it was only the latest in his problems, but his recurring kidney problems were what made me come to this decision. She quickly took his temperature. "106. (They run about 101 or so anyway, but that's still a bad fever.) That abscess was infected. Not eating or drinking? Consistent with fever. Dehydrated? Consistent with not eating or drinking. Shaky, weak? Consistent with infection. "I think I can fix this guy. I know you're on a budget, but let me X-ray him on my  bill, to see if that leg is broken." She took him and did so, and returned. "It's not broken. I gave him a heavy duty shot of antibiotic, on me. Let me put in some sub-cutaneous fluids, pushed." She and her assistant did so. She gave me some instructions for care. She gave me some additional oral antibiotics. She accepted my hug.

The bill was just $53. I think it's $35 or something for putting one down. Maybe more; I  didn't check. She had given me about $250 worth of service for free, to save the cat's life.

I took him home and put him into my bathroom. The kids were deliriously happy.

He's sick. Very sick. Even after we fix this, he's got issues. So I still have to worry about a damned cat that I didn't want in the first place. But I'm glad we refilled that summer garden grave with dirt and nothing else. 

The kids are making the thank-you cards. I'll sign 'em, too.

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*EDIT (07/14/2012): Oliver was up and around this afternoon. He sneaked out of the bathroom and was roaming the house. We put him back up, because the doc wants me to monitor his ins and outs. We bathed him last night, and he looks good. The vet had given him a shot of something like Tylenol for the fever, too. He's going to be okay, I think. Stupid cat.


**EDIT (02/25/2014): Oliver is a very healthy, fat cat. I tell everyone how much I hate him. Nobody believes me.

***EDIT (04/05/2016): The damned cat will outlive us all. He is healthy, and insistent that we feed him more.

****EDIT (07/11/2017): Oliver is still healthy, happy, fat, and self-serving. It is still acknowledged that he likes me best.

A good run, but not far enough?

Ernest Borgnine died today, at age 95. Here below, he describes his quick and easy technique to retain his youthful longevity:

Men around the globe were really, REALLY hoping that he'd hang on until age 100 or greater.

Uh, we were all pulling for you, Ernie.

Hey, look. I'm apparently not dying.

Well, not at an advanced rate, anyway.*
My bloodwork came back, and I had it explained to me this morning.
My PSA looked better than any he'd ever seen.
They checked my blood pressure again, and again it was good.
I need to watch the cholesterol; it was slightly high.
And the good cholesterol was a little low.
No diabetes, which is good. Given that a couple of close blood relatives have it, I'll admit to having been a bit worried about that.
Liver was good, despite occasional efforts in the past to do it harm.

All in all, I'll take this one.


_________________________________________-
*We're all dying.

Damn.

I first became aware of William Zeus Bligh-Glover, MD back in late 2007. He posted on my blog and on others, and started up his own, under the moniker "William The Coroner." Thy guy was laser-sharp, and a fierce proponent of civil liberty. Science was science, without regard to politics. Pathologists are the ultimate Crime Scene Investigators, and of course I found myself drawn to read this guy. He tried to give me a bubba'd-up SMLE once. Anytime that we had discussions, I found that his take on civil liberty was even more stringent than my own. How could I not like him?

I always meant to call him. I had a case study that I wanted his professional opinion on, and meant to mail him some stuff and chat with him about it over the phone. Why didn't I?!? I guess that I thought that his time was too valuable for my prattling.

Yesterday I started to hear in the blog community that William Zeus Bligh-Glover, MD, a.k.a. William The Coroner had passed away. I went to Breda, and she gave me the bare details that she had: he had been sick for a while, and was found on Saturday to have passed. I was stunned. He had just blogged on Friday afternoon!! The man was only 43! Friend Rabbit and I raised a glass last night to his memory last night. Euripides had a point about debts.

When I got the confirmation today that it was true, I read his brief obituary, and learned that his family requests that any memorial gifts given in his name go to Heifer International.  Hey, if Bill was like me, he'd rather you spend the money on something worthwhile rather than flowers. So I looked up what this worthy organization is about. They have a project where they get dairy cows and chickens and goats and the like to starving people to manage and help themselves. Their motto is "We give a hand up, not a handout." I like that.

I'm going there to donate right now.  I don't have much. But hell, I'd have at least bought the man dinner. That's worth $25, right? Can I get you all to kick in just $5 each? Make sure that it's known that you're doing it in the memory of William Zeus Bligh-Glover, MD.

We lost a good one, this week. Make it count.

"'We're all worm bait waiting to happen. It's what you do while you wait that matters.'” --Kinky Friedman, quoted on William The Coroner's Forensic Files.

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EDIT: Okay, there doesn't seem to be a dedication place, though you could register your donation as coming form William Bligh-Glover, and then fill in the credit card stuff from yourself. Or just make mention on your blog or to a friend that you did this thing in his memory. BTW, though they would like you to buy a share of a heffer or a flock of ducks or trio of rabbits or a llama or whatnot, they'll also do whatever number of dollars you want to donate, to wherever the need is greatest. I trust that Bill's family chose this charity for a good reason.

Damn.

If you haven't thought about our boys in Afghanistan lately, take a second to read and watch the video, and appreciate what a hard job they're tasked with doing.

Don't forget to live.

A friend asked me recently why life was worth living. I told my friend, quite honestly, that it gives us the opportunity to love, and be loved.

_ _ _ _

On May 5, 1995, my best friend's little sister, Tina Minke, lost her life.

She was crossing the same railroad crossing that her brother Scott and I had crossed hundreds of times together while going to school or pretty much anywhere. The crossing had no crossing guards, and the brush along the tracks was so grown up around the crossing that you couldn't see a train coming until you had driven to the top of the steep incline at the tracks crossing. As the road there was gravel and dirt, one would spin one's wheels trying to take off again if one had stopped just short of the apex of the hill, at the tracks. So it was that we routinely would play a risky game of rolling up to the top of the crossing, glancing back and forth quickly, and then proceeding across without ever stopping. There was not a stop sign present, and it was inconvenient to stop simply for safety's sake. Tina lost that little game that the rest of us had played, and her little car was struck.

Her body was virtually unscathed, but "virtually" just means "not quite." Her neck was snapped to the side, instantly cutting her brain stem internally. Although she was CareFlighted to a quality hospital quickly, she was pronounced brain dead.

Tina had wanted to be a surgeon. She had been working through high school as a nurse's aide. She had a couple of scholarships waiting for her at Texas A&M, where she planned to go Pre-Med. As an honor student, no one doubted that she would be successful. She was driven. She was 18. She had just 4 weeks of high school left.

I didn't go to the hospital to see off the only sister that I had ever known. I knew that her family had many, many friends, almost all of whom would be converging on her house. I called in sick (trust me: I was physically ill) and went to her house, where I had spent about half of my life in my teens.

The house was empty. The family was saying their goodbyes at the hospital.

Like many of us, this was a disaster that occurred right in the middle of everything. May is a busy time in any high-school senior's household, and the Minkes ran a business out of their house. Despite the fact that Tina's mother Donna is a well-known neat freak, the house was in the same bit of disorder that 99% of our houses are, when we're not expecting company. And company was coming. I knew that this would be one more stressor to Donna.

I let myself in and started work. I started working the phone, which was ringing off the wall. Literally hundreds of people called from the community and from surrounding states, offering help. Each person, I genuinely believe, would have moved Heaven and earth if I could have given them a part of the task to do. For the mean time, I and others who showed up set up a schedule for them to come by. They all wanted to bring food.

I started mowing the lawn, then passed if off to a neighbor who insisted. Others showed up, and started cleaning, doing laundry, and such.

I can't convey how much love flowed from these people, these friends of my extended family. They loved the Minkes, and they loved Tina. We who were present worked together in a frenzy, not because the house looked bad (it actually looked great in about 30 minutes), but because it gave us something to do. I resolved to let no phone call be left unanswered, especially when I realized that it was Tina's voice on the answering machine. This meant juggling a lot of Call Waiting beeps.

My father got through. "Son," he said, "Call the Minkes. Make sure that they're not lingering around the parking lot of the hospital. There's a really ugly storm doing bad things there in Fort Worth. It's bad."

I called them. They were just leaving. I begged them not to go. They left anyway, just missing an enormous hailstorm that injured several people in that very parking lot. Softball-sized hail, it was reported. The Minkes made it home. That night, one of the worst thunderstorms that I've ever seen railed. It seemed like the end of days. It felt appropriate.

The next morning, a local gravel merchant, unbidden, arrived with gravel trucks and paved the Minkes' hundred-yard long dirt driveway with gravel and Flex Base. The storm had softened the driveway so that only quality 4X4 trucks could have made the ascent to the house, otherwise. Now, visitors could come pay their respects without getting stuck. (You may be sure that this would have weighed heavily on the Minkes, too.)

I've never seen such an outpouring of... ham.

For whatever reason, North Texas folk bring ham when a friend passes away. Smoked ham. Spiral-cut honey ham. Picnic ham. Boned and boneless ham. Whole and pressed ham. Sliced and otherwise. Boiled ham. Lunchmeat ham. We started freezing it. We started asking next door neighbors to freeze it. Then we started sending it home with visitors. If there wasn't 200 lbs of ham there, I'll kiss your butt... right on the ham of your choosing.

It turned out that Tina had signed up as an organ donor. Her parents were a little iffy on the whole thing, at first. It's hard to think of your daughter, whose shell is right there in front of you, breathing with the assistance of a machine, having her organs harvested and distributed to other people.

But they did just that, and have NEVER regretted it for an instant.

I've met the recipients of several Tina's organs. I've met the recipient of her liver. I've met the recipient of her heart. Her kidneys were used. Her blood was used. Her eyes were used. Tina led a clean living, and was healthy. She never got to be a surgeon, but she got to save a few lives with her 18 year-old organs. Parts of her live on, literally.

_ _ _

The funeral was emotional, and I left with a rose from her graveside. Crossing the fatal railroad crossing a half hour later, I placed the rose on the tracks. No one saw me.

But a few minutes later, a photographer saw the rose, and he published this picture of the same rose in the paper.

It had been a perfect rose, even if it had been picked just a little too early.

I miss my friend, and family member, who died 15 years ago yesterday.

Tina Marie Minke
November 24, 1976 - May 5, 1995

"Now THAT would be something to go out on..."

From my favorite movie:

Gummere: [uneasily] You realize, of course, that if we fail in even the slightest way, we'll all be killed?
Adm. Chadwick: Yes, and the whole world will probably go to war.
Capt. Jerome, USMC: Gentlemen, if we fail and are killed, I certainly hope the world DOES go to war! [raises glass as a toast]
Adm. Chadwick: The world at war!
Gummere: A world war? Now THAT would be something to go out on...

You know, if I've got to shuffle off my mortal coils earlier than I currently plan to, then I rather hope it's on a slow news day, and makes the news scrawl. Hey, if I've got to suffer through an early death, then you have to suffer through the retelling of it.

I just pray that my last acts are judged to be noble, and that they are not witnessed and triggered by a murderous semi-tame dancing skating bear.

This Just In:

Generalissimos Miguel Jackson and Francisco Franco are still dead!

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Hat Tip to Tam.

What a difference that last 0.56% must have made.

Marylin Chambers, the most famous model ever to grace a box of Ivory Snow, was found dead on Saturday night.

Interestingly, she was a 2004 write-in candidate for VP on the Personal Choice Party ticket, which is said to be a libertarian party. Well Marylin, we hardly knew ye.

When I die.

I went to a funeral.
Lord, it made me happy,
Seein' all those people
That I ain't seen
Since the last time
Somebody died.

Lyle Lovett
Joshua Judges Ruth

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I was driving around the local cemetery, as I do sometimes at night on patrol. I saw the graves of some strangers, some friends, some heroes, and some well-met persons that I'll never get to meet. I don't patrol the cemetery to commiserate with the dead, but to prevent that same sickening feeling I felt when, a few years back, I found the damage wrought by vandals in a cemetery, on my shift. I'd like to have a little chat with such people.

As I drove through the cemetery, I thought yet again that it's an eerie trend that has arisen lately in rural graveyards, to put solar-powered LED lamps around the grave. As you drive by, you see little lights twinkling among the stones. The twinkle is caused by the occlusion of their view, by nearer stones as I move past. I've hit my brakes more than a few times when driving by.

Don't do that to me, when I die. Just don't.
Come to think of it, I've got a little list of things that I want when I die.

--Harvest any organs that they'll take. If they want 'em, let 'em have 'em. I don't care if they want to bleach my skull to make a paper weight for the dean's office; let me be of use.

--Because I know that they won't let my body be ground up and spread over croplands like in Burgess' The Wanting Seed, I want what remains that they didn't harvest burnt. While the Viking funeral appeals, let's just simplify things and agree to throw my mortal coils into a kiln, turn the thing on High, and y'all can step out for a tall beer or four. But I insist that I be burned, and no marker be placed. I'll be damned if I'm going to be so arrogant as to take up a 4' X 7' X 6' portion of this planet, with a marker that has to be mowed around, even after my death.

--Ashes? Well, I've got places that I like, and they're known to those that know and love me. The Big Bend. Guadalupe Ntl. Park. Kit Carson Ntl. Forest. Chuck 'em out there. All at once or in piecemeal; I don't care. But they better be gone, completely, within 6 months. No hoarding remains-- that's just creepy.

--I demand a wake. I would like my favorite restaurant rented out a week after my passing, with adequate notice given to all that gave a damn about me. I want the food pre-paid, catered well, and good, with lots of flavor. If you want bland, bring your own. I want the waitstaff''s tips taken care of in advance, and lavishly. I want cases of good wine and beer present. I want bottles of good scotch and bourbon present. I want those bottles sent home with loved ones the same way bouquets sometimes go home with them from weddings and funerals. I expect that happy stories be told among my friends, and I expect that there be some laughter. While it may be turned down for the occasional toast, I expect music to be playing during my wake. Hell, dance if you want-- I'd rather you did. Have a good time, because that's what I want. Do NOT sit around all long-faced. But if you have to do so, then the bourbon and scotch are in the corner. My remains are NOT to attend my wake.

--If there is to be a funeral, I would like a decent piper to play. If you can't find a decent one, don't bother. Few things are worse than suffering through "Scotland The Brave" or "Amazing Grace," when squeaked out by a beginner with a borrowed skirt and a new set of war pipes or GHB pipes. Ugh.

--I do NOT want some blowhard cleric type to perform a eulogy at my funeral. Come to think of it, pastors, ministers, evangelicals, rabis, witch doctors, and other such "spiritual leaders" are forbidden from speaking at my funeral, except as friends, if they were such. I'm serious about this one.

--As I will be cremated, my family is forbidden from purchasing a casket for me. A sack or a cardboard box will transport my body into the furnace quite nicely.

--I don't want people sugar-coating it. I've been a bastard at times, and we all know it. Pretending I haven't dishonors the good memories, as well.
_ _ _

I've got no plans to kick it any time soon, friends. But when I do, remind my family of this blog, would you? There's a pal. :)

Ultimate freedom.

A friend of mine took his life this week.

He was in his mid-thirties. No one really realized that he was in that place.

Very few people that I've talked to about this seem to share my belief that it was his life to take, if he so chose.

Look, I think suicide is selfish, sure. But we all do selfish things every day, don't we? We order pizza instead of opening a can of generic beans and a can of corn. We pay extra for a car with air conditioning. We get higher thread count sheets because, dammit, it feels good. My obsession with better beverages (coffee, beer, and scotch) is almost legendary. We are selfish beings. That's not inhuman. In fact, it's the very essence of living a human life. And part of one's life is one's death.

We all have a debt to pay. No one escapes. How and when you pay it is ultimately your decision.

If I can't die peaceably in my bed at a very advanced age with a recently-finished book at my bedside, then I hope to die falling toward my vanquished foe. But I will ultimately make decisions about the manner and the timing of my death.

Don't be too quick to judge those who gave it all up. It was theirs first. As long as they don't endanger others with their actions, and don't shirk real responsibilities, then I'm okay with it, I guess, on a personal level.

Professionally, of course, I will do my duty to attempt to stop suicide when I can. That's the job.

My friend was single and had no kids. We remember his life this week. I'm sorry I didn't know that he was in such need. I would certainly have tried to help him.

But I'll respect his decision. I won't grieve that. I'll grieve that he got in the well that he felt he couldn't climb out of.