David's Birthday

Wow! It is so hard to believe that my little boy is now 19 years old, working and supporting himself, going to school and making good grades, and living (except for a little help now and then from Mom) independently and HAPPY.  I didn't get a chance to scan his birthday postcard until he had already rec'd it, so some of the images are missing.  Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for some images to fall off during delivery through the USPS.  But, most of the important ones are here.  Nineteen is a great age to be--I recall it being one of my favorite years back in 1975. 

David's Birthday (missing images of Lord of the Rings & Pulp Fiction)

Flip Side (Missing label of the ballerina--"Haley" D's girlfriend)

Smiles

Boy, it has been awhile since I have even looked at this blog and I have mailed off several that I never scanned.  However, I do have a few that were saved. 

Below is a common postcard I have sent to friends and family--this one went to a teacher friend of mine that lives locally.  Another I sent my sister and best friend, Denise who lives in Colorado. 

The last one is one that I mailed off today to my father who just turned 81 years old.  Unfortunately, since he remarried and chose to be more of a father to his wife's five children (all but one were adults at the time), I really have not had much of a relationship with him since the early 1980s.  The images are purely from memories of the the dad I knew as a child and teenager in the 1960s and 70s. The one I have had an acquaintance with since; however, is not a person I have known in more ways than one. Sad, but way too common with folks in similar situations.  How is that fathers (rarely mothers) can almost completely forget their own children and favor those that are not of their own blood or for whom they raised and supposedly loved since birth?  This man, who retired back in 1982 has three grandchildren, two of which he has only seen twice in their lives and my son that he has only visited about five times. I have never understood this...

Some of Denise's Favorite Things

Side Two

Happy Birthday To My Father--Side One

Happy Birthday Dad -- Flip Side

Fat Cats

I have been so disgusted with the news about executives at the big banks receiving all those billions in bonus money--money they would have never had if were not for the government bailout last year.  Given the disaster in Haiti and seeing all those images of people who had nothing to begin with but have so far behaved with as much dignity and class as possible despite  their desperation--it makes the behavior of the creeps at our large financial institutions appear all the more dastardly.  I'll write more on this later...but here  is the postcard that my ire generated...

FAT CATS

Postcard to Lloyd Blankfein -- Angry too about the bonuses or about how Goldman Sachs and others of its ilk virtually control our political system to the point that they care not what the public thinks of them  and will never "get it"?  Check out the address and send  your own gripe.

Most Hated Fat Cat: Lloyd Blankfein, Chrmn/CEOGolman Sachs

Get Well to my Daughter-in-Law

MISSIVE: Some of Jeann's Favorite Things

My daughter-in-law isn't feeling well, which on top of her very stressful job as a special teacher for several emotionally disturbed middle-schoolers is not a great way to start the new year. Vivacious and just a wee bit eccentric,  she  is a super person!

Jeanne's Favorite Things: Flip Side

Postcards To Mom

MISSIVE: Mom is STILL Fiesty

Here are two postcards I scanned before addressing and sending  them to my Mom who lives in small assisted living facility in Loveland, CO that she refers to a "the prison."  Mother is 78 years old and in poor health; her kidneys are failing, she has diabetes, she is barely ambulatory, she has a full set of dentures, and is uncomfortable most of the time--translation: she is rather crotchety to staff and relatives.  But I suppose, who can blame her? NOTE: The praying mantid is saying, "Just like you I sit in the same position for hours, I have no teeth, and I pray alot.  But, I'm the baddest bug in the yard!" 

MISSIVE: Old White Women Love Satchmo & Harry Belafonte!

MISSIVE: My Mom's Favorite Things: Flip Side

Least Admired Creatures In 2009-Topic: Health Care Reform

Snakes, Parasites and Lice

I just posted this postcard that I will be mailing off tomorrow.  The past year was one that I personally thought reached new lows into the abyss of near grotesque public discourse best exemplified by the near total lack of substantive discussion about  health care reform.  Because my sister, Beth who lives in Pensacola Florida is one of the millions  that don't have health insurance, her situation became quite acute following a stroke last October.  My other sister, Denise and I both had to support her--paying her mortgage, grocery and utility bills, etc.--for two months while she recuperated.  Thank God she was able to located a Free Clinic in her community since she could not qualify for Medicaid (now she does, thank goodness) or we would have also had to pay for her exhorbatant testing and prescriptions.  She is a member of the working poor; she works hard at her low-wage job, but doesn't earn enough to pay for her company-issued plan, much less a policy of her own.  There are a lot of Americans like Beth and not all of them have access to free clinics, qualify for state-sponsored Medicaid or have relative to help them fill in the cracks our current health care delivery and payment system creates.

Particularly troublesome are the-support-the-status-quo notions of health care reform extolled by the extreme right represented best by the likes of most Fox News pundits (are there ANY real journalists who provide commentary on that network?) and certain right wing politicians.  I am, of course, thinking particularly of the idiotic (because he makes no logical sense) but scary (because he is yet another fear monger that appeals to the paranoid hysterics of America) Glen Beck and equally idiotic and scary Sarah Palin.  I have been particularly upse twith Palin's capturing of the microphone over the health care "debate" when she irresponsibly labeled a totally legitimate health care practice as subsidized "death panels" that would be headed by government bureaucrats bent on killing grandmothers.  This dealt with the much needed, but often expensive practice of discussing patient options between patients and/or family members facing serious treatment issues and their doctors.  Because one third of the American people die in hospital ICU units of which they often spend at least three very expensive days, this issue is particularly important to driving down costs to insurance companies and premiums.  The days dying Americans spend  in ICU units are very lucrative for hospitals as doctors without previous patient or family permission order unecessary test after unnecessary tests.  Indeed, one-third of all health care costs can be attributed to the final days of dying Americans who are often existing off of life support or surgical heroics that most people, if given counseling by their doctors, would not have chosen. 

Of course, th is just one  example of how the extremely complex the issue of health care delivery system in America has been reduced  to the irresponsible posturing of non-credentialled radio and television talk show hosts and opportunistic, self-serving politicians bent on simply garnering media attention for themselves.  For most of the summer and Fall, this serious issue simply came to exemplifythe absolute worst in public discourse.  I still don't understand the new bill enough to be conficent that my sister will have access to her own policy if she suffers another health catatastrohphe.  But to hear some  of the creeps on the right maintain that the system is just fine and that Americans should fill in the cracks of a dysfunctional system--just as my sister and I did last Fall really galls me.  Because both of us are regular middle class people with families and our own expenses (helping out grandchildren, putting children  through college, etc.) this situation with Beth did put a financial strain of both of us.  Again, I don't even want to imagine what many Americans who experience a seriuos illness must go through without insurance or help.  If they have a  house, they must have to sell it (my sister would have lost hers without help!) or simply, if lacking resourceds, not get care and experience the REAL death panel which is our  current system that relegates 43,000 people to unnecessary death.  Yes, Glen Beck and Sarah Palin are two of my top three least admired people of 2009.  Unfortunately, the media and many misinformed and uncritical Americans love them.   Why? They give simple answers to complex questions which during difficult (and selfish "I-want-mine-and-don't-want -to share")  times, too many Americans are satisfied  with.

2 Demagogues and a Robber Baron

Blog - New Year’s Resolution - Scribophile, the online writing workshop and writer's community

This looked like an interesting website for folks interested in gettting more writing done this year.  DAK
Blog - New Year’s Resolution - Scribophile, the online writing workshop and writer's community

WELCOME!

Contained herein are some New Year's postcards that I created and mailed to friends.  I have been creating my own postcards for several months, but because I never seen them again once  they are mailed out (and some effort is required to make them) I decided to start scanning and sharing  them.  All I use are blank 4x6 index cards, scraps of paper I find laying around and any interesting images I find inside magazines and newspapers. Note that all my creations are from snail mail for snail mail.  There are NO preprinted, diecut, acid-free, or otherwise prettified scrapbook paper--just whatever is deliverd to my door. In addition, most of my postcards are in the form of missives or gripes--missives being the thoughtful messages to special friends and family--while gripes reflect my crumudgeony, particularly when they are sent to politicians (COMING!).  BELOW:  A gripe about growing older.

I am anything but a steadfast letter writer.  Despite their lack of text, like a letter, my postcards always take in the personal interests and lives of those I send them to whether in grahpic or textual form. And, while it is certainly possible to make electronic postcards and send them; my postcards truly travel, passed along hand-to-hand from me to mail sorters to a live postal delivery person somewhere out there--not in cyberspace, but in real space.  And, there is something about the hard scrabble look of exposed messages on paper that have been handled by living, breathing people.  The postcards do attract dirt and wear, and indeed, I hear that some of my postcards reach their destination in a rather shabby state. In contrast, electronic messages may be tidy and graphically more perfect, but let's face it: souless. 

Yes, in some ways this blog is very anti-technology. However, I am certainly no Luddite who fantasizes about crashing and burning all computerized messaging systems. I love technology and have been using computers since 1978 when I was a copy person for a local newspaper. But, I love paper.  Furthermore, I know people miss snail mail--at least mail that isn't addressed to Occupant or isn't a recepticle for bills and annoying political and commercial adverstisements. Ultimately, my postcards are part of a mission to foster communication that can be as fun as it is meaningful. BELOW: A fun missive to a contemporary of mine  (we graduated from High School in 1974).

I know that my small creations make people smile. Moreover, I hope that this blog inspires you to do the same whether you make them yourself or occaisionally shoot off a standard postcard or letter to your friends and family. Let's face it: Most email and social networking messages aren't worth printing and keeping; those that are might get saved for a few months but usually end up in an electronic trash bin--never saved.  While hardly works of high art, I doubt people throw my postcards away--some recipients I know store them away. BELOW: A Happy New Year missive to My sister, who for the first time in her life is mammaless (no dogs no cats not even any birds...just some  tropical fish).

There was an incident that motivated me to start my snail  mail campaign. When my mother went into an asisted living facility a couple years ago, I cleaned out her house and found a box with dozens of old letters from her family--letters that gave me a unique insight into Mother and family dramas that would have been otherwise undiscovered. Not sure what my postcards reveal about me, they are at least one small testimony to my creative existence--items that hopefully, will leave some rememberance of me if I end up in assisted living or elsewhere.  These postcards travel not just through real time and space, but over time will reflect the travels my mind will be taking over the years.  I hope you enjoy them as I add more each week.