What Happened?

I have been away from Memphis for ten years and what I found on my return was shocking. The Mall of Memphis was closed as well as the Raliegh Springs Mall. The Whitehaven area and the Hickory Hill area are all but ghettos. Apartments are boarded up. Some are fenced in and look like a prison. The school system is in a sambles and many neighboring communities are trying to withdraw from any affiliation with the city and possibly the county governments. The only place that there is a mall left is in the eastern part of the city. There is a murder everyday in this city and it has distrubed me greatly. The city I once new has become a stranger. I no longer feel at home here. I see a great diaster in the making. The death of a city.
And it is no wonder when you have a mayor who is harrassing the police while trying to make an arrest for drugs. It appears that he must have had some connection to the drug suspects the police were trying to arrest. So I ask you; how long are the people of this city going to sit idly by while the Herrington Mafia destroys what used to be one of the best cities in the nation to live. He reminds me of the Mexican Officals that I met in my travels that pilfer the coffers of their cities and think nothing of it because they are "el jeffe" with conections to the narco trafficos. People say that there is nothing certain in life but death and taxes. Well that is an absolute guarantee in this city, not just a statement!
And speaking of taxes, I would like to know where all the money is going. There is a proposal to stop home building because the city and county can't afford to complete the infrastructure which will futher devastate the city coffers all the while financing things like the Fed Ex Forum and the Autozone Park. I guess we can slash education for that. Everyone here knows that sports are more important. Where else but on a ball team can you get a million dollar job when you can't even spell million. We have the lottery now which is supposed to fund education all going to give high school grads a chance at college but how are you supposed to get into college if the education you got growing up is substandard at best.
Which brings me to another gripe. We have a lottery in Tennessee but you can't even buy a raffle ticket to benefit St. Jude Hospital. What is the logic in that? You can gamble for the state but not for some worthy cause to help the sick and needy. We can let millions of dollars go to Tunica casinos and to the dog track in West Memphis but we can't build a casino in the Pyramid downtown which is the only thing that is going to get the city out of hock on that one. Another Spruce Goose! You build all these things to draw tourism but who wants to come to a place where you are going to get robbed and killed. But I digress here.
I wrote this to get a handle on what happened to this city. Is there an answer? I think the answer lies in the fact that the education system is a complete failure here. And the lack of a good educational system will be the weed that will spread to kill this city!

Graceland 

Moon Over Memphis 

MY THOUSAND YARD STARE

I sit at a table in the middle of the day
Looking out my window, not a lot to say.
TV blaring, newspaper in front of me unread,
People see me, think I must be dead.
Talk to me,
Walk by me,
I’m totally unaware.
I’m back there!
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare!

Carried out my back yard,
Again sweating hard,
Up over the mountains,
Across the deep blue sea,
Where again Nam waits every day for me.
Again loaded for bear, I’m back there,
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare!

Every day, every night,
Reliving deepest fright,
With my very soul eternally fight
The eternal fight,
Time after time,
In exhausting combat rhyme.
Doesn’t anybody for me care
Here...or there,
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare!

Hand me a bottle to drink away my sorrow,
Cause I don’t want to go back there tomorrow,
But I will, oh I will,
Tho dread does my heart fill.
I go there every day,
Tho God knows I try not to in every way.
For sometimes life is hard to bear
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare!

Listen, did you hear something?
Something is rustling!
Something is moving!
What’s that in the tree line?
Pass that Thunderbird wine.
Did something behind that bush move there?
Please Lord, I don’t want to go back there,
Back to the end of my Thousand Yard Stare!

Were we wrong, or were we right?
I still don’t know!
Either way, I still had to go.
Doesn’t matter, we still had to fight,
Giving our all in heart-pumping might.
We had no choice but walking the park
From dawn to dark,
Humping, sweating, grunting,
Thinking of dying.
I couldn’t then, but now I can
Cry...
With the eternal question why?
Did I Vietnam’s fragrant fabric of life tear,
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare?

I’m once again on combat patrol,
Going crazy in this jungle hell hole,
Again fearing my old friend death
Afraid to take a deep breath
Lest someone hear me that’s trying to kill,
This infantryman once again primed to kill...
Don’t touch me unless you too wish to die
Out in the killing zone,
Again far from home,
Lost and so all alone
Watching friends bleed and die there,
Wondering why is it not me back there,
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare!

Then I see him
Hovering in jungled light dim,
Grinning grotesquely,
Hideously,
At me.
My Vietcong brother,
Causes an involuntarily shudder,
For death once again rides sweet and sour air,
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare!

My heart floods with anguish,
That years cannot extinguish.
My sanity I again relinquish
Seeing again the man I killed so long ago,
Grinning so,
My erstwhile foe,
Waiting for me back there
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare!

Did I really kill him?
Or did he kill me?
In my ptsd it’s so hard to see.
Will he finally set me free,
From my daily tour back there,
To the end of my Thousand Yard Stare?

Is that old Vietcong haunting me
Or am I haunting him?
Will Charley this time my blood spill on the ground?
Will I fall without a sound,
Again in suffering despair,
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare?

Suddenly again there’s smoke
A deafening roar that the dead awoke.
Comes a pungent smell,
That acrid smell of death, reminiscent of hell
That old Vietcong’s again lying on the ground
Without a sound,
Without a face,
No more his family to grace.
Again there’s a tear in my eye
As I silently wonder why this man had to die?
Forlornly, Horribly
Moldering in his grave back there,
Why is it not me back there,
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare?

Hours later I’m back at my table,
Back from a world grisly unstable,
Back from my Thousand Yard Stare.
But I know he’s still waiting back there,
Of this I’m certain, for I’ll see him tomorrow,
When fevered winds blow.
Again I’ll cry.
Maybe this time I’ll die!


Why Lord, can’t I contented be
In the arms of my lofty mountain's safety,
The purple plains majesty,
Home again in the land of the free,
In the loving arms of my family?
Why do stresses of Nam yet bind,
Imbedded in my fevered mind?
Why can’t I give it a rest?
Didn’t I pass the test?
Why God, do I have to go back where
Men hate me there,
Intently try to kill me there
At the end of my Thousand Yard Stare?

When you see my Thousand Yard Stare,
You’ll know I’m back there,
To face another dawn,
Again searching for the Vietcong!
Will you miss me when I’m gone?

Elvis.com The Official Site

Elvis.com The Official Site

ELVIS THE KING 

The Presley Women 

The Presley Women

Celebrity

James Dunn 

My Little Girl 

My Daughter

I am fifty years old and I have a five year old daughter named Victoria. Her mother is Mexican. Victoria was a surprise and I thought that I would just die thinking about having another child at this age. I have Three boys that are grown. I wanted to have a life free of my children. I didn't want to be tied down again. You know the routine of having to get a sitter every time you need to do something or want to do something and you can't take the kid with you. Or you just want some time away from the house. I don't know how I felt when I found out that my wife was prenant. I guess it is like when you find out you won the lottery and you can't find the ticket. Maybe that is how I felt. She is my little girl though and I was in for a whole new experience since I had never raised a girl. It has been the best expeience of my life.
 
Little girls are quite different. My boys were, well they were boys. if you know what I mean. Always playing rough and tumble. Never really affectionate, but loving in a different kind of way. They were always playing with frogs and bugs. Playing ball. Just boy things. I found that these things are really genetic because Victoria has no desire to play with frogs or bugs. She is scared to death of them. My boys never got into my wifes makeup and we had to hide it from Victoria. She is all female. Pretty and smart. Very feminine. It is strange to see the differences.

I had no problem punishing the boys when they did something wrong, but with Victoria I just can't bring myself to do it. I do give her time out but that is as far as I can go. When she looks at me with those big green eyes and says, "I'm sorry daddy. I won't do it again. Please don't punish me.", it just melts my heart. She will come to me out of the blue and say, "I love you daddy." and give me a great big kiss or come sit beside me in my great big chair and just hold me. At that moment there is nothing wrong in the world. All my worries just dissappear.

I will be sending her home to her mother soon and I will be alone again. I have divorced her mother because she is violent and hurtful. I hope that this doesn't happen to my Victoria. She is perfect. She is me in a female body without all the adult failings. She is my heart. She is my soul. She is all the things that I want to express that I have never been able to because I am a man.  
 

I Wonder

I sit here I front of my computer in my office and I can see the neighborhood from the window. It looks just like any other neighbor hood in an other city. Kids play and people go about their daily routines not really noticing anything that is going on around them. I have lived here for three months now. I have noticed a group of boys that hang around in a little clique together. They are always around this one kid. He is a very obese black boy probably seventeen years old. Today I see him pass a package to another kid as he nervouly looks around to see if anyone is looking. I suspect that package contains drugs. I wonder what it is that makes a seventeen year old boy take the chance of prison to make a little money selling dimes on the street. He is well dressed and comes from a very good neighborhood. So have we become a society where the easy dollar is better than the one you work for. There is a murder almost everyday here. So do we settle are arguments with a gun instead of seeking justice in a more appropriate way. I am sad that I have to live in this filth. I am sad for the children.

Loneliness

There is a fundamental human need for companionship, for a sympathetic ear, for reassurance, for hearing my feelings and sentiments echoed back, for touching and being touched. Being alone is sensory deprivation, slow torture, and my soul cries out for the company of a kindred spirit, for the comfort that only a friend can give, for someone who can fill the emptiness, who can share the isolated moments of my existence.
Loneliness weakens the spirit. It consumes my strength and dims my inner flame. It tempts me to wallow in self-pity, to descend into a kind of gloomy rapture, depressed and paralyzed, yet at the same time glorying in my own misery, suffering proudly in a private hell. For all that, loneliness is a state of mind, an affliction of the soul rather than an external condition, and it is entirely within my power to fight it, and perhaps work toward self-healing.
Resisting loneliness is more than just "keeping busy", immersing myself in so many activities that I have no time to reflect on my sad state. It means following my interests, improving my skills, developing myself as a multifaceted individual. It's about going out and meeting people, making contacts, learning to survive in a social context. It means living my dream, not at some future time when I might finally be in a relationship, but NOW.

Intimate 

Stormy Night 

Other Plans

I woke up early today, excited over all I get to do before the clock strikes midnight.

I have responsibilities to fulfill today. I am important. My job is to choose what kind of day I am going to have.

Today I can complain because the weather is rainy, OR...I can be thankful that the grass is getting watered for free.

Today I can feel sad that I don't have more money, OR...I can be glad that my finances encourage me to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste.

Today I can grumble about my health, OR...I can rejoice that I am alive.
 
Today I can lament over all that my parents didn't give me when I was growing up, OR...I can feel grateful that they allowed me to be born.
 
Today I can cry because roses have thorns, OR...I can celebrate that thorns have roses.
 
Today I can mourn my lack of friends, OR...I can excitedly embark upon a quest to discover new relationships.
 
Today I can whine because I have to go to work, OR...I can shout for joy because I have a job to go to.
 
Today I can complain because I have to go to school, OR...Eagerly open my mind and fill it with new tidbits of knowledge.
 
Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have to do housework,OR...I can feel honored because the Lord has provided shelter for my mind, body, and soul.
 
Today stretches ahead of me, waiting to be shaped. And here I am, the sculptor who gets to do the shaping. What today will be like is up to me. I get to choose what kind of day I will have! Have a GREAT DAY my friend OR...maybe you have other plans.