The following is an
excerpt from Gods Who Bleed, Gods Who Cry...
Copyright 2009 by W.Curtis
Lloyd Spare the Rod? Sadistic
bastards! How else could you describe
them? Not only did they beat their own
children about the arms, shoulders, backs, derrieres and legs to the point that
the victims could only sob themselves to sleep lying on their stomachs they
continued to malign them verbally during this shameful display of violence. They would shout at these children how
worthless and horrible they were, and how no one would ever love them.
They all had their
own methods of administering abuse. But
when you come down to it, they were actually pretty much the same. Is there any wonder there are so many
psychotic individuals laced throughout society considering the ways they were
raised? The tormentors
left these small, frightened and tortured creatures to argue with the pain of their
wounds in the darkness until they finally escaped into the partial solace of
uneasy sleep, where the venom of the hateful words would seep into their minds
and souls. Ric's father had
his particular modus operandi. He had a
varied arsenal that included open hand, closed fist, razor strop, belt, and
freshly cut switches from trees in the backyard.
His particular
favorite was the belt. When he felt the
need to convince himself of his superiority or dominance, the belt came
off. He folded it in half. He took hold of the folded end in his left
hand and the free ends in his right.
Then he pushed his hands toward each other to bow out the opposing
straps of the belt and snapped them together threateningly. The snap caused no physical pain, of course,
because it had not yet been applied to the flesh. But it brought back memories of previous
beatings and promised more of the same.
It was psychologically quite effective.
With each beating,
Ric's dad reassured Ric how much he hated him.
And, in return, Ric learned to hate his father and all he stood for that
much more deeply. Ric would admit,
though, his dad never used the buckle on his flesh. A very dear friend of his once commented that
she was not so fortunate. Her dad was
not so mindful of which end of the belt he used, and she often carried cuts and
abrasions to bear witness to the callous application of that terrible abuse.
As he grew older,
Ric began to assert his thoughts more freely.
Hell, if you were going to be beaten anyway you may as well land a few
well placed remarks. Ric wondered from
time to time if that was really such a brilliant thing to have done. He felt backhand after backhand across his
mouth for "back-sassing" the Lord of the Manor. Occasionally, he was even treated to a fist
to the stomach though, to be fair, it wasn't that often. Ric had developed gastritis when he was ten
(a condition that was treated medically and resolved). I guess his dad didn't want to chance
bringing it on again.
The following is an
excerpt from Gods Who Bleed, Gods Who Cry...
Copyright 2009 by W.Curtis
Lloyd This excerpt is quite outdated... My little Topaz gave up the ghost and its license tags have passed to a slightly less austere vehicle (although it, too, has more than its share of defects).
A VEGAN. So reads
the license tag on my beat up, pale-blue, 1992 Mercury Topaz. It usually gets
me to work without too much complaint. And it accomplishes one further goal to
generate no envy in the minds of those who see it. One source of karma is
covetousness. And I can't imagine anyone wishing they had my car if they were
given almost any other choice.
But to be practical, when business requires out of town travel,
I must have some degree of reliability. The little blue beast cannot really be
called upon to provide this. So, I rent.
Most automobiles assembled after the late seventies have
been terrible disappointments to me. There had been only two vehicles with
which I had come into contact that could have claimed exception to this rule.
These were the Dodge Magnum and the Chrysler 300.
But I was forced to expand this very short list once I had the distinct pleasure of having rented a Buick
IF THERE IS a God lurking about, he, she or it probably
drives a Buick
There was ample time to gas it up and have it washed before
returning it to its rightful owner, AVIS. At least, I thought there was ample
time. I generally always wash my rental cars before I return them. It's only
right, I feel. After all, the cars I rent are almost always clean and fresh
when I pick them up. That's how I like to return them.
I finished topping off the tank and the pump had printed my
receipt with the magic code to operate the car wash. I folded back the exterior
mirrors, got into the car, and drove around to the entrance.
Directly ahead of me, an apparently dissatisfied fellow was having
a somewhat heated argument with the automated voice of the car wash system. He
punched in a series of digits and the voice complained that the number was
invalid and instructed him to try again. This he did several times. Finally, he
got out of the car and walked around to the attendant's station.
He returned after a short while and, muttering something
unintelligible, entered the code. The voice thanked him for using the car wash
and instructed him to drive slowly into the system until the indicator to stop
illuminated. It instructed him that he should place the transmission in park at
that time.
He drove into the machine, and apparently followed the
instructions. The traveling arm moved toward the center of the car spraying red
and blue soap then the car's back-up lights came on and the car jumped back
about four feet. The car wash system, sensing the loss of position of the car,
STOPPED. The driver remained where he was as if expecting the system to start
again.
I got out of the
"No. It didn't just quit." I said. "You
stopped it!"
"What do you mean?" he asked,
"You put the car in reverse. That moved it off the
sensor. The safety mechanism shut down the system to avoid possible damage to
itself or your car."
"But it felt like the car was rolling forward", he
said. "That's why I put it in reverse."
THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS AS THEY SEEM. PERCEPTION IS THE KEY TO
HOW WE DEAL WITH CIRCUMSTANCES AROUND US.
The following is an
excerpt from Gods Who Bleed, Gods Who Cry...
Copyright 2009 by W.Curtis
Lloyd
Bottle caps; rubber bands; two-inch long, stubby pencils; bits of
butcher's twine and scraps of aluminum foil.
Actually,
she never accumulated bottle caps.
Nevertheless, I have heard it said that good Germans keep
everything. Perhaps it wasn't just the
German heritage. She had raised three
children during that social and economic upheaval known as the "Great
Depression".
She was my
mother's mother. Her name wasn't
actually Krummholtz (either her maiden name or her married name). Her family had shortened their name to Krumm
before she was born.
I remember
a lot about her. But there is so much
more I don't. One thing that sounds
incredibly unimportant is that she made the best iced tea I have ever tasted.
She also
made a fantastic peanut butter fudge with black walnuts in it. I remember how she often had dark stains on
her hands from shelling the walnuts herself.
She always
made Christmas cookies and wrapped them as presents and gave them to us with
the other gifts she had bought for us.
She never made a penny's difference between any of her grandchildren's
gifts. If necessary, she would add a
candy bar or a piece of gum to make sure we were treated equally.
My family
couldn't afford to send us to college.
And my restaurant job hardly paid for my clothes and gasoline to get to
and from work and parts for the car.
Grandma and Grandpa sent my uncle to college, but they really couldn't
afford to send any of the grandchildren.
Still, she gave me the first semester's tuition to attend the local
branch of
The most
important thing I remember about her is that she loved all her grandchildren
more than anyone would ever love us in our lifetimes. And we all loved her dearly in return.
I had only
been in military service a short time, and I was home on my first leave when
Grandma died. It happened with an
automobile accident a particularly foolish accident.
My
grandfather, my grandmother, an aunt, an uncle and a cousin were in the car, a
1966 Valiant (a relatively small car for that era). My uncle, my mother's brother, was driving my
grandparents home following a high school band concert
that featured my sister and one of my cousins (the elder daughter of my
mother's sister).
On a curve
in which they occupied the outer lane, they met a tow truck (with a vehicle in
tow) approaching in the inner lane. The
front of the towed vehicle was elevated and supported only by the hook of the
tow truck no safety chain had been attached.
When they entered the curve, the vehicle slipped off the hook and fell
on top of my grandfather's car.
My
grandmother was killed instantly.
Did I tell
you she made the best iced tea I have ever tasted? I know that doesn't sound like a great
accomplishment, but it WAS the best. I
sometimes have to push away a tear when I have an unusually good glass of iced
tea. It's not the tea, of course. It's remembering how Grandma was taken from
us so unfairly. Actually, there could
have been no fair way, could
there?
Did you
notice I said taken from
us? It didn't seem an unusual way of
stating the loss, did it? Most of us put
together similar phrases that give natural occurrences supernatural
appearances. It used to take some of the
sting from losses of loved ones. We
would take comfort in the belief that a great, all powerful being was looking
after them in another realm.
"God
works in mysterious ways", the clergy would tell us, "his wonders to
fulfill". Frankly, I can do without
such mindless gods.
But, of
course, it's not really their fault is it?
After all, we created them. They HAVE to behave this way. God works in mysterious ways because the mortal
gods who created him are seriously flawed.
To this
day, I'm terrified by automobile traffic.
More often than not, I have a white-knuckle death-grip on my steering
wheel and that's in sparse traffic.
Whenever I drive through
It's always
on my mind how quickly a foolish accident may happen, no matter how cautious
you try to be.
The following is an
excerpt from Gods Who Bleed, Gods Who Cry...
Copyright 2009 by W.Curtis
Lloyd
Moods
Everyone has moods. It's perfectly normal to be abnormal from
time to time.
Today's philosophy of treatment is to
just throw chemicals at the problem and hope it goes away. If it doesn't, we can
now ignore the original malady and begin treating the new problem of drug
addition. Either that or we can bury the problem after the antidepressants have
produced suicide.
It's easier to drug a patient than to
listen to him or her. It takes less involvement,
and it allows the care-giver to feel less responsible for the person who is
being treated less as a person and more as a lab rat.
Small fears, such as: "If I don't
get a good grade on my report card my parents will hate me"; or "I'm
so clumsy I know everyone will laugh at me" can be devastating to some
people while hardly given a second thought by others.
It has been said that the only fear we
are born with is the fear of falling. All others we must learn from our
environment.
And we should not be afraid of being
afraid. It is not cowardice to have fear. Indeed, if we have no fear, we cannot
have bravery. But, sometimes, some of us need to be reminded of the value of
fear and the insignificance of some of our more trivial ones.
I am a long time member of N.O.W., the
ACLU, and the NAACP, and I whole-heartedly support their socially benevolent
programs. But that is not to say that I am always politically correct in my
verbal exchanges. I make mistakes... sometimes by the carload... and no small
ones at that.
Adrift
It was
my anchor, my point of reference... the
one place and thing I could always depend upon being there. It had always been there. It was there even before my father was born
and it was there after he was no more.
And I was certain it would be there long after I had gone as well.
It was
the log house my Granddad had built with his own hands with timbers felled from
his own land. I don't know what year it was built... I wish I did. It would help to bring the image into
focus... the image of its construction, I mean.
It was
a modest house to be sure. But it was strong and sturdy and it was the
birthplace of my father and his five brothers and four sisters. But it did not see them all to adulthood. Two
of Dad's brothers died in infancy.
I
visited the old homeplace in the last days of
December 2000 and saw that it had fallen into ruins. The main part of the house was still
standing, but the kitchen, dining room, back bedroom and both the front and
back porches had been demolished. The barn, corncrib and tool shed had all been
torn down years before. The ancient root
cellar (imbedded into the hillside) and the old smokehouse that had stood
between it and the back porch awaited their inevitable demise. But still I had hope.
The
owner assured me he was intending to restore it to its former structure. Nine and one-half years passed and it stood
as it was that December.
On
I'm the
only one left to mourn its passing. I
have a younger brother and a younger sister and some younger cousins who
survive in my paternal line. But they
have no recollection of this austere, but necessary, structure. Our parents were born in and sheltered by
this bygone edifice.
Their
hearts will not sink as mine has. They
will shed no tear. They will not tremble in anguish. To them, it was just someone else's memory,
history, childhood.
Casual Murder
Did you ever wake up from a nightmare that seemed so real you just knew it wasn't a dream? This was one of those....
Balancing the Budget
How could he
convince his colleagues? He had promised to find a solution to the problem that had been caused
by mismanaging and looting the Social Security System for nearly three quarters of a century. Now, he had a plan. But it was a plan that must be kept secret...
a plan that was blatantly unconstitutional, immoral and unethical. In short, it was a plan like
most government plans we'd become accustomed to living with in recent times.
But there was something about it that
would send chills through almost anyone... especially those over seventy and drawing Social Security. A plan
that was strangely reminiscent of "Logan's Run".
Are you
on track yet? That's right! The plan called for the termination of any resident
over seventy years of age and receiving Social Security.
It also carried the added advantage of
decreasing the costs of health care.
Don't plan on help from the aging law-makers...
they have federal employees' retirement and won't be drawing Social Security. They would be 'sheltered' from the culling.
Then I awoke... It was just a nightmare... Wasn't it???
"Although I have been prevented by outward
circumstances from observing a strictly vegetarian diet, I have long been an
adherent to the cause in principle. Besides agreeing with the aims of
vegetarianism for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian
manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would
most beneficially influence the lot of mankind. - Albert Einstein"
"I have from an early age abjured the use of meat and
the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as
they now look on the murder of men. - Leonardo Da
Vinci"
"I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals
feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we (humans) do. - Cesar
Chavez"
"If we so easily take the lives of animals who are only a
few evolutionary steps from us, what is to prevent us from doing the same to
humans. - Pete Singer "
"I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve
his highest poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly
inclined to abstain from animal food...no doubt that it is part of the destiny
of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating
animals. - Henry David Thoreau "
"My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency and I was
frequently chid for my
singularity. - Ben Franklin "
"He who does not value life does not deserve it.
- Leonardo Da Vinci "
"A high animal protein diet, especially an excess of
meat, is definitely detrimental to the health and may be a contribution or a
direct cause of the development of many of our most common diseases, as shown
by recent massive research...The metabolism of proteins consumed in excess of
the actual need leaves toxic residues of metabolic wastes in tissues, causes
autotoxemia, overacidity, and
nutritional deficiencies, accumulation of uric acid and purines in the
tissues and intestinal putrefaction, and contributes to the development of many
of our most common and serious diseases, such as arthritis, kidney damage,
schizophrenia, osteoporosis, artherosclerosis, heart
disease and cancer. A high protein diet also causes premature aging and lowers
life expectancy. - Dr.
"But what is happiness except the simple harmony
between a man and the life he leads. - Camus"
"Our nation now feeds about 3.5 billion food animals
yearly, and 70 to 80% of these animals receive drugs in their feed. In addition
to adding drugs to feed, science now has given us implantable drugs, removable
drugs, and time-release drugs for animals... - Alexander M. Schmidt, M.D.
/ Commissioner of Food & Drugs (Senate Subcommittee Hearing, 1975) "
"I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten
by the English which renders their character insusceptible to civilization. I
suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that the reformation
must be worked. - Thomas Jefferson "
"The inhabitants of
"I don't like the idea of killing my fellow creatures
in order to eat their dead bodies. - George Bernard Shaw "
"For I tell you truly, he who kills, kills
himself, and whosoever eats the flesh of slain beasts eats the body of
death. - Jesus Christ, The Essene Gospel of
Peace (taken from the
"To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than
that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the
sake of the human body. - Mahatma Ghandi "
"It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine,
nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth...or is
made weak. - Romans
"There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world
to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings. --Nietzsche"
"Do not make your stomachs graves for animals. - Mohammed "
"He who causes suffering shall suffer. There is no
escape. - Buddha "
"Purity of
heart...self-restraint...harmlessness...freedom from a desire to injure others...(these) are
his who is born to godlike endowments. -
"And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every herb
bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the
fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. - Genesis
"The moral evils of a flesh diet are not less marked
than are the physical ills. Flesh food is injurious to health and whatever
affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and soul. -
Ellen G. White "
"Meat is not essential for endurance. This has been
demonstrated by whole races (of people)... - Dr. E. V. McCollum, Prof.,
John Hopkins Univ. (father of Vitamins A & D) "
"It is most unlikely that a protein deficiency will result
in apparently healthy adults (who are) on a diet in which cereals and
vegetables supply enough calories. - Mark Hegsted, Chief
Administrator,
"All wholesome food is caught without a net or
trap. - William Blake "
"Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy
food. -
Hippocrates, b. 460 B.C.E."
Tomorrow's Dust Linkpage
Links to our web partners and some interesting site-seeing
.... and whether our cause is cruel or just,
our destiny is as tomorrow's dust
(W. Curtis Lloyd 2005)