Hi David,
Well, I'll share what's been happening but I don't want to be dumping my troubles onto everyone on the Baerwald board. So to those of you that would prefer not to read about somebody's hardships this would be a good time to move on. I also want to say here before I spill this stuff that I'm alright, I've been coming out of the funk I was in. So here it is...
I'm getting married in April. April 21st to be exact. That's a wonderful thing. She is hands down the most amazing woman I've ever met. This is a good thing because she'll get me through. My best man for the wedding is my brother. He has been arrested twice already this year. I'm not going into all the details but these arrests involve drugs and alcohol. It's been a long running deal with him. I will admit to a fair amount of guilt with regards to this situation because I introduced him to both. I set a pretty poor example for a fairly long time, then went off into the world to do my own thing. I cleaned up my own act but he never pulled himself out of that scene. So, now it's ugly. Being that these two arrests, I believe, were his 6th & 7th respectivly there was great concern about what kind of cloud would be cast over the wedding if my brother was in jail at the time. My main concern is, was, and will be that he gets cleaned up before he kills himself or someone else. He's already beat the drug charge which is good. He's got a pit bull for a lawyer. His trial for the d.w.i. charge has been pushed back to May so he'll make my wedding if he doesn't land himself in more trouble before then. Now his trial being pushed back to May is an interesting story. You see there's a specific reason for this...the cop that arrested him was arrested about a week later on the same charges. So he's been suspended and is awaiting his own trial. Doesn't get much better than that does it?
In January I also recieved some news that left me stunned and quite honestly fairly fucked up. My friend John Dawson, a friend of 20 years, was murdered just days after his 34th birthday in Bogota, Colombia. John and I grew up together. He was like a brother to me. There are no real clear details as to what actually happened to him. All I know is this: He went there to visit his girlfriend. She had a birthday party for him. At some point in the evening John got angry and tossed everyone out including the girlfriend. When she returned to talk to him the next day he was dead.
That's all I was able to find out and really probably all I'll ever know. Bogota is a shithole and everything there is corrupt. Americans are marked the moment they arrive there. Despite the connotation Bogota, Colombia carries he wasn't there for any drug related reasons. I only say that because a lot of people jump to that conclusion the moment you mention the place. John had gone though a lot in his life. More than most people would want to have to endure. When he was a young boy his brother died. He lost his son Charlie shortly after his 1st birthday. He leaned on me real heavy during that time. My heart broke for him. Following that his wife left him to go to work as a stripper and they were divorced shortly after that. I know as hard as his life was he's at peace now. I will miss him.
Now, the last part of this. At John's wake I ran into all kinds of old friends. One of the friends I expected to see was John's stepfather. I have sort of made mention of him before on this board. He was a Vietnam veteran. We became close friends through John. We both loved blues so we started hanging out and going to shows together. We had some wild times. He introduced me to all his Vietnam veteran buddies and they sort of took me in to their clan. Even calling me "brother" which I took as a great honor as it seemed to be a term reserved for other veterans only. He wasn't at John's wake or funeral though. He's in Florida now in a wheelchair. After he returned from Vietnam he developed some sort of problem with his back. I'm not sure what the deal was with it but there was some talk of it being related to something he was exposed to while he was there. He was wounded there and was awarded a purple heart. Anyway he'd suffered with it for a long time. Recently he went to a V.A. hospital to have some kind of procedure to help remedy the problem. They stuck a long needle into his spine and something went wrong and the needle broke. The result of this is that he is now paralyzed from the waist down. He is in such bad shape now he couldn't make the trip to Massachusetts. Well, I really don't think I can relate much more of this right now and I figure this is probably more than you bargined for when you asked so I'll call it quits here. Sorry to have unloaded so much...
Reg
Finding deeper shades of blue...
Reg
location: back to the wilderness
listening to: static
registered: 1999.11.22
posts: 6470
[view all posts]
[view all posts]
–--
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
Reg
(view)
Hi David,
Well, I'll share what's been happening but I don't want to be dumping my troubles onto everyone on the Baerwald board. So to those of you that would prefer not to read about somebody's hardships this would be a good time to move on. I also want to say here before I spill this stuff that I'm alright, I've been coming out of the funk I was in. So here it is...
I'm getting married in April. April 21st to be exact. That's a wonderful thing. She is hands down the most amazing woman I've ever met. This is a good thing because she'll get me through. My best man for the wedding is my brother. He has been arrested twice already this year. I'm not going into all the details but these arrests involve drugs and alcohol. It's been a long running deal with him. I will admit to a fair amount of guilt with regards to this situation because I introduced him to both. I set a pretty poor example for a fairly long time, then went off into the world to do my own thing. I cleaned up my own act but he never pulled himself out of that scene. So, now it's ugly. Being that these two arrests, I believe, were his 6th & 7th respectivly there was great concern about what kind of cloud would be cast over the wedding if my brother was in jail at the time. My main concern is, was, and will be that he gets cleaned up before he kills himself or someone else. He's already beat the drug charge which is good. He's got a pit bull for a lawyer. His trial for the d.w.i. charge has been pushed back to May so he'll make my wedding if he doesn't land himself in more trouble before then. Now his trial being pushed back to May is an interesting story. You see there's a specific reason for this...the cop that arrested him was arrested about a week later on the same charges. So he's been suspended and is awaiting his own trial. Doesn't get much better than that does it?
In January I also recieved some news that left me stunned and quite honestly fairly fucked up. My friend John Dawson, a friend of 20 years, was murdered just days after his 34th birthday in Bogota, Colombia. John and I grew up together. He was like a brother to me. There are no real clear details as to what actually happened to him. All I know is this: He went there to visit his girlfriend. She had a birthday party for him. At some point in the evening John got angry and tossed everyone out including the girlfriend. When she returned to talk to him the next day he was dead.
That's all I was able to find out and really probably all I'll ever know. Bogota is a shithole and everything there is corrupt. Americans are marked the moment they arrive there. Despite the connotation Bogota, Colombia carries he wasn't there for any drug related reasons. I only say that because a lot of people jump to that conclusion the moment you mention the place. John had gone though a lot in his life. More than most people would want to have to endure. When he was a young boy his brother died. He lost his son Charlie shortly after his 1st birthday. He leaned on me real heavy during that time. My heart broke for him. Following that his wife left him to go to work as a stripper and they were divorced shortly after that. I know as hard as his life was he's at peace now. I will miss him.
Now, the last part of this. At John's wake I ran into all kinds of old friends. One of the friends I expected to see was John's stepfather. I have sort of made mention of him before on this board. He was a Vietnam veteran. We became close friends through John. We both loved blues so we started hanging out and going to shows together. We had some wild times. He introduced me to all his Vietnam veteran buddies and they sort of took me in to their clan. Even calling me "brother" which I took as a great honor as it seemed to be a term reserved for other veterans only. He wasn't at John's wake or funeral though. He's in Florida now in a wheelchair. After he returned from Vietnam he developed some sort of problem with his back. I'm not sure what the deal was with it but there was some talk of it being related to something he was exposed to while he was there. He was wounded there and was awarded a purple heart. Anyway he'd suffered with it for a long time. Recently he went to a V.A. hospital to have some kind of procedure to help remedy the problem. They stuck a long needle into his spine and something went wrong and the needle broke. The result of this is that he is now paralyzed from the waist down. He is in such bad shape now he couldn't make the trip to Massachusetts. Well, I really don't think I can relate much more of this right now and I figure this is probably more than you bargined for when you asked so I'll call it quits here. Sorry to have unloaded so much...
Reg
Well, I'll share what's been happening but I don't want to be dumping my troubles onto everyone on the Baerwald board. So to those of you that would prefer not to read about somebody's hardships this would be a good time to move on. I also want to say here before I spill this stuff that I'm alright, I've been coming out of the funk I was in. So here it is...
I'm getting married in April. April 21st to be exact. That's a wonderful thing. She is hands down the most amazing woman I've ever met. This is a good thing because she'll get me through. My best man for the wedding is my brother. He has been arrested twice already this year. I'm not going into all the details but these arrests involve drugs and alcohol. It's been a long running deal with him. I will admit to a fair amount of guilt with regards to this situation because I introduced him to both. I set a pretty poor example for a fairly long time, then went off into the world to do my own thing. I cleaned up my own act but he never pulled himself out of that scene. So, now it's ugly. Being that these two arrests, I believe, were his 6th & 7th respectivly there was great concern about what kind of cloud would be cast over the wedding if my brother was in jail at the time. My main concern is, was, and will be that he gets cleaned up before he kills himself or someone else. He's already beat the drug charge which is good. He's got a pit bull for a lawyer. His trial for the d.w.i. charge has been pushed back to May so he'll make my wedding if he doesn't land himself in more trouble before then. Now his trial being pushed back to May is an interesting story. You see there's a specific reason for this...the cop that arrested him was arrested about a week later on the same charges. So he's been suspended and is awaiting his own trial. Doesn't get much better than that does it?
In January I also recieved some news that left me stunned and quite honestly fairly fucked up. My friend John Dawson, a friend of 20 years, was murdered just days after his 34th birthday in Bogota, Colombia. John and I grew up together. He was like a brother to me. There are no real clear details as to what actually happened to him. All I know is this: He went there to visit his girlfriend. She had a birthday party for him. At some point in the evening John got angry and tossed everyone out including the girlfriend. When she returned to talk to him the next day he was dead.
That's all I was able to find out and really probably all I'll ever know. Bogota is a shithole and everything there is corrupt. Americans are marked the moment they arrive there. Despite the connotation Bogota, Colombia carries he wasn't there for any drug related reasons. I only say that because a lot of people jump to that conclusion the moment you mention the place. John had gone though a lot in his life. More than most people would want to have to endure. When he was a young boy his brother died. He lost his son Charlie shortly after his 1st birthday. He leaned on me real heavy during that time. My heart broke for him. Following that his wife left him to go to work as a stripper and they were divorced shortly after that. I know as hard as his life was he's at peace now. I will miss him.
Now, the last part of this. At John's wake I ran into all kinds of old friends. One of the friends I expected to see was John's stepfather. I have sort of made mention of him before on this board. He was a Vietnam veteran. We became close friends through John. We both loved blues so we started hanging out and going to shows together. We had some wild times. He introduced me to all his Vietnam veteran buddies and they sort of took me in to their clan. Even calling me "brother" which I took as a great honor as it seemed to be a term reserved for other veterans only. He wasn't at John's wake or funeral though. He's in Florida now in a wheelchair. After he returned from Vietnam he developed some sort of problem with his back. I'm not sure what the deal was with it but there was some talk of it being related to something he was exposed to while he was there. He was wounded there and was awarded a purple heart. Anyway he'd suffered with it for a long time. Recently he went to a V.A. hospital to have some kind of procedure to help remedy the problem. They stuck a long needle into his spine and something went wrong and the needle broke. The result of this is that he is now paralyzed from the waist down. He is in such bad shape now he couldn't make the trip to Massachusetts. Well, I really don't think I can relate much more of this right now and I figure this is probably more than you bargined for when you asked so I'll call it quits here. Sorry to have unloaded so much...
Reg
–--
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
