Behind Four Walls of Stone

I've performed three amazing acts in my entire life. All of them involve my wife and NONE of them are what you're thinking (keyboard is up here, bub; thanks!). Meeting and marrying her-of course; and the births of our two children. I see our children as if they were still children-they are not. They are both adults, wonderful adults, with all of their mother's curiosity, warmth, fearlessness and open heartedness. And all of their father's mechanical aptitude (insert rim shot here).

Michelle is working today-she enjoys her job and that's good as she has little choice. She graduated from Eastern Connecticut University last December (we took her whole class tobogganing, not) and you know that old TV commercial, 'to get a good job, get a good education' well she got the latter but coming up with the former is proving to be a challenge. I avoid the subject of student loans; I don't know how she does.

She's fortunate she can still be on our health insurance though after her next birthday, well, it gets a little cloudy then. And if Obamacare gives you a sad heart and morons like Ron Paul make sense to you, in light of what members of my family are going through right now, you'd best deflate your Herman Cain blow up doll and move along. Do NOT get me started on access to affordable heath care as a basic human right, as basic a right as Avarice Ignorance Greed paying its bloodsuckers seven figure bonuses for bailout bucks.

Patrick is my deal with God. When he was born I held him in the geburtsaal and told God 'you can do whatever You want to me.' Turns out, He took me at my word, but he's cut Pat some, not much, slack. He and I have a dynamic that is everything I should/could/would have had at a different point in my own life if it had started thirty years ago instead of twice that.

Patrick works like a dog and is very good at what he does. He's not rich, but he likes to work hard. I think he's getting more troubled by the day watching people who boast of NOT working hard, banking obscene amounts of money while others he sees everyday can't make ends meet. Sometimes, it seems a lot of other people don't see the folks down on their luck either. It's easier to disrespect people once you dehumanize them and make them an abstraction. There's a house painter from Braunau, Austria, who elevated that to a fine art.

I hate to praise the day before the evening comes and as I write this I have no idea what today, Saturday, October 15, 2011, holds but I'm hopeful it's not another broken-hearted ending. My frame of mind has nothing to do with the weather which could be windy and in the canyons of Manhattan, might make it a little nippier than I'd like. And if that's my only problem today, as my son and I join those coming from everywhere to Occupy Wall Street then I don't think I can really complain.

Of course, we're not going to get very close to Wall Street and that's by design. Another freedom that's been rationed. Somewhere George Orwell is laughing and counting hooves, I imagine. I'm not looking for trouble today but I'm not going to continue to acquiesce to the continued dissolution of my family and everything we have and are. And when I look around, I'm not alone but have been made to feel that way for decades. No more!

I am only one, and with my son, we are but two. But if each of us brings another one that's two more than were on the streets yesterday and half as many as tomorrow will have. We can do this-we have a right to be here-especially since we have to, if we're gonna stay alive.
-billl kenny