Remembering Helen Khori

IN MEMORY OF HELEN KHORI

Shortly after my wife and I got married, when we first lived together as empty nesters, we set upon the holidays to celebrate alone.  While sitting at the couch listening to radio or TV, she/we got the idea of, adopting a stranger for Christmas.   Volunteers put dinners together while others delivered.  The responsibility of delivering couples was to share Christmas with that family.  That is how we met Helen Khori. 

That was years ago.  If you added those years, we spent lots of time together.  While living in Chicago, we often met to assist with some of her endeavors.  Helen became a regular houseguest for a time.  It was fun being with her, and she seemed to like petting our dogs, even though she was allergic to them.  We continued meeting on a regular basis after the first Christmas, and our relationship grew.  Helen was blind and having a variety of friends was an important part of her life.

We were newlyweds, and our relationship with Helena worked to strengthen our personal bond with each other.  Sometimes the giver receives more than they give, from gratitude of people less fortunate; having Helena our friend was somewhat spiritual for us.  People with close family ties are often oblivious to things around them such as, homeless or helpless, as their personal needs take precedence.  Sixty percent of people want to leave forty percent behind. 

Being blind is not such a bad thing, people will tell you, while they travel in well-lighted places, and avoiding darkness, where few of them venture to walk.  Helen had a myriad of problems to cope with, including severe health concerns.  But those problems were miniscule when coupled with her exodus from Iraq after WWll, having to master several languages along the way, and commit to memory everything, as she had no other means of recollection.

About ten years into our relationship, we left the Chicago area to begin our life anew, building a home on our dream location, while always keeping in touch with Helen and her family.  Our fondest memories were celebrating special events with them, each eclectic and scholastically inclined, they were successful business people in their own rights.  Even after we moved, we continued to return and visit Helen. 

The last visit, we sat and talked for about one hour or so, while holding hands, exchanging well wishes and hugging each other.  You never know when things will end.   The family notified us to advise us of Helen’s death, about one week after she died.  It seemed, she wanted us to know that even though she had to go, she would still be with us.

We never expected a lifelong relationship with a stranger when we met Helen.  It might have been different had I not suffered greatly myself from a near fatal accident, shortly before that first meeting.  Months unable to move, in part on life support, similar to others on that ward, I was fortunate to leave in a wheel chair the day I got out of the hospital, and learning to walk was tedious.  Having Helen for a friend made me realize that no matter how great my problems were, they could not ever be half as bad as Helen’s could.  

My wife always had a soft spot heart for disadvantaged people.  She was my guiding influence in doing kind deeds, while I sometimes went along for the ride.  Helen's friendship gave us excuses to be together, much like any family.  Maybe that made everybody closer.  

STUNNED GUNS IN STONED CITY

STUNNED GUNS IN STONED CITY

Johny Appalachia

There is more to come.  For everything they find, there are more hiding somewhere.

Detroit is not stunned.  Detroit is stoned.  They've been that way for forty years.  You can purchase a mansion in Detroit, for a few thousand dollars, but you better build a wall around it and mount turrets.  Republican leader, Oakland County, L. Brooks Patterson said about Detroit, "Round up all the Indians, build a fence around the city in, throw some corn."

That sums up Detroit well.

Detroit, the abandoned city is a far cry from, Detroit waterfront and Belle Island.  For all the coruscation, it is all corrosion beyond that. Dead City, Detroit -- that is what Lansing and Michigan Republicans call it.  The only visits Republicans or Democrats make into Detroit, is to pass quickly through it, en-route to Canada casino's.  The rest of that city is largely abandoned by government of any type.  If there is a fire in Detroit, they might be lucky to save the concrete basement.  About half the homes are beyond repair and unsafe to live in.  The largest numbers of Detroit inhabitants are rats; which is completely rational, considering that Michigan police do not protect American citizens, as a primary responsibility.  Their job is: protect the infrastructure, superstructures, and nothing else.  The only protection anybody has in Detroit, is self defense.

They found a few guns next to the library on Woodward Avenue; so what is big news about that?  Check out Woodward Avenue and surrounding area.  

Police in Detroit announced the discovery of an arms cache of 200 semi-automatic rifles with 25,000 rounds of ammunition,  200 pounds of heroin, 5 million dollars in forged US banknotes and 25 prostitutes --- all located in a semi-detached house behind the Public Library on Woodward Avenue.

Local residents were stunned.  A community spokesperson said:

"We're all shocked,.......we never knew we had a library. Does it have any books?  How much could we get for them?"

Grave Digger III

When you live in a bubble, you cannot understand universal complexities.  One cannot conceive the ramifications of a contravention.  When we tamper with laws of nature, there is a penalty.  If I earned anything that day, it was the wrath of God, and  Lacey was about to bestow deep pain upon me.

Lacey, the driving mule, was prodding with his unending vile vocabulary.  He never slept, at least visibly, and he kept lading bills at each location.  We dropped trailers at the rail yard after a laborious week and picked up two loads of steal.  It was there Lacey excelled as if on top of his game, easily throwing trails of chain across the loads, while I struggled with the bindings to near exhaustion.  Tired and angry, both itching for a fight; Bobby Joe and Delvis, two guys who got hired in about the time I got there, appeared, plumes of dust in the dirt lot trailing behind them, and skidding to a halt, with Bobby’s trailer wheels just bushing my calf.  That simple act fired the fuel of my ire.  Bounding over his trailer, I grabbed for his throat, my two hands each grasping his neck, then fiercely squeezing into opposite ends of his throat, while crossing my thumbs and concentrating on his demise while he faded away.

Then Delvis pulled his gun to fire, but I was quicker and found his right shoulder with a Schrade, pocketknife that I inherited.

I felt something grasp my shoulder as I lifted into space by the fearful mighty, Lacy, and I knew I was in trouble.

Misiu grabbed Lacy from behind, burying his teeth into his thy, and instantly Lacy’s grasp released, to throw me.   My leg broke from the fall, but only one bone and it looked stable.  I could barely walk; the paralyzing pain was too intense.  Misiu came to my whistle, to assist me back into the truck cab, after putting the gun on Bobby’s temple.

Inside the cab, I retreated to the sleeper while Misiu guarded.  Unable to remove my boot, my leg was swollen into it, so I left it on and threw my sweaty shirt onto the dirty dusty floor, too exhausted to move; and later on, Lacy appeared to greet me with Vicodine, our pill of choice for pain.

The next day changed everything.   With the rain threatening our precious cargoes, chained and tarped, we needed to head out on the highway. 

Plebeian Perspective

Plebeian Perspective

Republican leader, L. Brooks Patterson said, “Round up the Indians, put them in Detroit, fence it in, throw corn and walk away.”

As Republican, Indian and Jewish, I find racist statements, and racism, repulsive.   We are minorities in America, our over-invaded country; nevertheless, we are people and have, Bill of Rights.  As Indian, Jewish, Republican, it tells me that as long as the Republican party is ruled by prejudice, I could never be a Republican leader, no matter what great deeds.  When Republican leaders talk about “sacrifice, and 47%,” they are talking about their own members as well.  It is no wonder that people of, minority, distain Republican Party.  No wonder, Governor Snyder ignores letters from party members. 

America is a European name for a nemesis that they claimed, disregarding anybody else who lived here.   On a cultural scale, Indians are beneath Negro, our lands taken – stolen – from us and most of us, relocated to large areas of concentration.  So, when Republican Party leaders openly talk about putting us in Detroit concentration camps, I recollect in history that it was United States Europeans who taught Nazis how to decimate large numbers (entire tribes) from these lands.  No wonder people proudly refer to themselves as Europeans. 

Our, Bill of Rights, as written and understood, was referenced to, European Men; disregarding women, Negroes, and Indians; nevertheless, we have been fighting at the front lines in American wars for centuries, on European orders.

Michigan European history dates to 1622 with the French explorer, Eteinne Brule’ who was searching for a waterway from, Canada, to the Pacific coast.  He was executed several years later, on orders of the first Michigan governor, Champlain, for being too close to, Indians.

For more than 100 years after, war waged in America between French and English Europeans, while they fought over their rights to their new continent.  Negroes were imported in chains to serve our new, America, while Indians were rounded up and exiled to Spartan locations, leaving most of, America to French, English and Dutch.

Whoever won the American war is unclear, as we have ample numbers of Europeans in, America, and most Indians, destroyed.  A few people managed to escape the exodus, and we remain quietly living among Europeans, with few people knowing the difference.   But government knows the difference.    Last hired and first, fired from jobs, Europeans rule over native, and Negro.  In government affairs, they ignore us; and we might as well not exist.  European blight directly affects more than twelve million Americans today. 

They call America, the rich nation.  To me, America is a trail of tears and bloodshed for blight.  From strip farms started in Cadillac Michigan, to the sixty-percent estimate of, wet land drainage; today, most of Michigan water is unfit to drink, which is appalling.   

Brooks Patterson said, “Round up the Indians, and fence them into Detroit.”  Maybe we should round up European Republican Party and put them there for BBQ.