Robert Graves, Writer

I want to respond to the journal entry made by bgilmore725 (the amazing teacher from down South) but my temperamental computer has trouble with Links, "trouble" made worse when AOL made dead my signature space, so that not only can I not place my journal Link there, I cannot place anything there! It has been made radioactive. As punishment for having protested I am fined US $9.95 for one month, in spite of having my own, paid for, Cable Access high speed. And, my password is what AOL told me it would be, not what I selected!!?  Whatever happened to the old AOL slogan, "AOL will never ask you for your Password."  No, no, it will be what AOL tells you it will be, and if you protest you will be fined by an employee in India (or South Africa, or Israel, or Argentina, or The Philippines) to whom, in my case, I must give my bank account numbers. 

An aol message board troll has quoted, he claims, words now festooning that AOL Member's Screen Name Signature space, the space I cannot use for my posts, not for anything, words claimed as words of my daughter posted, entered, on an AOL "Lesbian Chat Room." They exist, those boards, I just found how to get to them. They come in all flavors. I'm not going in there. They shouldn't even be there. I wonder what they advertize on  "Lesbian Chat Rooms"?

Back to the real world and bgilmore725 blog pages. She teaches "Exceptional Chidren." Yesterday she posted a video, previously shown on Oprah, a Comment informs, unknown to me since I never watch Oprah. I'm a news junkie. This is a video worth watching. A powerfully built father runs in a swim suit after swimming while pulling his severely handicapped now adult son in a rubber boat, then carries his son in his arms to the the finish line of what is some kind of obstacle race/marathon or other form of multi-stage race a la Triathalons.  

For some of us, in some moods, watching such displays of selfless sacrifice for the good of someone much less fortunate, is curiously troublesome. Even if our concience is clear, we can have relatives of conspicuous religious and community loyalty and service, fail ignominiously at some stage of their lives when they grasped what was more convenient for them, and to hell with anyone else.

For that reason I chafe at being solicited to applaud the spiritual virtues of an unknown. After a lifetime of close scrutiny I'll have an opinion of someone's spiritual health, not on the basis of a newsreal or a TV video.

Illegally, IMO, I was shoved out of the house with 20 pounds Australian when I was a child. A bit earlier my mother had died, at age 41, and my father vanished. My two even younger brothers were farmed out to an orphange from where they were adopted. The family, relatives, I was soon discharged from was conspicuously Catholic. Saying the Rosary was a long standing custom. I knelt and even took my turn with spoken prayer. That family produced eleven (11) children.

Some years later I learned, with shock, that the oldest child, a son, my early life major playmate had been killed in traffic. And, a daughter had been incinerated in their kitchen attempting to ignite the coke in an Aga Cooker, a job that had been mine. I've wondered what the mother of that family would have given to not have seen the remains of her flaming daughter on the kitchen floor, or, had the poor creature run to her mother's solo bedroom (she always slept alone) screaming for help? That mother might have run out into the early morning dark garden. Perhaps she was a creature of habit to such a degree that she did the usual at that hour, put fresh water in the place provided for the birds, which she loved.

Because of the above troubling subject I've decided to bury myself in the self-styled "Novel" by academic, poet, novelist, linguist, Robert Graves' King Jesus written/published? in 1946. I suspect he called the book a "novel" because his extroadinary research, both in volume and detail is staggering to read, and hard to assimilate coming from such paucity of religious knowledge as mine. But he takes such care to be thorough and respectful I stay with him.

Please emailme if leaving a Comment is a drag for whatever reason. Here's my journal link. Please email me if this link does not work:

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/