World unrest, holiday scams, foreclosures, dishonest politicians, bailouts oh my!

Too much for me to try to tackle and much too shocking, depressing, and way too complicated!

So tonight I thought I would get back on track and talk about things that have been in my personal thoughts.

Sadly, when my parents found their lovely retirement village way back in 1973 in south Jersey, Lakewood, or the shore as it’s called, they didn't realize it would come with depressing side effects; living in an older community means that some of your neighbors are more than likely going to pass away and that’s more likely sooner than later.
And since they had a few thousand living there it was a monthly occurrence that a few some ones that they had met or knew would be dead before the month was out; heartbreaking and not for the feint hearted.
My parents also had a positive perk they lived less than two miles from us since we had moved down to the southern part of good ole NJ six months before them.
But the overflow of death would ooze over into my heart too.
Not a good thing for a young mother in her twenties to think about; I would often know their friends who also became mine.
Unfortunately, death can come at any age and while living there I had two of my three miss-carriages, but thankfully a healthy birth of my second son also.
He was officially a Piney born at Point Pleasant hospital. His older brother was born at Hackensack hospital up in the northern part of the state, so he was a northerner; odd for such a small state to have all these boundaries.
The Piney son that I mentioned meant he was born of the area best known as the Pine Barrens, which is a forested area in the mid southern realm reaching from the center to the ocean shoreline of the state, and ‘Pineys’ are really more for the lack of a better explanation similar to the concept of hillbillies, this is totally wrong since this part of NJ was as flat as a flatland gets, but you get the idea. And our second born never ever was lacking sophistication in any way.
But, better still most have heard of the Pine Barrens in reference to where the mob dumps their bodies.
Oddly enough and sadly, more unwanted deaths.
The whole time we lived in that area, fourteen years; we had built in 1978 our second home in the same county called Ocean, we never saw any of that, but you would hear on the news another soul had been found; usually one of their own mobsters.

We moved from there to Florida in the summer of 1986 to the east coast there, and then to the west coast in January of 1995.
But I have gone astray from the thing that got me started on this chain of thought, death and how we handle it.
When we moved here that is to Florida on August 19. 1986 I swore I would not get involved with any older people as friends it would be too difficult to lose them; mind you both my parents had passed away in 1982 and 1986, my Dad’s the most recent, May 11th of that same year, Mother’s Day to be exact.
So I was still raw and so I made sure I got involved with our sons and their schools while we decided on what types of work or business we would be in.
You see, we also sold a very successful business with our home before we left NJ.
Anyway, it worked for a few years, but sadly in 1991 our younger son who was now fifteen and he had this best friend, you know the type, the one that we took with us everywhere and that slept over anytime, well he at that tender age of fifteen was killed by a drunk driver while on his bicycle in the morning coming home from his girlfriend's house. And that dear sweet child was hit so hard by that 22 year old that hit him with such force his bike ended up in the power lines on 30 MPH Street, speechless and so horribly sad.
Of course we all got involved with MADD, but our sons knew all about that horror, remember their Dad was a Fire Chief and told them graphically about extricating dead brothers from a drunk driving accident way back when in good ole NJ, dead man’s curve, everyone knows one of those by them.

Anyway, death can haunt you.
So why press your luck and work with anybody who is naturally nearer to it than you?
I have actually been a volunteer on and off since the tender age of twenty when I worked on my day off from work and college with Autistic, Downs and CP children, but they were actually quite alive and at times quite lively!
So as crazy as it may seem to the many my life in my forties and fifties has been with mostly oldies but goodies; perhaps in some small way having many surrogate parents along the way.
With all my medical issues I have been in and out of being very ill to not so ill for many years, mainly the last fourteen and so when I first went into physical therapy it included water exercise which led to Aquacize, which led in a year and a half to me becoming a certified instructor. Then from there it was short leap to a support group which I soon became the Co-President of, which led to me using my back ground in entertainment and fashion causing the first combo fashion entertainment three hour show raising thousands for the Arthritis Foundation, from there producing a golf tournament with smatterings of fashion shows in between. And then became a board member and now I am an ambassador; and proudly in the year 2000 was the volunteer of the year.
Horribly most of these groups of friends were the ones that mean ages were seventy-five, and since my Mom was a week from her 71st birthday when she died and Dad was just four months into his 79th year that number was scary for me, friends wise that is.
I did hang in at a major activity level for about four years, and I am still involved at a lesser capacity still as an Ambassador.
I still don’t handle death well, and get depressed longer than most I suspect, most recently my niece and brother.
Even the loss of five adult pets in a twelve year period threw me badly, 1992-2004.
I bet everyone has a secret coping mechanism, and I do wish that somehow we could share, but most still feel losing someone or some creature is too personal to discuss.
But isn’t death a part of life?
We are often told that.
Why I got on this maudlin topic is beyond me, although many admit this is the season for this type of thinking to occur.
Because we miss those people who have gone from our lives is my explanation… as simple as that.

Sorry to be such a downer tonight, but I wanted to express my thoughts and that is what I was thinking.

Good night to all and to all remember who we miss.