When I was a little kid I asked my grandfather one time what it was like to “fight evil”. His response was something along the lines of “I didn’t fight evil. They were just a bunch of scared kids doing what they were told. Just like me.”
My grandfather fought in Europe, but Japan was still what kicked off WWII. So, I was super nervous about bringing home the woman that would become my first wife for the first time. Her family was from Okinawa.
When we got there he sat down at the kitchen table and talked to her for a long time. I was in and out doing stuff for the dinner, but they looked happy enough. Later that day he caught me outside and gave me a hug. He told me that she was a good woman and I’d be crazy if I didn’t marry her.
I really miss my grandfather. He was mostly a good dude.
Here’s a picture of him during the battle of the bulge. It’s from a book I have, but this picture was originally published in “Yank” magazine. The original clipping sat over his chair in the living room my entire life.
I know it was Hep C, but Hep C usually takes a LOOOOONNGG time to kill ya. Like, at least 20 years. Even then you die of cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. As far back as the 80’s they had interferon which isn’t perfect, but between all the factors she still would have been fairly unlucky to die from Hep C. Especially so young.
I didn’t know that about the sequel. That’s pretty cool. I did know about the difference between the book and the movie. I read a similar discussion a few days ago. But your information is new to me.
As someone that contracted Hep C Genotype 2 from IV drug use, and has now been “cured” (meaning I have an undetectable viral load 10+ years later) though technically you are never cured from a virus. I did a brutal regimen of peg interferon and ribavirin for 6 months. The side effects are fucking horrible.
Because of this I have read about Hep C pretty exhaustively. Someone said that Jenny could have caught it from being sexually abused as a child from her father. While plausible, it is an incredibly remote chance. Hep C isn’t in body fluids like HIV. Hep C has to be blood to blood. The chances of transmission with surface blood to surface blood is incredibly remote not impossible, but not probable.
For these reasons and more it bothers me that Hep C is used as her killer in the book. It’s such an unlikely killer, and the main way you get it is through unsavory activities like IV drug use. It seems like the author chose Hep C just as a punishment for her horrible life choices. Almost like Jenny is a yin to Forrest’s yang.
Anyway, I could keep going on about this for more paragraphs, but you may know all this already, and even if you don’t you probably have better things to do with your time.
“A pickle for the knowing one” was a book written completely without punctuation. When people bitched about it. He printed a second edition that that last few ages were nothing but punctuation with the instructions to put them where you want them.
So, here is a story I like to share about learning kindness and empathy.
A little background. I grew up in a poor city right outside Birmingham, Al. All the kids I grew up with including myself had racist, homophobic parents. In return all the kids I grew up with including me were also racist and homophobic. When you grow up where I did with a silent generation dad and greatest generation grandparents from rural Alabama. You aren’t taught “hate”. You’re taught the way it’s always been.
I dropped out of school in the 9th grade. I got my GED and graduated college, but while I was working on all that I worked at Walmart when I was 16. I dated a girl that worked there and when we broke up I started dating a different girl that worked there a few days later.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and this loud and flamboyant twink named Joe that was our age tells my ex and current girlfriends that I dated them both at the same time. Then proceeded to drive both of them to my house where both chicks came in my house and yelled at me for a bit. When I walked outside I saw Joe in the driver seat of one of the girls car.
I figured that they probably met up at Walmart and I was going to beat the shit out of Joe. So, I jumped in my car and raced to Walmart. When they pulled up for Joe to get his car. I was sitting on the trunk of Joe’s car waiting. Fortunately, they left, and what follows is not great, but was necessary for me to learn a lesson.
After they left I was so angry that I used my key to carve the F slur so big that it took up Joes entire trunk lid. Nothing came of it for a few days. Then my phone rang. I can remember it like yesterday. A grown man asked for my name. I said I was he. He said that his name was Ronnie. (If you’ve read my other stuff this isn’t the same Ronnie that killed people.)
Anyway, Ronnie explained that he was Joe’s boyfriend. He told me that what I had done didn’t hurt Joe. He explained that he (Ronnie) was going to have to pay to have the trunk fixed. He appealed to my empathy, but he also treated me like a man. Could/should he have called the cops? Absolutely, but instead he decided to approach me like a man and explain the situation.
After he was done. I told him that I’d have to make payments, but that I’d pay to fix Joes car. Ronnie said that was fine. He invited me over for dinner and said that we’d discuss the terms. I agreed.
I don’t remember how much he said it would be, but I know that I paid him installments until it was paid for. During that time I got to know Ronnie really well. He had a monster truck and collected muscle cars. He had 2 Shih Tzus. He was much older than Joe and I. His previous partner had been someone important with State Farm insurance, but had died back in the 80s (this was mid 90s) and left Ronnie money and a house.
All this happened when my dad and I weren’t getting along. I still remember the first time I called Ronnie and asked if I could stay the night. He said yes without hesitation. I got there and he told me the ground rules. He said that I was always allowed at his house, but personal items like toothbrush, razors, and stuff like that were off limits. He said DO NOT MESS WITH THEM.
I was young not stupid. I had seen the real world. I knew that he was probably HIV positive. It wasn’t long before he and Joe broke up. Ronnie started calling on me. Ronnie lived in the country. I lived between the country and big city. He would call and say hey a couple of my friends are sick and I need to take them some food. Would you ride with me.
Anyway, Ronnie was the first person that I had actually interacted with where I had been forced to face someone that I had been lead to believe was different to me. Ronnie gave me a safe place to be when I wasn’t getting along with my dad. I can remember my “friends” at the time making fun of me for hanging out with a gay dude. I didn’t care.
Ronnie taught me more about being a man than my own father did. When he should have just called the cops he took the time to turn hatred into a teachable moment.
If you’re wondering what happened to Ronnie. I hung out with him fairly regularly until I got on drugs really bad. After my family deserted me. I deserted my friends because I couldn’t live with them hating me for what I had become.
After I got clean I started trying to pick up where I left off. I called all of the good friends I could think of. So, I called Ronnie. A man answered and I asked if Ronnie was there. He quickly asked who I was, and I explained that I was a friend. He said that he was Ronnie’s brother and Ronnie had passed away a few years earlier due to complications from HIV. He said that he got some kind of dementia.
We talked about 2 hours. I told him about how Ronnie had taught me about empathy. He said Ronnie had done the same for him. Ronnie was one of the greatest men I’ve ever known.
First of all this is a comic with animals in it. There is nothing positive about what’s happening it’s part of the joke. Next, only a moron would think that it’s ok to do that in the real world. On top of that if a sheep or chicken sees this comic they won’t understand.
However, if you made a comic with slavery as you suggested. If the oppressed people depicted in the comic were to see it. It could cause someone discomfort. You know since humans can understand and put together concepts using a series of still images, and animals can’t.
So, you can take your racist tendencies somewhere else. Because, they aren’t welcome here.
I have no idea, but looking back on it this is my guess. I was 18 at the time. I am like I said 6’2” which is way taller than most people there. I am white and at the time had long hair that was done in Bo Derek micro braids.
My guess is he moves weight in weed and hash. He saw some guy looking like a hippy from the US and decided to feel me out. They were super nice.
So I’m walking around a bazaar in Nepal. I got kids following me everywhere begging for money. Out of nowhere a Nepalese guy wearing a ripped up shirt comes running up and starts slapping kids and yelling at them. The kids run off and the man starts cozying up to me.
He starts asking where I’m from and follows me around for a while. Finally he cuts the foreplay and asks if I “smoke hashish”. I say yeah and we talk about that a while. He asked where I was staying and I told him Hotel Yak and Yetti. He says he’ll come by and smoke with me.
So, at the time he was supposed to show up I’m in the lobby when a hotel worker comes over and says that someone is looking for me. I walk outside and the dude is now wearing a tailored suit and is motioning for me to get in a cab.
Alarm bells go off, but fuck it you only live once. I get in the back of the cab with the guy. He has a pack of cigarettes where he emptied out the tobacco and filled them with weed. He says his cousin is the driver. We ride and smoke. I got so fucken high.
Then he’s like hey buy the rest of this pack from me. I was like dude I don’t have much money. He’s asks if I have some clothes that don’t fit. I’m 6’2” this guy was like 5’. But I’m like yeah and gave him 2 pairs of jeans.
Then I had to flush the weed because I was getting on a plane to Tibet the next morning. Staying in a Chinese prison wasn’t on my itinerary. So I had to leave the weed behind.
I used to run a very successful server for BioWare Neverwinter Nights back in the early 2000s. A guy started playing on there when he was 15 and met a married woman in her 30s. She got divorced and a few days after he turned 18 he flew out to meet her.
They got married about 12 or 13 years ago. I was the best man, and they are still married. I talk to them daily and usually see them weekly. It happens.
It was $270 because it’s restaurant grade. This baby can produce almost 30 lbs of ice in a 24hr period. It does cold and hot water. So, you can have tea or instant coffee on demand if that’s your thing. It’s not my thing so I leave the hot water function turned off.
But, the problem with bottles is that I can’t grab a cold bottle of water without getting out of bed. I can literally sit on the edge of my bed, and pour a nice cold cup of water.
Modern life is all about conveniences. Before this I had gotten in the habit of getting a big cup of ice and pulling sodas from the 12 pack in my bedroom. I needed water access that was more convenient than that. Hence I bought a water source for the bedroom.
So, this has an ice maker, and it recycles the melted ice back into the drinking water. That makes it taste like melted ice which is less than ideal, but I’ve decided that the next time I put a jug on there I’m leaving the ice maker off. Other than that it has a pretty good taste. I paid extra to get one that is supposedly made from actual “food grade components” hopefully that actually means something.
But yeah before the melted ice is injected back in the water has a great taste.
lol Nah, we live in Birmingham, Al. It’s a crazy place where you have the richest town in Alabama and at least at one point the second richest town in the south. Surrounded by an area that is incredibly impoverished. As a matter of fact according to this website and many others. We were number 3 in the nation for murders per capita, and are usually in the top 5.
Thats all to say that if you want a safe place to live in the city. You have to pay an outrageous amount of money to live among the wealthy. We are surrounded by multimillion dollar homes. We live in the cheap apartments here, and we could live so much cheaper, but we have a special needs kid that’s in school. So, if you want good education especially special needs. Live with the rich people. My kid goes to one of the best schools in Alabama. Which I realize is like saying I work at the best chemical factory in Bangladesh. But ya do what can hehehe.
Oh I know. With how expensive rent is we got a 2 bedroom townhouse apartment. We gave the kids the bedrooms and we took the dining room. But that means no closets or storage nooks for anything. So it’s hard to keep everything organized. The crazy part is that we pay $1800 a month to live like this.
This happened to me 2 nights ago. I was fishing for catfish and it was 9pm. The sun went down at like 5. I’m in the woods with a bright headlamp on, and there is an old service road behind me that I’ve never seen anyone drive down before.
So, imagine my surprise when I see 2 headlights coming down the service road. When I realized it was coming towards me I cut off my headlamp. I don’t know if it’s like this everywhere, but in the south everyone I know was taught to always assume people in the woods are up to no good and to be avoided.
Anyway, the truck stops on the hill 30 meters above me. I grabbed my machete in preparation for whatever is about to happen and continue fishing in case they are lost or something. I can hear rap music blaring from the radio. So, I’m pretty sure not a game warden, and about that time I see a second truck coming down the road. It stops behind the first. They get out and talk for a few mins then leave in opposite directions.
I was incredibly relieved that nothing happened, but I also went ahead and packed up and left after that.
That was actually the second crazy thing that happened on that trip. The first happened earlier while it was still light out. I was at a spot where a long country straight away was up above where I was fishing.
I heard a car go by really fast. Then I heard the tires scrr short pause scrrr long pause then scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr BOOM!!! The boom was so hard and close I felt it in the ground. A few mins go by and a cop car goes by then a fire truck then another fire truck. After a few more mins an ambulance with siren on goes by. A few more minutes later I saw that same ambulance leaving without sirens and not in a hurry.
I mean down here we just embrace the kudzu. Ok, that’s not true. Down here if you sit for too long, but not as long as you’d think. The kudzu embraces you.
He's ready for anything (startrek.website)
MACHETE (lemmy.ml)
I'm a sucker for big tree (startrek.website)
The White Buffalo (lemmy.world)
REMINDER: this is a shitpost
But I need 97 of them! (i.imgur.com)
Can kindness be learned or cultivated, and to what extent is it an innate quality?
'ANIMAL CROSSING' [OC] (feddit.nl)
Gastronomical Masterpiece (lemmy.world)
What is your best story when you were in a foreign country? (kbin.social)
It can be anything: Scary, funny, confusing or embarrassing. What happened that stands out most in your mind?
"Now, here's what I would do..." (startrek.website)
same bed length (feddit.de)
Me when my mother hits me for sneaking an early piece of pie (startrek.website)
I decided i need to drink more water. So, i put this next to my bed. (lemmy.world)
Survey says: You're louder than the bullfrogs. (mander.xyz)
chadodiles (mander.xyz)
JAPANESE KNOTWEED (mander.xyz)
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