The Flare Online

When I sat down to write my farewell column after working three years at the Flare, I intially thought, “oh crap.” Being contemplative is not my forte.

It’s like writing “thank you” cards. I abhor writing “thank you” cards. My mom can attest to that. It’s not that I’m ungrateful or unable to express how much something means to me; it’s that when I sit down and start writing, everything turns into flowers and butterflies and before I know it, I’ve turned a three to four sentence “thank you” for a $15 McAllister’s Deli gift card into a seven-and-a-half page free verse poem on the unparalleled generosity of the giver.

Being 6 years old, our patience was only as long as our nose, so by 7:30 a.m. when mom hadn’t come in to wake up my twin and me, we got up to go surprise her.

We found out our whole world had been turned upside down just like our toy box in the playroom.

Late in the middle of the night while we were dreaming about puppies, ice cream and mysterious playgrounds, my truck driver dad had wrecked his rig in Lincoln, Neb. He slipped away to Heaven without even stirring us in our sleep, leaving just our mom to raise us. A cross marks the wreck site that I haven’t yet and probably will never visit.

When I went to vote in the primary Tuesday I was reminded of something that happened almost exactly two years ago.
I came face to face with a racist.

While passing out literature for my presidential candidate of choice at Canton First Monday Trade Days in 2008, I walked past a man camped in a lawn chair beside his camper, surrounded by junk – er, I mean items for sale. This man was a redneck in every sense of the word, the type who has a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other, and laces his conversation with obscenities to convey what his otherwise uneducated mind cannot properly articulate.

The 200-mile drive home was cold and silent. The temperature peaked at 30 degrees that particular day. The vapor emitting from each breath I took agreed with the thermostat.

My hands took shifts, alternating from one hand holding the wheel, to the other thawing under my leg.
The radio was my only source of entertainment or companionship, and it was all I could do not to turn it on.

It looked as though my experiment to spend a weekend home without technology would be more challenging than expected.

With the possible death toll having risen to 200,000, relief organizations working in the area need funds to continue their work feeding the hungry, aiding the wounded and sheltering those who have been displaced from their homes.