Only Heterosexual Miners To Be Rescued

In a statement that has shocked many, it has been announced that anyone who is openly gay or suspected of being gay, will be prevented from crawling out of a mine shaft where miners have been trapped for over two months.

The joint statement has been issued by the Catholic Church, the Tea Party and members of the Heterosexual Alliance Saving All Acceptable Souls (HASAAS), headed by New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Peladrino.

Underground, the reaction has been explosive.

“My God, who do they think did our laundry down here? I’m not leaving Steven behind just because he’s a faggot,” remarked one burly miner. Others chimed in, citing the number of positive contributions gay miners have made to the ordeal.

“The food has been incredible. Milo can make a mushroom alfredo sauce with only the barest ingredients,” said Jonathan Anderson, a ruddy faced fellow with brazen

tattoos of the American flag and Betty Boop brightening his bulging forearms.

Families gathered outside the rescue site, hoping to hold their loved ones in their arms in just a few hours. Most were unaware of the growing controversy over gay and straight miners being treated differently, but some had heard the news.

As a spotlight flashed on the first miners out of the tunnel, a young voice is heard crying above all other sounds, “Daddy, Daddy you fucking faggot, why did they let you go?”

“Because I lied son and told them what they wanted to hear. God I missed you so.”

Linda Carter

October 2010

Inspired by New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who says he didn't want children "to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option," compared to heterosexuality.

VISIONS OF LOVE

Hawaii

God the air smelled good. I remember that. We popped off the plane and headed to the Hilton in Waikiki. Checked in and hungry, we walked off to find something unique to eat.

Our trek took us across the street to a tourist destination that was filled with people looking for warmth and Mai Tais.

As we descended a staircase to the beach, I noticed Ken was having trouble planting his feet and seemed off balance. It was the first time I ever noticed how his sight was affecting his life.

I reached for his hand and tried to help, but the bottom line is when you are full sighted, you miss the cues, you stumble in your ability to help your partner. It would be a couple of years before I truly understood what was happening with my man and his crystal blue eyes I have always adored.

Feelings are one thing, but action is another. I learned to take my time when we walked down streets together and to look for obstacles that could create a problem. I notice cracks in the pavement and tell him what to expect with the next staircase.

I became his chauffeur whenever I could, lessening his worry over traffic and busy streets. I drove him to his surgeries and waited patiently but anxiously for the report. I took him to his follow up appointments at the U of M and met the brilliant Dr. Wright. I bought him flashlights at the hardware store where I worked and read all I could about coping with low vision.

I see how our hands do not meet when trying to pass an object, like a glass or maybe a picture. I do everything I can to meet his needs, but I told him early on that I would never understand.

I will never look through his damaged eyes or try to walk in his hesitant steps.  What I can do is listen and learn and remember to laugh in the face of tragedy. Together, we are sight and light.

Linda Carter

HURRICANES & HYSTERECTOMIES

Hurricanes & Hysterectomies

“The Day My Uterus Died” 

by Linda Carter

August 29, 2005

Ken holds my hand softly as we both focus on the TV in the corner of the pre-op room. Hurricane Katrina is headed for New Orleans, but no one is sounding alarms. It’s just another story.

As we watch the coverage of the storm, I feel a slow warmth move through my body. Only those who have experienced the wonderful world of pre-op drugs can picture what happens next.

You kiss your husband and say I love you, just in case.

Then the bed moves slowly down the hall to surgery, the overhead lights at times blinding you as you drift into a state of nirvana fueled by pharmaceuticals. It’s like God is giving you a naughty pass.

My uterus had always been mean to me, starting with horrendous cramps at age 13. The doctor my mother consulted said this, “Well, she’ll just have to wait until she has children and the pain should ease up.”

I found another route. I started taking the Pill in college and my life changed dramatically. A lot of pain, fear and hassle simply disappeared. Prescription Ibuprofen rounded out my happiness.

Now, years later, I was facing a hysterectomy. You see, those kids never materialized to “ease my pain.” Fibroid after fibroid had cut my quality of life into ribbons. I found a talented female surgeon with a good sense of humor and put myself in her hands.

I was drifting further away now, the rolling bed turning a corner and leading me into a room filled with huge lights. Visions of water and wind mix with a last glimpse of my man’s blue eyes.

August 30, 2005

I blink slowly, adjusting my eyes to the room around me. A sweet nurse brings me toast and something to drink. I ask for the remote control, the news reporter in me refusing to rest.

The world has changed overnight and I am watching a part of America face destruction as the levees fail to hold and New Orleans turns into a quagmire of water, mud, floating houses and dead bodies. I drift back into a drugged sleep, crying softly.

When I wake again, the nice nurse is back, telling me I have been her best patient all night.

I beam with pride that I was able to curl up around three nicely stuffed pillows under a warm blanket and not cause any trouble. I felt so safe, cared for and comfortable, something New Orleans residents wouldn’t feel for a long time.

At home, I recuperate in my bed with two warm kitties close by.  I watch hours of news coverage of Hurricane Katrina and as God is my witness, I think this is when I fell out of love with TV News.

Where was my country? Why had alarm bells not sounded sooner? Why were there children without food in one of the richest countries in the world? How did this happen?

I finally exhausted my ability to consume any more news coverage and picked of all things “The Grapes of Wrath” as a DVD distraction. I was quickly drawn into another time when America was slow to respond to the needs of its people.

During the Depression, families’ lost property, but the real cost to this country was much larger. People lost a sense of place, pride, tradition and most of all, a sense of dignity.

Here is the scene that brings it all home for me, whether I am watching the movie or reading the book.

Outside the Joad tent, a number of children gather to smell the stew cooking over an open fire.

Ma Joad feeds her family first, then instructs the kids to go find a stick so she can share this feast with them. You see in her eyes the incredible sadness she feels in not being able to do more. And you know in your heart, she is the one who went hungry that night.

Linda Carter © 2015

Working Class Hero

A Conversation

 by Linda Carter

“I don’t really get the liberal, conservative thing,” my sister remarked.

“I have always been pretty conservative in the way I dress, talk, raise my kids and live my life. But, because I could care less whether two people of the same sex get married I am considered a “liberal.” She shook her head.

Ten years older than I am, my sister Kathy has always shown caution. She passed on pot and rarely drank. She did tell me she got drunk on gin her first year in college and passed out in somebody’s bathtub. It’s one of the reasons I still speak to her. Without that story, our histories look like a comparison between Mother Teresa and Charlie Sheen.

When it comes to politics, we never talked about it much. We were raised in a working class family of Democrats who benefited from the work of unions and believed in education.

My parents dropped out of high school to go to work, but they made sure all five of their kids got their high school diplomas.

My father loved to read. I remember devouring Louis L'Amour books, True Detective magazines and of course the bible of the lower class, the Reader’s Digest.

My mother loved to play with language and would often mispronounce words to see if I was paying attention. She loved music and the radio and we listened together.

Most families I knew were living paycheck to paycheck. A few doctors, lawyers and business owners had it better, but the discrepancy in wealth wasn’t as enormous as it is today.

Here’s the bottom line. Labels confine us and separate us.

And death collects us all.

Linda Carter

© 2015

All Those Stairs to Grandma’s Apartment

by Linda Carter © 2015

It blew my mind that a little old lady marched up and down this lengthy staircase day after day, sometimes many times a day.  The stairs towered above me as I looked up, toward my Grandmother’s apartment above a plumbing store.

At the top of this lengthy climb lies a long hallway with worn hardwood floors.  My Grandmother’s apartment is the first on the left and I remember seeing that frosted glass door swinging open to a room with high ceilings, an old white gas oven and a double porcelain sink on the right wall.  There are so many surfaces in the room, but they are covered, overflowing with old calendars, daily newspapers, bills, recipes, letters, Green Stamps… I swear she never threw anything away.

Linoleum covers every floor in the apartment and it squeaks under my feet. In the early days of this building, these rooms probably housed a dentist or a doctor’s office. The long narrow living room with high, high ceilings would have made a great waiting area.

At one end of this cavernous room sits a huge stuffed blue couch with sparkling silver threads, a velvet souvenir pillow perched on the cushions. Overhead, a glass etching of the Statue of Liberty in a gold oval frame hangs next to my grandparent’s ornate wedding portrait.

At one end of the room sits my Uncle Cliff, holding court around an antique round dining table with claw feet, a western shirt and blue jeans his wardrobe of choice.

As a child, I sat here quietly, absorbing stories.

Uncle Cliff lights one cigarette after another, crumpling the short filters into the ashtray in front of him. He drinks whiskey and sometimes Christian Brothers Brandy. Uncle Cliff tells fascinating stories and I’m not sure how many are true.

Let’s just say he had to run from cops who caught him in someone else’s pasture and he partied so hearty one time he had to drop trough on the side of the road and change his drawers, literally.

Others dropped in from time to time, my Uncle Herb bringing pop from the gas station and store he owned a few towns away. I didn’t know it at the time, but all these characters and their stories played a large part in who I was to become. 

I was intrigued by words and the tales my family told.

I can still hear the booming, friendly laugh of my Great Aunt Pearl, her white teeth perfectly framed behind the reddest lipstick I have ever seen. She towered above me, a tall woman with a solid frame, but I never feared a moment spent in her shadow. I thought she was colorful, just like this apartment.

The biggest mystery to my child’s brain lay behind a wide doorway that led to the bedroom right off the kitchen. A makeshift curtain droops down the right hand side of the doorway, creating a cave like quality that invites exploration.

A brass bed sits to the right, covered with a fringed bedspread. An old free standing wardrobe takes up much of the left side of the room, filled with clothes and shoes. Beyond the bed, a huge overstuffed closet holds a mountain of clothing and pictures and who knows what. To this day, I wish I could have been allowed to wallow in that mess, finding old stories and souvenirs of days gone by.

The most cluttered room in my Grandma’s apartment was the tiniest. Right off the kitchen stood a narrow door that opened to the bathroom. Just inside sits an ancient claw foot tub, almost invisible with the slips, underwear and other clothing hanging from laundry lines stretched across the room. A red hot water bottle hangs over the end of the tub, a splash of color in a tiny dark space.

I worried about how she bathed and then I remembered how she lived when my Dad was little, settled in an old farmhouse with a pump sink, dust settling into every crevice of home and field, winds destroying dreams as the Great Depression swept over the land and cancer stole her husband.

She lived on Social Security, played cards late into the night and took bus trips around the country to explore history and visit far flung relatives.

She lived a messy life, clutter all around her. And maybe that is her greatest legacy. She knew life didn’t come with any guarantees. She taught me through experience that you can’t always predict or control what happens to you. But you can make do.

THE END

THE ALARM

Story by Linda Carter ©

I’m making a sandwich in the kitchen in my underwear. I had just dragged myself out of bed on a Sunday morning, after a late night “pitty party” that involved a little too much alcohol.

My husband Ken had been in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for over

two months, at the bedside of his terminally ill mother. I was grateful he could be where he should be, but every once in awhile, I was lonely.

And I wasn’t the only one. Our two cats, brothers named Scout and Skylar, were used to Dad being home all day, running his home based business and stopping by occasionally to play.

The two kitties had started eyeing me suspiciously, as if I had created their father’s absence.

Standing at the kitchen counter, I suddenly hear an ominous warning from our alarm system, the speaker blaring right above my head.

“Sensor 81, Help, Help! Sensor 81 Help!” Over and over again.

I was sure I had turned off the alarm when I got up and opened a bedroom window for the boys to get some air. All I could picture was an injured cat trapped by a window or an intruder trying to break into the house.

I bolt for the bedroom and this is the picture I see before me.

Two angelic, furry faces stare innocently up at me, as if to say, WHAT?

I ran for that keypad, frantically trying to remember our code and a little afraid the neighbors would see me a little naked.

Thankfully, silence fills the air, but I knew my journey through Alarm Country was far from over.

As I wait for the call from security central, I slowly put the whole picture together. I surmised that the alarm had been “triggered” by one of eight little paws and I am not completely convinced the little shits didn’t know what they were doing.

The person from the alarm company informs me that Sensor 81 is a “holdup” key, designed to be activated during many scenarios, including a home invasion.

So, let me be clear about this. If someone bursts in and holds

my family at gunpoint, I am to push this button, unleashing a cacophony of sound that could very easily prompt the invaders to shoot ME.

I inform the security system employee that I had actually been held up at “pawpoint” and that I would place the keypad safely in a drawer from now on. 

As I hang up the phone, I reflect on what has happened here.

Two very sad little cats, reaching out with the only desperate plea they can think of… “Help, help, sensor 81… help, help!”

I picture this scenario as police officers arrive and interrogate the two little culprits. Of course one of the cops happens to speak fluent feline and the boys outline their list of complaints.

“She hasn’t played with us in three days!”

“She beats us, yeah she beats us!”

“Our father is missing, we think she did away with him.”

“Check the basement man, it smells down there.”

“Don’t leave us, she’s boring!”

As the police car pulls away, I look down at these two little helpless creatures and sigh, “He’s coming back, I promise.”

THE END