The last time I felt this bad....

I worked most of yesterday. Yes worked. I am trying to get my sisters apartment completed and the contractor is dragging his feet. So I took it on myself to help him a little. I hung and mudded some wall board. Needless to say this fat 54 year old bag of poopoo was pooped out last night.


After dinner I looked over the 2 + 2 forum and my email. Then I played a few games of chess on Yahoo. Darn my youngest boy. I hadn't played online chess for months. I quit, you see, because I am a online chess playing junkie, addict, whatever. He, Bruce, my yongest son, visited two weeks ago. Like father, like son. He too, is an online chess-aholic. So when he got here he played online. I watched and then had to play. Now, just like eating chocolate, "I'm baaack".


Last night I played from about 8 to 10:30 pm. when it suddenly dawned on me that there was a telethon on for the American Heroes of the September 11, 2001 tragedy. So I quit the chess and flicked on the T.V and laid down on the couch, I said I was tired, and caught the last half hour. Some artists I've never heard of were singing some really great music.


Then Celine Dion sang "God Bless America." It was o.k but did not move me much. A few of the numerous celebrities talked of the heroes of the day. I was impressed with Chris Rock. I did not think the guy had a serius bone in his body. You could see the tension in his face when he talked of the courage of one of the Heroes. He did a good job. I believe his sincerity.


Diniro was Diniro. A little woody in his presnetation. Clint Eastwood was, I don't know, unusual almost scary. He was deadly serious. Flubbed a few lines but what stuck me most was his attire. He actually was dressed like an old farmer wearing a much too small brown tattered looking suit coat.


Then Julia Roberts came on. I don't remember exactly what she said but she started me down the road to feeling bad, sad. I could sense the emotion immediately when she began speaking. By the end of her 30 second talk I was nearly in tears. Then Paul Simon did "Bridge Over Troubled waters. One of my favorites and quite appropriate for these Heroes. I would have like to seen Garfunkel join in but Simon did a great job and was enough to swell the emotions of loss and love. Next they had this young kid sing. I don't know the song. I don't know his name. but he was great and the music was right there. Put you further into a mood of togetherness.


I think it was DiNiro that intorduced the final song. Song, huh, symphony was more like it. "Oh Beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,..... America, America..." Willie Nelson led the entire group of celebrities in a tribute that really had the tear stream flowing. I felt very sad. Very bad. I thought to myself that the last time I felt this bad was when my brother died.


It was a good show though. Even if I only got to see the last half hour.


Vince

Hey Vince, turn the "bad" feelings into good ones by knowing that the U.S. is truly united in fighting the horrendous battle of hatred waged by the terrorists of the world. Also, feel good to know that your bro is in a better place. Even though you would give anything to have him here, just be thankful for the time you had together. You are one of OUR "heros", Vince. Your dedication and empathy are what makes you "human" and what I love about you even though we have never met. Cry tears of joy, honey. Be secure in knowing that good will always overcome evil and that the best people are often the ones taken early. I also thought that Julia Roberts' made extremely touching remarks- she was very sincere and I also had tears well up in my eyes. After last nights efforts, I have changed my opinion of many of the stars who gave a million bucks or more to the various charities. We all must give in whatever way we can, be it in a monetary, emotional, or intellectual way. Keep giving and the world will give back. Sending you Hugs and pocket aces,.... Babe(y).

"Sending you Hugs and pocket aces,.... Babe(y). "


Poker Babe,


You do know how to lift ones spirits.


vince (Hugs, kisses and Pocket rockets back at you)

Vince


I didn't see the telethon, but now I wish I had.


The strangest things happen inside you when terrible things happen. I'm sure everyone knows how you can sometimes have delayed reactions to various events. Well, I had a delayed reaction to September 11. While it really bothered me from minute 1, all I really felt up until last saturday was anger (as I am sure was reflected in my posts up till then).


Then, last saturday, something happened that finally brought out the feelings of sadness in me over the events of the 11th. About three months ago my sister's cat was killed by the neighbor's dog. It got out and was loose for hours. It's a big mean dog so I didn't try to catch it. Actually, I never thought anything bad was really happening. But the next day, my sister's cat was dead in our yard, obviously mauled by a dog. I am not a big cat fan, but I liked Mocha. Well, this past saturday, our other cat was sitting near the mailbox behind some rocks. The neighbor's girlfriend was walking the dog (on a leash), and the cat didn't see the dog coming. So the dog and cat wound up in close proximity on short notice. In a millisecond, the dog had the cat in its mouth. Three of us went running. By the time we got there, somehow the cat had gotten away and had run all the way around the house. It was unharmed, although how that happened must be a miracle. However, the shock of it finally brought out the sadness I should have felt for the last week and a half. For the rest of the day I felt sad and in shock.


I tried to get out of that mindset, but couldn't. I even went out to my favorite club (clubsabbat.net) that night, figuring it might help ease the pain. I talked to my favorite two chickadees for hours, and they did make me feel somewhat better. Penny had on a giant USA hat with red, white, and blue. She always makes me feel better whether I am in a good mood or not. Romina is so beautiful and so smart and smells so wonderful that I automatically felt better just by seeing and hugging her. It was a good night at the club, but I still never really shook the feelings of doom and despair. I guess if I shook them that easily, I wouldn't be very happy with myself.


It could have been me. I have been in the WTC on a weekday during the day. I could have been on a doomed aircraft. I like to think I would have tried to overpower the hijackers, had I been on one of the planes. After all, if I'm going to die anywway, I WILL go out fighting. As it turns out, so far, I don't know anyone that wound up on the dead or missing list. Lucky coincidence, that's all it was.


So now I have no choice but to be supportive of the future course of action of our country which results from this tragedy. I am too old to be drafted, but many of my friends can't say that. Some of them may die in battle. More Americans are likely to die in the near future, whether in battle, or as a result of more attacks. It's not pleasant to point this out, but I am a realist, and it's just a fact that can't be denied. I don't really feel any better now than I did saturday. Some things don't go away so easily....


However, I ain't just gonna keel over and die without a fight...


Go USA.


Dave in Cali

Patriotic American

my worst day by far this monday...working regularly...and do not know why...maybe in denial..not processing the enormous feelings....i had a hard time with ok city...no personal losses just the amazing brutality...senseless(but not to the perpetrator)...still, sometimes it just doesn't make sense...gl all...

you are a sweetheart...gl pocket kk...or better..gl

Scalf- thank you for the nice compliment. I wish you pocket rockets and all good things, also. Babe. P.S. I guess your warm thoughts helped me today, as I had pocket Kings twice, pocket Aces once and Kings full of Queens once as well. Better yet, all were winners.....Let's keep on supporting each other and our fearless leader Vince!

watching nfl mon football...vince (lombardi) quote: "it's not whether you get knocked down thats important; it's getting back up"...a little classic and heavy, but hey it's true...gl babe...

Scalf- Re: Vince Lombardi-- That wasn't a game tonight -- it was a demolition! What Green Bay did to Washington, we are going to do to the terrorists! Viva USA-- Viva Vince Forum-- Viva Las Vegas.....Tomorrow we fight another battle -- on the green felt. Goodnight poker pals...Babe

Actually, Clint Eastwood was the last actor to speak. He kind

of gave the "Dirty Harry" look. Then Willie Nelson finished the

show.


I swelled up during Mariah Carey's song.


I agree with you on Chris Rock, very touching words. I think

he is from NYC which could have had something to do with his

speech.

An strange coincidence...


I NEVER watch TV in the morning... NEVER.


The last time I watched TV in the morning was years ago when I was in college. I turned on what I thought would be cartoons and found the Oklahoma City disaster in my face, probably less than 15 minutes old....


Sep. 11th, when I got to work (7am west coast time), the disaster in NYC was about 15 minutes old. I don't even think the second plane had hit the WTC yet. The entire building was watching TV in the conference room. We didn't get much done that day....


Eerie....

On 9-11 I was in the midst of sleeping off the Migraine from Hell. My wife came in and told me something incoherent about,"terrorists had blown up the Pentagon in the World Trade Center and planes had crashed in Pennsylvania because of it..." or somesuch.


I dragged my anti-migraine pill hazed self out of bed and plopped down in front of the idiot box just in time to catch the second plane flying through the tower. I was physically ill before I saw the television and I didn't really have any sort of reaction to it. I watched it for a few minutes more, got "kind of" sorted out on what happened with the Pentagon and then went back to bed for another several hours of nightmares that I can't remember.


A brief aside here, in the early 80s I was in the US Army, stationed in Vicenza Italy. A couple of friends of mine worked in one of the buildings with barbed wire, blocked-out windows and cameras all over it. They were "Military Intelligence assets to the Souther European Task Force, we can't talk about our real job or we'll have to kill you afterwards". One of them was of Polish extraction and had a last name ending in "ski", the other was a Vietnamese expatriot and as we all know, one of the racial slurs for the Vietnamese was to refer to them as "slopes". Of course, with Ski and the Slope, I had my friends, the Winter Vacation twins. (Hey, I was young, stupid, in the Airborne and living in the barracks... this was good humor for me at the time and they appreciated it.)


Move back to the week of 9-11. A couple of days after the attack, I'm mumbling my numb assed way through a tremendous backlog of e-mail when I run across a post entitled, "Winter Wonderland." Ski and Slope now owned and operated a civillian data brokerage firm and one of their operating businesses was, "Winter Wonderland Corporation." Seems I made an impact on them too. Ski and Slope were in an office on the 90-mumbleth floor of Tower Two verifying a data backup for a CPA firm when the building was hit.


No word. No real hope. Only "good" thing about it is they were both still single. Now they're both dead. It hit me. It still hits me when I think about it. It hits me with anger, sorrow, pain, pride and emotions I can't even describe. I wasn't horribly close to either of them but we'd stayed in touch for almost 20 years and they'd named one of their business ventures after a bad joke I made when we were all in a drunken stupor trying to figure out how to get onto a train and back to Vicenza. (Hey, we were young, stupid, drunk, living in the barracks and Europe had a lot of cheap liquor in the early 80s).


I can't remember their real names because from that day on, they always identified themselves to me as either Ski, Slope or the Bobsled-Twins. Now they're dead and I still can't remember their real names. I do know that the world is a much more miserable place now than it was when the sun first came out on 9-11. I know they were doing a job they loved and did well and were making a killing at. It doesn't help very much. I know that we'll find who did it and we'll bomb them, shoot them, blow them up, demolish them, nuke them, cruise missile them or do something else to them. It will probably make the world a safer place, probably won't make it a better place. I know I will miss them.


I've got other friends from the same time who are working as firefighters and police officers in NYC and on rescue teams at the Pentagon. They get up and go to work every day to cart out pieces of rubble from a landmark brought down by the whim of a stranger. I'm staying in close contact with these folks and I'm making sure I remember Al, Mike, Brian and Devon. I'll also remember "Squig" "Crapshoot" "FatBoy" and "Warm-Beer". Now that I think about it, it doesn't really matter what I called them. It was the Bobsled-Twins who literally threw themselves in front of the knife when we all got young and stupid and in over our heads. It was Ski and Slope who were sleeping under the juniper with me in Riva on the Lago de Garda during the windsurfing regata.


I'll eventually remember the names on their ID cards, memory is like that. But the people I remember were Ski and Slope and even flying a plane into a building full of helpless people can't take away the part of the world that they helped build.


Later days guys, I'll catch you after the jump. It was a hell of a ride and I'm glad you were both in the car with me for part of it.


Jeff

Baron- WOW !! Any "poker chatter" we might come up with pales in comparison to your experiences. Thanks for sharing those memories with us. You really understand what it means to be a hero- most of us only try to understand it. No need to say "sorry folks" - you have alot to be proud of and I for one really enjoyed your post. Babe

Dear lady,


I'm not a hero. I used to get paid for doing a job where I might have been called on to do things some might consider heroic. But as one who's been there, it's not. Heros are people like the tired and burnt out firefighters who've been pulled off of the line in NYC because they're required to take 24 hours off when they work 72 hours consecutively. Heros are the people who are sitting in the kiosks and behind the pullcarts near what used to be the WTC and are passing out sandwiches to salvage workers. Heros are the people who keep digging now because it's what needs to be done, not because there's any chance to speak of that there will be a "rescue" after this point.


There will be real heros yet to come. There will be tired, scared and worn out young men who've spent weeks living in a hole in the Afghani desert waiting to radio information back to someone else so it can be used to help still other young people fight the coming battles. There will be wives who sit back and watch as their husbands fly away and husbands who watch their wives go. This will be a dirty and nasty war foughtin the shadows by the Special Operations forces. That's okay, they get paid to be dirty, nasty and fight wars in the shadows. They, and those supporting them both in the military and at home, will become our next heroes. Some will become known for their heroics and will be given medals, most will just do their job and never see an award even though they're doing exactly the same job as the medal winner. They're the heros.


I thank you for offering the title to me. But I have to refuse. I know people who are real heroes and I know some who've been named as such by virtue of their actions and awards. They get to be the heroes now and I suspect that we have just become a nation that will desperately need real heroes to get us through the next bit of time.


Jeff James


Still depressed as hell about the whole thing but getting over it. Will play some poker and see how that helps sort the world out...

It is good to hear from someone who actually knew someone who was killed in the WTC disaster. Not that I'm happy about the loss of your friends, but around 6,000 people did die, and they had to have tens of thousands of friends and family who were affected. I lived on the east coast for a long time, and I have lots of friends there, some of whom live in NYC. By some amazing coincidence, it does not seem like anyone I know wound up dead on September 11th. Lucky me. Many people weren't nearly so lucky. Their stories need to be heard.


I am really glad for this new forum on 2+2. While I post about five days a week on the poker forums, I write about other stuff too. Now that the Vince forum is up and running, I have a place to post non-poker related essays and messages. The best part is that people whom I know and respect their writing can read and respond to posts on all kinds of topics. After all, the internet simply brings the average schmoe online, and there aren't a lot of places where intelligent life can be found on the net, so it's hard to post something and get intelligent feedback unless you know where to go.


Dave in Cali

on any forum at 2 + 2....gl

mt