Each Day Already is a Challenge

Foggy inside and out

Rain and warmer temperatures helped melt a bunch of the snow yesterday. It also caused us to have lots and lots of fog outside. Now the temperatures are back down, but the fog remains. I just heard the weather person call it "freezing fog." Don't think I ever heard that term before.

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I had some interesting comments about yesterday's entry. One person asked privately if I really thought there was no difference in crimes committed against an elderly woman or a gay men. I told him that I saw no difference at all.

When I was a young woman, my grandmother was attacked while waiting for the bus. She hung on to her purse when the thug tried to grab it, so she was dragged. I think she must have grabbed his leg, so she was kicked too. I don't remember all the details, but I believe she spent at least one night in the hospial for observation of her wounds. (And probably to calm her down!)

Around that same time, a young gay man was robbed also while waiting for the bus. He was dragged and kicked and spent a night in the hospital.

Maybe the creep who attacked the young man didn't like homosexuals. But, we don't know the motivation of the young man who attacked my grandmother. Maybe he hated women. Maybe his grandmother was strict and he hated elderly women because of that.

Even today, those kinds of questions would not be asked of someone who attacks the elderly, because no one cares if hate is involved in crimes against them.

Each of these individuals - the gay man and my grandmother - experienced the same crime. I think that the punishments for each one should be the same.

I think it's more likely that these criminals hate themselves and everyone else as well, and that they see gay persons as easy marks, just as they see grandmas as easy marks.

Criminals should be punished. The more heinous the crime, the worse the punishment should be. But the measurement should be in how much suffering was inflicted, not in the color of the victim's skin or his/her sexual preferance.

'Nuff said.

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A sense of humor was something my mother shared with her siblings. (She had three sisters and two brothers.) When I was a kid, we all gathered each year in North Carolina for family reunions, and even then I can remember laughing and laughing at their quick wit. They were all different, but the were all comedians.

I have already lost one aunt and one uncle. My mom and the two remaining aunts have forgotten how to be funny. Actually, they have forgotten many things. In my Mom's case, she has pretty much forgotten everything - what day it is, where she lives, when my Dad died. The only thing she has not completely forgotten is how to make crosses on plastic canvas. I have hundreds of them! (And that's another story for another day...)

Strangely, as the humor of our parents and aunts and uncles has diministed, the wit of the next generation - of my cousins and myself - seems to have increased. It's as if the baton has been passed.

Just a few days ago, I got an email from someone here whose only comment was, "you're so funny."

I never thought of myslef as funny. But sometimes, even as I re-read words that have escaped onto the page, I smile and think, "Did I write that?"

I guess it would have been about seven or eight years ago when my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Most of my cousins gathered in Pittsburgh for the event, and it wasn't until later that I realized what quick wits each one had developed. When we were together in a group, we laughed and laughed, and we took turns being the joker or the jokee.

Now, when I consider our children, the next generation, I wonder if they will develop this wit as they age. They all seem so serious. Were we that serious too when we were young?

What kind of a world do we live in when kids can laugh and old farts can laugh, but those caught in the middle find the world so serious that they hardly ever smile?