2024.  Of course we had tons of really good preciously awesome times too.  But "the dregs" as a middle sister called that decade were seriously trying.  Terrorism wasn't even language that we used in part because you can't dwell on that part.  We all have to keep seeing what to do as conditions affect the world and nation.  It's not helpful when the various "leaders" are sinking in the crime and tribalism of party.  That's hard on everyone including them.

  We have a history of administrations incapable of shaking off some of the recent past, some of the big things parties have done, some of the peoples' citizen-behavior while a party is in charge/not managing well.  But we have a history of putting things back in balance too.  A stunning, hardwon, genuine history.

  A lot of the problems anchoring issue had to do with particular people and particular place, until "travel" opened the pay to play to "the masses".

  It was akin to that winding down at Sunday Mass of saying the mass mostly in Latin.  My Dad would be face forward following along and then bow his head and stifle tears.  It's not really okay.

  "It's going to make it like poetry," he honestly tried to explain what he knew without knowing what he meant.  She would go to him then and rub his headaching temples until they worked the thoughts out into words.  "Like poetry...hmmm...let's see...do you mean like free expression?"

  "That's it!" Sometimes my Dad would let her keep working on headache but sometimes he'd jump up, putting his glasses back on, and be back in action.

  Since a lot of free expression had been let loose on such-and-such a day, they pieced things together and worked with their church people to shore up what they could, our corner of the world.

  More and more puzzle pieces that everybody was working with fell into place around that day, at the courthouse.

  But.  The evil unleashed in such acts of desecration was really real, and kept involving more and more people plus groups.  Things that had occurred were so serious, grave even, that fighting crime kept being like a tangled up basketball net.

  From Sea to coast to coast, the stolen drugs, the violations of Law were so appalling and such "gross negligence" and "derelection of duty" it was like quicksand in which citizens can only stem and stop up, but not heal.

  I am not kidding around when I tell you that as Sammy Davis, Jr. danced and sang in DC, people threw up and went into more than one party pulling ahead state of apoplectic and comatose.  What was happening wasn't just Christians bitching about packed and stacked Courts.  We were living in war crimes.  And other nations were taking advantage because of it.

  An assassin missed a shot for shot, on purpose.  A man full on was going to slam a Bible through a plywood shelf.  He went into slow motion, brought the Book into a landing, placed it, squared it up to the edge.  "Give me the muzzle," the phlegm cleared his windpipe, "The mizzera, give it." He didn't spit out the cough.  "Give it to me," the man demanded.  He pressed the button and spoke clear and deep.  "THERE.  WE TRIED IT YOUR WAY."  The megamicrophone was still open.  A hand put a hand over the finger on the button.  And pressed it quiet.

  Vengeance and vigilanteism, it never works, people consoled each other on the way back "to win the Courts".

  Iron Deficiency, Anemia

  Leg Cramping, Possible Heart Problems

  People formed human chains of most depleted.  The City.

  Bodies took turns on gurneys, giving blood, getting OJ.

  A flood!  And we're the sandbags, I get it, soldiers tossed helmets and joined lines of people.  Lines and lines of people passing supplies, passing humans

  BABY, someone would call out and if ya were near an off stage actor or actress you might strike up a song, the beat of saline drips and heartbeat machines not whooshing.  Win hearts not minds!  G'day Sir.  We plastered and stuffed and caressed and canvas'd, blew chords and spooned fire hydrants to relay, re-lay.  

  Foundations.

  Hallways, hallways, doors, rooms, hallways, tubes, pillows

  Re-laundered sheets

  Subways and trains and cars and trucks and

  The whispering.

  I thought you knew.

  Whaddayah mean?  What did he say Pop?  Papa.

        Only some will be saved.

  The panic hit some people so hard and so fast heart attacks happened like football tackles.  The "peace" was pax romana.

  It couldn't last.  False "good times" people slammed boots back on, no breaks between shifts of days.  And the nights...

  Half submerged parking garages and instantly rusting trains pulled from ground openings filled with etching acids and sewage and 

  A Longaislander in hipwader overalls pulled a swordfish still alive from the edge.  Its fin was half eaten by, the man fished around in there with his "bullet proof" gloves and pulled out a mama cat with baby cats attached and sucking on her teets.  All were put in pillow cases of parents not "dropping like flies" but who had aged the most rapidly of any generation since the Revolutionary Era.

  The planes started coming in too low, that's a bad angle, it swung lower, curved funny.  "Gimme those" and for a worldfull of seconds the father and son fought over girlwatching.  Proverbial all, they'd been talking Torah as debateable law but not really.  The day getting comfortably late was obscured in a yellowtan wash of sky smeared with the usual pollution, no, it isn't, give an inch take a mile?  The taller man yanked at the binoculars on straps  around the boyman sitting on a kneewall.  It won't be on time.  It's turned again.  The taller man grabpulled the binoculars and stepped over the wall and was still saying gimme those as the sitting man's face started to turn bright red.  There's another.  I don't like this.

  My mother opened her mouth to yell for my father giving my sister a piggy back, horsie ride.  Nothing came out.  She put hands cupped around her mouth to amplify her voice.  My father was walking like a horse, spinning my sister around and she was laughing at his horse sounds and it should have been a classic father-daughter dance on an afternoon to last forever in our memories but it was like reels of film.  Reels of film falling in their casing not put into a projector properly.  Like the reels were turning and trying to become one movie.

  They're circling or something. 

  Lower and lower and rollercoastering over stadium and parking lots hitting wires and sparks flying and yelling but the sound sucked into ginormous roar.  My father kept looking back and running faster towards us as the jet with flaming wings seemed to be racing him, then overtaking him, us, running, people running and falling and walking and dragging each other.  The parking lot light poles came on like they did every day.

  Hours can be days and weeks long.  It was long drawn out, been wheeling and dealing, doors slamming, GAMBLING, flaming arseholes, underwear plucked from perches thrown into suitcases flung onto beds, shirts, hairy arms smooth arms wrinkled arms, gold jewelry off and put in silky saches.  Absolute stillness not so much as a slipper "sound", places, wardrobes, chains being slid off resting spots.  "It's THE WAY THEY DID IT.  SO sorry mameer."

  Not labeled that.  Bare bulbs, glass with fencing between, sheets, "OH HE PARKED IT IN THE WRONG PLACE" ARMS WIDE OPEN NO CHOICE HEAD SMASHED ONTO TABLE.  "I wouldn't have seen that" a pool of blood languishing "at school", badges, passes, dark faces darkening.  

  Sun.  Gleaming motorcycles, a sea.  Fat bloaty tires, tank covers scratched at and popped with screwdrivers.  "What's happening?"

  "You have to tell her."

  Comprehension the smells of hard stuff and minds searching for fathers.  "Said, Sure, we'll give a lift" throats closing dry prying jaws to SPEAK.  THEN WHOEVER IT WAS DRAGGED THE NEW ONE BETWEEN, TOOK HER UP ON TOWLINE, LET HER SAIL

      until they're gone, static.

  It didn't sail very far before angling so wrong spinning in a sputtering way.  Most of the crowd stayed seated but our grandfather stood up and bellowed, "There's your OPEC.". He crossed his arms self-conscious.  A freshly shaven face kid stood up too, "Not mine," he said with a not cocky smile but a half smile, "My dollar is right here." He took out his skinny stiff wallet and counted what he pulled out.  Wallet held with elbow clutch-style, he counted out one bill for each person in the family.  The reason.