Well, so much for the egg rolls...

Several days ago I ran into a local Chinese restaurant to place an order to go... it's a restaurant with a bar and of course a TV... as I was waiting for my order I saw Fox News was on in the bar and some blonde Fox chick was skewing the news as usual. There were 3 men in the bar and I noticed they stopped talking and started to listen to the Fox blonde blather on... I couldn't hear what she was saying but I could hear the men and one of them in particular who said "that bitch Hillary."

That really frosted me... so I walked right up to the bar and peered at the television screen for about a minute and as I did the men fell silent, watching me. Then I turned and said to them: "This damn Fox News... they have no shame. I never listen to them without hearing at least one lie about something."

DEAD SILENCE.

The more inebriated of the 3 (but not so drunk he was incoherent or falling down) said under his breath "fucking liberals..." and the others laughed.

I turned and looked at him and asked, "What did you just say?"

He sneered at me for a second and then said to his buddies "fucking liberals... where were they when we were in 'Nam, huh? Smoking dope in Canada..." and the others sort of did a "yeah atta' boy."

I never advise wading into danger or provoking a fight but honest to God something sort of clicked in me and as I looked at those 3 very average men, probably all 3 of whom would kindly stop and help me dig my car out of a ditch in a blizzard, it hit me: Those guys are my PEERS. We grew up together. Maybe not literally but we're close in age and share many, if not all, of the same American cultural experiences.

How did we get to where we now stood, in our 60's, sneering at each other with so much contempt and misunderstanding?

The idea that I didn't care about him or all of the other kids who served in 'Nam just broke my heart but it also infuriated me.

I cannot begin to count the letters I wrote to so many kids with names like Mike, Steve, Chris, Kirk, and Bob -- kids from my Northside Chicago neighborhood -- who served in that goddamn idiotic war... or how many times I baked chocolate chip cookies and packed them in popcorn and sent them overseas... or how many times I got into trouble at my Catholic girls' high school for writing a letter in a class or study hall when I should have been focused on school work. How many times did I cry myself to sleep? How many times did I watch, grim-faced, as Dan Rather spoke to America from some godforsaken rice paddy and told us all the ugly truth? As a freshman I wrote to the older brothers of friends... over time, over four years... I began to write to a boy I loved... dearly, dearly loved.

But most of all I cannot explain what it was like to be on the military side of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport as the flag draped casket of a 19 year old boy came out of the belly of a cargo plane... and the years after... all the years after... 

"My country: love it or leave it" was often said in those days... but I remember saying "NO! I'm not leaving! I love my country and that is why I HATE this... " (or that...). I have always understood that patriotism is treasonous when it is blind because it tears away at the fabric of a nation like acid on cloth... patriotism must be an embrace of responsibility, a demand for what is just... it can be nothing less or it fails.

And as I stood there waiting for shrimp egg foo yung and two egg rolls I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that those 3 angry men would not harm me.

You may say it was naive but it's not: If you had been there, you would have seen what I saw -- just some old guys who once were young guys... guys who received chocolate chip cookies packed in popcorn by sweet young things like I once was... so long ago.

Oh we were all such nice kids then... they were handsome and brave and girls like me were sweet and naive... oh God that was so long -- so very long -- ago. 

I spoke softly but firmly:

"I want to tell you something, OK? When you were in Vietnam people like me, and our very intelligent liberal leaders like McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy, were doing everything possible to get you home, preferably in one piece -- you know, before your legs or balls were blown to bits in a damn muddy rice paddy? You get that right?"

They were silent; I continued: "Frickin'-A you get it. Frickin-A."

The silence had grown most uncomfortable.

"You hate liberals? Well, I hate old men who send young men off to senseless goddamn wars... wars that kill boys like the one I once loved so dearly... yeah, frickin'-A right I do. And now look at you: You're here today and probably collecting VA benefits or Social Security because of the fucking liberals. Wow. What terrible people we are. Fucking liberals. Liberals who didn't want you to die and now don't want you to starve. Fucking liberals."

Then I saw a totally horrified-looking little Oriental lady holding my brown paper bag with my order in it.... (and I think the people who run this place are actually all Vietnamese, not Chinese)... seriously, the poor dear looked stricken.

The silence was deafening... another Oriental, a man, came out from the sliding doors behind the bar; he wore a dirty apron and held a humongous cleaver... he looked more puzzled than stricken... and he and the woman holding the bag with my dinner in it said something to each other in what I think was Vietnamese while the 3 American men averted their eyes.

I took my order and said "thank you" to the lady and then to the 3 angry American men I made it a point to say "Merry Christmas, guys. Glad you made it home."

But as I walked out the door I heard one of the men snarl "fucking liberal bitch" one more time -- only this time the other two didn't laugh.

Two out of three: Well, that's a start I guess.

I got into the car, steamed up with Shadow's panting hot breath on a freezing cold night, and said to him as we drove away: "Shad, the good news is I think we can recover the high ground one day... but the bad news, pal, is I don't know where the hell we're going to get egg rolls anymore..."

I'm Furious with so many of you...

You know how as a parent or aunt or uncle or grandparent, even as an older sibling, you naturally respond differently to dumb-ass accidents versus truly egregious stupidity?

Your parents did that, right? So did some of your teachers. Haven't we all stared dumbstruck at the teenager who suddenly acts no brighter than a cabbage? You think, "What the hell happened? Did he just sustain a blow to the head?"

You cannot begin to fathom why in the name of God an intelligent child just did something so colossally stupid it's mind blowing -- and you find yourself saying in the most withering parental terms, "Have you lost the brains God gave you?" and "What the hell were you thinking?"

Maybe he thought it funny to give his little sister a cigarette or a beer... maybe he thought it reasonable to ride a mountain bike off a steep hill into the field of possible death...

We all know that the same child who once demonstrated the most remarkable insight, calm response in a crisis, or common sense far exceeding his or her years can suddenly, almost over night, seem either possessed by the devil or suffering organic brain disease.

This morning I woke thinking of a dear friend's son, Neil. When he was only 5 years old, Neil demonstrated astonishing intelligence and calm that saved his babysitter's life. His sitter was a 17-year-old girl who went into respiratory distress from a life-threatening asthma attack.

Neil called 911 and reported his babysitter, Lisa, "can't breathe right" and "I think she's choking" (his exact words). We learned later that the 911 dispatcher told Neil to stay on the phone with her but he said he couldn't do that; he told her (and this is the funny part) "hold that thought, OK? I have something to do..." -- and so he did: Neil had the amazing foresight to put the family's German shepherd in the basement because he knew the dog would not let anyone into the house unless his parents were there. Then he unlocked the front door so the paramedics could enter and went to the end of the driveway to wait for them. When he saw them he started jumping up and down and waving them into the driveway lest they miss the house.

As to the dog, Neil explained later that "Baron would never let them in the house and they'd have to shoot him to save Lisa." It was true: Baron was the best dog in the world but there would be no way in hell that 105-pound German shepherd would allow a bunch of strangers to storm into the house in all their first-responder outfits and gear. Baron would have died before that happened -- unless of course he was told to stand-down... but Neil said he didn't think Baron would obey him because (as he also explained to his parents), "You weren't here and Baron loves me. It's his job."

Let me repeat: Neil was five years old. Actually, I think he was 2 months short of being 5.

Now let's fast forward to the day, ten years later, when I prayerfully sat in the Surgical Waiting Room with Neil's distraught parents and grandparents as a team of surgeons tried to put Neil back together again. That 17-hour surgery saved his life but Neil would have to undergo many more surgeries over the next 4 years.

I was there when the police explained to his flabberghasted parents what actually happened; they pieced it together through the tearful admissions of Neil's remorseful friends and the more coherent testimony of two adults who witnessed it. The adults, a couple who were hiking the trails that day with their dog, said they saw Neil at the top of a high hill clearly preparing to ride down the hill the wrong way... it was a treacherous path that would hurl him directly into huge rocks and boulders in front of a stream with a fast current (the stream, by the way, was relatively shallow and also loaded with rocks).

The adults started yelling at him that he was going the wrong way (to the jeers of his friends who were egging him on with "Do it Neil!" and "I dare you Neil!"). Neil ignored the adults and unable to execute an Evil Knieval over the boulders and then land in the stream, proceeded to smash his body into the boulders -- some of which were the size of a small car.

Neil, one of the smartest little kids I've ever known, fractured his spine in 2 places, broke a dozen other bones, and suffered a brain bleed.

There was no cell phone coverage in that area and that delayed calling for help. Also, it took almost 2 hours for the emergency responders to reach his smashed body down that dangerous ravine, stabilize him for transport and bring him up to the ambulance.

I remember his parents' relief when one surgeon from the surgical team told us the surgery appeared successful and Neil was stable and in recovery. His mom sobbed and his dad just stood mute, still in shell-shock.

Eventually, as the full measure of Neil's recklessness and sheer stupidity set in, I saw the parental anger set in also -- and boy did I understand. It's when the crisis stabilizes somewhat and you have time to think about "what could have been" and you say a really furious "WTF?"

Neil's dad was particularly angry. He kept saying "I don't get it... he's such a damn smart kid..." and then came "If Neil survives this, I swear I'll want to kill him myself..."

I think all parents get this...

Neil had clearly somehow lost those proverbial brains we like to believe God gives us all at birth.

And here's where I'm going with this... Neil came to mind this morning as I realized how angry I am; how really, really damn angry I am.

I am just fricking furious.

I see myself standing over a shattered entity on life support and through my tears I am coming to terms with another feeling I do not want to have and yet I do... and I hear myself whispering, "America, what the fuck were you thinking?"

America, have you lost all the brains God gave you?

Boy, if you survive this... I swear to God I'm going to want to wring your bloody neck...

Hold that thought; I have things to do but I'll get back to you...