The Strongbows of Terror

Nobody’s Opinion: In 432, AD…a guy named St. Patrick arrived on the island of Ireland. He found some pretty spunky people, and went to work spreading Christianity, which was the reason in the long run, for the terrorism of Ireland.

And he was just trying to do a good deed…we’ve all been down that road.

He also introduced the Roman alphabet, which was a good thing. Probably more people in Ireland could read back in 432 A.D., than the population of Washington D.C. in 2006, but that’s another blog.

So, St. Patrick was more than just a reason to drink.

After reading amfortas’s comments (printed yesterday in Some of Us Are Green) on why he hates the Irish…me being an American who happens to love the Irish, (Doug Powers being my favorite Irish at the moment) I wanted to know more.

Why were some of the Irish so upset all the time? Why become terrorist killing innocent people?

For that matter---why do the Muslim terrorists do it? Why indeed?

Before I start, I do NOT put out this question as the usual liberal “we should UNDERSTAND them” in order to find solutions to something that mankind has always participated in, killing innocent people…and will forever participate in.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Terrorists are here to stay.

I’m more in the state of “know your enemy” camp.

Bill Clinton (the man who introduced oral sex to all the teenagers in Ireland and is loved dearly for that fact) has said that long historical memories, are the reason for the hatred that terrorists feel. He blames the West for the Muslims hatred. It was the Crusades that they are still mad about he says. (He always says this stuff overseas, the coward.)

Mankind’s history is filled with stories handed down for centuries of one group of people doing horrible things to another group of people.

The Muslims and Christians have been fighting for thousands of years. Frankly, I think we should just have a bull-riding contest and get it over with.

Wouldn’t you like to see bin-Laden ride a bull and get busted? I would.

Here in the West, in the 21st century, the thought of killing innocent people to make some kind of point is just not in our national makeup. We are just happy to download our movies and make our bills on time.

Holding vast historical resentments are not exactly high on our list.

Even after 9/11, we are willing to forgive and forget it seems. Go figure.

For years we have known that somewhere over in the desert sand, are a bunch of Arabs. We could have cared less how they lived---until they attacked us.

We couldn’t have been more surprised.

But, it not just the Muslims who make good terrorist, there are Irish that can claim that title and amfortas brought that home rather quickly. He remembers the lives lost, friends, family…and for what?

Hollywood has glamorized the IRA as “freedom fighters” using Brad Pitt as Irish bait.
Brad Pitt confuses this nobody, so to the Wikipedia I went. What’s the REAL beef I thought?

So…here in a VERY short nobody synopsis is a look at Ireland’s history:

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First you have the usual cave guys, farmers. Then the Romans came, but they didn’t stay long. Next came good old St. Patrick, who brought Christianity.

Because of St. Patrick, Ireland had built a LOT of monasteries, which were perfect for looting (being gentle souls) by the Vikings of Norway (800-1166). The Vikings liked the weather and the women so much, they founded quite a few towns like Limerick, Waterford, Wexford, Cork, (my favorite) and Dublin. Yes, it was Olaf the White, who founded Dublin. There were of course the original Irish nobodies who were just trying to get by…

Picking clover or whatever.

Then the humans started to gather in groups, (which humans tend to do) and all the groups (clans) then started fighting and so one day a guy from an Irish Clan went to get help from the Normans. (Who were NOT in Ireland.1167-1185)

They found a guy named Richard de Clare, (strongbow) and that’s his wedding photo. (see picture)
He got an English bride for his efforts, and by the looks of it, lots of leftovers.

Of course England’s King Henry II got upset about this guy Richard, being a rather jealous person, and so he took a boat, set his foot on Ireland and declared himself the King of Ireland. He later gave the whole island to his son John, who also had a lot of friends, so he just passed out land to them all making them all Earls.

The nobodies started making up Irish songs, something had to cheer them up.

All this passing lands out to Earls from England was not fair to the common nobodies of Ireland, but we pretty much did the same here in America to the Indians.

It happened everywhere, in every country, pretty much, you know…those nasty things called “invasions.”

In 1315, Edward Bruce of Scotland came to help the Gaelic Lords, and together they fought the British (even though Mel Gibson was tortured) and the local Irish lords got some land back.

Then, the black plague (1348) came and really hit all the leftover British hard, as they were all in the cities. The original Irish common folks, who lived with their sheep in the fields, made a big comeback. (Point being, refuse the vaccine, buy some farmland.)

But a strange thing was happening. The British people started turning Irish. In fact, they loved being Irish! Those Irish bosoms must have had something to do with it.

The Crown TIRED to pass a law saying that those of English descent could not speak the Irish language, wear Irish clothes, or inter-marry with Irish. They also could not smoke inside the castle.

It didn’t work.

Then came Henry the VIII, the man who was admired for centuries for the clever and creative ways in which he got rid of his wives. Henry broke with the Pope because the Pope would not give him a divorce, (sort of like firing 93 federal judges) and therefore the Protestants took over…everyone, but the Irish Catholics.

This meant if you were an Irish Catholic, you lost all power whatsoever.

Not that I’m sticking up for the Catholics. Everyone knows the real reason priests were not allowed to marry was because they wanted all the land to stay in the Pope’s possession.

And we should worry about the Pope, because as the Bible saying goes, it is very hard for a rich man to get into heaven, and who is richer than the Pope? Have you ever seen his house?

Men have always use religion as an excuse to take property. Religion is a powerful force in any war. Psychologically speaking, it gives you an edge.

This is another point for us to think about.

If you have a country of liberal atheists who would not give their life to any nation, going up against Muslim fanatics who will die for Allah? Who will win?

That’s the point of the new movie, 300…300 men who will die for freedom…their god.

If you will die for a God, or an idea, your chances to win the war just went up ten-fold.

Anyway..back to Ireland, and the Catholics.

Henry the VIII wanted to put Ireland under English government control so the island would not become a base for future rebellions or foreign invasions of England. (Sound familiar?) So Henry proclaimed himself King of Ireland, and went back to chasing merry maids.

The nobodies continued to try to live and kill the snakes.

This English takeover succeeded except they just couldn’t get the Irish nobody people to give up being Catholics.

Then the British royalty came up with the marvelous idea, called, let’s just send a bunch of people over and colonized the place!

I like to compare this to the Mexican plan of taking over America, or the Muslim’s plan of taking over the world. The British called this “plantations.”

Not to be confused with the plantations of our South.

From the mid-16th century until the seventeenth, the “crown” sent Scottish and English Protestants, in fact a whole bunch of these “elites” to colonize Ireland for the future ruling class.

Once again, land was taking from the Irish Catholic nobodies.

About this time, the Irish had enough. Two civil wars broke out (1641-53, 1689-91) this pretty much did the Catholics in. They lost all of the landowning Class.

In fact, forget owning land if you were a Catholic.

Oliver Cromwell, who was admired for actually having the “nerve” to chop off a head of the King of England, was so brutal to the Irish Catholics that up to a third of them were killed or left. Any land they had was given to the British Soldiers.

Francis Drake once killed 900 of them.

Oh, the Catholics managed to survive, even through two very cold winters, starvation, and other calamities. They kept on trying; it got to be so bloody that Irish self-government was abolished by the Act of Union in 1801.

Then in 1845, came the potato blight. The population dropped from 8 million to 4 million in 1911. Most of the Irish came to New York and no doubt many a descendant died on 9/11 in the twin towers.

You would think the land grabbing would be over. But as we see here in America, it’s the one thing that powerful people want the most. From 1870 the British introduced a Land Act that broke up any large estate.

And like America, the North (where all the English Protestants had settled) and the South where the Catholics managed to survive, got into fights about Home Rule.

The Irish finally got Home Rule, but when WWI broke out, the English government put it off. Blimy.

And this is where amfortas’s story starts.

Unwilling to negotiate any longer, the Irish Republican Army was formed. ANOTHER war, then came an Irish Free State at last. The North of Ireland opted out and stayed with Britain.

AS the years passed, the Irish blamed their troubles on Britain, and remained poor, until just recently, where due to low taxes there is a great economic revival.

But the IRA continued to kill innocent lives…

And why? Because of the long history? I think even amfortas would admit, time after time the Irish were invaded and treated rather badly?

Maybe it’s like our history here of slavery. The black people are STILL angry about it, even though they are not slaves, and have endless opportunity here in America.

The people of Britain, should not be held responsible for the terrible history of the crown in days gone by.

But the IRA, continued to kill.

Why?

So, what makes a man a terrorist? Are they just searching for fame? Is it, like most famous people, someone just wanting to leave legacies on history, no matter how they do it? Just to be remembered in history as being “somebodies?”

Is this why our Hollywood stars make such horrible statements against their own country? So they will be remembered for something THEY think is worth remembering?

Our President, George Bush is now being called a terrorist.

Like Henry the VIII of old, it seems he has invaded a country for the same reasons that Henry invaded Ireland. He doesn’t want Iraq to become a future base for our enemies.

It sounds good, but I think he has the wrong country. Mexico is the country he should have invaded. The future attack to our country is much more likely to come from South of the Border.

And he does nothing. (sigh)

So, thanks to amfortas for the history lesson. If it taught me one thing, it was that men never learns from history. They just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

Sometimes they all act like a bunch of Leprechauns.

Nobody’s Perfect: And that includes everyone on the planet.
Nobody Knows: The true Irish red heads are dying out.
Nobody Cares; I still love the Irish, they have a great sense of humor, and gave as a culture gave us many wonderful things, and many bad ones…like cooked cabbage.

Some of Us Are Green

Nobody’s Opinion: Whew! I just got finished reading the history of Ireland. No WONDER the second verse of “Danny Boy” is so depressing!

What, you didn’t know there was a second verse? Nobody sang it last night at any bar YOU were at? Well, I’ll put them up later…if you promise to never sing them.

And by the way…do you remember where you were at last night?

It’s has always been amazing to me, that St. Patrick’s day is still celebrated all over the United States, basically as an excuse to get drunk.

In fact, I think more Americans get drunk on St. Patrick’s Day then on New Year’s Eve, because on St. Patty’s day, most die-hards start drinking green beer with their green eggs around ten a.m. in the morning and they don’t stop until the bars close, or they pass out: whichever comes first.

All Americans claim to be Irish on St. Patty’s day, by wearing green, and going around getting kissed. Huge parades are thrown to give us all an excuse for a day off.

But, that’s HERE.

I innocently wished a “Happy St. Pat’s Day” to a MND favorite of mine. It was not exactly a happy day for him, being as he…well, let him tell you himself.

Here are some of his comments that were sent to me by e-mail, a masterpiece of enjoyment…which I have copied here for all to read along with me:

“The American experience of the Irish is very, very different from that of the English.”

There are small calumnies. The potato famine was blamed on the English, whom the Irish claimed deliberately infected the crops, despite the fact that this vegetable from South America’s Andes mountains was unsuited to Irish soil and the blight affected all potato crops in Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland and all the European countries that grew it. The Irish Diaspora, also blamed on the English, were a small proportion of all the starving people of Britain and Europe that went to America. More English and Scots starved than Irish but of course that spoils the Irish wine.

But bigger things too. Ireland was independent when the Second World War broke out. Only six counties had voted to stay in Great Britain in the 20’s. The rest had been given Independence as they wanted. They decided to be neutral. They denied use of their ports to the British and American ships that were plying the Atlantic during the u-boat phase. Ships that were feeding the Irish as well as the British. The American public wasn’t told of all the American bodies washed up on Ireland’s shores. British bodies too. Thousands. Lives which could have been spared had they safe ports to go to. The Irish Government censored it. YOUR countrymen died because Ireland took the American help but didn’t want to help themselves or the American mariners, just because there were English mariners too.

The Irish tried to broker a deal with Hitler so he would not invade them. The Germans refused to deal, hoping to attack Britain via the south of Ireland-and Britain defended Ireland while the Irish Government blamed England.

It wasn’t all the Irish people so much as the government. 150.000 Irish joined the British forces to fight. But many more came across to England jus to take the jobs vacated by English men who were fighting. They stayed. Many to be ‘sleepers’ for the IRA. When Hitler suicided, DeValera, the Irish Prime Minister, sent a telegram of condolence to the German Ambassador. Can you imagine your view if the Governor of Nevada had done that?

The freedom fighters from Independent Ireland were delighted to kill innocents to pressure the Irish in Northern Ireland, who had voted in democratic elections to be part of Great Britain, to change their vote. Britain suffered hundreds of bombings by the IRA.

When the Protestant Irish of Northern Ireland had had enough of IRA terrorism, they started to fight back, killing Catholic supporters of the IRA. British Troops were sent to Ireland to protect the Catholic minority. Those Catholics shot at the troops. Amazing. Just like Iraqis today, shooting your troops who were sent to protect them.

Ireland and England are just miles from one another. Can you imagine two adjacent States in America locked into a mad undeclared, one-sided war? One state’s people planting bombs in the other state’s city centres? In the last 80 years, continuing throughout that time right up to today. Can you imagine collection tins in the streets of Britain collecting to pay for arms for one of those states? How angry you would be if you lived in the State that was being regularly bombed by terrorists from next door? Imagine people from Nevada planting bombs in Oakland, California shopping centres and malls. People in Pasadena being shot dead as they answered the door, by someone they have never met sent over from Carson City.

Then imagine Londoners supporting Nevada. Sending funds to Nevada freedom fighters. New Yorkers used St. Patrick’s Day as their main collection day for the IRA. Some 400 million dollars flowed to the IRA from New York alone. They bought a lot of dead.

Then the Nevada people want to celebrate St. Nevada’s day with green beer in San Francisco!!

If America is still in Iraq in 80 years, still being bombed, shot at, vilified, you will probably have similar attitudes and impatience. “

*******

Okay…well, that’s a whole pot of lucky charms to swallow, isn’t it? Not only was it an excellent dissertation on history from the point of view of “someone who had BEEN there, DONE that” It got me to thinking…and wanting to know more.

After all, I had sung Irish songs on St. Patty’s day for far too many years, watching everyone cry at “Danny Boy” and never understanding why.

I almost didn’t want to sing it, because it would depress everyone in the room.

And then of course they want to hear again.

So, tomorrow, Part II, in which this nobody will tell you what SHE actually found out about the Irish, and of course put in some other “opinions” of my own.

I didn’t want to spoil this very “educated” rant (some of which I left out) I also wanted to find out if anyone on the site can guess who sent this to me. Go ahead, take a guess.

In the meantime, I’m going to eat some more green popcorn and get warmed up for tomorrow. Have a “Top of the morning!”

Nobody’s Perfect: I would like to thank the “author” for this piece, (whom I shall reveal tomorrow) because I really didn’t want to write about George Bush firing eight attorney generals.

No President should be able to fire all 93 federal judges (As Clinton did) let alone eight. What were the writers of the Constitution THINKING! If one man can hire and fire the highest judges in the land, then that makes him pretty much a King.

No one is talking about THIS absurdity. So therefore, I was glad to get on to Ireland.

Nobody Knows: Okay…here’s the second verse to Danny Boy.

But when ye come and all the flowers are dying
If I am dead, and dead I well may be
Ye’ll come and find the place where I’ll be laying
And kneel and say an ave there for me

And I shall heeeeeear the softly tread of autumn
And all my grave will warm and sweeter be
For you will beeeeeeeend (remember, that’s the high note) and tell me that you love me
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me

(Repeat first verse, and then cry, and if you don’t know it, you don’t know much)

Nobody Cares; I’m crying just typing it. Please, don’t sing this on more than three glasses of beer, or the person next to you will think you’re a wimp.

It’s enough to make you want to burn your copy of “Angela’s Ashes.”

Joints, Booze, and Pimples

Nobody’s Opinion: Some days, like today, the news is just so repetitious it reminded me of that old saying that my brother used to say: “Don’t pick it, let it heal!”

Trouble is, unlike my brother, who was a picture of perfection from birth, things never seemed to heal on me, so why not pick it?

Whenever he said this onstage, (He was a trumpet player.) it always got a laugh. He would pretend he was going to pop some huge pus-filled carbuncle on his face, and the front row (usually filled with girls because my brother looked like Elvis) would scream.

My brother never had a pimple in his life, as for me…I was covered with them.

That’s why I learned the “art” of makeup.

Everyone knows, a pimple when you’re a teenager is like having leprosy and you think everyone is looking at it on your face when in actuality, most likely--- they are.

Why talk about pimples? There’s a point here somewhere…no two people are alike.

And no two people react the same why to certain drugs, for obvious reasons.

You’ve also heard that other expression: “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.”

I was thinking this exact thought after reading all the comments on Denise Noe’s report on the Supreme Court taking away the right for that poor woman to get stoned out of her mind while she was in tremendous pain, and before I start, I agree with Denise. If someone who is really that sick can only get relief from smoking grass, then there should be exceptions for these poor souls.

Having said that, I was surprised by some of them (the commentators) even with medical backgrounds, swearing about the harmlessness of smoking grass.

Because in my lifetime, being in the entertainment business where drugs of every kind were taken continuously, and then watching night after night the drunks in the crowd, I feel, even though I have no medical background at all…being probably the only straight person in any room at any moment in time, I can tell you real scary stories from the laboratory of experience.

And if I had to pick the lesser of the two evils….alcohol would be my poison.

Sure, alcohol can devastate your life…take your liver, your kidney, your wife, your kids, your job…but there is always a chance that you can save yourself.

Just ask Glenn Beck.

But I’ve seen what daily smoking can do to a mind. I’ve seen some really fine minds become, basically, oatmeal.

You can’t save mush.

There were a few exceptions of course, but I can only think of ONE. Just one.

Some people can handle it, some people go completely stupid. The trouble is, the people that are going completely dumb and dumber, smoking grass, don’t know it. People that get stoned think they are actually thinking great thoughts of the universe.

Unlike alcohol abuse, which many a literary intellectual genius has known, I have personally witness in my lifetime that with SOME people… smoking grass every day will lower your ability to complete whole sentences, and lower your IQ to the point of no return, the damage is done.

I’ll give two examples.

When I was sixteen, I was engaged to a fine young man named Mike. It was Mike who really got me into reading; he started me out on “Lord of the Rings.” Every time we got together it was to discuss some novel he has just read. Mike, like me, was from the working class, but even though he was from the public educational system, he had a sharp mind, and a great love of knowledge.

Then, he joined the army, and went to Vietnam.

After a year, when he came back, he was such a basket case from smoking grass every day, he was totally brain damaged. I was totally NOT prepared for what I saw. I actually cried when I saw him, and it was not from joy.

It would have been better if he had lost a leg, instead of his ability to think.

Just speaking was hard for him. REALLY hard.

To be fair, I’m sure that he was doing other drugs too; a lot of the boys were doing drugs just to cope. But his speech was slowed down to almost warp speed, and I’m positive it was from smoking grass. He had trouble even forming sentences. The whole day was devoting to getting stoned and lying around.

Needless to say, we broke up. Mike’s mind was gone.

Then I became a drummer, and musicians back in the seventies were known for getting stoned. I hated to smoke anything, let alone grass. That’s just me. Good thing I was a girl, the guys usually did not make a big thing about me being straight.

But I did notice one strange phenomenon…the other musicians would get real high, and then play, and then they thought that they were better than Eric Clapton.

Boy, did I have some heated arguments with stoned musicians. Because, they would not only go off rhythm, speed up and slow down, they would get lost in their playing and the rest of the band would be going “What IS he doing?”

In their minds they were playing the greatest guitars solo’s since Eddie Van Halen, but in my mind, they were out of key, not making coherent notes, completely lost in some kind of stoned parallel star-trip. Basically they were lost---but boy, don’t tell them that.

I’ve also had the misfortune to be with people high on grass, and in a car.

One time, I remember this guy driving me home one night, and he stopped about fifteen cars back from a stop light.
“What are you doing? The lights WAY up there?”

“Oh…I thought it was in front of me. Are you sure?”

“Okay, go up farther. No…a little more…keep going…go on…keep going…keep going…keep going…okay, stop.”

What’s the medical term for this misjudgment when a human brain slows down to the speed of a turtle on Quaaludes? A brain that doesn’t even KNOW it’s damaged in any way?

Retarded?

Flash forward to 2003. My neighbor’s son really likes to get stoned. In fact, the whole nationhood laughs at him, because the poor boys speech has gotten so bad, he can’t even say a simple sentence. His favorite band is “The Doors.’

It’s not funny, it’s sad. I have seen not only many minds from my generations of boomers be sent into the land of la-la…but the current generation who think grass is completely harmless, smoking daily and not even noticing that they are losing freedoms, because that’s what many of the experts say. Grass is less harmful than alcohol.

It’s like Global warming…disinformation nonsense spilled out to control the masses.

Drugs, and especially grass, has been the drug of choice to dumb down an entire nation, to make it easy for the liberal takeover, which is what happened. In China, the British used Opium, it’s been done before, this destroying of minds.

This is the reason why no politician will ever do a thing about it, or the drugs coming daily across our border. They just turn their heads.

Don’t worry; George Soros is fighting for its legalization, which if you are stoned will make you think…”See, there is nothing wrong with freedom to smoke such a harmless drug…it’s about time!”

But if you are not burnt out, and still have a mind, then you think, “Right, George Soros, the communist socialist, wants all you Americans to get even more stoned so that you will all follow the leaders like the stoned sheep you will always be.”

I realized that many of the readers reading this will think…well, grass never made a bit of difference to my thinking.

My advice is…ask someone you know and trust who doesn’t smoke what they think about how YOU think when stoned.

And if you love your kids, then stop, because a mind is a terrible thing to pick.

Let yours heal.

Nobody’s Perfect: Okay, I did smoke a joint once, in high school. I inhaled two times, and I started hallucinating. I looked in the mirror and saw Medusa; my hair was a web of snakes.

That was enough for me. All my other friends at the party thought I was nuts, and I was lying. Proving my point. They were on the ceiling, I was on the floor, freaking out.

They continued to smoke grass for years. As far as I know, they still do. One even works for the police department.

Nobody Knows: It has been said for years that the Vietnam War was all about the money that the CIA was making off of the drugs. Many books have been written on this subject.

“Air America” was for real. In fact…according to some, Bill Clinton got into the Arkansas drug Mafia and that was his start to fame. Cocaine was his game.

And his brother even told stories about the both of them doing drugs. It’s nice when your brother is President and can pardon your prison sentence (for drug dealing)

Nobody Wins; Despite the feelings I have about the drug, you should be able to do whatever you want in your own home. It should be your choice.

And yes we know that alcohol causes millions of deaths. We do not know how many deaths were caused by someone driving while stoned.

Having said that…I still wouldn’t want it legalized and be watching some guy smoking a joint, while talking on his cell phone, and not paying attention to the lights. We have enough trouble as it is.

Nobody Wonders: Oh, I still get pimples, but recently my brother started going a little bald. It was worth the wait.

Valentine Confessions

Nobody’s Opinion: Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, you couldn’t forget that fact if you tried. Whole industries are built on this one day of the year.

Young women, all over the planet are wondering, “What will he get me? Roses? Just a card? Candy? A friendship ring?

A diamond engagement ring?

Flowers of any kind are good. That usually means he likes the sex enough to at least honor you. A card means, he is not really sure if you will be more than just friends, so why waste the money?

Going out to dinner…means he expects most of the time to be paid in full.

What? Not everyone has this game of barter on their minds you say?

What planet are you living on?

But the biggest gift of all…is the diamond ring. For that, the man intends to get serious.

And I’m sorry---if cupid actually knew what I thought of his “diamonds” he would point his arrow and shoot out my eyes.

I’m probably one of the few women in the entire world that sees absolutely nothing special about a diamond.

Oh sure, put hundreds of them together and you have something, but only the very rich can afford that.

The only diamonds I’ve ever seen that I was impressed with was the Hope diamond.

There are so many stones much more beautiful than a diamond. Go into any store and you see blue, green, red, orange, stones of every color and hue…but a diamond…boring.

Well, Kings and Queens have killed for them. Not because they are beautiful in my opinion, but because the market says they are valuable, a good investment.

So, okay, buy the diamond and keep it in your safe.

The fake diamonds, in my opinion look MUCH better than the originals. I’ll take a Zirconium any day.

There is nothing that angers me more than when you see a diamond in a jewelry store and it shines brilliantly, and the minute you walk out into the sunlight, the sparkle is GONE.

I don’t care if you scrub it with tooth paste, dip it in twenty dollar jewelry cleaner... you would have to carry around in your pocket whatever special lights that they have shining on it in the store, and put the light on it every time you wanted to show it off.

Am I the only one who notices this? I always feel ripped off.

Having confessed this abnormality, I can only surmise that fortunately, God has not felt that I should be tempted to disappoint some poor man by not being able to hide my disappointment with his gift of a diamond ring.

The only diamond ring I have ever received was a gift from my parents. It sits in my safe, and I look at it once in awhile, in remembrance of how hard they worked to buy it for me.

No, I told my husband that the only thing that would convince me that a man loved me, (we were dating at the time) the only thing I ever wanted was for a man to carve our names in a tree, inside a heart.

If a man would take the time to do that, then, things looked promising.

So, he did. He went to his local park, and he said people were staring at him while he was using a huge mallet and chisel to write the names Bruce and JOY, and he picked the biggest tree in the park. It was so huge; you could see it from the other side of the lake.

He said the effort took five hours. Every year we go see our “tree.”

The tree has grown over the fourteen years. You can hardly see the letters anymore. But, it doesn’t matter.

So, maybe what I’m trying to say is, guys, if you can’t afford a diamond, or even roses, get a chisel, and a hammer, and go carve.

You might find a diamond yourself, one that really sparkles.

And save yourself a lot of money.

Nobody’s Perfect: Actually, the day is very lopsided. The girls really make out on this day. There should be a day for the ladies to treat the men. A day, where they had to do everything the man wanted, just for that ONE day of the year.

No money involved.

Nobody Knows; Being a woman, I’ve always wondered what men REALLY think of Valentines Day. Guys?

Nobody Cares; Wait, a man did give me an engagement diamond ring once. There was a big wedding planned, thousands of dollars already spent by my parents…invitations already sent out.

Then, one day, my fiancé just stopped talking to me. I went over to his parents’ house where he was living.

He ran into the bedroom.

I slipped his ring under the door.

Now, in my old age, looking back on my heartache, and not ever knowing why he changed his mind…since he was not honorable enough to even give me a reason for calling it off, I should have kept the ring, sold it, and paid my parents back for all they had spent out.

Ah HA! So that’s why you hate diamonds, Joyanna!

Nope---you’re wrong. I thought the ring was ugly; I didn’t miss it at all.

Like I said, what’s the fuse about, I just don’t see it.