The Long Cold Ugly 80's

So as the 70's came to a sad, whimpering end the world around us was changing drastically. Jimmy Carter admitted to having "sinned in his heart" in a Playboy Interview and was still elected President. That's how strongly the Nation had turned against the Republican Party. The mere idea of a Presidential Candidate giving an interview to Playboy magazine was fairly risky in a political sense but then to admit to "being a sinner" (even if only in his heart) should have been a death blow to his candidacy. But it wasn't. And for the record let me say I liked Carter and still do to this day. He was a good man who had the great misfortune to become President at a very bad moment in history. The Iran Hostage Crisis changed everything. Had President Carter's rescue mission been successful he would have been hailed as a hero and won re-election by a landslide and in all likelihood this country would be on a drastically different path than it is today. Unfortunately the rescue plan was doomed and so too was President Carter's chances at re-election as well as this country's hopes of becoming a shining beacon of democracy and freedom. The 80's were ushered in with the election of an aged ex-actor (and a bad one at that) Republican with strong ties to the Right Wing Conservative factions that would take control of Amerika's (no longer to be spelled with a C anymore) foreign and domestic policy the second Reagan took the Oath of Office.

Anyway... by the time the 80's had rolled around my father and brother were gone, leaving me and my mother alone. Dad would bring money by once a week for bills and groceries and such but otherwise was out of the picture despite the fact that he and my mother never legally separated. Mom had been in and out of the hospital but had more or less stabilized and had quit smoking for good. For a few years we had a relatively normal life. I graduated from high school in 1982 and since college wasn't really an option (both for financial reasons and the responsibility I had to take care of my mother) I began working. At the same time I had come out of the closet... well not exactly. You see, I had been in what I thought was a pretty discrete relationship with a boy I had met a year earlier. After about a year together he dumped me for my best friend - a girl I worked with. I was broken hearted having lost both my lover and best friend in one blow and fell into a deep depression. My mother called me into her room one day and flat out told me that she knew about me and my friend's relationship and wanted to know what happened. After telling her the whole story she had me call a friend from high school who was very obviously gay and asked him to show me where the gay bars were and get me laid. I kid you not. My mom was very very cool. Unfortunately, within 2 years her health declined to the point where she was hospitalized and put on a ventilator to help her breathe. She was in the hospital for several months and almost died a couple of times as we tried unsuccessfully to ween her from the ventilator. Her lungs were too far gone though and she spent the remainder of her life hooked to that machine. At that time it was unheard of for a patient on a ventilator to be taken care of at home due to the amount of attention and care vent patients required. I was told she would have to be placed in a nursing home and the only nursing home even remotely nearby was on the Eastern Shore of Maryland - a good 2 - 3 hours away. My mother and I both refused and gave the hospital folks two options - teach me how to care for her and arrange for supportive visiting nurses and let me take her home to live OR disconnect the ventilator and let me take her home to die. I spent the next couple of months learning how to suction the fluids from her lungs through the tracheotomy, monitor the machine settings and "bag" her with a hand held air pump in case the machine were to fail. Heavy stuff to be sure but I didn't even think about it that way really. I just wanted my mom home. My mom was one tough cookie. She survived until 1995 with the beeps and wooshing sounds of that machine her constant companion.

It was somewhere around this same time that I tested positive for HIV. By this time HIV was known about but still somewhat of an enigma - no one knew how it was transmitted and for the most part it was a death sentence. When I tested positive I was told my immune system was in pretty bad shape and the doctor's believed that I had contracted it several years prior to testing positive. I wasn't really all that surprised. I had been sexually active since my early teens and had done a little bit of stripping and hustling so the chances were pretty good the test was going to come back positive.

Well... I continued on this posting here and wrote a very long concise timetable of the events of the 80's but guess what?

I hit publish post and my post disappeared entirely. No auto save, no backup, no nothing. Again I say Blogger sucks ass sometimes. Too bad - I had some good quotes and original phrases in there that there is no way I will ever remember now.

Thanks Blogger you are a real pal.

Anyone know of a more reliable blog site that won't censor the fuck out of me?