Guam in the Distance…

I was just reading some tabloid trash kind of page linked off of msn.com about Maria Shriver possibly thinking twice about divorcing Arnold Swarzenegger (if you don’t know what their deal is, then you don’t need to read this because you’re not much for Hollywood tabloid stuff anyway). The article mentioned her Catholic upbringing and how the church frowns on divorce. The story then asked readers what they think (about Maria possibly forgiving Arnold).

Now, while I normally just passively read all this gossipy crap, I did give pause to that question. It brought back thoughts I had years ago about cheating wives (and/or husbands as the case may be) back in my military days and how fellow soldiers would say shit like “man if that was my wife I’d divorce the bitch”… you know how the guys would talk when one guy is going thru a crisis with his wife being unfaithful. Again, this is easily on the other foot so the circumstance I’m exampling is simply the scenario I had.

Anyway, so easy to say that when:

(1) you’re on the outside of the relationship looking in merely as an unaffected observer.

(2) you don’t have a strong, meaningful, longtime nurtured marriage or relationship on which to draw upon to make such critical decisions.

(3) you live based on guidance from ego as the predominant “face” of your life

In the final analysis, who cares what the reader thinks (referring back to that story I was reading)? The only two people whose opinion counts is Maria’s and Arnold’s. The only two people who have to live with a decision to split or stay together are the two people involved. and the only people “wrong” in whatever decision is made are the outside observers who think they know what’s best for others when it comes to terms of endearment.

I try to keep tabs on this murder because of its horrific circumstances and the close tie to home, a situation I still cannot fathom.

What is that old slogan? home is where your heart is? Home is where you hang your hat? These past few weeks I’ve really been deeply pondering the true meaning of that. Mom intends to sell the house on Guam in the next year. In fact I’m supposed to be the one to go back and sort out all the stuff we want to keep and ship it back, and then hire a crew to clean out/empty out the rest of the stuff left so we can move to have the house sold.

This is the house in Toto that I grew up in. This is the house to which all my childhood and teenage memories are tied. When I moved home in 1998 after retiring from the Army, after being gone for 20 years, I used to sit on the front steps at night and let all my recollections of just about every aspect of my pre-adult life come flooding back. Now that Mom has moved to be next to us here in  Hawaii and Noel now also lives here, the house on Guam is unmanageable, and anybody who has tried being an absent landlord renting out a place on Guam knows that is nothing but a losing proposition money pit. For the last 9 years I’ve been casually suggesting to Mom to just sell the Guam property and be done with it because it’s just a headache to try to maintain from afar. Yep, words are cheap.

Now that the reality of selling is around the corner, I feel as if the only anchor my heart has to Guam is pulling up and soon Guam will no longer be “home” as I know it. It will never again be home, because once our family property is no longer ours, there will be no place to go to should I fly to Guam. There will be no place that I can call mine, I will have forfeited my piece of the island.

I guess time will help this feeling of becoming adrift about this. Even with that I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not to “get over it”.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Up until two months ago I never really made much note of the co-founder of Apple. I chocked him up in my mental reference library as someone like Steve Case, Bill Gates, etc.. I did pay attention when he announced in august that he was stepping down as Apple’s CEO. However, it wasn’t until today’s breaking news headline that he passed away and the subsequent continuous coverage of his death, the compilations of his life’s accomplishments, the tributes on every news channel, that I actually took stock in his impact in our lives.

Now, I immediately made some comparisons in the coverage of his passing with others, and particularly why paying tribute to him is or should be more noted by everyday people than others. It’s because his contributions to the world touch our everyday lives… he wasn’t some politician or celebrity whose dent in life was some far away intangible accomplishment.  Who in this day and age does not know what an iPod, iPhone, or iPad is, and doesn’t own at least one of them? I mean, if you own any portable mp3 player, it is because of the iPod and Steve Jobs because the iPod created the market for them! I’m still promising myself that I’ll pick up an iPhone so I don’t have first-hand knowledge of its wonders, but the kids all swear by it. But we all know it’s got the lion’s share of the market for good reason. I hope that, with Mr.Jobs gone, is that Apple, and we as a technologically dependent society, don’t fall off that push into the edge of the envelope for the latest and greatest because the genius is gone.

Rest in peace Steve Jobs. Thanks for your brilliance.

PDN puts out these police cold case articles every so often, which I usually casually peruse as a matter of looking back to whether I was still on Guam as a teen or younger, or where I was when these things happened. Usually, the unsolved crime featured is something I read about from an unconnected bystander perspective if you will.

This article was on guampdn.com yesterday. It did not strike me from a bystander perspective. I remember Larry Flores. I remember running with him and others in my juvenile years. And I remember when I heard the news covered by this article when it happened. It brings me back to reminiscing of the lost, misguided, and dangerous youthful days of my teenage life at around the high school age… after I got tired of being a straight A bookworm and decided to “live my life on my terms” as if I knew everything. Luckily for me, and with much, much thanks to Lou, I smartened up upon turning 18 and left the island to recover my future. My future, which at that time had all but slipped away.

Reading the article and the suspicions by GPD (DPS back then) as to why Larry was killed by “unknown persons”, I think I could have possibly been in that same boat had I not left and had I not changed my ways. How many other of my “associates” back in those days met similar fates back in the late 70′s/early 80′s? How many others ended up doing time, hard time, because they could not shake the evil after-effects of the smack trail that ran from the fields of Vietnam thru Guam and Hawaii back to mainland USA? Granted there are a few of us who made fateful decisions to change, to get away for awhile via Uncle Sam’s employ. Yes, a few. Not that many. And when those few of us run into each other these days, in the haze of about a case of beer and talking story about “the old days”, we do take stock in our accomplishments and congratulate each other with “Hey chelu, lanya dude, we made it.” A few of us, when we do get chances to go home on vacation or whatever, and happen to visit Guam Memorial Park, or Pigo, or Togcha, or the other cemeteries, we take a few minutes to walk around and browse the headstones. Invariably, we come across at least one headstone that we find a need to address in prayer or silent “Hafa bro, so here you are.” Sad. But so is life.