Pocono Vagabond

04/20/2024

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04/02/2024

HATE... (m h o rel)
“ The conscience of man lives in many dark places.”
A number of different definitions and perspectives on hatred have been put forth. Philosophers have been concerned with understanding the essence and nature of hatred, while some religions view it positively and encourage hatred toward certain groups...

Such is the small definition of hate.. it has many others..Today ? This world and indeed this country is consumed with hate. Trump. uses it to stir up his “MAGA “ group .A simple mechanism that has been used for centuries,by other would be dictators. The well of seeds that foster and make it grow is religion..the vehicle used since time began.
Sadly there is no cure for hate. Today we as a nation are at the crossroads of destruction, anarchy, fueled by hate..many will just shrug their collective shoulders. pray to their god to come and remedy the ills of the world,and stand mute. Fearful of what their own family or friends will say or think of them. Better to stay silent is their blanket to shield them.
I cannot in my lifetime ever felt this feeling of. hate..Dislike ? For sure ,but that is a mild feeling .something to just roll with till it dissolves by itself. Or becomes watered down. There is no reasoning with these type of people they are consumed by their hate no matter what it may be.
One of the most unnerving events I have been in, was staring into the eyes of an armed fellow. Pure pools of dark hate. A knife in his hand. I could literally feel it . I should have shot him .But I did not.. I disarmed him in the process he sliced my left arm ,the scar is still there. BUT ! I never forgot his eyes, it was like staring at the devil himself.
I have seen much in this world sometimes to much. I have seen how hate destroys .like a virus..it spreads like a never ending flood,watering the brains of humans. Today our nation is in the hands of hateful people, something we never experienced since the civil war era. Only this time a thousand times worse because of the communication technology. The instant source of spreading the venom.
Today it is Trump ..tomorrow it can be someone else. Trump has succeeded in breaking up families with his lies and his actions. Weak minded ,hate filled people , follow him like lemmings. The pied piper of greed and power using the fuel of hatred. He is not the first to do this nor will he be the last.
Our history is filled with such people some became hero's some revered some their likeness on our paper money. BUT! Never one that wants to be a dictator. The nation needs to come together and reject this person. OR ! It will be the end of this nation .As we once knew it. My generation the “Silent One” NOW needs to speak up as we were once told to be “Seen and not heard”.
We will not be here to see the crumbling of this nation from with in ..as was predicted so long ago. BUT ! our children and grandchildren will. Is this what we want to give to these kids.? Make no mistake this is no thoughts from my head..this is real as the signs and the rhetoric is real .The religious zealots care not what Trumps morals are ,they care only what he can do to appease them. I have seen this personally from my 90 plus year old aunt that is a super religious Catholic .her house is like a roman cathedral .she prays all day and does her “Beads”.She argued with me about this insane fellow Trump,she adores him even when I brought up his moral fiber and the churches, She said she did not care about his morals only that he eliminated “Roe vs Wade’”. I pulled no punches when I called her a pure hypocrite. When she told me I was not a Catholic , I was a heathen.
She, made the wrong move by telling what I was ..and labeled me ... that I do not tolerate from anyone. Anyone can criticize my beliefs! Just don’t put a label on them. If we have a difference then as sensible intelligent humans we can meet in the middle somewhere . I Listen to both sides of every argument, filled with real facts not made up thoughts. I have had my hands into to much real life, to be lead down a fake path.
Religion ,abortion, politics, sexual identity or sexual ways are NOT ! my business. Nor do I care. We all ...as I have said many times walk our own path. And answer to our own god/ NOT some elected politician or some fellow with some religious garments standing at a pulpit reading from a book of fables written by long ago dead humans. I have said many times and I believe it as it was my guide all through my life the woods the home of creatures and the realm of nature,that is my church.
I have said many times and I believe it as it was my guide all through my life the woods the home of creatures and the realm of nature,that is my church .written by long ago dead humans. I have said many times and I believe it as it was my guide all through my life the woods the home of creatures and the realm of nature,that is my church.

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03/31/2024

Baltimore Bridge disaster ..

This could have been avoided and should have been. No question in my mind..My experience and schooling and being involved leads me to my assumptions. Cost ? Perhaps. Negligence probably more than likely. Politics maybe. BUT “conspiracy? Last on the list but still in the mix..If the event was not so tragic it would laughable .
Every boat coxswain is taught the rules of the sea and the harbors. We go through a rigorous event of reading the channel buoy's and markers inward bound and outward .Buoys are marked red and green port and starboard they also are equipped with bells for fog conditions. There are also buoy’s to mark the bed locations of the harbor that may have sand bars.
I have related the experience I had with such a location and we were damn lucky we could have been killed. It related to that picture of the boat I was operating when the steering cable broke and I had no rudder control I had nothing and the sand bar was on my port side (left) it was gray day rain and wind I was on my way back from Quonset Point to the Newport moorings the trip was a 30 mile event or so ..the weather was a storm squall the bay had white caps on it as the wind was gathering speed. This boat is a flat bottom one.. and when it rose in the waves... when it came back down it slapped the water and made you come off your feet. Now I had no rudder no control not unlike this bridge event only a larger scale. I look back and wonder just how my mind reacted. My one crew member was scared as he stood outside the “Doggy house” where I had control. Lucky for us the boat is equipped with a pair of gray marine diesel engines. Using the throttles I was able to “ steer” the boat back to safe harbor. A bit hairy but doable.
BUT !that was a small boat compared to this large ship. On any water with any type of vessel ..be it a row boat or a canoe you are at the mercy of the water. The bigger the vessel the harder to operate . My ship was over 500 feet long and the harbors we always went into.. we had tugs and a port pilot aboard. to take us into the mooring spot.
Today ? the ignorant conspiracy theorist are having a field day. One such fellow points to fire and explosions farther down the bridge away from the collision. He calls them planted explosives.. when in fact they are severed hi -tension electrical cables torn apart by the event ..they explode and catch on fire. I have seen that happen up close.
For me ? And who the hell am I ? I would have the port pilots and the harbor master grilled and hold their feet to the fire it was their responsibility to have that ship exit the harbor safely. She should have had two tugs one on each side to exit the harbor till it was out in open water. That is where the harbor pilots disembark onto a tug or even a harbor patrol boat and go back. Like I said my ship was in a lot of harbors and always had that procedure Amsterdam was as tight a harbor we ever went into. it was not large enough for my ship our stern was still in the harbor as the bow was tied up to the dock. we never could have done that without tugs.
Questions need to be answered why their were no tugs tied to that ship. How or why it lost power ? makes no difference to the results. Why it was bare of outside control, that is the real question. I understand it had two port pilots aboard. It never should have been that close to the bridge abutments. Handling any boat is a challenge you are at the mercy of the currents and the winds and the intricacies of the waves. And Those two pilots and that harbor master has to come up with some damn good answers. One thing more these so called experts complain that Biden wants to fund the rebuilding he bitch about using there taxes ,,Yeah right were where they when Trump spent billions for a half built useless wall and said Mexico was paying when we are. This country is in bad shape today the lunatics are running it. Jmho..rel

03/31/2024

Three Mile Island..


45 years ago many of my friends and fellow workers mostly lineman from Met-Ed.. men from every district in the company .came to the island to begin to enter the unit two melt down to stabilize it and begin to DE-Con the unit. We were trained and was assisted by what was called in the industry “Generator Jumpers’” These were most fellows from the deep south. They would get their “Allotted dose” of radiation then move on. They were a “Motley” crew to say the least. From the deep south of Alabama and Georgia they had several K*K fellows with them. I can relate some wild events with them “Off” the island. I was in one of the rented trailers with one fellow who was the exalted leader of the K*K. It was lined with confederate materials. Seems , I was privileged and a respected fellow to be in their presence. I have no idea why. Except I was always invited to there wild parties of old fashioned country hoe downs. I sang.. played guitar /harmonica and sipped that damn 90 proof “white lightning” sipped mind you as I was not a drinker. Not much of a party goer either. BUT the island work and the danger. the parties were a release of tensions.
It has been 45 years since I was on the first “DE -C ON “ team to enter that reactor room. Three of us used as “Guinea “ Pigs so to speak ,just to see if humans could work in those conditions. It was radiology ‘HOT” and the ambient temp was extreme. Dressed out in canvass, rubber, and plastic ,every pore in your body filled your suit like you were in a pool of water. The carbon filter you were breathing air in was the size of a pack of ci******es perhaps slightly bigger. 60 to perhaps 70 percent oxygen was all you could get in your lungs. The airlock was sealed after we entered. Close circuit cameras and radio commutations with the control room was all we had. I looked at some of the material like the melted red phone on the wall that had been on the news. We were not the first in ..some techs were in to send a camera down into the melted core BUT! We were the first to exercise human strength to see if it was possible and what was needed to perform the work. I vividly recall today having my hand on this huge dome shaped ,reactor vessel, and thinking. “Big guy you sent thousands of people fleeing now here I stand with my hand on you “.
I never thought it would history. Today.. many of my fellow workers , some very close friends , some I made many more entries into this maze of contamination are gone . Since that day I’m sure others have their own stories to tell as the progress of dismantling went forward. BUT I’am proud of our team and that first entry we made into the mouth of the devil.
Funny... this was how they did it after we went in . they used a “robot dog” called Spot to collect information inside the reactor building to guide future cleanup.
“We’ll use other remotely-operated equipment to do a lot of the decommissioning activities because the radiological rates are so high within the building, ” That is what they say today. Where was this “Dog” in my day.? And the rates were even higher back then.
I had “Dosimeters”.taped to my wrists ,elbow, and waist. I checked each one the needle was like a second hand on a clock as each one “Pegged’. Not many of us left today. The “lineman” of the company were already well trained to do this work as we were extremely trained in safety procedures you need that to do the high tension power line work. But we were not in rubber suits.
Today ? Three Mile Island Unit-1 was shut down on September 20, 2019,
The plant’s owners placed Unit-1 n SAFSTOR. “Three Mile Island Unit-1 is not expected to be decommissioned until 2079 – exactly one hundred years after the TMI-2 meltdown.”
One hundred years. 45 gone..oddly enough not one time did the company or any agency follow up on the health of my fellow workers. Most I know or went into the “hot spots “ with me have died from cancer. The man above must have had his hand on me again. Like he has all my life. And that too is funny because I never prayed to him just went with the flow of events he put in front of me.
I would just sit in the woods when I had a decision to be made and talked to the creatures they must have relayed my thoughts to him. I do know I’am a very strange fellow I never walked the society path always made my own way. I have had some East Stroudsburg people ask me why I do no have a “Home Town Banner” posted in the “Burg” as I lived the town worked it as an officer and so on... I tell them simple.. . I’m no hero. Just a fellow walking a path in life.
BUT! It amazes me how so much history I have touched or been in. A fairy tale written in Hollywood. I suppose. My “legacy” to my lady... to my kids ..I already wrote the book for them. Been one hell of a ride..