Grumbling

Here I am staring at the blank page again. I wonder what will come out of my need to communicate with the outside world today?

I don’t get out much these days. This is partly because I’m dealing with a couple of debilitating diseases and partly because I am living on very little money. Actually there’s a third element that kind of puts the last nail in the coffin. Gas is almost three dollars a gallon. So even though it is true that there is always stuff I can do that costs nothing, none of these things are close enough to get to on foot. These circumstances produce a very effective combination that precludes my going out and doing stuff. This month is also tighter than normal because I am paying off a trip I took to California in February and the fact that I bailed out my younger brother from one of his little scrapes with the law. A truly thankless job in all respects, but he is family.

I have an important project to complete/or at least keep going in the month of May. I have tried to get my disability declared service connected by the VA such that I can keep getting my medical problems treated by them. They turned me down about a year ago and I have about a month left to dispute their findings. So far my detective work has been pretty much fruitless in that I haven’t been able to find official records that show I was ever in Viet Nam. I do have a couple of people who were there with me who can state that we were there but the official record says otherwise and there are people pretty high up in the military who don’t want this boat rocked. This sounds a lot more cloak-and-dagger than it really is, but as mundane as the reasons are, the effect is the same… I’m screwed. I am told by people who should know that what I need here is tenacity. If I stick to it and keep on trying I will eventually win. It doesn’t feel like it to me, but I’ve been wrong before and it’s not like I have a lot of choices, this is literally Do-or-Die.

Oh well, I’ll let you know how it is going,

Uncle Dave