Wednesday and Two Tours in Vietnam!

Good Wednesday to you all! For me it started with being startled out of my sleep. That was because I had a rough night and needed more sleep and my wife had to wake me because I had a breakfast meeting to go to. So, I changed the time and met a buddy about an hour later than normal. He is a former Army Medic that did two tours in Vietnam.

He had wanted to be a doctor. He joined the Army and requested training in field medical. He then did two tours as an airborne medic. He saw enough blood and gore to end his desire for being a medical doctor. He is loaded with PTSD. Sad, really, I think he would have been a good physician.

Jan and I are both tired from driving to and from Georgia. Just a long trip surrounded by idiots either driving too fast or too slow.

One thing I will never understand is that near the Florida/Georgia border their is activity by both the Florida Highway Patrol but on the Georgia side they are like a bee hive that has been whacked with a stick and the idiots on the highway just go flying along. Between the border and Tifton it is a good chance to see (on both sides N and S) five to six cars pulled over. One would think that would slow things down. The answer is NO they just go flying along oblivious to the stops.

We have a radar detector but always drive within the speed limit. I just don’t understand these other people. And then, you will occasionally see not just one cop car with a stop but two and three on one car. Now why would someone want to bring dope into either state. Stupid. They are waiting for you.

Anyway, that’s it for today. Tired. Already irritated a nephew who is anti-gun, anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, and anti-Jewish. So I shall retire into the sunshine. Until tomorrow.


Hey There Mr. Scarecrow.

Hey there Mr. Scarecrow
Standing out behind the barn
Just you and that old grey mouse that lives in your hay
Thanks for listening to me the other day
As I sat and let my own rain drop from my eyes to the ground
Hey there Mr. Scarecrow
You are so brave standing in the wind and rain,
Lonely there in the snow and heat from the sun
I saw you every morning and just before I turned out the light at night
Thanks for listening to me the other day, everyday
But yesterday I came to tell you of my love for you and found you gone
You had listened to me cry so many times in the day and night
You had heard how much I want to die
I came once with a knife
And told you I didn’t think it would hurt
Just a quick cut to end my life
Hey there Mr. Scarecrow you were there in silence
As we stood in the day or night and talked
Or when I sat next to you in the snow and the rain
With the knife tucked in your pant’s pocket out of sight
It seems just yesterday that you were there,
Waiting patiently in the sun and in the dark
You and that old grey mouse living in your shirt pocket
But that was before they came when I wasn’t there
And with a match and can of gasoline they burned you down
Oh Mr. Scarecrow, you were my very best friend
I told you of the beating of my mother that I saw
I told you of how my father had in anger walked out
And that he had come back, and my parents sat and cried
But something inside of me had died when I saw the blood
I told you of the pain that will not go away
I told you of the times I wanted to die as we sat alone in the dark
When I showed you the knife and tucked it in your pant’s pocket
But I wasn’t there the day they brought gasoline and matches
And not caring of you or me they burned you to the ground
My best friend, my very best friend, and the house for an old grey mouse
They burned you to the ground
To the ground, to the ground
Where I found the knife I had hidden in your pant’s pocket
So very long ago.
But I never found our friend
The old grey mouse.

Copyright 2019 Gordon Kuhn


I will never forget the day that Hemingway died

Nor of how he died on ‘61’s second day of July

I was sixteen years old way back then

And far too much to the universe tuned in

I will never forget the shock that filled me as I cried

Deep inside a wounded creature not knowing why

Not even knowing much about the man I stood

Alone in silence surrounded by living woods

That were more than silent that day he died

To me they were, to me they were and yet

The world still moved and went its passing way

But in my heart, I knew something broke that day

Something strange that day had come and gone its way

The day that Papa died, yes that day on ‘61s second day of July       1/14/17