514

May 14 is Russell's "39th" birthday--so let's think of IYN-related ways to celebrate.

I'm going to give you several ideas using the number "514" as the theme.

If you have some kind of entertainment place such as a movie theater, night club, concert hall, etc. you could charge $5.14 admission on May 14 and donate it to IYN.

If you have a pizza place, you could have a "Buy a large pizza for regular price, and get a second one for $5.14!" offer on that day.  Of course, the $5.14 from each special offer would be donated to IYN.

If you do runs and/or other forms of thons (e.g. walk-a-thon, rock-a-thon, dance-a-thon), you could have several people pledge $5.14 to be collected by you if you finish your goal.

How fast might you get various business in your community to donate gift certificates to their businesses?  These would go into grab bags which could be bought by people for $5.14

This handful of ideas can be adjusted to go in various other directions.  Whatever you do, let's do something creative on Friday, May 14, 2010 that has a 514 theme to it and will raise funds for IYN.  If you just so happen to have an address that has 514 in it, you might even consider having a get-together to do something such as knit caps for street youth to wear.

Please share this information with others. . .

An added challenge:

If you're reading this, please do what you can to try to get at least 514 more signatures on each of these petitions by or before May 14, 2010.  The number to the right of each link shows the number of signatures at the time that I first issued this challenge:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/enact-youth-outreach-day    (160)

http://homelessness.change.org/actions/view/enact_youth_outreach_day     (91)

http://petitions.tigweb.org/enactyouthoutreachday     (14)

This Is NOT The Time For Procrastination!!!

Sometimes, I think that the word, procrastination, was coined with me in mind.

However, I DO have an excuse for procrastinating:  I have so many things going on that they all have to take a number and wait.  This means that some things get done promptly, while other things get done not quite so promptly--or not promptly at all.  When certain things get done later than sooner, I'm seen by others (and even myself) as procrastinating.


What I'm talking about in this blog-entry is one of those things where there should be no procrastination if at all possible and, if not, as little as possible.


I want to tell you about what it's like living in my skin at this particular moment.  It's the skin of a person living with lymphedema--and during one of those not-so-good times that I'm dealing with surface wounds from blistering.  In order for these wounds to close before they become deep and infected, I'm having to spend more time in bed than on the computer at this time.


However, I believe that this is something that must be shared here before I can even think of getting back into bed.

In other words I mustn't procrastinate when it comes to sharing this very important message!!!


As I've just said, I know what it's like to live in the skin of somebody who deals with that chronic condition known as lymphedema--or, at least, I know what it's like for me.  However, I don't know what it's like to live in the skin of a child-abuser.  However, there seems to be plenty of people who have or do live in these skins.  I'm also blessed to have never lived within the skin of an abused child--except for on three occasions that I can think of, and none of the abuse came from family members.


Here are those three times:


(1) Hit hard on the top of the head by one teacher when I was four years old.
(2) Hit hard on the top of the head by another teacher when I was nine or ten years old.
(3) Forced (by two teachers) to participate in that dreadful game known as Red Rover.


A little later down the page, I'm going to share a video--and let me warn you that most of the pictures are pretty graphic.  They would make my three personal cases of child-abuse look pretty petty in comparison.


However, let me state here that my three cases of child-abuse were neither petty nor trivial.


No child should think "I was only tasered by a cop when I was throwing a tantrum, but it could have been worse, so I have no right to complain."


No child-abuse should be trivialized.  No child should be told to suck it up.


Some people think that the solution to stop child-abuse is stiffer prison sentences.  There are even some of the "some people" who would like to see the death penalty (which I personally oppose 100% of the time) be a possibility.


While I think that there are people who have gone so far downhill that they need to be restrained in order to keep the rest of society safe, I don't really think in terms of punishment for the sake of punishment--that is, to separate the "good" people from the "bad" people.  I'm more interested in making bad behavior stop than I am in the punishment mindset.


Although there will, likely, always be a need to keep some people separated from mainstream society, I think our prisons are far too full of people who have been sent there when problems would have better been solved by resources that didn't involve incarceration.


First, however, we have got to encourage people to take advantage of those resources when they need to.


Here is a favorite resource of mine:  Parents Anonymous


Parents who join a local group of this organization get the kind of help they need when it comes to coping with parenthood.

Sounds like a great deal--so, why aren't more child-abusers showing up to take advantage of this?

Simple!

They aren't ready to see themselves as failures when it comes to parenting--and they shouldn't have to!

If they were to go to Parents Anonymous meetings, they wouldn't find a bunch of failures there.  Nobody in that organization is interested in finger-pointing, and they don't see these parents as failures or "bad" people.

Most parents don't want to be "bad" people or failures.  None of us (parents or not) want to be bad people or failures.

The parents who don't take advantage of organizations like Parents Anonymous when they either feel as if they're about to lose it or else already have are the ones who don't want to have to face the facts that they are bad and/or failures (their own perception of themselves helped along by our judgmental society), so they think, I'll do better next time.  However, they end up doing worse, and, now, they're really ashamed.

Instead, they need to think:  I'm having these feelings, but that doesn't make me a bad person or a failure.  However, I need to get help in coping before I do something to my kids that I'll really be sorry for.

If people would just understand that good people can do bad things, if they don't have the resources to help them through bad patches, they would be more willing to get professional help, and everybody would end up better for it.

April is Child-Abuse Awareness Month.  However, we should be aware of this issue and doing what we can to make it stop 24/7 and 365.

If you're having trouble coping, please don't be hesitant to get help.

If you notice that a friend or family member is having trouble coping, do what you can to lighten their load, and show them this page.


When encouraging another person to seek help, talk to them as an equal instead of placing yourself high above them and looking down on them.


You might not have "been there" yourself, but imagine what it would be like to be so overwhelmed that you're ready to take it out on anything that's handy from the cat to the crying baby.  If you were to find yourself feeling that way, how would you feel?  Likely, that's how the person who's actually feeling that way is feeling.


If we were quicker to extend hands than to point fingers, I believe a lot of child-abuse would never ever get around to happening--and, when it comes to child-abuse, that's an act we should procrastinate on indefinitely!

B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. . . These Are NOT Easy Times!

My mom and I are, currently, experiencing a minor inconvenience at this time.

For quite some time now, we've had quite a struggle at making ends meet.  I've just gotten off the phone from paying a bill to reconnect my gas (heat & hot water).  Had I been able to afford to do it last week, this could have been done for a fraction of the cost (paying on utility in a gradual way instead of a chunk all-at-once and experiencing no disconnect).  However, one week has made a major difference of several hundred dollars.  It will be re-connected sometime on Monday.  I would have chosen to pay off my mom's first, but she told me that I lived in a more drafty place and she would be fine--and she will be, as she's welcome to spend any nights at my place when it's too cold for her.

In the weeks ahead, we're expecting more money in from various sources, so this is only temporary for us.  However, it seems like forever.

Imagine what it would be like if this were more permanent--if we didn't even have places to live.

My dad was an Army brat, so The Great Depression wasn't something that he lived with on an up-close-and-personal basis.  My mom grew up in a small village in the southwest part of Central Indiana.  She said that they were poor but they didn't even realize it back then.  They were never hungry and had enough to share with various neighbors who needed it.  As for being cold, they were cold in the usual way of alternating between facing and turning ones back on a stove or fireplace so as to heat different parts of the body at one time.

My folks were both hardworking people who retired from white collar General Motors.  I'm a writer--meaning that it might be disputed re: just how hardworking I am.  That's all a matter of opinion.  I've worked at temporary jobs here and there, but my folks had enough to allow me to pursue my dream of teaching a world via the written word.  So far, I've touched hearts and elicited both laughter and tears.  I think I've made a positive difference in at least a few lives.  However, my career hasn't had me laughing all the way to the bank.

I grew up in middle-class comfort.  We never were an extravagant family, but my folks went to Cuba before I was born, and we've all traveled widely in every state except for Alaska as well as in Canada and Mexico.

We've lived on the same farm since early in 1954 (when I was a little over a year old) and in a three-room-and-a-bath apartment before that.

Now, my widowed mom and I have the potential to live very comfortably for the rest of our earthly lives.  However--due to a variety of circumstances--this very comfortable lifestyle is still off in the future somewhere.

Even now in the ways that count, we feel very rich, as we have each other along with lots of wonderful friends and relatives, and we enjoy the simple things of life.  It doesn't take too much to keep us entertained and happy.

However, for the first time in our lives, we are living in poverty and we know it.

But we also know that there are plenty of people out there who would trade their poverty for ours--that we must seem as rich as Donald Trump to them.

Counting our blessings, we remember that a furnace and water heater DO need a house in order to work.  There are no gas meters attached to park benches and cardboard boxes nor are they attached to shopping carts full of a few treasured and/or necessary possessions.

The kind of poverty that has the potential to lead to homelessness isn't something belonging to a fringe group of people who "deserve"  (as if it's the right of anyone to point a judgmental finger to proclaim anyone as being deserving of this) to end up like this, thanks to squandering money on booze, tobacco, drugs, and sinful living.

The faces of the poor--and, potentially, homeless--reflect all classes of people, and each individual one of them has a story to tell.

Don't worry about my mom and me.  We have a lot of helpful and understanding people in our lives, so we're going to be fine in the long run--and we're still not in the worst shape now when we measure our lives by examples of where we could be.

However, there are people out there who are also good, hardworking people who never expected to ever end up in their current situations any more than we did.

If you come across these people, please help them whenever you can--and, even if you have no material means to help them, you can still help them a whole lot by simply treating them with dignity and compassion.

Please take the time to click on this link and read over the information to which you're taken.