A Memorial Day for my children to ponder

This post on the day before Memorial Day 2020, the year that wasn't, is for my kids, JJ&D, the "lads," as the fatuous charlatan Dr. Victor Elion (a manipulating and preeningly vain courthouse psychologist in Fairfax), in my opinion, used to call the three minor boys (now fully adult men if they all are still with us, which I wouldn't know since I haven't seen nor heard from any of them in 15 years), the divorce you know.  They all love their mother so, as well they should although in my opinion she is a manipulating covert narcissist; they should have some fealty towards their father too who wiped their bottoms and coached them all in soccer for all those years, it's biblical you know, you could look it up.

There are four pictures (your Grandad my dad) on this Memorial Day weekend of Lambertons (your uncle Jack), our relatives and blood kin, mine and yours, who did their duty (your great-uncle Harry) honorably that you could download (your great-grandfather Lamberton) from the US Navy Log in DC to study and learn from.  For Jimmy, the oldest, now Jim Bradley Rogers, who shocked me when I asked him in 2001 just after 9-11 what he would do if the war of ideologies we were suddenly thrust into spiraled out of control and he answered "Nothing," saying, "That's what we have a professional army for."

For Johnny, the most sober and earnest of the three, who liked playing with little plastic soldiers as I did when I was a child, and who filled me with pride when he came over and took away dozens of my military books from my bookshelf to read, just before he fell prey as a tender boy to the subtle but malicious and vicious adult manipulation of those who traffic in PAS, Parental Alienation Syndrome, a form of child abuse.  He once shouldered his toy wooden rifle in a snowstorm as a pre-adolescent and patrolled our sidewalk at shoulder arms for a half hour, marching back and forth, doing his duty as he saw it as a growing, responsible boy; well my lad, duty includes familial love towards both parents, be it distant or close and loving, because blood is or should be to the fully mature person a paramount passion.

And to Danny, the most abused of the three by those PAS traffickers who sought through grotesque manipulation the pursuit and self-satisfying achievement of gaining their own ends in the divorce wars because he was the youngest and most vulnerable, I'm sorry I couldn't protect you from those who sought to endlessly interrogate you suggestively (unbeknownst to me since I only had you pursuant to plain vanilla visitation 17% of the time) so they could come to court to triumphantly testilie in sonorous voices as to the incredible repressed memories of yours they had fantastically uncovered with their pointed, suggestive questioning, because as a matter of public policy, children can't testify against their parents.  It hurt to read in your on-line wedding book a few years back that you had proposed to your wife at your "father's" house on the Outer Banks; that guy who owns or was willed that house ain't your father and he never wiped your bottom, coached you in soccer or went to bat for you against the school boards in countless Special Ed hearings, nor provided the full funding for your eight semesters at VCU (you're welcome!), I did.

If you want a test...

Repeating a fallacious claim he made in early March, President Trump said on Monday, "If somebody wants to be tested right now, they'll be able to be tested." Not that anyone with an IQ merely equaling his or her age to go along with a 6th grade education could possibly believe this charlatan anymore, it's just not true. I communicated with my health care provider Kaiser this week about my desire to get a Covid-19 test and was turned down cold.

A doctor called me back and after listening to my tale of how I thought I contracted the coronavirus in February which led to two desperate weeks of continuous coughing fits, especially all night long, and I still feel fatigued generally and short of breath two months later. I said I'd like an antibody test to confirm I had it and recovered to put my mind at ease that I probably won't get it in my depressed condition and also I would participate it blood plasma therapy which has been said to ameliorate the conditions of afflicted, desperately ill patients, as I have donated blood products at least 140 times in my lifetime anyway. The doc was unimpressed and said Kaiser doesn't offer antibody testing, period. She added the speculative diagnosis that I probably had "the flu," even though I dutifully received my flu shot in the fall.

Then I asked that, because there was no chance of my knowing if I was already afflicted by it in the past and being in the risk group (over 65), if I felt sick again, how would I go about getting a test? Or should I protectively hunker down alone in my house till 2021 or 2022 when the pandemic might, or might not, be over. She laid out the many guidelines, which were daunting and not very promising of leading to a test anytime soon.

If I got sick with the supposedly typical characteristics of this novel and poorly understood virus, fever, diarrhea, nausea, loss of smell, respiratory distress and pressure in the chest, and not least, where I had traveled to (nowhere) and who I was in contact with (nobody), then I could call Kaiser and set up a video exam. Then if the doc thought I merited further diagnosis, they would prescribe a flu test. When that came back negative days later, they would send me a long medical questionnaire to fill out. Then maybe if I fit into all the right boxes, I could be prescribed to receive a test which in itself would come back days after that.

Only in Trump's America. I'm still in Lockdown, with no test available for the likes of me because I am not currently desperately sick and had traveled to somewhere suspect or was in contact with someone who somehow had gotten a test that came back positive.

Mothers Day 2020

Happy Mother's Day, Mom (1920s to 1990s).  A Depression child and wartime worker, mother of six, wartime bride and wife of my Dad, charitable, civic-minded, a community worker, entrepreneur, she lived a good life.

All three of my children were held by her, visited her as children often, were visited by her.  She saved and scrimped as a widow to build a trust fund for each of them that amounted to about $100K  that I formerly shepherded to be used for their benefit (in addition to using my own legacy money to purchase full pre-paid tuition and all fees plans for them) which not a one of them has ever expressed any thanks for, having not spoken to a single Lamberton in 15 years (the broad-brush of prototypical adult-induced-upon-tender-minors PAS, usually during a divorce, most often by the primary care parent as in their case).

So here is a little about your loving Grandmother, JJ&D, including some pictures you could download.  She did so much for you.