Yeah...and so, anyway...

The title of this particular blog has a source, and that is my beloved mother, Mary Ellen Graham Shortt. Mom was born and raised in Leesburg, Florida, although technically she lived even farther out into the central Florida wilderness in a place called Wildwood. (Which is so difficult for a "burb" baby like me to understand; Leesburg wasn't exactly a huge city like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, or even Sacramento). Just reading that fact should be justifiable cause for raised eyebrows. I used to think that she had a natural talent for malpropisms, but that wasn't it, either. She spoke Wildwood, which, in my opinion, is a very unique Florida accent that was peppered with all kinds of confusing terms like "Y'all make my behind hurt!" Go ahead. Try to make sense of it. I grew up hearing stuff like that, and I remain unconvinced that there is a logical way to explain what it means. And this brings me to the point of this particular entry. I'm on...

The title of this blog comes from one of many protest songs that were popular during the Vietnam War. The song is "War", which was sung by Motown artist Edwin Starr. As you can see in the video, there are scenes from the Vietnam War accompanying the song. I remember those scenes. They were broadcast nearly every night on every network channel. Even though my father was a load master in the Air Force on the C-131s and C-141s during the Vietnam War (dropping troops, supplies, guns and ammunition in country, taking the dead and wounded out), I rarely dwelled on the possibility that he might not come home one day. That was simply too much for me to handle at that time. At the height of the Vietnam War, my family, which consisted of my parents, Richard and Mary Shortt, their oldest child (me), my sister Tamara and my little brother Ricky, were transferred to Clark Air Force on Luzon Island, the Philippines. I was eight years old when we arrived, and ten years old when we left....