Neanderpundit

There’s a movie with Patrick Swayse called “Next of Kin” in which Pat’s brother gets killed, and the whole family crawls out of the woodwork to avenge his death. The Ogwife loves the flick because she’d like to rub up against Pat Swayse, and frankly, I don’t blame her.Me, I like the premise: Hilbillies against mobsters. It’s a good movie, because folks like myself can see the truth of it.

The underlying theme is the importance of family. How, no matter how pissed off you get at Aunt Edna, no matter how much Uncle Ralph irritates you, they’re family. They are there for you, you are there for them. It’s easy to bemoan the way things are, and whine that things were better back then, but this is a core truth: Family and the ties that bind the family together are the very fabric of humanity. No matter how foreign a culture is, they have the same family troubles and joys. The way to weaken a culture is to separate it’s families; look at Cuban schools, for instance: Children are commonly separated from their parents at age 11 to attend government schools, and taught that the state is their family.

Real family members are there for one another on a day-to-day basis, because that’s when people need help, living their daily lives. Making sure your mom has decent tires on her car. Making sure cousin Mike’s gas bill gets paid. Making sure aunt Edna doesn’t have to go to the doctor alone. These small things are the things that make it all worthwile, improving the daily quality of people’s lives around you. Heroics are rare and usually, thankfully, unnecesary.
Now, don’t get me wrong: Want to piss me off? diss a family member. Want to see my knuckles up close? mouth off to my mom. Want to stare unblinking into the fury and wrath of hell, and watch it peel the flesh back off your bones? touch my child. And this goes for all my family. This also goes for my friends. Your friends are the family members you choose, and I have some damned good ones. My personal friends, as well as online ones.

Kim du Toit, for instance, is bellying up and forking over. He’s got a long history of this. He’s chosen to adopt a bunch of kids and provide for them because he knows it’s right. He accepts anonymous donations. He kicks in himself. He seethes with rage when a man goes down, you can read it in his blog.

Porretto, also, is one of those that gives until it hurts, literally. He don’t talk about it, but if you take the time to read his blog, you catch the undercurrents- the ways he has changed the lives of others around him and the ways he continues to try to help, even the unworthy, even at the cost of his own health and sanity. Nuff said.

Velociman, also, is a personable and generous man to a fault. He never talks about it in his blog, but I can read between the lines. His sense of family may be the strongest I’ve ever seen. You can’t hide from me, vman.

I could go on. And on. Read the blogroll, it’s chock full of people who understand the meaning and importance of family, both of having good family and having shitty family- look at The Region Broad. Her heart wrenching renditions of the last moments of her adoptive father’s life make me hurt for her, and the BS she puts up with for her biological family (who sought her out) just make me want to hold her like she was my kid.

Acidman is going through some tough times. I know because I’ve lost a lot of people, people I loved, in the last four or five years. If someone harms a family member, you can acheive some kind of closure by seeing that person punished, or by dragging them behind your car, if you can’t get no satisfaction any other way. When someone dies of natural causes, if you have a strong sense of family, your rage and pain at that loss has no outlet. You take solace from your friends and family, if you have them around, but you can’t cure the pain easily, only time can do that.

So I look around at this band of virtual brothers and sisters, if I may be so bold as to call you that, and see people whose hearts are decent, and whose friendship I cherish. I see an outpouring of support for Acidman, even though on a day to day basis he may be the most, by his own admission, corrosive, human in the blogosphere. I see people stepping up to offer condolences, prayers, good thoughts.

Because that’s what family does.

Lost his mom. Drop him a line or stop in and say hi. If you haven’t been through this, you will.

Sorry for your loss, Rob. Mom is at peace, and you did all you could.

William Cullen Bryant said it better than ever I could:

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Hey, you- in the Prius? BEING AN ENVIROWHACKO DOES NOT GIVE YOU LICENSE TO DRIVE LIKE A MORON. IN FACT, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE A LICENSE AT ALL. TURN YOUR LICENSE IN, AND THEN LICK THE BATTERY TERMINALS IN YOUR ENVIROMOBILE. ASSHAT.

Roads: Don’t get me started. No, don’t EVEN get me started.

I mean, there’s the Bishop Ford/Borman/294/394 clusterfuck, which is growing in it’s clusterfuckness at an alarming rate, what with the four lane merge to one, the external bridge repair, (on a bridge that was just totally replaced five years ago) the random, arbitrary, and often meaningless opening and closing of exits, and the construction crews that only time-lapse photography can show movement. That’s bad enough. Now they’re messing with the area I get OFF the expressway, and every conceivable alternate route in or out is under construction. I have my pitchfork sharpened. Let’s get it on.

Update: Here’s the guy in charge, from everything I can find.

Mr. Gil Vega, Project Director
Illinois Department of Transportation
Bureau of Small Business Enterprises
310 South Michigan Avenue, Room 1605
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 793-5668
Fax (312) 793-0677