Even when the storm is at it worse - - - there are footsteps in the sand....
It is hard to explain to people who do not quilt (or, as my other half says - invest in a myriad of colorful cloth in containers stacked to the ceiling full and you can't find "it", or "the one that was - - - you know...." he shakes his head and goes upstairs. Now that I have found my self in a very painful state with unknown origins and seems like a hit and miss game of torture. First the knee caps feel like someone is using a razor to take them off my legs - then there is a mysterious loss of feeling in my thigh and the bottom of my foot feel like the pad beneath my big toe is inflated! This has been building up speed since arriving in Michigan - and no, Michigan has nothing to do with it - I found out by accident that I was exposed to some very, very toxic substances when I was in Ft. McClellan, Alabama for boot camp in 1973.
For those who are not familiar with what is happening at the shuttered fort, and the town of Anniston , Alabama whose citizens have suffered a cruel state as well from the off gases and the run off into streams and lakes, the rain even worked to blanket the community in PCB's from Monsanto plant. I am not a turnip who has lived my life in a closet - and I remember what the environment was like in the 60's and the 70's.. It was out of control. Paper mills, tanneries, woolen mills and dye plants lined the mighty rivers of commerce. No one knew about what long lasting effects would be left behind as a dangerous legacy for our children and their children's children. You cannot make the past right by blaming and you cannot remove the cancers and tumors and skin diseases. You cannot put the spines back together or take the curvature out of a collapsing spine, nor can you stop the bones from literally dissolving in your legs. All anyone who has come in contact with the poisons can do is pray, is to open a conversation with whatever your higher being is - because I can tell you that the chances of God, Jesus, Goddess and Ladies in White are far more receptive than the human beings that dicker and swindle, steal and embezzle, lie and stoned faced assure you that everything is going to be alright. I'm afraid that the person who stole your lover, your wife, your husband, the person who molested your child or raped you - they will all look you in the eye and do everything to convince you that you are out of your mind. You don't know what you are talking about, the numbers don't add up and the equation is not equal at the end. So what do you do?
First, you let anyone and everyone of your friends know that Ft. McClellan literally poisoned the people who were stationed there between 1939 and 1999 when the EPA shuttered the base and labeled it a Superfund. And Superfund need money to clean them up - and the people who are in charge of cleaning them up use the money to have people in the "know" give reports, they have someone to make estimates, to talk to the people still living in Anniston, to make reports and surveys that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then they have to find someone who will not question the proposed disposal of contaminated soil (with combinations of Mustard Gas, PCB, PCE, cobalt and sarin - - just to name a very few. ) by folding it under again and again as though making a fine french croissant. The veterans, on the other hand are being told that they were not sickened by the chemicals - that their alarming number of symptoms:
- PCB- man made chemical once used as insulates and coolants for transformers, heat exchanges and various kinds of electrical equipment. They are colorless and have no smell or taste, according to the EPA - contamination was more likely airborne. The city of Anniston, Alabama settled for 700 million dollars from Monsanto and they still cannot plant a garden, they are told not to eat fruit on trees and the children are cautioned not to play in the yard. And yet - the citizens are told that everything is fine, back to normal, no problem.
- PCB's are linked to melanoma, liver cancer, gall bladder cancer, and brain and breast cancer.
What happened on the base was nothing less than criminal - now, - but totally acceptable during the cold war where no amount of money was spared to make things that would kill people quickly and horribly. What irony that it is the troop who trained a midst the cloud of contamination that are dying painfully slow. The cancers are large cell, slow growth carcinomas. The lungs look and feel like COPD but it is sacks of blood inside the walls of the lungs. Most women (it was the only Woman's Army Corps training center) within 2 years have shown up with hysterectomy from adnomyosis and edonmetritis, cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer and even worse - miscarriages on top of miscarriages, D&C's , birth defects in their children and then again in their children's children.
What does this have to do with the quilt? That is probably the last quilt I will be able to make. Thank fully I have made quilts from my daughter and my son, and their son. I have woven blankets for my dying father and a quilt to remind him of the swim around the island of Brigantine in his youth. He was stationed at Camp Lejune - he was also exposed to toxic chemicals and in his war time assignments I'm sure there were more things that have sat dormant in his system.
I have carried on a conversation with the "Great One" for as long as I can remember - things that someone might construe a coincidence I know come from that place out there were we all return to. So, say a prayer, light all the candles (and place a donation in the box) at the church so that all those who have been subjected to being poisoned by their own country - and those in uniform who never swayed in their commitment to honor, duty, country - pay the price with horrible pain. I like to light a candle when I cannot sleep and it is 3 in the morning. I take it to the front door and go out on the portch - sheltering the flame from blowing out. I ask that they find happiness, that they find their friends and get together for a beer and laughter - but most of all I ask them to find love where they are. It will heal all, it will silence all someday and it will see use through.
I made the double wedding band for my step son, he is a wonderful human being who had chance after chance to make the wrong decision and he did not. He is married now, his wife has a son and my step son is committed to his marriage and to his son. I cannot think of someone whom this quilt would fittingly go to. Not to leave anyone in the dark - my stepdaughter is the light of my life - she has passion, she has hard work inside her and she embraces life with all she has. She is a parent too - to step-children. And I know that who she is will be someone they will see to emulate. Life is good - even though the pain is crippling.
I walk with the dogs by the trees, they are 14 years old, both doxies - we get tired easily and we nap often - but they give love that can only be from the source - after all dog spelled backward is God.
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