Elaine Albertson's Blog

I wrote this post on the day of the Uvalde incident.   Tuesday, 17 January 1989 Stockton, CA Mid-day at St. Joseph Hospital ER I had been called to assist a parishioner with pastoral care and counseling at the emergency room at St. Joseph Hospital, as a result of their being injured in an accident. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it was serious and the person needed the support. It was during my conversation with the parishioner, their spouse, and the attending MD that an alarm went through the ER, the MD excused himself, and I observed a gurney barreling through the hall from the ambulance entrance. The blanket covering a child’s body was entirely red with blood...and it was a white blanket. I heard another MD instruct to “lock and load...more coming...multiple GSWs...” Staff began clearing space and gear. I could hear the managing nurse calling for the blood bank. The young person on the gurney...and I understood several more...were from Cleveland School. I...

 This is the first of the "new" writings...I called it Chap 01 only because...well, it was. I wrote it shortly after a major violent social event involving black folks, and subsequent very un-Christian (or Muslim, or Buddhist, or whatever) blowback that made it appear they blamed the people of color for the violence. So, here it is... Early Summer, 1953 Clinton County, Iowa We were having a noon family meeting/discussion around the dining table; there were Mom, and Dad, and Snowball (the family dog, a white collie). We lived on a small acreage just outside the city limits, with other mini-farms down our gravel road. We grew some vegetables, had some fruit trees, and raised a couple of beef cows and such. We also had two horses, a Pinto and a Palomino. I was “almost” five then, but was tall for my age, and I spoke better than most adults. I often was seen as eight, or nine, or… All of the folks along our road knew each other in some depth. It was a nec...

 I've been following Malcolm Nance on FB and Twitter lately, having found his observations and analyses of our global and national situations to be clear, accurate, and based on both education and experience. I first saw him on MSNBC, and decided to follow his writings.  It was at the start of the Ukrainian war that he posted, quite clearly, "I'm done talking..." as he set off for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion (he's a retired military intelligence officer and veteran). His verbage is sharp, clear, civil, and true. So, he essentially put away his keyboard and mic in deference to an M16 and Parabellum. I felt his feeling, actually. I've been trying as I can to advance our collective consciousness toward peaceful social progress. I think, though, that my age and energy level can get more excited about writing than deployment (although I'm a leader type in Team Rubicon, I'm too old and too many disabilities to physically deploy on disaster response missions...