JUST BECAUSE THE EARTH STOPED SPINNING

Just because the world stops spinning doesn't mean we have to die. I don't know about you, but I'm a fighter when it comes to my life. Take for example my good neighbor Boston Earl. The old prick is ninety-one, but he ain't given up either. When the water ran out last we for nearly half the block, old Earl got out his old Ford truck of his, which still had gas in it, and we drove for nearly half a mile to a water pumping station where they was handing out bottled water and letting use fill up tubs and buckets and he and I loaded on as much as his truck can carry, and came back and passed it out to all the kind folks.

Yes, sir, these are the times that calls for fighters. Once heard stories about how people had to do back when we were hit by a mean pandemic half a century back. Lots of folks stayed home and when it was over, they couldn't find enough workers to come back to work to build up the workforce. It's like a whole slew of peoples just gave up and wanted to sit around and let the government take care of them. Not my grandpa and grandma. They were only out of their teens, but they said they were more than anxious to get back to normal life and so they took jobs, just about anything they could get--and they worked them. Worked them until better jobs opened, and until grandpa finished nursing school schooling and grandma graduated with a MBA, too--top of her class.

My mama had a locket. She gave it to me when I was a young boy. I said, "Mama, why you give this to me, I'm a boy? Boys don't wear things like this."

She looks at me and says, "But someday you're find someone whose dear to you and you'd want them to have something special of yours."

I remember screwing up my face and asked, "You mean a girl?"

I was only ten.

Mama nodded sweetly, smiling.

"Yulk!" I said, spitting out my tongue. "I don't even like girls?"

Mama chuckled light to herself. "But you will," she said, smiling still. "You will and you'll know what to do with it."

I looked at mama real strangely, then stared down at the locket. It was gold and heart-shaped and had the face of a Roman warrior on its front side. What a strange girl, I thought. For years afterwards I'd look at it from time to time, trying to imagine what kind of person I would be and who would be the kind of person I'd give a gold locket to. It's hiding location changed places many times. I had to hid it. I'd have

Sleepovers with some of my guy pals and I certainly didn't want them finding that girl's thing in my room. It looked too sissified. So it went under the bed. On top of the books in my closet. In my underwear drawer. On the window ledge beneath a stack of colorful folders. And I still got it. Even though its not under anything except my T’s. I wear it, under T-shirts, on my chest not because I'd never found anyone to give it too. I've known lots of awesome women and have been married three times. But I keep it for me. I think now today I know why I kept it. It's the thing that makes me brave, that keeps me fighting every day to stay alive, to get out and do more than just hunt for food, to live with purpose.

So, I made mama’s golden necklace a gift to myself, to use to encourage other people. Each time I look at it I get stronger inside. A GO GIVE UP spirit lives in me.

I'm like a Roman warrior inside, and I owe a debt of gratitude to my mama for seeing it in me before I had the foresight to know it.

Just because the world stops spinning doesn't mean we have to die. That's sorta what that Musk fella said back then when he took on the challenge to send people into space. I think it was the Amazon fella and his brother who went up in an actual space ship to look around, but they were willing to risk everything, too, to keep on fightin' and not give up.

I went by the church yesterday and saw a group of people there who haven't given up. Well, not all of them. Most of them are still prayin' for a miracle because they say they can’t believe Jehovah God would abandon them and let this planet die. The cold side of earth is ungodly cold where no one can survive anyways, and the half that faces the sun, is too damn hot for people to live there, either--but those of us who are in the middle time zone between heat and cold, fire and ice, are survivors--there were earthquakes and mudslides and floods and tornados and volcanos erupting all over the place. People were offing themselves jumping out of windows, driving off bridges--it seemed the whole damn world's gone crazy--but not us…not now, not ever--and we are surviving. And fighting, too. But this one guy at the church, he's full of bad news all the time. That old buzzard he's as old as me but he might as well be dead. He's got one foot already in the grave because he's always spewing out nothing but bad news. Ask him about the weather and he'd say it's about to storm. Ask him to tell you a story and he'd think up the sorriest, meanest, most lowdown tale he can muster. I was about to crown him with my fist last time I saw him 'cause he was telling a group of school kids there ain't no reason to hope, and fighting to stay alive is useless "'cause we're all doomed anyway?"

Bullshit! Anytime a person is really to give up on life that person ain't fit to be going around instructing others. What we need is people with guts. And determination. And backbone to get things done.

Well, that's why I stopped by to tell you not to give up. Keep up the fight and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Just because the earth stopped spinning doesn't mean we have to die.

That's all.