DOWN AND OUT IN GARDNER, MA

As I keep reading about the passing of famous people, the war dead from around the world, the increasing disparity between rich and poor, the hidden governments that for years, people assumed were only paranoid fantasies created by whacko novelists and assorted psycho-rabble, the climbing teen suicide rate, the unclaimed numbers of under-employed and unemployed folks who have simply given up looking, the crazy idea that one is a freak if one doesn't fit the current American-made image of what one is supposed to look like, the loss of memory of those younger generations who benefit from all the revolutions that came before them and allow them to experience a freedom of expression unheard of in the past, the enormous world debt burying all but the rich, the continued global weather changes and earth's response to human pollution, the aging out of my own family, as well as myself, and all the unrequited dreams we share (or hold hidden), and yet another rejection for a job that seemed tailor-made for my extensive experience, background and contemporary skills, (based on the worst evaluation processes devised possibly coming down the pike and administrators fears of "looking bad" if they don't fall in line behind what history has proven is the pendulum swing of American education), I understand Paris Jackson's dark night of the soul.

Whoever thought I'd understand Paris Jackson?