Elon Musk's Utopia

Elon Musk's Utopia

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

By Richard Brautigan

Copied, paster, and loved by Homeless With a Laptop That is My Name 

A HAPPY LIFE: DEATH OF MY MOTHER AND ANOTHER DEATH IN THE FAMILY

     I was due return to the United States in December.  I talked to my mother in July, telling her how much I looked forward to seeing her and show her the grandkids.  Mom had suffered a mild stroke in May but had recovered very well and continued to work as normal. However, she now told me that she didn’t think she would make it.  “Fine thing to say, Mom. Here it was two months later, when I am getting ready to come home with my family, you you’re not going to make it?” I angrily replied. “Of course, you’re going to make it. You can’t leave me alone with my family as I’m about to return to the US.”  I’m sorry to say that as I write these lines, how selfish I appear… thinking only of myself and not how she was feeling.  She gently demurred saying: “Of course, I will try…” saying in effect God’s will.           

            That was the last time I spoke with her.  She died the following month.  On Saturday morning I was at work in Osan Air Base as I had weekend duty.  Suddenly, my squadron commander drove up in a pickup truck to tell me that the Red Cross had called with an emergency message regarding my mother—she was in a coma and they were preparing to fly me home courtesy of the Red Cross.   I went to our house and told My Girl what happened… and that I was going to fly to New York.  She was surprised but said for me not to worry about our house and kids.

            I flew out of Korea that afternoon.  Korean time is about 14 hours ahead of Eastern Time, so I gained 14 hours.  I got to New York around 8:00 p. m.  My sister met me at the airport, got a cab and went directly to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center where my mother was in the ICU.

            My mom had suffered a massive stroke: her eyes were wide open staring, unblinking and non-responsive; but she knew I was there. I kept calling her “Mama, Mama.”  She didn’t wake up from her coma, but I felt that she knew I was there. The doctors said that there was nothing to do other than wait. As it was late, they told me and my sisters to go home.  They would call with any changes.  I kissed her forehead and left. She died six hours later.  She had wanted for me to return to New York and have all of us together before she died.  

            My Girl called a couple of days later.  I told her the news and she cried.  Mom had been very kind to her when she came to Korea and felt really bad for me.  I told her I would be coming home in about 10 days. But it was not to be so simple.

            

            

Another death in the family

 

            After my mother’s funeral I was planning to return to Korea.  A couple days prior to my leaving, my Brother-In-Law were hanging out having a couple of drinks when we got news that his younger brother had been shot and killed… GAWD!!!  Apparently he had ripped off a Colombian drug dealer of some money.  The guy came back with a couple of heavies, pulled the brother out of the bar, stood him up against a wall, and shot him. 

Brother-In-Law and I rushed over to the hospital where they had taken his brother. Brother-In-Law’s mother was there; she was distraught and said:  “Don’t say anything to me.  I went through this when your father was killed.”  Brother-in-Law’s entire family is Italian and  Brother-In-Law’s father had been involved with one of the Mafia families; he was killed during the Mafia Wars of the early 1970s.  We went inside the operating room where the brother was.  He looked like he was sleeping.  He had a very small hole on his upper chest.  It was a surreal scene: I expect the brother to sit up and ask “WTF am I doing here”… He didn’t.  I wondered how in God’s name could he have died from such a small caliber wound.  Evidently, the bullet entered his upper body, deflected off a bone or something to that effect and went into his heart.  He pretty much died instantly.

            Brother-In-Law was beside himself.  We went outside, and some friends of the brother met us.  One of the guys had seen what happened, could identify the killer, and knew where the killer lived.  Brother-In-Law decides that he wants to go and get his hands on Killer.  It’s now 1 in the morning.  As we are walking, I’m thinking:  “WTF is going on… this is insane.”

            I tell Brother-In-Law: “If you go get this guy, you’re probably going to be arrested at minimum; if the guy doesn’t kill you first. What is your mom going to do if you get arrested and thrown in prison or you get killed?

            Brother-In-Law:   Yeah, I was thinking about that.”

            Great!  This was the chance to cool off the situation and contact the police.  I told him that the best was to handle this was for us to watch the apartment building to make sure those guys didn’t run away while waiting for the police. One of the guys started to object but now I was in my military mode and took charge: “SHUT UP!”  “This is how we’re going to do it.”  There were no further objections.

            We got to the apartment building.  The Colombian lived in the 5^thfloor; and the lights to the apartment were on.  I organized the group into teams of two to keep eyes on every exit from the apartment while I called the police.  I told the guy who could identify the Killer to stay by me.  I called the police and gave them the information.  They told me they had already identified Killer and were on their way.   A few minutes later, the whole place lit up. There were police cars everywhere. I walked over to a couple of presumed detectives (good presumption), told them I had called them and had the guy who could identify Killer.  They were actually pissed off at me for having called 911.  The detectives told me that they had been on their way—I didn’t like their attitude.  “We didn’t know that; and we don’t care who arrests the Killer:  you or the regular police, as long as the Killer gets arrested.” 

We followed the police into the building and Brother-In-Law and I ran up the stairs.  In New York, the doors of apartments are made of metal.  I saw two huge policemen take a big metal battering ram, and after a couple of powerful strikes, knocked the door open. Then a plain-clothes policeman with a flak jacket on pointed a shotgun at the inside of the apartment and screamed for the people inside to come out with their hands in the air. The scene was right out of a Hollywood movie …but is was oh so real.  I actually hoped that the assholes inside would fight it out and get blown away. But they didn’t put up a fight (it turned out that there were three cockroaches inside) … Police went inside the apartment and shortly brought out some ugly piece of crap.  He was shirtless and had his hands cuffed behind his back.  Brother-In-Law immedi-ately attacked him pounding him in the head before two police officers yanked him off.  I grab-bed Brother-In-Law and told him to cool it.  The police wouldn’t let him get at the guy and he would get in trouble himself for possible assault.

Finally, things settled down and we went home.  I was kind of bewildered.  My Mom had just died and now this??? What more could happen?   That it did…

A few days later, the brother’s funeral was held.  A lot of people showed up.  The funeral home was in Corona, a working-class neighborhood with lots of Italians.  Suddenly I hear some commotion outside, and went out to see WTF was going on.

A large group of youths had gathered and had started to argue with some of the brother’s friends.  Suddenly 6 or 7 punks attacked one of the friends.  This guy just covered his face and hear and went down to his knees in a defensive crouch position.  I couldn’t believe this was happening.  Inside Brother-In-Law’s grandmother kept crying and wailing for her dead grandson and here were these dirtbags making trouble outside.  I was outraged!!!

I began to grab guys by the hair and back of their shirts pulling them off brother’s friend.  I roared in my loudest and most authoritative military baritone for them to have some consideration and leave.  At least this quieted them down though they remained hanging around but in a much less confrontational mode.

Brother-In-Law, my sister, and I got into a cab to go home.  Suddenly we noticed a car following us and could see the guys inside (5 or 6) taunting us.  I told the cab driver to continue to drive at normal speed and for Brother-In-Law to ignore them.  After a few blocks they drove off. 

As a result of the brother’s death, I postponed my flight for the following week. My Girl called me as we had scheduled prior to my original flight day.  I explained to her the situation and that I would be delayed by another week. She seemed kind of bewildered by it all. But okay.  

A week later, I finally got on my flight to Korea.  As I said previously, at the time Korea had a curfew between midnight at 4:00 a. m.  Anyone caught violating curfew faced lots of trouble, including jail time or depending on where you were, being shot.  The Korean military police had no reservations about shooting first and asking questions later.  These fears were not without foundation.  A couple of years earlier North Korean assassins had tried to kill South Korean President Park Chung Hee; they missed and killed his wife instead.  One year before Mom died, the North Koreans hacked two American officers to death over the cutting of a tree by the demilitarized zone (DMZ).  Accordingly, the South Koreans were in no mood to play around.

The day I arrived back in Korea was Chuseok, the harvest festival which stretches for 3 days.  Most Koreans go visit their hometowns and otherwise the country is on a 3-day holiday shutdown.   Problem{ I finally got back to Yongsan US Army Garrison at 9:00 p. m.  The bus to Osan Air Base was about to leave and it was the last bus of the night… The driver told me the bus was completely full and that I couldn’t get on.  I told him … “Be serious”.  That did the trick … and the 1000 won ($2.00) bill that I gave him. I sat on my luggage in between seats. 

The trip took about an hour.  I collected all my bags, got out of the bus at the station before entering the base and walked home.  As I was nearing our home, the owner of a TV repair and electronics shop saw me and yelled out really happy: “SON NO. 1 APPA (Daddy)!!!”  He seemed really happy to see me.  I’d been gone for only 3 weeks so I didn’t know what the big deal was. “Must’ve been celebrating the holiday’” I thought. I opened the door to our compound and called out for My Girl. She almost had a heart attack—she started crying, hugging me, etc.  Methinks “Gee, this is really nice. Maybe I should leave for a couple of weeks every now and then...”  The kids were fine.

Later My Girl explained to me that the neighbors had begun to think that I had abandoned the family.  Everyone had started to give her knowing and pitying looks.  It had really gotten to her and depressed her.   Me: “I would die first before abandoning you and the kids!  Never would I do that,” I said grandly but honestly.  Unfortunately, the fact is that it has happened many times that American military personnel live with a Korean woman; she gives birth to a child; and the man goes back to the States abandoning the woman and child.  I’m not aware of an American military female abandoning her kids in Korea with their Korean father.

In any case, thereafter all quickly went back to normal though the neighbors treated me with even more respect than previously.  I couldn’t ever imagine me abandoning My Girl and our kids.  

After I told her all that happened, My Girl got really spooked.  She imagined that the US would be like the wild west where everyone goes around shooting each other.  I reassured her that this is not so.  No, despite all of the bullshit about mass shootings, terrorists, etc., these are the exceptions to life in America.  Nevertheless, without a doubt that was one of the most difficult and craziest times of my life.

 

A Happy Life, Part 1: We're Moving to the United States: Los Angeles

Change of plans

 

My mother had a friend who was kind of a wild girl.  She had five kids and was constantly separating from her husband; they were both pretty wacked!  Sometime before December, my mother told my sisters and I that she had a major announcement:  what did we think about going to the United States.  Us [yes, intentional] said:  “YES!!!”  Again we had no clue what moving to the US meant but that didn’t matter; we wanted to move because… no idea. 

        Mom told us that she and her friend, whom we called Aunt Gina [we called all of Mom’s friends Aunt] had decided to come to the United States to seek a new life.  Aunt Gina was not going to take her kids.  Not surprisingly, Aunt Gina abandoned Mom and us [she was sharing expenses with Mom] not more than two months after we arrived in Los Angeles.  She shacked up with some guy: goodbye to Mom and her litter [us].

            

        So, no more new home in Alcantara; we were going to Los Angeles, California, EEUU [the Spanish abbreviation for United States]. The trip was scheduled for January as I would be out of school by then.  I was in the third grade.

        

        Mom auctioned all of her family heirlooms, furniture, expensive stuff and managed to raise enough money for our new journey and support; though she cried over giving up all of her treasured possessions, like my grandmother’s ruby cross, Mom’s blue opal ring, and her treasured Ming vases.

       

        I was 8-years old when it was time to leave Chile.  I got a little sad when I thought about leaving my friends, but the excitement of the move and that I was going to get to fly had an energy all of its own.  

 

The trip   

 

On a late afternoon in January, we took off from Santiago, Chile on an Aereolinas Peruanas (Peruvian Airlines) DC-6, a four-engine propeller aircraft. Our destination was Mexico City.  After about an hour,  it became dark, and as I couldn’t see anything out of the window—we were flying over the ocean along the coast of Chile—I asked my mother if we were there already.  No, not yet, only about 18 hours more to go.

After landing and taking off from just about every capital city in the west coast of South and Central America, we finally arrived in Mexico City.  We were to spend the night in Mexico City as we were scheduled to fly via Western Airlines to Los Angeles the following evening.

        

        We had been warned not to drink the local water, and us kids just drank bottled mineral water.  I don’t know how or why, but Mom drank some local tap water (probably trying to save the bottles of mineral water for us) and almost died of dysentery. She had a horrible attack of colitis when we got Mexico City International Airport; and it was flowing from both ends.  The doctor at the Airport clinic kept giving her shots of some medicine or other trying to control her diarrhea and nausea. She was at the airport clinic most of the day while us little kids waited in the … waiting room.  My sisters and I were pretty oblivious to her condition, and just prayed she would get better—in between jumping up and down while watching the airplanes land and takeoff.

            

        Finally, that afternoon the doctor, bless him wherever he is, got Mom stabilized enough and cleared her to fly.  We barely managed to make it to the Western Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles.  The airplane was completely booked and, as we had arrived late to check in, we were scattered a bit.  Mom and my sisters were on one side and I was on the other side, though not too far from them.  

LOS ANGELES

 

My mother’s eyes were shining and glowing as she looked at the night lights of Los Angeles from our plane which was in final descent to Los Angeles International Airport.  

“Do you eat turkey on St. John’s?” I asked the elderly couple sitting next to me. They looked at me without understanding. That was the only English phrase I knew. I learned it from a board game of English phrases, from England, that my Mother had bought me so I could start learning English; I practiced with it after my mother told us kids that we were going to move to the United States.

We lived in Los Angeles for two years.  Mom spoke English, French, Italian, and, of course, Spanish.  The day before I started school, Mom taught me my first real words in English:  “May I go to the bathroom?”; very useful words for a kid in the third grade.

My third-grade teacher, Ms. Blow introduced me to the class.  I didn’t speak or understand English (other than “May I go to the bathroom”) but I still remember her saying “…far, far away.” Guess she was referring to where I came from…  When you’re a kid, you learn language fast. Within six months of arriving in the United States, I could actually speak and understand basic English. I could talk to all the kids at the school, so it was really great.  I remember how proud I was when Ms. Blow called upon me to give an answer to a problem. Of course, it helped my pride that I got the answer right. 

Mom had been a Red Cross volunteer nurse in Chile.  She assisted with handling the injured in the various earthquakes and tidal waves that Chile experiences.  She promptly got a job at Los Angeles General Hospital as an orderly. Then she got a job as an insurance claims processor with Prudential Insurance.  She never quite fully understood the process but worked well enough there for almost two years.  Everybody loved her.   Much later in life, the reality of what the job entailed dawned on her and she told me how easy it really was.  She hated higher mathematics especially common logarithms, to say nothing of natural logarithms.  

In the military, I moved at least 14 times in my almost 28 years of service; 10 of them with My Girl and our family.  In looking back, it took a lot of courage (more courage than most people I know including me) for Mom to uproot us from the life she had always known to the uncertainty of a new life, in a new country, with a different language. That she did so all by herself with three small children in tow, is a tribute to her courage and adventurous spirit. 

Mom, I salute you!

        Mom met an American man in the summer of the same year we arrived; they married shortly after. 

By:  Homeless With a Laptop, That is My Name 

       Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя

A Happy Life, Part 1: Chile, Death of my Father

 My father died when I was 7-years old. He was only 47-years old when died from complications associated with his muscular dystrophy.  It was a cold and rainy Wednesday morning in mid-August; it’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere.  I had gone to school that morning as usual.  Suddenly, a priest came and told me that I had a phone call from my mother. She told me to come home as my father had died.  It was certainly not unexpected for her; and I didn’t have a clue as to what death meant.  Our next-door neighbor, the doctor, came to pick me up, and took me home.

My father died at 9:00 o’clock in the morning.  Mom told me that his last words to her were about me:  “Don’t tie him to your apron; don’t put him under your skirt.”  He had wanted to be a naval officer, as he admired the Royal Navy, and the Chilean Navy is patterned after the Royal Navy.  He was the only male of four children, and the youngest.  My grandmother prayed to Saint Gerardo (Gerard) for a son; and she would name him Gerardo.  My father’s name was Gerardo.  My grandmother loved and protected him with an all-enveloping love. When he told her that he wanted to go into the Navy, she almost died.  She basically gave him a small fortune for him not to join.  

He studied law at the University of Chile; and his theses “La Crisis de la Neutralidad” (Crisis of Neutrality) is available in hard copy at Harvard, University of Virginia and UCLA. He worked as a corporate lawyer for Armand Hammer’s Occidental Petroleum but because of his dystrophy he was not able to practice for very long.

After he died, they tied a handkerchief around my father’s head to keep his mouth closed.  My mom told me to kiss him good-bye.  I kissed him on the forehead and it was the last time I saw his face; he was smiling. The neighbors were really nice to us. They called my sisters and me over and gave us some soda and cookies—while my mother was dealing with the funeral arrangements.   Though my father’s death did not affect me much at the time as I was too young when it happened; it did affect me greatly later.

I was luckier than my sisters because I got to spend some time with him. My younger sister didn’t remember his face at all. I was not until My Girl got hold some old pictures of my father and mother and had them reprinted into glossy 8 x 10s, that my sister finally saw him; she cried.

I have an itemized list compiled by the coroner of his belongings at death: bedding, suits, ties, .38 Smith & Wesson revolver, pillow… it was sad.  

Plans.  After my father died, my mother began to look for a house to buy. One day she came home from work and told us kids that we were buying a house in a place called Alcantara, an upscale neighborhood in the Santiago Metropolitan Region.  Us kids got really excited though of course we had no idea of what this meant but it must be good because Mom told us.  We visited the home which was in the process of being built; Great! We expected to move in December—again being summertime in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

By:  Homeless With a Laptop, That is My Name 

       Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя

A Happy Life, Part 1: Chile, Tale of Two Dinners

         These two are my favorite family stories and I laugh every time I tell them; I hope you do as well.  In Chile, as my mother worked, and my father was incapacitated due to muscular dystrophy, we had two maids to help the household.  While this sounds… uppity, in Chile, at least at the time I lived there, most households employed at least one maid.  Our maids had room and board as well.

The two maids used to share the workload, one primarily doing the family shopping and cooking, and the other one doing the cleaning of the home and laundry. When I was around 6 or 7 years old, the maid that cleaned our home got sick.  Apparently, she had something wrong with her kidneys.  I remember that she was out of the house for a couple of weeks. 

The maid who cooked used to confer with my mother early in the morning over the day’s menu and get money from Mom to buy groceries.  She would then go to the market and shop accordingly.   One day, while the maid who cleaned was still out sick, my Mom, with an exquisite sense of timing, ordered kidneys and something or other for dinner.  Kidneys… Can you see the mind of a 6 or 7-year old working yet?   If not, here it goes, purely deductive reasoning from a 6 or 7-year old mind:  Our cleaning lady is out because she had kidney problems; she’s had an operation to her kidneys; she’s not been here for a while after her operation; Mom orders kidneys for dinner.  Therefore, it’s clear: the kidneys belong to the cleaning lady and there’s no way in hell that I’m going to eat them.  And to this day, I don’t eat kidneys…

Christmas dinners at our home were always special: lots of goodies and my father used to come down from the main bedroom, regardless of how bad he may have felt, and eat dinner with us.   We usually had roasts (whether beef or some game bird), plus lots of sweets, cakes, etc. In other words, they were always great, but…

One Christmas when I was 7-years old, us kids asked Mom what she was going to make for Christmas dinner.  She said it was a surprise but that we would really like it.  We were thrilled!!! A surprise!!!   Probably some great meat roast, chocolate cake and ice cream—in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s summer during Christmas, so yeah, ice cream. For about a week, we kept pestering her about what the surprise meal was.  She always answered, “It’s a surprise but you are really going to like it.” In a moment of weakness, she said it was beef… GREAT!  I could see a giant roast and, like Pavlov’s dog’ would salivate at the thought… Dog Boy!

Finally, Christmas day!!! After all the presents had been opened, Mom began preparing dinner.  Normally, the maid cooked but on special occasions Mom herself did the cooking with the maid assisting her.  This was such an occasion.  Naturally I was very curious about Mom’s surprise.  I tried to sneak into the kitchen—NO GO!  This was really going to be a surprise.  I went upstairs and tried to get my father to tell me, but he wouldn’t—he said he didn’t know.  I hung out near the kitchen door—lots of smells but… nothing like beef roast… 

Finally, it was time for dinner.  Dad came down from upstairs, we all sat down, said prayers, etc.  Time for the food… I get this plate with something grayish-white on it; it looked YUCK!

“What is it?” I asked.  

Mom: “It’s cow brains. Try it.”   

NO WAY!  It smelled… and not like roast beef for sure.  I think I may have tasted it once but didn’t eat any of it.  Cow brains for Christmas!  Love you, Mom, but really??? No thank you. 

Though I’m a meat and potatoes guy, I’ve never overcome my aversion to any kind of internal organ meats, whether kidneys, brains, liver, etc.  And even though our family comes from the Basque country in Spain where internal organ cuisine are a specialty, no internal organ meats for me.  Don’t know if the maid’s kidneys or brains for Christmas caused it, but I’m sure they didn’t help my appetite and I won’t touch any! 

By:  Homeless With a Laptop, That is My Name 

       Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя

A Happy Life, Part 1: Chile, Cat Tongues

 

[F]or my purpose holds 

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die.

                                                Alfred, Lord Tennyson

As I’ve grown older, one of the things I’ve learned is that out of even great calamities something good always comes out of them. The most obvious example is that of Christians who believe that if Jesus had not been crucified and died as he did, He would not have resurrected and we would not believe that He is the son of God. My first experience with this happened when I got hit by a car as I was going to school.

            It was a Wednesday afternoon and I was returning to school after eating lunch at home.  I sometimes ate at the school dining hall, but other times went home. On Wednesday afternoons we used to go to confession. I was ready to confess all of the sins that a 7-year old has committed.  It had been raining for the past few days but finally the sun was shining, and it was a really beautiful afternoon.

            I got out of the bus, went in front of it, I looked around: all clear; and began to cross the street.  BANG! I felt that something had hit me on the side, lifted me up and thrown me high in the sky.  I landed in a puddle and, of course, began to howl.  I could see that I was laying on the street, saw the bus driver jump out of the bus through his window, ran over, picked me up and was trying to console me.  I got my bearings, stopped crying and he put me down.  I guess I was alright because I was standing up and it didn’t hurt much. I saw that the car that had hit me had stopped.  There were three people in it: two men and a woman.  The woman was crying hysterically, and the men were also trying to console me.  They asked me for my home telephone number, where I lived, etc.  I told them that I wanted to go to school and that I was okay. I got in the car with them.  The woman was still crying but not as bad as before; I told her I was okay.  I still remember the man who was driving: his hands and his arms were shaking really bad. I tried to give them directions to the school, but we drove in circles a few times as the driver was really shaken up. We finally made it, I said thank you and went in.

            I got to class just in time and was happy that the side of my pants where I had fallen in the puddle were now pretty dry—get ready for confession.  

            Suddenly the classroom door opened, and the school director who was a priest, and my Mother came in; Mom was crying.  She hugged me and told me that we were going home.  When we got home, Mom put me to bed. Our next-door neighbor was a doctor and he came to examine me—nothing other than a small bruise on the side of my hip.   Mom said I was going to stay home for a couple of days to make sure I was okay. She was a Red Cross volunteer nurse, so she knew about this kind of stuff.

            Later that afternoon, the people whose car had hit me came by to visit me.  They were really nice; and no more crying.  The bought me a box of “Lenguas de Gato” (Cat tongues)—milk chocolates shaped in cat tongues.  Chocolate cat tongues were expensive and a super treat for a 7-year old chocolate lover. Our other close friends also stopped by to see how I was doing, all bearing treats.   A lot of good came out of the accident. For me it was like an early Christmas and I was a king; though I don’t recommend being hit by a car as a means for getting attention. 

By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя

A Happy Life: Immigrant Tales, War Stories, and Some Musings

Introduction

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large; I contain multitudes). Walt Whitman

“Immigrants” … the words echo all over the place in newspapers, magazines, television, social media, etc. I don’t offer any comments on any of them; they speak for themselves. I’m generally not into other people’s labels, but since I came to the United States from a foreign country, this one time and only for our purposes, let’s say “I’m an immigrant…” However, I don’t speak for any other immigrants or groups. “I, immigrant” only speak for myself just to offer a few tales and war stories; the latter compiled from my almost 28 years of military service in the United States Air Force. 

These tales and stories contain no hidden messages, no philosophies, no political motivations or anything else of the sort. My only hope is that they’ll mostly make you smile, laugh, some may even make you a little sad, or just make you think “this guy is wacked”; but that regardless of circumstances, to remind all that we are just… people. I do not use dates throughout the book, the reason simply being: “Youth has no age.” Pablo Picasso. 

When I told my wife that I wanted to write stories about our life, she did not want me to mention her by name or as wife. Yet, she is the center of gravity of our family, so I could not ignore her presence. Accordingly, I’ll refer to her by what I usually call her, “My Girl.” The more I thought about it, the better the idea seemed. I also don’t use our names because we’re just all families; we could be anyone—and we are.  Now it's been 3 1/2 years since Jesus called My Girl  ... here are some stories of our life together.

I was born in Chile a few years ago. My father was a lawyer though he was mostly sick due to muscular dystrophy and my mother worked as a newspaper agent for a large conservative Chilean daily, “El Diaro Ilustrado”, which is now defunct. I am the oldest of four: two sisters and one brother. My youngest sister and my brother were twins. He died a few hours after birth. The doctors didn’t think that he would make it, so they called for a priest to give him baptism before he died. My mother was heavily sedated at the time, so she could not tell them the name she wanted to give him. The priest then asked my grandfather “What name do you want to give the child?” My grandfather, Alfonso, had no clue so he just blurted out “Juan Luis.” My mother had wanted to name him after Grandfather Alfonso, so although my brother was baptized as Juan Luis, we always refer to him in the diminutive “Alfonsito.” Alfonsito has always been part of our family. My Girl and I named our youngest son, Son No. 2, after him. 

My Girl and I were married a few years ago too.  She is South Korean by birth, though now she’s an all-American girl… who also loves Korea. 

Do I miss Chile? Not really. I miss the wonder that was my youth, which included Chile. In fact, I now have a very slight accent when I speak Spanish, as I have when I speak English. The accent does not show much when I speak slowly, deliberately and authoritatively. But I guess in some respect this leaves me Homeless… so you can call me Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name. 

I blinked my eyes and time flew away with my youth. Now, an older face stares back at me from the mirror. “Who is that???” I ask. “Surely it can’t be me because I feel the same as I always have.” The face looks back at me and never answers. I suppose it’s a small gesture of kindness on its part—why respond to a question with an answer that the speaker cannot bear to hear: we can’t handle the truth.  

By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя