STOLEN BY GHOSTS, SAVED BY LIFE

The once a year excuse: Stolen By Ghosts.

Halloween comes with one special get out of jail free card.

If you ever blamed the dog for lost homework, you know the drill.

To make it perfectly clear, I conducted a scientific poll, asking Millennials, GenX, Baby Boomers, and Greats (the greatest generation from WWII, thanks Tom Bokaw), if they’ve had anything stolen by ghosts.

The follow up was, “What would you like to see stolen by ghosts.”

Millennials On Stolen By Ghosts

My college years. I mean, we went to college, got a degree, got jobs, and all we hear about is millennials complaining about their college debt.

Now college will be free? Is this retro-active? I’d like some of that free college.

We’re smart enough to know you get what you pay for, and we knew it going in, but there was more to college than loan repayment.

Some of my friends were stolen by ghosts when they dropped out. I was counting on them being around more than a year, or a term.

We’ll pay out debts, our loans, but every year since graduating more of the fun of those times disappear.

It’s sad.

Young GenX on Stolen By Ghosts

I’d like half the crap in my kids’ playroom to be stolen by ghosts.

Where did that all come from? One day we’re worrying about educational toys, reading to them, making their lives better.

The next day we’re swamped by television toys, choke threat toys, break my foot if I step on them toys.

It’s too much and most of it is on the floor when they aren’t playing.

I’m no toy hoarder, but you’d never know it by the looks of things.

Old GenX on Stolen By Ghosts

Stolen by ghosts? Is that the question?

Someone’s stolen all my crap. I don’t know what else they could steal.

Was it ghosts, or just life?

I see young people, young men and women, so happy and carefree.

They have both their parents. They still talk to their brothers and sisters. No one has committed the fatal act of family. Yet.

I see how happy they are and it feels like they’re stealing my life from me. I used to be one of them.

Will they turn out right? That’s the real question.

Baby Boomer on Stolen By Ghosts

Back in the early seventies I had an abundance of smoke, so much that I wasn’t worried about running out.

That much, and like always, I ran out.

Before that, when I had a load of it in my rental, I found a hole in a kitchen cabinet. It was a hole in the sheet rock inside a cabinet.

I felt in there and found a cripple in between studs, one of those horizontal two by fours.

Having so much stuff around, I put a big bag of it in the hole. Before I shut the door, I heard it drop inside the wall.

But I wasn’t worried, not until I started running short.

Then I knocked a hole in the bottom cabinet wall just under the one on top, figuring to find the dropped bag. And I did.

Except it wasn’t the same bag as the one I put in there. So I reached in again and found the other bag.

The guy who put the first one in there must have thought it was stolen by ghosts.

Greatest Generation on Stolen By Ghosts

This election feels like it’s stolen by ghosts. When my friends and I talk about it, we can’t believe its real.

In Portland, the verdict on the Malheur Seven was stolen by ghosts, white ghosts.

Take that case anyplace in the country and you’d get a different decision.

What really gets me is North Dakota. I was born and raised there and what’s happening is sickening.

There’s real theft going on, big money oil flexing their muscle to let the rest of us know who’s in charge.

People I know would go there in a minute, but doing something closer to home is a better idea.

We believe in the spirits of Indian lands, in the culture they share, in the grief they carry. There’s enough for everyone.

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Zeitgeist: The Movie

My last subject said religion was stolen by ghosts and pointed to Zeitgeist: The Movie.

I haven’t seen it. If you have, leave a comment.

From the linked page:

We choose to be greedy, we choose to be hateful, we chose to segregate each other into categories, we chose to twist the rules, omit a word, and judge where none of us has a right to judge. We can only do the best we can. It’s not even about faith really, it’s about being deeply human. How we choose to deal with our humanity is just a choice. We all have the same finish line to look forward to. Faith is what you choose to hope for after you cross it.

Make sure no ghost steals your humanity. You’ll need that to subscribe to Boomerpdx.com.

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I think my youth was stolen by ghosts.

One day I’m fine, the next I’m having trouble breathing. Just sitting and my breathing changed.

I went to urgent care, who called for an ambulance to take me to the hospital.

They think I had a mild heart attack. I’m going in for more tests next week.

Young people don’t know how well they’ve got it. Once you start worrying about your health everything changes.

Now it changes for me.