bobberdilly.com

I found this again the other day. When I was just a kid, I remember coming from Garden City, KS up to Great Bend to visit my grandfathers brother, John Garver. I remember my family talking about the letter from Ignatius Donnelly. The famous politician, writer and what ever from Minnesota 1831-1901. It wasn’t until after my mother had died that my brother sent me all the family photographs. In the pile was the famous family letter. It isn’t really about much except the letter is in, Ignatius Donnelly’s own hand and is signed. Someone in the family had sent a photograph of baby (My grandfather) Donnelly Bacon Garver to Ignatius and he responed… Thus we have the letter. P.S. Someone at some time spilled their coffee and slightly smeared the signature.

Would you just look at this. Those wonderful folks at the Barton County Arts Center have put the sign I painted for them up on the front of the building. It feels so good to see it there even if I’m saying it for myself. I even find myself going around the block just to look at it over and over.

Check this out folks. I knew this old poster was around the house somewhere, so I went to digging. I found it and now to share it with the world.

Good ole Rev. Phelphs was running for govener of Kansas in 1990 and he rode past Golden Belt Printing where I was working at the time and put this thing on my window. I kept it to prove he couldn’t recognize the enemy then and he can’t do it now.

He stands off from the people he protests against, so he doesn’t have to confront them and maybe create a terrible doubt in his “absolute assurance” that he’s absolutely Biblically correct.

I chuckle everytime I look at it. I looked at both sides and I can’t see anything where he says “God hates America and death to the fags!” Maybe that was to come after he was elected. “Oh, by the way folks… Sorry I didn’t say it before you elected me to this office, but I hate Fags and Transexuals and all those other people.

Also: Thanks for your comments, especially from my most responsive friends… Hannah Johnson from Jolly Ole England, Karen Kline Martin down the street and Annie Smith out on the Z farm (Love you all) who tune into the Bob blog on a regular basis. P.S. I love the rest of you as well.

Ryan Sallans:

A couple weeks ago I read in the paper or heard it on the television that the KU campus at Salina was having this transgendered speaker from Lincoln, Nebraska. I guess what really attracted me to driving down to see him speak was the fact that the Campus powers-that-be decided to pull the funding for this speaker and the student body or atleast some of them, decided to raise the money themselves and bring him any way.

Well… I worked my butt off at the diner that day and I was bushed when I got off work at around 3:30, but Marcella and I went to Salina anyway. Just as we arrived at the Campus around 7:oo, we were confronted with a mob of sign wielding counter protesters at the front gate. The place was swarming with cops, but I drove in anyway. Once we got inside the presentation hall, I found out the uproar was over the fact that Reverend Phelps was in town and picketing the college because of Ryan Sallans came to speak. God hates america and crap like that. That bigot shows up for military funerals and causes trouble, because God hates Lesbians, gays, and transgendered folks.

Well… all that ended and the program started. The room was full, but not an overwhelming crowd considering the size of Salina… but I have to remember this is th bible belt of the United states and its full of frightened bible thumping bigots.

His talk was wonderful. I got tears in my eyes a couple of times. Ryan was born a female an even as early as two he was desplaying a tendency to be male. Well to make this story short he didn’t feel like a girl and all his feelings were being male and wanting to be male. The program was about the trouble in school and not fitting in and his everntual decision to have a sex change operation.

It was very informative evening and I learned much about my own feelings bouncing up, down, sideways and in between being a male and female myself. After the program I asked him if he might know my daughter Allison teaching at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, NE, but he said he didn’t or at least the name didn’t ring any bells.

Marcella and i got home around ten and went to bed. I didn’t sleep well from a combination of being really tired from work and being high off that program in Salina.

I came home tired from work. Those church folks just love a Buffet on sunday. I went and went for every minute until we were allowed to sit down and eat. I was afraid to sit very long because I was afraid i’d seize up like i have now. I can hardly move and I look just like the photo I posted this morning.

Anyway… I was well enought to go with Marcella out to the college for a very… How you say it?… a very disturbing play. Marcella didn’t sleep through it. It was named “The wild west”. When we left to go home the outside had fogged in and I took the about shot of it. I when well with the mood in the production. That figure in the distance is Marcella.

Take a good look at the photo above. If in the morning, you look in the mirror and this is what you see… It is because they love you at work.

They had me work last night at the diner for the sea food night. Hundreds came and I worked and worked like crazy trying to keep up with the dishes. I got off work about ten oclock.

Then this morning (right after I get finished with this post) I have to jump up and go to work at 9:00 am and I know everyone one and his pet dog will show up for sunday dinner. (the day of rest) They will come in and in and in and in until i’m wasted away (I used a small “i” on i’m because that is how i’m gonna be worn down by the time I get off work.

Then if that isn’t enough, I get to go into work again monday at 9:30 to do it all over again.

One thing good about all this… I get a great work-out and they pay me to do it. I told the girl who makes the schedual to give me a break and let the other dishwasher (who needs the money worse than I do) have more hours. She’s three times younger than i and I’m sure she would love to see a larger paycheck. Well, i guess i better put on my apron and head off to work.

Here it is! This is what it looks like inside my brain in case you wanted to know. There is a clear spot in the center and all the jibberish around the outside. Right at the moment it doesn’t quite look this way (This was drawn a few days ago) because I just got off work at the diner and I’m wasted. I spent six solid hours scraping plates on the day of rest. I didn’t get to stop or sit on the pot or go on a smoke break with the smokers. All I had time for was to keep going and going lest I get behind. There is nothing worse than getting behind when washing dishes. I just can’t stand seeing mountains of unwashed pots and pans and especially once the doors are bolted and the teeming masses stop teeming.

God, I’m so tired, even my finger tips are mumb but by god I got out of that place at 3:45, just a mere fifteen minutes more than a normal busy day. I keep up with the flow. I was helped, however by the waitresses who kept the tables clear and the carts always filled so I didn’t have to bus the tables to keep up.

So look at the drawing above and visualize lots of out-of-focus stuff and you’ll get a better view of how it looks right at this instant. I’m just minutes away from going to bed. So good night.

Yup! I guess there is something good I can be excited about on Veterans day. Applebee’s advertized they were having all veterans eat free, so after work I took Marcella and I went there and had the G.I. Special for nothing. Well, almost nothing… It was eight something and we gave the waitress a five dollar tip so we didn’t save much, but that wasn’t the point. There were lots of folks coming down to take them up on the offer and we all had something in common. We all somehow survived our own military ordeal and lived until now to come down to tenth street in Great Bend and indulge in a free supper on the American free-enterprize system.
Thank you Applebee’s for making my day.

Here it is again. November 11 Veterans day. I have to work as usual. I always have to work on Veterans day. It seems all the Vets have to work and everyone else who didn’t go to the service gets the day off. Oh well, who gives a crap?

Its been since 1969 that I left the military for the first and final time. I was glad to be out. I’ve never made it a secret that I had no desire to go when I was drafted in 1967. I was a target for the big green killing machine from the moment I graduated from high school and I did everything I could to stay out of its clutches. Well, everything but run to Mexico or Canada or burn my draft card. They sucked me in and I did what I was supposed to do and I came home in one piece.

I came home from Vietnam in one complete piece with no fancy medals or awards. I came home to no parades or honors. I just came home on a commercial flight one morning in November 1969 and know one knew I came from Vietnam or cared except my Family. I just came home and went to work.

I am proud of my service, but I’m increasingly not proud of the fact that when I was in Vietnam (1968-1969) that the war was essentially over. People went on dying, but the war had been lost. Why in hell was any of us still there!

I didn’t get a big welcome home parade, or recognized for anything. No one even knows I was in vietnam. No one even cares if our public parks and street corners are filled with down and out vets who have been forgotten and are now just some more of societys litter. Still the process of creating a new generation of veterans continues.

Since I’ve been home… America has engaged in numerous wars with dubious outcomes. I hear ever one saying they were to perserve our freedom. “They fought for our freedom!” to bad… because our freedom was never in danger. We fought for lots of things, but not for our freedom. I want all this war to end unless it really is for our freedom!

One of these days I hope to bring myself to my feet when they call for all the vets to stand and be acknowledged. Right now I just can’t do it. One of these days when the membership to organizations that cater to veterans for membership falls to nothing, that is the day I’m looking forward to.

I’m no hero, I didn’t get wounded in enemy action. I was never a prisoner of war or do anything heroic. I just did what I was expected to do and came home and I don’t want to see anyone else go anywhere unless it is necessay and none of what we’re doing now was necessay.

Still it doesn’t matter what I think…. I’ll be washing dishes for all the vets that come into the cafe for dinner.

A person asked me if I took any drugs. They wanted to know where all this crap came from. They wanted to know if my head was swimming in all these pictures. Well…. I don’t take any drugs and this stuff certainly isn’t inside my head. Hell… I’d be running into walls and stuff. How in heck would a person see around all this silly crap. I see the same stuff everyone else sees. I suppose if I were to drop a bit of acid or something like that, I’d see what those dopes saw and then maybe I’d get some more ideas, but I could rest you assured it wouldn’t be much different than I do now.

No… It’s like this. I put a mark down on a piece of paper, a wall, a painting canvass. I put a mark down without the slightest idea what will happen. Well… sometimes I have a vague idea of what I might want and i start with that somewhat in mind, but what ends up is never what I invisioned.

I put a mark down and then I look at it and I see another mark and then the drawing happens. That is why I can’t show a committee what I’m going to do. It comes out as I do it. Maybe while I’m trying to draw something and someone comes up to talk to me… Well that will be an influence and the drawing will change. Maybe the wind will blow a leaf up and it sticks to the painting… and that will also become an influence. You see… life as it happens is what happens in my work.

I see things in things when they are in front of me. I can’t make images in my head like normal people. When I try to invision… I see blank space. I need some sort of see. I need something to happen or something to be there before anything happens. I’m not even a scatter brain. I’m a no-brain and nothing is there until I see something happen. Drugs couldn’t do a thing for that. Hell…. anyone could do what I do.

And besides having nothing in my head… I’m lazy as hell… but I’m a creative Lazy sort of person. I go for the easy way about things. I hate hard stuff. I hate large stuff that I can’t see the end of. I could never paint a really large bridge. I need to see the end of stuff. I never start on something that disappears into the distance or dark. The reason for this is … I’d go crazy. I’m completely normal now… but I need the things I do to have a ending. I just love drawing in my little blank books, but I only do it because I can see the back cover and I can see how far it is to that back cover. I need to see the end of stuff.

I have some more pictures scanned to go onto this web site, but I just didn’t want to take the time it takes to post them this evening. I just got off work several hours ago and I’m tired as hell. Remember….I’m and old guy and my energy level only strectches so far.