Last week, GOP Congressman Blake Farenthold criticized his GOP colleagues in the Senate for lacking the “courage” to repeal Obamacare and pass a replacement bill. He specifically called out “female senators from the Northeast,” whom he suggested he would have challenged to a duel ― if they were men.

“If it was a guy from south Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style,” the congressman said.

This week GOP Senator Susan Collins was captured on a live microphone making fun of Farenthold, whom many speculate was the one he challenged to the duel, “He’s huge…he’s so unattractive, it’s unbelievable.”

Collins was referring to a photo of Farenthold that circulated in 2010, during his first run for Congress, adding, “Did you see the picture of him in his pajamas next to this bunny, Playboy bunny?”

This was followed by Democratic Senator Jack Reed saying to Collins over a hot mic, that she could “beat the shit” out of Farenthold.

Needless to say the media was all over the battle of words. However, it also shows their hapless inability to avoid double standards.

The Left’s propaganda apparatus has had little to nothing to say about ‘The Daily Beasts’ Ira Madison III, who likened Sarah Huckabee Sanders to a drag queen in a posting on Twitter shortly after President Trump promoted her to the role of White House press secretary.

“Butch queen first time in drags at ball,” he tweeted to his followers – along with a photograph of the new press secretary.

Furthermore, they have been largely silent on Hollywood wannabe’s who’ve been unkind to Sanders by openly insulting her on Twitter.

“I felt like Sarah Huckabee Sanders left and right eye switched places or something,” Black comedian Akliah Hughes wrote.

And not to be outdone in nastiness, ‘Family Guy’ writer Damien Fahey tweeted, “Sarah Huckabee Sanders looks like every woman eating lobster on a cruise ship.”

Progressives are so kind and tolerant.

What is it all about,
These final years of living?

Having worked till you are no longer needed,
Broke and broken –
No further to proceed.

Am I alone in this search for meaning?
If I’m not…
Where are the other travelers on this road?
It certainly seems that I am.

Hiding perhaps,
Cowering in their facade’.

Acting O-so happy
Outwardly faking it?

There is an odd sense
A Loneliness that hangs
Upon my bent and arthritic neck.

Like a stone of obsidian,
Black, shiny, sharp.
Cutting – no – no – no –

Digging through my chest
Until is replaces my heart
And yet, I do not bleed –
Not from my visable wounds…

Instead my life’s energy flows
From words, phrases, cliches’.

And though shared
They are meaningless to
Me,
To you,
In these final years –
Our final years unliving.

There is so much about my first trip to Mexico that do not recall. Not that it was nearly four-decades ago, but because it was a booze-fill weekend where I had no one other than myself to be responsible for or to.

There were five of us, and I sat in the middle, in the back seat of the rented car we were using. In fact, aside from me, the only person I can remember with any certainty is Mike O’Gorman, whom I nicknamed “Jughead,” as he reminded me of the Archie comic book character of the same name.

Up until that time, I had not ventured very far outside of the San Antonio area for worry that I might get lost and have to explain why I didn’t make it back to base in time for morning-time muster. So going to Mexico was a big deal for me and I could hardly wait to get there.

The quickest route was to take Interstate 35 to Laredo and crossing the border into Nuevo Laredo. It was only two-and-half-hour drive but by that time we each chomping at the bit to wet our whistles and meet some South-of-the-Border beauties.

Once across the border, we began asking around for the best watering-hole to be found. This is the last fully cognizant memory I have until Monday morning when I woke up in the trunk of our rented car and being hustled into our barracks get ready for the duty-day.

The particular saloon, bar, club or what have you – the name also escapes me – was full of American Expats who were more than willing to buy (I never spent a dime all weekend,) a round or seven for a group of servicemen on furlough. My haziness kicked in shortly after this point in our adventure.

Aside from drinking, what I do recall is following a couple of fellow American’s from one place to the next. In one instance, we even stopped to get something to eat as we hadn’t eaten anything since morning.

In my mind’s eye, when I reflect back on that moment, it seems like it was nighttime. Anyway, I ordered several of whatever, deciding that the last one had to be the hottest they could make.

Talk about being instantly sobered. First, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see and then I couldn’t stand, having slid off my stool onto the floor and beneath our table.

In retrospect – I can honestly say that I passed out. When I awoke, which was not even seconds after dropping on the floor, everyone was laughing and I did my best to join in, but I think the sudden expulsion of food and alcohol from my body made it a difficult matter.

But, still unwilling to give in, we continued to other places, all on foot to find drink, food and awful side-street exhibitions. Because I had gotten sick, I was no longer as drunk as everyone else in my party.

After being served our drinks, a portly naked woman walked onto the center floor, which I had assumed was a dance area, guiding a mule on a lead. What she proceeded to do with that animal, I refuse to even bother giving words to – it was disgusting, but not wanting to seem uncool in front of American Expat friends, we laughed and carried on like it was the greatest show on earth.

Except for ‘Jughead,’ he wasn’t laughing – instead he was rubbing his face in her hairy-spot like he’d never seen one before. I nearly got sick for a second time.

After witnessing that, I decided I was going to have to wash that sight out of my brain by killing a few memory-cells in whatever alcoholic swill served to me. It didn’t take long for me to become so drunk that I couldn’t really remember up from down or left from right and I stayed there until around two in the morning on Monday.

In reality, I had awaken long before we got back to base. However the more I kicked and louder I screamed to be let out of the ‘god-damned trunk,’ the greater the howls of laughter came from the back and front seat’s of our car.

The booze must have caught up with at some point in the trip back because I have no memory of going through the front-gate of Brooks Air Force Base. In fact, it was a shock to see sunlight once the trunk opened and I was being half-lifted, half-dragged into Building #512.

Afterwards, I decided that if I ever returned to Mexico, I’d either be by myself or in the company of a pretty woman. So, being the romantic that I am, a few years later I went there by myself and wound up in jail for a month.

Oh – and as for O’Gorman and that woman – he claimed he had no memory of doing such a nasty thing and swore up and down that we were making it up.

As I write this, I am in bed battling a summer head cold and losing. Earlier on Facebook I described my condition as having had wet cement shot up my nose, into my sinus cavity and behind my eyes.

The description still holds.

Earlier, as I stood in the shower trying to steam everything loose in my brain-holder I come upon a memory that I’d not thought of in ages. When I was a kid I’d see other neighborhood children, who had not gone to school that day, out playing after the school day was over.

This used to make me so jealous as my mom believed that if you were sick enough to miss school, you were too sick to go outside and play after the school day ended. Looking back I must now say that I completely agree with her.

Unfortunately she’s passed on; fortunately I don’t have to admit it to her.

And by now, most of us have heard of texting while under the influence. Well, I managed to write an entire three-page letter while looped by having taken too much over-the-counter medication – NyQuil and Vick’s Formula 44, to be exact.

(Funny, but my spell check wants to change NyQuil to tequila.)

Anyway, shortly after medicating myself, I decided to write my good friend Deb Spring, who was living in San Diego at the time. Once finished, I sealed it in an envelope, addressed it, put a stamp on and walked it down to our mail box in our apartment complex.

Then a few days later I received a nice, polite letter back from her telling me that she loved me too, that no she wouldn’t have sex with me and that I was already married, so my proposal was out of the question. Needless to say, I was embarrassed and called her to explain.

Being overloaded on medication, I eventually passed out. And when I woke up later that day, I thought it was all a dream or perhaps a hallucination — not the mortifying nightmare it became.

Oh, and Deb, if you still have that letter, it would be okay by me if it happened to find its way to your fireplace or wood stove some chilly evening.

Finally, a few years back I lost my favorite canine companion, Harley. A dog with his caring qualities comes around only once in a lifetime I figured, but I was wrong.

Buddy appears to have the same qualities that Harley had. He like to be with me at all-times, comes to check on me when he’s elsewhere, he likes to wake me by lightly liking my face and at night, and when we hit the rack, he’s right there waiting for me to get settled under the blankets.

In fact, he’s been jockeying for position with my lap-top since I started this post and furthermore, he doesn’t seem to mind the smell of VapoRub – unlike me. Now – if I can only get him to stop snoring…

“You were born prematurely,” Sam’s mother explained to him when he went to her again to complain about being smaller than everyone else in his class. He had heard the same thing most of his life, but had only now, at age 12, begin to understand what being ‘premature’ actually meant – small.

Sam knew he was different and that was also because of being ‘premature.’ At one point he held the ideal, even though he didn’t fully understand its meaning, as something to be proud of – but then Ernie moved in down the block and everything changed.

Nearly everyday Ernie would meet him around the corner from his house, which Sam had to walk by to get to school. And nearly everyday, Ernie would punch him or knock Sam down, taking his lunch money or rifling through his lunch bag, taking whatever the larger kid wanted.

When he had enough of Ernie’s bullying, Sam finally let him have it with a solid punch to the head. Unfortunately for Sam, a teacher saw him throw the punch and it was Sam and not Ernie who ended up in the Principal’s office and later suspended from school for fighting.

This came after Sam had told every teacher he could about what Ernie did to him each day. Not even Sam’s father could persuade Ernie’s mom to make her son stop his bullying.

“He’s jus’ acting out,” she stated, excusing her boy’s behavior, “Besides, his father isn’t in the picture anymore and he doesn’t always listen to me.”

So Sam resigned himself to being Ernie’s punching bag and lunch-provider for the rest of their sixth grade year together. Sam hoped, prayed and wished that come summertime, things would change.

One late afternoon, Sam’s father came home early from work. Once upstairs he stopped to check in on his son, to see what he was doing.

Sam was looking through the wrong end of the telescope his folks had bought him for Christmas, the year before. His father stood there, watching, perplexed by Sam’s smile as the pre-teen moved the scope ever-so slightly from side-to-side.

Finally, the father couldn’t contain himself anymore, asking, “You do know you’re looking through that the wrong way, right?”

Surprised, Sam swung the tube around and looked at his dad, answering, “Yeah, I know.”

“So what are you looking at?” his dad asked.

“I’m watching Ernie playing in his front yard,” Sam responded with a smile.

“Why?” the puzzled parent returned, “I thought you two were still at odds.”

“Oh, we are,” Sam said, “But when I look at him from the wrong end of the telescope, he looks so small.”

“And..?” the dad asked.

“And he finally looks on the outside like he does on the inside — and I’m no longer afraid of him,” Sam beamed.

When I was 10 or 11, my parents bought the most uncoolest car in the world; a gold-colored Opel Kadet station wagon. Being a small car, it only sat three people in the backseat, meaning one of us four kids would have to climb in the very back behind that backseat.

One morning, we loaded up and hit the road, heading south towards Eureka and later Fortuna. Uncomfortable and bored, I started pestering my two sisters and brother.

As we dropped down the hill near Clam Beach, where the California Highway Patrol had an unmanned weight scale and shack, Dad had enough and glared at me in the rear view mirror. Being somewhat intelligent, I knew exactly what that meant: “Knock it off!”

But being only ‘somewhat intelligent’ and realizing I was about to get in big trouble was my forte’. Therefore, I pressed my luck by doing whatever it was I had done to one of my siblings one time too many.

“Don’t make me come back there!” Dad shouted as he looked at me in the rear view mirror.

To be perfectly clear Dad was driving the car, so I felt very certain that he was not about to let go of the steering wheel and climb back to get me. To that end, I was only partly correct.

“I’d like to see you,” I smiled as I did it again and one the kids squealed.

That’s when Dad stopped the car. I mean he didn’t step on the foot brake – nope, he tugged hard on the emergency brake — and everyone behind him went flying towards the dashboard, including me.

Without turning around, he grabbed his intended target, me, and jerked me over my siblings and out through his driver’s door. And right there, on the side of Highway 101, fairly close to the vista point on the south end of Clam Beach and somewhere beneath the airport on the bluff overhead, he commenced to giving me a butt-whipping.

Several log trucks and chip haulers went screaming by as he tanned my back side, each one blasting their horn in amazed approval. Then he marched me around to the back of the car, popped open the hatch and made me climb in before slamming it shut and returning to his place behind the wheel.

Never again did I smart-mouth my dad by challenging him to do something like that, having learned to accept his warning at face-value. And to this day I have no idea why I didn’t think about the fact that all he had to do was stop the vehicle to ‘come back there.’

As I got ready to leave my VAMHC (Veteran Affairs Mental Health Care) doctor’s office, I noticed a grouping of rocks, some smooth by the tumbling of rapid waters, still others in rough form, gathered atop her mini-fridge. It seemed a strange place to have such a display.

I couldn’t help but ask, “So you collect rocks?”

She smiled, “In a round-about way?”

“Yeah, how so?” I came back.

“They’ve all been given to me by patients,” she answered.

“Really,” I responded with surprise.

“Yes,” she said, “It may seem strange, but a lot of veteran’s bring them to me – to all of us, as gifts when they come in for their appointment.”

As we exited her office, the doctor pointed to the open door across the hallway. There on the desk sat another collection of rocks that included plain-looking rocks to a piece of purple-colored amethyst.

“See,” she said, her smile widening, “And I haven’t taken the time to figure out why.”

We proceeded down the hallway to the appointment desk, talking about the rock’s and their possible meaning. I confessed to her that I also collect rocks, many without any real worldly value.

Much of my collection is kept in a plastic pencil box. And I can tell you pretty much where and when I picked a particular specimen up and what I thought was so special about it.

“Really?” she asked cheerfully, adding, “So why do you think you do it?”

“For a couple of reasons,” I answered, “First for the memory of it – which is to say, ‘I passed this way,’ and then to feel connected.”

By this time we were at the appointment desk. My doctor turned to me and asked quietly, “Connected to what exactly?”

A smile crossed my face as I answered: “To the world once again.”

“Wow,” she whispered loudly as we shook hands and said goodbye.

By week eleven, our final week, we were beginning to see new faces around the barracks. It was the members of a new “baby flight,” entering the pipeline. It was nice to see some different people after nearly three-months.

The night before graduation, after I learned I was going to pass the coarse material, I decided to celebrate by getting drunk. I was sitting at the bar in the club, sucking at my third or fourth beer, when a petite blond asked if I’d like to dance.

A slow song was emanating from the jukebox at the time. Without hesitating I jumped from the bar stool and said yes to the woman in standing in front of me.

Her name was Velva and she was from New York State. We danced close to each other through that song and the two that followed not worried about whether the music was fast or slow.

By the end of the third song we had decided we wanted each other physically. We wasted no time crossing the commons to my barracks room.

Velva was eight years older than me I would soon learn. Furthermore she has two children back in New York as well as a husband.

I didn’t let her stats sway me.

Velva left well after curfew and as I was drifting in and out of sleep. I begged her to stay, but she was worried she’d get caught in the men’s section of the barracks after hours and get in trouble.

Later that morning, after our formal graduation ceremony, I was scheduled to leave the base for my permanent duty sight. Somehow, Velva found me and she wrapped her arms around me as tight as she could and she quietly cried into my shoulder.

All I could do was hold her just as tightly.

Then it was time to go, as a cabbie stepped into the hallway announcing her was there to take me to the airport. And like that I never saw Velva again.

Their twisted new age-ism and self-created Islamic beliefs, along with drug-induced paranoia, formed their strange moral code. They were on a mission from God to exterminate anyone they believed to be a witch, earning them the media nickname, the “San Francisco Witch Killers,” but they preferred to be known as “vegetarian Moslem warriors.”

James Clifford Carson, also known as Michael Bear Carson and Susan Barnes Carson, who adopted the name Suzan Bear Carson are two serial killers convicted for three murders between 1982 and 1983 in Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area.

A married man, James Carson, who also had a master’s degree in Chinese studies, living with one child in Phoenix, Arizona in 1981 when his wife noticed severe behavior changes and left with their child. It was shortly afterwards that Carson began a relationship with Suzan Barnes, who had two teenage sons and who had also recently divorced.

At some point James Carson took the name of “Michael Bear Carson”, telling his daughter in a letter that God had given him the new name “Michael.” Susan also changed her name becoming known as “Suzan Bear.”

In 1979, the Carsons went to Europe. There, the two supposedly married one evening while visiting Stonehenge in England.

By 1980, they had returned to the U.S. and were living as Michael and Suzan Bear in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.They also continued their involvement with drugs and the counterculture.

By this time, Michael Bear Carson’s former wife had become afraid that he would harm her and try to abduct or gain custody of their child, so she took steps to hide herself and the child from him, including moving many times and cutting off contact with mutual acquaintances.

In March 1981, 22-year-old Keryn Barnes, an aspiring petite, redheaded actress from Georgia who had been the Carsons roommate in Haight-Ashbury, was found dead in their shared apartment. Her skull crushed and stabbed 13 times her body was found wrapped in a blanket and hidden in the basement.

Evidence showed that Keryn died at the hands of someone she knew, and the Carsons were the prime suspects, but they disappeared before the body was found.

The Carsons fled to a mountain hideout near Grants Pass, Oregon, where they remained until spring 1982. They then moved to Alderpoint, California, near Garberville in Humboldt County, California, where they lived and worked on a marijuana farm as caretakers and guards.

Some of their fellow workers on the farm said the Carsons were anarchists who advocated revolution and predicted that an apocalypse or nuclear war would soon occur. In May 1982, the Carsons’ had an ongoing dispute with another worker on the farm, Clark Stephens.

Eventually, Michael killed Stephens by shooting him, after which the Carsons’ attempted to dispose of his body by dragging it into the woods, dismembering it and burning it, then burying it under chicken fertilizer, before leaving the area. Two weeks later, friends of Clark reported his disappearance to the Humboldt County Sheriffs’ Office, who investigated and found his’ drivers’ license and burnt remains in the woods.

The Carsons, who at that point were known to their co-workers and law enforcement as the Bears, were suspects due to their dispute with Stephens. Upon searching belongings the Carsons had left behind, detectives found an anti-government manifesto written by the Carsons that called for the assassination of then-President Ronald Reagan and entertainer Johnny Carson.

Alderpoint is an area that’s been locally dubbed as “Murder Mountain.” This is near where my brother, Adam, became involved in the shooting death of Michael Clawson on September 23, 1989.

Detectives had trouble tracking down the Carsons because they had avoided any interactions with government authorities over the years – for example, obtaining drivers’ licenses. However that changed in November 1982, when police picked Michael up in Los Angeles after being reported by someone who saw him hitchhiking and knew the law wanted him for murder in Humboldt County.

Through a police error, Carson was quickly freed and disappeared again before Humboldt County detectives had a chance to question him. But detectives caught a lucky-break as Michael left evidence behind, including a mug shot, address information, and a gun in a police car, that caused investigators to realize that the Bear’s were actually the Carsons.

The Carsons’ so-called ‘witch-hunt’ finally came to an end in March 1983 as they were hitchhiking near Bakersfield, California and were given a ride by 30-year-old Jon Hellyar, who was driving to Santa Rosa, California. While Jon was driving on U.S. Route 101 near Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, an argument and physical fight broke out between Jon and the Carsons, resulting in the car coming to a stop and all three exiting with Suzan stabbing Jon while he and Michael struggled over a gun.

Michael got control of the gun and shot Jon dead at point-blank range on the side of a busy U.S. 101 and in view of passing motorists, one of whom contacted police. A high-speed chase ensued as the Carsons attempted to flee police in Jon’s car, but they were both apprehended following a crash.

The Carsons called a press conference to confess to the murders of Jon, Clark, and Keryn. During the five-hour presser with KGO-TV, the San Francisco Chronicle, and homicide investigators, the Carsons claimed to be pacifists and vegetarian-yoga practitioners who converted to a form of Islam, and described themselves as “vegetarian Moslem warriors.” Michael described Suzan as “a yogi and a mystic with knowledge of past, present and future events.”

The Carsons expressed no remorse, explaining that they put Keryn to death for her transgressions of pretending to convert to Islam and “draining [Suzan] of her health and yogic powers.” Michael added that they knew the murder was necessary because, during a rainstorm, “Each time Suzan said it [that Keryn Barnes should be killed] the thunder would clap.”

Carson said he took a pan off the kitchen stove and hit Keryn over the head “as hard as I could, three times.” When she continued to make slight sounds, he stabbed her in the neck with a small paring knife, which he later buried along the roadside.

The couple went on to say that their ‘second victim,” Clark had sexually attacked Suzan, and that their final victim, Jon had called her a “witch” and sexually abused her as well. Shortly before their trial began, the pair withdrew their confessions, entering pleas of not guilty.

On June 12, 1984, a jury convicted the Carsons of Keryn’s murder, with a sentence of twenty-five years in prison. Later, they found themselves convicted of the murders of Clark and Jon, and for which they received sentences of fifty years to life and seventy-five years to life.

In 1989, the First District Court of Appeal, affirmed their third conviction as it had previously done on the other two convictions. Yet, 26-years later the Carsons became eligible for parole after a federal court ruling forced prison officials to consider them for parole due to prison overcrowding.

Fortunately, Suzan lost her bid and Michael canceled his hearing. Officials say they expect both receive another shot at parole in 2020.

In total, investigators suspect the Carsons in anywhere from nine to 12 murders, both in the western U.S. and in Europe. Meanwhile, James Carson remains incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, while Suzan is behind bars at Central California Women’s Facility, near Chowchilla, also in California.

It was a sunny day and very warm by the time I stepped outside. I wandered over to the chow hall and had some breakfast, and then strolled out to the small pool near the barracks.

Before I sat down in one of the lounge chairs under the awning, I stripped off my jeans revealing I was wearing a Speedo swimsuit. I splashed around for a few minutes, then returned to the chair, where I dozed off.

Soon the pool area filled with other young men and women enjoying the heat of the late morning sunshine. The noise from their playing in the pool woke me up.

“Here, have a beer,” Bass said as he handed me a brown bottle of ‘Lone Star.’

Without saying anything, I accepted the brew, hoisting it to my lips. It tasted good going down and added to my feeling of relaxation.

That beer was quickly followed by another and then another. Soon I lost count of the number of beers I had consumed and I was feeling no pain.

Someone asked, “Hey, Darby, do you think you can jump from there into the water?”

They were pointing towards the roof of our three-story barracks.

“Yeah,” I responded.

My words came out slurred, though I couldn’t tell it. Without saying anything else, I went around to the side of the barracks and started up the steps.

Once on the third floor landing, I climbed onto the roof. Walking out to the edge of the roof, I peered down into the swimming pool.

I estimated it to be about twenty feet, a distance I knew could easily jump.

Seconds later, I launched myself out over the swimming pool. By this time, everyone was out of the water, watching me.

Upon entering the water, I pulled my legs up towards my chest to keep from bottoming out. As I surfaced, I could hear everyone around me laughing, cheering and clapping.

However I knew something wasn’t right. Like a jolt of electricity, a severe pain shot throughout my body and I had a sickening wish to vomit as I dog-paddled to the edge of the pool.

Not only was I sober, I was also very slow to climb out of the water. As I did, a hush covered the spectators and one of the woman gasped loudly.

I looked at the faces of those around me, seeing the horror in their eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I thought.

Then I looked down and saw what everyone else was seeing. The sight left me reeling.

Both of my gonads were swollen a bluish-purple color as they hung outside my swimwear. They looked to be the size of tennis balls and the sight caused me to actually throw-up.

Immediately, several of the guys, lifted me off the ground and we headed for the base infirmary for treatment. The doctors on duty all said the same thing: my injury was nothing a little ice and a couple of days of rest wouldn’t heal.

“Never again,” I said, “will I jump from something unless it’s to save a life.”

One of the doctors added, “Good, because there’s nothing anyone can do to cure stupidity.”