Come Back To Me

She’s calling to me
Whispering my name
Infiltrating my dreams
Teasing me daring me
Pleading with me
Encouraging the thought

Come back to me
Come back to me

Haunting me at every turn
Always lying in wait
Underneath the surface
In the back of my mind
Hinting at what will be
Promises of happiness

Come back to me
Come back to me

Beautiful and ugly
Strong and weak
Bold and timid
Rich and poor
New and old
Safe and dangerous

Come back to me
Come back to me

Boisterous and silent
Vibrant and without color
Adventurous and shy
In motion and at rest
Energetic and lazy
Strange and wonderful

Come back to me
Come back to me
Volver a Peru



Published by Don Leach

What Will Be Will Be

As I was driving to pick up my wife two weeks ago she called me to say the reason she needed me to take her to the Emergency Room. Her MRI had shown a dark spot. Immediately I followed my nature and started thinking deeply about what this could mean, not only to her but our family. What if it was something like a tumor? What if it was terminal? What would we do?

Besides being a deep thinker I am also a realist. What will happen is what will happen, there is no avoiding it. I'm not one to sit and bemoan why something has happened to me. Quickly I decided that if it were something that bad then I would make sure we that the time we had left together as a family would be special, that we would do everything that we always wanted to do but put off. If that meant letting the house go back to the bank and quitting my job to have the time for it to happen then I would do it. No question. I also said a quick prayer as I drove that none of this would be necessary.

Thankfully the news has been good. Although she has a blood clot on her brain it seems like surgery will not be needed at this time. By the time of the MRI her body was already fixing the problem. Last week she had a CAT Scan that showed that the blood clot was getting significantly smaller. We're hoping that in the coming weeks it will dissolve completely and there will be no more problems from it.

Then I asked myself, "Why do we always wait until it's too late to make our time special?" Instead of taking time away from our busy lives to do the things we want to do we instead put it off to do "tomorrow." Then we find out that there are no more "tomorrows" and we wish we could change it all. Why don't we try to have that spirit all the time?

Life just gets in the way. I mean we have to work to pay for our food, housing, clothes and transportation and that is getting harder to do every day. It's only natural that we keep trying to do those important things while dreaming of a time when we can do what we want instead of what we have to do. Once realized though, how much longer can we keep putting things off for a better time? After all, time is not infinite.

Published by Don Leach

What's The State Of Our Union?

Today is a day of reflection for many people, after all, it marks the anniversary of the worst terroristic event ever on U.S. soil. There have been and will be tributes to the people who died and all those that were affected by the events that occurred on that tragic day. Let me be honest and straightforward about all of this. Anybody who lost someone or even thought that they might have, anyone who who had to live with the aftermath, having it impose on their daily life, those people have every right to remember it how they wish. If they want to have a ceremony every day then so be it. After what they lost and went through I don't feel that anyone has a right to say a word otherwise to them. I myself did not know a single person that was in the Twin Towers, at the Pentagon or on United Flight 93. Nor did I know any police or emergency workers involved either. My admiration and respect go out to them for what they went through.

However, everytime I've gone online the past few weeks there have been constant stories about 9/11 and for the most part they all seemed to be sensationalistic. By that I mean they all are trying to upstage the other with intense images and gutwrenching stories. There doesn't seem to be any resolve to look at it in the proper manner. Instead it's as if all that is cared about is ratings or website hits and because of that these stories have the appearance of being crafted very carefully for maximum effect. It's sort of like in a movie where you're hit over the head with music at just the right moment in order to draw the emotions from you. Personally I hate being hold "Hey, this is the part where you cry." I kind of like figuring it out for myself.

What I find myself thinking is where are the stories about the real reasons that horrible day happened? Or how about stories reflecting on the state of our union now compared to then? Or even how about detailing the lessons we've learned after gaining knowledge from our past mistakes? Nothing. Instead the powers that be would rather we reflect only on the emotional part of the equation. That way we're all kept in our places. We only have these stories that distract us and keep us away from where our attention really should be. Like for instance why don't we hear about our soldiers in Afghanistan that are guarding poppy fields that belong to warlords we're trying to keep on our side? I might add poppy fields that produce heroin which is illegal to have/distribute/use in this country. A ton of money has been lost, totally unaccounted for and is there any question about the fact that we're paying them for their loyalty? Our forces are giving viagra to these older leaders because they have multiple wives and they need to show how viril they still are to their wives as well as their soldiers. Anything to get them on our side even though they have no real loyalty to us or our cause. If we have to pay someone to be on our side then they have no real stake in helping us to succeed with our mission so can we really depend on them when it counts?

I'd love to see them bring all of our soldiers home safely but there's too much money to be had in war so big business won't let that happen right now and the politicians will do as they are instructed. If this all sounds pessimistic I don't intend for it to, it's just that I'm a realist and that's how I see things, without the constraints of whether something should or shouldn't have happened. I don't want to offend or upset those that lost somebody a decade ago (and since) but as a veteran I have to say what I feel. There are far too many soldiers being shuttled between Iraq and Afghanistan on multiple tours, it's time to bring them home. Better late than never. I understand as well that my opinion might be drastically different if I had a direct involvement with anything that happened that day. The fact is however that I don't and so I write this on this day as I reflect on where I was ten years ago, where I am now and where I might be in another ten years. I can only hope that it all gets better.

Published by Don Leach

Conflicted State Of Mind

This is something I wrote a few months back and haven't really edited since, until typing it here tonight but I thought I'd put it up. I think there's something there if I can get the time to think about it but really if I can sit down with Tommy I know we can turn it into something good. But then time is elusive isn't it?

How am I supposed to feel
when a man is killed
should I shout and cheer
because he was evil
how should i react to the news
the bringer of death is dead
should i fly a flag on high
stand in the rain fist raised

according to you God loves us more
we're on his side and he protects
according to you we've got the right
to do as we please where we please
according to you our God rules supreme
and sets us on a pedestal

you tell me that God takes sides
thank God he's on ours then
but if his hand touched them
why didn't he save the towers
what makes one life worth more
than a thousand others
does he pick and choose who
or let us do for ourselves

it can't be both so
is my God the same as yours?

Published by Don Leach

Frat Life 101: Greek Week Football

During my time at NSU, which was marred by my lack of studying, I only had occasion to play in the Greek Games twice and the first time was during my first year of school. They had this pesky rule about maintaining a good grade point average so normally that left me out. It's not that I was dumb or anything, I just wasn't interested in what they had to offer. The Greek Games was a competition of multiple sports held once a year in which only the Fraternities and Sororities were allowed to compete. Since Sigma Tau Gamma was made up of the dirtbags (and I say that proudly) of the school it's an easy guess that we were not very competitive at all.

Phi Lamb


Sig Tau

Which leads me to the Sig Tau versus Phi Lamb flag football game during my freshman year. Phi Lambda Chi (our mortal enemies) was made up of redneck jocks (at least they had been jocks in high school) and this was looked upon as an easy victory for them, as it always was. This year would prove to be no different. However, we did find a way to a small personal victory during the beatdown that they administered us. It wasn't easy but all the spectators in attendance (there had to be at least ten or twelve) saw it with their own eyes.

After lining up and seeing that they physically larger (and much better athletes) across the board than we were we knew that defeat was inevitable. That notion was proven true rather quickly. At one point in the game we were using very simple play calls since not many of us were experienced in playing the sport for real when we noticed that they were keying on our simplistic snap count. We were tired of getting beat almost every snap of the ball and never actually gaining any real yardage, much less scoring any points. In our huddle somebody had an epiphany, we would change our snap count and everybody understood that no matter what happened we all had to remain absolutely still, as if frozen, for the plan to work.

So there we were, lining up for what the Phi Lambs were sure was another play of lost yardage when our QB made the snap count and nobody on our side of the ball moved. On the Phi Lamb side however their entire front seven came roaring across the line with their ears pinned back in the safety of their knowledge that we were little more than practice fodder for them. Flags were thrown and whistles were blown. Offsides defense, so many in fact that they couldn't name who was first. We walked back to our huddle laughing because for at least one play we had shown them that we were smarter.


As we huddled and laughed instead of coming up with a new play the question was asked "You don't think they'll fall for it again do you?" We decided to see and sure enough, the snap was called, we remained frozen and they came flying across the line. Again flags were thrown and whistles were blown. Offsides defense. We could barely control ourselves now, the laughter was rolling from us and the sparse crowd joined in, even the fans of the Phi Lambs. Once more we asked "You don't think they'd be dumb enough to fall for it again do you?" They were. The snap was called and once more they came rushing at our frozen line only to have flags thrown and whistles blown once again.

This time our laughter was different. Instead of belly laughs now they were more of an unbelieving nature that a team could be so ill prepared as to have multiple players come offsides THREE plays in a row. It testified to their disdain for us as a team almost as much as their lack of intelligence and discipline. They were so angry at what we had done after the first play that they couldn't control themselves and each play after only made them angrier and more out of control. Finally calmer heads prevailed on their team and normal play returned. They finished the mismatch in the expected dominating fashion and moved on in the tournament and sadly we were eliminated.

The more time goes by nobody remembers what the final score was or who scored the points. That information becomes lost, pushed out for more important things as we realize just how unimportant it was in the grand scheme of things. But for the players and the few fans in attendance the memory of how Sig Tau was smarter and a better team lives on. For those three plays at least.

Published by Don Leach

The Week In Review, Health Scares And So Forth

Last week proved to be a difficult one in my household. My wife had been having symptoms that sounded like they were TIA which is also called mini-strokes. There is no lasting damage but it can be a precursor to an actual stroke so she went to the clinic and had an MRI of the brain scheduled. Five days before the MRI she stopped having her symptoms but decided to err on the side of safety and went ahead with the MRI. Once there they saw a dark spot and sent her to the Emergency Room and due to a mis-communication (happens a lot in U.S. healthcare it seems) she was admitted. The doctor thought that she was continuing to have her symptoms. It was determined that she had a blood clot but that it was old and wasn't currently bleeding so she was allowed to go home. The followup MRI is on Tuesday and hopefully it will show that the clot has decreased in size otherwise surgery may be needed.

She was understandably upset and her nerves were on edge and then she developed something new. She said her head felt like when you fall down and scrape your knee, that sensation, and she was almost sure that it had started to bleed again. On Wednesday she went back to the clinic and they did the neurological tests and determined that she was fine, what she was feeling was brought on by stress and worry. Since then she's been doing much better. Perhaps she just needed to hear from another person to relieve her tensions. Around this time our son started sounding like he was getting a cold but really it was nothing to hold him back. He took his medicine every day and since we caught it early it's almost all the way gone now. He's at a wonderful age when little things like being sick are not enough to hold you back or slow you down.

As for me, well I had a follow-up appointment at my doctors office so that he could check on a few things. He decided to take the decision out of my hands and started me on medicine for high blood pressure since it seems to be getting worse instead of better. He also put in for me to have another sleep study so that I could get a new C-Pap machine for my sleep apnea which as he remarked, is quite severe. I stopped using my C-Pap machine over four years ago after my son was born and it then later simply disappeared. I have my suspicions about what happened but in the spirit of keeping harmony in the house I'll keep it to myself. For now.

Perhaps with a new C-Pap machine and the exercise routine that I started a few weeks ago I'll be able to discontinue the medicine as long as my health improves. The other thing that he discussed was my cholesterol level which is also high. As a matter of fact he said I'm in the pre-diabetes stage which means I need to make lifestyle changes now before it's too late. So I've been doing a lot of thinking about what needs to change and how I can make it happen. I'm already on the way with my commitment to exercise so now we have to see about a change in diet, even though I wrote last time about not doing so at this time. Karma has a way of biting you in the butt, doesn't it?

I believe the best way for me to do everything is to make a loose schedule of what needs to be done each day and that way I can have something to work towards. Since I agreed to teach in my men's quorum at church (two Sundays a month) and I want to start learning to play bass guitar, as well as needing to start to improve my pitiful Spanish language skills (after six years of marriage to a Peruvian woman it's way past due) I'm sure I can fill up the time that I have before and after work. And if I can't then my wife will be more than happy to assist me so I better do it on my own. We keep putting our heads down and are trying to move forward no matter what obstacles are put in our way. The only other option is to give in to despair and give up on life and I don't see that as an option. Life goes on whether we agree with it or not. Stay tuned.

Published by Don Leach

The Death Of Me........Or Starting To Work Out

About three weeks or so ago my wife got a family membership for us at the YWCA that is located three blocks from our house. She did it because both of us need to lose weight and get in better shape. I had to face the fact that for too long I had been living a very sedentary life and while once upon a time my metabolism could withstand my poor eating habits that sadly is no longer the case. Truthfully my metabolism changed about twenty years ago while I was in the Army and I never adjusted with it.


So now I find myself at forty six years on this earth and in desperate need of a making a change in my life. I stand 6 feet 1 inch tall and weigh (fully clothed) about 260 pounds which means I need to lose 20-30 pounds at a minimum for my body frame. Even more would be better of course, especially since I want to be around for my son. Factor in that my Mother had a near fatal heart attack two years ago and you can see where I'm heading.

With all of this in mind if you saw me two weeks ago you would have found me striding hesitantly in the door of the Y. My decision was that given my poor physical condition it would not be wise to jump in full bore and push myself to the limit and then to be barely able to walk for a week or so until I recovered. Instead I would go on Monday, Wednesday and Friday using the treadmill and various weight machines and build from there, slowly but surely. On the other days if possible perhaps I could go to the swimming pool for a change of pace.

After the first week however I found myself reverting to old form and was already starting to increase the weight on the machines and even started doing extra sets on some of them. Of course that meant I am experiencing some additional soreness but that's the price you pay. Otherwise I wouldn't feel like I was getting any benefit from it and if that's the case then what's the point of it all? Also I've decided to forgo the swimming pool (except for Saturdays with my son) and instead will use my heavy bag in the garage as well as walking in the park on my off days, that is unless I have to cut grass in our yard because that is a much harder workout than I'd ever get in the gym.


Even with the additional stiffness and soreness that have come I must admit that after a workout I find myself feeling good, more alert and dare I say, more alive. I'm just hoping that all of the work will pay off with some moderate weight loss soon and then hopefully I can completely get rid of my gut in the months to come. Right now though I'm taking it one workout at a time with a lot of effort and even more hope for a better me. But I'm not totally changing my diet just yet, let's not get too crazy alright?

Published by Don Leach