Ecuperating - Chapter 25

“That’s all you know,” She said huffily.

“I used to weigh 250 pounds and I lost three babies almost to term, and I have stretch marks on stretch marks to prove it!”

“You’re in pretty good shape. You must work out a lot.”

“Not really. I hate exercise. I walk some, but

that’s it.” Jayne explained.

“Usually, I just quit eating for a week!”

Brett ordered a sandwich and a bowl of clam chowder. They sat quietly and ate their lunch.

“Where do we go from here?” Jayne asked, pushing her empty salad bowl away and picking up her coffee.

“How about education? What are your views there?”

Brett offered.

“Well, that one should be easy. I don’t have any. I quit school in the tenth grade when I got pregnant the first time. Then I got married. For three years the bastard beat on me, and when I got remarried after kicking his ass out, I went back and got my GED. I wasn’t that crazy about school anyway, so I didn’t miss it. It was boring when I was there, and I never did make good marks in anything. I liked reading, but that was it. I’m not good at math, and have no intention of getting good at it either.

“Science leaves me cold. The way they taught the subjects was boring. Personally, I feel it’s a wonder kids can learn anything in schools. That’s my own personal opinion, by the way. I’m sure some do learn something. I just never could. You would think the amount of money spent on education in this country would yield better results. They say we still have a lot of kids who can’t read.

I thought that’s what the Head Start program was supposed to do. It’s been in now for what? 30 years or so? They say it’s worse now than it was then. So much for solving that problem.

“I’d like to think private schools would be the solution, but the private schools I’ve seen are usually ethnic schools. Or religious schools. While they might be teaching the basics a little better, maybe the fact they are brainwashing kids in their own beliefs might not be the way to go. It could create a lot of problems in the future. This is not my area of expertise, that’s for sure. My educational experience was not good. That’s all I’ll say about that.”

“OK. I tend to agree with you about the schools. I send my kids to private schools and then make sure they continue their education in the summer by teaching them a lot myself,” Brett added.

“Oh? You’re married then?”

Jayne asked.

“No. Not now. My wife was killed in a freak car accident two years ago. I have three kids; two boys and a girl. The girl, the youngest, is 12. My oldest is 19 and in college.”

“Sorry about that. I didn’t know.”

“How could you? And there’s no reason to be sorry. Those things happen. Let’s move on to something else.”

Jayne could see he was uncomfortable talking about himself. I would be too, if I wasn’t who I claimed to be, she thought.

“How about terrorists and terrorism? That’s a current thing, anyway.” Brett asked.

“Terrorists. Idiots! They should all be killed. Just stand them against a wall and shoot ’em!”

Jayne said with feeling.

“I can see no other way to treat them. Obviously one cannot negotiate with them. They are all mentally unbalanced. You can argue all you want that they are discharging a duty to their God. Then I say the God they believe in is not God at all, but the Devil. They confuse one with the other. Any person who will voluntarily kill themselves to kill innocent women and children has to be nuts. Of course, they do promise the use of 72 virgins if you die killing Infidels!

“Other than the local nuts like those two who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma, terrorists seem to be all Muslims. That makes it a holy war for them. Not for us, perhaps, but it is to them. We probably should make it one for us too. The problem with terrorism is that we aren’t geared for that kind of war. We can fight an organized war, but this is an individualized war. There are no soldiers that are identifiable. Anyone can be a terrorist.

“From what I understand, their schools even in this country are actively teaching hatred of Americans. The Mosques are the center of it. They teach all this hatred, and we let them do it! Even give them tax money! Shees! What kinds of crazies allow that to happen?

We are our own worst enemy.

“And don’t get me started on airport security! It really upsets me when I see them accost a little old man or little old lady and let the obvious suspects walk through! I’ve seen it happen! I watched a 90 year old man be all but strip searched! The poor guy was in tears by the time they got done!

“And they have it all wrong! The only times we have been successful in thwarting terrorists is when the passengers have done it! Let’s take a lesson from that! I don’t advocate arming the passengers, even though that would be better than nothing at all.

What I do advocate would be to place a billy club velcroed to every seat and within the grasp of all passengers. This is not really arming them, but giving them a fighting chance. Can you imagine one guy with a box cutter facing 200 enraged passengers with billy clubs?

The law enforcement people, of course, want to protect everyone by themselves. They don’t think we can protect ourselves. And they don’t want us to, either.

“One would think that with all the technology out there, the airlines would be able to identify at least one group of passengers.