Laugh .... and laugh .... and laugh ...
Bio means life,
Yet mine
has seen more ....
.... of death
...... or near death;
.... My own and that of others.
But not when I was a soldier.
*(The Army, curiously, gave me a less violent life.)*I grew up during the Mau Mau.
A 60 year old lady, living 200 yards from me....
.... had her hand slashed off at the wrist.
(she was trying to defend her face.)
11 years old, I spent the rest of the night patrolling and guarding.
(armed with a large kitchen knife and a heavy lump of wood)
The following year a boy at my school was killed by Mau Mau.
In my mid twenties.
I kept 8 house robbers at bay for half an hour.
(armed with bow and arrows - No, not them; me.)
In my mid thirties.
For 5 years I lived in Idi Amin's Uganda.
(look him up if you don't know about him)
Some close friends died, abominably.
I escaped - narrowly - thanks to friends.
While in Uganda I smashed my car into a train.
I was rescued by a passing smuggler
*(thank you, good samaritan friend.)*In my mid forties.
Unarmed, I was shot by a crazed policeman.
Wounded in my lower abdomen, bleeding profusely,
I counter-attacked and managed to wrest the gun from him.
(No, I didn't shoot him back ....
.... but I did sue the government!)
At work I have seen bodies ....
.... crushed or severed in two ....
.... one decapitated.
(none had adhered to safety instructions.)
And yet, I live
Perhaps that is why
I always like to.
laugh . And laugh..........and
laugh.... ..... and laugh........... and .. . .
. . . . . *(The alternative is to cry.)*Have you ever listened to the words of the "Waltz Milieu" in "Irma la Douce"?
Don't turn away your face,
There, but for God's good grace,
You could be in their place
Dancing the Waltz Milieu"
Be contented you have a bio - I'm envious of the dull ones and grateful for the quiet 30 years I have lived in Spain!
5
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Wow...that is quite a story without any drama, no less! Apparently you are one of those ‘cats’ with nine lives! I salute you, my friend!
Freedompath
Level 9
June 11, 2018
2
Thank you. Some people survive against the odds, others have a minor mishap and expire. It's unpredictable. I have twice been right in the the centre of an explosion and escaped utterly unscathed, with damage all around me. It's enough to drive one to religion! 
(I also bear scars from where I was not unscathed. )
But I've reached 77 years so far. My present battle is against a slow acting but incurable cancer of my immune system, but even without any medication my body seems to be holding out, in fact at the last check-up my IgM levels had dropped. So who knows?
@Petter I want to stand close to you...you have my admiration!!
@Freedompath Thank you. There are indeed wonderful people on this site.
@Petter not long ago I saw a meme stating "better to crawl into your grave in a body scarred, battered and even incomplete than to walk into it in a whole body that has not been used or lived in".
The Mau Mau I have been led to believe was a deliberate construct of the British Government. A now dead friend who ended up an RAF Wing Commander told me of special ops flying unnamed unknown agents in to help things along. Interestingly in his later years out of service he was strongly supportive of Amnesty International but ended up disgusted by the NSW Australia takeover by snowflakes and lgbtq and their agendas detrimental to much of society.
FrayedBear
Level 9
June 11, 2018
0
Re: the Mau Mau, anything but.
Following the 148 independence of India, About two years prior to the 1952 elections for Kenya's legislative gouncil ( a sort of parliament comprising some dozen Europeans and half dozen Asians, and which had powers over internal matters) it was announced that the council was to be given greater authority over Kenya's affairs and also told that the elections for 1957 would also have seats for 8 African members, as a precursor Kenya being awarded complete independence.
(Africans had a series of local tribal councils, to deal with the affairs of the many tribes. (Kenya has 42 tribes, many of which have sub-groups, which can be divided into 3 main categories according to their language classification. (Think of European nations as tribes, with Geordies, Brummies, Cornish, etc being sub-groups of the English tribe, and then divide them into the latin language group, Italy, France, Spain, Romania etc as opposed to the Germanic language group, Germany, Scandinavia, Poland etc. Then allow for the Celtic language group, found in Scotland, Ireland, Brittany and Asturias) Bloody complex, eh?
This greater authority announcement led to various politically active Africans seeking to enhance their power base, especially a man called Jomo Kenyatta, A Kikuyu from the Western branch of the tribe. Other prominent Africans also sought power, and various "youth wings" were formed. (sound familiar?)
Eventually, a wing of Kenyatta's group started agitating for immediate power and were opposed, naturally, by other tribes, and especially by the Eastern Kikuyu groupings, who joined the security services to oppose Kenyatta's group. Kenyatta was tried and imprisoned for incitement.
During the entire Mau Mau uprising, 32 Europeans and 26 Asians were killed. By contrast, nearly 2,000 Africans were killed by their fellow Africans.
Violence bred violence, and atrocities were committed on both sides, until the Mau Mau was mainly suppressed by 1957, although pockets of them remained in the bamboo forests of the Aberdare hills.
[liquisearch.com]
@Petter Mau Mau Uprising - Wikipedia [cmcm.com]
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