Notes From Behind the Keyboard - February 6th, 2015

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[caption id="attachment_3778" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Danny Rolling Hills Estates[/caption]

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 Welcome back My Dear Readers to The Other Shoe. My goodness has it really been over a month since I last posted? Yes, it has! For most of you, My Dear Readers, this comes as no surprise. My battle with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma has taken the last little bit of strength from my body. Leaving me quite bereft of the physical abilities needed to write and publish. Normally, I would apologize for this extended hiatus, today... I am not. My adventure with chemotherapy has come to an end.

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Unfortunately the chemotherapy did not have the desired results. From what I am told, these drugs did not “knock back...” my disease as much as my oncologist has anticipated. Therefore, we have started a round of radiation therapy. This will last another couple of weeks, and then I will be finished with all the toxic... exposures. With any luck, once I am finished with this current treatment I will be relatively free of this cancer.

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My Dearest Readers, I have many videos from the past several months. Videos of me heading to treatment, videos of me during treatment, and a few of Prince Alexander playing and being my little boy rat. It is my desire and intent that, once I am recovered from these treatments, I will be sharing all of these videos with all of you. My Dear Readers, I genuinely long to return to a regular and full writing and publishing schedule.

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Do you all remember what that was like? Five to seven articles every single week. A weekly edition of 'The Mars Report' with all the newest information and images from Curiosity and the Opportunity rovers. Weekly editions of 'News From Around the World' with all the news that does not appear on the major media outlets web sites. Weekly editions of 'The Horror in Smithville' with the latest antics of Timmy and Archer if their fight against 'The Tall Man' and the upcoming adventure @ the Harvest Carnival. Weekly editions of 'A Week in Review' and the antics of Prince Alexander in 'Sunday Funnies'!

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I have not forgotten all the wonderful articles and all the wonderful experiences that we shared here at The Other Shoe. Nor have I forgotten how wonderful it is to write and entertain all of you, My Dearest Readers, from all over this great planet Earth. I really had no idea just how bad these chemotherapy treatments would slam my health. I really had no idea just how much these treatments would negatively effect my neruopathy in my left hand. I really ad no idea just now bad things would be, or I just might have opted out of getting these treatments.

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All I can hope is that you, My Dearest Readers, will come back once I start writing and publishing, again. For I have dearly missed all of you... deeply. I would like to promise that this weekend I will return to my regular writing and publishing schedule. However, I have never lied to you, My Dearest Readers, before and I am not about to start now. Terrible as it may be? Just writing these two pages has taken a great deal of energy and focus. Looking back? I really am amazed at the amount of content I generated all by myself. Over just under five years I wrote, edited, and published nearly SIX HUNDERED articles for your reading pleasure.

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When I consider all the effort that goes into just one edition of 'The Mars Report'! Downloading images for the article, writing the article and embedding the images, uploading the images on to both blog servers, uploading the text, and then integrating the images (and adding descriptions) for as many as ten images. Honestly, it would take me up to four to six hours just to get from start to finish for just one edition of 'The Mars Report'. It was a labor of love, My Dearest Readers. A love of all things extraterrestrial, and a love of all of you My Dearest Readers.

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Well, that brings us to the end of this edition of Notes From Behind the Keyboard'. I do hope that all of you, My Dearest Readers, keep checking back and drop by often. With all luck and a bit of extra strength, you can look forward to me adopting a partial publication schedule by the end of February, or the first of March. I know that, sometime in March, my oncologist will start (again) the process of 'Staging my Cancer'. That will mean PET scans, blood tests, and most likely another bone marrow test.

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As always I will keep all of you, My Dearest Readers, fully informed on the results of these tests. Fear not, even if I loose this battle with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma? I will continue to write and publish so long as I have life. It is my heartfelt desire to complete 'The Horror in Smithville'. I already have the final chapters in my head... and the bloody and violent conclusion... it just is not on paper or saved on a hard drive. It is my deeply felt desire to start, and finish, 'The Adventures of Princess Nadia', too. At least the first book of the series. If I have my way, I will manage to write (and get published) all FIVE books that will make up her story.

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In closing, I would like to take a moment to say “Thank you!” to; Ian Cottier, Jason Kleppinger, and James Coate for their kind support during the holidays past. Without their kindness and support I would not have had the genuine thrill of a Christmas Dinner or ANY presents under the tree. Times are tough all over, and I fully understand. I am just thrilled to have friends, and My Dearest Readers, that care enough... and trust me enough to make donations to help me find some small happiness. I am hopeful that when I get my novel works finished... that I find a receptive publisher. That I can get my works published... and never have to ask for the help or assistance of friends, readers, or family... ever again. I just hope that I make it that far. :)

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Adieu!

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Thank you!

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[caption id="attachment_3777" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Danny in Rolling Hills Estates - Rancho Palos Verdes - PV Medical Group Noember 2014[/caption]

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© 2010 – 2015
Hanning Web Wurx and The Other Shoe

 

A Valentine's Day Tale

A Valentine's Day Tale - A Time We Must Never Forget by Daniel Hanning

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[caption id="attachment_2203" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Daniel Hanning of The Other Shoe[/caption]

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            Welcome back My Dear Readers to The Other Shoe. Today, Friday February 14^th, 2014 is Valentine’s Day for most people here in America. However, today holds a different provenance, for yours truly.  When I was a very young boy, I would guess I was six or seven. My paternal Grandfather was visiting our home, Cecil Hanning.  

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He did not visit us, since we had moved from Foster street, closer to downtown Houston. Therefore, when he visited I was always wanting to spend the most time with him. Grandfather Hanning.. was very sad , on this Valentine’s Day. I could see it in his eyes, I felt it in him when I hugged. There was a great sadness in him, and… being the diligent young grandson… I wanted to help lift his sadness. That act, of a very young Danny would… forever change Valentine’s day… for me.

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I apologize, that if upon reading, that my retelling to this tale… might color your Valentine’s Day. For many, that grew up with me... back in Houston and later in Pearland do not know of this day. Today, you learn more about me… my family… my upbringing… my family’s past. While living on Foster street, in Houston, my Grandfather would take me into the basement of our home and tell me… of the Jewish heritage our family… mostly ignored.

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My paternal grandfather was separated from my paternal grandmother. Drink, and the making of and distribution of alcohol, was the impetuous for their separation. My grandfather still drank, but not today. Today, he took me into the backyard and we sat under a great cottonwood tree, in the corner of the backyard. I was six… it was February, so this would have been 1964. Our President Kennedy had been lost to the world, just months before.

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It was on February 14^th, 1964 that my paternal grandfather told me of another time. A time past, but one he feared might well return. That return is why at such a young age or six years old, my grandfather sat me under our cottonwood tree and explained to me… ‘The Final Solution’[1].

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  MY father was a late convert to the Jewish faith. However, do not mistake is conversion later in life for a lack of understanding of his new faith. He left his Catholic childhood, and upbringing, to join in marriage with the woman is his dreams, my paternal grandmother. She was Jewish, born and raised in an area referred to as The Black Forest in northern Germany. They met on the streets of New York City, both in their early twenties and both newly minted American Immigrants. So much, my paternal grandfather, loved his soon to be wife, he embraced her religion and converted to Judaism.

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On that Valentine’s Day I spent several hours in my backyard listening intently to my grandfather tell a tale of Nationalism and angry division. He explained how a wounded Germany sought to heal it’s wounds by engaging in a state of “Super Nationalism”. Then, how the Brown Shirts and later many elements of the Nationalized party sought to make the Jewish people a scapegoat for all their hard feelings. How this nationalist fervor was quickly transformed into angry dividing prejudge. How quickly that translated into the greatest slaughter of a people in modern times.

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Remember, the time was early 1964. America was divided, itself, on the issue of equality for African America’s right of the vote. He would sit at home, alone, and watch as these people were set upon by dogs. Had fire hoses turned upon them, and even hanged in public gatherings. He did not focus of the brutality of the great Holocaust he sought to draw lines. Lines between a national frame of mind and the corresponding, following, grave actions.

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You see, My Dear Readers, Valentine’s Day could not pass without him thinking of his “Jewish bride” (his words) without thinking of the great anger, and the dividing power of prejudice that brought his people to the very edge of extinction. He drew parallels between how America ignored Germany’s enslavement, then extinction of the Jewish people for years and years. Then he drew lines, again, between America’s intentional ignorance of wrongdoing, to that he saw… again, today. (1964)

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The shank of the day was gone, and I remember seeing an urgency in his face, and his words, towards the end. MY father would soon be home from work, and he would not be allowed to spend time alone with me, once my father arrived. I never understood why, but my father did not like me spending time alone with my paternal grandfather. On this day, I remember wishing time would slow, just for my grandfather to have time… time to tell me what was weighing on his so.

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The next thirty minutes will never leave me; they are engrained into my very soul. He warned me, with remembrances of his childhood and as a young man at the time of ‘The Final Solution’. How America stood silent, while millions of his people were firs enslaved, then marched into gas chambers. He spoke like every work mattered more than the last. He spoke with an urgency, yet reverence that I have never heard again. What did he warn me of?

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 Cecil, on that Valentine’s Day cautioned me. To watch for a nation, gripped in greed and drowning in reoccurring flows of nationalism. He did not say “it might happen again some day”. No, his words of warning were much more… precise, much more severe. On that fateful Valentine’s Day my paternal grandfather charged me with a task. A task that will follow me through out my life. The task of watching for a time when our nation is both gripped in greed and avarice. A time when, either due invasion or war, is gripped with waves of nationalism.

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Cecil, on that day, told me that it would happen again. That mankind is a creature destined to repeat his greatest sins, time and again. That I should watch for a time, when greed and avarice are seen as desirable attributes. Following, or at the same time, as a nation drowning in flows of nationalism…  A pride in our country not earned by act or inclusiveness of all citizens. No, a nationalism born out of division. That when, not if, I see these two occurrences… To guard my words.

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It was at this time that my father came into the backyard, home from work. He took me up, into his arms, and brought my grandfather and me into the house. We had dinner, later that night, and then my father drove his father home. Later, my father, he would ask me what we were talking about. I told him just stories about his time with his wife, my grandmother. I did not want to worry my father. You see, it was not his charge that was given on that fateful Valentine’s Day. The charge. Was mine.

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As always I am deeply honored that you come here and read my work.

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Thank YOU!

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="234"] The Other Shoe eBay Store[/caption]

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[caption id="attachment_2296" align="aligncenter" width="630"] The Other Shoe's Daniel Hanning[/caption]

 

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[1]http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005151