Nikada ne zaboravimo

Nikada, nikada, ne zaboravimo.  Nikada.  Never, never, we do not forget.  Never.  How can we forget?  How can I forget?

In early August was "Encuentro".  What a Croatian American was doing at a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Hispanic Pastor's Conference in Orlando Florida is perhaps one of those stories for another day.  Being with old friends from all over North America was fun.  Carole, my wife, was with me.  We hadn't had a vacation in five years so we plotted to take advantage of the few hours we were scheduled to have alone.  She had bought new clothes for Encuentro.  Hehe, she had bought new little black things too.  We even took a few  "cheese cake" photos.  Nothing you couldn't let your mother see, but cute.  Carole had the cutest one blown up to poster size and had it framed to hang in my home office.  It was on my wall for years.  

That picture is in a cardboard tube and went for "safekeeping" afterward with my parents daughter.  She won't give it back now.  I probably don't need it back, but [expletive deleted] its not hers.  It was private.  May the gnats from ten thousand donkeys behinds bite that obstinate evil woman's nose for eternity. 

Word came on 25 August.  Lorraine died.  Lorraine was Roy's wife and she had been my friend.  Lorraine told me that she would rattle chains any time I tried to sleep if I ever left my post.  We were scheduled to use Lorriane and Roy's condo on Otok Jug Otac starting that very day.  We couldn't do it.  As things turned out, we never stayed in their condo by the beach again.  I tried to spend a few days there later, but ,,, sigh ...

Labor Day came.  Mother was fading.  We ran like bats out of hell down the highway only to find that the San Bernard River was above flood stage.  So was Dance's Bayou and the Linville Bayou.
The road into the farm was impassable.  I could not get to my mother but in a manner of speaking she came to me.  Mother had always wanted to ride in an "army truck."  Her final ride from the "farm" was on an army truck with eight foot wheels which could traverse the flood waters.  Her funeral was early the next week.

Tuesday the following week it was almost time for me to leave for the office.  Carole called to me with panic in her voice.  She just pointed at the TV.  Something had happened.  They ran it again.  It was awful.  


Today is that day plus ten years.  We had prayers about all this at church this morning.  CJ found some footage neither of us had seen before.  It's still just plain awful.  


The following week in 2001 a barge filled with gasoline ran into the San Isabella causeway in the night.  Cars plummeted from the road into the dark dark water and people died. I knew some of them.   Friends were stranded on the Island for weeks.

The following week Carole was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  They said she had three days to live.  Five years later she died.  

I noticed last night that all my Muslim YouTube friends had disappeared.  Was it because they discovered my vocation?  Perhaps it because Muslims figured out that the tenth anniversary of 9/11 was not a good time to be around in public. Some of them had wanted to talk religion with me, but see, that's my job, my vocation,  but on YouTube for the most part I'm an entertainer, so I avoided any conflictual conversations.  As a matter of fact, most of my videos would even pass the the tenets of the Sharia, so I don't know what the matter is with these fellows.  I don't know.  Perhaps I will never know.  

Most of these fellows are Bosnians.  You know, our neighbors, our brothers, our kind. Its like they are Croats only Muslim. Yeah yeah yeah, someone is going to yell they have a lot of Turkish blood flowing in their veins. Sure, you bet.  The Turks came and took away half of Bosnia once upon a time and settled them in Anatolia.  The Turkish army that returned was largely Bosnian, so you mix Bosnian Muslims with Muslim Bosnians you get Bosnians not Turks - got it?  

The second of May 2011 is a date we should also not forget.  The day Bin Ladin finally met his date with death.  Seventy-nine days later at 8:24 Am,  up on the Fruška Gora at Krušedol (Крушедол Село) Goran Hadžić the butcher of Dalj, Erdut, Lovas, Stajićevo, Begejci, Tovarnik, Sremska Mitrovica, and Vukovar was finally securely in the hands of law enforcement. 

We will never forget.  We do not forget Szigetvár.  We do not forget  Goliad and the massacre of our Polish brothers there.  We do not forget Bleiburg.  We do not forget Vukovar.  We do not forget the Twin Towers.  Never we will forget.  We will live.  We will put on our underwear one leg at a time and then our socks.  We will keep on going but we will never forget.   Nikada ne zaboravimo.  Nikada nikada nikada. 

What follows is not my video.  It was shown on HRT in Croatia and I cannot get the recording for myself  but peugeot255 has it along with a large number of other outstanding selections.

Stoj Grad


Stoji grad
Pod kišom čelika ognja i smrti
Gdje paklena sila svoj zadnji ples vrti
Stoji grad


Stoji grad
Vječan k'o narod ponosno stoji
I posljednje dane dušmanu broji
Vukovar, Vukovar


Iz majčinog krika sloboda se rađa
I uskoro bijela zaplovit će lađa
Do Sunca


Iz krvi i bola niknut će cvijeće
I nikada narod zaboravit neće
Vukovar
Stoji grad


Standing City

The American may wish to sing "New York" where the song has "Vukovar."  In both cases monsters plotted their destruction.  In both cases there was a "rain of steel and fire death."  In both cases "the forces of hell his last dance spins."  In both cases the monsters underestimated the moral fiber of the people.  Both cities stand.  I chose this song today as a testament to the strength of the people in both cities.

standing city
 Under the rain of steel and fire death
 Where the forces of hell his last dance spins
 standing city


 standing city
 Everlasting like the people standing proudly
 The last days of the enemies has
 Vukovar, Vukovar


 From the mother's scream freedom is born
 and will soon set sail white ship
 till the Sun


 From the blood and the pain will sprout flowers
 and let never forget the people never forget
 Vukovar
 standing city

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

11 Rujan 2011