Barack Obama

I am sitting here listening to a webcast of Barack Obama talking about health care reform. I am all for health care reform. I hope we end up with a system like Canada for universal health care, education and day care. Hey we might even get totally radical and join the rest of the world in using the metric system.

My niece who has dual Canadian-American aboriginal citizenship and lives in Vancouver is having a baby. She was telling me the other day on the phone how great it was to go to the hospital there when she was having early contractions. She said they were absolutely wonderful to her and gave her fabulous care. She was in the hospital several days and of course all she had to do was show them her health care card.

I have about the same kind of health care in Vermont. I have VHAP which gives me unlimited access to health care with no deductible and costs me $7/month. I suppose that is the difference between Vermont and Canada. In Canada there would be no $7/month premium and there would be no means testing. If I make very much money this year I will lose VHAP and then I don't know what happens. Without VHAP I would be paying over $300/month for COBRA.

So where were we in this blog? I had just told you that the cops took me from my mother's breast where I had been nursing and put me in a foster home where I was starved and had malnutrition and rickets when my adoptive parents got me. After that thinks improved dramatically for me.

I had a happy childhood with a very nice couple who were childless and could not have children. I grew up as an only child and was the apple of my parents' eye. I went to a Catholic elementary school where the nuns loved me and I loved them. I did very well in school and was among the top two students in the school.

As an only child I had everything given to me. In fact, I feel I was spoiled and was not prepared to meet the harsh realities of life. My dad built a cottage in the 1000 islands and we went there almost all summer every summer. My mom was everyone's favorite mom and she and I were very close. I learned to cook by watching her after school before my father would come home.

I always knew I was an adopted child as long as I can remember. I do not remember them ever telling me. It was just something that I grew up knowing. I remember once asking about my mother and my parents told me she was Polish. I remember seeing her once when I was about four when she brought me a little pair of corduroys with yellow ducks on them but really don't remember thinking anything of it.

After getting all As in the elementary school I went to a Catholic High School in the city. I had to travel each day on a school bus from our suburban town to catch the city bus downtown for the high school that was in another suburb. I had been in elementary school with a bunch of guys that were all great pals and we all went to the same high school together.