About Me

TomCat lost his battle with cancer, and (as Wendy put it) left the litter box, at 9:54 PDT May 29, 2021.  We who will keep his blog going, in his memory and to continue his fight, wil not take down or replace this page of history.– JD (jvdix@yahoo.com)

My road to where I am today has been a difficult one.

On the personal side, I grew up in a thoroughly dysfunctional home in which I suffered extensive physical, emotional and sexual abuse. As a result, I did not develop the self esteem required to form healthy relationships. I was a rebel with no trust in or respect for authority. Nevertheless, I managed to accomplish quite a bit. As an activist against the war in Vietnam and for civil rights, I worked with several famous people and helped organize many of the key demonstrations of the mid 1960s. Because I followed the belief in nonviolence taught by Gandhi and King, I strongly opposed the takeover of the peace movement by advocates of violence, such as the weather faction in SDS. Sadly, my voice was in the minority. When I realized I could not prevent the change, I withdrew shortly after the demonstration at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. Political activism had been my anchor, and I felt disillusioned and bitter.

I married the wrong woman, although I can not say that I had the social skills to make a marriage work. I had a religious conversion. I fell under the influence of a religious right church group. I followed, because I was desperate to belong. I attended a Bible College for three years, but had to withdraw to earn more money. I was successful in business, but I still felt miserable. I have too good a brain to maintain right wing views indefinitely, and I was struggling to believe my own sophisms. The marriage ended badly. She got caught with a deacon in the church. In the divorce, I lost everything except the bills. Again, I felt disillusioned and bitter.

I met a woman who liked the wild side of life. We became swingers, but soon enough, the novelty wore off. I remarried. We moved to Portland. We actually had a good relationship, until she suffered a sudden adult onset of bipolar disorder with schizophrenia. I retreated back to the religious right. After years of fighting to get her treatment against her will, she finally stabilized on lithium. However, she refused her meds, relapsed, and left.

Overall, there are many things about my past for which I feel deeply ashamed.  However, I am proud the be the person I have become, for learning from my mistakes, and for transforming from part of the problem to part of the solution.

My online history is eclectic.  I purchased my first computer in 1974.  In the late 1980s, before the WWW existed, I ran a right wing computer BBS.  In 2000  I ran a left wing blog that became very popular.  Now I have stage four metastatic cancer and have only a few weeks left to live.

 

Last Updated: 5/14/2o21 by TomCat

Last updated 5/31/2021 by JD