{"id":313318,"date":"2019-12-04T06:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T20:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=313318"},"modified":"2019-12-04T06:00:20","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T20:00:20","slug":"t-o-a-s-t-teaching-old-age-skepticism-new-tricks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/t-o-a-s-t-teaching-old-age-skepticism-new-tricks\/","title":{"rendered":"T.O.A.S.T.: Teaching Old Age Skepticism New Tricks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Home School for Skeptics<br \/>\nFive Births Via Anesthetics<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSkepticism is a good thing<br \/>\nto which we all may cling<br \/>\nintelligence it may well bring<br \/>\nyour brain functions will sing<br \/>\nbecome a queen or a king<br \/>\nof everything and nothing<br \/>\nprying logically paralleling \u00a0<br \/>\nall that is told all that is telling<br \/>\nfind some kindness and loving<br \/>\nkeep on moving and grooving<br \/>\npathways and doors opening<br \/>\nkeep on grounding, proving,<br \/>\nestablishing a solid life base<br \/>\nstay in the reality rat race.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBeing a seven-minute sonnet rap on my 70th\u00a0birthday<br \/>\n\u00a0a life worth living ever since then<br \/>\nC section number three for Mommy<br \/>\nthen two more my younger sisters<br \/>\ntwo older brothers were the others<br \/>\nher Chinese anesthesiologist Dr. Lu<br \/>\nsaid \u201cwe\u2019ll put a zipper in there<br \/>\nif you are not all through\u201d the adults<br \/>\nlaughed over coffee at the kitchen table<br \/>\nus kids wondered was this able to be done<br \/>\ndays later us skeptics asked Mom for fun<br \/>\nshe showed us her scar and that was that<br \/>\nthis one took longer than seven minutes<br \/>\nbut that\u2019s what I thought when I did begin it<br \/>\nlooking up the correct spelling of anesthesia<br \/>\ntook away time and a small part of the fun<br \/>\nI wanted words spelled correctly to please ya<br \/>\na true birth tale about Mom the cesarean queen<br \/>\nseven minutes time two equals fourteen<br \/>\nthat is the time it took to write it, about<br \/>\nmy birth and after and how I came out<br \/>\na Chinese doctor saving my mother using<br \/>\nanesthetics for five healthy births, on the scene<br \/>\nI remember the zipper tale on every 09\/14.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>Keeping Mind and Memories Open<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Inspired by Passage 49 of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu<\/em>, 6th\u00a0century B.C. Chinese philosopher<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nI am an aging person who is slowly losing my mind<br \/>\nthe collective mind of humanity is becoming mine<br \/>\nthe salt sorrow joy vinegar acidity honey and wine<br \/>\nto those who have been kind to me I am kind<br \/>\nwith those who treated me unfairly I\u2019m fine<br \/>\nkindness gives me peace. I make a peace sign.<br \/>\nthose who trusted and love me I trust and love<br \/>\nand those who did not trust me I still trust<br \/>\nmy mind is filled with both diamonds and rust<br \/>\nrust is formed by oxidation. I am still breathing.<br \/>\nFixed opinions and belief systems halt the flow<br \/>\nsome things I don\u2019t want as my brain begins to go<br \/>\nI take in everything I can as I keep on wandering the<br \/>\nfragility of the world and its people keep me pondering.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joey &#8216;Pepe Batbon&#8217; Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Joey aka Pepe Batbon is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is a sonnet practitioner who enjoys stargazing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home School for Skeptics Five Births Via Anesthetics \u00a0 Skepticism is a good thing to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,17973,13843,16665],"class_list":["post-313318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-lao-tzu","tag-pepe-batbon","tag-tao-te-ching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}