The Best Lap in Town
Jun. 6th, 2005 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkittySomewhere in the suburbs if Salem there are a few very contented cats. They are so because they get to sit on the best lap in town. True, the padding has decreased with age, but that doesn't matter. They come for the warmth and care.
The legs they sit on once served below decks as a cabin boy on a Merchant Marine vessel in WWII, with the emphasis on “boy”. Because those legs are black, their owner was denied the honors and benefits due those in the Merchant Marines until the 1980's, when Congress redressed that wrong. These legs marched with Martin Luther King, and brought the fight for civil rights back to Oregon, advocating for Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, homeless, Russian old believers; anyone who was in need of a voice. These legs walked the halls of the Capitol alongside Mark Hatfield and every Governor since then.
These legs are still now. Bone cancer has made them too brittle to bear weight. Even sitting, they are riddled with pain. The nausea from the chemotherapy drugs is often overwhelming, but their owner never complains. He has found a remedy that curbs the pain without robbing him of his mind. He reads avidly, mostly history and comparative religion. That remedy is medical marijuana. It doesn't make him high, it makes life tolerable. It gives him one more good day.
The Supreme Court ruled today that people like this gentle man, my stepfather, can be prosecuted alongside meth and crack addicts even though the state has approved the sue of marijuana as a drug. Why can't they just leave him alone? Hasn't he earned that much?
The legs they sit on once served below decks as a cabin boy on a Merchant Marine vessel in WWII, with the emphasis on “boy”. Because those legs are black, their owner was denied the honors and benefits due those in the Merchant Marines until the 1980's, when Congress redressed that wrong. These legs marched with Martin Luther King, and brought the fight for civil rights back to Oregon, advocating for Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, homeless, Russian old believers; anyone who was in need of a voice. These legs walked the halls of the Capitol alongside Mark Hatfield and every Governor since then.
These legs are still now. Bone cancer has made them too brittle to bear weight. Even sitting, they are riddled with pain. The nausea from the chemotherapy drugs is often overwhelming, but their owner never complains. He has found a remedy that curbs the pain without robbing him of his mind. He reads avidly, mostly history and comparative religion. That remedy is medical marijuana. It doesn't make him high, it makes life tolerable. It gives him one more good day.
The Supreme Court ruled today that people like this gentle man, my stepfather, can be prosecuted alongside meth and crack addicts even though the state has approved the sue of marijuana as a drug. Why can't they just leave him alone? Hasn't he earned that much?
