March 5, 2013

Spring #1

Dear Ones, spring is coming.

It has been a long time since I have written. I have been living with my failing health, here in this institution. I have a golf ball trying to come out of my left side, pressing, growing, pushing my ribs out, it is painful and debilitating. The oncologist I saw told me back on Nov 1, 2012, that perhaps 4 mths, 6 - no longer than 10, and I would be passing on from this life. I have resisted going into hospice, there are no windows and the incredibly noxious stench of "prison Christian" is too much for me to bear on top of all of the rest of it. I can't seem to maintain the strength to write, my voice, my strong, clear, beautiful singing voice, it has joined the T. Waits Choir, my brain is slippin' and there wasn't a lot to begin with.

I miss my sister Rose, I'm so sorry Rosie, I'm an embarrassment and heartache to the ones who know me. My nieces and nephews, Town Renae, Iray, Johnnie & Perry, and all the beautiful ones that I'll never meet.

I wish I could have been a better brother to your mothers and fathers and a better uncle to you. I wish too that I could give you one day of some of those good good days in Encinitas, then I think you would understand the daze that I was in. I was just a runaway kid from Indiana and I only dreamed of the beautiful girls that I later knew, loved and lived with, I always knew, I was never good enough, yet I tried, I sang and recorded, believed and lived the life and made the kind of bad choices that a runaway high school drop-out would make. I worked, I have had "good" jobs, but I never had the underlying education that was needed to "stay" in one of those good jobs. I should of returned to school. I should have studied hard and developed life skills that would lead to the kind of self-supporting, self esteeming life I could have been proud of later on.

But no, so soon I'm going to die. It's strange to know it! So sometimes I'm scared and other times I'm sad. Mostly I'm just sorry, prison is a waste of life, sentences that are so draconian and out of touch with the actual crimes committed. A taxpaying public supporting a massive burgeoning complex, while the men and women committed to their care live a 3rd world life of trickle down. Yet, it's preferable to homelessness, at least it was for me. I call it retirement, I called my crime "bank robbery" w/a note, a civilized crime. No weapon. The homelessness, my mental illness, I couldn't think clearly, I was on a drug that I hated, I was so ashamed, I AM so ashamed and sorry for frightening the tellers, costing the police community of the city I lived in so much money. On and on, I have many regrets. So, again, I write to say "goodbye" to those who come across this blog site and find Randy Chaplin here, those who knew me, helped me or cared for me, who remember me, maybe with not so much awful disappointment.

I am truly sorry, I grew so hopeless and tired and selfish, I took so many wonderful friends and family members for granted, I behaved horribly and I could have been so much better. God gave me talent, health, opportunity and love and I squandered it all. I love my family where I was raised. I love this country, and really didn't understand until much later in my life that I should have studied law instead of chasing the self indulgent and hedonistically narcissistic, pie in the left wing sky of the wannabe writer, singer, actor, artist. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I'm done for now. I need to take a nap. Perhaps I will dazzle w/ prison infrastructure stories next post?? [No :)] God bless and nite nite.

All my love

Your uncle
Randy Chaplin