COMING OF AGE

Bob and I had SO MUCH to work out when we first got married.

We knew we loved each other, but we didn't really KNOW each other: we met in March, started dating in April, and married in August. We knew each other's bodies ... but we didn't know each other's minds.

Bob had come of age during the hippie age; and he and Gloria played at being hippies (or what they thought hippies were: Gloria and Alex are still clueless - sleeping with anything that moves and smoking weed does NOT make one a hippie) - I was RAISED A HIPPIE. There is a big difference between pretending to be something, and actually BEING that something.

I knew Bob was a logger - I knew his logging outfit cut trees down.

I also knew that I was a staunch Greenpeace advocate.

I understood the Greenpeace agenda from a 17 year old mindset - Bob understood it from an adult mindset.

While I was arguing Greenpeace in school hallways and Main Street byways ... Bob was LIVING THE REALITIES OF Greenpeace IN HIS WORK ENVIRONMENT.

He didn't want to argue it at home.

I did.

I was 17.  Seventeen year olds argue - I argued for the trees, the whales, the population explosion (I didn't know yet that I was going to be responsible for adding 1 more person to the population explosion).

One night, Bob put his Supper fork down, and said, "Val, you don't understand. This is not a game - these people are dangerous. And you are supporting an organization that threatens my job and our livihood. Open your eyes. Now, I don't want to talk anymore about it tonight - I'm hungry and I'm tired."

We ate in silence - but we never went to bed angry: EVER. That was an ironclad rule. Even if we disagreed on something, we agreed to respect our differences.

2 weeks later my eyes were opened.

1 man was seriously injured on the job when his power saw bit into a tree and hit a railroad spike that had been driven into the tree ... and later that week, a protestor was killed when he laid down in front of a train in town carrying logs to the ship loading docks.

REALITY HIT HOME.

I started looking into Greenpeace a little closer.

I didn't like what I found in my research.

I actually got sick to my stomach when I realized that an organization that claimed "love & peace" ACTUALLY PROMOTED HATE AND VIOLENCE! Greenpeace is willing to go to murderous and suicidal lengths to push thier insane agenda: it sounds good, but underneath the "save, save, save" mantra resounds a "kill, kill, kill" scream.

Being married to Bob was growing me up in ways I never imagined.

I apologized to Bob - threw my Greenpeace buttons in the trash - tore my Greenpeace patches off my clothing ... and started shedding my hippie skin for a life based in reality.

Nirvana is a fantasy.

Our life was reality.

I was coming of age …

And Greenpeace's insanity no longer had a place in it.