Author: Fred Blahnik

Acknowledgements

 

I would like to gratefully acknowledge my seventeen-year-old daughter Lindsay for the invaluable technical assistance she provided during the development of this book.  Despite her youth, I turned to Lindsay—relied heavily on her, unfairly so probably–for any and all advice I needed on software and computer-related issues, and she invariably responded to the challenge with aplomb.  Furthermore, Lindsay was my sole technical interface with the publisher I chose to work with and provided assistance whenever I requested same in that highly specialized area.

Lastly, I assigned Lindsay the chore of designing the front and back covers for this book—not an easy endeavor, mind you, considering the dearth and quality of photographs she had available with which to work.  In conjunction with that relative obstacle, I further tasked Lindsay with faithfully reproducing in two dimensions the nebulous vision I carried around in the back of my mind of what the covers “should look like” when complete.  Suffice it to say I am immoderately happy and suitably impressed with the final results Lindsay was able to conjure from so little.

Quite simply, I am inordinately proud of the book you are now holding in your hands, despite—paradoxically, I know–the overwhelmingly sad and depressing subject of mental illness this tome seeks to objectively address, coupled with the welter of largely unsavory and grotesque memories featuring my brother Fran that this untamed monster by necessity kept alive and regularly dredging up in my mind on each occasion I sat down in front of a keyboard to toil on its unpruned narrative.  Having said that, this tale of heroes and demons would never have remotely approached the final product I long envisioned without Lindsay’s diligent technical collaboration.

I would additionally like to acknowledge my wife Carla and my two remaining daughters, Samantha (Sam) and Raven, for their moral support, encouragement, and patience while I obdurately grappled with this short, innately tragic opus until it finally resembled a workable manuscript.  Although Yours Truly’s relationship with “casual” writing may sometimes approach an obsessive level, my immediate family—including those three dearly beloved individuals along with the aforementioned Lindsay—has never been anything other than fully supportive and encouraging of my habit.  I would therefore like to avail myself of this prime opportunity to thank each of my immediate family members for their countless indulgences and sacrifices which allow me to aggressively pursue my undisputed favorite pastime.

 

 

Frederick J. Blahnik

March 13^th, 2010

Dedication

 

This book is dedicated to my older brother Fran, who was the best, most dependable, most loyal sibling a younger brother could ever hope for.  We shared innumerable happy times together, yet there are so many others that will forever go unshared and wound up being sacrificed for no apparent reason to the gods of fate……

Table of Contents

 

Forward

Preface——————— A New Lease on Life

Introductory Poem——- “If……….”

Part One——————- Into The Time Machine…..

Part Two——————- A Call to Arms

Part Three—————– The Brain

Part Four—————— Under Siege

Part Five——————- The Brain Becomes Ill

Intermission Poem——- “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”

Part Six——————– Victory At Any Cost

Part Seven—————– Administering the Brain

Part Eight—————— Pyrrhic Victory

Part Nine—————— Our Fallen Warrior (Epilogue)

Part Ten——————- One Picture Is Worth A

                                             Thousand Words…..

Concluding Poem——— “Twenty Five Years Ago”

Copyright 2019 by Frederick J. Blahnik.

 

All rights reserved.

 

This is the 4th edition of the book.  The 1st edition was published in 2010 and the 2nd in 2011.

 

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form whatsoever without the author’s prior written permission.  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.  Purchase only authorized editions.

 

 

For information, address:

Frederick J. Blahnik

73892 325^th Street

Racine, Minnesota  55967

 

 

ISBN:  978-0-578-05177-2

 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 

Revised Edition/3rd Printing

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photograph on the front cover of this book, as well as the one on the back, were taken by the author in late July of 1993.  They both picture Francis Blahnik standing in front of the garage located on his hobby farm north of Spring Valley, Minnesota just prior to embarking on a solitary jaunt “out West” in his dilapidated Ford pick-up truck.

A Hijacked Destiny…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Six in the Eight-Part Blahnik Family Twentieth Century Series

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Frederick J. Blahnik

• If something is meant to be…..it will be. If something is not meant to be…..it will not be.  If something is meant to survive…..it will survive.  If something is meant to perish…..it will perish.  There is a season for everything, and we exercise only a teensy bit of control over the seasons of our lives.  If this sounds like our temporal passages here on Earth are fated and largely determined in advance, well…..they are!  You are absolutely correct in that deduction.  Sometimes you’re the hammer and sometimes you’re the nail irrespective of your most fervent desires, and some transcendent entity far mightier than any of us puny earthlings makes that decision on a daily basis.  If you don’t believe such is the case, just ask the person who “miraculously” won the Powerball lottery out of a pool of millions or, more tragically, the innocent victim who was killed by a drunk driver or some aged fossil who should’ve had their driver’s license compassionately revoked a decade ago.  Fate rules; free will is a ruse on all but the most miniscule of stages.  Don’t fight fate.  Fighting fate is immanently stupid.  Rather, learn to embrace it, willfully adapt to its vagaries on a routine basis to whatever extent you can, and practice flexibility like it is the trendiest new religion out there.  To do otherwise defines both stubbornness and willful ignorance.

• There is a time for thinking and a time for acting, and the gulf in time separating these two cardinal activities is typically miniscule. Those who think too long and circuitously and don’t act expeditiously frequently miss out on golden opportunities to people who are more quick-witted and nimble between the ears.  Don’t be afraid to pull the trigger the second your finger contacts that danged thing if your gut is screaming at you to do so; opportunities, like trophy big game, typically only hang around for a moment before disappearing in a flash.  All they leave behind in their wake are regrets.  Waiting a long time to make an “informed” decision (code for procrastinating), together with the concept of aging gracefully, typically only applies to the creation of fine wines and diamonds.

• …..as the birthdays came and retreated now like so much melting snow in the early springtime, he of course felt older–but undeniably much wiser also!  Those things that are most important in life were now becoming increasingly clear to him and moving into sharper focus, issues that were quite hazy or even shrouded in secrecy when he was young and virile and so full of himself that by all rights he should have burst wide open and spilled innards all over his immediate surroundings.  And thus he accepted these advancing years with no small degree of consolation, because while his eyesight, hearing, and reflexes were ineluctably failing him as the days and weeks and years that had been allotted to him gradually washed away, his appreciation for life–coupled with the surefire happiness that invariably accompanies same–were growing by veritable leaps and bounds…..

• With regard to your elders, you learn immeasurably more listening to their regrets and admitted mistakes than by listening to and taking heed of any directives they might happen to throw in your direction. Remorse and regrets are fantastic teachers inasmuch as they are deeply rooted in honesty and humility; bombast, overconfidence, and tall tales, conversely, are fathered by conceit and only superficially rooted, and then in a quicksand-reminiscent substrate which consists of inflated egos residing in alternative universes.

• I’ll do it tomorrow…… What meaningless, presumptuous words those are!!!  You can no sooner claim ownership over the future than a turd can claim ownership over a latrine.  You render some degree of control over the present—Some degree, remember, but not ALL of it!—but the future is a beast of a wholly different nature that can never be tamed or throttled.  Anyone who talks smugly about their concrete plans for the future is transcending humanity’s reach and stepping into God’s sandals and, let me assure you with one hundred percent certainty…..those are some mighty big sandals for puny mortals to fill!