Positive Thinking

[Guest guest]

Kat

If you didn't write it, then who did? That was great.>>>>>>>

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/11/01 12:20:19 PM, ktbugg54@... writes:

<< If you didn't write it, then who did? >>

I received it from a couple in Holland. There was no author included, and I

couldn't find it on the internet, sorry to say.

I always like to give credit when possible.

Kat

[Guest guest]

Kat,

The poem is attributed to Diamond C Aloes.

Lamar

----- Original Message -----

From: KathleenLS@...

Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 02:33 PM

Subject: [] Positive thinking

There is nothing the matter with me

I'm as healthy as I can be

I have arthritis in both my knees

And when I talk, I talk with a wheeze

My pulse is weak, and my blood is thin

But I'm awfully well for the shape I'm in.

Arch supports I have for my feet

Or I wouldn't be able to be on the street

Sleep is denied me night after night

But every morning I find I'm all right

My memory is failing, my head's in a spin

But I'm awfully well for the shape I’m in.

The moral is this as my tale I unfold---

That for You and me who are growing old

It's better to say " I'm fine " with a grin

Than to let folks know the shape we are in.

How do I know that my youth is all spent?

Well, my " Get up and go " has got up and went

But I really don't mind when I think, with a grin

Of all the grand places my " Get up " has bin.

Old age is golden I've heard it said

But, sometimes I wonder as I get into bed

With my ears in the drawer, my teeth in a cup

My eyes on the table until I wake up.

Ere sleep overtakes me, I say to myself

Is there anything else I could lay on the shelf?

When I was young my slippers were red

I could kick my heels over my head

When I was older my slippers were blue

But still I could dance the whole night through

Now I am old my slippers are black

I walk to the store and puff my way back.

I get up each morning and dust off my wits

And pick up the paper and read the " Obits "

If my name is still missing I know I'm not dead

So I have a good breakfast and go back to bed.

===========

Not written by

Kat

[Guest guest]

Positive ThinkingPositive Thinking: The Only Antidote to AIDS

The Times of India March 7, 2002 - Kalpana Jain

Isolation does not remain confined to individuals alone when it comes to HIV.

Entire villages can get ostracised. People refuse to marry into such villages,

seen as pockets of concentration of HIV. These begin to appear only when the

virus has spread sufficiently to grip whole areas. The first such pocket in the

country was Kamatipura. But this finding did not lead to international concern,

as it was an area of sex work. And sex workers are among the first to get

infected. The worry now is that the HIV pockets coming up are in villages, where

either due to sex trade being its people's primary occupation, or because of its

proximity to a commercial sex area, the spread has been rapid.

Few people outside Tamil Nadu may have been aware of the existence of a sleepy

district towards the northern part of the state - Namakkal. It was earlier a

part of Salem district, that is famous for its steel. Namakkal has a flourishing

lorry industry, perhaps the reason for there being two big hotels in such a

small district. Work related to lorries is the main source of income for this

district. Of late Namakkal has gained international focus. But for a different

reason; it has the highest prevalence of HIV in the country. The prevalence of

HIV amongst pregnant mothers estimated at 6.5 per cent comes quite close to the

calamitous African figures of 10 to 20 per cent. What is worrying is that the

infection rate amongst truck drivers is double - 20 per cent. Over 10,000 people

are already estimated to be infected, out of a total population of 13,25,311,

according to a report by Arivoli Iyakkam, the organisation running the

government's AIDS awareness programme.

And let us not be lulled into believing that this is happening in one far-flung

corner of one state. HIV gets transported rapidly. More so when the infected

population here itself is highly mobile, driving trucks from one corner of the

country to the other. In this district alone, 6,900 national permits have been

issued, enabling drivers to go all over the country. Word of the large numbers

of infections in the area has travelled around rapidly. So much so that people

from villages outside this district are now wary of marrying their daughters

here. Even in Namakkal, private-testing laboratories have sprung up to provide

HIV-free certificates to prospective grooms from the district. And this could be

only the beginning of a phenomenon.

Chenamuthalapetty village, about six km from Namakkal, wears a look of

prosperity, with large, spacious houses along its metalled roads. The primary

occupation of its people is building the chassis of lorries. Elders here

traditionally gather near the temple at the entrance to the village, to chat and

to discuss issues. Of late, the discussion revolves around the latest death and

whether it has been due to HIV. Several young truck drivers have died here. One

gets to see a number of young widows, holding small children, or wrinkled old

women caring for their grandchildren. Mateshwari, an elderly woman, has lost her

son-in-law and daughter to the infection. Her grandson, a thin but bright

looking boy who is standing next to her, is the only one left in that family.

Who will look after him after I die? She sobs, folding her hands as she pleads

for help.

Periamma, too, has lost her daughter and son-in-law to the infection. She is now

left alone to bring up her only grandson. The list seems to be endless. The

issues are the same. Just that the faces of those dead are different. Windows

line up before me thinking some help has come from the government. There are at

least six of them, standing at the end of the road, children in their arms,

crying. HIV seems to have suddenly thrust all the problems of survival onto them

without any hope of support systems emerging.

In village after village, it is the same story with a number of widows coming

out looking for help. The figures of infections may not match with the number of

hospital admissions or deaths. (The hospital records showed only 23 AIDS deaths,

far less than the widows one could count at a single congregation. The local

hospital had confirmed only 226 HIV positive cases till 31 January 2001.) but

that itself conveys the story of discrimination at the government-run hospital,

where only a few with HIV go. A new and separate AIDS ward, flouting the policy

of the central government only increases stigma and reinforces peoples'

perceptions that those with HIV/AIDS should not be touched.

Neighbouring Andhra Pradesh too has HIV spreading at an alarming rate in some of

its towns. Samalkota, a few kilometres from Peddapuram, a centre for sex trade,

just half an hour by car, is one of them. The tranquillity of this small town

with a population of not more than 50,000 largely of farm labourers, has been

shattered with the spread of HIV.

In the absence of official estimates, my observations of the spread of HIV are

based on the work of one single doctor. This doctor, K I , who settled in

the town to work with leprosy patients found people coming to his clinic with

fever and other infections. As the members grew and the infections increased, he

started getting them tested for HIV. Soon he found himself addressing the

problems of 100 families affected by HIV in the vicinity of his work. Every

third or fourth home in this area had the virus; all within a radius of 55 km or

so. The actual numbers could be much more, as we have studied the concentration

in only one pocket. Dr is not only trying to deal with the infection

medically, by treating opportunistic infections, but also by helping the

affected families cope with economic devastation as well as their isolation.

But the devastation of HIV is such that there is little that a single person can

do. The burden of providing care and support, therefore, in most homes here is

being borne by children, who are being pulled out of schools to provide for at

least one meal, or by the women, despite their infection. Young widows are being

forced to return to their parental homes for lack of any other shelter.

________________________________