In my case I was brought up in a religious environment, went to church, discovered god was a broke as we were and while my dad only made $25 a week as a milk truck driver back in 1940, 10 percent of our meager income went into the tray every week. I guess God needed the money more than we did.

I pretty much remained religious until about age 25, a time when I entered the field of cardio-pulmonary medicine. I worked in one of the largest, inner-city hospitals in Baltimore. I got to see, first hand, the worst of the worst. I saw 12 and 13-year old kids with needle tracks and herniated blood vessels all over their tiny, destroyed bodies when they arrived in the Emergency Room dead from heroin overdoses. I saw crack babies convulsing and gasping their last breaths. I administered pain killing drugs to children who were nearly burned alive because their druggie mothers left them unattended in a rat infested, roach infested vacant house heated with a bucket of burning trash, while the mother went off to prostitute herself for more drugs.

I spent endless hours working in the operating room, running the heart/lung machine (pump/oxygenator) to keep someone alive while we desperately tried in vein to repair various heart defects, often in children under 5 years of age. Many, many of them died on the operating table, children that had never experienced the joys of being able to play with other children, or even go outside their home because their conditions were so frail.

I did this for 15 years, and during my final year in medicine, I worked with children with cystic fibrosis. We called them pink puffers. These thin, frail, wonderfully brave children gasped for every breath. They had never experienced life outside their tiny environment of living in near seclusion because of fear of secondary pulmonary infections that would kill them in a heartbeat. Minor infections, sore throat, bronchitis, and other normal childhood diseases were a death sentence to these beautiful, brave babies. I held them in my arms while they slowly suffocated to death. Then, after their passing, I often accompanied the chief resident to the waiting room to tell their parents that their child had died.

We had a resident Chaplin, one that was always on call at the hospital when someone was dying, or had died. Most of the time, he went with us to the parents, husbands, wives, etc..., when we informed the family members of a persons death. He would always tell them that the child, or family member was in a better place and that their horrendous death was "Gods Way." Then he would go into some ridiculous tirade for the next 20 minutes about how good and gracious god had been in taking that child into his arms.

Well, if God was so good and gracious, why did God allow that tiny baby to convulse and die from the crack cocaine the mother continued to ingest on a daily basis during pregnancy? Why didn't God prevent all those beautiful, brave babies I held in my arms from contracting cystic fibrosis in the first place? Why did HE allow those children to be born with congenital heart defects that destroyed their tiny bodies? If HE was so great and merciful, creator of all in this universe, why is he allowing, in the name of religion, jihad to rain down thousands of missiles on the Israeli children?

Throughout my entire life, I've done my best to help others. Not as a bible thumping evangelist, but as one human being to another, and I continue to do so today. I've used my talents to the best of my ability to help those in need to help themselves. In that realm, when I joined the U.S. Navy at age 17, I did so with the full knowledge that if my country were to be attacked by another nation, I would be there to serve and protect. During my time aboard ship, I was heavily exposed to asbestos. My lungs are slowly, but surely, becoming fibrotic. I now face the fate that many of those beautiful, tiny, helpless, brave children - I will slowly suffocate to death over the next decade or less. My blood oxygen levels have fallen dramatically over the past two years, my lung capacity has diminished by 50 percent, and within the next year or so, I will no longer be able to provide musical entertainment. Was this GOD'S WILL? Does GOD really want me to stop making people happy by providing them with musical entertainment? Does GOD want me to slowly suffocate to death, drown in my own body fluids that will accumulate in my lungs and gasp for every last breath? Is this one of those "Mysterious Ways" the only GOD knows of?

Am I being cynical? You bet your ass I am. There's really no good way to die, and believe me, I've seen them all first hand. If their was an easy way, and GOD really did exist, don't you think we would be using it instead of undergoing the horrors of death? I don't condemn anyone for having his or her particular religious beliefs. My daughter is very religious, and she knows that I'm an Agnostic - we NEVER discuss the subject. I don't try to convince her - she knows better than to try and convince me.

Henni and his loving wife probably do lots of good things for people where they live. That's fine and for this I applaud them. What I DO NOT AGREE WITH is individuals that persist in insisting the rest of the world is wrong and they are right, especially when it comes to religion. Keep in mind there's a group of religious zealots out there right now that sincerely believe that if we do not believe in their religious beliefs that we must be eradicated from the face of the Earth. Yep, they believe in GOD too, just a different one.

Enough ranting for now, back to the fun of making music while I still can,

Gary