Rick Bradford's Retirement: It Ain't Easy

 GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE TO 2020 To say this has been a turbulent year does disservice to turbulent. A lot of the unsettled vitriol is directly due to the current presidential administration. January 20th cannot get here soon enough. And yet he is still claiming he won the election and expects Congress to somehow overturn the certified votes of millions of voters. He's of course only claiming fraud in the states he lost; I contend that if there was fraud in states he lost, how much fraud occurred in the states he won? How did this orange buffoon get 11 million more votes that he got in 2016? He does have another badge of honor though--he's the only president who has lost the popular vote twice. At least Biden won by more than seven million votes and received the same amount of electoral votes that this loser received in 2016, when he claims he won in a landslide. Guess he also lost in a landslide then, right? Any president would have had a hard time getting COVID-19 under con...

 DOUBLE GOLD MEDAL TRIP TO CHICAGO 2006 One of my most pleasant memories is our trip to Chicago in July 2006 to participate in Gay Games VII. Both Dennis and I had signed up for Men's Recreational 8-Ball and 9-Ball, mostly because we wanted to be in the same tournament so we'd be around for each other during the competition. Gay Games VII was held in  Chicago  July 15-22, 2006, with over 12,000 athletes competing for gold, silver and bronze medals. The opening ceremonies were held in historic Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. The procession of athletes into the stadium was led by the  San Francisco  contingent, more than 500 strong. This honor is awarded to  San Francisco  because they are the founding city of the event. Once the procession was finished, the large crowd gave the athletes a standing ovation for over five minutes. The crowd was not aware of the surprise that was headed their way. Suddenly, the ligh...

 TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY It has now been 10 years since my partner Dennis Healy passed away, on Christmas Eve 2010. We had been together 30+ years and he died of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). I always post on Facebook as a remembrance but now that I'm writing a blog again, I figured I'd also write about it now. Some of my fondest memories are the 10 trips we took to Hawaii; eight to Oahu and two to Kauai. The last trip we took was in May 2010, while he could still get around, albeit with a cane. We were able to afford the trip thanks to the founder of the company I worked for, as I was the manager of the Corporate AMEX account, and I convinced him to allow me to use reward points to pay for our airfare and hotel. He agreed immediately, and I still am very grateful that he did that for us. There used to be a gay bread & breakfast that we stayed at; that last time we were told that they were going to be converting the 16 rooms to condominiums, so it was appropriate that we wer...

 REMEMBERING BIG BROTHER BUD My older brother Raymond was born December 16, 1948 and today would have been his 72nd birthday. When I was a little guy and just learning how to talk, I could not pronounce Raymond, so our parents came up with the nickname "Bud" because I could handle that. He's been known as Bud to the family ever since, though most of his friends throughout his life called him Ray or Brad (short for our last name of Bradford). Unfortunately for me and my siblings, Bud passed away November 20 of COVID. He went into Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, Michigan on Monday 11/16, the hospital arranged a group Facetime call for Tuesday 11/17. Technology being what it is, we never really had the "video" part of the call, just the audio. I was able to see my younger brother John at the beginning of the call, I saw Bud's hospital room wall and ceiling, but never saw him, and I only heard my sister Mary. Be that as it was, we were able to have the g...

 My First Entry into my New Blog My original blog was done as therapy after my partner of 30+ years passed away from ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's Disease). I've decided to start a new blog, mostly to just express my opinion on current events and what's happening in my life. Here goes... Five years after Dennis died, I met a new man "totally out of the blue" as the old saying goes. I answered his Craigslist ad looking for a roommate to share his apartment. I had lost my house that Dennis and I had owned and because of the relatively low cost, I decided to take a chance. That chance turned into a fated romance. My partner, Dennis Healy, died Christmas Eve 2010; his partner, Daniel Healy Connelly, died on Christmas Eve 2009. Because of the "Healy" connection, we both truly felt that they had conspired from "the other side" to make sure we met, fell in love, and hopefully live the rest of our lives together. All of that has happened. We had a three year c...