Letter to a Confused Brother

Hollis Gillespie with her pals Sean Hannity and Niel Boortz. Clark Howard, as usual, is too busy looking for helpful deals to realize how he's being used. He does have a heart of gold, however.

COULD THAT BE CARVILLE???

Not pictured: Christal Presley and her best friend from college, Jill Rhodes (Sean Hannity's wife).


Subject: Re: Follow up from our phone conversation.
From: Scott Kenan
Date: April 24, 2010 9:14:12 PM EDT
To: Five Kenans (and others)

Hi Mike, and thanks for your response. I believe we are making real progress.

I'm going to intersperse my responses in the body of your reply below to make them more immediate, and hopefully more clear.

On Apr 24, 2010, at 11:26 AM, kenan5@aol.com wrote:

Scott,
Here is your written reply.

You are a skilled writer, I enjoyed your book. I hope you keep writing. It sounds like you made a good move with Alyson books. I hope you get another publisher. Thank you, but you did not support me in this until I PROVED I was right about Alyson. You preferred to believe other people who were working against me. That was not loving or kind. Only Christal Presley was more aggressive than you in these matters.
I don't have any ability to keep you in any place nor do I want to. First part: true, but you only recently recognized this or you would not have fought me so long. If you fought me for some reason other than wanting to, please tell me that reason. There is no question, when you consider our emails and conversations, that you fought me with a vehemence that few others (except Christal Presley) matched. Glad you have seen the light, however.

I am not a very creative person and I am not as intelligent as you nor do I feel a need to be. You are an aspect of God created in Its image and with full rights to all things. You are no more or less than me or anyone else. Your potential is unlimited. I am sorry Mom's Meyer influence has dimmed your understanding of your true worth, but only you can reclaim your life.

I try to keep growing, I stall frequently. Growth is not an option. It is the Rule of Life. There is no "trying" to it. The only trying one can do is to try to NOT grow, and that will cause any life to eventually explode. Look what happened to me!!!

In our phone conversation, I asked you to keep an open mind regarding the BP diagnosis and you suggested I do the same for a non BP diagnosis. I only brought it up due to your recent observation that I/your family had no "empathy" for you, which was a dramatic change from your recent behavior and your pre-eight months ago behavior. It seemed to me, if you were manic, perhaps the cycle was changing. This isn't my area of expertise. Thank you. ALL of this is an accurate depiction of fact that I easily accept. Why you still clung to the idea I was bipolar after authorities four times formally, and once informally, did not support it is a question you must ask yourself. I suspect Christal Presley had a major hand in this. True???
Also, why was my bipolar diagnosis so important to your sense of yourself? You are fundamentally rational, and that should have been more than enough to convince you, especially after I reported that after talking with a couple of Cape May people and really scouring my memory, I realized no doctor had ever properly evaluated me. Mom with her nursing credentials and uber-bossy ways TOLD them my diagnosis and insisted I be given Lithium, a drug that keeps one from remembering and connecting the dots. I do NOT condemn Lithium however. Those who prefer not to confront the truth in their lives need this kind of drug so they can maintain some sort of living, but for me, that was no longer living. It was death, hell, whatever you want to call it.

From my perspective it was concern (empathy?). "Empathy" is a tricky word. Easier to illustrate it than to define it. If you had begun this email "I hope you're feeling stronger after your poisoning Tuesday night. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in so much pain and so close to death with a long period of no confidence you would survive the night.," that would be empathy. Please notice that it does not confirm or deny any agreement with my analysis of HOW I came to be poisoned, just acknowledges the difficulty of it in an "empathetic" way. You have NOT been empathetic these last months, although I bet you wanted to be empathetic. Why you chose not to be is a private question for you to mull over and NOT give me or anyone else an answer. I am betting your concern came from an unconscious realization that reality was not what Mom and Christal (who might have fed info to you indirectly, like through Jane or others) insisted and you had long TRIED to believe.
However, since you interpret it so differently,I will no longer express anything. Oh pish-posh! Our only purpose in life is expression (and YES! even accounting statements count!! Recent history proves they can be creative!!!)

I blocked you from my email because of the graphic, mean, vulgar content of some of your emails. Oh come on: who are you kidding. Christal Presley could have written this sentence. You blocked your email address that comes into your home, but not the one that came to your job. I mean: that makes no sense as Sunoco, Inc. keeps all that on their servers. I fully expected that for this reason you would ask me NOT to use your work address (and I would have complied). Your children, Taylor, Max, and Connor didn't block me (nor did Max Duffy). Maybe you didn't want Gail to see my emails. She's had some issues with you that might be tangentially related to all of this. I have always had the highest regard for Gail and the Godleys.

I never asked to be copied or blind copied on your emails. Still, you read them, and only blocked them at home. I think part of the solution would be for you to take me off your email distribution. Well think about it, and if you ask again, I will.

The following was also part of my email, but I've toned down the color. Red gets to be too much:

FYI (and some who receive this email will actually care): Today, after FOUR days, my urine returned to a normal color. It was a huge relief! I'm still sleeping tons of hours and also eating and taking wholesome foods and beverages to regain my strength. I'm frustrated that my abdomen, stomach, and rib cage are still in such pain, but I think those muscles got such a bruising from the five straight hours of retching that they will take a couple of weeks to heal up fully. I'm confident of a complete recovery soon.

Alfredo's father died after a long battle with diabetes yesterday, ironically, on Dad's 92nd birthday. Mom, Dad, and you (Mike) all reacted to this news with an "unk." No further comment. That hurt. I would not only have said something kinder, but would have MEANT it if Gail's father had died. Of course it is true I know Larry better, but that's no excuse not to at least be civil about someone's death.

This propelled me to call Mom back to ask why she told me a while back (when we thought Alfredo would fly up to help me drive the entire route. He has since been denied a renewal of his tourist visa by our compassionate State Department.) I thought it was his age (25, and yes, some would find that shocking), but Mom thought he might be older than me, so it wasn't that. She said "marriage is between a man and woman." Well, big deal. All this was was about her meeting the most important person in my life, but that was too much to ask.

I also know it was her racism, not only because of her recent comment about no black and white children should EVER share the same classroom, but also her occasional unguarded comments about Gail's brother Andy's wife. Mom only likes Aryans. It's a fact. Uncle Bob could certainly attest to that -- and DID, several times.

Frankly, I believe Andy and I are uncommonly blessed to be loved by Mexicans. In general, Mexicans are spiritually far superior to most white Americans.

Anyway, if I have abused you, it was my clumsy attempt to get you to think. We are, in fact, in the End Times, as prophesied in all cultures and all religions. I think late 2012 is an accurate date for the End of the World, but no one who loves God has a thing to worry about. The high will be made low, the low high. Radical social and economic upheaval will be accompanied by an increase in volcanic and earthquake activity. Much of this is already occurring, but will escalate like the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the hateful. The exposure of devilish hypocrites like the Republican Party, Catholic Church, and Boy Scout LEADERSHIP.

Alcoholics Anonymous will eventually be exposed as a total corruption of a great founding idea. The Church and the Scouts have embedded much wonderful truth that the leadership has never been able to corrupt. They have therefore served many in beautiful ways. I am so glad I was brought up Catholic (although the Church of England is more a "true" Christian church). AA makes tools of people with its corrupted affirmations and meditations. Sets them up psychologically to believe they are permanently flawed. Only a devil would tell that lie. We all need a little extra likker to get through a tough time, but if we fail to confront the truth that drove us crazy, we never get over the desperate need for drink. It's really just that simple. That's why you only find people of very modest success (if they have any at all) in AA. Someone with your native intelligence and abilities, Mike, would normally be at least a Senior Vice President (or own your own major firm, like Greg Lennihan) by now. (Greg married another Meyer cousin, descended from my mother's only loving sibling.)

All my love to all who receive this email. I hope I have caused thinking more than offense.

Scott D. Kenan

ADDED 4/25/10 9:55 AM EST. Mike's reply:

From: Five Kenans
Subject: Re: Follow up from our phone conversation.
Date: April 25, 2010 9:27:16 AM EDT
To: Scott Kenan

Scott,
I have thought about it, take me off your distribution list, home and Sunoco.
Thanks, Mike