For the first 17 years of my life, my only knowledge of the world beyond West Virginia came from missionaries on furlough. They brought us trinkets from places like the Congo or Korea and showed us home movies of natives wearing colorful costumes in a darkened church basement. They never talked about Muslim countries, so I'd never even heard of Iran.

When I arrived in multi-cultural San Francisco, I was newly 21. It was 1978 and large marches and protests against the Shah of Iran were already happening there. I just didn't notice it much at first.

This is the story of what I learned there and how what happened in 1979 mirrors today's events.

Our government has unleashed danger at home and across the world. Our elected leaders said they might take action, but what they did was throw up their hands and go home for a holiday.

Chaos. Everything is chaos. American Citizens are dead from the guns of ICE.

What's a senator or congressman to do? For heaven's sake, what do we expect them to do?

We've been here before, haven't we?

I grew up deep in the heart of southern West Virginia coal country where men risked their lives, every day, to line the pockets of the Coal Kings. When the Black Lung Wild Cat Strikes came, I fled to Baltimore, only to find it again. Here's the story of those times when we experienced chaos.

I invite you to listen and then share this story and invite people in your community into a conversation. Because change has to start somewhere.

I never understood why Daddy couldn't see his sister for who she really was.

When I heard that "The President" and our news-commentator-turned-secretary-of-war had invaded Venezuela and kidnapped their leader, memories flew out of my mind like F-22 Raptors on a tarmac because…

I know what it feels like to be invaded.

The story starts at my aunt's house, near Pittsburgh. I went there for a week one summer to hang out with my cousins. She lived in a brick home in the suburbs and the bathroom door had a white bag with tubing that swung from a hook.