HERMALAND

BLOWING IN THE WIND!

2010-07-17T13:53:00.003-04:00

They risk their lives in the blazing sun and there are bodies strewn in the pathways. The landscape is barren, no water to be found, and yet they keep coming, determined to reach their goal. Those who don't make it are left behind to wither and rot in the sun, until there is nothing left but a pile of bones to indicate what was once a human being.

The problem of Illegal Immigrants has been left undetermined for so long that the stream of people crossing the border has become a way of life. Border guards do their best, but the border is so long that it is impossible to guard it. Even the National Guard has been unable to halt the flow. Some of those who come across are very unsavory people, drug lords, prostitutes, pimps, and children to be sold into sexual slavery. On the other hand, most of the immigrants are just ordinary people, desperate to escape the poverty and violence that go unchecked in Mexico.

It is an angry, violent land. In some spots, tourists enjoy the sights and sample the food, in other places entire families are shot and killed by invading drug lords. Some towns are so terrorized, the citizens live in fear. Calling the police or the military doesn't help, because so many of them are sympathetic to the outlaw groups who brandish guns and kill for no reason.

In this unhappy, violent land, who can blame these people for leaving? If Americans were in the same circumstances and a better life were available in Canada, we'd all start walking immediately, driven by desperation. We'd work at any jobs we could find, we'd work for lower wages. We'd thankfully send our paycheck home to help feed the children. We'd live twenty to a room and put up with inconveniences, happy to be in a land where violence didn't strike with every sunset.

How different things would have been had we welcomed these strangers! Suppose we had said to them, "We lift the lamp beside the Golden Door!" Instead of this, we watched this horde arrive with resentment and discrimination. We resented basic services they were given, lest babies be born on sidewalks or people die on the streets.

Along the way, Americans have developed a rosy picture of former immigrants, of those people who passed through Ellis Island and made their way in a new land. Hard-working, proud, wonderful people who left their sweat on the landscape, farming soil, chopping trees and carving out our country. This is only partially true, as with every human being, there were also those who weren't so savory, who were horsethieves, malingerers, bullies and criminals. As with every group of humans, some were good people, some not so good, but Americans seem to have canonized our settlers and compared them to Mexicans, whom they feel are primarily drug dealers and dealers in sexual slavery, theories promoted by people like Lou Dobbs and other Media fearmongers.

There are no people as generous as Americans. They extend a helpful hand to all who are in need of assistance. When Haiti suffered from the ruin of a violent earthquake, Americans reached in their pockets to donate millions of dollars. Other disasters have strummed the hearttrings of American donors. They give freely and generously, except to Mexicans.

Americans feel that Mexicans are taking American jobs and nothing irritates them more than to hear some politician talk about "jobs Americans won't do!" They also feel that Mexicans are draining the country of its resources and, with many Americans needing help themselves, they resent what is given to Mexicans. What is even more important is the attitude of the Illegals, who insist that portions of our country belong to them. Undoubtedly, one could counter this with the fact that, if we took the Southland from the Mexicans, they in turn took the territory from the Indians. There are stories of American flags being held upside down and replaced with Mexican flags and supposedly, children are being taught that several states really belong to Mexico.

This hasn't helped the situation at all and has helped lead to Arizona's Law, which gives the police the right to check Identification and citizenship. The person failing this test is then sent back to Mexico, without a thought as to what he or she is being returned to face. Let's admit it, Illegal Immigrants are refugees, fleeing from poverty, from near starvation, from lack of jobs and the murderous raids of drug lords. They live in a battered, shattered land with no hope for the future and want to live what is called the "American Dream." That this Dream is slightly askew these days is being truthful. It is worn by Recession, joblessness, homelessness and the bitter taste of financial failure in the mouths of most Americans.

Arizona is wrong to pass such a law, because this is the duty of the Federal Government. The Arizona Law is just plain unConstitutional. It isn't the Law itself that is the worry, it's the repercussions of such legislation. If we bend even one rule in the U.S. Constitition, then the rest of it is worthless. We must uphold that document in order to strengthen and abide by it. Failing this, we have nothing but a useless piece of paper. We would have no union, no United States of America. Any State who disagreed on any subject could then pass legislation to follow their own path. We fought that long and arduous battle once before in our tumultous history. There is no sense in fighting it again. The Constitution must remain like a companionpiece to the Holy Bible. We can't afford to allow one state to try to change the rules. It is the precedence of the Arizona Law that makes it so dangerous. It could lead to the loss of Civil Rights, our Freedoms and the equality of every human being.

In the meantime, let us insist that the government take action. Let us insist that politics and partisanship be set aside to solve this problem, a problem so raw and violent that it is bleeding harsh resentment and anger into the heart of America, an open sore that will not heal! Let us cover that wound and solve this problem before our Constitution is torn apart and shredded into bits of paper and tossed into the raging wind.

THE THINGS THAT COUNT!

2010-07-05T14:52:00.004-04:00

My feet ached for the first five years of my life and I blame it on the fact that they crammed my feet into Helma's shoes. She had tiny feet and only wore a size 4 even when she had attained adulthood. To this day, my toes are curled inward, even though they no longer ache. Like the Chinese woman whose feet are bound, one eventually adjusts to the pain.

We always wore hand-me-down clothing or wore the dresses Mom made out of flour sacks. Back then, flour sacks were large fifty-pounders, stored in decorative material that Mom rescued after the flour was used in making biscuits and her sugar cookies and sewed into shirts and dresses Deed went to school in colorful floral shirts, and Helma and I were decked out in these homemade dresses that may have been patchwork but we proudly wore them.

I remember one dress that is immortalized in several pictures. Instead of discarding it when I outgrew the garment, Mom simply let out the hem and seams and then the dress could be used for another year. I have seen pictures of myself at different ages, wearing that same dress in its various sizes. Mom saved it for special occasions, for Sunday school meetings or trips to a relative's home.

Years later, I fell in love with a dress that was owned by Donna, my neice. It was black and beautiful, stitched to perfection, an Alexander McQueen, a far cry from the dress I remember from my childhood. Donna, always generous, allowed me to wear The Dress on several occasions and so I went forth in style, wearing this dress that probably cost more than most men earned in a year.

Then Donna decided that I was wearing The Dress more than she wore it and calmly asked me to leave it hanging in her closet. I complied, but my heart was broken. I loved The Dress more than any of my various boyfriends. So I was demoted back to my usual garb, left with memories of The Dress.

As for boyfriends, I had just a few, an assortment of characters I remember to this day. I met a fellow with an impressive car. It had a skylight on its top, which made it possible to stand up at football games, while remaining protected from the cold weather from the shoulders down. Even though this boy was about the homeliest fellow I had ever encountered, I went with him throughout the football season. Sometimes a girl has to think of comfort instead of lively company.

My first kiss was from a boy named Al. It is not a memory I cherish, for Al had teeth so yellow they looked like daffodils and his breath was rancid. He walked me home from the movies one day, a two mile trek. We were chatting comfortably when suddenly he grabbed me and landed a kiss on my mouth. I almost retched! It wasn't Al himself, because he was a nice enough fellow. It was those yellow teeth and that terrible breath that turned my first kiss into a traumatic experience I still remember with a shudder.

Then, too, there was Hubert and Bud. I roamed the city, getting one lousy job after another, and everywhere I looked, it seemed that they were there. It was difficult being the belle of the ball with two brothers who lurked like mysterious shadows. If I stood on a street corner chatting with a guy, convinced I was both charming and irresistible, I would glance over my shoulder and there would be Bud, staring at me with those dark, deep set eyes. Then, too, one day I took a pack of cigarettes into a cafe, lit one up in my most sophisticated fashion, then looked over the side of the booth where I sat and encountered two green eyes watching me. Hubert never said a word about my cigarette habit to Mom, but he ruined my moment as a high-classed gal, on a par with Veronica Lake and those beautiful women on the silver screen. With Hubert or Bud watching me, I once again became that plain, dumpy country girl.

Of course, I wanted to be a movie star, the likes of Judy Garland who sang so beautifully. So, I would walk down to the lake and stand on the old, gray, gnarled picnic table, slanting as it was, with boards rotting through. I would stand up there like Judy on a stage and warble my song as professionally as I could, holding out my arms and dancing around, careful to keep my balance on the old table. One time I finished my song, and heard the sound of applause. There was a moment of shock, then I looked in the direction of the sound of clapping and there was Joe Bernardi, my brother in law, smiling and applauding my effort.

This embarrassing moment remains in my mind, because slowly, painfully, one gives up his dreams. I did not reach movie stardom, I did not rival Judy Garland, I did not accomplish my goal of living in Hollywood. I did not escape Bud and Hubert, who joined together to make my life miserable. I finally had to admit I was a 17 year old failure, not an actress, not a singer, not a high fashion model, just an ordinary girl with more dreams than talent, the tail end of a huge family, afflicted by brothers who found me amusing.

So even today, seventeen year old girls dream, fueled by Mylee Cyrus and Jennifer Aniston and all the stars and models that fill their imaginary world. It's a rite of passage, a phase of living...and about twenty years later, you finally learn that you may not be rich or famous, but you are yourself, unique as we all are, capable of love and laughter and surmounting life's problems all of the things that count in this world!

IT'S TIME FOR SOMETHING BETTER!

2010-06-20T22:29:00.003-04:00

Once every decade there is a photo that captures the eye and stays in the memory, evoking either horror, pride or amusement. Thus the photo of the military raising the flag on Iwo Jima is recognized by just about everyone, and who could forget the picture of the joyous sailor embarking from his ship to kiss the gal waiting for him on San Francisco's wharf?

Two photos from the last decade will stay with me forever. One is that image from Abu Ghraib, with a prisoner tied to a rough imitation of a cross, stripped of his clothing, his dignity, his humanity. There is no sense of national pride when one views such a picture. It brings a sense of shame to think that our countrymen could sink so low.

The other photo I will never forget is the view of that spewing, deadly fountain of oil roaring upward from its broken source. On television every day, it is like a perpetual reminder that human beings may have finally succeeded in their determination to ruin this planet. It is bad enough that we have strewn pop bottles and plastic and cigarette butts along the roads and the beaches. It's another to have that gusher destroying an entire ecosystem.

There doesn't seem to be anyone in the world who knows how to turn off this roaring, dangerous and constantly bellowing spigot. We have very little control of it. It is Mother Nature being vengeful, angry and merciless, reacting to recklessness and utter disdain for the treasures we have been given. There was a lack of safety measures, a disdain for the consequences of what might happen, a search for greater profits by a huge Corporation with tremendous profits earned already.

As I write this, thousands...perhaps millions...of animals are gasping and dying, coated with the black liquid we have often called Black Gold. We feed on this substance, we have made it a God. We have paid billions of dollars for the privilege of using it. Most of it has been imported from distant lands, the very lands that house the terrorists that threaten our demise. These lands have customs very different from our own. Their women are hidden behind veils and live minus freedoms that we take for granted.

Despite the terrorism, the inequality, the misery...we have enriched these nations and bought their oil. Huge tankers arrive at our ports every day as we devour this substance, this thick black juice that fuels our nation.

But getting the oil from foreign countries isn't enough to please us. We must seek oil on our own land. So we have found it in Alaska, where the pipeline sits like a huge, winding snake stretching across the wilderness. We have found it in our Western states and in Texas, where the oil provides some employment. Even that isn't enough to satisfy our hunger. We looked toward the oceans to find even more.

Oil rigs are ugly. They rear up on the horizon like warts on flesh, ruining the scenic beauty of the ocean. They are ugly enough when they are working as they should, but get even uglier when they explode and kill. Yes, eleven workers were killed on the rig they dared call Deepwater Horizon, and I'll warrant there have been other deaths on many other rigs.

These deaths are disturbing, these dead fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, grieved by their families and gone forever. In the meantime, the oil continues to gush, with no mercy for the chaos it causes, and the Corporation hides truth because of fears for their profits.

Somewhere in the Southern ocean, a brown pelican is dying, sodden with oil and lacking understanding. It's HER ocean that has always been her home, this gentle, sweet creature who loves to sit on posts, sitting there looking over the world she belongs in, the world she should always find safe.

It is you and I who destroyed this pelican's world with our hunger for oil and our love of our cars. We haven't taken the time to find another source of fuel. We use the expedient method. We're in a hurry. We don't have the time or the money or the imagination.

Tell that to the brown pelican as she sits with her dripping coat of oil, waiting for the death that will surely overtake her. Tell her we just don't have the ingenuity and determination that we used to have, when we invented all the machines, the technology, the miraculous paraphernalia in the world today. At one time, we managed to send a man into space. Then, we did not stop dreaming, but sent men to the moon and brought them back to earth safely.

We have won wars. We have laid train tracks across the country. We have created the computer and the Internet. We have tossed out the laundry tub and invented the automatic washer. We have made Medical history by banishing polio, smallpox, malaria and other diseases.

So tell the brown pelican we've come to the end of our American spirit. We cannot take oil, oil rigs and oil spills out of our lives and find other fuels that will energize our country, save billions of dollars, and perhaps in the future, thousands of pelicans and other animals from inevitable spills.

We finally have a President who is urging us to move ahead, to harness the wind, and look upward at the sun. With energy abounding in that beautiful Orb, Our Star that supports and nurtures us can send that energy downward to us if we can only capture it.

There is oil on the outer islands. There is oil in the marshes. There is oil on the beautiful beaches where children used to play. There are thousands of people who now have no jobs. The beautiful Southern shoreline faces years of ruin, with an end to fishing, shrimping, oyster beds, and birds like the pelican that live on the coast.

The oil spill may spew upward for weeks...or months...or years to come, because man is helpless to halt it unless the relief wells work. So, let us plan on some relief of our own....and find that source of energy that is waiting for us. As Ted Turner has said, "Oil has served us well for more than a century. It's time for something better!"

It is a challenge we can meet. It is a need we can fill. We may have to phase the use of oil out very slowly, but we can accomplish our goal. There IS something better, a country free of fossil fuels, free of dependence on the good will of wildly wealthy sheiks and kings, a country no longer dependent upon oil, a country no longer in danger of another huge oil spill!

THE JOURNEY

2010-06-11T20:36:00.002-04:00

When I was very young, I can remember Hubert and Bud riding horses in the hills and fields behind our house. They would sing and shout and yodel and the sound of their voices echoed across the green of the land, through the cornfields and meadows, to bring delight to my young ears. They were strong and lithe back then, aglow with the beauty of youth, both of them trim and fit, both of them handsome young boys.

Oh, how I loved them even then, caught up in the adoration of a young sister for her older brothers. I watched them as they raced those old plowhorses back to the barn, then jumped off to laugh about their ride. They were inseparable back then, always laughing, enjoying the pleasures of youth together.

The family left Illinois before Helma and I were born, loaded possessions in an old car and rumbled up to Michigan. There were jobs in Michigan, it was said, jobs that didn't involve labor on a farm. The brothers planned on getting jobs in the auto plants. Henry Ford was looking for men and they were ready to work.

Unfortunately, Hubert and Bud were too young to get jobs in the plants, but the older boys were soon employed. Herman, Harry and Homer were old enough and punched the timeclock every weekday, rustling around to get something to eat before they had to leave for work. They came home greasy and exhausted, falling into bed to grab some sleep before morning came again. Herman spent his lifetime working in the plants, but the other brothers eventually went on to other careers.

They rented a house in a crowded neighborhood, with houses lining the streets and streetlights casting their light through the shadows of the night. From the house, one could hear the rumble of streetcars as they labored down the tracks and the view from the windows were not scenic vistas, but a seemingly endless world of chimneys and housetops. Pop had also obtained a job in an auto plant and he was as miserable as a born farmer can be, hating the job, hating the house, hating the rows of houses and the crowds of people walking past on the sidewalk, going somewhere, too busy to stop and chat. He hated riding the streetcars, shoulder to shoulder with countless others, all smelling of grease and perspiration, all staring out the windows and the passing storefronts and miles of sidewalk.

Once in a while, the lure of the big city affected Pop and, according to Mom, he would fail to come home when his shift was over and would stagger in late at night, still awake in the wee hours of the morning, and definitely under the influence of demon alcohol.

One night, Pop staggered home, opened the door of the house, and fell into a stupor on a couch, only to discover in the early morning that he was in a strange house. He managed to get up and hurry home before the unknowing family discovered his presence, but Mom was already out of bed to greet him and definitely ready to berate him. No one could bang pots and pans around and tell someone off like Mom could. Pop would listen, then wander to his chair and light his pipe, unperturbed by her anger.

In his heart, he yearned for Illinois, for the people he had known and talked with throughout his life. He missed the fields and the woods of the farms where he had planted crops and traded horses to make his living. He wanted no part of city life and resented their lives there. His young children were running wild on the city streets and he felt that no man should spend his life working in grime and grease when there were crops to plant and fields to plow. the soft breezes, the falling rain, and the sun smiling down as you worked.

Mom, too, had her problems. The older children were working most of the time, but she was left to manage the younger scamps. Hubert and Bud explored the neighborhood and fought with some of the aggressive older boys. They would return to their rented home with scrapes and bruises, while Mom fussed and fumed and washed off the wounds with Fels Naptha. When a group of boys tied Hubert into a cardboard box and left him on a streetcar track, it was Bud who ran home for help. Mom's heart leaped into her throat, as she prayed that a streetcar wouldn't come barreling past before she could get Hubert out of the box. Fortunately, she made it there and a disgruntled Hubert was freed.

It was episodes like this that made Mom uneasy and dissatisfied with city life. Her lively boys were magnets for trouble and it didn't take them any effort to use their fists to protect themselves. They were strong and fit, from their early years on the Illinois farms. They knew they could lord it over these puffy. weak city kids. They walked together, Kings of the Road, winking at the girls. scowling at the boys, but always courteous and polite to the older folks.

When Hubert tied the string around his penis, Mom knew it was time to do something about their behavior. His organ had swollen to encompass the string and Mom didn't know how she could extract it. When Pop came home, he helped get the string out and Mom put lotion on the red, swollen organ, while Hubert tried to hold the tears from his eyes and babbled nonsense when asked the reason for the string. No one ever knew just what had happened, whether Hubert tied the string himself...or did he finally meet his match and was humiliated by strange boys holding him down, taking down his pants and subjecting him to this indignity? If Bud knew the answer, he didn't tell, so throughout the years, the story was told that Hubert tied the string himself.

Mom and Pop knew then that their city days had to end, but where could they go? They rattled around in Harry's car, looking for places to rent. Harry and Herman decided that Pop couldn't make any money as a farmer. If he was going to quit his job at the auto plant, he had to go into business for himself, where he could make money and maybe even end up rich. Pop was flabbergasted by this idea. He had never wanted a store. His life, he felt, belonged to a farm, and business was beyond his imagination.

In the days ahead, they located a store on a little rural street in a little Michigan town, with buildings stretched up and down this street like beads on a necklace. The store was a tiny grocery, with two gas tanks in front. With the riches garnered from the auto plants, Pop was soon ensconced in his very own business.

So, the younger children were enrolled in the red brick school, while Pop and Mom ran the grocery store. My only interest was the bins of cookies that lined an outer wall. I would snatch a cookie several times a day, until Pop began to guard the bins. But he hadn't counted on my host of nieces and nephews who also raided the bins. Sis, Junior, Ronald, Donald, Richard, Norma Jean and Bette June and I would stake out Pop's position, then one of us would creep through the door in the direction of the bins. By hiding behind a counter filled with grocery items, we could make it across the room, then quickly take cookies and stuff them in our pockets, while Pop was busy with a customer. Then we would run out behind the house and enjoy our sugary treat.

One time, Hilda ran into one of the gas pumps and the excitement that followed allowed us time to empty the bins. The problem was, there was one cookie left over, and Ronald claimed it as his due, because he had been the one to sneak into the store and empty a bin. "Not fair!" we cried. "We have all taken turns getting the cookies. Why should you get more than us?" We ganged around Ronald and tried to grab the cookie from his hand, but he ran like the wind and disappeared into the house, where he told Mom we were beating up on him and we ended up getting scolded.

Pop was not happy. Running a store was not his cup of tea. He ended up handing out credit to all of the financially strapped people in the neighborhood, whose numbers seemed to be astronomical. They always promised to pay him back, and some of them tried to do so, but times were bad and hiring had cut down at the auto plants and so, the return was scant.

Helma entered school, a fact which filled me with bitter envy. I was so incensed by this unfair fact that I vowed I would seek my revenge. So, when Mom walked Helma to the school, I followed not far behind. When Helma sat at her little desk, I found a perch near a window and spent the day glaring through the glass at her. She complained to Mom, who tried to keep me home, but I slipped away and continued sitting at my post. Finally, the teacher told Mom that, if I was going to attend school every day, I might as well do it correctly, so they placed me in a class.

I was extremely happy, even though the teacher was an ogre who slapped tape on my mouth because I wouldn't stop talking. If I had known the Constitution guaranteed me Freedom of Speech, I would have informed Mrs. Williams. As it was, I had to stop talking and pay attention, which was never easy for me to do.

This was a very strict school, with some very strange methods of punishment. Deed was punished for some extraction and was forced to stand on tiptoe with his nose placed in a ring that was screwed into the wall. After being punished this way several times, Herman placed a visit to the school. When he had finished lambasting the principal, the nose ring was removed from the wall.

Again, Pop and Mom decided to move on. The store shelves were empty, the till was empty, and Pop was unhappy being a businessman. So, once again we began to look for a place to live, a house to rent, a place surrounded by fields and woods. Pop found his farm and I found the happiest years of my childhood, blissfully leaving Mrs. Williams behind.

BROTHERS - SISTERS - I HARDLY KNEW YOU!

2010-06-03T13:24:00.002-04:00

My father, whom we all called Pop, was not a big man. He was small and wiry, with skin so browned and toughened by the sun that it resembled leather. He had big, broad, work-worn hands that held a steady grip on a plow and paused now and then to run along the flanks of a tired horse or mule. His black hair had turned to gray and he had a round bald spot on the top of his head. When children piled onto his lap, as they did when he sat in his old green chair, they would play with his hair and make it stick up like devil's horns, giggling and laughing at the way he looked.

He loved children. He wanted thirteen children. He had his favorites. Many of his grandchildren have fond memories of sitting on his knees, while others only have the memories of knowing a very old man. An old-fashioned man, he wanted the farm to provide everything we could possibly need. When Mom had to ask for money to buy such commodities as sugar and salt, he was reluctant to reach into his wallet to give her what she needed. He felt that a good farmer raised everything his family needed. To see anything "store bought" seemed to be an insult to his life's work.

Somehow, smack in the center of a gravel pit, he raised his yearly crop of corn, using no fertilizer, no method of bringing water to the fields, nothing but the sun and the rain and the constant work with the plow. God must have smiled down at him, because year after year that crop of corn filled the local markets and the stand along the street running by our house. He made enough money from the sale of corn to buy a few mules to help with the work. He made enough money to grudgingly give my mother a few dollars for that sugar and salt.

From seven boys, Pop only raised one true farmer. Hubert shared his love of the soil, while Bud had his nose stuck in a book, and none of the others paid a bit of attention to Mother Nature. They helped on the farm because Pop insisted, but made their way in the outer world as soon as they became adult, while Hubert came every week to look over the status of the corn.

I remember that my brothers, Hjalmar and Harold, whom we all called Bud, were prone to ponder. They would sit outside on the porch and, rather than carry on a lively conversation, would just sit there, stare at the sky and the green of the trees, and silently ponder. I never knew what they were thinking about and they seldom wasted a word in my direction, but I always thought they were solving all of the world's problems as they sat there.

Hubert never pondered. He chatted and smiled and now and then lost his temper with a balky child. He was completely in the moment and lived in a world of here and now, while I think that Bud was off in tomorrow's world, contemplating the future.

Most of my brothers and sisters were ten or more years older than me, which made them seem more like Uncles and Aunts than true siblings. To me, they were gods and goddesses, ruling the realm of adulthood, free to select their own activities and not forced, as I was, to trot to school every day, memorizing dates of the Civil War, trying to remember the names of the Presidents and, worst of all, working those enigmatic sums in that hated Arithmetic Book.

I especially hated "story problems." Joe took a train to Baltimore on a trip that took him two hours, while Jim took a train from Detroit that took him eleven hours, how fast was the train traveling? This kind of question did not teach me Math at all, but certainly stimulated my creative side. Yes, Joe enjoyed a pleasant trip, but Jim was mugged at the train station and spent two hours in an Emergency Room before he could make his way to Baltimore.

I remember showing my sister, Helen, the manuscript of my first novel. My heroine was named Fairy and how well I remember Helen trying not to laugh as she read my lines. My hero was named Larry and so it went...."Larry took his Fairy in his arms!" Helen read the entire book, then advised me to never again place a story in England, which I knew nothing about, and never again writing about a daughter of the Queen. I felt this was terrible advice, since I wanted my heroine to be a Princess.

"Write about what you know," Helen told me, reaching into her grim, humorless adulthood to hamper the writing talents of a genius like myself. I glowered at her and vowed to never show anyone a story again. It was obvious they didn't appreciate anything above their comprehension.

So I lived life on the Farm, a wild-haired, sun-tanned girl with absolutely no Mathematical ability, running in the orchard, playing in the fields, my best friends my dogs that followed me around like loyal shadows. Each day, I had an older brother or sister to contend with, to try to understand from the level of childhood. Looking back, I see that I hardly knew them at all, that I didn't know their dreams, their hopes, their ambitions. I didn't even know if they believed in God. I didn't know if they had ever loved or lost. I didn't know if they had had their hearts crushed by life's little cruelties.

They were actually strangers. Only Helma and Harlan (Deed) were anything near my age and our relationships were thus that I was the perpetual younger sister, not too bright, never to emerge from this trap to become an equal. Our family was so close that hardly a day went by that we didn't get together. There were picnics, ballgames, musical moments and both arguments and laughter, but these older people lived in a secret world I could not enter. Now, as the years have passed, I wonder what I missed, what great relationships passed me by, what friendships were never mine. The tragic truth is....I will never know!

GROWING OLDER

2010-05-07T15:18:00.003-04:00

I have heard it said that you know you are old when you reach down to pull up your socks and find out you aren't wearing any. There is some truth in this, and there are several other ways you can perceive that you are indeed growing old.

A friend of mine in Grand Rapids said that, as you age, every organ in your body either dries up and withers away, or leaks. This might be a gauge to use to judge your true age.

From time to time, I have seen the charts in magazines and newspapers where they have tried to help you view your physical age. You see, you may be only 30 years old, but if you enjoy yourself too much with life's little pleasure, you may actually be much older. Benjamin Button went from old age to infancy, but the rest of us follow a familiar path. We are born in various circumstances, and it's all downhill from there. Agewise, that is.

If you drink, smoke, eat too much, sit on your duff several hours a day and take no interest in the world....alas, you are doomed. The most important thing is good nutrition and, unfortunately, this does not include chocolate covered doughnuts. Exercise is also important, so try to lift yourself up occasionally. Take a walk, or at least a stroll, and maybe even run the vacuum. Exercise buffs never include running the vacuum as a way to slim your Abs, but if the dust and dog hair is two inches thick on the carpeting, it helps.

Generally, as you get older, you begin to shrink. Your body lowers, bones sinking wearily into joints, and flesh hanging down in unsightly folds. You lose inches from your height, but your shoe size generally remains the same. At an advanced age, comfort seems more important than fancy shoes and you find yourself buying them three sizes bigger, giving your toes the space to absorb all of those inches you are losing in height. Forget stilettos, or you'll be in a wheelchair much sooner than you planned.

The enemy of good health is Belly Fat, especially as you grow older. You know you have Belly Fat if you look like you are nine months along and you haven't had sex in several years. The way to avoid Belly Fat is to exercise strenuously and eat nothing but celery and carrots until you are fifty. Then, you can avoid Belly Fat and only suffer from a healthier condition, called Belly Sag. Belly Sag isn't pretty, but it won't kill you.

There are some advantages to getting old besides wearing a red hat. When you are bent over, wizened and wrinkled, you can be as mean as you want. You can use a cane and whack at anyone who displeases you. You can scowl and complain and be as miserable as a dark cloud on the horizon. There isn't a thing other people can do to defend themselves from your meanness. They can't whack back or tell you just how dismal you are....you are much too delicate, fragile and aged for that! They may kindly try to lighten your mood, point out the beautiful flowers or the blue sky, but you can sneer at these attempts. You can wreak your revenge for every irritation, every trouble, every slight you have encountered throughout the years.

However, you may get better care if you are a sunny sort, a lovable old Bo Peep. Then you might get your diaper changed at a faster rate, or be given a special dessert at mealtime. So it is up to you to decide just which type you want to be.

As age approaches, it's time to think of the trials and tribulation of advanced age. Will you stay in your home, watched over by a "caregiver"? Or will you live in a back bedroom in the home of one of your children? Or will you enter a Nursing Home and try to think of it as your "Home Away from Home," rather than a warehouse for the aged?

There is no cure for old age, even though the Beauty Barons tell you otherwise. You can slather your face with age-defying creams, be treated with Botox and Collagen, have the fat sucked from your limbs, dye your hair, pluck your brows...and your chin hairs.....flirt with young men like a Cougar....and, alas, the wrinkles will eventually win! Gals like Cher can spend millions keeping up the impression of youth, but eventually these just won't work.

The best way to proceed is to embrace your creeping years with gay abandon. Pretend you are having the time of your life, whether you are or not. Point out that only the aging can join the AARP, or can sometimes get 10% off a restaurant meal. One thing is sure, you will not grow older alone. Like Mark Twain's description of Hell, you'll have a lot of company.

SAYING GOODBYE

2010-04-17T23:24:00.003-04:00

This month I have visited the Valley of Death. I have sat at a hospital bedside and watched a grandson die, my heart pounding as though it were being ripped from my body, the pain inside me so intense it was like a penetrating knife, cold and sharp. It was a big hospital, with corridors as long as city blocks, stretching into another long corridor and another. Sometimes I wandered aimlessly from one long stretch to another, seeking something as simple as a cup of coffee, leaving my bedside post for a moment, trying to clear my thoughts. It was a "trauma hospital," filled with gloom. Each unit had a locked door, with a telephone on a wall where one could communicate with a nurse about your need to enter the premises.

I stayed through the nights, sleeping on little settees made of flimsy wood and thinly padded seats, my purse under my head for a pillow, my legs folded like an origami fan as I tried to balance myself. I would wake up tireder than when I fell asleep, creeping out of the waiting room, hoping not to awaken the group of other sleeping visitors, nestled in various couches and chairs, slumped in slumber, awaiting word on the condition of their loved ones. We were a sad, silent group.

When it was over, when my grandson had drawn his last precious breath, I was strangely composed. I could only think of leaving this hospital, this warehouse of dying people, to get outside into the cold, crisp air and shake the essence of tragedy from my body. To leave my grandson behind in these strange hands, to leave him to be lifted and manipulated and loaded into a black vehicle like a sack of potatoes was almost more than I could bear. I wanted to pick him up and carry him with me, but I couldn't. So I walked outside to the car and we headed homeward, leaving a huge piece of our hearts behind.

Since then, I have been immersed in sorrow. I have wallowed in my grief. I held up for the funeral, with all of its trappings, the flowers that then sit around and threaten to wilt and must be carried to Nursing Homes or Hospitals, the cards, the letters, and that pathetic sack filled with the earthly remnants of the deceased....a ragged pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a scuffed pair of shoes, and five dollars in a wallet.

It was heroin that killed my grandson at the age of 22. Heroin that he became addicted to at a younger age and somehow could not shake away from, despite a stay in ReHab and other efforts to cure him. On the day that he died, he was happy because he had passed a drug test and this meant that he had been a month and a half off the drug. Then a friend called....and called again and again. He decided to go with him, telling me he was just visiting a friend and they would play video games together. I believed him. He was lying.

So, he Overdosed on the streets of Detroit in the parking lot of a Wendy's store....a heartbreaking end for a young man with a bright, ready smile and a truckload of friends, all of whom mourned his passing. The other young man survived and is now trying to cure his own addiction to heroin. We are standing behind him and cheering him on, because my grandson would have been happy to see his friend break free from this habit.

How many young people are falling into this trap? More than I ever knew until I entered the shadows of addiction. In the village where I live, there are more than a hundred young people using the drug. It's cheap and it's a thrill. It will even be given to you free...until you're caught! That's just the number of young people I know about. Heaven knows how many others are out there.

They are dying....one here, one there. The Overdoses occur regularly, and many survive. Some don't. The deaths pile up, young people with long lives ahead of them, dead of a vicious poison racing through their veins, stopping their hearts, starving their brains of oxygen.

What do do? When this scourge enters your life, don't hesitate. Try Rehab and, if you can afford it, make it a long stay. Try a doctor. There is medication that helps take away the urge....too late for my grandson, but worth a try for others. Don't hide the addiction, because friends and family can help. Communicate with others, because they can help you pinpoint the source of the drug. Remember, there are thousands of parents in your same predicament today and you want to do all you can before it is your child dead in a faraway hospital bed.

I have emerged from the sodden, mournful, doleful state where all I did was cry and wonder if there is a God and, if so, where was the miracle we needed? I have made my peace with my grandson's death and I am working on making peace with God. There is a huge, empty, black hole in my heart that may never be filled with love and laughter again. I know others have suffered so and survived. I know useless, unnecessary deaths are something many, many of us encounter. So I'll lift up my head and walk forward, one step at a time, and celebrate the fact that our troubled young man is finally free of the hateful scourge that so brutally took his life.

WHAT'S IN THAT TEA?

2010-02-22T17:01:00.003-05:00

What is the problem with Republicans, concerning Health Care Reform? They scream about cost, but didn't say a word when George W. Bush unloaded our money in Iraq. They didn't scream about the waste of money given Halliburton. Nor, when George W. Bush suggested bailing out the bankers, we didn't hear one Republican scream! That deficit just kept going up, and the Republicans were very silent. If President Bush wanted a few billion more to spend, he could depend upon the Party of Yes!

Their objections seem to be based on the hope that Obama will fail, as Rush Limbaugh admitted. They seem to be doing all that they can to make that happen, even if they have lie in their Ads to make the Elderly shiver with fear and believe that they'll be subjected to Death Panels..... even if they make countless trips to speak on CNN about how conservative they are! They were spendthrifts, however, when it concerned George W. Bush. With Obama, they pretend to be frugal. Futilely frugal! Remember, when Health Care Reform was suggested, one Republican said that, if they could defeat it, it would be Obama's Waterloo. So the Party of No banded together to try their best to defeat Health Care, as though they are French gendarmes chasing after Napoleon.

It doesn't matter to them that there are about 40 million Americans with no Health Care at all. If these Americans get sick, they will try to fund their Health Care through Medicaid. In doing so, it will cost the tax payer just as much as if these sick people had some sort of governmental coverage. Other Americans could lose their homes and savings over the cost of just one serious illness. Costs are inflated and often insurance companies refuse to cover their customers.

Then, too, there are the young people. Many youths have advanced in age to a point where they are dropped from their parents' insurance policies. They have no insurance at all, even though they are at a time in life when accidents and calamities seem to happen. Many of them are jobless. Even the ones with low-paying jobs have trouble paying premiums. They can hardly afford their inflated car insurance payments, let alone carry health care. It is obvious they need some kind of help, but the Party of No isn't interested in helping anyone. Besides being the Party of No, it's the Party of "Too bad, Chum, help yourself!"

What is the Republican problem with Health Care Reform? If it's price, let's point at the fact that it hasn't bankrupted Canada. Nor has it bankrupted England or other European nations. A majority of these citizens appreciate their Health Care and wouldn't change it for any reason. Many of them pay taxes to pay for it, but still want to keep it.

Mention "tax" to a Republican and they turn purple. They obviously want a country with no government at all. They can then wear their guns around their middles and hold early morning feuding gunfests. They can annihilate minorities, unions, the ACLU, Al Gore, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Birth Control, Women's Rights and all of that long list of Republican Pet Peeves.

Republicans seem to be playing games. They refuse to cooperate in any way, refuse to talk with Obama about Health Care Reform, just gather in a useless pile to vote No on everything, accomplishing nothing, doing nothing, yammering about their Tea Parties and how the country is rebelling.

Yes, I know many people who are rebelling over the behavior of the Republican Party. They have caused a broken government. When a political party fails to think of the people it is supposed to serve, it is time to boot it out and start over. President Obama has done everything possible to placate and please the Party of No. Instead, they just keep on being the Party of No. No, no, no, no!

The Governors of our various States met with President Obama today, a bipartisan meeting with both Republicans and Democrats involved. They talked about issues, settled some problems, and said that the Stimulus had helped keep and provide jobs in their states. Governor Crist of Florida, a Republican, said that he couldn't understand the lack of respect for the President. He said that he would cooperate and help the President in solving problems, because this is what a politician is supposed to do.

Now isn't it a pity that the Republican Congress isn't filled with Governor Crists? He's level-headed, sincere, and acts like an honorable man. This is the Republican I would vote for, one who shuns the Party of No and considers the plight of the people.

If anyone thinks we can climb out of this Recession (Depression) without spending some money, I wish they'd come up with some answers. We're not going to do it with Monopoly Money, for sure! If we wait too long, we'll sink into a mire of suffering like the people endured in the 1030's. Republicans were President back then, too, but the Depression continued until the people elected a Democrat. He instigated Jobs Programs, started what he called the New Deal, and people like my family once more had groceries in the cupboard. This is what Obama is trying to do! This is what the Party of No doesn't want, because they want to defeat Obama! Your empty cupboard is no concern of theirs, they are only interested in their goal.

Health Care Reform is important because our medical and insurance costs are wasting millions of dollars. Aside from that, health care is a universal right. Every man, woman and child in this country should have adequate health coverage. Even the Party of No is completely covered. They don't even pay their premiums. The taxpayers do it. So what on earth are they whining about? They have it pretty good themselves, and don't even consider it Socialism or Big Goverment.

Is there something deadly in that Tea, something that withers the brain until it wastes away and atrophies into a whiff of meaningless air? Perhaps they should switch to a Fruit Juice instead. I know one that they'd probably like. It's a bit tart on the tongue, but they would find it familiar. It's commonly known as "Sour Grapes" and works much better then tea. Let's admit it, they all have a case of Sour Grapes, so why waste it?

WHISPERS OF YESTERDAY

2010-02-12T10:44:00.003-05:00

I wasn't going to divulge this secret, but then I thought I had better join the group. Yes, I had an affair with Tiger Woods. It lasted for years and, of course, I thought I was the only one. I knew he was married, but Poor Me, I loved him anyway. Now that our affair is public, I guess I'll go on Good Morning, America, and try to rake up a little more publicity. Or maybe I can become a Porn Star, if the salary is right and the lighting can hide the sag.

Now if you believe that, you will believe anything. As I grew up, I had no self-confidence at all. In one way, I was the spoiled brat of a big family. In another way, I was a poor farm kid, with homemade clothing and bad teeth. I couldn't measure up to the rest of the girls, who seemed like beautiful starlets to me.

Later, one of my older brothers and sisters paid for my tooth repair. After hours sat in the dentist chair, I emerged with new, white teeth. Except for one. One of my front teeth was laced with gold. I was devastated! My smile would be like a flash of precious metal, its gleam bouncing off the walls and windows. I solved the problem by smiling without showing any teeth or holding my hands over my mouth area. It took great effort, but I thought the gold tooth made me look like old tobacco-chewing goldminer.

The first sexual experience I ever had...if you can call it that, is when a young man, a few years older than me...asked me for a date. My criteria for dating was that the fellow have a car and this one did, so off we went on a date. He even met my parents before we took off, this well-mannered fellow who even wore a suit and tie to take me out.

After our dinner, he asked if I wanted to go for a drive. Sure, I said, agreeable that I was. We explored the area, the hills, the valleys, the sideroads. Then he drove to an area I think was called Ploss Lake and stopped the car. I was looking around when I glanced over and saw that he had unzipped his trousers and what emerged was an apparition I could have easily mistaken for a garden hose, so to solve the problem of what and why....I simply opened the door, got out and walked home.

That same year, on Halloween night, Sis and I were knocking on doors, gathering up a large sack of candy, to be enjoyed for hours later. We knocked on the door of a cute little white cottage and who opened the door? None other than my former suitor, whose face betrayed his surprise. Behind him stood his pregnant wife, holding a baby. At her knees was another toddler hanging onto her skirttails. Sis laughed at me all the way home as I fumed over that lying rat whom my parents had dubbed "a nice young man!"

Experiences like this didn't bolster my confidence at all! Nor did they help me have the self esteem I needed to have to become accepted as one of the leaders of my class.

Oh, I tried! One day, one glorious day, I was allowed to join a group of popular girls, girls with fuzzy new sweaters and salon-clipped hair. I felt as though I had been anointed by some High School God who had taken his sceptre and placed it on my shoulders, saying "Let there be light!"

At the lunch I attended, one of the girls, whose name was Joan, as I recall, said, "I need help in the library today. I have to tabulate all the books in Section C."

I was like an eager puppy, tail wagging! Here was my chance to further my membership in this elite group. "I'll help you!" I blurted, an eager smile on my face.

Joan regarded me as though I was a scrap of food left on a plate, an imposter trying to infiltrate her kingdom.

"I'll let you know," she said, in a haughty tone of voice.

Curses on Joan with her arrogant air! She has since moved northward into Canada and lives on an island off the coast! At our Class Reunions, the moderator always says..."We have had a note from Joan, and she's the same sweet girl she always was!"

Thus, I was once again relegated to my status as a lowly farm girl. Nor did I ever again get an invitation to join the Elite for lunch. You can take the Farm Girl away from the farm, but you can't take the farm away from the girl. Those childish rejections, those schoolgirl ways, cause teenaged girls to shed bitter tears and it takes years to shake off the feelings of inadequacy, but when one does this, if it's possible, it's a wonderful feeling of freedom to be oneself, like a butterfly emerging from a dark cocoon.

I told Bud about this experience and he was sympathetic, telling me of his own younger years. Of all the people in our large family, it was Bud who should have been able to finish school, go on to college, earn his degree, and contribute to the world. Instead, he had to find his niche by reading books, through experiences, and joining groups like the school board to be recognized as the intelligent man he was.

Hubert, on the other hand, was gifted with a panache that served him well. He covered up the Farm Boy with a veneer of charming sophistication. He smiled easily and made his way on sheer personality. He chummed around with our brother, Hjalmar, who was so quiet one could hardly remember him saying a thing. They were totally different, but stayed close for many years to come. They would earn money playing Poker and, one time, were faced with angry men who were convinced they were cheating. One time they ran across the back area of a hotel, believing they were running across a cement tennis court, and both of them ran right into an empty swimming pool. Bruised and battered, they climbed out and kept escaped.

Undoubtedly, the prettiest woman among my four sisters was Hazel. She had the face of an angel, but struggled all her life with weight, as so many of us do. She had a melodious, lilting voice, deep and passionate, with a terrific range. We used to gather around to hear Hazel sing. When I graduated from high school, I used to stay at Hazel's house, using it as a base to make it an easier trip to reach my job at a local hospital. Hazel never got angry with me, this young girl always scrambling around, late for work, taking off in a flurry of dropped clothes, a piece of toast clutched in her hand to eat along the way.

I was young and silly and totally irresponsible. Of all things, they put me in charge of Birth Certificates. In my area, there are white babies born who are recorded as black or Oriental, and vice versa. There are babies whose births are not recorded at all. There are mix-ups and foul-ups and the buck lands right on my desk. I was far more interested in a cute young doctor than I was in doing my job. Thankfully, jobs were easy to find back then. I would leave or get booted out of one job, just to get another and go on with my fumbling, bumbling style of life.

When did I shred the Farm Girl and become a responsible adult. I'm not sure I ever have. The ghost of that shoeless girl with her flying, tangled hair and complete ignorance of the world around her stays with me like a ghost from the past, like a whisper in my ears, like a summer breeze touching the cheeks and rustling the hair. Do we ever escape the miseries of high school? Do we ever grow past those teen-aged years? Well, maybe some do. Some of us don't, but we muddle through the best we can, pretending a confidence we never had and that may never fully arrive.

STRAY CATS AND FAT CATS!

2010-02-04T10:47:00.002-05:00

A Republican Governor has likened the distribution of food stamps to "feeding stray animals." According to reports, he said that feeding stray animals is useless, because they just come back for more, and then start breeding, multiplying themselves until you have many more strays to feed.

It would be difficult to sell this idea to the many Americans receiving food stamps. Most of them have lost their jobs and have worn their shoes down to the flesh applying for employment in the few places advertising for help. In most cases, they are joined in filling out applications by hundreds of other job seekers. In most cases, the food stamps are the only way they can feed their families in this crisis that has struck Americans in the past few years.

The ironic thing is that most people blame the Republican Administration of George Bush for the aforementioned crisis. President Bush may not have caused all of the problems, but he certainly did little or nothing to halt them. In fact, he spent our money....not on efforts to put people back to work...but on the War in Iraq, which the British people are still investigating. Not so here in the United States, we do not spend our time with lengthy investigations on the reasons for fighting that war, because most of us know the answers. We simply sit in our jobless state, hope for the best, and pray for a better tomorrow.

At one time in my young life, my parents went on what was called an Old Age Pension. They applied for money to help them out, these elderly folks who had worked in the fields all of their lives and had finally reached a point where even a healthy crop of corn would not sustain them throughout the year. Proud, independent, worthwhile people, they did not want to live off the money given them by their children, simply because their children were themselves poor and had very little to give.

So, the Old Age Pension arrived each month in the mail and it was a godsend to them, as they hacked away at the ice on the creek, in order to get water to use. The pump would freeze solid, the creek was the only source of water, and once that ice hole was chopped, they would carry bucket after bucket of water to the house to use for cooking and laundry.

Each month, the social worker would arrive to ask questions and ascertain that my parents deserved the pittance they were given. She not only visited my parents with questions, but arrived at the homes of my brothers and sisters, peeking in corners, checking on the status of living styles, making sure that no child could afford to support the parents.

This well-dressed, coiffed and well-groomed lady arrived in a shiny big Buick. As a child, I really enjoyed her arrival, so I could admire the gleaming finish of that car. To me, it was the epitome of luxury, with its padded interior and gleaming accessories. I dreamed of growing up to ride in such a vehicle and dress in woolen suits and linen blouses like the social worker.

This lady would often corner me as I sat outside admiring her car. "Is Hilda working?" she'd query. "Does anyone eat out every night?" She asked me questions I could not answer, but she managed to scare the me to death, because her eyes were like piercing bullets and her accusatory expression made me feel as though the wrong answer might land me in Leavenworth for a lengthy stay.

"Better watch your mouth," my mother admonished me, "or we'll all be starving to death!"

This placed a double burden on my shoulders, to a point where I hid when the lady arrived. Eventually, the summer came, the corn blossomed, the garden gave its harvest and the Old Age Pension became a part of the past. The stray cats had found a meager supply of their own food and were able to say farewell to the lady in the Buick, the fat cat who could ride in splendor on the tax money everyone paid.

Frankly, I resent any person who treats another human being like a piece of worthless driftwood. Comparing poor folks to abandoned animals has got to be a remark that paves the way to Hell. In the first place, the pitiful plight of stray animals is hard enough to bear. My area has a plentiful supply, frightened creatures who run away at the slightest noise and live a life of hunger and fear. I feed those stray cats. I don't care if they come back or multiply, they are God's creatures and deserve more than life has handed out. I figure that each time I feed a stray cat, I have saved the life of a bird.

Walk in the shoes of a jobless man! Walk in the shoes of a hungry child! Imagine yourself hopelessly trying to survive, with no resources to help you. Imagine yourself as Jesus commanded, helping to keep your brother!

A Republican friend of mine said, "Oh, all this means you are in favor of Big Government!"

I'm not in favor of big government. I'm not in favor of little government. I am in favor a government that works, a government that knows that poor people are not stray animals, unworthy of help. What I am saying is government should be...let me try to get it straight...OF the people, FOR the people, and BY the people! Could anything be clearer than that?

THE DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA

2010-01-25T10:49:00.003-05:00

There are reports in newspapers and in a book about some of the torturous procedures at Guantanamo. These reports concern the deaths of three prisoners there, one of them around the age of 19. These men were not proven to be terrorists, but seemed to be people just swept up by the tide that went through Afghanistan, when all one had to do to end up in Guantanamo is be turned in by an acquaintance or be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The military authorities deemed these deaths to be suicides, but witnesses claim it was murder. If so, it was covered up and never revealed until these articles were printed. It was said the suicides were brought about by the men stuffing rags down their throats, but witnesses say this didn't happen, that the torturers were the ones who stuffed the rags and caused the deaths of these men.

Perhaps an investigation will follow, or perhaps these deaths will be swept under a rug, to join the mass of atrocities nurtured and approved by the previous administration, leaders who employed a host of lawyers to make sure their sins would never be punished and events that emphasized the fact that you and I will pay for any illegal action, but powerful and dishonest people can get away with crimes that make you cringe just to read about them.

President Obama has been dismayed by the divisions so prevalent in our country. Rightwing, leftwing, one extreme to the other. The Republican Party seems to be led by a group of religiously radical folks, who preach the love and generosity commanded by Jesus in the Bible, but realistically ignore those commands to lead a campaign against their political enemy, Liberals. On the other hand, Liberal Presidents led the country into a maze of taxes and giveaways, to a point where many people felt that their money was being ripped from their paychecks and used to finance sloth and ignorance.

Personally, I don't think that God would approve of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter, along with the other pundits making our differences as wide as a chasm between two mountains. I would imagine there are more people listening to the three aforementioned people than are reading their Bibles. I would imagine that a daily dose of vitriolic hatred keeps the fires of division burning!

With people like Beck, Limbaugh and their ilk leading the troops of Republicans, I doubt if the division in this country will ever be closed. That chasm is fueled by words of hatred. It is burnished and nourished by words of selfishness and greed!

When elections consist of Advertisements that are patently false, when slogans and phrases
ruin reputations, impugn character, try to make cowards out of heroes and base elections on angry, hateful words and false allegations, how can any voter make an intelligent choice and select the man most capable for the job?

When a group of people...the Base....turn religion into a weapon of war and try to infiltrate our government with their beliefs, how can any intelligent person not resent the intrusion into their personal lives, the repudiation of their faith, and the attempted demolition of America as a land where all religions are welcome and cherished?

We all know life can be a bumpy road. If one saves up $100, a bill will arrive in the mail demanding $200. It's a fact of life. The best-laid plans of mice and men....well, we all know the phrases, and financial plans seem to be hit more often than anything else. So, if one group of people believes that poor folks, those with no savings, no retirement plans, no medical insurance, are not just unfortunate and reeling under the blows that life can deal, but are lazy, no-good bums with their hands out.....where's the Christian compassion there?

We have herded our African American neighbors into poor, rundown, smelly, horrible sections of our midcities, have denied them good jobs until forced to give some to them by governmental law, failed to loan them money for businesses and factories, forced them to exist on pittances handed out by the government, broken up their families because of poverty, slammed their children in jail, then some people ignorant of the facts have deemed them lazy bums unworthy of help. Let us just say that very few people have paid tuition to send their children to the crumbling midcity schools....schools with no playgrounds, with broken-down plumbing, with a lack of teachers and inexperienced administrators.

Red states...blue states...states that are half red, half blue....one would wonder what Thomas Jefferson would think of America today. Think about it, colonial America contained this group of highly intelligent men, who sat together and hammered out a Consitution that has served us up to our modern times. It is priceless, a testament to Freedom, promising a better life for every man, woman and child. It doesn't segregate people by race, by religion or color. It simply gave us a pattern to follow, reminiscent of Biblical commands, yet we have tried to interpret those words to mean the opposite of what they say. We try to tack on amendments that reveal our bigotry and foolishness.

United, many of these problems could be solved. United, this country could ward off the evils of terrorism. United, our citizens could enjoy an equal lifework in a country where equality is promised. Divided, we are doomed to failure and will squabble away every chance that we have.

I lived through a great World War and I can remember the unity then. Every family worked to assure victory on the battlefield. Granted, back then we were fighting soldiers in uniforms. You could tell a soldier from an average citizen. In today's world, we are fighting shadows. We are suspicious of anyone with the dark features and clothing of a Middle Easterner. We fear the possibility of an airplane being bombed, but ignore the fact that hundreds of people die or are injured each month in auto accidents. There is no Fear of Autos, and there should be, because your chances and mine of dying in an automobile far outweigh your possible death in a terrorist attack.

To most of us, these terrorists are not only frightening, but spooky. They wrap themselves in outlandish garb and their dark eyes show no glimmer of understanding of our culture and our beliefs. We have even less understanding of theirs. Their religion may be the fastest growing faith in the world, but it seems rather weird and threatening to most of us. We are told that Islam is based on peace and love, but believing this in this wartorn world is difficult to do. Do it we must, because our Constitution promises Freedom of Religion and Muslim-Americans should enjoy the same pleasures that the rest of us share!

United we stand, divided we fall....this old saying is very true. We are bringing about our own demise in America. First, we didn't protest and hold Tea Parties as Corporations fled the country to save labor costs in China and India. Secondly, we thronged to the Dollar Stores to buy cheap goods and purchase Toyotas instead of Fords. Third, we believe publicity as though it is Gospel. If someone says a Ford isn't reliable or all Unions are evil, we believe what we hear. Fourth, we are not living up to the Freedom of Religion the Constitution upholds.

It is politicians that have brought us down to our knees and, if we elect one good, honest man, we can't recognize this factor because the right or leftwing publicity makes us unsure. We demolish the good ones and then scream to the Heavens when the bad ones are in power. Rightwingers hate the Democrats. Leftwingers snort at the mention of the Republicans. In the meantime, Congress drones on, slow as a melting glacier, accomplishing little, babbling and blathering, but seldom taking action. They bask in the security of lifelong Medical Care, paid for by the taxpayers who struggle to keep their own insurance bills paid. Then, too, millions and millions have no insurance at all!

United, we could solve some problems. Divided, we can only enjoy a good fight. Truthfully, we are all at the mercy of the men and women we elect. If a man or woman is intelligent, educated and moral, we have to learn to applaud this fact, no matter which side of the spectrum he represents. Instead, we listen to the likes of Limbaugh and the battle rages on, and we don't seem to have the sense to resort to rational thought.

Which returns me to the subject of torture and possible murder at Guantanamo. Do we investigate and possibly prosecute, thus dividing our country even more? Or do we sweep these miserable deeds under a rug and try to convince ourselves that America, the Beautiful still flies an honorable flag? Our choices remain like ugly warts on smooth, young flesh, but we have to decide between true morality or the ugly sins that can twist the minds and behavior of human beings in a time of war. We have to stand together, united, come what may!

TOO MANY!

2010-01-15T15:56:00.004-05:00

I have always been amused by the tales I heard of the places where Mom and Pop lived with their brood before moving to the Farm. I have written about the lack of electricity, the ramshackle buildings, the leaks in the ceilingx and the snakes in the yards. Before I was born here in Michigan, and after Pop lost the farm he had bought, they rented places to house their growing family, which then numbered nine or ten children.

For a while, they lived in a place they called "The Deefendallar Place." Evidently, somewhere in Illinois, there is a family called The Deefendallars." Mom and Pop rented a home that the Deefendallars owned and, from what Mom told me, it was as bereft of comforts as all of the places they could afford. From the Deefendallar place, they moved to "The Holler." I don't think the Holler was any improvement, but it served them for a year or two until they moved into the house that burnt down.

I've never known what caused that fire, but I do know that the blaze was out of control. Mom got the kids together and got them outside to safety, but Pop was caught upstairs with either Homer or Bud, I'm not sure which. Anyway, he somehow snatched up the baby and made his way down the burning staircase, with flames licking at his clothing and roaring through the gray timbers of the house.

Along with the house, the fire took away all of their clothing and possessions. Years later, the U. S. Passport office insisted that I send them a family Bible or some document that would prove I was not born in either Canada or Mexico. Alas, any Bible or document had been lost in the fire and the only memento I have from my parents is an old gray pitcher with a tiny crack in its rim, so old I am afraid to even touch it. Here and there, there are a few photos of people in my family, scattered about where it is difficult to find them. Somewhere, in that maze of papers and pictures, I have a photo of Bud dressed in his Army uniform and ready for battle.

How different the world was when Bud, Deed, and Hubert went to war, leaving their families behind. By that time, I was almost reaching my teens and we lived in the place I have always called The Farm. Hubert was never sent any farther than Hawaii, which before it was made a state, was deemed a foreign country. Bud went on to be stationed in France, which was finally liberated from the Germans. What battles he fought, what bloodshed he saw, we never knew, for he kept it inside and never spoke of his experiences. Hubert, on the other hand, made much of his wartime battles as he was placed in a platoon that fought mosquitoes in Hawaii. Even today, that semi-tropical paradise is free of mosquitoes.

At that time, the city of Pontiac, Michigan, was a busy, thriving metropolis. It had a dime store that stretched for a city block, and many clothing stores, restaurants, hardware stores and other establishments offering everything you might need. Today, Pontiac is an impoverished wreck of a city, the dime store long gone, the other stores failing or empty. It is a ghost of its former self, a reminder of all that has gone wrong with our country.

Almost overnight, the automobile factories switched over to war vehicles and women began taking jobs as never before. The entire country united in an effort to defeat the Axis, which consisted of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Defeat them we did, and it was a joyous time when my brothers were finally home.

In my mind, I have often compared the War Then to the War Now. There was no ideological division then, everyone was happy that we had pulled out of Depression, and almost everyone cried like babies when Roosevelt died. We were apprehensive of Truman, but he proved to be a feisty, determined President who led us to the victory we claimed.

It was Truman who had the responsibility of deciding whether or not to use the atomic bomb. It must have caused him some sleepless nights, but he finally decided to use it, thus saving American lives. So the Enola Gay took off on its journey and the long war with Japan was over. The heartrending sight of horribly-burned Japanese citizens has haunted us for years, citizens that ignored the leaflets distributed by other planes before the bombs were released.

Today's war is a guerilla war, fighting Middle Eastern radicals that have made it their goal to destroy us. If financial destruction is what this meant, and some say it was, then they have accomplished their goal, for we flounder again in a huge recession that has cost us our jobs and our money. However, the American spirit is alive and well, albeit divided. One has to believe that if the fight for political power would cease and everyone join in to work toward victory, we could win this war as well. Instead, our politicians bicker and fight, Tea Parties attract dissidents, and name-calling never seems to cease.

When my brothers came home, our lives went on as though there had never been a war. Rows of little two or three-bedroom houses, with no similarity to the mini-mansions of today, housed almost every veteran and his family. Low-interest loans were available to veterans and this is how most of them afforded their first home.

Once again, we were all together again and the Farm was the meeting place every Sunday. It was there that we chatted, argued and sang together, with no talk of politics or of war. Bud and Hubert always loved little children and would tease and play with them for hours. I would run in the orchard with my nieces and nephews and not come in until dinnertime. Mom and the sisters and sisters-in-law would set the table and load it with food. Then, the fun really began. We did not eat quiet, formal meals, but constantly teased each other, tossing biscuits around, and joking about everything that had happened throughout the week. Pop, his head down as though he was avoiding all this horseplay, would concentrate on eating his food, his favorite "grease gravy" in a small bowl in front of him. I don't even know for sure what "grease gravy" was made of, be it pork chops or bacon or Heaven knows what, but I know that Pop wouldn't eat potatoes without it. Hubert always dug into the corn when it was ripe, chowing down several golden ears, while Bud liked biscuits as much as myself, busily smearing them with homemade butter.

When Pop was older and sick in the hospital, I went to visit him there. First, he was irritated and commanded me to fetch his clothes because he intended to walk out of this "hellhole." When I didn't move, he looked at me with that gleam in his eye and said, "Don't you hear me? Do what I say!" I was agonized, wanting to obey him and walk with him out of that hospital and back to the family home, but I didn't dare do it! I just sat there, tears rolling down my cheeks, sobbing for things I couldn't change, sobbing because I feared he would never come back home.

Then, he became quiet and thoughtful, looked at me as I sat beside his bed, and told me, "There's too many to leave behind!" I knew then, and he knew, too, that his days in the world were numbered. He knew that he would never again walk behind a plow in a field, the sun beating down on that battered old hat, the wind in his face, the horses pulling together.

As the years go by and memories of those golden days are all that I have, I can truthfully say I feel the same way. There's too many people to love and care about, too many to leave behind. All we can do is hope that someday....somewhere...we will be together again, a hope that is shared by everyone with people to love and laughter to share and memories to carry them onward. Too many to leave behind. Too many to ever forget!

UNDERSTANDING REPUBLICANS

2009-12-31T12:43:00.003-05:00

I have to admit, I do not understand Republicans, even though I have genuinely tried to do so. The way they look at life seems to me to be totally bereft of the virtues we need as human beings, qualities like compassion and generosity. I also find it difficult to figure out why Republicans seem to have the "Party Line." If you talk to one of them, he or she will say the same things that the next one will say. Do they have bulletins that arrive in the mail to tell them what opinions they should share and communicate? Or is it a universal love of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, who gives them their "Opinion of the Day."

I have friends with whom I have discussed this situation, and one friend tellsl me that this ideology is taught to the very young. Each baby, he said, is looked upon, not as an individual, but as a future Republican to chant the same phrases the rest of them preach! We've all heard it....."Why should I pay for some lazy slob that refuses to work?" "Why should I help feed children whose parents are so worthless they fail to take care of their own?"

Another friend of mine has the opinion that there is really only one Republican in this country....and the remainder are clones!

They all hate taxes. The Republican Valhalla seems to be a situation where no taxes are charged. At the same time, they are as irritated by big potholes as everyone else and set out their trash on Garbage Day. To expect services without paying for them is a huge dream in a Republican mind. They not only hate to pay for those services, but they want to make sure their contribution is not going to help out anyone else.

The thing is...they dislike the Federal Government. They believe that State and Local Governments should handle it all! However, I have faced a Zoning Board for a minor change in the title to property......and I can testify that this is much more difficult, and costly, than one might think. Local governments are often filled with petty, power-mad people who sit around making up Ordinances that make life more difficult for you and for me. The Federal Government is not petty. They may not be perfect, but they do not care if you cut down a tree, park your boat in your yard, sell a portion of your land, or feed a stray cat.

We've all heard it...."Give a man a fish and he'll eat that day. Teach a man to fish and he can eat every day." I have heard this idiotic phrase from almost every Republican I have ever met. The truth is, this theory works if you are in proximity of a river, a lake or a stream. If you are sitting in a ghetto, with no businesses or factories hiring, with no hope for getting a job, no hope of feeding your family, or catching a fish," this trite little saying is totally worthless.

Republicans all seem to hate Unions. They hate Unions although many worthwhile people are unionized. Firemen have Unions. Policemen have Unions. Postal workers have Unions. I have never heard a Republican criticize any of these. It is just the Auto Unions that have aroused their ire....the huge Democratic Auto Unions that bring a gleam of distaste to their eyes. Most Republicans believe that all Auto Unions are crooked, especially the people they call "Union Bosses." This, in some instances, has been true....but now let's look at Congress!

The Republican Congress and the Democratic Congress have been beset with problems of corruption of various kinds. There are Congressmen like Senator Tom DeLay, accused of money laundering, accused of making a quick buck off the cheap labor of a Caribbean clothing factory, as well as supporting K-Street, where lucrative deals were made with lobbyists, and DeLay allegedly forced junior Senators to vote as they were told.

Inevitably, the scandals in Congress involve either love or money. People in power often have trouble avoiding the temptation of an easy buck. It also takes millions of dollars to finance campaigns, so often these Senators take the easy way out. How, may I ask, can Republicans who believe that the Unions Bosses are corrupt not take a few moments to look at their own organization? It seems they have a Blind Side and use their prejudices to spread their misconceptions in every corner of the country they can reach.

A short time ago, a young Algerian boarded a plane and tried to blow it out of the air. Since that time, President Obama has been criticized, almost to a point of being accused of deliberately allowing the young man to climb aboard that aircraft. He waited three days to speak to the nation and this, Republicans said, is a serious dereliction of duty. Dick Cheney even once again climbed out of his Undisclosed Location to chide the President and accuse him of pretending we aren't at war.

Pretty silly words to aim at a President who just announced that 30,000 more soldiers would be sent to Afghanistan. Pretty silly words to aim at a President whose Nobel Prize speech was entirely upon the subject of the necessity of some wars.

First, during the Bush Administration, a man named Richard Reid tried to bring down a plane. We call him "The Shoe Bomber," and President Bush did not speak about it to the nation for five full days. Not one Republican Senator spoke a word of criticism about that!

Secondly, Richard Reid was allowed aboard the plane and used the same powdery explosive that this Algerian used. No heads rolled in the CIA over this incident and the similarities of the two aborted terror attacks is largely forgotten today.

Third, the Visa allowing the Algerian young man was issued during the Bush Administration. This is also the time that his name was placed on the Watch List, along with more than 750,000 other people. It seems that this Algerian problem was inherited by Obama, along with the economy, along with two Middle Eastern Wars, one of them needless, one of them engendering more Presidential exaggerations and lies than in our history before.

Republicans have won elections with ugliness and falsehoods, hiring people like Karl Rove to dream up slogans and appeal to the Uneducated and Nonpolitical among us. A neice of mine, discussing John Kerry, said...."Oh, I could never have voted for him! He can't make up his mind!"

So, Karl Rove's "Flip Flop" slogan lives long after the election and a capable man like John Kerry is branded for life! Republicans cherish their slogans and spread their ugliness...Birthers...Deathers...Guns...Greed....as well as Evangelical radicalism, such as illustrated the author that wrote a Children's Book called "There's a Liberal Under Your Bed!"

If there is a Liberal under your bed, child, rejoice, you'll get your breakfast tomorrow! If there's a Liberal under your bed, rejoice, you'll find him as Christian as anyone else in this country can be! I don't know why Republicans try to paint Liberals as non-religious, evil sinners, nor why they believe that faith in God is a Republican trait! I know quite a few Republicans and find them as prone to human fault as myself....and I have never called any President a monkey, because I consider apes to be far more intelligent than some recent Republican Presidents I could name. Yet these so-called Christians parade around with ugly posters of a monkey-faced Obama, calling him Socialist, Communist, Fascist. Such is the Lust for Power stronger than the Love of God's Commandments!

I have trouble understanding Republicans. One of the reasons I voted for Barack Obama is because he said...."I am my brother's keeper!" This, to me, is true religion, true spiritual faith...for Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as much as we love God! Jesus was truly a Liberal, preaching love, peace, understanding and forgiveness. I am trying to do this with Republicans, Lord, but I find the task impossible to accomplish!

Nor do I understand this silly business about Christmas. If a restaurant owner with customers that are primarily Jewish wants to hang a banner saying "Happy Holidays," I completely understand and I hope this restaurant thrives, makes a profit, and hires a jobless Chef! Does this mean I am against Christ and want to remove him from Christmas? If you believe that, you should tune out Glenn Beck for awhile and donate a few bucks to the Salvation Army bucket outside your local store!

AN EXPLOSION OF BABIES, PART 11

2009-12-27T16:11:00.002-05:00

I was watching television a few nights ago, when Joy Behar came on. I've always liked her on the View, and I found her new show to be interesting. Her guests were a group of women who believed in what might be called Patriach families. In these families, the man is the Lord and Master. His wife is supposed to be submissive, come what may, especially in the bedroom, where she is supposed to "give in graciously" to his needs. If she has needs...or let's say, a lack of needs....this is to be ignored while she gives in graciously in her sweet, submissive way!

Most of these women are deeply religious and consider Birth Control to be a form of Abortion. They not only pop out babies with regularity, but most of them Home Schooled their children. Many of them also work, as well as taking care of their household duties, tutoring their children, and giving in to the Patriach whenever he so desires.

These women firmly believe that God has commanded them to live this way. They believe that having children one after the other is their ticket to paradise. They believe that God has commanded women to submit to their husbands and beget children, the more the better, until their bodies finally dry up the source.

I have to admit that I didn't understand or agree with the way they felt. It is the first time since the towers fell down on 9/11 that I felt like shouting at the television and tossing my shoes at this group of women. If a woman is no more or no less than a walking Womb, then why on earth did he give them brains? If procreation is the only thing expected of a woman in order to enjoy the pleasures of Heaven, then Hell may be full of independent gals who are doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists and soldiers.

The world is filled with hungry children. We see pictures of them in Africa, their little bodies wasting away to a pile of bones, flies buzzing around their little faces as they die in the arms of their mothers. We also have millions of hungry children in the United States of America. So, while these mothers are popping out babies to add to the numbers in order to bask in paradise, other mothers are desperately trying to feed their families and keep their babies alive.

There are too many people in the world as it is. In China, they have a "One Baby" law, a law that would decimate a lot of these Patriach families and, if one believes what they say, it would keep a lot of women out of Heaven. The Chinese families who are restricted to one baby usually want that baby to be a boy, because boys can grow up and work and help feed the family, while a girl is only an encumbrance. So the orphanages are full of abandoned baby girls, with not enough families to adopt them.

When it comes to adoption, there are many, many problems. Most people want to adopt a newborn baby. Few people want to take on the problems that may come along with the adoption of an older child, the possibly troubled, belligerent child who could disrupt their lives, cost them money on counselors, doctors or psychiatrists, and take up their time in school conferences! Instead, it is better and easier, they believe, to adopt a blond-haired, blue-eyed infant. Some of them go to China or other foreign lands, but this doesn't make a dent in either the starving children of foreign lands or the abandoned baby girls in China. There are millions still waiting.

One could wonder why God would command women to have children in a world where children are crying for food. One would wonder why God would use children as a ticket to Heaven when little girls are being raped and killed by murderous bastards with rifles and knives, who march their vicious path through their country's poverty-stricken villages. One would wonder why God would consider a woman's life only worth the number of children she could bear, when intelligent women become excellent teachers, doctors, lawyers and other professionals.

Very frankly, I do not believe that God has made this his command. In fact, when the other disciples verbally attacked Mary Magdelene and called her a prostitute, Jesus stepped forward to correct them. He explained that he loved her as much as and even more than he loved the rest of the disciples. In other words, he was a Women's Rights Activist, because Mary Magdelene was not being submissive and obedient and having baskets of babies, but was walking at the side of the man she loved, as an equal.

I believe that the key to marital happiness is a shared sense of humor and equality. Without equality, there is one partner superior to the other and this leads to arguments and trouble. Without a sense of humor, one cannot get through life. A day without a hearty laugh is wasted.

Would I join these women in submitting and obeying any man? When Pigs fly! Would I believe that God commanded women to do little besides bear children? When the lion lies down with the lamb! We have too many problems between marital partners as it is. Marital abuse is rampant throughout our country, with women bearing the brunt of the bruises! To give a Patriarch-like position to an abusive mate is like giving him permission to bring out the cattle prod. How dare these women teach our young girls that their only purpose for being in this world is to have children! How dare them teach our young boys that they will grow up to be Lord and Master over the members of their household!

It is my belief that married people should share the remote, have the number of children they BOTH want to have, and try to survive with as little conflict as possible. Young or old, Gay or Straight, Black or White or any other hue, this is my recipe for happiness!

AN EXPLOSION OF BABIES

2009-12-21T13:21:00.003-05:00

There were 12 children in our family. My father wanted 13, but one of my mother's babies was stillborn, so he never got that last child. I was the youngest to arrive alive and healthy, so if Mom and Pop had practiced birth control, or if abortion had been available then and my mother decided to take advantage of it, I would not be here to write this post.

If we had all been born a little later, perhaps we could have earned millions of dollars in a Reality Show. It could have been titled Daisy and John Plus Twelve. We'd have all become world famous and had enough money for shoes.

Having babies has become a national fad. On one hand, we try to persuade teenagers to take vows of Abstinence and not have babies until later in life. On the other hand, the "moral values" of the last few years have encouraged wives to stay at home and pop out babies with gleeful regularity.

Hollywood has led the country. The movie magazines and tabloids are filled with pictures of Suri and Shiloh and Violet and whoever. These cute little fashion models and pictures of pregnant celebrities have led the country on a baby-making spree. With our country's population hitting more than 300 million, not counting about 20 million illegal immigrants, many of them pregnant, this population explosion may lead us to problems we just didn't have before. We may not have enough fuel for our cars. We may not have enough food to eat.

The truth is, large families grow up and become even larger families. My own family is so populated that I have relatives I wouldn't recognize if I walked by them on the street. The kids I grew up with now have great-grandchildren and some of them may even have reached great-great status. At one Christmas gathering, I passed out envelopes filled with money and it wasn't until the party was over that I learned that I had given an envelope to a complete stranger, who was somebody's friend and had tagged along to enjoy the fun.

Now, if you follow the news and the television shows, we have a family with nineteen children. Then, too, we have Octamom, who had eight babies at one time. If my mother had done this, it would have saved her a lot of time, and I wouldn't have been the youngest child, but rather the same age as my brother, Harry, who was 25 years older than me.

Now, a lot of people can't join in the fun and have their own babies, so they have gone the route of surrogates. They pay huge amounts of money and cover the bills of a woman willing to have a baby for them. Sometimes, the sperm used is the father's, but more often it is from material used from a Sperm Bank, and these children usually never know who sired them. There is also adoption and many put Ads in the paper, hoping to find a baby needing a home.

The trouble with adoption is that everyone seems to want blue-eyed, blond newborns and few are willing to take in the troublesome older children who may have behavior problems. As a result, we have thousands and thousands of foster children with no takers. They stay in various homes, often running away, until they are eighteen and considered adults. In their search for babies. many couples take the foreign route, which involves going through bureaucratic procedures and making heartrending visits to orphanages filled with abandoned children.

Then, too, there are the clinics where female eggs are fertilized, then placed into the wombs of women who desperately want children. These eggs are prone to multiply, so often twins or quads or even more babies appear. This is what happened to Octamom. This is what happened to Kate. Spare eggs are kept around in the clinics, lest the couple decide to have another child. Eventually, the unused, unwanted eggs are incinerated. This is a farewell to the precious Stem Cells that could save the life of a Parkinson's patient or someone with some other fatal disease.

I remember the day when the birth of Quints in Canada caused a National uproar. With great curiosity, we followed the path of these five children, watching them grow, marveling at the fact that five healthy babies could encompass one birth.

We figured it out once and came to the conclusion that my mother had spent more than nine years of her life pregnant. Since pregnancy isn't the most comfortable time of life, this is a lot of time spent being uncomfortable. She gave birth to twelve children and I was the only one with a doctor on hand. The others had the benefit of my sister-in-law, Lily, who had no training as a mid-wife, but must have stepped forward to do what she could.

Women my age now have grand-children and great-grandchidren. We also frequently have an assortment of stepgrandchildren. Some of them have stepgreatgrandchildren. I have talked to women who had to count on their fingers the number of grandchildren and stepgrandchildren they have, since divorces and separations took so many former stepgrandchildren out of their lives. We don't live today as my parents lived, with the family gatherings every Sunday to enjoy each other. Now, families often live in different states and visits are few. Times have changed and not all for the good.

I love babies and especially toddlers, but the smaller the number, the greater the pleasure. If you get two or more toddlers together, the energy released could fuel the nation's furnaces with no trouble at all. I used to play ball with my grandchildren, but now I hobble to the nearest chair and wheeze.

This always brings back memories of my Pop with children surrounding his chair. We would play with Uncle Hubert and chat with Uncle Bud, but it was Pop whom we ended with, a huge pile of young children, giggling and milling around. Some sat on his lap and some hung over his chair, playing with his hair, laughing as he poked at them, enjoying the show.

"You're a Goodenun!" he's say, and none of us knew what he meant, but to be called a Goodenun by Pop was a special reward indeed!

Scientists now are recommending that people simply replace themselves and stop having families that our food and energy supply may not support. This is probably wise advice, but I cannot help but cheer the fact that it wasn't advised years ago, when our huge and growing clan made the ancient boards of the farmhouse shake and the joy of togetherness fill our hearts.

STANDING BY TIGER!

2009-12-13T09:59:00.003-05:00

Do you want to listen to the News these days? Just turn on your television, you'll get a speedy update on the private lives of a Carolina Governor and Tiger Woods. The infidelities of the World's Greatest Golfer are far more important to the Media than the battles raging in Afghanistan or the heartrending problems facing our President today, most of them inherited from a conspiratorial and greedy previous group.

For some obscure reason, the Media has decided that Tiger Woods owes an apology to the public. These Mia Culpa moments add thousands of viewers, especially when the wronged wife stands staunchly and bravely at his side. Perhaps they feel that Tiger Woods should do as some preacher, whose name I cannot remember, subjected us to, a wailing, weeping plea to God to forgive all of his sins. Nothing would please the Media more than a video of Tiger, tears streaking down his cheeks, confessing to his bad boy behavior and pleading with the world to forgive him. It seems that, because he played an excellent game of golf and appeared in many commercials, he owes the public an apology for not being perfect. Actually, the only apology Tiger Woods should make is to the woman he shamed.

Every day, we have been presented with another waitress or floozie claiming to have had an affair with Tiger Woods. They have appeared out of the woodwork, claiming their 15 minutes of fame, proclaiming their love for him, their abandonment, their agony, their sorrow for hurting his suffering wife. They have been given more airtime than General Gates and, of course, Nancy Grace has added to special brand of indignation to the chaos.

The truth is, Tiger Woods' life has undoubtedly been less wonderful than we all thought it was. He literally uplifted the game of televised golf from a droning, boring, hours-long agony to moments of excitement..."There he is. Will he win? Can he do it again?" A well-built, handsome, bronzed hero, he brought legions of people to line the golf courses where he appeared and claimed about a billion dollars in earnings. All of this for a man in his early thirties.

Think about it. He is on one side of the world, while the girl that he married stayed on the other. They are worlds apart and she was rarely seen in the audiences that cheer him on. His life was lived in strange cities, empty hotel rooms, lonely meals in unknown restaurants. His family, his wife, his babies, were miles away. His beloved father, his teacher, his mentor, has died. He's alone on that golf course, the idol of millions, but slave to the loneliness that strikes the traveler who journeys alone.

Why didn't his wife join him? They certainly had the money to pack up the kiddies, take along a nanny and allow her to enjoy the show? Why wasn't she there at his side as he broke records and made those marvelous holes in one, a phenomena in the golfing world with legions of adoring fans? Why didn't she come along and applaud his accomplishments, give him the adulation he evidently craved? Why did she leave him to a life of loneliness, of lonely travel, of dining alone? With women crawling all over him, as they are apt to do when it comes to fame and huge fortunes, why did this wife leave her young husband to make his way by himself?

Marriages may have changed from the days when I was young, but in no way would I have stayed at home when there were horizons to reach, battles to win, excitement and glory to be relished. I'd have been in the stands, cheering and applauding, dancing up and down with the joy of it all. Where was this woman, who should have been at the side of her husband? Where was this woman who took no joy in the millions he was claiming as his due? Artistic temperaments and great athletes have huge egos. I suppose they have to have this to handle the challenges they face. Powerful men have been known to have healthy libidos and Tiger Woods seems to have had his share of these qualities. Where was his helpmeet, his companion, his friend, his wife?

So, by writing this post, I am joining the Media is emphasizing the problems of Tiger Woods and making it a pivotal point in my list of opinions. Just as he has been unfaithful to his wife, Tiger Woods has a compassionate soul. He has financed a wing for a hospital tending to sick and dying children, with no fanfare, no Media attention, no applause for his behavior. This is only one of the charitable contributions Tiger has made. No television programs devoted to these wonderful acts! No daily bulletins, no sleazy women joining the throng, no group of pundits predicting this or that, no call for apology! Only when that behavior is Media-Worthy do the pundits come forth and the News Anchors practically drool with the joy of destroying a national figure. Only then do the lucrative Ads disappear!

GOD, GUNS, GREED AND GREETING EMPERORS

2009-11-22T21:21:00.003-05:00

How do you say hello to an Emperor? Do you slap him on the back and say, "Hi, Dog, how ya doin?" Do you grab his hand, if you can find it in those sleeves, and give it a hearty shake? Well, big news this week, President Obama bowed to the Emperor of Japan. In Japan, bowing is akin to shaking hands. Waiters bow at you as you select a table. Concert ushers bow before they lead you to your seat. Yet, our Republican critics made a big deal over Obama's bow, as though to say that, by bowing to the Emperor, the President is lowering himself to the status of subhuman in the presence of a deity!

They really have to dig hard to criticize the President these days, unless one counts those lying advertisements that scare the Seniors by claiming that Medicare will be cut, if the Health Reform Bill passes. They are absolutely right, Medicare will be cut, but benefits will not. Medicare will be cut by stopping some of the waste, the waste that has been allowed to drift on for years, using our tax money for items like the payment of thousands of dollars for a single wheel chair.

I bought a wheelchair for my husband a few years ago. It cost me $200. Allowing for inflation, let's say that same wheelchair might cost $800 to a $1,000 in today's world, but Medicare has been paying close to $5,000 per wheelchair. This is how Medicare will be...should be...cut, so disregard those Ads that are intended to scare the pants off helpless, nonpolitical elderly folks who are simply trying to stay alive and make ends meet. There will be no cuts to the benefits given in Medicare.

Another way Medicare can be cut is by paying doctors enough to cover their labor and costs, but punishing them for turning in overpayments. I once went to a doctor that charged Medicare for two visits when, in truth, I had only visited him one time. Another doctor charged Medicare $400 for a back treatment I never had. In fact, the doctor had informed me that he did not treat back injuries like the one I had and sent me on to a specialist.

These overcharges were mild. There are some people who are bilking Medicare out of millions of dollars. Inventing patients, inventing procedures, sending in the bills and collecting the money. Strict oversight will halt these practices and send these criminals to jail. They are practicing Greed, that loveliest of virtues, on the backs of the American taxpayers.

Greed seems to have afflicted our country in a way that has made it a virtue instead of a sin. If a fellow cheats his way into prosperity, he is applauded as a "foxy old gent." When people making over $250,000 yearly complain of paying their fair share of taxes, it is greed that is driving their complaints. When a CEO of a failing bank gets a hefty bonus, it is greed that keeps him from returning it to the company he helped to bring to ruin.

Greed not only strikes the rich, but often afflicts the poor. Because a few people cheat on Welfare, Rush Limbaugh labels them all as cheaters. The difference is, the poorer cheaters who lie to get more benefits are treated with scorn and contempt. The rich cheater is lauded by invitations to the prestigious functions that only the wealthy are able to enjoy...the finest clubs, the best restaurants, the fabulous dinners...and all of the perks that people give to the crafty fox who cheated his way to the top.

Howard Dean used to have a description of the Republican Party that just about covered it all. It was "God, Guns and Greed," and they sure lived up to these descriptions. According to them, God is a deity whose picture should be displayed in every government office, in every school, in every church. At the same time, they believe that people should have the right to carry guns anywhere...be it a governmental function, be it a school, be it a church. They conveniently forgot about two things....the fact that the Separation of Church and State has been the backbone of our multi-ethnic country....and the fact that it takes only one lone nut to blast away several innocent people before he can be halted. This fact becomes more clear when you hear of the carnage at Fort Hood. Driven by religion, this nutty professor shot down several of his fellow soldiers, including one who was pregnant.

The truth is, religion in its extreme form can be a dangerous road to travel. Jim Jones was no friendly neighborhood preacher. Leaders of the Mormon cult where young girls, barely through puberty, are married to older men is not exactly ignoring pedephilia. Paying off the victims of pediphiles and moving them to other areas where there are children around does not exactly display benevolent concern for humanity. Jesus Camps, extolling the virtues of killing Muslims, are not exactly Reading, Writing and Arithmetic classes. Perhaps religion is better in smaller doses and, at the first sign of extremism, relatives and friends should use Intervention. Radical religion mixed with greed can bring about some very strange bedfellows. Mix it with politics and you have a truckload of fertilizer ready to explode.

There have been countries that have banned religion entirely. Russia, under Stalin, is an example of this extreme measure. Obviously, this does not work, because people must be free to be faithful to their beliefs. It is only when those beliefs turn dangerous that religion becomes alarming. It is only when one religion declares itself superior and aches to fight other religions to rid the world of their curse that religion becomes totally lethal. In this country, it makes a mockery of our Constitution. Freedom of religion is definitely a part of the Constitutional phrases, but its writers were including all religions, not just one. In truth, few of our Founding Fathers were very religious. One of them was a Pastor. The rest were a mixture of Christian and psuedo-Christian beliefs. Some of them were Deists. All were brave and intelligent men.

Think of it. If we had to rewrite the Constitution today, who would be capable of writing it? Should we turn the task over to Sarah Palin, who would brag that she could bring down a moose? The one person capable of writing such a tome would be President Barack Obama, because the Constitution is as liberal a document as has ever been written. Other learned people, some Republican, some Democrat, some Independent, would squabble for months about the nuances and cost. They would complain about calling all men equal, when it is obvious financial equality isn't equal at all. They would toss out the Bill of Rights and call it the Bill of Rights and Lefts. It would be a literal mess, because in today's world, we simply can't agree on anything, even whether it is correct protocol to bow to an Emperor.

To a Japanese, an Emperor is a link to God, sort of like Goerge W. Bush, who decided that God had approved the War in Iraq, even though God was probably hanging his head in shame. When Bush allowed religious groups to travel to the war zone and tell the military they were "soldiers of God," this was an outright lie. Not one of us knows how God would feel about all of this, so putting words in his mouth is shameful. On one side, they are saying "Allah is great!" On the other, they are saying "God is good." Since both have beliefs that seem to be nearly the same, wouldn't one think we could get along together? But, ah, we have forgotten about Greed....those fallow oilfields, aching to be spurting Black Gold into the air! It is obvious someone, somewhere, decided that God wouldn't mind a little oil in his tank the same as the rest of us. On the other side of the coin, there are the Have Nots who resent the intrusion of the Haves and swear to annihilate their infidel ways. It is easy to resent a rich Uncle, so let's blow up something he loves and reveres and kill as many as his countrymen as possible.

Perhaps we should stop saying "God is Good" and change it to "God is Greed!" Then we could charge into other countries, demand they become Democratic like us, where all men are equal except for poor people, who should be grateful for the privilege of pouring more profits into the pockets of their super-equal masters. Perhaps, as an Aristocracy, rather than a Democracy, we could conclude that...for some people anyway...Greed is God!

JUDGMENT DAY!

2009-11-03T16:46:00.003-05:00

We have spent 800 Billion on the Iraq War, and we are still spending money on the Iraq War. It looks as though we may be spending on the Iraq War or the Iraq Peace, if it ever comes, into infinity. Yet, despite this tremendous burden, Republicans have hit the ceiling because of the possible costs of Health Care Reform. Isn't it a shame that we did not say "No" (the Republican Favorite Word) to the Iraq War, which was needless, and spent that money instead guaranteeing good health care for every American?

As they complain about the Public Option, they fail to come up with any alternatives. We have millions of Americans with no Health Insurance at all. Eventually, especially as they age, they will have health problems, as we all do. So, do the Republicans plan on leaving these people on the sidewalks, suffering and dying before our very eyes? Or will they fork over the billions it will take to help these indigent people when they are sick? Wouldn't it be better to vote for this Health Reform now, covering every citizen, to avoid these tremendous costs that are someday inevitable?

At one time, Republicans fought like tigers against the Medicare bill. Now they finance Ads to scare the Seniors by warning them there will be Medicate cuts, something that just isn't true. Suddenly, Republicans have become the advocates...the defenders...of the very system they fought so hard to defeat!

There was also a ruckus over the size of the Health Care Reform bill, which looks like the pages of a novel the size of Gone With the Wind. However, they passed...without hesitation...the 900 page Patriot Act, which none of them had taken the time to read. The Patriot Act gives a President the right to slam you in jail on mere suspicion, carry you away to any prison anywhere, without a chance to call your family or get an attorney on the line. Yet, they passed it without a single Advertisement against it. They didn't say a word about the 900 pages they didn't have time to read, pages that officially squashed the Civil Rights so cherished in the American culture.

Every so often, Dick Cheney appears from the shadows to regale us with his opinion of the Obama Administration, which seems to be similar to my opinion of a den of rats chewing on a corpse. Cheney appears before the cameras, more or less prodding the President into a quicker move into War. Oh, how they loved War, these old politicians, it was their answer to every problem in the world, and Dick Cheney seemed to love War above any other sensible action. In our current entertaining fascination with vampires, Cheney would be an excellent choice for the leader of an underground bloodsucking group, seeking the nourishment of Muslim blood, eying Iran with hungry fervor! Yes, that would be a movie worth seeing.

Does Dick Cheney not know that his time in office is over? Does he believe that any sane person would want him back in a governmental position? How many people does he want to kill in the violence of bloodshed before one of those stints in his damaged heart gives out for good? If Obama is taking his time to make a terrifying decision, a decision on sending 40,000 more young Americans to War, well, then, bless him! Take all the time you need, Mr. President, lest we end up with another Viet Nam and the memory of some 60,000 dead soldiers fades into history.

There have been times when War is inevitable, when our nation has been attacked and retaliation is necessary. Nine Eleven was one of those times, but perhaps someone will explain to me in a rational way just how we ended up fighting in Iraq? When bin Laden was cornered in Tora Bora, I hoped, I prayed, that he would be captured or killed, his minions diminished, the whole nasty onslaught of terror and terrorists fade into history. Instead, bin Laden escaped and the nightmare continued. We turned our back on Afghanistan and one would have thought that bin Laden took up residence in Saddam Hussein's palace. Suddenly, according to Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, the danger was in Iraq, instead of the Pakistani Mountains where bin Laden had fled.

We should leave the governance of the Middle East to the Middle Easterners. We have no business dangling Democracy over the heads of any other country and demanding they install a government like our own. Back when the Founding Fathers wrote our Constitution, our people fought and died for the freedom of this country, for freedom from tyranny, for freedom of speech, religion and all of the other blessed liberties we enjoy. The citizens of other countries need to do the same, rise up against these corrupt leaders and fight for the right to live peacefully and well.

Will this happen? Probably not, but let's hope that the Republicans will decide that, if we must spend all of that money, let's do it on benefiting the American people instead of inventing a War.

Thus, the huge expenditures and Halliburton nonsense continued, and Dick Cheney led the way, behind the scenes, always shrouded in shadows, a grim, menacing figure who had suddenly gained a power he had never earned. He was Vice President and I think he really lived up to the Vice part of it. It seemed as though President George W. Bush listened to Cheney with both ears, even though he claimed he listened to his "Other Father." Cheney was the dark, mysterious figure in the background, the director advising the actors exactly how to find the path to war.

It's over now, and it is only the calm steadiness of Barack Obama that has kept the public from demanding the prosecution of both Bush and Cheney. War crimes might be just one of the crimes they could be charged with. Lying to the public, torture, mishandling intelligence and using it to fulfil their own goals, outing a Secret Agent, misusing taxpayer's funds...all of this could be wrapped up into a believable case. Only President Obama stood between this ordeal and the prosecution of these two men. On the one hand, such trials may have divided the country even further and taken its minds away from the problems at hand. On the other hand, it would have cleared the air and taught the nation that not even a President and his advisors can break the law.

As in the case of Nixon, Americans usually swallow the grievances, forget the abuses, and continue on their way.....unless it is the Republicans and Bill Clinton, then the Gavel crashes down and it's Judgment Day! Perhaps the best we can hope for is that someday, in the future, the two perpetrators of the Iraq War Hoax and the fiasco that followed will face a much Higher Authority on Judgment Day!

2009-10-05T15:49:00.002-04:00

My mother and father never had Health Care. There was no protection for them or their 12 children. When I had strep throat, I had to go to the County Hospital, where I received the medical care that cured my ailment and I was able to go back home. Since I was backward and shy and had never been off the farm and away from my parents and brothers and sisters, it was a horrifying experience.

I remember Bud and Connie came down to see me, but because they thought I had diptheria, they were not allowed to enter the room I was in. So they found a window that looked into my room and talked to me in sign language and words that Connie wrote on a piece of paper she found in her purse. Fortunately, it was decided that I had a Strep Throat instead of Diptheria. Since there were no antibiotics, curing horrible sore throats was a matter of gargling foul tasting liquids and waiting it out.

I have thought about all this and wondered what would have happened if one of those twelve children had had a debilitating illness or a serious injury. It was luck that kept us from such a shattering condition, and perhaps God smiled down on us, but it was something else that helped keep us from harm.

We had organic food and didn't even know enough to call it that. Our milk came straight from the cows and our chickens were roaming our farm. The vegetables we ate came straight from the garden, the salads were mixed from the lettuce, tomatoes and celery Mom grew. In the winter, the cellar was loaded with cans of those same vegetables. Oh, how I despised that cellar, with its cobwebs, it's dark, damp, dingy atmosphere, it's pile of potatoes growing ghostly white arms in the corner. Still, it was that cellar that kept us in "organic" vegetables until summer rolled around again.

There were no chemicals in the food that we ate, nor did we have the preservatives that are prevalent in the food we eat today. I can remember the meals that consisted of very little meat. I remember Hubert chowing down about twelve ears of corn at one sitting, and Bud enjoying a breakfast of five eggs. Both were gangling and youthful then, with the huge appetites of the very young.

I remember reading about a seige during World War II, when the German City of Leningrad was surrounded by enemy troops. The citizens had nothing at alll to eat. They boiled their shoe leather and licked the paste off wallpaper. There wasn't a bird, a dog or a cat to be seen, and eventually, they even began eating each other. One of the things I remember about the book that I read about all this is that the first to die were the male teens and young men, who need so many calories to survive.

I am looking at this moment at a loaf of "wheat" bread that I bought in the store. It's ingredients are what flour, water, whole grain what flour, sugar, yeast, wheat gluten, bran, soybean oil, salt oatmeal, rye, molasses, butter, yeast, calcium sulfate, monocalcrum phosphate, ammonium sulfate, barley flavor, calcium proponate, mocolyceroes, honey, vinegar, sodium stearoyl, lactlate ethokylated mono-=-diolycerides, natural flavor, malted barley flour, enrichment ferrous sulfate (iron), thiamine hydchloride (Vitamin B1) Riboflavor (Vitamin B2) Niocin (Vitamin B3) and Folic Acid.

These are the ingredients "Aunt Millie" needs to make a single loaf of bread.

Every Friday, Mom made her bread. It contained the usual ingredients, flour, yeast, a little salt, a little sugar, milk........I am sure she didn't have any calcium proponate or sodium stearoyl or any of the other items mentioned above. She always included a big pan of buns and we would come home from school and devour those delicacies with dollops of butter melted on them to add to their flavor. The bread had no preservatives. They were not needed, as the bread was eaten before it could mold. No mold deterrent was needed.

The truth is, we live in such a hysterical world that we don't even know what we are eating. We don't know what is in our food. We don't know where our food is coming from, and we don't know the effects of our food on our bodies. The directions on nutrition given to us are conflicting and confusing, with items like coffee being scorned one day, then lauded the next. We are told to avoid large quantities of certain fish and seafood because of mercury, and now they are saying the good effects outweigh the bad.

Our cupboards didn't contain much "storebought" stuff, although Mom did like her milk and crackers at bedtime. When Deed came home from the Philippines with malaria, he lay on the couch with skin the color of a lemon and a burning hot fever, and Mom plied him with soup. He was served bean soup, potato soup, chicken noodle soup and every kind of soup Mom could create. Along with doses of Atabrin, which was the only medication used for malaria back then, Deed was soon back on his feet.

There were few appliances meant to make housework easier and, if there were, we didn't have them. Mom cooked on the old woodstove that belched and bellowed, but turned out tasty biscuits. She did our laundry in a galvanized tub, using Fels Naptha soap as the garment was placed on the scrub board, then she would rinse in another galvanized tub and squeeze the water from the clothes. Mom's wringing ability was like the Jaws of Life. She could wring with a strength of a bodybuilder. That same wringing ability was used on our hair when it was given its once-weekly washing and rinsing, and when she would wring our hair, it was time for howls of pain.

Bud used to complain that he perpetually smelled like Fels Naptha soap, which drove his potential girlfriends away. Mom used it for everything, from scrubbing down kids to washing our clothes to curing a case of poison ivy. It might have been easier if it had looked a little more attractive, but it was a putrid shade of yellow, like solidified vomit, and it stung when it met your flesh.

Mom believed in cooking the Hell out of vegetables. I remember Deed proclaiming that his cabbage looked and tasted like green mush. There was no chance of bacteria or a virus getting anywhere near the food we ate. Mom boiled and boiled anything on her stove until it was as pure and germ-free. No bugs would loiter in her home-canned vegetables, she claimed, and if they tried it, she either boiled them away or fried them in grease that bubbled and spattered around the kitchen.

Those days are gone. We live in a world far more complicated that it was back then. We have lurking viruses and bacterial horrors awaiting around every corner. We have cars capable of reaching more than 100 miles an hour with mangled bodies to prove it. We have lost our sense of brotherly love and each day, one of us injures another. Perhaps there have always been problems like this, but we seem to have more and more of them. A simple life for a huge family on a little farm in a rural paradise is an endangered species these days.

So, it had to have been a miracle and a sign of the times we lived in that we didn't need Health Care and couldn't have afforded it in any form. That Mom and Pop could raise twelve children with no catastrophic illnesses or injuries was not only because of good fortune, but because of the food we ate, the clean air we breathed, and the exercise we got on the farm.

There's no going back in time. We have a different world now and we need Health Care for everyone, Health Care to combat the chemical dangers in the food we eat, the dirt and debris in the air we breathe, and our lifestyles that do not lead to good health. Above all, we need to look after each other. We are brothers and sisters. We are all God's children. We must give each citizen the gift of good health! This is our world. We are the world. Let's look after each other and make Health Care for everyone a Number One priority right now.

SOLVING THE PROBLEM!

2009-09-21T13:27:00.002-04:00

I love it when the men in this country enter the "Abortion Debate," discussing what they consider the immorality of women who "sinfully" evade what they believe is the female's responsibility to give birth to their progeny and not destroy it, even in the earliest moments of what could be termed possible existence.

Somehow, in this Debate, the role of men has been strangely forgotten. Abortion has become the sole responsibility of the women. The carelessness and selfishness of men is ignored, while all eyes turn on the woman and castigate her for not wanting her child.

Some people believe that, even in cases of rape or incest, a woman should give birth to her child, rewarding the rapist or relative, punishing the victim who has been punished enough already.

For years, men have been able to spread their seed indiscriminately, without a backward look at the consequences of their behavior. Some men stick around in a fatherly role. Others disappear from the lives of these babies entirely. It is a choice men have that women do not, unless they choose to have abortions. Society somehow excuses the men, using a sort of "Boys will be Boys" approach to the issue. They do not excuse the women.

The truth is, the creation of a child is a shared activity. There are no Virgin Births, unless one counts the Biblical lore. Even in Biblical times, the women held the onus of creating new life and, in those days, wives could be cast aside for failing to delivery progeny, while a handmaid or other woman was brought in to accomplish the task. There was no talk of infidelity or sin where this was concerned. The fault lay with the woman who did not get pregnant and deliver children for their mates. Then, as now, women were viewed as objects, as property, with no purpose other than sexual pleasure and creating life.

In today's world, many men are not so anxious to sire children, but most of them are pretty darned anxious to enjoy their sexual pleasures. In fact, one of the most profitable medications on our shelves is one that enhances the male ability for sexual prowess. Created under the myth of availability for those suffering from sexual dysfunction, it is used by males throughout the country and is the subject of many rather nauseating Ads where a woman is shown smiling sweetly at an overanxious male who leads her toward what is presumably a bedroom.

If this liaison ends in a pregnancy, in many minds, it is the woman's responsibility to bear her child, even if she does not want a child, cannot afford a child, is medically or mentally unable to give birth, or doesn't have the intelligence to raise a child. The offending male isn't given a second thought, for everyone understands that "Boys will be Boys" and, if no marriage is involved, his responsibility ends with meager payments to the mother.

Even in marriage, in most instances, the mother is left with the basic burdens of childcare. If she chooses a career, she must juggle the tasks involving both work and home. In the meantime, the male of the family is usually climbing the employment ladder, arriving home to sit on the couch and watch football, sipping his beer and grunting, while Mama handles the dishwashing chores.

Some people who dislike abortion are also against birth control, which gives the male even more freedom to spread his seed, leaving the female at the mercy of fate. With today's medicine and proper education, there is no reason for any woman to have a baby that is not wanted and loved, but some people feel that self-protection is not only sinful, but worse. One pharmacist, asked to fill a birth control prescription, shouted "Murderer!" at his customer, as though preventing a pregnancy is bludgeoning a baby over the head with an ax. He would never have accused this baby's sire of this crime, because it is understood that "Boys will be Boys."

A good way to prevent abortion is for every one of us to teach our sons to honor and respect all women and to never impregnate a woman who does not want a baby. This, in itself, is simple enough and would solve the problem that is dividing our country and causing such mayhem nationwide.

Too many males consider females simply targets for notches on their belts and even in marriages, there is a vast amount of inconsideration for the wishes of the women as politicians preach that wives should "give in graciously to their husbands." Give in graciously? Perhaps these male politicians should be reminded that the Constitutional guarantee of equality does not bear a Men Only sign and that perhaps that husband should "give in graciously to his wife" and go to sleep. And, if a baby isn't wanted by both man and wife, this husband should rethink his priorities.

Give the male of the species some responsibility for their actions and make it preventive, instead of after the fact. Males should be punished for causing needless unwanted pregnancies and when society realizes this and drops the age-old habit of excusing our men, the problem of abortion will be solved!

SLAPSTICK POLITICS

2009-09-06T17:29:00.003-04:00

If you like pie-in-the-face humor, today's political world is the place for you. We have television viewing of a large group of hired extras holding up signs and screaming into the camera! The signs shout out various labels, all pointed at the President of the United States, Barack Obama! The signs blare out words like "Hitler!" "Facsist!" "Socialist!" and I saw one that proclaimed, "We Are a Christian Nation!"

We are? It would be difficult to discern this from the roadshows that are going on right now. Groups of people are bussed in to every Town Hall Meeting, well equipped with above-described signs and, as my father would have said, "awhoopin' and ahollerin'"

It's their Constitutional right, they say. It's their Freedom of Speech. However, they forget the Civil Rights of those who attend these meetings to hear the speaker and ask intelligent questions about Health Care Reform. What about THEIR Constitutional Right to attend a meeting, raise their hand politely and ask a civil question? What about THEIR Constitutional Right to hear the answers, learn what they came to find out about, what they came to hear?

Are Republicans the only ones with Constitutional Rights? Or is that "Equaityl" business only intended for those of a certain political persuasion, as well as a certain color of skin?

What an ugly business this all is, these hideous, hopping, hollering, hellbent hooligans itching for a fight, wanting only to obey the wishes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and other foul-mouthed icons who want Obama to fail! A few of them have even brought their guns along to emphasize their right to make complete asses of themselves.

Can you imagine how George Bush would have disposed of these thugs? He would have arrested them, tossed them out of the meeting, set the FBI on their tails, and hauled some of them off to secret prisons, sans attorney, sans Civil Rights, sans hope!

Remember the Dixie Chicks? Those little singers were simply exercising their Freedom of Speech, but remember....the Constitution only applies to Republicans. Republicans stomped on their tapes, called radio stations with dire threats, sent a few Death Threats over the telephone wires to frighten these girls, and tried in every way to ruin their careers.......simply because one of them voiced her dislike for President George Bush! What about HER Civil Rights?

What a eerie group of frightening dingbats! Now they are objecting to President Obama making a speech to schoolchildren on their first day in class. Some of them are not sending their children to school on that first day. Some of the schools are closing until the day after the Speech.

The Circus is in town, folks, and the clowns are jumping around, showing their teeth in those smeared monstrous smiles! They are showing the true bones of what they call "Christianity!" They are ignoring every instruction left behind by Jesus Christ and, as for the Golden Rule, it is irretrievably tarnished!

Every school child in this country would do well to emulate Barack Obama, a poor kid who was dragged from one school to another, often in distant lands, a boy with an absent father and an intellectual anthropologist mother, who was often gone on long, extended trips. Raised by his grandparents, he attended Harvard, excelled at his studies, became a Constitutional Scholar and taught Constitutional Law at a University before become a Senator and then the President of the United States.

You can't do much better than that!

But, remember, he's half Black! That makes him fair game for the right wing extremist idiots crawling around empty fields and exercising their right to threaten every law on our books!

Yet, these Crazies are afraid to have their children listen to Obama's speech. Oh, yeah! If they cared about their children, they wouldn't cling to their nutcase leaders, Dick Cheney with his love of torture, Sarah Palin with her dysfunctional family, Tom DeLay with his rather shady ways of making money! Then, too, there's Rush,. the American Voice of Ugliness, the Sultan of Excrement, spreading his manure among his enthralled listeners. Let us not forget Glenn Beck, guaranteed to make your skin crawl.

Love Thy Neighbor, Jesus commanded, citing that this Commandment was equal to the Love of God. These Republicans are spreading this wicked nonsense throughout our country and we're going to have to shut them up with hearty belly laughs! Don't waste your money on a movie with slapstick comedy! Just tune in to any News Channel and some snickering, bellowing and loud guffaws are guaranteed!

However, despite the laughter incited by these partisan fools, there's an air of darkness and deviltry, a whisper of a future that threatens the very heart and soul of this country. We can never, ever afford to allow people like this to win any political battle! There is nothing they won't say, nothing they won't do to gain their pathetic goals. They are diabolic in their hate-ridden behavior, dancing a macabre dance that shakes the very meaning of freedom!

CAMPING OUT - FAMILY STYLE

2009-08-24T21:34:00.003-04:00

A long time ago, when my sons were little boys, we used to take our little trailer out to the woods and the parks and enjoy a few days of camping. We built bonfires in the evenings, brought out the marshmallows and cooked our S'Mores, took long walks along wooded paths, and did all of the things that family campers have done since I can remember.

Not long after we announced our love of camping, Hubert decided he, too, would join in the fun. He had no interest in buying a small trailer as we had done, but insisted upon buying a trailer that was as long as two semi-trucks tied together. It was a monstrosity, equipped with every luxury known to man. While we sat in our crowded "home away from home," which Gerry jokingly said was so small that I could sit up in my bed and reach out and make my morning coffee without getting up, Hubert enjoyed the palatial luxury of living in opulent splendor.

The only thing he forgot about was driving and parking this enormous trailer. So, we went on a trip into Northern Michigan one time and Hubert decided to join us. The first thing he did, after pulling into the campground and paying his fee, is get the enormous trailer stuck between two equally enormous trees.

Talk about rubber burning! He revved up his car and tried his best to pull the trailer away from the trees. We all pushed and shoved and tried to help him and it was late afternoon before the trailer gave way, with a huge belching sound that made us wonder if the whole thing was near collapse.

Finally, after many attempts, he managed to get the trailer parked in a campsite, its rear end jutting into the road. Then, we went about the business of camping. While pulling the trailer out of its position between the two trees, Hubert had banged his head against one of the trees and knocked out one of his front teeth. So, there he was, the huge gap between his teeth making him look like a hillbilly minus the straw clutched in his mouth. All he needed was a straw hat to complete the picture.

I laughed at Hubert's missing tooth every time he smiled, so God decided to teach me a lesson in humility. I entered the rustic outhouse provided by the park one morning and carelessly knocked my face into its door. The blow to my face sent me reeling. I felt as though I would faint, but I finally was able to walk back to my trailer and peer into a mirror to review the damage. Sure enough, I had knocked out a tooth. I had not only knocked out a tooth, but the vacancy was located in the very same position as Hubert's missing tooth.

So there we were, matching bookends, both with gaps in our smiles. For the remainder of the vacation, we would go to a restaurant for our morning coffee. One waitress asked us, "Are you all related?" We smiled at her with our matching toothlessness and simultaneously said, "Yep! We're brother and sister!"

My sons found an orphaned chipmunk and promptly named him Gomer. They trained Gomer to walk with a leash, fashioned from a string, and walked this tiny creature all over the park. The problem was, Gomer seemed to be nocturnal and we spent our nights prying him out from the corners of the trailer. One time, he escaped into the darkness outside and we had a loud, excited search until he was located. Hubert and Gerry, our upperclass neighbors, complained that they hadn't had one good night's sleep since Gomer appeared in our lives.

Not long after that, Bud and Connie, who owned a small trailer similar to ours, decided to join our camping excursions. We camped in a park that had very stringent rules. If you stayed beyond the time you had paid for, you couldn't just renew your campsite. You had to move your trailer out, take it around the park, then bring it back to re-park it in the same spot you had just left behind.

It was the silliest rule I have ever heard and I will never forget Bud's dire expression when the Ranger explained it to him.

"You'll have to move it out, sir," said the Ranger, "and bring it back in again!"

"Can't we just say we did it?" asked Bud, "and save ourselves all that commotion?"

"No, sir, our rules are strict. You have to pull it out, then put it back."

"Some rules are made to be broken," said Bud. "Let's break this one. I'll never tell!"

The Ranger began to waver. "Well, I guess we can overlook it this one time,!"

That same day, Hubert drove his rig out to join us. There was only one camping space left and the rule was "First come, first served!"

Quickly, Hubert pulled his big trailer as fast as possible around the curves of the park road, heading for that single parking space at the far end of the park. The rear of the trailer weaved ominously as he sped around the curves. Other campers came out of their tents and trailers to watch this mammoth trailer pass by.

Just as he was backing the trailer into the space, a man rushed forward, pushing his tent and gear in a wheelbarrow. He parked his wheelbarrow in the space and watched defiantly as Hubert continued to back his trailer up, not even seeing the poacher whose stood stubbornly by his wheelbarrow, his arms folded across his chest, a determined expression on his face.

The discussion that followed involved all of us, protesting loudly, as well as the Ranger, who was beginning to wonder if we were worth the trouble we caused. Finally, Bud suggested the two families share the campsite. This was agreed upon and so, we had a guest for our bonfire that night, this strange man and his family, who carried their equipment in their wheelbarrow. They had walked several miles, pushing their wheelbarrow, to treat their two sons to a camping trip, so we all especially enjoyed sharing our hot dogs and S'Mores with these precious tots.

I laugh frequently at the memory of our camping trips, of Hubert's freight train of a trailer, of Bud's quiet opinion of using an Outhouse that hadn't been cleaned in at least a year. We had such fun back then, despite the discomforts, but I enjoyed those trips much more than I would have had we been guests in the most luxurious hotel.

THE BULLY BOYS ARE AT IT AGAIN!

2009-08-05T11:10:00.002-04:00

It's difficult not to be amused by the antics of the Republican Party, who must be the sorest losers in political history. President Obama had just taken his Oath of Office when Rush Limbaugh announced that he wanted him to fail. Since several million people hang on every word that comes out of the Bobbling Broadcaster's mouth, they have continued with a concerted effort to bring about that failure and earning themselves the title of "The Party of No."

It has been an interesting, if ridiculous, few months on the political front. On one hand, President Obama has taken an conciliatory approach, appointing Republicans to high office and extending his hand in friendship. On the other hand, the Republican Congressional members continue to dig their political graves by clinging to the old pattern that the country endured for eight long years and which the country's voters rejected by a resounding majority during the last election.

Suddenly, after saying not one word about the appalling waste of money that Bush spent on his War in Iraq, a needless war that never should have happened when it did, the Republican Congress has become fiscal experts, bemoaning every penny that Obama spends, declaring themselves to be "Conservative" and "frugal."

Where were these complaints when Bush was handing over a fortune to Halliburton and other pet corporations that were throwing our money in the air like popcorn at a children's party? Where were their Conservative, Frugal efforts then? Why didn't they rush down to the offices of CNN to voice their views?

Instead, there was a silence so loud it was like the atmosphere in a mausoleum. No complaints, no oversight, no television appearances on the subject of money. Bush ran the deficit up to phenomenal heights, helped by the "Arm of the Presidency" that was an expression used by some Republicans to describe themselves.

Actually, Congress should not be an Arm of the Presidency, but should be an equal entity, as the Constitution directs. It leads one to believe that few of these Congressmen have ever read the Constitution, much less cared about anything but political power.

Besides the rush to purchase and hoard guns and ammunition, this hateful bunch has decided to press their favorite grievance, that Obama is not a bona fide American citizen and thus cannot be President. I beg to differ. The documents are there and Hawaiian officials have verified that he was born in Honolulu. What more can a person do to convince people the location of his birth? I doubt very much whether you or I could come up with any more verification than that?

This is just a looney Conspiracy Theory, which is always great fun, but doesn't have value as factual. The Republican objections have a racial ring to them, as though they just can't bear the fact that an African American could end up as President. Their tactics appeal to every redneck nutcase in this country. It has a KKK flair to it, and one has the feeling that a lynching party would bring cheers from the Limbaugh crowd.

Then, too, there's the behavior of the Bully Boys. This bunch is organized and jumps into action when making asses of themselves might make political success. Thus, they helped John Kerry lose the 2004 Election (along with more than a little purging in Ohio) by instigating the Swift Boat Ads. Thus, they tried to ruin the career of the Dixie Chicks by calling radio stations with ugly threats. Thus, they gathered in Florida to make a woman in a coma a political ploy.

Now, they have forgotten their Tea Parties, which were absolute failures that did nothing but engender countless jokes from late night comedians, and called upon their loyal minions to try to ruin the gatherings meant to inform citizens about Obama's Health Care Reform.

Some fifty million (or more) citizens have no health insurance at all. Many, many more have had problems with insurance companies, who are charging exorbitant prices for needed policies and who often refuse to pay for certain medical problems, leaving their clients with mounting medical bills. They also frequently refuse to insure anyone with a preexisting condition, so if you have beaten cancer twenty years ago, you can forget about being covered today.

With these...and other...problems, Health Care Reform is a good idea. A Public Option, run by the government, is also something that is needed, simply because some citizens cannot afford to pay even the lowest rates for insurance. This is a choice that all citizens should have, but it scares the pants off Republican Congressmen. They are frugal, remember, and the thought of paying for other citizens to be insured sends them into nightmares and, besides, what would happen to those healthy contributions they receive from insurance and pharmaceutical companies?

So, they have spread their poisonous rumors all over the country, hoping that uninformed, uneducated and heartless folks will listen and believe! Why, Democrats...led by the non-citizen foreigner, Obama, are trying to kill all the old people and fork out millions for abortions. Thus, the poison is leeched out like cough syrup to a stuffed-up toddler and Republicans are hoping to capture the fears of the innocent people trying to comprehend what is going on.

The Bully Boys have gathered, infiltrating the meetings run by Democrats to inform the public about the details of the Health Reform plan. They have brushed up on their Swift Boating techniques, their Dixie Chicking skills, and they do as they are told by the likes of Limbaugh, attending these meetings and disrupting them with shouts, screams, threats, etc., which hampers any really interested citizen from getting any information on Health Care.

Why do we put up with these Bully Boys, these well-dressed, loyal members of the Bush Base, who have brought such terror and ugliness to our country that we now have to struggle to convince the world we are not brutal animals? Do we want the country they would like to have....a dictatorship with civil rights destroyed and truth ignored? Do we want these Congresses filled with the arms of the Presidency, Yes Men who do not complain about a lying President who approved of torture, not only for adults, but for thousands and thousands of children, children as young as nine and ten, raping the girls, terrorizing the boys, a situation described by former President Carter in a recent article.

If this is what anyone wants, they deserve it, every miserable moment of it!

GOOD TIMES GONE BY

2009-07-18T14:48:00.003-04:00

Each year for many years now we have had a Family Reunion on the Sunday nearest my mother's birthday. Rain or shine, we have met at various parks and yards to catch up on family activities and see the people we may not have seen for a year.

Now that so many of the original twelve children of my parents' family have died, our family reunions are dwindling in size. We usually have a representative of each family branch, but the great crowds of people do not attend. With the size of our family and the distances involved, many of the nieces, nephews and cousins do not know each other well. When they do attend, they must feel like strangers.

We used to take every opportunity to get together during every season of the year. We had house parties and gatherings, laughing and talking, and often playing baseball. One of my earliest memories is Mom taking over the ice cream churn, an old-fashioned container one had to fill with the ice cream ingredients, top with dry ice, then peddle away as though you were making butter.

This was my first taste of ice cream and I remember how good it was, but the amount ladled into the cup was like a teaspoonful, enough for a few delicious bites, then the cup was empty. Yet everyone got their share.

We also had houseparties where the family members would dance, hopping around on someone's living room floor. I remember one night that such a party was held at my house. Hajalmar and Nelle drove up from Toledo with all of their kids. When it was time to end the party in the wee hours of the morning, we found that there was a blizzard outside, so Hajalmar and Nelle spent the night.

At that time, my husband and I were renting an old house in the downtown area of a village. There were three bedrooms upstairs, so I piled my boys into one of the rooms, kept the second for my husband and I, and gave Hjalmar the third.

Hjalmar was not a talkative man. He was usually just an observer, attending picnics and parties, but contributing very little to the conversation. On this night, he was trying to get his young daughter, Dana, to sleep. Dana, however, had other ideas. Hjalmar had evidently found a stuffed monkey among my children's possessions, and I could hear him talking to Dana.

"See the Monkey, Dana!" he cried. "Time for Monkey to night- night! Night-night Monkey! Good Monkey! Night-Night!"

This went on throughout the night, two o'clock, three o'clock, four. Hjalmar worked hard to get the Monkey to sleep, but was evidently having no success with Dana. Finally, as dawn broke over the horizon, the bedroom was quiet. Dana had passed out from utter exhaustion and Hjalmar had followed suit. Nelle had given up on the bedroom and had stretched out on the living room couch.

Drinks were not often served at our parties, but at one party at Helma's house in Detroit, someone brought out a bottle. My husband never held his liquor well and that night was no exception. So, when we left the house to go home, I decided that, for safety's sake, I had better do the driving. This infuriated my husband, who claimed he was stone cold sober. I persisted and so he decided that, if I would not allow him to drive, he would walk home, a distance of more than thirty miles.

I didn't know what to do, so when Bud and Hjalmar came out to find out what the commotion was about, I told them my problem. They took off in Hjalmar's car to find my husband. After waiting for what seemed like hours, they returned with him. They had found him on Woodward Avenue, sitting on a fire hydrant. However, before I could drive home, we had to get Eddie in his car.

Eddie, Norma's husband, was a Southerner, a congenial, very likable man who worked hard for his family. He had somehow decided to join my husband in polishing off the bottle that night and, in the adventures of the evening, he had forgotten to ask my sister-in-law, Gerry, to dance. So, when it came time for Eddie to go home, he refused to get in the car until he had danced with Gerry.

"Get in the car, Eddie," said Norma. "For Heaven's sake, get in the car!

"I told you, I want to dance with Gerry!"

"I want to go home, Eddie, get in the car!"

But Eddie refused and continued to refuse, with Norma Jean begging him, until the people left at the party piled out of the house to see what was happening.

"Get in the car, Eddie!" said Hubert, taking Eddie's arm, but Eddie pulled away and repeated his intention.

"I want to dance with Gerry!?

Helma's home was in a subdivision, with small lawns dividing each property. Eddie's car was parked in the driveway, close to the neighbor's house.

As everyone begged Eddie to get in the car, a strange voice spoke loudly from the window of the neighboring house.

"For God's sake, Eddie, get in the car. Gerry doesn't want to dance! Now get in the car!"

This deep voice, coming from nowhere, startled Eddie into complying. The crowd quieted down and went back in the house, and my husband and I began our journey toward home. Hopefully, Helma's neighbor, whose deep, sepulchre voice had gotten Eddie into the car, finally got some sleep.

Eddie died one Christmas Eve not long after that, still a young man, leaving his family behind. Norma Jean took over the task of raising her children and did a successful job of it, working in a hospital for many years.

I remember those gatherings and laugh at the amusing moments, still looking forward to a family reunion even though my hearing loss makes conversations difficult and even though so many of my brothers and sisters have passed on. Even those remaining look frail and sickly, because age is an enemy that eventually wins, despite any efforts to defeat it. The most one can do is try to delay it and sometimes even that is unsuccessful.

I sometimes wonder if the younger crowd, most of them cousins, have the deep need for family relationships that we used to have. I want them all to share that camaraderie, that love, that excitement that we used to enjoy as a family. We didn't have money, we didn't have prestige, but we had so many relatives, we felt rich anyway. I want them to grow up with their generation as I did mine, forming longlasting relationships with nieces and nephews. I think it helps throughout one's life to know one is never alone, never unloved, never living in a vacuum. As long as there's family, there's always someone to care.

PENNY CANDY

2009-07-02T20:02:00.003-04:00

Older folks always remember what they call the "Good Old Days." Someday the young people of today will do the same thing, say the same words, walk the same path. The past always looks better from a distance. After years have passed, those memories glow like dewdrops in the sunlight.

One of the things I remember from my childhood is penny candy. When I visited Norma Jean and Bette June in Detroit, my older sister, Hazel, would give us each a dime and tell us to go on a walk to spend it. We felt rich as we headed for the candy store. Some stores had entire counters filled with an assortment of colorful, tasty chews. We would lean against the counter and try to make our choices, the dimes in our pockets burning our fingers as we tried to make up our minds. The clerks would wait patiently, an expression of boredom on their faces, as we pointed at certain varieties that we wanted to buy.

"I'll take one of those and two of those. No, wait, one of those and three of those. No, maybe just two of those and two of those and three of that one!"

Finally, with our purchases tucked into little paper sacks, we would leave the store. Then, for an hour afterward, we would chew the candy, lines of strawberry red or lime green dribbling down our chins, that fruity sweet smell so reminiscent of KoolAid forming a miasma around us.

Today's world isn't much different, except that the candy has soared in price. For some reason, in today's world, instead of candy, folks carry around something to drink. From water to soda pop to fruit juices to "power" potions, these drinks are carted around as though they are a part of our bodies. We carry them everywhere and take careful little sips, sometimes placing the liquid in fancy cups that retain the chill and leave the drinks more palatable.

We didn't do this back when I was a child. Water was obtained from the pump in the yard and the galvanized bucket sat on a stand in the kitchen. If you needed a drink, there was a communal dipper that everyone used. There was no need for water to be purchased. It was readily available from the pump during the Spring, Summer and Autumn. All you had to do is find a little water to prime the pump, pour it in, then take the handle and flail it ferociously until the precious liquid started to pour.

Every day, around lunchtime, Mom would take that bucket filled with water, along with the dipper, out to the field. Pop would first drink dippers filled with water. Then he would take off his hat and pour a dipper filled with the cool liquid over his head. His team would wait patiently, knowing that their turn at the trough would come when the day's plowing was over.

In the wintertime, the pump would inevitably freeze. Then water became a problem. It was fetched from the stream that ran near the orchard. Mom would break the ice with a hatchet, then dip up a bucket of the water. Pop also had to use the water in the stream in order to give the horses and cows enough water to assuage their thirst. For laundry, Mom always melted snow. This was a slow, laborious process and often involved carrying in what seemed like a mountain of snow, in order to get a small pail of water.

After Mom had scrubbed the clothing in the snow water, she would sometimes hang the clothing outside until they froze as stiff as planks of lumber. Then she would bring the clothes inside the house and hang them around the rooms on a makeshift clothesline. This meant that while walking through the house one was slapped in the face by the melting, dripping articles of clothing. They looked like a field of doomed men hanging from where they had been hoisted by executioners, empty sleeves dripping wet, legs hanging to the floor. It seemed as though it took them forever to dry. Once dry, Mom would heat up her flatirons and smooth the material, the kitchen filled with steam and the smell of clean, Fels Naptha soaked, hand-scrubbed clothes.

Hubert, Bud and Herman got together and decided to put water inside the farmhouse. They worked for days, digging and sweating in the summer sun, arguing with each other over which pipe went where. Hubert would curse. Bud would admonish him that we children were listening. Herman would spur them onward. Mom sat on the stoop, a doleful expression on her face. I don't think she ever believed they would end up with anything usable. When they finished their task, the kitchen had water available in the form of a little pump. It sat proudly there where the galvanized bucket had formerly reigned.

What jubilation it must have been for Mom to have water available at her fingertips. She pumped the first dipper filled with water and drank it, a huge smile on her face. I am sure it was as delicious as a glass of expensive champagne. As for myself and the rest of the children, we entertained ourselves by pumping and splashing the kitchen water around, amazed that my brothers could bring about such a miracle. They stood around, basking in the admiration, acting as though such a plumbing feat was an everyday occurrence for them.

The kitchen pump was a vast improvement over priming the one outside, but it still froze up in the winter. Nothing could ward away the icy winds and subzero temperatures that Michigan endured in those long, cold months before Spring. We always knew it was Spring when the pump thawed. It was as joyous an occasion as seeing that first robin or seeing the apple trees budding their bridal blooms in the orchard.

The days would pass and soon those old trees reached into the remaining sap of their youth and, despite their age, would burst into pink and white glory. It was my favorite sight, these lovely old relics clad in their bridal gowns, standing at attention in fragrant rows. All of the nieces and nephews and myself would race around the trees, climbing into them, sending showers of petals to the ground, delirious with happiness that summer was on its way.

We always had to remember Charlie's heart. All of the adults called him "Junior," but we all decided this was undignified, so tried to call him Charlie instead. When we would run to the orchard, his mother...my older sister, Hilda...would admonish us to be careful, not to allow Charlie to overexert himself. No admonishment held Charlie back, however. He was the rowdiest among us, climbing the trees, racing in circles around the orchard, shouting and laughing until he would have to stop to catch his breath, his heart thumping in that skinny chest. We knew he was disobeying his mother, because we could hear his heart thumping and sloshing. It was as though cold buckets of water were being poured on the joy of the occasion and nudging us with a constant reminder that Charlie was not like the rest of us, that we had to worry about him dying.

Charlie was not only the most exuberant of the boys. He was also the meanest. One did not dare cross Charlie. He would fold his tongue backward between his teeth and come after any antagonist with fury written on his face. The only way to halt Charlie's anger was to run very fast and we had some excellent runners. We all knew that Charlie would end up sitting exhausted after any race, his anger abated, his chest heaving, his face flushed with pain.

Our little altercations were never remembered and we would continue our games, still friends, still determined to fill our lives with fun. We carried no grudges, but immediately forgot any argument as though it had never happened. We knew that Hilda would meet us with concern and irritation, her eyes taking in the fact that Charlie was straining for breath.

"I thought I told you not to exert yourself," she would scold him. Then she would turn to the rest of us and repeat her words. We would stand there with innocent demeanors, our dirt-smeared faces revealing the grueling activity of our games. "We told him. He wouldn't listen!" was always our excuse. This wasn't far from the truth, because Charlie was determined to keep up with the rest of us, come what may.

So, while children in the city had counters filled with penny candy and other delights that a city can bring, we had a world filled with blooming apple trees with gnarled branches to climb, a reed-filled lake with water so murky it was a wonderland of frogs, and dippers of cold water from the kitchen pump to quench our thirst.

Just as penny candy no longer exists, the value of water has multiplied beyond measure. In today's world, water is as precious as diamonds. Folks pay for the water they drink and dipping into streams as Mom and Pop used to do would send modern folks to the hospitals, victims of the pollution that has plagued our world. So, the Good Old Days were in some ways far better than our lives today, because our streams ran clear and our clean, fresh air was perfumed with the fragrance of blooming flowers. Even so, someday old folks will sit around and reminisce about the 75 cent candy bars they used to buy and the bottled water they drank.

MEMORIES OF WAR

2009-06-06T18:48:00.003-04:00

Some items were hard to come by during World War II. Many items were rationed and each family was issued just a certain number of tickets, so many times people had to do without needed items until the next month or so. I remember that sugar was rationed, as well as other food items. Then, too, there was gasoline, of course. Sometimes people would trade tickets when things got desperate. Sometimes one just had to somehow make it through somehow.

In our town was a little grocery store that had been in business for many years. It was common knowledge that, if you were really in need, the grocery store owner would slip you some contraband items. Mom sometimes bought sugar and flour there, the two basic items we used every day and the owner would slip her a little extra sugar now and then.

After the war, he was investigated by the authorities and was charged with fraud. It was a heartrending situation because he was very well liked among the townsfolk and he had only been trying to help.

Silk stockings were impossible to buy during the war years, because silk came from Japan. So women used the liquid stockings that Sissy and I used to paint our faces, and the result was always an orange-hued mess. Because silk was needed to make parachutes, they substituted the bounty from the silkweeds. We had fields full of silkweeds on the farm and the silk from them would be gathered periodically by a flock of people who would arrive without warning and go to the fields to harvest this crop. Then, someone invented nylon and that was used for both stockings and parachutes, so our silkweed was no longer needed.

The early plastic was stiff as a board. Even the stockings were stiff and shiny. One had to struggle to put them on and sometimes the crotch section stayed at knee height, no matter how hard one tried to pull them upward. The soft, bendable plastic came along later and now, in a world peppered with plastic sacks, plastic containers, and plastic shoes, we learn that there are some dangers connected to using this substance. Don't microwave it, we are told, don't use it to store food in the refrigerator or use it for freezing. Don't use plastic drinking containers or store water in plastic jugs, lest a poisonous substance seep through the other materials to cause all sorts of health concerns. So, the same plastic that we hailed as miraculous during World War II has become a menace today.

With my brothers in the Army, Mom haunted the mailbox daily, awaiting letters from overseas. We seldom knew where they were stationed, since there was censoring of all mail, and "Loose Lips Sink Ships" was a popular warning. We did gather that Bud was in France, but we were never sure about Deed. Mom lived in fear of becoming a Gold Star Mother, worrying constantly about the activities of her boys. Hubert never made it out of Hawaii because of his hearing loss. He spent the war years fighting mosquitoes in Hawaii.

It was a heyday for the movies. Propaganda films were cranked out by the dozens and I can remember sitting with Junior, Sis and Norma Jean in a darkened movie theater sobbing bitter tears over the carnage on the screen. The favorite character was usually shot, drowned or tortured to death by the dastardly Germans or cruel, expressionless Japanese. Oh, how we despised them...the enemy! How dare them shoot Robert Mitchum or Van Johnson or Clark Gable!

We also spent a lot of time clustered around the radio, listening to the war news or listening to President Roosevelt speak. He conducted what was called Fireside Chats and everyone wanted to hear what he had to say. He had a deep, Patrician voice, a New England accent and a way of using words to calm the fears of the populace. He was so popular that he won elections, one after the other, until finally, he died. The fact that he won four elections caused Congress to pass the "two term" rule.

We didn't think much of Harry Truman at first, but it didn't take long to realize that this feisty Missourian was determined, outspoken and honest. He was no FDR and did not have the knack of leadership that Roosevelt had, but he proved to be a very good President. The one decision he had to make that probably caused him many sleepless nights was whether to use the atomic bomb. Even Einstein wrote him a letter warning of the lethal effects of this weapon. Truman finally made his decision and the Enola Gay and the other planes took off on their deadly journey. Leaflets were dropped over the cities where these bombs would hit, advising them to leave their homes and get a safe distance away from the holocaust. They didn't listen and the huge number of dead were only outnumbered by the droves of people horribly burnt and disfigured. However, Truman had decided that using these bombs would save thousands of American lives.

When my brothers came home, it was a time of jubilation in my family. Deed was sick. He had caught malaria and spent weeks on the couch in the living room, his skin yellow, with a very hot fever. He swallowed atabrine, drank lots of water, and kept Mom busy hovering over his prone figure, but he was young and otherwise healthy, so he eventually regained his health.

Bud had changed. He had always been quiet and introspective, and became even more so after the war. It was as though he had seen things he couldn't describe and his deepset brown eyes reflected some kind of inner sorrow. Hubert, who was his usual teasing, laughter-filled self, spent a great deal of time with his brother. They were very different, but each filled a need in the other's life, and it was Hubert who brought out the laughter in Bud, who made him smile again and joke again and act like the young man he had been when he left his home for war.

It was a time of upheaval for everyone, with men returning from the battlefield to face mundane working lives again. Their wives had to cope with all of this and, in Deed's case, his early marriage failed. I think it would have failed anyway, because they were both so young and emotional. War takes its toll on family life and, in a way, it was like welcoming strangers into our midst.

Roosevelt was gone, the jubilation of victory had been celebrated, and the women drifted away from their jobs in the factories to return to the dishes and diapers that they had left behind as they worked to make the weapons of war. It was a time of excitement, but a time of drifting. Almost every young family bought a house. There were low interest rates for veterans and many of them took advantage of the housing rates or the educational advantages that were offered.

As for the country, it had become a Super Power. Out of the darkness of a deep and degrading depression had sprung a vibrant and prosperous country, ready to lick its weight in wildcats. I can only pray that the current collapse of our economic security has such a wonderful ending! Think of it! A united, busy, gentle giant of a nation, its partisan foolishness set aside in a quest for mutual security, tough when need be, but possessing a heart that reaches out to help those in need. Think of it! A country with revitalized energy, safer highways, better cars, and plentiful food for its people! Think of it! A nation with old animosities set aside and healthcare for each and every person! Think of it! Pray for it! Ask for the wisdom to insist upon it! A nation so vital it leads the world by its example and offers the most valuable commodities ever, equality and freedom!

In France, there is a large section of ground that has been given to America forever. This acreage is the scene of thousands of white crosses, each of them signaling the grave of a brave American fighter. Many Americans visit this gravesite, to shed bitter tears and remember the lives that were lost. There lie our brothers, our sisters, our fathers, our nieces and nephews, our neighbors. If they had one wish, I would imagine they would ask that such a world wide holocaust never happen again, that the people of the earth learn to live together in peace and harmony, hands joined in mutual prayer. Perhaps such a world is unobtainable, just an unreachable dream! But we can try if we work together. If nothing else, we can try!

HEROIC VICTIMS

2009-05-25T12:43:00.003-04:00

What does one do when the people in their family and certain friends, people that you love and respect, but who disagree with you politically.....all sound like Rush Limbaugh?

Do they plaster themselves in front of the radio every day? Don't any of them work? While Democrats are working 9-5, those lucky enough to still have jobs, Republicans must spend their afternoons lolling about, listening to the radio. Sure enough, if any conversation about politics of ideological philosophy comes around, it's Limbaughese they speak, as though it is some distant country, unrecognizable from the one we live in, named the Nation of Limbaugh!

At the same time they have time to listen to this nonsensical palaver, they accuse Liberals of all varieties, Black, White, Latino, Poor People, Sick People, Mentally Deranged People, of being lazy and not up to snuff about the facts of life, of being downright unproductive, feeding off the cash of the mighty productive.

"Productive," to a Republican, usually means money. Follow the money. For years, they must have resented any help to the poor, to single mothers, to those unable to walk or see. This resentment must have festered like the blister on a boil, erupting around any dinner table, if politics rears its head.

They are not civil in their beliefs. They are enraged and feel they have the right to insult any person disagreeing with them. Many of them think of themselves as very religious, even though they break just about every command that Jesus left us. Don't kill....they inevitably support War, approve the Death Penalty, and do not give a fig about the innocent citizens killed in Iraq, the orphans left behind there. These are, to them, just the meaningless casualties of War.

Memorial Day brings out their full-fledged patriotic fervor. They practically drool over those they deem as "heroes" who are protecting our freedom and saving us all from speaking Arabic.
They don't pause to see the pitiful tragedy of these young men and women losing their lives in a war that was built on lies. It's hard to face that truth, but the News Media and various documents support it. Iraq was a "mistake," according to George W. Bush, as he stated on National Television. The parents and wives of these dead and maimed soldiers now have to face that fact. Heroes these military personnel were, for they are the victims. They are the martyrs to the religious zeal and greed of men like George Bush and Dick Cheney, to the Iraq Group holding secret meetings in the office of the Vice President, to the awful rules on torture that sully the memory of their courageous lives.

Sometimes war is inevitable. Sometimes it may even be unavoidable. It should never be a charade cooked up by dishonest leaders. These young men and women went to war, fearing the chemicals Saddam Hussein might release into the air. They marched into Iraq, leaving only a skeleton crew in Afghanistan, which is where the real perpetrators of 9/11 were fighting. They fought and died, losing life and limb, doing their duty with the loyalty their country and their Commander-in-Chief demanded. Little did they know that the "eminent" danger was a figment of intricate lies, a "mistake."

Looking backward in time, we can remember the long ten years of the struggle in Viet Nam. There, 60,000 men died, as well as millions of Vietnamese. And for what? Today, Viet Nam is a tourist attraction, scenery so beautiful it brings in thousands of visitors, tranquilly run by the very same government we fought so hard to conquer. At the same time, we were led on by the vicious lies of our leadership, lies echoed by those concerning the War in Iraq. Our young people finally rebeled and fought against the war, until finally, the ten year struggle came to an end.

It ended much earlier for 60,000 Americans, now named on that bleak, black wall in Washington, D.C. These people were heroes, yes, but they were victims....victims of the stupidity of the old men plotting political wars.

For many people, Memorial Day is a day for a family picnic, with a fleeting remembrance of the men and women who fought these bitter wars. For many families, it is a day of grief and torturous memories, of young, memories of fresh faced people cut off from life before they had much of a chance to enjoy it. Hard enough to bear when the death is connected to a country defending itself, but well nigh unbearable when it is all just a "mistake."

The Limbaugh Echoes do not admit these mistakes, nor do they weep for the Charade that caused these needless deaths. Memorial Day goes by without any mention of this murderous "mistake." In Washington, D.C., Republican Congressmen are still bleating their angry recriminations and accusations. In daily life, in the kitchens and living rooms of our land, they still regard their political beliefs with a sense of superiority, still regard other Americans as "unproductive," still are Gung Ho for marching through the Middle East, bludgeoning the fearful enemy, still quoting 9/11 as though they do not realize that more people die in auto accidents every few months than were killed in that terrible attack. They feed on fear as though it contains a vitamin that revitalizes them into even more frenzied behavior.

There's nothing a person can do if he doesn't agree with Limbaugh and believes the radio waves would travel with more clarity if that bobbling bigot were taken off the air. About 20,000 strong, his supporters stay loyal, and I think I am related to many of them.

THE WHOLE WORLD WEPT

2009-05-13T20:08:00.002-04:00

We gathered at the funeral parlor where my father lay in his coffin, its satin lining and ornate oak trim more luxurious than any he had ever slept in when alive. His face was pale, ashen, as though death had drained all color from his face as life fled his body. His wisps of gray hair stuck upward on the silken pillow and I could not help but remember the many times the familys' children had gathered around his chair, forming those same wisps of hair into devil's horns, giggling with glee as we clustered around him.

I wore a red coat. This had caused me some consternation. One just didn't wear a red coat to a funeral parlor, or so I believed. I fussed about it and worried about it, because it seemed important to me that I show respect for the surroundings and respect for my father as he lay before us after his death. I could not imagine a world without him and I desperately longed for a more sedate, more appropriate coat.

Since a red coat was all that I had and the Spring air could still be chilly, I wore the coat and decided that it personified a sort of defiance of death. My father...our beloved Pop...may have left this earth, but he never would leave our hearts. My red coat, I told myself, was a symbol of Pop's importance in our lives. His aura was not black or gray or even blue. It was red, like a glorious sunset after a hard day's labor in the fields. I felt a little better after that thought.

At these troubled times, people take comfort in each other. We gathered in the chairs sprinkled around the parlor and reminisced about our lives, going over the good times, the sad times, the hard times, the highlights of our lives with Pop. Then, as the hours stretched on, we wandered out to the porch that hugged the front of the parlor, enjoying the Spring landscape, looking up at the sky.

It occurred to all of us at the same time that, for some reason, it was still, very, very still, with a rather ominous silence that caused one to halt and look upward, trying to find some answers in the distant sky. We noticed, too, that the sky was filled with different colors. There was a purple haze, a reddish glow of sunset, yellow streaks amid darker, almost black stripes. It was as though a rainbow had disintegrated and fell into pieces across the evening sky or perhaps the behavior of an artist upset with his work and flinging the contents of his palette all over the canvas, where it spattered at first, then blended into a cascade of pastels.

For some reason, it was difficult to leave that porch, even though there was an hour left of visiting hours. The people coming to pay their respects had dwindled to a few and were hurriedly speaking to my mother and walking to look at my father in his coffin, then hurrying homeward, somehow uneasy because of the strangeness of the sky. My cousin, Melvin, who had traveled from Milwaukee, was very nervous. He had never seen a sky like this before, he commented, it was eerie.

He was right. Eerie it was, and it wasn't long before we all decided to leave the funeral parlor and go to Mom's little house, the house that had been bought for her and Pop to enjoy their old age together, to give them amenities they had never known before, comfortable amenities like an indoor bathroom, running water...both hot and cold. It was a miserably small home, a former vacation home that had been converted to withstand the winter cold, used as a stopover for families who came out from Detroit on the train to enjoy boating, fishing, and visiting the carnival that once was a permanent fixture in the town. Despite its lack of spaciousness, it was adequate for two people and Mom was proud of her little home.

Hilda had been the one who had discovered Pop, lying inert on the floor of the small living room. I asked her about it once...how he had looked, how it had been to find him like that...but she refused to discuss it, wanting only to forget that terrible moment when she had discovered her father dead on the floor. It was, she said, a scene that flickered back into her mind at the most inopportune moments, a flashback, a revisitation of that terrible scene. "Let me forget it," she said. "Don't ask me about it!"

We gathered at Mom's house, which wasn't big enough to hold the number of people there, but we crowded together, unaware of the discomfort. It had begun to rain and, as we talked, the rain came down even harder. Finally, my husband and I decided to head for home, to skip the meal that Mom was putting out on the table, to go check on the wellbeing of our children.

As we drove homeward, the sky had lost its palette of color. It was dark now, with clouds so close they nearly touched the treetops. The clouds did not move, but lingered in place, stationary, looking like huge black blankets...or, as my mind settled into gloom...shrouds, hanging over the earth.

As we watched, my husband driving too fast down the country road, a huge black, whirling cloud swept down toward earth and, as I squealed with fear, worried about my children, shaken about by the washboard road, the cloud touched ground. It simply swooped, then lingered as though tasting the earth and grass, sampling its flavor. Later, we learned that it had torn up miles of countryside, destroying only one farmhouse, with no fatalities, but at the time, it looked like the end of our world and we had no way of knowing just where it had struck.

The rest of that night was truly a nightmare, those huge clouds hanging low, threatening the earth beneath, some of them sporting spinning appendages. Thunder, lightening, finally rain, howling rain, torrents of water pouring down and, when there would be a lull, more clouds, more shadows, more threatening lack of movement in the sky. Nineteen tornadoes hit our state that night, nineteen twisting, whirling arms of destruction reaching down from the sky.

Bud called. Hubert called. I tried to call Helma, but got some number in Tennessee. Even the phone lines had gone crazy. I finally got Cousin Melvin on the phone. They were spending the night in the neighbor's basement, he said. Others had gone home, to cower in basements there. He had only come up to fetch something to drink and had heard the phone ring.

We did not sleep at all and, when dawn came, it was still drizzling, the wet earth glistening with water. I was tired, but excited. In my mind, it was as though the sky was reflecting my own feelings at the loss of my father, periods of anger, intervals of calm, followed by overwhelming torrents of grief. It seemed to me as if the whole world was weeping, raging, mourning. I knew how it felt.

Two days later came my father's funeral. The church was filled to capacity, people crowded together in the back of the room. We had never seen the minister before. My mother had engaged him. He was a tall, portly fellow with greasy-looking black hair. His voice was a bellow, like the roar of an angry bull.

"Someday!" he shouted! "Someday...and that day will come sooner than you think...you will be laying here! You will be laying here just as John is laying here today!" He lifted his arm and pointed at my father, his fleshy fingers pointing into the casket.

I sat beside Hubert. "If it weren't my own father," he whispered, "I'd walk out of here!"

"I'd be walking right behind you!" said Bud, from behind us.

Several times during that hour, the minister paused to remind us again, blaring like a man with a bullhorn, on the inevitability of our deaths. He implored us to change our ways, turn our backs on sin, repent! He said all of this in as many decibels as possible. The rafters of the church shook with his zeal. I thought of how my soft-spoken father would have disliked this man, this man of the cloth who took God's word and used it like a weapon, using the remains of a dead man to assail those still living, insensitive to their grief, blaring anger and violence when what was needed was compassion and benevolence.

There were perhaps a hundred or more cars weaving their way slowly to the cemetery where we laid Pop to rest. There I felt my spirit renewed. My gloom lifted and I felt restored. Pop's grave was near a pine tree on a slight rise of ground, a place where he could have looked out over the horizon, enjoying the odor of pine in the fresh air....a place of tranquility, of serenity, of peace.

Yes, the whole world wept the night he died, the rain mingling with our tears, the black clouds mirroring our sorrow, but the sun returned as it always does, children lose parents, weep and sink into nostalgic memories, but the pain fades just as those clouds moved across the sky, leaving sunshine in its path. The pain subsides, but the memories stay with you for your lifetime. This is life's circle of life, of death, of the years of joys and sorrows in between.

THE FARM

2009-04-26T18:44:00.003-04:00

We didn't know we were sitting on a fortune in gravel. We didn't know that, when we had a chance to buy the Farm for just $2,000, with $500 dollars down, that we could have made a hundred times more money than that, just in turning it over to a gravel company. I was a child still and had no income at all, but surely the other children, most of them adults, could have raked up the $500, had they pooled their money for it.

Back then, no one wanted to invest that much money, quite a sum then, in a decrepit old farmhouse sitting on gravelly sand on a windy hill along a remote rural road. Even to look at the farmhouse made a person wince, because there wasn't a part of it that didn't need rebuilding. It was eventually torn down, taking a chunk of my childhood with it, because it was too far gone to refurbish or try to repair.

Even its paint was old and weathered and peeling. It had been painted yellow, but had faded in the sun and the wind to a putrid shade of yellowish gray. Many of the windows were cracked and broken, the frames rotting and threatening to crumble at the touch. The roof needed repair, causing Mom to place a series of strategic buckets around the leaks that came through the roof. Sometimes, at night, the "tap-tap-tap" of that splashing water was like music lulling me to sleep.

Our summers were filled with bugs. No matter how we tried, the bugs won the eternal war we fought against them. Our nights were filled with the drone of mosquitoes and there was always one that persisted in landing on your face just as you were drifting off to sleep. Mom bought sprays, but they were ineffectual when the mosquitoes had easy access through the crumbling windows. She also bought fly strips, horrible looking ribbons of yellowish death that hung from the ceiling. I hated those strips, felt sorry for the flies, and spent hours in the afternoons prying the flies from their date with death to allow them to fly freely again.

We also had wasps, wasps that seemed to love our clothing. They would get into the sleeves of a shirt and lurk there, waiting for that arm to be thrust into the sleeve, so that they could attack with their sudden vicious sting. How often have I yelped with pain, then nursed a red and flaming bump for days afterward! Hordes of wasps buzzed and hovered around the windows of the farmhouse, making their home in the old and creaking corners of the gray planks.

In the summertime, the farm was sheer fantasy. The rosebush by the front porch bloomed in a burst of glory and lasted for weeks, proudly drifting across the slanted planks of the porch as though covering its ugliness with their beauty. It was never pruned, fertilized or watered, but lived with only God as the gardener, refreshing itself when the rains came, somehow clinging to life when they did not.

Beside the house, by the kitchen window, the Tree of Heaven spread its shade throughout the summer months, hugging the house, leaning inward, as though to protect it from the elements. In front of the house was the old pine tree, too shredded with age to give much shade. Pop put a rope swing there for me and I spent many an hour swinging and singing as the pine cones fell to the ground and the birds perched in the branches above me.

I don't know who built that farmhouse. I tried to imagine it at times, picturing the owner as a prosperous farmer with a thriving estate. He would, of course, have had a lovely wife, several servants, and a beautiful daughter my own age. She would have had all of the material gifts I lacked, the clothing, the shoes, the sweaters. She would have had a lovely name, something like Delilah or Angelina, much different than Herma, which I always thought sounded like a German milkmade carrying a pail and smelling like cows.

The driveway to the farm was circular. Then, out in back, by the barn, it spread out to encompass a patch of sandy gravel by the old shed where my father hung all of his tools and all of the paraphernalia needed for the horses and mules. Old Kate was my father's favorite mule and, with her crippled hooves, he always treated her with special tenderness. She responded to him, too, standing with a leg held up, as Pop, Hubert and Bud would filed down her hooves to give her a better, more solid, footing. They would come out in the early morning and Mom would fix them breakfast. Then, when they had finished the meal, they would go with Pop out to the barn and lead Old Kate onto the driveway.

Sometimes Herman would stop by to oversee this surgical maneuver. He would pull up into the drive in his old rattletrap car, the back door would open to spill out the kids, and Herman would walk toward the barn to give his advice on just how to file down Old Kate's hooves. Somehow, Herman's kids never just emerged from a car, but came out like a human avalanche, so anxious were they to join the other nieces and nephews and myself in the fields by the orchard.

Eldin was the oldest and we formed a special rapport at an early age that has persisted to this day. Our favorite sport is to argue about anything, especially politics, and other people have often decided we are serious, which we never are. Eldin has always reminded me of Bud. He has conducted his life on a certain path and followed it, come what may. He has shown an affinity for wayward teens and rowdy toddlers, is adored by his children, and is a person one turns to in time of need.

Our latest altercation concerns the color of his father's old car. I remember it as being brown. Eldin says it was blue. It was brown, of course, listed to the left, and had a door that had to be held closed from the passenger seat. It had no heater, which made for chilly trips on winter mornings and the sound of its motor could be heard for miles.

When Homer would arrive, his children were sitting sedately in the backseat of his car, always with a certain decorum that many of we other children did not have. Donald and Richard were both about the same age as myself. Donald was outgoing, personable and amusing. Richard was tall, good-looking, and took life very seriously. One had to work hard to get a smile out of Richard, even when he was a small boy. He followed the gang of us through the orchard with a tenacity that he used to succeed throughout his life. When others, smaller and younger than the rest of us, would plop onto the ground to gasp for breath, Richard would keep coming, determined not to allow anyone to best him. Homer and Emma also had two younger children, Joan and David. Joan married a minister and they have a church in Florida, sending me frequent bulletins about their activities.

Helma and Donna didn't race around with the rest of us, of course, for they were approaching teenage and spent most of their time combing their hair. They wore swing skirts, sweaters that gripped the hips and sported a brooch of some kind worn near the hemline. They wore bobby sox and saddle shoes and everyone commented on how cute they were....everyone except me, of course. They called themselves Jacqui and Bunny, refusing to answer to their given names, which they considered cloddish and unalluring.

Neither Jacqui or Bunny would have deigned visiting the barn, the shed or the chicken coop, but the rest of us had no such restraints. We climbed all over the old gray rafters of the barn and jumped around on the haystacks at will, shouting with joy. The floor of the barn was unstable, but that didn't stop us. We hopscotched over those broken gray boards, flirting with danger, narrowly avoiding being plunged to the horse stables below. In fact, one morning, Mom went to milk the cows, somehow walked across the floor of the barn, and fell through, catching herself with her arms. She was furious when Pop, taking one look at her head sticking up out of the barn floor, laughed. He did apologize for laughing later, but still burst into amused cackles at the memory of Mom's fall.

I never understood this laughter until one day, many years later, my husband was chased by a huge black dog. We had stopped at the home of my son's friend and did not realize no one was home. My husband went to the door. As he frantically ran away from the snarling brute, for some unexplainable reason, I laughed. I was still laughing when he was finally able to make it to the car to safety. I couldn't even sympathize with his plight without bursting into laughter. Just as with my mother, my laughter infuriated him.

I might not have laughed, however, if that huge, black, furious animal had chased me.

So many years. So many memories. Memories of hot, sweet, golden summers, and blisteringly cold winters with their screaming winds and torrential snows. Memories of the bugs and the host of animals in the barn, the flock of chickens that roosted nightly in the old, weathered chicken coop, the spreading acres of Pop's corn, green shoots that sprouted into golden ears.

I think about Mom's life, filled with work and worry about her twelve children and their families. Pop's life, plowing and planting, perspiration running down his weathered face and staining the brim of that old brown fedora. At that time, they had never known what it would be like to live with indoor plumbing, plentiful water available from faucets that did not freeze in the winter, furnaces capable of heating a home without chopping wood.

When they were very old, they finally had a little place like that, with a bathroom, a kitchen sink, water in the faucets, a stove that heated the little home. Mom was pretty happy, I think, to set her trinkets around that house and be able to get to church every Sunday. Pop, however, was miserable. His entire life had been involved with the earth, with coaxing crops to grow in the soil. He did not like having neighbors. He saw no joy in running water, in plumbing fixtures, in easy heat. He preferred chopping wood, with its haunting odor of mystic forests. He preferred working from dawn to dusk, rather than fiddling around with nothing to do all day.

He grew old. As Mom became involved in her church and its activities, Pop tended his watches, smoked his pipe and sat in his broken down chair, which had been transported from the farm by Bud, who had rolled his eyes in despair at the task of setting that dilapidated chair into its new home. He suggested buying a new chair, but Pop would have none of it. That chair was his and his alone. It knew every curve of his body, every bone, every joint. He wanted no new chair to cause him to sit up stiffly and never be able to relax.

He was sitting in that chair when he decided to get up to check the time on his watches. For some reason, it was important to him that all of the old watches had perfect time. He wound them and put them down, viewing them with pleasure. Then he dropped to the floor and died.

FOOD, FAMILY AND FUN!

2009-04-02T18:06:00.003-04:00

Now that we are in the midst of a Recession that some call a Depression, my mind goes back to our days of poverty on the Farm. Of course, we had the food that we grew, but that doesn't put sugar and flour on the table. When I was younger, Pop raised pigs and there was pork and bacon that lasted all winter, but as I grew older, he stopped raising pigs and limited the animals to cows for milk and horses and mules to pull the plows.

We had no cold storage for food in the winter, though Mom did dig a hole outside for apples. It's easy to store apples in a hole in the ground. Just wrap them in newspaper, place them in the hole, then cover it with crumpled newspaper or leaves. Make sure the hole is a few feet deep. It doesn't hurt to place a flag of some sort in the ground beside them, lest you lose the place that you have stored apples when the heavy snows cover the ground. Potatoes will also last this way, but it takes a big hole.

I have joked about Mom's meatloaf, but she used to feed a tribe of people by mixing it up. She would start with a small amount of hamburger and put in enough other ingredients to stretch it into a huge loaf. She added bread crumbs, oatmeal, onions, a few diced carrots, and any vegetable laying around. She would then stir up the woodstove, add wood, and wait for it to reach the desired heat.

In the summertime, the heat from the woodstove made the kitchen unbearable, so Bud and Herman would set up what Mom called the "coal oil stove." Actually, it ran on kerosene and the fumes were enough to take your appetite away for a week. We were all afraid of the Coal Oil Stove, for lighting it meant a flare-up that endangered the hair of anyone standing nearby. It also emitted waves of heat, but not as much as the woodstove.

Pop stored potatoes in the cellar each year. You have to have "winter potatoes" to do this, as you do apples. Many vegetables will last throughout the winter in a cool place, including squash, cabbage, or anything with a hard skin. Some people build a storage box, made of heavy wood and lined with newspapers. This box, placed on the sunny side of a house where the heat inside filters outward, will keep vegetables for a good part of the winter and cut down on the grocery bill.

At every meal, we had biscuits and gravy, breakfast, dinner and supper. No meal was called "lunch," because hardworking farmers had to have a heavy meal in the middle of the day. Mom would put as much food on the table at dinnertime as she did at suppertime, using all the leftovers as well as the newer food she had cooked for that day. Always, gleaming golden from the iron skillet and hot to the touch, were the biscuits that were served every meal. She made them from scratch, and she could whip up a "batch of biscuits" in just a few minutes. She never used a bowl, but mixed them on the top of the flour bin, adding the ingredients carefully and mixing them with the flour, patting each one into shape and laying it in the hot grease to give it that golden crust. When they had fried to the right crispness, she would place the pan into the oven. They were always served with bacon grease gravy, made with milk and flour.

Sometimes, because of my unruly relatives, our meals became rowdy. With a large number of people seated at the table, manners were often forgotten. One of the biscuits would be tossed around like a football, with everyone catching it and tossing it on to someone else. Connie instigated many of these games and soon everyone joined in. Mom would shake her head and not even bother to halt this group of hooligans. She was a hard-working, no-nonsense woman who had the misfortune of being surrounded by this great brood of giggling fools, so she remained silent as Hubert prodded Harry on the bottom with a fork and Harry reciprocated by aiming mashed potatoes at Hubert's nose.

Bud, like our Mother, didn't approve of this kind of foolishness. "Come on, now," he'd admonish, "Let's eat!"

So we'd all settle down and busy ourselves with the task of eating, with only a giggle or two coming from Connie's corner as she tossed a biscuit at Bud. They had a long and productive marriage but the old saying that "opposites attract," certainly held true for them. Where he was sometimes too serious, she was often zany and playful. He was steady and resourceful, but in their personal relationship, she was boss. He pampered her and loved her and his devotion was reciprocated. When both of their children grew up and settled down in other states, they clung to their life in their beloved home, visiting their children whenever they could, and filling their days with visits from friends and relatives.

After these meals, Sis, Norma Jean and I made sure we made it up to the attic, lest we be caught in the dishwashing chores. We could hear the womens' voices from the kitchen. "Where did those kids go?" one of them would ask. We would stifle our giggles and keep up our post by the stovepipe, which conducted their voices upward to us like a telephone wire. When it was safe to go downstairs and the dishes were put away, we would make our entrance, saved once again by our ingenuity and skill.

After the meal, folks would gather in the living room, chatting together and often bringing out the guitars. Hubert and Gerry would sing a duet and sometimes we could convince Hazel to sing. My sister, Hazel, had the voice of an angel, a soaring, sweet voice that sent ripples down your spine. She would sing all of the old songs, the hymns that Mom loved so much, and her voice would fill that old farmhouse like the ringing of angelic bells!

When everyone had left to go back to their homes, the farmhouse was like an empty cavern. It was empty and lonely and the fun of those meals were just an echo in the silence of the house. It was then that I would go out the door to visit the orchard, taking the longer route away from the cows, who would stand by the fence in a cluster of bovine curiosity, watching me as I made my way down the path.

Once in the orchard, I would climb into an apple tree, scraping my skin on the gnarled old bark, bark that peeled and fell to the ground in large black strips, as the old tree groaned and swayed in the wind. From my perch in the tree, I could survey my Kingdom, the horse barn, the cow stables, the weathered old barn. I could watch my father as he walked out to the shed, that old brown fedora perched on his head. I could hear my mother as she threw scraps to the dogs and hear them barking in anticipation of their meal. I could sit there until sunset and watch the sun leave its magic on the horizon, a glorious array of color no artist could attain.

So, what is a Recession Menu? It's heavy on the vegetables, the starches and lean on meat. It's meatloaf made with mysterious ingredients and homemade food that had never seen the shelf of a store. Most of us don't have farms to use to grow our food and rely upon chain stores to provide us with nourishment, but we can all learn from those meals at the farm, where simple food was put on the table and family fun was the daily fare. If we can keep our senses of humor and keep our noses to the grindstone, we can make it through this, just as my parents made it through their lives. Keep your family intact and your hopes on the future and we can walk together through these harrying moments of worry and stress!

I CANNOT ATTEND YOUR TEA PARTY, MR. LIMBAUGH

2009-03-25T09:42:00.003-04:00

Years ago, Richard Nixon had an Enemy's List, and he used the IRS to harass these individuals, putting these people through countless interrogations and investigations into their tax returns. Today, spurred by the anger of the people over bonuses paid by a sprawling and troubled Corporation, our Congressmen have turned to Nixon-like behavior, levying a 90% tax on the individuals receiving these bonuses. The bonuses themselves, it seems, were the result of contracts drawn up in 2006, one of the pleasures and profits of a Wall Street gone amok. Somehow, it was decided that these contracts must be honored, because of a phrase that concluded that, should the contracts fail to be paid, the amount of money could be doubled or, as I understand it, even tripled. The shame of it all lies in the fact that taxpayer's money was used to live up to these legal threats.

No wonder Corporations failed, with contracts like these on their books, combined with the huge salaries and Golden Parachutes that made life even more lucrative for a few. Now, faced with the anger of the public, with the Media fanning the flames with their 24/7 coverage, Congress has decided to levy these punitive taxes, in an effort to force the return of the money. Such tactics seem to be working, for three-fourths of the people involved have returned their bonuses. However, the levying of 90% taxes on individuals leaves a nasty taste behind, because such action is clearly against the Constitution, which bans taxing "after the fact" and for reasons of punishment.

The only good part of this story is the fact that the Senate has not yet voted on the bill and that it will probably fade away and disappear as the people involved step forward to return the bonuses and public anger dissipates. However, in the future, Congress should be careful of passing legislation that may eventually land on the desk of the President, a President aware of the emotions of the people, yet spurred by the fact that he is a Constitutional scholar, a former professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Illinois.

Dilemmas like this are placed daily on the desk of the President. We have a country filled with divisive beliefs, poverty-stricken people, homelessness, joblessness, and medical bills that reach to the Heavens and impoverish even those who consider themselves prosperous. Our schools are in dire need of attention. Four out of every ten high school students drop out, many of them intelligent enough to gain their diplomas, but somehow soured on the educational front. There have been News Reports on problems that boggle the mind....suicides among the military, rape among the female military, children sleeping under highway overpasses because our few Shelters are filled to capacity, State and National Campgrounds with few rangers, unmowed grass, unsightly litter and toilet facilities that assail the nose and offend the senses.

In the meantime, the Republicans are so bitter and angry at losing the election to a comparatively unknown man that they have done little besides try to halt legislation and appear on television to warn us of his financial proclivities. These same people stood silently and obediently in the sidelines as George W. Bush raped the Treasury and started his obsession with the plunder of Iraq. There were no press conferences on the steps of the U.S. Capitol back then. Instead, they enjoyed the lucrative advantages of K Street and accepted perks from lobbyists. Their supporters, most of them religious radicals with a sprinkling of true Conservatives, cheered each expensive move that George W. Bush made, including continued deregulation of financial institutions, with their hands outstretched to capitalize on the money madness and Greed that had replaced common sense and even decency.

One might describe Rush Limbaugh as their leader, a radio Shock Jock who bounces around in his chair in a seizure-like expression of his indignant language that thrills his listeners into even more divisive measures. Their latest invention is called a "Tea Party," where concerned citizens are supposed to gather together to discuss....read "protest"....government spending, big government, and all of the jewels of behavior that they have foisted on this country for the past eight years. They actually believe that they did a good job of governing the country, despite the fact that George W. Bush looted our money, instigated torture, and invaded a country that was no immediate threat. They seem blind to the joblessness, homelessness and despair that is rife among the American public. Their Congressmen vote No on every measure that Obama suggests. The Party of Yes has morphed into the Party of No, and all because they cannot bear the loss of power.

We have elected Barack Obama to the highest post in the land. He is leading the country into new territory, a territory we should have been exploring for many, many years, a territory encompassing a country with new and vital infrastructure, improved schools, and medical care that the average person can afford to use. He is a visionary and he will lead this country forward, pay down that National Debt even as he uses money to fund these improvements by cutting the useless expenditures that have bogged down our government for so many years, improving the ones that work and dropping the ones that don't. Makes sense to me!

Today, we should be cheering the election of a man with courage and vision, but our joy is dampened by those who cannot seem to bear a tax cut for the Middle Class, who cling to their vision of untrammeled riches for a tiny fraction of our citizens, with the Middle Class, humble and beaten, gratefully serving in mediocre jobs.

That jewel of a document, our Constitution, which has been trampled and shredded by the likes of Bush and Cheney, has given equality to all of our citizens and this should include ALL of us, not just the ones someone selects. The drunken bum on the sidewalk is as important as anyone else and, with assistance and understanding, might pull himself out of the depths. Gays are equal to everyone else and should have the freedom to live their lives as they choose. Poverty should be the enemy of every one of us and, in the richest country in the world, no child should be homeless or hungry.

Under Obama's leadership, our country can reach the heights of prosperity and idealism that has formerly been only a dream. There will be glitches and mistakes along the way. How could there not be, with so many problems reaching his desk each day? As we close Guantanamo and use our country's justice system to decide the fate of those men, as we build those bridges and monitor those schools, as we step into the future with determination and hope, we must pull together to make America the shining example of just what a free society can do!

So, I am sorry, Mr. Limbaugh, I will not be able to attend your Tea Party! I am busy at that time supporting the work of our President! While you rant and rave and pound on your desk, lifting your ample bottom from your chair in your frenzy, I will be writing and supporting the activities of this very capable man we have been lucky enough to pull from academic life to political stardom. Perhaps next time, Mr. Limbaugh, but don't count on it!

JOYS AND SORROWS

2009-03-23T19:07:00.004-04:00

When we remember our childhoods, do we tend to remember the happy moments, the joyful good times, forgetting those moments when we were sad or unhappy? Do memories of the bad times fade over time and leave you with a rosy past, sprinkled with rosebuds and lit by sparkling stars?

I can remember that, when my feelings were hurt, I would go to the sunny side of the old, weathered farmhouse, lean back against the scratchy, yellowed planks, bury my head in my lap and sob. This always attracted the dogs, who would gather around me, offering sympathy. Puppy would put his nose in my face and snuffle as though he were afflicted with asthma, undoubtedly telling me to cheer up and get over it. Even Jake, that inveterate grouch and miserable thief, would sit by my side and lean his old grizzled hound head against my shoulder.

The only ones that ever gave me any sympathy were the dogs. Mom was always busy in the kitchen and was always unaware that I was unhappy. Pop would walk out into the field, because he had absolutely, positively no patience with anyone nursing hurt feelings. He thought the antidote for every pain, every ill, every argument was a walk in the fields. Somehow, his fields gave him a comfort that shielded him from human problems. They spoke to him and reached up to him as he walked. He always wore that floppy, stained brown fedora on his balding head, a fringe of white hair gleaming beneath its folds, his leathered, weathered skin belying a lifetime of sunlight and furrowed earth.

I was alone with my pain and anger. I could not even get sympathy from the crowd of brothers and sisters around me. Bud would tell me to straighten up and forget it. Hubert would tease me. Deed would harass me. My sisters would tell me it was my own fault, that if I hadn't acted like a brat, I would not feel like such an injured party.

These were the times I resented the mob of adults around me, bossy as they were. I dreamed of being an only child, the spoiled, adored and pampered daughter of two doting parents....maybe even royalty, raising me to take my rightful place on the throne.

At other times, I was filled with delight over the antics of my sisters and sisters-in-law, who would include me on excursions and trips, berry-picking, or venturing into town. One time, my sisters-in-law even included me on an overnight trip to a Northern Michigan cabin, which would include a much-heralded fishing trip in Jewell's pontoon boat.

The pontoon belonged to Jewell, who wore a special Captain's hat when she boarded it, instead of the old, ragged fisherman's hat that she usually wore. Along with us were Connie and Gerry and we had spent the night in Jewell's northern cabin and had gotten up early to climb aboard the huge pontoon, which Jewell claimed she could expertly drive.

Sure enough, the motor started at the first pull of the rope wrapped around it. It was placed on the back of the boat, extending down toward the water. The steering wheel was mounted on a stand just a few feet away from the boat's rear. Jewell, her Captain's hat in place, steered us out into the waters of a huge lake, so big one could hardly see the distant shore. The lake was lined by palatial homes and a flotilla of huge boats were tethered along the shore.

As we reached the middle of the lake, Jewell discovered we were out of gas. Our pontoon started drifting along, bobbing with the waves. Then it became clear to us that, not too far away and looming at us like a glimpse of Niagara, was a tumbling, bubbling, frothing falls, filled with rocks that stuck up out of the water like prophets of doom!

We were helpless. All we could do is slap at the water with a couple of oars we found located in a corner. Connie and I were the ones manning the oars, as Geraldine sat below the rail, worried about her hairdo, and shaking her head in despair.

Paddling frantically, we miraculously got the boat near shore, where there were several rocks sticking up out of the water.

"You're the youngest and most agile," said Jewell. "Herma, run to that gas station and get some gas!"

What? I couldn't swim, associated water with man-eating snakes, and would have to dance across rocks like a ballet dancer to reach shore! However, I took the gas can in hand and, somehow, jumped from rock to rock and, with one giant leap, touched shore. In the meantime, the boat kept drifting perilously toward a huge yacht anchored nearby. A man stood on the balcony of a home watching as our pontoon lumbered its way into the yacht, pounding on its side with every passing wave.

"What the hell are you doing?" the old man called to the women clustered in the pontoon.

As I ran toward the gas station, I heard Jewell release a string of cusswords guaranteed to fry the oil man's liver and scorch his heart. "What the hell do you think we're doing?" she queried, following this up with a few, well-chosen phrases.

I don't know to this day how I did it, but I bought gas for the can I carried and hopped back across the rocks to the pontoon, where Jewell emptied the gas into the tank. We were saved, and I felt like a hero! I had saved the day, jumped from rock to rock without encountering a single snake, and I had carried my precious cargo of gas across the same rocks to leap aboard the pontoon.

By this time, the old man was laughing derisively, as Connie held her oar against the side of the yacht, trying her best to keep the pontoon away from it, her reddish curls gleaming in the sun. Gerry, still holding her dark, carefully coiffed hair out of the wind, still sat on the deck, viewing the scene with despair.

"Grab an oar! Help!" Connie yelled to me. I joined her and, together, we managed to keep the pontoon from damaging the yacht any more than it already had.

We chugged back out onto the lake and decided to give up fishing for that day. Connie was steering the boat and, suddenly, the entire foundation of the box that held the steering wheel lifted off the deck of the boat and Connie was waving it in the air. At the same time, the outboard motor flew up from its proper place reaching down into the water and stayed in midair, sputtering to a halt. It was as though a heavy wind had propelled everything upward, leaving us once again drifting toward that vicious, frothing falls.

"We're going to die here!" predicted Gerry. She emphasized this by concluding, "I hate boats. I hate wind. And I hate water!"

At this moment, a huge wave splashed overboard, driven by the wind, and Gerry's hair was left in sodden strings around her face. It was as though the elements wanted revenge for her words. Gerry shivered, pulled her wet clothing around her body. and glared at us for subjecting her to this indignation.

"Stop laughing! Row!" Connie shouted at me, to no avail. We both collapsed with laughter at the sight of Gerry sitting in a puddle of water, cursing the fates and the companions who had talked her into a fishing trip.

Once again, we were headed toward the falls. We solved this problem by finally getting the motor to kick into life. Then Jewell sat on it to hold it down as Connie steered the pontoon and I leaned against the cabinet top, holding the entire apparatus, steering wheel and the cabinet it was mounted upon down onto the floor of the deck, where it wobbled and teetered and threatened to fly into the wind, taking me with it.

We finally made it back to our pier, tired and worn, our clothing and hair drenched, filled with joy at being alive instead of a group of battered corpses floating at the bottom of those falls. We drove back to Jewell's cabin and spent the evening rehashing these events. Jewell put her Captain's hat away and donned her Fishing Cap.

"Herma," she said. "Get into the trunk of the car and get that baitbox."

I did, and was sent into a screaming panic as I opened the trunk and a huge flopping monster came leaping up toward my face as I bent down to get the box. It was a fish Jewell had caught the night before and had kept on ice in her trunk until this moment. It was, she said, our dinner.

The last things I remember about that trip are Jewell's talented hand with fried fish, the steamingly hot taste of freshly made coffee and Gerry, sitting beside me, informing me that she "hated fish, hated fishing, and would never ride on a pontoon again!"

So, memories are really a mixture, the good and the bad. Sometimes, the old hurts and nursed grudges come back and you recall when this person did that or that person did this, but at other times, you remember the happy moments, the silly adventures, the highlights of growing up and a warmth enters the depth of your being. You remember these people as they were, glowing, vibrant human beings, now either old or gone, but still very much alive in your memories and in your heart.

CUTLINES, DEADLINES, AND JANE FONDA

2009-03-10T19:28:00.003-04:00

Jane Fonda once spoke in a church located in the town where I worked at a local newspaper. With cameraman in tow, I attended her speech and was able to chat with her afterward. She was and is a lovely woman, slim and well-dressed, her wheat-colored hair falling in waves around her shoulders. She spoke about the Missing Soldiers left behind when the battles were over in Viet Nam. She urged her audience to write to their Congressmen in an effort to spur action in locating these men and bringing them home.

Noone knows for certain just how many men were left behind after that war, but it is common knowledge that there were a number of them, most of them prisoners in the various prison camps run by the Viet Cong. Prisoners like John McCain, with an Admiral for a father and a great deal of clout, were released and returned home, weary and tortured, but elated over coming out alive. Many others could not share that elation, but were moved from place to place by the Viet Cong, enduring Heaven knows what indignations. It is thought that most of them were killed, but there is always a chance that some of them survived to live out their lives in that foreign land, or perhaps still prisoners somewhere.

I was interested in the stories of these men left behind, but I was also consumed with the facts of Fonda's life, her rebellion, her disappearance from the Hollywood scene to travel to Viet Nam and even hobnob with the Viet Cong. After I had asked a question to two about her travels there, she turned to me with annoyance written upon her beautiful face.

"Don't you care?" she asked, glaring at me. "Don't you care at all?"

"Of course, I care!" I responded. "I just have to write the whole story for my readers. They want to know what you were doing over there."

"I was doing what you should be doing, caring about what was going on!"

We glared at one another like adversaries and I was surprised that she didn't walk away. Instead, she talked of her childhood and how she had turned her back on her life in Hollywood. She was married at the time to a leader of the groups of Viet Nam protesters, but her rebellion was born in the life she had lived as a child, with a stern, always absent father and a mother who had killed herself, leaving her children to a burden of guilt and to wonder what had happened to her, since they were never told about this suicide until learning about it when they were older.

"I learned to care about other people," she told me. "I didn't want to just sit around by a pool!"

I found myself sympathizing, liking her, understanding her. I tried to put this into my story, while still remembering that many people called her Hanoi Jane. She left the Church with her newborn baby in a basket that she carried as she walked to the waiting car. She looked like anything but a rebel. She looked like a pretty young matron taking care of her infant.

For me, celebrities have always been very different from their images. For instance, Sophia Loren, onscreen, is a lusty, busty, sexy woman, and I always imagined her to be buxom and shapely. In real life, she is totally different, a slender reed of a woman, delicate and genteel, a wisp of the person she appears to be onscreen. Although younger people may not remember her, she was the epitome of the wholesome sex goddess back in the 80's.

What I remember most is her courageous tackling of a lettuce salad served at a luncheon, where she was the guest of honor. She would stuff the lettuce in her mouth and continue to smile, even when a lettuce leaf was tacked to her teeth.

Politicians, on the other hand, looked exactly like their pictures and always lived up to their image. When Gerald Ford, who was famous for his clumsiness, falling down the exits from airplanes, came to Michigan to make a speech at a Republican Club here, the first thing he did was trip over the cord that was strung to his microphone. I couldn't believe it. It gave me a perfect line for my story. It was as if he had done it for me. Other than that little mishap, he gave a nice, though boring, speech and was smiling and cordial to everyone there.

Ronald Reagan was a handsome, lovable Grandpa. It was impossible not to like Ronnie, who quipped and joked like a Saturday Night Live comedian. I think his memory was fuzzy then, at about the time of the Republican Convention, but I may be remembering the later years, when we all knew that Alzheimer's had claimed him. I voted for Ronnie, so I wrote a fabulous story about him, but I am not sure he is the icon his Party has turned him into. Even then, Trickle Down economics didn't do much for the working people. However, Reagan was the reporter's dream subject. He was a master at coming out with a one-liner, and he always had a twinkle in his eye.

I always jumped at the chance to interview a celebrity, even a minor one, because I always found them witty and interesting. Unfortunately, I was always selected to do the stories on the General Motors, Ford and Chrysler executives, a task I dreaded, but one I was duty bound to do.

First, at GM, you are ushered into a sort of a lobby, where a receptionist greets you with a smile. You must enjoy this, because it is the last smile you're going to get, even though it is a bit contrived. You are asked to rid yourself of any camera you might be carrying, lest you inadvertently take a picture of the prototype of a new car. Any photograph that will accompany your story will be carefully selected by the person involved.

The Vice President ushered me into his office. I noted that all auto company Vice Presidents looked exactly alike, shirts buttoned, suits tailored and sedate, ties equally sedate and carefully in place. The interviews were always short and stilted. No family remembrances as with Fonda. No drama. No smiles. No nonsense. I would take my leave and write my dull little story about my dull little subject and I am sure that the readers glanced at it and went on to something else.

I have often wondered what things would have been like had John DeLorean stayed at GM. Sure, I know he later got into trouble with the law and had all sorts of other problems, like a failed marriage but, by Heaven, he was interesting, wore fashionable clothes, and had a ready smile and a bright personality. I think it was the personality that ruined him at General Motors. When it comes to Vice Presidents there, I think personality was a quality frowned upon. Smiles probably sent the Powerful Executives into catatonic seizures. What a bunch of overpaid stuffed shirts! Although I do wonder why the GM executives were chewed out by Congress for arriving in a private jet, and not a question about the private jets of the overpaid bankers was even asked!

So much fun! So many memories! Our office staff consisted of renegates, rogues, pranksters and procrastinators, but we churned out the news and enjoyed every minute of it. Now, today, they are scattered all over the country, from Florida to Texas, and I wonder frequently what has happened to them and if they recall those tumultous times with same joy I do. Our publisher and Editor has passed away, this big, gruff man with a brilliant mind, who would wear a suit and tie to work, then walk around the office in his bare feet. Our office manager, in need of petty cash, would raid the coffee machine for quarters.

Readers always sent me bottles of liquor, for some reason, and the best I can say is that they kept the photographers creative. No matter how I hid them, the photographers found them and drained them. One time I found a hole in the wall at the back of a closet. I had just been given a bottle of Irish Cream and I planned on enjoying it myself, so I stuffed that bottle in that hole in the wall and covered it with newspapers. When I went to retrieve it, it had been emptied, with a scrawled "Thanks!" written in pen on the label.

The photographers had no interest, however, in another gift that arrived at the office with my name on the tag. It was a dress that a reader had worn to Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Ball, and she thought I would enjoy wearing it. I wore it everywhere that I could. I'd have worn it to a ball game, if it had been appropriate. I will always remember that beautiful black dress, created by a world famous designer.

Newspapers are lively places and, retired now, sometimes my life seems too complacent and dull. It's a good thing I have relatives, so I can liven things up with a good political argument now and then.

BORN TOO LATE!

2009-02-23T21:10:00.004-05:00

I was born at the beginning of the Depression, after the great bank collapse of 1929 had caused chaos in this country, after the Run on the Banks, where frantic people tried to take out their hard-earned savings, only to be faced with a Bank Holiday, put into force by a President who was trying to stop the country's descent into ruin.

I spent my younger years feeling apologetic for having been too small to realize there was a Great Depression going on. I wasn't depressed at all, but merely grew as all children do, happy to be among my huge family. Children do not realize they are poor, even if they are hungry. They merely expect their parents to come up with something to eat. I think, in my case, I was breast fed until the Depression ended. I don't know that for the truth. In fact, I made it up, but it seems logical to me.

I began to become apologetic when I reached the age of reason. Then, when I would reason that I wanted another piece of chicken, one of my brothers or sisters would say to me, "Stop whining! You're lucky you have any chicken at all! If you had been old enough to realize about the Depression, you wouldn't be whining at all! You'd thank your lucky stars you had one piece of chicken to eat!"

This attitude prevailed for years as I grew up within the confines of my family. I was not allowed to complain about anything, lest I be scolded for not understanding the hardships of the Depression.

"You don't know what suffering is!" my sister, Hilda, whom we all called Dude, would say, "You weren't old enough to know there was a Depression. When you go to bed and expect to die before morning comes, then you know what it is to suffer!"

If I was sent down to the Cellar to fetch canned goods, I never failed to complain. Then it was Bud's turn to chastise me with his Depression Lecture. Being the most level headed and intelligent of our clan, when Bud chastised, he had thought it through and you always knew you had crossed the line he had drawn. He never raised his voice or displayed anger, but quietly explained what he meant.

"We ate everything that was edible!" he said. "We ate every jar of food Mom worked and slaved to put up. I can remember her working over that woodstove, keeping it full of wood so the water would boil around the jars. She put up everything in the garden we could gather. She put up apples, cutting away the wormholes, and we all picked up potatoes from the fields, storing them for the long winter we knew was coming. We ate all of the potatoes, every one, then one day, we looked....and the jars of food were all gone and the potatoes, too! There was nothing to eat. Nothing! You weren't old enough to know how it was, but you should never complain about having those canned goods in the Cellar again!"

Hubert, of course, would take advantage of this to tell his Slippery Pig story, about the time he worked for a neighboring farmer for a week or so in exchange for a pig.

"Our mouths were watering at the thought of pork chops on the table!" he would say. "I worked my butt off for this guy, carrying water, grooming his horses, cleaning the muck from the stable. I got up before daylight to help him milk his cows and I didn't come home until they were milked again before dark!"

The pig was waiting for Hubert when the payday rolled around. He had ridden our old Prince to the neighboring farm, so he hefted the pig into his arms so he could ride home. He swears the pig was greased. The little creature squirmed and squealed and finally jumped from Hubert's arms to the ground, taking off at top speed back in the direction of the farm.

"He was greased!" Hubert would declare, his green eyes wide with indignation. "That pig was never meant to leave his home. And when I went back to get him, that cheating son of a gun said, 'What pig? I ain't seen no pig around here. I jes counted my pigs and I'm short the one I gave you. He's jes wanderin' round here somewheres and we won't see him agin! Son, you jes gotta learn to hold on tight!' "

He couldn't finish the story without adding his lecture for me. "Until you've worked all week for nothing and you've dreamed of the taste of pork and pork gravy, you don't know what it is to have your dreams dashed right to the ground!"

Sometimes I felt like yelling, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do it! It wasn't on purpose! I promise not to do it again!"

It wouldn't have helped. They had lined up against me because I didn't suffer sufficiently during the Great Depression. Dude especially thought I didn't understand that she had gone to bed to die. "Oatmeal!" she would say. "Oatmeal in the morning. Oatmeal at night. Mom bought a huge gunny sack full of oatmeal! Then it ran out, like everything else ran out, every drop of food we had, and there was no money to buy more! There were just a few flakes in the bottom of the burlap bag. So I gathered the flakes up very carefully and put them in a pan and boiled them. It was just a watery fluid, milky in color, and we had no sugar to sweeten it. I was going to eat it, but there you were, standing there, a little girl, big-eyed and cute, staring at me with those big eyes, and I knew you were hungry. So, I gave you my oatmeal, the last of the oatmeal, and I went to bed to die."

Dear Heaven, it was bad enough to have missed the Great Depression, now I had to live with the fact that I had taken the food from the mouth of my older sister and sent her to bed believing she wouldn't make it until the morning.

Naturally, Dude had to end her story by giving me a stern look with those big eyes of hers, so like my own, and said, "I don't want to hear of you complaining about anything again!"

When the work programs started and some money started coming in, we were able to eat again. My mother never put food on the table that she didn't tell of the hardships they had endured during the Depression and how Franklin Roosevelt had saved them. She never failed to look at me as she told the story and said, "Course, you weren't old enough to remember how it was, were you?"

This is why I have always felt apologetic about the Great Depression, filled with guilt in a situation where I probably should have felt fortunate. However, if my sister, Dude, my Mom, and my brothers were alive today, I could tell them that I may not have known the suffering of the Great Depression and I may not have ever been hungry enough that I have gone to bed to die. I may not have ever looked through the cupboards and found them empty, as empty as my empty wallet.

But I could tell them with some certainty that there is a good chance I may learn. Yes, with our country sinking into turmoil, there is a very good chance that may happen again. It's not something I am looking forward to enduring, but at least I can feel that I have apologized enough and someday, when good times return, I can look at some relative, some niece or cousin or grandchild and say, "You shouldn't complain, because you don't realize how bad things can get during a Depression. You've never known what real suffering feels like, so I don't want to hear a single complaint from you again!"

I don't even have to rehearse. I can hear those voices now, speaking of a time when the world had gone crazy and the larder was so empty there was nothing to feed a large and growing family. Their voices echo in my mind today, and I can hear the howl of the wolf at the door, clamoring to enter, red fangs dripping, teeth bared, eyes glistening. Here I am, no garden, no potatoes, no corn to stuff into those jars, no pump to give me water, no fuel or electricity unless I can pay the bills. It has occurred to me that I am terrible Depression material, since I hardly make it with supplies through a two day blizzard. My only excuse is that I never thought it could happen again. I never thought history would repeat itself.

If my brother, Bud, were alive today, I would tell him, "I never thought it could happen again!"

And he would say, the Depression Lecture intact, " If you had been old enough to remember the Depression, you would have been prepared for it to happen. So, don't complain, just think ahead and remember, you have nothing to fear but fear itself! That's what pulled us through and it will work for you, too!"

TAKE A MINUTE TODAY!

2009-02-16T13:20:00.002-05:00

If you love dogs, you are affected by the huge number of mistreated, neglected and abandoned dogs and cats that we have in this country today. Chances are, any one of us reading this post has a cherished pet in their home, or can remember a beloved pet that played a big part in their childhood years.

If you want to help out, every day, just go to this website and click on a certain line, you will help feed the dogs that are rescued by people who care. http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com Just go there and click, and this will inspire companies to provide free dog food for the animals that are rescued by these very kind people and given the care that they need.

My Jedi is an example of the helpful role dogs can play in our lives. As a Hearing Dog, she responds to any sound she has been trained to hear. No alarm clock goes off that Jedi doesn't come to roust me from bed. No knock at the door is ignored. No smoke alarm goes unheeded.

The role of a service dog is not the only beneficial influence dogs and cats have on our lives. It has been proven that young children that play with animals at very early ages have fewer allergies, fewer colds, fewer illnesses. It takes a little time, because babies can grab and pull, but as a child grows older, the presence of an animal can teach them the benefits of kindness to God's creatures, put on earth to love us and serve us.

When I was a girl, we had a plethora of animals on the farm. There were always dogs and cats, as well as the farm animals that lived in the barn and the chicken shed. We not only housed our own dogs, but somehow, we collected the dogs that belonged to other people in the family. I still think of those animals and yearn to still have them near me, to hug and to pet, to stroke their fur and take them out for a run in the yard.

I remember Hubert's dog, whose name was Jake. Jake was a hound dog, a bird dog, as Hubert called him, but birds could have lit on his nose, for all Jake would have cared. Jake was a thief and his only interest was what he could garner and drag home from his nightly excursions. He brought home shoes and boots, coats and hats, and even loaves of bread. He brought home tarps that were used to cover boats, he brought home a tent and an assortment of rugs. Jake didn't mess with the small stuff. The bigger the booty, the better.

Each morning, my mother inspected the loot that Jake had left on the porch and gave him his daily scolding. It never helped, and the next morning, another assortment of junk would be there, with Jake sleeping happily among the debris.

Mom worried that the neighbors would think we were all stealing this loot and even suggested that I go door to door to find out who owned the items that Jake brought home.

Then, too, there was Ronald's dog, Duke. Duke was a big, friendly German shepherd who happily pulled us along the ice when we were skating or sledding. A big dog, he could pull two children on a sled with very little effort. He had a long Shepherd nose, but it was caved in on one side, where he had evidently been hit by a car. This event had traumatized him, for Duke hated all cars.

His role in life was chasing away cars that tried to get near our farmhouse. He chased them in the driveway, in the road and anywhere else he could find them. If they weren't moving, he chewed their tires. If they were moving, he barked, growled and snarled as he ran alongside them as they passed by.

Duke knew the dangers of automobiles and Mom needn't have worried about any child getting hit by a car. If you were walking with Duke along the street, he would lean against you and push you into the ditch or you would land in the shrubbery lining the roadway. It was hard to stay upright when walking with Duke, for he knew that the cars could kill or wound, and did his best to save our lives. Hopelessly, we would yell at him for pushing us so violently, but he was undeterred. We used to have to put Duke in the house, so that he would allow us to walk toward town.

Each dog we owned had his or her idiosyncricies. Every dog had its own personality. They were not provided with shots, nor the care of a veterinarian. They lived on "scraps," including potato peels and corncobs. They were all healthy and lived close to the age of twenty. Compare that to the hundreds of dollars I shell out yearly to keep Jedi fit and healthy.

We also had cats that lived in the barn and would patiently wait for my mother to milk the cows. Then she would squirt milk into their mouths as they hungrily lapped it up. They kept the barn free of mice and other rodents and slept in the piles of hay.

One of the most heartbreaking stories I have ever heard and seen is that of the animals left behind after Katrina. There they were, pictured on television, sitting on porches and trees, patiently awaiting their masters. Some of them became feral and ran from those people trying to catch them. Others just waited, loyal to the end. They were gathered up, but just how many were reunited with their owners is information never released. One wonders how many of them were destroyed after sitting for days in various pounds.

The law has now been passed that, in case of disaster, people being rescued can bring their pets along with them to the shelters. If the shelters cannot hold them, they must then be placed in a facility that will keep them safe until they can be reclaimed. This is a good law and it is always heartening when our legislators pass laws that actually help their constituents.

Today, take a minute and hug your dog. If you have the time, take him or her for a walk or play for a while in the yard. Remember that friends may come and go, but your dog will be loyal all his life. And his life is short, so he must cram a lot of love and loyalty into a few years time.
Visit the website that helps feed our abused and neglected animals and you will not be sorry you did. There has got to be a special haven for our pets in Heaven and special recognition for every person who takes the time to love their pet!

AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY

2009-02-10T15:47:00.003-05:00

For the past few weeks, I have watched the kindergarten games that are going on in Congress. Republicans have united to defeat Obama's Stimulus package, now renamed with some fancy moniker that doesn't change its nature. Since Rush Limbaugh announced publicly that he wants Obama to fail, the Republican Geese in Congress have tried to make sure that Rush gets his wish.

For eight years, these Yes Men nodded meekly every time George Bush spent money on his wars. He literally looted our lucrative Treasury with his invasion of Iraq and the "Reconstruction" that followed, a Reconstruction that made rich men out of many of the people involved, that gave some Iraqis enough money to build villas in Iran, gave companies huge payments to do shoddy work on buildings now half finished or falling down. In the meantime, the Geese bowed to their leader, proclaimed themselves an "arm of the Presidency" and agreed to each every cent of our money that was squandered, wasted and stolen!

It doesn't even seem as though they cared if this shoddy work killed our soldiers. With several soldiers electrocuted in their showers, there seemed to be no haste to fix the problem. How many were killed? One report said twelve soldiers, others say fewer than that. We'll never know, because these reports are not clarified for the public, who do not need to know.

What the hell has been going on in our country? Our traffic has gotten stalled on K Street! The pavement in Wall Street was paved in gold! Have we lost our minds? We have sat idly by while rich men with greedy ideas have ruined us. Our companies have fled to other countries, without a backward glance at the people who made them into industrial and manufacturing giants. Our jobs are fading away. We gather in huge crowds of cheering and weeping people and celebrate the election of a man who seems to care about the working man. Then what happens? Rush Limbaugh makes his proclamation and the Republicans comply, without a single iota of sympathy for the millions of Americans out of work.

Just as they ignored the millions that had no Health Care, they ignore the millions of Unemployed. They introduced Greed as their motto and lived up to it every day. The Wealthy were given tax cuts, the President was given carte blanche use of our money. They imposed no regulation at all on the banks, who were led by wealthy men garnering as much money as possible. Millions of subprime mortgages were issued, taking advantage of people who didn't read the fine print and listened to brokers that wanted their piece of the pie.

Now, our Republican Senators have suddenly become financial experts. These men and women, who agreed to every cockamamie, crooked idea that George Bush and Dick Cheney ever had, are suddenly worried about money. They aren't concerned about the jobs this Stimulus bill will bring. Since when did any Republican leader ever worry about jobs? They are happy that they have practically destroyed the Unions that protected American workers. They are happy that lumbertrucks are driving through our National Parks. They are happy that no hungry, desperate, miserable family can declare bankruptcy and retain their home. They are happy that they have finally reduced the American public to penniless, jobless, and homeless conditions.

They are definitely unhappy that torture has been removed from the American curriculum! "Why," they exclaim, "Obama is bringing those terrible cruel men onto American soil! They'll kill us all in our beds at night! Every one of them is a terrorist!" Thus, the climate of Fear continues, fear mixed with angry spite that they lost the election. Now, the only thing on their minds is how to win it all back as quickly as possible, and they will do anything, say anything, spread any rumor to get their way.

Can't you hear Rush Limbaugh?..."I don't feel sorry for the Unemployed, the lazy slobs...lolling about, enjoying life...when all they deserve is the chance to serve the Wealthy, who are the only people that matter among us! Praise God for all he has done for us rich folks, those that are Anointed and deserve the most in life!"

After having his say, Rush would return to his mansion to enjoy the spoils of his multi-million dollar contract, perhaps even enjoying an Oxycontin high! This wouldn't be so easy to say if Rush hadn't harped on Black drug addicts, saying they all belong in jail! It's always soothing to expose a hypocrite and Rush Limbaugh is just that!

This country elected Obama because they have had it with these Republican Rip-Offs who have squandered our money, kowtowed to their imperial leaders, and led us into a needless war. Now, Obama is trying to help the homeless and the jobless, while these charlatans throw every obstacle in his path. Obama believes he can unite the country, but can you unite with a nest of adders, spitting venom, so indignant that they lost power that they are willing to do anything to make Obama look bad? They even appointed a demonic-looking new Republican chairman who congratulated them on their Goose Egg approach, as though goose eggs will feed America's hungry children and pay the bills. Oh, well, silly Geese will lay eggs!

We have a President who has a vision, a dream of a modern America with the improvements it should have installed years ago, a country with fine buildings, repaired school buildings, an improved educational system, new, energy-efficient cars and buses, and trains that are not old black monoliths chugging along like relics of the past. He wants improved streets and safe bridges, and all of this will provide Americans with jobs, both now and in the future.

Too expensive, say the Republicans, who have agreed to every expenditure George Bush suggested, even tacking the expensive funding for the War in Iraq on top of our National Budget until the debt soared into the Heavens. As they begrudged the Seniors their Social Security, blathering about privatization, anxious to wreck that program, too, and starve our elderly as our jobs were disappearing, these fools did not do one thing....not one....to help the American public! Yet they pretend they care about the people, the very people who are citizens of this country they have demolished!

If this Stimulus Bill is not passed in a way that pleases our visionary young President, I urge him to declare a State of Emergency and take over the reins. Uniting with Republicans may well be an exercise in futility and, if we have to go through four years of Republican balkiness, bickering, boiling...just as if they didn't cause this financial mess...they'll never reach office again in this country.

Perhaps Republicans should learn that, although the Wealthy and the Powerful are important, it is still the Voters who elect politicians. The Radical Right has just about faded into limbo in this country, as it should. The people have spoken, and a new day dawns. Once Obama repairs the Election System in this country to keep the Republicans from purging voters, these fools won't have a chance. First, he has to repair the lack of jobs....and he will. It's a pity to disappoint Rush Limbaugh, the pink, pudgy Republican Guru, but we will do just that! Yes, we can! Yes, we will! It is an exercise in futility to think otherwise.

SINGING IN THE RAIN, SNOW AND SUNSHINE

2009-02-05T17:47:00.004-05:00

Mom didn't need in vitro fertilization to get pregnant. She was pregnant every two years, like clockwork. She had one stillborn baby, but the rest of us were hale and hearty. Helma weighed only two pounds, but she grew into a healthy child, her ailments behind her. Pop wanted thirteen children, but he had to be satisfied with twelve, and I believe it was Pop's idea to name us all with the same initials. This was a difficult thing to do, since the first names began with "H." Nothing can be more difficult than thinking up twelve names that begin with the letter "H." I believe they started making up names before they were through. Harlan Lavonne is an example. My poor brother, Deed, had to live with that Harlan Lavonne and still retain his dignity.

The news is filled with stories of a single mother who had eight babies, octuplets, some of them struggling for life. Discussions around every table in our country has involved the pros and cons of this event. Is it ethical to have eight babies in one fell swoop? Can this single mother, who lives with her parents, take care of this many babies properly, considering the fact that she has six other children? With her number of children, why was she permitted to have this procedure?

The key here, to me, is the grandmother. Evidently this woman has played a big part in raising these children and has reached the limit of her endurance. Explaining that her daughter has suffered some mental problems and is "obsessed with having babies," she went on to say that the thought of eight more babies to nurture filled her with dread.

In our world, so often the care of children falls to the grandparents. People in their seventies and even older have raised their own families, only to find themselves raising a second family, children they love intensely, but that call for every ounce of strength left in their aging bodies. I feel it even with my grandchildren, nerves that become frazzled more easily, physical strength that isn't there. It takes energy to entertain and nourish children, so I feel that, if you have to depend upon your parents to raise your children, it might be best to wait until you yourself can shoulder the burden. It is great for grandparents to adore and spoil their grandchildren. It is not so great to shoulder the task far beyond the time when your bones can carry the weight.

I never knew my grandparents. By the time I was born, my parents were well into middle age. As I grew up, they went from middle age to old age. I missed not having grandparents. When I heard other people talk about their beloved Grandmas and Grandpas, I always felt a pang in my heart. How wonderful it would have been to have that loving couple in my life, encouraging me, loving me, guiding me along the way. It was a void that was impossible to fill.

At the time I grew up, there were still many small farmers. They are an endangered species these days, with huge conglomerates taking over the role of producing food crops. Pop believed in having children, the boys for helping out on the farm, the girls to perform in the kitchen. Of course, Helma and I never lifted a finger in the kitchen. In the first place, the old wood stove was a source of danger to any child. In the second place, we had no interest in hard labor of any kind.

The only boys that Pop raised that one might call farmers at heart were Hubert and Herman.
They loved to putter about with Pop, walking behind the plow, taking care of the stock, working on the plow or the other machinery. Bud was more of an introspective youngster, always engrossed in his thoughts, reaching into books to learn the ways of the world. The earth, that productive soil that brought forth the crops Pop raised, had little interest to him. He spent his life working hard at his plating business, serving as a school board member, raising his children.

I have spent some time watching a series called LOST, trying to decipher its intricacies. As the plots weave and twist, I have noticed that there seems to be two heroes in this story, one a solid, reliable doctor named Jack; one a flamboyant, rather unreliable playboy called Sawyer. It is my contention that some women might be attracted to Jack for his steady reliability, while others might prefer the perils of life with the charismatic Sawyer. I would say that my brother, Bud, was a perfect Jack, steady, calm, dependable. Hubert was a Sawyer, attractive, independent, colorful.

These very different men were important in my young life. While they teased, cajoled, praised and criticized, their opinions were important to me and helped shape my views. While they were busy going about their lives, I was paying attention. I was watching them, listening, learning more from them than I did my elderly parents. I know very little of their lives with their wives, but I know they were great brothers and excellent sons.

Was it fair to the world for Mom and Pop to have so many children? It is for sure that they had little money to support them, but they had a great deal of love to go around. As children, we didn't realize that the whole world didn't consist of kids in the same boat we were sailing in, a world of tattered shoes, fading lineoleum and homemade bread. That some children lived with nannies, expensive toys, private schools and luxurious homes did not even occur to us. It was so far removed from our world that we didn't even realize it existed. We may have been poor, but we had enough to eat, we had clothes on our backs, a great many children in the family to play with, and elders to guide our behavior.

We also had that playground, that farm, with its swamps, its lake, its fields of wild grasses, its valleys and hills. We ran and played as the sun toasted our flesh while the wind rustled our hair. It was a life of freedom, of complete independence, of pure, unadulterated joy. We were one with the sun, the snow and the furious downpour. We were as close to nature is possible to be. What child needs more than this?

SISTERS

2009-01-30T22:21:00.004-05:00

At our last Family Reunion, which we have every year on the date closest to our mother's birthday, I walked with Helma to the wooden structure that housed the Park restrooms. I held her arm, because her legs seemed to be incapable of holding herself up. She was pathetically thin, just a wisp of a woman, her hair glistening white in the sun, clinging to my arm. I held her up as we walked slowly up the slanted hillside, the grass crunchy and dry surrounding us, the heat from the sun relentless as it can be during Michigan's short summers. Slowly, step by step, we moved forward until we reached the restroom.

As we walked, I thought of the two girls we had been so many years ago, walking with arms entwined down the driveway, peeking at the tall grasses and tumbled brush around us, looking for snakes. It seemed to us that every stick, every dry branch on the ground was the head of a snake peering out at us. Our hearts beat with naked fear, our arms trembled as we clutched each other, our legs threatened to give way.

Snakes were our enemy. Snakes surrounded our lives in the summertime, lurking in the grass, appearing mystically in our path, a dreaded enemy. If we saw a snake, we ran as fast as we could toward home, toward Mom and her broomstick, toward safety. I will never forget the sheer terror of those walks and the feeling of relief as we reached the door to the house, spared once again from a grisly death from snakebite, from one of those slimy, evil creatures springing upward to spit their vicious venom into our veins.

Later, when I married, my husband used to joke about my terror of snakes. He claimed that I could spot a snake in the grass from a mile away. He wasn't afraid of snakes and would pick up a garter snake, tuck it in his shirt, and come over to give me a kiss and a hug. When I saw the snake, which I never failed to do, I would shriek and run back toward the house. My five sons thought it was the funniest thing ever! They didn't realize I was reliving the experiences of those youthful years with my sister.

Helma married very young. There was only two years between us but, after she married, it was as if she graduated into adulthood, while I was left behind in childhood, so we lost the closeness we had had when we were very young. She was very pretty with dark, lustrous hair, a creamy complexion, and the pale green eyes that were so prevalent in our family. Mom claimed that Helma took after her, that she had looked just like Helma in her youth. Since I never saw a youthful picture of my mother, I could not check that out. Still, I was a bit disgruntled by it all, because I was compared to Aunt Dorrie, who was short, overweight and wrinkled. I didn't have enough sense to realize that Aunt Dorrie had probably been a beauty in her youth.

Eventually, Helma had her first three children. Bobby Joe, Diana and Kathy. I adored those children. They would throng around me, calling me Aunt Boy, and clamoring for a story. Diana and Kathy were much like their mother and me. They were constantly at odds over just about everything. Kathy called Diana "Nose," and Diana retaliated by calling Kathy "Feet." Being with them always brought me back to the days when Helma and I were very young and constantly thinking up things to make each other miserable.

I used to have a hiding place on my bedpost. There was a round brass ball that could be unscrewed from the post. In that ball, I hid my treasures...poems I had written, a pretty rock, a sparkling piece of glass! Naturally, Helma found it, and felt compelled to read my poems aloud. I was mortified.

"Someday I'll be a famous poet!" I told her.

She was scornful! "You'll starve to death!" she said. "Poets live in attics and starve to death."

As we grew up, Helma became my self-appointed guardian. When I became a Clark Gable fan and ripped a picture of him out of a magazine at Harry's Drug Store, she discovered it.

"I'm going to tell Mom!" she said.

"It fell out of the magazine," I insisted. "I just picked it up off the floor"

"That's not true! You're going to jail! You're a thief!"

This was too much for me, so I bopped her. This gave her two things to tell Mom, who lectured me about stealing and about hitting my sister. Mom never really disciplined us, but would sigh and roll her eyes as though raising two girls so close in age was a burden difficult to bear. I lost quite a bit of sleep that night worrying about that remark about jail. I could see myself facing a judge and trying to explain my attraction to Clark Gable. As the days passed by, I realized that the incident was forgotten and Helma was already working on more important things, like her hair.

Her favorite hairdo was a pageboy, with a cultured wave curling over her forehead. She worked to make that wave stay in position in just the right way. I would watch her, sitting at a chair in the kitchen, my own hair a thick pile of dark straw, and try to think of some derisive, horror-inspiring ridicule to slather on that wave.

"Looks like Prince's mane!" I said finally. She turned to look at me, cute as a button, the wave plastered into a perfect shape.

"Look at you, strawhead!" was her retort. "Now, girls!" my mother called from the next room, "Don't get started!" At this point, Helma and I would look at each other in silent contempt, snort prettily and walk away from each other.

Several years ago, I attended Helma and Joe's 60th Wedding Anniversary Celebration. Someone had fashioned a board where pictures of Helma at various stages of her life were pinned up for viewing. One picture caught my attention. There was Helma on the beach, hair in place, serene and smiling. Behind her, like a dark cloud over the bright sun, was me, hair a tousled, ominous pile, my dark skin making Helma's fair complexion glow in comparison. Though we looked somewhat alike, it was like the glowing Fairy Princess and the glowering Gypsy Queen.

As we walked up that slight hill toward the Park restroom, I realized how much I loved this little slip of a woman, and how much I had loved her as a girl, when we bickered and complained and drove our mother into tears with our nonsense. She was bossy, superior, aggravating and nonsensical, but she was my beloved sister. She still is, and I hope she knows that this love was there all along, as it is with Kathy and Diana, as it is with sisters everywhere.

FEAR OF AUTOMOBILES

2009-01-28T18:10:00.004-05:00

There are 115 auto deaths every day in the United States. Every 13 minutes, some person dies in an automobile accident. More than 650,000 people died last year in automobile accidents. Yet it is hardly mentioned in newspapers or on television, unless it concerns a celebrity, and yet Americans still shiver in their Fear of Terror!

Not that they shouldn't, because Islamic radicals are clearly a threat to our country. However, using the statistics, we clearly should fear automobiles just as much, if not more, than we do terrorism. We can protect ourselves from terror, with our Intelligence Agencies working together along with information from other countries and a close watch on our borders. But what can we do about people who whiz along highways at excessive speeds, weave in and out of traffic, and endanger their lives and the lives of others who are traveling alongside them?

These statistics do not include the number of people hospitalized and seriously injured in auto accidents. Thousands of people have sustained injuries that require care for a lifetime in one way or another. The truth is, we have an enemy in our midst, and that enemy is the car that we use to take us from one place to another. We cannot live without them, we feel, but we are risking our lives and our health by just pulling out on a street.

In the past eight years, we have been brought to a fever pitch by Fear of Terror. It behooved our leaders to repeat this phrase again and again, because it kept their intention of eternal war alive in the minds of their listeners. At one time, much of our country's Treasury was used to equip every hamlet, every small town village, every town, every city, with equipment to use in case of a terror attack.

Most of the towns had little knowledge of just how to spend this money. Some of them bought equipment that was more amusing than helpful. One town, located by a lake, bought underwater diving equipment. Another equipped the police force with Segways. Now, one cannot say that deepsea diving in a lake might not come in handy during a terror attack, nor can one say that Segways wouldn't prove helpful to take the police from one place to another. But, many town officials admitted they just didn't exactly know what to do with the money they were issued and spent it on projects far removed from terror.

In many ways, the Fear of Terror reminds me of what happened in World War II, when fear was also at a fever pitch. It was said that a Japanese submarine was sighted off the coast of California and people feared that Japanese spies within our country might signal this boat with vital information, even though few of us had any vital information.

It got so bad that, if you met an Oriental in a grocery store, you were paralyzed with fear. You eyed him with suspicion until he had left the premises, then discussed how suspicious he looked with your fellow shoppers. It all culminated in the Japanese being place in Internment Camps, uprooted from their homes and taken to various locations where they were guarded closely. Never mind that many of their children were serving in the U.S. military. Never mind that many of them had lived in this country as good citizens for many years. They were imprisoned because of Fear and Fear is a powerful weapon. It can turn peace into war as fast as the blink of an eyelid.

I hear remnants of this fear in many places. I hear people who are enraged that Obama talked with the Muslims. In their mind, it seems that all Muslims are radical, that no Muslim mother or father wants peace and prosperity, that Muslims are born with a killer instinct and foremost in their minds is killing Americans.

Some of these people are well-versed in the Jewish-Arab wars and confrontations and have horrifying memories of these battles. They have dodged bullets and have seen the horrors of war. Because of these experiences, they consider Muslims as the enemy. Their anger and fear is a result of their experiences and they can only see the word "Muslim" as synonymous with terror.

I am no Middle Eastern expert, but I do know that terrorists, for the most part, come from a society that is dismally poor. They resent Americans in the Arab lands and, in some cases, have reason to do so. Unfortunately, we have a history of backing the monsters that become dictators in the Middle East, like the Shah of Iran and, at one time, even Saddam Hussein. We have used these monsters when needed, then dropped them like hot potatoes when the need was over. The rise of Osama bin Laden came about after the Americans abandoned Afghanistan following the war with the Russians. Had we stayed there, one could imagine the Taliban never rising to power, and Osama bin Laden living without his band of brothers, Al Queda. We promised Afghanistan help that we did not give, partly because the hope of an oil pipeline from a former Russian province rich with oil which was to snake its way through Afghanistan did not come to fruition, even though contracts had already been signed.

Who knows? Whatever the reasons, I believe that Obama is right in talking with Muslims. To me, it is a brilliant strategy. Obama is sophisticated, world-traveled, multi-national. Some of his family are Muslim. He has lived for a while in Indonesia and saw the pits of poverty there. He has developed a vast knowledge of various cultures in the world, yet he is an American Christian, loyal to our people. What a great find he is! The Muslims listened carefully to what he said. They are used to George W. Bush rattling sabers, mouthing threats, and stubbornly clinging to his "mistake" in Iraq. To have an American President treat them like the human beings they are might just influence them to help put an end to the radical element.

Just as the last election put an end to the radical element in this country, the Jesus Camps, the torture of prisoners, the endless, secretive, imperial orders, we will solve the problem of terrorism far more quickly if we try to understand the mindset of the people they walk among. In our Bible, we are commanded...and the word is commanded....to love our neighbor. This is the most important Commandment and is as important as, and equal to, love of God. This from the lips of Jesus, and one of the most difficult commands to obey.

Speaking to our supposed enemies, using diplomacy to pave the way to our goals, acting like human beings instead of animals is the smart way to go. One doesn't have to turn into a barbarian to fight barbarians, and one should never consider any person a barbarian simply because of a difference in religion and culture, because they are as important to God as you or me.

As for fear, we all have a lot of them tucked away into the recesses of our mind. As Americans right now, we have a lot of fearful issues, the economic collapse of our country, the lack of jobs, the homelessness, the desperation. We must be alert to terror strikes; we must be watchful for homeland lunatics, skinheads, maniacs who walk into restaurants or schoolrooms with guns, as well as the worry about paying the rent and affording food. We just have to put our fears in perspective and, with a great faith in the future of America, try to treat them rationally.

THE DIET GUIDE FOR DUMMIES

2009-01-23T11:51:00.003-05:00

The test of true friendship is in a question I used to ask my niece, Sis, several times a week.

"Do you think I am fat?" I would ask, twirling around to give her a good look at my plump, fourteen-year old body.

"No," she would always answer, even though we both knew she was not being honest, but my feelings were soothed for a short time at least and our friendship was cemented by that one untruthful answer that hovers around every relationship.

"Does this dress look good on me?" "Do you like my hair this way?" "Is my nose too big?" "Do you like this color on me?" "Am I too tall...short...thin...fat...mouthy...quiet...popular"?...and the beat goes on. It is the duty of a true friend to gamely lie, no matter what her real opinion might be.

The first diet I ever went on was called the Grapefruit Diet. Evidently eating a grapefruit with every meal was supposed to cause the acid in the grapefruit to gnaw away at your fat deposits and turn your body into sylphlike proportions. Whatever it was supposed to be, it did not work at all, possibly because I ladled a pound of sugar on each piece of fruit, and its only effect was a hearty dislike of grapefruit that has lasted to this very day.

The matter of lying to soothe feelings caused me some problems in Florida. A very nice neighbor there insisted upon giving me a basket of grapefruit from her backyard tree. Dutifully, I ate them....juiced them, scowled at them, quartered them, hated them, until I had finished them all.

Then I met the neighbor on the sidewalk and she inquired how I had liked her homegrown grapefruit. "Delicious!" I lied. "I ate every one of them! The best grapefruit I have ever tasted."

So, the next morning, I found another huge basket of glowing grapefruit on the doorstep and was again plagued by the problem of disposing of them. I solved it by bringing them back to Michigan and found that it is easier to give away zucchini than it is to give away grapefruit. With zucchini, it is summertime, and one can hide a few of them in the back of every car that drives up. With grapefruit coming from Florida to Michigan at the tail end of wintertime, it isn't so easy.

I gave up the Grapefruit Diet and decided to give up lunches. The thing is, while I was successful in giving up lunches, I added a liberal midnight snack. Then, I decided to put my Fat Picture up on my Refrigerator Door and give up eating entirely. This lasted two days until I became so hungry I smeared mustard on the picture and ate it.

In my quest to find a successful diet, I decided the problem was Accessibility. If no good food were available, how could I possibly eat it? I would get very thin. In fact, I might even reach invisible! So, I refrained from cleaning my refrigerator for weeks and allowed everything to mildew and rot. It was exciting and educational, because there were great purple blobs with yellow streaks that had formerly been a meatloaf, there were red and green hairy looking things that I finally identified as potatoes. There was a big black chunk of shriveled charcoal-like substance that had formerly been a chocolate cake.

This experiment did not help, because I decided that, since my refrigerator was a ghastly sight, undoubtedly filled with ecoli and salmonella and God knows what other frightful killer, I had better spend my time in restaurants, sampling their heartiest fares. So then I joined Weight Watcher's.

Currently, Weight Watcher's has a point system, where you are allowed only enough points daily to melt off those layers of fat. When I joined it, the meals were carefully laid out, with some foods known as Free Food. Free Food is any food that tastes like water, has few calories, and is as far from a banana cream pie as you can get. Meat is carefully weighed, as are any vegetable that you can get your teeth into. The consumption of fish is encouraged, but never fried. "Fried" was synonymous with early death from a hoglike gobbling of calories! St. Peter would meet you at the Gate and accuse you of at least six of the seven deadly sins, including gluttony! One could not fry. Boiled, baked, stewed, raw....but never, never fried!

The highlight of each week was a Weigh In Session, where every ounce of you is weighed. Holding your breath won't help. Neither will an appendectomy, tonsilectomy or a complete gutting of your inner organs. That scale is diabolical, those numbers are truth! You've chowed down a seven course dinner complete with dessert...Admit it!

During the meeting, the lecturer goes over the weight of each member. Her eagle eye lands on your chart and you are subjected to a Guilt Trip of mammoth proportions, as you helplessly claim that you just don't know why you had that gain. Perhaps it's in the water or a mysterious gene inherited from grandparents. You just aren't going to revisit that doughnut! You just aren't going to tell about eating those soft dinner buns, laden with butter and melting in the mouth. No way!

Then I ran across the Fat Free Diet. All one had to do is exercise thirty minutes a day and eat no fat. Easy! Does banana cream pie contain fat? Of course not. God wouldn't allow it! I bought a book telling the fat content of everything including my bedposts. Hardly anything except celery is fat free. Fat seems to invade every ounce of food, like a cat burglar on a rooftop trying to steal the money from your purse, but I was determined. Not a single gram of fat would I allow into my body. I was fat AND fatfree, how wonderful is that?

So I heard about the Atkin's Diet. No wonder I am fat, I decided indignantly. I've been completely Fat Free and now I know that I must be Carb Free instead. Here I am, an American citizen, supposedly free, and I am vastly confused as to what I am supposed to be free from! So I began eating huge portions of meat, followed by cheese, and salads the size of the Grand Canyon. The trouble was, the more meat I consumed, the more I yearned for a slice of bread. In my mind, a single slice of soft bread meant more than life itself. A single slice of bread was a taste of nectar, a bit of Valhalla, a paradise on earth! I could not endure one more bite of meat and salads, while hearty food for a rabbit, were nauseating just to think about. Think of all the animals being killed for the purpose of obese people selfishly wanting to be thin! Think of the rabbits those salads could feed, hungry little rabbits being deprived of all that lettuce!

Now, I have discovered a method of Breathing. Breathe in, breathe out, the weight is supposed to fly away like a tarp in a windstorm. How easy is that? It has a double meaning, as well. As long as I'm breathing, I know I am still among the living, and as long as I am among the living, I can seek out the Twinkies, sneak a Snicker's, and dive into a chocolate pudding.

So, you see, I am a Dieting Expert, able to give advice to others. Obesity is a problem in our country, especially overweight children, and I can give tips to desperate people...not on how to lose weight, but exactly what they should NOT do. If you do not follow my example, you will soon look like a twig. It's guarranteed. I plan to write a book about it...The Diet Guide for Dummies! Ignore my advice and you'll be slim and fashionable and able to fit into leotards without them refusing to slide over your bottom. You can wear stylish clothing without looking pregnant even when you are several years past menopause. Just follow everything I have told you today..and do exactly the opposite.

Mark Twain said that it is easy to diet. He claimed to have lost a thousand pounds, the same five pounds again and again. I have done far better than Mark. I have lost a thousand dollars trying to lose five pounds. It is far easier to lose money than it is to lose weight!

THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE

2009-01-16T14:45:00.003-05:00

Everyone needs someone. You can desert civilization and wander into the desert or the forest and give up relationships forever, but you'll end up eccentric and lonely, mumbling to yourself and nursing old grudges best forgotten. This kind of resentment gave birth to the Unibomber, who left his family behind to work on his dissertations and stun the world with his violence and anger toward the establishment he had forsaken, wallowing in his madness.

While some periods of loneliness are good for the soul and nothing replenishes the spirit like a walk in the woods or a climb to a mountaintop, too much solitude...unless one is Thoreau and is writing classic novels about it....can result in rancor and bitterness. Thus, we humans cling to our mates, nurture our children, and usually become a part of a community of some sort, needing the comfort of other people around us. We may have different backgrounds, different outlooks, different beliefs, but when the chips are down, we share a common humanity.

When I was a child, living on the Farm, I was usually surrounded by people. Occasionally I would take to the orchard to spend a few hours alone. I would walk through the pasture and pause by the apple trees, perhaps climbing the gnarled branches to sit for a while. Then I would wander down by the lake and toss a few pebbles in the water. Why are people so fascinated with the water when it is rippling from the impact of a stone? We stare at the rings, these miniature waves we have caused, and somehow it reminds us of human relationships, the water reaching out to form a ripple, then widening into a single big circle, perhaps like the circle of life, first births, then living through joys and sorrows only to reach our deaths. After these circles have calmed, the water is serene and peaceful, as if that stone had never disturbed its tranquility, just as life goes on long after we are just a memory.

My family was big, boisterous, good-looking, generous and sometimes foolish. We got together on Sundays and would form baseball games that ended in mayhem and make ice cream that melted like nectar in the mouth. We gathered around the old piano and sang. My brothers plucked their guitar strings and harmonized. Like most families, we had our arguments and these were usually loud and lasted for weeks or even months before they were forgotten.

For several years, Hubert and Bud had a falling out of some sort. I forget the reason, but I think it concerned money. Family arguments are usually over money or who did what for Mom and Dad. This one concerned money and both of them were adamant that the other was dead wrong in his reasoning. The controversy was enhanced by the fact that Connie, Bud's wife, insulted Gerry, Hubert's wife's painting. Gerry painted several pictures and one of them hangs on my wall today, a prized possession, and I think she was quite talented, if I am a judge of such matters. Connie made a remark about a painting that Gerry resented, which kept the fireworks going.

For a while, we divided into two camps. Bud's group, who agreed with Bud's reasoning, and Hubert's assortment of supporters. For me, it was catastrophic, for I adored both of my brothers and to see them refusing to stay in a room with each other was traumatic. One had to be on guard at family gatherings to make sure that one wife or the other was not neglected. I would sit by Gerry and talk for a while, then sneak over to Connie for a chat with her, hoping my methods were not noticed.

Because both Hubert and Bud were the mainstays of our family group, for a while, the family gatherings diminished. Then it was decided to carry on with all of our meetings, hoping that the two would reconcile.

Reconcile they did. Bud began to show the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease, his hands shaking, his speech faltering. His condition was upsetting and how tenderly we would help him from the car and into the house to a chair. To see this man, who had always been sturdy and agile, begin to lose control of his movements was difficult to bear. Then, all arguments forgotten, all resentments banished, at his side was always Hubert. Patiently, he helped Bud move around, always gentle and helpful. If caring people could halt that disease, Bud would have flourished and regained his health.

One cannot halt the spread of a disease where no cure has been found and the remedies are often more deadly than a cure. Bud took medicine that made him seem immobile, that froze his face into an expressionless mask, that made his walk even more faltering. It was an agony to watch him slowly regress, but the day finally came when Connie was unable to keep him at home.

Bud stayed in a nursing home just a block from his home, and Hubert was a constant visitor. They did not talk, they did not recall their years together, but sat in silent harmony. These two brothers, so close in their boyhood, did not have to talk to share their emotions. In the touch of a hand, Hubert could convey his love for his brother and his sorrow that their happy, carefree years were over. As I watched them, I always saw the two boys on horseback, riding through the hills and paths of the woods, yodeling and calling to each other, brown from the sun, their young, lithe bodies swaying with the movements of the old plowhorses they rode.

If either of them could reach through that dark curtain that separates life from death, if either of them could speak to us today, I know that they would regret those years of not speaking, of letting some problem become more important than their friendship. Perhaps it is a lesson we all should learn as we travel life's highway, threading our way through the traffic. Perhaps each of us should take a moment today to do what Jesus commanded, "Forgive!" That highway is difficult enough to maneuver, without adding the burden of grudges and resentments. The intricacies of family life are sometimes a bumpy road, with potholes lurking in the path ahead.

We all need someone, every one of us. We grow up, forget the joy of being young, of having a close friendship with another young traveler, settle into adult life and start collecting our good times and our bad. We weather the storms along the way, and sometimes that highway of life is slippery, with a deep ditch looming ahead. We can fall into that ditch and mire down in the mud, or we can pull ourselves forward along a smoother path.

Sometimes, when life seems glum and challenging, with a day that has been filled with rude people, recalcitrant cars and overwhelming bills, I think of those two happy boys riding the wilderness of trees and brush in the sunshine of a long gone summer day, and I see the two old men in a nursing home, one in bed with a terminal disease and the other sitting faithfully by his side, and I know that there are some things worth fighting to keep, some things too precious to forget. How fortunate are those who do have somebody to ride beside them on that perilous highway and sometimes take over at the wheel.

FLYING THE FRANTIC SKIES

2009-01-07T15:27:00.004-05:00

Once again, I am packing my bags and heading for the hinterland. I am going to Las Vegas to see my late brother's family. When I think of taking this trip, I am reminded of the last time I ventured forth to fly the skies over America.

It was the Christmas season and I decided to head for Montana to spend a Christmas with my granddaughter. I spent the night before my flight at a hotel and awoke the next morning to park my car in a Park and Ride lot, taking a little bus to the airport.

I had to change planes in Utah. The airport there was so crowded one would have thought Obama was making a speech. We were elbow-to-elbow in the waiting room, all chairs full, people standing beside each other, waiting patiently, Carry-Alls resting on the floor beside them.

I was approached by an airport employee, a young man pushing an empty wheelchair. Evidently his job was to find weary elderly travelers and give them a place to rest before they keeled over. He asked if I wanted to sit down and I said I did, indeed. I also wanted to take my traveling companion, my dog Jedi, outside for what I delicately call her "Sniff," before boarding another plane.

Off we went and this young man pushed me for what seemed to be at least a mile before we exited the building. Then we had a little trouble finding grass, a sparse commodity in Utah. We settled for some rocks and Jedi hopped over them like an experienced mountain climber. The Sniff completed, the young man pushed me back into the airport, through security, and back toward the gate where my plane would arrive.

I knew I should tip him, so I located a five dollar bill and tucked it into the front of my wallet. When he had delivered me to my location, I gave him the money and thanked him profusely, then finally boarded my plane. When I had reached my seat, I checked my wallet and found that I had tipped the young man a fifty dollar bill. The five dollar bill was still resting in my wallet. I decided the young man probably thought Christmas morning had arrived a little early.

I had a nice visit in Montana with my granddaughter and returned home, this time laying over in Minnesota. No problems! The flight went smoothly. Then I arrived at Detroit Metro. Laden with two suitcases, a Carry All, my purse and my dog, I knew I had to find a cart. The cart cost a dollar. All I had was a five dollar bill and larger bills. I knew I had to find change, but how to find it carrying two suitcases, a Carry All, my purse and my dog was beyond me. I halted several passers-by, but not one had change for a five. I finally used my credit card, charging a dollar to my tab. I piled my luggage in the cart and Jedi and I happily left the airport.

Then I went to wait for my Park and Ride Bus outside the airport. An hour later, I was still waiting. I was also freezing. So I went into the airport to persuade someone to call the Park and Ride office and ask them if any bus was in service. I asked an airline employee about the phones, explaining that I needed to find out about a Park and Ride bus. She pointed outside.

"There's one right there!"

Sure enough, my Park and Ride bus was just pulling away from the curb. So, realizing that they were at least in service, I went back outside. An hour later, another bus arrived. I boarded it, hauling my two suitcases, Carry All, purse and dog. We took up most of the space on the bus. Then, when we arrived at the Park and Ride yard where my car was parked, I found I had no change for the driver of the bus. I had to give him my five dollar bill. By that time I would have given him my remaining money, my right arm and my purse just to get me to my car.

My car was completely covered with snow. I put Jedi and the suitcases in the car, after I defrosted the keyhole by holding my frigid hand over it and blowing into the keyhole slot with my frigid breath. I was standing kneedeep in snow as I raked with a gloved hand on my crusted windshield. Finally, I scratched out a peephole in the front window and another peephole in the rear window and started driving toward home, swearing that I would never, ever again travel in the wintertime.

But here I go again. I shall visit with my brother's family. I will view Las Vegas, the city where I once lived for five years. Will I get near the gaming tables or the slots? What are you suggesting? Me? Gamble? How could you suggest such a thing? Shame!

BARACK, THE MAGIC PEACEKEEPER

2009-01-06T15:24:00.004-05:00

I am no expert on Israeli-Palestinian history, nor do I have any solutions to the hostile emotions that have led them to what seems to be perpetual conflict. What I do have is personal emotions that react to stories of civilians being slaughtered in the wake of a 9,000 force invasive Army.

To live as Israel has done for as long as I can remember, with missiles and Suicide Bombers wreaking havoc when least expected, has got to be the worst way to live. Think about it. If you go to the market, visit a restaurant, take a bus, send your kids to school....an explosion could demolish your family with no warning.

We can't blame the Israeli for their anger at this constant problem. After all, we did invade Afghanistan when the World Trade Center and its neighboring building went down. Our country rose up in communal indignation and cheered at the thought of retaliating for this horror.

Yet here we are, praying that India will not retaliate for the ruthless destruction in Mombai, that bombs will not result from the clues that the Pakistani terrorists were responsible for this carnage. The worry is doubled because both Pakistan and India have nuclear capabilities and their wrath could cause considerable damage to the world's environment.

We did not ask that Israel show the same restraint, but rather asked Hamas to halt the missiles that are being sent daily over Israel. It's as though we understand the reasons for war in one situation, but deplore the reasons in another. These things make world events very difficult to comprehend, especially for an amateur like me.

For a long time, I have cheered the Jewish people. They have created a "flower in the desert," a flourishing society where each person has worked hard for success. Our dollars have helped them, with governmental funds and with monies gathered from almost every Church in our nation. We have helped them and supported them and encouraged them in every way. They are the keepers of religious artifacts and locations that are a parcel and part of our Christian beliefs. This is also true of the Islamic artifacts and location, as well as the Jewish. It is a combustible fact that Israel is located in a religious bombshell, where several religious faiths meet headon.

But what about Pakistan? What I read concerns poverty, of people in camps, of hunger and privation and misery. How can hatred not feed of itself if all of this is true? How can resentment not become a burning flame in the heart? How could we tolerate a successful, powerful Israel...supported by our dollars and our good will...and ignore hungry, ragged children and people living in want of basic necessities? What is going on over there?

Sometimes I wish I had the advice of a person or persons who had knowledge of this area, knowledge of events and places, someone who could melt the stories and articles we read into a paragraph of truth. The trouble is, any person like this one meets either supports Israel and understands its problems, or supports Palestine completely. Have we supported Israel at the expense of Pakistani people in need of help? The stories of the children in Gaza, and in this crowded area, it is said there are 50% children, are heartrending and cruel.

A friend of mine pointed out that the same situation holds true of Mexico, that next door to what has been the richest nation in the world is an impoverished, needy country of people held forfeit by a corrupt government and a successful drug trade. When hordes of these needy, hungry people storm over our borders to work for pittances in American jobs, we are not then so generous; we do not greet them with compassion, but hire guards to stop the flow and begrudge their plight.

However, so far we have not stormed the Mexican borders with a 9,000 strong military, subjecting them to airstrikes and a hail of explosions. This is going on today in Gaza and, if prayer will do it, let's pray that somewhere there is a time for peace and that time is now. I cannot sort out the rights or wrongs of this situation, but I do know that those people who choose war over peace will live to see their grandchildren die. It has been said that wars are declared by the old to be fought by the young, and this holds true of every nation. It is our young of tomorrow that will pay for the wars being fought by the young of today!

For the children of Gaza and the children of Israel, let's hope there is some way for peace in those countries. Every president we have elected has tried to make it come about, but each has come to the threshold of success only to meet failure. Can Obama use his powers of persuasion and his grip on common sense to make any headway on a peace treaty? Will he be the one who can finally bring peace to this troubled, historical land? Will he be able to bring food, money and medical help to Palestinians in Gaza and a cease of Hamas' missile strikes in Israel? Will his powers of persuasion, the charisma that brings 200,000 people to hear a single speech be able to soothe the hatreds of people so immersed in resentment that they threaten to annihilate each other?

If so, Barack the Magic Negro, as the Republicans scathingly sing, will truly bring magic to the world!

SOUP AND SOMETHING ELSE!

2008-12-25T20:08:00.005-05:00

How well I remember those winters, so much fiercer than the ones we have had up until Global Warming has brought more snow and moisture to our air. I remember the thumping of the Tree of Paradise as it was blown by the wind against the kitchen window, a cadence kept up throughout the day, as the old kitchen stove blazed fiercely, carrying its burden of pots and pans.

"Let me in! Let me in!" the wind was saying, "Let me in before I blow the house down and freeze the flesh from your bones with my wintry chill!"

The kitchen was the warmest room in the house, and Mom would ladle her soups from the pots, soups that warmed the body and kept away the cold, soups that seemed to thumb their noses at the freezing temperatures outside. There was bean soup with its flavor of onions, cooked to a smooth and hearty texture. There was potato soup, made hearty with a dollop of milk and thickened with flour to just the right consistency. Those soups would take away the chill from the air and make the howling of the wind outside seem far away.

Eventually, someone had to go out for wood, as it was stored in the shed outside. Hubert always claimed that he thought his name was "Get Wood" until he was eighteen years old. The unlucky woodgatherer was chosen and given his or her marching orders! Then the door would be opened and the blast of snow and wind would swirl through, battling the waves of heat from the blazing stove and sending shivers down your back.

It took a fierce blizzard to keep me inside back then, before I became the weather-conscious cowering weakling I seem to be today. I ventured out to the orchard in wind that could have downed a plane and tramped through the snowdrifts in shoes that barely covered my feet. Snow and wind exhilarated me back then, as I explored the wonder of a frozen world covered with a blanket of white. I was frequently joined by my nieces and nephews, who would join me in a snowball fight or in the joy of sliding down a hill into Red River Valley, where the snow was so deep, it was a struggle to stay upright.

When Christmas rolled around, the entire family arrived, driving cars of various vintage. Herman's car always managed to make it in the snow-covered driveway, even though it sputtered and complained. The kids would spill out of the car, eager for a Christmas at the Farm. Soon, they had all arrived, all eleven of my brothers and sisters and their families. The quiet farmhouse reverberated with the sounds of their happy voices. Mom had made soup in her largest kettles, had mixed up a meat loaf, peeled a mountain of potatoes, and there was always enough to go around. She would send me to the cellar to bring up the jars of corn, beans and apples that she had canned at harvest time.

How I hated to go to that dark, cold and eerie cellar, with its hanging curtains of spider webs and its pile of potatoes growing weird white arms that reached out to grab you as you passed. I would hurry to the shelves of canned goods and try to carry all of the jars at once, trying not to smash them on the earthen floor as I scurried back up the stairs. There were ghosts down there; I knew they were there. I could feel their presence and the hair on my arms would stand upright and a chill would come over my body. Who were they, these hovering spirits who came back from the dead to wither my soul and covet my body? Who were they?

One Christmas, I told Bud about the spirits. He scoffed at me and told me I was being silly. "There aren't any ghosts in the cellar!" he said emphatically. "It's too chilly down there! Ghosts like to keep warm!"

I wasn't sure about that, because I didn't know where Bud got his information. "Yes, they are there!" I insisted. "I can show you!"

So Bud and I went into the storeroom where Mom kept the jugs of milk. It was as cold in there as it was outside, and not much warmer when we opened the cellar door. Bud followed me down the narrow wooden stairway and swatted away the cobwebs that would hit you in the face as you descended. I led him to the center of the cellar and motioned for him to stand quietly, so the ghosts would make themselves known.

"You can't make any noise," I whispered. "They hide if you make noise!"

Sure enough, after we had stood quietly for a few moments, a long, low, horrifying moan came from the corner of the room, behind the huge mound of potatoes with their earthen smell and their pale white arms.

"See!" I hissed. "I told you!"

The moan came again, a tortured sound, as though some spirit was suffering the horrors of Hell. I gulped and stood as close to Bud as I could get, resisting an urge to sprint back up the stairs.

"It's just the wind," Bud explained. "It is coming through the cracks in the door."

"The door is over there!" I replied. "That noise is over here, behind the potatoes." I was shivering violently and began to cry, tears dripping down my cheeks. Bud was beginning to exasperate me. Why was it grown-ups were so dense?

"Okay," Bud said. "The fun's over! Come out now!" His voice was firm and I began to believe that even a ghost would not dare to defy Bud when he spoke with such firm authority. I braced myself for the sight of decaying, emaciated bodies...perhaps even piles of skeletal bones...to come marching out of the darkened corners of that dank and odorous place.

After a pause, I saw a movement behind the potatoes. Once again, I struggled to stay where I was standing and not run screaming up the stairs. Then, in the cavernous darkness of that cellar, I saw the skinny figure of my brother Deed emerge from the stack of potatoes, grinning from ear to ear.

"You're scaring your sister," scolded Bud. "Just come on out of there and behave!"

Properly contrite, Deed moved toward the stairs, but couldn't resist a triumphant glance in my direction. I swore to myself that I would pay him back with a torturous revenge that would make him suffer an agonizing death. Bud moved toward the shelves of food.

"Now what did Mom want?"

"Two corns, two beans, three apples!" I replied, my voice still trembling, and helped him locate the food. Despite my relief at finding out that the moaning came just from another prank by my tormentor, Deed, I was still not convinced that evil spirits did not inhabit the cellar, so I hurried with our task and was happy to trot up the stairs.

Throughout our years on the Farm, my neices and nephews played in every corner of every building. We explored the barn, climbed the rafters, wandered through the cow barn with its row of hanging iron stanchions. We wandered through the chicken coop, hunting for eggs, and played in the attic, where the stovepipe from the kitchen emitted enough heat to keep us warm, but we never went near the cellar. We knew instinctively that there were forces at work in the cellar that were too terrible to behold. In that damp, dingy darkness, there were the slight rustlings of souls long gone, souls contemplating past deeds too evil to allow them a moment's rest.

We knew, as we played on that long ago Christmas Day, that there were events in this world that were beyond our comprehension, that although we played in a world of sunshine and happiness, there was a world of darkness and suffering somewhere beyond. Just as Charlie's heart thumped an uneven rythmn of swishing beats, just as the water in Dead Man's Cave was dark with murk, we knew that the world was not always a happy playground, that even as the adults kept us safe and warm, there was a cold darkness hovering in the distance, howling with the winter wind like a pack of wolves lusting for blood at the door.

These thoughts were chased away by the delights of the table, when Mom would sit us down and present us with her soups, her breads and her apple pies. We would silently down the food set before us and thoughts of the darkness of the cellar would fade into the timeless glory of a Christmas Day spent together.

A NEW CROP OF WRATHFUL GRAPES

2008-12-12T06:56:00.003-05:00

Living in Michigan, I have seen the results of the economic slowdown more clearly than those living in other states. Our country is in a shambles. Yesterday, Gov. Schwarzenegger of California stated that his state would crumble if it did not get Federal help. Other states are in the same quandary. Michigan has been the leader of all quandaries. Once a great manufacturing state, we have sat helplessly as the great exodus to foreign lands diminished our jobs. We are among the leading states with mortgage foreclosures. We have lines up at the cash registers of our many Dollar Stores, as our citizens desperately try to stretch their dollars.

Yesterday, the Auto Bailout fell to its dismal death, as Republican Congressmen attached strings to the process like children with a can of Silly String. Those strings involved a strange battle that has been going on for the past eight years, a battle between the Republican Party and the Unions.

For some reason, Republicans hate Unions, probably because most Union Members are Democrats. Unions have grown to be huge enterprises and some of them have been infiltrated by the Mafia, investing in Casinos and other lucrative businesses not connected to their workforce. Yet, despite all this, Unions have brought about better wages and better lifestyles for their members. Before Unions, workers were at the mercy of their employers for wages, working conditions and treatment. Unions brought an end to these practices, so that men could not be fired simply because his boss took a dislike to his color, his age, or any other unfair reason; so that grease and smoke in the vicinity of the workforce was cleaned up and limited; so that workers would be rotated throughout many jobs, rather than spend eight to twelve dreary hours screwing in one bolt as the car bodies traveled down the Assembly Lines. Above all, they negotiated wages, health care and pensions.

Today, the Auto Bailout is dead in the water. Attached to the Bailout Bill was a stipulation that worker's wages.....Union members' wages...be dropped to the same level as workers in foreign auto plants. I think this wage hovers, in United States' foreign plants, at $14.00 an hour. Heaven knows what pittance it may be in the foreign plants in China or India.

People like Rush Limbaugh, trumpeting his message of daily hatred for "liberals," have pictured autoworkers as lazy, overpaid dilettantes. Auto workers have been on the Limbaugh List of hateful rhetoric, along with Blacks, Latinos, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, the Poor, Global Warming, Nancy Pelosi, all Union Members, the ACLU, Deregulation of any kind, environmental measures, ad nauseum. Rush would like to see a world of humble robots making poverty wages, kissing the plump asses of their privileged employers, and sending their kids to Jesus Camp in order to learn how to kill Muslims properly, while he enjoys his multi-million dollar salary and occasional trips to the White House to indulge in a few capsules of Oxycontin in the Lincoln Bedroom!

The truth is, to make this small amount of money in the United States would lower an American family into the status of poverty. How can anyone live on this amount if they have a family, a home, and a car with which to travel back and forth to work? Most car payments are several hundred dollars monthly. Most house payments in Michigan hover close to or over $1,000 monthly, and those unfortunate enough to have fallen for the Balloon Payment ripoff have even higher payments. Even if a family rents a home or an apartment, the costs are appalling. Add to that the price of food, fuel and other living expenses, and it is easy to see that what the Republicans have done is try to lower the Union members into poverty.

This was decided by Republican members of Congress who make thousands and thousands in their paychecks, plus health care, plus generous pensions and, if things get tight, vote themselves raises. It is obscene!

One Republican man appeared on CNN and voiced his fear that there would be riots if the Bailout Bill were to be passed. Rioting by Republicans? What a wonderful thought! They could get a taste of the Lasers shooting them down, being clubbed by police, herded into roped off areas and treated like criminals! They are mighty fond of this action if other people demonstrate. Perhaps they would like to try it.

Salaries at GM and other auto plants make up only 10% of their expenditures. Most of their money goes to suppliers, to various plants throughout the country that make the parts for our automobiles. Union Workers are not rich. They are hard-workers who have hauled themselves out of bed at 4:30 a.m. to work, or worked the midnight shift until dawn. They generally work for companies headed by CEO's who make millions annually, plus bonuses, plus stock options. Why aren't the Republicans rioting because of the CEO's in this country that make such obscene profits?

The Banking Bailout, of $700 Billion, was handed out without a single Republican riot. No one suggested that the Cashiers, the Bank Personnel, lower their wages to some $14 hourly. Much of that Bailout has been handed out in CEO salaries and bonuses for executives, even in luxurious trips for these executives, including golfing vacations and stays in lush resorts, all disguised as Sales trips. $700 Billion handed out to these jokers, but $25 Billion to keep GM, Ford and Chrysler alive would cause Republican riots! It's laughable!

The ramifications of this debacle will reach across the country. If these companies declare Bankruptcy, from three to ten million American jobs will go down the drain. There will be no pensions for these people. There will be no Health Care for these people. Their only hope will be Unemployment Benefits and Food Lines. Many of them will lose their homes, thus adding to the lists of the Homeless. The cost to the government will be much, much greater than the $25 Billion Bailout that was offered.

One has the feeling that the Republicans, who have thankfully become a minority, would be delighted to see the American people reduced to penury, tethering a goat in the yard for milk, dressed in self-woven straw hats as they work in their gardens for food, their snot-nosed, flea-ridden children stealing apples from fruit markets, their wives on a street corner offering their bodies in exchange for a bag of potatoes. One wonders if this situation would send Republicans into fits of glee, their purpose fulfilled, falling to their knees to thank their fierce and violent God for his blessings!

All across the country companies are reducing their workforces. Every day more workers are laid off, more misery has overtaken our land. These past eight years of governance have reduced our country to a mockery of its former affluence. If General Motors, Chrysler and Ford collapse, the number of people out of work will be multiplied many times over! What kind of person would support this? What kind of person would take pleasure in ruining the lives of even more people in a land filled with desperation and misery?

Years ago, Herbert Hoover tried the same kind of Trickle Down and Deregulation nonsense. It took Franklin Roosevelt to lead the country back to glory. Republicans have tried to rewrite history, but that is the literal truth. Roosevelt opened up jobs, started mammoth projects that allowed people to work and families to eat! Years later, he led the country through a vicious, brutal War, a real war, not a planned, plotted and peddled "mistake."

Detroit helped win that War! Almost overnight, the factories making cars were running three shifts making tanks, guns, jeeps and other war material. Women joined the workforce, which gave birth to the popular Rosie, the Riveter. We did not go into debt to fight that war. The people themselves invested in it by purchasing War Bonds. We did not borrow from China, but lent money to many of our Allies. We emerged from that War as a Super Power. We emerge from the War in Iraq with our heads lowered in shame, a broken, indebted nation!

Let's hope that Obama can do the same as Roosevelt as he faces an empty Treasury and millions of bereft people. Perhaps another Steinbeck will show up and write an equivelent to the Grapes of Wrath, as people wander the country looking for work, desperate for food. In the meantime, our government will pay George Bush his pension and welcome him into his million dollar Dallas home. Does crime pay, after all? Are the wages of sin a new retirement home? We are paying dearly for the "mistakes" of George W. Bush and his bevy of radical loyalists. If we survive the disaster that faces us, we must always recall certain events, the brutalities of the Holocaust, the indignation of Pearl Harbor and 9/11, and the looting of our country by George W. Bush and his radical supporters. We must never, ever forget, never, ever let this happen to our country again!

WHEN THE AUNTS CAME MARCHING IN

2008-12-05T13:12:00.002-05:00

Mom always scrubbed the farmhouse from top to bottom before the aunts came marching in. She wasn't about to let a speck of dust give them an excuse to call her a terrible housekeeper, so she scrubbed and dusted and polished until the design on the old linoleum floor gave way to even more brown undercolor and until the old victrola gleamed with a patina of yellowed varnish. Even the woodstoves were cleaned until they looked like big black behemoths sitting in the center of the kitchen and living room, snorting fire and smoke like the dragons of storybooks.

There were a bevy of aunts. It was pronounced "Aint," in the lower Illinois twang that we teased my parents about constantly. I was very young and so their names confused me. There was Aint Stellie, Aint Nellie, Aint Dellie, and Aint Zellie. Now, Helma has told me I have mangled those names, but I swear, that's what I remember. There was also Aint Dorrie, and it was Aint Dorrie's opinion that Mom worried about, because Aint Dorrie was quite opinionated and didn't hesitate to speak her mind.

I don't remember how they made it from Illinois to Michigan, but their arrival was a momentous occasion for us. Mom changed the sheets on the bed and made us young ones pile up together to make room for our guests. She put "pallets" on the floor and we slept there in a tangle of quilts until our visitors has departed for home. Helma and I were no more congenial on a pallet than we were in our bed. Each night, the pallet became a battleground as we kicked each other, each complaining that the other was taking all the blankets as well as all the territory on the pallet. This commotion led Aunt Dorrie to declare that she didn't get a wink of sleep all night and could Daisy control those noisy girls?

Aint Dorrie liked me the best, because she said I looked just like our family should look. This led to my brothers and sisters claiming that I looked just like Aint Dorrie, a fact that worried me through my teenaged years, since Aint Dorrie was rather plump, very short, and much older than me. I had already decided I looked more like Hedy Lamar than anyone else, but no one else seemed to agree with me.

Aint Dorrie was grandmother to Cookie, a little cousin who visited us often and who was so little and cute and so much like a mouth-watering cookie that it was difficult to even imagine looking like Aint Dorrie when I was faced with Cookie's charms. What's more, Cookie was well-behaved and ladylike and Aint Dorrie pronounced her to be exactly what an obedient girl should be, as compared to two hoydens battling like combat soldiers in their bed at night.

Deed had already reached his teenage and the Aint's visit really threw a monkey wrench into his plans. There was a girl living on a neighboring farm that Deed was really interested in seeing, but Mom wouldn't let him go out at night since his return might awaken the Aints. Mom had already solved the problem of Helma and I having a major battle every night by placing me back in the room where I always slept and moving Helma in with Donna. They always got along well, both of them constantly combing their hair into ringlets and practicing different coiffures, readying themselves for the boy crazy years ahead.

So Deed came to me with a well-planned scheme, one he had worked out in his mind. He would venture out to see his girlfriend that night and he would come home as early as he could and make his entrance into the house through my bedroom window. Pop had placed the homemade ladder at my window long before, worried about my being trapped upstairs should the farmhouse catch on fire. Years before, he had had to slide down a bannister to save himself, Deed and Homer, carrying the infant Deed in his arms and holding Homer on the bannister, as the home they rented in Illinois burned to a crisp. Pop remembered this, so he nailed the ladder together out of old slats of wood and it was a permanent fixture at my upstairs bedroom window.

After Deed had slipped away and Mom had finished the evening chores, she decided that it would be better if I slept on the couch in the living room. Aint Dorrie had bladder problems and couldn't make it through the night without the proximity of a chamberpot. It would be better to give her privacy by allowing her to sleep in my bedroom.

I was frightened. Deed was out visiting his girlfriend and would be coming through my bedroom window. There was no way I could tell Mom about this, no way I could avoid the inevitable problem, so I silently went to bed and lay there worrying about it all.

Sure enough, in the dark of the night, there was a loud noise from upstairs, a few curses, and a bloodcurdling scream that was loud enough to wake the dead. This was followed by the sound of thumping and Aint Dorrie saying, "Don't touch me! I'll make you sorry you're alive!" followed by more loud thumps. Then came the clanging rattle of metal! I knew that Deed had ran into the chamberpot, while Aunt Dorrie was fighting for her life after being awakened from sleep by Deed's entrance through the window.

The whole household was awake. Mom, startled by the noise, ran upstairs with her broom in hand. She always used a broom against all intruders, be it a rapist or an angry rooster or a rattlesnake. The whole family rushed upstairs, with the frightened Aints standing in the hallway and an angry Aint Dorrie still whacking Deed over the head with her pillow. Deed's size 12 boot-clad foot was still stuck in the chamberpot, while dribbles of urine made a path through the hall.

It was some time before the commotion died down and Mom had managed to get the Aints back in their beds. Aint Dorrie spent some time mumbling threats to that out-of-control boy who had staged a midnight raid of her bed. The Chamberpot was emptied, cleaned, and the hallway floor mopped, while Helma and Donna giggled on their pallet. Deed kept glaring in my direction. I knew from the look on his face that he planned a terrible revenge for what he considered my treachery. I could only throw up my hands and try to convey by my expression that I was innocent of wishing him harm.

The Aints didn't stay long after that episode, and Aint Dorrie made no bones about informing Mom that she considered her children in need of discipline. "Spare the rod and spoil the child!" she kept repeating, as Mom's face grew red and flustered, even though she nodded and said nothing in reply.

Later, Helma summed up the whole affair by surveying Deed's boots and saying, "Well, at least they don't smell like perfume any more!"

When we traipsed down the road toward school the next morning, we were faced with that fact. Deed's boots definitely didn't smell like perfume any more! However, it sure wasn't an improvement at all!

SPREADING THE WEALTH AROUND

2008-11-30T10:35:00.003-05:00

Somehow, Americans are always blaming themselves. We take plenty of blame from other lands, but to make matters worse, we heap blame upon our own shoulders. We Americans, we say, are spoiled. We are too used to being comfortable. We don't know how to make do. We would rather throw an older, broken item away and buy a new item than repair the old one.

Why is it that we make ourselves feel guilty for a comfortable lifestyle? Why is it that, if we attain the American dream, we have to flay ourselves with criticism so that we cannot enjoy it? The recent demise of the Middle Class is a good example of this. Instead of heaping criticism on the greed and pampering of the very wealthy, we are finally convinced it is our own fault. How dare we support countless businesses with our purchases? How dare we want nourishing food for our family? Why, some families even have two cars, a couple of televisions and a laptop! Scandalous!

The trouble is, we tell ourselves, we don't know how to skimp and scrape and make do with just a little, we want it all! I have made this statement myself, pulling up memories from my poor childhood to use them as material for blame. I can remember my mother putting on pots of bean soup that would feed twenty people and mixing up the cornbread to finish off the meal. Now, the soup comes in a can and the cornbread is in a colorful little package. Just add water and enjoy!

I can remember my mother washing clothes on a scrub board, her hands red and raw from using lye soap that ate away the dirt but, unfortunately, ate away the flesh, too. I can remember her hanging those wet clothes, barely squeezed of moisture, out on the clotheslines, left in the sun until they dried into plank-like firmness. Then she would carry them in the house and, after folding them neatly, put them away.

Is it wrong to enjoy the ease and convenience of an automatic washer or, if you can afford it, to send your clothes out to be laundered? Will that bar you from Heaven? Does that make you pampered and spoiled? I don't know, but personally, I bless the creative inventors who fashioned the automatic washer, the dryers, the self-cleaning ovens, all of the mechanical paraphernalia of today's world.

Because of the economic situation, I know several families that are resorting to heating their homes with wood. They either buy the wood or gather the deadfall, tossing it in trucks to take it home, cut it and split it. It brings back memories of the farm with its two stoves, one in the kitchen, a huge black monster, and one in the living room, a large round object, equally black and capable of holding several big logs. Between them, they kept us warm and cooked the simple foods that were available, but it took my father and brothers weeks to get that winter woodpile ready. Even my mother could pick up an axe and split wood like a seasoned lumberjack, though she never allowed the younger children to give it a try.

Is it wrong, then, to have a furnace that keeps your house warm with an even distribution of warmth? Are you spoiled if you sit back in your chair and luxuriate in the comfort of a well-heated wintertime siesta? Should we feel guilty that we are not carrying home deadfall and chopping it up for our survival? Should we take delight in the fact that so many families are resorting to these primitive methods, simply because they can no longer afford the fuel a furnace demands?

The truth is, the poorer you are, the less comfortable you are. You can measure your financial status by the amount of conveniences in your home. Many of us have read of Bill Gates' home, which he designed himself and which contains mechanical and technical gadgets that make walls move and televisions come and go, etc. We all read of billionaires who gather luxuries like plucking a bouquet of flowers in a garden, yachts, artwork, jewelry, treasures. So, how can it be wrong for the Middle Class to live as consumers in homes that are fitted with comfort? We may not have Van Goghs worth millions of bucks, but a nice Walmark print should be okay.

Americans like to place blame. If you are Republican, you undoubtedly believe that all of our woes, other than the fact that you believe Christ is driven out of Christmas, were caused by Bill Clinton. Nancy Pelosi runs a close second. If you are Liberal, you blame everything on George W. Bush, with Dick Cheney closely behind. If something takes brains, you blame Dick Cheney first, and say that George W. Bush is influenced by his master.

Since the Big Three auto companies are in dire trouble, people do not place the blame on the managers of these industries, aside from a few digs about the private jets. Instead, they blame the hard-working autoworkers and curse them for being Union members. Unions, they say, are the ones to blame for all of the woes.

Perhaps folks would rather work for the likes of Henry Ford, who used to hire plant detectives to follow his workers home, and woe to the man who stopped for a drink or two, or a man who flirted with a waitress. Henry himself was no saint, we know, but his workers were not allowed privacy with their paychecks.

Yes, we Americans are not happy unless we place a little blame here and there, yet we seem to make the same mistakes again and again. It was proven during the disastrous years of the Hoover Administration that deregulation wasn't such a bright idea...and here we are, suffering the same calammitous results.

Not only that, so many of us yearn to go back to those rustic days of splashing ice cold water on your face in the mornings instead of a hot shower and doing our dishes in a teacup. We drag our families out into the wilds, sleep in tents, and sit around campfires battling smoke and mosquitos. Each year, a herd of people head for the woods, trusty rifles in hand, determined to shoot a deer that no one really wants to eat, suffering from wet boots, soggy clothes and inclement weather.

This is classified as fun, as long as it lasts no longer than a week or two. After that, it is time to haul the laundry back to the automatic washer and enjoy the programs you have missed on television.

But it wasn't such fun for the people who lived that way, like my Mom and Pop, crawling from a warm bed to the icy temperature of a room where the coals in the stove have died down. It wasn't such fun for the constant chore of milking the cows, carrying the pail into the house, setting it in jars, then skimming off the cream and shaking that cream into butter for your family's consumption. It wasn't fun then, it was hard work, and who can blame Americans for wanting to live more lavishly?

So, tightening our belts for this economic downturn we are experiencing in this country is something we can do if we have to do it, but no one should blame us for remembering the days when we could occasionally afford to squander a little money. We don't need blame heaped on our shoulders. We don't need someone saying, "You are rich compared to the Third World countries. Eat your beans and be grateful!!" If this is what we have worked for, dreamed about, fought for...we may as well flay ourselves with beaded whips and go on penitent marches of self immolation for enjoying our pleasures! Should we shoulder the blame? No way! In this world of Bailouts and Bank Failures, the American people deserve the reward for creating the Democracy we have enjoyed and for trying to salvage it. We're willing to work harder to restore our lifestyles, but this time, buddy, the wealth will be spread around...not placed in the pockets of a few!

SCREW IT!

2008-11-22T15:56:00.003-05:00

Among other grocery items, I recently bought a jar of pickles. I am not a pickle fanatic, but with Thanksgiving coming up, it never hurts to have some around. So I decided to try eating a pickle with my evening meal, just to test it out.

Fifteen minutes later, I was still trying to open that jar of pickles. I pushed and pulled and twisted, to no avail. The lid stubbornly clung to the jar and was seemingly immovable. So I took a kitchen knife from the drawer and banged on the top of it, giving it several good whacks.

That didn't work. The lid would not budge. So I ran it under hot water until it should have been drowning. Then I pushed and pulled and twisted the cap again. It remained on the jar, refusing to move an inch. I hammered at it again, cursed at it, and tried waterboarding it one more time. After a half hour of work I was completely exhausted, but the pickles remained in the same condition that they were when I had brought them home from the store.

I gave up. Anything that fights that hard for its existence, clinging to its status quo, has my admiration. I set the jar in the cupboard and saved it for a visit from some huge burly fellow with ham-like hands stuck on arms equipped with bulging muscles enhanced by years of steroid use. I would hand this guest my jar of pickles and test his endurance and his strength and hopefully, both of us would enjoy a pickle.

So, in my cupboard, I found a tidy little packet of vegetables and rice. Just right for my dinner, I thought. I studied the packet and found a little notation that said "Tear here!" Always being the obedient type, I immediately tore there. Nothing happened. The packet was sealed shut. So, after pinching at it for awhile, I decided to give up and use the scissors. Scissors are meant to come to the rescue of people like me. So I neatly cut across the top of the vegetable packet and thought that my troubles were over. No such luck! The packet was sealed shut. The use of the scissors seemed to have encouraged that packet to seal itself firmly together.

What now? Do I bring out the blowtorch or call for the Jaws of Life from the local Fire Department? How does one open products these days when they are sealed as tightly as if they contain information on National Security or a yellowed, original, handwritten copy of the Constitution? I understand that, if we do not seal things correctly, some lunatic with evil intentions might sprinkle arsenic or anthrax or ricin or some other deadly product on our food. No one wants to die because they wanted a spoonful of rice and broccoli, that's for sure! But sealing these food items so tightly that it takes a marauding bear to get them open is frustrating beyond words.

Americans are innovative. Our companies keep coming up with new ways to package food. Take coffee, for instance. Coffee used to come in those five-pound quantities, tucked into a slippery can, covered with a plastic lid. Unless your hands were the size of pizza pies, you could not grip these cans tightly, which meant that occasionally you would spill coffee all over the floor. So, the companies began working on this. Some of them invented a plastic can, with little indentations that are intended to make the can easier to pick up. The trouble is, the indentations are not quite in the right position, so if you are not careful, you'll still find your coffee on the floor. So, another company, I think it is Maxwell House, has invented a can with a handle. It's not only easy to pick up, but you can use the empty can to water your flowers, or use it as a vase to hold your flowers. There is no end to the uses for this can.

Someone, I don't know who, probably the same guy who created that horror-inspiring Cling Wrap, decided to put out plastic bags that are reclosable. There are some people, or so I have heard, who can actually get these bags to close. They must be rocket scientists, or at least Harvard graduates! You have to line up the plastic lines, try to get them close together, then run your hand along the edge of the bag. Then it is supposed to close, but it very often doesn't. You then have to repeat the whole procedure, not once, not twice, but several times. If that doesn't work, you should follow my method. I close the damned things with clothespins.

Yes, clothespins. Since clotheslines are an endangered species these days, what with dryers usurping the need for them, clothespins just sit around in bags in your closet and mine. I don't know why we don't throw them away, but we never do. So, using clothespins to close bags gives the poor things something to do. They make excellent kitchen aids.

I know these inventors are trying to make my life easier. When they invent something like that little tab on the soup can that does away with the need for a canopener, they are trying to give me surcease from getting that canopener hooked onto the edge of a can and using my muscle to make it work. Some people use electric canopeners and, since the little tabs make any canopener obsolete, they have not only made our lives easier, but they have saved a tidbit of electricity, probably taking a penny or two off the electric bill. So, the intentions of these inventors are good. It isn't their fault that the pickle jar won't relinquish its lid and the plastic bag won't close.

I am continually amazed by the creative ability of American citizens. Like the gift one of my granddaughters gave me for my birthday. It is a whistling key finder. If you lose your key, it whistles, therefore allowing you to follow the whistle to the lost key. The thing is, giving a deaf woman a whistling keyfinder is not conducive to locating keys, but the thought is there. It is flattering to me that they forget my handicap and treat me like a normal person, perhaps a bit dumber and harder to get something through her thick skull, but normal, nonetheless.

It reminds me of a story told me by a friend of mine, who happens to be a former alcoholic. She has given up drinking for several years, belongs to AA, and has successfully evaded even having one fatal drink. She worked in a drugstore and one day a customer came in, complaining that he could not find the letter "M" in a contest where one had to collect letters to spell out the word, America. He said that, if he had an "M", he could win the $10,000 prize. My friend happened to have the letter "M" and generously gave it to him. He thanked her profusely and left the store. A few days later, he came back to the store and presented her with a Thank You Card and a huge jug of wine.

So, our lives are filled with minor complications. What one person believes is a marvelous discovery causes irritation and aggravation to someone else. We try to keep up with the changes and, when we can't, we gripe about it, but do not want the changes to stop. Some things in life just have to be accepted, and I am reminded of this every time I look at that infernal jar of pickles that sits in my cupboard. When inanimate objects refuse to give in to human ingenuity, one can only take a deep breath and say, "Screw it!" It's the only answer in this complicated, intricate and wonderful world!

GOODNIGHT, DEED!

2008-11-19T20:18:00.004-05:00

In the middle of a sunny Las Vegas day, my brother Harlan, whom we called Deed, passed away, just minutes after he had talked to his longtime companion, Anita, who left his bedside to greet Deed's granddaughter, who was arriving from out of state.

Deed had cancer, but it wasn't the cancer that killed him. It was his heart and, weary of the constant testing and medication, it just stopped beating, in that momentous period of time that takes us from life to death. Anita had just reached her home when the telephone rang with the news. Deed was gone. He had just closed his eyes, sighed, and given in to the illnesses that plagued him, too tired to fight any longer.

I remember him best as a scrawny young boy with a shock of yellowish brown hair. I remember him wearing his corduroy pants and I can still hear the whistle and squeak that they made as his legs rubbed together as he walked. Whist! Whist! Whist! We knew Deed was nearby when we heard that sound. We could also hear the clump of his hightop boots!

Those hightop boots, with their tangle of strings, are the ones that received the healthy dose of Tabu, from the perfume bottle that Helen had sent to Helma and me. Helen was prone to sending the most romantic gifts. Helma and I were always thrilled when they arrived. She sent us black lace nighties and ribbons for our hair. She sent us shampoos and curlers and that enormous bottle of Tabu!

Deed's hightop boots had an odor that would have rendered an elephant unconscious within minutes of standing near them. The odor was a sickly, cloying foot smell that would invade the upstairs of the house and cling like a nauseating miasma to every ounce of oxygen. So it was natural that Helma and I pitched the boots to a spot on the windowsill and doused them liberally with Tabu.

It didn't take long for Mom to come to the foot of the stairs and ask about the horrible smell. Deed's boots sat outside all night to air out, hoping to rid them of the sickly sweet, clinging, half-foot smell, half expensive perfume smell that drifted into the window with each breeze.

The next morning, Deed had to clump off to school, smelling like a French harlot afflicted with a horrible, smelly disease. He didn't want to go, but Mom was firm. She chastised Helma and I for pouring perfume in his boots.

What a day Deed must have spent in that tiny schoolroom, with that odor drifting into the corners and seeping through the woodwork. At one point, he was made to stand outside, to no avail. Once that odor took over, there was no escape. It lingered even when the boots were gone.

That was the day that Helma and I had to rescue Deed from an attack by about five young boys. We had just finished charging a penny Bubble Gum onto Mom's bill at the neighborhood store. Those Bubble Gums not only tasted good, with the sweet taste lingering for several minutes in your mouth, but they were wrapped in a cute little comic, you could enjoy reading this as the sugary saliva dripped down your chin.

We were enjoying our gum when we heard a commotion. Investigating the shouts of anger, we saw Deed on the ground, being beat up by five young boys. We were so frightened, we didn't know what to do, so we ran for help, pounding on the door of the first house we reached. The lady came outside and made quick work of ending the fight. In just a few minutes, we headed homeward, myself, my sister, and my sweet smelling brother.

Deed was always in a fracas or two. He could get into mischief without even trying. Somehow, when he was seventeen, he got a little car. It was a convertible, but I cannot remember its make. You had to push it to start it and stick out your foot to stop it. It wasn't much of a car, but Deed was proud of it.

One day, Mom, Pop, Helma and I were picking corn, a chore that neither Helma nor I thought should be necessary. As we dawdled about, shoving ears into a bushel basket, we heard a loud motor coming down the road. Sure enough, it was Deed in his car, going far too fast for the curve he was about to reach.

"He's going too fast!" my mother commented, watching him, her face reflecting her worry.

"And there's no way to stop that car," I said to Helma, who rolled her eyes and sighed.

At that moment, Deed's car did a somersault into the air, sailing like a kite toward the ditch, where it landed upside down, wheels spinning in the wind.

We all started running. Mom was praying. Pop was cursing. Helma and I were wide-eyed with fright, trailing after our parents and gasping for breath as we ran.

Before we could reach the wreck, Deed pulled himself out of the twisted metal of that car, and stood up to face us as we ran toward him.

"No brakes," he explained, as we approached him. My mother embraced him in relief and we all walked back to the house. As Deed walked along, I could smell the sweet odor of his boots, mixed with the tangy smell of sweat.

Deed was born in Decater, Illinois, and the car accident was not his only brush with death. When Mom and Pop lived in the "House in the Holler," the house burned down in the early hours of the morning. Flames shot through the house and up the stairway, where Pop, Homer and the baby, Deed, were asleep. They woke up with searing fire and suffocating smoke throughout the room, and Pop woke up Homer, snatched up nine month old Deed, and tried to make it down the stairway. The flames were so hot, they couldn't walk down, so Homer and Pop, who was carrying Deed, slid down the bannister to safety, running out the front door of the house, where Mom and the other eight children had already congregated. Helma and I, born later in Michigan, missed this adventure.

Deed had no memory of that early morning thrill ride, but Mom talked about it often. Nothing they owned was saved except the lives of the family and the clothing they wore on their backs. It was just another blow from an already grim fate that was destined to keep this family poor but intact.

Deed went into the Army when he was about eighteen. He fought in the South Pacific and ended up in the Philippines, where he fell in love with a girl named, Conception. That romance didn't work out, however, and I was always a little relieved, because I could imagine myself introducing, "My sister in law, Conception." Deed came home with a terrible case of malaria. He lay on the couch for days and days, dosed with a medication called Atabrine. Whether it was the medicine or the disease, I don't know, but his flesh turned a brilliant shade of yellow, like a luminous lemon. Slowly, the color faded and Deed began to recover, weakened, but able to resume his life.

Deed is gone, but the memories stay behind. He has had much tragedy in his life. He lost his first wife, Juanita, the mother of two sons and daughter and, a while ago, lost that only daughter to cancer. Then he met Anita, gave up trying to drown his worries and sorrow in drinking, and found someone to live for again. He worked, until his retirement, with the Atomic Energy Commission, in Mercury, Nevada.

Anita's grief will fade and life will go on, one day at a time. She will always remember the years she spent with him, with his love of bowling, of dancing, of going to the Masonic lodge for an evening. Deed was a devoted member of the Masons and I used to tease him about being the "Grand Poobah!" Well, our Grand Poobah has left this world behind, but wherever he is, he will have his bright sense of humor and his ever present kindness with him.

Goodnight, my brother, may the Good Lord look after you forever.

THE FIDDLER'S DAUGHTER

2008-11-11T12:49:00.002-05:00

When Mom got religion and decided that dancing was sinful, Pop put away his fiddle for awhile and packed it in its case in a closet. He had been saved, Mom said, and would now walk the path of the righteous. All of that dancing, with people hanging onto each other and wiggling around as though in some kind of ecstasy would cease and Pop would toe the Biblical line and mend his devilish ways. It had probably been a dream of hers for many years, because Pop wasn't beyond a flirtatious stint with a neighbor's wife or a brief liaison with a woman at a square dance and, through the strict instructions in the Bible, she felt she could keep him under control.

It didn't work long, though. After a short while, Pop began playing at the square dances again, his fiddle tucked beneath his chin, a smile on his face. I didn't know him then, but Bud told me about the way my father was back then, a wiry, well-built dark-haired man, with a hank of black hair falling over his forehead as he played, his brown eyes, flecked with yellow, trained on the crowd of dancers. A good-looking man, Bud said, not professionally trained in music, but with the strains of the violin pouring out of him in some natural way, as happens with many Southerners. He could play any tune you mentioned and I loved to sit at his feet and listen to him, but as time went by and Mom continued with her disapproving glares and her comments about the dire consequences of being a "backslider," he slowly played less and less and once again packed the fiddle away.

His attraction to the neighbors' wives didn't cease, however. I can remember one day when Mom took off for the house on the hill, where another farmer and his wife lived, a remote couple that I had never met, but had seen working in their garden occasionally. I didn't question why Mom was going to their house, nor did I ask to go with her. There was something in her angry, stern expression that kept me quiet.

When she came home, she had Pop in tow. Her face was as red as a ripe tomato on a hot, sunny afternoon and she was so angry, all she could do is go to the kitchen and start banging pots and pans around. Pop went to his chair and lit up his pipe. When I tried to join him, because sitting on his lap while he smoked his pipe was something I always did, he discouraged me by shaking his head and just sat there, blowing billows of smoke into the air.

I never knew what happened in the house on the hill, but from that moment on, Mom shook her head and mumbled under her breath when the neighbor's name was mentioned. Pop didn't try to take out his violin for a long time after that, but once in a while, when Mom was gone to visit Helma, he would take it from his case. What a treat that was for me! I would tap my foot to the beat of the music and occasionally get up and waltz around the room. We were like two drunken sailors, Pop and I, giving ourselves over to the music and acting like two little kids.

I gave some thought to religion then, wondering why God would mind if Pop and I enjoyed the music that he played. It seemed to me that a loving God would encourage people to laugh and dance. It seemed to me that every church I had ever attended relied upon music to affect the mood. All over the country there are congregations stomping and singing and holding their arms aloft. So, why did Mom decide to take Pop's music away from him? What was the answer to her reaction against the joy of dancing to the beat of a lively song?

I think, but I do not know, that Pop looked just too appealing with the fiddle in his hand. He would laugh and banter and be completely different from the hard-working fellow in the fields. I think that Mom was keeping her eye on this attractive man she had landed and, to keep him on the straight and narrow, she banned the fiddle from our lives.

In a strange contradiction, she never complained when Helen took violin lessons or I was sent to study the piano. Hubert and Gerry would sit in the living room and sing country western tunes, while Hubert strummed the guitar, and Mom enjoyed it as much as the rest of us did. She also sang constantly in the kitchen with her high soprano voice, singing the church tunes that I remember to this day. She sang religious hymns as she mixed up the biscuit dough, as she put the beans on to simmer. She sang religious hymns as she melted snow when the pump was frozen in the winter. She sang religious hymns as she set the table for another meal for the family, but mention the fiddle and she would only shake her head and turn away.

My sister, Hazel, had a beautiful, lilting voice. She used to sing in local bars and other gatherings, never intending to make it a career, but enjoying the opportunity to sing. Her grandson, Rodney, had the most beautiful male voice I have ever heard, bar none! So, somewhere in this big, sprawling family is a strain of musical talent. I won't be surprised if one of my remote relatives suddenly appears on national television, crooning a tune from their hit album!

When we were very young, Herman bought Helma a piano. I don't believe she ever touched it, but we all knew it belonged to her. I found that I had inherited Pop's ability to pound out a tune. I played the piano incessantly, singing along in my high, juvenile voice. Pop was my audience and he would sit in his chair and encourage my efforts. Since the radio was often broken and the wind-up record player was confined to Sir Harry Lauder tunes, my amateur efforts were the only music we had, if one can call it that. At times, I begged Pop to bring out his fiddle to join me, but he refused. The only time the fiddle came out was when Mom was away.

When both Mom and Pop were gone, there was a question as to what to do with the piano. I didn't feel I had any claim to it, since it belonged to Helma, even though I was the only one who ever played it. So the piano ended up with Norma Jean, my old childhood friend and niece, where it resides today in her basement. I think Helma tried to claim it once, but Norma told her it was a fixture in her basement and would remain that way. I have always felt that I would rather have the memory of that piano than the instrument itself. Old pianos lose their heart and soul and eventually decay into dust, but memories last forever and no mold or decay can damage them.

I have never known what became of Pop's fiddle. Perhaps it was eventually thrown away, or given to someone along the way. It, too, is only a memory in my heart, that shining, orange-ish, instrument that turned into magic in my father's hands. So much of their lives is gone now, lost in the shadows of fading existences. We live, we gather possessions, we leave them behind, and we never know in the darkness of death what becomes of items we treasured for a lifetime. But, somewhere up in Heaven, I am sure there is an angel, an old, whiskered man, sitting on a cloud somewhere playing on his fiddle, while the angels gather around him to dance!

YES, WE DID!

2008-11-08T18:14:00.003-05:00

A warm night in Chicago, more like July than November, and a milling crowd began to gather in Grant Park. This Park stretches for thousands of acres and has many attractions that bring crowds of people to its green lawns. Many concerts and festivals are held there and 25 hotels are nearby. Grant Park was also the scene of battles between Chicago police and Convention protesters during the 1968 Democratic Convention. Hordes of youthful dissenters filled the streets of Chicago and 23,000 police were on hand to quell the violence....or, in truth, cause it.

Grant Park was destined to be the scene of another historic moment, as it was selected by Barack Obama to be the scene of a celebration on the night of the election on November 4, 2008. The decision was made before anyone knew who the winner would be in the choice between Obama and John McCain. The anxious people in the crowd at the park awaited word of which states would give their electoral votes to Obama and which would not.

It was a sea of humanity, thousands of people, yet it was a night of smiles and camaraderie. It was as though each person was aware of the common problems facing Americans, brothers and sisters awaiting word on just which Candidate would steer our country through the next tumultous years.

Each state that Obama won brought cheers of joy. When the news came that he had won California, Pennsylvania and Florida, states with large numbers of electoral votes, the cheers became a roar. People began dancing and leaping with joy. It was a moment of jubilation! The longest campaign in the history of American elections and, finally, it was over. Obama had won. He was the President Elect of the United States. He and Joe Biden had defeated John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin.

Then began the longest wait, the interminable time between the announcement and the appearance of the Presidential nominee. The band doggedly played their tunes. The night sky darkened, lit only by the city lights lending their glow to the sky.

Finally, Obama appeared, a slim, tall man, not jubilant with victory, but sober and concerned with the road ahead, the first Black President of the United States! The crowd roared with excitement, but when Obama began to speak, a hushed silence came over the crowd. He spoke simply and quietly, thanked everyone concerned, thanked his running mate, his staff, his wife and children, and the people who had dug up $5, $10, $25 to finance his campaign. He thanked those voters who had come to the polls to stand for as long as five to eight hours in order to vote. Then he spoke of the responsibility he would have in trying to correct the failing economy, create jobs, do all of the things he had promised to do during his campaign. He warned that progress might be slow, that it would not be an easy task. Again and again, he emphasized his favorite phrase, "Yes, we can!"

It was quite a touching moment, this still young, slender Black man standing alone on an enormous stage, the weight of the world descending to his shoulders, the burdens of a failing economy, two wars, terrible relations with Russia, even more terrible relations with Iran, National Security, joblessness, millions losing homes and falling into poverty and bankruptcy.....all of this fell on the shoulders of this one man like a black cloud hovering in the silvery darkness of the sky. He spoke of hope. He spoke of determination. He spoke of the responsibility of each and every one of us. There wasn't a dry eye in the crowd. Some cried openly. Some hid their tears behind uplifted hands. Some sniffled into their handkerchiefs. Some wiped tears from their eyes. They were tears of joy and tears of sympathy for this young man who had promised to deliver hope to our doorsteps and was determined to do just that!

That scene in Grant Park will be long remembered, a moment of hushed excitement. In the halls of the area newspapers, the morning editions were put together, and again, long lines formed as people scrambled to buy them. I have lived through many elections, but I have never seen a time when one could not buy a newspaper, but newspapers in Chicago were in short supply that day!

It isn't often that one can claim to have participated in a moment of historic importance. I found the excitement in Chicago to be reminiscent of D-Day, when the promise for the end of a long war was announced. Perhaps, in a way, we have been involved in a war, a war against oppression, of invented wars, of failing economy, of balloon mortgages, and all of the ugliness of these past years. We have emerged exultant. We have won the War. We have embarked on a hopeful journey of Change. We have accomplished a miracle that no one believed could happen in our country today, placed a Black man in the White House! Great day! Americans no longer bear the burden of being called racist bigots or aggressive bullies. We did it. Yes, we can....and yes, we did!

CHICAGO BOUND

2008-10-28T11:22:00.003-04:00

I am leaving in a few days for Chicago, visiting my grandson and his wife who live there and spending some quality time with my new great-grandson, eight months old at last count, as red haired as his mother, with a smile for everyone he meets, except for me, whom he forced to work hard for his approval. It is disconcerting to have a tiny tot wrinkle up and cry every time he looks in your direction, but after a few minutes of making squeaky noises and playing with little toys, he decided I wasn't such an ogre after all.

By a lucky coincidence, I will be in Chicago for Election Day and plan on attending what I hope will be a Victory Celebration for Obama in Grant Park. Since Chicago weather is as bad as Detroit weather, perhaps even worse, I will be ready with my long johns, my fur-lined parka, my moose skin coat, my wool coat and gloves. Cold weather is not my favorite time of year. I prefer palm trees and sunny skies. For a while there, I had hoped Global Warming had heated this area up a bit, but if it has, it is unnoticeable, except for the green tree in my yard that refuses to drop its leaves.

Chicago, I am told, is laid out in a grid, unlike Detroit, which is supposed to be a wheel. The expressways have crisscrossed the wheel to a point where it is difficult to find one's way. One handy item God seems to have left out of my construction is a sense of direction. I am directionally-challenged and can get lost in a Walmart. One time I wandered through a Casino looking for an exit and thought I would have to spend my lifetime there amid the slots, not a bad way to go, but miserable if you have run out of quarters.

For directionally-challenged people, there is no East, South, West or North. There are only Right and Left. If you tell me to turn Left, I can do that. If you tell me to go South, I may end up in New Jersey. I don't fight it any more. It's just an aggravating fact of life. I just keep going until I find something recognizable, or until someone finds me.

Anyway, I will explore Chicago's grids. It is one city where I have not spent much time, simply because it always seemed to me to be dull, as compared to Los Angeles or San Antonio. Now my friends are telling me that I have been sorely mistaken about that. I always counter this by asking how any place called "The Windy City" can have any charm for a woman who values her coiffure? A "Breezy City" I could understand, but a high wind makes it difficult.

When I was working at the paper, it was located on the 13th Floor of a tall building in the center of the city. When you stepped outside the building, it was like entering the Gates of Hell. The wind whistled around that corner with a vengeance and, for some reason, it was also the loitering spot for prostitutes, who leaned against walls and posts and displayed their wares to the passers-by. We were supposed to park in a huge facility located beside a local hospital, about two blocks away from the building where I worked. Since this was a windy, cold walk to take each morning, I ignored all of this and parked in front of the building, using the metered parking spaces.

My car was registered in my husband's name and he was not too pleased to see his name in the local opposition paper as the "Biggest Scofflaw in the City," with about a thousand unpaid parking tickets. I had to explain my case to a judge, telling him how frightening it was for a woman alone to park in that big, echoing building, sometimes late at night for a story, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning. In the interest of proper newscasting, he did help me with my fines. Otherwise, I would still be deeply in debt to the city.

Staying in the same apartment building I will occupy in Chicago is Jeff Daniels, a Michigan actor who will unfortunately leave the place before I move in. He has evidently been appearing in a play there in Chicago. It is a dog-friendly building, so Jedi will move in with me. So far, I have taken her on planes, trains and automobiles. The only method of travel left is going by ship. I talked to a cruise director about this and she said she would order sod to be put on the upper deck for Jedi to use for her toilette. I plan to try a cruise with Jedi very soon.

When I return, when Barack Obama is hopefully installed as our next president, I plan on returning to my precious memories of that family that is no more, the eleven brothers and sisters who helped fashion me into the person I am today. Wherever I go, whatever I do, they travel with me...those eleven people, their wives, husbands, and children surround me as I move through these last golden years of my life. I want to write it all down, tell about it, explain it, leave its experiences for the hundreds or more who have come into this world because John and Daisy met and married. I want each one of them to understand the fortitude and humor of those who lived before them. I want them to walk with me through the hills and valleys of the Farm, to smell the clean fragrance of the grass and see the bloom of the old apple trees in the Springtime.

I want these hundreds of people to mirror the strength of these old farm people throughout the years of their lives, handed down to their children and their children's children to fortify them for the pitfalls that always accompany our existences. They are spread out now throughout the country and the world, this group that has included an astronaut, attorneys, doctors, teachers, an astrophysicist and Heaven knows what else, probably Kevin Bacon. I want to leave them firmly entrenched in the memory of the Farm, where the corn grew on that gravel pit to awesome heights and the wildflowers beckoned in Dead Man's Cave!

THEY WILL COME!

2008-10-22T20:07:00.005-04:00

I was watching CNN and I heard that Henry Paulson, the guy who is in charge of the $700 Billion Bail Out package, congratulated China on its progress! This might be construed as a nice thing to do, but he added that he saw a great future in China for U.S. companies.

Well, as my mother would have said..."Hoop de doo!" Isn't it nice that the man who is handling that miserable, expensive Bail Out, snatched from the pockets of American taxpayers who are jobless, homeless and hopeless, and that does not seem to have helped the stock market at all, is lauding China and giving it credit for its magnificent job of welcoming our industries within its shores? Should we join him in anticipating more Chinese junk in every store in this land, more ten story boats arriving on our shores, more job losses from companies that head for the cheap labor there?

Let's talk about those companies for a while. GM, who has presented a pitiful picture of its finances, is currently talking to Chrysler about buying THAT financially stressed company. Where is the money coming from for such a sale, GM? You have told us how wages and Health Care costs of pensioners, etc., are keeping you broke, and you're trying to buy a huge company like Chrysler?

Let me tell you about Chrysler, who merged with a German company not long ago. A derelict area around Opdyke Rd. and Squirrel Rd. near Pontiac contains thousands of acres of land where huge buildings make up the Chrysler Center. There are tennis courts and acres of lush greenery, roads that wind from building to building, an area where millions of dollars have gone into landscaping and construction. Yet, poor Chrysler is having financial trouble, as is GM, which not long ago, purchased the Rennaissance Center in Detroit and refurbished the area around the riverfront. If these companies are as broke as they say they are, with their stock falling down to the bottom, why did they spend their diminishing funds on these expansive real estate deals?

I have no pity for these companies, because they have shown no loyalty to Americans. My brother in law, Charles...whom we all called "Chop", worked in an auto factory until his retirement. He didn't have too many years to enjoy, but died of heart trouble shortly after he stopped working. At four in the morning, year after year, Chop pulled himself out of bed to go to work. He went to work at times when he was sick and should have spent the day in bed. He didn't get rich with this job, but managed to buy a home in the country and had a horse or two for the kids to ride.

Chop is typical of our factory workers and so was my brother, Herman. Herman had a big family, so he never once bought a new car like the ones that he spent the days making. He rattled around in an old wreck, one without a heater, that sputtered and clanged as it chugged along. Every day, from the wee hours of dawn until the late afternoon, Herman would coax that old car to work and back. He retired and died of cancer a short time later.

When my parents lived in Illinois, they came to Michigan to the Land of Promise, where the auto factories were in need of employees. My brothers all went to work in the plants, Hubert, Harold (Bud), Harry, Herman, Homer..... some of them not even old enough to vote. Their educations were set aside as they joined the army of men driving to and from the auto plants each day. They didn't earn much money back then.

Then the unions came. It was a violent, bloody time! I was a child and I listened in awe at the stories of the fighting over the unions. There were factory workers and Scabs, and the Scabs were the enemy, men brought in to work by the companies, past the picket lines. There were terrible, wounding battles, with men using clubs and pipe wrenches, fighting on the streets. My brother, Hjalmar, was caught in the center of a battle on Belle Isle Bridge. He barely escaped with his life, he said, and blood was spilling over the bridge into the water below.

When the Union men won the battle, life slowly got better. Those men, once impoverished and barely able to feed their families, began making a living wage. What is more, they were spared the infringement on their privacy, as employers like Henry Ford spied upon their personal lives. I admire Henry Ford for his creativity and adventure, but his own personal life was a shambles as he sent spies out to monitor the personal conduct of his workers.

Back then, people running the Assembly Lines never thought of switching chores to keep men from the monotony of that life. Back then, a man would stand and put a bolt into a machine, over and over, minute after minute, hour after hour, until his shift was completed. But the salary kept rising as the Unions worked out contracts with the plants.

It wasn't all roses. The Unions became too big and some of them were mixed up with mobsters, using money from Union funds to back huge Casinos and other projects. But, men like my brother, Harlan (Deed), who drove a truck across the country and belonged to the Teamster's, has good words to say about Jimmy Hoffa to this day! He feels that Hoffa may not have been perfect, but he never forgot his truckers, took care of them and made sure they were paid for their long, tiresome drives! Jimmy Hoffa lived in a home in a small town just a mile or so from where I write this and I can testify that, mobster or not, he lived very frugally in an average-sized home.

Now that GM, Ford and Chrysler are household names, now that men have invested years of their lives into working for them, now that countries like China and India beckon with labor that is pitifully cheap, these industries are thumbing their nose at American workers and fleeing the land!

Let 'em go! If you can ever afford a car again, there are used ones on the lots in good repair. We should drive them until the rubber is worn off the tires and the rust has eaten the metal. We should not put one dollar into these ruthless, greedy companies that have left our country like rats deserting a sinking ship. Yes, they've left us to sink, but I can tell you that somewhere...somehow...someone is going to say....."Build an American car, from American parts, on American soil....and they will come!"

Yes, it may be just a dream, but if some small company does it...cutting out the finery, the electric seats, the voices that say "A Door is Ajar!" as the kids dissolve in laughter and say, "A Door is not a jar, silly!" Yes, cut out the folderol, build us a little car that goes a long way on a gallon of gas, make it in America with American workers, and give it an affordable price, and the customers are here! Hopefully, soon, we won't be using that gallon of gas, either. We'll have us a Green Car and we'll create another American giant industry and this time, yes, this time we won't open the door to the cheap labor, but rather show China that we can do it while giving our people a living wage!

So, perhaps in some empty building deserted by a company that fled our land, there is a businessman mulling the need for a completely American car! Let's call it the "Revenge" and drive it with pride, our own field of dreams, a product made in America, for Americans, by Americans.

DAY OF RECKONING

2008-10-18T18:54:00.003-04:00

We all move forward. There is no way we can ever move backward, because time doesn't travel in that direction, unless some invention like Hadron's Collider finds that extra element and surprises us all. I have known many people who have returned to the scenes of their childhood. They usually have their families along and point out the spots where they used to play ball with Pete or Joe or Jimmie, ride past their old high schools, stopping to stare at the home where they used to live, owned by someone else now, with strange curtains on the windows, different shrubbery in the yard. Their kids, bored senseless, fight over territory in the back seat and suggest that they all go home.

The truth is, time plays hell with childhood memories and often shreds them into fragments of imagined activities. Thus, men gathered in a bar will recall the one time they made the correct move in a game and the crowd stood up in their seats and applauded. It is as though time stood still at that moment, frozen forever, the highlight of their now busy lives. In a way, it is like recalling some old boyfriend or girlfriend, the one that made your heart pound and took your breath away, the one that occupied your mind twenty four hours of the day. So, you think backward in time with a warm, loving feeling, but for some reason, it just doesn't work. You ask yourself what on earth could have made you feel that way, how could you have made such an idiot of yourself over someone so positively ordinary with no great qualities at all?

I cannot go back to the scenes of my childhood, because the bulldozers came in and ripped them away, shredding them, erasing them from the earth forever. Now, a subdivision exists on the acres of the Farm, and there is not one scene of my childhood left to substantiate my memories.

I remember the day the bulldozers came. My brother, Bud; my nephew, Charlie, whom we all called Junior, and I sat on the old cement porch just outside the back door of the farmhouse, watching the monsters creep on their destructive way toward the orchard that I loved, that we children had used as a vast and magic playground, climbing on the old trees and shouting out at each other.

The machines started their task of digging into the earth, uprooting trees, smoothing out hills and valleys. Eventually, they dug away the Dead Man's Cave, the Forbidden Plateau, even Dinosaur Hill! When they finished, there would be nothing left of our playground, nothing left of the magic of childhood. Teenage had come and gone and time marches onward. The Farm was doomed and would be eventually torn down, to be replaced by the modern brick homesteads with shining facilities and workable plumbing, the mini-mansions that dot our landscape across the country.

We didn't talk, we just watched and listened to those motors and shovels as they tore at the earth, eating away familiar scenes like some primeval beast tearing at the limbs of his prey. Bud was silent, his deepset brown eyes filled with sorrow. I leaned against him and could not halt the tears that were sliding from my eyes.

"You know," he said finally, "a smaller house will be much better for Mom and Pop. It has a bathroom and indoor plumbing. It will be easier to heat!"

"Mom may be happier," I snapped at him. "But moving away from this Farm will kill Pop!"

I was right. It took awhile, but he was never the same after he moved away. How can a man who has spent a lifetime busy in the fields do little besides sit in a chair and wind his watches? How many times can a man light a pipe and try to while away the long afternoon hours? How can he say goodbye to fields of Golden Bantam growing green and healthy in the sun?

Bud didn't answer, but his doleful expression made me believe he knew I was right. The hunger for more land for subdividing was being appeased by the loss of our acres of memory and Bud could think of no words to soothe the sorrow in our hearts. Junior was indignant at the thought of it all. "They're tearing up the orchard!" he said, his eyes blazing. "Look at that! They're killing those trees!"

"Hubert will be here in a little while," said Bud, as though Hubert could ease our heartbreak. I have a feeling he would be very relieved to hand us over to Hubert or anyone else, for that matter.

"We all grow up," he said. "Our lives go on. Soon you young people won't be so attached to this Farm. You have lives of your own to live. You will always remember the Farm, but it won't be the center of your lives."

We could only stare at him. What on earth was he talking about? Big, monstrous machines were tearing up the orchard and all Bud could offer was this kind of nonsense, nothing that helped us at all!

"Let's go!" I called to Junior and we jumped up and started running, leaving Bud seated on the concrete slab. It felt good to stretch our legs and we ran like wild deer, heading for the orchard, taking one last journey through the worn old trees with their spreading limbs and their knotted trunks, weaving through the bulldozers with loud Indian yells, as their drivers smiled and waved at us as we passed.

So we said goodbye to these familiar scenes, taking one more long look at Dead Man's Cave, running across the Forbidden Plateau and finally reaching the lake where we splashed in the water, tossing it around as though it were liquid remnants of a modern world that was encroaching on our lives. When we finally returned to the Farm, Mom had supper ready. Hubert had arrived and Bud had left his post to go inside. Boxes of this and that were packed and piled around the dining room and living room. Mom was ready to go to her new home.

"It sure will be nice to have running water," Mom said, as she set the food on the table.

Running water? It was years later when my own family surrounded me that I learned what a blessing running water is to a woman. At that moment, I could only think that the running water in the streams and swamps were enough for me! The running water in the lake, rippling silver in the sun, were enough for me!

I crawled in bed that night and said goodbye to old walls with their faded wallpaper, the worn floors, the old stovepipe running up the center of the hallway, the familiar homemade ladder propped outside my bedroom. I wondered what Pop was thinking about then. Did he, too, bless the thought of running water? Did conveniences matter at all to an old farmer who just wanted to put on an old felt hat and walk out in the sun?

Perhaps, I thought, it was fortunate that Pop suffered from dementia, often mistaking me for Mom, often wandering around in the scenes of his own childhood. Perhaps the fact his aged mind was crumbling would blunt the pain of moving away from all that he loved. Perhaps sorrow can be blunted by dwelling in the memories of the past.

I can drive by the location of the Farm today and it is like another world. The old trees are gone, the old gnarled pine tree fronting the farmhouse is just a memory, the cornfield on the corner is now a manicured lawn with neatly spaced shrubbery and a few flowers. The wildflowers do not grow on the hills any more. The milkweed sheds its silken burden elsewhere. The Farm exists only in my memory, the big, noisy family is spread across the globe. Only at Pop's funeral did they congregate in his honor, with a cortege that stretched miles along the highway.

Happy times fade. Dreams turn to dust. Life goes on and old dreams are replaced by new ones, happy times appear in different colors and shapes, old illusions fade while new ones are born. Soon life becomes cluttered and busy and there is little time to look back on a childhood scene. Both Bud and Hubert gone now, gone from my life, and Pop eternally walking along in that field of Golden Bantam, the sun shining down on that battered brown hat, a picture emblazoned on my mind and etched forever on my heart.

THAT WAS A MAN!

2008-10-11T19:07:00.003-04:00

Sarah Palin, her smile frozen on her face as though she enjoyed what she was doing, stood before a crowd of Republicans and told them that Barack Obama was a pal to a terrorist. "He doesn't look upon America as we do," she said, as though God and her witch pastor had given her insight into Barack Obama's mind.

In the days that followed, this theme continued, with McCain allowing both his vice presidential choice and his wife to stand before the crowds and repeat these accusations, adding new ones as the need arose. Cindy McCain accused Obama of voting against funding for her son in Iraq, forgetting the fact that her husband had voted against a similar bill on funding Iraq just a month before. The dispute was over the placement of a "timetable" in the bill, with Obama voting for it, and McCain voting against. When the timetable was removed from the bill, Obama voted against it and McCain voted for it. Cindy McCain must have known this before she got up to speak.

Thus, actions are twisted and exaggerated in elections and it is up to the voters to sort it all out. But there is no sorting out the reaction of the Republican crowd. "Kill him!" they cried. "String him up!" "Death to all Muslims!" and other choice catcalls. They sounded like a crowd of loyal Nazis at a Third Reich rally, violent and angry and ready to pick up their weapons and shoot!

With Obama a biracial man, with Black skin, John McCain has endangered his life. All it takes is one lunatic to decide it is his duty to obey Sarah Palin's call. We have had many years of this violent behavior, with gunmen shooting innocents in schools, churches and restaurants. We have had terror in our classrooms. We have had terror in the workplace. Now we have a political Candidate working a crowd into an angry froth, shouting out epithets and vowing retaliation, while McCain smiled and allowed it to continue!

Most of us old enough to remember the murder of John Kennedy shudder at the thought of a repeat performance. Many of us are not sure that his murder was not engineered by political forces. It is a dark shadow on our history, and was followed by similar murders of two other men, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Each time, we are told that these slaughters were accomplished by "lone nuts." Well, if ever a call was sent out for a lone nut to act, it was during the last week of John McCain's campaign!

It is hard to believe that there are people so stupid as to pay attention to this kind of hateful rhetoric. All it would take is a little investigation, perhaps a few minutes with Google, to discover the truth. Obama did, indeed, know a man named William Ayers, a college professor with a checkered past as an activist during the youthful revolt against the Viet Nam War.

I remember this time very well, when the adults sat in silence while the young people went into a time of revolt! Who could blame them? Sixty thousand young lives were wasted in Viet Nam and today, it is a tourist haven! Sixty thousand young men marched off to war and failed to come home! Sixty thousand graves, and the leaders of our government continued to lie. Fed up with the falsehoods of the government leaders and the military tactics, our Youth rebelled. Some of them were violent, and William Ayers fell in with this group. He was leader of the Weathermen, and had a hand in bombing a Federal building. He was later placed on trial, but the court proceedings were halted because it was revealed that Prosecution withheld some vital evidence.

Ayers, freed, went on to obtain an education and became a Professor at the University of Illinois. He became a Community Leader and was selected as a member of a Charity Board. Also serving on this board was a young man named Barack Obama. They became friends and acquaintances, and it is doubtful that Obama even knew of Ayers' past misdeeds. Ayers hosted the first fundraiser for Obama's political career. Obama admits that, somewhere in this time, he learned of Ayers' reprehensible past, but considered him rehabilitated. Obama himself was a Professor at the University of Illinois, so the two were fellow employees as well.

I doubt if any politician in Chicago has not rubbed shoulders with those who have pasts that leave much to be desired. In fact, political life anywhere seems to attract a variety of people, and Chicago is known to have had a very violent history, with mobsters and criminals of all sorts. However, William Ayers strikes me as a man who has left his past behind him and has tried to manage his life well. If every criminal in our prisons today served their sentences and came out to be college professors, doctors, lawyers, scientists, economic experts.....should we flay them or cheer them? Is punishment the goal, or is it rehabilitation? I think I would choose the latter.

I remember the first time I ever saw a Black man. He came to the Farm to do some business with my father. I looked out my upstairs window and saw him, this fascinating creature with such dark skin. It amazed me. I was mesmerized. Since my father never allowed a guest to leave our property without eating something, the Black man was soon ensconced in a kitchen chair, with my father opposite him. I sat in a chair in the corner and stared at our visitor, electrified by this strange-looking fellow. He turned to look at me and smiled. His teeth were so white it was like a sudden flash of lightening.

When our guest had eaten, he thanked my mother profusely and walked to his car, my father saw him out, then came back into the house.

"Gee, Pop," I said! "That sure was a black man!"

Pop said nothing for a few seconds, then he turned to look at me. "That was a man," he said, then left the room to sit in his chair with his pipe. It took me years and years to understand what he had told me. I had no understanding of the bigotry in the world, but in those four words, my father was telling me that skin color is not the measure of a man.

So, with just a few days left before this election, I suppose we can look forward to more of the same. The last two elections have reeked of suspicious behavior, with machines that mark a vote for Bush if you punched in Kerry, with minorities accused of being felons whether or not they were or not, and with long lines standing in the rain in the poorer districts, while the rich folks got voting machines to spare. The 2000 election is still disputed, with the Supreme Court voting along partisan lines to halt the recounting of the ballots in highly populated counties.

Did you ever wonder what our lives would be like if Al Gore had been selected as winner? Just think, we could have freely and easily asked for French Fries. We could have bought a Dixie Chick tape without guilt. We could have supported our troops in Afghanistan, because the War in Iraq would have never taken place. We could have lived in a land with a balanced budget. We would never have borrowed a dime from China. That ten story boat, loaded with Chinese products, would have had to find a different port.

Things would be so different, it almost makes one weep with nostalgia, remembering what our country used to be. That was before Cotton Mather and his crowd came to weed out the witches, put the Ten Commandments in every courthouse, then proceed to ignore every one of them. That was before the radical, warloving, spendthrift rabblerousers took control! That was before George W. Bush! God help us, we DO need change!

BETTER THERE THAN HERE!

2008-10-04T10:47:00.003-04:00

Most of us, myself included, cannot even envision a billion dollars. However, I read somewhere that, if a billion dollars were counted as years, we would be back in the time that Jesus roamed the earth. So, when Congress tacks on another billion to the $700 billion we are now using to fish out the mortgage lenders who bilked the public out of tons of money and now will be able to breathe a little easier while they conspire to continue their path to untold riches, we are taking those years back even further.

If a billion dollars were counted as a year, and if a billion would extend us in years back to Jesus' time, if one considered the trillions we owe China and other countries in the National Debt, we would now be back in the time of creation, past the Neanderthals, past the birth of earth itself, and into a Black Hole swallowing up exploding stars and floating about the universe of space.

Since I am no economic genius, and I gauge the plight of the country by the local price of a gallon of gas or a loaf of bread, I cannot fathom a billion dollars and trying to envision a trillion really strains my mentality. It is easier for me to call it the name that Dennis Kucinich created, since he probably has the same trouble that I do trying to understand it all. "We owe a GAZILLION dollars," said Kucinich, and that about says it all.

Out of a Gazillion dollars, some of it has been given out in what is called Earmarks. Now, to me, an Earmark is the impression your ears leave on a soft pillow after a good night's sleep, but to a politician, an Earmark is a bonus given to certain constituents to guarantee his re-election. If one gives a Teapot Museum to a little town, the citizens of that town are supposed to be so delighted that they vow eternal gratitude and vote for the fellow who bestowed this gift upon them. This is why our $700 billion Bailout, which stretches us in years back to earth's creation, has about $1.5 billion in Earmarks tacked onto it, which brings the total of our generous, heartfelt pity for the mortgage lenders up to about 9 billion bucks and sends us in years even further back in time!

Now, these Earmarks that plumped up the total Bailout are absolutely necessary! Who could resent giving tax breaks to a wooden arrow factory? Every kid needs a wooden arrow to be able to reach adulthood, wouldn't you agree? Never mind that a few of them may practice their skills on a younger sibling or pierce the cover of the living room couch! That's beside the point. As citizens of a great, formerly rich country, we should back our wooden arrow makers, right? At least they are not candy manufacturers using milk products in China and poisoning our babies with melamine! That wooden arrow manufacturer is located right here in the good old U.S.A. and is a remnant of the golden age of manufacture that used to be located right here! Perhaps we should establish a Wooden Arrow Museum to show our gratitude.

Another Earmark that caught my fancy was the tax break given to a woolen company that presumably makes woolen clothing. My knowledge of this transaction does not include the amount given or the location of the company, but what caught my fancy is the fact that this company uses urine collected in foreign lands and, of course, needs money to ship these sloshing containers. This evidently is used in the process of creating good wool, which just about does it for that collection of sweaters in my closet! If they are formed from the urine of some Indian or Chinese worker, I am not sure I want to wear them on a daily basis.

My question is, what is wrong with American urine? Could this be called discrimination? Is there some prejudice and bigotry involved? Why is foreign urine better than anyone else's? Does mango juice do something to urine that makes it superior to others? The problem is, would the American people donate their urine to help a company process their wool? It would certainly save shipping costs and port fees. Perhaps I could wear a sweater with a little more comfort if it were processed with my own urine. I am not sure about that, but it's a thought.

Do you see how deeply involved I am in the problems of International commerce? One has to study these problems incessantly to try to save America from bankruptcy and protect our meager finances that we entrust to local banks. We are told that we can rest assured that our savings are insured by our entirely trustworthy and financially astute government. We are told to hang onto our $401K's and trust our Earmark Experts to handle our financial affairs. We cannot have a run on the banks! That would lead to traffic jams and irritable encounters with frenzied bank officials! Besides, where would you put the money? You can't wear a money belt and still have a svelte waistline. You can't put it in the cookie jar, because the kids would celebrate the new kind of cookies. You are stuck with your dubious trust in a government that seems to be loaded with utter dingbats.

My solution to all of this is simple. If we could discover where Dick Cheney deposits his money, we could all use that bank. I have a feeling that Dick Cheney will not leave office broke, no matter what happens to the country. If he would share his banking information, we could all undoubtedly benefit. Perhaps he keeps his money in Iraq, alongside the oil profits the Iraqi government has piled up. Would it be unpatriotic for American citizens to place their money in a Green Zone bank? As President Bush has said many time, "Better there than here!"

HOW GOOD ARE THE "GOOD OLD DAYS"?

2008-10-01T11:46:00.003-04:00

Many older people speak of the "Good Old Days," when things were simpler and, in their minds, much better. They remember a time when families were closer and the money might have been scarcer, but daily life was minus such gadgets as iPods, video games, television, and rap artists. Families clustered together around the radio and the only links you had with political personalities were the radio and newspapers. Newspapers were popular then. It was a heyday for them! Every person with a few pennies in his pocket depended upon newspapers to keep up with the news. My father, who was so poor we were one step above being homeless, still bought a newspaper, which was delivered to the roadside box. He always liked the Hearst Paper, the Detroit Times. He adored Westbrook Pegler and adopted all of his Republican opinions. It would have been amusing had I been older and wiser, to compare my father's life with the people Westbrook Pegler mingled with, the rich, the officers of huge companies, the fortunate among us.

When the battery radio finally gave out and the farm had electricity, one of my brothers gave us a radio to cluster around. It is that radio, an ungainly piece of furniture that sat on the floor and blared its sounds, that brought us the wisdom of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, that allowed me to listen to the suspenseful episodes of Jack Armstrong and the Green Hornet, that brought music into our living room.

Other than the radio, our musical selections depended upon a Victrola, an ancient contraption that one had to wind up before being able to listen to a record. Somewhere, somehow, someone gave me a stack of old records, most of them featuring an old Scottish artist named Sir Harry Lauder. Day after day, I wound up the Victrola and listened to Sir Harry's scratchy voice belting out his songs. I have long intended to look him up on the Internet and find out more about his life, but have neglected to do so. His gravelly renditions of his ballads became even more interesting when the Victrola needed a new windup. His voice would slow down to a creak, like the slow moo of a cow, and become gradually slower until it faded away entirely, unless one jumped forward to man the wheel.

I'm not sure the "Good Old Days" were all that good. When you sweep away the sentiment and the nostalgia, it was not the greatest time on earth. There is nothing comfortable about outside privys with their rough boards and their exposure to the elements. I have spent some time hurrying through all physical needs lest my hinder suffer from frostbite. Mom, always one to ignore convention if duty called for it, considered it her duty to make life better for her children. So, instead of trotting to the outhouse when it was dark at night, she allowed us to "go to the door," which was quicker, easier and, although not much warmer, at least allowed one a shorter dash back into the warmth.

In the darkest, coldest nights, she allowed us to use "the pot." It was a white enamel container with wire handles and an appropriate white lid. She sat this pot in the attic, which retained some of the warmth from the kitchen below, drifting up from the stove pipe that led to the roof. Helma and I would dash from our warm beds through the chilly hallway and run to the attic, where we would squat on the pot until our business was done. Each morning, Mom dutifully and lovingly carried the sloshing pot to the outhouse to empty it, rinsing it out with water to ward off offensive odors. The rinsing wasn't quite enough, because the aroma from the pot often drifted through the entire upstairs area, but this was easier to handle than the subzero temperatures outside.

Through subzero weather, through blizzards, through freezing rains and winds, the family still arrived constantly to visit. The married brothers and sisters brought their mates and children along and Mom would bustle around fixing the food, while my bevy of neices and nephews raced from one end of the house to the other. Pop was everyone's favorite and many of the kids would plop themselves on his lap as he jiggled them on his knees and chuckled at their exploits. Because Eldin was Mom's favorite, Pop left him out of the circle and he often ignored Helma, who claims he never kissed or hugged her. So, in a way, they divided up the kids, with the baby, Jon, and the rest of us piled on Pop's lap or standing behind his chair playing with his strands of gray hair, while the others kept a distance and hung around the kitchen with Mom. Mom wasn't prone to fiddling around with children. To her, life was a serious business consisting of food preparation, gardening and hard work. Her house may have been threadbare, but it was as clean as daily mopping could make it. She took off her apron when the family arrived, but her work continued...and multiplied.

Hubert and Bud were the best of friends, which has always fascinated me, because they were polar opposites. Bud was quiet, sometimes somber, sometimes looking around quietly with a twinkle in his eye, while Hubert was extroverted, noisy and prone to teasing kids until they either laughed or cried. Both of them loved children, just as Pop did, and each of the nieces and nephews had a distinct personality. Marlene was a little princess with her long, curly hair and pretty face, and because she was younger, the children treated her with special concern, even though we dragged her along everywhere we went. Through mud, sleet, snow and hail, the group of us that were older marched through the orchard and the swamp, with little Marlene staunchly trailing behind, determined to keep up.

One never leaves childhood behind, no matter how the years pile up. To this day, I consider Marlene to be my little princess, and Jon to be the cutest fellow on earth! I remain overly fond of Helma's kids, who always called me "Aunt Boy," and led me through some great adventures when I babysat them. Little Donnie had a penchance for balogna sandwiches and Heaven help you if you could not come up with his beloved "baloney sandwich." The problem was, if there was one handprint or fingerprint on his slices of bread, he refused to eat his sandwich, yet he wanted it sliced. Have you ever tried to slice a sandwich made of fresh bread without pressing it down here or there? Well, I had to manage to do that with Donnie, although I threatened to let him go hungry.

Today, Donnie is a tall, handsome fellow with a love of Ernest Hemingway and a great sense of humor, but I still consider him a little boy with unbending rules for his sandwiches. Each and every one of my nieces and nephews are individuals, with differences that followed them into adulthood. Jon, the adventurer, who shows up unexpectedly, and has stories of close escapes in dangerous foreign lands he may or may not divulge; Stodgy Richard, with his neatness fetish and kindness to the slobs the rest of us were; lovable Donald, generous, with no patience for detail; Sis, with her golden curls; Dawnie, with her squeaking little voice and delicate features; Ronald, always the bully with the quick wit; Charlie, who sprouted wild, curly hair in his puberty, which Pop always claimed had to be the result of a permanent; Norma Jean who was my close friend and ally and; of course, Eldin, still a dear companion always good for an debate or a laugh!

I cannot squeeze them all into a paragraph, but they made up the life I lived, this great, boisterous group of children that bounced around the hills and valleys of the farm. How much our childhoods affected our later lives is a question that cannot be answered. But, I would imagine that many of us wished we were back in those "good old days," even though those days were laced with trips to that uncomfortable, bug-infested, spider-web-festooned, odorous privy.

WHO'S WHINING NOW, PHIL GRAMM!

2008-09-24T19:27:00.004-04:00

Back when the auto companies first started laying off employees, President Bush visited Michigan, supposedly to promote Alternative Fuels. As he was leaving an auto plant, one of the factory employees called out to him, "What are you going to do about the failing auto plants, Mr. President?"

In reply, the employee received a look of disdain. "I can't sell your cars for you!" the President said, as he hurried along his way.

Evidently, he cannot sell the cars, but he can assist in the mortgage business. We now face a $200,000 billion "loan" that will come from you and I, including that auto plant employee, and every other taxpayer in this country.

We are told there will be dire results if we do not hurry with this loan. We are told that people will lose their savings, businesses will not be able to pay the salaries of their employees, etc. etc. We will sink into Depression, they say, as if we aren't approaching that point already, at least here in Michigan.

It appears to me that, if they had assisted the homeowners who could not cope with Balloon Payments on their mortgages, we might have saved ourselves a few billion bucks. Instead, we heard the Republican mantra..."I don't feel sorry for them. They were greedy!" If you want examples of greed, just take a peek at the Money Boys in the Mortgage Lending business, the banks that would have given a loan to a homeless man living in a Shelter with no job. "Sure," they would have said, " we'll handle the bookwork. You won't have to pay a penny. Live there a few years with little expenditure, then sell it, and make yourself a bundle!"

So, the people with stardust in their eyes, living the American Dream, moved into their mini-mansions with plans to end their stay in their huge new homes by putting money in their bank accounts! Then, when the Balloon payments began swelling those house payments and added tremendous interest payments as well, the American Dream turned into a nightmare and each neighborhood had several vacant homes, ghosts of a dream that went sour!

The best one could say is that they afforded a dry spot for a vagrant to spend the night. They also gave a few bucks to the thieves who stripped the plumbing for the metals involved. The value of the surrounding houses fell drastically, but the taxes remained the same. You might sell your house for $200,000, but you were taxed for a $400,000 house. That's if you could find a buyer in the first place, because each block had vacant homes being sold at auction at much lower prices.

No one really knows who owns these vacant homes. The mortgages were split and split again, often ending up with bits and pieces sold in Scotland or other foreign lands, part of it here, part of it there. It's a total loss and now we are faced with a huge government bailout, which includes Fanny and Freddie, to boot!

I don't know enough about finance to know the legalities of selling homes, but back when I bought a home, I had to convince the bank that I could afford the payments. I believe these mortgage lenders and bank executives are nothing more than crooks. They pocketed big amounts of money, from the brokers up to the CEO's of these immoral companies. They did it knowing full well that these buyers would hit a stumbling block when the balloon payments rolled around. You don't sell champagne to a guy who can only afford beer, but they did!

So we are asked to bail out these crooks, lest the country fall into recession. Congress even spent several days arguing over whether the CEO's of these companies would get their Golden Parachutes and compensation packages and bonuses and all of the good things these miserable clods get, while the auto worker, laid off and trying to meet his mortgage payment, is accepting a job asking a customer if she wants paper or plastic, or slinging hash for a few bucks an hour at a local restaurant.

These CEO's and other crooks should be forced to donate their savings and investments to the Cause! Instead, they'll figure out a way to make money on the backs of the taxpayers they have swindled. Heaven forbid that we take any money away from the already Wealthy, especially the ones clever enough to rip off the public.

Where are our governing agencies? Where are our regulating agents? While John McCain walked around in the past bragging that he was known as the "deregulator," these lawless fools were pocketing profits as though it were raining money. Now, suddenly, McCain has called for regulation. Someone should tell that shifting old soul with his constantly changing policies that four prunes daily will keep him regulated. Somehow, I don't trust these politicians who are nervously trying to change horses midstream. Suddenly, the policies of liberal governments look mighty enticing. But they won't shoulder the blame for this mess at all! Instead, they will blame the guileless public who believed the words of their brokers and their bankers!

It doesn't help that I do not believe one word of anything George Bush tells the public. He has an attitude of superiority, as though he believes that, no matter what foolish thing he has done, all he has to do is shimmy out of it with a few lies and all will be well. He gives the public very little credit for intelligence, probably because he has so little himself.

Let's give those CEO's minimum wages. Let's let them learn how the working man and woman is suffering in this economy! Let's let them stand in a grocery store and try to pick up sales on cereal or milk. Let them clip coupons and weigh the difference between this brand or that! Let them say goodbye to the Lexus, the trophy wife, the yacht! Let them taste life with the reality that the public has to face when times are tough!

Four more years of anything even slightly approaching the Bush policies and we kiss our country goodbye. The Trickle Down plumbing has sprung a major leak. The Do Nothing- You're On Your Own bunch have been lurking around since Herbert Hoover just about destroyed us. They grabbed the advantage when Al Gore accepted a Supreme Court decision and it has been a downhill run ever since.

A billion here, a billion there, and soon you are talking about real money.....to coin a phrase...and this is real money we are talking about, our money, money that will disappear into the yawning black hole of government and undoubtedly never be seen again. The poor billionaires are desperate. They need money and it is up to us complaining, ungrateful citizens to find it for them, either borrow it from China or have a few more billions printed up, so that our Dollar will hit rock bottom. Well, Phil Gramm, who's whining now? Who's begging for help? It isn't the hard working citizens of the United States now, is it? The Rich have finally reached the desperate status the Poor have endured for a long time, since the Bush Economic Looting took over. Who's whining now?

MORNING MEANDERINGS

2008-09-17T06:47:00.004-04:00

When I read about scientific discoveries and the wonders of space and time, I am filled with awe at the people who can understand what the writers are saying. I struggle to understand the intricacies of Hadron's Collider and I still don't really know what it is they are trying to do and why it is necessary to find it out. It is fascinating stuff, but it is far beyond my capabilities to imagine unlimited space, a new concept of time, the possibility of alternate universes and all of the ideas I have read about. They are wondering about Black Holes and I seem to live in one.

Perhaps my limited ability in this field is connected to my failure to locate myself in this universe, thus making it difficult to imagine any other. I simply have no sense of direction. I can get lost in Walmart, wandering through the aisles trying to figure out just where the exit might be located. If I drive into a parking lot, there is a 90 percent chance I will turn the wrong way when I pull out. I blindly blunder through life, admiring those people who blithely talk about North and South and know which way the sun must be shining, even on a cloudy day. I can't tell North from South and am doomed to wander until I see something recognizable that will point me in the direction I want to go.

So while scientists are smashing atoms, I am trying to wend my way through the aisles of some Walmart, clueless as to where I have been or where I am going. On a dark night not long ago, I was struck by the beauty of the full moon shimmering in the night sky. It seemed to float in the darkness, this glowing orb, so beautiful it took one's breath away just to stare up at it. It is hard to believe that men have walked on this moon, that an American flag is planted there. Perhaps in centuries to come, it will be the jumping off place for trips to Mars and, from there, more exploration of our universe and other universes.

It is all so intricate, so mysterious, so mind-boggling that one cannot help but wonder if it is a part of a grand design, or is just the result of some magnificent accident. My mind cannot comprehend too much space without miring down. How can there be infinite space? What about the beginning and the end? As my sister-in-law, Connie, used to say, "I can believe in God, but when I think about where God came from, I could go crazy!" Where DID God come from, if he exists at all? Did he appear in a roll of thunder and a blinding lightening strike, forming from the collision of atoms in the sky? If he is in man's image, does he have trouble with his weight, lose his hair, get cavities in his teeth?

These kinds of thoughts this early in the morning lead to more cups of coffee and speculation about the world we live in. Our earth must have been beautiful before humans cluttered it up with housing developments, including gated communities where some little man sits in a booth and checks your license number. We have made our earth ugly, simply because we are ignorant. We don't have enough sense to pick up our garbage and tidy up after ourselves. There is even a huge, mountainous island of plastic garbage floating in the ocean, with no efforts being made to clear it up.

Yesterday, I talked to a married couple who had spent the last several years as missionaries. They went to Africa and tried to bring the Light to the minds of the native people there. As I thought about the island of plastic garbage and the gated communities, I wondered if we are doing them any favors by sending missionaries to their lands. Of course, we want them to know about God, our concept of God. If they have a concept of God that differs from our own, we want to teach them that they are wrong and we are right. We want to convert them to our beliefs.

This couple believed in a literal translation of the Bible. If the Bible says something is wrong, then it is wrong. If the Bible says the earth is just a few thousand years old, it is true, and no scientific discovery can disprove it. But, I asked them, but, but, but..... What about selling your daughter into slavery, as is described in Exodus? What about "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live"? Who did Cain marry? What about these random statements that pepper the Bible, should we literally believe what it says? Of course, their answer was a shrug. They literally believed in the words of the Bible, except when it becomes uncomfortable to think about it. That's how we tidy up our beliefs. We don't build a Hadron's Collider in our minds and smash mental atoms to come to conclusions. There are no facts, no scientific or mathematical answers. Faith is blind and deaf, with very little foundation in fact. It is much like getting disoriented in a Walmart store, trying to find the elusive exit.

My grandson, the physicist, tells me that all matter is made of the dust and debris from exploding stars. This gives me a mental picture of God creating the universe. The stars have exploded, the dust...when mixed with water...creates a marvelous modeling clay, and God goes about forming the earth and the heavens, as well as the bounties of Mother Nature and the ooze that produced the first creatures that moved and finally crawled up out of the mud, sprouting hands, feet, lungs and all of the necessary appendages as millions of years pass by.

Take the horse, for instance. The horse used to be a tiny animal. I saw a drawing once of a miniature horse, before this creature has evolved into the animal we have today. What a wonderful thing to happen! What earthly good would a miniature horse do for humans? One could not ride on its back. One couldn't bet on it at a racetrack. The most one could do is give a set of them to the kids and allow them to play miniature horses instead of those little plastic soldiers. So the horse evolved, but we had to invent our own bicycle, and we had to fashion our own cars. Can you imagine God looking down from his perch in oblivion, shaking his head, and saying.."Look at those idiots whizzing around in those contraptions! I gave them the horse, but no! It wasn't fast enough! They have to get out and kill each other, speeding around!"

More coffee! More wisdom! Three banks failed and the stock market plunged, tried to get up again, fell back down, and threatens to collapse. The government, which is of, by and for the people, is rescuing the banks. The world is so topsy-turvy that one doesn't know whether to trust the local bank or the stock market or take out every penny you may have stored and stash it in your cookie jar or under your pillow. It is reminiscent of the great run on banks that took place before or during the Great Depression, when Roosevelt declared a bank holiday and frightened people envisioned a time of starvation.

This is where faith steps in, I guess. This is where one falls back on the instruction that faith must endure. God feeds the sparrow, he will feed you, but what about those flattened sparrows one finds on the ground? We can't even help ourselves. Where can we put a Victory Garden? How can we grow corn in a shoebox-sized lot? Besides, there's an ordinance against gardens! That sparrow didn't have to contend with ordinances. It could flit around freely in a search for food.

When one approaches death, all thought of poetry, prose, philosophy, religion and other clutter disappears and one sinks into death, leaving all behind. According to the Bible, all thought dies with you, which is why I am trying to think of all this in the early morning, as much as my limited capacity allows. Hubert, my brother, used to say to me, when he was musing..."I am trying to figure out how to get out of this without dying!" I understand and I also try to select the easiest method of getting to the point of death. Would I prefer to die by fire or ice, or sink into death after drifting off to sleep? How does that happen? Are you dreaming and some silly dream state is interrupted as you sink into death, or does a sign come on.."To Be Continued."? We would all like to avoid an agonizing death, if possible. Hubert died a slow, miserable, horrible death from Alzheimer's, with loss of memory, disorientation, unstable moods, wandering, probing, suffering! Bud, too, with Parkinson's, starting with the tremors, the shaking, the frozen expression, the bedridden days and nights and, finally, even the joys of eating food taken from him as tubes and contraptions kept death from knocking at his door. It worked for a while, but death always wins eventually.

There are five of us left now, five out of twelve, all of us aging, graying, wrinkling, shrinking, tottering, enduring all the discomforts that age brings along. We have lived long lives but, to me, it is as though I have only been given a few minutes. There is so much I want to think about, to enjoy, to study, to understand. I want all this, but I can't even figure out this pesky crossword puzzle that lays on my desk! How can I understand the world I live in and the universe I contemplate when I can't even figure out a four letter word for an English gun?

It is very difficult to be a philosopher at 8 a.m., clutching a cup of coffee, trying to avoid that sugared doughnut. Philosophical thoughts should only take place in the late afternoon. My brother, Bud, who was prone to silent contemplation, always replied to any question in a philosophical way. "You can't question some things," he said. "You just have to accept them!" That's the truth of it. There are things we can question, like why are they smashing atoms and trying to form matter, why does a moth flutter around a flame, but we cannot question the entire setup. It's as Bill Clinton said...it all depends upon what "is" is!