Another Netflix Winner: "Dead to Me"

 

by Pa Rock

TV Junkie

If you are one of the few Americans who have yet to watch the inspired comedy/mayhem series, Dead to Me, the fast-approaching winter season would be the ideal time to hunker down in front of the fire and correct that cultural oversight.  The final season - the third in the series - has recently arrived on Netflix, and the complete series, thirty episodes, is now available to Netflix subscribers.

The series revolves around the emerging friendship of two middle-aged women whose lives sometimes resemble those of a modern-day Lucy and Ethel, and at other times seem more closely akin to Thelma and Louise.  Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) is a recent widow whose husband was killed in a hit-and-run incident one night while jogging.  Her life is already complicated with a full-time job of selling real estate and raising her two adolescent sons, when she meets Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini), a free spirit with a clouded past, at a grief group.  

The story that grows from this seemingly chance meeting represents some of the most clever writing ever to grace the small screen.  The show is a literal roller-coaster plot twists and turns and loop-de-loops with surprises popping up at a breakneck pace.   The situations that Jen and Judy find themselves are often criminal in nature, but they can also be poignant, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, nonetheless.

For nostalgia buffs there is a very brief on-screen reunion in the final season of Dead to Me between the two Bundy women, Peg (Katy Sagal) and her television daughter, Kelly (Christina Applegate), from the hit series of the 1980's and the 1990's, Married with Children.

Dead to Me is superior entertainment framed by good writing and finished out with exceptional acting.   It is a streaming experience that does not disappoint!

I highly recommend this one!

The Kangaroos Are Coming! The Kangaroos Are Coming!

by Pa Rock

Citizen Skeptic

The rural area in southern Missouri that I call home is, if nothing else, gullible as hell!

A few years ago when my youngest son and a production company were filming a movie in and around West Plains - a film ultimately titled "Lost Child" - a rumor began circulating that Brad Pitt was in town.  I heard stories alleging that he had been spotted sitting by the pool of a local motel and that he had also been sighted dining in one of our town's restaurants.  But when the good folks who were eagerly telling Brad tales were questioned, none of them had actually seen the big star - but each knew someone who absolutely had seen him!   Eventually that nonsense subsided, but there are still, no doubt, a few disappointed folks in the area who believe that they just missed bumping into Brad Pitt at Taco Bell by mere minutes.

Now many of those same people are setting the local area abuzz with stories of kangaroos.  Those in the know are becoming upset about the Missouri Department of Conservation's recent release of eighty-some kangaroos in Texas County, which borders our local county of Howell to the north.  I have heard the kangaroo story several times and, having a skeptical nature, just ignored it.  If kangaroos had been released in Missouri even my major news source, National Public Radio (NPR), would have undoubtedly mentioned it

But yesterday evening I listened to two young men - well, two guys younger than me - talking and becoming seriously angry about that kangaroo invasion that was sure to bring dangers untold to our idyllic country setting.  One of them was even plotting ways to dispose of a kangaroo carcass in the event he had to shoot one - and one was touting a government conspiracy because the kangaroos had been released to protect cattle from predators - but the Department of Conservation had not revealed what predators it was concerned about.

As the paranoia began to mount, I decided that perhaps I should learn more about this strangeness.  It took all of about five minutes of searching on Google to learn the truth.  There was one mention of the story - and it was posted on a Facebook site called "Show-Me Outdoors."   The article was dated April 1st, and read:

"After a long anticipated wait, the Missouri Department of Conservation just released 82 kangaroos in Texas County, MO yesterday in an attempt to deter predators from cattle and natural deer herds, which has been a growing issue in the state. The department is expected to release another 37 kangaroos on April Fools Day."

Missouri's faux kangaroo-release wasn't even original.  News stories from 2017 archived on the internet tell of a release of ninety kangaroos in Wyoming.  Those stories were also dated April 1st!

When the first kangaroo hops down the lane in front of my house, I fully expect that Brad Pitt will be riding it bareback!

Marge Greene Says Trump is "Just Sick" Over the Fate of Insurrectionists

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The GOP Congressional Crackpot Freedom Caucus suffered some minor damage in the recent election:  Rep. Madison Cawthorn lost his primary and will no longer be in the club come January - and Sarah Palin, a natural fit for the group, couldn't manage to parlay her reality show fame into a congressional seat.  But other than those two losses, the rest of the gang will be back and sharing their wit and wisdom with America when the new Congress convenes in January.

But Marge Greene of Georgia, a member of very good standing in the Crackpot Freedom Caucus, isn't waiting.  Greene, who seems to believe that she has the inside track on being Trump's next running mate, has made news a couple of times since her reelection to Congress.  First, she appeared to be doing Trump's bidding by endorsing Kevin McCarthy's move to become the next Speaker of the House.  Greene stated that she would be voting for McCarthy to fill that powerful post.

Of course, with the GOP just holding a bare majority in the next House, McCarthy can only afford to lose a few votes of his own party members if he expects to win the Speaker's gavel, and Greene doesn't represent all of the bitter right-wingers who want to be heard on the matter.  Her close friend, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, is, in fact, not on board with McCarthy and has announced that Kevin does not have the votes to become the next speaker.  

It's going to be an interesting few weeks as McCarthy tries to buy his way into the speakership with promises of plum committee assignments, congressional hearings with political agendas, and legislation to benefit specific members of his party.

 

Marge was more directly supportive of Trump and his upcoming campaign to regain the presidency this past weekend when she made an appearance on Steve Bannon's podcast.  While on that program she addressed complaints that Trump had abandoned the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.  She said Trump and his wife were "just sick" over the jailing of the people who had attacked the Capitol.  She said that Trump had not pardoned them at the time because they had not been charged and he did not know specifically who they were.  

(Perhaps he should have asked the wife of a certain Supreme Court justice for a list.)

And Marge declared to Bannnon and his listeners that Trump would pardon those who had been arrested and charged in the matter once he returns to the presidency after the next election.

Marge, Trump isn't going to be elected to another term in the White House, and he has pardoned the last criminals that he will ever pardon. America has moved on, and hell, even the Republican Party has moved on. Ron DeSantis is the new Trump.  Pay attention!

Sweet Aunt Mary

 

by Rocky Macy

Proud Nephew

Mary Olive DAY (MACY) KING:   27 July 1925 - 11 November 2022

I learned yesterday that my sweet Aunt Mary passed away in San Diego on November 11th - Veteran's Day.   She apparently died of COVID and complications related to old age.  Aunt Mary turned ninety-seven this past July 27th, and that was the last time that I had spoken with her.   She was my aunt by marriage - and the last survivor of the relatives and in-laws of my parents' generation.

I don't know where Aunt Mary was born, but she did talk to me once about growing up in Kansas City.  She said that she lived within walking distance of the Nelson Art Gallery and loved to go there and see the exhibits when she was a child.  Mary's family had relocated to Neosho, Missouri, by the time she got to high school - and that is where she met my Uncle Wayne.

Veteran's Day seems an appropriate day for Aunt Mary to have passed because I always associate her with World War II.  She married my dad's older brother, Wayne Macy, while she was still in high school just six months before the Japanese brought America into the world war with the attack on Pearl Harbor.  While Uncle Wayne shipped out with the Army to an undisclosed location, Aunt Mary and her mother, Ellen Day, relocated to San Diego, California.  From that day in 1941 until she died there more than eighty years later, San Diego was her home.

The letters that soldiers and sailors wrote home during World War II were censored so that they could not accidentally divulge strategic military information that would benefit the enemy.  For that reason when Wayne wrote to Mary he was never able to disclose where he was stationed.  But Wayne was a clever young man and he sent Mary a piece of jewelry (a bracelet, I think), which had the name of the jewelry store where he had made the purchase - and the town - engraved upon it, and Mary, who was a clever young woman, quickly located the town on a map of Wales.   Wayne was indeed stationed in Wales where he was driving trucks for the military.

One afternoon several years ago Aunt Mary and I were walking in downtown San Diego near the harbor and she showed me where some of the camouflage netting had hung during World War II to hide the city from Japanese bombers.   She, like her young husband, had had a front row view of the war.

Our family visited San Diego twice while I was a youngster.  The first time was in the summer of 1955 after I had completed first grade, and though I did not know it at the time, our trip was so that my dad could say goodbye to his brother, Wayne, who had been diagnosed with leukemia.   We stayed at their house where my sister, Gail, and I got to know our cousins Janet and Linda.  Janet and I were the same age, and Linda was a couple of years older.

Wayne passed away the following summer, on June 23, 1956.  He is buried in the beautiful Fort Roseccrans National Cemetery on a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Coronado Island.    Aunt Mary and I visited Wayne's grave one morning several years ago.   It is my understanding that Aunt Mary was to have been buried in the same grave as Uncle Wayne.

My dad was unable to go to California when Wayne died, but he did send their parents to be with their oldest child during his final days.  I remember meeting them at the Greyhound bus station in Joplin when they returned from that very sad trip.

We were back out in San Diego the summer after I completed fourth grade and stayed with Aunt Mary and her girls for a few days.  Mary had remarried to a fellow named Clarence who worked for the post office.  That marriage didn't last long, and a few years later she married Bob King and they were together for several decades until his death a few years ago.  While we were in San Diego that summer after my fourth grade year, one of my clearest memories is of all of us going to a pizza parlor for Janet's tenth birthday - and watching the pizza chefs twirl the dough above their heads.  This small-town Missouri boy was very impressed by that.  I also remember my sister almost drowning in the Pacific Ocean and Clarence pulling her to safety.

After that I don't remember seeing Aunt Mary or her daughters for many years.  My next memory of her took place in the early 1990's when I was employed as the junior high school principal in Neosho, Missouri.  There was a big reunion going on - a fifty-year affair for students who had gone to the local high school before and during the World War II years, and lots of people were in town.  One afternoon as I was standing in the school hallway talking with one of the teachers, I noticed a very attractive older blond woman trying to open one of the school's heavy exterior doors.  I rushed to help her and as we walked into the building I introduced myself and asked if I could help her.  "Yes, I think you can," she said.  "I used to be your Aunt Mary."  I hugged her and told her that she would always be my Aunt Mary.

That weekend she and she other relatives who were in town for the reunion all showed up at our home, and we had a very nice family visit.

And then it was several more years before we reconnected again.

Janet invited me to Aunt Mary's 80th birthday celebration in San Diego in 2005, but I had just taken a new job as a civilian social worker with the Army at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and was unable to go.  But my duty location changed a couple of times over the next few years, and around 2008 while I was working at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, a friend from Missouri and I arranged to meet at the beautiful and historic del Coronado Hotel in San Diego.   While I was there, Aunt Mary and her daughters and I were able to meet for lunch at a really nice Mexican restaurant in San Diego's "Old Town."

The next year, while still living in Arizona, I brought my oldest son, Nick, and his son, Boone, to Phoenix and we drove on to San Diego so that Boone could experience the ocean for the first time.  Aunt Mary met us down by the harbor and she and I enjoyed fresh clam chowder and a nice long visit.

My daughter, Molly, and her boyfriend, Scott, decided to get married in 2008 while I was still living in Phoenix.  Molly wanted to be married on a beach, but it was November and the weather was already turning wintry in Oregon where they lived, so she chose the southernmost beach that she could find in the continental US - the beach behind the del Coronado Hotel in San Diego.  Nick and Tim and Tim's fiancé, Erin, came in for the wedding, and Mary and Janet joined us at sandy nuptials - so Mary had the opportunity to get reacquainted with all of my children.

While I was working with the Air Force for two years on Okinawa, 2010-2012, Aunt Mary and I stayed in contact through occasional letters and phone calls.   After I returned to the states, she came to Phoenix to visit friends of hers, and we spent one morning together there shopping in Glendale and touring an old car show.    We had lunch in the outdoor beer garden of a German restaurant - and then I took her to see my military housing on Luke Air Force Base.   

My sister, Gail (now Abigail), came to Phoenix near that same time and she and I drove to San Diego and visited with Aunt Mary and Janet and Linda at a restaurant on the ocean near La Jolla.  I'm sure that Aunt Mary enjoyed the visit as much as we did because she wrote about it in her Christmas letter that year.

After that we saw each other a couple of times in San Diego, and our final meeting was when my friend Valerie (who was then living in Hawaii) and I met up in San Diego and visited with Mary at her home in the late fall of 2019.  After our visit, Aunt Mary, who was ninety-four, drove us across town, on-and-off various freeways that were swarming with speeding traffic, and somehow managed to deliver us safely to a nice Mexican restaurant where we met Linda and Janet and Janet's husband for dinner.  

Now Sweet Aunt Mary is gone.  In addition to being a devoted wife and mother, (and grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother!), and a wonderful aunt, Mary was also a charming conversationalist with an astounding knowledge of many topics, as well as a poet, a painter, and even a fashion model.  She lived life to the fullest, and I will miss her very much.  May she be resting peacefully on that lovely hilltop overlooking the Pacific, comforted by the eternal pulse of the ocean and the loving thoughts of all who had to good fortune to have known her.

Biden Zeroes in on Assault Weapons

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Hey America, Joe Biden is coming for your AR-15s and those thirty-round clips - and it's about damned time!

Joe didn't actually get specific about AR-15's, the killing weapon of choice for most of the angry young men who go on shooting rampages in America, but he did say that he would be happy to sign a law banning high-powered guns that have the capacity to kill many people very quickly - semi-automatic rifles and pistols that are commonly referred to as "assault weapons."

After a pair of mass shootings this week, one at a gay club in Colorado in which five were killed and eighteen injured, and another shooting at a Walmart in Virginia where seven died - including the gunman, Joe Biden spoke out rather plainly:

"The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick.  Just sick.  I'm going to try to get rid of assault weapons."

Joe had a string of political victories with slim Democratic majorities in the House and Senate during the last Congress.  Can he squeeze through one more significant win before the House switches to a very thin Republican majority in January?  

Time will tell, but those who believe that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are already yesterday's news may be forced to endure one more big headline.

Time will tell.

It ain't over 'til it's over!

Bambi's Black Friday: The Case of the Headless Deer

by Pa Rock

Country Bumpkin

The daybreak edition of my early morning walk was interrupted  today when I came across the corpse of a large deer lying on the edge of my yard with its feet extending onto the county road.   My first assumption was that it was one of the neighborhood deer that cross the road several times daily and must have had an unfortunate encounter with one of the drug-addled hillbillies who roar up and down the country lane twenty-four-seven.  A closer inspection, however, revealed that the once proud prince of the forest had no head.  It was clearly a case of murder most foul!

I maintain one of the nicer yards in the area, and complete strangers have stopped to tell me that it looks like a park.  But while the yard generally inspires pride on my part and praise from others, there are the envious few who hoard their car trash until they have time to drive by my place and pitch it out the window - and almost as soon as it hits, I am out there with my plastic bags picking it up.  I don't tolerate trash on the yard - even cigarette butts.

But now the stakes have gone up, and the litterbugs are dumping headless carcasses.  I guess for some being drug-addled hillbillies is not enough, and they must must further justify their presence on Earth by also being assholes.  Well, mission accomplished!

I made two assumptions with regard to the deer corpse.   First, although I did not do a forensic examination of the big creature and look for entry and exit wounds, I suspect that it was felled with a shot from a rifle, and as firearms' deer season ended three days ago, it was undoubtedly gunned down illegally.  Second, from its size and from the fact that the head was removed, I am also assuming that it was a male (I didn't check that out forensically either), a buck whose head was salvaged for the antlers.  I guess that I can also assume that the person who left the carcass in my yard either does not care for venison, or that he, or she, already has a freezer or two stuffed with enough deer meat  to last through the winter.

One old fellow - though not as old as me - who was driving by in his pickup truck this morning stopped and told me that someone had dumped a headless deer in my yard.  Yes, I know - I replied - would you like to have it?  He declined and suggested that I call the local office of the state department of conservation and that maybe they would come move it.  I have called three times so far - and no one is answering their phone - and their voice mail has been turned off.    I guess those Missouri state employees are enjoying a nice four-day weekend and do not want to be bothered with my trivial issues.

My next call was to the dispatcher at the county sheriff's office.  That nice lady assured me that she would have the county conservation agent call - and a few minutes later he did.  He was also nice - and informed me that county deputies would be out after while and take the body.

And with that, the case of the headless deer will officially be closed.  

(I don't own a gun, but if Missouri's worthless legislature were to enact a hunting season on litterbugs or body-dumpers, I might invest in one!)

(Postscript:  A county commissioner just showed up in his pickup truck pulling a trailer to get the deer, and even though I have been watching the road from my living room typing window all morning, someone had managed to stop by and take the deer carcass without my seeing them do it.  The commissioner was glad that he did not have to mess with it, and I was glad to have the situation resolved!)

Now the case is closed!

Ancestor Archives: The SREAVES Connection to the Macy's Department Store

 

by Rocky Macy

Happy Thanksgiving, 2022!   

Last year on Thanksgiving Day I used the opportunity of the Biden family's annual Thanksgiving retreat on Nantucket to blog about my own family's connection to several of the original European purchasers and settlers on the island.   This year the Biden's are again celebrating Thanksgiving on Nantucket, and I am sharing some more history of the first Europeans to settle there.

In 1659 a small group of Massachusetts Baptists who were experiencing conflicts with the colony's Puritan leaders purchased a a significant portion of the island of Nantucket from the local governor, Thomas Mayhew, with the intent of settling there the following spring.  That October, however, the troubles that one of the purchasers, Thomas Macy, a cousin of Governor Mayhew, was having with the Puritans began to escalate, and Macy decided that it would be propitious for him and his family to migrate to Nantucket then, as winter was settling in, rather than risk waiting until the spring.

Winter storms were on the horizon as Macy, who was 51-years-old, his wife and their five children, and three other adult males and one 12-year-old boy, came ashore on Nantucket on that cold October day.  Although there are no official accounts of their first few months on the island, it is likely that the new arrivals survived the winter living in shelters dug into the hillsides - and with the assistance and generosity of the local Native Americans.

(Nathaniel Philbrick's excellent history of Nantucket Island, "Away Off Shore," has a complete chapter focused on Thomas Macy and his family's migration to Nantucket.  The book has been reviewed two times in this blog.)

This Thanksgiving, with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade providing background noise as I type, I decided to look into the genealogy of the department store's founder, Rowland Hussey MACY, and see exactly how his family is connected to the SREAVES family of Newton County, Missouri.

Even though my last name is MACY, I am not connected to the big store chain through my father's MACY lineage, but I am connected through my mother's SREAVES lineage.   My mother, Ruby Florine SREAVES, was the daughter of Dan and Siss (ROARK) SREAVES of rural Newton County, Missouri.   Dan was the son of Alexander and Mary Jane (ELLIS) SREAVES.  Mary Jane ELLIS was the daughter of William J. and Matilda J. (COOK) ELLIS.  Matilda J. COOK was the daughter of Thomas and Sinai (LEWIS) COOK.  Thomas COOK was the son of John and Hannah (MACY) COOK.  Hannah MACY was the daughter of Paul and Bethiah (MACY) MACY, second cousins who were both born on Nantucket.  (Paul and Bethiah were each great-gxandhilcren of John MACY, who had been just four-years-old when his parents brought him to Nantucket on that cold October day in 1659.)

Paul and Bethiah MACY, and their daughter Hannah MACY, and her great-great-grandson, Dan SREAVES all descended from John Macy, the fifth and youngest child of Thomas and Sarah (HOPCOTT) MACY, the first European couple to settle on the island of Nantucket.  

Rowland Hussey MACY, the founder of the department store which has sponsored the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade almost continually - except for three years during World War II - since 1924 - also descended from that same John MACY.  Rowland H. MACY was born on August 30, 1822 on Nantucket and died on Mach 29, 1877, in Paris, France.

Rowland Hussey MACY was the son of John and Eliza (MYRICK) MACY.  John Macy was the son of Silvanus and Anna (PINKHAM) MACY.  Silvanus MACY was the son of Caleb MACY and Judith (GARDNER) MACY.   Caleb MACY was the son of Richard MACY and Deborah (PINKHAM) MACY.  Richard MACY was the son of John and Deborah (GARDNER) MACY - our common ancestors.

So, my first cousins on the SREAVES side of the family, the next time you watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, do it with the satisfaction and pride of knowing that it is a fine achievement of our family   Rowland Hussey MACY was our 4th cousin, 5 times removed.  (That's probably not close enough to qualify for an inheritance!)  Our children are 4th cousins 6 times removed, and our grandchildren are 4th cousins, 7 times removed from the founder of the famous department store that becomes even more famous every year at Thanksgiving.

Anyone with an interest in any of this is welcome to peruse my extensive family tree information:  "Rocky Macy's Roots, Branches, and Weeds" at Ancestry.com.  It is open to the public, but be alert because Ancestry will try to sell you a membership.  Rowland Hussey MACY is included, but he is out there in the "weeds" portion. 

There are also numerous and extensive genealogical materials on the original European purchasers and settlers of Nantucket Island all over the internet.

And once more, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

'Twas the Month Before Christmas

 

by Pa Rock

Economic Engine

While the rest of the country may feel that it is experiencing an economic downturn, several merchants and tradespeople in my area have had a very good November.  I have seen to that personally.

The month began with my hot water heater going out just as I was preparing to hit the showers one chilly morning.  It took the plumber a couple of days of piddling around before he finally admitted that he could not fix the old one and switched to his Plan B of selling me a new one.  Then, that same week, I managed to damage one of my car tires, and since they were all original with the vehicle, the other three were also in need of replacement.  The local tire dealer had two suggestions, one was expensive and the other was more expensive.  I went with the better one - and he proceded to load me up with a tire protection plan and the added expense filling the tires with something better than air - nitrogen, I think, or perhaps helium or upsidaisium - I really can't remember other than it was a gas meant to keep the tires from losing pressure with changes in the weather.

Earlier this week the microwave quit.  It was seven-or-eight-years-old, so I wasn't surprised at its passing, but I was aggravated that it stopped as my supper was cooking - a delicious Marie Calendar chicken pot pie - which the cat ended up eating.  I bought a new microwave yesterday, just after visiting the courthouse to pay my 2022 county taxes, and then the Department of Motor Vehicles to have the truck tags renewed.

All of that happened in November, the month before Christmas.  December will bring three family birthdays and then Christmas itself, and in January I will begin the process of trying to figure out how much additional money I owe the government in income taxes.  (Musk and Bezos and Trump won't pay taxes, so people like me have to take up the slack.)   And, if I am truly lucky, the Republicans in Congress won't be able to gut Social Security and Medicare for at least a couple of more years.

Life is a struggle, and it doesn't get any easier with retirement!

Legal Weed Coming to Missouri

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The legalization of marijuana for recreational use was on the ballot in five states during the general election earlier this month:  Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota.   The measure failed in Arkansas and the Dakotas, but it managed to pass in Maryland and Missouri.  With the votes to legalize in those two states, a total of 21 states, the District of Columbia, and the US Territory of Guam now have some provisions for the legal use of marijuana for recreational purposes.

The measure, presented as an amendment to the Missouri state constitution,  passed in Missouri with more than 53% of the vote, and did especially well in Missouri's more urban areas.  The measure passed in St. Louis City by 73 percent.  Rural areas generally opposed the proposition, and it failed in my own county of Howell by 68% to 32 percent.

There was a strong last-minute push against the measure by a coalition claiming that it would benefit marijuana suppliers who are already under contract with the state to supply marijuana for medicinal purposes.  Those forces argued that the interests of fairness would be better served by defeating the state constitutional amendment and instead let the state legislature enact statutes which could insure a more equitable distribution of the licenses for growing and dispensing the product.  Voters rejected that logic because chances of the Missouri legislature enacting statutes legalizing marijuana were nil.

The new measure will take effect next February with recreational sales licenses first being provided to the existing dispensaries for legal medical marijuana.  A lottery system for awarding licenses for the production and dispensing of marijuana will be established, and then in September of next year licenses for dispensaries of recreational marijuana will be awarded.  Local law enforcement is stressing that the use of recreational pot remains illegal until February of 2023 - and it will remain illegal to smoke pot in public settings.

The new law will set limits on how much marijuana a person may possess, and it will also allow for a individuals to grow a limited number of plants.  Persons with convictions for (or who are currently serving time for) marijuana possession may apply to have their convictions vacated (except in cases involving providing pot to minors or driving while high), and a six-percent sales tax will be placed on the product to fund the entire operation.

So, come February, smoke 'em if you got 'em.  It will be a new day in the Show-Me state!

Zealotry and Gunfire in Colorado Springs

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Colorado Springs is a city of approximately half-a-million people located south of Denver on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains near Pike's Peak.  According to news reports, the fairly large city was home to only one gay-oriented nightclub, an establishment called "Club Q."  I used the past tense in referring to the club because it is now closed due to a horrific shooting there this past Saturday night.

A lone gunman entered Club Q late Saturday evening carrying an AR-15 assault rifle and a pistol.  He immediately opened fire with the rifle managing to kill five individuals and cause injury to around twenty-five others, some of whom remain in critical condition today.  The shooter was quickly confronted and subdued by two patrons of the club, one of whom grabbed the young man's pistol and struck him with it, knocking him to the floor where he was restrained until police arrived minutes later.

The shooter, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, was somehow wounded in the shooting.   He was arrested and removed to an area hospital for treatment.  Aldrich was already known to local law enforcement due to a June 2021 incident in which he threatened his mother with a homemade bomb - causing a neighborhood evacuation.  No charges were filed from that incident, nor was Colorado's 2019 Red Flag law activated.

Colorado Springs has a long and troubled history with right-wing religious extremism.  It is the home of James Dobson's "Focus on the Family," and also the United States Air Force Academy, a military institution long known for its fundamentalist Christian leanings.  And while the city may only have one gay bar, it has an abundance of churches, pawn shops, and gun stores.

Colorado Springs was also where a 2015 attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic occurred in which three people (including one policemen) were killed by a lone gunman, and five others (including two more policemen) were wounded.

El Paso County, Colorado, where Colorado Springs is located, is one of a large group of counties nationwide to declare itself a "Second Amendment Sanctuary" to protect what the county recognizes as a constitutional right to bear arms.  The sanctuary resolution was passed by the county in 2019 in response to the state's new (at that time) Red Flag law.   The resolution stated opposition to the Red Flag law by declaring that it "infringes upon the inalienable rights of law-abiding citizens" by ordering police to "forcibly enter premises and seize a citizen's property with no evidence of a crime."  Sanctuary counties and localities often stand in opposition to state and federal gun laws, and they are regarded as purely symbolic with no legal weight.

But while Colorado Springs and El Paso County may be mired in religious fundamentalism and gun-zealotry, the state of Colorado is more open-minded.  Governor Jared Polis, the first openly gay man to serve as governor of Colorado - or any other state in the nation, for that matter - issued the following statement in response to this weekend's shooting:

“This is horrific, sickening, and devastating. My heart breaks for the family and friends of those lost, injured, and traumatized in this horrific shooting. I have spoken with Mayor Suthers and made it clear that every state resource is available to local law enforcement in Colorado Springs. We are eternally grateful for the brave individuals who blocked the gunman likely saving lives in the process and for the first responders who responded swiftly to this horrific shooting. Colorado stands with our LGTBQ community and everyone impacted by this tragedy as we mourn together."

While many in Colorado Springs may see hatred of the already-marginalized as the path to glory and salvation, the people in charge of their state have a more humane and Christ-like view of the world. May they prevail.

Musk Brings the Garbage Back to Twitter

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

"Garbage in, garbage out" is an old business axiom implying that if you use garbage in the creative or manufacturing process, chances are you will wind up creating garbage.  Conversely, quality inputs would be far more likely to create quality outputs.

However, Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, apparently does not subscribe to the notion that using commonsense might benefit his struggling social media acquisition.  He is, after all, the Elon Musk, and he will do things his way, thank you very much.

The old Twitter showed uncommonly good sense nearly two years ago when it permanently banned Donald Trump from the platform after he openly condoned the actions of the insurrectionists on January 6th as they stormed the Capitol and tried to bring down democracy.  When Musk announced that he was trying to buy Twitter earlier this year he made some preemptive noises about allowing Trump back on his favorite social media site, but Musk eventually backed off saying that the matter would be left up to a "special moderation board."    Musk apparently changed his mind last week and decided to put the matter to a special poll on Twitter.

Donald Trump, while promising not to leave his perch on his own "Truth Social," asked his supporters to go over to Twitter and vote for his reinstatement - but even with Trump's overt support, the matter barely passed with just 51.8% of respondents signaling a preference for Trump to return to his former favorite social loudspeaker.

But it was enough for Musk to bellow this morning that "the people have spoken" and announce that he was reinstating Trump's Twitter account.

Boys and their toys!   Elon Musk gave $44 billion for his Twitter toy, and now, mere weeks later, he has almost completely destroyed it.   By all means bring Trump back in, Elon.  If you are going to produce garbage you might as well go for the gold standard!

R.I.P., Twitter.

Rittenhouse is a Symptom of a Very Sick Society

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Kyle Rittenhouse was just 17-years-old when his mother drove him from their home in Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where she dropped him - and his AR-15 rifle which he was not old enough to own, much less operate - at a crowded public demonstration.  Kyle was there to "protect property" from the demonstrators and his presence, along with that of other armed counter-protestors, seemed to be occurring with the tacit approval of the local police.

It was the evening of August 25, 2020, and the streets of Kenosha were filled with people protesting the police shooting of a young black man two days earlier.  The victim of that shooting, Jacob Blake, had been confronted by police following a domestic violence call, and one of the two white officers responding, shot Blake seven times (four in the back and three in the side) as he was reaching into the driver's side of his vehicle.   Blake survived but is now paralyzed from the waist down and suffered several other serious injuries as a result of the shooting.

Rittenhouse, the unsupervised youth whose mother left him at the demonstration two nights later, shot and killed two people - both young men - while he roamed the streets with the mob  - and he seriously wounded a third individual, a man who was there working as a paramedic.  Of Rittenhouse's three victims only the paramedic was armed.

Today Joseph "Jojo" Rosenbaum, who was 36-years-old on the evening Kyle Rittenhouse shot him four times and ended his life, lies moldering in a grave.    During a confrontation with Rittenhouse, Jojo had thrown a plastic bag at the armed youth before being shot.  Rittenhouse later admitted in his trial that he knew Rosenbaum was unarmed when he shot him.  Jojo's daughter is four now, and undoubtedly does not have many memories of the father that the boy from Illinois so callously and deliberately removed from her life. 

Today Anthony Michael Huber is also rotting away underground.  Huber, who had celebrated his 26th birthday just four days before that fateful evening in Kenosha when Kyle Rittenhouse killed him, had been a friend of Jacob Blake's.  Anthony Huber, who was also unarmed, had seen Rittenhouse gun down Jojo Rosenbaum and ran toward the shooter along with several others in an effort to remove his gun.   Huber was carrying his skateboard - as he always did - and he hit Rittenhouse with the skateboard as he tried to grab the boy's gun.  But Rittenhouse managed to fire one shot at the man with the skateboard and hit him.  Huber, after being hit, turned to get away, and then collapsed on the ground and died.

Rittenhouse's third victim was 27-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz, a paramedic who was at the scene with medical supplies.  He was carrying a pistol.  Gaige had moved toward Rittenhouse when he saw him shoot Huber.  Rittenhouse shot him one time in the arm, a shot that took out most of his bicep and has resulted in multiple surgeries and treatments and left the young man in a state of prolonged pain.

Kyle Rittenhouse was able to walk through police lines that evening with his AR-15 in-hand and return to his home in Illinois.

Kyle Rittenhouse was brought to trial in Kenosha in November of 2021 to face several charges, the most serious of which was "first degree reckless homicide" and "use of a dangerous weapon," and he was eventually acquitted of all charges with the jury buying his defense that he had acted in self-defense.

Rittenhouse's mother was never charged for her role in transporting an armed 17-year-old across a state line and leaving him in a dangerous situation.

Over the years since Kyle Rittenshouse killed two unarmed young men in Kenosha and wounded an armed paramedic, he and the shootings have become a cause celebre among gun rights groups, white nationalists, and Republican politicians.   Rittenhouse has traveled to Mar-a-Lago to be photographed with Donald Trump, and this past week he visited the US Capitol where he met with some Republican members of Congress and posed for a picture with Marjorie Taylor Greene - and even openly fantasized about someday serving in Congress himself.

Kyle Rittenhouse, a neglected child who ended the lives of two human beings and destroyed the quality of life of a third, is slowing morphing into a folk hero whose image is being burnished by a society that intermingles guns and violence with religion and government.   Perhaps Kyle is not old enough nor wise enough to own the intentional harm that he has caused to others - but Donald Trump, Marge Greene, and the human garbage that passes for the white (Christian) nationalist, anti-democracy wing of the GOP certainly know the harm that they bring to our nation by glorifying vigilantes and domestic terrorism.

Kyle Rittenhouse is not a hero.   He is a symptom of a very sick society.

The Costs and Benefits of Leaving Twitter

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I broke an old and aggravating addiction on Wednesday, November 9th, when I announced in this space that I was quitting Twitter, a social networking relationship that I had sometimes enjoyed and sometimes barely tolerated for the past thirteen-plus years.  I anticipated two outcomes when I finally made the decision to pull the plug on Twitter.  One was that I would suddenly find myself with an abundance of time on my hands that I had not enjoyed previously, and the second was that this blog, Pa Rock's Ramble, would suffer a marked loss in readership because I would no longer be promoting it daily on Twitter.    Both of those assumptions proved to be correct.

I have several projects underway which have been suffering from neglect.  As soon as I broke with Twitter I began focusing on getting all of the Ancestry Archives columns that have run in the Ramble organized into two family books - and in just a little over a week I have made significant progress on the first of those books.  I have also made progress on a couple of fiction pieces that had been on life-support, gotten some yard word finished before winter sets in, completed an overnight roadtrip, and managed to keep up with this blog.

Quitting Twitter has reminded me of what being retired felt like in the early days of that adventure, and I feel that my attitude has improved markedly.

There have also been costs to leaving the platform.  Some of those are psychological.  I miss being able to rush over to Twitter to blast off some snappy insult when I see a story in the press that gets me going.  It is much like howling at the moon - and accomplishes nothing - but still makes me feel better for having howled.  Being an addict, I couldn't just rush in, howl, and then rush back out.  Once I was on the platform I would get pulled twenty ways by tweets, replies, news stories, you name it - and by the time I pulled myself back into the sane world several hours might have passed.  The twitterverse is thoroughly engrossing, highly addictive, and almost totally devoid of merit.

But it is also an effective sales platform, and I have used Twitter shamelessly - and without actual cost - to promote my blog for several years.  On a typical day I would (and still do) get the daily blog posing up about 10:00 a.m. or so - and then I would plug is five or six times during the day on Twitter trying to stir some interest in that day's topic.  I had used that strategy for several years, and up until a year or so ago, I would normally have in excess of fifty visitors to the blog each day.  

Then six months or so ago I toyed with the idea of discontinuing Pa Rock's Ramble and discussed that possibility on the blog itself.   At the point readership took a sudden dip to between thirty to forty readers on most days.  (Perhaps people were reflecting my apparent lack of commitment by growing their own lack of commitment.)   But readership leveled off and remained at 30 to 40 per day up until I unplugged from Twitter.

With a shoutout to Dr. Truman Volsky of Missouri Southern State College who many years ago taught me about the measures of central tendency, here is a look at the change in The Ramble's readership over the past two weeks:

First, for the seven days up to and including the day that I left Twitter:   readership per day ranged from 30 to 56 with a mean (average) of 41.14 readers per day, a median of 35, and a mode of 35.

Second, for the seven days after I left Twitter and quit plugging the blog on that platform:  readership ranged from 13 to 22 with a mean of 17.42 readers per day, a median of 18, and a mode of 18.

The lights were still on, but fewer and fewer people were coming to visit.

Clearly I have some pondering to do, and now that I don't have to spend hours each day lobbing insults at stable geniuses cleaners like Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, maybe I will have time to ponder productively!   And if I wind up with too much time on my hands, I may take up trout fishing!   Or ham radio!

Mitch Begins to Lose his Grip on the Senate

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Eighty-year-old Mitch McConnell, the senior US senator from Kentucky, has been serving in the Senate since January of 1985, and he has been the Republican leader in the Senate since 2007, a post he routinely wins by unanimous vote when Congress reorganizes every two years.  This year, however, things were markedly different for McConnell when fellow Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida announced that he was challenging McConnell for the leadership post.  Yesterday, in a secret-ballot vote, Mitch McConnell successfully beat back Senator Scott's challenge.

That vote was 37 for McConnell, 10 for Scott, and one member voted "present."  At this time the only senator besides Scott to have publicly stated his opposition to McConnell is Ted Cruz of Texas, but one can safely assume that a wily politician like Mitch McConnell knows exactly who his friends are - and aren't.

Mitch is keeping a list - and checking it twice!

Rick Scott seems like an odd choice to challenge the current leader.  Scott is not only associated with massive Medicare fraud in Florida, he has also been positioning himself as a proponent of gutting Medicare and Social Security.  Add to that the fact that Senator Scott has, until yesterday, headed up the National Republican Senatorial Campaign (NRSC), the party's campaign arm in the Senate that had very lackluster results in the recent election, and it would certainly seem that others would have been better positioned and equipped to have challenged McConnell.

But Rick Scott was the challenger, and he lost - and Mitch McConnell still reigns supreme among Senate Republicans.   McConnell is just one of the many stubborn barnacles from a generation reluctant to give up their hold on the ship of state.  Today the nation will also learn what plans 82-year-old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has for her future after her party, the Democrats, narrowly lost control of the House.

Retiring gracefully and getting out of the way is always a good option, one that more people should consider.

Stick a Fork in Him - Trump's Done!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

One lesson that every public figure should learn and take to heart is this:  when your moment in the spotlight has passed, get off of the stage as expeditiously and gracefully as possible - and stay off.  A proper exit is a matter of grace and civility.

But no one can accuse Donald John Trump of either being graceful or civil.   Trump exited his stage - the White House - in January of 2021 in a storm of rage, petulance, and denial.    Now, less than two years later while facing multiple investigations and legal challenges,  he has somehow decided that this would be a great time to announce that he is again running for President.   Never mind the he and his party are just coming off of an embarrassing midterm election cycle in which they did much worse than expected - and many candidates that Trump personally endorsed lost.

Last night, in what was described in the press as a "low-energy" announcement speech in the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, Trump droned on for over an hour as he declared that he was again seeking the presidency - even though he has yet to ever admit losing the office two years ago.  Trump's speech was apparently so listless and dull that many in the room began heading for the exits while he was still talking - only to find that staff and security were blocking those exits - and they were truly a "captive" audience!

What seems apparent to everyone but Donald Trump is that his time has passed.  By-and-large the election deniers who ran for office this year lost, and the Republican Party has begun to talk in terms of life beyond Trump and the MAGAts.  

Trump is done, and if the Republican Party can't pull free of his grasp it may also perish.   

More popcorn, please!

Clarence Thomas Is Begging to be Impeached!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

There have been a string of good political stories coming out of Arizona over the past week, especially at the state level where Democrats were victorious in the US Senate race as well as in elections for Secretary of State and Governor.  The losing Republican candidates in all three of those races were conspiracy theorists who professed to believe that Trump had won the election in 2020 - and all three were personally endorsed by Trump.  The Republican nominee who lost the governor's race, former local newscaster Kari Lake, had reportedly even harbored ambitions to be Trump's running mate in 2024 - but then democracy happened and a house fell on her!

There was another story in the press yesterday related to Arizona and Donald Trump that did not receive the same level of coverage as the election returns, but it is impacting the credibility of a sitting United States Supreme Court Justice - and has to potential to alter the make-up of the Court.

And it is a story that is destined to grow.

Monday the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Arizona state GOP chairwoman, Kelli Ward, to block lower court decisions that ordered her to comply with a subpoena to turn over her phone records to the US House committee that is investigating the domestic terrorists attacks of January 6th on the US Capitol and the plots to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.  Ward was involved in plans to send a slate of fake electors to Washington, DC, to challenge the state's official electors, and Ward, herself, was to have been on of those fake electors.

When the US Supreme Court rejected Ward's appeal yesterday, it cleared the way for the January 6th committee to get her phone records.  However, two Justices dissented (without comment) in that decision:  Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.  Thomas's dissent is particularly troubling because it is widely assumed that Ward's text messages and emails will include contacts with Justice Thomas's wife, Ginni, an election denier who had contact with officials in the White House as well as with members of some state legislatures - including Arizona - regarding sending alternative slates of (fake) electors to Congress for the official election tabulations.

Yesterday US Supreme Court Justice Thomas may have, through his dissent, acted to shield his wife from a congressional investigation.  Previously the Supreme Court had voted not to block release of White House records held by the National Archives to the January 6th Committee.  At that time Clarence Thomas was the only Justice to dissent on that matter.  Those records subsequently revealed email communications between Ginni Thomas and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

At this point Clarence Thomas seems to be actively trying to shield his wife from the legal consequences of her election-related activities.  Since he has chosen not to recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and since he obviously has no intention of resigning his seat of the nation's highest court, impeachment is the sole remaining remedy for a Justice who will not honor his oath to the Constitution.

And Clarence Thomas seems to be begging  for it!

Jason Smith Imagines - or Hallucinates - a Mandate from the Voters

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I don't know what my forty-two-year-old bachelor congressman, Jason Smith, has been smoking, but it must be primo stuff.  In his latest weekly email newsletter Republican Smith tried to paint last week's miserable GOP performance at the polls as some sort of populist uprising and mandate against the spending policies of the Biden administration, something he mischaracterizes as Democrats "giving welfare to the wealthy and financing their woke agenda."

Smith's newsletter talks about "Democrat" control of government being over because a Republican House of Representatives will take charge on January 3rd, and "hit the ground running" as it moves to "get the country back on track" - never mind that votes are still being counted and, as of this point at least, it is still  unclear as to which party will control the House.  

The "reality" of the political situation in the United States of America is this:  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will still be in charge of the executive branch of the federal government, the Senate will remain under the control of the Democratic Party, and the control of the House of Representatives could go to either party, but - if the GOP gains control - a new Republican Speaker of the House will be hobbled by a dozen or so right-wing extremists within his party who believe that their radical ideas are somehow representative of mainstream America.  The Republicans may wield the gavel, but getting anything done will require strong and decisive leadership, and in that department they are sorely lacking.

Here's some more "reality" for you, Jason.  We have just gone through a mid-term election where the party not controlling the presidency - that would be your party - would normally pick up many seats in the House and Senate.  That did not happen.  The GOP lost the Senate - again - and will probably have one senator less than they did prior to the election, and if your party gains control of the House it will likely be by less than half-a-dozen seats when, by political tradition, it should have won by at least forty!

The mid-term election of 2022 was an embarrassing failure for the Republican Party, and it may not get better anytime soon because tomorrow Donald John Trump, the man who caused that failure by promoting a raft of bad and marginal candidates for office, is threatening to announce another run for President!

What do you - and your friends at Fox - think about continuing to be stuck with Trump as the face and voice of the Republican Party, Jason?   Be honest.

(And America, if Jason Smith "hits the ground running,"  jump back and avert your eyes.  It won't be pretty!)

Snow Trippin'

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

Rosie and I had been planning a road trip to Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri for the past several weeks to attend a large family gathering, but what we had not anticipated was waking up to around two inches of snow on the ground yesterday morning as we were preparing to hit the road.    Alexa had warned us that it would be cold, but she had not mentioned even a possibility of snow - yet there it was.  There was just enough ice under the snow on the car windows to make cleaning them a tedious process which put us on the road fifteen minutes behind schedule.

But we persisted and made it to my sister's house in Rogers, Arkansas, and then yesterday afternoon Abigail and I drove to Neosho, Missouri, to attend a large gathering celebrating the life of a close cousin who is near the end of his life's journey.  That gathering was a very complicated mixture of joyous and sad, not an easy stream to navigate.

But it was good to be able to say good-bye face-to-face, as well as to be among so many old friends and relatives.

Someone told me that the "gun season" for deer began yesterday, and I came very close to getting a large doe with the front of my car.  As I was driving through the tiny town of Bakersfield, Missouri, doing the speed limit of 35-miles-per-hour, the doe came bounding across the road from my left and jumped in front of the car and then on to safety beyond the roadway.    She was, at the very most, no more than two feet from the hood of the car.  It was the closest that I have ever come to striking a deer.

Hitting a deer with a vehicle is a badge of honor among a certain class of locals - ones who drive banged, dented, and dilapidated vehicles which look as though they have withstood combat assaults.  I am convinced that some of the drivers of those wrecks actually speed up in order to hit the frightened deer.  While I am a cautious driver and have yet to hit my first deer, it is all to common to hear the good ol' boys yukking it up about the four, or five, or ten that they have hit over the past few years.

When I was in graduate school at the University of Missouri twenty or so years ago, one of my fellow students, a lady probably about my age at the time -  early fifties or so - arrived at class late and apologized saying that she had hit a deer on the way to Columbia that evening.  She reported being shaken by the accident, but she had become even more rattled when two characters whom she described as looking like some of the hillbilly miscreants in the film "Deliverance," suddenly popped up next to her driver's window and asked, "Hey lady, do you want that deer?"  Then, when a highway patrolman arrived on the scene a few minutes after that, his first question to the shaken driver wasn't about the accident or her condition, but rather:  "Do you want that deer?"

Fortunately for Rosie and me, my reaction time was surprisingly swift, and my deer got away.  It was fortunate for the deer as well.

Rosie loved her visit with Aunt Gail, and she got to see her cousins, Reed and Justin, and their families, too.

And now we are back home in West Plains, and there are still a few patches of snow on the ground, and the forecast is calling for rain and snow tomorrow night.    When I was a little boy I remember that two years in a row we had the first snowfall of the year on Thanksgiving Day, but this has been the first time that I have ever seen measurable snow before Thanksgiving - and now with more to follow!  Earlier in the week the temperature here had been in the eighties, and Florida just had its first November hurricane in several years - and only the third since record-keeping  for hurricanes began in 1853.   I guess with all of this whacky weather, I can forgive Alexa for occasionally missing the mark in her weather predictions.

It's good to be home!

Ancestor Archives: The Death of Little Jimmie Roark

by Rocky Macy

(Note:  Recently while digging through some old records I found a letter containing a few obscure family stories from Julia "June" ROARK JOHNSTON, my mother's cousin, that she had written to me in August of 1988.  June has since passed away.  June had been orphaned as an infant and had grown up in the home of her paternal grandparents, Sam and Nancy ROARK of rural McDonald County, Missouri.  Sam and Nancy were my great-grandparents, and they both died well before I was born, Sam in 1925 and Nancy in 1935.     The old farm couple had eleven children and all but two survived to adulthood - but their first born, James W. ROARK, was one of the two who did not survive.  What follows is the tragic account of how little Jimmie died, a story that was preserved through the thoughtful attentions of June ROARK JOHNSTON.)

 The Death of Little Jimmie Roark

Samuel James ROARK and his bride, Nancy Anthaline SCARBROUGH, had been married nine months and eleven days when their first child arrived April 24, 1879, a little boy whom they named James W.  ROARK.  His name was most likely James William ROARK in honor of Nancy’s only brother, James William SCARBROUGH.  Nancy and her three siblings had been orphaned at an early age and had lived at the Newton County, Missouri, farm home of their maternal uncle, William C. SMITH, and his wife, Lucinda, for most of their young lives.

 

At the time of “Jimmie” ROARK’s birth, his uncle, James William SCARBROUGH, was only eight-years-old. Nancy, Jimmie’s mother, was twenty-years-old, and his father, Sam, was twenty-two.

 

Sam and Nancy were undoubtedly very proud of their first child, and on the fourth day of February in 1879, they presented little Jimmie with a baby sister, Lucinda Comfort ROARK, a child named for Lucinda SMITH, the woman who had raised Nancy, and Comfort POE ROARK, Sam’s mother.  It was certainly a happy little farm family near Hart, a community located in the northwestern corner of McDonald County, Missouri.

 

That happiness was tragically interrupted, however, on Thursday, April 24^th of 1879, when Jimmie, who was just learning to walk, slipped outside of the farm home.  Nancy later recalled to Julia “June” ROARK, her granddaughter, that little Jimmie had not been out of his parent’s sight for very long when he somehow fell headfirst into a rain barrel that the family used to catch water for doing laundry.  When they found the child he had died from drowning.  Nancy told June that there had not been much water in the barrel at the time of the accident, yet still there was enough to bring about the little boy’s death.   In a letter to me in 1988 June related that she had not been very old when her grandmother told her the story of Jimmie’s death (it would have been approximately fifty years after his death), and June stated “I’ll never forget how painful it was for her to even talk about it.”

 

Sam and Nancy ROARK had a total of eleven children, and all but two of them survived to adulthood, and all but one of their adult children married and had children of their own.  Julia “June” ROARK, the grandchild who related the story of Jimmie ROARK’s death to me, was the only child of another of Sam and Nancy’s sons, Samuel Lafayette ROARK and his wife, Bertha Ellen BAILEY.   Samuel “Fayette” and Bertha ROARK each passed away when June was only a few months old, and she grew up in the home of her grandparents, Sam and Nancy ROARK.

 

June is gone now, too.  She passed away in 2006 – but before she died June took the time to send me two letters with several family tidbits that would have been lost to history if not for her caring enough to share them with one of Sam and Nancy’s great-grandchildren – and now I have the privilege of passing June’s memories on to others.

 

Rest in peace, Jimmie.  Your life was short, but you are remembered!

 

Kevin McCarthy Reaches for the Chapstick

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

If Donald Trump was the biggest loser in this past Tuesday's national election, and I submit that clearly he was, then the second place finisher for the race to the bottom among GOP all-stars is Speaker of the House wannabe - and current House Republican Leader - Kevin McCarthy.  While it now looks as though Republicans may have regained control of the US House of Representatives, though with just the slimmest of majorities, the elevation of their current leader to be the next Speaker should not be taken for granted.

If Republicans had been able to produce a "Big Red Wave" as many had forecast, then McCarthy's path onward and upward would have likely been assured, but because their margin of victory was so miserably small ascension to the Speaker's throne can no longer be assured.   McCarthy's right flank, the Crackpot or "Freedom" Caucus, in particular is unhappy about the GOP's poor performance on Election Day, and many of them are blaming the embarrassing turn of events on weak leadership from McCarthy.

And, as Yogi Berra would have likely opined, it is beginning to look like "deja vu all over again."

Back in 2015 when the right-wing firebrands in the Republican House forced John Boehner out of the Speakership, McCarthy as the House Leader thought he could finagle his way into the post.  However, McCarthy also ran into trouble from the conservative rabble in the Freedom Caucus and could not muster the votes to secure the position.  The House eventually settled on Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as a compromise candidate to fill the Speaker's post.

McCarthy, whose political ambitions were still far from quenched, spent the next seven years kissing as much rightwing butt as humanly possible in preparation for another run for Speaker, but with the party's poor performance at the polls this past Tuesday, all of that ass-kissing may have been in vain.

Republican members of the House will meet next Tuesday and select (by majority vote) a candidate to stand for the party in the Speaker's race which will be held before the full House on January 3rd.  McCarthy should easily win next Tuesday's intra-party vote, but it will take 218 votes to win the speakership in January, and it is unclear at this point whether he will be able to muster that much support or not.  Trump has endorsed him for the position, and he will be buoyed by a vote of confidence from a majority of Republican House members next week, but there are a few angry Republicans who could cast their votes for someone else and deny anyone a majority.  That could result in the elevation of a compromise candidate to lead the House - the same way that Paul Ryan rose from the ranks seven years ago.

If Kevin McCarthy is to prevail in the race to become Speaker of the House, he may once again have to breakout the Chapstick.

Spread it on thick, Kevin.  You're going to need it!

Tuesday's Biggest Loser was Trump

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The dust from Tuesday's elections has almost settled and it looks a though Republicans will control the US House of Representatives, though by a much smaller margin that many had anticipated, and the Democrats will likely retain control the US Senate as before with a razor-thin majority - as before.   The usual midterm  rout by the party out of power did not happen, and the "big red wave" was merely a dribble.

Donald Trump's name was not on any of the ballots on Tuesday, yet he was still easily the day's biggest loser.  Trump, whose hatred of GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is becoming legendary, had backed a slate of GOP senate hopefuls in an effort to ultimately give him a position from which to threaten McConnell's leadership in the senate and to display his own electoral strength - but so far only one of Trump's picks has won - J.D. Vance in Ohio.  McConnell had predicted that Republicans would have a difficult time gaining control of the senate due to the "quality" of the candidates that the party had nominated - a direct slap at Trump who had helped many of the fringe GOP senate hopefuls win their primaries - and McConnell was proven right at the polls on Tuesday.

Trump also seems to be in a pissing contest with Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis.   Despite Trump's pre-election mocking of DeSantis, where he referred to him as Governor DeSanctimonius, the incumbent Republican governor handily won his re-electtion in Florida at the same time Trump was experiencing so many disappointments at the polls.  DeSantis came out of Tuesday's election as a serious challenger to Trump's control of the Republican Party and as a political threat to Trump if he seeks that GOP presidential nomination in 2024, something Trump has indicated strongly that he will do.

Trump, in fact, said before Tuesday's election that he would have a very big announcement next Tuesday, and many assumed that would be his declaration of a third run for the White House.   Now that, of course, is in doubt.

Stop by tomorrow for a few thoughts on Tuesday's second biggest loser:  Kevin McCarthy.

So Long, Twitter, and Thanks for All the Fish

 

by Pa Rock

Later today, or perhaps this evening, I will be leaving Twitter for a mental health break that I anticipate will last a minimum of several years.  It is not an action that I take lightly, but it is one that is long overdue.

The Stats:  I joined Twitter in June of 2009 and have been a member continuously since then.  During those thirteen-plus years I have posted over 63,700 tweets, "followed" 27,390 members, and have been followed by 27,989 others.   As those numbers indicate, I have been fairly active on Twitter for a long time.

I am leaving Twitter for two reasons.  First, as a good friend once pointed out, it is "an enormous time suck," and, as I will be seventy-five in the spring, my time is growing exceedingly short - and I have miles to go before I sleep, as well as  grandchildren to visit, leaves to mulch, roses to tend, trips to make, another play to finish, a great American novel to begin, a blog to deal with, some family histories to get finished up, and any stray - dog, cat, or human - who wanders down the lane in need of assistance.  What I do not have time for is crafting tedious insults to launch at political miscreants.

The other thing that has spurred me to cut ties with Twitter is the platform's new owner, Elon Musk.  Though he has been in charge only a couple of weeks, the petulant billionaire has already left his indelible mark on what used to be a a somewhat constructive social media outlet.  Musk came in promising that he would not turn it into a "free-for-all hellscape" and then proceeded to do just that.   The racists and Nazi's raced back in, and then to insure that they had the free run of the place, Musk terminated half of the workforce.   (Happy holidays, you all!).  

Musk then announced that he would begin selling the blue-check verifications for "just" eight dollars a month, though the new checks would be essentially worthless and the equivalent of vanity license plates.  Now he is even floating the idea of a charge for all or at least most Twitter users.  It all sounds like a massive Trumpian grift.

Musk even went on a revenge-bender against some celebrities who used his screen name to poke fun at the very sensitive billionaire.  He has shown an ability to dish it out, but he sure can't take it!

Musk is also politicizing Twitter, something he vowed he would not do.   He retweeted a ludicrous conspiracy theory several days ago implying Paul Pelosi's home-invader and attacker was actually a gay prostitute that Pelosi had brought home from a San Francisco bar - a lie so outlandish that he quickly pulled the tweet.  And a couple of days ago Musk suggested via a tweet that people should vote for Republican congressional candidates to give some "balance" to the national government.

Clearly Musk intends for Twitter to become a conduit for his political beliefs and interests, and clearly his politics and self-interests are on the opposite end of the spectrum from my own.  So he can have Twitter, and the morons can have their blue checks, and I can have some time to get things packed up before I follow the dolphins back to their own planet.

So long, Twitter, and thanks for all the fish!

Some Non-Standard Election Notes

 

by Pa Rock

Habitual Voter

Election Day is finally upon us, and late this evening the political dust should finally begin settling.  Of course, the GOP, the party of perpetual whiners, is already threatening to challenge any elections that do not go their way, so maybe the dust won't be settling any time soon.

American politics has clearly gone off the rails, and that is totally the result of a man-baby who could not accept defeat.  

I have scanned most of the internet news sources, and there seems to be a consensus that the electorate is leaning ever-so-slightly Republican, and the election now is the GOP's to lose.   The major news sites rely on polling to make their predictions.  With most people today screening their calls, the political art of polling becomes ever more suspect - and there are all manner and types of polls producing a wide array of results.  I suspect that polling is becoming less reliable and that evidence to support that assertion will become evident as the vote totals start coming in this evening.

There will also be an astronomical event as the polls are closing this evening when the Earth will pass directly between the sun and moon causing a total lunar eclipse.    During that time the Earth's shadow will cover the moon and make it appear dark red in color.  The event also called a "Blood Moon."  Some astrologers are seizing on the election evening event and claiming it will bring about some sort of election havoc - something that Americans can normally achieve on their own without cosmic interference.

I didn't make many political donations this cycle.  There were no Democrats running for any of the local offices where I live, and the only two "races" involved independent candidates running against Republicans.  I did donate to Missouri's Democratic US Senate candidate, Trudy Busch Valentine, and to Jessica Piper, a rural "progressive" Democrat who is running for the Missouri House in District 1 which is in extreme northeast Missouri.  Jessica's campaign has shown other candidates how to raise money and campaign over the internet, and it looks as though she will carry a rural district that has been Republican for generations.  She refers to herself as a "Dirt Road Democrat."

My political donations also went to two non-Missouri candidates.  I gave - as I always do - to Sharice Davids, a Democrat who represents Kansas 3rd congressional district.  Davids lives in the same Kansas community as two of my grandchildren and is their congresswoman.     And I made a pair of donations to Beto O'Rourke, a Democrat who is running for governor of Texas against the reprehensible incumbent,  Greg Abbott.  Willie Nelson supports Beto, so everybody should!

And, I donated to VoteVets, an organization that promotes and supports progressive veterans who are running for office.

Elon Musk went on his new property, Twitter, yesterday and encouraged people to vote for Republicans for Congress in an effort to bring some balance to government because the nation already has a Democrat serving as President.  It's sad to see Musk using his new acquisition for political purposes, but we all knew that it was going to happen.  Actress and comedienne Whoopi Goldberg posted a tweet this morning saying that she would be quitting Twitter this evening, presumably after making her final election observations.  I will be leaving Twitter tomorrow after completing my own political observations - and only those of you who have managed to read this far will have advance notice of my departure!

I will have quite a bit more to say about Elon Musk and Twitter in this space tomorrow.  Count on it!

If you have not already done so, GO VOTE!

The Lincoln Highway

 

by Pa Rock

Reader

As I hinted in yesterday's posting, I may have finally come across the novel that I have always been seeking, a book that I was somehow destined to read.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is an amazing work of fiction.   Amazon.com, the on-line retail giant and a commercial force that relentlessly studies our on-line purchases, reviews, and browsing history, began telling me through solicitation emails months ago that The Lincoln Highway  was a book that I had to read, but I resisted the urge to get involved in another long reading experience.  I had previously read Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow, and was very impressed with it, but somehow I was not adequately motivated to spend time with another major work by the same author.

Then my friend Bill plugged both of those novels in his "Gates' Notes," and said that while he enjoyed them both, he felt that The Lincoln Highway was actually even better than A Gentleman in Moscow, and, as a reader who respects Bill Gates' opinions on literature, I finally relented and ordered a hardback copy of Amor Towles' latest work.

Ordering The Lincoln Highway was a very good decision.

The time was June of 1954, the place was a bankrupt farm in rural Nebraska, and the two central characters in this work of fiction were the Watson brothers, Emmett who was eighteen and his little brother Billy, who was eight.  Emmett had been serving a sentence at a boy's reformatory for his part in the unintentional death of a local bully, but when his father died of cancer, a decision was made to release Emmett so that he could return home to care for his little brother.  

Billy had been staying with neighbors awaiting his brother's return, while the bank had been preparing foreclosure documents on the family property.  The neighbors were Sally, a nineteen-year-old friend of the Watson's, and her father.  Sally was plainspoken to a fault and somewhat resentful of her lot in life - which seemed to be taking care of her father until some other man for her to take care of would come along, but she cared for Billy with the fierceness of a mother hen watching over her only chick.

As the story opened, Emmett, who had been serving his sentence on a work farm in Salina, Kansas, was being driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the reformatory.   Emmett had plans to pick up his brother, spend a final day or two in the farmhouse, and then head out to Texas with Billy where he would make his fortune buying, remodeling, and selling houses, all financed by the secret nest-egg of three thousand dollars that their father had managed to hide from his creditors at the bank.

But Billy had a different plan.  He had found a cache of postcards written by their mother just after she abandoned the family several years before - postcards that their father kept secret from the boys.  The postmarks and notes on the cards indicated that after their mother left the family she had traveled along the Lincoln Highway, the nation's first transnational paved thoroughfare, headed for California.  (The Lincoln Highway ran from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.  The Watson's farm was close to the halfway point on the highway.) Emmett had no interest in reconnecting with their mother, but Billy, who was little more than in infant when she left, did.  He eventually managed to convince Emmett that California was growing faster than Texas and would be a better prospect for his home renovation plans.

All of their plans, however, were thrown into a cocked hat when Duchess and Woolly, two other young men who were serving time at the facility in Salina with Emmett, turned up at the Watson's farm after having stowed away in the trunk of the warden's car just as the warden and Emmett were preparing to leave Salina and head for Nebraska.  Duchess was the son of an itinerate vaudeville actor and spent a lot of time growing up on the road and in and around New York City.  Woolly was the son of a socially prominent New York family.  Duchess, a charming plotter and manipulator, wanted Emmett - who had his own car - to drive them to New York where Woolly would access a pile of cash ($150,000) which his grandfather had set aside for him in the family safe as a "trust fund."  If Emmett would drive them, they would split the trust three ways and Emmett would be set for set up to be a major homebuilder in California.

Emmett, who regarded himself as far more sensible than the other two former reformatory inmates, declined, but he eventually agreed to go out of his way and take them to the train station in Omaha where the escapees could board a train for New York City.  However, while they were enroute to Omaha, Emmett managed to get distracted by another of Duchess's misadventures long enough for Duchess to "borrow" his car - and Duchess and Woolly headed off to New York leaving the Watson brothers stranded in rural Nebraska.  

Emmett called Sally who came and transported them to the train station in Omaha where Emmett intended to board a train and head to New York City to get his car back,   But after Sally left them at the train station, Emmett realized that his money, the nest-egg of $3,000, was still in the trunk of his car under the spare tire.  After some careful research, he found an express freight train that was headed to New York City, and he and Billy secreted themselves in a boxcar.

And from there Emmett and Billy Watson began a journey which was marked by personal adventures and encounters with characters very reminiscent those experienced by Huck and Jim as they floated down the Mississippi on their raft in a bygone era.

The Lincoln Highway is a character-driven tale that is and pulled along through narratives of each  major individual in the story.  The manner in which it is presented, through the varying viewpoints, enables readers to gain a fuller perspective of what is actually happening, and it adds to the compelling nature of story.  The pages, nearly six hundred of them, turn quickly.

While The Lincoln Highway, is a very satisfying reading experience, the plotting is far from predictable and it keeps the reader's attention with unexpected twists and turns, much like any drive along an unfamiliar road.  It's a book that is hard to put down, and a story that is difficult to quit.   While The Lincoln Highway almost begs a sequel, I hope that does not happen because a furtherance of this tale would only serve to dilute its magnificent impact.

This is a wonderful story, Mr. Towles.  Your countless accolades are well deserved!