Ignore the News at Your Own Peril

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

After announcing in this space yesterday my intent to avoid any discussion of Donald John Trump in this space whenever possible, it wasn't surprising - at least to me - that a situation developed overnight which more or less demanded an acknowledgement of Trump's heavy hand and marshmallow brain.  Last night at 1:30 a.m. in the Middle East - the same hour at which Trump had ordered an American drone strike that killed Iran's top general just days before - Iran retaliated by firing missiles at several bases in Iraq where US troops are housed - and managed to hit at least two of those bases.

Last week the Iraqi Parliament went on record with a unanimous vote that all US forces leave their country.  The United States has informally replied that the time is not right to withdraw our forces from Iraq, a country which clearly does not want them there.

Trump initially said he would speak to the nation last night, but then regrouped and decided that it might be smarter to gather all of the facts first - and perhaps get his administration's story straight - and then hold that national address until this morning.

Some reports last night indicated that there had been American deaths as a result of the bombings, but those reports have not been confirmed this morning.

Whatever the actual extent of last night's attack, and however Trump chooses to characterize it, the situation appears to be escalating.   At this point some pundits have questioned whether Trump is wagging the dog - trying to enhance his own political situation by scaring up a conflict in the Middle East - or is the dog now wagging Trump?    Has a situation that he originally stirred up for his own political benefit now grown beyond his control and threatens his political survival?

Then, to dice up the situation even more, a Ukrainian passenger jet crashed just after taking off from the Tehran airport in Iran last night, killing all 176 people aboard.  The passenger plane was enroute from Tehran to Kiev, Ukraine.  There were 82 Iranians on board, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians (including nine of the plane's crew members) and a few Swedes, Afghans, Germans, and Brits.  As of now that crash appears to be independent of the missiles fired from Iran last night.

At this time Trump is preparing to speak to the nation.  We await his ramblings with bated breath!

Be It Resolved: Pa Rock Will Try to Ignore the Trump Trash

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

For those who track such things, I have avoided even mentioning our Dear Leader, Donald John Trump, for nearly three weeks now.  For a good long while it seemed, at least to myself, that this blog had degenerated into little more than a place to vent my angry spleen about all things Trump, but all of that continuous rage was wearing me down.   So over the course of the past few weeks I made a conscious decision to just give Herr Trump, and myself, a rest.  A Trump detox, if you will, or a cleanse.

The last time I mentioned Donald Trump in The Ramble was on December 18th, 2019, in a piece called "Impeachment Day," so titled for obvious reasons.  That was twenty days ago.  The last time I used his name in the title of a blog piece was three days before that when I penned one entitled "Trump Says FBI Is Scum."  Over the past couple of years there have been numerous weeks when the name "Trump" appeared in headlines of this blog three, four, and even five days in a row, and disengaging from all of that vitriol was not an easy task - but disengage I did.

A couple of years ago I stated a resolve at the beginning of January to only write about Trump on one specific day a week, either Tuesday or Thursday - I honestly can't remember which.  But that noble resolution only lasted a couple of weeks because I just could not resist the siren's call of his unrelenting meanness and stupidity.  Trump made me so damned mad - and attacking him was always just too damned easy!

Now I would like to try backing off of Trump again, but I don't want to be limited to certain days or amounts of print - just a vow to ignore him except in the most egregious of cases.  Yes, I think there is some value in being a tiny vibration in the massive hum of discontent sweeping across our land and around the globe, but I am not certain that I want to sacrifice my health in being a constant part of that hum.  There are plenty of other things that could use attention - grandmothers being tased on their birthdays by over-zealous cops, for instance, or children in cages dying from the flu.    Lots of things that need to be talked about seem to be getting washed aside in the daily tsunami of Trump trash that is leaching itself onto our national character.

If I had been hitting on all of my anti-Trump cylinders over the past few weeks, I would have surely lauded the decisions by two fine conservative publications, "Christianity Today" and "The National Review" to call for Trump's impeachment and removal from office.  Their thoughtful editorials inflamed GOP politicians and Trump's mindless supporters, but they did serve tot remind America's more reasonable citizens that there are good and wise people on both sides of the political aisle - but just not those who have allowed themselves to be swept up into the Trump maelstrom of greed and treachery.

If I had been more focused on the outrages of Trump these past few weeks I would have had plenty to say about his two-week family vacation in Florida over the holidays, a vacation in which secret service agents, military personnel, and civilian flunkies in the White House and administration had to also be housed at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort - on the public dime.  The Trump's went to the seashore for Christmas, and America paid out the ass - and paid directly TO the Trump family!

I would have also gotten emotionally overwrought in writing about the fact that Trump planned and ordered a major international assassination while on his golfing holiday, and that while he didn't inform Congress of his decision to act in a manner that could still yet precipitate a war with Iran and perhaps other players in the region as well, the word did seem to leak out to some of the Mar-a-Lago members who were enjoying their holidays in the shadow of Trump.   There was even some speculation in the news that some of these people may have made quick profits on the stock market with what was essentially insider information.

I probably would not have commented on the celebrity-news type of storm that Melania Trump seemed to be instigating when she threatened to sue anyone who referred to her as an "ex-hooker."  In fact, I did not even hear those lurid assertions until Mrs. Trump herself began snarling about them.  I will, however, admit that I am shocked that I lived long enough to witness the day when a First Lady of the United States would have to threaten to sue over something like that.  Of course, Melania is also the very first First Lady to have nude images of herself splashed across the internet.

(Michelle Obama, America's most admired woman - year after year after year - was never called a hooker, although several Republican politicians did pass around cartoons and memes that suggested she was a baboon or some other primate.  Michelle never threatened to sue - perhaps because the materials we so outlandish - or perhaps because she was too much of a lady to get down and roll around in the mud with her racist detractors.)

But I carefully avoided all of those Trump tidbits - and even ignored a few easy take-downs on Beavis and Butthead and Ivanka and Jared.  Jumping into all of that slime was not good for my blood pressure and it would not really have added anything of value to the national discourse - and only a slight vibration to the universal hum of discontent.

I won't ignore the Trump crime family completely, but from this day forward I am going to do a better job of seeking out other things to write about.  Be it resolved!

Monday's Poetry: "Chicago"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Today is the 132nd birthday of American master poet and biographer, Carl Sandburg.  I have previously used three shorter works by Sandburg in this space:  "A Revolver" in June of 2015 as a response to the senseless murder of several people as they prayed in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, "Buffalo Dusk" in January of 2013 to commemorate me receiving a 1936 buffalo nickel in change when I bought breakfast at a Phoenix McDonald's that morning (a coin that I returned to the worker that had given it to me the following morning - and one which he planned to give to his daughter), and "Manufactured Gods" in September of 2010 which I dedicated to religious charlatans Terry Jones and Shirley Phelps Roper - though at this point I can't remember why.

I have always intended to run Carl Sandburg's powerful poem "Chicago" in this space, but have demurred because the poem's long lines and tricky formatting - combined with space restrictions peculiar to BlogSpot - make it impossible to transport to this space in the form Sandburg intended.  But - I have hammered and patched and dabbed with ink plaster and somehow managed to get a close approximation of what the poet intended into this space today.

The following is my favorite Sandburg poem, a historical view of the quintessential American city - the hog butcher for the world!


Chicago
by Carl Sandburg

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders: 

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again. 

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: 

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the 

little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, 

Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding, 

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, 

Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation. 

Grandmother Tased and Arrested on her 70th Birthday

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

It was the day after Christmas and Barbara Pinkney was probably having a pretty good day.  It was her birthday - a big one ending in zero.  The Florida grandmother was enjoying her 70th!

But then there was a knock at the door of her home in Manatee County, Florida, fifty miles south of Tampa.  Two sheriff's deputies stood in the doorway and demanded to enter so that they could search for Mrs. Pinkney's grandson, a young man who had reportedly violated parole by carrying a concealed weapon.  Mrs. Pinckney asked to see a search warrant and was informed that the deputies had an arrest warrant for the grandson.  She denied them entry, a commotion ensued in which the woman pushed back against one of the deputies, and all hell broke loose.

The older woman was tased, grabbed, pushed to the floor, and a deputy climbed on top of her forcing his knee into her back.  And then, instead of taking the injured woman to a clinic or hospital - or wishing her a happy birthday - the deputies hauled her off to jail.  She posted a $1,000 bond and is due in court on January 17th to face charges of obstructing justice and resisting arrest.

A relative who was inside the home managed to film most of the encounter, an inconvenience which has forced Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells to open an internal investigation to see if excessive force was used by the young, trained deputies.  The sheriff went on record with:

"From everything we can see at this point, it appears the deputy did what he had to do.  We take allegations of excessive force seriously, which is why we have opened an internal investigation to gather all the facts."

Mrs. Pinkney is a black woman, a person who undoubtedly had an innate knowledge of the dangers associated with allowing - or not allowing -  police into her home.  One has to wonder what the official response would have been if the deputies had tased the white mother or grandmother of Sheriff Wells - or some other county officeholder or local plutocrat - and then thrown her to the ground and climbed on her back.  Surely they would be in a jail cell and focused on updating their resumes.

But it's Florida, and people of a certain skin tone do not push back against John Law - and everyone knows it.

A Grandson Comes to Visit

by Pa Rock
Proud Grandpa

Boone Macy, my oldest grandchild, showed up for his annual holiday visit with me and his dad  this week - and he brought along his girlfriend!

Boone, a college junior who will be twenty-one this spring, is currently focused on becoming an elementary school teacher, a career choice that insures he will live in abject poverty as he selflessly dedicates his life to the education and well-being of others.  This former teacher can't imagine why Boone would pursue such a hare-brained career, but wishes him all the success in the world as he reaches out and touches more lives than he ever imagined possible.

When Boone isn't involved with school or romance, he works as a desk clerk and a large hotel, a job that is probably more educational than anything he would ever encounter in college!

And for the record, we liked the girlfriend, too!

Come see us whenever you can, Boone.  You will always have a place at my table and in my heart.

The Headless Body in the Cave

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

An unusual story emerged from the state of Idaho last week when authorities announced that a body discovered in a cave in 1979 had finally been identified - thanks to the rapidly advancing field of DNA research.

Buffalo Cave near Dubois, Idaho,  had been used as part of the area's Civil Defense preparedness efforts in the 1950's.  A family was exploring in the cave in 1979 searching and digging for Indian artifacts and arrowheads when they unearthed a male torso that had been stuck in a burlap bag and buried in a shallow grave.  The corpse still had skin and was wearing clothes that had not completely rotted away.  Some assumed that it had probably been in the cave ten years or less.

Twelve years later in 1991, and in the same cave, a young girl who was exploring came across a hand that was sticking out of the ground.  When authorities began digging up the hand, they discovered the four missing limbs belonging to the torso in the burlap bag.

But the man's head has never been found, and the identity of the remainder of the body was never determined.  This year authorities turned the investigation over to DNA researchers and professional genealogists, and last week a formal identification was finally made and announced to the public.

DNA identification in this case was particularly tricky because many of the people living in the area where the man had been found were descendants of the polygamous Mormon pioneers who had settled the area.  DNA researchers narrowed their range of possibilities down to a few, and then professional family researchers began delving into family stories and histories and news accounts.  Finally they came up with a man they considered to be the most likely possibility - and set out to find a descendant with whom they could compare DNA.  An eighty-seven-year-old grandson in California was contacted and agreed to be tested.

And the torso in the bag turned out to be his grandfather!

The remains were those of Joseph Henry Loveless, the son of Mormon pioneers who had been born in Payson, Utah Territory, in 1870.   Loveless had been divorced by his first wife for abandonment and lack of support for their son, and he had moved on to Idaho where he lived a life of small time crime, primarily bootlegging, and had a common-law wife with whom he had other children.  He also had a history of escaping jail.

Loveless was arrested in May of 1916 for murdering his common-law wife with an axe, and one of his sons remarked at the time that  "Papa never stayed in jail very long and he'll soon be out."  He apparently had a metal saw concealed in his shoe and escaped a few days later - never to be seen alive again.

The sheriff of Clark County, Idaho, where all of this mayhem occurred is excited and pleased about finally being able to attach a name to the (majority of a) body that was found in Buffalo Cave, and he is now determined to identify the person who killed the escaped convict - although that person is obviously dead as well.  (Now the working assumption is that Joseph Henry Loveless died in or around 1916, not long after escaping jail for the last time.)

Good luck with that investigation, Sheriff!

Confliction

by Pa Rock
Consumer of Entertainment

Last night as I was searching for an interesting movie to watch I came across a Woody Allen film that I had not seen before, "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion."   While I felt some guilt about settling in to watch a film that was written, directed, and starred-in by a man many consider to be a pariah because of sexual abuse allegations nearly thirty years earlier by one of his adopted children, I watched the movie anyway - and enjoyed it thoroughly.

In 1992 seven-year-old Dylan Farrow, who had been adopted as an infant by actress Mia Farrow and several years later by Farrow's paramour, Woody Allen, made an allegation of sexual abuse against Allen.  Specifically, the girl alleged that Allen had taken her into a crawl space in the attic of Mia Farrow's country home in Connecticut where he digitally penetrated her.  Woody Allen vigorously denied the allegation, claiming it was retaliation by Mia Farrow after she discovered that he was having an affair with her adult adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn - whom Allen married five years later.

After the allegations were made, Woody Allen sued Mia Farrow for custody of her two youngest adopted children, Dylan and a brother named Moses, and also sought sole custody of a young biological son of both he and Ms. Farrow - a child who grew up to become Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow.  Allen lost that case, but after a lengthy review by state authorities, no charges were ever filed against him in the molestation case involving his daughter.

And yet, being a former state child abuse investigator myself, I knew from experience how difficult it is for children to come forward and give a convincing retelling of abuse, especially when they have to face down adults who are skilled at making things seem believable - and their highly polished legal teams.  My support has nearly always rested with the child, and I saw no reason to drift from that position, especially since more than a quarter-of-a-century later Dylan Farrow still maintains that the abuse occurred.

But I watched that Woody Allen movie and enjoyed it.   A few months before I had viewed his film "Wonder Wheel" which starred Juno Temple, a talented young actress who had previously starred in a film that my son had written.   And then there was Allen's six-episode television production entitled "Crisis in Six Scenes" in which he played opposite Miley Cyrus.  Another great piece of entertainment.

And I gorged on it all - while realizing that the writer - director - star was a person whom I would never want near my grandchildren for any reason!

But my confliction goes beyond Woody Allen.

Kevin Spacey's career collapsed two years ago as various boys and young men began coming forward telling stories about how the highly versatile actor had insinuated himself into their lives and used that closeness to make unwanted sexual advances.  Spacey, in a fit of remorse, even corroborated some of their claims.    The allegations and subsequent charges not only resulted in roles drying up for the actor,  all of his scenes were even deleted from a movie he had just completed - and another actor - Christopher Plummer - was brought in to re-shoot them.

Years ago I had gone to the Old Vic Theatre in London's West End to see a production of "Hamlet."  Kevin Spacey was the artistic director at the Old Vic at that time, and I especially wanted to get a feel for how the theatre was functioning under his guidance.  I am also a fan of his film work -  and manage to watch "The Ref " almost every Christmas.   I watch it even though Spacey himself has behaved in a monstrous manner toward several young men who were drawn to the flame of his celebrity.  And for that I am always conflicted.

And then there is Garrison Keillor, a man who was fired by Minnesota Public Radio after multiple women began coming forward and saying they had been groped by the radio personality.  Keillor had already retired from his long-running "A Prairie Home Companion" not too long before the allegations began surfacing, but he was still doing appearances around the country and promoting "Prairie Home" merchandise.  In fact, just a couple of weeks before the story broke and he was fired, I had been sitting on the aisle six rows back at a Keillor show in Kansas City - and when he sat down and began doing a "News from Lake Woebegone" monologue, I felt he was staring straight at me while he shared the fictional news and gossip from his fictional hometown.

"Guy Noir," "Dusty and Lefty," and "The News from Lake Woebegone" are all part of America's cultural heritage - and that is thanks to Garrison Keillor - and I feel guilty for enjoying his superb wit and work.

I would like to be able to ignore the works of all of the flawed men, but a part of me argues that if I succumb to those feelings of piety and self-righteousness, that I will be denying myself some of life's most delicious pleasures - and is that the right response when I was not a party to any of the abuse?

I remain conflicted.

The 2020's: A Time for Roaring

by Pa Rock
Survivor

January 1st, 2020.   Somehow this mud ball we call Planet Earth has found the strength and will to spin its way around the sun 3,652 additional times over the past decade, all the while avoiding what must be a rabid urge to rid itself of mankind once and for all in a riotous purge of fires, famines, locusts, ticks, quakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, disease, plagues, the common cold, and whatever else it takes to accomplish a thorough environmental cleansing - and give the rest of nature a chance at survival.

We have been lucky so far, but our unrelenting pursuit of wealth and comfort is showing clear signs of nearing an end - one that will undoubtedly be catastrophic - for that is the only way that nature will ever get our attention.

The polar ice caps are melting, and that is not alarmist hyperbole - it's actual, observable, measurable fact.  Greenland is melting, as well.  The ozone layer above the earth, which has a filtering effect on the sun's rays, is being steadily depleted by man-made chemical emissions and activities (like gasoline-powered cars, or coal-fired power plants) - things that are preventable or can be changed.  So the ice is melting alarmingly fast.  Most of us who made it past fourth grade or so know that when ice melts it makes water - and when big masses of ice melt the water goes into the oceans and sea levels rise - and rising sea levels cover low-lying lands - lands where most of the earth's population lives, lands where tourists frolic and economies thrive - at least for the time-being.  There are streets in Miami, Florida, that are already regularly underwater.

Australia is burning.  It's a long way off and many of us fail to get very excited about what is happening down there.    But we will care when changing weather patterns create situations that bring about massive fires here in our own country.   That day draws near.

Diseases which were once thought to be nearly eradicated are back and flourishing, thanks to things like over-crowding and poverty - and particularly thanks to profound ignorance.  Educated people are buying into quack theories about "dangers" of inoculations and choosing not to give their children basic life-saving shots - shots which protect not only their own progeny, but the rest of us as well.  We should not have to be worrying about measles in the twenty-first century!

Poverty and hunger are still with us.  People like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg and the Walmart Waltons have enough money to feed and educate every child in America, yet there are thousands of children in the US living in cars and digging through dumpsters in search of their next "meals," and millions who lack basic food security.

If nature needs a hand in eliminating the dangerous nuisance of humanity, greed always begets war at some point - so we stand ready and willing to help in our own demise.  As an adjunct to war, terrorism also thrives.    In our own country bigotry is cultivated by unscrupulous politicians and blossoms brightly.    People who can't speak or write in complete sentences are stockpiling guns and believe they are part of a grand militia charged with protecting white people (like Jesus) from non-Christians, non-English-speakers, and the brown hordes from shithole countries who are desperate to storm into the US where they can pluck chickens and wash toilets for less than minimum wage.

The 20's will either be a decade of abrupt changes to our attitudes and ways of living, or we will choose to blindly limp onward to an inevitable conclusion - one in which humans are factored out of the equation of life on earth.

We have had our wake-up call and now all of the alarms are clanging at once.  If mankind is to survive, it is time to stand and roar down the winds of greed, ignorance, and bigotry that have for too long given us our direction in life.  A whimper won't do.  A polite rebuttal will be futile.  It is time to ROAR!

The Last Decade Started Badly

by Pa Rock

It was late on New Year's Eve in the final hours of 2009 when the telephone call brought the shocking news.

My sister and I had buried our father earlier that week, and we were both spending the night in his large house trying to figure out what to do with all of the stuff that he had accumulated over his long life. Our kids had all been in town for the funeral service, and by this time most had either gotten back to their homes or were on their way.

When the telephone rang, Gail had already gone upstairs to bed.  My sister's oldest daughter, Heidi, was on the phone with the horrific news the her father (my sister's ex-husband of many years), Bob Smith, had just been killed in a car wreck in rural Texas along with his cousin,Bobby Jack Short, and that the family's youngest son, Reed (age 23) had been life-flighted to Amarillo where he was headed into a very critical surgery.   Reed's girlfriend, Jamie (who later became his wife), was also in the car and had suffered less serious injuries.  She was providing Heidi (a medical doctor) with updates by phone.

Bob and his cousin were driving the young couple back to their homes in Las Vegas after my father's funeral.

It was a long night of medical updates and frantic calls to airlines trying to arrange quick flights to Amarillo, but not long after sunrise on New Year's day, 2010, several of us were already on the ground in Texas and heading toward the hospital.  Reed had survived surgery and was lying deep in a coma.  He would remain that way for a prolonged time, and it was several weeks later before he was finally well enough to leave.

During the time that Reed was in Amarillo, the hospital halls were crowded with relatives, friends from high school, friends from college, and even his boss from Vegas.  His mother, Gail, never left his side, and Doctor Heidi was also constantly at his bedside.  Reed's siblings, Tiffany and Justin, flew back to Missouri and laid their father to rest, but they were soon back in Texas waiting patiently for their brother to regain consciousness.

And we waited, and waited, and it was the absolute scariest time that most of us had ever experienced.

But Reed, always a fighter, pulled through.

Now he and Jamie both teach in northwest Arkansas.  Reed coaches a junior high girls' basketball team and this past weekend they won a holiday tournament - and the coach was ecstatic - just as so many of us were when he finally woke up in that Amarillo hospital!

We love you, Reed!

(Note:  All of my postings from that awful time are available in the archives of this blog.)

Monday's Poetry: "Same Old Lang Syne"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and Wednesday will officially usher in a new decade:  the 2020's!

The song "Auld Lang Syne" is traditionally associated with New Year's, and is often played and sung at the stroke of midnight as the year changes.   The song is rooted somewhere in the mists of history, but famed Scottish poet Robert Burns is generally credited with its preservation for modern times.  He sent a handwritten copy of a transcription to the Scots Musical Museum in the late 1700's along with this note:  "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor ever in manuscript until I took it down from an old man."

And the familiar words were preserved:

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne."

Burns fleshed out the words and is generally celebrated as the poet who wrote it, a song that has become synonymous with New Year's in the modern world.

The late Dan Fogelberg was another poet whose works were often presented in song.  Fogelberg wrote a song which captured the spirit of old acquaintances reuniting, albeit briefly.   His  "Same Old Lang Syne" (sometimes referred to as "Another Auld Lang Syne") has a dreamy quality as it presents a longing for times gone by.   The song centers on the accidental meeting of a couple who had been lovers many years before - and looks at the bittersweet nature of their lives as they drink beer and reminisce in a parked car late at night.  It's a touching piece of work that folds in nicely with the folk song that Robert Burns preserved from prehistory.


Same Old Lang Syne
by Dan Fogelberg

Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stood behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve

She didn't recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried

We took her groceries to the check out stand
The food was totaled up and bagged
We stood there lost in our embarrassment
As the conversation lagged

We went to have ourselves a drink or two
But couldn't find an open bar
We bought a six-pack at the liquor store
And we drank it in her car

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how

She said she's married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
But she didn't like to lie

I said the years had been a friend to her
And that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes I wasn't sure if I saw
Doubt or gratitude

She said she saw me in the record stores
And that I must be doing well
I said the audience was heavenly
But the traveling was Hell

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving, in our eloquence
Another "Auld Lang Syne"

The beer was empty and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say
She gave a kiss to me as I got out
And I watched her drive away

Just for a moment I was back at school
And felt that old familiar pain
And, as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned into rain

Blood and Guts, Ozarks' Style

by Pa Rock
Dead Deer Dodger

Rosie and I are home after a four-hour drive along some of the backroads (and busy highways) of northern Arkansas.  The most iconic images of the drive were the dead deer lying next to the roadways - and the flocks of turkey vultures that would rise into the air each time a car would pass.   I have lived out in the woods of southern Missouri for five years now and have yet to hit a deer, but some of my neighbors have smashed into several.  In fact, I think a big part of the carnage is intentional because it seems to be used for bragging rights:

"I've hit four deer this year,"  Bubba brags.  "Oh yeah," Clem strikes back, "I had that many before Labor Day.  I'm up to seven now!"

My only boast is that two which were hit on the road close to where I live crawled up onto my land to die.

Also, the local newspaper is just now catching up in publishing all of the photos of hunters with the dead deer that they "harvested" in last month's hunting harvesting season.  Many of those "sportsmen" were children.

Deer blood and guts, on the highways and in the newspapers.  Red is fast becoming our most prominent fall and winter color.  Welcome to my world!

The Black Squirrel of Gamaliel

by Pa Rock
Road Warrior

Rosie and I have been in the car most of the day.  Late afternoon finds us in Fayetteville, Arkansas, as my sister's place, and we will soon be  out and  about visiting her grown children and their families.

It was a long drive across the Arkansas backroads this morning.  The only thing of interest that we came across, aside from the White Power advertising along the road near Harrison, Arkansas, was a black squirrel which ran out in front of our car on the highway as we passed through the tiny village of Gamaliel (pronounced "gah-mail-yah"), Arkansas.  Fortunately, it got out of the road safely.  I have never seen a black squirrel before and assume they (if there are more than one) are a rarity.

(I sincerely hope that Trump's idiot adult sons and Jimmy John the sandwich king don't hear about the black squirrel of Gamaliel!  The little cuss deserves a fighting chance!)

The little town of Marionville, Missouri, is famous for white (albino) squirrels and even has a big billboard on the highway advertising their natural oddity.   Supposedly a colony white squirrels live in a small patch of woods just off of the highway.  I think "Ripley's Believe It or Not" gave them a mention at one time.  I guess if nature can produce white squirrels, she can probably create black one's, too.

Headed home early in the morning.

Happy trails!

Dinner or Supper?

by Pa Rock
Human Garbage Disposal

In my continuing effort to write less about you-know-who and his Nazi infestation of OUR White House, I am continually searching for other topics to explore in this blog.  Some days I happen across something that captures my interest, but many days I am forced back into the dung heap of this unpresidential administration to dig through their refuse.  Today there was something in my email in-box that triggered some thoughts and memories - so I can leave the Big Orange Menace to his own self-mockery for the time-being.

I subscribe to a couple of dictionary websites which provide a word of the day.  Both sites, MerriamWebster.com and Dictionary.com also sponsor vocabulary quizzes and send out the occasional newsletter dealing with words and their usage.  Today Dictionary.com sent around an item which explored the backgrounds and usages two words which are often used - in various parts of the country - to refer to the evening meal.  The article was entitled:  "Supper versus Dinner."

After identifying the origins of the words, the folks at Dictionary.com said basically that dinner has seen more traditional use to describe the midday meal, and supper is a more common reference to the evening meal.  And I felt extremely validated because that is the way we talked out in the country where I grew up.  The meals of my youth were breakfast, dinner, and supper.  It wasn't until I "grew up" and moved off to the city to attend college that I was gradually corrupted into labeling those same three meals breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I had a basic speech correction course in college which trailed off into dialects and even addressed where certain words were most likely to be heard in which parts of the country.  "Pail" versus "bucket" and that sort of thing.  I remember meal names being discussed there with the instructor saying that breakfast, dinner, and supper were more common in rural areas where closer ties were likely to have been maintained with Old World English.

I also remember hearing about daily routines on my grandparents' small farm during the depression.  Everyone was up before daylight for a big farm breakfast, and then the men hit the fields for a full morning of very hard labor.  While they were working to keep the farm functioning and sustainable, the women were in the house cleaning up after breakfast and preparing a big noonday meal, one which they called dinner.  Dinner was, in fact, the main meal of the day.  The men would come in, eat hearty, and then head back outdoors to continue their physical labor in the sun, or rain, or even snow.  After dinner the women would set the food aside - much of which would be saved for another round at supper - and then they would go outside and tend to gardens and gather eggs - or stay indoors to clean or sew.  Everyone was busy all day long.

And the biggest meal of the week was Sunday dinner - again just after noon as families were returning from church.  Much of the food had been prepared before they headed out to church in the mornings, and the big gathering at the Sunday dinner table was a continuation of the church experience - sometimes with other relatives, friends, and even the preacher and his family dropping in to share in the meal.

And now, as noon rapidly approaches, this weary typist will set blogging aside and concentrate on what to fix for dinner!

Crazy Weather or Climate Change?

by Pa Rock
Farmer in Winter

When I was a child in elementary school, I remember two Thanksgivings in a row when we had snow in southern Missouri - really big snows.  And as a young school teacher in a rural school district in southern Missouri forty years ago, I remember long stretches of "snow days" every winter, breaks so long that we actually got tired of staying home and missing work.

That was then, and the times have definitely changed.  I have lived at my current home over five years.  I arrived in March of 2014 and had to scrape ice off of the porch before I could begin unloading the car.  But since that time we have had almost no icy or snowy weather - over a five year span!

Today as I type I am also watching a wasp that dropped out of the curtain and landed on the window sill.  He is a bit lethargic, but he is moving around.  My heater isn't on this morning, yet Mr. Wasp decided that it was time to end his winter's hibernation - or whatever it is that wasps do when they disappear during the cold months.

A couple of weeks ago I stepped outside before daylight one morning and got a strong whiff of a skunk.  I'm not sure what skunks traditionally do in the winter, but they usually are not out and about.  A friend said that he had seen a snake a few days ago.  Snakes, cold-blooded creatures, curl up in a hole and basic freeze for the winter, and if they are beginning to thaw, well that's just almost scary - Stephen King scary!

But that's the issue - we aren't having cold months, at least like those glorious cold and snowy months of my wayward youth.  Yesterday was Christmas and the temperature outside was seventy degrees Fahrenheit.    Seventy degrees - and sunny!  That's warm enough to thaw a snake!  At that rate the trees will begin budding any day now, and I'm surprised that the spring bulbs aren't already peeking up through the ground.

The old men sitting around the big table in the coffee shop may give Mother Nature or God credit for the "good" weather - or more likely Trump, but those of us who don't get our news from Fox are more inclined to see this as a man-made weather crisis, one that will likely have devastating effects on mankind.

Thats kind of talk that would get a person hooted out of the coffee shop.

Ten Years Ago on this Day

by Rocky Macy

Garland Eugene Macy
19 October 1924 - 25 December 2009

My father passed away ten years ago last night - in the wee hours of Christmas morning.  He was eighty-five-years-old at the time of his death and had lived a very full life.  Dad was born in rural Newton County, Missouri, to an alcoholic father who posed as a farmer and made a scratch living from milking a few cows, and a mother who was physically abused by her husband while trying to raise four children in Depression Era America.

My father went to a rural school in Newton County.  It was called Westview and it still serves as a school today.  Dad was smart, so smart in fact that his teachers promoted him from first to third grade. an act that caused some animosity among his friends.  After he "graduated" from Westview at the end of eighth grade, he moved to Neosho and lived with his Aunt Pearl Lowe and her family while he completed Neosho High School.   He graduated in 1942 and joined the Army Air Corps at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis soon after.

Dad was the second oldest, and both he and his older brother Wayne saw service overseas in World War II.  They once, in fact, were able to meet up briefly in Wales during the war.  Several of their cousins were also in the war and served in various parts of the world.  Cousin Lee Macy fought in Africa.  Dad made staff sergeant while in Europe, and was involved in maintaining the gun sights in military fighter planes.  Many of his cousins called him "Sarge" after the war because he was the only one of the Macy clan to achieve that rank.

My father was wounded in a training exercise in January of 1945 in France and received the Purple Heart.

(My father's best friend in the military was a fellow named Joe Spake from Memphis, Tennessee.  Today I maintain occasional contact with Joe's kids.)

After the war Dad turned his attention to making money.  Like so many kids who grew up in the Great Depression, he saw money as the true measure of success.   He and his cousin, Dalton Macy, were both driving cabs in Neosho, Missouri, trying to make their grubstakes right after the war when they met a couple of the Sreaves girls from Seneca.  Dad wound up marrying Ruby "Florine," who would become my mother, and Dalton married Florine's younger sister, Betty Lou.

My father and mother bought into a small grocery store in Neosho while Dad continued to bring in a paycheck by working at Pet Milk.  Later, after my sister Gail was born we moved a few miles south to Goodman, Missouri.  Dad worked an evening shift at Pet, and some of my earliest memories are of sitting up late with my mother and listening to radio programs while we waited on him to get home from work.  I'm not absolutely certain of this, but I suspect that my mother worked part-time for her sister and brother-in-law, Christine and Bob Dobbs, who ran the Linwood Cafe on 71 Highway at Goodman.

About the time I started school at Goodman, my parents had saved enough money to go into business with the Dobbs.  The two couples built a new cafe and station on the highway across from the Linwood Corner where the old cafe was located.  The Dobbs' family had a home behind the new enterprise, and the Macys' built a new home on the adjoining lot.   I remember while all of that was going on that one of the girls in my first grade class told me that I was rich - an image that my father took pride in cultivating.

But while we always had food on the table, we were far from rich.

When I was ten and just leaving fourth grade, my parents sold their share of the business on the highway to the Dobbs' family, and we moved further south to Noel, Missouri, where my folks bought an eight-unit tourist court on the beautiful Elk River.   The six years that we spent running Riverview Court were some of the best of my life.   We all worked hard, but there was also plenty of boating, swimming, and fishing - and we made friends with regulars from around the Midwest who came to say with us year after year.

After taking over the court and teaching the rest of us to run it, my Dad went into the town of Noel and found a business to lease - A DX gas station. A few years later, after they sold the tourist court on the river - at a nice profit, I suspect - my parents bought a building on Main Street and opened an appliance store there.  Dad and my mother ran that for several years, and she also managed to get a cosmetology license and work part-time at a local beauty shop.

As the years wore on and Walmart began driving small town merchants out of business, Dad was able to sell his store and enter other pursuits.    He sold real estate for many years and bought rental properties when he came across bargains.   After my mother passed away in 1986, he began focusing on the stock market and managed to build up a nice portfolio before his death.

In addition to being focused on the accumulation of wealth, my father also had a strong commitment to his community, realizing that without a strong community, all of his business efforts would be for naught.  He served terms on our local school board, the city council, and was even a director of the local bank.  My dad was a strong proponent of the Chamber of Commerce and always played a role in town activities.

He was also not surprisingly a Republican - but more of a business-oriented Eisenhower Republican - and he wasn't afraid to break with his party when it was wrong.  I remember his commenting  on a vote he had cast in a state referendum not long before his death - a vote to allow people to carry concealed hand guns.  He said he had voted against it because giving people permission to carry concealed weapons was "just nuts!"

My father entered the world during the Calvin Coolidge administration and left just as Barack Obama was completing his first year in office.  He saw technology advance from home radio's operated off of car batteries to home computers and telephones that people carried with them in their pockets.  He had trapped and sold rabbits for 25 cents each as a kid, and as an adult he sold most of the people in town their first color television sets.

Ten years ago on Christmas Eve he slipped and fell on an icy porch - hitting his head - as he was delivering Christmas candy to his renters.  He made it home on his own, but later that night knew that it was time to call for an ambulance.  He lived in a big house, alone, with his nearest child, my sister, more than fifty miles away and me in Arizona.  The ambulance attendants let themselves in, found him in his bed upstairs, and took him to the hospital in Neosho - not very many miles from where he had been born eighty-five years earlier.  He passed away quietly soon after arriving at the hospital.

And ten years later Garland Macy is still missed by many - and especially by his family.  Rest in peace, old man.

The Lights Have Gone Out in Dog River

by Pa Rock
TV Freak

Several months ago I began streaming a Canadian sitcom that purported to be the most popular show in the history of Canadian television, and while that boast may or may not be correct, "Corner Gas" was definitely a very funny program.  The show ran from 2004 through 2009 and had 107 half-hour episodes.  It had an ensemble cast of eight characters, each of whom appeared in every show.

The show took place primarily in a gas station/convenience store that was attached to a restaurant. The gas station was "Corner Gas" and the restaurant was "The Ruby."  The businesses were located in the fictional town of "Dog River," Saskatchewan -  at a prairie highway crossroads "forty miles from nowhere."  (The filming location was the small town of Rouleau, Saskatchewan.)

The show's chief writer and main character was Canadian comic Brent Butt who played Brent Leroy, the owner of Corner Gas.  Brent had grown up in Dog River and, as a young adult, purchased the gas station from his parents, Oscar and Emma, who still lived in town and were always interfering in their bachelor son's life - or having him over to share the evening meal - every evening.

Brent's dad, Oscar Leroy (Eric Peterson), was a snappy old curmudgeon who was quick with a scheme to complicate any situation - and whose favorite word was "jackass!"  His wife, Emma, functioned to put the brakes on Oscar's wild ideas and practice the motherly arts of cooking, sewing, gardening, and pining for grand babies.  Emma also had a darker side and could create a fair amount of havoc on her own.

Lacey Burrows (Gabrielle Miller) moved to Dog River from Toronto when her Aunt Ruby died.  She took over the aunt's restaurant and named it "The Ruby" in her honor.  Lacey wanted acceptance by the local community, something which usually seemed to be just beyond her grasp.

Hank Yarbo (Fred Ewanuick) was Brent's lifelong best friend.  Hank seemingly never held a real paying job, and spent most of his time hanging around "Corner Gas" creating complications for those working or shopping there.  The other regular at the station was Wanda Dollard (Nancy Robertson) who "worked" there but seemed to spend most of her time sitting at the counter and reading the magazines.    Wanda always had a quick excuse for not actually doing any work.

The final two regular cast members were the cops.  Police Chief Davis Quinton (Lorne Cardinal) and his Deputy Karen Pelly (Tara Spencer-Nairn) had no real crime to fight other than rare traffic violations by passing tourists.  They spent their days helping with the misadventures of the town's other citizens - and napping in their patrol car.

There were a few other townspeople who roamed in an out of the episodes, but basically those eight carried the show and were involved in every episode - sort of like a "Gilligan's Island" but where the inhabitants were marooned on the Canadian prairie instead of an island.    Each of their lives complemented and complicated the lives of the other seven - on a weekly basis.

Canadian politicians, sports figures, and entertainers put in occasional cameo appearances on the show, along with some who were very familiar to audiences in the States - such as singer Michael Buble and actor Kieffer Sutherland.

The same crew came back together in 2014 to make an update to life in Dog River in "Corner Gas:  The Movie."  In the movie the mayor had lost most of the town's money by investing it in property in Detroit - because he reasoned that property values could not go any lower, but they did - and then he tried to recover those losses by playing the lottery.     The people of Dog River were faced with the challenge of either working together to possibly survive, or everyone pulling up stakes and leaving.  The movie had the same sparkling and witty dialogue as the television series and managed to tie up some of the loose ends left by the series - such as why Brent never left home and went to college, or what if there had been a romantic relationship between Brent and Lacey, or what the real story behind the people of Dog River always spitting when someone says the name of the next closest town - Wullerton (spit!).

Since the movie was completed one of the regular cast members has died, Janet Wright who played Emma Leroy, the building in Rouleau, Saskatchewan, which housed Corner Gas and the Ruby has been bulldozed - and the "Foo Mart" grocery burned to the ground, so it would appear that the lights have gone out in Dog River permanently.

That's a shame.

Of course, I also think it's sad that the people on Gilligan's Island were rescued!

(Note:  "Corner Gas" streams on Amazon Prime, and "Corner Gas:  The Movie" is currently playing on the IMDB Channel which is available through Amazon Prime.)

Monday's Poetry: "Young at Heart"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

I like music - and I like to whistle - and through my whistling I've butchered many a classic tune.  It doesn't take much to get me started, and whenever any of my senses pick up on something that puts me in mind of a song, I begin to whistle.  It doesn't make any difference where I happen to be at the time, I whistle.  I've whistled in schools, in churches, and on crowded passenger planes.  I find myself always whistling as I walk the aisles of Aldi's doing my weekly shopping - and it's always the same damned tune.

When I was a kid there was a game show on television called "Name that Tune" which ran from 1953-1959 and was hosted by Bill Cullen.   (Remember Bill Cullen?  He was also the host of the original "The Price Is Right" and appeared in several other game shows.). "Name that Tune" was brought back to television in the 1970's and has even made sporadic appearances on the tube in more recent years.  One of the features included in the show was a bidding segment in which contestants bid against each other to see who would attempt to name a tune (song) in the fewest notes.  "I can name that tune in six notes."  "Oh yeah, well, I can name that tune in five notes!"  And so on.

I was fairly good at the game.  Give me five or six notes and I could name most of the popular music of the day.  I have a very reliable ear when it comes to identifying the music of a certain era - an era recognized by people who can remember Bill Cullen!  And that reliable ear is what always gets me whistling at Aldi's.

The card readers at the checkout counters at Aldi's - at least at the Aldi's where I shop - have a distinctive three-note ring when they approve cards - a ring that can be heard across much of the store.  The three notes match the beginning three notes of a song made famous by Frank Sinatra and later recorded by Michael Buble entitled "Young at Heart."  The song begins "Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you're young at heart."  And the first three notes of the card reader exactly match the words "Fairy tales" from the song.  And that sets me off!

Sometimes I imagine that I hear a loud groan as I enter the store, but surely not!

Young at Heart
by Johnny Richards and Carolyn Leigh

Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you
If you're young at heart
For it's hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind
If you're young at heart

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart, or on its way

Don't you know that it's worth every treasure on earth
To be young at heart
For as rich as you are, it's much better by far
To be young at heart

And if you should survive to a hundred and five
Look at all you'll derive out of being alive
And here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart

I Would Have Been Fired

by Pa Rock
Former School Principal

There was a controversy at our local high school this past week, one with distinct political overtones that went on to make the national news.  A group of students were handing out small rainbow flags to show support for the school's LGBTQ community, and shortly thereafter another group of students responded by unfurling a Confederate flag in the school cafeteria to show their support of the area's "southern heritage."

School district officials, realizing the "freedom of speech" issues which were at play - and no doubt wanting to avoid pick-up loads of angry parents driving circles around the school - initially released an innocuous statement talking about the student "banners" and freedom of speech, but later, as the matter began to ferment on social media and made its way into a few national news outlets, they came up with a more comprehensive statement which still said very little - but had much flowerier phrasing.  Basically the district was concerned with bullying but would do nothing to interfere with student rights of expression - at least at this point.

No disciplinary action was announced, nor did the school district propose any change in school policies - again - at this point.

The school superintendent and high school principal were both conveniently unavailable for comment, and the job of calming the press - and the public - fell to the Director of Communications and Community Relations.

Forty years ago I was a high school principal at a smaller high school in the same county.  At that time I didn't have the luxury of hiding behind some "Director of Communications" or other flack whose job it was to jump up and protect me from the press.  Every misbehaving student, pissed-off teacher, angry bus driver, or cook, or janitor was my problem, and mine alone.   In addition to being the first to arrive and last to leave on most days, most school nights found me on school buses riding to ballgames, several of which were seventy miles away.   It was a high stress job that led many of my contemporaries to alcoholism and early deaths.

Back in the day the big disciplinary controversies raged around students chewing gum, chewing tobacco, smoking cigarettes, and showing up at school or school events drunk.   One night while driving a drunk student home from a school dance - just to get him off of the premises - the young man threw up in my fairly new car - gallons and gallons.  Another student left a ball game early one night and began slashing bus tires with his handy hunting knife.  He also managed to slash one tire on my car.  I'm not sure why he stopped at one, but I took it as some awkward sign of respect.  Another time an extremely angry mother pushed her way into my office and shoved a seven-page handwritten letter into my hand.  She was upset because I had suspended her son for showing up drunk at a school dance, and her primary complaint seemed to be that since we all went to the same church I should have let him off with a reprimand.

It was a complicated job, with small town biases and values permeating every action.   After just a few years at the thankless job,  I left to sell real estate and then do social work.   It wasn't too long after I left school administration that the job got infinitely more complex.

Back when I was a principal we had a telephone in each of the school's two offices, and one pay phone in the hallway for students.  An ill student or one with a problem could usually use a phone in the office to contact parents.  But, and this is a really big but, there was not internet - and there were no personal cell phones.  Now there are - and now the job of running a school is much more complex and difficult.

When the flag situation hit the fan at our local high school earlier this week, everyone pulled their cellphones and began filming.  The incident was on Facebook before school officials likely even had an inkling about what was going on.    There was no controlling the story from within - it was already out there.  School officials chose to obfuscate and bury it as much as possible in verbiage - because they, like me forty years ago, have families to feed.   Decisive action would have likely generated a decisive reaction.

And I read all of the local accounts as well as a couple of national summaries, and decided that these young administrators of today know what they are doing.  If the same situation had occurred twenty miles up the road and forty years ago, I would have been fired!

Hate Hits the Heartland

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Fourteen-year-old Natalia was walking to her junior high school in Clive, Iowa, a small town just north of Des Moines, on a recent Monday afternoon to attend a basketball game.   As she strolled along on the sidewalk she was suddenly run down by a woman driving a large, older Jeep Cherokee.   After the driver was apprehended later that evening she declared that she had driven her vehicle onto the sidewalk and intentionally hit the girl because she was a "Mexican."

The driver of the hit-and-run vehicle was 42-year-old Nicole Poole Franklin.  She was arrested less that an hour later in an area convenience store where she was hurling merchandise and racial slurs at the immigrant operator of the store.  Ms. Poole Franklin told arresting officers that she was under the influence of drugs, and admitted to smoking methamphetamine less than an hour before hitting the junior high student with her large vehicle.  Police said that she was "fidgety and had dilated pupils consistent with drug use."

The victim of the hit-and-run suffered a concussion and massive bruising.  She was hospitalized overnight and missed a week of school.  The school responded with counseling for students and a program of direct support for the victim and her family.

The driver of the assault vehicle has been charged with attempted murder, and there is some talk of  also charging her with the commission of a hate crime.  She has a criminal history of being the aggressor in a domestic abuse situation.

Joe Henry, the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens Council #307 in Des Moines, told the Des Moines Register that racist attacks and hate crimes have been on the rise in Iowa since the election of Donald Trump.

But even with the recent rise in apparently racially inspired attacks, prosecutions of hate crimes remains rare in Iowa.

Donald Trump and his political enablers may tell themselves that his words cause no harm, but the view on the street - or on the sidewalk - or in the convenience store - is far different.  Hate speech divides and incites, and it reveals our very worst selves.  When Donald Trump flaunts his unhinged bigotry, he is attempting to define our entire nation.

We cannot let that happen.   The United States of America must be a place of vibrant diversity that is safe for everyone regardless of their faith, race, gender, or lifestyle.  

America is better than Donald Trump.

Friends and Computers

by Pa Rock
Social Commentator

(Note:  This week I had a couple of pieces of correspondence regarding friends.  One was from a neighbor whose last name I could not remember, and the other was an email regarding the death of friend whom I had known while working overseas.  Both stories were impacted by Google, situations which left me pondering the pervasive power of computers.)

Dennis:

I have a neighbor named Dennis who lives a couple of hundred yards down the same road as me.  We share a property line that is mostly a raggedy-assed fencerow overgrown with saplings and weeds.  I’m not sure which of us owns the sagging barbed wire fence, and Dennis probably doesn’t know either, but I have worked diligently for the five years that I have lived here trying to get my side of the fencerow cleaned out.

The first fall that I lived here Dennis put his little Chevy S-10 pickup out in his front yard along with a “for sale” sign.  I pulled in as soon as I saw the sign, introduced myself, took the truck for a spin – and bought it.  A couple of weeks later I received a Christmas card from Dennis.  Over the years, when I had chickens, I would occasionally take him eggs, but we rarely ran into each other for the most part.  Yet those Christmas cards kept coming – and I always sent one in return as soon as his arrived.    I didn’t have to remember anything because his name and address were right there on the card.

Easy peazy.

But this year Dennis changed things up.   His card arrived about mid-December, when it usually does, but this time he forgot to include his name and address on the envelope.   And I could not for the life of me remember his last name.

I usually keep old Christmas cards, but this year I have been moving things to the storage shed at the back of my property – and when I went to look for the old Christmas cards that I had packed away during the summer, I came up empty.  I walked down the road this afternoon and checked out Dennis’s mailbox, and it had his address – but not his name.  Then I went on Google and learned all about his house, including the current estimated value – but still came up empty on the name.

Finally I had a brain fart that produced a possible last name, and I googled that and hit pay dirt!  I now know Dennis’s last name, where he was born as well as his birthday, and the names of a couple of friends and several family members.  

The moral of this story is – if you think your life is private, don’t search for yourself on the internet or you are likely to be very disappointed!

And the card is in the mail!

(Next year I can even send Dennis a birthday card!)

Wencil:

Wencil was another friend of mine, but he passed away last March.  I only knew Wencil briefly – we worked in the same unit on Okinawa back when I arrived on the island in the summer of 2010.   He left and returned to the states a couple of months after I got there, and my friend Valerie – from Phoenix – arrived and took over his job.

Wencil was his first name, and that is all he ever went by.  As far as I can remember, I never knew his last name.

Wencil was a few years older than me and he had some obvious health issues.  He had a girlfriend back in St. Louis, but had come to Okinawa on his own on a two-year job contract.   One day, on a weekend, I discovered him sitting on a bench outside of the post office at Kadena Air Base, the base where we both worked.  He was disoriented and could not even remember his name.  That incident resulted in his hospitalization, and not too long after that he made a decision to pack it in and head home.

Wencil and I had both previously worked for the Missouri Department of Family and Children’s Services, me in southern Missouri and him in the St. Louis area.  We knew a couple of people in common, and after he left the island I would occasionally hear bits and pieces of what he was up to back home.  Mainly he was retired.

This week I received an email from one of the friends that we had in common in the St. Louis area.  She had learned via a message in a Christmas card that Wencil had passed away in March.  She included a few details about his passing.  I replied that I would inform some of the friends that we worked with on Okinawa.

I carefully typed a message to several friends from that era with whom I still have contact, and just before I hit the “send” button I gave it one last re-read.  That was fortunate because Google had changed his name from “Wencil” to “Pencil” throughout the body of the text.  I corrected the misspellings, and Google quickly corrected me again.  We went on that way through three attempts before Google grudgingly relented and allowed me to do it my way – but the email server still was unhappy and underlined each mention of Wencil with a red line – just as it is doing as I type this blog!

One of my friends who also uses a Gmail account replied later in the day saying that she had gotten my message and was sorry to hear about “Pencil.”

Google had the last word!

And it was “pencil”!

Rest in peace, old friend.  May your spirit soar and your lead never break!

Democratic Debate Stage Gets Tighter and Whiter

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A few of the Democratic presidential candidates will meet in Los Angeles tonight for the sixth debate out of twelve that are being planned by the national party.  The first debate in the series was held last June 26th and 27th in Miami, Florida, with a field of twenty-two participants who were divided into two groups.  Since that time the party has used a complicated system of unique donors and poll results to winnow the field down to a manageable number.  This time seven will be participating.

Six more debates are planned, and if history is any indicator, the field for those events is unlikely to expand.

In addition to shrinking the number of candidates, the arbitrary criteria established by the party hierarchy for debate qualification has also served to make the field far less diverse than it was just a few months ago.  Tonight's forum will feature an oriental - businessman and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, two women - Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, one gay male -  South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and three standard-issue white males:  former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, and billionaire businessman Tom Steyer.

All of the candidates on stage except for Mr. Yang will be caucasian.

Gone from the line-up are women of color, men of color, and Hispanic Americans.  Cory Booker and Julian Castro still consider themselves to be contenders, but, after being pushed off of the debate stage, they are more apt to be regarded as footnotes rather than headlines.  The group left on stage, if they were to remain silent, could be confused with a meeting of some Midwestern Republican state committee.  They are tighter and whiter than the garments in Mike Pence's underwear drawer.

It will be interesting to see where the Democratic Party goes from here.  The superdelegate class, a group that fifty years ago would have been known as the "party bosses," have an obvious clear preference for Joe Biden, but the front runner-apparent has  so far run a lackluster campaign that has been marked by gaffes and often seems to drift into a fog.   At seventy-seven Biden can be expected not to be the fastest horse on the track, though his handlers would prefer it if he could at least stay headed in the right direction.

Bernie Sanders, who at seventy-eight, is even older than Biden, is clearer-headed and more focused, but many of those in positions of power within the party don't like Bernie's message.  And last month Sanders suffered a heart attack while on the campaign trail, something his staff tried (unsuccessfully) to keep from the press and the public.

Elizabeth Warren, at seventy, is comfortably younger that Biden and Sanders, but those running the party also are not happy with her message.  While Warren and Bernie - and Yang -  tout left wing proposals geared to benefit working people, the Democratic Party leaders are seeking someone who will promote ideas that they regard as more mainstream - ideas critics argue which more closely resemble Republican plans and programs.

Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is the final member of what the press is promoting as the "top tier" of candidates.  He has been pulling to the center on issues and making news by needling the signature programs of Warren and Sanders.  Mayor Pete's Achilles heel is that he can't seem to make inroads among black voters - some of whom have traditionally been hostile to the notion of equal rights for gays.

The Democratic Party convention will seat a large block of delegates who will not have to compete for their seats at the convention.  These people are called "superdelegates" and get to be a part of the convention based on  positions they already hold within the party.  Most are elected officials like US senators, congressmen, and governors.  The party heard complaints from grassroots activists within its organization that the superdelegates had too much power for those who did not earn their seats through the presidential nominating process - and it reacted by passing a measure which said the superdelegates could not vote on the first ballot at the convention, but if the process went more than one ballot, they could swoop in and make their preferences felt.

Party conventions for both parties have traditionally for many decades managed to settle on a candidate on the first ballot.  This time, however, without a clear frontrunner, that may not happen.  If it goes to a second ballot,  the superdelegates will come charging in and try to "save' the party from anyone they see as "extreme."

If they can't have Joe, they might possibly settle on Amy - or even move to resurrect Hillary.   Billionaire Tom Steyer might have an outside shot (he has already spent $47 million of mostly his own money on advertising) - and bigger billionaire Mike Bloomberg (a former Republican) could also elbow his way across the finish line.  Bloomberg has spent $117 million of his own money on advertising just within the last month.

But there is one thing that the party bosses - superdelegates - will not do.  They will not put anyone with progressive notions at the top of the ticket.  If it goes to a second ballot, Bernie, Warren, and Andrew Yang can all kiss their chances goodbye.

And then the party will be free to focus on trying to look more like Trump's Amerika.

Impeachment Day!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Today is the day that many of us have been patiently awaiting for a long damned time.  The House of Representatives will subject itself to six hours of debate and then this evening the full House will vote on two articles of impeachment against Donald John Trump.  The members of the House will decide whether they believe that Trump misused his power as President by trying to coerce the government of Ukraine into investigating one of his political rivals, a charge that Trump has already basically admitted, and whether he obstructed justice by withholding evidence and witnesses in the House's impeachment investigation - a matter of record.

The House is expected to vote almost entirely along party lines, a move that will result in approval of the two articles because the current House has a Democratic majority.  From there, the articles are expected to be sent to the Senate for a trial which Senate leaders have all but guaranteed will also be highly partisan - and the Senate has a Republican majority, at least for the time-being.  It would take a two-thirds vote in the Senate to remove Trump from office, something that will not happen unless the unexpected occurs and an incident of critical import hits the fan prior to that vote.   There is also some discussion that the House might wait to send the affirmed articles to the Senate until a point in the future when they might receive more serious consideration.

But for today at least there are likely to be two votes on impeachment sometime in the early evening.  Any congressman who fails to toe the line and spew the talking points of his or her respective party can expect to experience major difficulties at the polls next November.

Republicans who impeached Bill Clinton just over twenty years ago are warning that a vote to impeach Trump will result in all Democratic presidents for the foreseeable future being impeached, whether they are deserving of that dishonor or not.  Fundamentalist ministers are talking about war in the streets if their pussy-grabbing president is impeached, and fat old men on motorcycles are warning of some sort of Harley apocalypse in the event that Congress takes its Constitutional duty seriously and impeaches Trump.

That's today.

Yesterday the American people had their say.  In demonstrations across the nation, some of which were larger than the "crowd" at Trump's inauguration, people took to the streets chanting, singing, and waving signs calling on Congress to do its job and impeach Trump.  It was a festive exercise in the rights of assembly and free speech, one guaranteed to provoke the Wrath of Don.

But the old lion appears to be losing his teeth (something he tried to project onto Nancy Pelosi earlier this week), and his once mighty rage has dwindled to little more that a faint roar on the wind.

History is being made today, and we all need to be paying attention!

Resist, persist, and drive the bastards out in November!

Molly the Busy Mom Turns Forty-Three

by Pa Rock
Proud Papa

I sent my daughter an email earlier this morning wishing her a happy birthday and telling her that I remember where I was forty-three years ago this morning.  I remember it clearly - and I find that reassuring in a time when it seems like I am starting to forget so much.

The labor that brought Molly into this world was induced, and once the process started she came so fast that I almost didn't get my scrubs and hospital gown on in time to make it into the delivery room for her arrival.  When she was born she had beautiful little golden red curls of hair plastered to her head and looked like an angel.  Today she still has curly golden red hair.

Molly was born at a fairly new hospital that was one of the biggest in the area.  There were over thirty newborns in the viewing room later that evening when my parents arrived to see their new granddaughter, and Molly was on the front row with her little red curls.   As my mother stepped up to the window she knew which baby she had come to see and pointed at Molly saying "That's our baby right there!"  Molly's other grandmother came the next day - along with her mother (Sophia Wiederkehr Doerpinghaus - Molly's great-grandmother).  Gramma Aggie was carrying the largest poinsettia that I had ever seen!

Now Molly is a mother herself with three children ages eight to twelve.  She is a traditional mom by today's measure in that she seems to be constantly in her car taking kids to their various schools - and home again - as well as to all sorts of activities.  It seems - at least to this outsider - that she is continually racing from one place or event to another, yet amid all of the family hubbub, Molly still finds time to work as a personal assistant to a handicapped individual.  I get tired just watching her rush about, so I can imagine how Molly must feel at the end of a "normal" day.

But enjoy it while you can, Molly.  Soon the kids will all be gone and your major activity will be sitting back and reminiscing about how much fun things used to be!

Much love on you birthday!  I am very proud of you!

Major US Newspapers Support Impeachment

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

With the full House of Representatives set to hold historic impeachment votes against a sitting president this week, many major US newspapers are rushing to have their say before the votes on the two articles of impeachment are taken.

Trump, realizing before he even took office that America's news sources were going to be problematic for him, decided the best approach was to neutralize them with loud, unsubstantiated claims that they were continually lying about him and that all of their news was "fake."  For the most part that approach seemed to work, especially among Trump's less-educated base and the people who were used to being spoon-fed state propaganda by Fox News.  Trump was a loudmouth and a bully who controlled the news through brazen intimidation and the strength of his own personality.

But with Congress finally standing up to Donald Trump, portions of the news media, and in particular major newspapers, are also beginning to fight back against his outlandish attempts to control and shape the news.  And it seems to be the impeachment story that is finally beginning to take unfettered wing with America's newspapers.

Over the past couple of weeks more that a dozen major US newspapers have published editorials favoring the impeachment of Donald Trump.  The current list includes:  USA Today, Salt Lake Tribune, New York Daily News, Chicago Sun Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Baltimore Sun Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Orlando Sentinel, Philadelphia Inquirer, Tampa Bay Times, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Honolulu Star Advertiser.

The Houston Chronicle is expected to take a position in the matter prior to the Wednesday vote in the House, and many suspect that the major newspaper in the red state of Texas will also join in the call for impeachment.  Some are even arguing that The Arizona Republic may join in the effort - but this blogger will believe that when he sees it!

Two other major US dailies - The Chicago Tribute and The Detroit News - are calling for Congress to censure Trump rather than impeach him

Trump's strength apparently rests where it always has:  the Rust Belt, the Deep South, and America's wide swath of rural areas.

So the whole impeachment process may be a hoax, a witch hunt, or whatever Trump's tiny racing brain thinks it is at the time he is tweeting, but there are editorial boards in some of America's more vibrant cities who think otherwise.  And those of us who feel that Trump has grotesquely overstepped his authority as president may be comforted with the knowledge that we are not alone.    A lot of very important newspapers share our views!

Trump Says FBI is "Scum"

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

(Note:  This is a Trump outrage that occurred last Tuesday evening.  Trump has been flinging feces so fast and furiously this week that it has taken me awhile to get to it.   Apologies.) 

Hershey, Pennsylvania, used to be famous for one thing - it was the home of some of the world's finest chocolate.  Now it has one more claim to fame.  Hershey, Pennsylvania, is the place where Donald John Trump finally tipped over the edge of reality and went absolutely, totally insane.  Sooner or later it had to happen someplace, and last Tuesday night Hershey won the honor of being the place where Trump officially lost the battle with his demons.

When the Mueller investigation was announced a couple of years ago, Donald Trump told close associates and friends, in colorful language, that the investigation would be the end of his presidency.  But as it dragged on over months and then years, Trump became more and more emboldened in trying to paint the investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election as a "witch hunt" and loudly flapping his jowls while proclaiming his total ignorance and innocence regarding the attempt by a foreign power to rig a U.S. election.

Trump was extraordinarily pissed at his attorney general at the time - Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III - for allowing the investigation to proceed in the first place.   After two years of trying to goad Sessions into resigning, he finally fired him.  Trump replaced Sessions with William Barr, a partisan toadie who made a valiant and fairly successful to interpret the results of the investigation and control news about the findings.

Things were looking good - but Trump wanted more.  He wanted to promote the notion that the Mueller investigation had been an intentional effort by the "deep state" to discredit him, and that the FBI had been complicit in some sort of plot against him that extended back into the 2016 election - sort of a "we didn't cheat, but they damned sure did!"  Trump had Barr investigate the actions of the FBI through its own Inspector General.

Last week the IG completed that investigation, and while both Barr and Trump anticipated good news, instead the IG found that the FBI acted properly in regard to any involvement that they might have had in investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.  There was nothing to substantiate Trump's bizarre notion that the FBI had been trying to defeat him in 2016

That wasn't what Attorney General Barr wanted to hear.

And that damned sure wasn't what Donald Trump wanted to hear!

So this past Tuesday evening in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Trump went on a rant regarding the FBI.  He roared to the crowd that there were "great people" in the FBI, but that the agency did not have good people in leadership positions.  (The current head of the FBI is Christopher Wray who was appointed to that spot by Trump in 2017.)   Trump went on to refer to the FBI as "scum."

Dumbfounded, I thought of how much the world had changed since the 1960's.   Back then the wild, unwashed masses would say things like that about the FBI, but now here was the President of the United States calling the nation's premier law enforcement agency "scum."

And he was doing it loudly - at a public rally - in Hershey, Pennsylvania!

Even Richard Nixon did not sink to that level of insanity!