Bloomberg Tries to Save the Postal Service

by Pa Rock
Democratic Voter

I live in rural south-central Missouri not too far from the Arkansas line.  My residence lies at the edge of a hilly geographical area commonly referred to as "the Ozarks."

Missouri is a basically conservative Republican state that will occasionally relapse into sanity and elect a Democratic candidate to a statewide post, but southern Missouri never wavers in its commitment to ignorance.  Down in this neck of the woods candidates for office - if they are serious - had best support God, guns, and anything that promotes the dominance of white men in society, and they best not appear to be too well educated.

National politicians traditionally do not spend time or money in the Ozarks.  Republicans see campaigning here as unnecessary, and Democrats regard it as a waste of resources.  That is why I was surprised, perhaps even shocked, when I received four separate pieces of mail (actual mail!) from Democratic presidential hopefuls over the past two weeks.

Last week Cory Booker sent a nice form-letter thanking me for having been a contributor to his now-defunct presidential campaign, and on the same day I received a slick four-page color brochure from Mike Bloomberg listing reasons why I should support his campaign.  Interestingly, neither of the candidates asked for any money - probably because Booker is a nice guy who is no longer running, and Bloomberg, the billionaire, just doesn't need my pocket change screwing up his nice even piles of personal cash.

On Friday of this week I received a letter from a woman named Margaret Brick in New York City telling me what a fine mayor Mike Bloomberg had been and sharing a story about her son, a NYC fireman who had died in a fire just after 9/11.  She said the mayor had told her that the Fire Department would take care of her son's children, and he said that if it failed in that responsibility he would step in and do it himself.  She also said that Bloomberg calls her around the time of her son's death each year just to check in and see how she is doing.  Mrs. Brick's letter contained a statement that it had been paid for by Mike Bloomberg 2020.

The following day - yesterday - I received yet another letter from Mike Bloomberg, a letter which was highly critical of Donald Trump and promised that a Bloomberg administration would bring stability back to our government.   The candidate ended by saying that he was trying to "earn" my vote.

Missouri will hold its presidential primaries on March 10th, one week after Super Tuesday.  Right now my plan is to vote for Senator Elizabeth Warren in that election, but I will admit to having a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling for Bloomberg's candidacy.  I enjoy reading campaign materials which are not peppered with requests for donations, and I thoroughly relish the way he fearlessly attacks Trump.

And, living on a rural route and being dependent on the U.S. Postal Service to bring my mail, I also like the fact that Mike Bloomberg is pumping so much of his personal wealth into keeping the Postal Service afloat!

(One more local note:  I received an email from Elizabeth Warren's campaign last night asking for help with knocking on doors in Springfield this weekend.  I can't - but it feels really good to finally see some presidential campaign activity in the Ozarks!)

Scroungy Bastard

by Pa Rock
Friend of Animals

I posted a piece in this space a couple of days ago that discussed various names that I have given to pets and assorted wildlife over the years.  In that posting I noted that I had a pair of alligators in college (caymans, I suppose), one of whom was named "Milhous" and another whose name I could not remember.  Yesterday an old friend from the sixties emailed to remind me that the second little gator was named "Log."  After exchanging another email with my friend, she asked why I had neglected  one of my more memorable pets, a large yellow tabby named "Scroungy Bastard" who drifted through my life a decade ago when I was living in a trailer park in Litchfield Park, Arizona (2008-2010).

That was my bad and completely due to a malfunctioning jalopy of a memory which grows more erratic with each passing year.

I transferred jobs moving from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, to Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, Arizona, in the fall of 2007.  My first Arizona home was in a new apartment complex located at a major intersection in Goodyear, Arizona, and about five miles from work along a beautiful four-lane, palm-lined boulevard.  My apartment overlooked a golf course, and though I didn't play golf it still felt like I had died and gone to Hollywood - especially after my recent stints, at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and Ft. Campbell.

Two memorable things occurred while I was living in that apartment:  first, I began this blog - and second, one night I was attacked by a scorpion while in bed and soundly asleep - an event that resulted forever more in me referring to Arizona as "the Scorpion State."

The next year I decided to become a homeowner.  I purchased a nice mobile home in a trailer park that was within walking distance of Luke Air Force Base, and went from paying apartment rent to paying lot rent.  I had not been on my new patch of desert for many weeks when Scroungy Bastard showed up.  I discovered the big yellow Tom sleeping beneath a large sage bush in the front yard.  After a few introductory remarks by me, the cat wandered off.

But he was soon back and his visits became regular enough that I would occasionally leave scraps by the back door, something the evil park manager warned could lead to my eviction.  (I don't remember the trailer park's name, but when I mentioned it in the blog, I would always call it the Wheezin' Geezer out of respect for all of my aging neighbors.

I bought the trailer (actually a nice double-wide) off of a sweet Mormon couple who were moving back to Missouri to retire.  They had a small dog for which they had installed a doggie door.  One night as I was sitting in the living room watching Rachel Maddow sharpen her teeth on George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, Scroungy Bastard crept in through the doggy door and climbed up onto the couch beside me - and he was at home.

Scroungy Bastard was an independent cuss who went where he wanted and kept his own schedule.  The park manager was always making threats about the unsupervised cat, but he managed to avoid being captured by the malignant Fat Tony.  And for about a year we just existed as two good friends leading separate lives while sharing a shelter in the Sonoran Desert.

But things changed the following year when I was offered a two-year overseas assignment at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.  Scroungy would not be able to accompany me to the Orient, nor would he likely want to go anyway.

But he soon figured out that something was up.  The military movers arrived a couple of weeks before my departure and took all of my stuff - either to storage or to be moved to Okinawa.  Soon I was living in a basically empty trailer.  I remember Scroungy coming into the empty digs one afternoon and finding me asleep on a bed in an otherwise empty bedroom.  He curled up on the bed next to me, somehow seeming to know that our friendship was about at an end.

My neighbors reluctantly agreed to take care of my furry friend, and a few days before I was to leave I took him to the vet at Pet Smart for a kitty physical and shots.  The vet described him as a neutered male between the ages of two and five.  He had to have a full series of shots because his health history was unknown, and the bill - according to one of my old blog-postings - was $250, a small price to pay to make sure that I was leaving a good friend as healthy as possible.

I left for Okinawa one night in mid-July of 2010.  The friends (neighbors) who were going to take Scroungy Bastard into their home were gone, but we had arranged for me to leave him in their house, and another neighbor would be checking in on him until they returned.  I took him to his new home just after dark and we said our goodbyes before I closed the door sealing him into a new  and strange environment.  He was not a happy kitty.  An hour or two later as I was pulling out of the drive, Scroungy Bastard, an escapee, came walking down the alleyway.  I tried to catch him, but he was having none of that

Scroungy Bastard fled into the Arizona darkness.  We were done.

Two years later just after I had gotten back to Luke from Okinawa, I ran into one of my old neighbors from the Wheezi'n' Geezer.  She said that Scroungy had been around the trailer park the entire time that I had been gone, but that he had disappeared just a couple of weeks before I got back.  She thought Fat Tony might have finally caught him.

But Scroungy Bastard was one smart cat, and I like to think maybe he was able to find some other lonesome old fart and make a home for himself.

At least I hope that is what happened.  He was a really good friend.

And the name "Scroungy Bastard?"  Well, that was we called each other - with affection!

(Note:  There are quite a few postings regarding Scroungy Bastard in the early days of this blog.)

Missouri Voters' Poll

by Pa Rock
Missourian

This morning former US Senator Claire McCaskill, now a national hack operative for CBS News, tweeted around the results of a Missouri poll of voters regarding their Democratic presidential preferences.  The poll was conducted by television station KMOV, a CBS affiliate in the St. Louis area.  It purports to be a "Missouri" poll, but one must suspect that the local station did not drift too far out of its market area to collect the opinions of Missourians.

With that proviso in mind, the following results probably reflect the views of people who live and work in St. Louis and St. Louis County more accurately than it does the remainder of the state.  The St. Louis wing of the state party would seem to prefer the following:

Biden (22.4%),  Bloomberg (17.4%),  Buttigieg (11.2%),  Sanders (11%),  Warren (10.2%),   Klobuchar (8.8%),  and  Undecided (17.3%).

Having lived in this state almost my entire life, I would suggest that the area in the center of the state around Columbia and Jefferson City will check in a bit more left of Biden on the presidential primary day (March 10th), and Kansas City may also.  I would predict that Sanders and Warren both do better in those areas than what the aforementioned "Missouri" poll might lead one to believe.  Sanders will also do well in the rural areas of the state - to include Springfield - where he will benefit from Republicans crossing over to support him in the hope that a Bernie nomination will eventually help Trump and other Missouri Republican candidates who are running down-ballot.

I also suspect that after Warren seriously (if not mortally) wounded Bloomberg in the Nevada debate, Buttigieg will fare better in Missouri's urban areas than the limited poll of KMOV would indicate.

This Missourian wasn't polled by KMOV, but for the record I am planning on voting for Elizabeth Warren on March 10th.

St. Louis has its preferences - and I have mine!

The Power of Writing on the Urinal Wall

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A couple of months ago I stopped by my local pharmacy (which is part of a national chain) and got my annual flu shot.  I guess it must have been a slow day on Twitter, because sometime later in the morning I mentioned in a tweet that I had gotten a flu shot that day - and encouraged others to do the same.   I also mentioned the name of the pharmacy where I had gotten the shot.  Thirty minutes later I had a tweet from the company's home office saying that they were glad that I had chosen to get my flu shot at their store.

The company's home office had an individual sitting at a computer monitoring social media accounts and looking for mentions of their corporation!

Not long after that I got into a disagreement with my internet provider after my internet service went down for a period of two weeks.  I tried dealing with the company through telephone conversations which only served to acquaint me with some some very nice people in several south Asian countries who could provide no actual help whatsoever, as well as several "supervisors" in the United States who were hellbent on selling me a new modem.  Eventually, I took another approach and was able to get the issue resolved without buying anything.

After wasting countless hours on the telephone as well as time in the McDonald's parking lot using that company's free wifi to chat with my internet service provider over its website, I finally decided to try contacting the company through Twitter where they would be forced to listen to my succinct complaints without interruption and hopefully give straightforward answers without reframing or equivocation.

And it worked.

After posting my complaints publicly on Twitter, the company immediately connected me with someone who had the power to resolve my issues - and soon I was back on-line without buying a new modem - and the  company cheerfully deducted the time that my service had been down from the next bill.  It was so much easier than riding their telephone merry-go-round, and so much more productive!

This week I heard a story on National Public Radio (NPR) about a medical doctor who was having trouble dealing with an insurance company over bills related to his own child's medical treatment. It was a convoluted situation that took a long time to fix.  The doctor's wife told the reporter who was taping the story that the situation was finally resolved when the doctor began using Twitter to deal with the insurance company.  She said that her husband was not a "Twitter super-star" and that he had only around a hundred followers - but that was enough.  It got the insurance company's attention and the company suddenly developed an interest in taking care of the situation.
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Twitter and most other social media outlets not only put a user in contact with the giant and impersonal corporations, but those accounts also alert others of the situations and serve as sources of publicity - good or bad - for the businesses involved.  And, it looks as though most big corporations have individuals on their payrolls whose job it is to constantly monitor social media accounts and look for references to their companies.

A phone call will set a consumer to pushing numbers and listening to recorded messages for hours-on-end, but a tweet gets heard in the throne room!  And a tweet has the potential of becoming visible to most of the world.

One of my relatives put it this way:  

"That's probably the best way to deal with any big company these days . . . degrading them on the urinal wall that is the internet."

It's quick, it's effective, and it brings down the thunder!

Larry the Armadillo

by Pa Rock
Farmer in Winter

When it comes to naming things I don't always get the job done.  I never name my cars, for instance, although my sister always does.  But I usually manage to find a name for pets, animals who reside in and around my house at my specific invitation.  The first two pets I remember were a cocker spaniel named "Penny," and a large hound that was called "Bozo" though I suspect that my parents named both of them.

Then, when my sister and I were growing up, we had a large yellow tomcat named "Jimmy."  It seems like my dad got Jimmy from his mother and she had already named him, though the reason for that particular name remains lost in the mists of history.

I also had two small pet alligators (probably caymans) while I was in college.   The first was named "Milhous" in honor of our reptilian President at the time, and the name of the second escapes me - though somebody from my circle of friends at the time will probably jog my memory.  Both died of natural causes and are buried on the campus of Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, in unmarked graves.

When the kids were growing up they had a little dog named "Banjo" who managed to get run over several times before finally dying of his injuries.  It seems like I chose that name, though I can't remember why.  We also had a black cat name "Blackie," clever, huh?  And then there was Rusty, a wonderful pooch who was with our family several years.  Rusty was named after "Rusty Pails," a fictional character that I created and nourished in a newspaper column.  (The entire "Rusty Pails" experience of fifty-some columns is scattered about this blog in various locations - and he may appear again at some point.)

Now I have two pets, both with names.  Rosie, of course, is my five-year-old Chihuahua that I bought at a roadside puppy stand when she was just six-weeks-old.    My granddaughter, Olive, who was three at tie time, named her.  I learned later that Olive had named her for "Dora the Explorer's" little sister.  And Fiona, my outdoor cat who was gifted to me by a neighbor as a kitten several years back.  I named her after Fiona Gallagher, Frank's oldest daughter on "Shameless," a cat who was always running around with her tail in the air.   One of Fiona's sons also lives at The Roost, a large yellow Tom who has had several names over the past few years, but none of which seemed to stick.  Now, when I do need to converse with him, I call him "Old Yaller."

Occasionally I will also impart a name on some wild creature who seeks to share my space.  There was a particularly chatty large red squirrel who would stand on my apartment porch when I was living in the student section of Columbia, Missouri, several years ago.  We became good friends, and at some point I had the realization that his name was Bob, and, in appreciation for me figuring out who he was, Bob would usually come running when I called.

The first year I was at The Roost I had a young armadillo who dug little holes all over the big yard for an entire summer, but he never saw fit to reveal his name.  Some animals, like some humans, are either painfully shy or just don't care to get too close to others.  I have had several ground hogs with burrows in and around the barn over the years, and though we saw each other regularly, again  no names were exchanged.  The deer who gather at the pond at twilight are also private creatures.

One morning I had to go in the barn before daylight for some reason, and when I turned on the overhead light I discovered two young possums affectionately cuddled together on a bale of straw.  They ignored me, and I quickly doused the light.  Again, all remained anonymous.

One time the barn was home to a pair of skunks.  That was quite a drama until they apparently got tired of smelling themselves and voluntarily moved on.  The skunks, too, kept their names to themselves.

But yesterday evening I had one more wildlife encounter, and this one, like Bob the Squirrel, had a name that was somehow obvious.

For the past several weeks I have been noticing small holes around much of the backyard.  My thoughts were that they must be from the squirrels, of which there are many, digging up the food that they buried in the fall.  I just wished that they would learn to backfill after retrieving their treasures.

Late yesterday as I was walking behind the sheds toward the pond, I came upon a young adult armadillo busily digging little holes in the dirt in search of root crops and bugs and worms.  At first he didn't see me and kept on digging, but as I returned from the pond he spotted me and scampered off toward the barn.  (Actually it was as much of a "bounce" than it was a "scamper.") When he reached the barn he went inside through a hole in the foundation that the cats and groundhogs also use.

"Goodnight, Larry!"  I shouted as my armored new friend disappeared into the old barn.

Sometimes you just know.

But I'll be damned if I ever name a car!

Monday's Poetry: "Stanyan Street"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Last week I commented on two poets, Sylvia Plath and Charles Bukowski, who are favorites of my grandson, Boone, a junior in college, and I featured a poem by Mr. Bukowski.  That got me to thinking about my favorite poet during the time that I was in college.

Rod McKuen was one of the better known poets associated with the tumultuous decade of the 1960's, and his poetry and songs were favorites of many college students during those years.  I have several volumes of McKuen's poetry, two of which - Listen to the Warm and Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows - have been on my personal bookshelf since they were first published more than half-a-century ago.

In the title piece for the second volume, "Stanyan Street," the poet relates an aging relationship to an aging neighborhood, and he focuses on a former love and a former apartment that all came together on Stanyan Street.

Stanyan Street is an actual location in San Francisco.  It runs in a north-south direction and forms the eastern side of Golden Gate Park.  McKuen and a lady friend apparently lived on Stanyan Street sometime in the mid-twentieth century.

Yesterday in this space I discussed the complicated estate of my g-g-granduncle, William C. Smith of Seneca, Missouri.  William had a total of fifty-three heirs, and for the past couple of years I have been trying to track those fifty-three individuals through the public records.

Lola Burkhart, one of the fifty-three heirs, was almost twenty-three-years-old when her grand-uncle, William C. Smith, died in February of 1920.   Actually, at the time of William's death Lola was the young bride of Carl A. Schilling, and the couple was at home at 1126 Stanyan Street, in San Francisco, California, and they continued to live there until 1926.  Lola died in 1992 and is buried in San Mateo, California.

Here then, for any descendants of Lola Burkhart Schilling, is a tribute - of sorts - to the street where she and Carl began their marriage, a tribute penned by a poet who lived and loved on that same street several decades later and went on to become one of the preeminent voices of the 1960's.


Stanyan Street
by Rod McKuen

1 

You lie bent up in embryo sleep
below the painting of the blue fisherman
                             without a pillow.
The checkered cover kicked and tangled on the
      floor
the old house creaking now
a car going by
the wind
a fire engine up the hill.

I've disentangled myself from you
                            moved silently,
groping in the dark for cigarettes,
and now three cigarettes later
                               still elated
                                      still afraid
I sit across the room watching you -
the light from the street lamp coming through the
       shutters
hysterical patterns flash on the wall sometimes
                  when a car goes by
otherwise there is no change.
Not in the way you lie curled up.
Not in the sounds that never come from you.
Not in the discontent I feel.

You've filled completely
this first November day
with Sausalito and sign language
                            canoe and coffee
                              ice cream and your wide eyes.
And now unable to sleep
because the day is finally going home
because your sleep has locked me out
I watch you and wonder at you.

I know your face by touch when it's dark
I know the profile of your sleeping face
the sound of you sleeping.

Sometimes I think you were all sound
kicking free of covers
and adjusting shutters
moving about in the bathroom
          taking twenty minutes of our precious time.

I know the hills
         and gullys of your body
                   the curves
                             the turns.

I have total recall of you
and Stanyan Street
because I know it will be important later.

It's quiet now.
Only the clock,
moving toward rejection tomorrow
breaks the stillness.

2

I have come as far away
as means and mind will take me
trying to forget you.
I have traveled, toured
turned a hundred times in the road
hoping to see you rushing after me.

At night,
though half a world away,
I still hear you sigh in several sizes.
The breathing softer when you're satisfied.
The plip-plop body machinery back to normal.
remembering how warm you are
and how defenseless in your sleep
never fails to make me cry.
I cannot bear the thought of you
in someone else's arms
yet imagining you alone is sad.

And in the day
my mind still rides the bridge
from Sausalito home.
I do not think
me and San Francisco
will be friends again
we share too many troubles.
Stanyan Street and other sorrows.

3

We try so hard to make each other frown
I sometimes wonder
if we haven't been together much too long.
The words that work the wonders are so few
that they seem foolish anymore.

Is this a kind of loving too,
a chocolate bar that tastes good at the time
but kills the dinner later on ?
Could be our appetite will go
till even memory's not a feast.

But there are times
when you can smile in such a way
that I'd forget a ten year war
and lie down in your shadows' shadow
and live on sounds your stomach makes.
In these brief times
I could die against your side
and never make a warning sound
content to suffocate
within the circle of your back.

  

4

Three years
              ( or maybe four )
have moved beneath the San Francisco wreckers
and their yard-long hammers.
Their caterpillar treads that transform brick
to dust-red powder.
Those giant cranes
that slice a roof down
with a single swing.

Some have never known the wreckers' rattle.
Those houses on Pacific that march toward 
       posterity
restored by dilettantes from Jackson Square
painted up like aging actresses
with eye-shadow windows and rouge-red doors.
Some have had collections taken up
petitions passed from hand to hand.
Their widows walks scraped free of dirt
and green grass planted where the weeds once grew.

These houses almost shiny new
that crowd Nob Hill
and marched down Lombard in a row
were saved to show the glory of the past.

There was a house on Stanyan street
that took a single day to wreck
    and that includes an hour spent
at tin-pail lunch on sandwiches and beer.

They carted off the timber and sold it by the pound.
The bricks at least, ten cents a piece,
now make a Marin garden wall.

But there is little salvage to be had
in bent and broken nails
and things that might have been
if I'd had wiser eyes
or been a fisherman
                   in blue.

The Life and Estate of William C. Smith of Seneca, Missouri

by Rocky G. Macy
Great-Great-Grandnephew

William C. Smith was born in Tennessee on December 18th, 1839, and he died at his home near Seneca (Newton County), Missouri, on February 8th, 1920.  William died a widower and without children of his own.   At the time of his death he owned the farm and home at which he died in Missouri, as well as personal property - and a few business lots in the town of Miami, Delaware County, Oklahoma.  All told, William was a fairly prosperous man by local standards.

Sometime prior to his death William visited a lawyer and had his will drawn up.  He left his entire estate to be divided equally among the fifty-three heirs of his six siblings.  All of his siblings had preceded him in death.

William C. Smith was the fifth child of Louisa Catherine Smith whose maiden name is unknown.  Louisa Catherine (born in Kentucky, ca. 1810)  and her children have been found on the 1850 census of the South Division of Smith County, Tennessee, and the 1860 census of McDonald Precinct of Jasper County, Missouri.  There was no age-appropriate male in either census listing who could have been the father of the older seven siblings.

But there was an additional adult female named Elizabeth Smith in Louisa's household on the 1850 census with an indicated age of 37.  There were also two additional children on the 1850 census, a boy and a girl, each one-year-old, who could have belonged to either woman or one baby to each woman.  The parentage of the infants is unclear - and again there were no age-appropriate males in the household for the two infants other than Louisa Catherine's oldest son,  John (age 18).

William was the fifth child of the seven older siblings, and they are the ones referenced in his will. The Smith children included:  Mary Jane (born ca. 1828) who married James Mayberry Scarbrough and was living near Sien, Texas when their youngest child was born in December of 1868, Sarah (Sallie) Ann (born ca. 1830) who married Timothy W. Hankins and were residents of southwest Missouri, John A. (born January 11, 1831), who married Delania Poe and eventually lived in Lincoln County, Oklahoma,  Andrew Jackson (born 1836) who married Clarinda Carr and lived in Franklin County, Arkansas,  William C. (born December 18th, 1839), Elizabeth M. (born ca. 1841) who married David Wilson Boyd and spent their lives in Newton and McDonald Counties in Missouri, and Martha Parthena F. (born ca. 1844) who married James D.M. Cline and lived in Pope County, Arkansas.

William and each of his six siblings - as well as the two one-year-olds listed on the 1850 census - were all born in Tennessee.

William C. Smith married a woman named Lucinda (maiden name currently unknown) and they built a home and a life in Buffalo Township of Newton County, Missouri.  Sometime before 1870 his sister, Mary Jane Smith Scarbrough and her husband died, probably in Texas, and their four children came to live in the home of William and Lucinda.  The four (Sarah A. (age unclear), Nancy Anthaline (13), Catherine (8), and James "William" (born December 13th, 1868 in Sien, Texas) were residents in the home of their uncle and aunt by the time the 1870 census was taken.

Nancy Anthaline Scarbrough (who was my great-grandmother) was married to Samuel James Roark in the home of William and Lucinda Smith on December 10th, 1876 - and she went on to name her first daughter Lucinda Comfort Roark, presumably in honor of her acting mother (Lucinda Smith) and her husband's mother (Comfort Poe Roark).

Over the years William and Lucinda shared their home with other relatives and even a few non-relatives.  When William died in 1920 his niece, Martha Alene "Allie" Cline Reed and her husband and small daughter were residents in his home.  Allie was the daughter of William's younger sister, Martha.

But it was my great-grandmother, Nancy Scarbrough Roark, who seemed to have formed the closest attachment to her Uncle William.  Not only were she and her younger siblings essentially raised in William and Lucinda's home, Nancy remained in the immediate area after she married a local youth, and she was likely one of William's primary caregiver's during his declining years.

Or at least she must have considered herself to have been closer to Uncle William than many of the others.

While reading through old newspapers a few years ago in search of family history nuggets, I came across a legal notice that ran in December of 1920 and January of 1921 regarding an effort by six individuals to keep the estate of William C. Smith for themselves and to partition away the other forty-seven inheritors.  And the first name listed among the six plaintiffs was my great-grandmother, Nancy A. Roark.

I could not find any follow-ups in the press which gave the details of the case or its outcome, and getting the legal records from Newton County was not easy and took awhile, but eventually I secured the information.

The judge had apparently not been swayed by the arguments of the plaintiffs for excluding their relatives from the proceeds of the will, and he ordered the real and personal property of William C. Smith to be sold and the net proceeds divided equally among the fifty-three heirs - just as William C. Smith has intended.    Justice prevailed - and my great-grandmother was probably not the least bit happy about it.

For the record, the six plaintiffs were - in the order posted in the newspaper:  Nancy A. Roark,  Margaret L. Sparlin,  K.M. Nance,  Lee Burkhart,  Pearl Sellers, and  John W. Burkhart.

The forty-seven defendants were:  M.F. Smith,  Bennet A. Smith,  H.C. Smith,  Robert M. Smith,  Nannie D. Davis,  Stella M. Doty,  Jim W. Smith,  Thomas Smith,  Newton Smith,  Nannie Ramsey,  J.W. Boyd,  T.D. Rouse,  Samuel H. Rainwater,  Emily Nicholson,  Lillie Sherer,  Odell Burkhart,  Lola Burkhart,  Cleo V. Burkhart,  Dorris Burkhart,  Clarence Scarbrough,  Sylvia L. Scarbrough,  Nancy M. Scarbrough,  Samuel W. Scarbrough,  Theodore L. Scarbrough,  J.W. Cline,  J.A. Cline,  Allie Reed,  Cassie Cline,  Roy Cline,  John Cline,  Clarence Cline,  Oscar Reed,  Mamie Smith,  Ara Williamson,  Lee F. Reed,  Alta Quick,  George Hankins,  Andrew  Hankins,  Parrthena Hankins,  Loula Smith,  L.C. Hankins,  C.R. Hankins,  Alice Gregory,  Nellie  Wilsie,  Sadie Smith,  and  W.B. Hankins.

For the past couple of years I have pursued a personal project of trying to track each of those fifty-three inheritors and get a general sense of how they were related to William C. Smith and what became of them.  So far I have managed to track all but four:  T.D. Rouse, George Hankins, John Cline, and Roy Cline.  If any of those names ring a bell with anyone, please get in touch.

"Smith" is a surname that most people hate to encounter when they are doing family research.  It is the most common surname in the United States, and when Smiths start appearing in family trees, confusion often ensues.  I saw sorting through this particular group of Smith descendants as my contribution to clearing away a bit of the chaos.

If anyone who happens across this blog posting feels that they are connected to the descendants of Louisa Catherine Smith of Smith County, Tennessee and Jasper County, Missouri, I would be happy to share what information I have.

And anyone wishing to share this article in any way, please feel welcome to so so.

Relationship Issues

by Pa Rock
Genealogist

There are basically two types of relationships, those formed through emotional ties such as friendship or coercion, and family relationships, or those that arise through marriage or by bloodlines.

A pair of co-workers who are new to an organization may form a friendship or a "casual" relationship over shared likes and dislikes around the office, but as they begin spending more time with each other and even the occasional night together, their level of involvement with one another is seen by many to have elevated to a "romantic" relationship.  At about the time a third, or even a fourth office worker crawls into bed with them, the rest of the office is whispering about the "sordid" relationship, and when a member of the group suggests selling the entire story to Lifetime, the pile of sweaty, naked bodies may begin thinking of itself as a "business" relationship.

And when marriage licenses and contracts start appearing, those emotional relationships tend to become family relationships. Indeed, formal documents aren't even necessary for the law and society to recognize many physical unions as marriage, and many assortments of individuals as families.

Family relationships are generally delineated and defined through a system of titles, and that is the actual point of today's blog - a discussion of how family relationships are titled.

Every person on earth is the biological product of two other people, a man and a woman, commonly referred to individually as a father and mother, and collectively as "parents."  Yes, many people grow up in situations which are different from a being in a home with their biological father and biological mother.  Some have adoptive parents, some have step-parents, some are raised by other relatives, or friends, or agencies, or perhaps even wolves - but, at the moment of conception each person was brought about by a man and a woman.  That's biology.

Each person's parents also had two biological parents, one of each gender, and those four individuals are the biological grandparents of the person at the center of this discussion.  Any biological siblings of the parents are the aunts and uncles of the person being discussed.

All of that is simple and easy to understand, even when step-and-adoptive parents are entered into the mix.

But as we begin climbing the family tree and it starts to branch out as it gets ever higher, identifying relationships becomes trickier.  Grandparents, the main branches, aren't too tough, however.  The parents of a person's grandparents are their great-grandparents, and their parents are the identified person's great-great-gradparents, and so on.  Eventually people begin adding gender and numbers to those titles, such as describing a particular set off grandparents on their father's side as my "paternal 10th great-grandparents."  There are, of course, other sets of paternal 10th great-grandparents on that same tree.

Over the years genealogists have even adopted a unique numbering system for generations of grandparents which allows researchers to identify exactly how a grandparent multiple generations up the tree connects to someone lower on the tree.  It is called the ahnentafel numbering system and is easier to calculate than it is to spell or pronounce.

The siblings of a person's parents are called "aunts" and "uncles," and their parents are, of course, the grandparents of the person being discussed.  But what do we call our grandparents' siblings?  They aren't simply "aunts" and "uncles" because they are a generation too far back for that appellation.  Most tend to refer to these people as "great-aunts" and "great-uncles," but I would argue that most people are wrong.  At one time this level of relationship was called "grand" - such as "grandaunt and 'granduncle'" on a par with their sibling who is also the "grandparent."  Over the years people have gotten cute, or inventive, or lazy and changed the title to "great."

Under the old system a "grand" aunt or uncle was the sibling of a grandparent, and a "great-grand" aunt or uncle was the sibling of a great-grandparent.  A system that is  much easier to understand and keep straight.  But today if you scour the dictionaries, most equate "great" with "grand" when it comes to labeling the aunts and uncles of generations gone by.

And then there is a whole other mess called "cousins."

A person is a "first-cousin" to the children of his or her parents' siblings.  Many of us are on a first name basis with many or all of our first-cousins.

If a person has a child and his or her cousin has a child, those two children are "second-cousins," and if they, in turn have children, those kids are "third-cousins" to one another.  Or, to look at it a different way, first-cousins share a set of grandparents, second-cousins share a set of great-grandparents, and third-cousins share a set of great-great-grandparents.   And so it goes, as far back as your research takes you - as long as the generations remain even.

But what about the relationship between a person and the child of his or her first-cousin?  They are referred to as "first-cousins, once-removed.  And if that child grows up and has a child, the child and the original first-cousin are first-cousins, twice-removed.

Years ago, in the mid-1600's, the village bookkeeper in old Nantucket was a fellow named Peter Folger.  Peter and his wife, a former indentured servant by the name of Mary Morrill, had a passel of children (ten, if memory serves), but this tale only involves two:  Johanna, the eldest, and Abiah, the youngest.  Johanna married a local boy, John Coleman, and went on to have several children of her own - and ten generations later after her descendants had fanned out across the United States and beyond, I came along.  Abiah married a wool merchant named Josiah Franklin and moved to Philadelphia where she also had several children, the youngest of whom was a baby named Benjamin.

Benjamin Franklin was a first-cousin to Johanna's children, and Peter and Mary Folger were the grandparents to all of them.  But when Johanna's children began having children, those youngsters were first-cousins, once-removed to Benjamin Franklin.  Their children were first-cousins, twice-removed, and so on down to Pa Rock who checked in as a first-cousin, nine times removed to old Ben.

And if I wanted to identify my relationship to one of Ben Franklin's children, say William for instance, I would begin with William's relationship to our common ancestors - Peter and Johanna Folger.  He was their great grandchild which would have made him a second-cousin to Johanna's grandchildren.  And by the time that works it way down to this weary typist, William and I would be second cousins, eight-times removed.

Easy, peasy,  Right?

All of that is in preparation for a relative that I plan to discuss in this space sometime in the next few days.  William C. Smith was my great-great-granduncle who died in Seneca, Missouri, a century ago this month and left an estate that was fought over in court.

Just consider all of this as my way of ignoring Trump.

Senior Ring Finds Its Way Home

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I occasionally collect oddball news stories and email them to my son, the screenwriter, in hopes that they might inspire him in his creative work.  Yesterday I came across the tale which follows, one that contains a true mystery and a happy ending.  You may have seen it elsewhere on the internet, but, if not, here is a recap:

Forty-seven years ago Shawn McKenna graduated from Morse High School in Bath, Maine, and was headed to college.  Before he left town he gave his senior ring to his girlfriend, Debra.  One day not long after that Debra was shopping in a department store in Portland, Maine, when she set the ring down on the sink in a restroom to wash her hands.  She noticed a short time later that she had forgotten Shawn's ring and she rushed back to the department store restroom - but the ring had vanished.

Shawn must have forgiven Debra because the couple were married a few years later and were together for forty years until Shawn's death in 2017 after a long struggle with cancer.

But, the tale of the lost senior ring was to have another chapter.

Last month a fellow named Marko Saarinen was out in the forest near his home in Kaarina, Finland, prospecting for coins and assorted junk with his metal detector when he came across a small object buried six inches beneath the forest floor.  At first he thought his find was a child's toy ring, but after cleaning it up Marko discovered that it was an American high school ring from Morse High School.  The ring was dated 1973 and had the initials SM.  It was a man's ring.

Marko Saarinen contacted the school, and a quick bit of research in Maine revealed that the class of 1973 had graduated 216 individuals, but only one male with the initials SM.  Debra and Marko were put in contact with one another, and Shawn's ring has found its way back to Debra!

Debra is of course happy to have the ring back.  She believes its recovery is a message from Shawn assuring her that he is still with her - and that it is his way of letting her know that she is making the right decisions.

And Marko Saarinen, nearly four thousand miles away in Finland, is pleased to have played a role in the ring's long journey home.  He said, "This has been an amazing discovery.  Best yet."

The ending is known, and it's a happy one - but the mystery of how a senior ring traversed the North Atlantic Ocean and wound up beneath six inches of soil in a remote Finnish forest remains.  That would be a tale worthy of a listen.

Somebody should write it.

Warren 2020!

by Pa Rock
Democratic Voter

I've been all over the place with regard to which Democratic presidential candidate I was supporting in this primary season, but I think that now the dust has finally started to settle and I can see my way forward to the March 10th presidential primary in Missouri.

Over the past months I have supported - and sent small donations to - Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren.  I didn't support Joe Biden - because of both his advanced age and the fact that he seemed to drift at times while speaking, and I didn't support Bernie because of his advanced age and the fact that having a heart attack during the campaign is a strong indicator that he has some serious health issues - or at the very least a questionable ticker.  (I was an ardent Bernie supporter four years ago.)    And I did not support Mike Bloomberg - also because of his advanced age and the fact that he was blatantly trying to buy the nomination.

I will admit that I did enjoy watching Bloomberg's attacks on Trump, and if I would have been lured into supporting a geriatric, it would have most likely been Bloomberg just for the fact that he did not shy away from going directly at Trump.  Defeating Donald John in 2020 is going to take a full-frontal, unrelenting, and vicious assault - and nice guys need not apply.

Of the candidates that I did support, only one - Cory Booker - provided me with any courtesy other than taking my money.  Booker, whom I have followed on Twitter since his days as Mayor of Newark, actually followed me back on the social media account.

And since serious presidential candidates never waste their time campaigning in outstate Missouri, I didn't expect to actually get to see any of them in person - but that changed last October when - while walking along the harbor in San Diego - a friend and I came upon an outdoor Elizabeth Warren rally.  We joined the crowd of 8,000 in cheering on the Massachusetts senator as she told her life story and laid out an ambitious plan for America.

When last night's debate started I was down to three possibilities:  voting for Kamala Harris in my state's primary where she will still be on the ballot, voting for Elizabeth Warren, or giving into my driving desire to see Trump completely humiliated in the next election and supporting Bloomberg.  But after catching bits and pieces of last night's Nevada debate on the radio, the field, for me at least, clarified.  I will be voting for Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Missouri Democratic Presidential Primary.

Warren was on fire last night.  She pummeled Bloomberg so mercilessly that I was somewhat surprised not to hear this morning that he had exited the race.  The former New York City mayor now at least should have some sense of what it is like to play in the big leagues - and he can basically thank Elizabeth Warren for showing him that money can't hide who you are - or at least who you were.  Senator Warren was measured and steadfast as she brought up the former mayor's racist policies and chauvinistic attitude toward women - and she left him no means of escape when she suggested that he release - right there on national television -  all of his female employees from any non-disclosure agreements they had signed with his companies.  Bloomberg was forced to decline Warren's invitation to do so - right there on national television.

I support a strong government response to the dangers of climate change, strong environmental protections, clean energy alternatives, the rights of workers to organize and pursue fair living wages and safe working conditions, access to post-high school education for everyone, the fair and humane treatment of refugees and immigrants to our country, a foreign policy based on the needs of humans, and a single-payer healthcare system that covers all Americans - and so do Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.   Elizabeth Warren, who is a Democrat year-in and year-out and not just during election years, in my opinion, is the one who is most likely to defeat Donald Trump, and she is definitely the one with the energy, enthusiasm, and administrative skills to turn her bold ideas into reality.

Elizabeth Warren will get the job done - and she will once again make us proud to be Americans.

I am enthusiastic in my support of Elizabeth Warren for the presidency, and I will cast my vote for her in the Missouri Presidential Primary on March 10th.  I am also resolute in my desire to see Donald Trump leave the White House, and I will vote for the Democratic candidate in November regardless of who it is.

But for now - I'm with Warren!

Neil Young Has No Love for Trump

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Donald Trump is - or has been - a big fan of rocker Neil Young.  Trump is such a fan that he has been spotted at concerts featuring the Canadian-born musician - and has supposedly employed him to entertain at a couple of his former casinos.  And, Trump likes Neil Young so much that he uses his song, "Rockin' in the USA" at his hate-fest/political rallies.

Trump told Rolling Stone magazine more than a decade ago that Neil Young has something "very special" and described him as a "terrific guy."   The feeling is not mutual.

Neil Young does not appreciate his fat fanboy even a little bit.  Young has been forceful in his demands that the Trump campaign quit using his music at its rallies, requests which Trump and his campaign routinely ignore.

Young opposed Trump the first time he ran for the White House in 2016, and was adamant that the campaign stop using his music, but to no avail.   The musician was a Canadian citizen at that time and could not even have the personal satisfaction of casting a vote against Trump.  Now, however, he has succeeded in acquiring a "dual" citizenship between Canada and the United States, and will be voting in this fall's US election.

Neil Young has a preference for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, but it seems a sure bet that he will be voting for whichever Democrat secures the nomination to run against Trump.

But Neil Young will do more than just vote.  A few days ago he penned a lengthy open letter to Donald Trump in which he said, in part, that Trump was "a disgrace to my country," and went on to lament that Trump has led in the "mindless destruction of our shared natural resources, our environment, and our relationships with friends around the world."

The singer/songwriter also addressed Trump's unauthorized use of his songs:

"Every time 'Rockin' in the Free World' or one of my songs is played at your rallies, I hope you hear my voice.  Remember it is the voice of a tax-paying US citizen who does not support you.  Me."

Welcome to the United States of America, Neil Young - and thank you for supporting long-held American ideals and beliefs.  And thank you for voting!

See you at the polls!

Taxpayers Fund Trump's Resort Racket - Bigly!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Donald Trump would have the world believe that he is making a grand personal sacrifice by donating his time to running the country when he would be so much better off - financially - running his big business empire.  He makes a paltry $400,000 a year at his government job which he magnanimously donates right back to various government programs.

Trump's charity knows no bounds.  He is such a saint!

Except, of course, for the fact that he is a greedy grifter who is making a literal fortune renting his luxury properties - bedbugs and all - to the United States government to support his nearly endless vacations at his own resort properties.

An article in the Trump's least favorite newspaper, The Washington Post, on February 7th of this year reported that as of that date he had spent 342 days vacationing at his resort properties - or roughly one third of his presidency up to that point.  And when the President of the United States goes somewhere overnight to play golf, he travels with an entourage - a big entourage.  During Trump's travels he requires an extensive protection detail of Secret Service agents - as well as any other government employees he finds necessary to pursue the fiction that he is also working hard while on the road playing golf.

And, big surprise, many of the "necessary" camp followers stay at the same Trump resorts as their King, and they appear to be paying top rates!

That same Washington Post article on February 7th revealed that the Secret Service often pays a rate of $650 per room per night at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property - a rate that is even higher than what other agencies of the federal government pay for their rooms at the same resort.  (At other times the Secret Service gets "discount" rooms for just $396.15.  Lucky dogs!)  But, it could be worse - and is:  When Trump visits his golf resort at Bedminster, New Jersey, in the summer, his resort rents a 3-bedroom cottage to the Secret Service at a modest $17,000 per month.

(The Post article did not stipulate whether that $650 per night included a complimentary breakfast - or hookers.)

Eric Trump. Trump's nitwit son, tried to explain that the Secret Service basically stays free at Trump resorts, paying only a nominal fee for housekeeping services - because everyone knows how highly the Trump family values their domestic workers.  Eric also told Yahoo Finance  that when his father houses his entourage on his properties, he is legally required to charge something - though Eric could not identify what law established that requirement.

Now, in this heated political season and after the Washington Post stirred up this issue, Congress, which is supposed to control the government purse strings, is suddenly interested in finding out just how much money the Trump family is making off of the government.

The Secret Service is required to make two reports to Congress a year on what it spends to protect the President - but since 2016 it has filed only two of the required six reports.  The Secret Service told Congress that key personnel had left and no one had taken on the responsibility of making the reports.  Now the House Oversight Committee is officially requesting that the Treasury Department, which oversees the Secret Service, cough up the figures on how much cash it takes to support Trump golf outings.  Treasury Secretary Mnuchin has yet to comply.

(The Government Accounting Office - GAO - issued a report early in the Trump presidency which said that four early golf outings to Mar-a-Lago had cost the government $3.4 million each.  Or, in other words, one outing to Mar-a-Lago costs taxpayers more than eight times Trump's salary for one year.  Sweet!)

And then Trump has the golf balls to suggest that the next G-7 conference, the one scheduled to be hosted by the United States, be held at his Doral National Resort in Florida -  a resort that is reportedly having trouble making a profit.

The Trump family is on the grift - bigly - and the United States of America is the targeted sucker!

Monday's Poetry: "Bluebird"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Valentine's Day was this past week, and I have established a tradition over the past few years of sending each of my six grandchildren a Valentine and ten dollars.  Not very much, I know, but I wanted each of them to get a piece of mail to remind them that they were in my thoughts.

This year I decided to change things a bit and send actual gifts.  My challenge was to see if I knew the kids well enough to come up with something they would actually like.

My two granddaughters, Willow in Oregon and Olive in Kansas, are both eight-years-old and in the second grade.  I sent each of them and illustrated "elementary" dictionary, something that I knew that I would have liked at that age - and the dictionaries seem to have been a hit with the girls.  My youngest grandson, Sully, is three, and his daddy suggested that a nerf gun would hit the spot - and probably the cat and everything else in the house!   I knew that my ten-year-old grandson, Judah, liked books about nature, so I was able to find one that looked like it would capture his attention.

Sebastian, my twelve-year-old grandson, is a businessman-in-the-making.  He runs a "store" inside of his bedroom, and often wears a jacket and tie to school.  He had been lusting after my old briefcase for a couple of years, and this Christmas I gave it to him - and the briefcase has become part of his school ensemble.  For Valentine's Day I was able to find a leather portfolio to go inside of the briefcase, a home for his notebook, pens, business cards and any other items requiring quick or regular access.  I have heard that it went to school with him the day after he received it.

That left only Boone, the twenty-year-old.  Boone in a junior in college and we usually only manage to connect in person once or twice a year.  I had no idea what he would like, so I emailed and asked.  He replied that he had all of the books that he would need for this semester's classes, but told me that he is into reading poetry for personal enjoyment.  He said that his two favorite poets are Sylvia Plath and Charles Bukowski - and from that insight I was able to send a couple of books that I thought would mesh with those interests.

Here today, for Boone, is one of Charles Bukowski's more famous poems.  The work, "Bluebird" has a hard edge, much like the life of the hard-working, hard-drinking, and hard-loving man who wrote it.  I hope that Boone's bluebird feels free to fly wherever the winds will take him!


Bluebird
by Charles Bukowski


there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale 
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that 
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the 
works?
you want to blow my book sales in 
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him 
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't 
weep, do
you?

Road Notes

by Pa Rock
Traveling Fool

This past week was unusual in that I managed to make two semi-significant trips beyond the confines of my comfortable little farm.

(The lady who prepares my taxes insists that I quit referring to my place as a "farm" because I don't produce anything.  From the government's point of view I live in a small frame house with an excessive amount of yard.  And there are no tax breaks for big yards - just lots and lots of mowing!)

The first out-of-town trip was from my home with the 10-acre yard just north of West Plains, Missouri, to one of my doctor's offices on the south edge of Mountain Home, Arkansas - a one-way distance of fifty-five miles.  Almost all of that trip is on two-lane roads, and it is not uncommon to get stuck behind Joe Bob and Bobbie Jo as they putter down the road to Walmart, but the traffic was moving fairly briskly on Thursday.  (Actually I got lucky in that regard and fell in behind a large Orscheln Farm and Home truck in West Plains that went all the way to Mountain Home, and that big rig driver literally intimidated all of the locals out of our path!)

There wasn't much to see politically along the way - just a few Trump signs and a smattering of Confederate flags - which are de facto Trump signs.  In addition to letting drivers know that these homes probably do not contain any reading matter beyond what the tenants and homeowners find in their mailboxes on the days the ads come out, homes with Trump signs and Confederate flags let passers-by know that the owners have guns to protect their property and stop the government from giving them free health care - so watch out!  Those same signs also let criminals know that the homes have guns - one of the few items in rural areas worth stealing.

Friday at midday I headed out for Carthage, Missouri, a distance of about 170 miles that was entirely on fast-moving, four-lane highways.  I didn't notice any political advertising on that high-speed race across the Missouri Ozarks, but as I passed through the Springfield radio market I heard Mike Bloomberg commercials on two different radio stations - an indication that Mr. Moneybags is literally slinging his cash everywhere.  (Springfield, the home of famed Missouri lobbyist and occasional senator, Ol' Roy Blunt, is very Republican!).  And later, while channel-surfing in my Carthage hotel room, I came across a Spanish-language Bloomberg commercial on Univision.  

All of that Bloomberg money has to be good for the economy.  I hope Trump appreciates his spending!

Belle Starr's father ran a hotel on the Carthage square when the outlaw queen was in her formative years.  I didn't stay there, nor do I know if the building still exists - though I doubt that it does.  I did stay at a nice hotel out near the highway where my oldest grandson has part-time employment as a desk clerk - a situation which gave me a nice "family" discount!  Thank you very much, Boone!

Boone is a junior at the "university" in Joplin - which was just a modest "college" when his grandmother and I got our teaching degrees there back in the 1970's.  Boone also wants to be a teacher.  I am sure that he is learning a lot in his classes, but I also suspect that he is getting an interesting education working the night desk at one of the largest hotels between Joplin and Kansas City!

It was good getting to see my grandson.  That is becoming an increasingly rare occurrence.

The funeral service yesterday morning for my good friend, Kolleen, was in the small town of Jasper, just up the highway from Carthage, where her husband, Bob, is the minister of the United Methodist Church.  It was a large crowd, no surprise there, but I was surprised and pleased to see that so many of those who came were from my hometown of Noel where Bob had been the Methodist preacher for many years.  Bob and Kolleen still had a home in Noel.

It was good seeing so many friends from Noel, even under the sad circumstances.

Jasper, Missouri, a town "south of Kansas City" was the setting for Patrick Swayze's movie, "Roadhouse."  The real town of Jasper was not featured in the movie.

Japser, Missouri, is located in Jasper County, Missouri.  Carthage is the county seat and much of Joplin in in Jasper County.  Newton County, Missouri, is to the immediate south of Jasper County. Newton County has a community called Newtonia which earned a bit of fame for a Civil War battle that occurred there.

Did you know that the names Jasper and Newton are linked together in many states?  Serious family researchers know that.

The trip back to West Plains yesterday afternoon was fairly uneventful, with no political sightings at all.  At one point I was passed by a very large truck that was hauling for Amazon Prime.  That was the first time I have ever encountered an actual Amazon Prime truck.  Walmart had better be looking over its shoulder, because it looks like Amazon is planning to do to Walmart what Walmart did to America's small towns!

It took Rosie a while to forgive me for leaving her at home, but we are back on good terms now.

Saying Goodbye to a Friend

by Pa Rock
Retired Social Worker

This morning finds me in Carthage, Missouri, preparing to drive a few miles up the road to the community of Jasper, a wide spot along the highway between Joplin and Kansas City, where I will attend the funeral of Kolleen Howard, the wife of Jasper's Methodist minister - and a good friend of mine.

Years ago when Kolleen's husband, Reverend Bob Howard, was the Methodist minister in my hometown of Noel, Missouri, she and I worked together at the Missouri Division of Family Services where we investigated cases of child abuse and worked with children in foster care and their families.   It was a physically and emotionally demanding job that created unusually strong ties between the underpaid state employees who were charged with finding and protecting those children - but it was also the kind of job where the child protection workers could physically see how how their actions were benefiting a highly vulnerable population.

Kolleen was younger than me by a few months.  Her death was sudden and unexpected.  I will miss her - and so will countless others.  Bob and their four grown children - and their families - have my deepest sympathies and encouragement in these hard times.

A Day of Service and Love

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Today is, of course, Valentine's Day, but for the past couple of years it has also been a day associated with the predominantly American issue of school shootings.  It was two years ago today that a student gunman opened fire in the halls of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and killed seventeen students and faculty members.  When that event occurred America had become so accustomed to shootings in our schools that they often seemed to be rapidly forgotten.

But the young people from Parkland changed all of that.  They decided that they had had enough of the senseless school violence that was enabled in large part by America's love affair with guns - and those "kids" determined to do something about it.  A large group became politically active in the gun control movement and made their presence felt in Florida's state capital, across other states, and even in the halls of Congress.

Many of the students became national spokespeople in the campaign to curb gun availability in the United States - and many were reviled by conservative news outlets like Fox and the National Rifle Association.   The impassioned youth organized and brought public pressure to bear on the gun lobby unlike any that it had ever experienced before.

Now, even though many of those "rabble-rouser kids" are in college, they are also still engaged in fighting the good fight.

The students at Parkland taught America that the gun lobby was not invincible.

Today the Broward County Public Schools of Florida, the district that includes Parkland, has dismissed classes for the day to allow students and staff to spend time participating in various acts of public service.  Two-hundred-and-thirty sites have been established around the area where students and staff can engage in activities to benefit the members of the local community. The event is being referred to as "A Day of Service and Love," and it has been instituted to give back to the community in honor of all of those who lost their lives at the high school two years ago.  It is intended to raise awareness about meaningful issues and programs that impact the local area.

Students who are involved in the program will receive "community service" hours as a part of the school district's Student Volunteer Service Program.

It's a noble effort aimed at reaching across social divides to enhance the lives of everyone in the community, and Broward County Public Schools must certainly be commended on this very positive approach to opening the hearts and minds of all of the people who live in and around the school district.

And the young adults who attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and are now scattered across the United States in colleges and universities -  and still fighting to ban assault weapons - need to be recognized as well.  Their work is a "community" service that is intended to benefit an entire nation.

 May they all be successful beyond their wildest imaginings - and may the United States of America once again become a civilized country where "active shooter drills" no longer have a place - or a need - in the curriculum of our schools.

Vogue Apparently has Standards

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

There seems to be a little boomlet of concern festering on the Internet as to why Donald Trump's "glamorous" wife has not been featured on any magazine covers since the Trump family moved into the White House.    The concern, or perhaps righteous indignation, is being fanned by conservative actor James Woods who whines that Mrs. Trump is being ignored because she is both too beautiful and too conservative for contemporary publications.

Melania, as a former "model," had been featured on a few magazine covers prior to and just after her marriage to Donald.  In January of 2000 she had a nude cover on British GQ alongside a headline that read "Naked Supermodel Special!"  The photos from the article as well as the cover are available on-line.  She was also featured on the cover of American Vogue in February of 2005 wearing her Christian Dior wedding dress, an outfit that, had it not been white, might have passed for something worn by Miss Kitty as she sashayed about the Long Branch in an old episode of "Gunsmoke."

So in her glam past life as a "supermodel," Melania Knauss did make some magazine covers, but since becoming the FLOTUS, crickets.

James Woods, or someone in the Trump administration, happened to notice and report that Michelle Obama, as First Lady, made the covers of twelve magazines - including three for Vogue.  Mrs. Obama, who was loved by millions for being as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside, also made the cover of InStyle, Essence, and Time - among others.

Michelle Obama is a lawyer, writer, and former college administrator with degrees from Princeton and Harvard.  Melania Trump, an immigrant from Eastern Europe who some believe may have gamed the immigration system in order to be allowed to stay in the U.S., once claimed to speak several languages and to have been trained as an architect, both of which have since been proven to be false.

The Trump administration is obsessed with removing all Obama achievements from the public record, and besting the Obama team by every measure possible - even magazine covers.

And so they wheel out James Woods and a buttload of faux outrage.

Excuse me while I snicker.

And guffaw.

And ROTFLMFAO!

If Yesterday was Tuesday, that must have been New Hampshire

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Yesterday, Tuesday, February 11, 2020, was a doubly-critical day in American politics.  First, it was the day that New Hampshire held its presidential primaries, events which allow a couple of hundred thousand cranky-assed farmers and small town residents the unique opportunity of limiting the choices that the rest of the country - with the exception of Iowa - will have in selecting a president to lead us all.   The vote in New Hampshire caused two candidates to drop out of the race yesterday and a third today.

Bernie Sanders won the Democratic contest - kinda, sorta - in a race that Donald Trump had said one day previous would feature Republicans voting for the weakest possible Democrat in the Democratic primary - although Trump added that he considered all of the Democrats weak.  Sanders received barely a quarter of the vote (25.7%), while former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, Pete Buttigieg, took second with just under a quarter of the vote (24.4%).  3,691 actual votes separated the two frontrunners.  Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota was third at just under 20% of the vote, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was fourth with 9.2%, and former Vice President Joe Biden, the candidate who was once thought to be the one to beat, came in fifth with 8.4 percent.

Not on the ballot was former New York City Mayor - and Mister Moneybags - Mike Bloomberg, a man many think will become the party's ultimate choice to escape a Bernie nomination.  Bloomberg has yet to be tested by voters outside of New York City, but he has already shown an entertaining ability to make Trump foam at the mouth.  He will begin appearing on ballots on Super Tuesday,  March 3rd.

The top five all seem to be staying in for right now, but the rest of the field is more fluid, with Colorado Senator Michael Bennet and businessman Andrew Yang exiting the contest yesterday after the New Hampshire results became apparent and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick leaving the race today after a poor showing in New Hampshire.

The second major political event to transpire yesterday was that Donald Trump raised his middle finger to America as he blatantly interfered in our country's judicial process.  Yesterday prosecutors from the United States Department of Justice announced that they were recommending that a federal judge sentence Trump associate (and self-described "dirty trickster") Roger Stone to prison for a term of seven to nine years for lying to Congress and withholding evidence.  Trump issued one of his berserk tweets declaring that the recommendation was a "horrible and a very unfair situation."  Within hours the recommendation was withdrawn because the prosecutors' superiors at the DOJ decided it was too steep.

Trump then said it was "ridiculous" to suggest that he had interfered or influenced the process.  Later in the day Attorney General Bill Barr let his department know that he would personally manage cases that were of a personal interest to Trump from that point onward.

All four prosecutors in the Stone case quit the case after Trump chose to become personally involved in the sentencing of his friend and long-time associate, and there is a news story circulating that at least one of the four resigned from the Justice Department as well.

Trump, of course, still has the option of pardoning Stone altogether - and that option is a very real possibility in this corrupt and highly charged political atmosphere.

Bernie and Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar all had good days yesterday - and so did Donald Trump and Roger Stone - and chances are Mike Bloomberg also slept well last night.  My state does not get to vote in a presidential primary until a week after Super Tuesday, and by then the table will have been cleared of everything except for a few stale leftovers - and the dessert will likely be sitting triumphant for all to applaud.

And I am relieved of the responsibility of helping to plan the menu because it is all done for me in states where people are infinitely more important and smarter than me.

It is the same system that gave us Hillary v. Trump - and it still sucks.

And Tom Perez, you also suck!

Cruises are not the Luxury Vacations They Once Were

by Pa Rock
Land Lubber

My first cruise was a jaunt across the Caribbean that sailed out of Puerto Rico and hit nine islands in ten days - or something like that.  It was in the early months of 1997 and I had just gotten married.  My bride and I sailed with a group of bicyclists and literally bicycled our way across the Caribbean.  When the ship landed each morning we set out, as a group, to enjoy a leisurely (and sometimes not-so-leisurely) peddle across the island.   A lady from the bicycle shop in San Juan where we rented our bikes followed along and made sure our rides stayed in good repair.

The cruise lasted almost as long as the marriage - and was much more relaxing.

Then in very early 2007 I took an "educational" cruise with what National Association of Social Workers and Ms Magazine, to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, which provided me with a great sailing experience and the opportunity to earn social work CEUs.  I even met a few celebrities on that voyage including the feminist activist Eleanor Smeal and actress Tyne Daly.  

A year or so later I took another educational cruise, one with political overtones sponsored by The Nation magazine.  It was on that cruise that I met Howard Dean and managed to have a brief conversation with novelist E.L.Doctorow as I took over his spot at a computer in the ship's computer center.

And finally, in early 2009, I took my oldest son and grandson on a cruise across the Caribbean to Nassau in the Bahamas.  It was there that Boone discovered the Hard Rock Cafe and probably his love of guitars.

In 2010 I moved - for work - to Okinawa, Japan, on a two-year assignment.  While there I began doing some dabbling in the stock market, and I always looked to invest in companies with which I had personal and successful experience.  I bought Walgreen's which was busy putting up new stores all over Phoenix, the place that I had moved from - and Wendy's - for essentially the same reason.  The market was on a steady rise during the Obama years - when the recession was ending - and everything I touched seemed to be golden.

Until that fateful day when I decided to invest some money in a major cruise ship line.  I had been on some nice cruises, and they appeared to be the easiest way for the true middle class to enjoy a luxury vacation.  And things were fine for a couple of years until the Carnival Cruise Ship "Triumph" caught fire off of the coast of Mexico in early 2013 and "listed" across the Caribbean for five days as it desperately tried to reach its homeport in Alabama - with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 passengers and crew aboard.

Social media allowed passengers aboard the "Triumph" to post their horror stories in real time, and the world listened in rapt disgust to tales of backed-up toilets, cabins without lights, floors covered with vomit, and a hundred other things not normally associated with "luxury" vacations.

And stock prices fell.

And there were other cruise ship horror stories - and stock prices fell some more.

Understanding how the market worked, I held on the cruise ship stock until the price got back up close to what I had paid for it - and then I bailed and never looked back.  And I also didn't go any more cruises - well, for a few years years - because I had begun to see them as being self-contained fire and health hazards.

Yesterday I believe that I referred to cruise ships as "petri dishes," or places where bacteria cultures could grow and flourish.

My next - and last cruise - was in the summer of 2015 when I went on an "Alaskan" cruise with my sister.  During that voyage I was shocked at how every aspect of the once luxurious cruise experience had slipped.  The food wasn't the caliber of that served on my previous voyages, and the portions were smaller, the entertainment was far below the level that it once had been, and the staff, particularly the office staff, was churlish and seemed to be deliberately unhelpful.

I have not been on a cruise ship since.

Now, as I mentioned yesterday, there is a cruise ship, the "Diamond Princess,"is parked in Yokohama Harbor, Japan, and passengers are not being allowed to disembark because the coronavirus is present among passengers and appears to still be spreading.  I heard on the radio this morning that another cruise ship, a Holland America ship called the "Westerdam" is apparently trapped at sea due to fears of the deadly virus.

(Princess Cruises and Holland America are both owned and operated by Carnival Cruise Lines.)

The "Westerdam" left Hong Kong on February 1st for a fourteen-day cruise to Taiwan and Japan, and although it reportedly has no known cases of the coronavirus, it has so far been denied the right to dock in five ports:  Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, and now Thailand.  World Health Organization doctors are trying to get to the ship to screen passengers for the dangerous virus.  Apparently national governments are beginning to also see cruise ships as exceptional breeding grounds for deadly viruses.

The moral of all of these cruising notes is this:  If it's an adventure that you are searching for, a cruise might just fit the bill, but if it's quiet luxury you're after, send the kids to camp and buy some bubble bath!  And if you do decide to take a cruise, pack well because it may be a while before you are able to leave the ship!

"And they never returned, no they never returned - and their fate is still unlearned.  They may ride forever on the wild Pacific, they're the cruise that never returned!"