Buffalo Gal

It’s close to that night of the year when all sorts of H – - – breaks loose.  Halloween or All Hallows Eve brings out warnings to parents about the evil demonic origins of Halloween in Celtic culture of long ago.  That brings rebuttals about Halloween being a "harmless holiday for fun, costumes, candy, trick and treat, smell my feet etc.  The "harmless" element gets worked over when parents read warnings about pins, razors or poison in candy treats or apples;  better take the kids to the Mall or a Nursing Home for the "treats".

I grew up in a good time where Halloween was concerned.  Nobody seemed to have heard about the evil origins or the weird "Samhain" night observed by the ancient Celts when spirits of the dead returned to earth causing the Celts to wear animal heads or skins (primitive costumes) to scare away the spirits.  We just knew it was a great night to go to the neighbors’ houses wearing our cloth and glue masks (I can still smell my mask when my hot breath started to melt the glue in the cloth)  It was even worse if it was raining!   "Trick or Treat!" we would carol to the well-known people who lived in our block.  We collected the candy and if we were naughty, we would "soap" a window or two in spite of their being nice to us.  My Dad always loved Halloween night because he loved candy and when my sister and I would come home with our bags of candy we would dump it out on the living room floor and Dad would join us in picking out the really good stuff—-like homemade fudge or divinity (no worry about pins or razors then).

But I looked up some weird stuff on the History Channel website and you better take this seriously or you could be in big trouble on Halloween night!  Here are some projects to carry out on Oct. 31 before the midnight hour comes.

** An unmarried girl should carry a lamp to a spring of water and she will see the image of her future husband in the water of the spring.  (this could be good news or bad news depending on whose image you see)

**An unmarried girl could carry a broken egg in a glass to a spring of water and she will also see her future husband’s face in the water.  If she mixes some spring water with the egg, she can then see all her future children (that could be really scary especially if you saw 10 or 11 faces)

** Put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween night and you will see a WITCH at midnight! (I always thought if I stared at the moon, I would see a witch fly across it…when I was 7 or 8 that is)  I did not know about wearing my clothes inside out or walking backward….drat, I could’ve seen a witch at midnight if I had just known.

**Walk around your house backward three times before sunset on Halloween and it will keep the evil spirits away from you.

**To ward off evil spirits on Halloween, bury a lot of animal bones in your front yard and put a picture of an animal near your door. ( save up your chicken, turkey, and pork chop bones for next year)

THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR:

**If a bat flies around your house three times on Halloween night, death is very near.

**Owls dive down and eat the souls of the dying in Halloween night but if you turn your pockets inside out and leave them hanging out, you will be fine.

**If the flame of your candle goes out on Halloween night, it is because you are in the presence of a ghost.

**If you hear footsteps behind you on Halloween night, do NOT look back. It is very likely that a dead spirit is following you and if you turn around to look, you will soon join that dead spirit.  So don’t do it!   This reminds me of a good story about a man who was being followed by a walking casket.   The man was horrified to hear a clicking and clacking one Halloween night and saw that it was a casket following him.  Terrified he ran blindly but the casket just ran faster and kept following him, clicking and clacking its open lid. The man ran to his home hoping to escape the terrible spectre of the running casket but the casket followed him into his house.  To his horror the clicking, clacking casket followed him up  his stairway and even into his bathroom.  He was trapped!   Desperately, the terror-stricken man opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed the first thing he found…a bottle of cold- remedy medicine.  He hurled the medicine bottle at the casket——and the "Coffin" stopped.

It seems to me that the best thing to do on Halloween is to go to bed, wrap all the blankets around you and cower under the covers until morning comes.  Then things are OK because according to ancient custom, the Catholic Church changed the pagan holiday of "Halloween" into "All Saints Day" and you should be safe on November 1…..unless it happens to be the opening day of hunting.

In today’s FORUM there is an article about a venerable old event in a community which has been a "church fundraiser" for years and years.  The menu sounds great to me and the dinner is well attended each time it is held.   A church near me built a new building some years ago and has relied on turkey dinners to pay for the building.  It has also become a popular dinner among those who attend the several-times-a-year turkey meal.  Country churches and a few small town churches have food booths at the Rollag Thresher’s Bee each fall and once, a church member told my husband that "if it weren’t for  our food booth, we would have to close the doors of our church….we need to make this money to keep operating."

I think all of the churches involved above who are using church dinners (fall or spring bazaars, spring or fall ladies’ luncheons, quilt raffles, Bingo games (in some churches) and the whole gamut of "church fundraisers" to pay for necessary bills involved in every church’s budget.

Years ago most all of the churches I knew of had "Harvest Home Suppers" which were really big events and people flocked to attend them to the point that I remember sitting with my mother and dad in the upstairs of a rural church, smelling the delicious aromas of fried chicken, baked ham, meatballs and rich brown gravy, bread dressing, egg-coffee, pies and cakes et. al., while we waited for our "ticket numbers to be called so we could go downstairs and eat.  Everyone turned out for these Harvest Home Suppers in many communities and laid down a lot of dollars for a "church fundraiser". It is still commonly practiced in this area….church bills and buildings are paid for by other people’s money rather than by the church members themselves.  Something seems amiss here and always has, since I changed my mind about church fundraisers.

I have worked hard at a Harvest Home Supper years ago in a former church we attended. I thought nothing of it at the time.  But now I think differently after being part of a church fellowship which NEVER has a fund raiser for anything….oh, occasionally we have doughnuts served by our Youth Group and donations are accepted to pay for a trip to a Youth convention July every year.  But we do not pay for our expenses or our building by having fundraisers and it has opened my eyes to a totally different perspective.

Scripture speaks of the "tithe" in both the old and new testaments and the tithe was a basic principle of both the early Hebrews and of the early Christian churches formed in the time of the Apostles.  Titheing meant that you always gave the first fruits for the Lord’s work and nowadays this is usually translated into giving 10 percent of your income to your church fellowship.   Apparently this principle is not practiced in many of today’s churches.  If it were, there would be no need for "church fundraisers".  All expenses, all contributions to mission work, all building expenses would be paid for easily….IF the church fellowship had been wise and not foolish in incurring tremendous debts.

It seems odd to me to expect people other than your own fellowship members to pay the expenses for your church.  It would be like a family of four building a new house and asking other people to pay for their debt by buying various things they were selling for the purpose of paying off their home.  Who would do that?  Not many!!!    

 Martin Luther took a stance in the middle ages by denouncing the selling of indulgences by Priests for the purpose of buying the way out of "Purgatory" of family members and  modern church fundraisers  don’t seem too far away from such practices….you have to "buy your way" out of something and in the case of modern church fundraisers, you buy your way out of debt or  out of normal expenses by asking others to pay for your own "indulgences" in building an expensive new building or by having expenses that your own church members don’t or won’t pay for.   The way I look at it, this is pretty screwed up spiritual thinking, if it can be called spiritual at all.  Perhaps too many churches have become small businesses instead of spirit-filled fellowships???

As a matter of principle, I am not interested in paying other people’s church bills by attending fundraisers like dinners, bazaars, lunches, auctions, and raffles (one church auctioned off its old windows and pews etc. to raise money for a new building…I was horrified!!).     I am interested in paying my fair share (a tithe) to my own fellowship.

One country church had a fund raiser last spring for an unselfish reason: they wanted to raise enought money so their pastor and his wife could bring more children to their home from Africa in an area where children were often left orphans.  This couple is raising several  African children who are succeeding as new Americans and are developing and growing into young adults like well-tended flowers in thier family’s colorful garden of kids.  I was more than happy to pay for that fundraiser, eat breakfast,  enjoy the afternoon.   

One of my California cousins recently told me of a  "fundraiser" that their church held but it was for the benefit of a local community shelter for women and children.  Their own selfish interests were not at all involved.  Those kinds of "fundraisers" I can highly support and attend.

I am disturbed by church fundraisers that raise money to buy new buildings or pay expenses. What does it say about that church?  Our members are unwilling to pay for our own expenses so you come eat at our dinner and pay for it out of your pockets.

Controversial views?  You betcha!!!

What could be better?  Last night we sat out under the luminous "Harvest Moon" as it rose in the northeastern sky.  The air was crisp…no, it was downright cold…. and felt extremely late-Fall-ish.  But we were warming ourselves by a campfire that glowed and lit up the earth near us as much as the glowing near-full moon lit up the sky.    It was a night of wondrous beauty.

Add to that the pleasure of having all three of our adult sons around the fire as well as 5 of the grandchildren who are rapidly growing up….as of yesterday  our youngest grandson had his 10th birthday and now all the "Grands"..all 8 of them…. are in "double figures" and are officially preteens or teens.  It is a milestone.

Earlier in the day we had all enjoyed the Bison game at the FargoDome.  Then the "birthday boy" got to pick the eating place and we all enjoyed a meal together.   The full moon, the campfire, the s’mors (I know them as "angels on horseback" from my Campfire Girl days of yore)… the cool night air were all follow-ups to an already great Saturday.

Family is the most important thing in our earthly life.  I am so grateful for such a good day with ours.

When I was a child, I always loved a picture on the wall of my Grandma Ida’s bedroom in the old farmhouse where my mother grew up.  It was like a "sampler" and it said, "Ost og Vest, Hjem Er Best".  Translated from Norwegian, that means "East or West, Home is Best" and I heartily agree with that thought from the picture in my mind’s eye out of the distant past.

Since both Buffaloguy and I have retired from the workaday world, we have travelled a few times to places we wanted to see but never went because we were too busy or too tired from the work routine to take the trips.  Now we have travelled to the east coast of the U.S….we regularly travel to the West where a brother lives; we have travelled to Mexico’s west coast’s "Riviera" paradise and we have travelled to the southern U.S. about 4 times taking in the Ozark Mountains and the towns scattered throughout those high hills (little mountains!!)    Each time we head for our home in the Upper Midwest, I get a very happy feeling even though we have had a wonderful experience where-ever we have been.   Going home is very special.

We have just returned from the Ozark regions and while there we attended a most marvelous concert at the Lawrence Welk Theater.  It was a mostly classical concert with excellent artists performing and I am so glad we got to be there. One of the piano artists played the theme from Dvorak’s New World Symphony…the familiar "Going Home" .  I was deeply moved hearing that music and I thought of our home.

Home means I can sleep in my own comfortable bed with my own pillows;  I can go to bed early and read at my leisure or turn on the venerable little RCA television set which has endured years and years of use in our home and still is going strong (Nature, Mystery, or Law and Order are my best favorites viewed between my toes at night)  

I can sit out on the deck in the pale fall sunshine which seems to be farther and farther away each day….but it is still strong and warm when I lean up against the outer wall which exudes warmth on my back;  I can go for a walk in the fields close to our house and wander through the tallgrass prairie that is growing up on one part of our land—-Big Bluestem grass is higher than 6 feet tall and causes me to be "lost" in its luxuriant growth.  The swish-ah, swish-ah sound of the grass is comforting as the wind plays on the grass like  soft violin sound.

Home means I can walk around in my pajamas for half a day if so moved and I can be relaxed and comfortable on my own sofa, in my own recliner, with a book in one hand and a cup of something that warms and comforts me in the other hand.    I can go outside in the sunshine and check on the raspberry canes which are ready for thinning and pruning—-when I feel like it!!!       I can sit down on the sofa and pet my Kitty-Princess (only when she is in the mood) and enjoy the softness and warmth of her cat- body while I listen to the  vigorous purring music she makes for me, showing me that she does really care about me after all!

Home means I can usually find my husband of nearly 48 years somewhere on the place; I might have to look through his pole building and shout above the sound of a welder or some other machine that might be running or I might have to go farther and find him in his big John Deere tractor clipping willows in the river bottoms.  I will find him though, because he is as much of a homebody as I am.   We love it here on our Buffalo River high bluff overlooking the river and the woods covering the river bottoms.   We love seeing the deer and other wildlife that live near us.  Flights of geese are rapidly flying South for the winter but new birds are evident….black capped chickadees are here making their "DeeDee Dee" calls.  Nuthatches and Downy Woodpeckers are moving into the neighborhood for the winter season.    Our people- neighbors are near us and we know that they will be available if there is a need of their immediate help.  We are comforted by living in such a nice place as this.

My Grandma Ida’s sampler was so right!   East or West…Home IS Best.

The Buffalo-team of two is back from a trip to the Ozarks.  This morning as the sun was rising, we left North Sioux City just inside the South Dakota border and were treated to the sun rising on the fields of corn that extended from the southern border of S.D. to the northern line at Hankinson, ND.  

If I had to choose just one word to describe the fields at this time, the word would be "tawny".  To me, "tawny" describes the burnished gold with a tinge of light brown that we see so commonly along all the roadsides of the upper midwestern states in October.  The whole landscape glowed with the burnished glow of "tawny" this morning, especially as the sun first lit the fields. 

Corn is obviously the biggest crop in South Dakota this season.  There are also mostly harvested soybean fields but corn is by far, the most abundant crop on 2007.  Seeing the fields either already harvested or dead-ready for being harvested made me think of comparisons of corn fields and humans.  

The cornfields now are like elderly octegenarians or nonogenarians….they are dry and brittle, bent over with age and ready to be harvested soon.  The already- harvested cornfields have broken stems and crushed vegetation in them…a lot like the ravages that extreme old age has on people.  We reach a stage in our lives where we, too, are bent over, broken, and crushed by old age. 

But then I thought of what those cornfields looked like in late May and early June.  Tiny green shoots of corn were appearing and growing rapidly in the warm sun of early summer.  Human babies are born and are like tender green shoots rapidly growing in the warmth of their parents’ and their families’ love.   In July the "baby corn" begans to shoot up even faster, and now stands tall and strong…like hardy teenagers and strong young adults in humanity. 

 In August the corn is "heading out" with tassles standing out above the greenery…the cornfield begans to look white as the tassles wave above the green leaves and developing ears on the strong stalks.  Middle aged people are like that….still strong and still growing in ways that are not always apparent but sometimes our "tassles" began to turn white at this stage also!!! 

 Then in October, the corn is no longer green or growing; it has aged gracefully and is now waiting to be reaped.  Finally,  the tawny cornfield is no longer there…it has been harvested and there is residue lying in the field where the green growing corn once stood.  Mankind, too, gets harvested in due time and the residue in our fields is  our legacies and memories  left with our families and friends.  If enough time goes by, even our memories and our legacies get dimmer as they get "plowed under" and readied for a new crop of corn (or youngsters) who will take our places. 

 The endlessness of the sowing and the reaping goes on and on in the farm fields we take note of each summer;   the sowing and the reaping goes on in the life of people also and we see it…. but sometimes try to ignore the signs, due to not wanting to be mortal beings.  

The reaping goes on in spite of any denial…..and so does the sowing and growing, thankfully!!

My, my the current news is full of egg-faced politicians today.

Nancy Pelosi, after trying to get a resolution to condemn the "Armenian Holocaust" conducted by the Turks over 90 years ago, has failed to get the resolution passed.  She has now been accused of trying to do an end run to make the Iraq War more difficult for the US forces by getting Turkey angry enough to shut down supply routes through the southern part of their nation.  Where ever the truth lies, Pelosi once again has egg on her face….just as she peeled the last of earlier egg off, from her silly trip to Syria where she gave affirmation to a fully fledged  Dictator…Mr. Assad who succeeded his evil father as dictator of that unfortunate country. 

Then we have egg-faced Representative Pete Stark of the same city as Nancy Pelosi (San Francisco).  San Francisco politicians have little to recommend them over several decades of kooky politics….remember Harvey Milk?  Remember Joseph Alliotto?  Remember current Mayor Gavin Newson who has been conducting some questionable marriage ceremonies in his office?      Anyway Pete Stark of another San Francisco district,  lost his cool, big time in the House of Representatives yesterday.  After the House failed to pass a veto override to Pres. Bush’s veto of S-Chip legislation that would have broken our bank even more than it is already broken, Stark lashed out for the whole nation to see, and made a wildy accusatory statement that ended with  his saying the President is conducting the war in Iraq and the "blowing off" of soldiers’  heads for "his own amusement."        Today after Conservative bloggers have had a red-letter day, and after many furious requests by Republican House members and other Washington politicians, Nancy Pelosi issued a statement condemning Pete Stark.  No apology required, but a tap on Stark’s wrist.  Can you imagine the furor if a Republican House member had made a similar statement about Bill Clinton’s conduct of the war in Bosnia or Somalia??   Katie, Bar The Door!!!!   There would have been an explosive response with DEMANDS for the other member to RESIGN immediately, to do a national "mea culpa" on TV and other tremendous demands for retribution.  Stark remains non-apologetic and stands by his outburst saying that the President is guilty of hurting children by vetoing this bill.  I wonder where Pete Stark stands on legalized abortion?  That really hurts children too, but I bet he doesn’t complain about that.  There will be no Trent Lott treatment for the mouthy Mr. Stark!!

And finally, the winner of the Egg-Face Award ………..(drumroll)   That lucky winner is Senator Harry Reid…sometimes referred to as "the Weasel" by his bitterest opponents who can work up almost as much hatred for Harry as Harry has for President Bush.    When Harry Reid and other Democratic Senators signed a letter condemning radio host Rush LImbaugh for remarks he made involving "phony soldiers"  and sent it to the President of the Clear Channel radio network, the political stunt designed to draw attention away from the liberal Moveon.org’s disastrous General Petraeus/Betray-us ad in the New York Times, has also backfired in the faces of Reid and his colleagues….Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, et.al.  Rush has put the letter up for auction on E-Bay with all the proceeds designated for a foundation that takes care of the needs of children and families of service personnel who have died in war actions.  The highest bid was 2 million dollars and has been purchased by a very rich woman who listens to Rush every day!!!  (Her first name is Betty but I forget her other name)  After this startling bidding went so high, Senator Reid tried to take credit somehow for the auction price in saying "we" many times in speaking of the action on E Bay as if he and Rush were involved in this together!!!!   How pathetic can it get?  No wonder his nickname is "Weasel"!!!    ABC bloggers have even tried to give the Dems and Reid credit for this amazing amount of money given to the military aid foundation for children whose fathers/mothers died in action.   And the LIberals howl "no bias" about the mainstream media…both print and TV!!!   Another award should be developed for Denial of Bias.   To boot, Rush’s reference to "phony soldiers" was only directed at a few known individuals who have claimed they served in Iraq when they had not done so.   But Harry Reid and his cohorts badly needed a target to shield them from the Moveon.org disasterrous "ad" about General Petraeus, so Rush was convenient and they went for it, much to their regret now.

All the "egg faces" should be duly reprimanded but they won’t be…never are and never will accept their own actions that lead to such egg-coatings on their mugs.

Headline in weekly news magazine:   "PREACH IT….Barack Obama pushes religious themes in the quest for religious votes."        Inside,  the lead article for the week of October 6, 2007 tells of Barack Obama "preaching" his views on faith and "religion" in many places and many venues…..including church pulpits, mostly.  Some choice quotes are as follows:

"{at a campaign rally in Atlanta, GA,}…. "retired minister and civil rights icon, Joe Lowery offered an opening prayer:  ‘My country tis of thee, we see too much misery’………the chuckles turned into a resounding ‘Amen’ when Lowery, 82, compared Obama to John the Baptist….."

And……"Religious language and themes aren’t new for the Obama campaign.  The Illinois senator has compared himself to a modern-day Joshua who longs to lead the American people into the Promised Land.  Earlier this year Obama told the congregation at an A.M.E. congregation in Selma, Alabama, that he draws encouragement from God’s Old Testament words to Joshua, ‘Be strong and have courage, for I am with you where ever you go.’  "

Apparently Obama is positioning himself to be different from Hilllary Clinton , whose political views are pretty much identical to his.  His appeal to the "Christian Right" comes as something of a departure from other Liberal politicians in the past…..or does it?

What I have noticed…. and this is what sticks in my craw……..is that Liberal… even far- Left politicians like Obama, and before him Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 …..  suddenly "get religion" when a campaign is heating up.  The very same Left/Liberals who denounce the "Evangelicals" or the "Christian Right" , are suddenly appearing in—of all places…church pulpits where they pound out their political messages to the "faithful" of a local church congregation.  Most often it is to a congregation of a southern Baptist fellowship, a Methodist church or  an A.M.E. church, often in the South as well.    These Liberal "preachers" are the same ones who denounce anything that may violate the false doctrine of "the separation of  Church and State" but it does not apply to them when they feel the need to be seen and heard from a Church Pulpit. 

This inconsistency really galls my political and religious senses.  Either stick to your mantra of the "separation of Church and State" or change your mantra!!!   It is so hypocritical I could just gag.         If any Conservative or Republican candidate did the same thing, surrounded by "men of the cloth" like Bob Jones or Franklin Graham" (instead of the Revs. Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson) , the Libs would be having a major Hissy-Fit!    This technique is only for them!   A Conservative political candidate would be roundly and verbally tarred and feathered by the LIberals who would be thundering maledictions against such blatant "religious" campaigning.   But not a word is said when their candidates do it and they do it consistently in every campaign I have followed for the past dozen years or more.  It was one of Bill Clinton’s favorite venues…a pulpit in a sympathetic Southern Church.  His wife has even tried out her fake  Southern accent in a Southern church pulpit in her recent campaign for the presidency.  I believe she quoted the words of an old Southern Gospel hymn to the delight of the congregants, who make themselves the "Useful Idiots" needed by the liberal pols in such campaigns.

The inconsistency of it all..and the hypocrisy—is a real craw-sticker.

————————————————————————————–

* lead article in WORLD magazine by Jamie Dean, Oct 6, 2007 issue

I got another interesting "list" this week which triggered a few additional items to put on that list.  The title of it was "You Might Be From Rural Minnesota"……IF…….

You know how to polka

You know what Knee-High By The Fourth Of July means

You know the difference between "Green" and "Red" farm machinery and would fight with your friends on the playground over which was better

You know what "Princess Kay of the Milky Way" means.

You know about a butter sculpture at the State Fair.

On Friday nights you went with your friends to go "Snipe Hunting" in the country.

You know that creek rhymes with "pick".

You think Lutheran and Catholic are the major religions.

You know someone who was a Dairy Princess at the county fair.

You buy Christmas presents at Fleet Farm

"Rock Picking" holds a special meaning.

You know that combine is a noun.

Going to "Luther League" was a big social occasion.

More than one kid in your class had to "do chores" in the morning before they could come to school.

You have driven ON a lake.

You have skiied in a road ditch…hanging on to a rope being pulled by a car.

You know what "Yule-Bukking" is.

A Letter Sweater has been your most valuable piece of clothing at one time.

Opening Day of Deer Season is considered a state holiday (so is opening day of fishing)

You know what "Upnort" and "Battree" mean

"The State Fair" triggers all kinds of memories.

The local gas station sells live bait

You know what 4-H and F.F.A. mean

At least one room in your house has been used as a meat processing place once a year or more

Every wedding dance you have been to has the Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance.

A field trip or class picnic to Itasca Park was part of your school experience.

"Going Roller Skating" had a special meaning when you were a teenager.

You have gone to high school football games wearing a snowmobile suit.

You know what Williams Arena means to high school basketball.

Wearing white shoes before Memorial Day was forbidden.

You never swam in a concrete pool til you were an adult.

"Walking the beans" has a special meaning to you.

You ever brought clipped-off gopher feet to a township location ….for money.

You understand this entire list and would like to share it with your old Minnesota friends.

I have just come indoors after being out on this mild, quiet day…October 14 , a peaceful Sunday afternoon.  There is nothing like clearing your head in the great outdoors as it exists today.  All the things I was hyped up about yesterday are strangely gone after being outside , digging in the soil, planting some bulbs, digging out some old nasty summer thistles and dandelions, and raking up a bit of debris from the planting and cleaning- up process.  Who cares who got the Nobel Peace Prize?  Who cares what the Vikings did or didn’t do today.  I am pleasantly warm, a bit moist on the forehead  and feeling totally satisfied at this moment.

Two days ago, I drove east from Fargo Moorhead on Highway 10; just east of Glyndon I spotted a huge plume of light brown smoke rising like a volcanic eruption. It was not far from the railroad tracks and momentarily I alarmed myself by thinking it might be someone’s house burning up. Then I remembered the time of year and the place I was seeing the smoke….the Science Center (MSUM) near Buffalo State Park was doing one of its fall "burns" to rejunevenate the prairie grasses and other prairie plants.  I wanted to pull over on the shoulder, get out of the car and take a deep whiff of fall smoke which evokes so many memories from my days as a small-town resident (there were barely 1000 of us) .  In my town there were no curbs and gutters then; the streets were graveled and pretty well maintained if you were willing to put up with the dust on windy days or the spring thaw meltdown that produced real Sloughs of Despond.  If a driver happened to plow into one of those spring- melt mud-holes, you did become despondent because you could not get out of there without a lot of help.  But in the dry mild days of late September and early October, you had lots of smokey nights and days from the leaf and dry grass fires burning at the edge of lawns along the gravel roads.  There were no burning prohibitions either.  Everyone raked their leaves up and made dry leaf piles to burn in the evening when the winds were down and the night grew calm.  The odor of the burning dry leaves and grasses was so fragrant and so marvelous.  Many a night, my neighborhood pals and I sat around someone’s little leaf fire and got our clothes, hair, and pretty much everything smoked up so our mothers would sigh as we came in at dark carrying the scent of our evening with us.

There are other fragrances and flavors that only belong to Fall.  The very first apple pie baking from the freshly picked tree in the yard;  gingerbread with lemon topping and whipping cream are for Fall flavors;  the first batch of hot homemade soup…soup that you could not bear to eat in the heat of July or August;  new-made Chili…roast pork….freshly baked bread often not made since late winter…but now in October, the time is right to mix the batch of bread and work it with your hands…knead flour into it, let it rise, shape the loaves and finally smell the bread baking.  Nothing on earth can imitate the smell of fresh homemade bread coming out of one’s oven.   I did that yesterday…baked bread and I am not talking bread machine, either!  Real, hand-mixed bread dough with leftover oatmeal dumped into the bowl, ground flaxseed, honey from a friend’s hives; yeast, cooking oil,  enough flour to make it "just right".  Bread dough feels like warm human flesh to an experienced bread baker.  Once can tell when it has enough flour by the feel of it.

Tomorrow I have to bake my third apple pie of this Fall… from my brother- in- law’s apple trees.     it will be a pleasure since it will be for a good neighbor who has just turned 40 and loves fresh apple pie.   Maybe I should rake up a few leaves and set them on fire so I can take in the sweet scent of October smokiness that I love—–and remember.

After learning that former presidential candidate Al Gore Jr. had been given the Novel Peace Prize in Oslo Norway, I was not at all surprised—–just disgusted.  It appears more and more that the venerated Peace Prize is being sold to the most Liberal bidder.  The Norwegian national assembly is the perpetrator of these travesties but Liberals all over the world throw in as much influence as they possibly can.  When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Jimmy Carter some years ago, I definitely had the impression that things were going to pot in Oslo.  Then Yasser Arafat received it later and I knew that it was hopeless.  Now Al Gore has been awarded the yearly prize and it just confirms my earlier speculations. I now find out that there are some others who agree with my views.  I read a piece by John Berlau this morning entitled "Al Gore And The Mission Of The Peace Prize".  It was published in the AMERICAN THINKER.

Berlau points out that the common theme for selection for the Novel Peace Prize, as set down by Alfred Nobel, himself when he established the Nobel awards, was to be given

   "to those who, during the previous year, have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."               {Also}"….. according to ALFRED NOBEL: A BIOGRAPHY by Kenne Fant, an earlier draft of Nobel’s will stipulated that prizes in all categories should be ‘a reward for the most important pioneering discoveries or works in the field of knowledge and progress.’"       Nobel’s common theme for selection for the Peace Prize and the other awards has been the use of science and technology to overcome problems of human suffering like starvation and disease.  But Gore has been critical of of human technological advancement even before he jumped on the Global Warming bandwagon.  In his book, EARTH IN THE BALANCE (1992)  he criticized technological advancements, including new treatments for cancer. He put more value on the Yew trees used to make Taxol, an effective anti cancer drug for breast, ovarian, and lung cancer than on the cancer patients who might benefit from the drug, on the basis that it took  too many  Yew trees per cancer patient.   Funny he never thought of planting new Yew trees so that the effective cancer drug could be produced for "the greatest benefit for mankind"!!!

Gore has also attacked DDT, which when it was first used to eliminate the deadly mosquitoes that spread malaria and yellow fever, was highly hailed as a technological advancement for "the greatest benefit of mankind".  In the years since it has been banned, untold thousands in Africa and other tropical areas have perished from the diseases DDT was designed to control.  Berlau writes that Gore is still hindering anti-malarial efforts by spreading misinformation about the true cause of malaria.  In Gore’s movie and book, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH  Gore blames global warming for recent outbreaks of malaria in regions of Kenya.  However, the World Health Organizatioin, according to Berlau, has documented epidemics of malaria in the same regions in the 1940′s…long before global warming was an issue and before the invention of DDT.  The malaria in those areas was wiped out by the use of DDT and has been on the rise since the banning of that insecticide.

Unfortunately Gore’s cheerleaders in the mainstream media have never bothered to point out his many major mistakes in either of his books or his movie.   Recently, in Great Britian, a disclaimer has been required before the showing of his Oscar winning film to students, due to the fact that it contains many scientific errors and many simplifications or deliberate untruths in order to make his points in the movie and the book.  Interesting that the winner for the Nobel Prize given to an individual who has made "the reatest pioneering discoveries or works for the knowledge and progess" of mankind should have a disclaimer attached to his Opus Primus!!!!

Gore also blasted the "green revolution" for which Norman Borlaug earned the Nobel Prize. It seems odd that Gore should castigate the use of high tech farming methods that has made both India and Pakistan not only independent in their wheat production for food but they are now exporters of that product to other countries.

The Nobel committee has done it again…..awarded the prize that Alfred Nobel envisioned for those who truly contribute to the benefit of mankind to another politically correct Hack.