Buffalo Gal

I  thought I was done blogging about Memorial Day for this year but I am not.  A PBS Memorial Day special last night changed my mind.    I was not aware of the Memorial Day Concert on PBS til I turned to channel 13 last evening after two of our sons, one daughter in law and two grandsons (the baby boys! who are both 13 now) had left the farm and headed back to their homes.  Then I turned on Channel 13 to see if Masterpiece/Mystery was on and I found that it was replaced by the National Memorial Day Concert from the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol. How fortunate I was to tune in to that memoriable special!  

There may be many of you who also watched it last night so forgive me if I tell about the Concert in this blog.  I was so delighted with the dignity and the soberness of that program! Sometimes I get a bit disapointed with the "Glorious Fourth" celebration from Washington, D.C. also broadcast on PBS on the night of the 4th of July each summer.  That is only because I am so conservative and also crave dignity on such patriotic and special national holidays.  The 4th of July concert is filled with a lot of Pop culture icons performing and other things that I consider NOT dignified for such a holiday…but that is me and my personal tastes.  The 4th of July IS meant for celebrating our nation and its incomparable freedom and liberty and for modern folks, the happy Pop music is a way of celebrating. But then there’s me…who wants to hear all the old patriotic music of my childhood and youth!

But the Memorial Day Concert was so satisfying to this old conservative’s soul.  It was hosted by Gary Sinese and Joe Montegna.  Both men were solemn and dignified throughout the concert.  The music was wonderful…the singing of the National Anthem by Yolanda Adams was particularly moving.  Lionel Ritchie performed along with the backing of the National Symphony and several choruses of MIlitary men and women from the U.S. armed forces traditional choirs…I cannot remember all of their special names but the Army , Navy,  Air Force, Coast Guard and Marine singers were all represented in their distinctive dress uniforms.  After the videos of the Military cemeteries in the many countries our Military has fought in the massed choir sang a particular moving anthem whose title I cannot completely remember but the theme was that the Fallen soldiers rest in the mighty hands of God….it was about the final resting place of heavenly mansions and I was so moved by it…the music and singing were so beautiful and I was so grateful that the current political correctness about never mentioning anything about God at a public ceremony was not followed!

I was most moved by two performances by 4 actors who portrayed people who have gone through the experience of military battle and also the gut-wrenching loss of a beloved one who died fighting in wars both past and present.  The first of these honored the veterans of the war in Korea…the Forgotten War…for many Americans presently.   Gary Sinese and Dennis Haysbert portrayed two soldiers who had been caught in the furious and surprising assault by Chinese forces who poured into Korea across the Yalu River in November 1950. This particular American unit had fought its way far north into North Korea as all other units had at that time and when the Chinese forces poured in by the uncountable thousands, the UN forces were totally unprepared for such an assault.   Sinese acted the role of a white American soldier and Haysbert played the role of Charles Johnson, a black soldier.  The white soldier was seriously wounded as were several others in the unit who were overwhelmed by the Chinese; Charles Johnson alone stood to defend his wounded comrades and while wounded himself, he successfully held off the continued assault.  Then when the American units tried to move out to get to a US Marine base south of the area, they were caught in another Chinese ambush and Charles Johnson was killed defending his buddies.  How the others made it out and lived to tell about it is almost too unbelievable to comprehend but the white man named Don was one of them….and he was present last night along with a commanding officer from the unit named Hooker.  Charles Johnson’s family members were also there and as the story was related by the two actors, tears poured down the faces of those who remembered so well that story from the Forgotten War.  After the performance both Gary Sinese and Dennis Haysbert came out to the families and exchanged embraces and greetings with those of the men who had fought  in that horrible battle. Korean War veterans were especially honored in last nights concert since it is the 50th annniversary of the beginning of the Korean War which started in June of 1950.  I was a 12 year old and fully understood, as I had not understood during the end of WW 2, what it meant for our military forces to have to go to war.  The Korean War was part of our daily life and I was horrified by it.

The other performance by actors was the one given by Blythe Danner, playing the role of a Vietnam War widow and Katherine Jenkins playing the role of a very recent young widow of the war in Iraq.  The two spoke of the terrible grief of the women who lose their husbands in wartime.  It was hard to hear the woman who portrayed the young recent widow describe her grief and hopeless feelings about her loss.   The older widow of the Vietnam War had communicated through a war widows group with the young widow and the dialogue of the two actresses was very touching and also comforting…to know that other war widows of past wars are now helping the most recent ones deal with their overwhelming grief.   The two actresses also went out to greet the families of those they had portrayed.  Both women….the Vietnam War widow and the young widow were there together with many other widows at the Concert and it was moving to see how much they clung to each other in  support and love and comfort.

Those two portrayals at the Concert were worth everything else….the wonderful musical perfomances and the always-anticipated Tribute to the Miliary Branches when the orchestra plays the songs of the Coast Guard, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marines and the Army and all those who have served in those branches stand when their song is played.  That is done at the 4th of July Concert also and I am always moved by the sight of the Veterans of all ages standing together to be acknowledged.  Many of those Veterans shed tears and sing along with the choruses and the orchestra at that moment.

I wish the Memorial Day Concert would be re-aired and it probably is going to be done today sometime.  If you have not seen it try to catch the re-play.  It is completely wonderful and satisfying for a patriotic soul who loves their nation so much.

There is a 9 p.m. special on Channel 13 tonight about the many foreign cemeteries from past wars where so many thousands of American military men and women are buried with the distinctive white stone crosses at each grave.  Those of the Jewish men and women are also marked with the Star of David.  I plan to watch this special also.

I am going out to our local cemetery today with the sweet peas, the purple iris, the lily of the valley and the other stalks of silk flowers  I have accumulated in honor of my two gardening parents when they were alive and well.  My Dad was always in charge of the sweet peas; he made a wonderful supporting fence out of cast iron poles and chicken netting which he faithfully put up each May on the north edge of the garden at the end of our lot.  Then he soaked the sweet pea seeds for a few days before he planted them.  Later in the summer our home was filled with the sweet aroma of those lovely flowers as my Mom kept a fresh bouquet in the house for as long as they sweet peas bloomed.  She also kept a bed of lily of the valley in a north-eastern corner of the front garden right beside the house where the fragrant lilies bloomed and gave off their own sweet scent.  She also kept a big bed of bearded iris which bloomed in late May and June.

Each Memorial Day I bring those silk replicas of the real flowers out to our gravesite where my father and mother and my brother in law are buried together in the same plot.  My sister put her first husband’s ashes at the foot of the parents’ grave so there are two markers. My brother in law’s small flat marker has his name and this inscription which so perfectly describes his life on earth. "Lived well, Laughed Often, Loved Much"  What I wouldn’t give to hear his ringing laughter once again and hear my parents’ gentle voices once more!
 

It seems that I know more people who are buried in the old cemetery than I do the living ones who occupy the town where all the others lived and worked and loved and laughed so many years ago.   Going to the cemetery is like walking in old neighborhoods in the town I grew up in.  I like to visit the graves of folks who were such good friends of my family.  I also like to walk to the many graves that are marked with fluttering American flags….the graves of the brave men and women who defended our nation in times of conflict; many lost their lives in strange places far from their farm and town homes leaving sad and forever-marked loved ones who will never forget how much they loved them.

I will think of the veterans I knew who died in various wars…..Harris who died in WW2 when he was a very young man in the armed forces; the twins from Rollag…who survived bad conflicts in WW 2 as U.S. Marines…one of them in his 90′s still living on the home farm and one of them in a nursing home in Fargo, lost in the mists of time and dementia, separated from his twin brother for the first time in their long lives.  I will think of Charles our neighbor, and Ernie our good friend who both died in Korea on cold wintery hillsides in the  the early 1950′s.  Both left young wives and Charles also left a young son who only knows his father from pictures and the loving stories of his family.  I think of our friend E.M. who still lives on at age 90 after a distinguished career as an Army Engineer who engaged in three major invasions of WW2—North Africa, Italy and Normandy where his company was pinned down by Nazi gunfire on a beach just north of Utah beach.  Pinned down til E.M. crawled up the hill while the rest of his fellows covered him with intensive rifle fire and our friend successfully lobbed a grenade into the Nazi bunker and killed those who were machine gunning them on the beach.

When I think of all these men and women who served in our military forces of the past and even of the near-present vets, I get choked up badly.  I also get choked up when I think we now have a President who refuses to take time to make the traditional honoring ceremony of dead veterans at Arlington National Cemetery.  One editorial writer in a Washington papers said it would be more like this President to be driven by Arlington and toss a wreath out the car window than to stay in Washington and participate in the tradition that all our other Presidents have taken part in….the respectful laying of a large flower wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns where military people of today keep watch in the solemn guarding of the Tomb.

The editorial writer said this in yesterday’s piece, referring to the many returning veteran  of Iraq and Afghanistan.  "And what kind of a country are they returning to?  America is now a nation with a commander in chief—-while the nation is fighting in two wars—-who will not take the time to pay his respects at Arlington National Cemetery, a symbol recognized world-wide of American’s ever-vigilant fight against tyranny and for liberty."

Yesterday on his way to another vacation away from Washington, the President made a cursory  3- hour call to the gulf coast where he walked in the sand and made a pronouncement about finding a tar ball.   He spent 3 hours there and routinely spends 5 hours many times a week playing golf in a liesurely manner with his Favorites and also engages in a lot of "trash talking" according to reporters who have accompanied him.  He truly is becoming our Juvenile In Chief rather than our Commander in Chief.

It is a sad and sorry time in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."

"How did I get myself into this?    Just two days ago I was a free and happy mouse enjoying my liberty and the visit to this thing called a garage.   I went in here looking for food and I found some spilled grass seed which was just what I was hoping for.  My ancestors often found dogfood in this garage but one of the Humans wised up after putting a scoop down into the dog food bag and scooping up my old Auntie Ethel instead of the dog food.  Auntie Ethel told that story a million times…how she had to leap for freedom while the Human Woman screamed her head off in the cold garage on a dark January night.   Too bad, too, because Auntie Ethel had found a nice dwelling place off the cold floor with a built-in tasty food supply.  But that all ended with the shrieking Woman and Auntie had to run out into the snowy cold and join the other family members in their shelter under a big snowbank where they made daily tunnels in the grass for food.  The Dingbat Human could not figure out the tunnels in the grass for a long time in the spring when the snowbank melted.

So here I am…trapped like a rat…I mean a mouse…in the dark small room  where I am hidden behind a trash container in the even darker closet.  I am getting hungry and thirsty and I can smell water in here but I cannot find it.  It seems to be up high off the floor.  Humans say mice can squeeze through any door but I can’t squeeze through this one….there is a high bank of thick furry stuff in the way so I am trapped behind closed doors and to make matters worse there is a mouse trap in here but I am not walking into that!   I have learned from my relatives to avoid those things.  Some of my family have met their end high up in this house in the wintertime by crawling up a mouse highway in the garage and getting into the attic crawl space and trying to become house mice during the cold winters. But the attic was just as bad as the outside so it became a useless winter refuge for my relatives.  There were mouse traps there too, with icky aging blobs of dry peanut butter on them.  Chewing on the old boxes of papers was more appetizing than the dried up peanut butter.

I have distant family members who once lived in an old farmhouse with two very old Humans.  One of them had a glass eye and the most mischievous of a family that had some young "trins" (their mother’s word for triplets I heard) got ahold of the farmer’s glass eye and organized mouse soccer games in the cellar for all the other mice who learned to play the game rather well.  Those were the days, my family has told me!   Those farmhouse mice managed to keep the glass eye forever and the old Human had to get a new one.  Those farmhouse mice also played a game called "Scare the White Cat".  This cat was mostly deaf and those "trins" would sneak up when the Cat was sleeping and scream in its ear sending it into a state of terror looking around for the terrible noise.  Living inside that house was not too boring, I heard my relatives say.

Meanwhile I am having no fun at all in this dark room and dark closet.   I need to be rescued badly but the Human Female is being very careful NOT to leave the garage door open again. Woe is me!"

I am not kidding!  There is a mouse in the house and it is all my fault!

Last night after spending a pleasant birthday celebration for a good friend’s 70-something birthday on May 23, we arrived home about 9 p.m. in broad daylight that is such a wonderful thing about this time of the year….long daylight hours with promises of light after ten p.m. by June 21.   I was tired and was also feeling the effects of eating a wonderful meal at Blueberry Pines near Park Rapids, MN but the meal was much bigger than the ones I eat at home so feeling "logy",  I charged into the house throught the garage entrance and evidently did not pull the door shut enough so that the wind sucked it open. I thought my Dearly Beloved was right behind me but he went off to shut pole building doors or something and by the time he got back to come inside the house the garage entrance had been open for a half hour or more.

When he walked into the hallway, he was greeted by a furry mouse gazing at him from a box of photos I had left in the hallway on the floor!   The mouse stopped gazing really quickly and beat a retreat into the first floor bathroom just off the hallway.  My husband, who was terribly startled by the obvious mouse invasion through the garage entrance, had the presence of mind to shut the bathroom door very tightly and then got the Cat and put her in the bathroom with the mouse.  He heard enthusiastic mouse patrolling from inside the small bathroom but later, the mouse evidently managed to hide in  a linen closet and the Cat began scratching on the door, having been flummoxed by the wily mouse.   He let her out and had been shouting up the stairs to me (I had retreated to a bed, being thoroughly worn out by the big meal and the long day) to tell me about the mouse in the house and his plan to let the Cat take care of the problem.  But she did not… and wanted "out" of the closed up room (The Cat has claustrophobia about closed doors anywhere!!)  She came bounding up the steps with her characteristic "bumpa-dee-bump" three – legged gait and jumped on the bed with me…evidently not wanting any more of the mouse patrol for the night. 

My husband came upstairs to retrieve a couple of mousetraps from our crawl space which often has mice show up when the weather gets cold….they have found some way to crawl up the garage wall and get into the crawl space…sometimes, but not always…. but the mouse traps go out every fall just in case.  Having gotten a couple good traps out of the crawl space, he cleaned the dust off and reset the traps with nice greasy butter.   However this morning the trap in the bathroom was empty—no mouse had taken the butter bait.

Now we think the mouse is still in the bathroom and of course, we are keeping the door tightly shut….even this mouse should not be able to squeeze out the door since a heavy carpet is against the doorway from the hallway side of the door.  Neither of us wants to investigate if this is true or not.  I am not opening that door for fear that a crazed claustrophobic mouse comes popping out at me.  Maybe I should find the Cat and have her right there and open the door???   We would both be terribly surprised if confronted by a house mouse.  The Cat is used to finding and catching mice in the long grass on our hill on the southside of the house…but NOT inside the house since the house is pretty mouse- safe and tight—-except when someone leaves the garage door open….someone whose blog initials are B.G.

It necessitates a trip to the upstairs bathroom when nature calls… but to open the door seems risky for a person who is an EEK-freak when she sees a mouse.

I will have to update this blog when the mouse in the house is somehow not in the house any longer—be it by its own demise taking the butter bait or the CAT getting on the job without getting claustrophobic about being shut up in the bathroom. (Maybe the mouse will get thirsty and drown itself in the "commode". )   

"Story developing"…..as Matt Drudge says on his news site!!!

While the world, and especially the world along the northern Gulf Coast, waits to see if the gushing underwater oilwell that has been spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for more than a month..can be stopped, there are other kinds of "Gushers" going on in our country today.

Other "gushers" harming the economy are numerous, some of which can be listed.

The U.S. Education department requested 26 billion in "emergency funds" to way- lay the layoffs of 300, 000 teachers. This request was on top of the 100 billion in stimulus spending for school districts , which included 48 billion to prevent teacher layoffs already.    This request came on May 13 just a few days back.   Another "gush" of government payments includes the REAL figures for the Obamacare healthcare plan which has risen to 115 billion more than was advertised in the month of March.  If lawmakers appropriate this extra funding the price of Obamacare will escalate from 938 billion to 1.053 trillion dollars in a cost overrun announced barely 6 weeks after the HC bill was passed and signed.    All of these overruns or additions to our national spending come when we are already so far in debt and deficit that the actual money does not even exist.

A cartoon today (May 27) in one of the national news outlets online shows a huge black plume of oil gushing into the deep waters of the Gulf and the huge black plume has the letters on it that spell "U.S. Economy".    The message would be that our economy is being wasted away like the horrendous oil gusher in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico is wasting away crude oil and spoiling the shores of the southern-most United States along the northern Gulf coast.   Oil has already gotten onto Louisiana’s shores and into their wetlands damaging fishing beds, shrimp beds, oyster beds and damaging birds and other wildlife that get covered with the sticky black crude oil.

The economic "gusher" is equally damaging to our nation as is the crude oil washing up on our shores.  Neither one…crude oil or economic disasters…seems controllable at least under the present conditions for both "gushers".    In an editorial in the "Indy Star.com" from Indianapolis, Indiana, the writer quotes President Calvin Coolidge of the 1920′s era WhiteHouse:  "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business."     That certainly could not apply to today’s government who seems to minding all sorts of business presently.   Washington’s Democrats are minding their own business..and everyone else’s.  Another quote from the Indy Star editorial says "In the era of Unlimited Government the Obama administration and and Congressional Democrats stick their snouts anywhere they will fit."

Recently Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has moved to cap ATM fees at 50 cents per transaction.  The number of money machines has risen from about 227,000 in 1999 to 425,000 nationwide.  If congress succeeds in putting price controls on ATM transactions these businesses will dry up and disappear….as so many jobs and businesses have already disappeared with the encroachment of government rules, regulations and controls.

Federal rules now require automakers to boost car mileage 37 percent by 2016 at an estimated cost of 51 billion dollars for re-engineering costs.     If controls on businesses, banks, automakers, and ATM machines is insufficient for sticking snouts into…..the government now wants to control salt intake via the FDA.  Never mind that people who like their food a bit salty will sprinkle on whatever salt it takes after the FDA has passed some regulation on how much salt can be put into manufactured foodstuffs.  And we actually have lawmakers getting paid to do this stuff!!!!

However unlimited government leads to another "gusher"…the raising of taxes in order to pay for all the regulation slapped onto Americans in many ways.  Congress is now considering what is called a "tax extenders" bill to the tune of another gusher of 220 billion dollars.  This will involve taxing private equity and hedge fund profits.  This would be added to the planned increase of 3.8 percent on incomes exceeding $250,000.00 per year.   Democrats are also eyeing a 10 billion dollar increase on crude oil.  We cannot expect to get a better deal at the gas pump in the future if this happens and they Dems have the majority in Congress yet.   They can do a lot more damage before November 2010 election day rolls around.  In fact we can expect to see a lot of legistlation that will be damaging to the economy before election day in November.  It almost seems like there is a prevailing attitude that says "we are going to get our tails kicked out of office in November so let’s do all we can while we are still the majority".   It will not be easy to un-do if this scenario keeps happening.

The only budget cut that the Obama administrationas made recently is the one that makes a 25 % slash in New York’s counter-terrorism funding which was revealed only 11 days after the Pakistani Taliban member planted a car bomb in downtown Manhatten outside a major theater district where thousands of people were gathered.

The other "Gushers" in  our country keep on flowing….just as the unfolding crude oil disaster in the deep water well keeps gushing.

The editorialist painted a word picture of the American people being chained down atop a red ant hill, getting bitten constantly by the ferocious ants.   It is slow economic death by torture for ordinary Americans who see their economy going farther and farther into ruin with every passing day.

——————————————————————————————————

reference:  "No Limits For Government"; IndyStar.com  May 24, 2010

As we see more clearly every day, our current administration’s goal is to change our nation from its former path of liberty and capitalism into a form of socialist democracy as the nations in Europe have already followed that same path.  Now it is evident on a daily basis, if you follow the economic news coming out of Europe, that these socialist democratic countries are falling into the pit of bankruptcy and economic ruin.

In an editorial in INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY, Steve McCann has written a "history" of the failures in Europe that are making the headlines every day in international newspapers.

"Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried and it will continue to do so despite the best efforts of the die-hard believers in the Obama administration and the rest of the world. The most recent example of this failure: Euro-socialism is presently bankrupting the countries that embraced it in Europe. This will result not only in more social and economic upheaval but also the ultimate demise of the ill-conceived European Union."

Those are strong words. If McCann’s warning is valid, we are in danger of becoming more and more like the European Socialist democracies with every act of congress presently that hands more and more control of business, banking, energy, transportation…all normal functions of a capitalist nation…over to the all- powerful central government envisioned by the Obama administration and its supporters in the heavily liberal Democratic congress.

Another chilling quote from McMann:  "The original and current proponents of socialism  fail to take into account one basic but immutable factor: the fundamental nature of the human race. The most dominant trait mankind has is to survive and prosper. While some may willingly choose to pursue sustenance on their own terms {captitalism}… to the vast majority of the human race, the path of least resistance is the most desired. Thus mankind is susceptible to financial scams, gambling, crime, and resentment or violence toward those who have more….but above all, people are very open to the concept of a central authority providing them with with a means of livelihood"    {socialism}

This statement is all too true as we can see from the desire of many people to live on welfare, to bilk every possible opportunity for "government payments" or other subsidies that frees individuals from taking the risks of earning their own living and being productive in a society….not merely waiting for their government check to arrived or lining up at the social services center for whatever "free" government money they can qualitfy for.  It is difficult to go out and get a job and work for your income for too many in our modern society who are capable of doing so.   Help for people who are truly in need—-elderly people who cannot work any longer, young children caught up in a web of adult irresponsibility….is necessary in a culture where we cannot allow the elderly and the very young to starve.  But for able- bodied adults to expect a government to provide their for all needs is just plain wrong.  And the countries in Europe who have established a cradle-to- grave economic security are now having their "chickens come home to roost."

The plain fact is that a government cannot provide the wealth needed to sustain such cradle- to- grave security.  For wealth to be created, it takes capitalism…and true capitalists who produce a nation’s wealth are not great in number compared to those who want to have government-provided security and payments instead of providing for themselves.

McCann again: "A massive tension exists between those who adhere to central government control and swear fealty to socialist/Marxist philosphy and those who produce the wealth of a nation.  The state has more power than the individual and once the radical element of the ruling class assumes power , the government begins the inexhorable process of injecting itself into the affairs of the individual and producer class (which is always a minority in every society.) "

We are seeing it happen each day as congress continues its present course, attempting to totally take over the healthcare of this nation; of passing so called financial regulations on businesses and major banks.  The demonization of Wall Street, banks, business,  and of the capitalist model has been occurring for nearly two years since the present administration was installed.  The continual "stimulus packages" or "jobs bills" that are passed with regularity are not working, obviously, but the government’s only solution is to pass more stumulus packages…with money we do not even have.  The debt crisis escalates and other countries own us….like China currently owns our debts and is beginning to want to get rid of the U.S. and its unpayable debts and deficits.

I wonder if American voters are waking up to the fact that they made a grave error on election day, 2008?   Do Americans realize, by observing the massive economic failures and crises in Europe, that this nation is on the path to the very same failures that we are seeing happen in countries like Greece, Britain, Sweden and other socialist nations in that part of the world?   The socialist/Marxist "experiment in the former Soviet Union clearly failed decades ago and the lessons to be learned are also clear for anyone to see and learn from.  But will we learn?   We are already well on the way to being a third-rate nation with our economic crises unfolding daily and no seeming solutions in sight except to try more government takeovers and more taxation plans to solve the crisis.    It will not work and the sooner Americans wake up to that fact, the better.  It takes a capitalist society to produce the wealth, the jobs, the entire economic engine needed to make a country properous.

McCann asks a final question in his editorial:  "Will the {American" citizenry change the government before it is too late?"

I am absolutely jubilant that a school bond issue passed last night in my retired-from school district!!!   If ever a school district deserved a new building and many updates and improvements at one of the schools, it is this one! (LPA)    I was a faculty member in this district for nearly 25 years and I love the communities and the people there (Lake Park, Audubon and Cormorant).  There are so many good parents and students who are in this district and I was privileged to know many of them—especially the many hundreds of elementary students I knew over that period of years I was a teacher and librarian there.  MY first 9 years were in the single Audubon district but after 1989 we joined forces with Lake Park and I continued in a consolidated district as the elementary librarian and kindergarten music teacher; my days were full and interesting especially with both library and music classes.  I loved every minute of my time in that school and still miss the kids and the colleagues.

I have not missed the fights and battles that have been waged by people in the district who opposed EVERYTHING connected with the school;  first it was the opposition to consolidation, then it has been opposition to any and all referendums regarding school costs and needs; and now it was opposition to a new building that will be built with much help from the federal government’s recent stimulus bill.   This sort of help from the government is a worthy sort of help for small school districts that have big needs for their students. This district needed plenty!     The high school teachers and staff have been laboring for years in old buildings…the oldest was built in the late 1890′s..the typical yellow brick school houses of that era…another section of the high school was built c. 1920′s style and then there were various additions over the years creating a regular "rabbit warren" of connected add-ons.  Finding your way around the high school building was like running an old English hedge-maze with having to go down steps and up steps to reach one addition.  When I first went over to that school in the spring of 1989 as we prepared to join with each other, I got lost many times trying to find elementary classrooms which were all over the place in the midst of the "rabbit warren" buildings and additions.  The teachers were courageous to teach in such conditions and they did a good job under difficult circumstances, which involved lots of inconvenient running from here to there in the confusion of many hallways in the add ons over the years.  The high school library was in the oldest section of the many parts of the school…..the old yellow brick 1890′s building housed the library and it was small and inadequate as it had been for years and years.  There was little room for storage of library materials and that made it difficult to add materials to the overcrowded conditions.  The students and teachers were the losers.

The elementary building in the town of Audubon was less of a "rabbit warren" but it, too, had various parts to the entire school facilities.  The old 1920s school was still used in spite of hazardous old wooden staircases and wooden floors in classrooms and hallways….haivng fire drills in the old school was a really difficult time with old narrow doors used for getting students outside during a fire drill;  there had been several building projects and additions in that school building also with many hallways and classrooms far away from central locations. Kindergarten students had difficulties finding their way to the office and the gymnasium and other spots without guidance for half a year from the teachers and other staff members.  Lost kindergarteners wandering around sobbing was not uncommon.  It is going to be so great when improvements are made at the elementary school—–new bathrooms!   WaHoo!  The old ones were pretty awful and hard to keep clean and neat.  Not a good hygenic situation for young students at all.  It will be all better now when the improvements are finished.  I hope the library there gets a facelift as well; it was one of the best features in the elementary school but it was aging and in need of a lot of things like new flooring , better lighting, better ceilings…we had ceiling tile fall down in the library and we had roof leaks coming thru the tiles that threatened our book collection.  It was just fortunate that none of those tiles fell down on students during the school day.  A guardian angel kept them up in the daytime but a lot of them gave way over night many times.

I am so happy for my old school district!   It has been 6 years since I retired and I still love and cherish my friends in the school and in the district.  It is such a great day to know that finally things are going to be a lot better for everyone.

The group that has opposed everything ought to hang their heads in shame but I am sure they are not doing so.  They excelled at spreading false information…even outright lies; they are more than likely to be brought to justice over former voting fraud in past elections with the discovery of votes cast by non-permanent residents in past elections.  The price may be high for such determined and stubborn and SELFISH opposition.  Whatever they get, they will richly deserve for being such extremists when it came to NOT supporting the students in the schools.   How any group can do this is beyond me.  The Almighty Dollar ruled their lives and they were unwilling to pay their fair share for the younger generations getting a fair deal educationally.  There are a few choice words I can think of to describe this opposing group but many of them are not printable.  Tightwads, Curmudgeons, and Destroyers are three that are printable.  They never showed their faces at either of the schools as positive influences such as volunteers, grandparents who came in to share reading with students, or those who supported school activities like music concerts, sports events or any other school related activity.  The only times they showed up was at school board meetings to protest and to distract and to complain bitterly and oppose everything that the administration or board thought was wise.    This group fervently believed that ANYONE in an administration at school or anyone on the school board were LIARS and Cheaters .  Such distrust and such dark delusions were the biggest part of their shallow lives.

I am so glad that the good people of the district have risen up and given the students what has been needed for such a long time.

It has begun.  In the midst of the darkest time of night and in the midst of a deep sleep, I was bolted upright…even slightly levitated I think….by loud claps of thunder as a cold front hit a warm humid mass of air.   The loud claps, the rolling rumbles or the sharp cracks of thunder have shocked, scared, and been wondered at since ancient times.  

Thunder is the natural result of lightning.  It is sort of a sonic boom caused by extreme clashes of air in the atmosphere.  Cultures of long ago had thunder "gods"….Thor the son of Odin was the Norse thunder god; Zeus, the chief god of the Greeks was their thunder god; Indra was the Hindu thunder god.  Ancient people needed an explanation for the terrifying sounds of thunder and the solution was easily made by attributing the thunder sounds to powerful "gods" making them.  Perhaps there were rituals to appease the thunder gods also. 

Most children are fearful of the loud sounds of thunder. I thought thunder was terribly dangerous when I was a child but I had to learn that it was the lightning that produced the thunder that could be the dangerous element, especially if it was the type of lightning we called "streak lightning"…the kind that came down to the surface of the earth in long, bright bolts.  We knew that lightning could kill….could set fires, could destroy buildings and trees and that one should never stand under a tree when it is lightning in a storm.  It is a cultural thing—parents warn children about what not to do in a severe thunderstorm.  Horror stories about golfers getting killed under trees while holding their bagfuls of steel golf clubs….animals and people in open fields being "struck by lightning".  We were told that lightning will strike the tallest thing and if you are in a flat field with nothing around you , you better lie down flat!!

Animals, especially pets, fear thunder. My husband tells of a pet dog—a big German Shepherd being reduced to trembling jelly-fear by loud thunder.  The dog would squeeze himself between the bathroom wall and an old fashioned claw-foot bathtub when it thundered.  The dog also sought the same place of refuge on the 4th of July when the neighborhood kids set off firecrackers all day and all night long.  The hiding place between the wall and the bathtub seemed to be the only place of comfort or refuge for this particular German Shepherd.     Our dog, Mac, our beloved Border Collies, was terrified by thunder also.  When a thunderstorm approached and he heard the first low rumbles of thunder, he would appear at the door with a wild look in his eyes….he wanted "in" badly.   If a thunderstorm rolled in during the night, a sleeper would be awakened by a prod from a cold black nose. He needed reassurance and comfort and would lie down , trembling by the bedside til the thunder had passed and it got quiet again.  But he would not go back downstairs til daylight when he apparently felt safe and was absolutely sure the thunder was gone.

One of the best childrens’ books that deals with kids’ fear of thunder is by Patricia Polacco who grew up in Michigan amidst a large immigrant family who were also great story tellers. Ms. Polacco has put many of her childhood tales—the ones she heard from grandparents, parents, and other family members into her story books for younger children.  My favorite is "Thunder Cake"..the story of a very scared child (herself) during a coming summer thunderstorm in Michigan.  She was with her Grandmother and her Grandma immediately knew how to comfort the young Patricia.  Grandma said they were going to bake a "thunder cake" during the storm and they did.  She took Patricia out to her chicken coop where they picked several fresh eggs from the hens’ nests.  She took her grandchild to the garden where they picked fresh red tomatoes.  They milked the cow for fresh milk and picked ripe strawberries all the while the rolling thunder of the approaching storm was coming closer. Grandma explained to young Patricia that you can figure out the distance the storm is from you by counting between thunderclaps.  All these things kept Patricia from her usual terror and hiding in a bed during a bad thunderstorm.  When they got back to Grandma’s kitchen, they had to prepare things for the "thunder cake".  The tomatoes had to be finely pureed.  The eggs had to be separated and beaten.   Dry ingredients had to be measured and shortening added and creamed.  Finally the flour, cocoa , salt and soda had to be added to the creamy mix of shortening, sugar, tomatoes, and eggs.  Then the "thunder cake" was put into greased pans and into Grandma’s old fashioned oven (wood stove) and the cake baked while the two prepared the strawberries and cooled the milk.  The finale of the story is the cutting of the fresh hot cake and the eating of it with cold milk and strawberries topping it. Frosting was also made….chocolate butter cream frosting.  Patricia did not think about the thunderstorm that was raging outside of Grandma’s house—she thought only of the delicious thunder cake baking so fragrantly in the oven.  The last page of the book has the recipe for "thunder cake" and I am including it also…just in case any of you need to bake such a cake during a thunderstorm.  The one element that was not present when Patricia and her grandma (she called her "Baba") was the possibility of an electric power shutdown which we can experience during a bad storm.  Of course Grandma had her wood burning stove and some people have gas stoves but if the power goes off in electric stoves only homes, the thunder cake would remain raw!
 

RECIPE FOR THUNDER CAKE:       1  cup shortening/  1 3/4 cups sugar/ 1 tsp vanilla/ 3 eggs separated and beaten separately….add beaten yolks first and then fold in stiff egg whites/  add 1 cup cold water and 1 cup pureed tomatoes.  Mix dry ingredients together:  2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour/  1/2 cup dry cocoa/ 1 1/2 tps baking soda/  1 tsp salt.  Add dry ingredients to creamy mix and beat thoroughly.  Pour cake batter into two greased 8 inch pans and bake for 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees.  Frost when cool with chocolate butter cream frosting and top with fresh strawberries.  Eat and enjoy with cold milk or nice strong coffee!

 As I have to do so often, I am " taking a break" from some hard physical work I need to get done today….if I can! (reality check!)   I need to have a reality check very often to the fact that although I think the same things and want to DO the same amount of work in a day, as I did when I was in my 20′s and 30′s—even my 40′s—–I cannot do the same as I did in those decades of my life.     Today I am facing one reality check after another.

After giving it a real "go" the past two weeks in getting gardening and yard work completed for the spring, I am experiencing many things that jerk my reality leash really hard!   My left knee tendons and ligaments are once again "acting up" after I did the wrong thing and did a bit of kneeling on the soft grass (I thought) while planting "Johnny Jump-Ups" and tomatoes yesterday, as well as shoring up my lovely deep red velvety tea rose in its pot, a’ la Terry H’s instructions, planting still more pots of Impatiens for the north side of the house, after dragging hose to various spots to water some dry patches where seeds need to sprout (if I had known what was coming in the night, I could have skipped the hose dragging!) and other things that a 20-30 year old body needs to do….perhaps I would not be hurting so badly today.    Today when I need to begin the vast repair job of picking up and cleaning up inside the home that has been pretty much totally neglected while the gardening got done, I am feeling the pain and not the gain , at all!

Reality Check again:   I cannot do it all anymore—not like I used to be able to do.  I recall gardening for 8-9 hours from morning til dusk with short inside breaks for food and bathroom calls.   I cannot keep this multiple- room, three storied, many- stairs- everywhere home in the kind of neat and clean condition I demand of myself.  

Perhaps I should consider what so many my age have already done…..sold their big houses, gotten rid of all the flotsam and jetsam collected over 30–50 year spans of living in the BIG HOUSE,  bought a smaller home where things get done for you as in townhouse or condo living….no yard work, pots of flowers- only on a porch or balcony, veggies bought at Farmers’ Markets or fresh home grown produce sections of supermarkets….all those easy living steps that so many older people take a lot sooner than I  do.    BUT—-even with all the aches, pains, short bursts of hard work only, of maintaining a big lawn , lots of flowers and vegetables in the now-container gardens, of a less- than- neat and clean house at all times—–I am NOT ready to change!   So I have to keep making the "Reality Checks" as often as they are needed to keep going in spite of a few minor physical impairments for a person in her 7th decade.  

Another Reality Check for me and my husband:   Our sons, our daughters in law and our maturing grandchildren all LOVE the farm and its big spaces both outdoors and indoors…..they love to "come home" to the home they have known for so long.  They do NOT want it to change even though the can see that their parents and grandparents are forced to change in some ways already.    They love to find all that stuff in the pole building that looks like a bomb went off in a thrift shop!   They love to pump up the bike tires or head out on a four wheeler to check beaver dams or ride the vehicles through the grassy fields that stretch out for acres and acres of fun in the sun…or the under clouds or even in the rain if it is not thundering or lightning!  They remember running through the sprinklers or squirting each other with icy cold well water from the hose with its attachments.   They love to see how much the trees have grown in the yard and the shelter belt.  They remember long-gone pets romping when they were young and strong in their good years before they joined other pets in our pet graveyard at the bottom of the biggest hill…which they remember sliding down or snowboarding down only a few years ago.  These are already two-generational memories for our family.  Our own sons have so many memories of playing in the melting snow water that ran in streams to the river while they floated little twig boats in the streams; they remember setting the gopher traps and clipping off the paws to put in the old peanut butter jar they kept in the freezer before delivering their gopher feet to the township board for their "gopher money".  They especially recall the hours of hard hoe-ing of the tiny shelterbelt trees way back in their childhoods when we first moved onto the Buffalo Bluff.  They remember all the Fourth of Julys when they shot bottle rockets off the deck when it got dark at night.

For all these many reasons, I persist…..through tiredness and aching and perspiring in humid hot days outside.  Home Sweet Home!    It is so sweet even though it is getting harder and harder to take care of!!!

I was sent a letter from a friend who grew up in Ulen MN but has lived in Texas for many years.  The letter is attributed to a legal immigrant who lives in Globe, AZ.  I "snopesed" it and could find no information so I presume it is not false.  It is a rather good "allegory" or literary comparison that I found refreshing in the many views of legal or illegal "immigration" into our border states in the southwest…with Arizona getting special coverage recently due to their own state’s immigration laws passed in the state legislature.  Here is what I think is a good comparison and a refreshing view of the entire immigration situtation in our nation.

"If you had tickets to a sports event, concert, Disneyland, or for an airline flight, and when you got to your assigned seat you found someone else was in that seat, what would you do?  You would call for a person in charge of ticket checking and have the person in your seat removed.  You would be properly asked to show your ticket and you would gladly and proudly do so, for you have bought and paid for that seat.  The person in your seat would also be asked for a ticket, which they would not be able to produce.  They would be called "gate crashers" and they would properly be removed.

Now in this huge stadium called the USA we have had millions of gate crashers.  We have been asking security to check for tickets and remove the gate crashers.  We have ben asking security to have better controls in checking at the door.  We have been asking security to lock the back doors.  They are still looking the other way. They are afraid to see the tickets.  Many people say there is unlimited seating, and whether there is or not, no one should be allowed in for free while the rest of us pay the full price!

In "section AZ" of "Stadium USA, we have had enough of the failures of Security.  We have decided to do our own ticket checking and properly remove those people who do not have tickets.  Now it seems strange to me that so many people in the other 49 "sections" and even many in their own "section" do not want tickets checked, or even to be asked to show their ticket!  Even the head of Security is chastising us, while not doing his own job which he has sworn to do.

My own ticket has been bought and paid for, so I am proudly going to show it when asked to do so.  I have a right to my seat and I want the gate crashers to show their tickets too.  The only reason I can imagine anyone objecting to being asked for their ticket is that they are in favor of gate crashing, and all of the illegal activities that go with it, such as drug smuggling, gang wars, murder, human smuggling for profit, and many more illegal and inhumane acts that we are tring to prevent with out new legislation.  Is that what I am hearing from all the protestors such as Phoenix Mayor Gordon, U.S. Representative Grijalva, even President Obama?    If you are not in favor of showing tickets ( proof of citizenship, passport, green card or other legal document) when asked, as I would do proudly, then you must be condoning those illegal activities"      (Written by a U.S. citizen of Globe, Arizona)

End of quoted letter.    Wouldn’t it be great to have President Obama, his wife and children moved into a home that is only a few miles from the border of Mexico—right in the direct path of the illegal aliens who pour through, leaving behind mountains of trash in the beautiful Sonora desert???   Wouldn’t it be great if they got confronted at gun  point by illegal drug smugglers, or were nearly run down by a truck driven by a "coyote", a transporter of illegals? I wonder if such a scenario would cause the President to make the same statements he is making about "racial profiling" or "violation of civil rights"???   I think that Janet Napolitano and a bunch of other government officials from California, especially, the Mayor of Los Angeles, should be moved into this same rural neighborhood on the AZ border along with the Obama family.  Perhaps they could all take up residency in the ranch home of the rancher that was shot to death by illegals when he was peacefully fencing his ranch land.

I think it is a wonderful idea and should be put into practice by tomorrow morning!!!!