Buffalo Gal

As I grow older there get to be more things I miss…probably because things change over time and things I used to enjoy to by the wayside.
I have a list of things I miss a lot by now in my life span.

I miss:

<<My old yellow brick grade school building and its playground with a big hill all around it..it was great for sliding at recess time.
<<I miss roller skating in the spring on my old metal clamp-on roller skates.
<< my old white clapboard – sided church with the tall spire where I went to Sunday school and church and where I got married.
<<I miss THE ROYAL FORK buffet dining place

<< I miss old downtown Moorhead's Center Avenue…the way it was before it was destroyed by urban renewal. I miss the old
Comstock Hotel on the corner, I miss
Warrens Cafe and the Rex steakhouse, I miss Watermans' dept. store and the old Bluebird Cafe

<>I miss the town park and the way the river used to run through it with 3 rickety bridges to cross.
<< I miss the old Spillway across the river in the park.
<<I miss the 6 grocery stores that used to be in mmy old town
<<I miss all the old neighbors who used to live in my block; they are all dead and buried at the cemetery west of town.
<<I miss my little boys from when they were preschoolers with little crew cut blond heads.
<<I miss our old homes where so much living took place.
<< I miss so many old friends who are now scattered far and wide.
<<I miss the 10 cent nut goodies my Dad used to buy me for a treat.
<<I miss the people who went on picnics with us..to Itasca Park and Beauty Bay on Pelican Lake (now developed with no access)
I miss my Uncle Carl's cottage on that same lake.
<<I miss small town Fourth of Julys and small town Memorial Day parades to the cemetery..all of us walking there together to honor the dead military people.
<<I miss the old swimming hole where my friends and I swam and dived and picked bloodsuckers off our legs and feet.
<< I miss our old woolen band uniforms
<<I miss my brother in law who died too soon at age 52.
<< I miss my parents and my parents in law.

Growing older means you have ever more things to miss and wish you could see again….just one more time.

When we hear the word “racism” we usually assume that we are talking about prejudice expressed toward people of color…blacks, hispanics and other racial groups. It is normally assigned to people of little or light color (aka whites) who have committed the racism against peopel of color. But we have a new development and it is quite recent.
Louis Farrakahn has today declared that Barack Obama is in great danger of being assassinated because of racism against him.
Barck Obama has, himself,played the race card in the past day but he ius now initiating a very overt campaign strategy to get black people to vote
for him.
Let’s imagine for a moment that Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich ot Rick Santorum or Ron Paul went to an all-White church and made the same sort of campaign effort….because you are White you should vote for me (name any of the candidates among the Republicans)
The mainstream liberal media would have a cow!!!!
And yet Obama did this exact same thing.
In a push called “African Americans for Obama” the President urges blacks to put pressure on their churches to support his administration. Now this is a clear violation of the vaunted liberal doctrine of separation of church and state but what the hey? It is only bad if Conservatives do such things…it is fine and dandy for a liberal POL to speak from church pulpits when trying to campaign for re-election. We have seen it dozens of times from Liberals who have fits if such a thing was done by a Conservative politician! Hypocrisy thy name is…….(fill in the blank)
Chad Hasty, a newsman, commented on the attempt to enlist black voters.
“I thought race didn’t matter, Mr. President…I don’t think MLK would be too pleased with you at all. African-Americans for Obama? Give me a break. Under this president there are more blacks unemployed; more blacks on food stamps. If I had to bet though, I would guess that Obama will get 93% of the black vote again. Just a guess.”
(Chad Hasty)

In Chicago Farrakhan ranted about Osama Bin Laden, Moammar Ghadaffi and Jews as well as sounding the alarm for an Obama murder by some nefarious person assigned to do it….”probably a Muslim”, Mr. Farrakhan surmised.
Oh yes…..we have loose cannons and Racists popping up… but this time they are not White Racists.
Both articles are worth reading in full:

“Obama Plays Race Card; Calls on churches to support his campaign”
by Paul J. Watson on Feb 24, 2012 in PRISON PLANET news.

“Louis Farrakhan warns of racial hatred that could lead to attempts to kill President Obama” (Chicago Tribune, in “Chicagoland” section)

Farrakhan may have gotten one thing right in his recent rant; he warned that “America is on her deathbed” when referring to the economic quagmire that exists. One out of fifty rants is not too bad.

ADDITION 5:24 pm The Chicago article about Farrakhan is also in today’s FORUM if you scroll down the home page…you will see it there also.

There is a huge flap over President Obama apologizing to the leader of Afghanistan (Hamid Karhzi)
because American troops burned some Korans that had been used by prisoners to send each other terrorist messages.

Once again our Apologizer In Chief kowtowed to the Afghans for this action.
I have a few questions.

Has any Islamic country every apologized for jailing or executing American Christians?
Have any Christian or Judaic scriptures been burned by Islamists?

Did anyone get an apology from any Islamist for beheading journalist Daniel Pearl?…. an American with a French wife…any apologies to France or the US???
Any apologies from Afghanis for killing so many American soliders in terrorist attacks..the latest of which was the killing of two Americans who sat at their desks when they were executed.
Will we get an apology?
Any apologies ver for all the airplane hijackings or for the attack on New York, and Washington DC in 2001???
We all know the answers to these questions.
Yesterday on a national newscast, Kirstin Powers a left wing progressive journalist explained that we need no apolologies because it is not “our way” to get them. What the H—–does she mean?
She is clearly a left wing nut like too many main stream journalists and left wing politicians that now infest our Capitol city…and our White House.
Until we start demanding apologies for terrorism and mayhem and murder perpetrated on our nation and our citizens…we do not need to issue any apology for burning Korans that were used to send terrorist messages.

After reading FARSIDE’s blogs for the last few days I had a “light bulb” go off in my brain of some times long gone.
One of her blogs showed FARGUY with a family picture taken in 1887.
I was reminded of the reaaction to some other old photos and a story I heard from my neighbor of many years. (now deceased; a member of the Greatest Generation)
My nieighbor was looking at some very old portraits of long- gone family members with her then-young grandson.
The boy wzs interested in learning about these relatives in the photos and asked his grandma where they lived.
She replied that all of them were dead a long time ago. The grandson then asked his logical question:
“WHO SHOT’EM?”

The generation that the grandson belonged to watched a lot of westerns and crime shows on TV obviously.

Another set of incidents of childish perceptions about life and death occurred in my own family.
One of our sons who will not be identified to protect the innocent was riding in our old pickup with his dad and brothers on Hiway 10. One of the headlights was “out” so they were doing one-eyed driving at night….and a state highway patrolman npulled them over to the side of the highway. Our son was greatly alarmed and asked,
“Dad, is he going to shoot us?”
Once again a PERCEPTION (false) of what law enforcement officers do!!!!
In the other incident 3 boys were playing in our sandbox at the time and were driivng small cars around “roads” they had built in the sand. The same son who feared being shot by a state patrolman was given the “cop car” and assigned duty to enforce the speed limit on the sandbox highways.
He immediately pulled his cousin’s car over and demanded in a loud authoritative voice:
“GET OUT OF THE CAR!”
Cousin “walked his fingers” like he was getting out of the car and the son immediately made the sound of a gunshot….”Pkkkkk-ew!…you’re dead”.

So much for careless driving in the sandbox roads! The other two older boys literally fell down into the grass laughing over the instant shooting of the speeder.
Perceptions again—-by young children.

All that was triggered by reading FARSIDEs’ blog and seeing a photo of a family taken in 1887!!!!

I wonder how the present generation of children perceive the same circumstances?

We have our own USA version of the French Queen Marie Antoinette who said to the little people of her time “Let them eat cake” but our M.A. is Michelle Obama who says “let them eat arugula because cake is fattening”; also that her food police would not approve.
Well I wonder what “Mooch-elle is eating in Aspen Colorado today? She is there on the 16th Obama vacation of this administration..all vacations having been paid for by the American taxpayers.
There is an article by Paul Bedard today “Michelle’s Ski Trip Obamas 16th Vacation” The article describes all of the vacations thus far and also the costs of the junkets at our expense.
Also in today’s news: unemployemnt rises to 9% again this month according to a Gallup survey..but what they heck?
Michelle and Barry need to get away from the White House as often as they can and spend our tax money as lavishly as possible.
Compared to other presidential getaways..usually to their homes..the Obama vacations are definitely champagne and caviar trips to places that cost the most money.
The comments to this article are more fun to read than the article itself.
Michelle better take a lot of trips before November 2012 because she and her husband may be thrown out by angry voters.
Perhaps the Prez needs to tax his richest contributors instead of his supposed “one percent”. At least he could dun them for the amount of tax money it takes to satisfy himself and his wife’s vacation tastes and frequencies.

Necessary definitions for this blog: ACCUMULATION: heap, mass, pile, cache, hoard, stack, bundle, backlog (garnered from my best crossword puzzle dictionary)
ICON: an idol.

I have an accumulation, a heap, a backlog, a bundle of stuff today. Not blogging daily leads to this “pile” or “heap” of thoughts and observations so here goes.

ICON: Since her sordid death in a Hollywood hotel room some days ago, Whitney Houston has been described endlessly as an “icon” of music and I am certain that it is true. She has been idolized (as in pagan worship) deified, and sanctified and nearly sainted (all terms used in the most cynical sense here).
You would think that Mother Teresa of India might be taken off the sainthood shelf and replaced by Whitney Houston to hear it told on the 24/7 news outlets on cable/direct TV in the hours and days after her death… the cause of which has not been officially identified. There is plenty of speculation about drugs and alcohol causing it and that may be what the data will show after all the tests that will be done on her body.
This is a Septenegarian speaking here… one who still retains some senbsibilities about “famous persons”.

I realy do not care about how she died. She died way too young..just like Judy Garland a few decades ago…both in thier middle 40′s. I really do not care that a huge number of people in this sick culture of ours think she is an “Icon”. She is what she chose to be: a woman who had a great voice and made a lot of bucks using it… but she is also a woman who chose a degraded and sad lifestyle of drug use, and of drinking huge quantities of alcohol over a period of years; a woman who destroyed her own health and longevity by doing so.
She is no heroine….she is a pathetic female singer who followed the same path that many who achieved fame and fortune in Hollywood or New York or the Detroit or Nashville music scene …..she is another Elvis Presley personage, she is Janis Joplin or any other “famous” person (according to our sick culture) who ruined her own life by succumbing to the world she chose to inhabit.
I am sick and tired of the worldly deification of such supposedly famous “icons” who are the worst possible examples of the living of a life. No number of “hit songs” or “hit movies” or hit-whatevers can change the fact that they wasted and threw away their own lives and talents. And they did it by deciding to live in that way.
Nobody else forced them to do it..they all did it to themselves but our current hysterical news- mongerers choose to ignore personal responsiblity or a morally upstanding life style of anyone they choose to “immortalize” in a sick sense.
Just wait til her cause of death comes out. It will mean another 48-56 hours of “chewing up the cud” of the latest news on the 24/7 news outlets. It will be time for me to have a lot of my best British drama DVDs on hand to watch instead of CNN, MSNBC, Fox or whatever other 24- hours news outlet there are. The newspapers won’t be any different either but at least that is only once a day most of the time.

MENS’ BRAINS VS WOMENS’ BRAINS:
I enjoyed reading FARSIDE OF FIFTY’S blog today (I enjoy her blog EVERY day).
Today she used a very clever comparison: Men put their thoughts into separate boxes while women have endless balls of wire that are unwinding in their brains. This explains why women can think about endless things they either need to do or endless things that they keep straight in their minds on a daily basis. Men…. according to FARSIDE’S long observation skills of her dear FARGUY…..have to deal with what is in each box and finish it off before they can go on to the next thing.
This scientifically proven fact (really…. male and female brains ARE wired completely differently) YOU CAN LOOK IT UP, (as Casey Stengel used to tell sports’ writers.)
I think FARSIDE needs to be placed among the Great Thinkers of our age for her simple explanation of the source of trouble for so many male-female couples who have been married for long periods…at least more than 20 years.
It accounts for the frustration of younger married women who speak to their husbands and then think they aren’t hearing what they said …THEY AREN’T…they are busy with the stuff in one of their boxes…a younger bride does not needs to think it means he doesn’t love her…he simply cannot process things like she does.
FARSIDE (and me) have learned this through long years of marriage to the same man. I am so grateful to her for such a neat simple explanation of that phenomena of MENS’ VS WOMENS’ brains.

REALLY INTERESTING READS FROM TODAY’S CONTINUTING ACCUMULATION OF BRAIN STUFF:
There is a fascinating article about STONEHENGE…..now some scientists have a new theory of why that 5000 year old stone monument was built. It was a sound study place of the ancients.
An old word for such ancient stone circles means “PIPERS’ PLACE”.
The entire article can be googled by typing in ” STONEHENGE INSPIRED BY SOUND ILLUSION……”
Another article at the same site shows about 15 pictures of modern Druids celebrating the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge. If you want to see some really weird and bizarre photos of modern Druids, google this:
“DRUIDS CELEBRATE WINTER SOLSTICE AT STONEHENGE”
The pictures will take you back to historical drawings (from artists’ imaginations) that you may have seen…. complete with hats and masks that use animal antlers.
I know there is a celebration of the Winter Solstice that takes place in Fargo on December 21. One can only hope that the Fargoans who attend are not dressed like the Stonehenge Druids.
They could get arrested for something if they did.

I DREAM OF Jeannie with the light brown hair…. soft as a vapor on the summer air” (Stephen Foster I think) We sang it when I was in elementary school along with other Stephen Foster songs that would now be so politically incorrect like “Old Black Joe”. I loved that song..it was about a very old man who was soon going to die and the words were so sweet. (“I’m coming…I’m coming, for my head is blending low….”)I never even thought about his being” black”) It was about an old man of faith who knew he was soon going to meet his Maker.
But I am not dreaming about old Stephen Foster songs sung in our classroom so long ago (65 years ago maybe?)
I am dreaming (with the help of seed catalogs and my summer copies of BIRDS AND BLOOMS) of lovely flowers nodding in the hot sun in June, July and August.
All I have to do is see the article in B and B about daisies of all kinds..black-eyed Susans, Gloriosas, Shasta big whites, coreopsis….and I can see them blooming in the big clumps on the west side of my house. It is a gold and white paradise when they all bloom together.
I can also see the tulips in the sun..a bit earlier ..but so beautiful. It is a promise of more flowers to come after the tulips are done. There will be the Asian lilies….there will be the sedum bush puffing up with its latent red fall blooms. There will be big buds on the white and pink hydrangeas.
It is so sweet to dream of flowers on this, a cold, cold below- zero morning. The sun is brilliant but the air is off-putting….I see new birds this morning…little red breasted finches about the size and shape of the winter-tan goldfinches who love to eat the finch seed I put out for them.
Seeing that flash of red made me think of flowers. The red finches have red on their breasts and some have a bright red striped cap in the middle of their heads. The chickadees and nuthatches and tan finches and nuthatches are not too colorful at this time of year. So red rosy finches are a welcome sight.
One only has to read a bit of daily news and get saddened by the features that emphasize death, murder, terrible accidents that leave people maimed and crippled…..the academic debacle at Dickinson State was enough to make me want to think about flowers and birds. The awarding of faux degrees and the self-inflicted death in a park close to he campus of one of the college officers is not a good way to start a sunny day in February.
But that kind of news gets readers, obviously. Not me, for long.
I must dwell on gold and white daisies and red tulips and pink and white hydrangeas.
The alternatives are way too disturbing.
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they bloom. They toil not, neither do they spin, yet your Heavenly Father clothes them in colorful array”
It is in the gospel of Matthew but I cannot recall exactly where..hidden among the Beatitudes in chapters 5,6, 7.
Much better reading than a daily paper.

There is a hard-hitting essay by Kevin Meyer in the British INDEPENDENT. Meyer’s essay is titled “Energy Policy based on renewables will win hearts but won’t protect their owners from frostbite and death due to exposure”

It reveals the foolishness of those who are dedicated to “green energy”, especially in many European countries.
Meyers writes about a current crippling cold spell covering Europe along with severe blizzards ..one of which nearly crippled Russia in the past days. The Russian gas company (Gazpron) was so overwhelmed it was unable to meet demands brought on by the blizzard and extreme cold. Three hundred people died .
“Did anyone even think of deploying our wind turbines to make good the supply of energy shortfall from Russia?”

He went to to say that it would have been a hopeless idea since everyone knows that “windmills are a self-indulgent and sanctimonious luxury whose purpose is to make us feel good.”

Another quote:
“Modern cities are incredibly fragile organisms which tremble on the edge of disaster the entire time. During a severe blizzard it is electricity alone that prevents a midwinter urban holocaust. Had Europe genuinely depended on green energy on Friday(past Friday) by Sunday thousands would be dead from frostbite and exposure and the EU would have suffered an economic body blow to match Japan’s tsunami a year ago.”

I wonder how many in our area would like to go through a severe cold spell accompanied by high blizzard force winds would like to depend on wind turbines for their electrical power??
The entire article is worth reading. Google the title and read the whole thing.

In another example of FANTASYLAND, New York Senator Kristin Gillibrand, D-Liberal—- made a statement to the press yesterday which illustrates not only her ignorance of the US Constitution but also her total sell-out to what Liberals call “Womens’ rights”
She was defending the Obama administration’s decision to issue orders for all religious organizations to be forced to provide coverage for employees’ contraception and abortions.
The US Bill of Rights took care of such an issue at the beginning of the United States Republic.
In the exact words re. religious liberty:
“Congress {i.e. the Government} shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free excercise therof.” emphasis on “PROHIBITING THE FREE EXCERCISE THEROF”

Senator Gillibrand, defended a “womens’ rights” come-lately fervor that only those who want to trash the US Constitution and Bill of Rights parts they do not like… can gin up. Gillibrand is living in a political fantasyland.
In choosing this political fantasyland, Liberals have probably lost the biggest voting bloc in the entire nation.

I just came in side after sitting on the south facing deck on our home on the Bluff. It is not particularly warm but the sunshine is so inviting. If it weren’t for a bit of westerly breeze I could have sat there for a much longer time.
While I was sitting against the warm wall absorbing its heat, I watched the BIRD BRAINS landing at the bird feeders.
Birds are really quite intelligent I think. They definitely have personalities among the various species.
Black capped chickadees are brave and quite tame for being wild birds. They fearlessly land about 5 feet from where I am sitting and I was holding the Princess Kitty also. The cat pays no attention to the birds anymore..a sign of her aging and cat “maturity”. When she was younger she would sooner eat one than look at it. Now she just purrs loudly in the warm comfort of my jacket sleeves.
Juncos are pretty mellow to other birds; they will share a feeding dish with the chickadees and finches.
The most agressive birds at my feeders are the nuthatches–to other birds and even to each other. I witnessed one particular angry nuthatch a few days ago..it was fluffed up to twice its size and it was in a bent forward, threatening posture to another nuthatch that wanted to feed from the same place.
I can now understand the information about winter birds gathering with up to 30-40 other birds in old woodpecker holes at night when it is very cold and keeping each other warm by fluffing their feathers.
The Pileated woodpecker pair of last winter whom I named “Luci and Desi” seem to be no-shows this winter although they are down in the woods. My husband has seen them flying between trees in the woods. Last winter was bitter and there was a lot of snow but this winter is so mild that a lot of wild birds are finding feed where nature has placed it. There are fewer birds at the feeders due to this factor, I think. Even the bully-ish bluejays are staying in the woods.
The chickadees, juncos, finches, nuthatches, Downy and Hairy woodpeckers are still being “welfare recipients”.
They are not about to turn down free seeds and free suet. They keep me happy that I can watch them enjoy my feeding stations.
I think the Pileateds are coming in very early in the morning before I am up to see them. They are by far, the shyest of the birds..last winter if they detected any movement in the house they would fly away instantly and not come back for a long while.
Perhaps they are enjoying the suet before anyone…birdbrains or humans are around to see them.
As a real “wannabe” birder I am enjoying the second winter of feeding them. I love to go out to our spruce trees with “ground feed” and hear the chorus of birds in the branches sound like the song “All God’s Critters Got a Place In The Choir”.
They sound like there are thousands of them but I know it is more like 50-60 at a time.

Saturday February 4 was a very special day for our family. It was a birthday-day for our youngest granddaughter who turned 17. She joins other grandaughters born within 5 months of each other in 1994-95 who are the best of friends as well as cousins.
It was also a day of sweet, mellow voices of hundreds of North Dakota junior and senior high choral students.
A special weekend of singing and learning from eminent choral conductors took place at the NDSY campus for these teenage singers from all over the state of ND. It was organized by music teachers all over the state and the official organization is the NDACDA,,,the definition of which I do not have. I only know it has to be a great group to have brought so many high school singers together for a weekend on the NDSU campus.
The students formed 3 honor choirs: A Treble Choir made up of junior high girl students and when I wrote the words “sweet voices” it described the girl’s honor treble choir. Their sweet voices filled the space in Festival Hall’s main concert hall. They were first on the concert program and not far into their first song, I knew I was in the right place!
Years ago I was a choir singer in more than one choral group over a long period of years…junior and senior high school, a college concert choir and later various adult choirs . The human voice is the most elegant musical instrument of all.
The Mixed Honor choir had junior high students…male and female and what I will remember about that group is the richness of the young mens’ voices..amazingly mature for thier ages. All the honor choirs were large…some over 100 singers. Sweet, mellow voices raised in songs that were so incredibly performed and wonderfully sung. It did this Old Choir Girl’s soul so much good!!!
Our youngest granddaughter..the Birthday Girl…sang in the Womens’ Honor Choir of over 100 voices. It was another ethereal experience of hearing the sweetness of the young voices expressing lovely music.
All the honor choirs had guest conductors from other places…..Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, Bismarck ND and a college conductor from Illinois.
Their conducting and teaching must have been a once in a lifetime experience for the young singers from all over North Dakota.
It was a great reminder of the importance of public and private schools staying focused on the Arts such as choral singing, concert bands and orcestras, and drama opportunities. In a day and age that glorifies high school sports over and above everything, the concert at NDSU yesterday confirmed the worthiness of the Arts in ND schools.
After the concert was done, our family proceeded to celebrate the birthday with cousins and uncles and aunts and one set of grandparents (us)
We all ate Papa John’s pizzas and DQ ice cream cake to our hearts’ content.
Yesterday we sweet and mellow in two ways: the sweetness and mellowness of young choral singers and then the sweetness of family love and fellowship.
It was a great day all around.