My Friend Bo

My Friend Bo stopped by today. 

Actually Bo isn’t too well thought of around here but I can tell you that many’s the day Bo has showed up just in time to pull me out of a deep hole.   So today I was pretty glad to see him and told him, “Come on in, Bo,” but he wouldn’t and I had to just stand out there in the wind in nothin’ but a jean jacket and my thermal underwear to hear about his latest project.

And it didn’t amount to a hill of beans but it took my mind off stuff I didn’t want to think about today so I listened like it was the dangest dang project I ever heard and had tremendous “potential”.    However so, I can tell you that even around here there isn’t much of a market for chicken feet.  Bo’s plan is to go over to the Mennonites next time they have a big chicken butcherin’ and get the feet and sell them on the internet.  My part in this project, other than listening and nodding and saying, “You don’t say,” and “By dang, it just might be a money maker,” was to teach Bo how to run the computer and sell stuff on the internet. 

I thought the “You don’t say,” and the ”By dang….”  would probably be the easy part because I remembered Bo from when we were in grade school.  He always had a lot of  trouble with the pencil sharpener.

We talked a little while about how to wash all the stuff off the feet and how to keep them from stinkin’ while they were in the mail and such and then we kind of got down to the internet part.  I asked Bo who his ISP was and he said, “What’s a “eye yes pee,”  and I tried to tell him and he kind of went vague on me so I went back to the washin’ the chicken feet part for awhile.. then tried the internet thing again in a different direction.

“Bo, which credit card do you want to use.  You gotta have a credit card for just about everything on the internet you know.:  and he kind of gave a little jump and grinned at me, which is always unfortunate when Bo grins, because of that fight with Bud Seifert, and he told me he had it covered.  He whipped out a credit card and waved it through the air in little slicing motions like it was a pass to the All Star Game. 

“Here it is.  It come  in the mail yesterday.  Pop always makes Pauletta Dean toss them but I snapped this one up before he saw it.”  I didn’t have the heart..or the energy..to give Bo a lesson in credit cards so I kind of let that slide but I did mention that Joe might be ticked off when the bills started coming but Bo said “Not to worry.  He’ll really be fired up when the profit money starts comin’ in now won’t he?”  

We talked about how to pack the feet.  Because it’s December Bo wanted to wrap them up all Christmassy and call them “Holiday Hen Hoovess” .  “Now don’t that have a ring to it?” says Bo.  I nodded like I really thought it did and Bo promised to cut me in for a quarter of the profits for teaching him how to do the internet stuff and then he said, “Well, I gotta go. There’s a lot to runnin’ a business you know.”  And I said “Yes, there surely is.  See ya, Bo”  And he said, “See ya.” 

But then there was a thing that had to be done so I said to myself,  "Yancy, there's a question has to be asked and you just gotta ask it."   And so I says to Bo, "Bo, what do you figure folks are gonna be doing with those chicken feet?"  and he said   "You wouldn't believe all the different kinds of stuff they eat up in the city.  It;s just chock full of all sorts of ethical people now that eat stuff like squid legs and rattlesnake eggs and such as these chicken feet."  Well, it has never been my way to get mixed up in the mores and geography ideas of my neighbors but I told Bo, "Well, Bo I haven't ever heard of anyone eating that sort of stuff," but he just grinned and flicked a box elder bug off the arm of my jean jacket  and said, "Yance, that's part of your problem.  You need to get up and about a little more."  And he took off down the road.

And I went back in the house and sat in front of the furnace grate for an hour and a half before I warmed up. 

Like I say, Bo always gives me something else to think on.  And that’s worth a lot.

I Live in North Missouri and I Had Waffles For Breakfast

And you might ask, “That’s significant because???”

Because just seventy-five years ago last week a housewife in Lewis County, Missouri flipped a switch in her kitchen and her life, and ours, was changed for ever. 

Lewis County was the first rural electric co-op to be completed in Missouri and that July day in 1937 was thereafter referred to as “The Day the Lights Came On.”  

I believe Mrs. Anderson, the wife of Judge B.L. Anderson, one of the rural cooperatives original incorporators and Chairman of the Board, understood how significant the changes coming with electric power would be.   She knew it would now be possible to prepare a meal in the heat of a Missouri summer without building up a fire in a cook stove.  Water for laundry would no longer need to be heated in large double boilers before emptying into the old wringer washer that had to be cranked by hand.  In just a few short years wet sheets freeze drying on the line on a January day would be a thing of the past. 

The size of a man’s milking herd would no longer be limited by the strength and/or youth of his hands and with the coming of refrigeration spoiled milk was for the most part a thing of the past. 

As for water, no more buckets hauled from the creek.  One of the first uses of electricity in rural areas was for pumping water and this was a tremendous help. 

Rural productivity soared and the nightmare of the drought and the ensuing depression began to fade.  Electricity was the single most important tool rural Missourians would possess to fight their way back to a reasonable prosperity. 

Some things are simply too valuable.. too important.. and of far too much significance to a community, county, state or country, to be left to the trickle down method of the for-profit-only thinkers.  Some things require a combined effort.  Some things need to be subsidized, as in the rural Electric Unification Act, to equalize the opportunity of the whole community. 

Just imagine if the electrification of Missouri had been left to the business community ..a 1920’s publication of the magazine Popular Mechanics,  in an article on electrification, would have been totally accurate when it claimed that  “Thousands of … rural homes will NEVER enjoy the blessings of electricity if they wait for the high lines to bring it because they are in areas so sparsely populated that power lines cannot be made to pay for themselves.” 

Only when the profit line was removed..(enter the REA-Rural Electrification Act..a government backed program that stood behind loans and provided support and administrative structure to communities seeking to electrify.. and Community Co-ops created by communities willing to commit themselves to the progress electricity would bring)  did the electrification of the whole state become possible. 

In 1935 less than ten percent of rural America had electric power.  By 1950 that percentage had risen to ninety percent. 

When I look at the powerful opposition that was recently waged against Universal (subsidized) Health Care I tend to think about American experiences like the REA. 

Like I said before, some things are simply too valuable.. too important.. and of far too much significance to a community, county, state or country, to be left to the trickle down method of the for-profit-only thinkers.

By the way.  My waffle was really good.

My Friend, Bo Stopped by Today.

My friend, Bo stopped by today.

He had a couple of empty plastic milk jugs and was looking for free water. I asked him if their water had quit on them but he said, “Nope. Me and Windy are fixin’ to help out Lorellen over at her place.”

Lorellen was Bunny’s best friend I guess forever and even was in her wedding party. That is to say, she stood behind Windy in the event he tried to break and run but I guess he was tired of evadin’ and avoidin’ because the wedding went right through to the end.

What’s wrong with Lorellen’s water?” I asked Bo. But he didn’t want to talk about it much. It seems he had that one-eyed goat out to Lorellen’s place and tied it to the old pump handle on the well and while he was inside yacking it up with Lorellen and her husband the goat got to feistyin’ around and broke through the boards. When Bo went back out all he saw was a broke piece of twine that he had the goat tied with. Lorellen was madder than all get out when she found out a danged goat had got itself drowned in her well.

“Well, “says Bo, “She’s livin’ in her Grampa Tud Foster’s old place and he never would have it hooked up to the Federal supply like regular folks did” “Said it was a waste of good pipe and all, them having a good well.” And I said, “Well, I woulda thought Lorellen and her husband woulda had it hooked up.”

“Well, no,” says Bo, “Lorellen’s kind of eggcentric. You know how she is.”

“Well,” I say, “She is her Grampa’s kin and he was strange enough for two.” And wantin’ to change the subject I say, “Bo, how do you suppose Old Tud ever got such an odd name, anyway?” And Bo said, “Well I asked him that once that last year before he died when he was spending so much time settin’, just settin’, out on that old porch looking at stuff no one else could see I guess because he would sure strike up a good conversation all by himself and one day he was just a chit chattin’ to thin air and I stopped and chit chatted awhile with him and I asked him about if Tud was his real name and he said “No, it wasn’t.”

“The way Tud told it was that he was the tail end of six boys,” says Bo, “and his Ma, wantin’ a girl like most women do, took advantage of Old Pappy’s, that’s what Tud called him, Old Pappy, bein’ gone to the woods for three days with a couple a fellas he hung out with and she named the new arrival Maudie Charlene, sayin’ she would make him her girl. The Doc even had it done up on paper at the court house. Well, Old Pappy uz madder than all get out and said, “Anyone I hear callin’ that little turd Maudie Charlene or anything like is going to get throwed down and stomped on..so nobody ever did but the turd part stuck and they just called him Little Turd ‘til he went off to school and Mz. Floreen Justice, who was teaching back then, misunderstood Little Turd’s way of speakin’..their folks was from Tennessee..and wrote him down as “Tud” and that’s how he is called that to this day.”

“I thought on that for awhile then I said, "Well, it’s too bad about the water, anyway”.

We filled the jugs up at the spigot and Bo said, “See ya around,” and I said “See ya, Bo” and he started up his old truck and rattled off. I kept on doing what I was doing when he came which was not much of nothin’, and pretty soon I got tired of that and went in and went to bed.

Bunny's Getting Married

My friend, Bo, stopped by last night. He just wanted to bum a can of Coke off me.

Also he was hiding out from his mom, Pauletta Dean Ray and Bunny, his sister because of the wedding coming up and all.

He said, “Yeah, Bunny is finally gonna tie the knot.”

That’s one way of looking at it. To my mind she just finally ran poor old Windy Wilson to ground. Windy’s name was really Clifford Winston Wilson but I never knew him to be called anything but Windy. Windy wasn’t much of a talker so you’ll just have to figure out for yourself how he came by his callin’ name.

Bunny had almost made it to be married twice before, both times to the slippery Windy. But like Bo said “Bunny ain’t nothin’ if she ain’t persistent.”

The first time she had a run-a-way gig all planned, with her and Windy lined up to catch the Greyhound at the convenience store. The bus was due to pull in at 7:12 a.m. but as luck would have it at about ten after seven Windy’s stomach took to gripin’ and he had to run for the restroom in the gas station and they missed the bus. There wasn’t much sense in Bunny going without him so she just kept setting on the bench there by the gas pumps until he came out.

Bo said she forgave him, (Bunny has a foregivin’ nature) thinkin’ that he had most likely been lookin' at the pictures on the mechanical dispensary on the bathroom wall. Everyone in town knows about the dispensary at the gas station because it’s a uni-sex bathroom (that means everyone goes in there..old ladies, little kids, truckdrivers..) and the only public one in town.

Mabel Baxter who runs the store says that, other than its most obvious and most practical intent, the dispensary is a “monument of education to the young and an encouragement to the more mature.”

“Besides,” says Mabel, “It goes to show there is more to life than waitin’ on the Greyhound and fillin’ the ice machine every morning.”

The second time Bunny almost got married she had a big do planned at the Elk’s Lodge. Jimmy and Odetta Barnett was gonna play their guitar and base fiddle and Pete Gifford was practicin’ his mime act. Beulah Marshall was going to be there twistin’ balloons into freaky lookin’ animals for little kids while her daughter, Jeanine plastered washable tattoos all over their poor little hands and faces.

Everyone was lookin’ forward to it but then word went around town that the intended groom had got a letter from the state requirin’ him to make an appearance at the unemployment office that very day so they could evaluate him to see what kind of work might suit him. He had to go as he had missed two appointments and they were threatening to cut off his unemployment.

He did have good reasons for the missed appointments.

The first time his hound was in a bad way. He had to take it to the vet and come to find out it had a pop tab stuck in its windpipe. That hound chewed on the weirdest stuff. The second time he just forgot. It was the first of a whole string of the prettiest days you would ever want to see in this part of the country and he had forgot about the unemployment thing and gone off to the river with Bo to do some noodling.

Anyway, Bo said he didn’t think the state wanted to hear a third excuse and he thought Windy, havin’ a choice between getting’ married and lookin’ at possible job opportunities, most likely felt the time spent lookin’ for job opportunities was less stressful. Windy never holds up good under stress.

Bo left about nine. I hope he remembers to bring back the pop can.

Bug On the Lam

I specifically remember the lady at the Animal Rescue place CLEARLY stating that Bug had been raised with goats and poultry and other livestock and that she KNEW boundaries. I wish I had asked her if Bug's boundary knowledge was acquired from a Missouri road map?

Bug’s first evening unchained did not go too well. She immediately dismissed as inadequate this mere 36 acre lot, heard the call of far places and departed as swiftly as four long white legs can carry one dog, becoming little more than a pale blur against the blacktop and heading due north. My hopes of the great fox eliminator and protector of all things feathered crumbled to dust at my feet. Well, they would have been dust if the grass hadn’t still been wet.

Never having a really strong grasp on my temper at the best of times, my initial reaction of disappointment was immediately replaced with a sincere hope that a big truck (it would have to be a big one) would wipe her out and nobody would ever know who she belonged to, her being new to the neighborhood.

Fortunately for Bug AND me, my neighbors always seem to be a little confused about the exact date of the Fourth of July and want to do fireworks for as long as possible and Bug was just barely out of sight when their celebratory barrage against anyone daring to doubt their patriotism commenced. I never saw a dog backtrack so fast. She was fireballing back down the blacktop so fast she almost missed the place completely and if I hadn’t hollered at her she would probably have wound up in Cameron. Well, I chained her again.

This morning turned cool and lovely with a nice, grumbly little thunder shower working its way across DeKalb County and I unchained her hoping to coax her into following me through chores. Remember the orientation thing all week long? With me bottle feeding bucket calves, baby goat, watering doelings, chicks, hens etc with a 75 pound dog attached at the wrist? Well evidently Bug didn’t. This time she lit out down the gravel to the east, loping low and fast and within seconds nothing was visible but the sway of a white tail plume and then that was gone.

“Damn”..this time, before I could exercise any reasonable restraint, my temper was totally gone and in my degeneracy, I envisioned a bear chewing her up and spitting her out! I had just read that they are CONSCIENTIOUSLY propagating the Black Bear down in South Missouri. I relished the thought! Nothing to be left but a pink collar with a few white hairs clinging to it and the tiny tag saying she was most likely not rabid tinkling against the leash loop!

Before any doubts had time to rise regarding the existence of a bear on demand on my part a low rumbling, followed by a louder crash of thunder, was THEN followed by a fast traveling streak of white heading back in my direction. Bug outdid herself this time. Barely sparing a glance for me, the crazy lady standing in the rain fantasizing about Bear-On-Dog scenarios, she raced for the barn, wheeling at the last second and backing in so nothing could be seen in the dimness of the barn door except a white muzzle and two black ears.

As I debated whether to chain her again, patting my self on the back for the fact that she DID know where home was,..(remember the orientation thing?) the rain shifted to a light drizzle and the grumbly thunder seemed to have crossed over into Daviess County. More power to ‘em.

Bug also noticed the altered circumstances and stalked out of the barn like she personally had driven the thunder away. Meeting no audible threat she lunged into gear and was off down the gravel again in a nano-second only to be met by a repeat of the rumble and thunder, followed by an even faster retreat to the barn.

I figured this was enough dog training for one day and, not having enough faith in either my neighbors’ patriotism or the Good Lord’s willingness to intercede in my dog’s training by stepping in with loud noises as needed, I lunged for the chain and Bug at the same time..no small task.. and by some miracle had them connected once again. I’ll try again tonight.

P.S. I haven't seen a fox since Bug and her big mouth and mobile nature arrived.

Big Bug

BIG BUG

'Entre the new farm employee!

Designated Fox Destroyer..Skunk Chaser..'coon Fighter and Monitor of All Points of Defense.

Her name is Bug. Originally June Bug, according to the Rescue Haven..but I was never fond of the name June so she is just "Bug". Bug is somewhat euphonic with Benny (The Terrible Terrier) and also I think I can remember it.

She had two orientation sessions this a.m. following the drill through chicken chores, calf bottles and goat feeding with a little boundry work thrown in. She is learning to "Sit down" and not kill us inadvertantly by jumping on us (she probably weighs 75 pounds) and walking on a leash without dragging me all over. She was chained at each chore point so I have both hands free for the job and she was pretty good about the whole process and not malignantly interested in poultry or very small goats.

Her first interview with Benny last night did not go well but better luck this morning. Benny's circle of admirers seems to be a limited one. Sarah says he 's down to one. I guess that one is me. I really like the little dude.

I want all to understand that I do not like dogs generally and have known many that I thought should never have made the cut that propelled them into my world. But some are really remarkable people who just happen to be dressed in fur with sappy tongues that hang out on hot days. I hope Big Bug is one of those.

For the time being she looks good lying under the pear tree and if I was a fox I would not want to rile her!

Just For Fun Friends

Any Comparison of today's BLOG to Any Real Person or Event is Accidental and Very Unlikely.

My friend, Bo stopped by last night. He was short on money and had a baby goat with one eye and the carbureter off an old Pontiac he was trying to find buyers for. I didn’t need a one-eyed goat and had my fill of old Pontiacs a long time ago so we just sat and drank Coke and talked about hard times and what we would do when they got better.

Bo’s family is in “straits” right now as his Mom, Pauletta Dean Ray, was laid off at the truck stop on account of the business had fallen off so. His dad, Joe is still working at the feed store but they cut his hours. I guess even livestock is on short feed these days.

According to Bo his dad, Joe, is getting mighty testy being the only one in the family working anymore.

“He is almost succotic sometimes,” says Bo. “He even took the cover off of Pauletta Dean Ray’s favorite Roy Orbison record, (it was a collector’s item), and drew a skull right on the top of Roy’s guitar with a Magic Marker.” Bo said Pauletta Dean Ray was fit to be tied.

Bo said he figured she would get back at him though because she is a “Passionate Aggressive” personality. (Bo had to take some behavior modification classes after the lawnmower-on-fire-in-the-bedroom thing last winter. He said they talked on and on about succotics and hostile and passionate aggressors and such. He learned a lot.)

I asked Bo how his sister, Bunny, was getting along. We were in the same class in school and I always kind of liked her. He said her psoriasis was better and she always wore her hair long now so a person hardly wouldn’t ever notice her bad ear. I was glad to hear it.

That ear thing was a real worry there for awhile. Bunny wasn’t satisfied with just getting something pierced. Oh, no. Not Bunny. When we were all still in school Bunny took a notion to have one of those disk things in the bottom part of her ear. She wasn’t sure how to do it and couldn’t afford a gold disk so she cut circles out of a plastic milk jug and worried with it and kept making the hole bigger until finally even Pauletta Dean Ray, never known to be a smothery mother type, noticed that her ear was all red and swolled up and poked the plastic milk jug plug right out and screamed at Bunny and Joe even hollered at Bunny and so that was the end of it except for the weird looking ear lobe.

Well it got on pretty late and finally Bo asked me if I would help him start his pick-up and I said “Sure, Bo” and we pushed it out onto the blacktop and he jumped in and I ran along behind pushing as well I could until he yanked it in gear and I almost went smashing into where the tail gate would be on most peoples’ trucks..and it started right up and off he went.

I forgot to tell Bo to be sure and bring the pop can back because pop cans are 45cents a pound right now but heck.. I’ll catch him next time. He generally just tosses his cans behind the seat anyway and it’s not like he’s going right home and clean out that truck!

Kill Order!!

Criticism and further reporting on this issue is unwarranted and does not serve the interests of the people of the United States. If ever an action should remain classified and withheld from the public..including photos..this is it. Surely we can agree to be adult enough for this.

The President said simply, “We have killed him. Period. He is gone.”

This must be put aside for two reasons.

1: All precautions must be taken that the identities of these Seals NEVER be made public. We must understand that these kind of people..this enemy..has a very long memory unpurged for generations. Religious vendetta’s are what their culture is all about. Not only the Seals themselves are at high risk of exposure but their families will be at risk for generations. We must stop this ridiculous appetite for tittilating details. For those who get off on blood and gore..look somewhere else. These men and their families MUST be shielded.

2: I believe President Barrack Obama is a gentle man. Many in our culture equate gentleness with weakness and have repeatedly reviled him as weak and indecisive. Of course he is not. We saw that in the high-jacking incident, his operation of the Afghan war and now the “Kill Order” of Osama Bin Laden. I believe it was not easy for him to issue the final “Kill Order”. Like all Presidents in time of war the knowledge of sending troops to fight and maybe die or have parts of their bodies blown off is a heavy and unforgettable responsibility. But it is a known one..one with precedent.

But this act was unique to these times and this President. For a Christian raised in an American culture, the knowledge that he ordered the killing of another human being..an unarmed man..no matter how heinous a man.. is a heartrendingly disturbing aspect of this responsibility.

But the responsibility was his and he met it. Such an act should not be repeatedly questioned and criticized or used in an effort to minimize the accomplishment of the President who gave the order and the Seals who performed this duty so extraordinarily.

Cooking Again!!

The house is filled with smoke again this morning and I have set out candles..both floral and spice..to overcome the stench. I burned my breakfast cheese toast. Burnt cheese is a real appetite squelcher. But it was not my fault. (So few things are.)

Benny, the Terrible Terrier has been particularly bad this morning . He pooped upstairs, ate a pencil, tumped over his water bowl, chewed up a plastic cigarette tip and while I am groveling on my stomach to search under the couch for his bone that he’s SUPPOSED to be chewing, he is jumping up and down on my back, pulling my hair. He has long toe nails. He barks loud and long if I neglect the morning playtime with tossing the knotted up jeans legs and I was particularly hoping to by-pass this session today. He barked loud and long.

But the encouraging thing is that I have taught him a new trick. He has learned, (with rapid speed I must say) when on the leash and we approach the open lot or the garden and I drop the leash and shout “Go..Go..Benny” he is off like a bullet. Well, yes he did kind of tend to do this BEFORE the training session, and yes, I still have yet to get him to come back..but every little step counts.

Spring Has Come to the Chicken Yard..kinda!

Spring has come to the chicken yard..kinda! I have nursed my remaining eleven pullets and two roosters through a harsh North Missouri winter, fought mightily against their propensity for suicide by accident as fledglings, grieved repentantly over the one I dropped the gate on, struggled through snow drifts to ensure plenteous food and a perpetual water supply..and my reward has been what I call extremely minimal.

Only one small hen, of the ancient Dominecker breed if anyone is interested, has shown enough gratitude to produce anything. Of her I will say that she is conscientiously committed and surprisingly productive. But she can’t carry the load alone. I have explained this in terms I thought ANYONE could understand to the flock on several occasions with no result. I have given explicit instructions, provided all necessary supplies..yet the underperformance is…well it’s disappointing.

I’m beginning to think it is the fault of Marlboro, the White Wyandotte Rooster that somehow wormed his way into the order I received for fifty day-old pullets(females) last October.

Marlboro is an extremely aggressive but lovely specimen of chicken manhood and already shows every indication of excessive testosterone. He totally consumes all the spare time the little hens have by running them around the pen and doing what roosters do when they have the slightest opportunity. He is equipped with a fierce, yellow eye, a strong projectile of a beak and large and very sharp spurs. His hostility is magnified by a large, red comb that stands upright and waggles threateningly when he is irritated. He is a man to be reckoned with.

Winston, another chick of the male persuasion, also missed the cut when they were shipped. Winston has a fierce visage, and sharp spurs too. He is as big as Marlboro and as strong. But Winston lacks commitment! At some point Marlboro got his bluff in and Winston now makes no advances toward the hen flock. His comb droops in a rather depressing manner and his gaze tends to wander to the feed pan and to the chicken picture on the feed sack.. This is rather sad because it leaves him with no romantic outlet other than the feed sack chicken.

Winston has taken to dancing with the feed sack in the way of roosters and if ever there was an exercise in futility this has to be it. But, if he gets anything out of it who am I to interfere. Marlboro doesn’t seem to care about the feed sack pin-up chicken girl so Winston has her all to himself and spends considerable time doing the little chicken dance of roosters. ..hop..hop..scratchy scratchy..hop hop hop..one wing down and trailing like a feathered toreador cape..more hop hop..stretch the neck..fluff out the neck feathers..well I’m sure you know what I mean. It all seems more than a little pointless to me but then I’m not a chicken.

Anyway, people who know “all about chickens” tell me that the hens will begin to lay soon and all will lay at once. Won’t that be nice?

I Can't Believe We're Still Talking About This!

Death Panels Some More?? Too many waivers in the Health Bill?

It might be worthwhile to check out who demanded the waivers for which lobby group. It might surprise you. Legislation is not easy and never "pure". As for death panels..oh crap!! We've been living with death panels for ever.

Twenty-five years ago when my mother-in-law was nearing the end of her medicare benefits after living in a coma-like existence for several months benefiting no one but the hospital, (the knee replacement surgery on a comatose patient seemed a little over the top to me,) we received a letter that when her benefits ran out we would be responsible for her care fees. I was wisely told by an older person familiar with health care procedure, and whom I trusted, "not to worry" that she would not outlast her medicare by a week. She passed away five days after the expiration date. Coincidence? I don't think so. I believe she was allowed to pass..

I don't ask to live for ever. I ask not to be put in an unheated hallway or room to hasten pneumonia. I ask not to have food withheld if my stomach spasms or water withheld if my mouth is parched. I ask to be able to remain dry and in a minimum of pain. If you think these things have not and do not happen your dream world is one to be envied.

I simply ask to have the options explained to me by someone who does not have a dog in the fight over the length and quality of my life..and to have that choice.

Incidentally, medicare guidelines have included almost the exact same wording for years as it pertains to Dr reimbursement for taking the time to sit with a patient and explain their end of life options. Now it's called death panels? Good Lord!

My Friend Bo

My Friend Bo

Morphias Orbison Bogarden was a friend of mine but like most people around here, I just called him Bo. I think even his mother, Pauletta Deen Ray Bogarden, had a hard time spitting out the Morpias Orbison in a pinch. And Bo was always getting into pinches.

They say he was named after his Great Great Grandfather Morphias Esther Bogarden, who was a kind of cultural icon of the family, him having fought in the War of the Rebellion and all. Most of us called that mix up The Civil War but the Bogardens referred to it as The War of the Rebellion. I think it had something to do with them being Vermonters.

The Orbison was stuck on him from that more current cultural icon, the singer Roy Orbison. Pauletta Deen Ray was a real strong fan of his and even if he was dead she played a lot of old tapes of him singing and would sigh and dab at her eyes every now and then when Bo’s Dad, Joe was looking just to make him mad.

Like I say, Bo was a friend of mine and no matter what he did I always took up for him and stood by him for the most part. And he generally stood by me whenever fate hit me hard in the unnatural vicissitudes of life.

That’s why it bothered me so when the whole neighborhood got all up in arms over such a tiddly little old thing as happened to Bo last winter. They were all hollering about Bo “was a threat to the neighborhood” and a calling him a “dangerous lunatic” and ..well I don’t know what all.

Bo’s hauling his lawn mower into the bedroom in the middle of December to work it over and lighting one little old cigarette and setting the house on fire wouldn’t have mattered so much if Bo hadn’t moved into that new apartment complex with his girlfriend for the winter. Now Bo and his girlfriend, May, would be out on the street if it wasn’t for Joe and Pauletta Deen Ray taking them in. The people were all screaming at him and shaking their fists at him right there on TV.

People just have no patience anymore. Just the least little thing riles them up. I think it’s just politics myself.

Sports and Politics

Polling conducted by Scarborough USA, a joint project of Nielsen and Arbitron, showed that Republicans hold the edge among die-hard sports fans with only minor exceptions. NASCAR fans, like fans of the PGA and NFL, were broadly skewed to vote Republican and WWE fans tended to vote with the Democrats. I guess one mindless endeavor for each party is only fair.

Thankfully however, according to the same poll, fans of both of these culturally inspiring sports are less likely to vote than fans of the more cerebral and complicated competitions like college football and PGA tournaments. I guess there is some solace in that.

Another Day Another Dollar

It's 4:00a.m. I am wakened by Brian going in and out of the house. There is two inches of snow and cold. The furnace runs and runs. I must get up to make sure he closed the door. He didn't.

On his return from his smoke shed..(he doesn't stay long because of the cold)..he confronts me and says .."There's a dead mouse upstairs." Like it's personally my fault.

I say, "Yes, I can tell. And wander back to my bed."

The downstairs door slams again. I get up..go down to make sure the door is shut. It is not. I say.."Brian, Quit this damn running in and out. I have to work today." He says, "There is a dead mouse upstairs." at which time I loose my temper and tell him to "get his %$# up there and find it and do something about it."

He gets a huge wad of paper towel. (He is very fastidious about THAT sort of thing.) It doesn't take long for him to find the dead creature. I think it had tripped and broke its neck over one of the piles of rubble in his room. He nearly runs down the stairs and out the back to dispose of it.

He wants to know how long will it smell bad in his room. I have lost patience and I want to go back to bed.

"Probably forever," I say, "but light a candle anyway. If nothing else it will appease the spirits."

He looks at me like I'm nuts and I am always nuts at 4:oo a.m. so I wander back to my bed.

The Phantasy Called the Middle Class

The distribution of income in the United States forty years ago was not significantly different from that of other developed countries. The power and stability of our middle class was the envy of business communities and governments worldwide.

The opportunity for an individual, through their own effort, to enter the middle-class was better than any other country in the world.

The facts today are far bleaker. To find societies as unequal as the United States currently, you must forget about all the developed nations’ economies and look to Latin America.

In addition, today a hard worker motivated to acquire middle class economic security for his family, has a better chance in almost all other developed countries including Canada and Great Britain.

In 1967 as a single mom with three kids I had a factory job that paid $5.75 an hour (I cleared about $875 a month) with monthly bonuses and full health care. My house payment was $211 a month for a reasonably nice three bedroom ranch on a three acre lot. My utility bills ran less than $100 a month and $100 a month fed my kids, who were all big eaters. House maintenance, car payments, car maintenance and insurance, medicine, school supplies and clothing pretty much ate up the rest.

Our vacations were spent camping at one of the many Federal parks les than a day’s drive away. The fee was $2.00 a night with all the swimming, boating, hiking etc. free ..bathrooms, showers and water supplied free.

My budget was tight..and it was close..

But I didn’t know how lucky I was!

In 2007 factory jobs were gone..replaced by jobs offered by Walmart, McDonald’s, QuickTrip, truck stops, etc. and the local nursing home. Office workers’ and service workers’salaries had quickly dropped in direct correlation with the destruction of the unions in the 1980’s. Although not heavily unionized themselves, they had benefited from the wage floor gained by the unions for their own workers. Office workers and service workers now joined the ranks of the minimum wage worker.

A worker, with or without a family, was looking at the same $5.75 an hour, (minimum wage had stagnated through the Bush W era), health insurance costs of $500-$700 a month, minimal housing at $500 amonth, $500 a month to keep a car to get to work, $2-$3 a gallon gas, $200 a month utility bills.. Even a two-wage earner household bringing home $1800 a month..or the lucky individual who had escaped the minimum wage trap and earned $10-$12 an hour..(they would be clearing about $1400 a month) would still be having an impossible struggle.

And that vacation at the Lake? Forget that! Camping rental the last time I checked was $15 a night. Water, shower and toilet services had been suspended at many locations and fees instated for some services formerly provided. Fifteen dollars plus a night may still sound cheap if you are retired on a 1970’s retirement benefit or in the top earner bracket but when you’re living on $1400 a month with a family it’s not so cheap.

Something is terribly wrong here. When workers no longer have any hope of attaining the security of the middle class..when the wealth of our country no longer goes to those who work.. something is terribly wrong.

Christmas-The Hope and Light of the World

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke2:7

2010 years ago this winter a teenage mother, watched over by her middle-aged husband and warmed by the breath of the cattle of the fields, gave the world Christianity.

To a world where slavery, poverty, suffering and ignorance were the norm, a small, a very small, glimpse of light..a glimmer of hope, pulsated in the heart of humanity.

Rumors concerning this particular child had been circulating long before the humble birth. Men long distances away from that miserable little barn, who had spent their lives studying the prophesies of the world’s great religions of the day and the configurations of the heavenly bodies they believed to be set in motion by “the creator of all”, were convinced that something momentous had happened and set out to observe and record the event. Heads of state surreptitiously made their way to the grass-filled manger and knelt by the tiny child.

It is said that a sword pierced the young mother’s heart upon his birth as the knowledge of his true life and purpose had been revealed to her.

Christianity, cursed by the viciousness, greed and intolerance within the human family and blessed by the undying belief in the possibility of goodness, changed the world.

The new religion, made only stronger by the persecutions of those whose interests were immeasurably threatened by its existence, spread west and north across Europe and east into Central Asia, constantly changing yet ever the same. Great battles were fought..many suffered and died..over seemingly small and insignificant theological points that we now accept without question.

Although not a military one, the first and most significant battle within the church, well chronicled in the New Testament, is Paul’s assertion that salvation was for ALL people. The failure of Paul to win his case would have strangled the new religion and delegated it to just another sect, among many sects, within the Jewish community.

Western Medieval Europe, ravaged by war and famine,settled into a few tenuously organized and fragilely constructed governmental bodies that found they had far less need for expensively maintained standing armies that had been in place for generations. Not to mention the depredations and pillaging committed by a bored and rapacious population of young men with very narrow skills. Thus was born the Crusades. They served two purposes. The troublesome armies were let loose in other neighborhoods and much wealth and loot was brought home.

And so, through the years, man’s interpretation of Christianity has swayed and morphed between sanctity and savagery. The world was flat. The world revolved around the sun. Fire at the stake purged unbelievers. Women were ordained by law to “suffer” child birth and die if necessary without interference from the ungodly measures of science. Disabilities were the result of sin. Poverty was an affliction placed there by a loving God and not to be tampered with. Were the poor not well beloved by the Lord and therefore more blessed than the pitiful wealthy?

War is waged. Populations are ravaged and destroyed. Bodies desecrated, children exploited. In the name of Peace and Love.

Slavery and its degradations was embraced and upheld by the church for centuries. Birth control is still anathema within some Christian communities. Even here, in this multi-blessed country that we live in, a large segment of the Christian population truly and genuinely believes that the rewards of the world should only rightly be held by those of the same race or gender or sexual orientation or religion as themselves.

Yet that small light brought forth in those meager circumstances 2010 years ago, often dim, flickering frighteningly, smudged by the excrement of evil alive and well, still glows. It ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes. Its devotees struggle and stumble. Yet it glows.

Who has not stood alone in some dark hour and cried out. “I believe. Oh Lord help Thou my unbelief.” ?

And the breath from that crying out causes that feeble glimmer to leap into light again and we are sustained for another hour..another day.

Because of that child.. The Christ

LR/12-2009

McCain, Please go home.

Today Senator McCain (R-AZ), the same who blessed us all with the Palin Family, roused again from senatorial stupor to attack Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, regarding his position on DADT and his acceptance of a lengthy study by the Army suggesting that most service personnel couldn't care less about whether the guy or gal on a mission with them was gay.

Now it's the study itself that is flawed?

Why are we still listening to this aged one-issue Senator who consistently proclaims his love for all things military and claims the right to speak for them?

I have tremendous respect and admiration for the Senator's service, which consisted of completing Navy Jet Flight Training and surviving years of torture and isolation in a POW camp. He was retired from the Navy as a Captain, a good deal less rank than that of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, whose military credentials he was questioning.

For the life of me I cannot see how McCain's experiences make him competent to set military policy or order military affairs, or even to order men.

This is all just too ridiculous. We have so many real problems And McCain is still wringing the last shred of juice he has out of this rag??

I just wish McCain would go home. Other people go to Arizona and retire, why can't he? I also wish he could put Sarah Palin and her family back into what ever box he found them. I wish we could hear from real people, and there are some, with relevant ideas to listen to.

Memoirs-A Family in Luck

A Family In Luck

Even in those postwar 1940’s and ‘50s years posthumously stamped with the imprimatur of “the good old days” and the “true period of American family values” our family was not a storybook family. Well into late adulthood we, the get of the strange pairing that became our parents, railed at the Scot's harshness of our mother while holding the gentle amiableness of our father in utter contempt.

Like most ungrateful children, and all children are ungrateful, our every failure and disappointment was laid at their feet.

But then none of my friends had a story book family either and even within the tensions and failures of our own family I knew that we were luckier than a lot of other people.

Our neighborhood, in those years, was a quiet one with every third house being inhabited by a single woman or women. The three Ostertag sisters never married. Beaulah Rittermeyer never married. Mrs. Faucett was a widow, as was Mrs. Mathews, Mrs. Rientschler, Mrs. KirkPatrick, Mrs. O’Dell, Mrs. Crabtree and poor Mrs. Gallup whose husband, driven mad, it was said, by the death of their infant son, lived out his life at the St. Joe Asylum for the Insane. Shieldsy, a family friend, and Poppy lived quietly with Poppy’s damaged lungs..he was gassed in France during WWI… and visits from their daughter and occasionally one of their sons.

It was not a particularly bad neighborhood nor was it a particularly good one. Just a conglomeration of people whose generation, scarred and manipulated by two world wars, an influenza pandemic, (a 1918 global disaster in which 28% of the U.S. population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died), a depression, a land killing drought, and in some instances, the struggle to figure out the ground rules in a new country or how to live after losing everything, lived their lives.

Three of my peers ..in the neighborhood… were victims of habitual incest, two of my closest friends lived on dirt floors, one of whose mother was severely mentally challenged, childhood entertainment at the home of another friend consisted of hiding behind the sofa and watching her mother entertain her men friends and the one friend I had whose family came closest to belonging to a storybook family..because they were catholic and attended church en masse.. lived, as did her mother and siblings, in real fear of her Irish father who liked to use his fists on them.

Three of my friends were raised in what was then referred to as basement houses, one of which had no partitions and one bed for a family of ten. These were simply basements upon which a house had never been built.

The boy that I was later to marry grew up, with his five brothers, in a basement. Stacked at night on pole beds to keep dry when it rained because the basement leaked so badly. They could tell you about wading through inches of water, carrying their shoes, to reach the door and starting for school without breakfast and with lunch (which was called dinner back then) just a fantasy someone else dreamed up.

But the biggest difference in the lives of my family and that of my peers was in the matter of entertainment.

We went places. We did things.

Wound together like a snarled ball of scratchy wool yarn harassed by an ill-tempered cat..we went places and did things.

Every summer we made our pilgrimage to Swope Park, home of The Kansas City Zoo and the infamous Swope Lookout. Often caravanning …the washtub with the watermelon, a jug of tea and a couple dozen bottles of Coca Cola and Nehi pop (orange for me, grape for my brother, Merle and Crème Soda for sister, Marion, with tea and Coke for the older people) in someone's trunk and the packed food boxes in another, we always made one stop on the highway at Leimkuhler’s Gas Station and Ice-house to buy a 25 pound block of ice to be chipped over the watermelon and pop and covered snugly with a gunny sack.

We went to the show at the Armour regularly, partly for the movie and more importantly for the newsreels. We went to Nelson’s, the neighborhood tavern/dance hall. We were regulars at the skating rink.

In the summer we would not have missed going to Winnwood Lake each weekend with it’s free show, outside dance floor and the multicolored juke-box that blared boogie woogie until mid-night, not to mention the on-grounds carnival. Occasionally we swam in the man-made lake but only when one of my sisters had a swimsuit to show off.

In the autumn and through the winter we were regulars at The Brush Creek Follies, a country music show that appeared regularly at the Shriners Temple Auditorium in Kansas City. We saw the young Minnie Pearl and Tex Ritter and Red Foley, Tiny Tim (who wasn’t tiny at all) and Herb Kratoska and Tex Owens and his daughter Laura Lee whom I was named after. Many of these entertainers became friends of the family and were guests in our home.

My parents knew personally members of the The Texas Rangers, a western harmony group franchised to KMBC Radio in Kansas City during that time. Among other things they did a noon-time music and news thing that we never missed. One of my earliest memories is being held high in Mother’s arms so I could listen to the little plastic radio on the shelf on the kitchen wall while the Texas Rangers sang Pony Boy (my favorite song) and dedicated it to me, little Nanie Stock.

There was a lot of spur-of-the-moment stuff. Someone would have an idea and off we would go! Like the time they installed the searchlight at the waterworks in North Town!

One night all of a sudden, off to the South West, a huge shaft of light, inspired by the great search lights over London during the War, swept the night sky. It was awesome..nothing short of miraculous. We all jumped in the car and off we went to see the actual item. There it stood. A huge beam of light seemingly coming right out of the ground there in front of the Water Works building! Piercing the sky farther than even the mind could see! Standing there in that family, dressed in varying degrees of shabby, we were one in our awe, connected like no other family.

It seems to me that this was our real story..…we ran and flew and crashed and rose to run again....like a kite with long tails, everyone clutching..no one allowed to let go. It's true, you don't choose your family. It is the luck of the draw.

But in many ways that mattered we were a family in luck!

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918

The life and times of my Mother and Fathers’ generation was filled with so many stupendous life-changing disasters that the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 has become less than a blip on the radar.

The speed of this pandemic, so deadly, striking so quickly and disappearing as quickly (it lasted about 18 months), made it easier to forget the proportions of the tragedy it inflicted.

But the shortest stroll through any cemetery of that day reveals the flotsam of family tragedies marked by the headstones of young adults. “Rebecca Morris..1895-1918 “Mother and Wife.” “Jerome Patterson… Beloved Son..1902-1918” and on and on.

In the United States about 28% of the population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died.

Kansas City and St.Louis, Missouri were particularly hard hit.

State officials first reported on the presence of influenza in Missouri on October 11, 1918. However, influenza had appeared in the state long before that date. By the third week of October, 3,765 influenza cases and 90 deaths had been reported from St. Louis, with 558 cases and 13 deaths being reported for October 16th alone. State officials, however, rarely had access to accurate figures and the actual number of cases and deaths was probably higher than that.

On October 24th, state officials maintained that "conditions are either stationary or improving" in the state. But on October 25th, the situation took a turn for the worse. Influenza began spreading into rural districts. Between October 26th and 28th, the situation continued to be dire, with rural and urban areas across the state reporting high numbers of cases and deaths.

This Pandemic, targeting the future of populations by striking hardest in the young adult age group, is seldom even regarded when considering the devastations of a worldwide drought, the worldwide economic collapse and two world wars.

Yet the loss of so many in their most productive years must have left a gap. So many orphans, so many unformed families, so many crippled lives, so many losses. And as in all losses, the true cost is never known because it IS lost..not to be regained.

I have spoken to adults left orphaned by this disaster. Their lives, and the lives of those who took them in, were altered and invariably diminished. Being an orphan in the first half of the 20^th century was not an easy thing.

If a Pandemic of this proportion struck today the world would be in an uproar.

*************************

Great Resistance From Troops Against Vaccinations:

"Camp Dodge, Iowa, May 1.—Elmer N. Olson, of Goodrich, Minn., a soldier in training here, refused to submit to vaccination. He was tried by general court-martial and sentenced to fifteen years in the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth."

1918-19 Influeza in Great Britain: survivor statement as an adult.

In early 1919 my father, not yet demobilized, came on one of his regular, probably irregular, furloughs to Carisbrook Street to find both my mother and sister dead. The Spanish Influenza pandemic had struck Harpurhey. There was no doubt of the existence of a God: only the supreme being could contrive so brilliant an afterpiece to four years of unprecedented suffering and devastation. I apparently, was chuckling in my cot while my mother and sister lay dead on a bed in the same room.

Winston Churchill:

on the Influenza Epidemic of 1890

“For though it ravaged far and wide

Both village, town and countryside,

Its power to kill was o’er;

And with the favouring winds of Spring

(Blest is the time of which I sing)

It left our native shore.”

The Day Bud Killed the Goose

On the Sundays of my childhood the table was always stretched to the limit with extra plates and extra people, neighbors, stray relatives, kids kicked out by their more discerning parents, friends and often the unsuspecting prey of one of my older siblings.

On these occasions the menu was expanded to surpass the ordinary weekly suppers of meatloaf, beans and ham, tuna and noodles, goulash etc. This added Sunday touch usually meant a trip to the back yard for somebody, hatchet in hand, to do in a chicken or two or even on rare occasions a duck. They were quickly scalded, plucked had a little cold water run over them and popped into the skillet if young enough and if not, sentenced to serve considerable time in the oven. This kind of menu, with Mom’s biscuits and gravy and anything scrounged from our ill-cared-for garden, could be stretched a long way and always was.

Not a member of our family reached adulthood without acquiring the skill to look at a platter of chicken, mathematically determine the number of pieces divided by the members of the board, so to speak, and know without asking how many pieces or what piece would be their lot. The old saying ”I get the neck of the chicken..” did not come out of thin air. Merle and I generally got the wings.

The day Bud, the newest and, on this occasion most unfortunate, member of our coterie of friends, was charged with killing the goose, I was very uneasy. In the first place I was sorry to kill the goose, even if we had worked our way through all the chickens for the year. He was not a bad old goose and liked to follow me and my brother around. I would miss him.

And then Bud was a novice at goose killing. That worried me a little. To me, even with his sleeves rolled up, Bud looked awfully dressed up for goose killing. He was not and never became, a country boy. He came courting in the dress of the day, that is a white dress shirt, neat grey slack pants and shiny brown oxford’s. I sure hoped he wouldn’t get goose blood on his good shoes.

But what I should have been worrying about was my brother, Merle. Merle was what you might call accident prone.

The goose was easy to catch. Like everything else in the backyard in hopes of handouts better than their regular fair of dried up grass hoppers, half cracked walnuts and June bug grubs, he followed anyone who made the mistake of going out there. He never seemed to catch on to the Sunday dinner thing.

With Merle in the lead and the goose under his arm we angled down the path, through the weeds, to the spot where the chickens were generally killed. There past the cinder pile and under the walnut tree was a big rock.

The general run of things was that someone would hold the victims legs while someone else stretched the neck out over the rock and someone else swung and whacked. Miraculously on rare occasions, if pressed for time, Mother was able to single handedly do the deed and be scalding and plucking in half the time. But for the rest of us it took three people. It was not a pretty sight and I don’t think any of the victims liked it.

I know Bud didn’t. I don’t think Bud had ever killed anything in his life and I’m sure he never did again. His mistake was he was just not forceful enough! His first whack missed completely causing Merle’s hand to slip on the goose’s squirming neck. Just as he was taking a second swing Merle let go to get a better grip, just in time to get his thumb in the way.

Missed the goose again..got the thumb. Blood spurted..not goose blood..all over the shiny shoes. I forgot I wasn’t supposed to cuss and said “Damn, Bud.”

I glanced up to see if he was mad about the blood thing or the cussing thing and he didn’t look mad but his face was whiter than the goose. I think he would have passed out if he hadn’t been afraid of falling on top of the goose and Merle’s bloody thumb.

Merle sucked on his thumb and hollered, “Hit him again” and Bud did and the goose was dead, or at least trying to be. He was harder to catch dead than he had been alive..flopping around in the tall grass.

Merle finally got hold of him and we hung him up to bleed out before taking him in to Mom. Merle stayed with the goose but I felt like Bud needed someone worse than the goose did at that point. Anyway, he let me hold his hand all the way to the house.

He continued to date my sister and turned out to be a great brother-in-law. We loved him dearly. After all, you can't hold one little accident against a person.