The Hicks Place

Voices In Song

Tonight the Prairie Home Companion show originated from the campus of St. Olaf College and featured the exceptional musical talent for which it is noted.  The orchestra and the a cappella choir were exceptionally impressive, and the harmony of the voices of the latter sent my spirit soaring.  Nothing soothes and nourishes my soul and mood like the sound of beautiful voices in harmonizing song!  I particularly enjoy Garrison's show when he occasionally gets the audience to join in on a hymn or old classic, the voices of hundreds of people united in song is extremely touching to me.  Another very pleasing moment in tonight's show was a rendition of Sting's  Fields of Gold .    

Although I went to a very small high school, I was fortunate to have had a good music teacher.  We were too small at the time to have a band but Mrs. Johnson developed many of our voices into what, I believe, was a reasonably good choir.  We of course sang at various school functions, but she also took us to the county choral festival every Spring, and also brought some of us to Indianapolis to be part of a state-wide choir that performed at the State Teacher's Institute at the Cadle Tabernacle .  I was also fortunate to have been the youngest member in a quartet in my church when I was a teen.  I was the baritone, my father sang bass, and the two Wyatt brothers, Isaac and Dave sang lead and tenor.  We were good enough to be asked to sing at several funerals.  And, my dad and I did a magnificent rendition of the Silver Dollar song (A Man without a Woman), but the only place we performed that was behind the barn about dusk while we were waiting for the cows to come in from the pasture.

Spent the late afternoon installing a new router for our home wi-fi network.  The old one quit Thursday night, but I drove for Red Cross on Friday so couldn't get a replacement until today.  I should be able to waste time surfing the net a lot faster now.  It wasn't a good day for Indiana football anyway, but then there seldom have been lately.  

 

What I've been reading

I've been negligent in updating the list of books I've read on this web site, so today it was necessary to add 4, all of which deserve some attention.  I just finished Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, stories about small town Ohio a century ago.  This book is on Modern Library's list of the 100 best Novels of the last century.  I have passed by it several times when searching for something to read next, but finally selected it because it was available as a free e-book.  While it may not appeal to younger, sophisticated readers, it was right down my alley with its descriptions of small town/rural life in a simpler time.  It made me wish I could have walked under the trees on a warm summer night in that small town as so many of Anderson's characters did.  

I recently read a non-fiction account of the travels in Nepal of the author, Jeff Rasley, in his book Bringing Progress to Paradise.  His experiences taking tourists on treks in the Himilayan foothills and efforts to provide needed school supplies for the children of Basa were made even more interesting for me because he lives in Indianapolis and we recently became acquainted. 

I have also read over the summer two other books from Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list, Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, and Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  The first is set in England in the late 19th century and about Phillip, who at the age of 9 must be raised by his uncle, a cleric, after the death of his mother.  His father, a physician had died previously.  His life is filled with bondage; his young years to the oppressive uncle and the church which bring Phillip into young adulthood without much self respect or confidence in what he wants to be or do.  He then falls victim to friends and lovers, always unable to assert his own will, yet always striving to become a doctor like his father.  His life is primarily determined by events, not will.  

Finally, Fitzgerald writes about a psychiatrist studying in Europe who meets a rich young woman who has suffered a mental trauma from being abused by her father.  While she is in treatment they fall in love and are married.  They lead a rich life with friends in Europe during the 1920's before the woman has a relapse.  Fitzgerald gained his knowledge of psychiatry from experience with his real life wife who had mental problems. 

I enjoyed each of these books and recommend any or all of them to my readers.  There is so much to be learned from reading both fiction and non-fiction, it is only too bad that in the hectic pace of work life when we are between our high school or college years and retirement it is hard to find the time.  Retired now, I'm learning late what might have been useful earlier in life.  

Old Folks Need Children

In my opinion older folks have a more positive outlook if they can spend some time around small children.  Grandparents often say that they enjoy their grandkids so much because they love the time they spend with them, but then their (the grandkids) parents take them home.  Small children, especially from the time they are babies until adolescence can be very entertaining.  Many of us remember Art Linkletter’s show and how funny were some of his interviews with children.  I am often amazed at things small children say and do, and wonder at what must be going on in those young minds.  To watch them change from about 9 months to age two is marvelous in that in such a short time their physical and mental skills develop, their awareness of themselves and the world around them develops, and they form their own personality.  Then they learn to talk and you never know what they will say next.  It is amusing to say the least.

I was married at an early age and my sons were born when I was intent upon establishing a career.  Then my first grandchild came along just after I turned 40, and his parents moved 1,000 miles away, so I didn’t get to see them except during holidays and brief vacations.  I envy grandparents who are older and have more time or live very close to their grandkids and get to spend more time with them. 

Now I have great grandchildren, but they also do not live close.  Because I divorced and married a younger wife we have grandchildren that are younger than school age, but they also live hundreds of miles away.

So, in the absence of nearby grandchildren, it is no wonder that we became very attached to the young couple starting a family who moved next door to us 4 years ago.  Krista was a new mom, and she and Andy were still in their twenties.  The day they moved in, we invited them and Andy’s parents, who were helping with the move, to share lunch with us on our back patio.  Later that day, Andy’s dad asked us to “watch out for our kids”. 

So, we watched little Eli grow his long blond hair and eyelashes, learn to walk, start playing with little cars and draw chalk figures in our shared driveway, start calling me “Mr. Don” and asking “where’s Marsher”, my wife Marcia.  I learned about “Lightening McQueen” from him and our grandson Nathan who is just 6 months older than Eli.  I got used to having Eli come down the driveway in the evening and find me on the front patio, and having him come up and tell me something about what he had done that day, or say “I’m thirsty”, his way of asking for juice which he knew I soon learned to keep in the fridge mostly just for him.  There was a while when he was about 3 that he liked to use the newspaper box hanging by our front door as a place to hide his cars.  We’d be sitting in the family room reading or watching TV and hear him out there opening and closing the lid.  Then he had “Woody” and again he and our Nathan acquainted me with “Toy Story”. 

I didn’t really realize how much having little Eli around meant to me until this morning.  His grandmother had taken he and his little brother Beckett (almost a year old) off to her house Sunday, but Andy and Krista were still here finishing packing for the move and cleaning out the house.  But this morning the house stood vacant, and as I drank my first cup of coffee and read the paper I began to realize that I wouldn’t be seeing Eli in the drive today.  Today, it finally hit both Marcia and me just how much we are going to miss Eli, Beckett, Krista and Andy, because they had become to us so much like family, like our own children and grandchildren whom we didn’t get to see as much. 

But there is another factor at play here too.  As we get older we finally have to come face to face with our own mortality.  The realization of our aging is better not dwelt upon.  If we have the opportunity to be around younger people, to keep seeing and hearing their ideas, it helps us feel younger too.  It gives us things to look forward to and think about.  It gives us the joy of seeing young life, growing, in awe of the learning of new things all around and always wondering what tomorrow will bring.   

I have often told Marcia that I would like a regular group of guys to have breakfast with every morning and talk with about the world’s current woes.  But if I did have a group of friends like that, all we would do is complain about how bad things are now as compared to the way they used to be.

No, what I’d really rather have is young Eli, or Nathan or Claire or Ben or Beckett, or some other little guy not yet in school but full of new experiences and new thoughts to come down the driveway and ask for “Marsher”; climb up in the chair beside me, and say, “I’m thirsty”.  “Do you have any Oreos”?

Summer of 1936

I was 9 months old in July, 1936, which was the hottest month of the 1936 North American heat wave .  In the midst of the decade of the depression and dust bowl, it was the hottest summer of the 20th century.  Notably, it came on the heels of a record cold winter, the 1936 North American cold wave which set cold and snow records in the upper mid-west and resulted then in record Spring flooding.  If all of this sounds familiar, it should, but the summer of 2011 cannot match the summer of 1936. 

A recent article in the Indianapolis Star, Aug. 5th, entitled Hard Times in Raging Heat  describes the 1936 summer as follows:  "That summer residents withstood temperatures of at least 100 degrees a record 12 times, including a 9 day streak.  There was a separate 14 day 90-and-above heat wave earlier in the summer -- the fourth-longest on record. And Collegeville hit 116 degrees on July 14 of that year, the highest temperature ever recorded in the state.The summer of 1936 is the benchmark for heat waves in Indiana, said Ken Scheeringa, an associate state climatologist from the Indiana State Climate Office."

Yesterday we broke the 19 day long streak of 90 or above temperatures set in Indianapolis, also that summer of 1936.  Now the record is 20 days, we had a cooler 87 degrees today, but 90's are promised again tomorrow.  This July set a record as the driest ever officially in Indianapolis; only .47 inches of precipitation for the month.

That summer of 1936 I lived with my parents in a little house on my granddad Page's farm, often referred to as the "weaning pen", because each of my grandfather's three children "set up housekeeping" there when they married.  I never heard my parents complain about that hot summer of 1936, but it must have been unbearable as of course they had no air conditioning, and my father and grandfather had to work in the hay and wheat fields without the help of modern farm equipment.   In 1937, my dad rented a nearby farm and we moved to what my parents often referred to as "the Hicks Place ".  Not because we were hicks but because that was the name of a previous owner.  We lived there until 1946 and my two younger brothers were born there.

Two weeks ago we spent 3 days visiting friends near Baldwin City, Kansas, and needless to say it wasn't any cooler there.  They took us to the National WW I museum in Kansas City, which exhibits many pieces of equipment including tanks, mortars, artillery guns, rifles, gas masks, uniforms and planes as well as facsimiles of trenches and other graphics showing the tremendous loss of lives during that stalemate.  It is one of the best historical museums I know of and is a "must see" if you are in the Kansas City area.  Due to the heat, we spent a lot of time indoors but saw a couple of great movies I also recommend; Get Low and True Grit (2010) .  These are the kind of movies I really enjoy, no stupid fast car chases, gratuitous violence or ridiculous action sequences.

I finally watered the flower beds today, figuring that is likely the only thing I can do to get it to rain.  This year we truly can say "It don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime".

Summer Time

Summer time is usually my favorite time because I feel best when the sun is shinning and when it is warm, but this year it has been really too hot to enjoy being out of doors.  Of course it was hot when i was young and we had no air conditioning and haymaking and thrashing on the farm were hard, sweaty work.  I wonder now how the older men endured it, but they were used to it and knew the work had to be done.

Last Sunday was our family reunion, and my cousins and I are now the oldest living generation.  I am fortunate to remember well all of my grandparents who were still living when I graduated from college.  They were farming families who came from farming backgrounds, and all of my aunts and uncles lived on the farm except Ada Mae, and her husband Landon worked mostly on a farm.  We all lived within a 30 mile radius so we saw each other often, and had large family reunions almost every summer.  Now our families are spread out, particularly the next generation, so it is likely that when we cousins are gone, the annual reunion will probably become a thing of the past.  We used to have our reunions at parks or at someones farm house, but now we have it in an air conditioned VFW hall, and that was a good thing this year!  

Attendance by the younger generations was sparse, although I was very pleased that my grandson and great granddaughters were there.  Of course we older ones remenisce with each other about fond memories and probe each others minds for answers to questions we now wish we had asked our parents while they were living.  There are a lot of experiences we could share with our children about what it was like growing up in rural Indiana during the 1940's, but our lifestyle then does not much interest most of them until they reach 50, and then our times together are occupied mostly with entertaining grand children and we want to know what is happening in their lives.  Our mortality really doesn't sink in until we near retirement, and it is not particulary healthy to look back too much.  Whatever the purpose of life is, it is to be lived, and the more active we are the fuller and happier our life experience will be.

So, yesterday Marcia and I went to the Indianapolis International Film Festival at the Indianapolis Museum of Art which is not far from where we live.  We saw Summer Pasture , a documentary about nomadic life in the highlands of Tibet.  At least there they are not concerned with the heat, but their livelihood depends upon the milk from their Yak herds, and the dung from them is their source of heat.  At 15,000 ft. it is a harsh environment except in summer.  Recently these nomads have found a new source of income, Caterpillar Fungus , which is in great demand for use in medicines.  This is a poignant film, depicting the nomadic life and the particular hardships of the female who is expected to do most of the work.  It is no wonder that these nomadic groups are disintegrating as more and more of the younger ones leave for life in the remote towns.  I was touched by the young mother's experience and her endurance, and I strongly recommend seeing this film.  It will make you appreciate that life is difficult around the world, but more difficult in some places than others. 

I continue to read, having recently finished F. Scot Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, and currently slogging through W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage.  Fitgerald's book is interesting both for its description of affluent life in France in the 1920's and the treatment of mental disorders by the self-centered psychiatrist who is the main character.  His wife is a patient, and he himself is flawed, as of course we all are.  Maugham's book is about the life of a physically handicapped man, his search for love and an occupation, and struggles to overcome his feelings of inadequacy.  Thrown into both books are passages regarding the author's views on life, religion and politics of the day.  Just the stuff I love to read for its historical insight.

I find myself now taking little time with the newspaper and television news reports.  Most of the news is not encouraging.  Sure I care about what life may hold for my children and grand children, but most of the people who are in a position to influence the future of our country are really more concerned about the next election than they are about doing what is best for the U. S. of A., and the World!  I vote; I abhor the money spent on elections.  Just think what good could be accomplished if that money were spent "for the good of the people"!  There isn't much I can do at my age to influence the future.  All I can do really is to encourage young people to seek knowledge, beware of slogans and sound bites, be tolerant but do not abide fools!  Read!       

 

 

The Bullet Ride

In the book Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, (number 11 on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th century), "The Consul" has an encounter with the Bullet ride as he wanders intoxicated through the Fiesta in the plaza of his town, Quauhnahuac.  His ex-wife Yvonne, who has just returned to him early that same morning, is with his brother Hugh somewhere in the plaza, and within the hour he is to rendezvous with them and catch the 2:30 bus to Tomalin. 

The British Consul is being trailed by a crowd of local children begging for money when he spots the "Wild attraction.  The huge looping-the-loop machine, empty, but going full blast over his head ...suggesting some huge evil spirit, screaming in its lonely hell, its limbs writhing, smiting the air like flails of paddlewheels."  To escape the children he boards the "monster." 

For the next page and a half, Lowry gives a most accurate and entertaining description of the the drunken Consul's experience of riding

"ah my God!  Everything was falling out of his pockets, was being wrested from him, torn away, a fresh article at each whirling, sickening, plunging, retreating, unspeakable circuit..".

Upon reading this passage I suddenly remembered that I had had such an experience once with the "Bullet".  Only I wasn't drunk; I was maybe fourteen.  Our neighbor, Bert Perkins, who was my grandfather's age, drove me one evening to what then was likely the annual Waveland street fair.  It was probably 1949 or '50 and back then a lot of small towns had these carnivals put on by the Lions Club or some other group as a fund raiser and to help the local merchants. 

Just Bert and I went in his Ford. I must have been nearing driving age, because on the way over Bert was giving me driving tips.  I remember distinctly his warning not to drive faster at night than a speed that would allow me to stop within the distance I could see by my headlights.  Bert and his wife Ethel were my parent's favorite neighbors.

When we got to the fair, Bert let me go my way and we agreed to meet later at a certain place and time.  I didn't go to school in Waveland, but my family went to the Freedom Church where a lot of Waveland kids my age did.  So I wandered down the main street which was blocked off and filled with several vendor booths and rides.  I don't remember anything I did that night except that when I got to the Bullet, a girl I knew and was fond of was standing there with some friends.  I was scared to death of that ride, but to impress her I suggested we ride together. 

You can't do anything romantic in the Bullet, like hold hands or even say anything special to the girl.  All you can do is hold on to the bar with both hands, try to catch your breath and keep from throwing up, and listen to the change and comb you had in your pockets fall out and rattle around the cage.  That was my only time to ride the Bullet, and when it was over the girl went her way, and I went back to find Bert. 

My Emotions.

Spring is a time of year, perhaps more than any other, when I have highs and lows.  Having grown up on a farm, it brings to me thoughts of new growth, the smell off the earth freshly plowed in preparation for planting.  The smell of honeysuckle and locust trees in bloom, the moist woods and the musk of mushrooms.  A time when today may be sunny and warm, but tomorrow rainy and cold.  But however uncertain the weather of Spring may be there is always the hope and certainty that as time passes there will be more sunshine than clouds and more warmth than bleakness. 

In other words, this is the time of year when my emotions take a roller coaster ride.  This last week has certainly been an extremely wild ride indeed.  Last Sunday afternoon it was sunny and warm here as Marcia and I walked along the banks of the Roanoke River.  I didn't realize how much sun my legs were getting until Monday morning, when the redness from my knees to my ankles stood out in contrast to the whiteness of my thighs and feet.  My outlook on life is always positive at such times.  My soul is at peace when, in the early evening I can watch the lengthening shadows of the sunset, catch a glimpse of sunlight still on the surrounding mountain tops, and feel a gentle warm breeze on my skin as I enjoy daylight softening on our patio or balcony.  Those are the good times for Marcia and me!

Then, more quickly than the good feelings, came death and destruction.  I watched with sadness welling up in my eyes as the television pictures showed the widespread devastation brought across the South by the worst outbreak of tornados in this country since 1925.  At such times, one feels so helpless, as indeed we are because we are at the mercy of the forces of nature, of  weather, earthquake, tsunami; the power that gives us such pleasure at the beauty of mountains, valleys, oceans, rivers, sunsets and sunrises, must inevitably also give us the sorrow of  destruction, loss of property and life.  Then at the end of the week our TV screens were filled with pictures of beauty and love, of a Prince by the simple act of marriage giving a beautiful young lady the title of Princess.  Life promissing renewal. 

My emotions take similar rides as I read.  I guess that is a major reason I do so.  I was lead to "Winter's Bone" by Daniel Woodrell after having recently watched an episode of Anthony Bordain's "No Reservations".  Bordain was in the Ozarks, experiencing the life and food of the hunters and fishers who live there.  He had come there because of his liking of the writings of Woodrell, who was his guide during the filming of that show.  "Winter's Bone" describes the determination of a sixteen year old girl - her dad who "cooks crank" out on bond but missing, her mother who sits as her mind drifts in and out of reality - trying to keep her young brothers in school, fed and clothed and away from the drug society which surrounds them.  Rural poverty.

Then I saw where the 2011 Pulitzer for fiction had been awarded to Jennifer Egan for her book, "A Visit From The Goon Squad".  The characters in the life of Sasha, bound together by their involvement with her or the music industry, their struggles to grow up, each with a "pause" in their life, which either they survive to become better or just live through, or sadly do not.  I think we all have pauses in our lives.  I hadn't thought of life that way before, but it is somehow comforting.  Like a pause in a song, a short time to reflect, and then it continues.

How much more precious life is when we acknowledge how fortunate we are to have survived the pauses.  God help and be with those who are less fortunate than we.   

Right Now, Woolf Has Got Me!

I am so conscious now of my thoughts, how they wander, and that I actually do form an opinion in my mind, though fleetingly and of no real significance or accuracy, about persons around me or just appearing briefly in my minds eye, or of a scene or situation present or recalled.  Last night, as we (Marcia and I) were having dinner at our favorite casual place, waiting patiently for the game to start, enjoying our bar food and drink, talking about our day, the fact that it was our wedding aniversary but we were really going to celebrate it today instead of then when our evening was filled with going to the play which Emily was in at her school, and then the lateness of the game, I found myself evaluating the situation of the group at the table next to us. 

All of us in the room were drawn together by our interest in the coming game, the common wish for a Butler win, the excitement and anticipation was evident in the good mood apparent on our often smiling faces. 

Already, when we sat down, there were five young men at the next table, obviously either Butler students or recent graduates, devouring sandwiches with onion rings and beer, having conversation which my hearing could not detect over the noise of the surroundings.  An older woman, perhaps the mother of the one she sat down by, was the first to join them.  I had finished my martini, Marcia her wine, it was still a half hour until game time, we ordered a beer, and young women began to join their men at the next table.  The first was a striking, slender faced blond with large eyes, a short, well proportioned frame, fashionably dressed in fur topped brown boots, not too tight black leggings, a long beige sweater cinched at the waist with a black tie.  Even before I saw her, the young man with the most sensitive face of the group, of similar complexion to the girl, rose quickly to his feet, came out from behind the table and met his girl, drew her close and they kissed gently before moving back to the table to sit facing us.  As they sat down, the diamond on her finger was quite noticeable.  She greeted all at the table with a sweet smile, all the young men obviously admired her, their eyes showing that her beauty was not unnoticed.  She engaged easily in their conversation while leaning on the shoulder of her chosen one, he proud to have her there, raising his esteem in the presence of his peers. 

Soon, two more attractive but less striking young women, with darker hair, darker eyes and complexions, less fashionably dressed in jeans and t-shirts but also with diamonds on their fingers joined the group, so that only two of the young men were left without a special intended mate. 

Marcia and I talked about my sons, about the book she was reading, the girls ordered drinks and sandwiches; my attention returned to the TV with its experts pontificating the special skills, shooting ability, size, athleticism, and likely outcome of the game to follow.

All eyes were on the pictures flashing across the large screens, high on the wall at the end of the room.  Our hopes, confidence, and anticipation that Butler would win were increasing.  At first the game was the center of our common attention, but later I noticed the blond seemed more engaged in texting, and texting, and texting.   Our eyes were up, her's were down, looking at the little device she held in the palm of her ringed hand.  Commercials allowed, one by one, persons rising and walking to the end of the room to dispose of beer imbibed.  The special one returned to the table and, midst short bursts of interest and comment, returned to the little device in her hand.

What is her future and his, will time enrich or diminish that love in their eyes?  What was the importance of communicating with some other one while he was engrossed in the game?  At half time, she and  one of the other girls disappeared and did not return.  Were they concerned about some need to study for a class, perhaps and exam or paper due today? 

I began to fret as Butler seemed to lose their momentum and the game became close.  Marcia and I sat, side by side, yelling, clapping, admonishing the Butler team on to success.   In the end we were happy, the outcome what we wanted, tiredly we came home to bed. 

I hope the lovers are happy.  I hope they have made the right choices, that love lasts, that their admiration, respect, faith and trust in each other continues until death does them part. 

Of course, Virginia would have made this evening and its events, its thoughts much more interesting, detailed, nuanced, thought provoking and fulfilling to read and contemplate. 

It is 42 degrees now, earlier the sun was shining but now the grey clouds of winter have returned.  At least now my flower beds are cleared of leaves, they are fertilized and weed prevention has been put down, the service came this week and applied the early Spring treatment to the lawn.  Now I am waiting for the last (hopefully) plastic pipe joint cement to cure so that I can finish installing the new chrome fixtures in the hall bath upstairs, completing Marcia's redecorating project.  She has design and decorating visions and skill, but I always complain about any way that I am involved, until it is done and I see the outcome which she foresaw. 

We Get What We Vote For

That phrase made famous in the Pogo Comic Strip, "We have met the enemy and he is Us" seems most concisely to describe our political and economic situation today, and indeed life in general. 

We are not a well informed people.  We may think we are, but on too many issues and especially at election time, our intelligence is  shaped by slogans, soundbites, even speeches and debates over simplified and often intentionally designed to mislead and misinform us.  We choose what we read, listen to, and watch most often because we agree with it.  Our frustration with political and economic conditions makes us vulnerable to talking heads who rant and rave about those conditions, but mostly do not inform us of the complexities involved, they merely reinforce our dissatisfaction.

A well functioning Democracy depends upon a well educated and informed people.   The emphasis in our schools tends more and more to the sciences and business, our need to excel in these fields if we are to survive, but fail to recognize the arts, history and social sciences in teaching people how to reason, think and make informed decisions.  Teaching how to recognize the truth, to value the truth, and above all to seek, honor, and admire intelligence may well be criticised as meddling in the character of the student in a way contrary to the wishes of the parent.

We may admire expensive cars, houses, clothing, athletes, etc. but persons with superior knowledge, experience, and training, particularly in politics, history or the science of the environment are subject to being called "Elitists", and one not to be trusted by the "common person", the voter.

So now we have Congress advocating cuts in education and  eliminating funding for public radio and television.  The result is certainly not going to be a better informed public.  I wonder if congress wouldn't be better advised to watch and listen to some public broadcasting than to de-fund it?  Certainly the public would understand more about our world, its history, its environment, its peoples and cultures and about the complexities of the issues of healthcare, immigration, foreign policy, and economics if they listened and watched more public broadcasting programs and less of the obviously biased commercial broadcasting talking heads.

While I claim that we the people are not well informed, I must temper that by saying we don't seem to totally comprehend all that we know, and we are not smart enough to envision or fully understand the consequences of our decisions.  Certainly if the people of Wisconsin were aware of the information now included in Wikipedia regarding Scott Walker, comprehended it and understood the consequences of voting for him, he would not now be their governor.  If you are interested you will follow the link and read it, if you are not you wont take the time which will only enforce my argument.  Many of you after reading it will reject it out of hand as being false and inaccurate, or worse, still think he was a good choice to be governor of that State.

Again, We get what we deserve.

 

 

 

 

The Vernacular of Jamie McPheeters

I for one have been highly entertained by Robert Lewis Taylor's book, The Travels of Jamie McPheeters.  It was published in 1958, but of course I was just out of college at the time and serving my two year active duty obligation as an ROTC graduate.  I had little time for reading novels then or in the subsequent early years of installing computers in the business world.  What reading I did was usually work related or motivated by my political and biographical interests.  Recently, when it was too late, I learned that the best way to get a thorough and rounded education is through devouring as much of the written word, the rich literature of the world as possible.  I have read some of the classics, as required in a liberal arts education, but not nearly as many as I should have for a man of my age. 

For now I am just enjoying my self with the Pulitzer Prize winners.  Up to now, Jamie's travels has been my favorite.  His way with the English language, his sense of humor and way of telling a story had me chuckling to myself for hours.  The book is as much about his father as it is about him, and I must admit to relating to his father's wanderlust though lacking in his optimism.  I can't imagine any man or boy not thoroughly enjoying this book, and all of them on my Christmas list this year are likely to get a copy.  

Those of you familiar with this blog know about our jeep trips.  Sacajawea has been to Maine, New Orleans, Texas, Yellowstone and New Mexico, but I have had a hankering to drive it through Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and parts of Montana.  Those places are so far from our base of operation in Indianapolis, but the urge is growing stronger for me and maybe somehow we'll get there.