The Hicks Place

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!       

 

 

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.   

Progress is great, mostly!

The following is copied from an e-mail I got today from a friend.  If I knew the original source I would give credit here, because these are not my original thoughts.  But it seems to me that whomever the author of this is would not mind my republishing it here.  I hope not.

How wasteful the Older Generation Was ... NOT !!!

 

In line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.  The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

 

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today.  The former generation did not care enough to save our environment."

He was right, that generation didn’t have the green thing in its day. 

 Back then, they returned their milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store.  The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.  So they really were recycled.

But they didn’t have the green thing back in that customer's day.

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.

But she was right. They didn’t have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers because they didn’t have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts – wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that old lady is right, they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house – not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn’t have electric machines to do everything for you.  When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, they didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right, they didn’t have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But they didn’t have the green thing back then.

 

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus instead
of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn't have the green thing back then???

 

Racing Through Life

FDR had a year left in his first term when I was born in the heart of the Great Depression.  I cast my first vote for President for Dwight Eisenhower.  He gave us the Interstate Highways System which allowed trucks to replace trains and crowd passenger vehicles so that every year more I-routes have to be built, widened and repaired, leaving not enough money to improve rapid transit and public transportation.  Interstates allow us to "see the USA in your Toyota" (not Chevrolet) without seeing the poverty in our cities and rural areas but enjoying the scenery as it flashes by at 75 miles an hour. 

We didn't elect some very good men, Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale,  Al Gore, and one good woman, Hillary Clinton.  We did elect Nixon, an actor, and a C student from Yale.  But the best President we have had in my time was a haberdasher from Missouri, who really understood and fought for the common man because he was one of us.

However, the worst may be yet to come, one that may Trump all the others.  Yes, none other than the "Donald".  It makes me cringe evertime I hear his name, and regret mine.  How anyone can believe that he is in any way qualified is beyond my comprehension!  Furthermore, Race Fans, he has been selected to drive the pace car for the 100th anniversary of the Indy 500!  If I didn't already have my ticket, I wouldn't go!  And believe me, the fans around me in turn 3 will hear my disapproval when he drives by!

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.

 

 

 

 

Historic Information and Opinions

While visiting my son Greg last fall, our discussion consisted of his asking some things about his great grandparents and their lives which had been prompted in part by his reading this blog.  I of course was full of information for him, sprinkled with facts and my impressions.  At last, he chuckled and said I should set myself up as an authority and charge people for information in response to their questions.  Well, for Christmas I received from him a large plaque en-scribed "Historic Information and Opinions,  The Hopkins".  That was a gift I cherish, and it made me and Marcia really laugh.  So, Greg, here goes!   

In February, 1941 the unemployment rate in the US finally dropped below 10% after it hit a high of 25% in 1932.  This country was still trying to stay out of the war in Europe, but finally had approved the lend-lease program allowing needed war materials to be sent to England.  In spite of all of the programs which had been tried to end the great depression, it lingered on until we began to gear up for war.  The period we are in now and have been in since 2007 is without question the greatest recession since then, and just because Wall Street is back up and running doesn't mean we are out of the woods yet.

Seventy years ago I was 5, and would start to school in the Fall.  My father was tending a 100 acre farm, two thirds of it tillable, with a team of horses.  We had a car, a 1933 chevrolet two door sedan with no trunk, but no electricity or indoor plumbing.  The house, a large 7 room two story, had 3 bedrooms, but in the winter we lived in just 3 of the rooms because it was heated by a pot belly wood/coal stove in the living room. That was the Hicks Place, for which this blog is named.

We were never hungry because we had dairy cows, chickens, hogs, and a big garden.  I and my brothers went barefoot much of the time in the Summer, except for Sundays when we went to church, where we saw our grandparents and families of cousins, often having Sunday dinner at one of their houses. 

In the summer, my dad would work with relatives and neighbors to help each other at haymaking and wheat or oats harvesting times. One of my grandfathers had a larger farm and had tractors, a threshing machine, a hay rake and loader, so my dad and others gave their physical labor and my grandfather provided equipment.  But in the fall and winter my dad shucked all of the corn he raised, at least 20 acres, by hand.  That means he walked along each row in the field, took each ear of corn in his two hands pealed back the shucks, broke it off of the stalk, and threw it into the farm wagon beside him which was pulled by our team of horses,"Dick and Gale".  He was fast at it and could shuck two wagon loads a day when the weather was good.  Some winters he wouldn't finish until after Christmas.

I am currently reading "Citizens of London" by Lynne Olson.  It relates the situation in London, the bombings and shortages affecting normal people there, but also the lives of US newsmen, Averell Harriman, and particularly the US Ambassador John Gilbert Winnant as they reported the situation to the American public and conducted relations between our administration and the Churchill government.  It portrays the shakey relations between Churchill and Roosevelt as well as the conflicts between the Allied military leaders, Eisenhower's strengths and weaknesses and troubles controling his generals.  That is a war we should have entered sooner.

But now I am cautious about the power struggle in Egypt. Out of a population of about 80 million, perhaps several hundred thousand are reported demonstrating for Mubarak to resign and leave the country.  We have seen large demonstrations in our country which do not necessarily represent the position of the majority.  Once such demonstrations gain media coverage they can appear to represent a larger segment of the population than they really do.  I am old enough to remember when the media (particularly the NY Times) were instrumental in convincing us that Castro was a Savior for Cuba.

I am just saying that the US should be very careful not to take sides in this situation.  We cannot become involved to the extent that we appear responsible for the outcome.  We have enemies, to a very great extent, because we have made it our business to get involved in supporting foreign governments (we think in our best interest) which the people there find unacceptable.  That's my opinion.

 

Reading Woes lead me to Gildersleeve.

My project to read all of the Pulitzer Prize winning novels since the award was first given in 1917 has run into a snag.  I acquired a copy of the winner in 1956, Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor, but after I got well into it I found it so depressing that I put it aside.  Then I turned to  American Pastoral by Philip Roth,  the winner in 1998, and after a few chapters of it I just couldn't take any more of him.  Roth just belabors his characters too much for my liking.  After several pages of diary-like entries of the Swede arguing with his daughter about her weekend trips into Manhattan, I thought, "Ok, I get it, just advance the plot!".  So, I gave up on it too. 

With no other Pulitzer winners that I haven't read available for my Kindle, I decided to search for  a biography of Winston Churchill written by Robert Lewis Taylor.  I recently read his Pulitzer winning novel The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters , which I bragged about in a previous post.  While searching for but not finding that biography, I stumbled onto The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page by Burton J. Hendrick,  which caught my eye because I had an uncle named Walter Page.  So I downloaded a sample to my Kindle and found out that he was Wilson's ambassador to England, after having been a famous editor of various papers and magazines including The Atlantic Monthly.

Reading essentially the biographical sketch which was my sample, I also came across a name I knew only from an enjoyable radio program of my youth, The Great Gildersleeve .  But this was another Gildersleeve, the one who Walter H. Page gave credit as being so influential in his life and education, one Basil Lannaeu Gildersleeve,  and the First Professor of Greek at Johns Hopkins University.  It turns out this Gildersleeve also wrote and interesting article for The Atlantic, 25 years after the end of the Civil War, entitled  The Creed of the Old South   .  In it he asserts that patriotic fervor is invested first in the individuals community/State and secondly in the larger governing nation.  (Thus the southern states and its citizens held together even though vast numbers did not favor secession).  Consequently, for them, the war was not about slavery but about "States Rights".

What makes these older writings interesting is not so much their arguments, but rather the language. The phrasing, use of words and metaphors, and often quotations from the Classics that it is assumed are familiar to the reader!  It all bespeaks a level of education in the arts and letters superior to that of today.  

Anyway, it seems that some of the most informative and enjoyable reading I do comes about by just following the trail of names that appear in what I have just read. 

I Wouldn't be Happy if I Couldn't B__ch

This week our local paper, the Indianapolis Star, reported that our governor Mitch Daniels along with three other governors of states with Toyota plants had joined in sending a letter to congressional committee leaders calling for fairness to the automaker in hearings concerning safety recalls.  The others are the governors of Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi.  Toyota of course has carefully located its plants where they can employ non-union labor.  In the letter the governors touted the asserted fact that Toyota has had a long record of quality products and that record should be considered in the hearings.

Maybe so, but my grip is that I don't recall that these governors spoke up to defend the long history of the contributions that General Motors had made to the economic well being of our country.  They, to my knowledge, said nothing about how the GM plants and their employees had produced quality products that have kept our military strong and helped win WWII.  In fact, I recall hearing nothing from these governors about saving GM, and plenty from some Senators from these same States advocating that GM should just go bankrupt.

My second complaint today goes to our Senator Evan Bayh and Wellpoint.  Senator Bayh has dragged (where I come from we would say drug) his feet on health care reform, while his wife sits on Wellpoint's board.  Wellpoint is the largest health care insurer in the country, and their profits of 2.5 billion last year were up 50% over the year before.  At the same time they lost 1.3 million members last year, many they say due to unemployment from the recession.  (See Indianapolis Star of Feb. 12, 2010; "Health group spotlights profits at WellPoint").  Some of Wellpoint's individually insured customers, people who aren't insured through their place of employment, have reported that they have received notice of increases in their premiums as high as 39%.  Wellpoint and other insurers spent over $50 million to lobby against the health care reforms proposed in Congress, mainly opposing a public insurance option like medicare.

Wellpoint is so big and arrogant; it is hard for me to imagine their gall to now come along and increase premiums at such a high rate.  I have said before, follow the money!  It is obvious that those willing to spend so much to influence legislation have the most to gain or lose by the outcome.  Wellpoint's stock prices shot up when the public option was considered beaten.  Some of my mutual funds I'm sure have some Wellpoint stock, but health care insurance doesn't seem an appropriate place to be driven by huge, greedy profits.  What about the customer?

I am more concerned about the continuing mergers and growth of corporations and banks than I am of growing government.  Was it big government that caused the recession?  Well we certainly spend too much on war, but it was the financial institutions that got "too big to fail" that caused our current economic situation. 

Yes, health costs will continue to rise as long as big insurance companies are running the show.

Why are Democrats so Gullible

Why do democrats, in control of congress, keep getting sucked into supporting the schemes of republican presidents.  Here we go again.  That good old boy, Ronald Reagan, managed to get his trickle down economic and deregulation ideas through a democrat congress, which was the beginning of our present problems.  Now the democrats signed on to a republican president's plan to save our economy from collapse, and it blows up in their face.

Any sane person knows you are not going to get a republican to leave off partisan politics a month before the election.  Let the republican president and the republican members of congress who want to deregulate everything but drugs, guns and abortion come up with a plan to rescue the economy.  When they do, call congress back for an up or down vote.  Otherwise, democrats are just wasting their breath and time. 

Most of the people who wrote and called their representatives opposing the bailout plan don't have much invested in retirement plans involving stocks and bonds.  They just work and vote, and the only time republicans listen to them is at election time.   Maybe another depression will finally convince voters that the only thing that concerns republicans more than Wall Street is getting re-elected.

Too big to Fail or Too big to Survive?

We keep hearing that certain companies are too big to fail.  I find it interesting that the same group that so strongly opposes big government is the same crowd that supports bigger and bigger corporations and Oligopolies.  We have laws to protect us against monopolies, but our economy has become dominated in recent years by oligopolies of corporations, and as we are seeing these huge corporations can fail.  Mergers of banks and corporations in all areas of our economy have emerged as the way to do business in recent years. 

Our personal greed has lead us to a nation of over weight people driving overly large cars and consuming more than our share of the worlds resources.  Obesity is not good for us, either individually or corporately.

Those who oppose big government are usually the same ones who oppose regulation and support privatization of public services.  I certainly don't advocate growing government, but I say we had better watch out for growing corporate America.  Capitalism, unchecked by government control and regulation leads to greed and results in benefit to the wealthy at the expense of those who have to work for a living. 

It is also interesting to note that many of those most vocal leaders in the religious right have big churches and personal wealth.  Cathedrals are attractive to look at, but how much do they benefit the homeless and poor? 

Beware of big corporations, big churches, big government, big power!  Sooner or later, things that get too big fail!  If we let these things continue to grow, our way of life, our economy, our personal freedom, our Nation may not survive!