Intimidate This Guy?
Remember a small item that appeared in some newspapers a while back. Some flap about a guy who ran afoul of a neighborhood association. It was man named Van T. Barfoot who insisted his flag would fly from his own flagpole. But, that was contrary to the Neighborhood Association's rules of decorum. Was this guy intimidated by the official status of the Neighborhood Association?
I don’t think so. He had faced down much more formidable foes than a Neighborhood Association. They might have saved themselves an embarrassing confrontation if they had checked the background on this old man (who was in his nineties at the time).
He was born in Edinburgh on June 15, 1919, nothing remarkable there. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1940. Lots of young men did that. However what set Van T. Barfoot apart was what happened on May 23, 1944.
Hoping to outflank German machine gun positions which were raining fire down on his fellow soldiers, he advanced through a minefield, took out three enemy machine guns and returned with 17 prisoners of war.
That wasn’t enough. The Germans sent three tanks to retake the machine gun positions. Barfoot positioned himself directly in from of the oncoming juggernaut with a borrowed bazooka.
Perhaps the rest can be told best by a reading of part of the citation on his Medal of Honor.
“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty on 23 May, 1944, near Carano, Italy. With his platoon heavily engaged during an assault against forces well entrenched on commanding ground, Barfoot moved off alone upon the enemy left flank. He crawled to the proximity of one machine gun and made a direct hit on it with a hand grenade, killing two and wounding three Germans.
“He continued along the German defense line to another machine gun emplacement and with his tommygun killed two and captured three soldiers. Members of another machine gun crew then abandoned that position and gave themselves up to Sgt. Barfoot. Leaving the prisoners for his support squad, he proceeded to mop up positions in the immediate area, capturing more prisoners and bringing his total count to 17.
“... the enemy launched a fierce armored counterattack directly at the platoon position. Securing a bazooka, Sgt. Barfoot positioned himself directly in front of the advancing Mark VI Tanks. From a distance of 75 yards, his first shot destroyed the track of the leading tank, effectively disabling it. As the crew dismounted, Sgt. Barfoot killed three of them with his tommygun . . ..
“...Sgt. Barfoot’s extraordinary heroism, demonstration of magnificent valor, and aggressive determination in the face of point blank fire are a perpetual inspiration to his fellow soldiers.”
After seeing his record, who would dare tell this old soldier he wasn’t allowed to fly the American flag, from its own flagpole, over the home of this old hero to whom we owe so much? I don’t think one would get very far with that idea. I, for one, wouldn’t like to be his adversary.
-END-
The Majority Rules?
There has been a popular saying in this country, “The Majority Rules.” It is also an implication that the majority is right. So... is the majority always right?
Not even close! More often than not the majority is wrong — at least at first.
We should avoid all entanglement in foreign alliances. We should fight for right and justice wherever it is threatened. Two people of the same sex should have the right to marry. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. It is right and proper for the government to impose a graduated income tax. It is unlawful for the government to impose graduated taxes.
A majority of Americans, at one time or another, have held all those views. It is obvious that the majority could not have always been right. If the majority were always right, it would remain the same for every question. We know that it does not. Therefore the majority cannot always be right.
A poll taken during the Revolutionary War would have revealed that a majority of the colonists were opposed to independence from Britain. Only when the war began to turn our way did the people begin to favor it. The Civil War (War Between the States) was an immensely unpopular war until it was almost won. At the beginning of World War II, even after Pearl Harbor, a majority of people did not want to go to war with Germany — until Hitler, who had finally been elected by a majority of Germans, declared war on us.
Remember when we were so appalled at the cover-up of a botched second-class burglary we turned out a sitting president who had led this nation into a wonderful period of peace and prosperity? The economy was booming, and North Viet Nam had signed an agreement to not interfere militarily in the affairs of South Viet Nam.
The mainstream media and the leftist Democrats wasted no time in dismembering and destroying the Nixon administration and pounding Republicans into a loss of 48 seats in the House and 5 in the Senate.
They were replaced by the so-called “Watergate Babies,” whose first act was to cut off all aid to South Viet Nam. The Communists were delighted when U.S. troops were ordered out of the country in full and shameful retreat for the first time in this nation’s history. Richard Nixon brought his troubles on himself. Those who opposed the spread of Communism did not.
Thousands of valiant American troops had shed their blood in vain. Friends of the U.S. in Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia were left alone to face extermination in "the killing fields" by a bloodthirsty regime eager for revenge against these helpless citizens. Millions tried to escape by sea. The press mockingly referred to them as “boat people.”
Misreading the mood of the country as permanent, John Kerry threw his questionable medals over the fence around the capitol and ripped his shipmates and fellow veterans as “reminiscent of Genghis Khan.”
Then a majority of the electorate voted in a pitiful excuse for a president in the person of Jimmy Carter who led us into financial shambles and international disgrace. Inflation soared to 12% and unemployment went to 11%. When our diplomats were held unaccountably as hostages by an band of religious zealots, our nation became the laughingstock of the world.
Fortunately, we came to our senses just in time for Ronald Reagan to restore sanity to our government. When smirkingly asked what his “cold war” strategy was, he replied quite simply, “We win. They lose.”
But, we just don’t seem to “get it.” A few years later, we discarded a genuine hero of WW2 — one who had presided over our final victory in the “cold war,” as the Berlin wall tumbled, the “Evil Empire” collapsed and, the U.S. regained a measure of respect as leader of the free world.
We replaced that president with a pot smoking, womanizing draft dodger whose sexual escapades reduced the nation once again to a world-class laughingstock.
Then we turned on the younger Bush, whose record during six years of his presidency was one of uninterrupted economic prosperity. The engine that drove the American economy was the envy of the world. Unemployment reached record lows. Inflation was nonexistent. Only after we decided to place control of congress in Democratic hands and the president lost control did the economy start to turn sour. So, we had a new mantra, “Blame Bush.”
We jumped on the bandwagon of a brash inexperienced community organizer who promised “change.” And did we ever get it! He promised to “fundamentally change America” and he’s doing his best to do that. Unemployment has soared, and inflation, the cruelest tax of all, is running rampant.
Hopefully, we will do what we’ve done in the past and regain our sanity just in the nick of time. I, for one, am counting on it.
-END-
A Book I Think You'll Enjoy
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DonJohnson
Play the Pipes Softly:
by
Don Johnson
A small lump no larger than a child's marble is doing to Cody MacDonald what front line combat, a host of angry girlfriends, and a herd of wild-eyed bulls failed to do. Looking back on his life gives him little comfort. He believes his life has amounted to nothing positive — that he brought only heartache to
every woman he ever loved. Nurse Marla doesn't think so and sets about to prove it.
If you're a woman, you'll fall in love with Cody MacDonald. If you're a man, you'd want him as your best friend.
Nurse Marla feeds him forbidden ice cream and wonders how a nice guy like Cody could be so convinced that his life has been worthless. He thinks the effect of his relationships have brought nothing but unhappiness to every woman he's ever loved. Not only does Marla intend to prove otherwise — but she has decided on a huge surprise for Cody,
Meanwhile, Cody has decided death is only a big, black bull — and he's ridden big, black bulls before. He is determined to "cowboy up" for this one last time.
The War Years
I have had many younger people ask me how things were in this country during World War II. I can only answer such a question from a single perspective with the knowledge that the times for me were different from those experienced by others.
I was a young teenager when my parents pulled in the driveway from a trip to town to be greeted by an even younger boy, son of the grammar school principle who lived a couple of houses from ours. He was jumping up and down with excitement. “The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor!”
“So what,” I thought. “The Japs were always bombing something.”
My answer was quickly forthcoming. “It’s ours. Pearl Harbor belongs to us.”
That made a difference indeed. The little Nips had gone too far now, and our armed forces would quickly set things straight and deal out a proper comeuppance to the little “yellow bellies.” (We had not yet learned the concept of political correctness.)
We had also not learned to view the world situation realistically. The truth of it was that we were woefully unprepared for a war for which the Japanese had prepared for many years. I remember thinking at the time that the war could not possibly last long enough for me to take a meaningful part, and I so much wanted to get a lick in on the Japanese who were so arrogant as to brazenly attack our United States of America.
Virtually everyone I knew thought very little about the Germans or the Italians. Our fierce anger was directed almost solely at the Japanese. The Germans and Italians were almost an after thought. We watched in horror as the Japanese war machine rolled over our weak Pacific defenses. Island after island fell before the onslaught culminating in the debacle in Bataan and. Corregidor.
The humiliation of America was nearly complete. One who did not live through that period could not possibly imagine the mindset of most of the American public at that time. To say we were angry is a gross understatement.
Pictures in the paper showed grinning, insolent Japanese standing over our American soldiers beating and bayoneting them if they faltered in the horrific "death marches."
Workingwomen flooded defense plants determined to do their part in bringing the Asiatic monster to its knees. “Rosie the Riveter” was as eager to do her part as any “GI Joe.”
From our vantage point of today, the results are be easily predictable. Stung from their complacency, the American people rose as one in their righteous fury. The "sleeping giant" had been awakened and filled with "a terrible resolve."
Everything was secondary to “the war effort.” Production of war material reached unprecedented levels. Recruitment, as such, was not needed. It consisted almost exclusively of screening for the ability to perform military tasks. The tide of war began to turn against the enemy.
Those of us still champing against the bit of what we considered unreasonable age restrictions volunteered as scrap metal collectors, air defense workers, critical industry workers wherever we thought we could strike a blow for our country.
We endured without complaint (at least not much) the rationing of gasoline, rubber, sugar, meat and other commodities. Looking back from today’s perspective we seemed hopelessly, perhaps foolishly, patriotic.
Teenage boys, with hormones running amok, were restricted in their natural dating habits. Unlike our older brothers and cousins, we couldn’t plan every weekend for dates with the family car available, filled with gas, and ready to go. We got by with double dating or even triple dating which increased our effective use of the automobile, absolutely essential for country boys to take a sweet young thing to the movies or skating rink.
For those of us who made it into uniform, nothing was too good. A hitchhiker in uniform seldom stood by the road for more than a few minutes before being picked up and whisked on their way lo wherever they wished to go. "Good" Americans scorned those few, who didn't pick up servicemen on the road.
In trains, buses, streetcars and such, servicemen were seated before the general public. Restaurants suddenly found that extra table when requested by a member of the Armed Forces.
In short there were many hard times to endure during the “war years.” But, we enjoyed something Americans haven’t had at any time in living memory. We lived in a country absolutely unified in a joint effort to achieve a worthy and difficult conclusion.
No task was said to be too difficult. No job too dangerous. No goal that could not be attained. No whining about “fairness.” After all, this was for the “war effort," and we were determined to wipe the grins off the faces of those runty little Japs. Those who couldn't get to the front lines where they could actually kill Japs would help make the tools to do it.
That may have been the last time Americans all stood together united in a single effort.
-END-
Reflected In Our Music
One time I read that a culture could be defined by its popular music. Man! That's a scary thought today. I certainly hope that's not always true.
The other day I was playing a song, "You Are Love," from the musical, "Showboat." It was sung by Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson. My wife paused from whatever she was doing and said, "Those were the days when musicians played music and singers could sing."
Sadly she was correctly using the past tense.
Recently, I found it hard to read with a straight face the words of a newspaper musical critic laboring to describe an event which had taken place the night before. He ran through the usual, "brilliant guitar riff" and "vocals vigorously attacked" trying to describe a happening in which the music landed on the ear like a five hundred-pounder making a direct hit on a guitar factory and the vocals imitated Billy Goat Gruff in mortal agony.
If this critic really knew and cared about music, he must have found it excruciatingly difficult to describe what he had witnessed as "music." What he had seen was the lead guitarist make an amazing leap from atop a table to the stage deck culminating in a complete split. This worthy then proceeded to destroy his instrument by slamming it into the snare drum.
It was followed by the burning of a kerosene-drenched keyboard while being played by performer so toked on drugs he could hardly stand. It was a remarkable performance I agree, but music? Huh uh, not in my book.
If it doesn't have a distinct melody that can be whistled or hummed with pleasing harmonics that blend into a rich tonal sound that pleases the ear, it is not music by any definition I know. I don't hear much of it any more, but I remember music.
Who having ever heard it in its proper context of time and place could ever forget:
... the brilliant, triple-tongued trumpet of Harry James.
... the unique heart-stopping arrangements of Glenn Miller,
... Benny Goodman's soaring and expressive clarinet,
... the mellow slide of Tommy Dorsey's trombone,
... the smooth crooning of Bing Crosby that required new recording techniques to capture its quality,
... second to Crosby was Sinatra — how the ladies swooned,
... the fantastic musicianship of Jack Jones who never made a musical mistake,
... then at the end of the war came Tony Bennet storming the pop music scene with his confident baritone still popular today,
... the smooth rendition of top songs by Dinah Shore led a talented group of ladies to the
scene,
... with Kathryn Grayson who made brilliant performance respectable again with the general public,
... top it off with the unexcelled eye and ear for top talent exhibited by Lawrence Welk.
Now that was music!
Fortunately, it hasn't been a 100% takeover. Hidden among the ruins of hard rock, modern country, hip hop and rap are a few superlative performers who have refused to bow the knee to pop culture at its worst. I have in mind artists such as Susan Broyle, Lee Ann Rimes, Nana Mouskouri, Andy Williams, George Strait, The Lonesome Man Banjo Band and others — many of them gathered at their Ozark hideaway in Branson, Mo.
Maybe from these regressives we will someday have a resurgence of real music that doesn't assault the ear. Maybe we can have some real dancing instead of the "group gropes" such events have commonly become.
But again... maybe not. Maybe young people have become too indolent to go to the trouble. After all, it's not easy to learn to sing like Howard Keel or Kathryn Grayson — or dance like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire or Cyd Charise. It may just be too much work.
It's too bad, but that's life, I guess.
-END-
A Book I Think You'll Enjoy
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DonJohnson
On the Centipede's Back
by
Don Johnson
Here's to the vinegaroon,
Who jumped on the centipede's back.
He looked at him with a glow and a glee,
and he said "You poisonous son-of-a-bitch,
If I don't get you— you'll get me.
—Old Cowboy Toast
Ty Coltrane was an emotional train wreck. He was imprudent, a womanizer, a misfit in the modern world, and he often failed to control his temper.
He drank too much, gambled too much, and he had no lofty ambitions. Yet... he was a champion of all little children, old people, helpless animals and all underdogs. He was a horseman... in the very best sense of the word.
He was a cowboy who performed superbly and without complaint the skills of his trade. He was a hearty companion, unflinchingly brave and had a keen sense of justice and fair play.
He was, is, always has been and always will be my friend. I want you to know him as I knew him. Maybe he will be your friend too.
How Times Have Changed!
Some of the most remarkable stories told me by my dad of his early years concerned their modes of transportation and similar tasks. These stories seem especially remarkable now that the Space Shuttle, once seemingly straight out of science fiction, has been retired. How strange it seems to me to think of nostalgia and the Space Shuttle in the same context.
Anyhow, my dad’s life spanned a fantastic advance in such activities. It covered a time when the automobile was an impractical toy, and almost no one owned one. — at least where he lived in South-Central Oklahoma — yet he saw Americans walk on the moon. Fantastic!
In his early days, a trip to the trading post (supermarket equivalent) entailed a full day’s journey — and more if you were unlucky. You started by getting out the wagon and hitching the team. In his case the unfortunate placement of a river created a major obstacle between his family and their objective. If the river was low, which it frequently was during droughts (also frequent), there was a place they could ford the river.
However, when the river was higher (about 75% of the time) there was much activity involved in the crossing. First the team was unhitched from the wagon, which was then unloaded and dismantled. The wagon parts were loaded into the wagon bed, which was floated and dragged across the water. There it was reassembled and reloaded, the team re-hitched and the journey continued, and this is assuming the weather cooperated. If it didn’t the problems were magnified.
Back then a person spent most of his time solving unexpected problems. The solutions almost always had to be creative in nature because there was no norm — at least none they knew about.
What about longer journeys? Much the same.
My dad and his twin brother were products of a union between a widow and a widower, both of whom had four children. They proceeded to have four themselves to make an even dozen. But, in those days, children were considered assets rather than liabilities because they were expected to work. A number of husky youngsters could increase the output of a homestead considerably. Some might even get hired by an outside company for cash money — always a scarce and welcome commodity. My dad and his twin ran a trap line for a time. Most of the animals trapped were skunks, which led to several unfortunate accidents but also brought in significant income.
Then, there came a time when the family moved from South-Central Oklahoma to the High Plains of West Texas in what is now the Brownfield area. Out came the wagon again. However, the wagon would not hold all the family's possessions plus the 14 family members. So most of them walked the approximately 300 miles to their destination.
However, according to my dad, the worst part of the trip wasn’t fatigue — it was boredom. Highlights of the trip for the kids included coming to a settlement. Evidence that they were coming near a settlement involved seeing signs of other people, maybe even the sight of another wagon or two. Then, the town itself came into view.
They would make their way to the middle of town where they would find the wagon yard. This is where all travelers camped for the night when they were in town. There were new kids to play with, stories around the fire at night, in short a welcome change from the monotony of the trail.
Even as a young man, things didn’t change that much for my dad. Nearly every task was performed by horsepower, mulepower or kidpower. He told me of a time, as a young teenager, when he hired onto a trail drive to move a remuda of horses (more than likely mustangs) from near their home close to Brownfield to the middle of New Mexico.
For those unfamiliar with that part of our country, rain is quite infrequent — but always unpredictable. During this drive, the rains started with the very first day and continued for the entire trip of more than two weeks. There was one young man who was having a particularly hard time on the trip. He couldn’t get his tarp folded just right and it continually leaked rain through to his bedroll. He didn’t check out the ground before turning in and consequently bedded down in a low spot. He awakened, soaking wet and surrounded by water as far as he could see in every direction.
He leaped bolt upright swearing mighty oaths at nobody and nothing in particular, concluding with, “And I didn’t hire out to sleep in no dam lake!”
With that he crawled into the chuck wagon dragging his bedroll with him. He sat there upright holding his blankets in front of him. For the rest of the drive, at least 10 more days, he never lay down to sleep, but sat in the chuck wagon every night.
They got some respite from sleeping out in the rain every night about halfway through the drive when they came upon a settler’s spread. He had a corral into which they could turn their horses and a dry barn in which they could sleep. He also invited them to take supper with him and his wife that evening which was a real treat.
The kid who had the hard time with his sleeping arrangements was especially partial to some unidentified meat that had alternating fat and lean streaks. He ate so much it was getting embarrassing and the trail boss finally had to stop him.
Later they saw several small pens of black and white animals in the back yard. The settler was raising skunks for their pelts. When the trail boss raised questioning eyebrows, the man replied with a smile, “We waste very little here.”
The kid turned pale but managed a grin. “I don’t care. I still say that was the best meat I ever ate,”
I also heard tales of hiring out to build roads, bridges, and dams with just a mule and a Fresno. Hard, backbreaking work, but it brought in family income.
It didn't change much when time came for him to pursue a higher education. He trekked back to Stillwater, OK to enroll at what was then Oklahoma A & M. The cost of tuition (I think less than $20 per semester)
was scraped together by the family, but there remained room and board to consider. Part time jobs were virtually non-existent. So, he took with him one of the family milk cows.
He staked her out on a vacant lot and made a deal with one of the sororities for his meals in exchange for milk. A fraternity agreed to furnish a room in exchange for washing dishes. He had no student loan, no scholarship, nothing but hard work. That's the way he earned (really earned) his degree.
After he got his teacher's certificate, he would teach during the school year, pursue an advanced degree during the summer. During much of this time, the country was immersed in a deep depression. He was frequently paid his teacher's salary in script. But he managed to get by, raise a family and later become a small business owner.
To go from that lifestyle to jets and space travel covered lots of change.
END
To All Younger Than I
This is a message I have for everyone younger than I am. If you're older than I, God help you, you probably don't need any words of wisdom from me. You've probably "been there, done that."
One of the perks of growing old is the perceived right to pontificate on almost any subject. You, as the younger, are required to listen with respect. If you don't, you'll be thought to be both foolish and rude (I would agree with that assessment).
I have heard the whine (frequently voiced in the media) that the youth of today are forced to live in a "world they never made." Well, duh, hasn't everyone done that? Who in history has ever been allowed to make the world in which they live?
Since you've been inserted into a world you didn't make, I suggest you make up your mind to just muddle on through the best you can with what you have. My contemporaries and I are a little too old and feeble to be of much help. You'll have to make things right pretty much by yourselves.
Unfortunately, you are destined to live in an America at war. It is different from the wars faced by my generation. While we faced powerful and determined enemies, at least we knew who they were.
Today there are people who would give their lives if they could first see you dead or enslaved. These shadowy enemies are sometimes difficult to identify. Like a huge iceberg they are mostly below the surface and virtually invisible.
In my opinion, this country has never faced a more dangerous enemy than that faced today in Islamic-Fascism. I am sorry to leave you with that, and you may think it unfair, but you and all younger generations have drawn the short straw. It will be left to you to face the brunt of a brutal and ongoing attack by forces who see a chance for world domination once America is brought to her knees.
I can only pray that Americans will again prove equal to the task.
This attack could hardly have come at a worse time in our history. I fear that many Americans — maybe even most — have grown soft and fearful. They would have us all follow the European model of cowardice and defeatism in the face of a determined Islamic horde. They would have us become a nation of sheep who live in denial. They think that we should just try a little harder to get along with the fanatic Muslims.
They seem to think that if you feed enough steak to the tiger, it will become a vegetarian.
They do not want to believe — will not believe that there is evil in the world so twisted and demented it cannot be reasoned with — cannot be negotiated with but must be destroyed.
Those people want to kill us — not because of anything we've done but because of who we are.
As the surviving American generations you are going to be required to make some hard choices. One of the forks in the road ahead leads to two far different futures for our country. One is that of denial and appeasement. This was the path favored by Neville Chamberlain in pre-war Britain.
When Chamberlain returned home from Munich waving the papers of agreement with Adolph Hitler and proclaiming that he had achieved "peace in our time," Winston Churchill replied, "You were given a choice between dishonor and war. You chose dishonor, but you will have war."
Churchill proved prophetic. A short time later, Hitler's aggression launched the world into a horrific world war.
The other path is that of the warrior willing to fight— die if necessary — for freedom.
Sheep flee from the sounds of strife. They want to be far away when the wolves strike. Maybe they won't attack him or her this time. The warrior moves toward the sounds of conflict hoping and confident that he can make a difference in the outcome.
The warrior knows the wolves will give no quarter. This is a war for survival. We must win regardless of the cost — to our nation or to the individual. The future of this country — and of all western civilization — is primarily in your hands.
I pledge to do what I can, but I fear it won't be much. The future of the world rests mostly with you. My step has grown a little slower, my grasp less sure, my sight a little blurred. You will have to lead the fight for "a new dawn of freedom" in America. This is the lot of the generation into which you were born.
It was perhaps said best back in the 19th century.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself".–John Stuart Mill, English economist & philosopher (1806 – 1873).
If you choose that harder path, which I highly recommend, you will join with others of like mind to protect and preserve freedom for yourselves, your children, yes, and even for those who walked the easier path of denial and appeasement.
Then, when older, it will be spoken of you as it was of the immortal band of heroes, by Tennyson at the close of "Ulysses."
"Tho' much is taken — much abides,
and tho' we are not now that strength,
which in the olden days
shook the heavens and earth,
that which we are, we are.
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
made weak by time and fate,
but strong in will to strive, to seek,
to protect, and never to yield."
Whichever path you choose, may you choose wisely, and I wish you well.
-END-
A Book I Think You'll Enjoy
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DonJohnson
Thunder On Monastery Ridge
by Fern Smith-Brown
An old man who now lived at The Willows, insists Rebecca and Daniel inhabit the forest for he swears he has seen them many times. And to anyone who would listen, the old man would gladly tell their story. In a way, it was his story, for he’d watched it all unfold. And yes, he too, had loved the beautiful girl whose life had been so tragic.
Rebecca and Daniel’s story was a sad one, he’d tell his listeners with a shake of his balding, gray-fringed head.
His piercing blue eyes would flicker across those who had inquired about the legend and he would begin, once again, the telling of a beautiful little girl sent to The Willows from the orphanage and a boy whose ill mother brought him to live with the monks at the monastery.
Theirs was a love that grew slowly––a love so pure and sweet that few people could ever imagine the depth and magic of it. It was––he’d tell them––a story of destinies that were entwined like the gnarled vines interwoven among the forest trees. The forest––the place where Rebecca had spent the happiest hours of her life––would forevermore be the home of the two lost souls whose love was so profound, that one could not exist without the other.
But do not be sad for them, he’d say, for they were together now––in the forest––for all eternity.
Old Chris was insistent of that.
-END-
Remembered
It was a number of years ago, but there is one episode of "All In the Family" that has remai
ned in my mind to this day. Believe me, it is unusual for any sitcom plot to stay with me more than a day or two.
The series interested me primarily because of Archie Bunker's delightfully idiotic ideas and his occasional (probably accidental) brilliant insights. However, this particular incident mainly involved Edith Bunker (the Dingbat).
It concerned Edith's high school reunion which she and several of her friends were determined to attend. Archie, of course, and his men friends were most reluctant to go.
The ladies were all aflutter because it was said that their old high school hero was going to be there. They raved about this guy, how he pounded down to the finish line in the cross country races, his blond, wavy hair blowing in the breeze and his trim, well-conditioned body striding effortlessly to the tape.
Archie and the other men decided they'd better go along to check this guy out. They carefully looked over all the men at the affair and couldn't find anyone to match the description they had of him. They were about to decide he hadn't come after all when one of them spotted his name tag. However, it was being worn by someone who couldn't possibly be this hero from the past.
They finally summoned the courage to introduce themselves to this man. Sure enough,,, it was the guy they had been looking for — but what a difference. They were greatly relieved and amused at his appearance. He was completely bald — not a blond, wavy lock in sight. He said, " it just started falling out one day and never quit."
His trim, fit figure had gone somewhere as this person sported a definite pot belly, round face and flabby arms. He said it was the consequence of marrying a gourmet cook.
In spite of themselves, however, the men couldn't bring themselves to dislike the guy. He was so nice and easy going they all really liked him. Nevertheless, they were not about to let the ladies off the hook.
Archie took the lead with a smirking question. "Well, now what do you girls think of your hero now?"
Edith answered for the girls. "Oh, isn't he wonderful? He hasn't changed a bit — exactly like I remember him."
The confused men were flabbergasted and further questioned their wives. It turned out that the wavy hair and trim figure were completely unnoticed when gone. These not the things that defined their hero.... It was his kind and thoughtful manner— his consideration and generous spirit. That's what they remembered about the man.
His blond hair and fit body merely made up the icing on what was a very substantial cake. I think and hope that it's the same for most of us. We tend to admire and remember those whose actions meet with our approval regardless of physical attributes.
We may ogle a fine looking specimen, but it's what they are inside that keeps them lingering in our minds for a lifetime.
-END-
A Book I Think You'll Enjoy
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Romantic comedy. Two very different people fall in love. In this romantic romp, the aristocrat and the urchin are so totally unsuited that they need a little push from Fate to show them the dance of love is just a two step away.
A funny, romantic comedy of two people who dance adroitly around the irresistible force of falling in love. Never were two people more out of step then the aristocratic Cambridge Hartley the Third and saucy Charlie Sullivan.
To Cambridge Hartley the Third, Charlie was an urchin from middle class America. She seemed to always be getting in his way or climbing over his wall into his private garden. And she had this irritating way of speaking her mind and—talking back to him!
On the other hand, Charlie Sullivan had only two words for him: "Pompous ass!"
Highjacked
I recently experienced an airplane highjacking which left me shaken and disturbed. I don't remember exactly where I was going or why I was going there. I just remember a scrawny terrorist with a box cutter in his hand pushing a flight attendant down the aisle in front of him.
I remember thinking, "This is not right. He can't get away with this."
It kept running through my mind that this guy had to be deactivated. So, I waited until he passed my seat, stood up and grabbed his arm that held the box cutter. The natural thing to do seemed to be to slam his hand against a seat back to dislodge his weapon — so I did. So far, so good.
I whirled him around to face me, and he started kicking and flailing his arms. I jerked him right up against me so he couldn't extend his arms or legs. Terror lent strength to my body as I held him up and shook him like a rag doll.
I fastened both my hands around his skinny neck and squeezed. I shook him again and squeezed harder.
All of a sudden my breath left my body in a loud swoosh. I gasped as I fought for air. I couldn't breath.
I awakened in a cold sweat, the bed covers on the floor, the air hose which normally connects me to my C-pap machine was pulled loose from the machine and was firmly grasped in my clenched hands. What I had thought was the windpipe of a determined hijacker was really my lifeline that kept me fed a constant supply of air through the night.
The fact that my wife witnessed the whole episode forestalled my first inclination to cover it all up and deny everything. Here I was busted — caught red-handed with air tubing in hand. I guess it was better to blame the whole thing on an unfortunate nightmare than to admit to disabling my breathing apparatus for no apparent reason.
Maybe I'd better start watching what I eat just before bedtime.
-END-
My Aunt Nellie
My Aunt Nellie was an iconic figure in our family from the time I can first remember. She set for herself and others high standards of conduct and clucked disapprovingly when they weren’t met. This did not endear her to us young boys whose ideas of fun tended toward rough play and mischief.
She was a widow whose young husband had been stricken by, what I’m now sure was, leukemia. I remember as a very young lad visiting her family during the latter days of Roy’s life in Enid, Oklahoma. I recall that the doctor ordered him to go each day to the abattoir to catch and drink a fresh glass of blood from a slaughtered animal.
This remedy, while fascinating to young boys was apparently not very effective. His health declined steadily until his death after a relatively short illness. He left behind a young wife with two boys slightly older than I.
No man was loved more deeply than Roy was by my Aunt Nellie. She was quite proud that, other than family members, no lips but Roy’s had ever touched hers—nor would they ever. She lived a chaste life as a widow the rest of her life devoting it to the rearing of her two boys, filling in for family wherever needed, and carving out an excellent teaching career.
She took Roy’s insurance money, which couldn’t have been much, and bought an 80-acre farm in the Panhandle of West Texas. This must have been part of a family plan of which I was unaware since her brother, Konrad, obtained a somewhat larger farm on one side of her, and her sister, Dorothy, a farm on the other side.
Aunt Nellie was an excellent cook whose specialty was cakes. She could whip up a wonderful concoction that was as beautiful as it was tasty. I looked on those creations in absolute awe. Only trouble was, I wasn’t partial to cake being a dedicated pie man.
Nevertheless she was undeterred. She firmly believed that a birthday was not quite proper if it didn’t feature a magnificent multilayered cake. As I grew up, no matter where I lived, I can’t recall one of my birthdays that Aunt Nellie didn’t swoop in sometime during the day with an impossibly magnificent cake at which everyone would “ooh and aaah” — both when presented in all its beauty and later when the tribe fell on the offering like a bunch of starving seagulls.
I would nibble a bit and dutifully tell Aunt Nellie what a great cake she had made. She accepted that as her just due and continued the practice well into my adult years.
At Christmas time, she would assume the role of Santa’s strong right arm. At some time on Christmas Eve (sometimes well after dark) her aged Gray Chevy coupe would roll into the driveway disgorging a world of Christma
s plunder for the young children of the family.
This continued even as I had children of my own to indoctrinate into the wonderful legend of jolly old St. Nick.
I’ll have to confess that many Christmas mornings would have been less magical than it was if it hadn’t been for Aunt Nellie’s contribution of candy, nuts and small toys.
Aunt Nellie was a highly intelligent woman and well educated. However, that didn’t prevent her from coming up with some rather fanciful notions of the way things were.
One came to light when her younger son and I dug up some bear grass roots to make soap. We had read somewhere that the Comanche used it in such a way. She opined that that was probably what turned their skins red and it would do the same for us. Seen by the light of what I know today, it is doubtful that the story had any validity to start with as the real Comanche would have had no use for soap of any kind.
No, I didn’t fully appreciate Aunt Nellie when I was young. But now, looking back on the way she intersected my life in so many ways, I understand that a very large and enjoyable piece of my life would have been missing without her. She's gone from this earth now, but I'm hoping she can still receive my message which is, "Thank you very much, Aunt Nellie, for being part of... the way things were."
-END-
A Book I Think You'll Enjoy
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DonJohnson
A Texas Elegy
by
Don Johnson
This is a story of Texas — the way it was — the way it can never be again.
Whit Rutherford and his small crowd of cowboys want to keep things just the way they are. But they'll have to take on "Miz Emily" and most of the world to do it.
They lose, of course, but it was a grand fight while it lasted. I think you'll enjoy it.
The Dust Bowl
Last year In early July I saw a newscast on television that showed a huge curtain of sand and dust sweeping down on Phoenix. It was a familiar sight to me that could have come right out of my childhood in the Dust Bowl of West Texas. The report said those things were called “haboobs” from some Arabic word meaning “wind.” It didn’t say who called them that. I, for one, never heard of a “haboob.” We called them “dusters,” “sandies,” or just plain “sandstorms.”
However, haboob or duster, they were vicious quirks of nature we newcomers in 1936 learned to deal with or else. I learned quickly that an old-timer’s advice to never touch a barbed wire fence during one of these storms wasn’t just an attempt to rattle the chain of a newcomer.
Testing that theory for myself got me knocked flat on my back from a massive charge of static electrical energy that could run into thousands of volts built up by the friction of the sand flowing over the wires. But that was a lesson easily learned and not likely to be forgotten. The consequences were also quite easily avoided. Just keep your flippin’ hands away from the wire fencing!
Other miseries inflicted by a major duster were, for the most part, unavoidable. That included blackness that fell during broad daylight. Lamps were lit during daytime hours for two to three days at a time. A fine layer of dust penetrated every nook and corner of the house. A grating coat of gritty dirt covered your body, and there was no shower to wash it off. We covered our mouths and noses with dampened towels or bandanas leaving just a slit for the eyes. Our food was said to be easily digested because of the “grit in our craw.”
I recall one storm in particular that stands out for me. It was actually two dusters coming at us at the same time. One was out of the southeast with billowing puffs of dust and debris rising high into the air — a sight that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck. The other was straight out of the west, looking much the same except with a row of twisting, twirling dust devils running along in front.
My dad, who had just arrived from a trip to town with a brand, new Stetson hat on his head, stood in the backyard trying to determine if any special action was going to be required of the family to meet this unprecedented threat. Our backyard turned out to be the meeting place for these two gigantic air masses.
With a loud swoosh his hat shot straight into the air and was last seen at about 1,000 feet in altitude still barreling straight up. My dad retreated to the kitchen where we settled in with lit lamps for three days of continuous darkness. I have never seen any kind of meteorological explanation of exactly what happened nor of its consequences. We did hear that a tornado had spun down a little south of here and destroyed a couple of houses. Whether or not it had anything to do with the air masses in collision I have no idea.
The debilitating effect of these “dusties” or “haboobs” on our morale I leave to your imagination.
My dad, who had come to the area to teach vocational agriculture, was diligent to explain to his students that proper farming techniques would quickly put all these things to rest.
However, nature in this case was not inclined to give you a blow and then an explanation. She delivered the blow, but it was left up to us to discover why our ears were being boxed.
My dad’s farming methods were no doubt beneficial, but the problem was much more complicated and results took much longer than anticipated. A full generation passed before a semblance of control was gained over this scourge.
However, I guess now we can look back on it as a builder of courage and sturdy character in those who went through it.
-END-
Summers On the Farm
In the early 1930s, my dad was a football coach, biology and chemistry teacher in an oil boomtown in north-central Texas. But in teaching at that time, the best opportunities were in vocational agriculture, subsidized by the federal government.
But to land one of these lucrative positions required a master’s degree in the subject. With a family to support, and in the middle of a depression, he could ill afford to take time off to pursue an advanced degree. So, he decided to do it during summer sessions only. He could teach all through the school year and in the summer session he could work toward his master’s degree.
He and my mother would take an apartment or duplex or whatever was available in Lubbock, Texas where he could study at Texas Tech. That left only one major problem — what to do with my brother and me.
That problem was solved by my Aunt Nellie in a move that, while taken for granted by me then, seems like a singular act of generosity looked back on from a more knowledgeable time.
She unhesitatingly said that my brother and I could stay with her during the summer. This may not seem like a great self sacrifice unless you know the circumstances of her life at the time.
Aunt Nellie owned 80 acres of land on the High Plains of West Texas purchased with the insurance money she received from her husband’s death, which left her widowed with two young sons to support. In addition, her retired parents (my grandparents) were also moving to the farm with her.
It fell to my grandfather (an excellent carpenter) to build a home for the family with his only help that of my cousins who were about 12 and 14 at the time. I remember being there at age eight while the house was being built. I don’t remember being much help in that effort. I spent a lot of time whittling arrows from broken shingles, which I fired with the help of a straight stick and a piece of rubber from an old inner tube. I shot them at rabbits, birds and any other game I could find — mostly to no avail, I’m afraid.
The house was two-rooms with a pyramid-shaped roof. We had no electricity, no gas, no indoor plumbing. We had a windmill which pumped up icy cold water from somewhere under the ground. It was pumped directly into one oaken barrel, piped across into another oaken barrel and from there it flowed into a small pond. Running water was supplied by our running feet carrying buckets from the well to the kitchen. Needless to say, a bath was a rare and major occasion.
We had an outhouse with necessary paper supplied by last year’s Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs. A small vineyard of Concord grapes supplied fresh fruit in season. A hand-dug, dirt
-covered cellar furnished shelter from major storms and storage for preserved vegetables from the garden.
Livestock consisted of a few cows, hogs and a small flock of chickens. There was a team of mules, a pony and an occasional jackrabbit or ground squirrel captured and kept in a cage made from scraps left over from the house construction. A dog and several cats kept varmints away from the house and were thus judged worthy of their keep.
Sleeping arrangements were quite simple. Aunt Nellie and her parents slept inside. Her kids, my brother and I shared the entire outdoors as our bedroom. We had iron bedsteads with steel springs and easily portable mattresses. We slept out under the stars, and my older cousins gave me a first class education in the stars, the planets and the constellations.
If it rained, we grabbed our mattresses and bedding and raced to the house where we threw them on the floor and bedded down dry and comfortable.
In spite of the severe depression that savaged the rest of the nation, I never remember being hungry for a single day. We had vegetables from the garden, milk, butter and cheese from our cows, a beef carcass hung from the windmill all summer long. It would develop a thin, flint-like covering that kept the beef good all summer. My grandmother would also slice thin steaks, which were stored in layers of salt and pepper in clay crocks. Pork was cured and salted down in the cellar.
Ice was brought by the iceman who made his rounds, even out in the country, watching for the cards in the window which, depending on how you turned them, told him to leave a 12.5, 25, 50, 75 or 100 pound block for the ice box.
I was the self-appointed hunter of the family, and I would joyfully search out the pastures for game with my trusty .410 gauge shotgun, .22 caliber, single-shot rifle, or my B-B gun (which utilized very cheap ammunition). My grandmother, bless her heart, would gladly cook and help me eat anything I killed and dragged home — birds, frogs, rabbits, squirrels or whatever. My mother and aunt were never quite that accommodating.
I’m sure that today, a child welfare officer would come by, arrest all the adults, charge them with child abuse, and divide us kids into a series of foster homes. But my recollection of those times was one of hard work, chopping cotton, picking peas, heading milo, etc. (which came with the territory) and happy memories. I wouldn’t trade those times for any I can think of today.
-END-
The Blue Northers
We have already generalized about weather in the old days and how it seemed to be worse then than now. Now, let''s examine the blizzard, which in the high plains of Northwest Texas frequently took the form of what we called Blue Northers.
Sometimes in the winter one would venture out into brilliant sunshine and moderate temperatures but see hanging over the northern horizon a band of deep, dark blue sky. That heralded the approach of the celebrated and much berated Blue Norther.
They would loom a little closer then strike with a sudden ferociousness unbelievable to one who'd never witnessed it. Such a phenomenon generated a plethora of tall tales.
It was said that young boys charged with the milking chore had an especially hard time after a Blue Norther had struck. The milk, as soon as it was squeezed out, would freeze into long spears which would punch holes in the bottom of the milk bucket. The problem was solved by some bright lad who laid a piece of cloth on the ground and squirted the milk directly on it. This allowed him to finish milking, gather up the frozen spears of milk like cordwood, and carry it into the house in his arms.
We heard about the farmer who loved fried frog legs. He would head down to the pond whenever he noticed the approach of a Blue Norther. The second it arrived he fired his gun in the air and every frog on the bank dived for the water. The Blue Norther froze the water instantly catching the frogs half in and half out of the water. He would then run his lawn mower over the frozen pond and harvest the legs which were sticking up in the air.
These stories were generally viewed with a considerable amount of skepticism, but the truth of some of these storms was almost as unbelievable.
I recall that one swept down on our brand new consolidated school in the winter of 1940. One of our five school buses started its route and made a couple of miles before bogging down. The driver with some thirty kids in tow, slogged through the blizzard on foot back to the schoolhouse.
The other four buses didn't make it off the school grounds.
As typical with these storms, the total snowfall was nil— probably less than a foot— maybe as little as six inches. But the size of some of the drifts on the lee side of any obstacle was awe inspiring often rooftop tall and ten to twelve feet thick.
At any rate all roads leading away from the schoolhouse were completely blocked. The school couldn't get the kids home, nor could the parents come to get them.
While the situation was highly traumatic for parents and school personnel, the kids treated the whole affair like a visit to an amusement park. While the school had no cafeteria, the home economics department was right in the middle of Cake Baking 101 (or whatever they called it). The teachers, who lived in a string of school owned houses collectively called "Rat Row," gathered all their food reserves. The result was a picnic-like atmosphere all through the building.
An impromptu basketball game broke out in the gym about midnight and continued until around four in the morning. The teachers bedded down as many as they could, with the remainder sleeping on the gym floor, in the bleachers, on various tables and anywhere they could find a vacant space.
Fortunately, Blue Northers are not normally long term disasters. The next morning dawned bright and shiny with quickly moderating temperatures, and the kids were quickly returned to their homes to the thinly veiled disappointment of many who hadn't yet had their fill of lightly supervised bedlam.
Another such weather anomaly a few years later affected me personally a lot more and had more tragic consequences.
I owned some irrigated land in the Texas Panhandle on Running Water Creek near the small town of Olton. It wasn't as level as we preferred for irrigated land, but it had a pump that propelled a full nine-inch pipe of water some 6-8-feet before hitting the ground. On that land I grew cotton and grain sorghum as well as quite a few livestock.
Late one afternoon in the early spring, I was down at the barn about 100 yards from the house checking on some of my ewes who were just beginning to lamb. They had inexplicably gathered under a new shed I'd just built out of corrugated iron. This was unlike them. They normally stayed in the stubble fields until sundown where they gathered up any stalks that had not been harvested and occasionally snatched up a fallen head of grain.
Busy with my wooly mothers-to-be, I hadn't noticed the telltale darkening of the blue sky as the blizzard swept down on us. When it hit I hesitated to leave the shelter, but then I realized it wasn't going to get any better for several hours, and I had no desire to spend those hours separated from the icy wind and bitter cold of the blizzard by only a thin sheet of corrugated iron.
After a few steps, I realized that I might be making a mistake. I couldn't see the house. I turned around and couldn't see the shed either. The storm had produced what is known as a "whiteout." I couldn't tell the ground from the sky. An object being covered with snow might be a wheelbarrow or a chicken house. There was no way to tell.
After a few steps in the swirling wind and I could no longer tell which direction was which. I was like a blind man trying to feel my way along but had nothing to hold to. I hoped I was pointed toward the house, but I could have been headed back toward the shed or worse just wandering down in a field somewhere.
After what seemed like hours but could only have been a few minutes, I slammed up against something solid. I felt my way along the side of it until I finally recognized the shape. It was my car.
I was trying to think clearly, which is no easy task when your eyes are being glued shut by tiny droplets of frozen water, driven by a 70 miles-per-hour wind, that constantly pelted your entire body.
I remembered that I had p
arked the car right in front of the house. By feel I located the front of the car and relinquished my one grasp on proper orientation as I launched myself back into the unknown.
I stumbled on something and almost fell flat. I reached down with my hands and realized it was the picket fence that surrounded my house, but it seemed to have shrunk to no more than a foot tall. It took me a moment to realize I was standing atop a drift that had almost buried the fence.
A few minutes later I had groped my way to the front door of my house. I twisted the knob and hurled myself into the relative warmth and quiet of my own living room.
True to type, the storm was over by midnight. However, morning revealed that we were prisoners on our own land, frozen in a world of snow and ice. I had stacked enough bundled grain sorghum to last my livestock through the winter, at which time, they could turn to the lush irrigated pasture on which they thrived.
I had not counted on seeing a hundred black specks scattered in the snow of my fields which quickly turned into a herd of Black Angus cattle. Later I was to find that the cattle had been in a feedlot some 30 miles north of me and had walked on the snowdrifts over their fences and drifted with the wind to my place.
The Code of the West required that I feed these visitors from my supply of stored feed until the owner could get by to claim them.
But, I had a more serious problem on my hands. My kids, a boy and a girl, were coming down with the flu, complicated by chest congestion, and our butane tank on which we depended for heat was running dangerously low.
It was three miles of dirt road from my house to the state highway then five more miles into town from there. I had no idea whether the highway was open or closed. I knew about the dirt road. Huge drifts of snow lay across the road in many places where it collected behind electrical poles, fence posts or any other obstacle.
I saddled up a most reluctant pony and pointed him toward town. Every time we tried to cross a drift he would sink down until the snow hit his belly, at which, he would come unwound and throw a bucking fit I would have to weather until we could settle down and go on to the next one. Needless to say our progress was slow.
I found that the highway was impassable from a point about where my road intersected the highway. However, back toward town the highway was clear. Several cars were in the process of turning around at that point and heading back to town.
One offered me a ride into town which I gladly accepted. I tied old Dandy to a fence and decided to worry about how I was going to get back to him later.
In town I bought four electric heaters, tied them together, slung them over my shoulder and started trekking back down the highway. I was expecting Dandy to make quite a fuss over my cargo when I tried to climb back on him.
My walk took me right past the butane office where I caught the eye of old Newt Fisher, the owner.
"Hey," he hollered. "Where you goin' with them things?"
I explained my situation to him. I was just hoping that the butane in my tank would hold out until I could get there with the electrical heaters.
"Oh no, you don't," he said. "We'll get you your butane."
I tried to explain to him that there was no way he was going to get his truck over that blocked road to my house.
He didn't even answer. He just pulled around to the road a brand new tank truck and a brand new pickup. He told me to get in the pickup. He had two men with shovels jump in the back. Another sat beside the driver of the tank truck.
When we reached the road that turned off to my house, I learned the procedure they were going to use. When we came upon a big drift, the driver revved up the engine of the tank truck to high rpm, jumped the clutch and slammed into the drift as hard as he could. When it couldn't go any farther, the men in the pickup would bail out and go to work with their shovels.
When the tank truck cleared the drift, they would tie a long chain to the front of the pickup and pull it through. Progress was slow but steady. It took us about three hours to negotiate that three miles to my house.
They filled my 500-gallon tank and left their bill, which was, as I recall, something like $85.
Later I learned the same butane company had dropped bottles of gas from an airplane to some customers who were running low.
Later that year some people came by who were collecting signatures to get a natural gas pipeline laid across that area. They told me it would be a more dependable source of fuel. I told them "No thanks." the fuel I was getting was plenty dependable.
That Blue Norther took a major economic toll on the region, but it also took a human toll. At Boys Ranch, a facility for troubled boys up close to Amarillo, a young man who had a date in town for that night was so disappointed by the cancellation of his ride into town, he determined to walk the 12 miles in to keep his date.
An all-night search for the boy culminated in the discovery about dawn of his body draped across a fence off the highway, just another of many victims claimed over the years by these vicious storms.
No, we don't interact with the weather today as much as we once did. And, in most cases, it's better that we don't.
-END-
Corporal Punishment
There seems to be some controversy today about the propriety of spanking or paddling children by teachers or even parents as punishment for misbehavior. This disagreement is very new and did not exist just a few years ago. To hear some discuss it today it is as though the children were being subjected to a phase of the Spanish Inquisition.
A panel on television discussing the subject used words and terms such as "torture" and "beaten up." I can assure you there was no such controversy when I was a youngster.
My own dad was a school teacher for many years and was highly thought of by his students. Students elected him "Teacher of the Year" many different times. A former student remarked to me, "If it hadn't been for your dad, I'm satisfied I'd be in prison by now." As he was at that time a bank president, I recall telling him that he wasn't "out of the woods yet."
While it can't be denied that he was an excellent teacher in many regards, he was also a stern disciplinarian who believed in swift and fair—and very corporal punishment for most misbehavior. His instrument of choice in the deliverance of this punishment was whatever was at hand. I recall the use of boards, straps, and the flat of his hand which I recall as being hard as a bed slat.
I don't recall ever anyone complaining about the punishment— not student— not family member. I suppose it was because we knew it would always be applied fairly and in the spirit of correction aimed at producing good results in the long term for the miscreant.
I believe the same was true of most teachers of that day— at least of their intent. They meant well and, for the most part, it was successful. Students respected the school faculty and officials. Teachers were almost invariably backed up by the student's parents.
When a kid got a whipping at school, he or she certainly didn't run home complaining to parents who would then bring a lawsuit down on the school district. They tried to keep the punishment secret from their parents because it was likely to be doubled at home.
This was the custom back then which has fallen out of favor today. We're left to ponder the results. Were we so insensitive that we put up with "torture" of children? Did we allow them to be "beaten up" by larger and stronger beings? Were our school system and our homes, institutions for the abuse of children?
Now it seems punishment is to be limited to "timeouts" and "denial of privileges" and similar non-violent methods. Those advocates of the modern methods of punishment have never made clear (at least to me) how you enforce the "timeout" or the "denial of privilege" without force or the threat of force. What's to prevent the "little darlings" from flipping you off and doing whatever they want?
A wise French chef once said, "Let me taste the soup, and you can spare yourself the rhetoric on how well you cook."
Let us here taste the soup and check the results of the new discipline— or lack of same.
Are children better behaved now that they are no longer "tortured" or "beaten up?" Do they have more respect for authority, whether it is in the home, school, or other institution? Do they have more respect for the rights of others? Do they take more responsibility for their actions? Do they demonstrate more sportsmanship and fair play in life?
I think the answers to those questions are self-evident.
I lived through a fair amount of corporal punishment at home, and I never felt abused or mistreated, I avoided corporal punishment at school in the same way that anyone could— by simply doing what I knew I was supposed to do. And, that's the way things worked back then.
-END-
The First Bicycle
If there is any one thing “men of a certain age” are sure to remember it’s their first bicycle. I certainly remember mine — although it wasn’t really “mine.”
Times were hard back in 1937 and major purchases (such as a $10 used bicycle) were “ours,” meaning it belonged equally to my younger brother (by two years) and me. Regardless, to me it was a thing of great beauty not withstanding its obviously well-used condition and the old-fashioned, widespread, longhorn handle bars.
It was an unplanned purchase — very much contrary to my dad’s usual spending habits which were normally well planned in advance — bought on our weekly journey to town for food and other supplies. Later, my parents confided in me that they had stayed awake much of the first night worrying about how they could fit that $10 into their budget.
However, such trivia received no consideration from fifth and third graders with their hands on their first bike. We dragged it from the car and (as the elder brother) I leapt astride to give it a breakdown cruise by its new proprietorship.
As I wobbled down the driveway onto the dirt road that ran in front of our house, I was not concerned that I had never before been astride any kind of bike. After all, I had seen people ride them — people that seemed no smarter than I, and they seemed to have no problems at all as they swooped along their chosen pathway.
However, I was quick to learn that such pride was closely followed by the inevitable fall as I tried to make the turn from driveway onto dirt road. My face in the dirt, I plowed up about five feet of dirt road. Fortunately, the traffic in front of our house consisted of about two to three cars per day. Luckily none of our pathways intersected.
With that, I swallowed my pride and reluctantly asked my dad for help. He went along with it for a while, patiently trotting along behind me holding the bike upright as he shouted bike riding instructions in my ear. However, it wasn’t long before my insatiable lust for speed exceeded his patience and lung capacity, and he left me to learn on my own. A few lumps, bruises and scrapes later, I had (in my own eyes) mastered the skill of bike riding. My brother learned in much the same way although he did benefit some from my more painful mistakes.
Some good things came out of that old worn-out bike, some of which I recognized only after reaching full maturity.
I reluctantly learned to share. But, rather than wait patiently for one of us to have his turn at riding the bike, the other would frequently run alongside on foot in order to avoid letting the coveted bike get out of sight. Without a doubt that contributed to excellent physical conditioning for us both.
I learned patience. It finally became clear to me that undue haste, i.e. jumping into a project without due preparation, frequently led to disaster. I learned to fix things that were broken. The bike was old and worn — subject to breakage. The chain would break. The brake would slip loose. The handlebars would slip out of position. Breakage was a steady fact of life. Fresh, new parts were not available. You made do with what you had, which frequently required a creative approach to the problem.
One problem we had with great frequency was a consequence of our environment. The South Plains of West Texas is home to a plant that dealt much misery to bicycle riders on dirt roads. We called them “goatheads.”
A ground-hugging, creeping vine, it produced seed heads sporting three to five sharp spines up to a half an inch long. Old and worn tires were easily penetrated by goathead stickers.
So, we learned to fix flats — lots of them. We would dismount the wheel, remove the tube, smear on adhesive and a patch, and pump up the tube, a tedious job. We then had to check for more goatheads remaining in the tire ready to penetrate the tube again.
It helped when we found a liquid rubber product you could put in the tube that would seal small punctures without the necessity of a patch. Thus, we learned that some technological advances could supply useful enhancements to things we already had while eliminating many tedious chores.
In short, that old, used, $10 bicycle was the source of many lessons in life experience. Lacking such a tool, today’s generation can and does use many things with no idea of how they work. If one quits working — we buy a new one. We find ourselves dependent on a link to “tech support” — not always available — not always reliable.
We seem to have lost our ability to figure out how things work — and when they quit working — fix them! Once upon a time that was the American way.
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A Book I Think You'll Enjoy
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DonJohnson
On the Centipede's Back by Don Johnson
Here's to the vinegaroon,
Who jumped on the centipede's back.
He looked at him with a glow and a glee,
and he said "You poisonous son-of-a-bitch,
If I don't get you— you'll get me.
—Old Cowboy Toast
Ty Coltrane was an emotional train wreck. He was imprudent, a womanizer, a misfit in the modern world, and he often failed to control his temper.
He drank too much, gambled too much, and he had no lofty ambitions. Yet... he was a champion of all little children, old people, helpless animals and all underdogs. He was a horseman... in the very best sense of the word.
He was a cowboy who performed superbly and without complaint the skills of his trade. He was a hearty companion, unflinchingly brave and had a keen sense of justice and fair play.
He spent his life "on the centipede's back." Yet he always looked on life with "a glow and a glee." The women who idolized him and fed his passion by night, the men who jousted with him at cards and dice will soon forget him. The world outside his own tiny circle never knew him at all. He was a genuine war hero, but the public's attention to such matters is notoriously short lived.
He seems now to be in danger of just slipping under the surface of life with virtually no notice taken by the world, and I'm determined to not let that happen.
He was and always will be my friend. I want you to know him as I knew him. Maybe then he will be your friend too.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DonJohnson
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