Dreams 2

Carl Jung and Erich Fromm

Carl Jung, a contemporary of Freud and an important figure in psychology was President of the Psychoanalytic society, started by Freud. He disagreed with Freud concerning the emphasis on sexuality in dreams. Jung accepted that dreams could represent repressed sexual or hostile acts as Freud believed, but argued that it was not always true. Jung pointed out that during day we experience thousands of things we don’t consider at the time because we are occupied with the normal tasks of daily life. At night, when we are not occupied by more immediate tasks, dreams may consolidate events not attended to during the day.  Thus, responding to visual stimuli and physical experiences we ignore during day, dreams could be predictive – not prophetic, predictive - of future events.

One of his examples was of an influential business man who dreamed that he was driving a train through the mountains at ever increasing speeds, up and down and around curves until he went off the tracks and crashed. Some months later, the man’s business failed from too many speculative investments. Jung argued that the man recognized, in his dream, the recklessness of his business ventures, which he overlooked in the bustle of daily life, and that the dream predicted his business failure.       

Jung identified three different types of symbols in our dreams: archetypes, national symbols and individual symbols. Archetypes are international symbols, such as “mother” who is a loving and giving person in all societies. National symbols include objects such as the American flag or the English queen. Individual symbols are things we have experienced as individuals which come to hold meanings for us that are not common to many.

The only example of an individual symbol, for me, that I could recall involved the game of “hide and seek.” Everyone present at my talk agreed that the game represented a fun activity. Then I told of asking a friend, Sullivan, who was one of seven men from K Company able to walk off of Outpost Harry the morning after the first night of attacks on that hill, what his job had been. He replied, “machine gunner.” When I asked why he was alive, he replied, “My gun jammed so I played hide and seek all night.” I knew what he meant. In my squad, when we were sent out on a “fight” patrol it was common to be told, “We are playing hide and seek tonight.” It meant we would be hunting an enemy who would be hunting us. Patrols were exciting, but not pleasant.  Hide and seek has a different meaning for me than for most people.

Jung also said that only the dreamer can interpret his dream, but that he can be helped by analysis. However, if the dreamer disagrees with the analyst, the analyst is wrong. A nice example of this occurred during my talk. One lady asked about “nude” dreams. I replied that they were common among people, such as preachers and politicians, who exposed their own beliefs in talking to groups, in effect taking off their “clothes” before an audience. On the other hand, professors such as I, who taught classes in statistics and testing, do not expose themselves during their classes and rarely have such dreams. Another lady spoke up and said that she had dreams where she was nude and went to work, walked in and sat at her desk without any concern at all. She was never embarrassed by her nudity in her dream. After the lecture, she told me that she typically had these on nights when she hadn’t done laundry and didn’t have clean clothes for work the next day! Amateur analysts would have interpreted her dreams as typical dreams of exposing some secretive part of herself, instead it was a dream based on her individual knowledge that she didn’t have anything to wear to work the next day.

In understanding dreams, you must remember the language of dreams is not the language of our waking life. In waking life we think with words: at night we think in pictures. Thus in life we may call a person a pig, but in the dream we would see a pig: acting as the person does.

Erich Fromm discusses this in “The Forgotten Language.” He also points out that during the day, we obey the laws of time and space, but in dreams we don’t. During day, we can say, “I am like my father.” But we know we can’t BE our father: in a dream, we can. Similarly, during our waking life we know that if something happened last year, it cannot be happening now. But in a dream, it can be happening now. We can even split ourselves in two. I had a nice example of this given me by a senior student.

An attractive blond coed told me, in private, that she dreamed she was floating in the air and looked down upon herself having sex with a young man she was dating. We discussed this and she agreed that she disapproved of what she was doing. This ended a happy experience for one young man. A couple years later, crossing the floor during half time in a basketball game, she came running up to me and gave me a big hug, then turned and introduced me to her fiancé, a seminary student.  It is always nice to get a hug from an attractive young woman, but not in front of two thousand students, faculty and administrators in a school where you are a professor who is already distrusted by the administration.

Much of Fromm’s book, “The Forgotten Language” is devoted to the manner in which different civilizations and tribal groups have interpreted and responded to dreams. While interesting reading – to me – much of it is not directly relevant to dream interpretation – at least as we now understand it.

More on dreams later.

I did not vote for McCain, I voted against Obama. Having been brought up on the sayings, “birds of a feather flock together” and “you can tell a man by the company he keeps” I considered the anti-American, anti-democratic and corrupt politicians with whom Obama associated in Chicago and voted against him. I had no idea, however, how thoroughly corrupt the Democratic party had become until I read Michelle Malkin’s book, “Culture of Corruption” in which, as is her style, she gives names, dates, cash flow and her sources of information. It is disheartening reading. Now, I have read “Obama’s Moral Leadership Balloon Crashes” by Mona Charon (Townhall.com, Oct. 20). Ms Charon takes a different approach, but, like Michelle, names events and sources in writing about how Obama’s messages of “hope” in his campaign have translated into his support of dictatorships around the world.

Disappointed in the National Football League refusing permission for Rush Limbaugh to become a part owner in the Rams, based on false charges of racism brought by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the president of the players’ union, I decided to stop watching professional football. I quit this past Sunday and was surprised to discover that I didn’t miss it, or even notice that I was missing it.

Perhaps this belongs under “Family Affairs,” but I suspect it is more political. I had a bad night last night, the first in a long time.  Fifty-five year old memories woke me at two and kept me awake.  I know what caused it. While at the hospital yesterday I spotted my friend Jim, an unreformed Democrat, waiting in Dr. Blazer’s office so I dropped in to make certain this was simply a routine visit. Reassured, I traded fun, political, jabs with him before asking if he still liked Obama. He said he objected to Obama having a thirty thousand dollar a plate dinner with people he had just bailed out with millions of tax payer dollars. I didn’t respond to that, but what bothers me, and woke me up this morning, is something different. I don’t like what is happening in Afghanistan.

We have generals and military leaders saying we need more men and equipment, but Obama is too busy to talk with them: busy interviewing five year old children in New Orleans, busy visiting Chicago and Europe to try for the Olympics, busy giving political speeches in New Jersey and attending that expensive donor dinner. All of this while our men and women are fighting, and dying, with a lack of help and equipment in Afghanistan. 

My knowledge of this awoke me in the middle of the night: memories of night after night of explosions and men dying. I laid down to sleep in Outpost Howe on the 10^th of June, 1953, thinking that it was the first night in over a week I could sleep with my boots off. I woke up an hour later with dirt falling in my face as shells exploded on top of and around our bunker. I spent the night working in stocking feet. The Chinese had decided to take Seoul by going through us, and they allocated two divisions to do it. When morning came and life calmed down, three of us were sent to a watching post about a hundred and fifty yards in front of the front line and a hundred or so yards off of the west slope of Outpost Harry, the point of the Chinese attack. I was there for the next three nights. As a point radio scout, I received radioed requests for more men, more ammunition and more medical supplies and forwarded them to headquarters. After the third night, the fourth night of the battle, we three were pulled back and returned to Regimental headquarters for a night’s sleep. I remember being shocked by the supplies and the guns. There were hundreds of cases of grenades and bullets stacked immediately behind the line. Heavy guns had been pulled into the area to support us: forty and fifty caliber machine guns, heavy mortars, artillery of all types including rockets. This was all new. We were in a fight, but our government was supporting us. Over the eight nights of that unknown battle in that forgotten war we lost about 2300 men while killing an estimated 7000 enemy, but we held. And we held with our government’s, President Eisenhower’s, support. 

Where is that help and support for our people in Afghanistan? Obama is too busy doing other things to even talk to those trying to run this war.

I know his work isn’t easy. Any decision he makes, to fight or to run, will be criticized. It wasn’t easy for Truman or Eisenhower or Johnson or Nixon or Bush either, but they were in charge and knew their responsibility. It is time Obama learned his.

I couldn’t find Dr. Blazer’s telephone number under the interesting method of listing doctors used in our telephone book, couldn’t find his card anywhere and didn’t know who of the Blazers in the directory was correct. Finally, I telephoned HorizonHospital. A sweet sounding lady asked if she could help. I asked if she could connect me with Dr. Blazer or give me his telephone number. “Why do you want it?” “I want to talk to him.” “Who are you?” “I’m Bill Dannenmaier, one of his patients.” “Why don’t you telephone him?” “That is what I’m trying to do and I can’t find his number in the damned telephone book.” “Oh.” And she gave me the number. (His office was closed for the day.) When I put the telephone down, I sat and laughed. Burns and Allen couldn’t have written a funnier script.

It is easy to laugh at death for yourself, as two of us were doing at the Cardiac Club the other day, comparing the obnoxious alternatives between following doctor’s orders and dying, but it is another to see the people you love being whittled away. My wonderful sister, Ethel, is basically lost to us and is in hospice care. Now, my brother, Joe, telephoned that he is in danger of losing his sight. In danger? No, he has mostly lost it, but doctors are hoping that treatment will restore enough vision for him to operate again. Joe has always been with me in reality or support: at home, at Culver, while in the army and during my problems in my first marriage. He and I are the last of our generation and I have no wish to be alone. I can only ask my friends to include him in their prayers. 

Changing the subject, I noted that for all of the years she has spent in church, my bride is truly ignorant concerning the start of the human race. It is true that God created Eden and Adam and Eve, but he had no intention of starting the human race. However, God saw how long and hard Adam and Eve worked because there was no night, only day, the sun shining continuously in that wonder land. In pity, God decided they needed some time to rest, so He created night and made half the year darker so Adam and Eve could have rest. Naturally, without the sun shining all day, it got cooler at night. This led to cuddling. Thus began the human race. 

Some claim the above is not true, so I have an alternative explanation. God created Eden and then Man. Life was wonderful. Men fished, played cards, enjoyed golf and had a wonderful time lying to one another about their successes. God, noticing this, decided they needed some discipline, so he created Woe to Man, now known as Woman. Life changed.

Speaking of church, I attended one of my bride’s little Bible sessions one Saturday night. They had changed from their usual Sunday evening for this one event. I only went to be with them, to enjoy the Bible study, it had nothing to do with their decision to have a seafood feast featuring baked salmon, clam chowder and other goodies along with four lobsters. It turned out to be not quite what I expected. I was the only one present who knew how to get the meat out of the lobsters.  I spent the time they enjoyed eating breaking open lobster shells and providing them with the goodies. (Anyone can do the tail and the claws, but the sweetest meat takes more effort.) 

This morning Sheila complained (while I was struggling with cats and trying to sleep) that she had so much she should do at church. I replied that if all of us did all we should do, there would be no time for what we would (prefer) do.

I have been saying goodbye to friends at the hospital. I figure that when Obamacare passes and senior citizens are cut off Medicare that a dangerous combat veteran who is 79 years old and mostly Republican might top the list. 

If they cut off medical treatment to the useless elderly, will they continue taking Medicare out of our Social Security until we pop off?

Actually, we had an incident at a festival in Cumberland Furnace a few years ago in which a musician was showing too much interest in a young girl. Two or three of the men went over and told him they knew how to calm a man who was interested in young girls and that if he kept it up, they would take him up in the nearest cornfield and show him.  After they walked away, he packed up and left.

The most fun news article I have heard in weeks was reported on either CBS or NBC. It seems a group of elderly ladies, probably at a cocktail party, were sorrowing over the recent death by cancer of one of the husbands, a Mr. Baker. Wondering how they could raise money for cancer research, one said that people liked nude calendars, so these ladies, aged fifty to seventy, decided to produce one. They were the models. To date, they have raised more than a million dollars, had and provided a lot of amusement. It is true they were all nude, but the photographs were shot in such a way that the television station was able to show many of them. Laughing about it to Andrew, he wasn’t surprised. He said people were tired of pornography and would like something that satirized it.

Not at all humorous has been President Obama’s vacillation on troops to Afghanistan. Six months ago he said he had clear goals and a clear strategy to achieve them. Now he says he doesn’t know what to do. Granted, it is a difficult choice. He must send in another fifty or hundred thousand troops to – maybe – win or withdraw acknowledging that he was wasted the time and lives of the those additional twenty thousand he has already sent.  

Currently the Senate is considering a health bill that has the blessing of President Obama. What I found interesting was that a Democratic Senator on the committee writing the bill said he hadn’t read it, it was too confusing, that no one could read it. And the Senate will pass this with the President’s support?  I didn’t want McCain for president because I was afraid he would “shoot from the hip” without thought. Considering the trillions of dollars in “stimulus” passed at his demand over night and the above, maybe the nation elected an immature McCain, one with a lot of corrupt friends.

I tuned in to the Rush Limbaugh program during lunch and heard him say that the Sixty Minutes show of 27 September had reported that President Obama had not spoken to the top commanding general, who has been asking for help, in the past 70 days. To me, this is incredible, if true. He had time to praise himself at the UN, visit Chicago about the Olympics and fly to Denmark to campaign for Chicago, but did not have time to speak to the Commanding General in Afghanistan where we have between forty and sixty thousand young men and women fighting and dying – twenty thousand of whom he sent. I hope someone can tell me this is false.

On the other hand, I must respect Michelle Obama. After flying to Denmark with her friend Oprah Winfrey in the presidential private four engine jet, she said she made this “sacrifice” willingly for the children of Chicago. We should have a national “Michelle Obama Day” for this sacrifice. It was really tough on her: that taxpayer paid luxury flight, the dinner with the nobility of Denmark, the wine and cheese tasting party. Her life is hell.

I’m disappointed that Dr. Muir feels as he does. I had conversations with him several times when he was the chairman of the history department at Austin Peay. I thought he ran a good department, although quite a liberal one. 

Most of the Liberals (capital L) I know are college professors or ministers. None of those I know well have any experience with the reality of life I have known. I used to explain to classes my credentials for teaching the subject, so my credentials for knowing something of my fellow citizens follow.

I was raised in a slum. As a child and youth, I carried packages of groceries to their homes for ladies in hopes of getting a nickel. I mowed lawns and worked cleaning up the school cafeteria for free lunches in high school. Attending college, I worked 44 hours a week nights and weekends through a combination of jobs. 

Following graduation from Harris, I taught in a downtown slum school. Once I complained to the Assistant Superintendent that I was being sent children from the reform school who were not in my district. He said I worked well with them. I visited my students’ homes and took them on trips, sometimes during the school day, sometimes on Saturdays. The one I remember best was the time I got 50 free tickets to a Cardinal baseball game. Forgetting the day, I made a date with a young woman I had wanted to take out for some time. When she asked where we were going, I said, “To the Cardinal game.”

“Great.”

“There is one catch; we are taking 50 children with us.” 

I never got another date with her. 

Thanks to the Korean War I have six months, plus a week, of front line time, first as a radio operator and then as a scout.  I saw quiet times and some very bloody action. At Harry we lost 2300 and killed an estimated 7000. It was a seven day battle. Combat taught me that you could find humor, joke and laugh in the worst of situations.

In all of these activities I met men and women from all walks of life with all types of personalities. Some were wonderful, some weren’t.  Most were hard working, honest people always ready to help someone in need.  I have had friends who were black, white, oriental and American Indian.  Race never seemed to matter in my relationships; for good or bad. 

As a licensed counseling psychologist I worked in the Adult Counseling Service at WashingtonUniversity. We served people from the community at large from all levels of society. My favorite was a toothless, black, retired washerwoman who looked like a retired washerwoman. She was an all “A” student. During this time I conducted individual, extra, volunteer work with those who needed it on my own time.

Leaving St. Louis, I went to the University of Alberta. Too cut a long story short, again there were all kinds who asked for some “free” counseling. It was at that time that I first became involved with the homosexual community and decided that all of those I knew were homosexual because of life experiences. 

Going to Drury College, I feared I might be losing touch with “real life,” called the County Mental Health office and volunteered to work Friday afternoons as a psychologist. It took them three weeks to accept. I called and said that if they didn’t want me, they should just say so. They responded that I had confused them, no one had ever volunteered before. I spent six years counseling there, mostly court referrals and graduates of psychiatric services. 

From there I went to AustinPeayStateUniversity where I continued the half day volunteer work at the Social Work Service. I also became Vice-President of the Board and directly responsible for supervision of the County Girls Home. Judge Catalano telephoned me at my office and said she heard I was the only psychologist in town who would work for free. Would I help? I did, for four years.  The only problem the board had was selecting a name. I suggested the Catalano House, since she started it.  I said we could call it the “Cat” house for short. When the judge finished laughing she turned that idea down.

Leaving teaching I went to work for the military, first as a test specialist, then as a psychologist and finally as a researcher.  My specialty was electronic intelligence and I had the highest possible clearance.  During all of this time, I did volunteer work, including work as a union representative and for EEO. 

My proudest achievement as a union representative was evaluating a case of sexual harassment and discrimination. After hearing the problem from the wife of a young soldier, my first step was to the commissary office where I photocopied several pages of records. The records later disappeared. When faced with the photostats, the director of the commissary decided to retire.

Most of my EEO work was done in Germany, in fact I did so much of it that my supervisor complained. Every recommendation I made was accepted. One resulted in a reprimand to a Colonel, another in the reinstatement of a young black ex-soldier to his job at the post office. A third led to the dismissal of a sex discrimination charge by a woman who was a GM 14, but thought she should become a GM 15 when transferred to a similar job in a different city. There were many others, but why waste your time?

The EEO office liked me because the ranks of the persons involved did not influence my efforts.  I investigated the facts of the case, located relevant evidence, and delivered them along with my recommendations. 

I should note that I also have a background in research and analysis. Five graduate courses in research and statistics resulted in my teaching statistics over a period of twenty years. In the years following my doctorate I took advanced mathematics courses, computer programming courses and a series of graduate courses on operations research and systems analysis.  The military considered me qualified at the GM 14 level in Operations Research and in mathematical statistics.  I was part of a cell established by General Thurman at Ft.Leavenworth to certify the research adequacy, statistical analysis and accuracy of final reports of major military research projects. During that period I spent most of my time at White Sands but had to visit and work at military research installations ranging from California to Maryland. Frankly, reviewing political speeches and newspaper articles for facts, logical inconsistencies and omissions is nothing compared to doing the same for two or three hundred page research reports on multi-million dollar projects.

And that is what I try to do in my essays.  I know a lot about people, and I know how to look for facts and logical consistency.  On a daily basis I read the Wall Street Journal, Google news, Drudge Report, various essayists and watch the evening news. At least once a week I read the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Probably the best of these is the Wall Street Journal, but some of its articles have flaws of logic and omitted facts also.

Dr. Muir mentioned that my last several essays disappointed him, so I went and re-read the last three. 

The diversity essay is based on facts.  You may not like them, but they are real.  I would like anyone to name me a nation in which there are people speaking different languages and obeying different laws which is a peaceful nation whose citizens respect each other regardless of differences. Please don’t mention Bosnia. The last article I read said it was falling apart; the Serbs and Croats hate each other and both were trying to eliminate Muslims. “Diversity” was not an angry article; it was an article of fear, not personal fear: with a bad heart and a broken chest I’m just hoping to make 80 – six months from now. No, it is fear for the country I love. The English language and the laws based on the Constitution have made this vast geographic section of North America the most prosperous and peaceful nation in the world. I hope it stays that way – I have seen what internal war does to a country and the remnant who survive.  Let us not permit the great god Diversity destroy that.

The second article was pure fun. Anyone reading it should recognize that. The fact that I made up some of the stuff, especially the “higher authority” paragraph should be obvious. Certainly it attacks Democrats, specifically Obama, Pelosi and some programs. So what? They absolutely control both Houses of Congress and the Legislative Branch. They have absolute power. They are the ones making all decisions and have been since Bush caved in to a Democratic Congress. Why criticize those who can’t do anything? At the present, Republicans are irrelevant.

The third article has a mistake in it. In one place I say black kale and in another black lettuce. Lettuce is an error. Two articles I read about the stuff, had a name I could neither pronounce, spell nor remember. One translated it as black kale and the other as black CABBAGE. Sheila thought the word “black” might have offended the readers. I thought it more likely that they objected to my suggestion that Michelle might fear walking through a black neighborhood. Hey, don’t blame me. It was Reverend Jesse Jackson who was quoted as saying that when he heard footsteps behind him when walking down a street in DC, he looked back. He said if he saw a white man, he relaxed. By the way, the Reverend Jackson is black. Actually, my article picked on a really stupid publicity stunt and an expensive one for the taxpayers. My major complaint in the article was with the news reporters. Why didn’t the major media report this farce? Remember the time the President Bush bought something in a grocery store and talked to the cashier about her job and her scanning device? It made every television news channel and all major newspapers. Reporters thought he didn’t know about scanners. They should have a minimum IQ requirement for reporters of at least the moron level. What was he supposed to talk to her about, international relations? But not a word on Michelle’s cabbage – see I got it right this time.

My bride laughed at me while I was writing this. She said, “You complain when you don’t get any responses or controversy, and now you complain when you get do.”

In preparation for this walk, the Secret Service and the DC police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down several streets, H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to MacPherson Square Metro station (Richie Rich, Bizblooger, Sept 18). They also sent in bomb sniffing dogs, had snipers on roof tops and put up barricades. It was, of course, too far to walk, so she was transported that block and a half in her armored limousine from the White House to the shop accompanied by her photographer and a sign language interpreter. Note that this did not include helicopters for low level protection and jet fighters for high level protection.  She did not want her lunch to cost the taxpayers too much.

Michelle graciously selected a black cabbage and a few other vegetables, permitted an assistant who accompanied her to pay for the vegetables and gave a spontaneous speech to an assembled crowd on healthy eating. 

I have tried to find the humor in this, considering adding that perhaps she had to walk through a black neighborhood, which would have made all of the protection understandable considering it was DC and what her husband had done to the black school children there, but I can’t. This incident is not laughable, it is not stupid, it is frightening. Has any empress in history been so protected? And for such a stupid publicity stunt? Face the fact that she has over twenty personal assistants making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year. They probably all have secretaries and clerks and, in addition, there is a large kitchen staff. All she had to do was say, “I want some black cabbage,” and any of those underlings would have run to the store and gotten some to please the princess. That two block trip was more than a publicity stunt, it was a demonstration of her royalty, of how important she is in relation to the common herd, of how she disdains us, including those who elected her husband. 

The problem is that this cannot be written off as the action of a sick, emotionally disturbed, perhaps paranoid woman who happens to be the wife of the President. It is true of too many of the leading aristocracy of the Democratic Party, the Party that formerly identified itself with the working class. Consider the Kennedys. I lived in Massachusetts for a few years where I learned of the special treatment that they expected (expect?) and received (receive?). Once, eating in the Oyster House, the waiter proudly told me that Jack Kennedy used to eat there. He added, “Of course, when he and the family came this floor was closed off to other customers.” There are numerous such examples if one chooses to hunt them down. The Kennedys are better than anyone else. The same appears true of Pelosi.  Her husband’s factories in Samoa were exempted from the minimum wage she forced on companies headquarters in the States.  The airplane that transported her and her entourage on a weekly or semi-weekly basis to her home in California wasn’t good enough. She wanted, and received, a four engine plane equipped like the Presidential plane, and then complained because it did not land closer to her home – it was too large for the air field. Are they simply the tip of an iceberg that could sink our freedom.

I recall with fondness President Truman’s solitary morning walks: a group of construction workers noticed him and placed a pile of debris in his way one morning. He walked around it, out into the street, while wishing them “Good morning.” He was the elected servant of the people, and he knew it. Now we are entering a time when the people serve the officials. It is not too late too change, we still have a vote but face the money and public power of organizations such as the NEA and other important unions as well as ACORN. Somehow the word must be spread. We need representatives, not rulers. 

I would never have heard of Empress Michelle’s visit to the peasants had it not been for the Limbaugh and Hannity radio broadcasts and it took a search of Google to find an incomplete report in the blurb by Rich. Where are our watchdogs, our guardians of democracy, the powerful, all encompassing press? Fawning at the foot of the wealthy and the powerful may be pleasant, but it is always temporary. They should remember that slaves, no matter how privileged and important are still slaves. 

Voters should remember that also.

Both Google and Drudge report that the United Nations wants to establish a world currency, one people will use rather than the dollar, the Deutsch Mark or some other national currency. That’s easy.   All they have to do is print it. They can use it to pay themselves for their work, which should be fair considering the amount of work they do and its quality.

I continue to be amused by the controversy on Obama’s speech to children. I have it on higher authority that the speech he is going to give is quite different from the one planned before the controversy erupted. That the first one began, “I pledge obedience to our sainted leader, President Obama …” and that the second one began, “I pledge obedience to my holy president …” but that the new one starts, “Dear Children …” .   My authority further insists that all copies of the first have been shredded and burned and that all minions who read it, including the teleprompters, have been executed or deported to secret prisons on orders of the discipline czar. 

During the President’s speech Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted “liar” at one point. Everyone, other Congressmen and the Obama news sycophants, were shocked. I suppose they should be: rightly so. Who ever heard of a Congressman speaking the truth in public before?

I confess that I am sorry so many fellow Republicans urged him to apologize. It only proves that we need to remove many members of Congress, not just Democrats.

Having spent so much of my life with research and statistics, I am always interested in research reports, including reports of political polls. The few reports I read evaluating the effect of President Obama’s speech to Congress was that people were highly favorable of Obama’s ideas. I thought too much so, to the point where I wondered if the polls were rigged. The day after the speech, which I did not listen to, I asked people at the hospital with whom I exercised, including any wandering nurses and those from whom I bummed coffee if they had listened. I also asked at the stores where we shopped on the way home. No one, NO ONE, said they had listened to the speech.  I would love to know, but have no way of finding out, if that poll report included the numbers of people who said they didn’t listen – and why. It could have quite an effect on those glowing approval numbers. If the people who don’t approve of President Obama and his actions did not listen – and were not counted – public approval of President Obama is MUCH lower than the reported percentage. 

Under Medicare the list as to who among the elderly is to be treated shall be similar to the lists one completes on the Federal Income Tax form. For example: Employed/Not Employed, if employed “Yes,” if unemployed go to next category. Registered Democrat who supports Obama, “Yes,” if not go to next category. Republican or Independent who supports Obama or Democrat who is undecided: Yes if estimated medical costs are less than $25, 000, if not go to next step. Democrat who is undecided, Yes if estimated costs are less than $10. Republican or Independent who is undecided, Yes if treatment is free. Registered Republican who despises Obama, confiscate his home and use the proceeds to pay costs of processing forms.

A news article reported that 70% of Europeans favor Obama’s programs. I only know one “European” well enough to talk politics. Born in what became East Germany, he was fourteen years of age at the end of WWII and grew up under Communism. He tells me that the friends in Germany with whom he corresponds compare Obama’s programs to Hitler’s programs as he was gaining power.  

ACORN has been accused of voter registration fraud in Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan, North Carolina and Washington. If I recall correctly, President Obama has given them 25 million dollars in stimulus money. Now there is evidence they are helping to establish brothels with teen-aged girls from Central America in DC and Maryland. Especially interesting is that several days after the publicity of these ACORN offices helping establish brothels, the same couple went to New York and received helpful advice from there from ACORN on establishing such a place in New York City. Makes one proud to know that our tax dollars are supporting ACORN’s attempts to stimulate.

Considerably later, but now almost a half a century ago, I had the privilege of teaching a summer graduate course at the University of British Columbia. I had a delightful summer, and I believe the students enjoyed it also after they learned I was serious. At the end, I threw a party for them at my house. I bought five cases of beer and one of soda pop, a student from Scotland brought a bottle of scotch and at least one other student brought more beer. It was a relaxed party. One student came up to me and confessed that she was really upset with her daughter. She was a Cameron; her daughter was marrying a Campbell. It seems that about three hundred years earlier, in Scotland, an army of Campbells had met and slaughtered an army of Camerons. Another, a lady from New Zealand, was distressed that the American colonies had revolted from England. She said the United States was illegal. She meant it!

Only a few years after that, teaching at Drury College in southwestern Missouri, John Goodwin, a friend, former student and the best fisherman I have ever known was introducing me to fishing in the Ozarks, where he had been raised. It interested me that, as we drove through the hills, he identified each family area by which side they had fought on during the Civil War. If I recall correctly, as we passed one group of houses he said, “That’s Smithville, they weren’t on either side. They were just thieves. 

All of these, of course, are trivial, even amusing examples of how long hatreds, fears and concerns can last. What has been amazing is the extent to which such antipathies between groups have disappeared in the United States, a nation built by immigrants from different lands, with different languages, different laws and different moralities. It is only where peoples have been separated that animosities and fears remain. Working in North Dakota I learned that it would be a mistake for a Sioux to wander onto a Chippewa reservation (or the reverse) even if that person were there to help as in the form of a nurse or social worker. 

I believe the unification of the diverse peoples of the United States to be a consequence of public education. It is understandable for established residents to be concerned about new groups, as the people in my community were about the Italian immigrants who flooded The Hill in St. Louis, but when all of the children attend school together, as did Germanic me, Irish Rosie Burke and Italian Ernie Di Amico, where they use a common language, are taught a common cultural history (as opposed to ethnic history) and develop a common set of skills (as well as common complaints about teachers!) those ethnic concerns disappear. 

Recently, however, the great god “diversity” has appeared. Now new groups can demand their cultural “rights.”  Hispanic immigrants can be taught in Spanish, while laws and even advertisements appear in Spanish as well as English.  I suppose if a wave of Turks migrate here, we shall need classes in Turkish and street signs in Turkish.  Where is the logical end of this approach?

Less publicized, but equally important are the demands of Muslim immigrants to be permitted to be judged by their own laws, a demand which was accepted by a judge in Florida who permitted a Muslim woman to have her photograph taken for her driver’s license with her face concealed. Similarly, Muslim taxi drivers, licensed to meet travelers at the airport are permitted to refuse customers carrying sealed containers of alcoholic beverages or “seeing-eye” dogs. A Texas judge even ruled that a divorce according to Muslim law was acceptable in Texas.

Diversity, as worshipped, is making the United States a land of multiple languages and laws based on multiple moral bases. What will be the long term effects of this? Can anyone tell me of any nation or any geographic area in which such diversity exists that the different peoples live together in mutual respect and unanimity? 

Consider the Balkans. Croatians, Serbs and Albanians have occupied the same mountain area for centuries and for at least the last thousand years, having different religions and languages, have spent their time fighting and killing one another. Currently they are at peace, but a peace enforced by United Nations forces. 

Which brings us to “Bush’s war,” a ten year attempt to bring democracy and peace to Iraq, a land of Kurds, Sunnis and Shi′ites – all peace loving Muslims but involving two races, Kurds and Arabs, and two Arabic sects. However, following the “peace” enforced by the United States, these peoples are returning to killing one another. It appears they would rather hate and live in fear of their lives than accept the right of all to exist together. 

Even in democratic and peaceful Sweden and Norway the southerners look down upon, even despise, the Laplanders of the north and don’t tell me there are no problems in Canada between French speaking Quebecers and the English population of the rest of Canada. I’ve lived there.

The United States became a great and unified nation as a consequence of a common language and a common set of laws and cultural goals. It needs to return to being a one language nation obeying laws derived from the Christian principles which have permitted its growth as a single, unified, peaceful nation. Diversities long term consequences are fragmentation and warfare. 

Considerably later, but now almost a half a century ago, I had the privilege of teaching a summer graduate course at the University of British Columbia. I had a delightful summer, and I believe the students enjoyed it also after they learned I was serious. At the end, I threw a party for them at my house. I bought five cases of beer and one of soda pop, a student from Scotland brought a bottle of scotch and at least one other student brought more beer. It was a relaxed party. One student came up to me and confessed that she was really upset with her daughter. She was a Cameron; her daughter was marrying a Campbell. It seems that about three hundred years earlier, in Scotland, an army of Campbells had met and slaughtered an army of Camerons. Another, a lady from New Zealand, was distressed that the American colonies had revolted from England. She said the United States was illegal. She meant it!

Only a few years after that, teaching at Drury College in southwestern Missouri, John Goodwin, a friend, former student and the best fisherman I have ever known was introducing me to fishing in the Ozarks, where he had been raised. It interested me that, as we drove through the hills, he identified each family area by which side they had fought on during the Civil War. If I recall correctly, as we passed one group of houses he said, “That’s Smithville, they weren’t on either side. They were just thieves. 

All of these, of course, are trivial, even amusing examples of how long hatreds, fears and concerns can last. What has been amazing is the extent to which such antipathies between groups have disappeared in the United States, a nation built by immigrants from different lands, with different languages, different laws and different moralities. It is only where peoples have been separated that animosities and fears remain. Working in North Dakota I learned that it would be a mistake for a Sioux to wander onto a Chippewa reservation (or the reverse) even if that person were there to help as in the form of a nurse or social worker. 

I believe the unification of the diverse peoples of the United States to be a consequence of public education. It is understandable for established residents to be concerned about new groups, as the people in my community were about the Italian immigrants who flooded The Hill in St. Louis, but when all of the children attend school together, as did Germanic me, Irish Rosie Burke and Italian Ernie Di Amico, where they use a common language, are taught a common cultural history (as opposed to ethnic history) and develop a common set of skills (as well as common complaints about teachers!) those ethnic concerns disappear. 

Recently, however, the great god “diversity” has appeared. Now new groups can demand their cultural “rights.”  Hispanic immigrants can be taught in Spanish, while laws and even advertisements appear in Spanish as well as English.  I suppose if a wave of Turks migrate here, we shall need classes in Turkish and street signs in Turkish.  Where is the logical end of this approach?

Less publicized, but equally important are the demands of Muslim immigrants to be permitted to be judged by their own laws, a demand which was accepted by a judge in Florida who permitted a Muslim woman to have her photograph taken for her driver’s license with her face concealed. Similarly, Muslim taxi drivers, licensed to meet travelers at the airport are permitted to refuse customers carrying sealed containers of alcoholic beverages or “seeing-eye” dogs. A Texas judge even ruled that a divorce according to Muslim law was acceptable in Texas.

Diversity, as worshipped, is making the United States a land of multiple languages and laws based on multiple moral bases. What will be the long term effects of this? Can anyone tell me of any nation or any geographic area in which such diversity exists that the different peoples live together in mutual respect and unanimity? 

Consider the Balkans. Croatians, Serbs and Albanians have occupied the same mountain area for centuries and for at least the last thousand years, having different religions and languages, have spent their time fighting and killing one another. Currently they are at peace, but a peace enforced by United Nations forces. 

Which brings us to “Bush’s war,” a ten year attempt to bring democracy and peace to Iraq, a land of Kurds, Sunnis and Shi′ites – all peace loving Muslims but involving two races, Kurds and Arabs, and two Arabic sects. However, following the “peace” enforced by the United States, these peoples are returning to killing one another. It appears they would rather hate and live in fear of their lives than accept the right of all to exist together. 

Even in democratic and peaceful Sweden and Norway the southerners look down upon, even despise, the Laplanders of the north and don’t tell me there are no problems in Canada between French speaking Quebecers and the English population of the rest of Canada. I’ve lived there.

The United States became a great and unified nation as a consequence of a common language and a common set of laws and cultural goals. It needs to return to being a one language nation obeying laws derived from the Christian principles which have permitted its growth as a single, unified, peaceful nation. Diversities long term consequences are fragmentation and warfare. 

My claim of a conspiracy to subjugate husbands was exemplified by my trip to Dr. Smith. Sheila insisted on telling him about a sharp and continuing pain I have developed in my ankle. Like any normal person, I have assumed it will go away, but Gary insisted on looking at it. He then required X-rays. He said there were numerous small bones in the area and I might have cracked or broken one in my nightly wanderings. Then he added, “You will, of course, have to wear a boot.” At that, he and Sheila smiled at each other. Both know that I have always taken a thoughtful and conservative approach to their rules, but that if I’m in a boot I won’t be able to interpret medical decrees to my own desires. How can I mow the grass or work in the garden with a boot on one foot? No wonder they were both so pleased at the thought. I’ll be lucky if they don’t weld on a lead boot.

I arrived at 9:30 for an appointment with Dr. Blazer, my heart doctor, and was ushered in to see him at 10:30 or so – like Dr. Smith he takes his time with patients. I had intended to ask him if I couldn’t do some activities in the Cardiac Club other than leg exercises, but decided that would not be wise after receiving a lecture from him, seconded by Sheila, on my personal behavior. It seems my chest is getting worse, my cholesterol is up, and I need to increase my medicine and be more diligent in taking it. At the time, I couldn’t think of any unusual activities on my part which might have caused the increase in the gap in my chest but when I got home I remembered carrying a full five gallon can of gasoline around, which I presume weighs more than five pounds and doing a lot of clipping of weeds earlier in the week. Stephen mentioned my concrete mixing, adding to the abuse. I suppose it is those activities which caused the problem so I should be able to continue with my gardening and lawn mowing – which seems reasonable.

Considering what a subservient and obedient patient I am and the lectures I get from Smith and Blazer, I wonder what they do to patients who don’t follow their instructions.  Actually, I’m a bit tired of being bossed around by two middle-aged male medics. I think I’m going to start looking for an attractive female medic, between twenty-five and thirty-five, who believes everything a patient tells her and assumes they are always right.

I learned this morning when a nice young girl becomes a woman. Every Sunday, following church, we drive to Murphy’s CB store for, according to Sheila, milk, bread and eggs. Usually, when Sheila and basket return to the front of the store to be checked out, the bill is a hundred dollars or more, incidentals she thought of while shopping.   Marty, the young man who packages groceries among other duties, Kiana, who runs the cash register, and I have taken to betting – no money, just fun – on how much the milk will cost me after Sheila has found other items she forgot to mention. Over the months Kiana has played fair and square, just like one of the guys: when she won she rejoiced, when she lost she laughed. Then it happened on my most recent trip to the grocery. Kiana had turned seventeen a few days earlier. Knowing it was almost the end of the month, I bet on five items instead of just milk, Kiana went for between six and ten. There were five items. I won! But then Kiana claimed that she had bet on $31.02, which was exactly on target, so she won – she denied that she bet on the number of items or looked at the cash register. Kiana is now seventeen. She has entered womanhood. No longer the open, honest, approach of men and boys of her girlhood, now twisting and turning to win. Womanhood. It begins at seventeen.

I confess, I burst out laughing when Stephen walked in a few minutes ago. Stephen planted varied melons, cucumbers and other things in the front yard – perhaps to have less grass to mow. A cucumber with a brown skin has been especially prolific, and Stephen announced he was going to take some down to Mrs. Rector, my closest neighbor to the east. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, one allows time for gossip, he returned carrying three large cantaloupes. Here in the hills, you simply can’t give without getting. No matter how little someone has, they always have something to give. As Miss Ruby used to say, “You can’t return a plate empty.” I confess. I shall enjoy the cantaloupe. 

Recently, Julie sent an e-mail saying that after an agonizing two weeks she and her husband, Pete, decided to move Ethel from nursing care into hospice care. For those who don’t understand the difference, if she had been in the hospice at the time of a recent incident she would not have been taken to the hospital, but would have been permitted to exit this life and join her beloved husband, John, in the next. 

I can tell lots of “Ethel” stories. Ethel ruled Joe and my lives with a firm hand for years, not always with our blessings. 

Our parents lost their home to foreclosure in 1936. Fortunately for them, as Dad had no job and they had no money, a home in a University City slum just west of St. Louis was given back to them. They worked for weeks to make it livable. During all of that time, twelve year old Ethel was responsible for caring for nine year old Joe and five year old me. I learned to hate creamed corn: I think it was all she knew how to cook.

As a babysitter, Ethel was a disciplinarian. One of my first deep cuts was when I dived under our parent’s bed to escape her wrath. She managed to clean the blood off the floor and me before they returned. On another occasion, she placed Joe in a chair opposite the back door and me in a chair on the side with orders to “stay.” As I prepared to dash for the door – and freedom – Joe made his dash. A perfect throw of her purse hit Joe in the back of the head and laid him out on the floor. I settled back in my chair. One obeys a big sister. 

In University City, on weekends, it was common for Ethel to walk us places. The library was about a mile from the house, church was about a mile and half, the St. Louis Zoo was two miles. We made those trips regularly.

Older, I recall walking to HemanPark, again a couple of miles from home, to play tennis. The watchman came out and asked to see our passes. Ethel said, “I’ve forgotten mine, did you bring yours Bill?” I didn’t know what she was talking about and shook my head. The watchman knew very well we didn’t have passes – we couldn’t afford them, they were fifty cents a year – but told us we could play this time, but not again. 

As we grew older and Joe’s romantic life increased, he gave Ethel lipstick stained handkerchiefs, which she would wash in private to keep Joe’s social life from our mother’s attention.

Ethel took five solid classes every year she was in high school plus physical education. She made all “A” grades until her final year when she was given a “B” in physical education. Dad was furious that the grade prevented her from receiving a perfect record, the only one in school history, but the principal would do nothing about it. She received a full four-year academic scholarship to WashingtonUniversity, however Dad would not permit her to accept it, saying she wouldn’t fit in (She had only one dress her senior year. Mom would wash it when she came home from school and hang it in the kitchen where it would dry overnight.) Instead, she attended Harris, a free teachers’ college designed to prepare teachers for the St. Louis Public Schools. There she did very well, joined a sorority and was elected president. 

Graduating from Harris, Ethel taught fifth grade in LongfellowSchool. One boy would crawl through the aisles pinching the girls. He was Roman Catholic and the Catholic school was across the street. She talked to his parents about the need for a good religious education and they transferred him. Soon he was back with a note from the priest that he felt his school was inappropriate for the boy. Ethel sent him back with a note saying she couldn’t believe that a Catholic priest would refuse a Catholic education to a Catholic child. She never saw the child again.

Ethel joined the UnitarianChurch, which had an active singles group. There she met John and the two of them demonstrated their thanks to the UnitarianChurch and its singles’ group by changing to the MethodistChurch following their marriage. 

St. Louis did not permit married women to teach, so their marriage was concealed from the school officials. By then I was old enough to appreciate the irony of a school system which permitted a woman teacher to live with a man – provided they weren’t married. 

The following year Ethel taught in SappingtonCountySchool. The two of them moved to a small cabin. It had a double log wall. In between the two walls it was filled with mud. This cabin had been built when Indian attacks were still possible. If the Indians set fire to the cabin, only the outer wall would burn and the inhabitants would be safe inside because of the mud barrier.

Soon thereafter Ethel and John moved to Minneapolis for John to complete his doctorate in Chemistry. The story I enjoyed was the time that Ethel, well into pregnancy, and a neighbor across the hall in the apartment who was in the same shape were doing their laundry in the basement. One of the two remembered a bottle of Mogen David wine her husband had purchased and went and got it. They agreed it tasted just like grape juice and the two of them drank the bottle. The janitor, a burly Swede, carried each, in turn, up to their rooms and put them in bed. One of Ethel’s friends happily told her that she had telephoned at that time and a man’s voice with a heavy Swedish accent had answered Ethel’s telephone saying, “She no bane come to phone now, she in bed.”

When John completed his doctorate, they moved to Peoria.  I was busy working nights and attending college days, so I had much less contact with Ethel. Then I joined the army. Ethel wrote me a letter every day that I was in combat – six months. They were wonderful letters, full of family humor, the kind that I could read to comrades and that we would all enjoy. For example, she told about their dog eating the Christmas tree ornaments off the tree.  Another time young Johnny took a full box of graham crackers and made a path through the house. He was happily tramping down his path when Ethel caught him.

She was pregnant at that time and we discussed names, I liked Julia which she accepted. A story in one of her letters related how, about eight months pregnant, Johnny then three, ran down the street with her chasing him. He darted up a small rise to a lawn. Following, she slipped and fell. She wrote, “There I was on my hands and knees swearing up a storm about what I would do to that boy when the mailman walked past.”

Those who haven’t been there don’t know how important such letters were. Letters kept us sane. Incidentally, she kept track of the letters, numbering each one. I received about two for every three she wrote.

Ethel’s life in Peoria went beyond raising children. One year a teacher had to be fired on morality charges at Christmas and the director of the Peoria schools asked Ethel if she would step in. She did. It was a slum school, having many children of black prostitutes. She told me that at the end of the day the little ones, first graders, would line up and kiss her goodbye. She said that one night when John, a very formal person, came home he gave her a kiss on the cheek and she said, “Oh John, how nice. That is the cheek the children kiss.” 

Ethel was a great teacher. She remained in teaching until retirement and then BradleyUniversity hired her to supervise and advise student teachers.  

Julie and Pete have made a difficult decision in moving Ethel into hospice care, but I am convinced it is the necessary and the right decision and Joe agrees with me. This is very difficult. We all have many friends, but friends move and change: families are forever. Sisters (and brothers) are a part of one’s life. Losing Ethel will be losing a part of me, never to be replaced. But she would not want to continue in the hopeless, always worsening, state she is in. So, goodbye Eth, God love you, if anyone belongs in heaven, you do. 

Other favorites include Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Star Parker and Larry Elder. Looking over the list, it interested me that so many of my favorite columnists are black. It would be interesting to know if there is some common element in our backgrounds, such as growing up in poverty during the depression, which transcends race in giving us a commonality of belief. 

Discussing the “Cash for Clunkers” gimmick, a friend at church said he was concerned that Obama was building another “Fannie Mae” problem, that people who couldn’t afford new car payments would be trading in their dying models for brand new cars and that in six months we would be hearing of the need to “bail out” car owners who couldn’t get to work if their cars were repossessed. 

Obama’s health experts are planning to take money from Medicare for their new health plan. They have also commented that the elderly need to accept the problems of their age. This will be “Cash for Clunkers” changed to “Cash FROM Clunkers.” Actually, I resent this. Unlike Medicaid, which is supported completely by tax dollars, the elderly, of whom I am one, have paid for Medicare since its start and continue to pay for it out of their Social Security subsistence.

It could be the beginning of euthanasia by medical neglect and then on to enforced euthanasia for the elderly. Don’t think it can’t happen. Liberals are the same people who threw simple schizophrenics and other mentally ill people out of the hospitals because they were “no harm to anyone” – except themselves of course. Now the intellectual descendants of those liberals who closed the mental hospitals complain about the homeless wandering the streets.

Our government sponsored Fannie Mae has received $10.7 billion in bail out funds and is now requesting $34.2 billion more. Our government run Medicaid program, also going broke, is characterized by fraud, waste and abuse in addition to just plain mismanagement. (One article I read claimed that in Tennessee Medicaid is the source for much, if not most, of the illegal drug traffic in middle Tennessee.) It amazes me that intelligent people know this, but believe the same government mismanaging Social Security, Medicaid and other programs can run a health care program for everyone which will improve on what we already have – which provides medical treatment for all.

OneNewsNow.com (July 30, 2009) reports that it should please the average citizen to know that Stimulus grants (tax dollars at work) are being use to fund pornography. Frametime, a “gay and lesbian” film house received a $50,000 grant, while CounterPulse and “the Symmetry” projects, both pornographic performances received $25,000 each. If you object to such things remember, after all they are “stimulus” funds. 

You should begin to hear Obaman officials and their enchanted vassals in the news media to begin complaining about Bush’s war in Afghanistan. Not immediately however. The military leadership is asking Obama to double the current number of military there. On top of the 20 twenty thousand soldiers he has already sent, this will be a sizeable crew. The casualties will mount and costs will skyrocket. Then expect the Obamanites of the press to complain of Bush’s war and for the Great One Himself to announce that he will bring everyone home in six months, as he did in Iraq.

I am honestly sorry for the “Blue Dog” Democrats. Pelosi has an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives if one includes the Blue Dogs, most of whom are elected from districts where voters pay attention to how their Representative votes – and behaves. Considering the general disapproval of the “ObamaCare” bill, I suspect Ms Pelosi will carefully count her votes, put pressure on enough of the Blue Dogs to pass the bill and permit the others to vote against it. Whom she permits to vote against it will probably depend on how well they have obeyed her during the year. 

I have seen several cartoons and read several articles suggesting a lack of respect for the American people by Pelosi. I appreciate this opinion on her part. She has been taught this by voters. They continuously elect her.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is unhappy with the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) for its treatment of the Controller and his supervisor who were on duty at the time of the crash of a helicopter and a small plane over the Hudson River. They were suspended and are considering being fired. This seems terribly harsh. So what if the Controller was talking to his girl friend on a cell phone and his supervisor was out of the building at the time of the crash. They are government workers. They can’t be expected to spend all of their duty time working. Just think. The same types will be running our health care.

I found his article both interesting and worth reading, but my thoughts wandered to the universal search for ways to make the world a better, safer and happier place for all people. Those mental meanderings took me back some forty-five years to the most interesting and enjoyable class I’ve ever taught.

My first year at the University of Alberta our department chair announced that he needed someone to teach a course at Grande Prairie. When no one volunteered he said the professor who volunteered would be flown up in the morning and then flown back after the class. Knowing that the University had its own airplane I volunteered.

What he did not say, was that the volunteer would fly “commercial.” Canadian Pacific had two planes assigned to service the western north. One left Calgary at six in the morning, stopped at Edmonton, where I boarded, then flew 360 miles north to Grande Prairie, where I was to teach, and then went on to Fort St. John and up to Watson Lake on the Artic circle, at which point it returned south along the coast, ending up at Vancouver. Similarly, a plane left Vancouver, went up to WatsonLake and returned along the eastern slopes of the Rockies, arriving, in theory, at Grande Prairie at six in the evening and at Edmonton at seven. It was a nice theory.

The earliest that plane was in the evening was four hours late. Once it arrived on the right hour, but the wrong day, being exactly twenty-four hours late. (The pilot, unused to the North, had turned the plane into the wind and turned off the motors at a more northern stop. At 45 degrees below zero, you do not turn off an engine with your plane facing into the wind and expect it to start again.) 

I had been told to catch the airport limousine to get from the airport into town. Walking outside, dressed as professors should dress in suit and tie, I saw no limousine, just a battered old Chevy. As I stood there an elderly man came out of the airport dragging a mail sack. “Looking for the limo?” he asked. “Yes.” “That’s it, hop in.” On the way to town we passed a lake with a large number of Mallard ducks. “Do you hunt?” “Yes.” “I’ve got an extra shotgun at the house, why don’t we do a little shooting?” I thanked him, looked at my dress clothing and shined shoes and declined. That was my introduction to Grande Prairie. Later I learned that he had been one of the original survey crew brought to the area to survey the town and had stayed. He had also been the town bootlegger during prohibition. The person telling me about him, said he had asked the Mounty telling him the story, why they didn’t arrest him. The answer was that he was honest, had good whiskey and didn’t sell to children or Indians. If they arrested him, they wouldn’t know who they would get.

The class, about forty adults, met at one o’clock and lasted for three hours with a mid-way break. After I got to know them well, I told them during a break that I thought of them as the flotsam and jetsam of the human race, washed up in northern Alberta. That was true, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t have a high opinion of them. Most were new arrivals to the North, and every one had an interesting story. One, a Frenchman from Quebec argued one time that the French needed to revolt and establish independence. An Englishman from Ontario replied, “Go ahead, we put you down once, we’ll do it again.” Another class member was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. One of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen was in the class and I was told that she came from one of the poorest, most primitive villages in the area, a Metis village to the north. Another member of the class was a refugee from Hungary, who announced in class that he had volunteered for the German army in WW II and he would do it again. He had fought on the Russian front, been captured, survived and returned to Hungary, was re-arrested during the Hungarian revolution, killed a careless guard and escaped to the west. When he described to the class what it meant to be of German ancestry, living in Hungary following the fall of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, members of the class agreed that they would have joined the German army also.

Following every class that year, I was invited to someone’s home for dinner. At first I refused, saying I had to catch my plane, but one night, sitting by myself in the airport, I complained to the attendant that I was passing up dinner invitations to sit and wait for a late plane. He told me to go to the dinners, but to give him the telephone number of the house where I was eating. When the plane left FortSt. John, an hour to the north, he would telephone me and my host could drive me to the airport. 

One night I forgot to telephone him and finally, about one in the morning and just plain tired, I talked the host into taking me to the airport. When I entered the manager said, “We are glad to see you! The plane is on the ground.” As he processed my ticket, I asked, “What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?” “We would have held the plane of course.” They would have held that four engine monster, because one regular hadn’t appeared on time. That was why the plane was always late – waiting for regulars all along the route.

Another habit I developed while I was there was going out following class for a glass of beer with men from the class (by law, women were not permitted in the bar). We had active discussions, friendly arguments really, over everything from the weather and hunting, to comments on the class material and local and national politics. Occasionally, these became noisy. One I remember in particular. My card-carrying member of the Communist Party shouted at me, “You’re no capitalist; you’re a damned Communist like me.” 

All of us in that class, at least all of the people I associated with during that year long series of classes, wanted what was best for all of the people, not just for themselves. How to go about that was where we differed. I and other Conservatives I’ve known, thought it was best to give people the freedom to do what they thought was best for themselves, even if it meant failing occasionally. The Liberals I have known, and during thirty years on college campuses I knew many, believed people working for an all seeing government would provide this. Isn’t the same thing true of the proposed health bill?  It will do everything for three hundred million people.

Our Democratic Congress and President want to have the power, government power, to provide what they decide is best for all: a Utopia.   But can one exist? There is a Utopia: in the womb. The child in the womb has all of its needs fulfilled: water, food, climate control, and safety. All is taken care of by a mother, yet even mothers sometimes find the needs of their child less important than their own needs or wishes. A million such babies are killed every year (1.37 million in 1996, 93% because they were inconvenient, Center for Bio-Ethical Reform). 

What makes anyone think that a government official who doesn’t even know them, perhaps one of those millions willing to kill their own baby, will be concerned about the needs and wishes of a stranger living hundreds of miles away? That “change” requires a lot of “hope.”

This morning, enjoying an early cup of coffee on the porch with Sheila, I told her that I woke up this morning upset about not having the ambition to do some work. When she asked if that meant I was going to get started on my desk, I replied, “No, I was simply upset about being upset about not doing anything.”

Beginning to work on a letter of appreciation in the front room, I remembered that I didn’t have a cup of coffee with me. I walked through the house to the kitchen, saw my bride and remembered that I needed a check, which she wrote for me. Putting it in the envelope, I took it to the mail box. Returned home, sitting at the computer, I remembered that I hadn’t gotten the coffee. Back to the kitchen and, seeing Sheila, I asked her if she knew what was so great about me. “No.” “My ability to forget what I intend to do at any given moment, and don’t laugh. It takes years, decades even, to develop this ability.”

Eric and Maria visited over the weekend and it was wonderful to have them. Eric and Maria even went to church with us. I told him and the minister that I had come to believe that the only time Eric would spend in church with me would be at my funeral. Eric responded that he was just coming to check out the church to see if the aisles were wide enough for my casket. 

We also ate more than we should that weekend, beginning with barbecue Sunday afternoon. Sheila made three pies on Friday (apple, peach and blueberry) and four more on Saturday (three pumpkin and one pecan.) Maria claims Sheila could make money selling her pies. Yes, we also had other food, including a roast turkey with dressing and all the trimmings.

One reason, incidentally, for the festival of food was that it was Stephen’s birthday and roast turkey is his favorite food. But any excuse will do.

Other July visitors included Renie, Christopher and tribe: Mariah, Nicholas and Joseph. Mariah, at 14 has turned into a beautiful and shapely young lady. I don’t know where she gets it, not from her parents. Must be a leap over them to Grandpa Dannenmaier – whoops that’s me, but I’ll accept the honor if all readers agree.

We were concerned about Nick’s arrival considering the month he spent with us last year: no television of visual games during the day, no junk food, just three healthy meals a day and if you didn’t like one, you could wait until the next. (Nick did hold out until supper one day – he had quite a list of foods he wouldn’t eat, which he handed to Sheila. It included all vegetables among other things.) He had rather more enforced exercises than She and I knew about. Before he left he was up to three mile walks and catching minnows in the creek – not common spare time activities Austin. But Nick seemed honestly glad to see us and took off hunting minnows and other things on his own – well, with company but without protest.

As usual, little Joey was just plain fun. He is convinced that uncles are for climbing on and spinning and carting young nephews upside down at a moment’s notice. 

While here, Renie invited Shane and Megaera to meet them in Colorado for a vacation in the Rockies. Sheila warned Megaera before they left that the mountains would be cold, to take plenty of clothing, but who listens to mothers? Rumor has it that Shane almost froze at night, but he’s not talking. On their return, they went through St. Louis and found the Missouri Bakery. As thanks, they brought a cheese cake back for Sheila and a gooey butter cake for me. I know they did, I saw Megaera and Shane dividing up the cheese cake between them and when I went looking for my gooey butter cake, it wasn’t where I put it. I found the remnants, and darned little of them, in the kitchen. Megaera, Sheila, Stephen and Andrew all confessed to enjoying it. 

Considering my age, I have been a bit concerned that Obama might extend his “Cash for Clunkers” business beyond automobiles. After all, my next birthday is 80 and I’m a bit step beyond my best achieving years. Mentioned this to my child bride for reassurance, she mused, “I wonder how much they would pay me to take you off the market?” As reassurances go, this is not the best I’ve ever received.

It has been a great July. After receiving fresh corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and blueberries from my neighbors, I was able to reduce my guilt. My Concord grape out produced itself this year. I was able to give baskets of grapes to everyone who had given me anything, plus some to people who had nothing to give. It’s nice to receive, but it’s wonderful to give.