Then a second report appeared, usually appearing on television with shows of football players crashing into one another. This second article reported that professional football players were nineteen times as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease (dementia) than were men in the normal work force. It seems the football association is concerned about this and is investigating the matter further. 

Why limit the investigation to professional football? When these men talk about their careers, one and all (it seems) report that they played football in junior high school, in high school and in college. It is not just in professional football that players crash into one another in “head to head” encounters. It happens in junior high school, high school and college as well. A difference is that professional football players are provided with the finest protective equipment available and, if injured on the field, receive immediate medical treatment. Those playing football in schools, especially those in junior high and high schools have less protection, much less protection.

Hundreds of millions of the tax dollars collected from citizens to pay for the education necessary to succeed in life (English, language, mathematics) are spent on providing football games. That money includes not only the immediate costs of coaches, equipment and transportation to and from games, but also the construction and maintenance of football fields and spectator stands, not to mention the training room equipment also provided in many schools. 

My friend, Dr. John Goodwin, was a highly successful football coach in a junior high school as a young man. He quit; over the objections of the players, parents, the administration and other coaches. He explained to me that every year he had coached at least one of his players had suffered a life time injury, usually to the knees, and that he, as a Christian, could not continue encouraging children to play a sport that might injure them for life. But a knee injury is trivial compared to damage to the brain.

A more important study for parents, which includes most of the people, than that of determining if professional football increases the probability of dementia in players would be a study that checked the possibility that junior high, senior high and college football players suffer an increase in dementia as adults. Is it possible that in the interests of providing entertainment for the public we are increasing the probability of mental as well as physical injury to our young?

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.”

Family Meanderings

By

William D. Dannenmaier

This morning, gossiping while I was getting dressed, my bride, huddled under the covers, said, “I was having some happy thoughts earlier this morning, but then I fell asleep again and now you’re up and getting dressed.” It shows what near thirty years of marriage will do to romance.

There are some nice things about being confined to house arrests in-between hospital and doctor visits. Son Stephen had planted all of the trees and bushes I wanted planted this fall, following my instructions. Three cooking cherry spouts are now planted down by the blacksmith shop and four blueberry bushes along the driveway in addition to a replacement butternut walnut in the center of the front yard. 

Three or four years ago I planted a pecan tree, on my property between myself and the church. A neighbor, observing this, commented that I would never live to get pecans off of that tree. I said, “I know, but your grandchildren and perhaps mine will enjoy the pecans for years after I’m gone. 

I’ve never understood people who plant and do things that are only for their own, immediate, good. I don’t expect to see cherries on those seedlings Stephen planted, which is why I had him plant them in places where some other person would be unlikely to cut them down, but the birds will enjoy them whether I do or not. I do, however, hope to get blueberries in two or three years and stop freeloading off of Bob and Kathy Connors’ bushes. 

Sheila is busy hunting for a Bible given to Megaera by the church when she graduated from junior high school. Megaera can’t find it at her home. Sheila says she is positive she gave it to Megaera when Megaera moved, she knows because she didn’t want to because it is such a truly wonderful study Bible. She ended her conversation on the subject saying she had hoped Megaera wouldn’t take it, that it takes a truly evil person to want to steal a Bible from a daughter, and I married her.

Stephen had an A grade going into his final on one class and then missed the final. He went on the wrong day. I overheard his conversation with the professor, whom he telephoned to discover what he could do about making it up. He simply told the Prof that he had gone on the wrong day. The Prof made an appointment to discuss it with him. A problem is that Stephen is a very private person. I told him that the Prof didn’t know if he was out on a drunk or whatever.  I thought that was unfair. The Prof had a right to know that on the day of the examination I was in the hospital for heart surgery, surgery serious enough that I had postponed having my glasses repaired or purchasing new overalls because I saw no use in wasting money if I turned up dead. Our house was in a state of total confusion at the time. As Stephen admitted to me, all he could think about at the time was my surgery. Of course the Professor has the power to decide, but the people I have known in the teaching profession would treat a student who missed class because his father was in surgery would treat the situation quite differently from one who missed because he had partied the night before – a dubious excuse I heard many times was “it was my grandmother’s (grandfather’s) funeral.

It has always been my policy to tell my children and those who worked for me WHY I was doing something or wanted something done. The result has been mixed for the children, some teachers don’t like to explain why they are doing something. Perhaps they don’t know. I recall one boy asking me in my sixth grade class why we had to study a particular subject and my answer, if not intelligent, satisfied him. I said that the Board of Education required this to be taught and they paid me to do it. It was not a democracy. If I wanted to keep my job, I’d do it. The result for me has been that of my eight children, seven of them still correspond with me routinely and the secretaries, assistants and co-workers all liked me. One young woman, my office assistant at WashingtonUniversity, was given the choice by her father of spending a year in Europe, of working on a Master’s Degree at any university she chose, or of continuing to work with me. I learned this when she showed me a new Pontiac convertible her father had purchased her as a consolation prize for staying with me. (She enjoyed me discussing with her all the details of the industrial testing work I was doing and why I was selecting which tests.)