Conversations with my bride are often interesting. For example, the other day I brought a bunch of grapes into the room to eat while I was reading. Before starting, I received a telephone call from a friend who wanted me on his talk show. It was pleasant talking to him, until I noticed the last of my grapes disappearing – Sheila was sitting next to me. I brought in some more and, as she reached, pointed out that they were my grapes. “I’ll trade you some chocolate for some grapes,” she said. I asked where she had chocolate. She replied, “I don’t, but you do in your drawer.” “In other words,” I responded, “you will trade me my chocolate for my grapes.” “Yes.” Then she looked at me and said, “Isn’t it a good thing we didn’t know each other too well before we got married?’’

Stephen keeps exotic tropical fish. Part of their diet includes worms he digs from the garden or, being short of garden worms, some he purchases at the store for his fishing trips. He told me that there is an interesting difference between the two groups of worms, despite the fact that they look exactly alike – to him. He reports that when he drops a garden worm in the aquarium, the fish go after it immediately, but when he drops in one he has purchased the fish ignore it, only casually going after it once it is lying on the bottom of the aquarium. Isn’t it interesting? We haven’t the foggiest idea of why.

AustinPeayStateUniversity announced a display of art work by former students. Each person was permitted to submit three works and a university panel would decide which of them should be displayed. All three of Sheila’s entrées were accepted for display. One won a ribbon. The Art Department Chair told her that another one received very favorable comment and invited her to display her work at a permanent display room they were opening downtown. Sheila said I shouldn’t talk about this because she doesn’t approve of bragging, but I’m doing the bragging. When Sheila was debating whether she should continue painting or not earlier this year, I told her that her problem was her strict background had taught her nothing she did was “good enough.” That I thought her work was excellent – except for a lack of female nudes. To prove me wrong, she resumed painting. The ribbon and compliments prove me right again. I usually am, as I have always told my children, who should listen to me more carefully. 

One has to admire the city of Dickson. Authorities across the nation are warning people to stay away from crowds. Schools are being closed and shoppers are wearing masks to avoid contamination with the killer swine flu. But not Dickson. Dickson held its 34^th annual charity fundraiser “Christmas in the County” arts and crafts festival Saturday at the DicksonHigh School. Accepting quiet but firm pressure from my bride, I attended along with her. I can’t remember a more crowded event. The halls were lined with tiny cubicles for artists to display their work: charcoal drawings, oil paintings, stained glass, wood carvings, jewelry, needlework – you name it, it was there along with the creators. To walk down the hallways was an adventure, the cubicles, artists and admirers filled all but a narrow lane while those trying to walk along stood in lines as in a mess hall except that the lines were moving in two directions. Thus, while bumping into the person in front trying to go west, you had to shove past the other person in front trying to go east. The dining room and the gymnasium were equally bad, with narrow pathways between cubicles lining the walls and positioned in rows created where students ate lunches and played basketball during the day. Yep, no fear of swine flu or any other contagious disease in Dickson. Dickson has courage. I wondered if the event was sponsored by the medical association.

A lady from church announced with pride that her daughter and son-in-law were expecting a second child after the great difficulty they had in securing the first. As an addendum she commented that the first was now crawling and standing. There were numerous responses to her announcement. All of the women said, “How wonderful!” ALL of the men responded, “Knock her down, once that baby starts walking it only gets worse.” So much for no sex differences.

Dreams 3

Contemporary Studies

Calvin Hall (Director of Institute of Dream Research) wrote the book on dreams that I like best of all. He studied tens of thousands of dreams produced by thousands of dreamers. I believe he was the one who coined the term “REM” sleep. (This book is currently out of print, but used copies may be purchased from Amazon.com for one cent each. Unfortunately, there is a $6 mailing charge per book.)

In Hall’s studies, volunteers were fitted to an Electro-encephala-cardiogram and studied during the night. Hall reports that a person first falls into a deep sleep, during which they may make large body movements. Then, they settle down, as movie goers do as a film is about to start. Then they have rapid eye movements, which may last for only a two or three seconds or may be considerably longer. Persons awakened during this REM sleep can almost always recount dreams, persons awakened during the deep sleep, cannot. These REM sleeps occur three or four times a night.  Others who have studied dreams in this fashion report similar happenings.

When people are awakened at the start of REM sleep, so that they have none during the night, they become nervous and irritable within a day or two.  Persons awakened the same amount of time during the deep sleep do not have these symptoms. Researchers believe this is because we solve many small problems and concerns during our dreams.

Hall pointed out that dreams are our own creation: we are the creators, directors, actors. Like Jung, Hall believes a series of dreams is more important and easier to interpret than a single dream. In fact, he claims that every person will have every type of dream: retiring people will have dreams in which they are aggressive and aggressive people will have dreams in which they are retiring; homosexuals will have heterosexual dreams and heterosexuals will have homosexual dreams, but the largest number of dreams will portray the dreamer as he normally is. Thus a heterosexual will have numerous heterosexual dreams and few homosexual dreams. This is why dream series are so much more important than individual dreams, which may portray the dreamer in a different way and behavior than would be normal for him.

In interpreting dreams Hall says we must consider the settings, characters, actions and emotions.

            Settings are most often taken from every day life (men outdoors, women indoors, prisons indicate restriction and policemen authority). It is only rarely that people dream of exotic places or, interestingly enough, of their work place.  Home and recreational places are the usual locations of dreams.

Personnel: Almost always a dream includes the dreamer and usually family and friends (children dream about parents while parents dream about children).  A dream series will portray what we think of the people in the dreams.

Dream actions: In dreams a dreamer can be active or passive, actor or onlooker, successful or failure. The actions of the dreamer in the dreams give an indication of how he sees himself and his normal method of behaving in life situations.

Emotions: Dreams are unpleasant more often than pleasant.  

Characters of the dream people tell what we think of them and ourselves, but remember, these dream opinions are not necessarily true. They are important, however, in that what we think of ourselves often determines how we behave in waking life.

Hall says that “In treating a series of dreams, the individual dreams are compared with one another and put together much as one assembles a jigsaw puzzle.” When all dreams are assembled, an analyst can gain picture of individual as he sees himself and others.

I believe in a sub-conscious, as suggested by Jung and Hall, which contains much that we haven’t noticed during the day or “forgotten” and probably some things we don’t wish to remember such as occurrences in combat.  When asked to interpret a dream, I always asked what happened the day before the dream, whom the characters remind the person of and what is going on in the dreamer’s life at the time. From these, most dreams can be interpreted.

I believe symbols belong to dreamer.  A dream I never understood was one in which a girl dreamed she was swimming up a long canal in a cave until she came to a nice pool of water, where she swam contentedly. It was years before that dream made any sense to me and then only during all of the abortion arguments. Were she to tell be the dream today, I would ask her if there was anything worrying her or frightening her in her life: what safer place to return to than the womb?

A common dream among senior girls at our college was one of being blown by wind and being unable to control where they were going. (Between the mail room and the girls’ dorm were two large buildings. A strong wind was frequent between the two.) Consider this. These girls had spent their entire lives in places where they were told what to do: in childhood and school and always had the advice and support of responsible adults. Now, about to graduate, they were to decide for themselves where and how to live and work. Scary isn’t it? Our graduating boys never reported such wind dreams to me but often reported being in cars that they couldn’t control.            

I also believe that only the dreamer can interpret a dream, but can be helped. I may think I know what a dream means, but the dreamer knows.

I believe that during sleep the mind can, when cleared of all the little distractions and necessary work during the day:

                        Express wishes and

Express and solve concerns

Which is why when people are not permitted to dream they become restless and irritable as those wishes and concerns continue to trouble them.

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?

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.