I didn’t see her the week she was in Baptist, but at the end of the week she was transferred to HorizonHospital in Dickson. I was welcome, according to the nurses, provided I was there no later than seven in the morning. It seems they began their rehabilitation work at eight. Actually, about the last day she was there, I was able to observe some of the “rehab.” They had her make toast, cook bacon and scramble a dozen eggs. Then Sheila, the nurses and the rehab experts sat down to breakfast. Having already had my own breakfast of gruel and two pieces of toast, I didn’t join them. I just envied them. Before she left, Sheila taught me how to make that breakfast. I learned, despite the complications. First, put the bread in the toaster, then get out the butter and utensils. Next, a bowl from the cabinet, open a pack of instant oatmeal and pour it in the bowl. Lastly, put a half a cup of water in the microwave and punch the “one.” If all works properly, when the bell goes off meaning the water is hot, you can add it to the oatmeal and the toast will pop up. This morning I started my fourth week of that breakfast.

Actually, I brought Sheila home following a week in rehabilitation. Now, she simply returns three mornings a week. She also works out at home, using a walker to support herself.  Her improvement has been amazing. Yesterday she was able to walk about ten steps without the aid of the walker and this morning she put together, with Andrew’s help, a pot roast for lunch. (I’m looking forward to that – real food not gruel or frozen dinners!)

When not exercising, She has spent most of her time sitting in one of the two chairs she is capable of using or lying down. She is still in considerable pain, but as I told the nurses at the hospital, she should be used to that. She has been married to me for over thirty years.

We owe a great debt of thanks to two of our neighbors, unfortunately one, Bob Connor, died last year, so he can’t hear us. One of the two chairs Sheila is capable of using was given to us by Bob. It is one of the electric thinks that raises up and down. When it is “up” it tilts forward helping her stand up, when down it becomes a recliner. 

The other is our friend Joyce Melton. She had hip surgery last year and loaned us all of her equipment. The two walkers Sheila has (one for indoors, the other for outdoors), the grabbing tool for helping Sheila pick up small items that she can’t reach (she still can’t bend enough when standing or sitting to reach the floor, which makes getting socks in position difficult), and the special toilet seat all come from Joyce. I told Sheila that as soon as I can I’m going to have to barbecue some pork steaks and ribs, which Joyce loves, and have over for a feast. If I don’t, she’s likely to abandon our friendship and take back her expensive equipment!

Now you are up to date. Sheila is doing nicely in rehab and I am still suffering. As soon as possible, we have been really tired, I shall return to writing my blogs. Then all of you can suffer.

Political Fun

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, was arrested in England.   Sweden, where he might be jailed, wants him. He has been accused of the crime of visiting two Swedish prostitutes without using condoms. I told male friends at the Cardiac Club to be very careful if they are planning trips to Sweden. If failure to use a condom when hiring a prostitute puts you in prison, what would jay-walking or running a red light do? Actually, I am not pleased with the personal information, such as names and telephone numbers that Assange released. That sort of release should be illegal if it isn’t already.

It is good to know that the nations of the world have important matters to attend to such as the complaints of prostitutes. Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Assange has gotten his hands on and published a few million cablegrams our politicians sent one another defaming other world leaders. If I read the reports correctly, Obama’s Attorney General, Holder, is trying to figure out what laws Assange may have broken.  I don’t understand this. After all, Obama said he was going to run a transparent government, and Mr. Assange has simply helped him. President Obama appointed, and paid, numerous Czars to further his interests. Shouldn’t he appoint Mr. Assange as Information Czar?

Leaders in European countries including Russia, Sweden and England are enjoying Obama’s discomfort thoroughly. One of them pointed out that it was Mrs. Clinton, also leaked and furious, who criticized China only a year ago for their Internet secrecy. Putin, thoroughly criticized and, possibly, slandered in leaked cables is having a lot of fun talking about the “openness” of the United States democracy. The Liberal media is being rather quiet about it all, they are not certain they want the publication of leaked information considered a crime.  After all, they do it all the time and in some cases, have been doing it for decades. 

In the interim, computer sympathizers swamped the Swedish Internet system, basically closing down the government.  

The person who should be enjoying the WikiLeaks situation more than anyone else is President Bush. It completely exonerates him of making any false charges in his invasion of Iraq. Different cables report the finding of hundreds of caches of chemical and biological weapons with one reporting the sending of 60 tons of nuclear material essential in the production of atomic munitions discovered in Iraq to the United States. So all of those “Bush lied, people died” attacks on Bush’s foreign policy by the half-wits in the news media were, themselves, lies. Bush told the truth: Iraq was a danger to world peace.

I have been puzzled by all of the news articles reporting Obama’s “brilliance.” Beyond his continuation of Bush policies and skill in reading the teleprompter, I’ve heard or read little evidence of it. His records, including school records, are carefully concealed. Then I remember what my father used to say, “Consider the source.” It is the major media types who report his “brilliance.” No wonder! To idiots, IQ 45 or less, a moron, IQ in the sixties, is highly intelligent.  

Ezra Klein, a staffer on the Washington Post is reported as saying the United States Constitution is too confusing to understand (Breitbart TV News.video.now, Dec 29). I wonder what parts he doesn’t understand? “The House of Representatives shall be chosen every two years,” or “The Senate shall be composed of two Senators from each State,” or “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” These must be confusing to him. I rest my case about idiots in the major media.

Several years ago some Mennonites moved into the Cumberland Furnace community. A few of the men came to the Community Center and asked to use it for their Sunday worship service as they had no place of their own. We really knew nothing about them, but they received unanimous approval of their request. They met at a time when Sheila and I were driving to and from church. We were interested in how they set up separate classes for boys and girls in the park – it was summer, while the adults met in the Center’s building. Typically, I would wave as we went by to any men standing on the porch and would receive answering waves and smiles.

This permission to meet in the Center turned into a blessing for the Center. Not only did the Mennonites make a financial contribution to the Center each month, they left the place spotlessly clean. We were sorry when they built their own place of worship - our building being too small for their separated classes when winter required them to meet indoors.

One of the first examples of Mennonite work that was pointed out to me was a new roof on one of the churches. A different contractor had been hired to repair the roof. Unfortunately, it wasn’t repaired well. Then the Mennonites were asked to replace it. The friend, showing it to me, pointed out the expert work at the edges and corners, work which had been neglected by the first contractor hired. Slowly, the quality of any effort they undertook became well known. I was told that they knew the prevailing wages, and charged them, but the quality of the completed job would be excellent. The employer always received excellent work for his money.

More recently, the Mennonites asked permission to use the Community Center ball field on Friday evenings. Driving past, one would see young men and women happily playing together without regard to sex, although the girls wore their long skirts. I was amused by the way the girls would pull up those skirts when running full speed around the bases following a hit. Personally, I enjoyed hearing the laughter that floated up to my house from the ball field and was tempted to walk down to watch a game. I never did, but I was certain I would be permitted to sit in the stands and watch, it was simply my health that held me back.

This year the stands at the ball field were falling down, so the Community Center asked them if they would replace them if we supplied the wood. They agreed to this readily. Our president said he was tempted to ask them to supply the wood also, but was too embarrassed to do so. They did all of the work for free and, true to their reputation, the new stands are safer and better looking than the original ones ever were. 

I have had only one personal interaction with the Mennonites. A young Mennonite woman was next to me with her baby while I was standing and watching a yard sale while Sheila was shopping at the grocery. On the spur of the moment I introduced myself, explained that my wife faced some serious problems in time to come and asked if it would be possible to hire a Mennonite woman to come a day or two a week to help with housework. She replied that would not be a problem, but that if the girl who came was under twenty-one, her mother would accompany her. She said she would be happy to find someone for me when that time came and gave me her name and telephone number. 

I, having entered old age, am delighted to have in our community a group of practicing Christians: people who are peaceful, hard working, honest and completely trustworthy. But, the most important point that has occurred to me as I have observed their growth in the community goes beyond their presence. 

I have always been a Christian, at least always a member of a Christian Church. I never had any particular pride in that, but that has changed as I’ve grown older and had the leisure to read about other religions and their practices. Under the leadership of well intentioned but ill informed Christian leaders the great god Diversity has achieved prominence and acceptance in European and North American nations.  The idea of diversity is that all groups can and will live peaceably with one another.  That is simply not true. 

It may be true that a Christian can live next to a Buddhist if I am correct in that Buddhists focus on themselves and their own growth – which may be why it is such a popular religion in Hollywood, but there have been reports of Buddhist attacks on Christians in Buddhist nations. There is also evidence that Christians cannot live in peace in certain Hindu areas of India, the Hindus aren’t into diversity and are physical about it at times when they are in the majority. 

The Muslims are still worse. How can you live comfortably next to a person whose religion tells him not to associate with non-Muslims, that women are inferior to men and that killing you will send him to his heaven. If you don’t believe that is true, read the Qur′an.  I have.

But Christianity, for all of the flaws of some of its adherents and leaders, preaches honest work, peace to all and helping others. I have not seen this so completely followed as I have in the Mennonite community. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if everyone believed and acted as they do? War, corruption and even dishonesty would disappear.

I am certain, Mennonites being human, that there are individuals in their community who fail to meet the standards they espouse, but I have neither seen nor heard of it in the several years they have lived in the Cumberland Furnace area. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if everyone practiced Christianity as it is taught in the New Testament and as the Mennonites appear to do? 

So, a Merry Christmas to the Mennonite community and to all who receive this.

I received a special e-mail from my friend and fellow Outpost Harry survivor, Len Lassor. While we didn’t meet at the time – I was a scout and Len was a medic – we met at a survivor’s meetings. At the time I asked him, since he had three purple hearts, why didn’t he go back for a fourth? He said that when he woke up in Japan from the third, the war was over. Anyway, in his e-mail, he challenged me to live through 2011. It is a challenge. At eighty, the path gets steeper. His challenge reminded me of a couple of patrols I was on. Carrying a twenty pound radio in addition to rifle, grenades and extra ammunition, I tired faster than the others and the going in the mountains became more difficult. I remember two especially. On one when, returning after an almost all night patrol – it was still dark, I was looking for a place where I could drop out and hide for a bit and then try to work my way back by myself. Then the last man shoved me out of his way to get past. I was so angry I got the energy – I was trying to catch him and kill him - that I finished the patrol. Being eighty is a bit like that, there are times when you would like to drop out for a bit. But I guess it happens to all of us, at all ages, at one time or another in our lives.

Not just the Dannenmaiers, but Cumberland Furnace has had a difficult autumn. A friend was listing the number of people, people I know and respect, who have serious medical problems. The one good laugh that I got from listening to the above tale of woe, came from the answers Marshal Wall gave to questions as he awoke following his heart surgery. The doctor asked if he knew what year it was and Marshal answered, “Sure, 1994.” Asked if he wanted to revise that date Marshall asked, “2001?” The he was asked if he knew who the President was. Immediately Marshal replied, “That damned Obama.” All present were reassured.

Being a husband is a difficult task. Sheila is leaving me. She, Andrew and Megaera are driving to Branson to wish Stephen a Merry Christmas. They will be gone three days. That means that for the next three days I shall have to cook for myself. She bought a bunch of frozen dinners and some cheese and crackers for lunch and supper and some cereal and half and half for breakfast. Since I’ve never learned to use her new microwave, that means that I shall be forced to turn on the oven, wait until it hits 350 degrees and then cook my lunches and suppers. I know that the frozen meals come in their own dishes, but what if all the knives, forks and spoons get dirty? I’ll have to feed the dogs, cats and birds also.  I think Sheila should be ashamed of herself, leaving all of that labor for me. Just more evidence that I am a typical abused husband.  I’ll probably “waist” away while she is gone.

On the other hand, I’ll have football, cheese dip with horseradish and pretzels for football, so perhaps I’ll survive.

In a previous blog I wrote of Ethel, I won’t repeat that now, but I’ve never spoken of Bob, and now I shall. 

In my sixty years of adulthood, working and living in five states, three provinces of Canada, Korea and Germany, I have enjoyed meeting and knowing many people. I recall many friendships during that time and believe that if I should have occasion or opportunity to visit those persons again I should find those friendships still in existence. Most people, including my friends and family, have faults, flaws in character if you will, which one accepts as a minor matter in an otherwise good person. Very few of the people I have known have been completely, without reservation, honest in their conversations and dealings.  That is where Bob Connor was different. During the seventeen years I have known him, I have never known Bob to be other than completely honest and trustworthy. There are very few such people. Bob had another quality: a quiet one. Anyone who needed assistance, or any organization, could count on Bob for assistance.

I first met Bob the December following my retirement. Retired, like me, Bob, his bride Kathy, and I and my family were both attending the combined community Christmas service at the little MethodistChurch next door to me. Bob, tall and lanky in his overalls and old hat, had a long white beard. My four year old daughter, Megaera, took one look at him and shouted, “Santa Claus!” 

From then on, for the next several years, whenever Megaera spotted Bob, she was right under his feet, staring up at him with a smile: that was true at church and also true at the CumberlandFurnaceCommunity Center meetings and events which Bob and I attended routinely. Bob clearly enjoyed his status in her eyes.

In those early days of the Center, there were months when our monthly breakfasts and semi-annual open pit barbecues did not bring in sufficient money to cover mortgage payments and routine bills such as electricity and water. Bob was one of two men who could be counted on to write a check for a few hundred dollars to keep our Center going. Very few people were aware of those contributions: neither man broadcast their assistance. My awareness of it came from serving as secretary to the organization.

Now Bob is gone. (Actually both of those contributors are deceased.) His death was a surprise to all of us. He had told Kathy he had some work to do and drove away from the house. When he did not return when she expected, Kathy became worried and called for help. The response in our sparse community would have surprised many outsiders and shocked those government people who believe we ignorant and incompetent hill people cannot and do not care for one another. Everyone knew Bob and everyone respected and loved Bob. Bob was found, dead, lying next to his riding mower, his tools by his side.  

I have had other friends who quietly died after sitting down to “rest a bit” while engaged in some bit of labor on the land they loved. That is the way Earl Leach left this life. Similarly, Sank Daniels was found sitting in his truck in one of his fields. Now Bob has gone. For them, it was a wonderful death: rest from labor they loved. When my time comes, I would like to go that way rather than struggling in ignorance and pain in some hospital room. But for those who love them it must be extremely difficult.

I know that Bob’s unexpected death is hard for Kathy. She will need our help, but she will get all the community can give her. It will be a small repayment of the love that Bob gave to all of us over the years.  

Actually, I was reported missing in action once, but the report only went back as far as Division so no one at home heard. I suspect that happened when we moved into the mountains to stop a Chinese breakthrough.  Stan O’Connor, Ray Barker and I were sent out on an errand. We accomplished it, but it took two days longer in all the confusion and fragmented fighting than the Colonel expected.

Commenting on political news to Sheila, I said reporters speculated that Pelosi’s decision to remain and run for leadership of the minority party in the House would result in her victory, since so many of the “Blue Dogs” had lost, and that this would result in polarizing Congress. My unrepentant bride replied, “Good, I want it polarized. I want a clear distinction between the parties.” This “take no quarters” attitude of hers is reflected in our home, which is why everyone knows that I am an abused husband.

My father pushed us as children to get all the education we could. I remember him saying, “The only thing the government can’t take away from you is what is in your head.” I thought of that this morning while Sheila was calculating how much the government bonds we purchased for our children, and made them purchase, from their gifts and earnings, were worth. Those bonds are not worth nearly as much as I thought they were. The government has been playing games, over the years, with the interest they pay on government bonds. At least we are better off than the people who bought bonds from General Motors or Chrysler; they didn’t even get back what they paid for them when Obama “saved” the companies. Taxpayers lost also, only the unions profited.

When I talk of education, I include such things as the carpentry, landscaping and food preparation that all of my children did. They are at least as valuable, and considerably more valuable to them, than what they learned in some of the college classes they took.

On Sheila’s most recent visit to the doctor, he told her that the time had come for replacement surgery and he thought it would be best to do both knees at the same time. Naturally, Sheila wrote Gary Smith, who was once MY doctor, about the situation and he replied that, probably, surgery should be done, but she should be reconciled to the fact that it would be several months, not weeks, before she really felt better. Then he added something that may not be libel, but is certainly a slur. He said, “Bill will have to come to terms with that.” I’ll have the world know that I do a LOT of work around here, helping out Sheila with her most arduous tasks. For example, I always help her wake up in the morning so that she can make breakfast on time. I also make suggestions as to what she should prepare for our meals, sometimes I even carry my plate to the table for her and I always cut my own meat. How much more help can a wife expect? 

One of my recent tasks has been feeding the neighborhood bees. A few weeks ago I spilled a bit of honey on the table on the back porch and noticed that bees came to clean it up. I began putting some out there each morning for them and soon had quite a crowd. Running low on honey, I tried some molasses, which they ate more reluctantly. I’ve also discovered that they like over-ripe pears, which I slice up for them. They never bother me, although they will come up and walk over my hands. The other day I had one on my hand when I returned to the kitchen for more honey. He stayed on my hand as I walked into the kitchen and picked up the honey. Then, thinking that Sheila might not like a bee in the kitchen, I walked through the house, out the side door and around to the porch. My hitchhiker stayed on my hand all the way until I opened the bottle and poured out more honey. Sheila always buys the cheapest brand of honey, I wonder if they would prefer a better brand? Incidentally, I get a lot of solitude on the porch, other members of the family seem to be avoiding it. Perhaps I need to shower more frequently.

My friend and Liberal critic, Dee, responded to my recent blog with the following: I loved it. “The idea that any woman, Muslim or otherwise, would want a male virgin as a ‘reward’ for anything is absurd. We have enough problems with a seasoned veteran. No one wants to take on the task of teaching an inexperienced rookie.”

The groping of passengers by airport personnel has aroused a lot of controversy, at least on talk shows and Drudge. Especially worrisome to some parents has been the groping, in one situation of a three year old child and in another of a six year old. Some genius suggested giving the child a piece of candy to calm them. Parents spend hours teaching young children not to accept candy from strangers, now Napolitano’s storm troopers will teach them it is all right to permit strangers to fondle them in exchange for candy. Any more bright ideas coming out of Obamaland?

This entire “gate rape” (to use Limbaugh’s term) makes three absurd assumptions. First, that all of the airport fondlers will be identical in their treatment of their captives. Second that all rapees will be treated equally and, third, that all people are equally likely to be terrorists. Anyone who has ever entered more than one store to shop knows that not all salespeople treat customers the same. Some are friendly, some are hostile, some are helpful and some are disinterested. Do they think these thousands of airport pat-downers will be the same in their treatment of people? Idiocy! The second point equals the first in stupidity. A Congresswoman from Missouri says she sees no problem with this procedure. Why should she? Members of Congress are exempted. And third, the media people who say they don’t see any major problem. Do they think that they won’t be recognized? Not likely, in fact many of our stars would be insulted if they weren’t recognized. Does anyone really believe that people like Katy Couric will receive the same treatment as some enlisted soldier’s wife trying to shepherd a couple toddlers. I don’t. 

Actually, I’ve thought of a solution to the entire airport grope problem. First, let the passengers select the individual that is to grope them. Second, having viewed pictures of the over weight middle aged thugs (female as well as male) who do the groping at present, hire new gropers. There are many slender, attractive, young aspiring actors and actresses who are unemployed. Hire them! Then a gropee can look over the candidates and select one of his or her choice. I can see some elderly male, perhaps such as myself, saying, “I’ll take that young female groper with the long blonde (brunette, red head) hair. Who would complain? Air travel would increase.

I have been re-reading H. Allen Smith’s books recently. For those who have never heard of him, Mr. Smith was a reporter who collected interesting, usually humorous, stories over the years and published them in a series of books. In “The World, The Flesh, and H. Allen Smith,” he tells of how his father was in town one day and a man was there from St. Louis selling pills for 25 cents each that would protect people from the poison gases being given off my Haley’s Comet, which was approaching the earth at that time. He said the man was selling them as fast as he could dig them out of the barrel containing them. He claimed that taking one pill would save your life. For some reason, reading that section made me think of Al Gore. Of course the modern age has improved things. Instead of a pitchman on a horse drawn wagon in the town square we have the internet and mass communication. He only made hundreds of dollars. Mr. Gore appears to have made millions and received a Nobel Prize.  And the profiting continues with the green movement as millions of tax dollars are poured into projects presented as preventing a non-existent, humanity caused, global warming by profiteering prophets.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on the Oklahoma Shariah law (November 9, 2010). Oklahoma passed a law saying that judges could not use Shariah or other international law in judging cases. A judge, Vicki-Miles LaGrange, of the U. S. District Court has banned its implementation. I suppose she is following current Liberal doctrine. Diversity as king! But follow her “judgment” to its logical conclusion. If courts must consider Shariah rules in their judgments, must they not also follow Mormon rules in judgments? The Shariah includes such things as stoning women who have committed adultery to death along with other gentle measures. Obeying Mormon rules on polygamy would appear more civilized. Would all laws of other tribal groups have to be considered in judgments? How about the ancient Hindu one on burning a surviving wife to death when her husband dies? There must be a way of getting rid of female judges with their life time appointments.  Perhaps we could marry them to dying Hindus, but they might not agree to that.  How about a law permitting judges to be de-throned for terminal stupidity?

The controversy among Democrats in the House of Representatives has amused me. Why don’t some of them like Nancy Pelosi? She has effectively passed legislation preferred by devout Democrats. I would like to see her run for President against Obama in the Democratic primary. It would give the faithful a clear choice between an effective left wing leader and an ineffective left wing leader. Also, while probably confusing the Union vote, it would balance out the votes of the Women’s lib group and the NAACP, leaving the deciding vote to the ACLU.

Internet articles and letters on Napolitano’s air travel examinations have been fun. It appears that people who desire to travel on commercial air must either go through a total body scanner which uses X-Rays or be groped by airport employees. It doesn’t matter if you are one month old or one hundred years old. 

Now an Islamic organization is protesting this treatment if applied to Muslim women and Obama’s Napolitano is considering special treatment for them. If I recall correctly, all organized terrorist attacks have been by Muslims: Muslim men, women and children. But Muslims may not need the exhaustive searches. Non-Muslim children do, non-Muslim elderly do, in fact all non-Muslims do. This is the same “security director” who said military veterans were a greater danger than illegal outlaw immigrants crossing our undefended Mexican border. What a great example of the Obama team Ms Napolitano is! She is consistent. Consistently what is another matter.

I have a helpful suggestion to Obamaland for reducing the national debt. Everyone agrees that Social Security is going broke, too many people on it and too little money. We also know that smoking and drinking reduce life expectancy. My suggestion is that everyone on Social Security, preferably those over seventy and certainly those over eighty, be given free tobacco, beer and wine.  The elderly will die faster and of their own choice. This will reduce the numbers on Social Security. I’m certain our government can prove they will save billions of dollars this way. The fact that I am eighty, smoke and drink is not relevant. 

Currently, many in California wish to legalize marijuana. I wonder if they know that marijuana, opium, heroin and cocaine were all legal at one time in the United States. In fact the original Coca Cola contained cocaine, which may account for the name. Then society found that these drugs caused numerous, serious problems, both for the people using them and for society. They were made illegal. Now, ignoring or in ignorance of the past, people want them legal again. Or perhaps they just don’t care what happens to our society if they can get more money – NOW!

Immediately after Obama’s homeland security secretary, Napolitano, made the statement that combat veterans were more dangerous than illegal immigrants, I had a tee-shirt made for myself. On the back it says “Right Wing Extremist.” On the front, it says, “Combat Veteran, 15^th Infantry Regiment.”  I wore it to town, stopping at Cee Bee for groceries on the way home. Marty, who works at Cee Bee, carried them out for me.  Usually we have a joking relationship, but not this time. As he finished putting my groceries in he looked at me and asked, “What war?” When I answered “Korea” he replied, “I was in Vietnam and Iraq.” Then he added, “We can talk to one another, but no one else can understand.” 

He was right. No one else can understand. What we did to survive wasn’t nice: our sanitation wasn’t nice, our food wasn’t nice, and our humor wasn’t nice: nothing about us was nice. What we all had in common was the constant awareness, the constant tension. We laughed at things that would have made people who hadn’t been there shudder. We lost all touch with any world other than the one we lived in, one of constant danger, tension, and fatigue. Those things were normal to us in Korea, just as they were and are normal to all others who actually been in combat. 

Combat creeps up on you. When you first enter you are normal, simply a person who has been trained in weapons and tactics, perhaps badly, often by people who have never used them against an enemy. It doesn’t take long to learn that the first rule of combat is to stay alive.  Killing the enemy comes next. You must act first, think second if you wish to live. You may have time to regret it later. Getting drinking water is third. Trivial things such as food and sleep follow. Cleanliness is a forgotten element of civilian life along with such things as sidewalks and electric lights. 

Combat changes you without your awareness. The change creeps up on you. You are never the same again. It is only slowly, over the years, that you recognize that you did things and reacted to things badly when you returned to civilian life as a result of those changes. And some of those changes last as long as you live.   

“Goodbye, Darkness” by William Manchester (1982) is the most disturbingly accurate book on combat I have read. Manchester fought with the Marines as an enlisted man from Guadalcanal to Okinawa where a “million dollar wound” ended his combat time. He still likes to sit at “corner tables” to “keep my flanks secure.” I understand that. I also choose seats with my back to a wall.  I sometimes wonder if my love of my concealed home overlooking the valley is related to the safety I experienced in my mountain top bunkers.

I do not resent the millions of veterans who have served in the military but never seen combat, persons like my friends Don, who spent his time in Europe and told of skiing in the Alps on weekends, and Charlie who never left the United States and Howie who, in over twenty years in the “infantry,” never saw a day of combat. That was their good luck. In fact, I believe that military experience would be good for all youth. They would learn the discipline and understanding of authority necessary to succeed in life in months instead of the several years it takes youth in our contemporary society.

But civilians and non-combat veterans don’t have the experience to judge me and others like me who have survived months of combat. 

This is what bothers me about our current conflicts. We have journalists, politicians and military courts with no combat experience judging men who have been in combat. Currently, we have men in prison for killing “civilians.” This enemy does not wear uniforms. Shots are fired and must be answered. In a fire fight how can you tell the difference between a “civilian” and a combatant? If someone shoots at you from a house with women and children in it, who is the guilty one if a woman or child is killed? Are you simply to stand there and be killed? Or do you shoot back and accept the reward for staying alive by being sent to Leavenworth Penitentiary by persons who don’t, and can’t, understand?

Our Democratic Congress has spent four years ruining our economy and I’m ready for a change. A problem is that I don’t trust the Republican establishment. I enjoyed an advertisement I saw on the internet saying we should go for the greening of Congress and re-cycle all of them. To me, the most encouraging political happening has been the Tea Party movement and the success of many of their amateurs in winning spots on Congressional races. I hope enough of them win seats in Congress to upset both of the current Democratic and Republican establishments.

Congress has established a Commission to investigate ways to lower our debt. Predictably, they are considering raising taxes. Steps under consideration include eliminating the tax deduction for the interest people purchasing homes pay, eliminating the child credit and taxing the part of your salary a company deducts for medical insurance. Those changes wouldn’t cost Pelosi and Reid a dime, much less a dollar. Who would pay? All married couples trying to purchase a house and raise children would pay these additional taxes. I doubt that anyone on the dole would pay them. Thinking of worthless people drawing tax money for doing nothing.  I bet no member of Congress would pay any of them either.

An article I read on Google argued that Obama didn’t understand Middle America because of his experience, as he reported it, of “growing up in poverty.” Trying to remember reported facts, his father was a wealthy African chieftain; divdebt, taorced from him his mother married a wealthy Indonesian, taking Barack with her to Indonesia. When she left that husband, Barack was taken to live with his grandparents in Hawaii. His grandmother was vice-president of a bank, his grandfather a businessman. They sent him to an expensive, exclusive, private school. From there he obtained a scholarship, as an Indonesian, at a private college. I wish I had grown up in that kind of poverty! I know very few people who have experienced that kind of poverty. I bet there are a few hundred thousand citizens of the United States who have never known that kind of poverty (but wish they had). No wonder he doesn’t communicate well with most Americans!  We work for our livings.  I’m sorry, but I don’t believe President Obama knows anything about poverty – or honesty - and I am truly sorry. We need leaders in DC who know something about working Americans and honesty.

I have read an article that says Obama is “visiting” India along with a flotilla of 34 warships. It also mentioned that all the coconuts are being knocked off of the trees. When Obama arrives all of the nuts will be on the ground. The article did not mention how many airplanes, but Sheila says 40. She doesn’t know how many of these are fighters and how many are bombers. I have puzzled over this invasion force and think I know the answer, but FIRST, anyone who doesn’t have top secret clearance, talks in their sleep or drinks soda pop should immediately stop reading and burn the computer without reading further.

Now, for the one person still reading: Obama is invading India. It is a matter of extending his empire. He has made a secret deal with the Taliban (note that he has been holding talks with them.) When his invasion force arrives off the coast of India, the Taliban will provide a corridor through Afghanistan and, by arrangement, Pakistan will permit troops currently in Afghanistan to march south into India. Obama plans to re-colonize India with simultaneous invasions from the north and from the south. So the need for all of those planes is not to simply fly Michelle and her friends in for a visit, but to invade. 

I should mention that Sheila thinks I am wrong. She believes the forty ships do not carry an invasion force. She believes they are to transport mercenaries from India back to WashingtonDC. There they will retake Congress from the Republicans. 

Remember, this is top secret stuff. Don’t tell anyone, not even your teddy bear. Of course it is possible that a man who was raised in poverty, as Obama was, just likes company.

My mother had only one love in her life, my father. Children were important to the extent that they could be helpful, but I don’t believe there was any great emotional attachment. I was raised by Ethel, seven years my senior.

Ethel taught me to hate creamed corn. She baby sat my brother Joe and I when my parents were spending days cleaning and repairing a shattered wreck of a building that was to become our home when they lost the house we were living in during the depression. Ethel fed Joe and I corn for lunch and supper, either creamed or simply canned. For years I thought it was the only thing she, twelve years old, knew how to cook. Only recently have I realized that it was the only food my parents could afford. But I still don’t like creamed corn.

Ethel gave me the first scar on top of my head. Baby sitting, she was chasing me through the house for some reason, probably some offense I had committed, when I dove under my parent’s bed to escape her wrath. I cut the top of my head open on the iron bed springs. I escaped wrath while she cleaned up the blood on me and the floor. I don’t believe my parents ever knew of that incident. 

On another occasion, she had Joe sitting in a chair opposite the back door with me sitting in a side chair while she sat on the opposite side of the room watching us. Joe edged forward in his chair and I edged forward in mine. Then Joe made a dash for the back door. Ethel let fly with her purse, which had a large glass knob, and caught Joe in the back of the head. Looking at him, stretched out on the floor, I simply sat back in my chair. 

Her senior year in high school Ethel would take off her dress when she came home from school and hand it to Mom. Mom would wash it and hang it in the kitchen to dry over night. Ethel had only one dress, but she had other things. Going into her senior year in high school she was the only person who had a straight “A” average while taking five solid courses plus gym. Her final semester she received a “B” in gym, which prevented her from graduating with the first and only “A” average in the history of the school. Dad was furious and went to protest, but failed to get that “B” changed. He was always convinced that she was given that “B” because they didn’t want a poor girl from “the valley” doing something that none of the children of the doctors, lawyers and business owners attending the school had been able to achieve.

Ethel received a full four-year academic scholarship to WashingtonUniversity, but Dad stopped her from taking it on the grounds that a girl with one dress would be out of place in that wealthy, private, university. Instead, she attended Harris, a free city college designed to provide elementary teachers for the St. Louis school system. She excelled there also, receiving top grades and becoming president of her sorority.  

I remember sitting with Ethel on the front porch of our house and catching canned goods that were floating out of the basement window as they went past the porch during a flood.

On another occasion, Ethel and I found two old tennis rackets and balls and walked the mile to HemanPark in University City to play tennis. The watchman came out and asked for our permit. Ethel looked at me and said, “I didn’t bring it, did you?” When I said “no” the watchman said we could play this time, but next time we needed a pass. He knew we didn’t have one. A season pass cost fifty cents. We couldn’t afford it.

I was lying on the sofa reading a mystery when Ethel came in the door with John. She said, “Bill, I want you to meet John.” Looking up, I said, “Oh, another one?” They walked on past.  Ethel met John at the UnitarianChurch, which she joined because of their young professional group. After their marriage, they demonstrated their allegiance to the Unitarians by immediately joining the Methodist church. 

Ethel was a highly successful elementary teacher. She discontinued teaching when John and Julie were small, but started again following a Christmas vacation at the request of the superintendent of schools in Peoria, where John was employed as a research scientist. The school had to fire a first grade teacher at Christmas and Ethel was asked to take over. As always, successful and with a sense of humor, she remained in teaching until retirement. One time she told me that the little ones would line up to give her a kiss at the end of the day – this was in a slum school where many of the children were the children of prostitutes. She said that one day when she came home John gave her a kiss on the cheek and she said, “How nice John, that is the cheek the children kiss me on,” scandalizing poor John, whose family history, very aristocratic, was practically a history of the growth of the United States, beginning with the Mayflower and captains of sailing ships and working across the nation to ranchers in Montana. Ethel also raised three children to become law abiding citizens and professionals.

All of my life, I could depend on Ethel. When I was in combat, in Korea, Ethel wrote me a letter every day.  She numbered them and I receive about two out of every three. They were wonderful letters, the type I could read to my fellows and we could all enjoy. There was the one in which her young son John found a box of new graham crackers and used them to make a path through he house. She caught him as he was happily tromping back and forth on his road. On another occasion, she was chasing him down the street trying to stop him before a major intersection when she, eight months pregnant, slipped on grass and fell to her knees. She reported that she was kneeling there cursing when she looked up to see the mail man standing there looking at her. She wrote about the dog eating the ornaments off of the Christmas tree and debated names for the girl she was expecting – I held out for Julia. 

During my disastrous first marriage other family and friends urged me to leave and get divorce. Even my oldest son, then seventeen, asked me once why I stayed. My reply to all was that there were five children who needed me.  Ethel, however, was constant in her, “Whatever you think best and do, you have my support.”

Anyway, goodbye Ethel. I feel like crying, but it is for me, not you. I know you are at peace and with John. I love you.

In Korea, I was a radio scout. All scouts in my regiment were volunteers, which tells you something about the average intelligence level of scouts. We had three types of patrols: fight patrols when we went out with an infantry company looking for trouble, full squad patrols and little three man exploratory patrols, which were most frequent.

My best friend in the scouts was Ray Barker. Ray and I joked a lot, not always about things normal people might find amusing, but laughter made our lives easier. This joking irritated some of the people we worked with, but it didn’t seem to bother Stan O’Connor, who was squad leader. He always selected Ray and I to accompany him on those three man excursions. 

Our colonel never told us how to do the three man patrols. Instead, we were given an objective. How we achieved it was up to us. Sometimes, they were little casual jaunts out into no-mans land, but often we encountered things we believed we couldn’t handle and changed directions. Sometimes these were simply matters of unexpected geography in the mountains, but they still required change. Sometimes those changes didn’t work out well and we had to change again, but all three of us survived to come home and we all found things to laugh about – our own stupidity if nothing else.

Life is a lot like that. As children, our parents establish our goals, but as we become adults we establish our own and direct our own movements. Sometimes, that works, but it is normal for people to find obstacles, sometimes impervious obstacles, which block them. The only thing to do then is to laugh (perhaps grin and bear it is a more realistic suggestion) and look at available alternatives and change.

I have eight children. The oldest five are in their forties and fifties. Not a single one of them has been successful in achieving their initial goals along the paths they first envisioned. They have made changes, sometimes dramatic changes in vocation, in their twenties, thirties and into their forties. Yet, all are now successful in their vocations and have lives which are satisfying to them.

My youngest children are in their twenties. Each of them has specific goals in mind. Good luck! They will encounter difficulties. Perhaps impossibilities.

But instead of invading my children’s lives, let me illustrate with my own. All through childhood I wanted to be a farmer. But being a farmer takes knowledge and money, I lacked both. A substitute was to become an elementary school teacher, but the army interrupted my teaching career. While overseas, I learned of a hundred and fifty acres for sale in southwest Missouri for eleven hundred dollars. I had the eleven hundred. I wrote home and asked my father to buy the land for me. I knew I could get a job in the area teaching and I thought I could be a farmer on the side. My father wrote back that he and a friend had visited the farm and decided it wasn’t worth the money. So much for that dream. 

Returning as a teacher, I found I loved teaching. I worked at it and was judged a good teacher by my principal and supervisors, including the associate superintendent. Then the principal retired and I found I could not work with the new one. I quit and returned to school. My next job? I was employed as a vocational counselor and industrial psychologist: a vocation I hadn’t known existed a few years earlier. This is not the time to list all of my jobs, but I often found obstacles to my continuing where I was and what I was doing. In all cases I simply had to change, sometimes jobs, sometimes careers. I ended up employed by the army in Germany and certified in mathematical statistics and operations research: a long way from farming and teaching fifth grade in southwest Missouri. All the changes required effort on my part, often returning to school in the evenings to obtain some necessary credential, often changing location. There were always difficulties, difficulties that my bride and I laughed at while we encountered them. 

It is going to be the same with my younger children.  Loving them, I wish I could predict the obstacles they will encounter, but I can’t. Neither can they.  I hope that when they do, they are able to laugh, change and have partners who can laugh with them. 

This is not, however, restricted to me and my children. Everyone has dreams. Everyone has plans. Everyone encounters difficulties. Success in life often, usually, requires change. Accept it, laugh at it and enjoy it. 

During this series, coughing all the way, Sheila and Stephen drove to Springfield to seek job opportunities (for Stephen, not Sheila) and the following week we spent packing up Stephen and getting the Honda Civic and its 300,000 + miles (now his) ready for his move. This took time and finally Stephen, accompanied by several packs of cough drops left.

Sheila, in between her trip with Stephen and assisting him in preparation for moving, simply got worse. She had an appointment with her knee doctor and we made an appointment on the same day for her with Dr. Smith. To accomplish both, she left at ten in the morning and didn’t return until after six that evening. I had feared she was moving into pneumonia, a fear shared by Gary Smith but he decided that was not the problem and she went on to the Dr. Knapp about her knee. He told her that the shape she was in it was not time to discuss the knee, but refused to permit her to leave his office until she had a chest X-Ray. She passed that, belatedly returning home. She had, incidentally, failed to provide a lunch for me.

On the good side of all this, it was a great day for my weight loss program. By the time she finally arrived home my stomach had shrunk too much to eat more than half of the meal she had brought me from our favorite Chinese restaurant. 

Incidentally, her visit represents one of Gary’s failures. Normally when I am sick, I get well as he walks in the office and he spends my visit discussing my sins with Sheila. This time, despite medication, not only after seeing Gary, but when Sheila woke up the following morning she was not cured. She sent a note to Gary complaining about this. He was not sympathetic. He replied that even the resurrection took three days.

Incidentally, I’ve quit going to the Cardiac Club. The only exercise I was permitted to do there was the walking, and I can, and have been doing that at home three days a week instead of two at the Cardiac Club. I’m still on reasonable strike against the heart medication and feel considerably better. I’m not, however, looking forward to my visit with my heart doctor, Dr. Blazer, this coming Tuesday. 

I miss the friendships we developed at the Cardiac Club, but driving to and from the hospital, weighing in, spending thirty minutes walking and taking required blood pressure tests always destroyed our mornings completely and frequently I was too tired to do much the rest of the day. Now, I walk out of the house, through the valley and for enough up the next ridge and back home, to complete a trip of two miles. This takes about thirty-six minutes and leaves me in good condition for the remainder of the day. 

To end on a positive note, I had a stuffed green pepper for lunch the other day. I love stuffed green peppers. It was my first, and still the only, stuffed green pepper I have had this year. I purchased six green pepper plants in the spring. They all died. I discovered the larvae that were killing them and purchased a pound of that, mixing and spraying. I purchased and planted six more green pepper plants. One was killed immediately. I sprayed more. The remaining five grew, but one of the grown plants was killed. Finally, I harvested one full grown green pepper. It was probably the most expensive stuffed green pepper I have ever eaten.

Sorry, but a bad month has turned into a tragic one for me. Sheila received a telephone call last night – October 23 – that my sister, Ethel, was dying. Ethel has been lost to me for several years, as a victim of Alzheimer’s disease, but even though I was discouraged from visiting, because she wouldn’t know me, she was always there. Ethel was always there for me: in childhood, young adulthood and maturity. Through all my mistakes and problems I always had her support. There is a terrible gap between death and living. Even if that living includes mental deterioration, there is always hope. Now there is none. No man ever had a better, more loving, more supportive, sister. Goodbye Teetee.    

I was never good at dancing, which young women discovered quickly. Frequently I found myself sitting and watching while girls, unable to find a suitable partner, danced with one another. Since my bride doesn’t dance, this never bothered her. 

Not counting a few adventures Charley Moench and I had when we were young and single, I’ve never spent much time or found much pleasure in taverns. Exceptions to this were two beer halls in South St. Louis, where the “beer hall” served inexpensive meals, permitted dancing and had a band which encouraged audience participation. 

Lastly, I don’t enjoy going to movies. I spent three years while I was in college working as an usher in movie theaters. Most movies bore me. 

Notice this does not leave a lot to do when going out with some other young person, perhaps with an idea of a continuing relationship.

One thing to look for in a potential partner is someone you enjoy talking to. My bride and I talk a lot. We have driven for hundreds of miles, simply enjoying one another’s conversation. It is typically about anything – and everything: the landscape, plans for the day following driving, politics and other drivers. Be assured that it is always the other driver who is a “damned idiot,” never me. 

But we do more than talk, we enjoy other activities. Looking for interesting activities, I began taking night classes, for fun, in classes that interested me. At first, I did this for professional improvement, but it expanded into “fun” courses.

My first “fun” course was small motor repair. I was working with machinery at home, such as lawnmowers and chain saws, and had no idea as to how to care for them. I found, and took, a course in small motor repair. It was excellent and, as a consequence, I took and take better care of my equipment.  I also make small repairs that I would have had to pay for before.

I began a new direction when one of my students in a testing course, at the end of the course, said to me, “You’ve had your fun with me in this class, why don’t you take my class in sign language.” I did. I talked Sheila, not yet my bride, but close, into taking it with me (she became a much better signer than I.) Years later we found this course useful professionally when I took a position as director of a program for the disabled.

We also used it for fun. We could talk to each other in crowded places, such as at meetings or at a swimming pool, without having to be next to one another. I became more cautious in using it after an incident in a store. Standing behind a voluptuous and sparsely dressed girl in a line at a grocery, I signed to Sheila that the girl could use more clothing, but that I enjoyed the view. When the cashier began laughing, I realized I had best be careful what I signed and when. We weren’t the only ones who knew sign language.

Both being completely ignorant about automobiles we took beginning courses in auto mechanics together.  We enjoyed them.  Neither one of us can repair an automobile today, but we can tell the difference between a mechanic who knows how to repair a car and one who doesn’t, but is willing to charge for his ignorance and non-repair of your vehicle. 

When we began working for the military, we searched for something interesting to do and took Basic programming. An evening course, free to military and employees of the military, we began to learn something about individual computers when they were still in the developmental stages. Interested, and knowing that the military used computers a lot, I signed up for a course in Pascal at a local college. While I was never as good at it as people in class who planned to look for work in programming, I learned to read the language if not to program in it beyond the simplest stages. This was to help me later, although I didn’t anticipate it at the time. On nights I took that course, my bride enrolled in anatomy so that we could drive to and from the university together. She expected it to help her in art. While I took a course in matrix algebra, she took a class in watercolor and did quite well in it, as some of her paintings attest. I have taken numerous other courses. My last course was taken, again in programming, following retirement.  

Curiously enough, I was always a top student in those classes when I had only enrolled for fun and personal improvement – a distinct change from my undergraduate reputation.  I suppose that the difference was that I only wanted to enjoy myself and learn what the professor had to say. But I also met interesting people, some of whom I continue to have as friends.

So, my advice to the young, and to those who plan to continue living, if you are bored and aren’t in need of a degree, look around for short courses or evening college courses that might interest you. Finally, if you divide the cost of a course by the number of weeks you attend, you will find it much less expensive than spending the same number of evenings at the movies or in a cocktail lounge.

Sheila has become very involved in tracking down Cumberland Furnace history for the booklet she is writing for the Historical Society. This morning she was eager to get on the computer to read what she had written last night. She said, “The trouble is that what you see at eight o’clock in the morning is often quite disappointing from what you thought was so brilliant at ten o’clock at night.” When she said that, my thought was, “That’s true for a lot of men.” I confess that is a male sexist viewpoint, I suspect the same is true for a lot of women.  

Some of the tidbits she feeds me from her research are quite interesting. The slave owners at Cumberland Furnace actually trained their slaves. Slaves were the skilled workers. The whites were the day laborers. 

An elderly man we know, whose grandparents had been slaves, told Sheila that his grandparents talked about how sorry the slaves were for the poor whites with their hungry children who came through looking for any kind of work in exchange for food. It makes one wish to know the truth of the economics and the conditions of the South in the days of slavery. Undoubtedly it was very bad for some, but that was evidently not true for all. The problem I have, as a long-time reader of history, is that much of it is simply popular fiction. Sheila is trying to get beyond that, so she is spending hours of research for every page she writes. As a neglected husband, this is distressing.

She and I were sitting on the back porch a few days ago watching poor Sheba, who is now fourteen years old, dragging her back leg painfully across the yard. Yukon is almost fourteen and is also having trouble with her walking. Our puppies are getting old. Commenting on this to Sheila I said that it was difficult to know when it would be kinder to put one out of this world because of its pains, or let it enjoy the sunshine a bit more. I stopped that line of musing when I noticed Sheila looking at me thoughtfully.

We were at a going away party for a young man, a private first class, headed for Afghanistan recently. Talking with his wife, she said that he had been out of work and that with their three children, the army was the only way he could make a living wage for the family. When we left, his wife gave me a big hug. Thinking about it, I believe I know why young women so freely hug older men. It has nothing to do with our Adonic looks, rather with our ancient locks. Our gray hair, or lack of it, reminds them of beloved but departed grandfathers.

Sheila and I arrived at the Cardiac Club earlier than usual the other day. Sheila was enthusiastically greeted by the lone woman present who said, “Am I glad you are here. Up until now I’ve been the only woman in a room of men.” Sheila replied, “That’s not a problem. Just think of them as a room full of children and take charge.” I’ve been thinking about that response.

I received, as I occasionally do, a letter from the hearing aid people suggesting I come in to have them cleaned. This time, I not only remembered to make the appointment, I also remembered to go. The lady in charge reminds me a bit of Sheila: bossy. After cleaning the aids and discussing their use with me a bit, she put them on some sort of machine. Then she looked at me and asked, “Do you wear these often?” I replied that I wore them occasionally. She smiled and gently shook her head, “According to this, you have worn them almost 0% of the time for the past two years.” I am now under orders, women feel free about placing men under orders, to wear them every day for the next two weeks and return for another check. I am now on my second day. Men were too happy in the Garden of Eden, so God created women.