Ben Johnson, Actor, Cowboy, Oklahoman

I was a market manager at the old Hilton in Tucson and frequently had to wade through a posse of cowboys in the lobby, extras that milled about whenever there was a movie director in town casting for a new film.
    It was never easy to get used to it, Buffalo Bob Bad-Ass swaggering across the lobby floor with six-guns strapped to his hips, trudging back and forth in front of the director or location manager. Those idiots were real bothersome, but were real color back ground to tourists that checked in.
    My office was close by, and as I slipped into it, one cowboy was chatting on my phone, head down, at least he wasn't sitting on my desk. None of the local cowboy extras had ever gone that far, barging into our offices like that.
    I admit it, I had a melt down. I piled into him, a little indignant. Working in a hotel, trying to sell the place, keep it full, keep the sales staff busy, happy, gainfully employed, the General Manager, a aggravating little pip-squeak off our backs, one's blood pressure tended to peak.
    Our cowboy sat with his head down, drawling on the phone as I "interrupted " him.
    It was Academy Award Winner Ben Johnson.
    I was so shocked, mid-sentence, I blur,ted out, "Oh, Mr. Johnson, I'm so sorry." I left my office and dashed just outside under a palm tree I loved that guy, he was in nearly every John Wayne picture the Duke ever made.
    He came rushing out all apologetic, took my hand, and said that he didn't mean to give me a bad time, that the front desk said it was OK to use my desk and phone.
    I stopped him and said, " Mr. Johnson, you can use ANY phone in the house - ON ME!, and I'll go along with you to assure you Today, herds of buffalo roam just a hundred yards south of his ranch house, all over that range land, and road. My late wife and I had to slowly draw our car past a few of those beasts that could have easily hooked their horns under our windows and flipped our car. Phew!, they didn't.
    I told him my favorite film of his was "One Eyed Jacks," with Brando. He told me it was a quiet little film that never made much money. My take on it was he was the better actor in a scene where Brando said he would "rip your arms off," Johnson looked like he actually believed him; And I told him that. Ben Johnson was a great character actor, and proved it in the Last Picture Show.
###

My friend left Tucson for Northern California for the money --$$

After 30 or so years here, struggling to make a living, like me, holding some of the best jobs this dusty burg has to offer, just three years ago, my friend Mike takes off for Northern California for " better money."
     I know how he feels. I did it 20 years ago, and mentioned it before in this missive. I'm not that stubborn, and catch on quicker.My next door neighbor just learned it six months ago, trying to sell insurance. He bought the house, spent months refurbishing it, inside and out for his wife and two new children. The economy tanked here in Tucson, the 6th poorest town in America, and he had to RENT that home (couldn't sell it) and move to Albuquerque.)
      Mike discovered late, that trying to make a living in "the old Pueblo" is fruitless. Making a living=making a decent salary.
     The late lamented evening paper Tucson Citizen had been around since before the days of Wyatt Earp. One of the best writers was Larry Cheek, now gone. He once wrote that living here was to " work like a dog" for literally nothing and write great observations on this town's split cultural personality.
     He was write, my joke. He would have appreciated. Years ago, a black Reverend left in disgust and depleted energy headed for Riverside California commenting as he split,
"living here is to suck the life out of you." Right again. A book length blog to explain.
     Mike, ensconced in California, still glowing in the goey delight of Governor Deficit, like the Governor of Oregon to his north, hasn't seen a tax he couldn't pass up. Social Services for the poor and needy? Sure, apply surely there will be funds available somewhere.
     Roads, bridges, postal clerks, police - cut them. Teachers are bailing out windows, unions are getting so strident, their " time-out" rooms are getting as used as delinquent students.
     Mike, forever the bull-head, says, sure, it's expensive over here. Rent is twice Tucson's, but salaries are four times what I made there. (So are taxes, gas, aggravation, tempers, restrictive (stupid non-sensible gun laws) idiot state legislatures, environmentalists, etc. And, there is always, - " The San Andreas Fault."
     The attrition west bound, according to the statisticians is almost one way - out of California. Mike, unfortunately is swimming upstream. I collided with a lady FedEx driver in the lobby of an Ad agency two days ago and we had a pleasant but brief talk.
     Seems she had a masters degree in marketing from UCLA, and worked in Frisco for ten years. Ok, you know the questions I asked. She liked the easy going lifestyle in Tucson, done with the hustle and hassle of San Fran. She is 32. Go Figure
###

Colorado - I am a sad and confused American

When I left Evergreen, my wife had died I though my heart would break in a thousand pieces, and the idea of heaven on earth would vanish. Living inside a Currier and Ives print with my princess would stay inside of me for the rest of my life.
    High up in the Rockys, commuting down each day into Denver, living up in the mountains ten thousand feet over the city with my dream girl - it would never, ever get any better. She died, I crumbled, and left. I went to Portland, and the rest is history, and my time in Denver locked away forever.
    Now, I hear Denver and the state have gone to " the dogs." The bull$%## you feed yourselves about gambling by calling it ' GAMING ' is crap and you know it. It is NOT fun, entertainment, or exciting - it's betting. It's losing your money, and hell, those people are getting rich off it. As an assistant Casino Manager once told me, a new casino moving into town is " like giving the community a gift of cancer."
    And hey, now, you add drugs - Marijuana. Not only do you gamble your money away, you can get stoned while you do it. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is doing a special report on the effects of the stuff on your judgement. Don't think it does much on your judgement? Watch the special, then go on and such that stuff up.
    And now, thanks to the bone headed legislators ( ' ready-fire-shoot') the gun CONTROL legislature now has passed a bunch of stupid laws binding YOUR hands in case you need to defend YOUR home and heart.
    The bad guys at the local Circle K? Frisk them some time if you get the chance, doubt that they're carrying any legal gun permits, tho. What's her name? Rep. Degette? Had all the answers on new legislation, come to find out she didn't even know that an ammo clip for a rifle was NOT A BULLET. She learned in an on-air interview that an ammo clip holds bullets.
     Pushed legislation through without knowing what she was doing. Nice. You elected her.
###

15th Air Force - B-17s Air Missions out of Italy WW II

Joseph Heller, a much vaunted author of "Catch 22" wrote the sometimes critcized anti-war novel mentioned back 30 or so years ago during the Vietnam days. It was the story of bomber squadrons of the 15th USAAF stationed in Italy with missions flying into German targets in Europe and I believe Ploesti oilfields.
     The latter was the most significant as Ploesti was the life blood of the Nazi war machine. Choke off the German oil, you kill their tanks, motorcycles and jeeps. The 15th had that job, and with a horrendous casualty rate, they did it.
      Each mission cost them roughly 20% of their squadron (x 10 men per B-17). So, they figured, after 5 missions, you were 100% dead, as the story goes.
      The Catch-22 movie was a nut-ball of a story, drew crazy reviews had crew members hiding in palm trees, dumping bombs in the ocean, shooting up fishing boats, generals issuing orders while sittijng on toilets, flying officers in formation, naked, crazy stuff, start to finish.
       While I was a docent at a local B-17 Museum here in Tucson, I had the pleasure of interviewing a pilot fro the 15th Air Force who wondered into the museum. Much to the consternation of the Director of our Museum, I spent a lot of time with visitors and sucked as much out this guy as I could. He came in his old flight jacked and 50 mission crush cap.
        The Gist of it was, " everything I saw in Catch 22, was true, " he told me. " I was there, I lived it, I saw it. We were drunk half the time. We had no idea who would be killed, who would survive, it's a wonder any of us got back."
       And, he had the black and white pictures to prove it.
###

Bank of America - Customer Service (???)

Did you know that Bank of America has over 15 pages web page explaining variations of "FEES" they charge for checking and savings accounts?...15 pages of FEES, and they are all different!!

Did you know that if you want a check IMAGE on your own "paperless" account, they charge you $3.00 for each one?

Did you know if you call their 800 #, you will be put on "terminal hold " forever?

###

A Message to Australia on American Violence

The United States is 3rd in murders throughout the world!!

BUT, subtract New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit and Washington, DC - the United States  drops to the 4th from the BOTTOM for murders!!

Those four cities have the TOUGHEST GUN CONTROL laws in our country.

So, absent of that fact, you gotta ask yourself, what else do those four cities have in common? Hmm?

###

My Daughters Michelle & Laura & Time Flies

When I was attempting to raise two daughters at 43 years of age (30 years ago), holding down a position which timed out as the worst I'd ever had (alligators in my office every morning), crazed wife on a Moped cruising over the desert hills singing, "I will survive," and me juggling a lousy salary and the presidency on the local school board....I lost an election within the household.
    Wife and two kids elected that they would go to "private school" run by ex-anti-war nuns and I was drafted to come up with the scratch to float it.
    Meanwhile my oldest needed a chauffeur on the weekends, wife wanted her "independence" and the youngest went Mustang. Brewing in my gut was an ulcer that would take me down in the 21st century.
    I was 43. My daughters were young - knew everything. One predicted a Supreme Court Slot, did so in the local newspapers. The other tried running away from home-on a horse. Later, changed her name to one.
    Today, 30 years later, I'm 73, and those two daughters have reached the exact same age I WAS THEN, when I was raisin them, going through all that bullshit, married with two kids at home, crisis du jour, bills, bulls, private school tuition, car payments, ulcer city at work.
    And they? One moved to Chicago and married a socialist, the other - well, the other is struggling.
    Some day, if they ever read this, I hope they understand that as of this day, they walk the earth in the same skin I did - right now, only without the burdens I carried, trying to do my job and balance their needs while feeding them love, support, caring and concern - as I still do, as their father.
    Walk in my shoes, today, as I did 30 years ago. I have not heard from the oldest for a quarter of a century.
###

Hamburgers in Manhatten - " Double the Price"??

Watching cable news today, the reports from Manhattan said fast food workers struck most of their establishments for (some say) double their current wages.
     "We can't make it on XXX dollars an hour, " one guy said, " it's too expensive to live in Manhattan on that. We have to have double that - over $15 an hour to survive." Other "victims" of the fast food industry went on to display with their signs, statements, and demands pretty much along the same lines.
      The CNN reporters and HLN staffers who covered the story offered no back up to the comments from the strikers other than sympathy, " it's pretty tough making it in downtown New York on that kind of money, " one said.
       This story will grow legs. No one YET has given any credence to the economic effects of doubling wages of those workers - 100% increases in their pay.
        Will the public pay $10 or more for a hamburger in Manhattan? How much of a loss of a customer base will each store lose because those lower paid secretaries can't afford $50 a week on hamburger lunches? (brown bag city, here we come). When the loss of revenue to fast food hits the owners pockets, how many workers will hit the street?
         You don't need columnist George Will to figure this one out. No one CARES to do the Detroit MATH on this one. Yes, it's expensive to live in New York City. I wouldn't live there if offered a $250K a year job. I hate the idea.
         There is a option to those who can no longer afford to slug it out in the Big Apple on such little pay. MOVE. I did. Most of America does and it's become a habit. You move where the work IS, not where it isn't . You move where the fish are biting, where the money is. You DON'T bleed the city or business dry.
          Don't think so?  Does the word DETROIT mean anything to you?
###

Returning Soldier, I saw it on local Television

He was tall, handsome in uniform and was sneaking up behind his 5 year old blond daughter. He got within ten feet of her when she turned around ever so slowly, looked up at him with her face beaming like the head lights of a beautiful Beamer....
       " Hello, Daddy," she said in a conversational tone, as if he'd just been down the block, instead of under fire in Afghanistan.
       I melted into a pile of wet laundry. I remember my oldest daughter 40+ years ago at that moment.
###

Conscientious Objectors

During the War, 1% of all British draftees declared moral or political grounds for evading the draft and said they were Conscientious Objectors. Some were jailed, others excused, it was a case-by-case basis as we on this side of the pond like to characterize it. Some were given public service and the
" conchies" were glad to take it.
     In America, less than .01% of the citizenry declared CO status, all of the draftees went, the government granted zero dismissals. Options here were jail, public service, medical experimentation, such as typhus, hepatitis, sleep deprivation, and military support.
     Both Britain and the US had COs in combat, the Brits ambulance corps was made up of one third COs on D-Day. They called it "counter-violence." A lot of them volunteered for bomb disposal.
     Three American COs won the Medal Of Honor, our country's highest combat award, two of them died in the attempt.
     Just sayin.'
###

TRUST, Who do people trust, what they tell me. Quandry...

There has been a lot of restlessness in the culture lately. Everyone I talk to, interact with tell me essentially the same thing.
     People are staying home. They are not spending money, except on food, movies, gas, things around town. No one seems to be going to long distance vacations, Summertime trips are shorter, delayed, stay-at-homes are reading, using TV as entertainment, video shops are bustling, soda pop is flying off the shelves.
     Bank Lines are growing, US Mail trucks are delivering more mail. I asked one postal carrier how come, and she said the uptick is heavier. She thought the recent news of the government spying on everybody has driven people "back to the future" back to snail mail.
     " Big Brother can't check EVERY piece of mail," she told me.
     She has a point I thought. With the scandals shooting holes in the trust factor of the government, some people have been drawing out money from banks. As of today, stock market levels took a nose dive unseen in years.
     A general feeling of a lack of trust - in everyone, everywhere, in everything, seems to be coursing through the veins of America. Most I know believe very little in newsprint. Cable news is so ideologically divided, they seem hysterically driven in their reporting, in orbit, devoid of common sense let alone facts. It's difficult to trust some cable channels who deliver news with machettes in their hands.
     Dear friends and relatives thought the president's visit to China to complain of that nation's spying on us somewhat laughable since our nation is spying on us anyway. After all, what's so interesting about what we're doing that makes the average American citizen worthy of such scrutiny?
     Oh, I forget....we're armed to the teeth.
###

Things People Tell Me: Michael Moore - where are you, now that we really ...

Things People Tell Me: Michael Moore - where are you, now that we really ...: Remember his e book DUDE - WHERE IS MY COUNTRY?" Then, there was the silly movie where he and a bunch of poor Americans rowed up to Gua...

Michael Moore - where are you, now that we really need you??

Remember his e book DUDE - WHERE IS MY COUNTRY?" Then, there was the silly movie where he and a bunch of poor Americans rowed up to Guantanamo and yelled out, " we only want the same Health Care the Al Queda Prisoners get (fully paid for by taxpayers)."
    Great stuff we saw when Bush was taking it on the chin as Prez, right?
    Well, now, it's just as bad, and a helluva lot worse since President Obama is in the left seat (as we in aviation like to say, pilot). No word from Millionaire stockholder in tech stocks Michael Moore, he of the ball cap, author of Roger and Me.
    One of those mentioned in 100 people screwing up America by Bernard Goldberg. Nothing of substance from him from the Obama flag team champs at MSNBC who, by the y by fail to score ANY audience ratings during the midnight hours. (No one is watching) Tra La.

Movies filmed in Arizona, Movies filmed in America

Lifetime Movies produce some of the best stories I've seen on the tube, no kidding. Great stuff. BUT, ( you knew it was coming) none of it is filmed here. All Canada, or the UK.
     Understand, those two countries produce GREAT television. I have come to appreciate their new brand of television series and movies. Love them, check them out on On Demand, like Wallander.
     However, none of Lifetime is filmed here. I can't find ONE.
     Tucson, Arizona had been the sunshine capital for movie producers who loved the "clean, pure sunshine" - one told me so on location.
     " Do What YOU HAVE HERE? Clean, pure unadulterated sun light coming straight in to the
desert floor, unfiltered. Perfect for the camera."  That director - Claude Le Louche.
     No more movies here in Arizona, either? All have moved to New Mexico. They have cut taxes to the movie companies to the bone. So, when you see a western with dialogue spouting Arizona names?  Chances are, it's filmed in New Mexico.
     Reason, the Arizona government has taxed itself right out of the lucrative revenue it once had a lock on - good old fasioned greed.
###

Ben Johnson, Academy Award Winning Actor

In the late 70's  I$ was the head of sales for an older Hilton  hotel in Tucson. Shooting westerns in our town was fairly common back then, and movie cowboys hanging around the lobby was a daily event.
      The "extras" were guys from town who driften in to the hotel. They seemed to know when a director of location manager would be around in advance of production, scouting out the place. We would be up to our hips in cowboys with guns, spurs tinkling, leather everywhere - even horses tied outside.
      One afternoon, I had a client or two in for lunch - I don't remember who, but coming out into the lobby for lunch, I bumped into a couple of cowboys by accident. They were a real nuisance by the second year, I grew impatient sometimes. Looking over my shoulder, I blurted out an " scuse me' as I shot past, and the guy was really sorry.
      He ran up to me, asking if he could do anything to make it up to me. It was Kurt Russell, the actor. I was non-plussed, glad to meet him, and bought him lunch. I can't remember who I left standing in the lobby, but one of my assistants took care of it. Russell was very pleasant. We talked movies, kids, life, stuff. I never saw him again. He was back years later shooting Tombstone, and that made him a huge star.
      One of my all-time friends, not stars was actor Ben Johnson. He won an Oscar for the Last Pictures Show as the movie theatre manager. I went to my office one "cowboy day" and found one of them on my office phone. I really lost it. He had his head down, had low over his forehead while he talked, I couldn't see who it was.
      I said, " hey, buster, can't you use one of the phones in the lobby? This is my office!!"
      Ben pulled his head up, a look of surprise and kind of chagrin on his face. " Oh, Gosh I'm sorry, I'll git rite off, " he said. I was floored.
      " Oh NO, Mr. Johnson, " I was flummoxed. " I didn't realize it was you - take ALL TIME YOU WANT....IT'S OK WITH ME....I'LL WAIT IN THE HALL.  And then, I withdrew until he was done.
     I bought him lunch, too. We talked for a little while. What a great guy he was. I told him about and the movie " One Eyed Jacks" in which he co-starred with Brando. There was a part there when
Brando says, " I'm gonna rip your arms off,"  and I told Ben, " you really looked like you believed him.
     Johnson said, " I did."
     ###

Petition for "REASONABLE" Gun Laws

In the Walmart Parking lot here in Tucson, the same one where there was a gang related shooting not a week ago, I was approached by a young Hispanic woman with a petition this morning.
    It is Mother's Day 2013.
    She says it is one in which she asks 5 questions ( all front loaded btw) with answers pre-supposed with answers leading to agree with "Reasonable Gun Law" conclusions of the Mark Kelly & Gabrielle Giffords Gun Control effort headquartered here in Tucson.
    Since her attempted assassination some time back by the delirious and nutty young man with a pistol, Mark Kelly has purchased an AR 15 and a handgun here locally, been photographed doing it, and now is organizing a nation wide movement TO BAN THE VERY WEAPONS HE JUST BOUGHT.
    I have stated previously I have no quarrel with Mark. Any man who shoots my wife in the face would drive me over the edge, so, his actions, - whatever they are - to me, are totally understandable.
    BUT, insofar as they affect the rest of us, no.
         LET'S BE CLEAR: the 2nd amendment says, "shall not be infringed." That is not very confusing. It is not how high, what color, who can and who cannot, what color you are, as long as you are an adult, a citizen, not a felon, you can own firearms.
         Period. " SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED."
         Let's get something else cleared up. The lunatic left often burst out in flamed with rantings like, - " whadda you want - a flame thrower, a bazooka, a tank?"  Those things are already ILLEGAL. Lastly, the much bally-hooed AR-15 is a scary looking gun but it is nothing more than a souped up .22 rifle. There are other long rifles more powerful that have been legal for decades.
         THE REAL QUESTION " REASONABLE GUN LAW ENTHUSIASTS" SHOULD BE IS THIS - we should want to pass laws that are effective. i.e. actually work.
          Back to the little girl in the parking lot. This is what she DID NOT KNOW:

• what the 2nd amendment actually said
• what the term slippery slope meant
• what the first amendment said
• what the initials on my cap meant (NRA)
• what the term "Gun Confiscation Meant"
• and when I told her, she freaked out, " oh,I don't LIKE that!!"

The S.S. World War II - the German side of the War, fun facts I'll bet you didn't know

Adolph's boys grew to about 200,000 around the start of the War and had little or nothing to do except be a pain in the ass to Jewish people and other folks that got in the way of the psychotic little corporal who wheezled his way to the top. ( Many of his generals, BTW, called him " the corporal" behind his back). Anyhow, the SS were his personal bodyguards b'cuz he didn't trust anyone. Alot of those guys really didn't WANT the job, but threats, intimidation, and " I'll kill your family " went along way to helping them to wear the uniform. Many top brass in SS, were DOCTORS, LAWYERS, college professors, a few surgeons, Human Resourse Managers from local German businesses and other like minded draftees who found themselves caught in the whirlwind of the insanity. True, some became nutballs and low-foreheaded knuckle draggers like Martin Borman who loved the killing, but research shows some HATED it, and some deserted by running away, others blew their brains out. In depth history reveals som SS officers went quietly man, disappearing early in the war, never to be found. Some appeared later, dead by their own hand, or killed by fellow Nazis in other countries. The old SS officers still hold yearly conventions today, somewhere in the Alps, quietly. One great story was one of the SS companies closest to Hitler that was being punished for some such infraction - His Stupidity-ness sent them to fight on the Russian front. They suffered horrendous casualties, but managed to survive. Hitler still berated them, ordering them to declass their unit from an honor badge he had awarded their whole brigade. They all became so incensed at the disrespect from Der Fuh, they took off all the presentation medals, dropped them into a LATRINE bucket full of excrement and shipped it back - direct to Hitler. No word as to the fate of his entire elite unit, but one suspects he left them on the Russian Front,to their demise, capture by the Russians, ergo to their deaths. ###

The Thousand Year Reich - Part XXVV11

The Englsh, bless their hearts, kept many of the captured German Generals and top command staff in secret during the war in somewhat luxury accomodgbugged their convesation. What appears to be solid evidence of war crimes and attrocities beyond belief, emphasis of BEYOND BELIEF, if that Churchill authorized the bugging, they got tons of exculpatory evidence, had enough to hang these guys ten X over, and at the end of the war, buried it. The scoop? Mixed, some of the Germans Generals actually DIDN'T know what was going on, some hated it, some refused to go along and walked out on purpose. Those that did, sat in this luxury prison in England and were shunned by some of the Nazi loyalists.It was a real mixed bag. Bottom line, as we say in the USA? So many of the prisoners were in the dark, geniunely upset, felt so guilty, contemplating suicide for communal guilt, that, at the end of the war, Churchill, buried the project and let most of them slide. Amazing, yes? One of the SS Generals was quoted as saying, " The Thousand Year Reich? OUR SHAME WILL LAST A THOUSAND YEARS, that is all we will get out of this!!" Perhaps he is right. Here we are almost 70 years after the fact, and as statistics indicate, 50 books (fifty) a month are published about World War Two. The interest (?) does not die. When I was a docent in the Tucson B-17g Museum, a woman screamed and cried the other side of the display. As I ran to give assisstance, I met her crumpled on the floor, crying. She pointed to one large picture on the wall, and a black and white crew photo underneath it. " That's my father's plane, " she sobbed " and that's his picture, he was 20 years old when he was shot down over Germany. I never got to see him, " she cried. ###

WWII Our Bombers Over Holland April 1945

The Nazis were about done during tithis time, 68 years ago. Our B-17's were over Berlin on 21st. About 500 B-17s and a variety of B-24 Liberators would wind up the 8th Air Force's mission of the War by sundown that night. Starting the next day, the American bombers would load up wit food and start a relief run - pretty consistently - over selected parts of Hollan. The crews of the various American Bomb Groups stationed in England called them "chow runs." The Dutch called them life savers. For most of the spring of 1945, bombers dumped tons of food on the Dutch in small boxes. There are WWII Museums in our country with those boxes, now empty and photos of the hungry Dutch ripping them open, feeding their young. Recenty Dutch visitors saw one display and said, " my God, I remember, I still have those boxes in my cellar at home." Dutchmen like elephants never forget, I guess. To thank the American airmen, the planted tulips in the shape of a note aimed skyward: " THANK YOU." I dont think Tom Brokaw ever heard that story, but I did. I talked to the Dutchmen and women who lived it. ###

NRA Hat, Gun Control Hysteria and the man in church

What has it been, 100 days since Newtown? Those 20 pure souls dead and gone? The hysteria for gun control has gone through the roof, bounced around, the lunatics picketed the NRA have gotten no where, I suppose we have them to thank for this cooling off period.
     It has given people time to think things through.
     Politicians like those from New York have gone off the tracks trying to pose rules on the entire nation assuming the whole nation lives east of the Hudson, having the same mentality as those ho ride the subway in New York, craft ridiculous legislation that WE know the rest of us will never obey.
     I heard a news broadcast this morning that said - " None of the legislation, thus far, including that which Mark Kelly is advocating, WOULD HAVE STOPPED any of the atrocities that have already happened.!!!"
     Kelly should be discounted by everyone. Shoot my wife in the face, and I will go a little nuts too.
By the way, my wife suggested this very morning, that Mr. Kelly's next probably step will be into politics. We'll see.
     MY HAT: is an N.R.A. gold emblazoned cap which I have worn every day since this anti gun hysteria has surfaced. It's taken a lot of guts since I live in Tucson. That's every day for 100 days.
     Each day, every day, at least one, sometimes, two, often three people have approached ME to thank me for wearing it. Some comments are, " Thank you for standing up for the 2nd Amendment."
Or, "I'm behind you, these politicians think they can get away with taking our guns away, NEVER!"
     Easter Sunday, I carried the hat into church, didn't wear it. One man approached me after services and quietly said the same thing. "I approve, I own a gun, and they will have to kill me to get it." He said that in church.
     I don't know about anyone else in this country, but I do not trust the Justice Department, Mr. Obama, people who suck up to him, the "expressed" intentions of the government, nor the direction of the administration ( The A.G included), the banks, Wall Street, and a lot more.
     ###

Obama's GUN LAWS - will they work?

I don't think so. New York City always has the toughest gun laws in America. Remember Colin Ferguson the rider on the Long Island Railroad? He had a couple of automatics and pockets full of clips for his two pistols. The LIIR train  carried him to his Long Island home late on night and he casually wandered the train shooting people, RELOADING AT WILL, and the crowded train, just sat there, no one could fight back.
     No one had a gun. No one in the entire train was armed, they were following New York's tough anti-gun law. Because of that, Ferguson roamed the train at will, killing untold passengers until someone unarmed, tackled him and others piled on. That was brave.
     Recently a mother hid in the rafters of her home with her children and a six-gun. An intruder broke in, found her and attacked. She emptied the gun into him, he backed off and fled. He was still able to leave and drive his car with six slugs in him. Imagine. But she defended her children, herself and her home.
     Obama's gun laws MAY eviscerate the 2nd Amendment tomorrow by Executive Order. May.
If successful, if he neuters the Constitution by fiat, what can be next?
     Possibly the first..
###

Nazi Occupation of Holland - Random Executions

When I was a docent at a B-17 Museum in Tucson, I frequently engaged European visitors and chatted them up on their country, their history and, hopefully their remembrances of World War II.
    An older man was a child during the Nazi occupation of Holland and remembered hiding in his cellar in Amsterdam. He lived in town with his mother and father who was a pharmacist. The Nazis didn't hassle his parents because their jobs were "vital" to the occupiers. They were, he told me, taking children hostage for obvious reasons, among them, child labor in factories.
    Often, the old man said, the German Storm Troopers stationed on each street corners, would grab Dutch folks walking along the street and line them up against a wall and execute them by firing squad. No reason, just arbitrarily pick at random, some man or woman coming home from work, at the point of a bayonet against a wall, with a dozen other fellow citizens, and shoot them.
    One afternoon, after lunch, there was a commotion right outside his cellar window, the man turned off his light, slowly opened his curtains and peered out. German soldiers were grabbing up his next door neighbors, their kids that were his best friends, children up the street, the minister from the church at the corner, about 35 in all.
    Within two minutes. a half dozen storm troopers machine-gunned all 35 people, most of his friends, their parents, his minister, and one of his cousins, he told me. The Germans, when they first arrived in Amsterdam disarmed the populace, shot the governor and neutered the government..
     In my time at that museum, I heard a hundred stories like that. The most horrific was of the French Villiage of Ora Dor sur Glane.
###