On Memorial Day weekend, I was at the B-17 Museum here in Tucson, and the perky, lovely, very friendly descendant of Laura Ingalls Wilder walked into our museum, toured our place and we had a wonderful discussion about life, politics and the difference between " Washington and D.C."
She lives there.
Washington, she explains is where "real people" live - that's you and I, if we can afford it. "DC" is where the politicos live, and she says, "they come, and they go."
She was very open about the politics the town, saying that the majority population is "African American," (and has been since the Civil War, BTW). My ancestors were stationed there in Dan Sickles Corps, often wrote back to the family describing the life, the times, and the people there.
Laura said the folks in Washington were very down on Obama because "he failed to meet their expectations" prior to the election of 08. A lot of grumbling in the hold, so to speak. I asked her whether her finger on the local pulse gave her any indication as to which way they might vote in six months: up, down, or sit it out. She was evasive.
My gut feeling, Ms Ingalls was very pro-Obama.
We spoke of her famous ancestor, and of the cabin from which the writings grew, the homestead in Sedan, Kansas, just an hour north of Tulsa, Oklahoma and thirty minutes by car from Coffeyville, Kansas. The cabin is still there, a one-room affair with one window, over it hangs a one page copy of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Bible verses she relied on during time of trial and stress. I still have copies I carry with me.
Laura Ingalls had been to the same cabin, and to the one room school house 20 yards to the west of it,
I felt an instant emotional connection to her, our mutual American roots, the school room, the values. I didn't get time to talk to her about her great grandmother, her time as a child looking out that window watching the long line of Indians trailing over the ridge from time-to-time just 150 yards to the west, a shotgun cradled in her lap.
But, this is a new day, the 21st Century, with a new economy system, where the government takes care of everyone, or, at least it tries to.
No more individualism, like her great grandmother, sitting alone in a cabin, hours away by horse, self-sufficient, armed with a shotgun, confident in her own ability to protect herself, father outside plowing the fields and planting, all the while under threat of deadly attack.
Things change. Don't they?
###
Monday, May 28, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Life in Australia --- This is Real, not romantic
He walked into the Museum one Saturday recently and spent a lot of time talking with me about life, "down-under." Food, housing, land-mas, ages, families, the 'other inhabitants and such, what it was like to live on a land-mass as big as America.
Imagine his country, the exact same size as America, BUT, 80% of the 17 million population - yeah, that's it - live within 25 miles of the coast along the northeast and eastern boarder. He told me, that's like having everyone you know living from Boston to Atlanta crammed from the beach in as far as you can drive for an hour.
And, that's it.... after that, you're on your own.
Australia and America are about the same size, he told me, so, if you live on the beach in Jersey and you start to drive west bound towards Chicago at 8 in the morning, by lunch, you see nobody. Zip, no cars, zero.
All of this in a land where carrying a gun is illegal. My Aussie friend, "Joe" says that pistols are a big NO-NO down under. Carry one it's jail. Rifles, you'd better belong to a shooting club and prove it. One can always get a license for a shotgun to go hunting. But, that's it.
Joe says, drive an hour west into the center of Australia, and no one is there. The entire center of the country is devoid of population. " A large city to us is one with 2,000 people in it." What a place this country must be, I think to myself!!. I ask him, what happens if you are deep within the interior and you get into trouble? What form of back up do you have? He avoids the questions about fire-arms until I press the point.
He answers, " Many Aussies hide pistols, even though it is illegal."
Crime rates are going up in Australia, yes, the lax, liberal government is noting with the usual degree of frustration that the gun laws don't seem to work for the people who violate them, since criminal elements go ahead and
violate both civil, criminal laws and the public at large anyway.
Here in Arizona, open gun laws - the freedom to carry concealed and/or open guns has been the order of the day for nearly two years. NRA and other enthusiasts have been taking informal polls of various police officers since the law was enacted, and, trends have been noted that gun crimes are down, and as one officer noted, " it's been quieter in Tucson since everyone can safely assume everyone else MAY be carrying a weapon.
Joe, the Australian seems amazed at the local civility.
###
Imagine his country, the exact same size as America, BUT, 80% of the 17 million population - yeah, that's it - live within 25 miles of the coast along the northeast and eastern boarder. He told me, that's like having everyone you know living from Boston to Atlanta crammed from the beach in as far as you can drive for an hour.
And, that's it.... after that, you're on your own.
Australia and America are about the same size, he told me, so, if you live on the beach in Jersey and you start to drive west bound towards Chicago at 8 in the morning, by lunch, you see nobody. Zip, no cars, zero.
All of this in a land where carrying a gun is illegal. My Aussie friend, "Joe" says that pistols are a big NO-NO down under. Carry one it's jail. Rifles, you'd better belong to a shooting club and prove it. One can always get a license for a shotgun to go hunting. But, that's it.
Joe says, drive an hour west into the center of Australia, and no one is there. The entire center of the country is devoid of population. " A large city to us is one with 2,000 people in it." What a place this country must be, I think to myself!!. I ask him, what happens if you are deep within the interior and you get into trouble? What form of back up do you have? He avoids the questions about fire-arms until I press the point.
He answers, " Many Aussies hide pistols, even though it is illegal."
Crime rates are going up in Australia, yes, the lax, liberal government is noting with the usual degree of frustration that the gun laws don't seem to work for the people who violate them, since criminal elements go ahead and
violate both civil, criminal laws and the public at large anyway.
Here in Arizona, open gun laws - the freedom to carry concealed and/or open guns has been the order of the day for nearly two years. NRA and other enthusiasts have been taking informal polls of various police officers since the law was enacted, and, trends have been noted that gun crimes are down, and as one officer noted, " it's been quieter in Tucson since everyone can safely assume everyone else MAY be carrying a weapon.
Joe, the Australian seems amazed at the local civility.
###
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Feminism - The War Against Men
"Good Men are like parking spaces - they are all taken," one woman said in group therapy. She almost sit it out though teeth clamped shut. Another, " Yeah, either, gay, married, or lying about both."
A third woman chimed in, " my luck? I seem to run into married guys who lie about being married AND gay and they can't face telling the wife, sleep with me and then confess to ME...Jesus!! Thanks a lot!! Now I gotta wonder where he's been with that thing?"
Women who lose their husbands because they strayed, are as angry ten years later as they were the day the divorce was final. Think of it, as angry THE DAY ten years LATER!! Wasted time. Stuck. "I'll never trust again," some have said with clenched fists. I've seen it. And...they don't.
Television shows have emerged now in the 21st Century that dwell on women who emotionally snap and kill their male spouse. "Snapped" runs on a cable TV all night long one day a week outlining coast-to-coast stories of murder, mayhem, blood and revenge of women over the edge and bodies of their male victims. "Snapped" is not the cause, merely the symptom.
Feminism, some counter, have made it alright to not only fight back, but to chuck the feminine ways and wiles American women have carried for centuries, picking up axes, guns and knives and literally striking down emotional and/or physical tormentors.
In some cases women have now become as bad, or worse, as their male counterparts. This is getting horrific.
Male thugs in our society have not yet learned two elements in their relationships with women that would turn off this growing trend: far less alcohol, and more respect for the gentler sex. For instance, women are NOT "Bitches."
And, for women scorned, men do have deep wounds when they fall in love and lose their mates. They hardly ever show it. More about that later. Both sides have to learn to live with each other, it is a small planet, and we know that a warm, lose relationship with someone of the opposite sex is really one of the three KEY things we all want out of life.
We need to stop yelling, and hitting, and calling names, and hurting feelings. And we need to listen to each other more. Be quiet...and listen.
###
A third woman chimed in, " my luck? I seem to run into married guys who lie about being married AND gay and they can't face telling the wife, sleep with me and then confess to ME...Jesus!! Thanks a lot!! Now I gotta wonder where he's been with that thing?"
Women who lose their husbands because they strayed, are as angry ten years later as they were the day the divorce was final. Think of it, as angry THE DAY ten years LATER!! Wasted time. Stuck. "I'll never trust again," some have said with clenched fists. I've seen it. And...they don't.
Television shows have emerged now in the 21st Century that dwell on women who emotionally snap and kill their male spouse. "Snapped" runs on a cable TV all night long one day a week outlining coast-to-coast stories of murder, mayhem, blood and revenge of women over the edge and bodies of their male victims. "Snapped" is not the cause, merely the symptom.
Feminism, some counter, have made it alright to not only fight back, but to chuck the feminine ways and wiles American women have carried for centuries, picking up axes, guns and knives and literally striking down emotional and/or physical tormentors.
In some cases women have now become as bad, or worse, as their male counterparts. This is getting horrific.
Male thugs in our society have not yet learned two elements in their relationships with women that would turn off this growing trend: far less alcohol, and more respect for the gentler sex. For instance, women are NOT "Bitches."
And, for women scorned, men do have deep wounds when they fall in love and lose their mates. They hardly ever show it. More about that later. Both sides have to learn to live with each other, it is a small planet, and we know that a warm, lose relationship with someone of the opposite sex is really one of the three KEY things we all want out of life.
We need to stop yelling, and hitting, and calling names, and hurting feelings. And we need to listen to each other more. Be quiet...and listen.
###
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Hot-to-Trot.......B-17 Air Crew Casualty WWII
During the winter, only Americans come to the B-17 Museum, the summer, its Europeans and folks from around the world. It was on a cold winter day that a small crowd of Virginians wandered in, no different than any other crowd came in - I heard a woman sobbing from the back of the plane, under the tail.
"Oh my God, " I heard her crying, " its my father." I walked...hobbled really down there, and found an older woman slumped over a wheel chair, sobbing into a large hankerchief, pointing to a crew picture hanging on the wall.
" Its him, it's my dad, " she cried, and wimpered as her family bent over hugging and running their fingers and hands over her shoulders.
Her father was a waist gunner on Hot-to-Trot, lost over Germany on its X mission, another casualty on another flight, doing his duty, bombing yet another target, trying to get the damned war over with. It really didn't matter whether it was at the front part of the war or near the end, the plane and most of the 10 crew didn't make it. They were lost, dead was dead, no hope, the explosion happened at about 8,000 feet on the way down, it was quick, very few chutes, no bodies were recovered.
We copied the crew photo and gave it to her. She wanted to know a zillion things: why the art on the nose, who thought it up, who were the other guys, still alive, where were they? how many other casualties ( WAY too many), was it worth it?
The family that came with her? Sons, daughters, grandchildren and the family tree that sprung from their union that populated the small town from whence they came. He issued a doctor, farmer, college graduates, electrical workers, a couple of nurses, a family tree that gave his town a lot.
I imagine if he could see all this, he would be proud.
###
"Oh my God, " I heard her crying, " its my father." I walked...hobbled really down there, and found an older woman slumped over a wheel chair, sobbing into a large hankerchief, pointing to a crew picture hanging on the wall.
" Its him, it's my dad, " she cried, and wimpered as her family bent over hugging and running their fingers and hands over her shoulders.
Her father was a waist gunner on Hot-to-Trot, lost over Germany on its X mission, another casualty on another flight, doing his duty, bombing yet another target, trying to get the damned war over with. It really didn't matter whether it was at the front part of the war or near the end, the plane and most of the 10 crew didn't make it. They were lost, dead was dead, no hope, the explosion happened at about 8,000 feet on the way down, it was quick, very few chutes, no bodies were recovered.
We copied the crew photo and gave it to her. She wanted to know a zillion things: why the art on the nose, who thought it up, who were the other guys, still alive, where were they? how many other casualties ( WAY too many), was it worth it?
The family that came with her? Sons, daughters, grandchildren and the family tree that sprung from their union that populated the small town from whence they came. He issued a doctor, farmer, college graduates, electrical workers, a couple of nurses, a family tree that gave his town a lot.
I imagine if he could see all this, he would be proud.
###
Life in Switzerland Money, vacations, Religion
It has been many years since I spent time in Geneva, walked the halls of the Peace Palace, ate Fondue Raclette in the lakeside restaurants and watched the fountains, cruised the massive lakes and walked the streets of sedate Basil.
Things change, apparently in staid, quiet Switzerland, the "high Bridge at Bern, home of super sleuth spy novels still spans the arcing Aare River snaking through the capital city underneath the windows of the palatial capital of the Bellevue Palace Hotel, but other, more significant things have moved into play.
Religion has sunken keep into the lives of the Swiss, four or five rooted faiths have gripped the people and grown into their identity, and although the you, stern Mormons there won't hint at it, "praying ONLY to Jesus Christ, and not to statues in Church" manages to creep into casual conversation 5 times in a half hour conversation as I meet them one Saturday afternoon while touring southern Arizona.
The major religions of the world have carved out a territory of Switzerland and began proselytizing each other. None that I meet mentions the other by name, but if human nature is any measure, say like the competitive nature of the Jews and Catholics of New York City, each keeping monthly score of conversions from and to each others camps (in televisions appearances), it is likely that consideration is popping up in staid, conservative Switzerland as well.
I ask of the current financial crisis in Europe? "Not a problem in Conservative Helvetian " I am told. Solid as the proverbial rock, he reassures. The industry in the Central European country =is, will be and forever will be banking: secret banking, confidential banking. Italy, apparently has been hounding Switzerland for names, addresses and amounts for "taxes" owed the Italian Government, he tells me.
"We are a separate country," he tells me. " How dare they." They will never get our records, no one will, he continued. This must give comfort to many on Wall Street it occurs to me. My new found friend is in banking in his homeland.
Spending time in America is a yearly adventure with him, four weeks off each year is a benefit of Swiss citizenship. Four weeks off, PAID, and it is the law there. The government revenue is fueled by other means he assures: banking. Of course - it makes sense.
All homes in Switzerland have guns, all have at least one member who has had compulsory service in the military, and by law, they take their weapons and ammo home - forever. So, their "neutrality" is more than a warm blanket. As John Lennon used to sing, "Happiness (really) is a Warm Gun."
###
Things change, apparently in staid, quiet Switzerland, the "high Bridge at Bern, home of super sleuth spy novels still spans the arcing Aare River snaking through the capital city underneath the windows of the palatial capital of the Bellevue Palace Hotel, but other, more significant things have moved into play.
Religion has sunken keep into the lives of the Swiss, four or five rooted faiths have gripped the people and grown into their identity, and although the you, stern Mormons there won't hint at it, "praying ONLY to Jesus Christ, and not to statues in Church" manages to creep into casual conversation 5 times in a half hour conversation as I meet them one Saturday afternoon while touring southern Arizona.
The major religions of the world have carved out a territory of Switzerland and began proselytizing each other. None that I meet mentions the other by name, but if human nature is any measure, say like the competitive nature of the Jews and Catholics of New York City, each keeping monthly score of conversions from and to each others camps (in televisions appearances), it is likely that consideration is popping up in staid, conservative Switzerland as well.
I ask of the current financial crisis in Europe? "Not a problem in Conservative Helvetian " I am told. Solid as the proverbial rock, he reassures. The industry in the Central European country =is, will be and forever will be banking: secret banking, confidential banking. Italy, apparently has been hounding Switzerland for names, addresses and amounts for "taxes" owed the Italian Government, he tells me.
"We are a separate country," he tells me. " How dare they." They will never get our records, no one will, he continued. This must give comfort to many on Wall Street it occurs to me. My new found friend is in banking in his homeland.
Spending time in America is a yearly adventure with him, four weeks off each year is a benefit of Swiss citizenship. Four weeks off, PAID, and it is the law there. The government revenue is fueled by other means he assures: banking. Of course - it makes sense.
All homes in Switzerland have guns, all have at least one member who has had compulsory service in the military, and by law, they take their weapons and ammo home - forever. So, their "neutrality" is more than a warm blanket. As John Lennon used to sing, "Happiness (really) is a Warm Gun."
###
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