My Family

Let me tell you about my family.  I have tons of siblings.  There is one father for all of us.  I know he must be famous because he's had lots of books written about him.  In fact, the best seller of all times is about him.  Some of my brothers, who claim to know him best, say that he is very loving to all his children, at least that's what some of us have been taught to understand.  But, let me tell you about some of my family members.

Akira used to live near Sendai, Japan.  In March, 2011, a gigantic earthquake hit the area, causing a horrible tsunami.  The small factory, that Akira and his family owned, was completely erased.  His home was flattened.  Akira lost several family members and more than a few friends.  He wasn't even able to recover the family Bible, a treasure of several generations.  Luckily, Japan is an advanced country, so Akira's life, although greatly changed, will go on.  When I heard the news of my brother's bad luck, I did send him some money and paid for a few of my other brothers to go help with the massive cleanup.

Abu exists (you can't really call it living) in a refuge camp in the Darfur region of Sudan.  He doesn't understand the war that rages around him.  All he knows is that he and his family are never safe.  He heard that his mother had been raped and killed in another camp.  His nephew died of starvation,in his mother's arms, before he was ever able to celebrate his first birthday.  Although Abu mourns, he feels that his nephew might have actually been lucky since there would never have been a life, of any kind, for him.  I sent Abu word that I was shipping some rice and beans for them to eat, some tenting for shelter, and maybe even some medicine.  I let him know that I wouldn't be coming to help myself since it was much to dangerous for me.  I did promise to send him the book about his father, in his own language, so he could read about how much his father loves him.

My sister, Celeste, lives outside of Port au Prince, Haiti.  Since the earthquake two years ago, she and her family have shared a one-room house, made of tin and cardboard, with another family.  There is no kitchen, no bathroom, no running water, no work, no school, not much food nor medical help.  Although they have lived like this for two years, they really can't see a change for the better anywhere in the future.  A Catholic priest sometimes makes the 20 mile trip from the city to hold mass, a celebration of our father's love, but Celeste says that not many people in the camp attend any longer.  I did go down there for a week, all the time I could spend, to help with moving those people with nowhere to live into camps.  I was glad to do it, but I had to get back to my own family, home, and job.  Sometimes I take a moment or two to wonder about how Celeste is doing.

The last time I spoke to Akira, Abu, and Celeste, I reminded them how very much our father loves all his children.  Somehow, I don't think they were paying much attention to me.  I guess that they had other things on their minds.  I promised them that, some day, all of our father's children would have a big reunion.  I got the feeling that they probably weren't too interested in attending.  

Fiction?

Although I am trying to read more non-fiction, my second most favorite thing to do, behind talking to folks, is to read fiction.  I've helped to track down the worst of the serial killers.  I've saved the world from total destruction by catching the bad guys and stopping their evil plans in their tracks.  I've helped to build a great cathedral in Europe.  I've helped Hunter Quatermain find King Solomon's mine.  I've rafted down the Mississippi.  I've helped Ayn Rand to answer the question, "Who is John Galt?".  I've broken wild horses and wooed the fair maidens of the Old West.  This doesn't sound like much good would come from it except to rest and kill time.  However... I am going to quote a couple of things I've read just lately that seem to say, at least to me, that a lot of what I think is fact and not fiction.  Even fiction authors seem to want their protaganists to be real and, once in a while, I like what those characters are and what they have to say.  That said, here we go.

From "Unspeakable" by Sandra Brown:

     His travels had exposed him to different relegions.  He had sampled peyote with a shaman from one of the tribes in Arizona who believed the gods spoke through drug-induced visions.  He had caddied one summer for a golfing rabbi who had talked to him about God's covenents and the promised Messiah.  He had discussed the gospel with a group of Christian seminary students at an outdoor rock concert.
     All believed wholeheartedly that something greater than themselves was directing their destiny.  Something greater than themselves was at least helping them choose the right path.
     Jack didn't know which relegion was valid, or if any of them were.  He couldn't imagine a God who was omniscient enough to create the cosmos only to direct the lives of men with such petulance and caprice.  The reason for natural disasters escaped him.  He didn't comprehend why bad things happened to good folk, or why mankind was forced to suffer pestilence and famine and war.  He wasn't so sure about the whole concept of redemption, either.

From "Booked to Die" by John Dunning:

     Today I'm a mess of contradictory political views.  I believe in human rights.  I believe in due process, but enough is enough.  I'm a fan of a just and swift execution where vicious killers are concerned.  It's just ridiculous to keep a guy like Ted Bundy on death row for ten years.  I hate abortion, but I'd never pass a law telling a woman she couldn't have one.  I believe in the ERA, find it hard to understand why two hunderd years after the Bill of Rights we're still arguing about rights for half our people.  I like black people, some of them a lot.  I supported busing when it was necessary and would again, but there's something about affirmative action that leaves me cold.  You can't take away one man's rights and give them to another, even in a good cause.

Understand, I don't believe or endorse all of this, but the fact that you are reading fiction doesn't mean that you aren't thinking.

Here I Go Again!

As I get older, I find it harder to climb up on my soapbox. As long as I keep reading the newspaper and watching and listening to news reports however, I'm bound to continue to use that platform. Two items have made the local, national, and even international news over the past few days. I feel a strong need to comment on them both. The really good thing about my blog is that I do it mostly for me. If you happen to read it and agree with what I say, that's great. If you don't agree, I sure don't mind hearing from you. If you decide not to read it at all, that's okay too. Its not like I'm trying to make a living writing it.

The local item first. At East Forsyth High School, near Kernersville, a SRO (School Resource Officer - our euphemism for campus cop) broke up a fight by using a Taser on one of the two students involved. An argument began in a classroom and turned into fisticuffs in the courtyard. The SRO, a police officer assigned from the K'ville PD, followed his training and protocol to end the fight, by firing his Taser, when one of the two involved was slow in responding to the SRO's orders to stop. Evidently the weapon used is low-power since, although it knocked the student down, he was able to immediately follow the order to "put your hands behind your back" while on the ground. The K'ville Chief of Police and the school principal have publicly supported the SRO's actions as being correct. That said, I'm very sorry that the action had to be taken. I'm even sorrier that we have to have SROs on each school campus, from elementary through high school. The W-S Journal reports that East Forsyth has about 60 fights per year. That's about one fight every two or three days! The Journal has also reported that there are gang problems at East Forsyth. With that and the fact that we are really growing some big high-schoolers now, I support the SRO 100%. Here's where I have a real problem... both students were black and the police officer was white. S. Wayne Patterson, the president of the W-S chapter of the NAACP said that the "incident is outrageous." He continued that "If racism didn't play a part, then the officer would have talked to the students instead of using his Taser. Anything could have happened to that young man." He is right. The student could have had his head bashed in in the fight, been sliced with a knife, or had much more damage done while the officer was trying to "talk" to them. Race! Race! Race! Why is it I don't find it hard to believe that, if a black officer had tased a white student, under the same circumstances, and the white community had complained, Mr. Patterson would have accused the white community of being racist and defended the officer? As long as our leaders, at any level, use race as the culprit in any and almost every situation, we will never find peace and acceptance among the races.

Now the national and international incident. Four battle Marines will, sooner or later, be identified as those pictured urinating on the bodies of enemy combatants. These Marines, men in size but hardly adults in age, have been shot at, bombed, seen their buddies bodies torn apart by the ravages of war. They have suffered much more than most of us can possibly realize. I lament that the picture was taken and published, but I especially lament the fact that these Marines will be thrown to the dogs. The U.S. imprisons living human beings in Guantanamo and offers them no rights under law. In North Carolina, we debate whether or not a prisoner on death row should be able to use any legal argument in his defense. Many feel that the sooner we put them to death, the better. These are warm, living bodies. Where do we get the right to take the moral high ground and condemn the Marines. I'm in favor of telling the Taliban that, if you don't want the bodies of your folks urinated on, don't put them where they are going to be killed. I'm also very much in favor of keeping our troops where they have much less chance of being killed! During my generation's war, I heard more than once said, "If we catch one of those pajama clad bastards alive, we're going to rip off their heads and shit down their necks." Given what was happening in Vietnam and the U.S., I think I would have joined the line to do just that. Our Marines aren't perfect, but they are the best defense we have. If we grant them the right to kill the living, how can we condemn them for having no respect for the enemy dead? Semper Fi!

From the Flight Deck

The last US combat troops left Iraq in the wee hours of the morning. After years, many dollars, and more than 4,000 lives lost, we are finally coming home. Was it worth it? I wouldn't want to ask that of those who served nor especially those who lost loved ones. However, I do believe that in 10 years, maybe as few as 5 years, the situation in Iraq will not have improved significantly for those still trying to live in the country. John Prine once sang that we were trying to "save Viet Nam from the Viet Namese." What we succeeded in doing was losing some of the best and brightest of my generation, proving that maybe the French Foreign Legion wasn't all that inept after all, and filling a memorial wall in Washington with names. One of the saddest war pictures, to me, is that of the last US helicopter evacuating what few people it could from that Saigon rooftop. The Russians were kicked out of Afghanistan. It is surely only a matter of time before we follow them. Will there ever come a time that we Americans learn that our military can't save the world, that democracy won't work everywhere, and that morals can't be legislated? I pray that time will come, but I don't expect to see it.

On a bit of a lighter side, my dreams are driving me crazy! The other night, I dreamed that I was driving my school bus and, at the same time, delivering the morning newspaper from the bus. What a job! Why can't I dream of reading by the ocean, dating Angelina Jolie, or driving cross-country with the dog? At least delivering papers from a school bus is easier than my dreams of trying to solve computer problems using an archaic language.

Back to some heavier stuff... over the past few weeks, I have been the only adult around when two of my bus students had major melt downs. The first, I found curled up on a bus seat crying. I thought, at first, he was in real physical pain. I found out that he lives in a small house with a single parent, his mother, and with his brother who is barely into his twenties and unemployed, his brother's girlfriend, and their infant child. My guy has no privacy and way more responsibility than he should have at his age. My second student was leaning against a support pillar on the high school bus loading ramp and sobbing as if his heart would break. This is his first year in high school and he is being picked on in gym class. I see this happening and I think of Columbine. I also think that I would like to take a baseball bat to those who are bullying him. In each case, I let the child, and they are still children no matter how hard they try to be grown up, have my contact information and told them I would be available to them 24/7. Neither one has contacted me and I hope that things change, in their lives, so that they don't feel that they need to do so. In the meantime, I'm looking for some kind of training that will make me more able to understand and help them. I hugged them both, but I learned long ago that hugs won't cure the world's ills. Pray for them and for me, if you will.

Please take the time to rejoice in this season. Keep your eyes open for opportunities where a smile, a greeting, or a dollar may make a difference in someone’s life and take that opportunity. I know from past experience, hard learned, that they won't come again.

Merry Christmas!

Steve

I'm ready to come out of the closet. Steve and I love each other. As teenagers, we would never have used that word to describe our relationship, but that's what it has always been, love! Today, he is my brother-in-law, but we are probably closer than most brothers. Steve would do anything in this world for me and I would do the same for him. He knows things about me that I wish that he didn't know, but he is willing to accept me just the same.

We grew up together. He was as comfortable in my family home as I was (probably a bit more since he wasn't too worried about being punished for raiding the refrigerator just before dinner.) Just like real brothers, we had a bunch of disagreements and a couple of fights along the way. It was from Steve I learned that my strong desire to pop someone in the nose with my fist could often be abated by someone having an equal desire to pop me in the nose - and a 4 inch longer reach! This was a lesson that I learned the hard way, but didn't put to much good use in later years. Even though I was known as an exceptionally good looking , student-athlete, it was his tall, skinny old body that took him to All Conference recognition as an offensive lineman (of all things!) You've probably read about swimmers struggling to escape when trapped in a mass of seaweed. I felt the same when I had to practice against Steve with all those long arms and legs. Actually, it was probably more like a meatball trying to escape from a plate of spaghetti!

In the early days, Steve and I didn't put much value on higher education. We both took time off from work and study at someone else's expense. I enjoyed my vacation on campus at NC State while he took a mountain vacation at Appalachian State. Somehow, we both ended up in the Marine Corps and I'm pretty sure that it did both of us some good. It taught us a lot of things about ourselves and what we were capable of doing, with the proper motivation (a motivational form that I appreciate for the results, but not one I ever enjoyed for the technique.) The Marines trained me in Information Technology when it was in its infancy. A college degree wasn't required in those days to advance in the field. All you needed to be able to do was to wire panels, punch cards, and code COBOL programs like a mad man. Surprising no one, except maybe himself, Steve went into sales after the Corps and found that he was very, very good at it. I really believe that, given the opportunity, he could have sold halo polish in hell.

Just lately, I've come to recognize that I've failed him. While I am a loving Liberal, I've somehow allowed him to become a hard headed, right-wing Republican! I suspect that much of the fault can be laid to all the times he got hit in the head playing football! From this, you may rightly infer that we don't talk politics. We have agreed to disagree, which is pretty big on my part since I'm sure he is wrong. To borrow a quote from a Willie Nelson song, we just "talk about the good times we've had and all the good times to come."

Steve is a lot older than I am, a full seven months. I just don't know how much longer his advanced age will let him hold on to life on this earth. I do know this... whichever one of us kicks the bucket first will leave a huge void and ache in the other's heart. Oh well, I am convinced that being a Republican is not enough, in and of itself, to keep you out of heaven, so we will have each other to love for eternity (and I'll probably still be trying to figure out how to get inside of that extra four inch reach.)

La Migra Viene

My brother-in-law, Steve, never reads the comics in the newspaper. There are many days when I think that's all that I should read. Most days, just glancing at the front page makes my blood pressure spike.

Chuck Brodsky is a well known folk singer / songwriter. He calls Asheville, NC home and I've been lucky enough to hear him perform several times. One of my favorite songs, of his, is "La Migra Viene" (the Imigration Police are coming.") It tells of him being a part of an apple picking crew. It's hard work and he isn't nearly as good as his co-workers. Right in the middle of work, a shout goes up, "La migra viene!" and many of his fellow workers and friends jump and run, afraid of being put aboard a big yellow bus and held for deportation.

In an article in today's Winston-Salem Journal, it is reported that Legal Aid of North Carolina "has filed a federal complaint against the N.C. Department of Labor alleging that state labor inspectors have failed to ensure safe working and housing conditions for migrant farmworkers." The filing states that "many migrant housing units are overcrowded, in disrepair and have unsanitary cooking and washing facilities." There are other allegations, but you get the picture.

Speaking for the N.C. Department of Labor, Dolores Quesenberry said, "This letter is just a political stunt to promote a leftist agenda. They're always talking about unregistered camps and horrible conditions, yet they will not provide adresses or locations. If they did, we'd go and inspecct. Instead of playing politics, we need to find solutions to everyday problems and help the hardworking men and women of our agricultural community."

I'm not sure why this would be considered a leftist plot. North Carolina's governor is a Democrat. Does the N.C. Department of Labor really think that those darned leftists believe things would be better if the governor could be discredited and a Republican be elected to office? For myself, I think that Legal Aid probably has valid grounds for the filing. I have friends in farm worker ministry who could take me to camps, like those described, today. Even without those connections, I believe that I could find such camps within a couple of weeks. Why do you suppose it is that NCDL can't find them without someone taking their hand and leading them?

If I was an Hispanic farm laborer, in this country legally, and happened to know that some of my co-workers were undocumented, I believe that I would still run when I heard, "la migra viene" rather than try to prove my legal status from inside jail. I also believe that any NCDL convoy showing up to inspect reported camps would be lead by an ICE bus. How trusting would you be?

Also in today's Journal, Alabama's new imigration law is creating hardship for plant and business owners, schools, and both legal and undocumented aliens. Both legals and illegals are frightened. It seems that it is very hard to prove you are innocent in an environment biased toward believing you guilty until proven innocent just because you are fluent in Spanish.

Getting It Said

It has been 3 months since I last posted to this particular blog. I once saw a pressure cooker explode. I don't want to do that, so I'm climbing back on my soap box while my old knees will still allow me to step that high. At this point, you know that you are going to hear my opinion on something that is really bugging me. If you don't want to read it, class excused. Otherwise, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on some of the things I intend to address over the coming days, weeks, months, years.

ACC used to mean "Atlantic Coast Conference", a onetime conference with a reasonable number of teams (home-and-home schedules were possible for basketball and in football, you were able to play all other conference members) and a certain amount of parity. That went away several years ago with the addition of Boston College, Virginia Tech, and Miami. Now, Syracuse and Pittsburgh are joing the conference. I think that it is not unreasonable to rename the ACC the "All for Cash Conference". Somehow it is hard for me to imagine several bus loads of rabid Syracuse fans trucking south in order to celebrate that well known rivalry between them and Miami. Who is really going to care if Carolina beats Pittsburgh in basketball as long as they can schedule (an up-in-the-air question) and defeat Duke? Several years ago, I chatted with sportscaster, Brent Musburger, when he was in Winston-Salem for a WFU - Duke game. Wake had already beaten Duke at Cameron Indoor and had high hopes and a great team capable of defeating them at home (they did!) Somehow, I don't see anyone other than ESPN3 sending a team to cover the Pitt - Miami basketball game. The latest expansion of the ACC is a done deal and I will learn to live with it. I do have one last question that I would like to propose to the powers that be... where will the conference basketball tournament find a place big enough to play and where will the tickets come from if less are alloted per school?

This one really drives me crazy. The NC State Legislature, in their infinite wisdom, has voted to place a referendum on a state constitutional amendment defining "marriage" as legally being only between a man and a woman (can you say, Pontius Pilate?) Those of you who know me, know where I stand on this and, I promise you, I'll be there to vote next May. What really sticks in my craw is the cost! The Winston-Salem Journal has carried articles for the past few days in which proponents of the vote, opponents of the vote, political analysts, and legal and financial experts have talked about the huge amount of money that will be collected and spent on ads in support of one side or the other. In my state, people are going hungry. At one of my schools, a copy can't be made unless you furnish your own paper. There is not enough school budget to buy copy paper! The Food Bank of Northwestern North Carolina has empty shelves! First responders of all types and educators at all levels are loosing their jobs! Where are our priorities? How can a person spend even a dime on amendment ads when their neighbors are hungry and the teachers of their children cannot adequately prepare for a class that is now too large? If you have an opinion on the amendment issue, I urge you to vote. I urge you to speak up in forums. I urge you to discuss the issue with family and friends. I urge you with all my heart to spend your money, not on TV ads, but on those who can use the help so badly.

I pray in silence and God hears me in silence.