Save the US Postal Service

The daily mail delivery is a highlight of my day. Mail is like a treasure to me. There is no such thing as "Junk Mail."

The news reports that the US Postal Service is about to go bankrupt. Postal services are going to be cut back dramatically. Small rural post offices are closing, neighborhood post offices are going if not gone, and Saturday mail is about to be history.

This is unbelievable. How can a country not have a viable postal service? The problem, apparently, is electronic communications. Instant messaging, texting, Face Book, and Twitter are replacing the mail. In all of these services communication is wonderful but mostly meaningless.

On my Face Book page I get items like, "I am eating donuts," or, "At the beauty parlor." Or, other such interesting stuff.

Packed away in some storage area of my house are the letters my wife and I exchanged when I served in Viet Nam. We have letters saved by family members dating back to the 19th century. In my dresser are vintage birthday and Fathers' Day cards I will cherish for the rest of my cognitive life.

Email can sometimes be interesting. Every now and then I get a nice long one from a person telling me a personal story or asking me about something maybe I know about. But, no one saves emails; except me. When my son served in Afghanistan I downloaded every email he sent me and saved it in a ring binder. I want him and his son to have a record of that year; I hope he and his wife did the same (but, I doubt it).

Now, here is my solution to the US Postal Service crises:
     1. Write a letter to someone every month or more often. If you do not like to write letters, send a post card or a greeting card. The point is, use a stamp.
     2. Tell your friends you do not want birthday greetings or holiday greetings via email or Face Book. They take only seconds to compose and are soon forgotten.
     3. Send packages by the Postal Service. I have found the US Postal Service to be as good as UPS or FedEx or better.
     4. Visit the post office and say hello, let the postal workers know you care. I cannot find a FedEx office in my town and the UPS is like visiting the prison. At the post office I get a cheerful greeting and prompt service. Some of the clerks I even know by name and they know me. Not so at UPS or FedEx.
    5. Greet your letter carrier often and let him or her know that what he or she does is important to you.
    6. Start a stamp collection and buy U.S commemorative stamps. They are often beautiful and sometimes very interesting. Stamp collecting can open your eyes to the world.
So, my battle cry is, "Save the US Postal Service!"  Only we can do it.
    

I Want to Buy a Vowel

Recently I told someone that my wife and I have started to watch "Wheel of Fortune." The person I told seemed puzzled by my announcement and reminded me that in my area that program conflicted with really good political stuff on one of the cable channels.

I agreed that there is some good political stuff on the cable channels, but that we (that is, my wife and I) have grown tired of politics. We cannot deal any longer with the duplicity of politicians who at one point are in favor of universal health care but in another bawl about "Obamacare"--as if there were such a thing.

Anarchy seems to be the political rule these days. No matter who is ultimately hurt, maybe even destroyed, American politicians have decided their ideologies are more important than the country. When I retired I felt secure that the promises of the government to cover my medical needs, to help with some additional income, and to assure that when I needed to travel the roads would be safe remained tightly intact. However, anarchy now rules the House of Representatives, senators have decided making the President's term last only four years is the priority.

Many may snarl at me and wonder why I think the government owes me a good health care plan or a foundation to my material security. They will argue that I am just a leach slopping out of the government trough. However, none of that is true. I have contributed to Social Security since age 15, I have contributed to Medicare since the day it went into effect, and I gave over 20 years of my life to the service of the nation. In fact, I have contributed in every possible way to assure that I had a sound financial future. But that future depended on the honesty and good faith of those who have been elected to safeguard our futures.

Therefore, it now appears to me that my future well being is no where near as important as the political ideologies of half-baked know nothings who talked loud enough and lied enough to make the majority of Americans vote for them. I took politics seriously, voted in every election since 1952, but my votes have counted little, my opinions are of no consequence, my future has no silver lining. Politics is over for me. So, I think I will buy some vowels as I attempt to guess the secret phrase on "Wheel of Fortune." Guessing secret phrases is about as inspiring as wondering what the half-baked know nothings will do next.

My Dear

Every now and then an email shows up in my spam list with the message title, "My Dear." To me the title is strange. I wonder to whom I can be dear to other than my immediate family. I look at that email title and wonder, "Should I open it to find out to whom I am so dear a message over electronic media must be sent."

No, I don't open it. I am paranoid about letters from strange people. Sometimes a letter comes in the mail addressed to me by hand. Since it is addressed by someone taking the time to write on the envelope it has to be important. I open it and find it is a diatribe against abortion or a plea for money to halt the criminal behavior of currently elected officials, or something like that.

Also, often I get telephone calls from the police protection league or some such group. I have never heard of the police protection group or the sheriffs' association or the state highway patrolmans' family defense league. So, with some guilt I might add, I say, "I can't help you today." What if there really is such an organization and my help is desperately needed to save the life of some poor police officer and his family? "What if," I ponder, but no its a scam there is no such group; besides, if they want me help let the local police ask.

Anyway, "My Dear" sits in the list of emails unopened. I ask the same "what if" questions. What if that poor Nigeria mother is truly desperate and in need of assistance, or what if there really is $10 million waiting for me in some off-shore bank. All I am being asked to do is give my full name, address, social security number, and bank account number; that's innocent enough, isn't it? But I hesitate and opportunities to help some unfortunates go not taken and I remain a poor man letting riches go between my fingers all because of paranoia.

Maybe one day I will open a "My Dear" email and learn to whom I am so dear time is taken to reach out to me from the ozone or wherever emails come from and I will realize all the opportunities I have let go.

Service Star

The service flag first showed up in World War I. The flag has a large red border on all four edges and in the center is a white field. On that white field is a blue star or stars. If a family has more than one child in a war zone then the number stars reflects that family's commitment to the war. Fortunately, My flag has only one star. If a child is killed in the war the blue star turns to gold as if it is some sort of honor to lose a child to a political mistake.

The flag with one service star flew from a pole set up at the front door of my home for a year. Never in my imagination did I come up with the idea a service star flag would be a part of my home's outward appearance. In fact, I believed in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, there would be no more new war veterans and that eventually the Veterans Affairs Department would eventually go out of business. Also I never imagined that Islamic fanatics would fly loaded passenger jet planes into buildings and that George W. Bush would be elected president twice. Further, I never imagined the United States would attack a country that did not attack us first.

Because all of my imaginary ideas failed to materialize, I have decided to stop imagining the good that might be waiting for us and now I imagine only the worst that might be out there. Who knows what climate change will bring? Who knows what will be the unintended consequences of invading Iraq or prolonging a conflict in Afghanistan? Who knows what the consistent official lying of a government will do to our democratic ideals and our republic? I can only hope that the year my son spent in Afghanistand did some good and the sacrifice he made by being separated from his wife and two year old son is worthy of a good cause. But, I cannot imagine it.

Now, don't get me wrong. I cannot be classified as a "pacifist." I am an "old soldier" who served on active duty for more than twenty years. My military career included most of the years of the Cold War including two years in Viet Nam. Early in my military life I served in Asia with a stint in Korea. So, I am not one who can make a blanket argument for no military actions whatsoever, but I do think that the Congress's power to declare war has been usurped, I do think the people in power are too eager to use the military for foolish adventures, and I do think that the Defense Department's function is to defend the country not make war wherever a President wants to.

So, I have taken down the service flag. It is in my hall closet. I may burn it, or I may give to my son so if he has to see his son go off to war, he will have one. The flag, now, is faded and weathered, but if it has to be used again, it will be a reminder that we still haven't got things right.

Learning to Use an iPad

Ipads are not unknown to me. I have never actually seen one or held one in my hand until my two year old grandson arrived for a visit the other day. I did find the device intriguing; however, I am still not certain what it can be used for except providing information. I do not think you can send anything to another person on it. I should admit, however, I have not yet tried to do that. Another shortcoming, it seems to me, is that I cannot write a story on it then have it printed on one of my printing devices. I am certain, however, all those issues will be resolved some day. Probably by doing away with printers and paper. That is a change a septuagenarian may not be able to accept. Holding sheaves of paper in my hand to read the fine print is a habit I probably will not break.

My age and lack of technical understanding came back hard on me when my two year old grandson began to show me how he can use and iPad. He knows which "app" he wants, he knows how to move the screen, and he knows how to use the "apps" he has chosen. Using an iPad he already knows how to spell words like mule, elephant, and home. When he has finished spelling those words he wants to move on to "Ant Smasher." This is a game where ants crawl across the iPad screen and he attempts to smash them as quick as he can. This is an amazing hand-eye coordination game that teaches dexterity but not much else.

Being upstaged by a two year old is hard on an old man. Nevertheless, if it were any other two year old, I would be very upset. But, since this is my two year old grandson, I am very proud of him. He is a genius!

Skyscrapers and Thirteen Year Olds or Vice Versa

After conducting some business in the City or undergoing a medical procedure there, my wife and I like to stop for lunch at a well known and by now an ancient hamburger restaurant. Mainly, I like the idea of eating in an establishment that has a history of being around for a long time. Apparently many people do; otherwise, it would not have been there since the days waitresses wore quaint uniforms with headgear that sort of reminded one of nurses. Their appearance had a hygienic look and that made eating there seem safe. We look forward to the large and tasty French fries the milk shakes (actually, I prefer the chocolate malted) and the large onions on the hamburgers. The meat appears to be freshly ground, but the burgers themselves are a little thin, so we have to order a "double" in order to have the sense something of consequence has been consumed.

Two days ago we had the opportunity to visit this restaurant once again. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when we pulled into the parking lot. A full lot at lunch time is not unusual and the line of cars with drivers waiting to shout their orders into the squawk box (I think this is a relatively new innovation) did not seem out of the ordinary either. However, when we entered the din, the noise, of a hundred or more 12 and 13 year old middle school students all talking at once did shock us. Nevertheless, intent on having lunch at our favorite hamburger place kept us there. We believed that the young people would soon leave and go to wherever their field trip ended. We were mistaken. The group we encountered on entering did leave, but before they departed another hundred or so, and then another hundred or so followed. Hearing ten or 20 excited juvenile voices talking at the same time can be charming (I love young people--I am not a crumudgon), but hundreds and hundreds of them talking at once is a trial.

Ordinarily, we can order and be served in about ten minutes. This time we sat for 30 minutes waiting for two doubles, an order of French fries, a vanilla milk shake, a chocolate malted, and two cups of coffee. I should clarify that a little, the coffee arrived promptly. Looking about I noticed the size of the crowd, the number of lunch time diners, had no impact on the delay. "Skyscrapers" and lots of them caused the delay.

A "Skyscraper" I saw amounted to a giant glass of something pink and frothy. Since the menu had not been returned to our table or never been there, I am unable to tell you what a "Skyscraper" contained. I assume, by its appearance, that ice cream, carbonated water, flavored and colored syrup, and whipped cream made up the ingredients; oh yes, a maraschino cherry topped it off. In all the times we have eaten there a single "skyscraper" has never been served in our sight. But the tasty looking and absolutely decadent dessert is not the reason our lunch hour lengthened. No, the fact that one of these things found its way off the menu and on to a table had nothing to do at all with making us sit for over 30 minutes; the waitresses (to use a quaint term for a quaint restaurant) had to sing an inane and primitive sounding song while beating on percussion instruments of various kinds. I had not expected that such a thing happened at this fine old establishment.

Limited conversation, no impossible conversation, highlighted the lunch of us. Although my wife and I have been married for over 50 years we still like to talk to one another. Between the din of hundreds of 13 year old voices and waitresses singing about "skyscrapers" and beating primitive percussion instruments conversation became impossible. But, we did not want to leave. We saw some potential customers back away when they entered the establishment, but we stayed and stayed.

My supposition is that this place, filled with young life celebrating the end of the school year and waitresses enjoying singing a strange song filled with weird sounds changed the mood of the day for us and woke us up from the lethargy of sitting around in a medical office looking at all the other Medicare recipients who were having a lousy day. They were not in the restaurant so all I can do is guess is that their day never got better.

Weather Challenges: Learning to be an "Indoorsman"

Coming home from the City in a driving rain the other day reminded me of times I have been caught in downpours and other unpleasant natural challenges.

I will never forget waking up in the middle of the night in a pup tent a fellow Marine and I erected on what was called the outpost of our command post headquarters. The event happened at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, probably in the spring (I don't recall the date, just the event). I awoke to the shout of my comrade who was the awake sentry and as I moved I placed my hand in about three inches of water and my air mattress was floating. The more I moved the wetter everything got and finally the pup tent collapsed. It was a struggle to get out of the soaked sleeping bag and entangled tent. We spent the rest of the night trying not to drown. We had to abandon the hole we had dug as part of the perimeter defense. When daybreak finally came the rain slowed only for a few minutes and then we were deluged again. Later that day the gunny sergeant came to tell us we were relieved of our post and that hot chow was waiting for us at the mess tent. We got to the mess tent by clawing through a forest and ankle deep mud. When we arrived, we broke out our mess kits getting them ready for the hot meal that awaited us. Spaghetti with meatballs, garlic buttered bread, and canned peaches were slopped into the mess kit pans. I looked forward to eating all of it. However, as I stepped out from under the galley tent flap to sit down to eat, the rain poured into the pans of the mess kit and I watched it all float away in a cascade to the mud in which my boots were immersed. At that moment I wished I had joined the Salvation Army instead of the Marine Corps.

Another of those military moments that made me reevaluate my choice to be a military man came in the last days of my career. By this time the career path had changed from Marine Corps to the U.S. Army. Retiring in just weeks I had one more duty to perform and that was to set up the security for the 2nd Armored Division's big exercise at Fort Hood, Texas. Everything began as planned. The security arrangements I made worked and the extra top secret detail we had added to the exercise remained un-compromised. Then on the third day of the exercise one of those rains like the one that brought to mind these experiences started. A down pour does not adequately describe the weather. Deluge probably doesn't either. This storm came closer to be of "Biblical Proportions." Nothing could or did move. A personnel carried flipped over in a gully full of water and everyone inside drowned. The conditions were terrible. The last night of the exercise I finally got some time to rest. Back in the tent designated for our use I climbed into a damp sleeping attempting to go under into oblivion, but just as I finally felt the gentle call of deep sleep someone yelled, "Gas attack!" I awoke and found my gas mask, went back under the sleeping bag and slept with that damn thing on my face the rest of night. The next morning I thanked the powers-that-be that my military career had an end in just a few weeks.

One of the storm incidents I recall came on a cold Friday evening. By this time I worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Wingate High School at Fort Wingate, New Mexico. A meeting in Albuquerque of church people of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande planned for that weekend put me on the road. As I departed Fort Wingate I noticed a large wall of precipitation off to the north west. I had to stop in Grants, New Mexico for gasoline (where the man at the pump wanted to sell me leaded instead of unleaded and my car was not configured to take leaded gasoline). I told the station attendant a big storm could be seen off to the north west and probably headed his way. Not more than ten minutes later, on Interstate 40 headed for Albuquerque the storm engulfed me and it seemed to be coming now from the east. Blinded by snow and not able to feel the highway or even to make it out I continued to my destination. Driving in the blinding snow at speeds of five and ten miles an hour put me behind the schedule I planned. Nevertheless, no turning back plan worked in my mind. I could only go forward. Finally, I arrived at Nine Mile Hill east of Albuquerque. The snow just stopped. The sky over the city sparkled with stars. When I arrived at my destination and spoke of the snow storm just nine miles away, everyone looked at me puzzled and asked, "What snow storm?" When I returned to Fort Wingate the next afternoon the evidence of the storm I had driven through had totally melted.

Weather like that I have described has turned me into an "indoorsman." No camping, no snow play, nothing out of doors interests me. I do not like picnics and certainly camping is off the list. I don't even like sitting out of doors on my deck in the back yard. Just give me a comfortable chair, and 47 inch TV, and a good cup of coffee in my house and I find full satisfaction. I can commune with nature of the National Geographic Channel.

Having Fun and Good Luck

A few days ago I had an opportunity to stay in a hotel resort and casino. The comfortable hotel room met all my requirements for a good night's stay, but I could tell that the hotel did not make up the majority of the business transacted at that location. The first clue came when I checked in. The registration desk, small and almost inconspicous. reminded me of one of those old fashioned post office windows where I used to buy stamps. In fact, I had a difficult time finding the hotel part of the resort and casino. There seemed to be no clearly marked entrance. The main entrance to the facility, with a covered drive and valet service, took the visitor directly to the casino.

I have not quarrel with the "gaming industry" and I have been known to have visited a casino and even bet on horses at race tracks, but this is not something I look forward to and have very little confidence in the whole process of "gaming."

Don't you love that euphemism, "gaming." It's like children out in the back yard playing in a sand box, or as in my army days we "gamed" a problem to decide what tactics to use or to discern what the enemy might do next. Possibly, there is a connection between the two, army men trying to discern an outcome and putting money into a machine or betting on a horse. If I worked hard enough at it, maybe the connection would be more evident to me.

Anyway, I was at the hotel resort and casino actually to perform a wedding and the bride's family arranged for the hotel room. The religious duty that brought me to the hotel resort and casino did not mean I could not investigate the casino part of the hotel resort and casino.

So, later in the evening my wife and I walked to the casino, which is called "the boat." That gets me everytime I hear about one of these places. Missouri law requires that casinos be on one of the two rivers that give most of Missouri its character--the Missouri and Mississippi. I believe the supposition had been these places would actually be boats floating on the river; however, none that I know of are. To get around the river requirment the casinos are constructed near a river and then some sort of moat is dug around them making the place something like a boat. Nevertheless, the boat quality is lost when you discover that the structure is not floating but is solidly constructed with a foundation down to hard rock.

As we crossed onto the "boat" we were greeted by smiling hosts who encouraged us to have "fun" and wished us "good luck." We walked into what I  would think Dante would have included in his description of hell. Lights blinking in a darkened space big enough to house a 747 airplane. The blinking lights did not illuminate the space, just blinked and announced that you could be the next winner of thousands of dollars. First, we were confused. We had walked into the casino with a twenty dollar bill and could not figure out how to reduce it to nickles or quarters. Finally, we found a person with a badge announcing employee status. We were told we did not need coins. The machines took twenty dollar bills. However, there is alternative, we could go to a machine that seemed to me to require a degree in electical engineeing to operate or we could talk to a human being at the cashiers' desk.

We chose the latter. The young woman at the desk gladly handed me twenty one dollar bills for my twenty and told us that the machines only took bills, not coins. As she finished counting she looked up at me and said, "Good Luck, sir; have fun."

We strolled about this din of iniquity looking at the machines and the various "gaming" tables to get oriented and try to figure out how to have fun. Everywhere we looked we saw bored people sipping on bottled beer aimlessly pushing buttons in hope of winning a ton of money. Because no coins are used, there was no sound of winning. As we moved about the people at the slot machines looked like zombies inhaling deadly cigarette smoke (at least we thought it was) and downing beer after beer. There were no shouts of glee. In fact, it appeared to us that no one was having fun or good luck.

Nevertheless, we had to try. The ten one dollar bills each of us held in our hands were demanding to be spent. We found a machine that seemed interesting, we put a dollar in the slot pushed a button, watched numbers spin in front of us, and then waited for something to happen. Nothing happened. Pushed the the button again and nothing. Finally one more time and card zipped out over my head. "What's this?" I asked. I had apparently won a dollar. I found if I slipped the card into the money slot it let me play again. That was the end of "good luck" on that machine.

We thought we would try another. So, we roamed about looking for another machine that seemed interesting. We found one that someone had just abandoned and took it on the theory that it might now be ready to pay off. Instead of paying off it robbed me of a dollar and broke down. We had to get someone to come to fix the machine, but it never really got fixed; only robbed me of another dollar. Anyway, I will say the young man who came to fix the machine was very polite and when he had finished making the machine more robber worthy he said, "Have fun, sir and good luck."

We looked about at the glittering misery of the place and decided we had all the fun we could stand and all the luck we needed. We walked out and went to our room to have fun and the good luck of being together.

Celebrating a Death?

Religious leaders and pundits have commented on the spontaneous celebrations that arose on the announcement that Osoma bin Laden had been killed by U.S. Navy Seals. The gist of their comments seemed to complain that celebrating a death, regardless of the decease's history, is not appropriate. I mostly agree, but in this instance I thought the celebrations were appropriate.

The celebrants may have been happy that OBL or UBL as some have used for Osama/Usama, is dead but it seemed to me the celebrants were joyful that for once in recent history something has gone right. The military operation was successful, the person who organized the attack on the people of this country died, and justice has been served.

There is no way that OBL can be seen in a human context. When we watched the World Trade Center buildings collapse and knew that inside were thousands of innocents being crushed and mangled to death, the perpetrator acted inhumanly and therefore lost his status as a human being.

I believe that no one is beyond redemption, but I am not certain about OBL qualifies. However, that is not my call. The best thing that could happen to him after death is to be unremembered. Having a memory of him in anyway keeps him alive. However, that cannot happen. The world will always remember this man as a plotter who wanted people killed, not just dead, but killed. The world will remember that this man saw good in people being chopped to pieces by the shards of a collapsing buildings. This man wanted to see people cremated alive as airplanes exploded. No, there's nothing good about him.

Celebrating his death makes all life worthless. We need to celebrate that our government does work, our leaders lead, our people who swear allegiance the Constitution and commit themselves to serve the people the Constitution protects are so professional at what they do. That is what the spontaneous celebrations were about on Sunday, May 1.

My Birth Certificate

Long ago, when I lived in California, I often used the bus to travel from one city to another. Invariably the bus would be stopped by the Border Patrol. The officer came on board and asked every passenger their place of birth. My answer, "Panama." Yes, that's right, "Panama." I am a Panamanian by birth. My parents, both U.S. citizens (mother born in Minnesota and father in Mississippi) had the temerity to give birth to me in a foreign country.

Most of the time the place of birth gave me little difficulty other than I could not brag about being a Texan or some other chauvanistic locale. All I could say, when people bragged about their home states, "I have none." I think that made me a boy or man of the world.

"Oh, sure," I can hear you say, "you were born in the Canal Zone; isn't that a U.S. territory?"

My response is, "No, my birth did not take place in the Canal Zone but in the Panaman city of Cristobal."

That means that I often have to show both my birth certificate and a certificate of a child born abroad.

Nobody asked John McCain if he were born in the U.S. nor did they accuse him of being a secret illegal alien, but if I understand things, he may not have been eligible to run for President. The Panama Canal Zone never became a U.S. territory like Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, other Pacific Islands; the strip between the Atlantic and the Pacific had the title of "zone."

No where on my birth certificate, which is in English, is their a reference to race or religion. The only distinction, other than my gender, is that my parents were U.S. citizens. Because of that the U.S. Consul in Cristobal issued a certificate of a child born abroad. This fact alone, clearly, disqualified me from seeking the office of the President of the United States.

In light of the current controversy over our president's birth place and his citizenship I recommend that everyone should be prepared to display their birth certificates on demand, especially if approached by a "Birther" or the Tea Party. You never know, maybe somebody like me will get into the country and serve in its armed forces, or build a better mouse trap, or even become a U.S. Senator. You never know.

"Upstairs, Downstairs" Reveals Television's Decline

The servants and aristocrats are back on the Public Television System. This time Jean Marsh is the head of an agency providing servants to the rich nobility. Also this time the series is only three hours long as opposed to over twenty episodes when the series "Upstairs, Downstairs" was watched by millions of people in the 1970s. Back in the late sixties and through the seventies I often organized my Sundays to be certain that I could sit in front of my new color television to watch the PBS's Masterpiece Theater and I still do. But something has changed. The acting is good, the scenery is beautiful, the story line remains interesting, but Masterpiece Theater is not the same as it was thirty years ago. That is probably true of many things, and television entertainment should not be an exception. Nevertheless, Sunday nights sparkled when the highly skilled British actors filled the television screen with sometimes deeply profound stories of the nineteenth century, the world wars, and the culture of empire.

Since there has been only one episode of the new "Upstairs, Downstairs," I am reserving judgment on it. I will say that Jean Marsh reminds me how old I have gotten. Probably if I ran into high school classmates they too would remind me of my age. Thirty years ago many things were better, including me. But the new series of servants and aristocrats reflect change that had taken place in England after World War I; change I largely regret. So, change regardless of culture, seems inevitable. Change is especially inevitable after cataclysmic events such as the Great War.

Not only had the Great War (WWI) changed British society the social structure further declined as a result of the Great Depression. Working class people lived desperate lives and did not hold the aristocracy in as much awe as they had in previous times. I think we have seen similar changes in our own social structure. The changes in Western Culture have come as the result of not only the Great War, and the Great Depression, but also from World War II and the euphoric decade that followed, the cultural disillusionment of the 1960s, and finally from the breakdown in social mores that has followed. Television reflects those changes and breakdowns and PBS is not immune.

I have just about given up on television as a source of information and entertainment. I still have a television set but use it mainly to watch movies and the old Masterpiece Theater series I loved so much. Today we see burly men shouting at one another over disputes with logs, motorcycles, and fishing trawlers. Then there is the unscripted (I use that word advisedly) reality (I use that word advisedly also) shows. The worst of these is Donald Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice." This is likely the most scripted of the unscripted reality shows. Further, the people vieing for Trump's favor are near celebrities. I have to be reminded who some of them are and what they do. A few are interesting , but they are easy targets of the loud and crude who dominate the show.

The mostly junk passing as news is depressing. I do not care much about a starlet caught stealing and has a drug problem or the actor who tears up New York City hotel rooms but I cannot escape them. Most
that sort of news used to be confined to magazines that had titles like
"Hollywood Confidential." Sometimes I turn to the British
Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) news program that shows up on PBS, but it comes on too early in the afternoon where I am. The PBS News Hour is dull and lingers too long on Washington. We need to know what is going on in the world, but our provincial attitudes keep us too close to home. The majority of senators and representatives in Washington have so little to contribute at an intelligent level it is difficult to listen to them talk about anything.

Local news on television is even worse. Murder and mayhem are the headlines. Out of the million or more people who live in the area served by the local television stations there have been twenty or more homicides but to listen to the breathless news reporters every night I could be led to believe that hundreds, if not thousands, are being killed daily. The way the local news is presented makes it scarier than rebellion in the Middle East, but unlike rebellion in the Middle East that news has less impact on me. I feel sorry for the victims of murder and mayhem and I worry about the quality of life in the big city, but those events do not affect my life like the rise in gasoline prices.

Television stinks! That is my unequivocal evaluation. I wish television people exerted more energy to produce meaningful drama and good comedy. However, I know that is not going to happen. Their bottom line (to use a cliché) means doing things cheaply and that every eight minutes five or more commercials interrupt the stinky programming. So, it is back to movies on DVDs.

Still, "Upstairs, Downstairs" does hold my interest and "Mystery" still calls me back to PBS, and occasionally something on the History Channel or Discovery makes me sit and watch, but by and large a good book is better.

The Practical Learning of Early Childhood Development

A 2 year old is not a "terrorist," only a challenge...

The cat that lives in our house and who does not likeme very much is finding that I am a good member of the household after all. She, the cat, has been hiding in crannies and less often used spaces to avoid a two-year old boy who has come to live with us for a couple of weeks. The two year old is our grandson whose parents have to be away from home for awhile. Up until now we have not been able to be with him, except when we made trips to be with him at his birth, first birthday, first Christmas, second Christmas, and second birthday; now that may seem like a lot of time, but it in all probably makes up less than a month in days.

Anyway, here we are, two septuagenarians rearranging the house for an active two- year old boy. We raised two children and lived through the two-year old adventure. Notice I call it the "two-year old adventure" and not the "terrible-twos." The reason I have chosen not to use that term is there is nothing "terrible" about our grandson. We simply need to remember the developmental process of the human being and the two year-olds development creates its own challenges.

When our cat was at the equivalent of that age, no doubt she went through the same challenging behavior. But a cat's behavior at that equivalent age is classified as "cute," but for a child it is "terrible." The difference, I suppose, is that cats finally do mature and become stuffy and aloof creatures (like ours) and little boys just grow up.

Our two-year old grandson is using useful words like help and please. He says, "More." When he wants more juice, more macaroni, you know more food. The plea for "more" is so pleading it reminds me of Oliver Twist in the children's home. Be assured, however, our two-year old gets all the "more" he wants. Also, I very proud of him; he seems to be bilingual at an early age. When he has a messy diaper, he says, "Caca." Now that is, I believe, a Spanish word. Isn't that great! Next thing you know he may be speaking whole sentences in a foreign language.

Two year old behavior is based on learning about self and developing a sense of independence. From the moment of conception until about 18 months old a child is cocooned in dependence and a response to
dependence. It can do very little on its own; it has no language other than making signs and noises that need interpretation. But as a child begins towalk, form understandable words, and learns about itself as a human being it seeks independence. The child wants to make its own decisions and be its own person. Fortunately, all that will be driven out of the child by the time it reaches four. How can we have a society of independence seeking, self identifying two year olds?

I cannot adequately express what a joy it is to be a septuagenarian grandparent. Grand parenting is not a new experience. We have a grandchild who is thirty years older than her cousin and she is the mother of three children; therefore, we are also septuagenarian great grandparents. They also bring joy to our lives and we are forever grateful for the gift of family.

Stuck with Our Cars: The Automobile Dilemma

Gradually life changed for me. I do not remember any dramatic events, other than marriage, finishing college, and ending a few careers. Nevertheless, without me noticing anything change occurred. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

In my twenties my life was simple. First, the Marine Corps made most of the decisions for me until I was able to complete my enlistment. In those days when I wanted or could go on liberty I caught a bus to Oceanside or a cab to San Clemente where I either took the Santa Fe to Los Angeles or San Diego or in San Clemente caught the Grey-hound to Los Angeles. The effort to travel had little pain in it for me, other than the cost. When your monthly pay is about $140.00 every-thing is costly.

One weekend liberty I decided to take the Santa Fe commuter to Los Angeles, from there to travel to Hunington Park, one of LA's many outlying communities. The Santa Fe commuter kept a good schedule. I arrived at Union Station, took a trolley to Hunnington Park and walked to my friend's house; simple living.

Look on the map of the LA metropolitan area. It is crowded with inter-state and other so-called freeways. You cannot get from there to here and vice versa anymore without a car.

Years ago, in the town in which I live now, nine passenger trains came to town every day.  If you wanted to go to the big city, you could
catch a morning train, get off at the main station, catch a trolley to any part of town, shop, go to a show, have a meal in a nice restaurant, and catch the late train back to my little town all in one day. No hassle, no problem. Cannot do that today; it's by car or you do not go.

What happened? I really did not notice the change at first. Being young and wanting a car, it never crossed my mind that eventually I would be a prisoner of my automobile, or without a car, I would be stuck.

Now we are all stuck with our cars. They are expensive to maintain, the fuel we need to run them is costly and is probably running out. There is no comfortable transportation not even a bus coming to town anymore.

We can blame ourselves for this dilemma, we all wanted nice big cars with chrome trimming and a stereo radio. We got them and for awhile they were fun to drive. But now we have to struggle with "rush hour" traffic, pay to park, and worry about the demented driver high on something crossing the middle line or the median.

I would like just to go to the train station, get on a comfortable pass-enger car, sit and read a good book, as I travel to the city for a day's outing. Wouldn’t you?

Hotel and Motels, Chapter 4

The first Missouri B&B had once been a school house. Not a one-room country school but a two storied multi-room building. I had decided it would be romantic to take my wife to this quaint B&B for her birthday. You know, get her out of the house, do something different, and have a romantic evening. 

Immediately after checking in I noticed that the room had once been a class room with high ceilings and extremely tall windows. The windows were uncovered; that is, they had neither blinds nor curtains. There we looked at the bare naked windows and decided we would have to get undressed for bed in the dark, which we did.

Since there was so little privacy, romance was out of the question, along with getting up in the morning to get to the bathroom without finding a robe or something, which we had not brought along. Once again we slept on a bed of nails, or concrete. Once again we tossed all night pulling the covers off of each other.

Once again we went to breakfast and had the same experience we had in New Mexico. And, once again, the cost of this night of torture hit hard in the wallet or credit card (I cannot remember which).

You would have thought that I had learned my lesson.

While B&Bs are charming little places, they are generally too quaint and very uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I engaged a third one of these places and took my wife there for another romantic weekend.

This one was a Queen Ann Mansion. Missouri has many of these structures. Some are antebellum, but most have been constructed in the post-bellum period (I have made that word up, I think). From the outside the place an exterior inviting charm and it had a wonderful quaint name; for the life of me I cannot remember it. We had no idea of the nightmare that awaited us inside.

We found the interior still being remodeled. To get to the bathroom across the hall from our room we had to traipse through unfinished flooring and work tools. As I recall, the bathroom also remained unfinished and needed more remodeling. The room we had (it was the only room available) did have a charm and comfort to it that reflected Victorian charm. Now to me anything Victorian is not charming but I will grant it is interesting.

In this B&B, fortunately, the spacious bed had a modern and comfortable mattress.

Again, Breakfast (recall that is the second B) left me gagging. There is no need to go into the menu being offered but only to report the cook needed more training. And, again the mother of the house cooked as she rushed children off to school.

The moral of this story is, stay away from bed and breakfast places. They look nice, and lure you in with an old fashioned ambience, but remember if that old fashioned stuff had been any good we would still be living in it.

Hotels and Motels, Chapter 3

This chapter is about bed and breakfast inns, you know, B&Bs. My wife and I have stayed only in three of these hostelries; two in Missouri and one in New Mexico.

From outward appearances the B&B in New Mexico seemed appealing and interesting. First, the establishment carried a name that integrated two languages—French and Spanish. And then the look and feel of a Mexican hacienda made the outside of the building fit in its environment. This restored building has a long history going back to the early days of New Mexico and if you stayed there you could capture that period and live in it.

Inside tile floors, stuccoed walls, and vigas and latillas in the ceiling clinched it for the prospective guest. Vigas are large beams usually made of tree logs and latillas are saplings placed over the logs to form the ceiling. Over the latillas mud is caked into the open spaces and then earth is placed over the mud and foliage usually grows on the roof. In today's New Mexico and southwest style vigas are still made from tree logs but latillas are usually slats of a fine wood and they can be used on multistory homes or buildings. Most early New Mexico homes were made of adobe or, where available, stone and ordinarily kept to a single story.


 The atmosphere, certainly better than a motel on old U.S. 80, helped the guest be in the spirit of the southwest. However, the dear cost of a night's stay dampened the desire to experience old-time New Mexico. I do not remember the nightly tariff but I do remember paying over $100 when we could have stayed at the Mission Motel on old U.S. 80 for about $50.

Well here we were soaking in the costly ambience of New Mexico. We planned to enjoy being there, regardless of cost; however, sleeping on beds as hard as concrete took away any atmospheric benefit. We tossed and turned, pulled the covers off of each other all night. When morning came we arose from the penitential bed exhausted.

The second B in B&B is breakfast. In the three such places where we have stayed it would have been better for us to have gone to a McDonalds for a McBiscuit, or whatever they sell for breakfast. Usually the lady of the house fixes breakfast as she would for her children rushing them out of the house for school. This makes everything "homey." Describing the breakfast is difficult. Yes, yes, there were eggs and bacon—cold and greasy. Coffee tasted as if it had been brewed in the stone age; in fact, if it had and we had been there, the coffee might have tasted half way reasonable.

As our stay came to an end I longed for the Dublin Motel. But, the New Mexico B&B with the combined French and Spanish name could be rated superior to excellent, or vice versa, compared to the two in Missouri.

Hotels and Motels Chapter 2

Continuing with recalling hotels and motels there are a few more that still cause me to wonder what it takes to be an hotelier. I do not suspect I am the only one to have hotel or motel experiences worthy of remembering. Nevertheless, there are a few that are memorable to me.

A few weeks after my wife and I married we traveled to Columbus, Georgia, where I began my Army career. This adventure of beginning a new life experience simultaneously thrilled and frightened us. Virtually penniless, we depended on something new, plastic cards we could use to purchase gasoline and pay for a night's lodging. We had used metallic charge plates in department stores; but now something totally different. Plastic cards were like money.

En route we stopped in Monroe, Louisiana. Several hours earlier we had crossed the Texas-Louisiana state line. The highway narrowed and for all we knew we had crossed over into a foreign country. At our Monroe motel the feeling of alienation (I think that is the appropriate word) led us to ask each other if somehow we got through without a passport.

At the motel registration desk I kept asking, "What? What did you say?" The desk clerk seemed to be speaking English, but I needed an interpreter. This motel did not strike us as being fancy or eloquent, only a roadside stop that looked clean and accessible. Nevertheless, the motel had a porter who greeted us at the doorway to our room.

The room, like most motels of the 1960s, opened directly to the parking area. We simply could take our overnight bags to the room and plop down on the bed that for a nickel you could get it to vibrate. But, there was the porter. He took our bags and carried them into the room then stood waiting for his tip.

As I reached into my pocket for a coin; a quarter seemed enough. I noticed there were two television sets. I asked the porter, "Why are two televisions sets in this room?"

Puzzled by the question or why I asked the question he looked at me and then back to the two television sets and then back to me and shrugged his shoulders. Then he said, "One of 'em is unfixed, suh."

"Unfixed?"

"Yes suh, unfixed."

After completing basic officer training at Fort Benning we left for our first permanent duty assignment in the Washington, D.C. area. Since we had so few household belongings, we decided to pack everything in our Studebaker Lark VI. When everything was packed, we realized we had more "stuff" than we thought. But off we went.

Something delayed our departure from Columbus, Georgia; probably taking the time to shove everything we owned into the Studebaker. So, we only got to a place called Dublin, Georgia just before nightfall. The only lodging we saw was the Dublin Inn. The grounds appeared nicely trimmed and the buildings of the inn were nestled in a small pine grove. In front a gas station, diner, and registration desk occupied the same building. I entered the building to arrange for a night's stay and behind the desk a man sat wearing a green shade on his forehead; you know like accountants once wore as they poured over pay records or something. I asked for a room for the two of us. He wanted cash payment only. By this time I had money and could get by easily. He gave me a key, told me how to drive to the room, and then disappeared into a back room.

Okay, I said to myself, as long as the room is paid for and I have the key what is there to concern me. Maybe he needed to go to the back room to count some more money.

As I drove up to the room there the man stood. This time he wore a white leather service hat. On leaving my car he said he would take our bags and he acted as a porter. When we got into the room he explained how the heater worked, which we found it did not heat just made noise. He instructed us not to be loud, and that he did not tolerate drinking alcohol on the premises. I indicated understanding of the instructions and offered a tip. He declined, saying, "It's all a part of the service."

We looked around the room and we were surprised to see brick everywhere. Not only the building sported red brick but also the bed frame and the night stand.

The night air chilled every corner of the room as well as the two of us as snuggled together under a thin blanket.

Morning came too soon. The restlessness of a cold night prevented good sleep and we had to travel to Washington where deep snow awaited us. We woke, showered in cold water, got dressed, and decided to try the diner at the main building of the motel. As we entered the diner the smell of bacon and toast invited us to join a group of good-old-boys sitting at a counter. To our surprise the desk clerk cum porter stood at the stove flipping eggs, pancakes, and bacon. He wore a cook's hat and a white apron. Turning to us, he said, "Good morning folks; what'll you two have for breakfast." I do not remember what we ordered; probably scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, juice and coffee. The desk clerk, porter, and now cook promptly delivered our order.

After breakfast we returned to our Studebaker Lark VI and decided we needed to fill up before we depart Dublin for the north. So, I drove the car to the pump (gas cost about 35 cents a gallon then) and waited for an attendant to fill up the car and check the oil.

By this time we were not surprised to see the desk clerk, porter, and cook arrive wearing a baseball cap on which a winged red horse advertised Mobil Oil or some such gas company.

The desk clerk, porter, cook, now gas station attendant asked, "Fill 'er up folks?"

"Yes," I replied, "and check the oil.

After paying with my gas credit card, he waved us good bye. I wondered if he wore a different hat when he mowed the lawn or washed the windows.

Hotels and Motels

Recently I traveled to the East Coast where I stayed in a very nice hotel. The spacious room contained a large and comfortable bed, nice high definition television, warm and comfortable bed covering, a sofa, and a well attended to bathroom. The room did not remind me of any part of my destination. The room, the lobby, the elevators, and the hallways all had the same look of hotels I have stayed in on the West Coast, the South West, the Mid West, the North and South East, and even Europe. In other words, they are sterile environments.

I am not a cosmopolitan world traveler. Yes, I have traveled a lot. I think I have been in 44 of the United States. My travels have taken me to Asia and Europe, and I have been in six of Canada's 13 provinces and territories as well as two or three Mexican states. So, I do not have a wide view of hotel accommodations everywhere in this country or anywhere else. But I do have enough of a view to see how travel hostelries have changed over the past fifty years.

Back when serving as a Marine I often went on liberty in Oceanside, California. There in that town overrun with high testosterone young men there was an oasis of a hotel called the Dolphin. The Dolphin Hotel was an unimpressive building painted white over brick with green trim. The front looked like a store with large panes of glass on which were painted the words "Dolphin Hotel." Under a wooden canopy a large wooden door with glass panes in it beckoned to be opened. No doorman, no porter, no one greeted guests as they went in and out.

The clean lobby, often empty of human life, housed an orange tabby cat. When a guest arrived and found no one attending the desk, the guest simply punched at a small bell to get assistance. Either a middle aged man or his wife would appear from what seemed to be the manager's living quarters.

Because of the quiet atmosphere, I liked spending Friday nights there. Saturday nights I had the pleasure of being the guest of a local family. This arrangement went on for over a year. The Dolphin, however, had atmosphere. The place reflected a time gone by; prewar California. The Dolphin Hotel had once been the hotel of choice of people visiting the beach side city for vacations. In the days I stayed there the guests were not vacationers, but people like me who wanted a safe and quiet place to be. A significant number of guests were young women who were newly married to Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton. They often sat in the lobby's ornate lounge chairs, or mission style sofas under the eye of the manager's wife. She engaged them in conversation and helped them adjust to their new circumstances.

Mostly I stayed in the same room. A rare Friday night occurred when my room number differed from the previous week. The room had California pictures on the wall. The spacious bed reflected the 1930s and 1940s and the bed covering pictured sunrises over palm trees with a mountain background. To use the bathroom and toilet facilities one had to go down the hall and make certain no one occupied either the bathtub or the toilet.

On Thanksgiving weekend I had eaten in the mess hall, but nothing about that meal is memorable. On Friday night, however, the manager came to the desk as I entered the Dolphin and said, "You need a real Thanksgiving dinner."

My response, "You're right, but I won't get one until I get home next year."

The manager said, "There's no need to wait. Come with me."

He opened up the front desk, invited me in, and took me to the apartment he his wife had in the hotel. There at a dining room table were four young wives whose husbands were confined to duties at the camp. I joined them and we had a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner.

Now, talk about a hotel experience.

Comedy

Maybe it is just me, but I do not find cinematic or television comedy very comedic. The only reason, I think, that motion picture romantic comedies and other comedic endeavors is due to age; my age.

Watching comedies and this goes for cartoons also is not the fun I remember. The current list of comedic performers lack skill. They depend too much on toilet humor and vulgarity. Let me be clear, I am not prudish. Occasionally I like off-color jokes as much as anyone; however a steady stream of such humor finally fails to be funny.

Another form of current humor I do not find funny is that which belittles people. The intelligent are made to look foolish, older people are out of touch, and families are the disdained and made to look pointless. Of course, while growing up I often thought of my family as funny, but I never belittled any of my family. As my children grew up I am certain they too found humor in family life, but I did not feel belittled.

While teaching a college course on human cultures I often used an Abbott and Costello film called "Buck Privates" as an example of the American culture of the late 1930s and early 1940s. To my astonishment the young college students in my classes would laugh out loud at the antics of the bungling Abbot and Costello. Further, even in the slap stick comedy of the film a message could be clearly understood. Further, the film provided a good medium for discussing current social issues. In "Buck Privates" you were truly entertained. You got to see the Andrews Sisters perform the "Bugle Boy from Company B," an unresolved triangular love dilemma providing the plot line, and the absurdity of Army life. The most important message of the film is that with dedicated effort and commitment success can be achieved. In other words, the story had in it a sense of redemption and purpose. Army life and street life provided the sources of humor but no one or anything was the target of scorn.

Again, age may color my observations. If I were in my twenties or thirties in 2011, maybe I could find the humor in the unpleasant and thoughtless comedy of this era.

When Did Soda Pop Become Food?



A good bottle of wine,
which this is, qualifies as food and
may even a health benefit.



After the election of 2010 my hope that we would not hear any more outrageous political nonsense. Now it is the soda pop people complaining about a potential tax on their products. Most of what they manufacture and sell is harmful in one way or another and it does not seem too outrageous to me to have these items taxed.

That soda pop is harmful is not something I learned just the other day. No, a study just published showing that diet soda can lead to heart attacks and stroke did not open my eyes to the ill effect of carbonated drinks. When a boy in junior high school my dentist told me to stay away from soft drinks. He told me they could rot away my teeth. While my teeth did not rot out of my head, having them drilled and filled by the dentist seemed to have a correlation.

My question, after watching television ads with a woman in grocery store whining about the threat to the cost of groceries and her right to purchase anything she wanted without having to pay a tax of some sort, is, "When did soda pop become food?" I know you can buy that stuff at a grocery store, but it can also be purchased from machines, a gas stations, bar, and who knows where else. Beer and wine are taxed. They qualify more as food than soda pops. In fact, there is some health benefit in consuming, in moderation of course, these products. Beer and wine and other alcoholic products are taxed to discourage their purchase; in fact, these "food stuffs" are highly regulated. Further, in the television commercial the woman is also lumping in "fruit" drinks. I do not think this includes bone fide orange juice but something the so called "punch" drinks that are mostly water and corn syrup with maybe a fruit flavor added.

A tax on soda pops or sodies, as a person I once knew called them, could be used to help pay dental bills, hospital bills for stroke and heart attack victims, or pay for the funerals of the obese. Maybe a tax on these sodies could be used to help unemployed find work picking up the plastic bottles and cans littered about the highways and streets.

Whether carbonated drinks, so called "fruit" drinks, and bottled water with dubious fruit flavors are taxed or not is not the problem. The problem is thinking of them as food.

Words of Love

Here are some verses from the Bible that make good Valentine's Day thoughts.

“Arise, my love, my fair one,

          and come away;

for now the winter is past,

          the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

          the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the turtledove

          is heard in our land.

The fig tree puts forth its figs,

          and the vines are in blossom;

          they give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my fair one,

          and come away.

O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,

          in the covert of the cliff,

let me see your face,

          let me hear your voice;

for your voice is sweet,

          and your face is lovely.

Song of Songs 2:10b-14

BELOVED, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another

First Letter of John  4:7-11

A Need for a Warner Climate

Panama is my birth place. Although I have not been there since 1936, only 18 months old at the time, there stirs in me a wish to be warm. Of course, everyone wishes to be warm, even Eskimos. But I want more than the warmth of a fire or a seal skin parka, I want to be in warm air under swaying palm trees in a southern sun. I do not mean a southern sun like Alabama or some such place, I mean the tropics.

Back during the years of the war in Viet Nam I was assigned there for two one year tours. Compared to the military deployments of the current situation, two years seems hardly long enough, but back then it was. My recollections of being in Viet Nam are that I liked the climate, most of the time. There were times when it was too wet and some times too hot and dry, but most of the time I like it. Often I have thought about going back there to see if I still would like being in that tropical climate. One time I went to Singapore and got drenching wet. That was not too bad until I got into an air conditioned bus and nearly turned into an icicle. Another time, in Bangkok, Thailand, this time I stepped out the hotel into a blazing heat and found a cab with air conditioning; that was good.

Looking our of my window right now there is something like a foot of snow or more, with drifts probably two feet or higher. As I look out the window and feel the cold air around my feet I am reminded of living in Alaska, pre Sarah Palin, for three years. Living in Alaska was a fun experience, and I spent many days out in the deep snow and sub zero temperatures, but I cannot say I truly enjoyed it. However, I did all that, but I was in my late twenties and early thirties. Roughing it in the wilds of the north country was an adventure. These days an adventure is living on the French Riviera watching the bathers on the beaches where wearing complete bathing outfits are optional.

Snow scenes can be beautiful. The white of the snow, in certain lights, can have a cold blue hue to it. The sweep of the drifts against trees sleeping for the winter adds to the composition, but they are pictures. Those pictures may give you a chill but they are pictures one can view in the comfort of a centrally heated home.

Right now the need to relocate to a warmer climate. Often the notion has hit me that I could live in New Zealand when it is winter in the northern hemisphere and back in the U.S. when it is summer here. That arrangement, however, requires money. The only way to finance such an arrangement is to solicit donations. I am a worthy charity, but the donor cannot take it as a deduction, but still. Would you consider helping me find a way of avoiding the cold and snow?

More on Cats

Seven years ago I invited a cat into my home; a sincere invitation at that. The first few years the cat and I lived a friendly existence. The cat played, rolled over on command, and became an enjoyable companion.

I like cats. They are an interesting species. The question often is, "What do they do?" Dogs hunt, herd sheep, find fugitives, and many other useful things. Of course, there are some breeds of dogs I cannot bear. They usually fall into the Chihuahua category. They yap noisily, become domineering, and are, to me, generally unpleasant animals. Also useful are horses, the other domesticated species people respond. They can pull things, carry people or other loads on their backs, race around an oval (we can bet which one will win and make lots of money—that is useful). But cats, they do not do anything. They do not herd, hunt, carry things on their back, or race. Generally, cats sleep, eat, puke up hair balls, and use a litter box (if they are kept in a home). I do not think I have ever seen a cat do anything useful. I know there are exceptions. There is a cat that knows when people are about to die. Occasionally a cat will warn sleeping house occupants that their home is about to go up in flames, but I think that is rare.

Well, anyway, the cat that came into my home seven years ago at least rolled over on command. Not anymore, however. The cat does nothing on command. In fact it is the other way around. I can hear the animal meowing loudly when the cat thinks it is time to eat, which is all the time. The cat, these days, makes all sorts of demands and sees me as an interloper. That is the part that bothers me the most. Rejection has been a principal part of my life. In high school I think I held the record for being told to take a hike when I asked a girl for a date. In my life I think I have sent out over one hundred resumes and curriculum vita in search of meaningful employment. Most of them did not generate a response. Some generated a polite letter of rejection. I can understand all that and it is a part of my past I do not need to dwell on. What I cannot understand is how it is possible for the cat I have invited into my home, the cat I feed, and the cat that shares the comforts I provide can reject me.

That is exactly what this ungrateful cat does. Every time I entered into the cat's space it leaves the room. All I have to do is look at it and the return look says, "Who are you and why are you here?" Now I ask, "How would feel?" Or, let me ask this, "Is this the ultimate rejection; being told by a cat to get out of my space?" Alas, I think the cat has trained me and herded me into a corner. Maybe that is what cats do.