Last Saturday I helped my friend Mark trim some of the trees at his family’s home. He didn’t need me, just my saw. I know very little about the horticultural reasons to prune a tree. I once asked my Dad when the best time to trim a tree was. “The wind doesn’t care what season it is,” he said.
I understand if pruning is done properly it can improve the health of the tree, protect the branch structure, and in fruit trees it can enhance the size and quality of the crop. But our task wasn’t for that purpose.
We removed a few branches that were bothering the shingles on the roof of his house, and we sawed off a dead limb or two, but mostly it was an exercise in improving the aesthetics of the place. You see his daughter is getting married this Saturday and he wants the place to look nice.
In our 35-plus years together Mark has done just about everything before me – he is seven months older, stronger and better looking - so it is only natural that he leads the way here. Mark knows I have been watching him for signs, for clues on how a man should act when his daughter gets engaged to be married.
Mark was there in 1970 to welcome me - “the new kid,” when I walked into Mr. Peterson’s sixth-grade class. Because of him my school years became fun. Because he is older than me and grew up in the country he learned to drive before me. Back in those days one learned to drive before driver’s training class. One Saturday afternoon Mark taught me how operate a stick-shift.
We were at his dad’s gravel pit when I climbed into the driver’s seat of a mid-60’s Chevrolet pickup (he’ll clue me in on the correct model year later). It was a three speed - “three on the tree.” I’m sure neither one of us had our driver’s license yet, but Mark was committed to show me how to use a clutch in the safety of a gravel pit.
When learning any thing new the first lesson doesn’t always go well, and on that particular summer day the lesson went rather badly. As I let out the clutch with the truck in first gear we hit a large pot hole in the road. The sudden jolt threw both of us violently forward in the cab.
Bracing my legs against the floor of the truck I pressed the gas pedal all the way down while leaving the brake and clutch untouched. I panicked and froze while the truck took off for the moon. Bouncing and screaming through space the truck drove right through a fish house, knocked the blade off of a road-grader and crash landed on a large pile of sand.
We walked away without a bump or a bruise. Other than the need to maintain control while driving I’m afraid that the only thing we learned that day was as long as you could walk away everything was going to be OK. It would be many years until life’s lessons started to stick.
This Saturday Mark will go through yet another door before me. He will walk up the aisle with his daughter Erin, and then from his place of honor he will watch as she walks back down with her husband.
So last weekend when we were trimming trees at his house it may have served a larger purpose. Mark was getting ready to make room for some new growth on the family tree.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Keeping Good Company
There is an old saying that has been loosely translated from the ancient Greeks: “A man is known by the company he keeps,” or if you’d rather “birds of a feather, gather together.” My mother and father were keenly interested in knowing who my friends were. They knew that “running with the wrong crowd,” would influence my behavior, or perhaps even be a reflection or an indicator of whom I wanted to be.
They were right of course. My dreams, desires and goals of whom I hoped to be, and what I wanted to accomplish guided me in my selection of companions. Even in a small town there were options. There were the “good boys,” - law abiding, studious types. Their close cousins were the fun-loving, trouble-makers - nice guys, but with a glint and a grin. The next group was the juvenile delinquents; Mom closed the confirmation hearings there.
According to my Mom these boys were headed for prison, or at least reform school. Dad had driven me by these brick and stone structures enough times for me to know that I did not want to end up inside. But just to make sure that the point wasn’t missed Dad would remind me that “unless you shape up that’s where you’ll be.”
My choice of friends, confirmed by my parents, was a good predictor of how an evening and even the rest of my life was going to turn out. Even as an adult it is my friends that I rely on for support and guidance. These are the people I turn to when I am in trouble, or when I need help with something. They share similar values and beliefs. They are my trusted advisors.
Nepotism is the granting of favors to friends and relatives. It is a word to describe what everyone realizes and accepts: It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know. President Obama is doing what everyone does when they are elected to office – surrounding himself with his friends and comrades, people he trusts who have similar values and beliefs. But he is taking it a mile further than the inch given him.
He has appointed Czars. Czars are special advisors to the President chosen by the President. They are paid positions with authority given only by the President. It also appears that they are answerable only to the President.
The past four Presidents have appointed czars as well. Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush each appointed one, Bill Clinton three, and George W. Bush appointed four. But so far President Obama has appointed over thirty czars – some with very radical views, and there are indications that his czar appointments will exceed forty. But these are not just advisors; these czars have power and truckloads of cash to spend.
Even among Democrats there is concern over this grab for power. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va), the most senior member of the Senate serving continuously since 1959, wrote President Obama to express his strong objection.
"The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”
The framers of the Constitution guarded against placing too much power in any one branch. President Obama is upsetting the delicate balance between the three branches of government by purposely surpassing the confirmation process held by Congress. But with or without confirmation hearings for his czars, President Obama shall be known by the company he keeps.
They were right of course. My dreams, desires and goals of whom I hoped to be, and what I wanted to accomplish guided me in my selection of companions. Even in a small town there were options. There were the “good boys,” - law abiding, studious types. Their close cousins were the fun-loving, trouble-makers - nice guys, but with a glint and a grin. The next group was the juvenile delinquents; Mom closed the confirmation hearings there.
According to my Mom these boys were headed for prison, or at least reform school. Dad had driven me by these brick and stone structures enough times for me to know that I did not want to end up inside. But just to make sure that the point wasn’t missed Dad would remind me that “unless you shape up that’s where you’ll be.”
My choice of friends, confirmed by my parents, was a good predictor of how an evening and even the rest of my life was going to turn out. Even as an adult it is my friends that I rely on for support and guidance. These are the people I turn to when I am in trouble, or when I need help with something. They share similar values and beliefs. They are my trusted advisors.
Nepotism is the granting of favors to friends and relatives. It is a word to describe what everyone realizes and accepts: It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know. President Obama is doing what everyone does when they are elected to office – surrounding himself with his friends and comrades, people he trusts who have similar values and beliefs. But he is taking it a mile further than the inch given him.
He has appointed Czars. Czars are special advisors to the President chosen by the President. They are paid positions with authority given only by the President. It also appears that they are answerable only to the President.
The past four Presidents have appointed czars as well. Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush each appointed one, Bill Clinton three, and George W. Bush appointed four. But so far President Obama has appointed over thirty czars – some with very radical views, and there are indications that his czar appointments will exceed forty. But these are not just advisors; these czars have power and truckloads of cash to spend.
Even among Democrats there is concern over this grab for power. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va), the most senior member of the Senate serving continuously since 1959, wrote President Obama to express his strong objection.
"The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”
The framers of the Constitution guarded against placing too much power in any one branch. President Obama is upsetting the delicate balance between the three branches of government by purposely surpassing the confirmation process held by Congress. But with or without confirmation hearings for his czars, President Obama shall be known by the company he keeps.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Pendulum Swings
It’s that time of year when I fall asleep at night listening to the crickets. According to The Farmer’s Almanac you can determine the temperature by counting the number of chirps in 14 seconds (I always thought it was 15) and then add 40 (again I was wrong - I had that number at 45).
To accomplish this you need another person to count or have a stopwatch for this scientific experiment. You should also verify your findings with a reliable source – a weather channel or Web site, even a thermometer should do the trick – but by then the whole house is awake and everyone wonders what you are up to when you should be sleeping. Oh yeah - the hotter it is the faster you have to count.
Sometimes it’s too hot to sleep without the air conditioner on. Usually though a fan can do the trick. I like the cool breeze and the dull hum it emits. Growing up in a house without air conditioning meant a fan or two was usually spinning during the summer time.
Mom would have a fan moving the air around so we didn’t choke. We only had two fans (a large floor model that could change your voice when you spoke into it, and a smaller table top model). My sisters got the small one for their room; the other sat in the hallway between the room I shared with my brothers and my parent’s room.
We had the back end of the fan because Mom said it would pull the hot air out of our room. I guess she forgot about the windows being open and all of that hot air just waiting outside to stifle us as it was dragged across our beds. I think that either she wanted Dad to be cooler so he could sleep, or she was trying to amplify our voices with the fan so she could learn all of our secrets. Either way we were hot.
Now when I am having a restless night’s sleep I turn the chime off on the grandfather clock – otherwise my sleep is interrupted four times an hour – or I find myself counting the bells when the clock rings on the hour. As I ponder the pendulum which is kept swinging by gravity’s pull on the weights in the clock I think of Isaac Newton (not really – but humor me).
Newton was the guy who thought of gravity when he observed an apple fall from a tree (or being dropped on his head if you prefer the cartoon version). He also developed his three laws of motion. Maybe Newton was also kept awake by a clock.
In his book “Inventions and Discoveries,” Rodney Carlisle wrote that Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch mathematician, “…had published a study of the pendulum clock … upon which Newton later formulated the complete laws of motion.” Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
On October 30th, 2008 just a few days before he was elected President, Sen. Barack Obama said at Missouri University in Columbia. “We are five days from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Missouri is “The show-me state,” and President Obama has showed Missouri and the rest of the country that he does indeed mean to change our country.
But when things are pushed too far, the pendulum swings back the other way hard and fast. I think this is what is happening in this country. The citizens are sensing that things are getting out of balance and are pushing back. It’s time.
To accomplish this you need another person to count or have a stopwatch for this scientific experiment. You should also verify your findings with a reliable source – a weather channel or Web site, even a thermometer should do the trick – but by then the whole house is awake and everyone wonders what you are up to when you should be sleeping. Oh yeah - the hotter it is the faster you have to count.
Sometimes it’s too hot to sleep without the air conditioner on. Usually though a fan can do the trick. I like the cool breeze and the dull hum it emits. Growing up in a house without air conditioning meant a fan or two was usually spinning during the summer time.
Mom would have a fan moving the air around so we didn’t choke. We only had two fans (a large floor model that could change your voice when you spoke into it, and a smaller table top model). My sisters got the small one for their room; the other sat in the hallway between the room I shared with my brothers and my parent’s room.
We had the back end of the fan because Mom said it would pull the hot air out of our room. I guess she forgot about the windows being open and all of that hot air just waiting outside to stifle us as it was dragged across our beds. I think that either she wanted Dad to be cooler so he could sleep, or she was trying to amplify our voices with the fan so she could learn all of our secrets. Either way we were hot.
Now when I am having a restless night’s sleep I turn the chime off on the grandfather clock – otherwise my sleep is interrupted four times an hour – or I find myself counting the bells when the clock rings on the hour. As I ponder the pendulum which is kept swinging by gravity’s pull on the weights in the clock I think of Isaac Newton (not really – but humor me).
Newton was the guy who thought of gravity when he observed an apple fall from a tree (or being dropped on his head if you prefer the cartoon version). He also developed his three laws of motion. Maybe Newton was also kept awake by a clock.
In his book “Inventions and Discoveries,” Rodney Carlisle wrote that Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch mathematician, “…had published a study of the pendulum clock … upon which Newton later formulated the complete laws of motion.” Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
On October 30th, 2008 just a few days before he was elected President, Sen. Barack Obama said at Missouri University in Columbia. “We are five days from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Missouri is “The show-me state,” and President Obama has showed Missouri and the rest of the country that he does indeed mean to change our country.
But when things are pushed too far, the pendulum swings back the other way hard and fast. I think this is what is happening in this country. The citizens are sensing that things are getting out of balance and are pushing back. It’s time.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Leave A Wake To Support Others
Sunday my family and I spent the day at my wife’s brother’s home on Sugar Lake. Well, technically his house is not on the lake, it sits near the shore where the waves created by the wake of boats lap irregularly – but why go through all of that fuss explaining it when most people know what you mean.
I guess that most everyone in Minnesota knows somebody who lives on the lake where they are welcome to hang out on a beautiful summer day. Sunday was one of those days. The weather was almost perfect – partly cloudy with temperatures in the high 60’s.
One of my favorite summer activities is to ride on a boat and cruise the shoreline looking at the lake homes and cabins. I try to arrange my social calendar so that this happens more than once a summer. I am struck by the immense variety of dwellings. They range from the seasonal campers and rustic sixty-year old cabins, to the estates of the very wealthy.
The variety of boats also catches my attention. But instead of embarrassing myself by attempting to impress you with my limited knowledge of the many styles of watercraft, allow me to do so with just one particular type of boat: Wakeboard boats.
Wakeboard boats are designed to displace large amounts of water which results in a very large wake behind the boat. So instead of being strapped into skis, the person being pulled stands or kneels on a “board.” This combination of boat and board allows for tricks and stunts not easily accomplished with a typical ski boat. Sunday I watched a guy “surfing” behind a boat. What I found amazing was that this guy was keeping up to the boat without the use of a rope. I have to get out more.
I have been going up to Sugar Lake for about thirty years. My first time was with my girlfriend to visit her grandparents at their lake cabin. Over those thirty years the ownership of that cabin, which has grown and changed to a year-round home, has passed from father to son twice. During that time my girlfriend became my wife.
Thirty years ago I was in college at St. Cloud State University when I shook Ted Kennedy’s hand. He had just finished delivering a speech to an audience of college students. The next day in my Speech Communication’s class most of us could not recall what the Senator had said, but we defended our shortcomings by saying “the delivery was amazing.”
By now we all know that Ted Kennedy passed away recently. Last week there was an article in Politico titled “The wide wake left by Ted Kennedy’s legacy.” This serious article pointed out the void that will be felt by the passing of a man with forty-seven years in the U.S. senate.
But I think that his sister’s passing is just as significant. Eunice Kennedy Shriver also died this past August. She is credited with founding The Special Olympics in 1968, the same year her brother Robert was killed. The Special Olympics now has over 3 million athletes in 150 countries.
The Kennedys, with John, Bobby, Camelot and all of that were America’s royalty. I think my Mom saved every Life and Look magazine that had a Kennedy on the cover. But now with two more of the family gone that era is slipping away.
Our lives are like boats that create waves which role and roil across the water with an ever-increasing span. We should try to leave a wake that supports others by our presence.
I guess that most everyone in Minnesota knows somebody who lives on the lake where they are welcome to hang out on a beautiful summer day. Sunday was one of those days. The weather was almost perfect – partly cloudy with temperatures in the high 60’s.
One of my favorite summer activities is to ride on a boat and cruise the shoreline looking at the lake homes and cabins. I try to arrange my social calendar so that this happens more than once a summer. I am struck by the immense variety of dwellings. They range from the seasonal campers and rustic sixty-year old cabins, to the estates of the very wealthy.
The variety of boats also catches my attention. But instead of embarrassing myself by attempting to impress you with my limited knowledge of the many styles of watercraft, allow me to do so with just one particular type of boat: Wakeboard boats.
Wakeboard boats are designed to displace large amounts of water which results in a very large wake behind the boat. So instead of being strapped into skis, the person being pulled stands or kneels on a “board.” This combination of boat and board allows for tricks and stunts not easily accomplished with a typical ski boat. Sunday I watched a guy “surfing” behind a boat. What I found amazing was that this guy was keeping up to the boat without the use of a rope. I have to get out more.
I have been going up to Sugar Lake for about thirty years. My first time was with my girlfriend to visit her grandparents at their lake cabin. Over those thirty years the ownership of that cabin, which has grown and changed to a year-round home, has passed from father to son twice. During that time my girlfriend became my wife.
Thirty years ago I was in college at St. Cloud State University when I shook Ted Kennedy’s hand. He had just finished delivering a speech to an audience of college students. The next day in my Speech Communication’s class most of us could not recall what the Senator had said, but we defended our shortcomings by saying “the delivery was amazing.”
By now we all know that Ted Kennedy passed away recently. Last week there was an article in Politico titled “The wide wake left by Ted Kennedy’s legacy.” This serious article pointed out the void that will be felt by the passing of a man with forty-seven years in the U.S. senate.
But I think that his sister’s passing is just as significant. Eunice Kennedy Shriver also died this past August. She is credited with founding The Special Olympics in 1968, the same year her brother Robert was killed. The Special Olympics now has over 3 million athletes in 150 countries.
The Kennedys, with John, Bobby, Camelot and all of that were America’s royalty. I think my Mom saved every Life and Look magazine that had a Kennedy on the cover. But now with two more of the family gone that era is slipping away.
Our lives are like boats that create waves which role and roil across the water with an ever-increasing span. We should try to leave a wake that supports others by our presence.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Health For Sale
This column is too controversial for some readers. Last week I compared President Obama’s 1,000 plus page proposal for our nation’s health care to a clogged freeway with no exits. I still like that analogy, but naturally everyone does not agree with me. After the column appeared in the paper someone suggested to me that my opinion, now made public, was biased because of my occupation. They had even written a letter about it.
This person told me that because I am an insurance agent I never should have written about the government’s attempted takeover of our health care system – or at the very least, I should have mentioned what I do for a living.
I like the English language – both spoken and written. I try to never be misunderstood, just ask my family and friends. I am certain that I drive them crazy as I constantly seek the right word, and all too often suggest a better word for my conversation partner. I will seek clarity to the point of annoyance. Welcome to my strange little world. But last week I may have failed in that area. It wasn’t what I wrote in my column, it’s what I didn’t.
I should have disclosed that people can purchase health insurance from me. This is my fortieth column (counting the twelve that appeared in the “Minneapolis Star-Tribune), and I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that I have mentioned how I make my living. That has been by design. Newspapers have advertising departments and this column is not ad space – so I have chosen not to take advantage of my editor’s good graces by selling my wares in these six-hundred words. I will not change that. Nor am I likely to change my perspective – but know this for sure: this column will never be a place to protect my personal interests by promoting a position in which I seek to pad my pockets.
But I wondered – have some of my past columns been tainted by my own dark secrets? It’s time to come clean. A couple years ago the “Minneapolis Star-Tribune” ran my column on the shameful way people litter. Well, to be perfectly honest I have littered myself. Occasionally I will spit my gum out the window of my truck – but only in unpopulated areas when no one is looking. I’m trying to quit.
Once or twice in this space I have expressed my displeasure with the way smokers are being treated as second-class citizens. I don’t smoke, but I do keep a box of candy cigarettes in my desk for fun – so I guess in a way I was being biased. Sorry.
My column about turning fifty years old was just a thinly veiled attempt to get more birthday cards. I’m embarrassed to tell you that it didn’t work. My story about the mythical man in the icehouse is the first part in a book series I am planning: Jerry and the mystery of the vending machines.
When I wrote about the Scott County Fair a few weeks ago I didn’t mention that my wife enters a lot of stuff (baked goods and vegetables) in the fair. I guess this could be perceived as promoting her seasonal hobby. I’ll be more careful next year (the fair, just outside of Jordan, is usually held the 4th weekend in July – watch this space).
I understand that there are three things you are never supposed to talk about because they are too controversial. I have covered politics; next I may tackle religion – but the third one? No thanks.
This person told me that because I am an insurance agent I never should have written about the government’s attempted takeover of our health care system – or at the very least, I should have mentioned what I do for a living.
I like the English language – both spoken and written. I try to never be misunderstood, just ask my family and friends. I am certain that I drive them crazy as I constantly seek the right word, and all too often suggest a better word for my conversation partner. I will seek clarity to the point of annoyance. Welcome to my strange little world. But last week I may have failed in that area. It wasn’t what I wrote in my column, it’s what I didn’t.
I should have disclosed that people can purchase health insurance from me. This is my fortieth column (counting the twelve that appeared in the “Minneapolis Star-Tribune), and I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that I have mentioned how I make my living. That has been by design. Newspapers have advertising departments and this column is not ad space – so I have chosen not to take advantage of my editor’s good graces by selling my wares in these six-hundred words. I will not change that. Nor am I likely to change my perspective – but know this for sure: this column will never be a place to protect my personal interests by promoting a position in which I seek to pad my pockets.
But I wondered – have some of my past columns been tainted by my own dark secrets? It’s time to come clean. A couple years ago the “Minneapolis Star-Tribune” ran my column on the shameful way people litter. Well, to be perfectly honest I have littered myself. Occasionally I will spit my gum out the window of my truck – but only in unpopulated areas when no one is looking. I’m trying to quit.
Once or twice in this space I have expressed my displeasure with the way smokers are being treated as second-class citizens. I don’t smoke, but I do keep a box of candy cigarettes in my desk for fun – so I guess in a way I was being biased. Sorry.
My column about turning fifty years old was just a thinly veiled attempt to get more birthday cards. I’m embarrassed to tell you that it didn’t work. My story about the mythical man in the icehouse is the first part in a book series I am planning: Jerry and the mystery of the vending machines.
When I wrote about the Scott County Fair a few weeks ago I didn’t mention that my wife enters a lot of stuff (baked goods and vegetables) in the fair. I guess this could be perceived as promoting her seasonal hobby. I’ll be more careful next year (the fair, just outside of Jordan, is usually held the 4th weekend in July – watch this space).
I understand that there are three things you are never supposed to talk about because they are too controversial. I have covered politics; next I may tackle religion – but the third one? No thanks.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Road With No Exit
The other day I was about to get on Interstate Highway 94, but instead of a fast-moving freeway I saw two-lanes of cars sitting motionless all the way to the horizon. Because I refuse to voluntarily submit to captivity on a road that isn’t advancing and offers no options for an exit, I pulled over and stopped.
I knew this particular stretch of highway well. It was the route I took back and forth to college when I was learning how to change the world. The next exit was too far up the road to hope for another opportunity to get off anytime soon.
I could follow the other sheep to slaughter where I would sit on the highway going nowhere for hours, or I could back down the entrance ramp and look for another way home. My wife, being the law-abiding type, strongly voiced her opposition to my exit plan. I like to comply with her requests when I can. I don’t advocate breaking the law –including traffic laws, but to add my vehicle to a monstrous traffic jam would have been irresponsible.
When I got off the ramp I noticed cars and trucks were leaving the highway in a slow parade and were now exiting the entrance ramp – kind of like walking down an escalator that is going up. I was pleased to see that others were also not content to just sit there, but instead chose to try and improve their situation. We may still have enough rebels in this country after all.
So after I got off the ramp I got on a beautiful back country road and headed in the general direction of home. We drove through several forgotten little towns with their distinctive identities; one had an old flour mill sitting serenely by a small river. We could even roll down the windows and enjoy the summer day without being blown apart by 75 mph winds.
It’s nice to have options: The option of what road to take, where to live, work, worship and how to control your own health care. But the freedom of choosing your own health care is under attack.
President Obama has been pushing very hard to get our country to adopt his public option for government run health care, that if enacted would eventually eliminate all other options. The proposal, over 1,000 pages long, is filled with rules and regulations concerning you and your family and how the government will wrest more control of your own lives.
I understand that the current way we pay for our health care is flawed – but let’s not reinvent the wheel just because the tire is flat. But when I see the pressure, the coercion behind this rush to take over our nation’s health care I keep coming back to the same question: Why? Why is there so much effort being extended to take over one-sixth of our economy? I believe it is because the government wants more power and control over our lives.
Try to exit that road once you’re on it. It would be slow, crowded, poorly maintained and stacked with toll-booths. Our health care would only go one-way – just like an interstate.
Within the past few days President Obama seems ready to temporarily shelve his idea of government-run health insurance. It appears that the voice of the American people may be making a difference. I guess enough people finally said “no you can’t,” and got off the Obama highway.
No one wants to voluntarily submit to captivity on a road that isn’t advancing and offers no options for an exit.
I knew this particular stretch of highway well. It was the route I took back and forth to college when I was learning how to change the world. The next exit was too far up the road to hope for another opportunity to get off anytime soon.
I could follow the other sheep to slaughter where I would sit on the highway going nowhere for hours, or I could back down the entrance ramp and look for another way home. My wife, being the law-abiding type, strongly voiced her opposition to my exit plan. I like to comply with her requests when I can. I don’t advocate breaking the law –including traffic laws, but to add my vehicle to a monstrous traffic jam would have been irresponsible.
When I got off the ramp I noticed cars and trucks were leaving the highway in a slow parade and were now exiting the entrance ramp – kind of like walking down an escalator that is going up. I was pleased to see that others were also not content to just sit there, but instead chose to try and improve their situation. We may still have enough rebels in this country after all.
So after I got off the ramp I got on a beautiful back country road and headed in the general direction of home. We drove through several forgotten little towns with their distinctive identities; one had an old flour mill sitting serenely by a small river. We could even roll down the windows and enjoy the summer day without being blown apart by 75 mph winds.
It’s nice to have options: The option of what road to take, where to live, work, worship and how to control your own health care. But the freedom of choosing your own health care is under attack.
President Obama has been pushing very hard to get our country to adopt his public option for government run health care, that if enacted would eventually eliminate all other options. The proposal, over 1,000 pages long, is filled with rules and regulations concerning you and your family and how the government will wrest more control of your own lives.
I understand that the current way we pay for our health care is flawed – but let’s not reinvent the wheel just because the tire is flat. But when I see the pressure, the coercion behind this rush to take over our nation’s health care I keep coming back to the same question: Why? Why is there so much effort being extended to take over one-sixth of our economy? I believe it is because the government wants more power and control over our lives.
Try to exit that road once you’re on it. It would be slow, crowded, poorly maintained and stacked with toll-booths. Our health care would only go one-way – just like an interstate.
Within the past few days President Obama seems ready to temporarily shelve his idea of government-run health insurance. It appears that the voice of the American people may be making a difference. I guess enough people finally said “no you can’t,” and got off the Obama highway.
No one wants to voluntarily submit to captivity on a road that isn’t advancing and offers no options for an exit.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Ice Man
It’s a hot August night, so I put on some Neil Diamond and grab a drink. I usually won’t add ice to a drink. I like to let the temperature of the drink stand on its own – no need in trying to affect change just to suit me. If it is served right out of the box or bottle – well so be it. It may be a lazy choice, or it might be due to a childhood experience that has stayed with me.
I grew up in a neighborhood where fun and adventure was always available. There were abandoned brewery caves, horses corralled next door, a farm down the street, vacant lots, a tired-out gravel pit, a livestock sales barn, the river, an empty church with a full cemetery, highways and alleys, 106 kids and Hespy’s.
Hespy’s was a gas station on the corner of two busy streets. There were usually two uniformed men working there – Hespy, the owner, (a shortened version of his last name), and his faithful mechanic – Vern, I think. They proudly pumped Texaco brand gasoline.
Our lawn mower ran exclusively on Texaco gas. When the need arose I would grab the red one-gallon metal can marked gasoline and bike down to Hespy’s. Because it was a full-service gas station, Vern or Hespy himself would fill the can and take the 35 cents. While they did that I would check out the candy machine.
They had the best candy machine in town. For a nickel you could buy a candy bar the size of your arm. The machine was tall with a big dial on the side to rotate the display. Once your selection was brought into the right spot, you pulled the knob to release the sugary goodness. I would ride home with one hand holding the full gas can, the other hand maneuvering the bike, and my mouth full of candy.
But the single most vivid memory of Hespy’s involved the icehouse. Behind the gas station was an icehouse where you could buy ice in two different sizes: the block and the bag. Other than for ice-carving I still don’t fully understand the need for a block of ice.
As little boys my brother Dan and I would often go along with Dad to get ice. The short trip chilled us with fear and foreboding as Dad would fire our imaginations with stories of the little man that lived in the icehouse. If you gave him enough money he would give you some of his ice.
A vision of a Rumpelstiltskin-type character inhabiting the icehouse was usually more than enough to keep the two of us away. But one time we had worked up enough courage to seek a little adventure and see if this was just another of Dad’s stories.
We rode our bikes over to Hespy’s and slowly approached the icehouse. In addition to the smaller door where the ice was delivered there was a larger door – which we guessed was how the iceman got in and out.
Dan knocked on the door to test the truth of Dad’s story. We stood there for only a few seconds before the door slowly started to open. That was the only proof we needed – the iceman was coming. We screamed, jumped on our bikes and pedaled for our lives.
I don’t know who opened that door forty years ago. My friend Mark likes to remind me that “ice is life’s least expensive luxury.” But whenever I am offered ice for my drink I feel a familiar chill run down my back.
“No thanks,” I say.
I grew up in a neighborhood where fun and adventure was always available. There were abandoned brewery caves, horses corralled next door, a farm down the street, vacant lots, a tired-out gravel pit, a livestock sales barn, the river, an empty church with a full cemetery, highways and alleys, 106 kids and Hespy’s.
Hespy’s was a gas station on the corner of two busy streets. There were usually two uniformed men working there – Hespy, the owner, (a shortened version of his last name), and his faithful mechanic – Vern, I think. They proudly pumped Texaco brand gasoline.
Our lawn mower ran exclusively on Texaco gas. When the need arose I would grab the red one-gallon metal can marked gasoline and bike down to Hespy’s. Because it was a full-service gas station, Vern or Hespy himself would fill the can and take the 35 cents. While they did that I would check out the candy machine.
They had the best candy machine in town. For a nickel you could buy a candy bar the size of your arm. The machine was tall with a big dial on the side to rotate the display. Once your selection was brought into the right spot, you pulled the knob to release the sugary goodness. I would ride home with one hand holding the full gas can, the other hand maneuvering the bike, and my mouth full of candy.
But the single most vivid memory of Hespy’s involved the icehouse. Behind the gas station was an icehouse where you could buy ice in two different sizes: the block and the bag. Other than for ice-carving I still don’t fully understand the need for a block of ice.
As little boys my brother Dan and I would often go along with Dad to get ice. The short trip chilled us with fear and foreboding as Dad would fire our imaginations with stories of the little man that lived in the icehouse. If you gave him enough money he would give you some of his ice.
A vision of a Rumpelstiltskin-type character inhabiting the icehouse was usually more than enough to keep the two of us away. But one time we had worked up enough courage to seek a little adventure and see if this was just another of Dad’s stories.
We rode our bikes over to Hespy’s and slowly approached the icehouse. In addition to the smaller door where the ice was delivered there was a larger door – which we guessed was how the iceman got in and out.
Dan knocked on the door to test the truth of Dad’s story. We stood there for only a few seconds before the door slowly started to open. That was the only proof we needed – the iceman was coming. We screamed, jumped on our bikes and pedaled for our lives.
I don’t know who opened that door forty years ago. My friend Mark likes to remind me that “ice is life’s least expensive luxury.” But whenever I am offered ice for my drink I feel a familiar chill run down my back.
“No thanks,” I say.
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