Reality TV

Now, how I could write a weekly newspaper column without at least commenting on the war. Journalism, after all is the first draft of history. One problem is that we’re just not CNN. I write these things almost a week before you read them.

Last week’s column was in some mailboxes just a few hour before President Bush’s deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq. As I’m writing this (last Friday, March 21^st) I’m listening to National Public Radio report that the air campaign of "Shock and Awe" is just getting under way. By the time this edition officially is on sale, Thursday, March 27^th, the whole thing may well be over!

I am by no means vehemently opposed to this military solution, in fact I’ll stipulate that Hussein is dangerous and should be removed. I certainly and whole-heartedly support our servicemen and women, but you have to admit that, considering wars throughout history, this one is a little weird. I’ll go further than that and call it down right surreal.

First of all, whoever heard of a "preemptive war?" This is a new invention. One of the reasons so many people, including the French and Germans had (have) such a problem with the war is that in the history of the world, the people who" threw the first punch" were generally considered aggressors. Napoleon, for example.

Generally the "good guys" wait until their hit first before they hit back. John Wayne in "the Quiet Man," for example. I appreciate that 9-11 was a first punch, but it was a sucker punch from somebody other than Iraq. It’s just a little hard for some people to get past.

Then what made it more weird is how long we knew it was coming. In 1991 the first Gulf War was precipitated by several weeks of coalition-building and mobilization as we gave Hussein time to pull out of Kuait, but let’s face it, we’ve all known that this one was coming since last October. The news channels have scheduled their "Showdown with Iraq" shows since the holidays. Doesn’t that strike anyone else as odd? Think about every war from the Spanish American War through Vietnam, sure, in hindsight we can say that there were warning signs that trouble was brewing, but wars generally sneak up on us and surprise ya.

Remember the Maine, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin?

I’m not accusing the administration of propaganda or the media of profiteering, but you have to admit, we’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea of going to war..

I think that the weirdest thing of all has to be our being able to watch this as it happens. It’s the ultimate in "reality TV." Frankly, I feel like a voyeur. We’re all given the chance to be "armchair generals."

Think about it, thanks to satellites, we’ve been able to listen to the Iraqi Minister of Information make live statements to the press. The Wednesday night that the war started, we were watching live images of dawn in Baghdad via these traffic or weather cameras. Reporters talk to us from Baghdad itself and from ships in the Gulf and the battlefield itself via their video phones! The ultimate has to be the Tank-cams. It’s better than the dashboard cameras in NASCAR races.

It’s all been too strange. It can’t be natural. During the first Gulf War cynics commented that watching live coverage was like watching a video game. Today video games have cleaner, clearer graphics! Videotape and film of Vietnam had to fly through Hawaii and on to network offices in New York before the gruesome footage made it the "Living Room War."

I appreciate that the Pentagon and White House intend to minimize civilian casualties and that on the one hand war gets TV ratings yet National Security and the safety of our troops necessitates sterilizing the coverage we get to see, but I still think it’s been a bizarre show. I for one feel guilty for watching. Still, like so much reality television, it’s like a hangnail that you can’t leave alone.

I pray that it’s over soon, that we accomplish our objectives, perhaps more importantly, that we succeed in the nation building that will follow, and that this doesn’t come back to bite us like so many of our foreign policy decisions of the last fifty years have. Most of all, I pray that our comfort at home and prowess in battle don’t make it easier for us to wage virtual wars more frequently just because we can.

I am sure that when our new veterans come home they will earnestly tell us that on the ground and in person, war is still Hell, even if it makes good television.

Ah, Spring

Today is the very first day of Spring. Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of…

Thoughts of Baseball-

Opening day is just eleven days away, after all.

I was disappointed that my Diamondbacks traded our first baseman Erubiel Durazo to the Oakland A’s, but they gave us Pitcher Elmer Dessens. In spring training he hasn’t given up an earned run in 14 Cactus League games. We’ve needed a number-three starter, anyway.

I understand that our new starting first baseman, Lyle Overbay was hitting .343 in Triple A ball last year. I still like to see Mark Grace on first base, especially after he tried pitching that one game last year!

Of course, there’s still the 1-2 punch of the ‘Back’s big guns Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. Scouts say that as old as he is, they’ve never seen Johnson as good as he’s been this spring.

I’ve heard that my fellow Shadow Mountain High School Alum, Curt Schilling has been dieting and trying things like aerobics and yoga or tai chi in order to loose some weight. Not that anyone with as many strike outs as him needs to improve that much, but I hear he’s looking at the long haul. He’s been watching Randy and wants to emulate his longevity.

I’ve been trying to get up earlier to spend time on the treadmill and have been cutting back on second-helpings too, since Lent started. Don’t look for too much results-wise until at least the All-Star break!

Of course, there’s also slugger Luis Gonzalez. He’s over his shoulder injury and I think that Barry Bonds had better be ready to defend his record.

Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of…

Thoughts of War-

This may be apocryphal, but if you hadn’t heard this one, we’ve won the war even though it hasn’t started yet. Remember last week’s column when I mentioned that Andrew Jackson fought the battle of New Orleans two weeks after the War of 1812 was already over? Well, apparently a while the British were on maneuvers in Kuwait when a group of Iraqi soldiers came rushing across the border waving a white flag and offering to surrender. The Englishmen had to tell them that they’d need to wait a few weeks until the war starts first!

But you know, we may not realize what we’re up against. The Russian newspaper Pravda published a report that Saddam is reverse-engineering an UFO that crashed outside of Baghdad back in 90’s. Pravda reports that aliens are guests at one of Huusein’s palaces. They’ve bio-engineered scorpions the size of cows to serve as guard dogs! I for one would hate to be a U.N. inspector near that palace!

No wonder the Russians didn’t want to vote with the U.S. for a Security Council resolution giving Iraq a deadline that would result in military action. Listen, if it’s in Pravda, it must be true, right. At least we know they’re not a propaganda machine of the USSR anymore, since there is no USSR.

Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of…

Thoughts of Summer, of course-

The nicest thing about cold weather, is that kids don’t calmer so much to get outside. Junior high school students are, of course the worst, but the warmer the weather and the more high school students seem to want to be anywhere but in class. It’s not even that I’m ready for school to be out, so much as it seems to get tougher and tougher to focus on getting the young ones to focus now that the windows are open again.

In like a lion, out like a lamb

Is March supposed to come in like a lion, and go out like a lamb? Is the opposite also true- in like a lamb etc.? So, does this idiom apply just to the first day of March, which was pretty pleasant this year, or to the first week or so? Shrove Tuesday brought a blizzard with at least six inches of snow!

Does it apply to things other than the weather? Since we didn’t invade Iraq under the new moon of early March, like some analysts predicted, will we be fighting before the month is out, or will diplomacy continue to dominate the headlines?

Either way, the old adage got me to thinking about almanacs. You know, almanacs, those nifty periodicals full of trivia and fluff that editors of other publications sometimes use as "filler." Some of you may be finally finding one for seasonal advice on your spring selection of buds and bulbs.

I’m always interested in what they say about what’s happened or what’s happening.

For instance, did you know that the Girl Scouts of America was organized 91 years ago yesterday (Wed. 3/12)? Or that this Saturday (3/14) back in 1767 was the birthday of our seventh president, Andrew Jackson? He was the general who won the Battle of New Orleans during the war of 1812, of course that was a couple of weeks AFTER a peach treaty had been signed

Like our current president he faced a close election. In 1824, Congress broke a tie in the Electoral College, giving the presidency to John Quincy Adams, the last son of a president to become president. Jackson came back to wollup Adams in 1828. That ended the "era of good feelings" and the only dominant party of the time, the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrat’s and some other "Whig" thing or something that eventually would evolve into Lincoln’s Republicans.

Beware of Saturday, it's the "Ides of March," the day Julius Caesar was murdered in the Roman Senate, in 44 B.C. He had been ordered to surrender his power; instead, he crossed the Rubicon river and started a civil war. His arrogance turned Senators against him. According to Shakespeare, Ceasar was warned by a soothsayer that he would die on that day.

There wasn’t really anything special about that day. It turns out that the word "ides" is just a Latin term for the half-way point in the month. The Ides are on the 15th in March, May, July, and October and the 13th in other months. But nobody aver says "beware the ides of April." Probably because April’s ides are on the 13th and most of us fear April 15th more than a trip to the dentist! "Beware the ides od May!" See? It’s just not as scary.

Years ago, before the IRS moved their deadline for filing to April, Americans did fear the ides of March. Jack Benny used to tell a joke about St. Patrick’s Day, "how can you celebrate the wearing of the green, when two days before, the government took it all away from ya." My guess is that it was a dumb joke even back in the 50’s.

My favorite quote attributed to St. Patrick is this, "I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty came and in his mercy, raised me." It’s pretty much a paraphrase of Psalm 40:2 "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."

A pastor once told me that the original Hebrew doesn’t say mire, it says something closer to manure, or malarkey, which are still polite euphemisms for what the Bible really says.

Malarkey is what most Irishmen are full of. There’s another old adage that says "on St. Patrick’s Day, there are two kinds of people in this world, those who are Irish, and those who wish they were." Having survived many an Irish temper at various family gatherings my whole life, I think it ought to be changed to, "there are two kinds of people in this world, those who with they were Irish- and those who know better."

The Old Farmer’s Almanac warned us that our heaviest snowfalls this year would be in early March. Hopefully March will go out like a lamb after all, they say warm with thunderstorms. But you may as well know, they predict that April will be cooler than normal, followed by a warm May.

"A cold April, The Barn will fill." said Ben Franklin ("Poor" Richard Saunders) in his almanac. Not being a farmer, I have no idea what he meant by that. Does it just mean that the animals don’t want to be outside in the cold? Duh. Or does it mean, they’ll all be snuggling and getting romantic because it’s cold, so your livestock will have a lot of offspring?

This week was supposed to be cold with rain and snow showers, next week may bring more rain.

In case you were wondering.

A great place to grow

6 He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
Who can withstand his icy blast?
18 He sends his word and melts them;
he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.

~Psalm 147: 16-18 (NIV)

Just wanted to give you a little hope that as mean as March may be, this too shall pass and eventually we’ll be mowing the grass!

This is "National Lutheran Schools Week (March 2-8)." The theme this year for Missouri Synod schools is "A Great Place to Grow."

Some of you are wondering why I’m bothering to write about this since some of you are Catholic, Methodist, something else or don’t attend any Church and we don’t really have a Lutheran K-8 in Ute or Charter Oak. The reason I’m bothering is because it’s something very close to my heart, so please give me a chance and read on.

Many of our readers once attended St. John’s Lutheran School in Charter Oak and it left an indelible mark on them. The reason is because it was a great place to grow.

I attended Christ Lutheran School in Phoenix from Kindergarten through eighth grade. I believe that receiving a Christ-centered education gave me solid ethical, intellectual, creative, and social foundation.

Valley Lutheran High was brand new when I was ready for High School, so I didn’t want to take a chance on it,. That may have been a mistake because with 2,600 students Shadow Mountain High School may have been able to offer more programs and resources, but it was unable to offer the individual attention, genuine care and sense of community that Christ Lutheran did.

Because of my work on the school newspaper, in Commercial Art class, and Art Club at S.M., Professor Bill Wolfram of Concordia College in Seward Nebraska recruited me for their Art Department. Seward not only has the best Art program of the ten Concordias nationwide, we have one of the most prestigious departments in the Midwest- even compared to big universities and vocational schools.

Charter Oak seems to have sent a disproportionate number of students to Seward over the years, so the odds favored me finding a spouse from here. Bethany and I got married amidst Charter Oak’s Centennial. After graduation we were called to serve as "Commissioned Ministers of the Gospel: Teachers" at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr high School.

I admit, at first we felt like God had sent us to Nineveh. Not only did we suffer culture shock, but our apartment was destroyed in the Northridge Earthquake. We were ready to leave before the first year was up, but our pastor there counseled us to tough it out. I’m glad we did.

We didn’t see it as a job, we saw it as a calling, a vocation, a mission and ministry. We didn’t just teach and coach kids, we listened to, cared for, cried with, held, counseled, prayed for and prayed with students from all walks of life. What’s more, our own faiths were nurtured and fed through our fellowship with our fellow faculty members and diverse and dynamic worship opportunities on and off campus. We even saw several students brought to Christ and baptized during our weekly Chapel services.

This year we’re facing some milestones. Because we have been teaching in public schools now for three years, the Church has taken our names of it’s official roster of commissioned teachers. L.A. Lutheran is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary, and the last group of student we taught there will be graduating this May.

I don’t know much about Zion Lutheran Elementary in Denison. I do know that it means a lot to me that my daughter Grace is not just learning about letters and colors at Noah’s Ark Pre-School, she is also learning about Jesus’ love for her and how He wants us to love each other.

If the proponents of "bigger is better" ever get their way and we eliminate all the 1A and 2A high schools in Iowa, I hope and pray that the Churches of our communities will consider cooperating in the establishment of a Christian Charter School in Charter Oak.

Martin Luther supported the concept of universal education because he believed that everyone should be taught to read. He believed everyone should read be taught to read so that they can read the Bible for themselves, so that each person can know a personal relationship with the Lord. Whether it’s in a Lutheran, Catholic, or Public School or home schooling, I can think of nothing more important than education.

Please consider contributing to a Lutheran school. It’s tax deductible. Go to www.dcs.lcms.org/school/info.html to find out more. Even if you never take the opportunity to support a Lutheran school financially, PLEASE, encourage your children to value their education no matter what kind of school they go to. And please support their teachers and administrators, support them with prayer, with respect, with time, with your vote, and with appreciation, no matter what kind of school they teach in.

You know you’re not a kid anymore…

Well, it’s official. I'm old. Last week a student asked me for help filling out a scholarship application. I was happy to oblige, thinking they needed help writing an essay, or maybe just my recommendation. That wasn’t it. They needed more practical help than that. Their entire life, they'd never had to use an electric typewriter!

I have a cousin who once told me that he didn’t take anything I said too seriously because no one in their twenties knows what they’re talking about anyway. Three years ago I passed into my thirties and he may take me more seriously now, but for some reason, I can no longer get anyone under thirty to even listen to me anymore.

It is for this reason, that I am pleased to present you with this week’s column, sort of an homage to Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Know You’re a Red-Neck If…” routine, if you will. It’s dedicated to those of you born after the baby boom, but before Star Wars.

You know you’re not a kid anymore if…

…some kid asks you how to use a typewriter.

…if ANY music that teenagers play is too loud.

…if all the music YOU listened to in school can now only be found on radio stations with names like “Lite, Mix, Star, or Classic.”

…if you listen to more and more Country music and less and less of the music you used to listen to.

…Country music sounds more like the music you USED to listen to than what kids call Rock and Pop these days.

…if two of your favorite Country music songs are "Nineteen something" by Mark Wills or “My next thirty years” by Tim McGraw.

…if more of your hair is in your brush than on your head.

…if more of your hair is on your back than on you head.

…if your what hair you have comes in more than one shad, and you didn’t put anything on it to make it that way.

…you tape Leno, Letterman, or Saturday Night Live because you just can’t stay up that late.

…you really do drink Diet Coke “just for the taste of it.”

…you remember that ad campaign.

…you don’t want to sleep on the floor or the couch because you won’t be able to walk the next day if you do.

…you don’t get excited about buying alcohol, tobacco, or adult materials.

…you don’t bother buying alcohol, tobacco, or adult materials because you can’t afford them.

…instead of fantasizing about the sports cars, clothes and stereo equipment you’d buy if you won the lottery, you fantasize about paying off your debts, getting a mini-van, and doing some repair work on your house.

You know you’re not a kid anymore when…

…the one time you stay up late enough to watch Letterman, you realize that “Ferris Bueller” has more grey hair than you do.

…you accept the fact that you’ll never be as thin as any of the members of the cast of “Friends,” and you’ll also never see as much money in ten years as each of them make per episode.

…and you can live with that.

…you remember when you had to go to an arcade and pay a quarter to play a video game.

…you probably won’t have to worry about being drafted if the Iraq and Korea things turn into WWIII.

…you remember what Michael Jackson looked like before his “two” plastic surgeries.

…you remember the FIRST Space Shuttle launch.

You know you’re not a kid anymore when…

…your class reunions are into double-digits.

…you’ve noticed that the styles of clothing you wore in school are coming back!

Alternative Holiday

So, tomorrow night’s the big night. Did you get your special someone a special something? Good for you, P.T. Barnum was right, there’s one of you born every minute. Never has there been a more overly commercialized holiday in America, and Americans know how to over commercialize their holidays.

I’m sorry, maybe it’s because in high school I was always the guy girls’ mothers approved of but the girls themselves all wanted me as “just friends,” but Valentine’s Day always brings out the curmudgeon in me.

What do you think you’re celebrating exactly anyway? A massacre? In Chicago in 1929, seven men from mobster "Bugs" Moran’s gang were lined up against a wall in a garage and riddled with bullets by “Machine Gun" McGurn and other members of Al Capone’s gang. Capone was lounging around lavishly in Florida, while McGun and his boys drove to the garage in a stolen police car and wore police uniforms.

In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honor Juno, Queen of the Roman gods and godess of marriage. On Juno’s Day the names of Roman girls were written down and placed in jars. Each boy in town would get to draw a girl's name out and would have to be “partners” with that girl during a festival that took place the following week. Emperor Claudius II thought that the reason he had a hard time getting recruits for Rome’s army was that they didn’t want to leave their girls so he cancelled all marriages and engagements.

Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome at the time and secretly married couples. He was arrested and condemned him to death by being beaten with clubs and decapitated. He was executed on February 14th, 270 A.D. What a lovely thing to celebrate with a Hallmark card.

Legend has it that he left a farewell note for his jailer's daughter, and signed it "From Your Valentine". As if! Please, you don’t think some Hallmark junior executive down at their HQ in Kansas City didn’t make that one up?

And what’s up with the whole Cupid thing? He was a Greek god, the son of Venus. Or was it Aphrodite? I can never keep straight what the Romans renamed their Greek gods. Cupid’s other name was Eros- as in erotic. There’s a myth that says he fell in love with a human girl named Psyche, as in your mind, your powers of reason- see this is why I think most Greco-Roman myths were really allegories.

Anyway, I guess Venus was jealous of Psyche’s beauty, and ordered Cupid to punish her. Instead, he fell in love with her and married her. There’s a family that could get on Rikki Lake or Montel Williams! I guess interspecies marriage was a no-no for the gods so as a mortal she was forbidden to look at him, maybe because he looked like a tiny little baby with wings. Who marries someone without ever seeing them? At least they couldn’t say it was love at first sight.

If you’re as irritated with all the cutsie-wootsie ness of this so-called holiday, or if you’re just cynical about throwing all kinds of money into a more-or-less made-up holiday, then I have an alternative for you. Arizona Statehood Day. That’s right, my home-planet became the forty-eighth state on February 14, 1912. Before you poo-poo this idea because you weren’t born there, just consider a few things. Wyatt Erp was from Iowa. You know, shoot-out at the O.K. Coral Wyatt Erp. So, see, our two states have sort of a natural connection. Arizona has produced the likes of Barry Goldwater, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and John McCain, so that should appeal to all the Republicans we have here in Iowa’s Fifth District. And let’s face it, when people decide to retire somewhere warmer than Iowa, where do most of them go? Uh-huh, that’s right, Arid-Zone-a.

What better way to warm you and your sweetie’s hearts than with sunny thoughts of the land of cactus and sand. We could even celebrate with Mexican food and margaritas instead of those stupid candy hearts. You know that spicy food would be just the thing to fight off the February freeze we have to put up with in Iowa. So join me and all my fellow “Zonies” tomorrow by celebrating Arizona Statehood Day instead of that other, out-dated, over commercialized, sappy excuse for a holiday. You’ll be glad you did.

Hold on, before you all start sending my wife sympathy cards, I want you to know that I already got her some very nice, even romantic gifts. She’s covered. Besides, she knows I love her 365 days a year, not just one, like the rest of those saps’ wives who celebrate that OTHER holiday.

Happy Presidential Birth Month

We’ve made it to February. The almanacs are telling us that this month will bring us some of the worst weather of the winter. The national media have been telling us that the 2004 Presidential election race has already begun. Since our Iowa Caucuses are slated for Jan. 19 of next year, we’re already being visited by a bevy of baby-kissers.

This may be jumping the gun a little, so I thought I’d jump the gun too. President’s day may be a couple of weeks away, but I thought this was as good a time as any to spend some time thinking about Presidents.

Of course President’s Day is a combination holiday commemorating two of our greatest leaders George Washington, born February 22, 1731 and Abraham Lincoln February 12,1809. Congress made third Monday in February became President’s day in 1968. In 1972, President Nixon proclaimed that it was it recognition of all past Presidents. Personally, I think Lincoln and Washington deserve a holiday, but Nixon doesn’t. Whoever you are, whether Republican or Democrat, can you imagine Bill Clinton getting his own holiday?

That’s not to say that George and Abe were saints. Lincoln was prone to bouts of depression, not that you could blame him. Lets face it, if TV were around in 1860 there’s no way Americans would have given this guy a chance. Some historians are suspicious that one of Washington’s lady friends may have been more than just a friend and some people who met him thought he was very aloof, even snobby. We honor them not for everything that was wrong with them, but for the legacies they left us.

They were human and if they were around today they’d each be the first to admit that. One of the legacies that Washington left us was leaving office after two terms. He knew he was human and that no human should have too much power for too long. Wise man.

Did you know that February is also the birth-month of two other Presidents? The ninth President, William Henry Harrison was born Feb. 9, 1773

He was the first president to die during his term of office, which lasted exactly one month. Seems he gave a two hour inauguration address in the rain and developed pneumonia. He was a hero from the Indian Wars. Turns out that when Harrison was elected President in 1840, the Indian leader Tecumseh placed a curse on him, saying that every president elected in a year that ends with a zero will die while in office.

Harrison died while in office, as did Lincoln, elected in 1860, Garfield, elected in 1880, Mckinley, elected in 1900, Harding, elected in 1920, Roosevelt, elected in 1940, and John F. Kennedy, elected in 1960. Reagan, elected in 1980, broke the curse, but was almost assassinated while in office. Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1911.

Henry A. Wallace was born October 7, 1888. He was President Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President from 1941-1945 but the Democratic Party ditched him for Harry Truman, which is too bad. I think he would’ve made a pretty good President and he was from Iowa. But we’ll never know. Maybe the actual week of President’s day I’ll devote a column to people who coulda-woulda-shoulda been president.

Bess Truman was born in February. February 13, 1938. Come to find out that her maiden name was Wallace, but was no relation.

Neither John Adams or John Quincy Adams were born in February, but Henry Adams was, Feb. 16, 1838, but he decided to become a teacher and writer instead of going into politics. Smart move, politics has a way of becoming fatal.

Teddy Kennedy was born on Feb. 22, 1932. Needless to say, he ran for president a few times but never even won his party’s nomination. I wonder sometimes what America would’ve been like if either of his brothers hadn’t been assassinated, but you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to hear about that.

Maybe Michael Jordan should run for President. He’d get Chicago’s vote. He was born February 17, 1963, but again, that could be a whole other column.

I sometimes wonder what it would’ve been like if Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles had ran as the Republican’s candidate against John Kennedy in 1960 instead of Nixon. He had an airport named after him until they renamed it after President Reagan. Dulles was born on February 25th, 1888. I graduated in 1988 and my birthday is on the 25th, but I’d rather be a teacher and writer than go into politics. I’m sure you’re all relieved

What about Mike?

The strangest things can take you back, can’t they. A couple of weeks ago I was watching Boyer Valley get beaten by the West Harrison Hawkeyes and something sent me back to L.A.

I was doing my best to ignore the perennial emotional melodramas that cheerleaders seem to have to go through. It was just to hard to concentrate to much on the game since we were down by twenty points. So of all things I started noticing the back of some kid’s head.

Mind you, I’m not in the habit of looking at the backs of kids’ heads. It was a basketball player with a shaved head. It reminded me of Mike’s head.

Mike Merrill was an incredibly tall kid with a shaved head like this West Harrison kid, only taller. He had an Adam’s apple and a bit of a slouch so that he kind of reminded you of one of those cartoon vultures in Disney movies. In spite of that, he wasn’t a scrawny kid. Mike was pre-enlisted to become a Marine.

Mike’s Dad was in the Corps. Mike’s Grandpa served in Korea. Nobody could remember his first name, he was known only as “Sarge.” Sarge came to all of Mike’s Football games . We didn’t have a regulation length field, so we played our games on Saturday afternoons at the Baptist high school. Sarge sat in the hot California sun in his lawn chair with a beach umbrella to protect his white flat-top.

Sarge came to junior high games too since Mike’s little sister was a cheerleader. Friday evenings when the wind blew through the foothills it could make you shiver. Sarge would remind us that we didn’t know real cold if we didn’t fight in Korea. I knew as a history teacher that he knew what he was talking about. Each winter campaign from 1950-53 rivaled WWII’s Battle of the Bulge for the brutal cold and grueling storms.

My Dad was fortunate. When he was in the Marines during the Korean War, he was stationed on an air craft carrier in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His dad was too old for active service during WWII, so he worked in the aircraft factories outside of Detroit. My Mom’s Dad served in the Navy in the Aleutian Islands. I, thank God was born during Vietnam, rather than 17 years earlier.

Military service never really occurred to me. Most of my generation was expected to go from high school to college, even if it was a two year college, it was an unspoken rule, an assumed expectation. No doubt just as military service, at least was National Guard service was an unspoken expectation of the generations before mine.

I’d seen several student enter the Army or Marine Corps before Mike Merrill. Usually they came back to Homecoming different, more respectful, more responsible, more poised, men. Andrew Beyang was a Malaysian-American student who became a Ranger in the First Airborne. He came back to my U.S. History class with a recruiting sergeant to talk about basic training. They actually showed video footage of soldiers throwing up after a poison gas endurance test. What a way to win over volunteers.

Last summer I received an email from a college classmate in Nebraska. Tom was joining the reserves. He said that after 9/11 he felt like he had to do something. He had always been into Civil War reenactment, so I figured he was in good enough shape to hack it. The last time I’d seen him he was working on his Master’s and he was an inspiring teacher , so I figure they’ll make him an officer. Still, it seemed odd to me.

“You’re 32 years old,” I thought, “you have two little kids at home. Are you nuts? A weekend-a-month, a month-a-year? Aren’t you spread thin enough between Church and school and coaching and reenactments? Besides, we’re at war, sort of, with these weird terrorists, you could, well, die.”

But I didn’t tell him that. I told him I admired him. I thanked him for service and sacrifice and I meant it, but I can’t help paying closer attention to the news when the latest troop mobilizations are announced. He’s a dear friend. How can I not worry.

The last I’d heard Mike Merrill was stationed in Okinawa, Japan. But where are Justin, Andrew, Rick, and any of the other kids I’ve taught over the years? Who says Okinawa is safe, just because it’s not in the Persian Gulf? It’s probably less than 600 miles from Soul, Korea.

When Tom and I were in elementary school we were scared to death of a nuclear war. I thought that fear had died along with the Soviet Union. Now, it seems that North Korea may have missiles capable of targeting the western United States.

As a high school student in the eighties I naively longed for the controversy of the sixties and seventies, but by college I was glad that I wasn’t faced with having to fight or take a stand in opposition to the Vietnam War. I’m still amazed at what good friends my uncles are. One who was a medic in Vietnam and one who fled to Canada.

I don’t doubt that Saddam Hussein is a genuine threat and I certainly don’t approve of dictatorships, but I’m not convinced that some of our current President’s rhetoric hasn’t been reckless. I think that positive, proactive engagement is always more productive than broad threats and angry assertions. And we may not be hypocritical imperialists like so many pacifists accused us of being during Vietnam, but I can sure see how half the Arab world might see us that way, while we support one nation’s dictator while staging a “pre-emptive” war to oust another.

So here we are, U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix reports to the U.N. Security Council this Monday, Jan. 27. Many analysts, pundits, and experts expect that to be when President Bush makes the decision of Mike Merrill’s life. At least 60 to 250,000 American troops, Men, Women, boys and girls may be about to go to war. The first Gulf War took place in February too.

I think we should support our troops and pray for them like we did during the first Gulf War. Vietnam Vets didn’t deserve all of the hatred and anger unleashed on them upon their return home. But war isn’t something we should be enthusiastic about and we shouldn’t support our political leaders blindly.

All I know is, I wish all that Mike Merrill had to worry about was still where to take his cheerleader girlfriend for a date after the game.

As I was saying

As I was saying... (say, that would’ve been a good title for the column. “Ted’s Column” is so plain. I thought about “Mallory’s Mind,” but I decided that was to pretentious.)

As I was saying... sex, politics, and religion are difficult to talk about without offending people, but I think they’re the most important things to write about. Last month, one of my students wrote an editorial for our school newspaper. His opinion was that student’s should think twice before becoming too sexually active as teens. He cited an article in Newsweek that noted that sexually transmitted diseases are a huge risk, even if you don’t “score,” but are only getting to “third base.” The student author, without making any religious or moral judgment, shared his opinion that sex should NOT be considered just another leisure activity.

You would not BELIEVE how many students were outraged that we’d print such a thing. One even threatened to drag me before the school board unless I told her the name of the student who wrote it.

She said to me “Well, how would you feel about it if someone wrote something against God or something?”

I was thinking to myself, “so sex is YOUR god?” What I said was something more along the lines of...

“There are more than 6.5 Billion people on the planet right now, I doubt that more than a third of those are Christian, so what? So no one should publish anything if SOMEONE somewhere might be offended by it?”

What followed was an invigorating discussion about the first amendment. That’s an opportunity I hadn’t had since I taught U.S. History, so I relished it.

My point is, I hope I haven’t offended too many of you with my column, and I hope I don’t in the weeks to come. Chances are, I already have and I probably will. Please write in and tell us. Challenge my thinking, express yourself. This is YOUR community newspaper, you ought to participate in it. I know Mike Lyon, our publisher will enjoy it if you do. We love to print letters to the editor.

As I was saying... or was just about to say last week. Ellie wasn’t sure what to make of the holidays. It seemed like the celebrating would never end. But why don’t I let her tell it:

Holiday Hullabaloo By Ellen Mallory

First of all, what’s the deal with my big people dressing me up in a bee suit so that I can hardly move and hauling me around from neighbor to neighbor so my big sister, Gracie could collect candy? The whole thing bored me, I fell asleep after the second neighbor.

Thanxgetting was fun. I grew two more teeth and learned how to crawl down stairs. All the big people did was eat and sleep and watch other people play games on TV. I don’t know what they were all eating. I ate cat food. Mommy and Aunt Brenda didn’t want me to eat cat food. I don’t know what the big deal was. I saw kitty eat lots of big people food.

Then my Greatest-Pappa Adolph’s turned something called “eighty.” He didn’t look like he turned anything. I got to dance with my because-ins in the doorway of a rest n’ rant.

Then we all stood in line for a long time to see this scary old man called Sanity Claws. He already knew my name even though I’d never had met him afore. And he was all dressed in red and wanted to put me on his lap. Excuse me? I don’t think so. Daddy laughed and said I must be Claus-traphobic. I still don’t get it.

Pretty soon my big people said it was my turn to turn something. They said I turned something called “won.” I must have won because all of my because-ins brought me prizes. I liked the ribbons and bows, but I wasn’t very interested in unwrapping them.

So then my big people put this big huge colorful thing in front of me. “Now what?” I thought. Eventually I figured out you could eat it AND paint with it too. That was great. My big people took lots of pictures of me eating my big colorful thing. That was after all my because-ins sang at me. Plus I got a big ball that floats up to the ceiling. It stayed by the ceiling for a long time.

After my Gracie and my because-ins and me played with a baby sitter. I didn’t see her sit on any babies, she just played with us. I guess my Grammy and Pappa have a really old wedding or something because they had a partly to celebrate their four teeth Annie first story.

Daddy said it was neat because somebody said, “Well, I guess we’ve run around together and our folks ran around together and their folks ran around together for near a hundred years.” Daddy said that’s one of the things that’s so neat about this town.

Anyway everybody there must have turned won because Grammy gave them all a prize. The flu, only first she got it first. I got it too and that wasn’t any fun. Mommy and Daddy thought I was getting more teeth onna count of how my bottom turned red. I got to drink this stuff called Petey-light instead of formula. It was purple.

Uncle Mark says its funny how our famlee always gets flu on Christmas time.

Before that though my because-in Nolan turned something too. Something called five. He got cool prizes like toy tractors. I like to play with his green tractors. I make them say Shhhhpppzzzzzzzfg. Our Greatest Grandma Cuddles thinks everybody at a party should get prizes. Daddy thought only Nolan should have gots prizes at Nolans party. Daddy says its no use cause you can’t tell an old German anyting.

Then Mommy and Daddy stopped going away in the morning. I liked that. One day we all went to Grammy and Pappa’s farm and all our because-ins were there too. Everybody got lots and lots of prizes and ate lots and lots too.

Then HE came. That Sanity Claws again. He came to my Grammy and Pappa’s farm! How did he know where they live? He’s scary.

He gave people prizes and they laughed and Pappa wanted me to go see Sanity Claws again. I struggled as much as I could to get away. I arched my back to try to break free. Now Pappa likes to call me “Archie” since I arched my back.

One of the best things about Christmas is that they grow a whole tree right in your house. Overnight. You wake up one morning and there it is. I like to pick the shiny fruit off of our inside tree. But you can’t eat it. In fact Mommy and Daddy take it away from you every time and put it back on the tree only higher so you can’t reach it.

I think I heard Daddy singing about it, “The first Noel-en, No!.”

Only I fixed them. One day when daddy was reading and Gracie was playing with one of her prizes, I grabbed onto a branch and pulled the inside tree down so I could reach the shiny fruit on top. Most of them broke. Daddy made me sit in a big chair while he picked up all the broken shiny fruit. He said something about a “time-out.”

Anyway, I know I didn’t hurt it too bad, because When I woke up the next morning, it had grown lots and lots of prizes under it! But a day later it was gone.

My Grandma Mallory says when Uncle Bart was my age he beat their inside-tree up with a broom because he was so scared of it. I heard Gracie say that the prizes under the tree came from Sanity Claws, so I think Uncle Bart was right to be so ascared. Anyway, we haven’t had a tree inside our house since the day after Christmas.

The End.

Sex, Politics, and Religion

A few people have asked me, “how do you decide what to write about?” Last week it was by turning on the news in the morning and hearing the startling claim that humans had been cloned.

Most weeks I would have to answer with the old English teacher’s question; “why do writers write?” Ideas just come and I need to get them out. I either write about it, or bore my students I suppose.

A compliment was passed on to me about the column recently. Someone had mentioned that they thought it was good to have someone writing about religion and politics “and things like that” in our newspaper- Thus this week’s headline.

They’re the three things we aren’t supposed to talk about in polite company, but if you don’t what else is there to talk about? In high school, things like cars, stereos, bands, and sports facts didn’t stick in my mind long enough or well enough to be able to carry on a conversation very well with most of my peers. I watched CNN like other guys watched ESPN.

Here, I’m at even more of a conversational disadvantage. I don’t know much about agriculture and even after living here two years (and being married-into the community for 12) I still can’t remember everybody’s names, faces, families, jobs, spouses, kids illnesses and histories. How do you keep track of everybody?

So, should we just talk about the weather? Been nice. Got colder lately. Yep, Mm Hmm.

Mind you, one has to be CAREFUL how one discusses sex, politics, and religion.

I know a woman who lives in a mostly Catholic town, she drew up Methodist but she’s taking classes to become a Lutheran Pastor (ELCA, not LCMS.) Did I mention that she’s served as a Labor Union representative for contract negotiations? She is also the mother of triplets!

There. I talked about all three, sex, politics, AND religion, all in one paragraph. You may not like unions, you may not think women should be pastors, but the fact that I’m aquatinted with she and her husband shouldn’t offend you. Does it? Will you forgive me and continue to read this column? I sure hope so.

Thank you for reading. And thank you to those of you who have either said something to me in person or who’s comments or complements have gotten around to me second or third hand.

I’ve always wanted a chance to do this, so it means a lot to me if you enjoy it. I hope I’ve given you some chuckles, made you think about something in a new way, or maybe even tugged your heart string once in a while.

I also want to say thank you to all you expatriates. We have many, many readers outside of Ute and Charter Oak. Thank you Herb Neddermeyer for sending us your thank you a few weeks ago. Herb has been renewing his subscription for decades. How’s the weather in Fairfield, California Herb?

Herb, I was thinking about you while I watched the Rose Parade from Pasadena last week. That sapphire and cobalt blue sky must be due to all the rain you’ve been having. Then it started snowing during the bowl games and I remembered how beautiful our rolling hills are around here, like a painting most days. You really don’t know what you’re missing if you haven’t been back “home” lately, Herb.

There, now I’ve talked about the weather AND sports. All I needed was some practice. Hello to ALL the folks who no longer live in the area, but still read the NEWSpaper.

We have cousins, originally from Ricketts that live near Charter Oak, California. Then there are all you folks who moved away when you retired or when you went to college. Hello to you, and thanks for reading. On Tuesdays, when they stuff and fold and label these papers, it’s fun to think about the distant places they’re mailed to.

Hello to all you college kids. I’ve always felt that you’re not just graduates of COU, you’re alumni of the towns too. I hope you keep in touch and think of Charter Oak and Ute as places to come back to, not just places to get away from. When you dorove home for break this year, did you see the lights they put on the Ute sign on the east side of town? Cute huh? Hey, did you ever stop to think that you can’t even say “cute,” without saying “Ute?”

How can I forget to say hello to Aunt Marylin and Uncle Mike? She saves all her NEWSpapers and makes sure to pass them along so the whole family gets to read them.

You should know that I actually thought about naming this column “Sex, Politics, and Religion,” but I was afraid that might scare some people off. I was going to just call it “The Column,” but I thought that was too generic. By the way, thank you to the gentleman who wrote to “Ted Lyon.” Mike Lyon is the publisher, he’s much taller than I am.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to try to make these columns shorter, they always end up being about one page typed. But many people make suggestions.

Jackie likes it when I write about my daily commute to Dunlap on L51. Of course, Boyer Valley has been on Christmas Break, same as COU, so I haven’t been able to drive it, let alone write about it.

My brother-in-law Mark was waiting to see my daughter Ellie show up in the column. But two things have just happened, I just got to the end of this page and she just woke up from her nap and has started dismantling the den.

You’ll just have to read about her Christmas misadventures next week.

Brave New World

Happy New Year, welcome to the future. No, you’re awake, you’re not dreaming and you’re not hung over from your New Year’s Eve celebrating. You’re really here, in the twenty-first century. Worst of all, there’s no going back in time. Like Buck Rogers, you’re stuck in the future, you have been for a couple years now.

No, no flying cars yet, maybe your kids are talking to their friends on their Visa-Phone though. They call it a “web-cam,” the technology hasn’t quite caught up to what we used to see on the Jetson’s or Star Trek, but it’s getting there. Hungry? Throw some pre-prepared, vitamin-fortified, chemically-preserved breakfast into your microwave; what would’ve taken your Grandma all morning can be done in two minutes.

I just checked the news on my personal home computing station. The 24 hour world news services are reporting that Bishop Boisselier of the Raelian church held a press conference to report that they have successfully cloned the first human. They call her “Eve.” I don’t know if that’s just ironic, in homage, or straight-out blasphemous.

Many was the time when I was bad when y folks would tell me, “you’re gonna have children some day, and I hope they behave just like you!” God help Clone-Eve’s Mommy, she really WILL be EXACTLY like her. Who knows, maybe when she gets older she’ll run off and join a cult that believes that all life on Earth was started by the bio-engineering of Extra-Terrestrials and get pregnant with their experiment too.

I guess the ultimate goal of the Raelians is to live forever. They want to continue their experiments till they can clone a fully matured adult body and transfer their brains from their old, worn out human body, into their new and improved clone body. But anyone who’s ever used a Xerox machine knows that a copy of a copy is never as crisp as the original.

Ethicists, philosophers, theologians, and Star Wars & Star Trek aficionados have all been wresting with this one for a while. Do clones have souls? Are clones monsters? Are they entitled to equal protection under the law? Fifty years from now, will a Senate Majority leader have to step down for having supported clone segregation? Does Roe v. Wade mean it’s legal to abort clones? Would that be a sin, though?

What if a clone’s parents get divorced, who gets custody? Is your clone your child or your twin? If your clone starts dating your spouse behind your back, will it get you on the Jerry Springer Show? If you disown your clone, does that mean you hate yourself? How many clones will end up in therapy? Who can they blame for their problems? Not their mother- their cell-donor?

When Clone-Eve is in High School, will she object if her literature teacher requires her to read ‘The Boys From Brazil?’ Can clones believe in God? If a clone wins the Powerball lottery, does she have to share it with herself- I mean , her donor.

Will Diane Sawyer and ABC News have a holiday follow-up show about Clone-Eve’s life every year like they do on the Dilly Sextuplets? Will Formula and Diaper companies donate a year’s supply of baby care needs for Eve and her donor?

It’s too much to ponder. Let’s think about the future instead. What will 2003 hold in store? I have some predictions!

I predict that we’ll go to war in Iraq by February. Gas prices will soar, but just like Osama Bin Ladden, I predict that Saddam Hussein will get away and be a bur in our saddle for years to come.

I predict that the North Koreans will try to get our goat, but that it will blow over. Best case scenario- their people get sick of staring and Korea reunites like Germany did. Worst case scenario- thirty more years of unresolved tension.

I predict that poor Powerball winner Andrew Jackson “Jack” Whittaker will have to deal with a helluva lotta phoe calls from friends he never knew he had.

I predict that racism and civil rights will become a serious issue again. We may even end up with as tense a time as in the 1960’s. Homelessness, joblessness and economic stratification may be serious problems too. Other problems to watch for will be internet porn and addictive video games, not to mention internet gambling.

I predict that the bugs are only going to be worse next summer if we don’t get some serious winter soon.

I predict that there will be tremendous partisan bickering in Des Moines over another budget crisis.

I resolve not to worry about any of it. In fact, one of my New Year’s resolutions was not to pay attention to media pundits like know-it-all columnists who try to predict things. I suggest you make that resolution too.

The Raelians are probably just trying to get attention. If and when someone clones a human, it probably won’t live long or well. I mean, what have you hear about that sheep “Dolly” lately? What was the line from the Godzilla movie theme song? “Nature has proved again and again the folly of men.”

Besides, here we are in the twenty-first century already, we haven’t been to Mars, we haven’t cured the common cold, we haven’t been back to the moon for thirty years, and where’s the flying cars? I KNEW back when I was watching the Jetson’s that by the time I grew up, I’d get to drive a flying car. Where’s MY flying car? Have you got yours?

Happy New Year, welcome to the future.

Yes Virginia

I don’t know why kids like these "Instant Messenger" things on the computer so well. Student’s tell me how they talk with their friends at all hours of the night on their instant messenger. If their folks have a separate phone line for the internet, girls can talk about a boy with their friends on the computer while talking to the actual boy on the phone.

I never have liked the Instant Messengers. Whenever I’m on the computer, I’m trying to get something done, to have people keep popping on trying to talk to me ends up just being an interruption. But I have to tell you, I had the most interesting conversation online the other day and I thought I might share it with you, gentle readers.

BigRedGuy:: Hey Ted, how R U? Feel like a chat?

coachmallory:: Who is this?

BigRedGuy:: My screen name ought to give it away.

coachmallory:: Frank Solich?

BigRedGuy:: No ho ho ho, if I were him I wouldn’t want to talk to a member of the press. Try again, I’ll give you a clue- I know when you’ve been sleeping…I know if you’ve been bad or good.

coachmallory:: Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge?

BigRedGuy:: Ho ho, no, but I’m almost as busy.

coachmallory:: Santa? Wow, why would you take time out of your busiest time of year to instant message me?

BigRedGuy:: Well, Ted, I just wanted to thank all the business people of Charter Oak for all the work they went through to make my visit there such a success for the children in your community. Since you have a weekly column in the NEWSpaper, I thought you were a natural resource for me to tap.

coachmallory:: Happy to help, Santa. It certainly was a blast. I know my little girls loved it. They got to see you and received a bag full of goodies, watched cartoons, munched on cookies, won prizes and played with all their friends from all over the area.

BigRedGuy:: Well, Charter Oak has had a long tradition of bringing me to see the kids.

coachmallory:: Oh I know! My wife Bethany was telling me about how when she was little, you gave them all a bag of peanuts and popcorn, then they’d all sit down to watch 8mm movies on a screen in the corner of the Community Building.

BigRedGuy:: And inevitably some naughty little boy would start throwing peanuts or popcorn at the screen or at one of his little friends and bedlam would soon ensue, Ho Ho!

coachmallory:: Well I bet there were quite a few boys in town who’d get coal in their stockings because of that, huh?

BigRedGuy:: Well, now you know Ted, I don’t think of myself as the purveyor of justice that a lot of people seem to think I am. The rain falls on both the just and the unjust, you know.

coachmallory:: So, you just bring presents to children, no coal?

BigRedGuy:: That’s right. I represent generosity, not vengeance, that belongs to the Lord you know, Ho Ho. And even He prefers mercy to sacrifice, you know. Besides, there are too many children who won’t have much of a Christmas at all, let alone a merry one. I don’t think they should be denied just for throwing a little popcorn.

coachmallory:: But what about that legendary list?

BigRedGuy:: Let me tell you something, my list is a lot longer than that 12,000 page Iraqi weapons of mass destruction dossier. I’ve gotten rid of most of the paperwork though, nowadayz it’s all digital. All I have to carry around is my personal electronic organizer. It’s really more of a shopping list than a naughty/nice thing- you have to be REALLY bad to get on the naughty side. I’ll let you in on a secret though, there’s not enough coal in West Virginia for Saddam and Osama’s stockings.