Traffic jam, Detour ahead, Expect delays

Jackie Pester likes it when I write about my commute on the beautiful Dunlap Highway (L-51). Here’s a sad one. As you may already know, I try to maintain a strict policy of transparency and candor. After all, you never know when the White House will call and you always want to be able to lay your record out on the table so that there aren’t any skeletons in your closet that the Senate confirmation hearings will drag out. Besides, you’re bound to read about it in the Denison papers eventually anyway, if you haven’t already.

A couple weeks ago, it was such a gorgeous day, and there weren’t a lot of farmers out disking yet, I just sort of forgot myself. I was driving along, enjoying nature’s Spring fashions- the buffing trees, the greening hay, the many calves and I thought to myself…

"This is SO much nicer than L.A.- no traffic whatsoever, I rarely even see another vehicle and have never seen a police car along this route in three years.

"Oh, wait, there’s actually ONE car in the oncoming lane. Say, I wonder what make and model that is anyway, most everybody around here drives GM, no, no this looks more like a Ford product…

"As a matter of fact, I bet that’s a Crown Vic-

"Aren’t those the ones used by the highway pa-

The trooper was very nice and very patient with me. After this past week with Minnesotan prisoners escaping to the Loess Hills, I’m glad that the Iowa State Patrol is in our area after all.

Speaking of highway trouble, you have no idea how much trouble I go through on the Information Superhighway trying to get this column to you every week.

Take last week’s column for instance. Usually I write this on Friday during my free period and try to email it in to Ann or Bonnie after school before I go home. Goes without saying that we didn’t have school on Good Friday. Since we had an early dismissal on Thursday, I thought I’d just write it up and send it after school Thursday and still get home early. But the best laid plans run awry.

Since they’re building a new school right next to the old one in Dunlap, they decided to cut the power almost immediately after all the students cleared out. Dang, fall back on plan ‘B.’

I got up just as early as I normally would have on Friday so that I could write it on the old home computer. But alas, since with two small children, we never have time to use the internet at home and we both have access at work, we canceled our service, thinking we’d save the $14.95 a month. Okay, need a plan ‘C’- got it! The farm! Mom-in-law’s at work, Dad-in-law’s out doing whatever farmers do before they can plant. They won’t mind if I email it from their place.

"Oof! Won’t connect. Ah ha, connected! Oof- cut out on me. Yeah, back on!"

"What’s this? Can’t access Hotmail account? What about ‘disabled Cookies?’ No problem, I’m a technologically literate guy, I think I know how to ‘enable cookies,’ here we go…

"What? Come on you hunk of sillicon!!" Grrr, half an hour later I’d gotten no where and was supposed to have met Bethany & the girls at Wal-Mart to get Grace’s birthday picture taken. I gave up and drove in to the big ‘D.’

We had to hustle back to Charter Oak to make the girl’s hair cut appointments. I gingerly ask Cindy if I can up load the column from their home computer.

"Sure, why not?" she offers.

"Thanks a million!" I scramble up their stairs to get it done and get on with life. No such luck. Beautiful new computer, Windows XP or NT or XL or something other than Windows ’98. The thing tells me that it can’t read my floppy disk because it’s "unformatted."

Now I am technologically literate enough to know that if I had reformatted my disk it would erase everything on it, including the column. Sigh.

"Why don’t we just drive up to Mapleton and give them your disk?" asked Bethany. Because Mike has all Apples at the Paper and I write the column on a PC. Macs can’t read PC disks anymore than new PCs seem to be able to read old PCs. Somehow Cyberspace interprets things, if I email it to them, they can read it. Make sense?

Now we’re on to Plan ‘D,’ I think. It’s hard to keep track. Anyway, we needed to go back to Denison for groceries, so we thought we’d use the good old public library computers. Thank God for American Democracy and God Bless Dale Carnagie, or was it Andrew Carnagie?

Library computer # 1- On the internet, into Hotmail! Hot dog, the furthest I’ve gotten so far. Compose mail, attachments…

"Program has executed illegal operation, fatal error, program will be shut down"

"AAAAURGH!!!"

Library Computer # 3- On the internet, into Hotmail, attachments…. "Internal Error"

"Doh (like Homer Sipmson would say), okay, okay, think, it’s probably some kind of a safety/security block, there’s probably a way around it…." So I decide to open the document and cut and paste it into the email instead of attaching it. No dice, no way to get into the floppy drive- wait! Aha! I open Microsoft Word (the program) and get into the document from there. Cut, paste, send! Alleluia, at last!

So then Tuesday morning I received an email from Bonnie about all the errors in the dumb thing.

And now today, as I write this (a week before you read it) guess what? The PC in my classroom can not connect to the school’s network, let alone the internet. But, hey, it’s done, at 9:10 am on Thursday the 24th, before kids show up for class, it’s done. If only I had a way to get it there.
1

Easter Sonrise

I can’t believe how many people half-believe. Whether you eaves drop, overhear or engage people in a conversation about religion it’s amazing how pessimistic some folks are. I can’t believe how many people have resigned themselves to the fact that they’re headed for Hell.

They resent religious people for being too hypocritical and sometimes they resent God for not wanting them, but they just figure they’ve been too bad to get into Heaven, so "what the Hell?!"

If you’re one of these people, can I let you in on something? It’s not how good or bad you are, it’s not what you know- it’s all who you know. God does want you, He loves ALL of His children, but He won’t ever force you to love Him back.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. ~2 Peter 3:9

That’s why He sent Jesus, to die and go to Hell, so we won’t have to. And since Jesus defeated death and the Devil on Easter, we don’t have to worry about how many mistakes we’ve made or how bad we’ve been, all we have to do is accept the free gift of His love, forgiveness and salvation.

Surely you’ve heard John 3:16-

16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Well, let me play Paul Harvey and give you "the rest of the story."

First of all, did you catch that there is no catch? All it says there is "whoever believes." I knew a girl in High School that knew without a doubt that she was going to Hell because she’d had an abortion. So, she said, "I may as well be bad, because I’m already going to Hell."

Listen, thank God you don’t have to be good to get to Heaven because no one could ever possibly be good enough their entire lives to earn their way to Heaven.

Jesus said in Matthew 5, "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother, will be subject to judgment…"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'28But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

It’s our sinful-human nature to be selfish and short sighted. We’re base animals who’re only interested in gratifying our own desires. Romans 3:23 says that "ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." All the goody-goody hypocrites included.

But remember all John 3:16 says that we have to do to be saved is to believe.

8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9not by works, so that no one can boast. ~Ephesians 2:8-9

Nobody is a better Christian than anybody else. Now, once you believe that Jesus is who He says He is, God the Son, you probably want to learn more about Him and even try to be more like Him. Just like being a recovering alcoholic or a recovering drug addict, you’ll still have the same cravings, but unlike an animal, you’ll recognize that there are consequences for your choices and that "being bad" hurts other people and damages your relationships.

I want to make it perfectly clear to you this Easter that God does not want ANYONE to go to Hell. That’s why He came in the form of Jesus and sacrificed Himself in our place. Hell wasn’t even created for humans. Matthew 25:41makes it very clear that Hell was intended only for Satan and his demons, not for you.

You know John 3:16, but have you ever read John 3:17-19?

"17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil."

I hope this sheds some light on the subject, Jesus is the light of the world.

Now you know, the rest of the story.

Happy Easter!

Smaller is Better

Years ago when I was in college to become a teacher and dating an Iowan, I was impressed with Iowa. Iowa was famous for the high quality of its education. Iowa was known for quality schools, quality teachers, and successful students. Oh that it were still so. Schools are struggling to stay open, good teachers are leaving our profession in droves in hopes of making a better living. Students have taken on a fatalistic attitude, believing that they haven’t got much of a future and if they do, it must be in a bigger city in another state.

Boyer Valley and Maple Valley passed bond issues to build new facilities, but they’re freezing budgets and cutting their staffs and programs. East Monona is facing its extinction. What challenges does Charter Oak-Ute have to face?

The best thing Iowa has always had going for it is size. Smaller is better. There seems to be an idea going around that we should eliminate all Class 1A schools (any under 2-300 students). Some people see the natural evolution being that there should only be one public high school per county.

In California parents are adamantly fighting to reduce class sizes. The idea being that a lower teacher-to-student ration means more individual attention. The Glory of Iowa was the one-room schoolhouse.

In a March 31, 2003 Editorial, the Des Moines Register argued that we could offer students a broader variety of elective courses if the smallest schools were merged into regional Über -schools. Students get lost in huge institutions. Teachers and administrators become bureaucrats.

More students have more opportunity to be involved in more extracurricular activities, in smaller schools. Students who might never have been in Student Government, plays, Band, or Cheer and Drill at a school of over a thousand students are often involved in not just one but two or three of these activities in a school of 200 or less. Athletes who’s ride the bench along with fifty other third-stringers get to be starters at small schools. Simply put, would you rather your child be a little fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a little pond?

Small schools can broaden their offerings in a number of ways. The best could be simply by partnering with our small towns and small businesses. Internships, field trips, workshops, seminars, clinics, work study programs, these are all things that non licensed teachers can offer and if they do, they will benefit as much as the students. Hospitals, nursing homes, caterers, retailers, accountants, manufacturers and machine shops all have something to offer.

Another way would be for neighboring school districts to cooperate with one another. In suburban Phoenix, some schools operate as "magnet" schools. In other words, if there are three schools within so many miles of each other, one may have a great Fine Arts program, (music, drama, etc), another may have the strongest Industrial-Ed program, still another might offer the most advanced computer courses. By coordinating their schedules, students enrolled at one school can shuttle to another to take classes not offered at their own school.

Not to mention the satellite video learning network already in place. Students who’s school only has a French teacher can take Spanish classes in the ICN room (Iowa Communications Network).

The Register made the argument against their own position by accusing proponents of smaller schools of measuring "quality more by dedication of the staff, sense of community and safety, low dropout rates" and better ACT scores.

There is a way to help maintain and maybe even improve small schools. There is legislation in the Statehouse right now that hopes to help get a fairer share of money to smaller schools and cut your property taxes in the process. Many communities fund their schools through property taxes. This leads to serious differences in the quality of school building and resources. In the L.A. area for example, Beverly Hills has much nicer facilities than Compton. It’s not because of segregation, it’s because properties in Beverly Hills are more valuable, so there are higher tax revenues in their school district. Poverty breeds poverty.

House File 626 will level the playing field. After a small increase in state wide sales tax provides property tax relief it’s revenues will go into a pool and distributed to all schools on a per student basis. Advocates claim that this will help guarantee a good education for kids, regardless of their family’s income level, or where they live.

Please write your State Representatives and Senators and ask them to fight and vote for "Infrastructure Equity and Property Tax Relief.

Quotations from millionaire publisher/former U.S. diplomat to France may provide blueprint for nation-building after Iraqi conflict

"How few there are who have courage enough to own their Faults, or resolution enough to mend them!" ~ Ben Franklin, 1743

I admit it, I’m not always right. In the last two columns I alluded to the likelihood that the war with Iraq would go quickly. It looks like my assumption was wrong. Whether it’s because of loyalty to Saddam, fear of Saddam, or resentment of foreign intrusion, not all Iraqis appear to be appreciative of our efforts to liberate them.

In last week’s column I talked about a "sanitized" image we were receiving of the war, that made it look exciting, like a video game.

Since then it has become difficult to watch or even listen to war coverage. Now, I think we’ve been subjected to too much harsh reality. It’s certainly something I’d like to shelter my toddlers from.

As of my writing this last Friday (March 28th), we may still have not found a "smoking gun" that links Saddam Hussein’s regime to Alqueda or September 11, and we may not have uncovered stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but we have found pretty condemning circumstantial evidence. There were the thousands of chemical weapon protective suits, why would they need those?

Then there was the mistreatment of American P.O.W.s. Not only was using them for propaganda purposes a violation of the Geneva Convention, but from all appearances, the Iraqis have executed them. If I dragged my feet about going to war, that convinced me that we have no choice now but to finish the job.

According to British military officials, Iraqi paramilitary forces in Basra, in Southern Iraq, fired mortars and machine guns Friday on thousands of civilians trying to leave that besieged city.

Surely after we’ve been there longer, providing aid and food, more Iraqis will warm up to us and realize prefer the devil they don’t know to the one they’ve known for more than two decades.

A greater problem may be the rest of the Islamic world. Winning the peace will be far more complicated than winning the war.

My opinion is that too often, American foreign policy has been like the eagle who dropped a quill. An Indian brave finds the quill and uses it to craft an arrow. Then he shoots the arrow at the eagle. Whether it was supporting despots to contain Communism, oil companies and the CIA meddling in the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan or favoring Israel over the Palestinians, we haven’t made a lot of friends in the Middle East over the years.

"He that sows thorns, should never go barefoot." ~ Ben Franklin, 1756.

The aftermath of the Second Gulf War will be a tremendous opportunity to change the way we are viewed in the region and the world..

First of all, we have to bring our European friends and allies back on board. The U.N. is still the best apparatus we have for providing aid and structuring any sort of a government in Iraq. This will also go a long way in restoring our stature throughout the world. At one time Muslims saw us as a bad guy, now seems like everyone does.

"Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults." ~Ben Franklin, 1756

The other thing we need to do is stick around and help, no matter the cost.

Today is an important anniversary. On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Marshall Plan into law. This program channeled more than $13 billion in aid to Europe between 1948 and 1951. It sparked economic recovery in Europe, devastated by World War II, it also saved the U.S. from a postwar recession by providing a greater market for our goods. The White House estimated the cost of 30 days of war with Iraq at approximately $80 Billion. What would happen if we spent just $20B on food, medicine and shelter for the Iraqis and the Afghans?

According to then Secretary of State George C. Marshall "Our policy (was) directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist."

President Kennedy had similar aims with his proposals for the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps. If we sell people weapons, eventually they’ll use them against us. If we bring them doctors and farming and bridges and dams and canals they will consider us friends rather than bullies.
"Where there is Hunger, Law is not regarded; and where Law is not regarded, there will be Hunger." ~ Ben Franklin, 1755, "Wars bring scars." ~ Ben Franklin, 1745

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.