Smokytown

EYELESS IN CAZA June 09 – The Month the Moon Walk Died

  To mark President Obama’s now famous speech in Cairo, I thought I might sing an old Egyptian love song. Fortunately for the readers, they won’t be able to hear my raucous voice—

Igity-itity, waa-sinie

Waa-sinie. Ee-sa,

Habib wo mistani.

I’d better quit before I drive my spellchecker mad. I learned that song while stationed in the Middle East during World War II. Contrary to any rumors, I did not take any lessons in Belly Dancing, but I continued to practice the high art of yodeling, a way of gargling that caused hysterics among friends in Casablanca and now in Cazenovia, New York.

ANOTHER STOP

Onward to the Badger State for a Town Hall meeting. There the most published event was awarding an excuse slip to a young student for playing hooky, a nice way to highlight the importance of education.

I may have missed it, but how can you visit Green Bay and not mention the Packers? Having been born and raised in Wisconsin I still wallow in my adulation of Coach Vince Lombardi, the famous pass duo of Herber to Hutson— and learning from Vince Lombardi that “winning is what the game is all about.” If I may boast a bit, I made good friends with Coach Lombardi’s relatives in Waukesha, where they ran a tavern for factory workers and college students.

Of course Obama’s home state is next-door with the City of the Big Shoulders on the edge of Lake Michigan and Little Egypt with its gangsters and Belly Dancers at the other end. Unlike Wisconsin it doesn’t have as many cheese factories and breweries, and the ghost of Senator Joe McCarthy and methane gas and other malodorous eruptions. That is not to say that Illinois is free of strange political odors. A goofy governor is now featured in the Second City comedy group, and his selection to replace Obama is on wobbly grounds. In a recent interview conducted by Chris Matthews of Hardball, I thought Senator Burris was saying “Skid Row pro,” but he was trying to show off his mastery of legalese by saying “quid pro quo,” meaning “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

Other states are having a harvest of nutty governors: cheating on wives, double-crossing his wife on Father’s Day in Argentina, seceding from the Union, terminating his state in an ocean of economic woes, killing wolves in Alaska from airplanes and leaving them behind to die an agonizing death. “I didn’t bribe Blago.”

BACK TO BARRACK

Let’s not overlook Obama’s visit in Germany to the Nazi extermination camp. So you’re guessing I have no connection to Buchenwald. Don’t count me out, Skippy Skinner.

The slender, white haired gentleman acting as Obama’s guide was once a 12-year-old boy incarcerated in the camp that killed thousands of Jews. Both his mother and father were gassed and burned, but Elie Wiesel lived to write about his terrible experiences. I combined two of his books into a play called Deadlock, which was produced twice at the Culver Academies in Culver, IN.

It was in 1963 that I wrote my adaptation—Deadlock—of Wiesel’s two books, Night, the horrendous account of his experiences in the death camps, and Dawn, the birth of Israel after WW II.

To save this blogger from going totally eyeless, please scroll down to March 2006, that was the time Oprah had selected to feature Wiesel’s Night.

I hope you’re not confused by these sudden jumps in time. Hang in there. To return to this June, after Obama and Wiesel return from their visit to the death camp in Germany, the white-racist nut forces his way into the Holocaust Museum in Washington and kills a guard, halting the rehearsal of a new play entitled Anne and Emmett, a dialogue between two victims of hatred: Anne Frank and Emmett Till, a Chicago boy who whistled at a white woman in Mississippi and was murdered.

Are you still with me? If not, I suggest you take another look at the blog dated March 2006 and then read Wiesel’s books.

A FEW SCENES

As a boy in Hitler’s killing camps and later as a Jewish freedom fighters in the Promised Land, Elisha is the main character in both books. In the struggle to end the British Mandate, he is given the task of executing an English captain. While working up his courage to carry out the assignment, he is asked this question by a fellow fighter: “There’s just one thing I don’t know. What saved you? Six million Jews were gassed and burned to death. Why were you at age 12, saved?

ELISHA:

I OWE MY LIFE TO A LAUGH. You didn’t expect a funny story, did you? It was during one winter at Buchenwald. We wore rags, and hundreds of people died of cold every day. In the morning we had to leave our barracks and wait outside in the snow for as long as two hours until the barracks had been cleaned. One day I felt so sick that I was sure the exposure would kill me, and so I stayed behind, in hiding. I was discovered and dragged before the barracks leader. He caught hold of my throat and said dispassionately: “I’m going to choke you.” His powerful hands closed in on my throat and in my enfeebled condition I did not even try to put up a fight.

The blood gathered in my head. It was several times its normal size; I must have looked like a caricature, a miserable clown. I was sure from one minute to the next that it would burst into a thousand shreds like a child’s toy balloon. At this moment the barracks leader took a good look at me and found the sight so comical that he released his grip and burst out laughing.

He laughed so long that he forgot his intentions to kill. It’s funny, isn’t it, that I should owe my life to a killer’s sense of humor. The funny story… always the funny story.

THE BEGGAR

Drifting in and out of the play is the Beggar, a manifestation of an Old Testament prophet. While talking about looking into dark windows and men’s eyes, he sounds a bit like Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.”

BEGGAR:

You mustn’t be afraid of the dark. Night is purer than day. It is better for thinking and making love and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of the words spoken during the day take on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn’t know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things by night that should be said only in the light of day.

(TAKING THE BOY ELISHA BY THE ARM)

I’m going to teach you how to distinguish between night and day. Always look at a window, and failing that, look into the eyes of a man. If you see a face, any face, then you can be sure night has succeeded day. For, believe me, night has a face.

ELISHA SPEAKS AS A MAN:

I never forgot his words. Every evening I stand near a window to witness the arrival of night. And every evening I see a face outside. In the beginning, I saw only the face of the beggar. Later, after my father died in the camp, I saw his face with his eyes grown big with death and memory. And now I see in the blackness only the face of my sins.

The Beggar:

You think the God of your childhood died in the death camps. You believe that all hope for you is dead. When you rediscover your faith, you will want to live again. Do you see what I mean?

READERS FIRE BACK

        

   “The End of the World?” Blog, a few months back, drew heavy reader response. From the tip of South America, Doc queries:  “Do you really think Doomsday is coming in three years?  That means I’ve got to get in as much travel in a hurry.”

   From Lady P.O.: “Wrong. Wrong. I know for a fact that you can’t be right. I just took one of those online Facebook quizzes and it says I’ll live until 2023, which come to think about it, doesn’t give me much time either. More later. I got to get cracking.”

   Ruthie was slightly overwhelmed with 8 years of blogging to catch up on. She writes: “As for moving over to the next universe –VERY, VERY

interesting that you came up with the same 12/21/2012 end-of-the-world that I heard was predicted by the Incas or Mayans many centuries ago.”

    Karl the Actor is not exactly bewitched by my ability to foretell the future in this e-mail:  “O, you who see beyond the illusion what this world truly is!

  If the end does come, and mankind is not prepared, you can say, Cassandra-like,

- Can’t say I didn’t warn you.

O, Prophet, O, Seer, a question:

Is schwein flu the harbinger,

the first outrider of the coming   apocalypse?

   Speak O mighty prophet,

   I charge thee.”

Answer to Karl:  Sorry, you cannot charge me—I’m a nonprophet operation.

 

           THE GREAT DEPRESSION

 

   From Marcia the Novelist comes her version of what happened to her during the first Great Depression. She is, of course, much younger than I, and as you will see in the next section a much better writer than yours truly, the Blind Blogger.

                  Palestine, nicknamed “Little Egypt” was an incorporated town with 1200 citizens, 4 churches, 2 saloons, 2 doctors, and a town park with a live zoo. The zoo had 2 black bears, 5 monkeys and a raccoon that someone must have felt sorry for so gave it a home. After the monkey bit a child’s finger (no idea where the parent was), and a bear lumbered off campus one winter, the old boy with the badge closed the zoo, but not the park.

     My dad owned 3 farms (of various sizes), a farm implements business, and a grain elevator. The Illinois Central Railroad tracks ran alongside the elevator and carried grain to city markets. Later, during WWII, I would ride the train to attend Indiana University in Bloomington. (My dad had gas stamps for his farms, but didn’t let us use them for family travels).

     My best friend was a neighbor named Malcolm. We played with little cars in his front yard that had a big Maple tree. Its huge, lumpy roots stuck out of the ground and made great bridges and tunnels. I’ve loved cars ever since.

     At the age of 5 and up, I helped my mother and sister with a yearly Prather Elevator bean soup dinner for all the farmers’ families of the area. With the help of some of the farm wives, my mother prepared bean soup, corn bread, and pie. Crowds of families would come to see the latest John Deere farm equipment… but mainly to have a free meal. In those hard times, many mothers used Prather Elevator sacks to make dresses and shirts for their children.

     It was a time of no jobs and starving families. Men would ride the rails to Palestine to beg for food for their families. My Grandpa Prather was the Presbyterian Minister of the town and Grandmother always had a cup and platter out on their back porch to feed the “tramps” and “hobos” that came to ask for food. One day she was busy baking for a church supper. I was 6 and helping her. A hobo came to the back door asking for food and, being pressed for time, sent him away without food. A short while later she asked me to run and get that man so she could give him some food.

     I never once heard my family talk about the depression. We had food from our farm close to town to provide us with meat, milk and vegetables. I do recall chocolate pudding with pecans, still a favorite, instead of fancy pastries for dessert. It was a fact… money was hard to come by during the Depression, but we made it. Of course, we didn’t have to give up television, Game Boys, American Girl dolls, or speedboats. We came through those hard times, and maybe are just a wee bit proud of ourselves for not being wimps about it.

     Thanks, Harvey, for your memories. It sure brought back lots of my own!

 

             A Firari Safari

 

   A final word from Pambi, “I found Travels with the Blind Blogger interesting and poignant. I would love to read your autobiography one day. Many would love reading about your very interesting and thought provoking life.”

 

 

 

 

TRAVELS WITH THE BLIND BLOGGER

    You may want to think twice before going on a trip with a housebound docent. Except for three days in a hospital, I found out that my reduced vision has prevented me from playing the roles of a modern Magellan or a Vasco de Gamma.

 

     In the meantime, I’ve noticed that family members or friends would rather take my shopping lists in hand than to take my arm and lead me into stores, where those noxious displays in aisles are immediately designated as endangered species. I must confess that I take some pleasure in demolishing those annoying road blockers.

 

          Baghdad on the Bay

 

     With that warning in mind, let’s go around the world. Don’t worry, you’ll find that I’m an experienced tour guide. A few years ago, after I had written two reviews of books about San Francisco, I was invited to conduct tours around Chinatown. I didn’t last long. While taking a group of Methodist Sunday School teachers around Chinatown, I took a wrong turn. I led them down an alley and into a factory that made pornographic fortune cookies. 

 

      One of the books that I reviewed was Chinatown—A Walking Tour and the second was a history of young kidnapped Chinese girls brought to Chinatown, locked up in wire cages and put on display for potential customers. You may be surprised to learn that the little ladies soon enjoyed their pampered existence and resisted being released from such sordid service.

 

     But I go astray. The most recent news came from KV, a former student and now an astute movie critic, one of the best in the Bay area. A few days ago, he had the onerous task of attending the International Film Festival and had to view 40 movies. KV writes: “My favorite film so far this year, Coraline, the animated story of a teenage girl who sees ghosts.”

 

           Next Stop—Bolivia

 

      Moving down the Pacific Ocean to South America, I find great pleasure in re-introducing you to Doc, a frequent contributor to this blog. He and his son Jake just returned from a jolly time in Brazil. (I created a bit of doggerel about “feeling ever so ill, after reading what was said by the President of Brazil, the global economy crisis is not caused by his lie, just because my eyes are blue and my skin is white.”  I messed that up—lies is supposed to rime with “dead blue eye”). An author of a number of political books, Doc has just had an article published in CounterPoint about the massacre in Binghamton, NY., where the day before I had two close relatives working on signs. Doc wrote: “Shortly after the murder of 13 innocent people, a Taliban sheikh in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. But since the gunman was a Vietnamese-American and lived with his parents just outside of Binghamton, the sheikh’s claim smacks of mere jihadist opportunism.”

 

               Spaghetti, Anyone?

 

      Let’s go across the Atlantic to Italy. Herodotus, a dedicated contributor to this blog, was recently traveling down the Italian boot when he and his group got all shook up. It was no FAULT of mine.

 

     “The 26 students and five colleagues were spending a week in Spoleto, where we were quartered in a convent. On the last day of our visit, as we traveled toward Rome, the earthquake hit nearby in L’Aquila. We were aware that something big had happened, but it was later that we found out about the magnitude of the terrible disaster.

 

         SPEAKING OF STUDENTS

     Do you recognize these two?

 

                   

 

  I’ll get to them later.

 

     With travel restrictions being lifted in Cuba, I’ll be inviting you along on a trip there in the future. Even before Castro gained control, I had Cuban students in my classes. For example, while Dictator Batista still ruled, I had his children and wards in my English class. I found it rather annoying that their bodyguards stood outside the classroom and, from time to time, would stare at the students and me through the window in the door. One time I was going to ask them to come in or go away, but a Cuban student said

“Es cuidado” or something like that, warning me his guards were packing heat.

 

     So on this journey, let’s skip Cuba and stop in the town of the Boston Tea Party. There, a medical student, Philip Markoff (who carried his gun in Gray’s Anatomy) instead of dedicating his career to saving lives, instead took lives. Pedro, a faithful contributor from Boston, had this to say: “It’s a good thing to rid the medical profession of thieves and murderers. Fortunately there are few premeditated murders in the profession, but unfortunately the thieving takes many forms—granted not at gun point.”

 

     I sometimes think that the heartless killers are not possessed by evil, but lack a conscience to help them distinguish between good and evil. More on this topic next time:  Get the guns off the streets. La-laPierre and his gun lovers can go to NRA-Hell and fight it out there.

 

     Last week, citizens and students in the Columbine area commemorated the massacre at the school by the two killers in black raincoats.

 

           LAST STOP—DENVER

 

     I may require some help, for I haven’t been in this area since I was enrolled in a tech class at Fort Logan at the start of World War II. So I’ll get help

from another former student and author, John-lows, who sent me a  record of his sadness, three pages that deserve wider publication than my blog.

 

     “How nice to hear from you, Harvey. As you might imagine, Columbine High School and the massacre that took place there ten years ago are the themes this week. The Denver Post did a very professional job of keeping the events of that terrible day in perspective. Interestingly, five of the kids in the building that day have returned and now teach classes at Columbine.

 

     “There is a touching memorial to the slain kids in a  park next to the school. I visited it last spring and was deeply moved by the dignity and solemnity of it. “

                      

               

     “Each family was allowed to have one statement inscribed at the station in the memorial that honors their child.

     “Because law enforcement stayed outside the school, one teacher, Dave Sanders, died in his students’ arms three hours after being shot. Students tried to save his life by posting a sign in the window—1 is dying.

     “The kids who attend the school today do not have any significant memory of the murderous assault. That strikes me as a good thing in terms of a community getting on with life.”

 

                TOUR OVER

 

     My thanks to all those who shared their thoughts. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: Nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a

Word of it.”      --Omar

 

                  #######

END OF THE WORLD

          

     Doomsday predictions are no laughing matter, although cartoonists sometimes have a field day with the deadly topic, like the old man with a long beard, dressed in a gown, and holding a sign that reads:  “The End is Near.”

     The History Channel has been running some specials that trace dire predictions from the time of the Mayans into modern times:  A famous example is by T.S. Eliot, who wrote that the world will end, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

     A more recent threat was made up by the team of Bush and Cheney in an attempt to justify invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s mythical H-bomb and its use to destroy our country have now been validated as White House dark lies. 

     The literatures of all civilizations reveal concerns with the world’s end. In classical Greek mythology, Apollo is one god with disciples supposedly able to predict the future, some of them with physical disabilities. Tiresias was blind, Cassandra made accurate prognostications, but was never believed. A seer-witch who lived in a cave drew inspirations for future events by sniffing the gas that leaked in through the ground.

     The Old and New testaments abound with tales and revelations of world destruction. After Lilith, Adams’s first wife, was driven out of God’s organic Garden, she engaged in terrible acts of destruction. And don’t believe those gays who insist that the first inhabitants of the Garden were Adam and Steve. 

     In another Biblical story, at a distance Abraham observed the heavy smoke from the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, sinful cities he and his family had escaped from the night before. 

     From fire to water, we should take note of the great flood that destroyed those sinners unable to book passage on Noah’s Ark. After the flood receded, God promised not to destroy mankind again and set a rainbow in the sky to remind us of His promise. Let’s hope He remembers to withhold fire and floods in modern times.

                    

     Some years ago, I wrote a play called “The Bridegrooms,” based on true events. This vehicle involves an end-of-the-world movement founded by William Miller during the first half of the 1800s.

     On March 3, 1844 the Millerites gathered on a hilltop and waited for Christ to come and open the Gates to Heaven. As you well know, the ascension failed to materialize.

     Eventually, the movement gave rise to the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witness. A copy of the script is in my archive of 20 original writings at the Huffington Library of the Culver Academies in Indiana.

                

     So how long do we have before Doomsday arrives?

     In my opinion, we have about three more years. I realize my prediction is rather doubtful, but you should be reminded that I have the physical disability of Tiresias, the blind prophet.

     Astronomers have recently discovered a Black Hole in the Milky Way. When the hole aligns itself with the Earth, chaos will reign. The North Pole will exchange positions with the South Pole. Cities along the coasts will be submerged. In the interiors winds will drive destructive fires in all directions.

     What is the date of Doomsday? December 21, 2012.

     Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Just keep in mind the invitation of e.e. cummings:  “Listen, there’s a hell of a good universe next door, let’ go.”

                 ######

                

Oh no! NOT ANOTHER GREAT DEPRESSION

      I can tell you this, dear readers, there was nothing great about the first depression, when I was a grade-school kid eighty years ago.  Yes indeed, 80 years ago.

    

     Although I had to wear the hand-me-down bib overalls from two older brothers, I guess I was fortunate to belong to a family with a steady income. My dad owned a farm implement business with a garage to repair any machine, a hardware store, and a sawmill. Sometimes called “Pumpkin Center,” North Lowell was an unincorporated town, population 17, 7 of whom were my family. A railroad ran through the town so my mother fed unemployed men who rode the rails. Across the tracks from our place were a lumberyard with a manager who taught me how to collect stamps and opening my eyes to a huge world beyond the cow pastures, a train station with a master who taught me how to tap out messages in code and regaling me with stories about fun in the caboose, and a combination grocery store and saloon with an owner who let me tend bar and often took me fishing. With friends like that who needed a family that thought it was strange that I could read and write before enrolling in first grade.  

     

     When the nearby farmers couldn’t pay their bills, they would bring in farm produce like eggs, live chickens and other produce including an eviscerated pig. I dreaded the butchering season, a time for swimming in grease, watching a black machine stuffing meat into slippery casings, and preparing hams for the smoke house. The best part was the pigskin, a forerunner of pork rinds. The worst part consisted of pickled pigs’ feet and sauerkraut.

                

     If I remember correctly, this picture was taken at the time of my graduation from grade school. What I do remember for certain is that President Herbert Hoover was blamed for the economic downfall. My father believed that Hoover could not be trusted because he avoided looking you in the eye. Some PR man forgot to tell Herbert to look straight into the camera.

     I didn’t dare to share my theory that Calvin Coolidge, the president just before Hoover, shared the blame for the economic crisis. “Silent Cal” suffered from verbal constipation and kept his secrets close to his vest. One Sunday his wife was feeling poorly, and he went to church alone. When he returned, she asked what the sermon was about. He informed her: “Sin.” When she asked what the minister said about sin, he replied: “He was against it.”

     He was a favorite target of the witty members of the Algonquin Round Table. When Coolidge’s death was announced, Dorothy Parker asked, “How could they tell?” Dorothy had one of the sharpest tongues among the group. You might say that they were the depression’s Saturday Night Live. Another famous one-liner by Dorothy” “That woman knows 80 foreign languages, but can’t say no in any of them.” Once when George S. Kaufman was asked by a press agent how to get his leading lady’s name in Kaufman’s paper, Kaufman replied: “Shoot her.”

     Unfortunately, the lighter moments were few and far between. Empty bellies are no laughing matter. Family providers out of work often sent children to bed on the edge of starvation.

     One event sticks in my mind. Veterans of World War I organized a march on Washington, DC to get some additional payment for their service to their country. Regular Army soldiers under the command of General MacDouglas stopped them with live ammunition.

     I was reminded of that hideous mistreatment while listening to Rush Limbaugh boasting to his fat-cat conservatives that since they had earned their wealth, there was no reason to share it with the under-provided. What a disgusting display of greed, earning another standing ovation during the self-appointed GOP mouthpiece’s ninety-minute tirade. One of these days those Cuban cigars Rush smokes will take him down.

             

       

     But I was talking about the first Great Depression. We managed to survive it, so I guess the present one will gradually fold away.

     Next time, if there is a next time, I’ll have some suggestions how hospital emergency rooms should look and be run. I’ll never forget the young man with the torn shoulder who cried and moaned for two hours with no attention from the arrogant hospital attendants.

 

     Until then, say a prayer for the starving children and the weeping wounded.

                        #####

My Soul to Keep

After not missing a month for eight years, I'm sorry to announce that medical treatment for reduced vision and a possible gallbladder operation have ended my run. After three days in the hospital though, I emerged with all my organs in tact. Why? I don’t know, but it was the most noninvasive operation in medical history. I hope to make a comeback, but it will take some time.

My regards to all my faithful readers.

p.s. Thank you to my former students and faithful friends.

FROM:

Pam B.

After eight years you deserve a rest, YOU will definitely be missed!  I wish you my very best with your medical treatments and an easy recovery.  Our son had his gallbladder removed with little fanfare – and it was removed through his belly button! 

Please know you are in my and John’s thoughts as you go through this.   We’ll wait to hear when you are ready to get back to it.

Pedro

SO SORRY TO LEARN OF YOUR CURRENT GALL BLADDER TROUBLE, AND THE TREATMENT PROBLEM WITH YOUR EYES.  WE WISH YOU A SPEEDY RECOVERY, AND HOPE YOU WILL BE PUBLISHING AGAIN IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

Modest Editor

Not the first time you've been "benched." We're all looking for your early return to good health and prolific blogging.

 

John F.

God bless you, Harvey. You are in my prayers. Looking forward to your next blog.

And finally, I would like to share with you an unusual coincidence of Abe Lincoln. There is a fusion craze of late that melds portraits of Abe Lincoln and Barack Obama. Here is Ron English’s rendition.

This is a rerun from 1949 when Carroll College (now Carroll University) students created a similar evolutionary portrait, only then it was of a little known actor. The caption under the picture reads, “Any resemblance between Harvey Firari and Abe Lincoln is strictly intentional. Harvey a senior at Carroll College, plays the title role in ‘Abe Lincoln in Illinois’ which is slated for the Avon theater, Waukesha, Thursday. Students at the college feel that Harvey, a lanky, six footer from Portage, really looks like Abe, and this is how they’re emphasizing their point: A huge charcoal drawing of the real Lincoln hangs in Great Hall. Gradually the Carroll Players are dubbing out Abe’s features and substituting Harvey’s. Students’ mental picture of Abe change along with the portrait. Pictured at rehearsal are ‘Lincoln’ and his two sons.

I’m pleased to have something in common with both Abe and Barack. The next chapter could be of Obama morphing into a picture of me – they say you age 2 years for every 1 year in the White House.

I close with an Abe anecdote. A boastful, minor official said during a Lincoln gathering that he was the reason Abe was elected to the highest office in the land. Lincoln turned to him and said, “So you are the one responsible for getting me into this mess!” 

Erma and Me

For some years, the letter R stood for Reindeer and all the joys they brought during the Christmas Season, but this year, I’m afraid the R stands for Recession, a financial down turn that has led to the brink of a Second Great Depression.

            Money boys on Wall Street and in Washington failed to note the presence of a Recession until a year too late. So how can we recognize the advance of another depression? Let me count the ways. Joblessness. Joblessness. Joblessness. Do I have to say it again? The Big Three auto manufacturers going belly up. Shaky banks cutting off credit to companies. Foreclosing on homes. 45 million people without health care. Newspapers taking nose dives. Google and Yahoo laying off and Newsweek magazine, along with National Public Radio, curtailing their operations. Wonder Bread is slicing back. Food kitchens closing for lack of resources. Lines of hundreds of people at Job Fairs. A one hundred year old china manufacturing company in Syracuse – closed. AND WATCH OUT, if farmers begin to dump their milk into gutters.

              By the way, why isn’t anyone talking about the billions of dollars being spent on wars and the billions misspent on the blunders of rebuilding Iraq? Do you think that might have something to do with the hard times we’re experiencing? This may explain why the Lame Duck is ducking flying shoes.

              In my last blog I wrote a spoof about a president-elect with a conflicting and dual personality. Then this week Governor Blagojevich of Illinois flew out of the cuckoo’s nest and tried to sell Obama’s now vacant Senate seat.          

             But let’s get back to the Season to be Jolly. Many of us will have to cut back on buying gifts and hosting holiday parties, but we must not cut out gifts for the children – those who still believe in Santa Claus. Somewhere money must be found to give them a joyous Christmas.

            Some years ago I wrote a one-person play based on the columns of Erma Bombeck. She was noted for her humorous outlook on life but often allowed her writing to move in the direction of pathos. Her death was a great loss to her thousands of readers. The play ended with a column concerned with her children outgrowing Santa Claus. The young actress playing Erma was standing in front of a bulletin board, with the shape of a Christmas tree cut out of newspaper surrounded with Christmas tree lights. Below is an excerpt from the play.

Everything is in readiness. The tree is trimmed.  The cards taped to the doorframe.  The boxes stacked in glittering disarray under the tree.

Why don’t I hear chimes?

Remember the small boy who made the chimes ring in a fictional story years ago?  As the legend went, the chimes would not ring unless a gift of love was placed on the altar.  Kings and men of great wealth placed untold jewels on the altar, but year after year the church remained silent.

Then one Christmas Eve, a small child in a tattered coat made his way down the aisle and without anyone noticing he took off his coat and placed it on the altar.  The chimes rang out joyously throughout the land to mark the unselfish giving of a small boy.

I used to hear chimes.

I heard them the year one of my sons gave me a tattered piece of construction paper on which he had crayoned two hands folded in prayer and a moving message, “OH COME HOLY SPIT!”

I heard them the year I got a shoebox that contained two baseball cards and the gum was still with them.

I heard them the Christmas they all got together and cleaned the garage.

They’re gone, aren’t they?  The years of the lace doilies fashioned into snowflakes…the hands traced in plaster of paris…the Christmas trees of pipe cleaners…the thread spools that held small candles.  They’re gone.

The chubby hands that clumsily used up two dollars’ worth of paper to wrap a cork coaster are sophisticated enough to take a number and have the gift wrapped professionally.

The childish decision of when to break the ceramic piggybank with a hammer to spring the fifty-nine cents is now resolved by a credit card.

The muted thump of pajama-covered feet paddling down the stairs to tuck her homemade crumb scrapers beneath the tree has given way to pantyhose and fashion boots to the knee.

It’ll be a good Christmas.  We’ll eat too much.  Make a mess in the living room.  Throw the warranties into the fire by mistake.  Drive the dog crazy taping bows to his tail.  Return cookies to the plate with a bite out of them.  Listen to Christmas music.

But Lord…what I would give to bend low and receive a gift of toothpicks and library paste and hear the chimes just one more time.

END

            So with those words I bid you a Merry Christmas and hopefully a Happy New Year! For your edification, here are the youngest and oldest in my family. Selah Elizabeth Jane Witt arrived October 24, 2008, and most of the time she finds me hilarious!

WHAT IF?

   

     Two little words—what if—have probably jump-started more short stories and novels than any other words in the English language. I grant you that fiction has also had its origins in some factual episode, but even that writing will require an author’s re-creating with foreshadowing, and a shaping that leads to a climax. Let’s consider an example or two. What if you found yourself as a castaway on what seems to be a deserted island? You believe that you are alone until you notice footprints along the sandy shore. At that moment, you know that someone has been watching you since your arrival. This “WHAT IF” is opening the door to ROBINSON CRUSOE by Daniel Defoe.

     Move forward in time. WHAT IF you had been seriously wounded as a Confederate soldier and wanted nothing else but to desert the Southern army and get home to your lover in North Carolina, near Cold Mountain. Thomas Frazier’s recent novel may have had its origins in Civil War stories, but the bulk of the story belongs to Frazier.

        A BRAND-NEW –WHAT IF?

     Let’s imagine that a newly elected president of the U.S. is multi-racial, half-black, half-white. WHAT IF—as Inauguration day approaches, something happens to his personality—he begins to show signs of a split personality—a strange manifestation that leads to internal differences and arguments. Some of the splits are quite harmless like an argument about wearing a black tie or a white tie at the ball, or that Culver’s Black Horse Troop should have lighter colors. All of these are harmless as what foods should be served in the White House.

     All of the disparities of judgment remain quite harmless until after the Inauguration in January.

Russia takes advantage of the change in administration by issuing an ultimatum that it will bomb our missiles defenses along the border of Poland. The bellicose side of the young president challenges the Russians “to bring it on.” The more pacifist side orders a removal of the missiles.

          THE DEATH OF AN IDEA

     After writing more than thirty pages exploring the theme of a president with a split personality, I suddenly lost interest. Don’t ask me why. Writing is hard work. It’s not easy to give up on an idea for a story, but I’m sure all writers have had the same experience.

     Maybe some young writer, a few hundred years down the road, will find this blog and be enticed into writing a fictional piece about a president with a split personally. Good luck, young writers of the future. The idea is all yours. Many novels have been found as a yellowed manuscript in a forgotten trunk in the attic called WHAT IF?

     If memory serves me, Andrew Malcolm, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Culver Military Academy graduate of the class of 1962, once expressed a WHAT IF something like: WHAT IF you take the skills and disciplines needed for the game of football and transferred them to the classroom? Maybe this would one day land you in the Culver Academies’ Hall of Arts and Letters. Yes, Andrew Malcolm was inducted on November 15, 2008 along with several other deserving members some of whom are pictured below. Yours truly is in the chair on the left, next to Red Nichol's (and The Five Pennies) nephew in the chair on the right with Andrew Malcolm behind him at the end of the row.

            

 

            Photo courtesy of Jan Johnson

    

Andrew has many claims to fame including a long career with important newspapers including the Times of NY, to Chicago, SF, Vietnam, Tokyo and Toronto.

      Below is a review of one of Malcolm’s ten books, HUDDLE: Fathers, Sons, and Football, published in the South Bend Tribune.

       He Handles the Pen as Well as the Football by Harvey Firari.

     For nearly a century, the most overworked formula for writing sports stories involved a wimp who by dint of strenuous physical training transformed himself into a superb athlete.

     The klutz-to-star story line, the spine of thousands of pulp rah-rah tales, can be traced back to such stalwart predecessors as Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches stories and the adventures of Fran Merriwell, a Yale hero so virtuous and talented that he was eventually caricatured.

     Using his own football experiences, Andrew Malcolm imitates the same trite pattern, but as a testament to his perceptiveness and writing skills, he provides the reader with many emotionally charged moments without tipping over into bathos.

     As a subtitle –Fathers, Sons, and Football – suggests, Huddle goes beyond the gridiron and explores life lessons passed from generation to generation.

     Although Malcolm is bespectacled and short, and looks a bit like the Wizard of Oz, he was not the usual weakling when he started playing football in grade school. His patient fatter, an engineer, had taught him the intricacies of the game, the importance of teamwork, and how to change a negative experience into a positive one, always wrapping experience in pithy sayings.

     Malcolm takes advantage of his shortness by converting himself into a human cannonball, discovering satisfaction in barreling head on into opponents and usually flattening them.

     At the Culver Military Academy in Indiana, he moves from playing linebacker to fullback, and during his senior year, to team leader and quarterback. His most difficult lesson is learning how to accept defeat, sometimes venting his frustration by punching out the tiles in shower stalls.

     To Malcolm, football was more than simply a game. He writes: “Toward that game I targeted all my hopes and ambitions, my dreams and struggles for several impressionable years. Having this passion also improved everything I did off the field, too. Football provided a ladder of achievement and a system of values at a time in my life when such accomplishment was crucial.”

      Having noticed his dedication, Mr. Art Hughes, one of Malcolm’s favorite English teachers and the founder of Culver’s Fine Arts Department, suggested that there was a relationship between expression on the field and on paper, sparkling a lifetime interest in composition.

     Malcolm is an award-winning correspondent for the New York Times and the author of several books. In Someday, he relates how he was forced to make painful decisions concerning his dying mother kept alive by artificial means.

     The lessons that he learned at his father’s knee are being passed along to his four children. He tries to be in attendance at his children’s activities. On one occasion he missed a son’s football game, but soon gathered all the details by phone. He apologizes: “Wow, I only wish I was there.” “Oh,” his son said, “you were, Dad. You were.”

     The son’s remark echoes a minor reservation about Huddle. After each episode, the reader begins to await the brief sermon, and the good preacher never disappoints, even onto the final words of the book: “Minus to a plus.”

     So what’s wrong with a touch of moralizing? Maybe it’s time for young people to hear the old truths put into words. Huddle is certainly a sharing experience for fathers and sons – and they don’t have to like football to learn from it.

     In addition to being inspired by teachers, Malcolm attended a lecture by Robert St. John, a foreign correspondent, who lit Malcolm’s journalistic ambitions, and they have burned brightly ever since. If you would like to visit Malcolm’s web site, please go to www.latimes.com/ticket

     Malcolm is one of many examples of stellar and successful graduates of the Culver Academies. Parents searching for an outstanding prep school for their children should investigate the high standards and diverse offerings of Culver Academies, that are second to none! Check out the school at www.culver.org.

     And now a final WHAT IF. WHAT IF we all have a happy, healthy, and hope-filled holiday!

hfirari@earthlink.net

    

   

On the Bench - 10/31/08

             

                ON THE BENCH – 10/31/08 

     You probably won’t believe this, but a former student dedicated a bench in my honor. The inscription on the bench reads:

   YOU TAUGHT.   WE LISTNED.

   THAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE.

Some wag said that it should read: 

You blew hot air. We inhaled.

Now see what you’ve done?

    

     Here’s a shot of me on my bench:

 

     Wait one New York second. That’s not me. I remember him from the time when we were engaged in the Cold War with Communist Russia. Supposedly, Bernard Baruch (1870-1965) was the wisest man in America. He would ensconce himself on his favorite park bench, and presidents and other national leaders would sit next to him to soak up his wisdom. He would say things like:

“Let us not be deceived—we are in the midst of a cold war.”

Or, “Let us not deceive ourselves—we must elect world peace or world destruction.”

     Another favorite topic was the stock market, having made a fortune on Wall Street.

“The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.”

Or, “When good news of the market hits the front page of the New York Times, sell.

Or, if a former or present US president asks for advice, roll up your Wall Street Journal and strike him aside of the head with it.” (No, I just made that up to practice for my turn on the bench. Sorry.)

      Enough of reminders about the Second Great Depression and the fiscal side betting of the irresponsible. And thanks be that the elections are almost over. Upon our worldly philosopher’s 90^th birthday, a commemorative park bench was dedicated Nea the White House. Mr. Baruch once said:

“Vote for the man who promises least—he’ll be the least disappointing.”

“Two things are bad for the heart—running up stairs and running down people.”

“Parasites—Organization historians who steal from their predecessors.”

     Rest in peace, Park Bench Advisor. Allow me to take over.

      

     There were, of course, other famous personages who held forth in public. Socrates was condemned to death for misleading his admirers. In the presence of his followers, he calmly took the cup of hemlock, bid them a fond farewell, and drank the poison. Another was Jesus, who accepted his death by crucifixion without any violent protest. The only time he lost his temper took place in a temple when he threw the moneychangers out the front doors, not one of them having any concept of how much money $700 billion was.

“Why spend $150,000 on a new wardrobe for Sarah the GOP VP nominee when she can buy a cloth coat at Pat Nixon’s auction?”

“Listen here, you makers of baby BOTTLES—eliminate the BPA. I don’t want my brand-new Great Grandchild, Selah Elizabeth Jane Witt, hurt.”

 (Fairlie knit the little pumpkin hat)

“Nature has a way of protecting the innocent.  That’s why babies are cute. Ask any grandmother.”

“You are lucky to be out of range of my voice. I’ve been working on this blog the last two days in the middle of a snowstorm—in OCTOBER. When the power goes off, I lose what I’ve been writing.”

“Are you getting a bit tired of “Ask Joe the Plumber”? Have the office seekers forgotten  that a Straight Flush beats a Full-house?”

“What happened to Bush’s veto pen? Did it go limp before the big bailout? He once said that when he looked into Putin’s eyes, he saw a soul. Actually, he saw a song:  ‘I’ve Got Georgia on My Mind.’”

“Darn it, the lights flickered again. I’m getting out of here. Keep in mind what Mr. Baruch also said: ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, you’ll see nails where ever you look.’”

      

              

New Ball Game??

     Is it possible for someone to live too long? At the ripe old age of two, in 1923, the year Babe Ruth built his house, I became a dyed in the pin stripes Yankee baseball fan. Last week, at the end of September, 2008, the wrecking ball leveled the famous stadium.

     What else to liven up national news. Senator Ted Kennedy had a brush with death, but Actor Paul Newman was not so lucky. I was unable to fight off sleep during the first presidential debate and had to shake off fears of a second Great Depression, having barely survived the first one in the 1930s.

     To block a second Great Depression, Bush’s men and those massive brains in Congress poured billions of taxpayers’ money down a rat hole called Wall Street. At least during the first one, financiers had the gumption to jump out of skyscraper windows. Other differences should include longer bread lines for starving families and more unemployed men riding the rails.

     Who should be blamed for today’s economic meltdown? Lots of finger pointing going on. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why. So all the government agents and the wise financial manipulators had no idea why the apple fell. The first Great Depression was blamed on Republican President Herbert Hoover so who is president today?   

     According to Rush Limbaugh, czar of the slime bag media, the economic crisis was caused by Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. On his own program, a listener by the name of Evelyn, broke through Snerdly’s screen and took a shot at Rush.

EVELYN: Think you can tell your listeners what they should think? Let people make up their own minds who they should vote for! Let your listeners think for themselves.

RUSH: Wait a minute, are you trying to get me banned from voicing my opinion?

EVELYN: Yes, you, Michael Moore and- -

RUSH: Are you comparing me to Michael Moore, that big bloated windbag?

EVELYN: That’s exactly what you are. Your mother should be ashamed of you.

RUSH: (tears in his voice) My mother loved me!

Evelyn was then cut off.

So many of our financial problems can be spelled out in one word: OIL. John McCain’s solution is “drill baby, drill,” instead of “invent, baby, invent our own ways of producing energy.”

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

  

     With the Yankees eliminated from the pennant race, I hereby turn my attention to the Chicago Cubs, still in the running but not until I publish my bookentitled, “How I Jinxed the Cubs in 2008.” That should get the goat of everybody in the windy city. Believe me, I know my baseball.

     In a 1980 article entitled “Waiting for George to Call,” the writer satirized my unending love of the Yankees.

   

 

Catch Anyone?

Culver’s Man of the Theater:

Still Waiting for George to Call

   By Paul Hamer ‘68

    

     No phantom or hunchback lurks beneath Eppley Auditorium. Instead, there is Harvey Firari; and, as likely as not, he can be out back playing catch with the stage crew.

     As befits a man of the theater, he wears many costumes: teacher, playwright, director, as well as baseball pitcher manqué. His actual day-to-day costume might be called military surplus chic – tie-less epauletted shirts, cargo jeans, moccasins. His deeply tanned face sets off silver aviator-style frames and silvering hair combed forward but not quite reaching his forehead. His smile creases his face in a straight line from side to side, and he exudes casual comfort.

     His “green room” office seems to reflect his personality. One might find just about anything there. But there are also reminders that this is the office of a man of achievement. Several framed citations lie in a pile, waiting to be displayed: Notable Americans for “outstanding service to community and state,” Who’s Who in the Midwest for having “demonstrated outstanding achievement… and thereby, contributed significantly to the betterment of society.” Beneath a shelf is a box of softball equipment: balls, bat, gloves, even a cap. Almost buried is a tennis trophy, a reminder that he was once a tennis coach.  

     Harvey has been director of theater since 1968, he still teaches two courses: Theater Skills and Drama. The Theater Skills course is new, and Harvey is on summer sabbatical now, working on a text-manual for it.

     Much of the energy that now goes into directing once went into writing for the theater. He first achieved recognition in 1959, when he was awarded the William Morris Fellowship for excellence in writing while studying at Yale. Last year his play “The Party” was named a finalist in competition for the Forest A. Roberts Playwriting Award from Northern Michigan University. He has written more than a dozen plays, many of them performed in Eppley Auditorium, including two about Indiana natives James Whitcomb Riley and Ernie Pyle.

     Harvey has his own style of directing which reflects the teacher in him. Rehearsals begin with discussions. “I try to help the cast discover the core of the play we want to perform. What is it really about? Why was it written? Where is the author coming from? We question each other: Why did you do it that way.”

     Of course, if this doesn’t happen, I will superimpose my own interpretation; but I prefer this exploration, and, if we have time, rehearsals are devoted to discussions which help the students find the characters for themselves.”

     Students respond positively to this style, which allows them to cultivate their own creativity.

     Baseball is his sport. He reached the acme of his career when the Ineppley Players (“Catch three in a row and you’re off the team – overqualified”), which he captained, defeated a team from the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and he won the coveted New York Yankee jacket, donated by George Steinbrenner himself, which he still proudly wears for faculty games – and, yes, a lot of catch out behind the theater.

     By the way, Jennifer or Hal, if you’re reading this, my jacket was stolen in the theater so would you please send me another one? Jenny did a splendid job as lead actress in Our Town, and Hal was a very competent Auditorium Lt.--well-trained to lead the Yankees back to their glory days.     

      A final word as the election approaches, remember to vote for the man who promises least; he’ll be the least disappointing.

    

Labor Day 2008

       Two out of three ain’t bad. On July 28 (see penultimate blog) I predicted that Barack Obama would select Joe Biden as his running mate. Right on the button. Number two hit – I said that Obama would be swift-boated. He was in a despicable book titled Obama Nation.

      Along with every panelist, blogger, politician, I miss fired on a running mate for John McCain. No one guessed he would select a woman governor, Sarah Palin, a mother of five, the youngest having Downs Syndrome for whom the media tried to lead the public into believing was really her 17 year old daughter’s child, an accusation that belongs in the swift-boating category! 

                                                                                                                    

  A tisket, a tasket

   what the hell is going on in Alaska?

   It’s not smooth sailin’,

   for Sarah Palin.

    The beat goes on. Now she has been accused of unethical treatment of her brother-in-law, state trooper, unfairly fired by her. Her husband was arrested for DUI a few years ago. Her international experience consists of one trip to Kuwait. As a member of the NRA, she’ll be an adequate replacement for lawyer-shooting Cheney. Regardless of all this media attention, I like her and her family! One major reservation, John McCain’s selection of Ms. Palin as his running mate sent Rush Limbaugh into glorious moments of orgasmic delight!  She might reward him with an Eskimo kiss (iiick!)

     I may appear naïve, but I have to ask this question: do Eskimos vote?

     That may be a job for Google. I remember a legend about Eskimos piling into a dog sled to vote for Harry Truman or Thomas Dewey but never reaching the polling place because they drove off a bridge to nowhere. After the Chicago Trib mistakenly declared Dewey the winner, Harry Truman won by a slim margin. Later, former army captain Harry Truman stopped General MacArthur from invading China, ordered him home and chewed him out on the airport tarmac. Now that’s what I call a leader, someone who can take charge and get those damn Russians in line. A true test of military leadership is the way enlisted men respond to officers. Harry Truman’s W.W.1 doughboys admired him for working in the trenches and not in the Oval Office.

Mail Bag:

    A letter from Hal S: “In your last blog you carried a number of caricatures of the presidential candidates. You over looked one of McCain as the doughboy.” This is not a valid cartoon of John McCain because he is unable to raise his arms over his shoulders, the result of his torture in Hanoi Hilton.

    You might be interested to know that the doughboy designation was pinned on our soldiers by the English and French who were amused by the American love of doughnuts. They didn’t get enough of the doughnuts but they got enough of their foreign comrades-at-arms.

 

    This is enough for now. After all it is Labor Day! For many years I would be preparing to meet new classes to teach but that’s all over. Old teachers never die they just fade away.

Running Mates

        Near the end of July and no VP has been selected by either    McCain or Obama. Since the selection process is much like making sausage, you may not want to know how it's done or what ingredients are squeezed into the casings. John McCain is showing  some frustrations with all the media attention his opponent is getting. McCain's POW status has given him a free ride for years.

     Why doesn't someone ask him why he failed to vote for the eight bills that offered aid to our veterans?  Let's hope that the mole removed from his forehead is not malignant. The brain cancers of Ted Kennedy and Robert Novak, along with the unfortunate deaths of Tim Russert and Tony Snow, should satisfy any ghoulish Dracula. 

     Before the public gets fed up with the whole process, let me help out the candidates. They can't go wrong with Mitt Romney and Joe Biden. That will stop so much of the nasty verbal grenades being lobbed at each other. Calling Obama a traitor for setting a time to withdraw our troops from Iraq is a lower blow than the one struck by Jesse Jackson. Obama would be stronger if he stayed away from all those black preachers and their fallacious advice. The New Yorker showed very poor taste in depicting the Obamas in a crude manner. 

 

                       

     

     Do you remember when a Danish newspaper published a cartoon with Muhammad? The radical Islamics went ballistic with rioting and death threats. A Japanese company recently published a depiction of Obama as a monkey. It was shrugged off by the general public and ignored by the American press, except Rush Limbaugh, Czar of the Slime-by media, who kept on calling Obama "the messiah." 

     The swift-boating has just begun, but I think Obama is strong enough to withstand the slings and arrows by remembering a crowd of 300,000 Germans cheering him on. Somewhat jealous, McCain tried to sooth his hurt feelings by eating sauerkraut and pigs' feet at a diner in Columbus, Ohio. That showed Obama that he shouldn't  act like Hitler and cause a gas shortage. Do you think some synapses went down while McCain was being tortured at the Hanoi Hilton? "No more beermarks when I'm president." 

     I have one suggestion for Obama--he should work on his hand salute. Cupping his hand telegraphs that he hasn't been in the military. The fingers remain stiff and the index touches the edge of the eyebrow.

 

                    \

 

Now here's a real warrior with a potential running mate!         

Now you might think the VP must be a human, but after 8 years of Dart Vader - this could be the CHANGE we are all looking for!  Dick Cheney had his eye on Iraq from the moment he became vice president. If you won't believe me, lift up the oilcloth in his center desk drawer and take a look at his invasion plans. He and McCain continue to boast about the success of the surge. Just don't count the civilian bodies from the women suicide bombers. In Afghan the surge is working great, except it belongs to the Taliban. The torture of prisoners, the curtailing of civil liberties, the deaths of all our wonderful young--those are the legacy of Dick and George Bush. Let's pray that this carnage will not be continued under the next president.

 

Let Dick as Dart(h) remind us all of what we must do in November.

If you don't think Shrek is an ideal VP, would you tire of this one?

 

Senior McCANE the mighty warrior is always on his toes and ready to leap into action and ready to start another surge, or not!

 

     POSTSCRIIIIIIIIIPT-- sorry, I GUESS I NODDED OFF MYSELF. old MEN HAVE THEIR SENIOR MOMENTS. If YOU ARE WONDERING ABOUT THE DARK TYPE AND ALL THE PICTURES, i HAD THE LASER TREATMENT, QUITE PAINFUL, AND IT CAUSED A REDUCTION OF MY VISION IN MY "GOOD" EYE==SOIT GOES IN SMOKYTOWN. 

                      

         

 

 

Making Lists

     To compensate for failing eyesight that might terminate this blog, a loyal reader has made a helpful suggestion:  instead of the long-winded blogs, she thought I could save wear and tear on my eyes by posting lists with short bodies. She said that she got the idea from glancing at covers of magazines on bookstore racks. Many of them have lists like "8 Ways to Protect Your Heart," or, "10 Ways to Lose 300 Pounds." These attention-grabbers often lead to increased sales. She said often males have short-attention spans and find the lists appealing. What red-blooded macho man could pass up--"This month's  three worst men--Don Imus for sticking his big foot in his racist mouth again; Charlie Black, chief advisor to John McCain, for saying another terrorist attack on American would help elect John president; and Justice Scalia for passing a law to allow loaded guns in homes. Let's hope he doesn't visit a friend's home where rowdy kids are running around with their daddy's loded guns, playing Cowboys and Italians." By the way, can you guess what public servant spends the most taxpayers' money on his private travels?

                         Test List

     Let's test the idea by listing some suggestions from other loyal readers.

     #1 -  The end? Say it ain't so, Dusty Rogue. I have enjoyed them so much, even if they were something of a one-way street. Can the blog be dictated? Is speech recognition software a possibility?Your readership might not have been large, but what it read was always great. --Frisco Richie

     #2 - So sorry to learn that the macular degeneration has worsened. Helen and I enjoyed reading your and  the editor's war stories. Your writing, which is continually passionate, jocular, socially redeeming and interesting, will be greatly missed. Perhaps you could limit your missive to one page, in the interest of keeping it going longer. --Pedro

     #3 - I'm so sorry that the black mac has affected the other eye. May the laser treatment restore your sight. What will I do without your railing on about the wretched state of our politics! Hang on through November, at least!  --Karl the Actor

     #4 - I've enjoyed reading your war stories - history fascinates me and the war stories even bring me closer to my dad, go figure! I really hope you will continue to write, even now and then - it is a wonderful way for you to connect to all your friends around the world! --Pam

    #5 - I enjoyed reading the embers from Smokeytown. Needless to say, I miss you. On Memorial Day it's appropriate to thank a veteran...and the veteran I have chosen to thank is YOU. Yeah, yeah, sure, for the obvious - the service to this great country of ours, but most of all, for your continued wit and humor - always that familiar Firari-slant to it - sometimes subtle but always with the trade-mark Firari-edge! So my chosen Vet, I thank you for all your contributions - be they military or the humorous printed word - each in its own way was most appreciated. I will pray that your eyes hold up because I'm not done reading Smokeytown - and the emails you send. Know that you are loved and admired. --Jan

     #6 - Let's lump the males together since they are by nature, not loquacious. The Modest Editor volunteered to help out with editing if necessary, and then added,"Oh say can you see?" Prof Z: "Well, I guess all good things must come to an end."

                         More on lists

      I've been trying to remember some of the most important lists. When Moses came down from the mountain, he held up three stone tablets and said to his followers, "Behold, the Lord has given you 15 commandments!" CRASH! He then said,"Behold, He has given you 10 commandments!"

      That is the best list. One of the worst lists, of course, is George Carlin's "seven dirtiest words." Those words are--oops I just ran out of paper! George joined the long line of famous people who died in June of 2008. The month started on a bad note with the announcement that Ted Kennedy had cancer of the brain. He was followed by sportscaster Jim McKay and Tim Russert, and Big Brown dead last in the Belmont. His jockey was heard to say near the end of the race, "A horse, my kingdom for a horse!" No, that's wrong--his defeat was caused by a nail in the hoof or lack of steroids. But that is nothing in comparison to the loss of life from tornadoes in the old Dust Bowl, the burning of homes in the horrendous fires along the West Coast, and whole towns wiped out by floods.

     Let me share with you a passage from "Triple Play," taken from Ten Unusual Plays. One character says, "I have been giving more thought about finding God in nature. Do you remember those devastating floods in 1993 along the Mississippi River? Homes, villages, crops were all washed away. I think in the middle of the disaster, God was in one little town in Illinois. The town was lost, but God was found."

     Another character  asks, "And what did God look like?"

     Character number one says, "It's not what was seen, but what was felt.  You may remember that inmates of a boot camp, mostly Black and Hispanic, street kids who have committed non-violent crimes, were sent to Nashota to fight against the river. They expected to be called the usual ugly names, but found a friendly people, all endangered, but all helping one another. The inmates pitched in, filled sandbags, and tried to strengthen the levee for days and nights without sleep. And they learned how to smile because as they said: 'We're saving lives. We're gonna save the town.' On the last night, the women who had grown fond of the street kids made supper for them at the church, but they wouldn't eat because they didn't save the town. Later, back at the boot camp, the inmates were trying to hide their tears over a card with a picture of roses and signed by their new friends with the message: 'With warmest thanks to each of you from your Nashota family. You'll never be forgotten. God's grace - extended."

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This collection of plays and the children's book, Big Scare in Small Town, can be purchased at the Painter and the Poet Gallery, 307 North Main Street, Culver, Indiana 46511 or at www.painterandpoet.com. Esther, the store owner and book illustrator is a talented watercolorist, a wonderful friend, and at the top of my list.

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War Story - Part II

             MEMORIAL DAY

As we pay tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in our wars, it is appropriate to publish the second part of the Modest Editor's World War Two story. a harrowing account of his journey across the Mediterranean from Oran to an Italian beach head. In the first half, he describes the trip on a rickety ship that served rancid rations and with an overload of traveling companions-- a goat-eating Hindu crew and a horde of rats in the sleeping compartment.

                (Continued from last blog)

We reached the rendezvous on a September morning marked by a sullen sky and sea. Liberty ships and various landing craft, all wearing battleship gray, moved slowly in a vague ellipse as destroyers and other menacing warships tore through the waves off the perimeter of the oval, guarding against marauding U-boats.

As old Koroa clumsily approached, an over sized, sleek launch, with signal flags flying and radar device revolving, sailed smartly toward us, evidently to assign our old tub to its place in the line of vessels that were soon to turn toward the Italian land mass. But our ugly ship, looking as alien to its surroundings as a hobo in high society, had yet to show its scorn for the whole show. Korea’s moment was to come presently.

      The launch was the flagship for the multi-striped invasion naval commander, and its appearance befit its lofty assignment: a beautiful craft in every respect, it gleamed from prow to taffrail. Its superstructure held a mass of important looking antennae, horns, bells, signal lights and searchlights among the signal flags. A tall officer with a craggy face stood on the bridge, loud-hailer at the ready, as the craft maneuvered crisply to come alongside our homely black cattle boat. Only after this splendid craft had narrowed the gap to a couple dozen yards did the elements of disaster become apparent.

      When Koroa departed the North African port, a command from the bridge had ordered the routine belaying of all cargo booms amidships, but somehow one spar still extended over the port side. And as luck would have it, the neglected cargo boom lay directly in the path of the fast approaching cutter. Suddenly a klaxon sounded aboard the Navy vessel and a string of unintelligible, highly amplified commands squawked from its bridge. Koroa’s  cargo boom smashed into the cutter’s superstructure, sweeping much of the signaling and navigational apparatus, together with the mast that held it, into the sea.

      The Navy craft sped past Koroa, but not before the tall American had screamed a string of pithy oaths at his counterpart on our bridge. In turn, the red-faced Briton vented his own outrage, shouting strong epithets in Hindi at the dark-skinned deck hands cowering below him.

     As Koroa lumbered toward its place in the invasion lineup, the offending cargo boom finally was swung out of harm’s way amidships. But the deed was done.

      As a ragtag platoon of American soldiers, on leaving French North Africa we had felt our role in the invasion scheme of dubious utility. To be sure, we had rifles, ammunition and rations, but all of our armored vehicles were on the Liberty ships. What could we do after landing on the beachhead but idly wait the three or four days it would take to land our heavy equipment?

      But ours was not to reason why. As Koroa’s turn came, the old freighter pulled into the invasion staging zone a couple of miles off the beach. We climbed down a cargo net to the deck of a slim LCI (Landing Craft, Infantry) that had tied up alongside our ship, surprisingly, without incident.

      The LCI then carried us close to the beach. When in water shallow enough for wading ashore, the LCI halted and the American troops, laden with full packs, gas masks, rifles and steel helmets, soon were on sandy Italian soil without looking back in the direction of old Koroa.

      Our officers had arrived before us. A German torpedo had sunk one of the Liberty ships, but all members of our company aboard the vessel were rescued from the sea unhurt.

      Why were we on the beachhead? On the California and Arizona deserts we had trained as Ordnance troops. Before learning to snatch disabled tanks from the battlefield, we ran an ASP - Ammunition Supply Point, or “ammo dump.” That was our mission in the first stages of the Italian invasion.

           - - - - - - - - - - -

     I hope this war story and other ones by the Modest Editor will make their way into the Library of Congress. Naturally, not all war stories deserve this honor. There were those who faked physical injury to gain 4-F status so that they could not be drafted. Others avoided battle action by claiming to be conscientious objectors. The most famous was Olaf, a literary creation of E. E. Cummings. His comrades tortured Olaf in many different ways to force him to fight, among them having his head pushed down into a latrine commode. At one point, close to death, he raises his head and says"  "There is some sh- - I will not eat."  Gradually transformed into a Christ-figure, "he was more brave than me, more blond than you."

             POSTSCRIPT

     Speaking of the end, I may have to close out my blogging. That Old Black Macular Degeneration has both eyes in its spell, and unless YAG, laser surgery, changes my eyesight radically, I will have to throw in the towel. Since I never developed a wide readership, the end of my blog will not be a great loss. I certainly appreciate the encouragement of a few loyal readers and contributors like Herodotus, Doc, the Actor,  Pedro, the Prof, and, of course, the Modest Editor. If anyone knows where there is a Home for the Blind in an interesting environment, let me know.

     I may do a short piece, now and then, "as I rage, rage into the dying light." Goodbye and good luck.

    

Army Story - WW II Part 1

The Modest Editor will be the guest blogger this month. Bill is not by any means a shy person--if you've ever met an editor you'll know what I mean. I used to write book reviews for Bill's publication and am still considered a low man on the totem pole. A professional will not stoop to the level of an amateur blogger. If he wishes to identify himself, all he has to do is send a comment to Smokytown.

As a combat veteran of WW II, Bill is a special commodity these days, since the ones still living are dying off at the rate of a thousand per day. Their war stories should be saved for posterity by being ensconced in the Library of Congress before it's too late. Bill experienced some very violent action in Italy, and in this story, he tells how he left Oran, North Africa, and took an interesting cruise to a beachhead in Italy.

      War Story - Part One

Steaming slowly away from Oran, Koroa was an antiquated, stubby freighter seemingly bent on spoiling any scene it happened upon. Reputedly the oldest ship on the cattle run between India and England before the war, Koroa stood in sharp contrast to the other vessels in the convoy heading northeast across the Mediterranean to the beachhead south of Salerno. Judging from its bulky lines and lumbering speed, Koroa predated the First World War by a decade or more.

Its hull, cabins and fittings all were painted black. British officers in starched white uniforms commanded a Hindu crew. The deck hands, slender, nimble fellows who swung among the rigging in the manner of acrobats, wore baggy garments of blue cotton cinched at the waist by a rope. Their dark skin and long black mustaches set off glistening white teeth. Packs of rats scurried below desks. The British officer staff occupied forward cabins, and the Hindus curled up for sleeping on mats on the open deck.

There the Indians tended a pen of goats which, according to the dictates of their religion, the crewmen butchered as needed for meals of fresh mutton, and chapitas made of corn that they milled by hand on the deck planking and baked with the meat in smoky braziers.

       As cargo, our platoon of American soldiers unrolled our sleeping bags in the cattle stalls below, creating a stir among the rats. Somehow we slept the first night, although fitfully, with the awful creatures running over and among us. On the second day at sea the British gave us sailors’ hammocks to string over the cattle stalls. The hammocks kept us out of reach of the hungry rodents -- a godsend.

The British officers of course had their own mess. We hadn’t the vaguest notion of what was on their dinner plates. While the Hindus ate mutton and corn cakes, most of us in the hold were driven by hunger to tear open our “K” rations. Each soldier had been told he would need to save the “K” rations for his first days on the beachhead.

None of our company’s officers were aboard Koroa. All six were parceled out to the three Liberty ships that carried our tanks and trucks and the rest of the other enlisted men -- so who could we ask where to find food? None of the American soldiers on Koroa were told of the arrangements for their transport. We learned we were headed for the western coast of Italy only a day or so before landing there.

Each “K” ration pasteboard carton held a small flat can of cooked, ground pork, another tin of bland processed cheese, a package of three virtually tasteless biscuits, a small fruit bar and a drink _ alternately instant coffee grounds, cocoa powder, or lemon flavored crystals to be mixed with water. The “K” ration meal seemed designed to intensify one’s hunger; that was its effect on the U.S. Army troops on board Koroa.

We weren’t quite hungry enough to approach the fiercely visaged Indians to barter for food. But the British, on the second day after our departure from North Africa, came to our aid as we were tearing into the last of the “K” rations. Presumably, the British officers took it upon themselves to save us from starvation. Who was to know? Maybe they had agreed to provide food for us from the onset of the voyage. At any rate, not one of us about criticize the steps taken for our salvation, however nominal they proved to be.

So each of our six-man squads delegated a soldier to climb twice a day to the main deck where he stood in line to be handed a tin dishpan containing cold bully beef, chunks of slightly maggoty bread, and a spouted tin pitcher full of lukewarm tea. Each dishpan  and “teapot” was shoved through a square opening in the deckhouse to the American at the head of the line on the open deck; none of us were allowed in the galley.

A day or two later, a corporal in our platoon broke through a flimsy bulkhead in the hold and stole a few pasteboard boxes of dried apple slices apparently stowed there for the Englishmen’s mess. These supplemental rations, although minimal in flavor, helped stave off hunger pangs for the rest of the five-day voyage to Malta and thence to a rendezvous point where the invasion flotilla grouped close to the Italian mainland.

    (to be continued)

In the next blog, readers will find out if the wreck of the Koroa will get close enough to the beachhead to disgorge Bill and his fellow soldiers. At least by now, if you've ever wondered, you know what enticing ingredients were in the famous "K" rations, not exactly an early Lean Cuisine, by any means.

Until next month, I hope this wartime adventure of the Modest Editor will serve as welcome relief from an overdose of poisonous politics, but I'll give in enough to select a Running Mate for John McCain.This Dream Team will knock your socks off and change the direction of the election. Would you like to take a guess at my selection? Send it along  to me.

Until then, ship ahoy!

War No More - 01/04/08

     Is it my imagination, or is madness creeping from the White House across the face of the globe? I don't think it has anything to do with April Fools' Day or the end of college basketball and the beginning of the baseball season. It may be Bush on a junket in Russian territory to look into Putin's GB-eyes to see if a soul is still there. I have to confess that some of the madness is escaping from bad dreams and nightmares. Just the other night I dreamed I was trapped on the Titanic. A madcap captain kept announcing there was nothing to worry about because he was an optimistic fellow and always held a glass that was half-full and was sure that the economy was going to come ROARING back. He tried to reassure passengers by saying that the ship had not hit an iceberg, but the edge of an ice floe the size of Vermont. Sitting in the middle of this huge detached sheet of ice was Rush Limbaugh, naked, holding Ann Poltergeist on his lap with a nice wide stance, both singing "Al Gore's Global Warming Is a Hoax."  From years of practice, Ann was able to suck in and expel the methane gas without passing out.

     This hideous picture changed to a US naval ship, the Caine, with an equally crazy captain who was obsessed by frozen strawberries, steel balls, and yellow cakes from Nigeria. The crew mutinies on the high seas, and the captain is declared nola competent, or whatever the Latin term for nuts is. (You don't expect me to check on spelling in the middle of a nightmare, do you?) Blindfolded, stripped, manacled, the captain undergoes extraordinary rendition at a black site where torture is permitted.

     A quick shift to Iraq. Bombs detonated in the Green Zone. Bloody conflict in Basra. Towns and villages under attack. What do we hear from the one who ordered the invasion? "Everything is normal in Iraq." If this isn't enough to question the sanity of our commander-in-chief, his statement that our soldiers should look forward to duty in Iraq and Afghanistan as a "romantic" adventure. Romantic? With over 4,000 dead and 30,000 grievously wounded, no one in his right mind would suggest that having a "romantic affair" in those war-torn countries was the right thing to do. I hope he has the decency to send the twin and her husband-to-be on their honeymoon among the deadly fields where poppies grow, row on row, each flower symbolic of a dead soldier.

     On the anniversary of the beginning of the Bush War, he said: "I vow so long as I am president to make sure that these lives were not lost in vain."             

        

      And where was his sidekick, the one who shoots lawyers, doing on the fifth anniversary of their war? He was fishing from a sultan's yacht.

                                  SO?

     When VP Cheney was asked about his response to a recent poll that  showed most Americans are opposed to the war, he said: "So?"

     All of the arrogance of the administration was buried in that short word. "So what? Or, "screw the majority." I think you'll have to agree that such a response from the second top gun shoots down the glorified democracy that Bush claims we are planting in Iraq. I know who is in the final throes without mission accomplished. Oh, where is Molly Ivins now that we need her. She would take a strong stand against water boarding and other forms of torture, along with the recent firebombing of Basra. She might echo Kurt Vonnegut: "If Jesus were alive today, we would kill Him with lethal injections." Cheney would call that progress. Although blind like the Greek soothsayerTiresias, I don't possess his powers, but I did predict last December that when spring arrived in Basra, it would bring death and destruction.

     A recent letter to the editor of a local paper made me think that Molly had been resurrected. Rae Kramer wrote: Twisted metal, stinking black smoke, unidentifiable body parts, disoriented stand byers, rivulets of blood--this is business as usual in Baghdad.

     Explosions, sirens, wailing mothers, weeping children, gunshots - this is business as usual in Baghdad. Water, sometimes; electricity, sometimes; fresh bread and fruit, sometimes; funeral processions, often; inadequate medical care, often; soldiers with guns ready, often - this is business as usual in Baghdad.

     Can one really empathize enough to feel what life must be like in Baghdad? Can we really understand what it must feel like to know that everyone one sees has lost a child or parent or cousin or brother or friend or coworker or schoolmate?

     Today marks the fifth anniversary of the unprovoked, illegal and immoral invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq by the United States armed forces. We, the people who fund the ongoing presence or unwanted occupying troops and mercenaries, are not even permitted to see the coffins of our soldiers who died, for fear that this reminder of business as usual will arouse in us a passion to end the occupation now.

     Today will also be a day to say no to impotence - of Congress, the mainstream press and ourselves. We will gather at Clinton Square at noon to say, "No Business as Usual." The call to action is to join me and others as we pause in our life as we know it, and call out, as one voice, "Let there be peace!"

                                     War No More!

    Meanwhile, the close race to be the Democratic presidential candidate goes on between Hillary and Obama. On this special day, Obama has a razor-thin lead. Rush Limbaugh, the conservative mouthpiece of the Slime-by media, is trying to egg them both on with his Operation Chaos.

     One of Hillary's ads provides much grist for his attack mill--the ad about answering the emergency phone in the White House. On that topic, I too sent a letter to the editor of the local paper.

     Letter to the Editor:  According to a recent article, John McCain will be able to protect our children by handling any 3 a.m. emergency hot line calls. Suppose McCain is not the one in the White House to take the call.

     "Hello. What? Yes, I know it rang six times. What do you expect at this ungodly hour of the night? You're what? No, absolutely not. Take that order and get lost. Who am I? I just happen to be the commander-in-chief."

     After hanging up. "Bill, did you use the emergency phone in the Oval Office to order a late-night snack? I've told you not to do that. I almost ordered an air strike on a Papa John's Pizza."

     "I'm sorry, my little Valkyries warrior. I'll race you to the Lincoln Room."

                The End on April Fools' Day, 2008

         

Train Wreck - March 08

    A small area of Central New York seems to be collecting train wrecks. The last one--the derailment of a CSX freight--took place in mid-January of this year. Circular containers rolled off thirteen overturned cars and almost ended their interrupted journey in the village of Canastota, home of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

    The engineer and conductor were uninjured, and no local resident of 4,400 was hurt, including a local boxer and onion farmer Carmen Basilio, soon to be honored by his induction into the Hall Canastota is only five miles from another CSX crash that happened a year ago in Oneida, triggering the explosions of four propane tankers, causing the evacuation of hundreds of citizens. That accident resulted from an undetected broken rail. There has been an epidemic of faulty ties that threaten lives of Amtrak passengers and could ignite dangerous freight cargo. In one county alone, In addition to the International Boxing Hall, the Village of Chittenango sponsors Munchkin events to honor native son L. Frank Baum, known mainly for The Wizard of Oz. and a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy who just changed his sex in Cazenovia's public library--all of these famous locations might go up in a fireball due to a defective railroad track. Try to imagine an ancient pug, an unwrapped mummy, and some squashed munchkins flying sky-high over Mumsville's courthouse.

     "Today's event near Chittenango is just the latest reminder that CSX's persistently troubling safety record continues to threaten communities across Central New York," said U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. "It's time we demand they step up performance and safety." That's a gentle way of telling the railroads to replace those defective tracks before passengers are killed or a toxic explosion destroys an entire community.

     Now if Robert R. Young, the outspoken visionary of the New York Central Railroad, were still on the scene, I'm sure the fire would fly. He once said, "Hogs ride from coast to coast without changing trains, but YOU can't." During the 1940s, he ruled a string of railroads with an iron fist, accusing bankers of being money-suckers and other financial agents of being weasels. I heard him give this advice to a graduating class: "Go out there and make as much money as fast as you can, and then later if you want to make a few donations to charity, that's your choice."  When New York Central started to go belly-up and failed to produce profits for the stockholders, Robert Young couldn't stand the heat and committed suicide.

                     My Own Wreck

     Last month I told you a war story about soldiers landing in Naples in the middle of the Red Light district (which Pedro and a few other readers found hilarious). In this blog, let me tell you about the time I was in a train wreck. My own wreck didn't happen in New York, but in Ohio a few years ago. Upper Sandusky was the exact location, and I hope the overflow from the lavatories never reached Lower Sandusky, if there is such a place.

The caption read: "Big Collision. Two Wyandot County emergency workers inspect the damage from an early Sunday crash of an Amtrak passenger and CSX freight train near Upper Sandusky, Ohio. There were no fatalities or cargo spills. Three Hoosier crew members and a passenger were injured when the Amtrak train hit the 13th car of the 116-car CSX freighter."

Friends who had never been in a train wreck looked at me with renewed interest. Some of them were kind enough to ask if I had any injuries. I made a mental note to improve my slight limp.

     "How did it feel when the trains collided?"

That was a question I was often asked. I wish I could come up with a dramatic description, but I have to stay with the facts. The train was moving slowly. A dull thud and an instant stop. No screeching of brakes before the thud (which means, your honor, that the engineer did not see the freight train before impact). On the thud, those passengers sitting up suddenly leaned forward as if they were trying to see the engine. Those passengers curled up on two seats went on sleeping.

This rail travel was my first since the troop trains of World War !!, when I had solemnly promised that I would never travel by trains again. What was I doing on this Amtrak?

I had gone to the Big Apple mainly to visit some relatives, who live near LaGuardia Airport. A few weeks ago a plane taking off went off the end of the run and splashed down in the East River, close to my relatives' backyard. I decided it would be safer to go by train.

Would someone in this age of computers and advanced technology please tell me how it's possible for one train to broadside a second in a town the size of Canastota? Asleep at the throttle? Drugs in the system?

                THE CONDUCTORS

A parade of conductors came through at about twenty-minute intervals. The first said: "There's been a minor accident." The next one said: "We bumped into another train." Meantime, sirens screamed for attention and lights on tops of police cars and ambulances twirled in the darkness.

Next to arrive, two important conductors. "Are there any injuries in this car?" None of the passengers responded. Under the stark emergency lights, the passengers stared straight ahead or moved like zombies in a horror movie.

A Red Cross lady passed through to cheer us up. No, she had no hot coffee or donuts. No, she couldn't help us make telephone calls. No, she couldn't get any heat turned up. She could offer us only cheerfulness.

Yet another conductor announced that we would continue our trip by bus. When pressed for an answer on bus arrival time, he said about four hours and hurried on.

The zombies began to change back to people and grew irritated and rebellious. We considered printing signs like "help" or "Amtrak is holding us hostage," and holding them up to the windows. The canteen and dining cars were locked. The explanation? No power to heat food or coffee. No power to heat the coaches. No one was allowed outside to make telephone calls or get food. The explanation? For our own protection, Amtrak ordered us to stay in our seats.

Commodes in the lavatories were soon plugged. On the toilet seats were the words from an earlier time: "Do not flush while train is standing still." The train couldn't be standing any stiller.! The overflow came close to the top edge of the shoes. I looked down at my smelly shoes and just then remembered Amtrak's motto: "Discover the Magic."

                Inspector Imtrack

Among the flashing lights, while it was still dark, I had noticed, rushing toward the crash site, dump trucks loaded with sand. The time had come for me to slip into my black raincoat and put on my Greek Fisherman's cap. Once outside, I could pass for a conductor. When the next one came rustling through the car, I got up, followed him down the aisle, down the steel stairs, and hastened to the impact. Sand was being dumped on something with an acrid odor. I overheard that a conductor had suffered a heart attack. Could it have been the engineer? The engine of the passenger train had been derailed and was leaning against a CSX car like a tired old man.

I couldn't get too close, but managed to make out two freight cars tipping precariously and a third on its side. Before being discovered and marched back to my coach by a rent-a-cop whose uniform smelled of mothballs. I had given myself away by asking if that was a doghouse floating in a swimming pool, a sight you seldom run into in real life. Instead of drawing attention to myself as a spy, I should have waited until the next day to read in a paper that a railroad shack had been pushed into a pool.

Thus ended the ignominious saga of Inspector Imtrack.

          Report to Fellow Passengers

Back in the coach, everyone felt much better when I told them what was happening. We passed the time by pooling food. Tins of cookies were quickly emptied in Upper Sandusky, whose citizens began discovering in the daylight that a wreck had occurred. Although my contribution of food was a popular one. I can't take credit for it. My daughter had shoved a long loaf of Italian bread under my arm when we were saying goodbye in Penn Station. I had protested: "A grown man doesn't walk around with a loaf of bread under his arm. Maybe in Italy, but not on an Amtrak train." Fairlie insisted: "Take it, Dad. You may need it before the trip is over." What a wise daughter I have!

The buses finally arrived. Passengers not going to Chicago were allowed off first. With two heavy suitcases hanging on the ends of my arms, I got off the train. A microphone was shoved in my face and a TV camera pointed at me. "Tell me," the young lady interviewer asked, "how did it feel when the trains smashed together?"

Oh my gosh, I thought, after twenty hours on the train I'm going to make the Six O'Clock News in Upper Sandusky. I said: "There was a thud and we stopped." She asked, "And since then, what's been going on in there?"

I turned to look at the coach that had been my prison. I was tempted to liven up the news with a vivid description of a Roman orgy. Or I wanted to complain about being held hostage by Amtrak, but I didn't. I said, "We just sat there." For over five hours, we just sat there. And now you'll have to excuse me. I have a bus to catch, and I wouldn't want to miss it."

Just before the bus pulled out, a lady and a man boarded it with donuts and milk. They weren't from Amtrak or the Red Cross. Neighbors living alongside the track had taken up a collection to buy breakfast for the strangers who had been staring out the train windows.

                               #######################                     

Reminiscence - 01/08

     An ancient adage says:  "One man's meat is another man's poison." I hope (which springs eternal) my reminiscences do not lead to hisses.

     How about starting with a war story?  I understand that World War II veterans are being asked to record their adventures before it's too late. (And it is too late for the thousand vets who die every day). About the only excitement in this anecdote is the pursuit of the troop ship by Nazi sub wolf packs. We docked in the battle-ravaged harbor and disembarked by walking on gangplanks between sunken ships. So why am I bringing this up now? Because we had landed in Naples.

     If you've been reading the news, you know that presently the streets and sidewalks of a once-beautiful city are buried in garbage. Yes, garbage or rubbish or smelly mounds and mounds of wet and dry debris. To put it mildly, Naples stinks. The stench is unbearable. Kids walking to school are being asphyxiated, many of them contacting terrible diseases. The Mafia has taken garbage workers out on strike, and there is no predicting when things will get back to normal.

     When I landed there during WW II, more than 60 years ago, we entered the city through the Red Light district on the water front, a convenient location for more recreations than rest--but that's another story. Let's just say that some callow 19-year olds learned the facts of life in a hurry from the ladies-of-the-night who really know how to jump-start the economy and could teach the D.C lame-brains the art of stimulus without wasting $150 billion. For the time being, I just pray that this wonderful city can return to its historic self and provide a launching place for the trip up Mt. Vesuvius to buy some of those miniature reproductive organs. I mention this salacious bit to certify that I'm not humbugging you. If you doubt me, ask the Modest Editor, who also served in the Neapolitan area and claims he didn't sacrifice his modesty for the good of his country. At any rate, here's a shot of the current garbage:

                        

                From Naples to Baghdad by the Bay -

     After the death of Herb....Caen and the attack on Iraq, the sobriquet for San Francisco fadded away, some fearing that the president might get confused and bomb it. (let me throw in here: I predict that in two months Iraq will be ripped in bloody pieces by the most horrendous civil war ever. Keep in mind, after duty in Italy, I spent two years in Casablanca studying the psychology of Arab tribalism.)

        San Francisco is another of my favorite cities. At the present time, the Zoo is trying to recover from the terrible death of Carlos Sousa, a 17-year-old, torn apart by a tiger, as he warned two friends, the Dhaliwa brothers, to flee. Controversy continues to swirl around the Christmas Day killing. If the tiger, which was shot later, was taunted until she made the giant leap over the grotto and to the top of the wall, the teasing was probably done by the brothers, who are on trial for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in another case. The tiger had had her first taste of human blood when she reached through the bars of a cage and ripped off the arm of a zookeeper.

                               

                                     

Tyger! Tygre!! Burning bright.

In the forest of the night.

What immortal hand or eye

Could form thy fearful symmetry?

                               --William Blake

      SF zoo administrators may have a lawsuit on their hands and a guilty conscience. An experiment conducted some years ago proved that the tiger could leap to the top of the wall. A piece of meat was dangled on a fishing pole at the top, and in a flash, the tiger had leaped to the top of the wall, snatched the slab of meat and in a matter of micro-seconds was gnawing on the meat on "the safe side"" of the wall.

                             Personal Zoo Story

     Would you like to hear a personal zoo story? Of course you would. I had rented a basement apartment from a former student, now one of the best movie critics in the Bay area. Not far from KV's place was a pleasant park with winding sidewalks for baby carriages and for toddlers to play. One day while I was strolling through Alta Plaza I noticed a flurry of activity. Moving up a hillock, I was stopped by a breathless woman who warned me I should turn back because there were two men engaged in a knife fight. After thanking her and moving a bit closer, I noticed something about the fighting that seemed familiar. When I reached the young men, I said: "I've been to the zoo." They fell to the ground, laughing, and wanted to know how I knew. I told them that I had directed Edward Albee's "Zoo Story" when I worked at the Culver Academies.

     They were kind enough to ask if I would take a look at the scene they were preparing for their drama class and give them some tips. I agreed, but asked them to turn and wave at their frightened audience to indicate the knife fight was being staged. They did, and once more peace was restored to Alta Plaza.

     They were interested to learn that in my workshop performance I had rewritten the ending for a secret second cast, shifting the killing from one character to the other one. They sympathized with Chan, an actor in the play as originally written, who was preening himself for the curtain call, only to catch a glimpse from the wings of the second cast in action. If you don't believe me, ask Chan, whose retelling of how he was cheated out of a curtain call grows with each retelling. The young thespians asked if I had a copy of my revised ending, but I had to disappoint then since it's unethical to do so much rewriting of another man's script and to play a trick on a loyal actor.

     Now you know what happened to me on the way to the zoo. To wrap up this blog, I'll feed you a few bites of doggerel. First from Doc, another former student, now a better writer than his master.

                               Primarily Painful

I thought that I would never see

A candidate like Hillary

And just to add some racial drama

How about Barrack Obama?

You want healthcare? Eat your spinach!

No-vote for KO'd Kucinich.

McCain enablers must like war

Since hawking it is what he's for.

If twits who think their view is omni

tickle you, then vote for Romney.

Oh dear, why can the Huckabee

want more Christian zealotry?

Thompson's out and on his fanny

which resembles Giuliani.

John Edwards, a Confederate,

thinks perfect Union is where it's at.

And just when you think you'd heard it all

comes the whacky whinging of Ron Paul.

     What a genius! But is it kosher to hit on a candidate's last name that rhymes with "spinach"? And you're really scraping the bottom to link Thompson's behind with the face of the 9/11 mayor, the Early Bird Special in Florida. And now, let me take a crack at it.

                             Running for Office

Hill and Bill went up the Hill

To fetch the nomination.

But clodhoppers in Iowa blocked her way

To the House where she once held sway.

Hill fell down and broke her crown

And her high rating came tumbling after.

                              

Piggy Tim & Lim attacked her gender

These Talking Heads would not surrender.

Their shifty eyes took on a fiendish glow

As they waited for the knockout blow.

(They should have listened to the NY Times.)

A jerk in Hampshire hurled sexist dirt.

He ordered the first lady to iron his shirt.

"If you can't stand the heat and the bitchin'

"Put on an apron and go back to the kichen."

When a kind lady lent a sympathetic ear,

It brought from Hill the glisten of a tear

And reminded all women they were second-class

So they turned out and voted en masse,

Helping Hill to poll fault and sink in velvet claws

To drive home in a hot flash, the meaning of men-a-pause.

MORAL: Don't take the fairer sex for granite,

Even in the Granite State--get it?

     While watching the debates unfold, I sometimes wonder what is going on in the minds of the presidential candidates as they tear one another apart. What would Jesus, the Lamb of God, say about all the nasty personal attacks, the backbiting, the tearing apart of reputations? He (or she) who strives for the top office may lose his (or her) soul.

"Did He smile his work to see?

Did He who made the Lamb make thee?"

                                                                       

                                     

                                                                                                               

Christmas - 2007

         MERRY CHRISTMAS -

from Dusty Rogue

      Counting the days until January 20, 2009                                         Thank goodness!

And when he steps off, for the last time, from Air Force One in Texas (with the words of his replacement still ringing in his ears:  "...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution) guess who is there to greet him? Cindy Sheehan. I think it would be fitting for all those parents who lost children in his unnecessary Iraqi War, to send him and VP Cheney Christmas cards inscribed: "Why did you murder my child?"  For the rest of their lives, he and Cheney must be reminded of the billions of taxpayers' money spent without reason, the damage they did to American law and order, and the thousands of lives  ruined by their warmonger decisions.

     What amazes me is that those who voted twice to put these mulish misleader's in the Oval Office refuse to hold them responsible. It was a hopeful sign in Bali on global warming when representatives of other countries grew tired of the U.S. bullying tactics and said: "We invite you to lead the way, but if you continue to block us, we have just one thing to say:  'Get out of the way!'" I remember what Bush said about the Kyoto Protocol when he was first given the office: "It does not suit our needs." What is the antecedent of "our"?  Oily corporations? I also enjoyed it recently when a Spanish Grandee said to Hugo Chavez:  "Sit down and shut up, you clown." Hugo is the Venezuelan leader who said he sniffed remnants of hell after he followed Bush to the speaker's stand.

     Ah, but I go astray. This was supposed to be a merry, merry Christmas blog. I must add a note of levity. Do you realize the next president in the White House won't have to measure for drapes in advance?                                          

                                       Writers' Strike

     I almost got beat up one time in the NY theater district at my brorther-in-law's establishment. Having forgotten that Joe Allen's was mainly a hangout for actors, I said too loudly that the playwright was far more important than actors. I became the focus of a tirade of insults, plus demands to know who I was to be so important. Joe wasn't there at the time, but the next day, when I dropped by to apologize for creating a disturbance, he asked me why I chose to cross swords with the actor who possessed the biggest mouth in the city.

     Both TV and movies are begging for new properties and for writers not out on the picket lines. Do you think I quietly chortle to myself about the importance of writers? You betcha I do. The entire entertainment business is finding out just how essential writers are. I haven't done much playwriting in recent years, but I'll do my best to fill in with a skeleton of a TV special. It's too late to get a production this year, but at least I'll try to write a vehicle that is warm and fuzzy. I'll try not to get too syrupy or tear jerky.

    

Santa Incognito

(A TV Christmas Special)

Characters

                                     Buddy – an 8-year old

                                     Ruth – his 5-year-old sister

John and Harriet Townsend – his wealthy parents

Sam Incognito – a bearded drunk

Max – taxi-driver

Fire Chief Smith

Two homeless people who sleep under the bridge

      (Along the street decorated heavily with Christmas cheer, BUDDY leads his sister. They look in a window.)

RUTH

      (Very smart for her age, points at the train circling around the store).

Is that what you want for Christmas? A train set?

BUDDY

No.  That’s just for little guys. I have something very special in mind. But I can’t tell, or I might not get it.

(Just then they spot Santa Incognito staggering along ahead of them. He is dressed in a rather ragged Santa suit. They follow him into an alley. Santa fumbles in his pockets and finds a half-pint of booze. He takes a swig. He moves along the alley and then leans against a building, takes out his corncob pipe, and lights it. Buddy and Ruth approach him).

BUDDY

Santa, are you okay?

SANTA

Uh, umm, no I’m not feeling good.

RUTH

Santa, do you want to come to our house? You can have some dinner and rest before Christmas.

(Santa looks somewhat confused but nods yes). (Ruth gets on her cellphone and tells her mother they are bringing a guest home for dinner and tells her mother to have money ready to pay the cab driver. Then she calls a cab).

CAB DRIVER

                  (getting out of cab)

What the heck is this? Did you call for a cab?

BUDDY

My sister did, but it’s okay. When we get home, our parents will pay you. Do you want to check with them on our phone? (The driver says that won’t be necessary. When he asks for the address, he whistles and comments that they live in a ritzy district, right next to the mayor. He tells Santa that he’ll have to put out his pipe before getting into the cab).

CAB DRIVER

You wouldn’t want to set my taxi on fire, would you now?

(Author’s Note:  This is what is known as “foreshadowing.” I learned that when I was studying playwriting under Professor John Gassner at the Yale Drama School. He also taught me what a “mise en scene” is, but I’ve forgotten. This is not unusual because no one else really remembers what it means either.)

      (When they burst in the front door and announce that they’ve found Santa, their father steps out on the porch, examines Santa, and tells the children to go inside. Their mother meets them at the door and leads them in.

Mr. Townsend

So, uh, Santa, how did you meet my kids and what are you doing with them?

(Santa stutters and swaggers a bit and Mr. Townsend realizes Santa is half-drunk. He tells him his children made a mistake and that Santa must leave the property. The father goes inside). (When Sam realizes he’s now alone, he sneaks around the house and finds a door that leads to the basement. He goes inside and makes himself at home. He finds a cot to curl up on. Before passing out, he lights his pipe). (Mr. Townsend tries to explain to his children why he had to send Santa away. Buddy is disappointed because it was Santa that he was hoping would help him get his special present. When he is alone with his sister, he explains that Santa has magical powers and he wants to learn magic. After they put on their pajamas, the mother tucks the children in bed. Mr. And Mrs. Townsend have the radio playing softly and choirs are singing in the background:  “Silent Night, Holy Night” etc. Night descends).

     Suddenly there is a loud outcry from the basement. “Fire, fire!” It is Santa Sam. Ruth reaches for cellphone and calls 911. Sam runs up the stairs to alert the family. When he tells them there is a fire in the basement and Mr. Townsend accuses him of setting it with his pipe. Meantime the mother has called the fire department.  Sam runs out the front door, shouting that it wasn’t his fault. The Fire Chief hurries into the house and down the basement steps. He soon returns and says the fire is out.

     The fire was started in the fuse box, which was overloaded by all the Christmas lights. He says whoever sounded the alarm saved the house from burning and maybe the lives of the family.

MR. TOWNSEND

     Oh, that poor man, we accused him of starting the fire but he saved our lives.

MRS. TOWNSEND

We must find him and bring him home for Christmas.

(But Sam is hard to catch because he thinks they are after him for lighting the fire. They finally catch up with him under the bridge, but are blocked by two of Santa’s friends, a black man and a woman. They explain that they want to invite Santa to Christmas dinner and that he should bring his two friends. Santa comes out of hiding, smiling from ear-to-ear! Buddy asks him if he will help him to learn magic. He reaches behind Buddy’s ear and shows not a coin, but nothing. Much laughter.  The father says he knows just the place for Santa Sam. A lady who runs a boarding house owes him some favors and he is certain that after Christmas they will find a nice home for Santa Incognito.

      At the Christmas dinner, Buddy lifts his cup of eggnog and drinks a toast to his new friends and then makes the cup disappear under a handkerchief. Cheering  & clapping.

THE END

What do you think?  Will Hallmark be knocking on my door? Probably not.

I'll wrap it up with greetings from Bob, Dusty (me), & Fairlie!

Son Bob has recently opened a boxing club in Warsaw, IN.  Check it out at:  boppinbob@BBBSW.net

From Boppin' O to Obama O,

Fairlie's website: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/fairliefirari

Cat or Pitcher - 12/07

     Let's start with a riddle:  "What's the difference between a cat and a pitcher?"

     You'll get the answer if you have the stamina to read the whole blog. I've been told that I would have a wider readership if I would stop being so long-winded. No one is holding a gun to your head to force you to read the entire article. Since my blog is free, there's no subscription to cancel. That's what I did to Newsweek when that magazine had the audacity and bad taste to hire Karl (Turd Blossom) Rove  to write a weekly column and provide the opportunity to blame Congress for starting the Bush War.

     >Before getting to the main topic, let me update a few previous matters. Youssit, the five-year-old Iraqi boy almost burned to death, is making progress at a burn unit in LA. He has been given a new lower jaw. Back in Baghdad, two more of the mistreated orphans have died of cholera from tainted water. The British teacher in Sudan escaped with a light sentence for allowing her class to name a teddy bear MUHAMMAD. I find that strange having had two friends in Casablanca with the same first name-- MUHAMMAD.

     >Here's a scary revelation:  terrible tempered Bob Knight packs heat. He's now coaching in Texas. Do you suppose we could arrange for him to go on a hunting trip with VP Dick Cheney?  Dick's wife reported that when Dick was told that Obama was a distant relative, Dick said: "I knew there was something weird about him."

     > Now it's Opa-and-Oba on the campaign trail together. Hillary may be in trouble in Iowa. Internet blogs and right-wing radio misogynistics are engaging in a reprehensible, anti-feminist vilification of Clinton. The lugubrious Rush Limbaugh babbles about "Clinton's testicle lock box." Tucker Carlson of MSNBC comments: "There's just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing, and scary." Limp wrist Carlson has nothing on him to put into Rush's lock box. There's no way I can discuss the operation performed on the animated show "South Park." What a spectacle of our democracy roiling around in the gutter with the whole world looking on!

     >At a recent GOP debate, Rudy and Romney had a sharp exchange about who provided the most extensive sanctuary for illegal aliens. It brought to mind a matter I've often thought about since 9/11. THE NEW YORK TIMES published a daily list of the those unfortunates who died in the Twin Towers disaster. About 80% of the names seemed to be of Hispanic origin. I wondered if the families of the deceased were taken care of by the employers or Mayor Giulian's city. Probably quickly forgotten--after all some of them were illegal aliens. So many Americans come down hard on them, like Lou Dobbs. We all should take a look at the wealthy fleeing the CA recent fires in expensive cars, while in the fields those despicable Mexicans went on harvesting crops amid toxic fumes and debris from the fires threatening their existence. We use then, then abuse them. Whatever happened to loving one's neighbors, Mr. Dobbs?

                   End of Stagehands' Strike

     They're singing and dancing again on Broadway. The New York City theater district is alive once more with plays and musicals. Even before the strike ended, the Grinch pried open the doors of a theatre, and the scoundrel got busy stealing Christmas.

                                          

Other productions soon followed. but not before the city lost $38 million. Many restaurants in the district lost between $30.000 to $60,000. Joe Allen, owner of a well-known actors' restaurant (and incidentally my brother-in-law), said that his sales fell off about 30 percent. Joe declined to say how much he lost. "I don't want to talk money," he said. "It's gone forever. It's like being the innocent victim of  a runaway train. People talk about making it up in the spring. That ain't going to happen."

     Joe doesn't sound as upbeat as he was during an earlier strike when he served refreshments to those walking the picket lines. Broadway theatre has always had an up-and-down reputation. Some years ago, people were asking if the fabulous invalid was really dead.

     Successful productions have been based on the poetry of Dr.Seuss. His Cat in the Hat has appeared in various versions.

                                            Here are a few lines by Dr. Seuss in person:

"Oh-oh," Sally said, 

"Don't you talk to that cat,

That cat is a bad one,

That Cat in the Hat.

He plays lots of bad tricks.

Don't you let him come near.

You know what he did

The last time he was here.

     Back in 1997, he played a very mean trick. The three-story Cat in the Hat air-balloon in Macy's 71st Thanksgiving Parade knocked down a street light, injuring four of the one million spectators. One of the injured with Marta as a first name suffered a fractured skull and spent a year in the hospital. In memory of this event, I wrote a few lines of doggerel and called them "No Longer Seussable."

Would you look up there...see that?

                              It's that naughty bad Cat in the Hat.

Under the candy-cane hat, he's really unbearable,

                              Made worse pumped up ever so air-able.

See how he bobs without showing a care?

That cat doesn't know he's full of hot air.

His handlers try hard to stay on their feet:

A deadly tug-of-war along the jammed street.

The spectators' love of that cat is no longer dabatable.

A crack on the head calls for a cat less inflatable.

The wind is giving that cat the whizz-ems.

Clearly the parade has become a cataclysm.

The handlers' feet are beginning to drag.

Someone must let the cat out of the bag.

The dented hat bows as if to offer a toast.

And knocks the daylights out of the post.

Spectators run holding their heads,

All the time wishing they were safe in their beds.

They cried out: "Please, please, give us a break."

And that's what they got, plus a Cat scan ache.

     End of story? Not quite. I mentioned the injured spectator, Marta, who spent a year in the hospital, recovering from a fractured skull. On her release, she moved back to her apartment in a NYC high-rise. She could afford it because her lawsuit against Macy's had awarded her $300 million.

     You may recall my riddle:  the difference between a cat and a pitcher. I'll a give you a clue.

                                                A terrible tragedy:  a single-engine aircraft carrying New York Yankees pitcher Cory lidle and his flight instructor slammed into a 40-story apartment building on Wednesday (Oct. 11, 2006). Both men were killed in the crash that rained flaming debris onto the sidewalks.

     A number of apartments were seriously damaged. One of those apartments belonged to Marta, who this time avoided any injury.

     And now you know the answer to the riddle. Don't you?   

                                    

Morpheus - 10/31/07

     I was criticized last month for devoting too much space to Iraqi children and their heart-rending problems caused by the war. One of them was five-year-old Youssit who had gone out to play wearing a black stocking cap on a January day when he was suddenly grabbed by masked men, doused in gas and set on fire. Leaving one's homeland is never an easy choice to make, even during war, but the family of the badly disfigured boy decided that he should seek treatment in the United States.

                                  

                              

     As soon as Youssif arrived at a burn unit in Los Angeles, treatments started, but were interrupted by the fires roaring down out of the mountains. Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire! There's more to report on Youssif, but I just remembered that I've been reprimanded for spending too much time on Iraqi matters.

                                  Next Complaint

     Here's a comment from a reader who goes by the name of "Sleepy reader:"  Hey, it's your blog, but might I humbly ask why do the articles have to so long? A good blog posts at least 3 times a week. Shorter is better. Try it, you might like it. Plus your readership will increase, just watch.  Sleepy reader.

     Dear Sleepy reader:  Okay, I'll try it with some reservations. I agree with you that I have a tendency to be long-winded. Posting three times a week is possible, but doing so would not distinguish me from all the other bloggers. Reading long articles on the Internet is certainly a challenge to those readers with short attention spans. I'm not too fond of it myself, although it sometimes brings a greater depth to a topic.

     If I maintain the usual length, is it possible that "Smokytown" might be used as a substitute for those drugs that help people go to sleep?  One that comes to mind, probably because it's plastered all over TV screens, is Rozerem, a sleep-producing aid with a connection to Morpheus, the god of dreams, who is able to fuse reality with fantasies about Abe Lincoln and a beaver. How Freudians will interpret these incongruous characters is beyond my grasp. To top it off, the patient's boss also has a sleeping problem involved with a blue horse.

     Dreams and nightmares have haunted literature, both religious and secular since time memorial. Shakespeare often mixed imagery of death and dreams:  "what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause."  I don't think anyone has ever adequately explained how dreams are made. The other night I dreamed that Dick Chaney was out hunting and charged up a hill with a Confederate flag draped around his shoulders. I probably heard a new song about Sagging Pants and rap lyrics that demanded:  "Pull 'em up! Pull 'em up."  Or did I just make that up?

     But to return to my blog as a sleep-inducing agent--if you do make a copy and curl up in bed, there are certain WARNINGS and PRECAUTIONS to observe. 

     >Do not mix three martinis and drink them before curling up in bed with "Smokytown."

     >If you suffer a sudden onslaught of nose bleed, stop listening to Rush Limbaugh during the day.

     >Stop reading if you notice your testosterone level has gone down.

     >Should you begin to laugh uncontrollably, make a quick trip to the bathroom.

     >Don't get up in the middle of the night to drive heavy machinery, like a road grader.

     >Stop reading if you find a story about the Supreme Court stripping Al Gore of the Nobel Peace Prize and awarding it to George W. Bush.

               SO SHORTER IS BETTER. OKAY. GOODBYE!

                                     Halloween - 07

                           

Op-ed - 10/07

     Let's begin with a short piece from someone named Wondering. "Is this the Small Town blog, or the Iraq blog? I can't figure it out."

Dear wondering:  The name was changed almost a year ago. It is now called "Smokytown." Like you know (to use a bit of teen jargon) where there's smoke there's fire. I have to admit the last three blogs spent a lot of time in Iraq. You'll be pleased to learn that Youssif, the Iraqi burned boy, is now in America getting plastic surgery to repair his disfigured face.When his mother looked out the plane at all the green grass, she exclaimed, "Am I in Paradise?" Back in Iraq, Baby Fatima remains under the care of the American medical staff that nursed her back to health. They are still searching for a family to adopt her. One of the 24 orphans rescued from deplorable circumstances failed to survive.

     A question from Sam: "You have an Italian name and you've mentioned having German parentage. What side did you fight on during World War II?"

Dear Sam: My first reaction was to laugh, but then I realized everyone that I knew in the service has passed on. As you probably know, veterans of that war are dying off at the rate of a thousand a day. I fumbled around through some old records and I'm happy to report I found discharge papers indicating I served on the Allied side. Does that satisfy you, Sam?

     An e-mail from a relative: "Have your read any books or seen any videos by John Pilger, an Australian, who is now primarily based in London?  If you don't know his works, I think you might want to dip into them. You and John have much in common. In all of his work, Pilger has been a prominent and fervent critic of Western foreign policy." 

Dear Relative: Thanks to NPR, I have heard some of Pilger's speeches, the most recent drawing attention to his latest book: " Lapdogs with Laptops," an incisive attack on today's mainstream media. "We need a press that will hold the feet of the mighty to the fire and not drink Cabernet Avignon with them.Citizens are ill served by lapdogs with laptops. More terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the United States than anywhere on earth. They include mass murderers, torturers, former and future tyrants, and assorted international criminals. This is virtually unknown to the American publics. thanks to the freest media on earth."

     Originally published in "Counterpunch," this  Op-ed piece comes from a former student and good friend, James McEnteer.

            An Academic Hotshot Introduces a Petty Tyrant:

                                     Hell,Columbia

     "Before addressing our speaker, I have a few critical points to emphasize. First, just because we invite some nutcase here to sound off does not mean we endorse his ideas. Does the term 'political pressure' mean anything to you people? Enough said. Second, to those who are offended by this guy and everything he stands for and wish we'd never asked him here or that he'd never been born, I couldn't agree with you more completely.

"But as a noted free speech expert in a country that supposedly stands for freedom of speech, I didn't really have a choice, okay? So stop with those nasty letters and that evil spam already. Third, if what this lunatic says offends you or causes you pain, I am truly sorry and wish I could lay some percodan on each and every one of you. Fourth ... oh never mind. We scheduled it. We took heat for it. We didn't want to appear to back down. So we're going ahead with it. I just want you to know I really really don't like it, okay?

"Now, let me turn to you, Mr. President. You have unfairly and without trial or any due process imprisoned hundreds of people. You have denied them counsel. You have allowed them to be tortured. You have committed wanton acts of violence against the populations of several countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

"You lied about your reasons for this violence. But millions of innocent civilians have died, or been wounded or become refugees thanks to your brutal, unjustified policies. Your misleading inept actions have now killed more Americans than Osama bin Laden or the terrorists of September 11. You are now officially the greatest mass murderer of the twenty-first century.

"We could have expected brutality from you. After all, you presided over more executions than any modern ruler of any state. Even the mentally incompetent are not immune from the system you call justice. The ones you don't appoint to office you execute. Of course your own ascent to the presidency, abetted by your father's judicial cronies, which the rest of the world rightly saw as a coup, was enabled by your own fawning media and your country's one-party state. You are shameless, as your regime has been shameless, scornful of the rights of others, Americans and non-Americans alike.

"Let's be clear, Mr. President. You exhibit all the signs of a cruel and petty dictator. You have no integrity, no credibility and no competence. You have said and your Congressional lackeys have agreed that Iran is supplying arms to your enemies in Iraq. Many people fear you will attack Iran, despite your failure to contain the chaos you have unleashed in Afghanistan or Iraq. To do so would be immoral and irresponsible. But of course, that is precisely your signature style.

"You spout lies. You conduct official business in secret. You spy on your own countrymen. You put anyone who questions your policies on your no-fly list and harass them. Why are you so afraid of American citizens expressing their opinions for change?

"Frankly and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes everything you say and do. I feel the weight of the modern civilized world, yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for.

"And so folks, without further doodoo, let's put your hands together for that wacky dry drunk, that lyin' murderin' Christian himself, still beloved by 28 percent of us, that draft-dodging commander-in-chief and the illiterate leader of the free world himself, the son, the phony ... "

[Drowned out by jeers]

James McEnteer is the author of Shooting The Truth: The Rise of American Political Documentaries (Praeger, 2006).

     Gosh almighty, I wonder who was being introduced in Jim's piece? It certainly wasn't Iranian President Mahmound Ahmadimejad, who was rather rudely introduced by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. Talk about inviting a speaker and then making chopped liver out of him by calling him to his face "a petty and cruel dictator."  Bollinger might want to go back to the times of King Arthur and the Round Table and review how guests should be treated. In those days, if an enemy managed to gain entrance to a castle, he was treated as a guest until he left the premises.

     Here are a few excerpts from Iranian blogs:

>Insulting the president of a country, no matter how unacceptable his point of view, is synonymous to insulting a nation.

>What is interesting is that we claim the Americans want to prevent our voice from being heard, so why do we censor ourselves?

>I was reading the news reports of the American media. I am truly dumbfounded. They have focused on Ahmadinejad's response to the homosexually question and are analyzing it. What has the world come to that, with innocent people dying in Iraq every day, the rights of the homosexuals have become the most important issue of the day?

>Someone who denies the Holocaust and promises the downfall of the Western World will inevitably remind Westerns of bin Laden and Al-Queda.

A late e-mail: What is your response to Bush's veto of the bill to expand the Children's Insurance Program?

     Dear Late:  I wold get an illustrator to draw a cartoon with Bush standing up to his neck in a quagmire of sand surrounded by a half-trillion dollars. He is saying: "We can't afford to increase the money to help children."

A second e-mail from "Wondering," who said I was spending too much time in Iraq. Remember?  "But I love your blog, don't get me wrong. Keep up the good work."

Teeter-totter

     This blog is the third part of a trilogy about children in many parts of the world. An earthquake in Peru sends many flocking into a church, but hundreds die when the House of God collapses upon them. A bus load of school children teeters on a broken bridge over the Mississippi River. They escaped, but not without being psychologically scarred for life. This seesaw of life and death causes many to ask where was God's protection, but not even Mother Teresa could answer that question, for her writings reveal that in dark moments she doubted the existence of a Supreme Being.

                                             A lad in Argentina slides under the ice. A life-saving team nearby pulls him out and revives him. A boy noted for his big friendly smile is shot dead by two drive-by teens in England, a terrible shock in a country that prohibits the bearing of firearms. In this country, three college students were forced to kneel by a vicious street gang and shot in the back of the head. The leader of the gang turns out to be an illegal alien from Peru, a member of one of America's most feared gang, La Mara Salvattucha, or MS-13.

     More and more attention is being paid to the horrifying plight of young children forced to work from dawn to dusk in dangerous locations. To commemorate World Day Against Child Labour, BBC News spent a day with 800 child miners digging for copper and cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "At eight years of age, Decu and his twin brother, Kaba, set off on a two-hour walk to work, both in torn sweatshirts and trousers, with only a few sips of water to serve as breakfast. When they arrive at the mines, they join the ranks of boys and begin digging with their bare hands without any protection from the choking grey dust. Some of the children are as young as five or six. this pathetic scene taking place in one of the richest countries in Africa."

     An  earlier blog, "Small Fry," July, 2007, described young black children sold into slavery by their poverty-stricken parents to work for fishermen. Even more horrifying are the stories of children kidnapped and forced to enlist  in armies. Loaded down with weapons and high on drugs, the Lost Boys were soon transformed into mutilating, killing machines, more ruthless than adult rebel fighters.

     "If I had a gun, I would kill all the Arabs," says a 13-year-old boy from his hospital bed in Chad. After the Sudanese-sponsored jamjaweed Arab militia shot his father, Ismail Hassan ran forward and covered his father's body with his own. That show of courage didn't stop the jamjaweed from shooting Ismail as well. The genocide that began in Darfur has spread to Chad and is threatening other neighboring countries. The White House is doing very little to stop the expansion, leaving black boys like Ismail no choice but to dedicate their lives to killing Arabs.

     Meantime, in Middle East countries, Muslim youngsters are being taught that Christians and Jews are infidels and should be beheaded.Clashes among religions are the driving forces that lead to the killing fields. Recently, three masked cowards poured gas on a three-year-old boy and set him afire. Oh, brave new world that has such bastards in it.

     Saddam Ali Abbas, one of the 24 orphans rescued from deplorable circumstances, succumbed to the medieval mistreatment. None of America's miraculous advances in emergency treatment could save the boy. (See blog "Small Fry")

                                        Let's hope Ali Abbas is safe and comfortable in Paradise. Once more the teeter-totter moves in the opposite direction. Here's a story from CBS entitled "Miracle Baby in Iraq." Her name is Fatima and the nurses caring for her guess she's about nine months old.Fatima's life was saved by her seven-year-old brother, who led Iraqi and U.S. soldiers to their home, where they discovered her mother and uncle had been shot close range to the head. Fatima lay helpless and dying in the sweltering heat. A nurse later commented:  "When she first got here, her arms and legs were just bones." With constant love and attention from the hospital staff, Fatima has already put on four pounds.

                                       

       No one has visited Little Fatima except for the soldiers who rescued her. The hospital staff members know she can't stay there forever, and they're desperately worried about her future.

     Let's all pray that she doesn't get sent to an Iraqi orphanage, a nightmare in a country whose religion has an edict to protect the poor and the helpless. Bush's Surge may be helping in some areas, but nothing will ever bring about a reconciliation between the Shiites and Sunnis. Deaths among Iraqi civilians increased in August. The seesaw continues when a Marine murders four young men and then blows up two houses and kills women and young children. Only one American army officer was tried for the permanent black eye of Abu Ghraib, not for the torture, but for going public with what was done to the prisoners. Years from now, when we look back at Bush's War, will we ask: "Was that us?"

                               Postscripts

     >A future blog will be devoted to the killing of Afghan students by the Taliban and American kids dying in street wars. You'll be surprised by what they have in common.

     >In your wildest dreams, do you think it's possible that Laura might roll over in bed and say, "Bushie, why did you use a poison pill meant to deny thousands of children health care?" Probably not. By now she knows he's too self-centered to feel the pain of others. Besides, they are busy planning their daughter's wedding, while thousands of grieving mothers and bereaved wives plan funerals for loved ones killed in Iraq.

    > Both Giuliani and Romney seem to be cut from the same political cloth as Bush, who now has more blood on his hands than any other president. A woman in an audience recently asked Romney whether any of his five sons are serving in the military. After some hemming and hawing, he finally said:  "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected president, because they think I'd be a great president."  His arrogance is matched by Giuliani's command: "Leave my family alone."  He'd been asked why he should expect loyalty from GOP voters when his children aren't backing him.

     >While traveling in space, teacher Barbara Morgan sent a message to her students on earth:  "That's one small step for man, one slight stagger for moonshine." (I should have had her send a message to my granddaughter, Sarah, who is getting married next week).

>Lusty Larry no longer answers roll call/For sending signals in a stall.

Where do you find a male ho/In the Gay Old state of Ida-ho?

Mr. Family Man was quite haughty/Until arrested for being naughty.

He spread his fat legs wide/To dodge the turgid tide, ho-ho.

He said: "I'm not gay, never have been gay/And thank you for

coming out today."

     >An e-mail from Karl the Actor:  "In your August column, you should have included the short Swift essay."  Since I was recommending literature for children to replace"Harry Potter," don't you think that Swift's "Modest Proposal"  is too savage for young minds?  After all, the cannibalism involved in feeding Irish babies to the rich is just a bit hard to swallow.

     In closing, let me identify the rat who thought he could out-cook me. I lifted that rat-scal from a a movie making the rounds, mainly to entertain the little ones.

                                       

  End of Kiddie Trilogy

More about Urchins

     Is it safe to come up for air? Has the mania surrounding the publication of the "final" Harry Potter book subsided? When I mentioned to family members that I knew the ending and could be a potential SPOILER. I was threatened with the mark of Cain on my forehead if I revealed the outcome. This dedication to reading good literature is, of course, most pleasing to those of us who have devoted our lives to teaching. Let's hope this desire to read will carry over to more challenging books. Youngsters who have grown up the last decade with the seven books about Harry and his friends are grieving that there is not another Potter book on the way. The sadness may also be caused by the recognition that their childhood has evaporated. As Harry makes a remark about nineteen years later--oops, I almost let the cat out of the bag.

     There's no way I can match J.K. Rowling's going all-out in the last chapters and epilogue, but I might try to cushion the fall. Have you seen the TV commercial of a man stranded on an island with only a monkey as a companion? In one sequence, the main office sends over a plane with a box of supplies. The sly monkey reaches into the box, snatches the cell phone, and makes off with it. How about a story of man who seems to be all alone on a desert island? One day, he discovers the tracks of someone else. The second person turns out to be a savage, but a friendly fellow, willing to help out with any task.

     Not to your liking? Let's try a different approach. A sailor is the only survivor of a shipwreck. He makes it to shore and collapses. When he awakens, he discovers that he is tied down and surrounded by menacing pygmies, who may possess cannibalistic tendencies.

     If you like either of these stories, you don't have to wait a year to get your hands on the book. Both of them have already been written and published centuries ago, as you've probably guessed. The first one is "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe. The savage is his man Friday. The second plot is drawn from Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," an entertaining children's book concealing a biting political satire. Although somewhat dusty, the books should be available at any public library, and you won't have to go on a waiting list. If you read them years ago, you might find pleasure in rediscovering old friends.

                                 Help! Mom!

     How about some right-wing propaganda disguised as a children's picture book? Help! Mom! There are LIBERALS under my Bed has Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and the Democratic donkey peeking out from under a boy's bed. The author, Katharine DeBrecht, said she felt compelled to write the book because "children are inundated with liberal books."  Her critics have responded that it is a crude attempt to brainwash children and turn them into toddler conservatives. The website Democratic Underground named the author to its "Top 10 Conservative Idiots" list.

                                       

     The comic book illustrations are used in conjunction with a terrifying tale (or dream?) of how two Christian boys set up a lemonade stand only to have Liberals swoop down on them, empty their piggy bank of most of their change as "taxes," force the boys to sell a stalk of broccoli with every glass of lemonade, and then order them to take down the picture of Jesus. Hiding her true identity behind a pseudonym, the author, a graduate of St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, devotes at least five monotonous pages to smearing Hillary, her obscene obsession currently matched by right-wing windbags nuzzling around Hillary's cleavage.

    To demonstrate her patriotism, she had the book published in Mexico. For two years it languished on the shelves. Then Dungee Rush Limbaugh, the fuhrer of the slime-by media, got into the act. He gushed about the book on his radio show, and his dittohead-listeners rushed out, like stupid[ lemmings to the sea, and bought the so-called children's book, causing it to soar up the charts to the point where it trailed only the latest edition of the Harry Potter book. After three failed marriages, Rush should admit he knows nothing about impregnating women and raising children. As the corporate house organ, Rush should stick with his misbegotten attacks on liberals and  environmentalists.

                           Help! Daddy!

     Can I stand by and let this travesty go unanswered? Of course not. Find me an illustrator and we'll go to work on Help! Daddy! There are CONSERVATIVES IN MY cLOSET!

     On the cover of the book will be Little Willie in his little bed, in his little room, and across from him three characters are peering around the closet door with malice toward all. On the lower level is the face of the Prexy, who is saying: "The bogey al-Qaida will get you, if you don't watch out!" A chocolate-colored face with cute little buck teeth is wearing a hat in the form of a mushroom cloud and going:" Boom! Boom! Doom's Day is coming." The third threatening head is snarling:  "I spy you with no warrant. Get your butt down to the enlistment office. You're going to enter the last throes of the war in Iraq, where there is significant progress."

     Little Willie's daddy hurried into the room to see why his son was calling out for help. "Are you having a bad dream, Willie?"

     "Look in my closet. There are bogymen hiding there."

     The father went to the closet and opened the door. "There's no one here, son." He sniffed. "Have you been playing with matches?" After Little Willie said no, the father sniffed some more and said, "It smells of sulfur, just like the gun powder when I was fighting the war in Vietnam."

      "The big man said that I'd have to go to war or he would torture me. Will he shoot me in the head? What's wrong with him?"

     "He's mad because he lost his buddy Rummy and his Scooter. It was a terrible mistake to go to war with too much arrogance and not enough planning. Don't worry, son. You're too young. If there's still a war when you're old enough, you can make up your own mind. You may also make up your own mind about what political party you want to support. It's wrong for parents to brainwash their children. Now you must get some sleep so that you'll be ready to deliver your papers in the morning."

     The next series of scenes will be Little Willie pulling his coaster wagon of papers and running into Conservatives along the way. The first one is Foxy Snowjob. He wants to know what paper Little Willie is delivering, and he snorts derisively when he learns it is the NY Times. "You should be delivering a good paper like The Weekly Standard."

     Next Willie looks through a window glass into the chamber of the Senate whose members are questioning Albatross Gonzo. He is fidgeting and squirming around like a Mexican jumping bean. He answers all questions with "I don't know."  The Prexy. who now finds that his Attorney General is hanging around his neck like an albatross, goes on defending his friend. They have been together since the days when the Prexy was the governor and was summoned for jury duty. Gonzo went in the back door of the courthouse and got the governor excused so that his arrests would not be recorded in Texas. Perhaps there are other dirty little secrets known to Gonzo, like the one that Dan Rather was right about the Prexy's military record. It seems that Gonzo has learned from his master that they are above the law of the land.

     In a recent speech, the Presxy said that when his term is up, he will retire to his ranch and be able to look in a mirror and say, "I made decisions based on principles, not party politics."

     I hope for his sake that when he looks in the mirror, he will not be haunted by the faces of thousands of our wonderful young sons and daughters who died in an unnecessary war.

     Little Willie continues to deliver papers. The next person he meets is Karl Rove. Until I find an illustrator, I don't want to give away the whole plot. In the case of Rove, however, I can tell you that his dance demonstration is entitled:  "The Day Terpsichore Died."

     The climax is Willie's meeting with Cheney, who is recovering from an operation to replace the batteries that might have been dripping acid into his heart.

     So if you know of someone who would like to work with me on "Help! Daddy! There are CONSERVATIVES in my Closet," please let me know.    

                               

Small Fry

     Why are kids across the face of the globe being abused, enslaved, injured in dreadful ways, shot, and even murdered in the womb? Has it always been that violent? Or is it the result of rapid communication from all corners of the earth?

     "Suffer the little children. . ." seems to be a description of what is happening today, but it is only half of a quote by Jesus(who as a baby had escaped from Herrod's child genocide) :  "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not." In this case "suffer" is used in the sense of "allow." ". . .for of such is the kingdom of God."

     Deranged fathers are killing wives and often their own children. Why would Chris Benoit, a pro-wrestler, strangle his wife and smother his retarded son?  The World Wrestling Entertainment is guilty of raking in the big bucks at the expense of their wrestler's health by not curbing the use of steroids and pain killers, a combination that leads to severe depression, dementia, paranoia, and emotional disturbance. The death rate among the young pro-wrestlers is surpassed only by the infant death toll in Mississippi. The latest wrinkle, extreme fighting pulls no punchs between two beefcakes in an octagonal cage and deserves a quick burial. This harsh "sport" has spread to unsupervised backyard matches between kids knocking each other's brains out.   

     The murders are too numerous to list here, like a police officer who killed his mistress and dragged her out in a blanket passed his toddler son. A mother fleeing a trooper crashes into a pole and kills her three children. At other times, the killings go beyond family. In an amusement park, a girl on a ride has both feet sheered off by a cable. An eleven-year-old-boy in Wyoming was pulled out of a tent by a bear and practically eaten alive. A father drives off not knowing his little daughter is sitting on the roof of the car. He braked, and she slide off and hit the pavement. When he got to her, she raised her head and said: "I'm sorry, daddy."

                    In Iraq

      Day after day, the headlines tell of more death and destruction in Iraq. A few weeks ago our soldiers looked over a wall and made a horrifying discovery: 24 emaciated boys, most of them naked, tied outside of their beds, lying in their own waste. The story was broken by CBS Nightly News:

                        

      Our soldiers called for medical help and the boys were soon moved to a different orphanage. Iraqi officials tried to block this shocking story; after all, one of the commandments of the Muslim religion is to take care of the stricken and downtrodden. Of course, the radicals believe it is legal to execute a novelist like Rushdie, or behead an Afghan who converts to Christianity, or to pack explosives on a three-yea-old boy and send him to a police station. The boy couldn't remember what button to push to blow himself up so he asked a policeman for help.

                        

     An Iraqi nurse smiles for the camera in a scene reminiscent of a kiddie Abu Ghraib. Two nurses, two male attendants were fired, and the repulsive manager was arrested. His office was quite elegant, next to a storage room with stacks of boys' clothing and food, all of which would have been sold on the black market.

     Said a battle-hardened soldier: "I saw children that you could see literally every bone in their bodies that were so skinny they had no energy to move and no expressions on their faces."

      After a week of careful nursing the orphans began to show some signs of normalcy. In a scene on CBS, I saw one of the boys carefully reach through the bars of his crib and touch the hand of a soldier. The soldier gently took in his huge hand the tiny hand of the boy whose face radiated an amazement never to be forgotten.

                           

     Donations to Baghdad Orphanages may be made through CBS Evening News. Oprah is also doing outstanding work in reaching out to help the unfortunate. Last week she started a program for a million mentors "to adopt" inner-city children. Her school for young girls in South Africa is functioning smoothly. She recently featured on her TV show a woman who had spotted on the front page of the NY Times the face of a boy in a fishing boat. He had been sold to fishermen and his job was to sit and bail out the water all day and sleep on wet nets at night. The guest received a standing ovation for getting in touch with a Ghanaian official and buying him back, along with his brother and three friends. This is just one boy among millions of children deprived of their childhood by being forced to work like an adult.

     Lost Boys of Sudan, Sierra Leone, and other African countries have been receiving much attention as a result of their rescue from armies as child soldiers. A number of them have arrived in this country, and their stories are being told in magazines, books and videos. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah has been on the best-seller list and has led to many TV interviews. War lords discovered that children were the perfect weapon: easily manipulated, intensely loyal, fearless, and in endless supply. Spaced out on drugs, kids as young as eight-years-old are miniature killing machines, capable of leaving behind smoking huts and sawed off ears. Ismael writes: "Very quickly the ideology got lost. And then it became a bloodbath, a way for the commanders to plunder, a war of madness."

                                                                                          

After some years of rehabilitation, the Lost Boys, who are now in their late twenties, seem to be adjusting to our way of life. One would imagine that they still suffer from flashbacks in connection with their murderous earlier lives. Like our mentally and emotionally wounded soldiers, some of them may be victims of post-traumatic stress disorder.

     In his book about children at war, P. W. Singer writes: "In many conflicts today, child soldiers are feared more than adult ones. One military expert warns of the ferocity of child soldiers. They will capture you, strip you naked, run you through the streets, cut off your testicles, fry them in a pan in front of you, fillet you from head to toe, and then cut off your head and put it on a stake."

     Great balls of fire! These vicious urchins show no sign of recognizing the provisions of the Geneva Convention. Some of their enemies may deserve mistreatment for burning down villages, raping women, hacking off the limbs of adults and murdering children.

     Good-hearted church ladies and ministers who act as guardians of the Lost Boys may want to keep in mind that fighting as child soldiers could have buried sadistic impulses that unexpectedly emerge. At an early age, children have not developed a strong sense of right and wrong behavior. The vicious empowerment over other humans, often over other children, may scar the child soldier for the rest of his life. To my knowledge, there has been no reversion to such savage behavior. In a future blog, I hope to interview Abraham, once a Lost Boy but now in my judgment a perfect gentle man.

     We should also keep in mind that many of the Lost Boys avoided combat. Dominic Dut, who now lives in Syracuse, NY, says: "After being held for some time, I felt that the Lord, who was guarding me, tapped me on the shoulder and urged me to take the first opportunity I had to escape. Withe God's help, I broke free through a small opening and fled from a plan that was to put me in slavery the rest of my life. Fighting my way through fear, hunger, loneliness, and the sound of wild beasts, I made my way to freedom with the help of my Savior."   

       I have more children stories to tell, but they must wait until next month. Until then, this Pied Piper of Caz is off on another assignment to catch that little rat who thinks he can cook.