Jefferson Day

April 13 is observed officially as Thomas Jefferson Day in the United States in honor of the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third President of the United States.

Thomas Jefferson April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826

Image of Gilbert Stuart's Jefferson is in the public domain.

Drugs, Lawyers, and Major Annoyance

The C___a commercial was playing.  They came to the side-effects warning.  The announcer went on and on and on.  The smiley, happy portion extolling the virtues of this antidepressant  was actually shorter than was the litany of negative things that might happen, or had been known to happen in rare cases.

"Oh, man!" I said.  This stuff will kill you in thirty-nine different ways, but dang!  You will feel better while you are dying!"

BBBH is a believer in these warnings.  I was witness to her conversation with her primary care physician about that very thing.  He really was annoyed; he could hardly keep his cool.  Those warnings made him so angry he could scarce contain himself.  Well, I wonder why that is.

Now I reveal the troglodyte within me.  I hate, hate, hate with a purple passion the advertising of pharmaceuticals on the airwaves and in the print media.  (There oughta be a law.)*  I am also less than fond of the advertising by lawyers who prey on people who have been "injured" by one of the drugs advertised. (There oughta be another law.)   I really like the "If you or someone you know has ...  ... experienced death..." line.  Does anyone else see a vicious cycle here?

Yes, I know how annoyed the television industry would be with people who think as I do.

Or maybe I have become such a curmudgeon that everything annoys me these days.

(If you has [sic] experienced death, call a lawyer.)

*I am not one who believes government should control our lives.  But where are the ethics?

Palm Sunday to Remember

April 1965.  My wife, Frieda, and I were living with our three young children in Converse, Indiana.  I was employed as junior high math teacher at Greentown, twelve miles to the southwest.  I did a series of tales from Loonville which were based on our experiences during this time.  Several of these stories are grouped together on Retrotechnocracy.

On Sunday evening, April 11, the five of us were home.  We knew that my father would be preaching in  South Marion, a dozen miles to the east.  We would have liked to be in attendance, but the weather forecast looked quite grim and we chose not to be out and about.

April 11 was the day of the infamous Palm Sunday tornado outbreak which created devastation and inflicted injury and death on many people all across the Midwest.  As we listened to reports of the progress of the storms, we realized that we were very near the path of one of the most vicious of the storms (F4, as it turned out).  Before the evening was over, we knew that Russiaville, Kokomo, and Greentown had been hit hard.  We knew that the storm had passed through South Marion, and very near the place my parents were.  We soon got word, though, from Dad that they were safe.

Monday morning I got up and headed to Greentown, knowing that there was no school, but not yet aware that there was no school in a literal sense.  I had to park the car about a mile north of town, as that was as close as traffic was allowed.  I  walked into town, and the gendarmerie knew me and knew why I had business in the village, so I was allowed to proceed.  Picking my way through the rubble, I found my way to the site of the school where I worked.  The buildings were destroyed and the scene defied description

My friend, Bob Durr, who was the physics teacher, lived about a block east of the school.  I headed in that direction.  I met Bob, who was wandering around the streets in his bathrobe.  We walked to the site of his home.  The entire house was gone to the floor, with the exception of the framing and pipes around the bathroom in the center of the house.  Guess where the Durrs rode out the storm without physical injury.  In future, Bob never remembered talking to me on that Monday morning.

As the road to recovery was long and arduous for all concerned, I will truncate the story to relate our completion of the school year.  The senior high students were dismissed for the year, and ceremonies for the graduating class eventually took place off-site.  Portable classroom units were brought in and the junior high students finished their year in those, and did two more years in them while new construction proceeded to replace the losses.  The elementary children completed their year in church Sunday school classrooms scattered around town.

The blessing was that this violence occurred on a Sunday night and not during a school day.  I also think that this case is one of the strongest possible arguments against the campus approach to school building whereby small school districts locate all their students on one site.  Yet literally hundreds of communities have done just that in the years since this instructive example.

Note: I prepared this article several days ago.  Now, watching the  weather across the Midwest this week, I see irony in the timing.  But it is April 11, and I tend to respect history in posting.  I pray for safety and well-being for those who may be subjected to violent weather this week.

Making Memories in Paradise

 Our time here is quickly slipping away.  On a beautiful afternoon we took in a few of our favorite things.  BBBH would admit this is one of her favorite places.  I pretty much wait outside.

Our way home very often includes a ride down Water Street.  Beyond the little spit is one of the very long piers along the way.

This pretty yard exhibits some of the signs of Spring!

Good People, Good Behavior

Bob Warr and Picket Fences

“Understand one thing, Mr. Chantry. You can make laws against weapons but they will be observed only by those who don’t intend to use them anyway. The lawless can always smuggle or steal, or even make a gun.”  --Louis L’Amour, North to the Rails

Eternal truth.

(Note from vanilla:  Bob is currently unable to access his blog posting tools and he has asked me to reciprocate his kindness by allowing him to post an excerpt from his reading on STSTT.  Fair is fair.)

Moving On

Since I was but five years of age, less a day, when we moved from Bladen, I do not have a large store of memories of the place.  In fact, I have pretty much exhausted that store in sharing these few articles about our time there.  So I am concluding the series with a few photos which were taken on my last visit a couple years ago.

Welcome as one enters town from the south.

The U.S. Post Office, Bladen, Nebraska

Mrs. Anderson's home, which I deemed to be a mansion, but unlike

the parsonage where we lived, which is still occupied and lovingly maintained.

Across the street from the parsonage was the church.  The building had a steeper pitched roof, a bell tower and steeple back in the '30s.  Clearly the building has been repurposed, then neglected.

I Am a...

Last summer a young minister of the gospel between pastoral charges wrote a thoughtful blog post in which he wondered where he would be if for some reason the Lord closed the door to his ministry in a professional capacity.  He concluded by asking 

Is it ok, that my identity is so deeply rooted in my ministry? What would I do, if I was not a pastor anymore? What if, for some unknown reason, God decided to take it away from me? What kind of Christian would I be then? What kind of person would I be then? Who would I be?

I responded in the comments section with a rather long but heartfelt analysis of his questions.  For some reason, I feel impelled to share my response here on String Too Short to Tie.  It is redacted only to the extent that I removed the closing paragraph which was personal in nature.  I said 

So, who would you be if God removed the opportunity to minister in a professional capacity? First of all, if God does that, He will provide something that will utilize your skills in an even more productive way. Believe it. Secondly, you will follow the leading and will of God, even if that means the unknown, and seemingly endless hours in prayer. And finally, you will still be the man that God has created you to be, but your job may change.

A typical ice-breaker when we meet someone new to us is “What do you do?” I’m guessing, based on a life-time of observation, that not one in forty answers the question. Instead, they will reply, “I am a teacher,”: or “I am a minister of the gospel,” or “I am an accountant,” and so on, thereby defining themselves by what they do. I think this is one of the great tragedies of our day, for people do literally define themselves by their occupation, or their career, and thus never internalize, then act out their potential. There is nothing wrong with a career, or an occupation, nor is it sinful to take pride in what one does. But it is truly limiting the spirit when we define ourselves in such narrow terms.

Rather, you might say “I am a child of the living God, joint-heir with my Elder Brother, Jesus, who is the Christ. I am a man who is afflicted with weaknesses, but nevertheless a man of great strength; a man of hopes, and dreams, and desires. I am a son, a husband, a father, a functioning and useful member of the society in which God has granted me a place.”

So this is not what the stranger expects when he asks. He expects to hear, “I am a …(insert job title.)” There is nothing wrong with answering the question, by the way, and in a social situation it will probably make everyone, including one’s self more comfortable. But answer it honestly, don’t reinforce the proclivity to define yourself by your job.

I have been retired 22 years. I feel this issue strongly, for while I had the best job in the world, had I defined myself by my job, I would now be a nothing, would I not? So the next question people ask after I tell them I am retired is “What do you do with yourself?” as though they cannot possibly imagine someone being able to maintain an interest in life when his “I am job” definition no longer applies.

One hopes, given the above, that in the scenario you present, the answers to your other questions would be: the same kind of Christian, the same kind of person, the same Person, you are right now. You’d just be used of God in a different way.

Keep the faith. 

Back Home Again in the Blogosphere

As mysteriously as it disappeared, my blogger dashboard reappeared.  In spite of all my futile efforts to achieve recovery I had to work around the problem by utilizing Bob Warr's blog on which to post "String Too Short to Tie."  Now I find myself unable to access Bob's tools, but the Dashboard came back.  Bob Warr shows up on the dashboard, but none of the links are operative.

So here I am posting back home again on "String."

Oh, phooey.  Sometimes I just want to scream, stomp my feet and say, "I Quit!"

Okay, tantrum over; we'll see how long this lasts.

Those of you who are frequent readers know about my fascination with the live oaks in the area.  This little cluster of trees is visible from our front window.  The quality of the picture leaves a good bit to be desired, but I wanted to show you the trees anyway.  The trees look as though they have endured great agony, yet prevailed, as they clung tenaciously to life itself.  A cluster of such trees is called an oak motte.  How many trees does it take to make a motte?

Not yet home in the physical world.