Karl Rove and Crossroads

Please excuse my disgust!

Over the last decade or so, a group has risen to considerable power and prominence in our Country.  They’ve made grotesque amounts of money in the process.  In my opinion, they are ambitious, unscrupulous people.  The architects of this very successful campaign have taken two hot button issues, issues involving people who already have difficult lives, people whose hardships should evoke our compassion, our empathy, and our prayers, not our hatred, and they’ve twisted and manipulated these issues so that they evoke contempt and repulsion on an unimaginable scale. They have not done this in service to high ideals or some higher good, but for their own selfish gain.  They have deliberately created division in our country for the exclusive purpose of making themselves more powerful and more wealthy.  These people should hang their heads in shame. Abraham Lincoln said a house divided will not stand.  People who deliberately cause hatred and division in our nation are a threat to the wellbeing and survival of our nation. There was a time in this country when such men were considered traitors, and they were dealt with accordingly.  Today they’re called millionaires and given tax breaks. My bible says a man cannot serve both God and money.  My bible says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Great wealth is not in itself a sin, but power corrupts and corruption thrives on arrogance and greed.  People who thumb their noses now, will one day face a judgment.  My heart is saddened by the gaping wound that has been deliberately created in our country today. And I am furious that the hateful, unscrupulous, self-serving, arrogant people, who’ve deliberately created this division, have grown fat and complacent by lapping up the hemorrhage they’ve created. Dear God, deliver justice, and God Bless the United States of America.  STC

A youthful Infusion of Joy

Thirty minutes later we pulled up at Camp House.  Approaching the yard, the absence of any change was remarkable!  It was just as though I’d turned back the pages of time.  The ol’ home seemed entirely unchanged.  The Azaleas were blooming, the yard was green and manicured, and wisps of smoke rose cordially from the chimney.  It was as though the merciless onslaught of time had somehow spared the ol’ home place, and left it suspended and unscathed by the passage of years, but it was only an illusion. Despite all appearances, six decades have sped ruthlessly away since Lidge and I said our goodbyes and sailed for California.  Uncle Gus is gone, along with my mom and dad and an entire generation of precious loved ones.  During the sixty-plus years that have elapsed since I last tread these stairs, even Cousins Klouse and Irving have succumb to mortality and the inexorable passage of time.  We wish the days and the weeks away and then wonder where the decades went.

   Lidge and I parked the Fords and ascended the steps.  Despite the tenacious grip of reality, I fixated on the doorway, watching for Mom and Dad.  My head new better but my heart still hoped.  Both my folks had been gone for some years now, but the flood of familiar scenes here at the old home place had imprinted their likenesses freshly on my mind.  My consciousness was suddenly awash with visions of mother sewing contentedly in the comfort of her rocker, and Dad and I proudly displaying a stringer of fish.  I swallowed hard and clung tightly to a Christian’s treasured hope of a glad reunion. Suddenly my mind focused and my heart raced as someone stepped to the door.  Lidge’s solemn countenance brightened instantly, as the door flew open and his sister Laura offered her embrace.  Despite his years, Lidge swept the old woman off her feet and they frolicked like a couple of kids, suddenly brimming with a youthful infusion of joy.   After a moment of bliss, Lidge allowed Laura to find her feet and she offered her hand affectionately to me. 

   “This is an unexpected blessing beyond an ol’ woman’s fondest dreams.”  She said tenderly, peering into my glistening eyes.  “Would you like to see your brother?”  I nodded in compliance and my sister-in-law turned and led us into the house.  With the exception of the rearrangement of several pieces of furniture, the old home had changed very little.  Uncle Gus’s collections still graced many of the nooks and crannies, and the faded drawings of children long grown, retained their places of honor on the walls.  Laura led us down the hall and into the study. 

   At age eighty-three, Christoph was hard of hearing and a little nearsighted, but his mind was sharp and his memory remarkably keen.  He was sitting at his roll top desk perusing his Bible.  Becoming aware of our approach, he turned slowly, and his crevassed old countenance brightened with recognition.  His pale eyes twinkled and he caught his breath, covering his mouth with a frail, purple-veined hand.  “How are you doing you ol’ curmudgeon?” I interjected smiling, as I affectionately grasped his withered hands in mine.  “Can ya take time out from your studies to visit your brother?”  Christoph leaned into his walking stick and struggled to his feet.  Wrapping his bony arms around my time ravaged frame, he hugged my neck and pressed his whiskered cheek against my face.  We joined in embrace and despite my best efforts; I added my stifled sobs to those of my brother.  Eventually regaining composure, Lidge and I related the circumstances of our unannounced visit, and then the four of us enjoyed tea, scotch shortbread, and a long overdue visit.  Following a delicious super of clam chowder and fritters, and a priceless evening of fellowship, Christoph eventually nodded off in his rocker, and Laura showed Lidge and me to our rooms.  I’d never slept inside Camp House before.  The renovated carriage house had met my needs nicely during the golden years of my youth, and never once had I slept inside this house.  Laura escorted me upstairs, and then down the hall to Mom and Dad’s old room, wished me a good night, and left me to settle in.  Mothers’ hand mirror and brushes still adorned the dresser, and on the wall opposite the window hung a portrait of my parents on their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

   I’d love to relate to you the emotion that this occasion holds for me; I’d dearly love to express it, but I haven’t got the words.  To say that this was a bittersweet occasion is an understatement of biblical proportions.  The visit with Christoph and Laura was in itself a priceless blessing, but I’d have gladly given several years of my life to go back and do it while my folks were still alive.  It’s too late for me now, but maybe you can benefit by my misfortune.  If you’re blessed with family, visit them often, tell them you love them, and cherish every moment that you share.  Expressing love now can dispel a life of regrets.  I’ll spare ya the details of the following morning’s farewells.  Suffice it to say they were passionate, sincere, and thoroughly expressed!  Following a traumatic parting, Lidge and I cranked up the Lizzies and pulled reluctantly from the yard.  I watched wistfully as what would prove to be my last vision of Camp House shrank slowly and vanished into my rearview mirror, and then returning Christoph and Laura’s lingering waves, I reconciled myself to the close of yet another of life’s irrepressible cycles, and steered my jitney for Gettysburg. “Obie’s Quest”

Sorrows Slip Away

Soft through the pines,

The summer breeze is blowing,

Sweet, solemn music to me.

Lightly through my mind,

Old memories are flowing,

Tender thoughts of what life used to be.

Souls called away,

Golden days amid the tall grass;

Laughter lingers deep in my heart.

Pleasant moments shared,

Vibrant dreams of youth are ageless.

Hope unites though time may bid us part.

Shadows of time,

When the hours passed in moments,

Tender moments priceless to recall;

Futures to share,

Happy destinies awaiting,

Summer slipping gently into fall.

Seasons quickly pass,

Our memories turn to treasure,

God’s gift to those who remain.

Sorrows slip away,

While our hearts preserve life’s pleasure;

Grief soon fades, while life’s joy we retain.

July 21, 2011

S. T. Case3beer

The Tea Party And The Pending Coronation

I rarely hear a quote from “The Tea Party” that the sentiment doesn’t bring to mind the beloved tea party in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”.  The logic is most always on a par with that displayed by the Mad Hatter during his animated and outrageous tirades behind the looking glass, and the compassion of those intent on doing away with anything remotely resembling a social program, a functioning Federal Government, compassion for the poor and elderly, concern for the environment, or sound principles of any kind, generally resembles the sentiment one might encounter from the Queen of Hearts, as she runs amuck while excitedly demanding “Off with their heads!  Off with their heads!” In fact, in both appearance and attitude, at least two Tea Party favorites, currently seeking office or Coronation, bear an uncanny resemblance to the dread queen herself! Both Tea Parties generally base the premise for their discontent on insanity and misinformation of biblical proportion.  Both offer a unique, unreasonable, little held, grossly inaccurate, and generally outlandish view of the world.  And both are best observed, tongue in cheek, while peering down a deep, dark rabbit hole, from the relative sanity of the real world to which they so feverishly object. STC 

Post Script:  It just occurred to me that, if either Queen candidate is successful, Mr. Romny might be an invaluable addition to the ticket.  For such a droll, tedious, puffed up little man, Mr. Romny is remarkably amusing!  Following the Coronation, Mr. Romny would be a natural as the Court Jester. 

A Personal Testimony

Back in the mid fifties, my previously idyllic childhood was changed forever, by a stubborn fever and a stiff, aching neck. Following a spinal tap and a diagnosis of Poliomyelitis, I spent several weeks convalescing at Kaiser Hospital in Vallejo California. During a two week confinement in a crowded hospital, with countless other crippled children, a five year old has worlds of time to pray. One night, all alone in my room, scared half to death and miles and miles from home, I called out to Jesus from the very depths of my soul. Days later the hospital ran some tests and told my folks to collect me and take me home. Infantile paralysis had run its course; my symptoms were gone, and my folks free to take me home. When I tugged my cowboy boots back on, and Dad and Mom headed out with me in tow, I began a walk with Jesus that has lasted to this day. When my family and I arrived in Missouri in 1978, I became a member of Dry Creek General Baptist Church, where I was baptized under the bridge at Indian Creek in 1979.  Twenty years later, in 1998, I became a member of Pomona Christian Church, where I maintain my membership today. I live in the Ozarks now. Suffice it to say, the majority of my church family are lifelong, staunch conservatives. I love those folks dearly, and so far they tolerate me.  As someone who has considered Jesus Christ my personal Savior for over fifty years, I follow The Golden Rule.  I respond to others as I’d have them respond to me.  I believe in doing justly, loving mercy, walking humbly with my God, and enthusiastically supporting the rights of others to walk with theirs. I believe freedom is all about personal choices. I cherish my own freedom; I make my own choices, and I passionately support the freedom and choices of others.  If that makes me a liberal, so be it.  I prefer to consider myself an American.  

The Ivy House, Old Hangtown, California

At the intersection of Main Street and Cedar Ravine, long, long ago.

I remember sitting by a crackling fire, high in the Sierra Nevada’s, and listening to the ill-tempered Jerseys filing past, with their cowbells clanking and their babies bawling, and the old bull curling his lip and looking for work. I remember standing on the rough plank sidewalk, outside the Ivy House, inhaling the aroma of grilled ribs sizzling, over Manzanita coals, and watching the massive freight wagons lumber by, with their oxen lowing, their hames bells jingling, and the iron-clad rims of hickory spoked wheels smashing the gravel to dust, beneath their cumbersome tonnage of crocks of butter and barrels of fragrant cheese. I remember believing that my whole life would be a long, wondrous adventure.  And it was.  “Obie’s Quest”

Blood and Thunder

Placerville, California aka Old Hangtown

Outside of blood & thunder novels and periodicals, the Wild West is about put out to pasture.  Long Horn cattle are a vanishing breed and more and more the Angus and Herefords cross the country by rail; Annie Oakley’s fixin’ to retire, ol’ Bill Cody’s lookin’ mighty hoary, and even the Earp’s have cashed in their chips! You’d barely recognize ol’ Hangtown. One by one the old hitching posts are vanishing along Main Street, and just the other day I drove from upper town through lower town and never once saw hide nor hair of a horse! Placerville’s old landmarks are fast disappearing, and palatial cinderblock atrocities rise up like the phoenix from their ash.  Progress beckons like a siren in the night, and ol’ Hangtown answers spellbound to the call.  The boon of electricity has illuminated our little metropolis, and steeds & buggies are fast replaced by Fords.

   Despite the growth and conveniences, I prefer to recall her as she appeared in the undignified days of her misspent youth, back in ’49.  In my mind’s eye, she still exudes the uncivil scent of sawdust floors and canvas; the rustic, rough sawn facades glow hospitably in the crimson shades of long spent sunsets, and rows of tents glow pleasantly, flickering with myriad lamps. “Obie’s Quest”