ECHO

Exactly thirty years ago in this country we were concerned about the rise of food prices. I wrote about such a sentiment locally on Friday March 30, 1973. That which I wrote still holds true more than a quarter of a century later.

One that day our President, that would have been President Richard M. Nixon, had slapped a top on meat prices.”and there had been a great deal of pro-and-con talk concern n the general subject of food prices.”

I was a talking with the manager of a local food store and I took the approach that I did not think food prices were too high when one compared them to the price some other items.

Then, in l973 he pointed out something which, to me, still holds true among many people I know. He pointed out that, in his experiences , the people who complain the most were those who seem to specialize in buying non-essentials. “If you checked their purchases.”he said, “you would find that about one third of their purchases might be called groceries and the rest will be non-food items.” They think of their ”food” bill as made up of all the money spent at the grocery store. Their concept of food also means foods which have been wholly or partly prepared, processed to a certain preferred level and then packaged in a sturdy, four-color, dye-cut carton with a plastic window for customer to get a peek at part of what they are buying.

Now, in 2003 it is even easier to buy other than food items as well as specialty foods of all types, hardware store, fish market, bakery, the local Five-and-Ten... now Dollar Stores, department store or multi-purposed news stand kiosk. Think of the variety of such items commonly purchased: paper supplies, hardware items, electrical essentials, drugs, cameras., fancy candy and cookies, toys, books, magazines, tapes, discs, kitchen appliances, pet food and medications, cleaning preparations and laundry supplies. The list is endless, and when all it added up as being spent for groceries, you can see that the final tally is lopsided and not all food costs by any means. In March of 1973, I quoted a shopper as saying: “It cost me $36.00 to get out of the supermarket last night!” Oh, happy days!

Supply and demand ,of course, play a vital part in food pricing. There are also higher costs of transportation and precessing. It is always a point of potential panic for politicians and a headache for consumers.

Let's try to be more aware of way in which we falsely accuse the farmers and good dealers by counting non-food purchases as food costs.

A.L.M. March 30. 2003 [c449wds]

 
March 31, 2003

GO!

If we wish to be somewhere other than where we are today, we simply choose our favored means of transportation, and assuming that we have needed amounts of money, or a set of colorful, plastic credit cards at hand, we can be on our way in a matter of minutes.

It has not always been that way, of course. And, it also appears that, with today's multiple travel-related problems we might expect the old ways to return. We are going to have to re-learn subtle meanings of the term "to wait".."delay" ..."standby" and "canceled."

I'm not quite old enough to recall any personal delays caused for me through waiting for horses, but it was inconvenient for travelers in those days to wait for a horse, or horses to be be rounded up, suitable harnessed, and brought around. It was seldom as it happens in the movies where you dash out of the saloon and leap upon a waiting steed, all saddled and ready to speed you to your haven in the hills. More than once, just leading he horse to the barn was a time-chewing chore itself, especially if said horse had other ideas. The moment of actual departure was dependent on horses and upon those who tended to them. It would seem that to be ready to go within and hour would be a reasonable time frame to consider.

The appearance the automobile did not actually improve the situation too much for a time, either. People today, seem purposely to dis-remember that early cars – wonderful though they were - needed to be cranked before one could move in any direction at all. There are, even today, many broken arms to testify to the fact that cars did not have automatic starters a first. The iron, double- “L” shaped handle as inserted just under the radiator to the end of the shaft and many cars, like the horses before learned how kick back, and such a kick was no match for a simple arm bone or two. C-rack!

Many car owners came to think of their cars as being fa more complicated an elaborate than most of them were, but it caused many owners to prepare for driving or more so, perhaps to prepare to be 'seen"driving by others. Motoring wardrobes became, for a time, quite serious. My grandmother never went for a turn in the old Saxon touring car without a colorful scarf holding her hat on her head, and her son wore a tight leather cap and goggles as well as a wool scarf around his neck and tucked into a warm jacket or coat to protect his chest from the chilly breezes which, I can confirm, did come around the end of the tiny, glass windshield ahead of him. Both front and back seat travelers often felt blankets to be a necessity piece of traveling equipment.

We forget that early cars had a handy, standard equipment kit one carried along at all times which made it possible to patch tires along the was. A jack stand, a hand operated air pump, several and wrenches, a prying bar and pliers were included or added. As stations were few and far between, so it was wise thing to carry a five gallon can of gas with you when you took a trip through less familiar territory. My father worked with a man in Norfolk who drove a Stanley "Steamer". He had to leave the office for ten minutes of so every day at around four something to go out and fire up the small charcoal furnace in his car to generate enough steam to get him home and five o'clock-quittin' time.

We like to think of the many improvement we have made over the ways of yesterday and yet, it is plain to see that our current frustration with time spent in getting there – especially with get-there-quickly air travel - is repeating much of what has happened before." Hurry up, and wait" is no longer a maxim used concerning military routines alone.

A.L.M. March 29, 2003 [c687wds]

 
BOTTLES:MILK

I'm old enough to remember when butter was really butter and our milk supplies arrived early each morning, delivered to our front porch in two quart-sized clear-glass bottles.

Light sleepers heard the milk man when he made his deliveries around dawn and he was an important member of the community. The earlier ones represented a family, very often, who happened to own and few cows and operated a milk delivery route in the community. Later, large dairy plants were established and the milk man lost some of the finer things we associate with his place in our lives.

Prior to the l920's milk bottle were plain and bottle purchased by one dairy ended up being and re-used by others. To counteract that sometimes rather costly situation, many of even the smaller dairies had their own bottles made.. Some were very plain with just the simple name of the dairy either made into or printed upon he glass so they could not be confused with others. Others were elaborately marked. The idea was for them to be returned which we did simply by placing them on the front porch as “empties” to be picked up by the route man . They were used repeatedly until too badly chipped. Many disappeared because they were found to be convenient for storing may household and hobby liquids. It is thought that many of the bottles found by todays; collectors are from this general household use which set them apart in isolated areas and kept them intact.

Milk bottles were made of a thick, clear glass as a rule although some went for shades of blue and green and most were topped with a heavy, beveled ring at the top of the narrowed neck. Most dairies made regular deliveries in either pint or quart- sized bottles. Commercial dairy firms offered cottage cheese in large-mouthed bottles, as well and those ,too, have become collector's items.

In those days when you allowed a bottle of milk to set still a while a layer of thick cream formed on the upper surface. Some dairy firms offered what they called “cream bottle” which sported what looked like a small glass cup pinched into the upper two inches of the bottle neck. That made it easier for the homemaker to “skim off” the cream with a spoon or small ladle..
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We liked to shake the bottles to re-mix the contents..

That was before homogenization was discovered and the quality of the product was, most often measured by the amount of cream which came to the top. One learned, I recall, to hold a hand over the upper opening because the cardboard cap inserted in the beveled edge was not always that secure when a bottle was shaken. It was best to take that precaution
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In winter months a different approach was needed.. Milk, placed on the porch in the early dawn hours of a really cold night, presented a weird sight in the morning. The cardboard caps were raised out of the neck of the bottles on a inch or two plug of frozen milk, at least, the watery portion thereof. The bottles had to be decapitated with a knife and stirred a bit before they were ready to flow well – even then, with small flakes of ice in the contents.

Next came square bottles for better packaging and handling Then we went to non-returnable plastic and cardboard containers such as we now use.

If you have a few “worthless” milk bottles among your belongings, give them a second look. If you happen to have bottles a collector wants, he will pay real money for them.

A.L.M. March 27, 2003 [c615wds]

 

TIME LINE: JOHN CRAIG

1709 - Born - August 17th, in the parish of Donagor, County Antrim, Ireland - John Craig - destined to be the first to Presbyterian minister to the people of the area which has come to be known as the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

1732 - John Craig graduated with and M.A .in the College of Edinburgh, Scotland. Later, speaking of that time: "America was then much in my mind, accompanied with the argument that service would be most pleasing and acceptable where most needful and wanting, which raised in me a strong desire to see that part of the world."

1734 - John Craig embarked from Larne Harbor, Ireland June 10th,1733 and after 67 days at sea, landed at New Castle, Delaware August17th - which was also his 25th Birthday.

1737 - In September John Craig was ordained as a Minister of the Presbyterian Church. He had "entered on trials" and was licensed by the Presbytery of Donegal, having read under the Rev. John Thompson during several years of teaching school.

1738 - During 1727-38 James Anderson formed a Christian Society among settlers in "the Triple Forks of the Shenando" in the Virginia wilderness. Members of this society sent petitions to the Synod of Philadelphia asking for a minister in 1738 and l739.

1740 - Rev. John Thompson followed James Anderson briefly as a supply minister. In reply to the petition of l739, Rev. John Craig was sent to the congregation of the valley. Ordained in 1740.

He, and his congregation, built the sanctuary in which worship services are held today - Augusta Stone Presbyterian Church, Fort Defiance, Virginia.

A.L.M. March 28, 2003 [c282wds]

 
DREAM: FRAME

On the night of September 22, 1870, a farmer known as Samuel Frame went to bed and during that Fall night experienced a dream which he later said was "sharp", by which we can conclude he meant it was seen in clear detail as to what action should be taken at once.

In the dream Frame told his family that and angel had appeared before him.. In the background, he said, there was a constant flow of rushing waters. The angel instructed Samuel Frame as to actions which must be taken promptly.""Take your wheat from the mill!”

Samuel frame took the dream very seriously. He was a religious man, an saw it as his duty to share his he heaven-sent warning he had received with his neighbors. He had to warn them of an impending flood. Such a thing could ruin all of them, because they, like Frame, had their wheat crop in storage a Palmer's Mill, on Middle River. They all stored grains at Palmer's Mill where it would be ground into flour later as needed. Apparently it was the policy of the mill to store farmer's grain, possibly for a small fee and payment for the stored grain was made when it was ground into a salable product.

It is not recorded that any neighbor actually laughed at Samuel Fame's prediction of a flood, but they told him he could take his grain out if he wished but that they would rather not undertake all that unnecessary labor.. It was a large task, too, but Sam Frame got it done that very day.. He redeemed all of his wheat crop and stored it on his own farm near what is now called Spring Hill in Augusta County away from the quiet waters of Middle River.

The next day torrential rains changed that stream into a raging torrent! No doubt there must have been some heavy rainfall up river and when, combined with what fell that day, turned a Middle River to a force that tore away portions of Palmer's Mill and sent them tumbling downstream toward Shenandoah River waters. All; stocks of wheat were lost. Only that of Samuel Frame was saved, stored elsewhere on the urging of an angel appearing in a dream.

A granddaughter of Samuel Frame, Elizabeth Carson, who had heard the story of the angel's warning many times when she was a girl., had marker placed on the Frame farm. Present-day residents of the area seem to think the maker remembering Samuel Frame's dream is not on the site it was intended to be placed – in front of the old Frame house .They say the real site was half a mile down the road nearer to the statement called Spring Hill.

` The story is still being told by Frame family descendants still in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia section; some in the McLean area of northern Virginia, and by others in Richmond, who recall an actual case in their their own family history wherein a man was ”warned by an angel to go another way”. He obeyed and not only witnessed , but became part of, a miracle.

A.L.M March 25, 2003 [c534wds]

 
ABSENT MEMBERS

Is attendance at your local civic club meetings lagging a bit? Would you like a way to assure regular attendance perhaps, even bring in new members?

A workable form is available in “Code of Virginia”, published by William F. Richie, Richmond. Va. by reason of the act of the General Assembly passed on the 15th Day of August 1849. Turn to page 287 in the 800-page tome.

Every town of any consequence throughout the Commonwealth, shall, in time, deem a fire company to be essential, the Code tells us. In order to form such a group “not less than twenty or more than sixty-four persons” residing in that town could form themselves into a company ”for extinguishing fire in buildings”. Note the word reads “:person”,too. Women were not excluded, but there is nothing to suggest that subject even came up. The number suggested assured one that the group would be large enough to share the work load.

The founding group then was to write a document stating their desire to join together.. This formality accomplished, they elected officers and drew up ground rules in keeping with state ordinances.

Within one month he selection of that person to be designated “Commanding Officer”of each regiment who must sent to the Court with a list of all members, plus a written statement the condition of its engine, hose, and other implements. Should the C. O. fail to make this report within thirty days he was subject to a fine of not less than three nor more than ten dollars.

The local fire company became a sort of club.. While still enrolled in the malitia , they were exempt from the performance of military duties, and not subject to fine for missing musters. This applied only so long as they remained members and kept their gear in good condition. If not, they were recalled to military service.

Members were expected to “attend upon any alarm of fire” in the town and to:endeavor to extinguish such fire.” He also had to attend all regular meetings, plus special gatherings held in April and October to :examine the state of the engine.,hose and other equipment. It was a good time for fund raising, I dare say,. And , also a time for practice and demonstration of abilities. The Commanding Officer was to report any absences and members were fined “not less than fifty cents nor more than ten dollars” for their transgressions.

A definite pecking order was prescribed.. The town council named a “Principle Engineer” who, together with the appointed “Fire Wardens”, and the “Commanders” of all fire companies “deemed necessary locally as long as they were not repugnant to the laws of the state”.

Specifics were plainly stated in the Code. ” When a fire shall break out in the town, the Principal Engineer,and his Fire Wardens shall go immediately to the place such fire and carry with them suitable badges of their office. The Principal Engineer was the man in charge. Fire Wardens ,in assigned numerical order, would assume his powers if, for some reason, he could not function.

He had complete authority over all persons present. He appointed the stations at which each member was to work. It was he who decided the details of the operation necessary to extinguish the fire, to remove things from the buildings and to be guardian of the same. And he was there to suppress any disorder if a person at a fire shall refuse or neglect to obey his orders.. The fine for such an offense was set at five dollars.

The Principal Engineer “may direct the pulling down of any fence, house or other things which he judges necessary to stop the spread of the flames, and for this purpose may require such assistance as needed from all persons present as he thinks necessary. ”If it was your house they pulled down, you had a right to enter suit so the town might pay the owner damages. text of he code was. at that point, loaded and pointed out that said suits could not be brought for property “which would have been destroyed by fire if it had not been pulled down”

If any member wished to withdrawn from the club, he faced several problems. He was fined for missed meetings, for not not keeping his equipment in good condition, and he, or they, because entire companies could be so charged, were subject to all military duties.

Mess up on the fire line, Buster, and you're busted back to the barracks, boy!

A.L.M. March 25, 2003 [c764wds]

 
EASY DOES IT

Events are moving too fast in the Mid-East for some of us to keep in touch.

Certainly, by now, there are other members of the U.N. who realize how meaningless the organization has become and who might wish to be associated in some way with the efforts bring made to give the organization new life..

Let's assume that the war continues to move with, at least, part of the alacrity with which it has thus far., Will more nations feel the might want to be a part of ridding the world of Saddam Hussein's crowd? If the war does not bog down at Baghdad which is entirely possible when urban fighting techniques become involved, some nations may be moved to some second thinking. They may see advantages in supporting the coalition. I find it interesting that Poland has taken a bit of affront as to the fact that some of her two hundred soldiers actively engaged in fighting in Iraq, have been identified by the media - both British and American - as being part of the U.S. Forces and actually pictured under an American flag rather than the Polish banner. If all goes well in the next few days, I think we will begin to see more such waffling, for “me too” positions.

Chiraq and Putin are both hesitating for economic reasons, I think. They have large financial holdings in Iraq and cannot be expected to drain it all away by erasing the Hussein people who are supposed to repay the money owed them for services rendered in the past few years. If they can avoid being seen to be openly if they can avoid doing so. If Saddam Hussein does well the first few weeks it will encourage our Clinton-era decision to “bring our boys home” as we did from Somalia and other touchy areas as soon as we had casualties.

Saddam seems to be counting on us doing the same thing again, give up and go home. Clinton followed whatever the popular polls reported and the noisy group wanted to bring the boys home. He did. I don't think Bush has that in mind at all..

Chiraq and Putin are paying attention to their investments in Iraq , and understandably so, to a degree. In time, I think, they will each find way to seek to reverse portions of their views, especially if there is any arrangement whereby their costs may be deflected a bit with revenue from captured oil fields , such as those at Basra, which will back in full production a month from now. Politicians are, however, thin-skinned in so many petty things, and either and both Putin or Chiraq , unknown entities as they both really are, may not react in what we call a “sensible” fashion.

Can such “deals” be set up? Would they be legal?

There is a new face on the Palestinian front, too. It appears that the Clown Prince of Palestine, one Yasher Arafat has, at long last, been downsized and some of his powers given to others. That change, alone, should spark some new interest in establishing peace and homeland security in the Holy Land area for both the Palestinians and the Jews.

Changes are taking effect quickly in so many areas in these post-Ides days of March, that the new month of April is almost sure to be a real quandary for decision makers. Unusual amounts of patience and understanding are going to be called for in the near future both from leadership of entire nations as well as from the average citizen thereof. Easy will do it best.

A.L.M. March 24, 2003 [c611wds]

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YOUR FUTURE

Tell me. Do you know of a fortune telling scheme which depends on reading wood grain? Is there such a specialized school of skulduggery?

There must be. Certainly, after all these years of looking at the unending variety of grains in wooden surfaces, mankind must have found that he could see pictures, figures, demons, signs and omens of all sorts therein - in every convoluted whorl, every tangled twist and turn, jiggle or flaw - something to be used to reveal what is about to happen for someone who wants to believe it can do so and who has a few loose dollars handy.

Right now in relatively down times, when employed and income are critical and old jobs are being modified, mutated or shipped overseas, might be as good as any time too open up a shop, which will, in this case, of course, be called a “studio” where one can give authentic wood grain readings concerning the future - for a fee. A few discarded boards from the local lumber yard and you are in business! Every squiggle, properly interpreted by skillful spokesmen, can help keep the shekels pouring to the family coffers, and I don' t think you will have much trouble building a vocabulary and script which clients will accept and believe. After all, they still fall for the tea leaf, glass ball and cards routines, and this one is so closely identified with everyone. From that moment on, they can even read their own futures in any piece of polished wood every time they see a piece of wood - a table, chair, bench,. bar, bar stool, bedstead or old, wooden nickels

Arthur Brisbane, who used to write a page of market prognostications quite successfully for the old Hearst newspapers has been quoted as having said, when asked how he predicted the markets so accurately, that he had only one rule. When the market was up he warned people they were going down, when the prices were down, he rejoiced with them on the theme of prices going upward! People felt he was never wrong. That' s a firm foundation and the sort of thing you can build with a good wood-grain counseling service. You too, can be a sharp market voice in wood futures.

Start right away. Open your modest “studio” in a rapid-traffic area. Offer readings in pine, oak, cherry, walnut , mahogany and oriental teak specialties, if you wish, but get started soon. Make this the wave of your future! Then, when business is booming... and then, a short time later, when doing such readings demands too much your valuable time, franchise the whole thing worldwide and exile yourself to luxuries on the tropical island of your fortune teller's choice!

The desktop before me, as I type, has an interesting grain – a large, lake-like pattern of wavy ovals, washing outward in concentric circles, as if I had taken your suggestion that I was to go jump in the very center of the lake!

A. L.M. March 22, 2003 [c513wds]

 
ART LESSON

Art happens rather than exists

It is taking place even as you view it. It is not a simple, one-time thing and different people will see the same item in different ways. Some will deny that what they see is, indeed, “art”. Andy Worhol's painting of a Campbell's Tomato Soup can might be such a case for some. An army friend of mine painted water colors of various pieces of GI gear, and I remember one in particular - of a pair of beat-up army shoes. Anyone with army experiences looking at that picture with their sagging tongues and frayed laces re-lives hiking agonies other people do not know. To him, they were interactive. The appearance of those shoes affected him inside. They constitute a form of ”art”in so doing.

Something which does nothing to our inside-self cannot be “art”. When you look at a thing - a real setting, a person or painted drawn or photographed portrait of some type, and you feel an inner compulsion to remember someone, an event long departed, you are in the presence of art.

Art appreciation is not something you learn. We might well intensify it to an extend by study and participation in a hobby or related occupation. The truth is that everyone has a degree of built-in art appreciation.

Just as seeing a picture of those GI shoes reminded me of countless agonies in forced marchin, so the food container makes people remember good and bad things they have eaten or times when they had o face genuine hunger.– all of these things have a direct bearing on us as we view them. We see them individually, too so no one else will see them in the same guise in which they may appear to us.

We all share a common “memory”.

We , as infants and young toddlers developed an awareness of the world which was an ever-widening world within real bounds.. We lived in what might be called a utopia, in a sense. We lived perfection and learned daily how,in life a bit of that was taken away way each day and we found that perfection had virtually disappeared. Yet we remember that time and we long to have perfection rekindled, revived, restored and held close.

Our yearning for art - a standard inclined toward perfection - reaches back in the lives of each of us seeking to find the perfect existence we once knew - however briefly. In art we are striving to bring back the essence of things we knew in perfection before we obtained intelligence and knowledge with set limit to things. We have retained the basics - breathing and other such processes to keep the physical mechanism functioning adequately, but something rather intangible was lost along the way.

That's why I am led to think of art as an active mode adding freshness and diversity to our lives. It enable us to glance back into the perfection of early times before we became totally aware of the real world with all its troubles. Art is with us, and in many forms .

To deny it a proper place is to forsake much of our total heritage. ..
A.L.M. March 22, 2003 [c540wds]

 
STATE OF KENNEDY

On November 29, 1963 it was seriously proposed that the name of the State of West Virginia be re-named.

Two names were suggested, by the Beckley (W.Va )"Post-Herald", honoring President John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated . Two names were suggested: either "Kennedy” or "Kennediana"

Laudable though the intent of the idea may have been, that would have been something that would have taken a bit of doing, if one is to judge by the troubles the delegates to the State Constitutional Convention of 1862 had in deciding on the present name of the state.

George Ellis Moore, who taught Government at Slippery Rock State College in Pennsylvania – a West Virginia native – gave a detailed account of the naming selection hassle in his excellent book “A Banner in the Hills”.The name West Virginia was not an unanimous choice.

“A Banner in the Hills” is a very readable yet scholarly history of West Virginia published under the official West V Virginia Centennial Commission (Appleton-Century-Crofts) The author, George Ellis Moore, traces the situation when sentiments concerning the Union grew,. An ordinance of l861 specified that the name of the new state was to be “Kanawha “ after the impressive river which, when joined by the New River flows through capital city of Charleston north to the Ohio.

This resulted in some opposition from other areas which was not unexpected expected, of course, but those who favored the Indian name of Kanawha did not look with favor on any any attempt to modify the ordinance. On November of 1861 a majority of the Constitutional Convention refused to recognize the earlier convention's action as being binding upon them. In December of that year the suggested the name was dopped form the list to be considered by a vote of 30 to 14, and the prevailing mood of the delegates seems to have been that they would try to retain the word “Virginia” in some form.

One delegate is said to have waxed emotional when he proclaimed that “'the name 'Virginia' reminded him of the glorious reign of Elizabeth, but also carried subtle information of the blessed Mother of Christ!” Other members of the convention, however, seemed to think of it only “as a reminder of oppression, slavery and treason.” Can't you imagine silvery-haired orators of the present day, holding forth for hours in C-Span dealing out such phrases should new names be suggested.

The matter was finally settled by a roll call of delegates. They were permitted to answer in one way only, not to to launch into another harangue, but simply to stand and state the name they had chosen.

Stubbornly, nine of those present stuck with the name “Kanawha”. Two answered “Western Virginia”, a name by which the area had been commonly called after it ceased to be a part of Augusta County in Virginia. Two other delegates wanted it to be called “Allegheny”and one lone delegate with Shenandoah Valley of Virginia connections, stood by “Augusta” as being the historically most accurate designation for the area. No one, it seems, ever suggested the logical geographic term of “Upper Virginia” with the mountainous terrain which contrasts so readily with the rest of the “Old Dominion” nor did anyone see the possibilities of forming a “New Dominion”, either.

Moore's “A Banner in the Hills”, developed the complex nature of a group of people who saw themselves as that portion of the old state which have remained loyal and say no reason to drop the name “Virginia.”

On May 13, 1862 the new state was officially formed, far smaller than many had insisted it should be, and on December 31 – tradition holds he did so just minutes before midnight - President Lincoln signed the official paper. He postponed his agonizing decision until the very last minute, stating that “the division of a State is dreaded as a precedent.” His proclamation was issued April 20, 1863.

Virginia became the only state to lose half of it's physical area as a result of the actions of the Civil War. West Virginia became our 35th state and, another oddity: JFK was our 35th president.

A.L.M. March 22, 2003 [c701wds]

 
UNDERWAY!

March 21, 2003

It makes a subtle difference even though it has happened in a curiously "'“quiet" manner.

Most of us went to bed last night realizing that the war to bring freedom to Iraq has officially begun and that things will be different for all of us from this point onward.

Instead of the massed bombings of Baghdad which were anticipated, the actions of the United States proved to be a relatively small missile attacks on what has been called “ targets of opportunity.”

Intelligence reports indicated that the presence of Saddam Hussein and his leading officers was known and the early-start project was undertaken to try to remove him and his military leaders. I find people in disagreement this morning on that concept. I see it it as yet another try at “diplomacy” although the word itself is eliminated by the use of force. The intent of the plan, however, might well have been “if we can eliminate the head of this evil body we will not have to undertake the mass bombing which were planned.

There is no indication this morning if the plan was, in any way, “successful” or not. It is assumed it did not take Saddam Hussein out of the picture since he appeared on Iraqi TV shortly after the attack, reading a speech from a stenographer's notebook. The immediate assumption by many was a that the speaker was one of those who have, from time-to-time, subbed for Saddam in public appearances before, but I think not. A fake Saddam might pass in a speeding motorcade going through the streets ,but not to deliver a major speech. No doubt a voice print of some sort had been made and any such duplicity revealed. We cannot afford to jump to wishfully devised tangents in our thinking concerning our enemy

The war is on. There is no turning back. We are sitting here waiting to be told if the raid was in any way worth the trouble. We expect a follow up and complete information at any moment. We ought to be disappointed. We are “at war”. We have given up our “right to know” all details of what has transpired. We should not be told.

A great many American are going to find it difficult to understand, but this small incident is the essence of what we are going to have to learn to accept on a far larger scale as the war goes on. To be told bluntly that the the facts – at that moment - “are none of our business!” strikes some as being totally wrong, but it is so very true if we are to maintain any sense of civic safety here at home we are going to have to curb our curiosity and comments.
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With such an assurance, we can do a far better job of supporting our sons, our daughters and other loved ones in the war zone itself. For every little detail of any action to be ”made public" is a great threat to their safety and ours. I would hope that our media can control its manifested tendency to do what has been called rightly an “overkill” on the war story. The way they appear to be going at it this morning, just as the war has started on this first day of Spring, They are seemingly going to go “all out” endlessly on the war theme. With repetition and guesswork by people who really are not qualified, the war story will have been beaten to death for many interested TV viewers before morning comes around again.

We are at war. Codes of conduct are required of all. That code calls for us to continue our daily routines in fulfilling our part of the obligations we have assumed - like it or not - to see this mess through to the end. Maintaining proper discipline and decorum at on the home front is one of the great challenges of every one of us when we were enlisted in the war effort by our leaders.

Do your part. Uncle Sam needs you!

A.L.M. March 20, 2003 [c689wds]

 
BY BREAD ALONE?

What did early settlers here in Virginia have to eat?

Did they actually partake of the glamorous items we see listed in some magazines from time-to-time? Only on rare occasions, could they, even the so-called upper crust of society, the plantation owners, leading merchants and others such groups, actually dine with multiple courses of fine meats, seafoods, fowls, fine desserts and unlimited beverages? I doubt such meals were ever common, and we would have to agree that, by and large, the pioneer diet was dull, tiresome, often tasteless and at times inadequate.

It is quite evident that large amounts of corn were consumed in various forms:such as in cakes, pones, mush, flat breads, bread sticks, round, square and yard- long bread creations or corn which had been parched or even raw, plus boiled, roasted, baked, even “popped”, if only accident with certain types of corn and, of course, made into beverages of various strengths and intensities.

Wapatoo was an Indian good which settler came to find useful. The white men adopted the Indian food and variations of their name for it. Among themselves hey spoke of “duck potatoes” which we, today, call arrowroot We do not think of it as a food,but rather as a decorate wildflower we find along freshwater streams. They are found in pounds, marshes and lakes – even in more northerly areas, and may grow four inches to several feet high. They have olive green, striped leaves which point skyward in the shaped of an arrow head. They are listed in the fancy books as sagittaria latifolia for you botanically-minded people.

The lower leaves of the arrowroot plant usually grow just under the water line. They are grass-like in appearance always with pointed ends. The arrowroot blooms are white and about l-1/2 wide. There are three whorls, unisexual by nature, and with abilities to attract insects. The dragonfly is the chief pollinator of Arrowroot, as they are for Pickeralweed, a plant which has leaves which are rounded, and it resembles the arrowroot plant to the disadvantage of all concerned.

The tuber-like root of the Arrowroot plant was important in its time regardless of its name in any given area. The Lewis and Clark expedition found Indian women harvesting what they called “Wapotoo” in the Columbia River in 1805. The squaws waded into the water and broke the tubers from the plant roots with their toes, we are told.. Seventy five varieties of arrowroot have been classified. Fifteen types of ducks still love them just as the Indians and early white settlers did.

Closer to home, the plant gave a lasting name to an entire group of people from eastern Virginia. In 1610-11 Jamestown was in dire straits for food. A census of the pigs and poultry indicated that it would be wise for sixty to eighty of the settlers too move down river where they could live on seafoods and oysters. In the Old Point area, sturgeon was plentiful at that time and when dried, mixed with roe and sorrel it could be made into a flour providing both bread and meat. The well-known authority on Colonial homemaking, Annie Cash Jester wrote: “an edible root similar to a potato was gathered, pounded Indian-fashion to a meal from which bread was made.”

Those Jamestown settlers who had shipped downstream to stay alive, came to be known as people who ate Indian “Tockwaugh” - hence they became know as “Tuckahoes”.

A.L.M. March 19, 2003 [c583wds]

 
ICE COVERED

About 200,000 square miles of the State of Alaska are covered with a permanent veneer of ice.

An, oddly enough,most of those ice fields are in the southern portion of the state rather than in the frigid northerly areas. Have you every wondered why that should be?

I doubt if you have. It’s never bothered me but I have often wondered how the cruise ships going north to Sitka seemed to have plenty of glaciers dumping tons of ice into the already frigid waters. I wondered which might be waiting o be seem in the rest of the huge state -further north.

The quality of the snow,I find ,determines what kind of ice will develop and how much.. It difficult to accept the fact that parts of Alaska get more annual rainfall than some locations on the Amazon River in Brazil can expect...a station called Manaus, for one. And it is also true that some coastal areas of Alaska get less annual rainfall that folks in El Paso in arid west Texas. Rainfall – and snow – are less frequent in some areas of Alaska...more in others, and much depends on how it falls.

If the snow fall and melts. Then the flakes pack down and recrystallize into solid glacial ice. Gravity moves the growing mass of ice down the mountainsides, across chasms and into valleys and flat fields, digging deeply into the earth’s crust on it’s relentless way to the sea And ,all the while new snows, melting and recrystallizing are adding yet another layer or two on the top along the way.

Each glacier is a living laboratory for the study of fibers, form and forces.

Some of the glaciers are positioned so as to be relatively easy for tourists to visit their edges. The Matanuska near Palmer, Worthington and Columbia near Valdez and Mendenhall about twelve miles from Juneau. Within fifty miles of the capital city, there are sixteen tidewater glaciers and you can witness huge chunks dropping off and forming bergs in the cold sharing he bay with seals, whales, and salmon. Bald eagles soar overhead and it is easy to think you might have traveled back into the Ice age. When bare rock appear in the spent path of the mighty glacier, lichen and moss form on the surface and soils and eventually support a rim of willows, alders, - in other areas – spruces and hemlocks.

Glaciers are a wondrous show of force which can be witnessed first hand by visitors. You can watch from a distance, or you can walk across their expanses and marvel at the fact that they’re, even then, moving on a steady, relentless, unstoppable trek toward the sea. Under the huge slabs of packed layers of ice, as you move about in comparative ease, there is little realization of the tremendous power on which you may be riding. The weight of the ice is pressing into the ground below, taking large rocks into it own skin to better scrape, scrape and smash its way to the shore overcoming any obstacles and leaving behind new rivers, new lakes, gorges and fantastic scars on basic rock which illustrate the tremendous force which is so unseen, and rarely felt, when you walk across the expanses of solid, seemingly steadfast ice.

Glaciers are truly one of the world’s many wonders!

A L.M. March 18, 2003 [c-568wds]

 
SPA SPOT

The resort area we now know as Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, was,in the early days, named "Bath" and it was in Virginia.

It was founded in 1776 and named after Bath England. It was hoped the area could emulate the prosperity of the ancient English city by means of its numerous springs and their curative waters.

And it did, for a time, prosper and the springs became well-known known and around them the dominant business of the a health-spa community developed gradually.

It was the post office department that changed the name, not the citizens. The new name honored the Virginia Governor Norbourne Berkeley 1768 to 1770, and recognized the importance of the springs themselves The old name caused confusion because there were other towns and areas called “Bath: The name chosen was “Berkeley Springs”, and take note, too, that the spelling includes a distinctive central “e”.

The community has had an interesting and complex history. It was situated in a vital area which was repeatedly a hotbed of confusion during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. The people were very troubled about which side to support. Many families were divided, especially, during the C Civil War when residents served on one side or the other – or, served both sides as ”sutlers” and, in some strange way, neither side as they became Zuaves - a local “army” operated by and for its own good.

My first acquaintance with Berkeley Springs came from a l938 novel written by Hervey Allen. He was the author of the leading best seller novel “Anthony Adverse”. It was the leading best seller until Margaret Mitchell's “GWTW” took over the Civil War book scene. The book about the Berkeley, still a favorite war time novel with me, was titled ”Action At Aquila. It was felt to be too grossly realistic to some squeamish readers – dealing ,in the main, with medical needs of both Federal and Confederate troops. And, The Zuaves, locally organized and controlled, in their flaming Turkish attire and turban headgear provided an unusual note to the accounts of civil war actions in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Some curious ideas where practiced by both the Zouves and the Sutlers. The area is filled with such oddities. Six areas of present day West Virginia never got to vote for separation from Virginia, for instance, the Berkeley area among them.

Berkeley Springs was, for a time, the residence of James Rumsey “ the inventor of the steamboat. If you are one of those who hold that Robert Fulton did that...listen up! It happened in 1887 when Rumsey operated his mechanically propelled steamboat on the Potomac River near Shepardstown The President of the Potomac Company encouraged him and appointed him a Superintendent of Canals and to improve the steamboat. The Potomac Company failed and Rumsey went to England where he successfully raised funds to built a better boat. He died before putting any improved model on the Potomac, so the invention of the steamboat goes to someone else everywhere except in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.

The last time I visited Berkeley Springs the population was said to be about 1500 or so, and, for some reason I have not yet divined, it was prominently noted that the Court House there stands 611 feet above sea level. I have had continuing curiosity about the place ever since I read the Hervey Allen novel:”Action At Aquila” (1938)

Read it. Let's see if you get hooked, as well.

A.. L. M . March 17, 2003 [c594wds]

 
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT...

The "Dixie Chicks" really laid an egg on stage in London last week.

Shouting over the music, one of the girls...Natalie Maines, lead singer and guitar holder from Lubbock, Texas said "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas!”

We used to call that sort of gross error a “gaff” or a “flap”, and but most performers had enough common sense to avoid letting their personal political feelings overshadow their “work”

Folks everywhere, not just “back home”, have not taken too kindly to this caustic cackle from the Chicks and some see it as the Chick's suicide statement.

The media , in general, was pleased with the luscious plum which been dropped in their collective lap by one young lady with a loose lip and lame brain. Radio saw it as direct threat and eagerly sought to find some damage control. They stood alertly in line at strove to be named as “next” if they could not be “first” in their area to withdraw all Chick records from air play. One chain of twenty-five stations axed the chicks before the sun was up the next morning. To do so was considered almost a required action, if radio wished to remain popular to a great host of fans.

This incident is a sad one in many ways. It illustrates so well the truth of the old patriotic statement that it is right for any citizen to stand up and say what he or she believes. They often fail to consider the codicil that follows which says that, after doing so, one must face the natural consequences of their action an d accept responsibility for having said so. The consequence of their action is seldom worth the act of doing it. This blurted bit of bombast will may well mark the death knell of the “Dixie Chicks”.The animal-lovers leagues may bemoan the frightful way of killing fowls, for a time. The wringing of the bird's neck was a common method in my time and many a onlooker has witnessed the helpless, aimless flight of the de-headed bird trying fly away from danger already fulfilled . Doing away with chicks has never been a pleasurable memory for any of us. There are those who will take it all lightly, of course.

It is shame this incident was allowed to mar the growing popularity of this trio of girls singing and playing the traditional guitar, 5-string banjo and fiddle. They were a refreshing addition to a rather dull season. It is not the first time a sharp beak has caused trouble among birds of a feather flocking together. But, it's all gone now, girls.

Try changing our name, confer with Clairoil, don't be ”from“ anywhere - try a total rehab sweep and it might turn out well after all.

Thank you for being with us, even for such a sort time. Bye.

A.L.M. March 14, 2003 [c498wds]

 
HABITAT TALK

It is not so much where you live, but how you live that really matters.

Knowing your exact street address can be important, of course. We try to teach little children where they live so, in the event they may become lost, they can be safely brought back to where they belong. And, the concept is valid for older folks as well:. We can easily get “lost”and in far more ways than small children commonly do. It is important we stay aware of where we live and it is critical that we begin to pay more attention to how we live wherever it is that we carry on that process.

And it is a continuing process, a series of replacements, a progression - much of which is trial-and-error by its very nature. Living has life. It is far too often viewed as a severely static thing when it is very flexible, vibrant and subject to changes unimaginable.

Give some serious thought to your situation, for a moment. You know where you live but “why” and “how” you live as you do, are often variables and sometimes even at odds with each other. Persons, for instance, who concentrate their efforts of every waking moment to the accumulation of possessions, making money, gaining wealth in some form or another, and who do so with the improper motive in mind, are inflicting harm upon themselves in a tragic manner. On the other hand, we see an opposite extreme which can be just as costly. Those individuals who tend, so often, to give their conduct a religious tag, as they work steadily to help individuals they deem to be less fortunate than themselves, can easily fall into the pit they help dig which is walled against collapse by ideas of self admiration, sacrifice, and even self-mutilation in the name of impossible goals involving unobtainable heights of perfection.

We see both of those extremes in the world about us, don't we? And - they are not without merit, but those elements which are good must not be allowed to take over the whole concept and mutate it into a gnome or demanding creature of some sort.

There is much good to be done in this world of Man; there is much evil which can be forestalled if we but set our goals at sensible levels and fine things as they really are, rather than the way we may think we wish them to be.

Right now when we a nation “on the brink”, as we say, of war this can all be of special importance to all of us. Where we are and what we do, and why, are all essential factors in deterring our future. Make it personal, too. It is something others cannot really decide on your behalf.

A.L.M. March 14, 2003 [c475wds]

 
TOWN MAKER

In 1731 it would have seemed highly unlike that a young man, working as clerk in a general store in northern Ireland, would be credited with the founding of two- not just one, but two towns in far off Virginia across the Atlantic Ocean. Both towns were destined to thrive and are doing well today.

We need to look back at our roots and evaluate our beginnings. It is part of nature that a plant without proper roots cannot grow well, or may need changes and treatments of a special nature to make them mature. Finding role models among men and women in our past is a good way to help such inner-growth.

The young man was named Israel Christian. He was thought to have been nephew of one Gilbert Christian. The young man migrated to the New World and landed at New Castle, Delaware in 1726. The many Scots and Irish who came here thorough that common port of entry on the Delaware river, found that the best lands had been taken by the earlier Germanic settlers, so they looked to the wilderness to the west and southwest for their own future holdings. Young Christian went up the long valley extending to the Southwest along the edge of the Appalachian Mountains and in 1732 he removed to a what was then known as the upper reaches of the Shenando River. He started building a home located on a site near a fast-moving creek which came to be know, as it is to this day, as “Christian's Creek”

Drawing on his experience, he became a merchant in the nearest settlement at Beverley's Mill Place. He became a prominent and successful merchant in what was to become Staunton, Virginia. He married Elizabeth Stark. He served from 1759-1761 in the House of Burgesses.

They had four daughters and one son. One of their daughters married Col. William Fleming who was to serve as Acting Governor of Virginia during the two week interim during which the successor would be to Gov. Thomas Jefferson. A second Christian daughter married Caleb Wallace, a man who became prom,prominent in the newly developing Ken tucky area. A third daughter married Wiliam Boyer of Botetourt and the fourth one became the wife of Col. Stephen Trigg They too lived in Kentucky and it was another that Israel's son -William Christian chose to be - liking the active life of frontier tier living. Israel must have found a great deal of satisfaction in know that a county in Kentucky was named for his son William and another honored his Son-In-Law Stephen Trigg.

In Virginia two town were founded by Israel Christian. One is tot town of Fincastle nd the other Christiansburg. They are each the County Seat community of their administrative area, and stand as fitting memorials to the life of a good man, who, I dare say, never dreamed. As lad in Ireland, how important his life would become to so many people.

Take time to reflect on the life of Israel Christian, another Man of Merit.

A.L.M. March 14, 2003 [c519wds]

 
CALORIC WEAPONRY

One can easily see how the common knife might have developed early with primitive man as he found ways to improve his use of foods.
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A flat sliver of rock might well have served well to separate foods which were too firm, or too hot when dragged form the embers - too hot to handle. Any thinking creature would find he or she could use that sliver of rock as a means of cutting the portions which would be easier to handle and to consume. It is not at all difficult think of those person sharpening the edge of the rook on another harder one and finding it could be used to actually sever portions of foods and other humans, as well. The knife, no doubt became a weapon in many way and useful in ways of staying alive. The oldest knives known today are of flint. They date from the Palaeolithic period spanning 500,000 to 10,000 BC.. Others which suggest such use are even older but cannot be authentic. Men discovered how to use copper and, later on, bronze to make better more durable, more efficient blades. .He had learned, a thousand years earlier, to add handles made of wood or bone and covered with animal skins to protect the users hands. Then he found out even better blade could be fashioned of iron. Iron knives were well distributed a thousand years B.C., and the Romans developed different knives with special uses, such as for ritual removal of animal skins and others designed for cutting human hair. He had already learned, maybe a thousand years earlier, that he could attach wooden handles and to cover them with animal skins or fur to protect his hands. The Romans developed different types of knives... some for use in the ritual removal of skin from sacrificial animals and others for cutting human hair.

Most people agree that the knife preceded the development the fork and spoon. Notice, if you will, that we, in our own day, very seldom list them in any other order than knife, fork and spoon.

The development of spoons and forks could well have been a bit more complicated.

The first forks, you might guess, would have had one tine... a point on the end of a stick. It could be used to stab a piece of food and to lift it to the mouth or to hand it across to another person. A two-pronged form at the extended end of a stock would be a normal trend as primitive person who saw how the claws on the leg of a bird pieced, and clasped foods; how twigs divided naturally into several points and the multi-pronged fork of a tree limb would suggest a natural development which man found would work even more efficiently. A twig from a tree is still used when we roast hot dogs. Who can say when such ideas were “invented.”? Or, sharp thorns of animal claws might well have been attached to thee end of stick or bone used in a like manner.

The fork was used in the upper classes but only to a small degree. Many people considered the use of a fork to be social affront suggesting the user judged the user felt himself too good to eat as others did. It been came to be considered an insult to God to make use of a fork in eating, suggesting the user thought he or he could improve on God's intended use of the fingers.

The evolution of the spoon from hollowing out the end portion of a large bone to form a shallow cup at the end or finding a way to attach a portion of a gourd to a stick, are among the early applications of the spoon concept, it appears. The fork and the spoon are, then, studies unto themselves. In time, they came to form knife, fork and spoon sets carried along when one left home and used when they did not cause affront to other diners. Small cutlery cases are among man's dietary rubble in Roman ruins and other sources.

A.L.M. March 13, 2003 [c695wds]

 
DIMUENDO

Our house has outgrown us!

It's the second time such thing has happened to us. The house in which we have lived for the past ten years, a modern rancher, has become too much . Houses do that, you know. We lived in an on old 1895 farmhouse, with a selection of out-buildings all-round, before moving here. I lived there thirty-four years without a disagreeable word with neighbors on either side or across the road, which was a vacant field.

But, the house changed.

Houses will do that, you know. What seems just right - something to “grow into” serves well and then, suddenly, you realize it has become too large for you. We came to find that to properly manage a twelve room frame house, a barn, chicken sheds, three garages, a grain storage room, another hang cured meats, a shop, a wash house - took more time and effort as we went along. We got out from under all thirty-three acres of the place and moved to a smaller house on the edge of our small Virginia town .

It, too, has served us well, with only nineteen trees and a smaller yard to mow and rake, but now that we are getting older we find we don't use much of it. A much smaller yard to mow and rake. Only nineteen trees. We either can't or don't use some of the features we have enjoyed. Since I had an encounter with some major surgery, and had to stop driving. We no longer needed a two-car garage. It's easy enough to pass a '69 Chevy Pick-Up along to a grandson, but what do you do with a left-over garage? It takes care of itself, I find, and automatically fills up with furniture and an astonished array of someone's “collectibles.” It doesn't take long for them to fill every square foot of garage space and on top of work tables as well. It covered the work tables as well, like Kudzu ivy.. We have trouble fitting just one car in. With sliding doors, it works well, but not with doors that open outward.

There were twelve steps down the basement... a long recreation room with pool table,. Sofas,.chairs, and entertainment. There was a second kitchen in the back room, plus a hobby area and lots of storage shelves. That quickly turns into an “attic”in the:basement, as any honest rat-packer will tell, At the far end of the rec room there is a “multiple purpose” room which, technically, cannot be termed as a “bedroom” because it does not have properly sized windows. It became a sewing room, with a double bed, a dresser, chest and other such furnishings. The big closest became what I called a “piece goods supply house” feeding the sewing machine. The paneled walls were fitted with shelves and bookcases, with books, on all sides except the north end which was hogged up by the brick fireplace Through a utility room, one entered the garage area.

We are looking forward to a smaller house - small yard, no basement, no garden, three trees, no attic, three small trees and about thirty feet of snow-area between the garage door and the street in snow time.

So, another house has outgrown us. I can honestly say that I don't want to go. I didn't want to leave the old farmhouse, either, but we have a specific house nearby in mind and are prepared to make the change.

We now have to build a new “home” in that next “house.”

I'll let you know the new address when we get moved.

A.L.M. March 12, 2003 [c610ds]

 
BLARNY BIT.

"“Faith! Ye kin be shure, our man Bush will ha' drove all the snikes, an' th' likes 'o' 'em n' thereof, from outta old Iraq come St. Paddy's Day!”

Well, to be honest with ye, it might take a bit longer than just next week, but the task has been identified and work has actually begun the effect changes. The time for the proposed vascilations by the untied nations organizations have been set aside as monuments to dangerous times of appeasement and submission to evil forces which could running rampant, ruin all of us.

Bush-Now is,in a sense,following a path set by that eminent Scot who did so much for old Ireland, in that he is returning to a storied locale where the name Bush has been heard before in a time called the Desert Storm. The Bush-Now is quite different form the Bush-Then. The Patrick who was slave during his first stay in Ireland, returned to Emerald Isle - a man named Patrick - to be called a “Saint”..a man, trained equipped and well-established with a firm mission to perform. While the need may have been p received decade or so earlier, the necessary action was not taken. Bush-Then and Bush-Now are alike, father and son, you might acknowledge, but also very quite different.

It does not come a surprise to the world to find that Saddam Hussein has been living and thriving on borrowed time, but many have close ties to Iraq in economic, social and religious life. Jordon depends on Iraq for all of their oil supplies, for instance, and only one who can see nation who have found it profitable ale deal with Iraq in recent years as a mark of mutual benefit. Russia has met many of Iraq's needs for mechanical equipment and been available and has been an adviser and collaborator in bringing about improvements in many aspects of life. Among other nations, such as Turkey, which faces a problem with their minority Kurd population's independence aspirations. Much depends on what becomes of the many Kurds who populate Northern Iraq .just across the border. All have ties of a religious nature which tend to make them favor each other, at times,ofen without sufficient reason in our judgment. Just how important this faith factor is going to be in overcoming Hussein's mystique in Iraq remains to be seen.. The Muslim faith is not as unified as many westerners seem to think it might be, As with our own religious life, there are many different sects, groups, denominations and cults and with varied degrees of involvement and dedication among individuals associated with each of them or with fusions and factions thereof.

March 17th is marked.

“Sure, an' it's a foin day t' b a'startin' the likes o' anything in the way o' change for the bettermint of all Mankind!”

A.L.M. March 11, 2003 [c484wds]
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AMONG THE BEST

I usually refrain from saying any one thing is the best of the lot.

To make such a choice, one needs to have studied the entire collection. Right? I cannot honestly say which one is I think to be best of all until I had examined all other contenders.

I keep coming across a small fragment of verse which always hits me as being one of the prime expressions to be found in the English language with more poetic imagery per square inch than most other writing.

It is not a widely accepted piece of poetry at all. I see it in the oddest places - everything from folksy scrapbooks assembled over many years by some little old lady and only recently "published" as a random collection of humorous or inspiring bits of writing. This particular item is often center-paged and set apart in a suggested frame of some sort, as if the keeper of the pages thought it to be especially worthwhile. I have yet to see anyone credited with having written it, not even "Anon". There is never a credit line ascribing the simple thought to any one person.

It attests, in four, simple, straightforward lines, to an item intrinsically and innately beautiful. It is not complex in the sense of any complicated verse form such as that of the Japanese Haiku. It is not quirky, uniquely syllabic or ornate. It is not a limerick, and certainly not intended to be controlled or manipulated in any manner.

As with the finest jewels to be found anywhere, it may not be impressive at first sight. It can be easily overshadowed by gaudy baubles held nearby, so be prepared to read and, then, re-read the item with reflective evaluation in full running condition. Ready? Without any encumbering title or name...

" As a candle
in a quiet place.

Such is the beauty
of an aged face."

I don't know where it came from. It is, to me, a fine fragment of man's appreciation of a fleeting realization of goodness which fill out lives and which, so often, goes unseen... unheard... unknown. I have come across versions of it, too...changes of a few words, but it never seems to detract from the total image. i.e: "As a candle held in a quiet place. Of such is the beauty of an aged face." The next time you find yourself in the presence of an older person sitting relaxed and waiting, repeat those simple lines softly and you will become aware you are seeing true beauty, for the first time, perhaps.

A.L.M. March 10, 2003 [c440wds]

 
PACKAGED HOME SWEET HOMES

Until quite recently, I was unaware of the fact that the use of the word “trailer”- meaning a home which has qualities of mobility - has dropped out of our general-use vocabulary.

For many years we thought of a trailer and being as part of a substitute, temporary dwelling which was dragged from place as owner's work background demanded. It lived a relatively short life, as a rule, standing on stacked cinder block. It became modified, perhaps, as a “travel trailer” for a time, but, as such they got so ornate, fancy, frilly and frivolous that they defied normal types of lifestyle. Many even had swimming pools attached. It was more dragging of basic hotel facilities along behind a car or truck if one wanted to “travel:"or just move with the season to a warmed or cooler climates.

More and more people started putting them on a lot and built a regular house around them, so you would never know the original core had been a trailer at least from the outside. In time, the inside also became deceptively permanent to the casual visitor. l
”Trailers” are now a nostalgic oddity thought to be funny. Lucy and Desi Arnez took a vacation trip in one years ago in a motor less contraption lugged along by a pinned-on car or truck. We remember the flour-dusted predicament Lucy suffered when she rode in the trailer portion while Desi drove the overall rig remotely. That was, of course, illegal at the time, but it was done anyway other than in films.

We still have some trailer towns around the edges of our cities. Most of them stem from hard economic times when clusters of such dwellings festered in oft-times moldy groups on the edge of large cities. Some are still there, but they are being replaced for the simple reason that they are now thought of, and spoken of, as “slum areas” units.

The modern modular home, of course, is a totally different form of housing. They may have had a background of trailer-lore. Our American home also has a nostalgic factor in the form of the traditional log cabin, wigwam, hut or hogan. Modular home have become, in a real sense,come, which are to be placed on a permanent foundation , which happens to have been constructed somewhere else and transported to the site in sections and segments. The design and workmanship can be as as good as, or superior to, on-site construction which is subject to weather changes, environmental restrictions, noise regulations, material and supply shortage competitive labor problems and many other puzzling hazards. Such conditions add to the costs of construction, as well. In-plant construction of modular units makes more sense in many ways and is speedily becoming the accepted mode. Notice, if you will how roof trusses arrive at the on-site construction location completely assembled and are place in position and pinned down while suspended on a huge crane or derrick unit. The entire roof structure arrives on one truck and can be set in place secured and covered in a matter of hours rather than days, or weeks.

Housing styles,too, are changing rapidly, of course. In most of America what is being built most often is a two or three-car garage with living quarters attached. They will, naturally, tend to look very much alike with a central features given to it as a place to best keep the families wheeled vehicles.. Utility is the main theme, rather than beauty in anesthetic sense. The practical side of building can be a thing of beauty in an economics consideration and a joy to the pocketbook forever,too, enabling some people to be able to afford a good home The can have their dream come true much more reasonably.

To start with a home has to be a house. Making it a home is up to the people who choose to live there. Check on changes in zoning laws in your area. They are “a'changin'” and a modular home may prove to be right for your future.
A.L.M. March 9, 2003 [c690wds]

 
PEACEFUL MEANS

We talk a lot about "peace" but we really don't do a great deal about bringing it about through positive actions.

Protest is one thing; solving is another. Can we learn to encourage the concept of peace?

I think so. It calls for honesty with one's self as well as with those in opposition.

The poet, Alexander Pope. said many years ago that: “Seas but join the regions they divide.”
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Think about that for just a moment.

Take time from our fear-fractured day of work and worry to realize how Pope's simple words apply both to geographical reality in, but in a wider sense - to describe and dispel the oceans of doubt, uncertainty, mis-information, fabrications, fables, lies and other such tidal currents of opposition between ourselves and others.

In a world so divided, or a community, or family, for that matter, it is wise to realize that the froth which forms the fringe of surf on each side is pretty much the same. The swell of water between them, often riled and sullied by tempestuous currents, ill-applied, defenses and fortifications against imagined inroads, see only foreboding doom as certain. Those same waters join the opposite shores just as readily as they seem to separate them!

That's so very true. The same principles which guide men and women on one side to achieve positive values in their lives are the very same others are using on the opposite shore. It only in the fear men and women feel of facing up to the seas of frustration that keep them apart... even widen the seas and placing deposits of social silt and political debris in the channels by which one may gain access to the other.

To an unthinking, complacent, or ignorant person on one side, the waters seem to divide him from those on the other side, but they also join both at the same time. We have to become aware of those element of uniformity rather than dwelling constantly on the differences.

When even opposite views are exchanged, it is possible to realize how alike portions of life can be . To build a bridge, to sail a ship, to dig a tunnel, or to fly across the dividing waters in a winged craft, demands thought and effort of many people working on each side of the troublesome expanse of intervening sea.

Work at it. Accept it. And the poet's words will ring true for all of us: "“Seas but join the regions they divide.”

A.L.M. March 8, 2003 [c427wds]

 
THIRTY-SIX DAYS

How long is too long?

I have a feeling it should not take a total of thirty-six days for the U.S Postal Service to take a small package from one location on the coast of Virginia, inland to a point perhaps 130 miles westward. That's with Interstate Highway connections, rail service and adequate air connections, as well, had they been needed.

Fortunately, there were not any special requirements concerning the delivery of the particular package, nor were the items of any great intrinsic value. This was a package including operating instructions for an older model sewing machine several household articles and some too-small-for-me clothing items being passed along on the chain of hand-me-downs.. It was not a special parcel and it was, for that reason, not insured or given any special attention . I checked it over carefully when it finally did arrived and it was properly packaged and addressed. It was in excellent condition and showed no markings of any kind which may have indicated why it had been delayed or held for some particular reason.

It proved inconvenient for us not to have the instruction book for the sewing machine. We found that mimeographed copies of the specific book are available for $l5.95 or so a copy. A :”tracer”was placed on the package at the senders end about three weeks of so after mailing date, the package appeared about one week later at our doorstep without any explanation of how it got there, or where it might have been for over a month.

I wonder if this sort of thing is common with mail deliveries in other sections of the nation. If so, there is good reason for the Post Office Department being subject to criticism and being made a thing of ridicule by late night TV funsters. We have come to hear more about the Pony Express days in recent comments on TV than people did when it that horsey-hastened service was functioning.

The Postal Service certainly has enough problems as it is without allowing charges of poor service to arise. On the other hand, we customers should realize that the service operates under condition which are not always of the best. It is very easy to imagine this package of ours being “lost” for a time in a contract-haulers truck. We don't have “public” transportation any more our Post office department has to depend on privately owned trucks to move their tonnage around. From general appearances, I would say this private “fleet”is often inadequate. In all fairness, if we expect top grade service we ought to take some interest in providing the Department with more improved methods of mass movement for milk. The puny “express” I see operating in some areas is no longer adequate.

A.L.M. March 7, 2003 [c470wds]

 
OF DEATH

At this particular time in our nation's history, when we are on the brink of one, or perhaps two wars, the subject of death is going to find itself in our thinking and talking as a normal reaction to conditions.

I, personally, have never been afraid of dying. I think most people are offended by the circumstances of death as we tend to define them. Most people, dislike the idea of dying because it is disruptive, bloody, associated with broken bones, associated with th decaying matter, corpses and that unique smell that seems to be conjoined with the process of it all happening. This is what, I think, we most hate and fear rather than the progression to another existence. We may not comprehend it all, but we are not fearful of it taking place. We accept dying as a part of living - .the outgoing end of it.

How many will die? Who?

During wartime such figures are formed and they vary greatly. We can expect several million people to die each year on about every fifteen second or so. Sixty of those will be suicides. That's just one estimate from some years ago, and it does very little for us to formulate such approximations. There are far too many variables, and war is just one of them.

There was a time when we accepted the idea that death came when we stopped breathing, but scientific progress has led is to realize that such may not always be the case. Many individuals could be resuscitated from such a condition.. We then came to refer to a person being “brain dead” - at that point where oxygen had been held from the tissues of the brain until they cannot function. Even then, it is indefinite, because a heart may still respond to various restorative measures even though the brain may is not able to respond

We have modified our psychological view of death repeatedly. We have taken verbal liberties as well. There was time when we started referred to death by other names - “passing on”, “leave-taking”, “going to the Lord.”going to the Lord..”going back to whence he or she came”, for example a host of other such expressions. We have even tried humor when facing death with such terms “to kick the bucket”,.”to cash one's chips”, or one could be “deep-nixed” or “bumped off.” We change the term “corpse” to “a loved one”. Such shifting of words seems to help in some cases and not in others.

There's also a “spooky”side to death you can't ignore. The complexities of the human body and of mental processes, in particular are of such myriad dimensions that many people find it necessary to assign what little they know to some weird metaphysical manifestations and find solace and comfort in darkness rather than in light. Tele-logical
tangents are taken and semi-religious attitudes are found connecting to strange realms of magic, chance, secret desires and wishful thinking to comfort the overawing presence of actual death and even deny it.

Those men nd women who have viewed death often - doctors, surgeons, undertakers, some news people and many members of our armed forces, have a comforting feeling in accepting the idea that something departed from the physical body which which, then, became just a mass of chemicals and substances of which the world consists. Both poets and doctors have said that the beginning of death is birth. It seems, too simple, doesn't it, but there is are strong elements of truth therein.. We prepare for death from the moment we are born. The French thinker Pascal, said: :We spend our lives trying to keep our minds from death”: :And here's another such statement from a book listing scores of them. A man we call a “philosopher” said it in his later years. As death came near he is reported to have said: ”But I am just now learning to live!”

We live to die. All of us.

A.L.M. March 4, 2003 [c673wds]

 
THE LOT OF WOMEN

I find it difficult at times to realize that so much of what women have gained in the way of freedom and equality with men, has come about in my time - not centuries ago, but in relatively recent years.

John Stuart Mill wrote about the subjugation of women in a book published under that title, The American Edition, here in the United States in 1869. He wrote it in l861, I find, but we were far too busy with our internal affairs to give such a subject much time or attention.

Certainly the harsh trials and and tribulations of those years of such internecine strife caused many people – men and women - to change their views as to what the proper place of women might be in our society – in both the North and the South.

It was not that women were idol by any means. John Stuart Mill stated the situation's 'special bent when he wrote: “Are a woman's occupations, especially her chosen and voluntary ones, are ever regarded as excusing her from any of what are termed the calls of society?”

It must have been a question common to his time. Should women be engaged in any occupation other than the heaven-bestowed ones of being wife and mother and general caretaker of all that was good, natural, wholesome and necessary for the family? The term he used was “:the calls of society” and certainly, the “cause” became more and more apparent to men and women during the Civil War years and the long passage through Reconstruction travails True women had enough to do with what they were destined to care for. Should she engage in other work, as well? The truth of the matter was that they did other work, but were not credited with doing so. In most families it was common knowledge that the women did work which was “a man's job”.That became much more common during the war years. They did it without complaining and they did much of it very well. In some families you could see changes taking place, and not always in a subtle manner, either, which changed much of “man's work” into something which was done very well by women of the family. Milking, chopping and bringing-in wood, being the family doctor, nurse and char woman.

John Stuart Mill observed, furthermore: “She must always be at the beck and call of somebody, generally everybody” She was never to be considered to be in a free-agent classification at all, and was “on call” day or night; winter, summer spring or fall. One wonders today how she survived; how she every got anything done with so many to boss her!
Then, to bring this passage from John Stuart Mill to a climax, see this:

“If, “ he wrote, “she has a study or a pursuit, she must snatch any sort of intervals which accidentally occurs to be employed in it ... truly everything a woman does is done at odd times!”

I find that to be so accurate even today as I watch women at work. Those things which they really want and need to do for their “career” have to be done in those fragments of time allowed between their their “:home” work. When I make myself to be aware of women working in modern times, I am forced to remember how much women have done for me in the past eighty-seven years working in those precious moments they find so well.

Thank you, ladies.

A.L.M. March 5, 2003 [c595wds]

 
TWENTY- FOUR YEARS AGO

About a quarter of a century ago, around 1974 , you were reading news dispatches detailing the execution of the Shah of Persia' ministers for "crimes of state" and "violations of divine in law" in Iran. The new rulers were executing the men who had held their office previously. They thought they were avenging the abuses and mis-uses of power and wanted to get rid of any remembered evils to assure the purity of their own newly acquired powers. And, such a procedure was not evident only in Iran, but in other disturbed nations as well.

We were not, without such feelings ourselves, because it had not been too many years since we executed Nazi criminals after World War II..

Scores of bombings are evident in our time as newcomers seek revenge on the vanquished or on those they, or we, hope to expel. That which we sometime call “murder” is often seen as a practical political tool. But, by ending a life one also puts an end to the search for truth. Justice is abruptly truncated by death, and the framework for suffering by that one so accused is allayed.

As long as individuals and governing bodies tend to think of capital punishment as an acceptable tool of government, they are going to try to find ways in which they can justify its use . Once used, it ceases to be a political tool however. It ceases to be a political matter. The political situation has been truncated. It is not there anymore. It is dead .Gone! But the basic evil on which it lived is still there and very much alive in a new self.

The Iranian political of twenty-some ago, gaining power which enabled him to so, killed the previous office holder, but not the evils of corruption he may have symbolized. He unwittingly took upon himself - directly, or through his appointees - much of the burdensome weight borne by the previous leader, which is not good politics anyway one looks at it.

I find myself wondered about those among us who proclaim loudly that the only way to solve our present situation is to arrange, one way or another - for the prompt death of both Saddam Hussein and Osama Ben Laden as soon as possible by whatever means can be quickly arranged.

Does that really solve the problems? It may be worth some second thoughts if one expect justice to be done.

A.L.M . March 3, 2003 [c419wds]

 
NOT KNOWING

Not knowing is one of man's main cares and concerns these days.

The nature of the enemy which haunts us these days has already manifested itself more than adequately in the costly events of September 11th and constant, although admirably controlled, fears or anxieties concerning the possibility of additional attacks of a like nature are with us each day and night
.
Waiting, and not knowing exactly what to expect or how long it will be, is a terrible thing to face day after day.. .even more, I think, at night.

It is something that affects all peoples, too. Many citizens of foreign lands are concerned. They know, as we do, that the insult and injury sustained by the Unite States in New York City and in northern Virginia at the Pentagon building, cannot be ignored. The perpetrators of such deeds must be sought out and punished, and we all know so little about what is being done We know that is a task we all face,. there are other hot spots which need attention if peace is to be maintained with any hope of even a partial tenure of our affairs for years to come. We, here in America, are worried about what may happen. So are many people overseas, who wonder to what extent we may go to revenge the actions take against us. They question our ability to handle the situation, too.

The situation is such that the facts need to be controlled for a time as governments act and interact trying to trace the criminals involved. This is understandable to many, but not to all. The greatest danger of the moment is that because of this wise need for confidential action, far too many people may be led to question what is taking place. The vacuum left by a lack of information is speedily filled with the greatest danger of all - rumor. That rumor, too, may be exploited by the very people among us who did this to us. I think much of the disagreement we are hearing at the moment comes from groups of people who are so used to the American sense of openness that they rebel at the least pressure being pot upon them to refrain from total revelation of all governmental actions at all times.

I have been reading a series of personal diaries kept by by people during the later days of the American Civil War - 1864 to be exact - when southern cities were changing hands. News was almost totally lacking. The railroads were running only under limited ways, stage facilities were gone, and the only visitors were military stragglers - hardly the best source of news concerning wartime actions taking place in the area. Some keepers of those wartime diaries tended to record all alike be it truth or rumor. We are in a like situation today and rumor plays a far more important part in the formation of our personal opinion that we think it might.

A fact is not necessarily to be taken as Truth simply because it is said on radio, TV or in print. Read some of the older news magazines from years ago and you can see how we have, at times, warped the very events we were living to make them seem to be something else. We applied certain absolutes, to explain away our cares with hopes of a better future. Right now we are debating about allowing the trials of the accused murderers of the recent northern Virginia, D.C. and Maryland killings
to be shown on TV for all Americans to witness. We are also wondering if the forthcoming war with Iraq - said to be set to start next week “at the latest” - should be telecast in detail or in a controlled manner. Many say :”Yes” Others say “No”.

How much do we need to know at any given time? When does not knowing become of critical importance?

A.L.M. Mar 3, 2003 [c670wds]

 
LOCKE STEP

When we look back at some typical reforms in our history we see some of the strange ways we have used to try to make others think as we do. They have amounted to " very little" or"a great deal" depending on whom you ask to make an estimate of their enduring value. That's not an easy thing to do because those who believe other than the way we do, are paid hirelings and lackeys of the very ones doing the oppressing.

I read Charles Kingsley's novel about a fictional reformer named “Alton Locke” in March of l972 and I found there were people who were busy re-organizing the world even then in Victorian times. I remember reading it, because I wrote a page or two for this series concerning how I felt about what I was reading at that time.

As is so often the case it seems logical that Kingsley; as most authors tend to do, the let their hero reformers stand for the same things they espouse, but they can give their fictional; character guts to actually something rather than merely talk about it.
It is best for the reformer to be a person who is constantly, and has always s been, a bit out of step with others in almost identical circumstances, family, friends and selected enemies. It is best to make the character a Liberal in his political views so he has plenty of room to call on a strong, dominant governmental force when all else fails or merely wavers a little. Alton Locke, in the Kingsley novel, looks about him in his well-off world and he sees poverty elsewhere... .gradually he decide is is not right and he looks for someone or something on which he might blame for such evil conditions. There is another per-requisite for today's reformers, as well It is something even the reformer, himself. must not acknowledge or even admit exists.. He or she must be pretty well established financially in his right. That of his family, co-workers or some vague association of some sort which assures him of a regular income and to which he can charge any “expenses”he might incur. He must know how to keep bread on the table, gas in the car, fuel in the flying equipment or money with which to pay for the media attention needed. Alton Locke, together with people whom he ordinarily would not associate, could be, for a time, at least, as one.

He seeks improvement and re-dress for real or imagined wrongs on behalf of the blighted elements of the population as he now sees it.. It is also a part of today's reformation action that the participant have, Locke did from his creator. Kingsley's religious fervor can be seen by some readers as a bias. He was known to be ready to lambaste any work - good or bad - of the Jesuit Order. A. Conan Doyle, as he dragged Sherlock Holmes around so aptly on a literary string, had strong prejudices against the Normans. Such narrowness is valuable to reformers because they have a ready out when cornered or confused. Narrowness caused Kingsley to distrust and detract from his Alton Locke character as being true reformer. Locke blamed the conditions poor, starving underpaid worker on the usual selection of malicious individuals. With his Utopian ideas looking more chaste and pure as he hurries along: the business leaders and big merchants of his homeland were to blame. They ground the poor under their coin-studded boot heels and kept them poor and in virtual slavery creating wealth for themselves or greedy investors. As needed, bakers can be faulted for not providing bread to the needy. Ministers, of whatever faith is questioned at the moment, are also fair game. The Law and those who occupy the courts and administrative offices in all their forms, were to blame. The reformer thinks it is his God-ordained destiny to protest rather than to take an active role in specific forms of suffering. Thinking of “Soup Kitchens” or of clinics to meet health needs, were, to him or her, surrender. While posturing in this manner, a reformer with dreams of Utopian father-figure who would solve it all - a Utopian government which would have as it's ultimate function was to solve it all, but the novel's Alton Locke he gradually came to know that he did not hold the love of the common people he once thought he had. In a prize-winner downbeat ending he admits he no longer loves Lillian, his commoner girl friend.

The newest sure way to success in social action, designed to ridicule any mention of war against Iraq, is already being introduced in several Latin-American countries. It may be expected here in the United States as soon as Spring weather becomes official in just a few weeks. They will demonstrate it by “on the beaches, on the playing fields ”... come warm days. You can expect to see this latest form of protests and calls for reforms as it appears in the buff as of hundreds of totally nude men and women march out and valiantly and lie down, sit or stretch out to spell out the words “Peace!” or “No War!” as half-time entertainment.

Get your suntan lotion and be ready. The media will love it; the people will accept it as being normal... even right.

A.L.M. March 2, 2003 [c905wds]

 
DUMB PLUS

I find it amazing that criminals, who should consider themselves to be quicker, smarter and more alert that their victims, can be so stupid in some of the things they do.

In Australia a man who's home had been burglarized decided to leave his PC computer camera on at night, and, sure enough, he had visitors once again who seemed to be intent on picking up things they had missed the previous time, and anything else they fancied.

They had entered by means of prying a glass, sliding door from its gutter with a large screw driver. They proceeded to take whatever software they wanted, a digital camera and other such items they had overlooked without realizing they were on camera in many of their movements about the room. They made no attempt to steal, or even disable, the computer itself which was blinking away at them all the time. They both wore baseball hats - one forward and the other in a reversed style
.
The two have not been apprehended, however. Lighting was poor and must be improved if this is to be a common method of detection. Police felt that the victim outsmarted himself by posting the pictures on the for all to see on the net. With poor lighting the robbers could not be positively identified, and you can be sure they did not wear baseball hats – either coming or going.- for the net few weeks or months. The two had a chance to modify their appearance, and change their facial and hair styles enough to cast doubt upon identification. It's highly unlikely the pilfering twosome would be be ready to co-star in another home movie production any time soon.

Closer to home: two American would-be bank robbers, are reported to have innovated a fiasco all their own. The two erstwhile robbers, intending to rob their local bank, first saturated their faces with concentrated lemon juice. Some had told them that by doing that,it would be impossible for the cameras to take their picture... everything would go fuzzy. So they had been informed – or mis-informed, perhaps - that the way to louse up a camera was to smear your face with lemon juice, and they believed it. Both can now enjoy a cool glass of tea in prison, with sugar, yes - but no lemon, please.

Another dummy-do: a man, in the process of robbing a convenience store clerk by demanding and receiving all the cash from the register drawers, spotted a six-pack of beer on displayed above the cash register.

He demanded that as well. The clerk said he could not let anyone have beer as young as he seemed to be. The masked man held his his ID card up for the clerk to read.- street address, apartment number, telephone and SS# - everything! The police were waiting for him when he got home planning to enjoy his six-pack.

How can it be that, with crooks being so stupid, we can't catch more of them?

A.L.M. February 28, 2003 [c513wds]

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01/15/2006 - 01/22/2006
01/22/2006 - 01/29/2006
01/29/2006 - 02/05/2006
02/05/2006 - 02/12/2006
02/12/2006 - 02/19/2006
02/19/2006 - 02/26/2006
02/26/2006 - 03/05/2006
03/05/2006 - 03/12/2006
03/12/2006 - 03/19/2006
03/19/2006 - 03/26/2006
03/26/2006 - 04/02/2006
04/02/2006 - 04/09/2006
04/09/2006 - 04/16/2006
04/16/2006 - 04/23/2006
04/23/2006 - 04/30/2006
04/30/2006 - 05/07/2006
05/07/2006 - 05/14/2006
05/14/2006 - 05/21/2006
05/21/2006 - 05/28/2006
05/28/2006 - 06/04/2006
06/04/2006 - 06/11/2006
06/11/2006 - 06/18/2006
06/18/2006 - 06/25/2006
06/25/2006 - 07/02/2006
07/02/2006 - 07/09/2006
07/09/2006 - 07/16/2006
07/16/2006 - 07/23/2006
07/23/2006 - 07/30/2006
07/30/2006 - 08/06/2006
08/06/2006 - 08/13/2006
08/13/2006 - 08/20/2006
08/20/2006 - 08/27/2006
08/27/2006 - 09/03/2006
09/03/2006 - 09/10/2006
09/10/2006 - 09/17/2006
09/17/2006 - 09/24/2006
09/24/2006 - 10/01/2006
10/01/2006 - 10/08/2006
10/08/2006 - 10/15/2006
10/15/2006 - 10/22/2006
10/22/2006 - 10/29/2006
10/29/2006 - 11/05/2006
11/05/2006 - 11/12/2006
11/12/2006 - 11/19/2006
11/19/2006 - 11/26/2006
11/26/2006 - 12/03/2006
12/03/2006 - 12/10/2006
12/10/2006 - 12/17/2006
12/17/2006 - 12/24/2006
12/24/2006 - 12/31/2006
12/31/2006 - 01/07/2007
01/07/2007 - 01/14/2007
01/14/2007 - 01/21/2007
01/21/2007 - 01/28/2007
01/28/2007 - 02/04/2007
02/04/2007 - 02/11/2007
02/11/2007 - 02/18/2007
02/18/2007 - 02/25/2007
03/25/2007 - 04/01/2007
04/01/2007 - 04/08/2007
08/05/2007 - 08/12/2007
08/26/2007 - 09/02/2007
11/18/2007 - 11/25/2007
12/09/2007 - 12/16/2007
12/21/2008 - 12/28/2008
01/04/2009 - 01/11/2009
07/26/2009 - 08/02/2009