Saturday, June 28, 2003
ON THE ROAD
America's highways are not exactly the safest place to be.
In many areas we have an enviable system of roads and they have been improved steadily over the years at great expense to local,state and federal governments.
Highways age rather quickly, however. At their best they are, as a rule, more of less inadequate on the day they are completed, because the world around them changes sharply, in part do to their presence, and also because the politics of road-building can often be a tedious, drawn-out process. It is this aging process which makes them a constantly increasing danger to all they serve.
This past weekend we drove from mid-Virginia to mid-North Carolina in about four four hours of actual travel time. We were on Interstate routes almost all of the time. That would be I-81, I-77 and I-40
Having travel their predecessors many times, I think of each of them as being exceptionally good highways. They each carry larger numbers of cars and trucks than they were designed to serve, and they are remarkably safe and one travels them in comfort and some assurance of safety. comfort witht with court and assurance .
On our week end trip saw two accidents. One occurred on I-77 north of Statesville, North Carolina. A “Toyota” pick-up with extended cab and a black tarp covering the cargo bed, veered from the highway suddenly and turned over several times and came to a crumpled stop on the median strip. Only the driver was seriously injured. He was air-lifted by helicopter he to the hospital. hpitl .His neck was neck was b broken. His mother, in the passenger seat beside him and three people in the rear seat were all were taken by ambulance to area hospitals. They suffered only minor injuries. Reports have it that the driver attempted to avoid striking a van ahead which was changing lanes;. He is thought to have over adjusted and the car wheels dug into the edge of the road and the vehicle flipped.
The other accident involved at least two motorcycles. We had found biker to be out in great numbers because it was the first sunny weekend we have e experienced months. We passed many such groups time and again, and rarely riding in side-by-side twosomes, but that must have been what caused two of them to touch and become a tangled mass in the grassy slope of I-77 near Fancy Gap, Virginia. I have not found any media reports on that crash so it may not have been as severe as it appeared to have been. We were part of the miles-long jam in back of it all and we were urged by the site quickly once we worked our way up to it.
The whole trip for us was, I'd say, a safe one. Drivers of both cars and trucks, I think, stayed reasonably close to set speed limits – seventy m.p.h. on I-77...for about a 75 average forward thrust for traffic in general. Considering the traffic, handled it is remarkable safe system.
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State police were evident in both states throughout the entire trip. That, beyond any doubt, is a strong deterrent to excessive speeds and careless driving. Theirs is no easy task. The highways are being used heavily; they are crowded and some are operating well beyond the intended capacity.
I-81 is in the process of being updated temporarily by the addition or more lanes. That will help for a only a few years after the project is completed. An additional north-south intestate is going to be urgently needed rather than such make-do adjustments.
A.L.M. June 25, 2003 [c649wds]
Friday, June 27, 2003
AIR SHIPS
My father used the term “air ships”. I found my first Father-In Law also called any contraption that flew through the air - by whatever means and for whatever purpose - was called a “ship” - and “air ship.”
When we were younger, the usage seemed to us to be a mis-use and it could prove to be embarrassing when they spoke of “airships” in the presence of younger people who realize they were talking about airplanes.
In time, I finally, came to understand why they spoke as they did.
The emergence of the motor-powered cart or wagon to become the automobile was something they could adapt to , but the world of flight was thrust upon them much more quickly when the Wright brothers did their thing down on the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and after such pioneers as Langley and his test-test pilot and engine designer Charles Manley had tried and failed, as had other individuals around the world. They made what they called “flying machines”. That, in fact was much more realistic term than our present habit of calling them calling them by numbers of usage - “747's or “bla-bla-blahs” depending on the purpose to which they are applied.
The turn-of-the-century generation in goth 1900's were,of course, aware of the balloons the Montgolfer boys had sent into the air over France. During our Civil War we made us more observant and air-minded enough to realize how important balloons could be to the military world. We put up enough such observation balloons to learn ,at last, two things ...we could actually see and trace the location and movements of enemy troops from afar, and we also realized for the every first time, that weather conditions traveled. Ben Franklin puzzled about a sever storm hitting Charleston, South Carolina; then Richmond, Philadelphia, and Boston. The balloon changed our weather observance ideas drastically. Up to that time,storms were thought of as being locally originated and finalized.
It was natural that those who accepted balloons in the air could come to appreciate the emergence of blimps, zeppelins and dirigibles during and after World War I.. They were as large as ships; they plied the heavens in impressive grandeur. Calling the dirigibles ships of the air ....”air ships”, was logically and apt. The term took root in common expression and endured even after the dirigible ceased to be an acceptable means of air transport with the fiery crash of the German trans-Atlantic craft Hindenburg"” at Lakehurst, NJ,. That disaster put a stop to the development of even grander versions of such ships.
The term now means any winged craft, as well. Our modern planes have now achieved such tremendous size and passenger capacities that they can, more logically, be equated with the concept of being “ships” of the sky.
So, my Dad and my Father-in-Law were right ... in a delayed sense. They were simply ahead of their time.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c578ds]
LOOSE MOOSE
I'm told that the wild moose, if fed by visitors, will, in time, turn on them when they show up and fail to bring food.
How like people and politicians?
“Look at the moose!”
` Few of us actually have the experience of seeing a live moose emerge from the forest cover into a green pasture. We may see deer on occasion here in Virginia, but I have yet to see a moose on the loose. They are big and, I should think, most impressive to those who do see them. A moose in motion is memorable, I would imagine.
I bring the subject up or two reasons. One; I have heard talk about attempts to re-establish both the moose and elk in Virginia's National Forest areas. Ten years ago there was such talk about bringing in the coyote and rural residents in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina now speak of the need to kill coyotes to protect their sheep and hunting dogs.
My second reason concerns all of us. It is about the forthcoming national elections - already in progress with politicians hitting the primary trails in record numbers. I watched a baker's dozen or so such candidates the other afternoon on C-SPAN as they each recited a series of promises to voters who support them. This group happened to be all Democrats, but the Republicans and others, such as the Greens and Libs, will be out there pitching packages of prosperity and plenty for potential patrons as well.
They were an impressive lot in some ways, I must say, and all but two or three of them are well-known.
But, what you might be wondering, has all of that to do with the moose I mentioned. Just this. A person who knows much about moose tells me that if you a moose out in the wild, he will accept your offering again and again, but if you happen to come into his presence without gifts of food for him, said moose may well attack you!
It would seem to me that those politicians who are filling the air with wild promises of what they are going to do for all of humanity when elected had best turn to the lesson to be learned from observing the tendency of the loose moose - the uncommitted voter - to get, one way or another, what he thinks you have for him. If you slack off on enticements and favors, you must be ready to run for cover.
Back off a bit. Stay real. Not all of those voting critters out there are bunny rabbits.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c429wds]
LOOSE MOOSE
I'm told that the wild moose, if fed by visitors, will, in time, turn on them when they show up and fail to bring food.
How like people and politicians?
“Look at the moose!”
` Few of us actually have the experience of seeing a live moose emerge from the forest cover into a green pasture. We may see deer on occasion here in Virginia, but I have yet to see a moose on the loose. They are big and, I should think, most impressive to those who do see them. A moose in motion is memorable, I would imagine.
I bring the subject up or two reasons. One; I have heard talk about attempts to re-establish both the moose and elk in Virginia's National Forest areas. Ten years ago there was such talk about bringing in the coyote and rural residents in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina now speak of the need to kill coyotes to protect their sheep and hunting dogs.
My second reason concerns all of us. It is about the forthcoming national elections - already in progress with politicians hitting the primary trails in record numbers. I watched a baker's dozen or so such candidates the other afternoon on C-SPAN as they each recited a series of promises to voters who support them. This group happened to be all Democrats, but the Republicans and others, such as the Greens and Libs, will be out there pitching packages of prosperity and plenty for potential patrons as well.
They were an impressive lot in some ways, I must say, and all but two or three of them are well-known.
But, what you might be wondering, has all of that to do with the moose I mentioned. Just this. A person who knows much about moose tells me that if you a moose out in the wild, he will accept your offering again and again, but if you happen to come into his presence without gifts of food for him, said moose may well attack you!
It would seem to me that those politicians who are filling the air with wild promises of what they are going to do for all of humanity when elected had best turn to the lesson to be learned from observing the tendency of the loose moose - the uncommitted voter - to get, one way or another, what he thinks you have for him. If you slack off on enticements and favors, you must be ready to run for cover.
Back off a bit. Stay real. Not all of those voting critters out there are bunny rabbits.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c429wds]
LOOSE MOOSE
I'm told that the wild moose, if fed by visitors, will, in time, turn on them when they show up and fail to bring food.
How like people and politicians?
“Look at the moose!”
` Few of us actually have the experience of seeing a live moose emerge from the forest cover into a green pasture. We may see deer on occasion here in Virginia, but I have yet to see a moose on the loose. They are big and, I should think, most impressive to those who do see them. A moose in motion is memorable, I would imagine.
I bring the subject up or two reasons. One; I have heard talk about attempts to re-establish both the moose and elk in Virginia's National Forest areas. Ten years ago there was such talk about bringing in the coyote and rural residents in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina now speak of the need to kill coyotes to protect their sheep and hunting dogs.
My second reason concerns all of us. It is about the forthcoming national elections - already in progress with politicians hitting the primary trails in record numbers. I watched a baker's dozen or so such candidates the other afternoon on C-SPAN as they each recited a series of promises to voters who support them. This group happened to be all Democrats, but the Republicans and others, such as the Greens and Libs, will be out there pitching packages of prosperity and plenty for potential patrons as well.
They were an impressive lot in some ways, I must say, and all but two or three of them are well-known.
But, what you might be wondering, has all of that to do with the moose I mentioned. Just this. A person who knows much about moose tells me that if you a moose out in the wild, he will accept your offering again and again, but if you happen to come into his presence without gifts of food for him, said moose may well attack you!
It would seem to me that those politicians who are filling the air with wild promises of what they are going to do for all of humanity when elected had best turn to the lesson to be learned from observing the tendency of the loose moose - the uncommitted voter - to get, one way or another, what he thinks you have for him. If you slack off on enticements and favors, you must be ready to run for cover.
Back off a bit. Stay real. Not all of those voting critters out there are bunny rabbits.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c429wds]
LOOSE MOOSE
I'm told that the wild moose, if fed by visitors, will, in time, turn on them when they show up and fail to bring food.
How like people and politicians?
“Look at the moose!”
` Few of us actually have the experience of seeing a live moose emerge from the forest cover into a green pasture. We may see deer on occasion here in Virginia, but I have yet to see a moose on the loose. They are big and, I should think, most impressive to those who do see them. A moose in motion is memorable, I would imagine.
I bring the subject up or two reasons. One; I have heard talk about attempts to re-establish both the moose and elk in Virginia's National Forest areas. Ten years ago there was such talk about bringing in the coyote and rural residents in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina now speak of the need to kill coyotes to protect their sheep and hunting dogs.
My second reason concerns all of us. It is about the forthcoming national elections - already in progress with politicians hitting the primary trails in record numbers. I watched a baker's dozen or so such candidates the other afternoon on C-SPAN as they each recited a series of promises to voters who support them. This group happened to be all Democrats, but the Republicans and others, such as the Greens and Libs, will be out there pitching packages of prosperity and plenty for potential patrons as well.
They were an impressive lot in some ways, I must say, and all but two or three of them are well-known.
But, what you might be wondering, has all of that to do with the moose I mentioned. Just this. A person who knows much about moose tells me that if you a moose out in the wild, he will accept your offering again and again, but if you happen to come into his presence without gifts of food for him, said moose may well attack you!
It would seem to me that those politicians who are filling the air with wild promises of what they are going to do for all of humanity when elected had best turn to the lesson to be learned from observing the tendency of the loose moose - the uncommitted voter - to get, one way or another, what he thinks you have for him. If you slack off on enticements and favors, you must be ready to run for cover.
Back off a bit. Stay real. Not all of those voting critters out there are bunny rabbits.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c429wds]
Thursday, June 26, 2003
LOOSE MOOSE
I'm told that the wild moose, if fed by visitors, will, in time, turn on them when they show up and fail to bring food.
How like people and politicians?
“Look at the moose!”
` Few of us actually have the experience of seeing a live moose emerge from the forest cover into a green pasture. We may see deer on occasion here in Virginia, but I have yet to see a moose on the loose. They are big and, I should think, most impressive to those who do see them. A moose in motion is memorable, I would imagine.
I bring the subject up or two reasons. One; I have heard talk about attempts to re-establish both the moose and elk in Virginia's National Forest areas. Ten years ago there was such talk about bringing in the coyote and rural residents in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina now speak of the need to kill coyotes to protect their sheep and hunting dogs.
My second reason concerns all of us. It is about the forthcoming national elections - already in progress with politicians hitting the primary trails in record numbers. I watched a baker's dozen or so such candidates the other afternoon on C-SPAN as they each recited a series of promises to voters who support them. This group happened to be all Democrats, but the Republicans and others, such as the Greens and Libs, will be out there pitching packages of prosperity and plenty for potential patrons as well.
They were an impressive lot in some ways, I must say, and all but two or three of them are well-known.
But, what you might be wondering, has all of that to do with the moose I mentioned. Just this. A person who knows much about moose tells me that if you a moose out in the wild, he will accept your offering again and again, but if you happen to come into his presence without gifts of food for him, said moose may well attack you!
It would seem to me that those politicians who are filling the air with wild promises of what they are going to do for all of humanity when elected had best turn to the lesson to be learned from observing the tendency of the loose moose - the uncommitted voter - to get, one way or another, what he thinks you have for him. If you slack off on enticements and favors, you must be ready to run for cover.
Back off a bit. Stay real. Not all of those voting critters out there are bunny rabbits.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c429wds]
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
ED CHANGES
Education has changed radically.
But, not enough to suit everyone, it seems.
When I went to school we went, primarily, to seek fulfillment of our thirst for knowledge. Oh, yes, that feeling was there and genuine one for most of us. Our parents, very much aware of their own limited schooling experiences, stressed the need to learn and we saw it as a way to better our lot as adults. We were, for the most part eager students, admittedly some more than others.
The system itself must have been harsher in those days. Any boy or girl who did not attend, or who fell behind in schoolwork, were simply dropped. Laws compelling children to attend school were lax or poorly enforced. And, too, there were parents who saw schooling as colossal waste of both time and money. Children entered the job market at an earlier age, and some did well at it.
The intent of schooling in those days was to set facts and figures before a child and for them to absorb all they could from such a wealth of provender. Various methods were developed to encourage them to drink of the fount of knowledge, or to force them to do so. Some did, some did not, and at the end of the school year the lower achievers were weeded out. There was no social promotion in those days. Do the work, or repeat the grade. If you don't like that arrangement. Goodbye.
The general idea was for a person seeking to be educated to absorb as much of the factual content available as he might possibly hold, and to parrot much of it back at test times. The human mind was packed with information.
Eduction today is structured in a totally different way. The change has been brought about by the arrival of the computer in our daily lives. Education now, during this present era, has a totally different objective. No longer is a student expected to know all there is to know about a subject. Mankind's supply of knowledge - now said to double in volume every ninety days - has become so prodigious, so fantastically complex and involved, that no human mind can possibly contain it all.
We no longer educate youth to know things, but, rather, to know where to find that fact, figure or process they need to know as the need arises for it to be essential to their lives.
Just in time, too.
Some old timers will scoff at the idea, of course, but I think we will see a crop of better educated young people in the future with this plan in place. The “college” student now has time for social pursuits and other elements of living to achieve and ever-widening range of goals in life.
Education has been simplified. Knowing where to find that which our need to know what you need is the guiding element.
It is rapidly re-defining who can be rightfully be said to be said to be “educated”. Existing school systems are having difficulty keeping up with the many subtle changes now in progress at all levels.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c523wds]
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
AFRICA TOMORROW
The discovery of skull fragments in Ethiopia recently underlines old claims that what we know as civilization may well have originated in Africa.
There is a growing fund of information which seems to prove the contention that what we call our history, did, indeed, have its roots in Africa.
The potential of the area is termendous. The history of one nation after another looks back on better days and there is evidence of a strong talent for advancement if there can ever be a lull in warfare and strife long enough for a government to grow and to attain power to curb such sucicidal actions as are now so evident. The halcyon days of ancient lore can have a strong influence on the power and glory of re-established states now in this 21st Century. That which once existed, can have a valid counterpart today once the will of the people is contained and directed toward such a goal, but the promise of such a change is not very evident at this moment in Time.
There is much bickering about how to go about it all, and the all to frequent cop-out tactic is to blame it all on "colonialism". That only sets the black-white thorn more deeply in the flesh that needs nourishment not added torture. Many balcks seem to feel better, momentarily, by placing the supposed blame of everything bad that takes place at the feet of failed Empires. This does very little toward solving the basic problems which exist among millions of men, women and children. It only makes things worse since it deal with things past rather than things present.
Of all the African states, South Africa, Egypt and Morocco, seem to be the only ones who even attempt to better themsleves. Nigeria held such a hope for decades but failed dismally in an attempt to come into modern times. Lybia has advanced to an imitation dictatorship but is stuck there in a swamp its own making. Sierra Leone is among the recenty ones to suffer severe internecine strife. Liberia - that great experiament by a western nation to revitalize the Dark Continent - with infusions of western concepts of democracy and people-power, has fallen apart.
Ethiopia and Eritrea are at it again and that is nothing new. I have often wondered why more western-educated Africans have not returned to their homeland as "leaders" - not politicans , necessarily - but innovators working on all aspects of living to help revive a sense of self-respect and unity among their people. Those few who attempt to do so, are, I fear, often handicapped beyond our understanding, by tribal differences in their native land. One of the basic things which has to take place in Africa is to overcome this clannishness, this pettiness "families" seem to think is the only way to survive.
As long as Nigerians hate each other violently, for example,who can even talk to them about unity much less convince them of their need for change and modification of their petty demands one upon the other.
In many of these areas, famine sets the stage for foreign intervention and involvement. Gigantic relief programs are in order, blended with sincere efforts at encouragment to enchance self-esteem among these needy millions.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c531wds]
Monday, June 23, 2003
MUCH TRAVELED GEORGE
George Washington never slept here.
I can make that distinction with some degree of assurance that it is correct because the community from which I am writing simply did not exist until after George Washington's time.
He moved about quite a bit as a young man. He did some surveying work for Lord Fairfax in western Virginia and is said to have stopped repeatedly at a site just a few miles north of here. One-time Royal Governor of Virginia Alexander Spotswood led a strange mixture of Virginian gentlemen to be known as ”The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe” across the hen forbidding Blue Ridge Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley. They crossed at a point not far form today's west-slope town of Elkton. It was a good -time jaunt, rather than a serious discovery expedition. They came across th mountains, partied a while in the Valley are and went back to Eastern Virginia and to its relative comforts. The Royal Governor had a medals struck marking the occasion which was a small golden horseshoe presented to each participant.
Actually exactly where young Washington may have stayed during his early visit as to the Valley is uncertain. There is large brick home at the Crossroads itself, but George is said to have stayed at a smaller place east of there on the Spotswood Trail. He is also reported to have stayed at the estate still called “Smithland” north of Harrisonburg on the Valley Pike Tradition holds he made several such stays in his surveying work for Lord Fairfax.
The only time in his travel when George ever left the Colonies was when he accompanied his brother Lawrence on a sunny vacation stay in the Barbados. George was nineteen at the time. Such a warm, dry climate was thought to be helpful for Lawrence as a tuberculosis patient, so they wintered there in 1751-2752. Lawrence was not cured of his malady and died shortly after returning. In time George, as President of the United States, made it a political point to visit each and every one of the original thirteen colonies which became states. He had, as Commander in Chief of our armed forces, seen a good many of the areas before. For that time the number of locations claiming “Washington Slept Here” multiplied rapidly.
Another thing about George. He did not go around throwing silver dollars across rivers in spite of that kind of story. The truth behind that tale seems to have come from the memoirs of a grandson of Martha Washington, who , speaking of either the Delaware or the Potomac Rivers, said that George threw a piece of slate “about the size of a silver dollar” all the way across the river. Or, others say, it might even have been the Rappahannock River at the site of the Washington's birthplace which is about two hundred fifty yards across.
It is natural that we have collected all manner of trivia concerning the boyhood years ands time of growth to Manhood of our nation's founder and First President . He never live in the city named after him, nor did he get to reside in the White House – the only president not to live there.
A L.M. June 22, 2003 [c568wds]
Sunday, June 22, 2003
REUNIONS
I find reunions of many kinds, including family get-togethers, to be beneficial in many ways.
Right now, when so much depends on bettering relationships among the many branches of those groups who constitute the Middle East families, we could all use some practical advice concerning merely getting along with each other.
This past week end we attended such a family reunion in North Carolina I wondered often, during the sessions, how such sentiments of mutual understanding and acceptance of realities can be translated into the international families. It is not easy. Few see it as being a quick victory.
The Reunion we attended Friday, Saturday and Sunday was held this year in the tri-town area of Newton, Conover and Hickory, North Carolina. Hickory, the largest of the three, is really a small city and Newton and Con over a steadily progressing. They have existed for some time back-to-back. Yet there is unity in many ways. They have e some disagreements, of course, but the family feel is always there and it is the solidifying factor in their mutual well-being.
I married into this particular reunion twenty-four years ago. This week- end we were the “Herman Family Reunion” to motels, restaurants, filling stations and other business locations in all three communities, and we felt welcomed, too.
Nationally the Herman family is quite large, of course. Our is a small wing of those who came from Germany and found their way to the Carolina colonies. Largely Germanic they were also of related Lutheran religious tenets. Those two qualities enter into just about every reunion there is - strong elements of element of unity in origin and basic beliefs they hold to be true and binding – both religious and secular religious and secular.
As with families of all types today, we are no longer tied to The Carolinas. Our “most distant” attendee year was. again Michelle Rogers who lives and works in Fairbanks, Alaska. The second largest portion of the group drives in from various sections of Virginia. There is no organized program as such but the whole group is made aware of good an bad news which has visited the lives of members during the year. Attention is paid to those members who were unable, for one reason or another, to attend ...a couple from Armada,.Co., a family from Murfreesboro, TN, another from Ocean City, Md other from Dearborn ,MI. The names names vary all over the spectrum now, too . ..Arndt, Beard, Campbell, Carr, Conn, Coleman, Dale, Fulk, Howe, Hovis and Crawford ...fifteen groups of actual Hermans, plus many others and I have, probably made a mistake listing some, knowing I would have to leave some out.
But, the Herman Reunion is always a happy one. There is no place for bickering over minor points. Organize your family to observe and annual reunion. Keep it informal and real. There is no better way for us to prepare ourselves as citizens to improve national family understandings world wide.
A.L.M. June 21, 2003 [c538wds]
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