Saturday, July 15, 2006
YE BEASTIESIt is only recently that I attained to that level of knowledge which now permits me to be able fully understand what it means to have a pet cat in the home rather than a pet dog. They are as different from each other as are night from day; prosperity from debtors prison, even up from down. I have no reason whatsoever to disparage one or the other. We had a collie named "Dolly" in our family for years,. She became a member of our family on the very night – May 20, 1927 – that Charles Augustus Lindberg - the Lone Eagle - flew the Atlantic Ocean all by himself from New York to Paris... Roosevelt to Le Bourget. My father brought the puppy home in a shoe box on the 9:30 N&W train. He also was the one to tell us that Lindy had landed in France. We would not have known about it until the next day, because we did not have a radio until 1929. So having grown-up with a collie named "Dolly” we, somehow, never seemed to consider kittens or cat as being indoor pets and cats . They were mouse-catchers and had secret passageways from outside and the back porch to our basement. That concept reversed when I aged a bit and daughter Barbara came to live with us and look after us. Her cat "Angel” came along. We had been without a dog for some years and the cat filled a big need with us. She is a personality all her very own as she chooses to be at any given time. Her moods are many and somewhat complex, as well. She can be overtly friendly if her mood is tuned to that particular frequency , yet at another time - even while pretending to be the same cat – she can be a stand-offish as blank wall and sit there looking right through you – as you make useless suggestions. Some nights she will open our bedroom door – left ajar for her convenience’ feel the bounce she jumps up on the foot end of the bed. Usually she inspects each of us; then settles down along the lower end of bed like a yard-long bolster of white and gray fur with neatly arranged patches of black. She is, I am sure, an exceptional animal in many ways, I am sure. She listen to all and retains her rights to do as she pleases. To her credit, she does learn. She respects author thy, too and a firm "No!" is usually enough to curb her natural response. She reacts instantly to strange noises both internal and external...as a good watch cat should. She as great patience and I feel I have learned a lot to this point. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-15-06 [c474wds]
Friday, July 14, 2006
FOREWARNED It so happens that I still have and use my original Social Security Identification card. This small piece of lightweight red, white and blue imprinted cardboard was issued to me in whatever FD R year it was that "SS" became operative throughout the land. It has been in my wallet all those years; a wallet which has been replaced a number of times.. It is only recently that I have been oft reminded about what a card that small piece of pasteboard material really is. I am now being warned daily - hourly , perhaps, that overbearing, conniving criminals crouch behind each and every computer within awareness of the term NASA ; lurking there next to every 09-chewing monster mechanism, desktop, laptop (if you have that much lap left), hand-held and a newer mini-modes so small they have been found yet! These crooks are organized to lay their filthy manicured fingers on my fabulous family fortune! And, I am told they will spare no horror will even outdo anything night time cable-TV can offer in the ways of torture and misery to get that which they want so desperately which we are said to have. We have been warned since ID-Fright became fashionable to cease and desist from printing our Social Security Identification Number on every check we write along with interesting phone numbers, Fax, cell phones, E-mail addresses, and Skype ID. The same facts are handy on business cards if you have them, library cards, swimming pool passes, car wash appointment and all applications for anything. We've been doing many of those for years, We are now urged to stop. I met a salesman just this week who told me, with pride, he had hidden: his Social Security number-"years ago" - including successfully getting his state to refrain using it on his Driver's License. He does not carry a Social Security card in his wallet. The card is kept in a Safety Deposit Box at his bank. The whole affair calls for the use of common sense. Too many of these sad stories about who was taken for what are merely re-runs of he same old tabloid treatments of our constant criminal scene. The real difficulties lie ahead of us. We are working toward a social and political system in which every man or woman will be, essentially, a "number" with everything tied to that designation. That will be a time when numbers will spell new kinds of trouble. Imagine a time when the Odd Numbers secede from associations with all Even Numbered folks. 'Tis then, we will will discover what numbering problems really mean. Andre w McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-14-06 [c455wds]
Thursday, July 13, 2006
I N THE MIDDLE It seems to rather unfair that Lebanon always seems to be immediately in the area located between whomever is engaged in slinging rockets or missiles or suicide packages of people to bomb smithereens out of anything, every one and everything on which they happen to land. Not that Lebanon is, in any sense, blameless we don't know and shouldn't say so if we did. There seems to be some hesitancy about just how a "modern war" ought to be conducted. The first step is usually one which has been tried and which in all probability fail again this time as well. Much of such negative talk is countermanded by sharp statements concerning today's leaders. Then, when the project is over and done with, reports of it's "success" offer comparisons of how well his new shot did as compared and contrasted with those in the past. The actual landfall was perhaps thirty-feet closer to the target, instance with emphasis on what is planned rather than anything which may have been accomplished. The good people of Beruit, and other Lebanese cities and towns, must wonder just what other civic sites are to be sacrificed in this primitive manner. We realize that Lebanon plays a critical role in the mixed-up troubles which continue endlessly in is "mid-east" part of the world. We have been severely handicapped in dealing with events in the area in that some are not clearly identified as people of specific nations. They are so, often, lumped together with others sharing similar cultural, linguistic, religious and musical tastes as well as a few cantankerous qualities they argue about amongst themselves. We Americans have some odd feelings about the area. Mention the existence of "The American University of Beruit", in Lebanon and most Americans seem downright friendly. The feeling does not last, and we don't have Yasher Arafat around to blame. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-13-06 [c329wds]
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
ENMITY One would certainly think Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln would qualify as the most dedicated enemies of all time in American history. Years ago, when American history was among the subjects taught in our schools, we studied the speeches of each of them made before, during and after a celebrated series of formal debates in which th two, avowed antagonists engaged. Abraham Lincoln seemed to have been ordained to lead the United States during the days of our Civil War when the nation divided, yet he was born in Kentucky - well below the Mason-Dixon Line which determined who was from the South from those who were northern born and bred. He was to lead that segment of the nation which opposed human slavery in Kentucky and anywhere else in the southern states. There were other points of disagreement, of course, between Lincoln and his constant opponent in just about everything he tried. Stephen A. Douglas, the other side of the constantly arguing twosome was , in his time a widely know and highly respected champion of States' Rights legislation favoring the slavery of humans and of slavery privileges claimed to be legal by many political powers in the southern area Each of the two men undertook the study of the Law and Fate would have it that they both ended up in the State of Illinois at the same time. Tall, lanky, home-bodied Abraham Lincoln the log-splitting rough neck from Kentucky became an active force in Illinois's political life. In 1845 Stephen A. Douglas was elected as U. S. Senator. Within those intervening years, another question was solved for the two men - one of a non-political, romantic nature. Both men dated and courted the same young lady. We may look at the event in a different light today, but Mary Todd, courted by U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas, refused and accepted Abraham Lincoln in marriage in 1842. The, in 1858 when Douglas was seeking re-election as Senator, Abraham Lincoln was chosen by his political party to oppose him. Lincoln was a defeated. But, largely as a result of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Lincoln built an impressive following among the populace and he, running against Douglas, was elected in 1860 - as President of the United States. Lincoln, removed his hat while being sworn in as Chief Executive of the nation and pictures of that historic event show a short man standing to one side of the hat of his new president firmly in hand ... Stephen A. Douglas. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-12-06 [c433wds]
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
MULTI-MENTIONS This is one of those rare days in which I seem to think I would be more at ease in talking with you about numerous things rather than centering in one subject as the topic for a day. We need such times because a great many small but important things happen but fail to get recorded as part of the family's history. I need such a writing day from time-to-time to help lower the size of stack of small notes which gather at the far end of my desk. Our family doctor, for example, was in his early days a medical missionary and shortwave radio operate in Africa. On July 8th, he returned from a months stay in his old missionary post in Tanzania. I would like to sit down and talk with him several hours concerning his experiences there - then and now. It is so easy, you see,for us to overlook much that happens to us or around us. His name is Dr. Victor Buckwalter. He is to be found at the Carillion Family Health Center, in Weyers Cave. The game called soccer has made notable inroads on middle class Americans replaced, to some extent, baseball and softball teams and leagues. The term "Soccer Mom" is an established term in American sports-slanguage listings. The game has no chance what so ever of replacing anything major in the sports world. I watched most of the championship game, but I left out of sheer boredom and the use of fouls to gain advantage. I left with a feeling that which had become dirty might become nasty and I did not want to be part of it. I have long favored soccer for the deep-down and not always admitted reason that I felt I could understand it. I've learned about myself during the past few days. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-11-06 [c328wds]
Monday, July 10, 2006
PIANO PROGRESS Our first family piano was ordered by mail from the maker. It was - and I have to guess at the spelling - made by a firm named Zellerbach & Mueller in the Pittsburgh or eastern Ohio area. My mother ordered it largely, I think, because she had practiced on one as a child. She equated the unit with anything made by Steinway and Baldwin, the keyboard headliners of that day. We loved it and used it all the way. It served our somewhat unusual needs very well. It's arrival was a real day of celebration and, in particular, I remember because the piano was shipped by railway freight and arrived at our house on 2nd Street, in Central Radford, Va. by means of railway freight. It was unloaded from a freight car to a high-wheeled, horse drawn wagon. The piano was encased in a sturdy, thick boarded box to protect it from all hazards of rail transport. That box served our needs for a playhouse for many years. The two large men shifted the box from the wagon bed to our front porch and used tools they had to opened the big box so they could place the piano in our living room. We found out why when the larger of the two draymen seated himself at the piano and dealt out a series of bar-room ballads interlaced with favorite hymns. He was the first of many people who played piano with joy and obvious gusto. His partner had to remind him that they had work to do at the freight office making more deliveries. He was he first of many, many people who enjoyed playing that particular piano. Our entire family played that piano - some more - some less. My older brother Al took lessons with Medford at Radford College where we both played in a college orchestra for a time. His piano training served both of us well in our orchestra experiences that followed down through the years. So many families used to center much of their Living around the family piano and ours certainly did more than its fair share We were forever having groups in and the piano was usually the center of things. I remember particularly one young man who was to become a concert piano person tag the state level. For a time, he used our house as one of his practice locations. Three hours in one location can drive neighbors to distraction, to say the least. Other pianos I have known Number 2 - a small Wurlitzer spinet Irma and I bought. Irma willed her violin to son David and the piano to son Andy. Since Andy Jr. and Terry already had a piano, we held on to it and when grand daughter Annette wanted one in her Washington, D.C. apartment it moved there as Andy Jrs. and Terry's gift. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-11-06 [c490wds] c
Sunday, July 09, 2006
CROP CHANGE There are certain things you hope will some day "come true"..."exist".."come to be." I'm talking about "real" things, too - not about fanciful dream things such as eager, not-to-young men putting the finishing touches on the reality of World War II read about how we , by this time - actually a decade or two ago, now - would all be riding around our own little "air car" all of us were to have by that time. Other such encouraging ideas were held in front of us who were "getting out" - as in out of a prison of some sort and wondering what changes the rather vague times ahead held for us. Most of us came out in a better mood than you might be thinking. Blessed with that strange American gift called "a fine sense of humor" I must have been among those returning who are said to have asked: "Where do I go to get my ten thousand dollar bonus and may new air car helicopter?" Let me illustrate that same type of inconsistent thing that happens in our lives - often without our even being aware of such changes taking place. I am a mere four or five years behind time this one, too. Until yesterday I did not realize that the Commonwealth of Virginia - my native state and chosen dwelling place - no longer lists tobacco as its main agricultural crop! That's the sort of news that would set ole Walter Raleigh and other early Virginians a-twirling in their what and where-evers. I can remember hedging a bit when tobacco was being discussed. It was easy to shift the callers questions and comments on how well our State of Virginia did in producing apples, chickens, turkeys, beef cattle and soon on until the day's allotted air time was gone. It was just yesterday that I discovered on reading and item in a local paper which mentioned that soybeans - not tobacco - is the leading agricultural crop in Virginia and that it has been increasing each year. I have long been disturbed by the fact that tobacco was our leading crop in the mind of people world-wide - disturbed almost to a point of being ashamed because of the evils we know to be associated with it. I am not a rabid "agin-anything-er". I understand what all such changes hit the tobacco growers. I'm pleased we see a way out and are taking that pathway. Soybeans are doing well in the Old Dominion; corn is holding up as are other crops. Peanut production is down somewhat because of the end of a certain subsidy law in '02. Let's eat more peanut butter or do whatever is good for goobers! Let's take more pride in our agricultural accomplishment and it's forwardness and innovative ways. Let's become known as the 'BOLD' Dominion! Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 6-9-06 [c489wds]
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