Saturday, February 17, 2007
RETURN TRIP Even with all of the countless nostalgia magazines and papers now appearing on news stands and make positive favoring a return of our national culture base we seldom see any more photographs or at work showing letters from readers and correspondent asking what has become become of them. To many Americans the "barns" early settler's built to store their native-grown wealth in whatever particular phase of the burgeoning economy they chose to compete. More and more barn were built when we were a growing nation barns of many styles of many of occupationally specialized barns were built in just about every section of the nation. They were often symbolic of how the world was to be led to see the success an individual seemed to have made of his holdings. The number and size of barns a man could afford to build told the world of that time who had the money in- hand and was willing to spend it to enhance his social standing. That's one way in which the barns have become such fine story-tellers describing how human lives were both helped and harmed over many years...living, loose-ends poorly tied, and entire dreams of large family groups - men, women and children - entire generations - forever destroyed. Very often, today you can learn a great deal more about how a man lived by visiting his barns rather than his house. The home environment reflected some of elements and sentiments of other members of farm family of those days. It was larger, more comprehensive group than we might find it to be today although that, too, can be fantasized in even more colorful ways today. The one barn with which I have had a close relationship was a more practical one as was the family farm on which it was located. The barn was, to me, of the finest types of such structures in this Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It had both English and Germanic features in it, as did the family who lived in the nearby, native-made brick brick home nearby. It could have been said the barn had "just grow'd" there - like Lil' Eva in"Uncle Tom's Cabin". It was built of coherent pieces over years of dreaming and planning and the total cost - a remarkably styled bridge barn a dream realized by farmer Irving Driver when he was just a lad. I have the paper on which he liked the total cost of materials and of labor hired at less than five hundred dollars. I might have been a good thing that he died before the boom of the wreaking rig took it away from us - the old 1844-'45 brick house, as well, to make room for the housing development in which we, as some of his descendent's, now live. It's foolish, some people would tell you, to waste your time even thinking about a building which is no longer in existence. That barn on I. D. Driver's old "Lofton Farm" just west of Weyers Cave, Virginia, on the historic Keezletown Pike, was a dream a young farm boy brought to practical perfection in his own lifetime. What kind of structure are you building today in which you might plan to store your accomplishments and achievements for others who follow you? Yes, and for those who will stand in their shoes! Those buildings we used to call barns are disappearing fast these days; getting more and more scarce. Where and how are you saving the good things of your life? There are far more of them, too, than you have thought there could be. Build big. Build to preserve such wealth for others, not to brag about having it. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 2-17-07 [c628wds]
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
ABSENT WITH LEAVE A vacation can be a good thing. I have taken a few days from these in recent weeks and I like to think they are happening because of my "advancing age level" bringing widely accepted "slow down!" notices - some of them, purposely turned in my direction. I can take a hint. I am not one of those persons who needs to be beaten over the head with a wide board to be reminded o take better care of myself. I've been told to "get more sleep." Playing it sly, I try to comply. I, immediately find how difficult it can be to shift from a well-established habit of arising at six o'clock each morning to a "more civilized hour". Years of office schedules taught me that I had to get up by six to get my outside "farm" chores done, feed my face, shower, shave and hie myself off on the daily commute. That travel-time routine served often as a personal "quiet time" - both early morning and, again in a kind of "Thank You, Lord", or ,"Now, what do I try to do next?" session as the sun seeped into the colorful strip along the western edge of the world. The advice, now that I think about it, was largely: "Sleep on it!" I usually did. I found that as television programming declined it was far easier to lop an hour or so from one's evening plans than morning. And - I must, at least, mention another inroad which has been taken on my way of doing whatever it is I am not, at that moment, doing "correctly." This new-found trait of "going to sleep early" became..."always sleepy"..."sleeping his life away!" ..."can sleep standing up!"..."sleeps too much" was the point of packaging me up for two nights of "sleep studies" at a nearby snore center. I, more or less, flunked. I haven't been invited back and hope that condition might continue. Meanwhile...back as the keyboard - I will be writing erratically. I still write daily but I do so in long-hand emulating J.K. Rawlings, no doubt. If my keyboard happens to be out of it's usual whack I depend on long-hand writing. It can be said that is is just a matter of typing those scribblings...right? Partly. My handwriting (now that I am said to be aged) has changed somewhat and not for the better, I will concede. Typing my hand-written copy is not all that difficult. The translation from some form of ancient Urdo street language seems to be somewhat more troubling. A soon as I get my bits and bytes back, I'll fill in the holes. Okay? Time for a short nap on this end. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@comcast.net 2-13-07 [c470wds]
Sunday, February 11, 2007
WITHOUT HATE Is it possible for Man to live in times of war and not to hate his enemies? Our religious faith demands that we “love our enemies” and, I suppose, other faiths set forth a like urging. Fortunately or unfortunately there are several useful definitions of the term “love”.One such use,in particular, can be used to justify some rather cruel patterns of demonstrated “love”. The domineering Father of fictional families - and far too many in real life – is often shown as a vicious tyrant who beats his wife and children with the strap he ,normally, uses as a belt during his steadier moments. Often. As he does so while proclaiming his love for each one of them. He beats them to drive out the sin which is condemning them to endless shame and agony. He cites precedent showing how previous believers had been made to suffer before they won through to blessing untold! Any time of War is a time when it is not at all difficult for one to learn to hate. Right now is a special time because so many people have not yet decided to approve of the idea that the present, unusual conflicts in which we are engaged are, indeed, to be called “wars”. They do occupy a place “outside the envelope” used to contain definitions of usual warfare, but the victims – nearly four thousand of them in the Twin Towers tragedy alone. Our basic principles of life have been denied. Each, added day we spend trying to decide petty points to define “war” our men and women – whom we have placed in harm’s way are dying or being maimed. It is a common tactic to some groups to stress this idea of urging peace above all else...including our integrity, honor and common sense. I am sure we can sustain our good concepts of good wishes to the many “peoples” led astray by their amok leaders. Think back over the times we have been asked not to hate our enemies: "Do not let yourself hate the British during our Revolutionary War; the Native Americans, the French, the English ,England again in 1812 who actually burned our capital city. Then ,how about the pirates off of Tripoli or the members of own families during our Civil War, Mexicans on each end of it, and the Spanish as a new century of fears came to be. Then, "Kaiser Bill's" Germany and Hitler's tragic re-run of the whole mess, aided and abetted by Russian, Slavs and others by names out of the of the Balkan Mountain area and the Japanese on the other side of the Pacific rim. That's a pretty long list, for a bare four hundred years. It could be even longer by including those little wars Panama, Granada, Whiskey, and a few familial set-taos in the Appalachians and other areas from time to time. Hate was an active part of each of them. I have been amazed at how much dislikes endure, too. If you look for them, you can find remnants almost anywhere. Maybe it is time we issue some proclamation or writ or bulls..whatever it might require to soften, delineate or legally obscure our present definition of "war" to allow "hate" to exist. After all, the abiding strength of the Christian faith has been the ability of adherents to hate all sin. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 2-11-07 [c574wds]
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