“The right to be left alone is indeed the
beginning of all freedoms.”

—Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
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There’s been much fussing lately in the news and on the Net about the remote relig-ious compound raided by authorities in Eldorado, Texas. According to breathless news reporters, police received an anonymous call from a 16-year old girl inside the com-pound who claimed she was abused and raped. They descended in full force and re-moved more than four hundred children. Shipped them out by the busload.

Now the dust is settling on the raid. Seems like that call from the abused 16-year old may have been a fake, and the man the authorities claimed abused her was not in the compound or even in the state, and may not have been for decades.

It’s also come to light that the authorities had a contingency plan in place for some time. A plan to do exactly what they did, swoop in and raid the compound and forcibly remove its inhabitants. All they needed was a call precisely like the one they claim they got. Interesting.

If a splinter Mormon group wants to move to a remote desert area and establish a compound, that’s none of my business. It’s not how I’d live. I figure such people are probably a little kooky, but that’s about it. It’s a free country, in theory, at least. They are bothering no one. It’s their property. They should be secure on it.

So it’s none of my business if people want to establish their own little “heaven” on earth. Even a polygamous one. It shouldn’t be the authorities’ business, either.

Raids like this on religious separatists (and tax protestors) always make me uneasy. These people are obviously different. Very different. And very unsympathetic figures. It’s not hard to shrug and think they probably got what they deserved. That they should be compelled to re-enter the “real” world with or without their consent.

And who knows, perhaps bad things were happening in this particular case. I’m sure we’ll see pictures of all kinds of horrors. Hear solemn recitals of terrible accusations. Released strategically over time, in a trickle to keep our horror levels high.

But who takes the pictures? And who makes the accusations?

All details about the case are released from one source, the government. And I don’t much trust many governmental claims of any kind, let alone claims of this nature. The government surely isn’t going to admit it if a mistake was made. Or admit it if the children inside were not being abused, other than being forced to live in a remote communal compound with their parents.

The stark fact remains that four hundred children have been torn from those most naturally inclined to provide them security, nurture and love, their parents. Especially their mothers, who are heartbroken. Absent hard, serious evidence of real abuse, the children should be returned, and the trauma of separation ended. But I won’t hold my breath, because it likely won’t happen.

The children will be coached to say they were “abused.” Mark it down somewhere. The lurid stories will emerge. Duly recounted by breathless perfectly-coifed newscasters.

They will be medicated and “reprogrammed” into lifeless little model citizens. In the cold strangeness of unfamiliar foster homes. And that’s a shame.

Take four hundred kids at random from a mixed segment of our society and chances are high that a few of them are being abused at any given time. At least by today’s expanded definition of abuse. Whatever abuse happened in that compound, the same or worse is happening every day in the state-run high schools all across the country. Where contraceptives are dispensed to 13-year olds. Think about that.

So why were these particular four hundred children taken from their parents? Because of a single phone call that may have been faked?

It’s because their parents are visibly different. Because they separate themselves and practice a form of religion abhorrent to those who dictate what “normal” society should be.

It’s nobody’s business if people want to remove themselves from society and take their children with them. Certainly not the government’s. The freedom to live one’s life according to one’s conscience must be granted to all, regardless of religious affiliation.

Including separatist splinter-group Mormons. And people like the Branch Davidians, who were incinerated in Waco, Texas by Janet Reno in 1993.

Kooks, nuts, wackos all, in my opinion. But they had the right to be left alone. Instead, the Branch Davidians were burned alive.

If you’re thinking that fringe groups like those in Texas deserve to be targeted and are the only ones that will be targeted, think again. There are other groups out there that might be considered strange by mainstream societal norms. Groups that separate from mainstream culture and keep to themselves. Groups that dress different and teach their children who knows what in their own schools with uncertified teachers.

Like the Amish.

And no, I am not comparing the Amish to separatist Mormons, so don’t even go down that little bunny trail. Except to point out that both groups are different and both wish to be separated from the “world” in their own way. To be left alone.

If an intrusive government can move in, invade remote compounds and carry off the young children of Mormon splinter groups, how long do you think it will be before its agents remove children from, say, home-schoolers or the Amish? Amish lifestyle, romanticized as it is in the major media, could actually be considered pretty kooky by any modern standard.

It just depends on who’s judging. And who’s got the power.

It ain’t us. It’s usually some nameless faceless unaccountable bureaucrat.

The government, or state, wants malleable, compliant citizens. People who dare not resist as the state erodes our rights and freedoms, and confiscates more than half of what we produce through taxation. Taxation to support the very tyranny that oppres-ses us.

That’s why it must go out periodically and produce a show of brutal force as it did in Texas. Ship off kids in buses. Separate screaming, terrified little children from their helpless parents. Demonize groups and institutions considered outside accepted societal norms. To show the rest of us what happens if we dare get too far out of line.

The state wants dispirited, spineless slaves. And it wants your children. And it can take them at any given moment. Simply by launching vague undefined unproven accusa-tions of “abuse.”

It happens every day. It’s happening now in Texas. If you are a parent of a minor child or minor children, it could happen to you.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

***********

Hobbling painfully, she slowly pushed her cart into the checkout aisle as I was walking up with my two small items. I hoped she’d see how little I had and wave me ahead. She didn’t even look up and began unloading her cart onto the conveyor belt. Squelch-ing a mild twinge of irritation, I relaxed and observed.

It was a Friday evening and Amelia’s Discount Groceries was crowded with shoppers. Pay day, and most were loading up on Amelia’s specialty, items that have expired or are about to expire at a steep discount from regular grocery store prices.

She was an Old Order Mennonite of some sort, wearing a dark blue checkered dress and small, angled bonnet. She was old, in her eighties, at least, I figured. Her hands were bent and cracked from decades of unceasing toil. Hunchbacked, tired and worn, she peered through thick heavy glasses as she labored in slow motion to unload her cart.

The cashier greeted her cheerfully. She said nothing. Perhaps a bit hard of hearing, I thought to myself. She struggled to lift a jug of milk. I almost stepped forward to assist her, but thought better. Stay out of it. She might be startled or intimidated by an “English” man abruptly intruding. I observed her items.

Besides the milk, a few boxes of crackers. Bread. Some other packages of this and that. Then she lifted a plastic bag of meat. Cut-off ends from packaged slabs, various brands and flavors. A couple of bucks for what appeared to be three or four pounds. Scraps.

I knew people fed such scraps to their dogs. Somehow, I didn’t think she was buying them for her dog.

She finally placed the last item on the counter. I wondered if she was a widow. Maybe. Probably. No way of knowing, really.

The cashier rang up the total. Nineteen bucks and change. She fumbled with her purse with stiff thickened fingers and extracted a worn little money pouch and withdrew a crumpled $20. The cashier returned her change and helped place the loaded plastic bags into the cart, and pleasantly thanked her.

She replied dully, “thank you.” The only words she spoke during the entire transaction. As I placed my items on the counter, she hunched over her grocery cart and hobbled slowly toward the exit.

**********

Emboldened by my bean soup success a few weeks ago, I have been expanding wildly into the vast exciting world of crock-pot cooking. After the first success, I decided that Ellen’s old crock pot wasn’t up to par. It was tall and narrow and the on/off switch was broken and had to be manipulated with pliers. So I went to the mall and bought a new one for twenty bucks. Oblong and more shallow, at four quarts plenty big enough for my needs.

I shared the second batch of soup with my friends Paul and Anne Marie Zook. They made all the appropriate noises of appreciation and claimed they liked it. Cody, their son, told me flat out, quite honestly, that he didn’t care for it at all.

When I was at their house last Sunday evening, Adrianna, their five year old daughter, leaned over to whisper something in my ear. I bent down to catch her words.

“Cody and me fed your beans to the dogs,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“You did WHAT?” I exclaimed.

“We fed your beans to the dogs,” she repeated, giggling.

“All right, time to ‘fess up,” I said sternly, turning to her mom. Anne Marie looked em-barrassed. Paul was suddenly very interested in how things were going for me at work. But I stuck to my interrogation. What had happened to my bean soup?

Turned out that after serving the beans for two meals, she had discarded the remnants that remained. Sent the children out to feed them to the dogs.

Of course, I made a huge fuss, roaring loudly about the futility of giving good food to ungrateful people who won’t eat it. And feed it to their dogs, yet. Wild threats were made about not sharing any future dishes.

The children claimed the dogs wolfed the beans right down. I don’t doubt it. It WAS good soup. I expressed snide appreciation that something had enjoyed my culinary skills.

It was too funny. We laughed until we almost cried. Out of the mouths of babes….

Summer weather is here. Summer itself approaches. The hiking trails call. Last Saturday I mowed the yard for the first time this year. Unhappy with the new “mulcher mower” purchased last year, I returned it to the young Amish dealer. He cheerfully applied my purchase price to a slightly used but very serviceable Honda. Not self-propelled, with no bells or whistles. And definitely NOT a mulcher. It hummed along beautifully. The yard looks great. Even stripped of the tree out front.

The PA airwaves are clogged these days with Hillary and Obama ads, urging primary voters to the polls next Tuesday. I’m so sick of their pandering tripe that I mute the radio when their ads come on. Both promise to take from the “rich” and expand social programs, a sure-fire recipe for disaster. And a sure-fire expansion of government powers.

I finally lost the five pounds gained over the holiday season. Down to 202 pounds again, which seems to be my natural plateau.

This site has now passed 50,000 hits. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Reminder to those who promised to write out and send me their memories of Elmo Stoll. Please get them to me. I will need them soon.

“…..I have been a stranger in a strange land.”

—Exodus 2:22
_____________________________________

Well, we’ve reached a milestone. Fifty-four posts. With fifty-three essays. Almost exactly one year ago, on April 14, on a Saturday morning, I posted my first commentary. And every Friday evening since. The weeks and months have passed, and the full cycle of the seasons.

Big whoop, in the big scheme of things. But it’s a substantial achievement for me. Never before have I produced such a voluminous steady flow of words on a weekly deadline for a full year. Not even during four years of college and three years of law school.

I feel good about it. Not like I’ve earned a medal or anything. Just a sense of accomplishment, and all that. It’s been fun, mostly. Except for a few frantic moments of mild panic from writer’s block and some frustrations when the right phrase or description evaded me. I’ve experimented with different styles of writing. Various methods of ex- pression. Written in third person (“He” instead of “I”) for the first time ever. It works, if the muse strikes just right.

I recognize and cheerfully credit the influence of other writers. Fred the Curmudgeon has impacted me greatly with his writing style and rather cynical expressions and short choppy sentences. I also read the “New Yorker” regularly. Most of its essayists affect a bored, tired sardonic attitude. World-weary, knowing, skeptical and of course, with no serious acknowledgment of anything like a higher power. Faith is for hicks, except for the complex nuanced contortions of the “social justice” liberals. But they can write, I’ll give them that. I try to learn from them.

Writing for me is an organic thing. I never quite know how the finished product will turn out. Other than it’s loosely based on a certain theme. Usually on Sunday night, I develop a rough outline of the subject matter. And perhaps write a few paragraphs. By midweek, the essay is about 85% complete. Extensive rewriting and tinkering follow right up to post time.

Some essays are set on the back burner for another time. October is my favorite time of year, and last October I was determined to write a stirring essay regaling the season. After a few evenings of frustrating labor, I gave it up. It seemed contrived. I could not find an authentic voice. So perhaps this fall the issue might be revisited. I saved my notes. We’ll see.

I am deeply melancholy and moody by nature. My writing tends to reflect that (a HUGE understatement). Some of what I consider my best stuff recounts the tremendous toll in human costs. Of tragedy, pain and loss. Which harks to the classic theme of the morose, downhearted artist, producing reams of passionate brooding prose because he has lived it and felt it. And must express it to the world (although the world has no obligation to listen, or pay the slightest attention).

I’m especially grateful to you, the readers. There’s tons of blogs out there. Your choices are almost unlimited. I appreciate the time you take, whether weekly or sporadically, to check my site and read what I’ve written. Whether on the site or from hard copies. And the feedback some few of you have felt led to share. I write and post what interests me. I figure if it’s read, that’s just an added bonus. I’m always honored and humbled. Really.

I also appreciate the private emails from those of you who experienced situations similar to mine and wrote to tell me of them.

All the posts remain available on the site. In retrospect, reviewed with a critical eye, some are mediocre, or worse. (I am very dissatisfied with last week’s post. It felt clichéd and disjointed. Too “Hallmark.” But it was all I had, so I went with it.) Some are OK. And a few I would submit with pride to the crankiest (and best) writing teachers that have ever terrorized me.

(A housekeeping note: The “Florida Nightmare” page has been completely gutted and remodeled. The last vestiges of the original content deleted. After a year, it was time. The page is now an Index of Posts. All the titles are listed in chronological order from most recent all the way back to the first one. I plan to keep it updated.)

The year was what it was. I look back and feel thankful. For a lot of things. God has been good. And faithful as He promised.

What is the future? Who can say? For now, I plan to keep posting weekly. For the discipline of forcing myself to write regularly, which is a good thing. And because the more I dig into memory, the more emerges from the depths.

That said, this being the second year and all, there well may come a Friday or two when there is nothing to post. When the discipline fails, or other things intrude. Or I may wake up one morning and decide to take a break for a month or two. I could see it happening. If it does, it does.

It’s been a decent ride, having my own blog. I’ve learned a few things in the past twelve months. About being who and what I am without apologies, regardless of the hostile and vocal criticism buzzing incessantly like great clouds of angry bees. About taking control of the little speck on the digital universe that consists of my site.

It’s impossible to please everyone. Seems like a lot of people have all kinds of brilliant ideas of what a blog should be. Some aren’t shy about letting me know where mine falls short. And that’s OK. But if I tune them out, that’s OK too.

In a private correspondence last year, a critic took me to task for a seemingly endless list of grievances. A stern “measured” missive from on high, it was. My blog should be this and I’m not being honest about that and my writing sucks. Blah, blah, blah. My eyes glazed from reading the pages and pages of patronizing blather.

He wrote condescendingly that for him, it’s all about philosophies and ideas. Always been. I was unimpressed.

“What a pompous arrogant elitist (bleep),” I thought to myself. I wondered if he had any “ordinary” friends. I doubted that he could tolerate them or they him. Probably, like me, not for long.

I’ve met such people before, who claim that life is all about philosophies and ideas. Insufferable boring people, full of themselves. A bloated self-importance permeates their words and overwhelms anything constructive they might have to say. Combative, humorless and tiresome, they take themselves far too seriously. Their fretful petty crankiness always reminds me of two lines from T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a poem I studied in college:

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

Before I ever branch off into consciously discussing “philosophies and ideas” as such (other than the occasional political diatribe or social commentary), I will write the things I have lived, the places seen and felt and breathed, the experiences that have made me what I am. Simple things from a simple culture. Emerging from that culture. And all that’s happened from that time to the present. It’s been a wild ride. I will write those things without apology or embarrassment, because what I have lived is what I have to say. I think there will be plenty to say for a long, long time.

Some have sneered disdainfully at my enjoyment of Nascar, pickup trucks, grilling and discussion of ordinary things, when valuable time and space could be used so much more wisely discussing intellectual subjects. Not that there’s anything wrong with intel-lectual subjects.

But to me, life is not all about philosophies and ideas.

It’s about living.

Which includes philosophies and ideas, in proportional balance with ordinary things. Like football and pickup trucks and Nascar and grilling.

Without the ordinary things, the larger things would not be possible. I can say with absolute certainty that I will never devalue or scorn those ordinary things. I would rather write to the regular guy than to all the intellectuals in all the universities in the world.

I would rather sit down and have a beer or a Scotch in an ordinary blue collar dive or a redneck bar than attend the ritziest highbrowed black tie champagne-soaked affair swarming with intellectual snobs (and yes, I have been in both settings). Listen to what Joe Sixpack has to say without interrupting. He is who he is with few pretensions. And there’s a lot to be said for (and about) people like him.

If that doesn’t make sense to you or the idea seems strange, then this site is probably not for you.

One last comment about my writing and this blog. Ellen and I were not blessed with children, although we deeply desired a family. It was not to be and just as well, the way things turned out. Now, I will never be a father. I will never have a son or daughter to enjoy in my old age when I’m tired and cranky. No child to carry on my legacy or my name.

I will likely grow old alone.

And that is a heavy thing to process and absorb. And accept.

I have processed and absorbed. Still working on the “accepting” part.

I find solace from another source.

My legacy, whatever it is, will be in the words I write.
________________________________________________________________________

America’s pastime was unleashed upon the land a week ago last Sunday evening, with the Braves taking on the Washington Nationals at the Nationals’ brand new ballpark. The season opened with great fanfare, some opera lady belting out the National Anthem in an unbelievably deep voice.

Flags were waving and jets thundered overhead and President Bush threw out the first pitch, to cheers and jeers. The pitch was high and tight. Unfortunately, the Braves lost in the bottom of the ninth.

Wild optimism reigns. A host of local Phillies fans are convinced this is their year. Some guru picked them to win the division. To all the hype, I say, wait, and play the games. It’s a long, long season. Bring it on. Slurp, slurp.

A mass exodus unfolded this weekend as a horde of Waglers and Yutzys migrated to Kokomo, IN for the April 12th wedding of Glen Wagler and Leann Chupp. Congrats to the happy couple.

Glen and Leann

A big hug and thanks to Dorothy Miller (my niece) for the box of delicious organic-baked goodies that arrived this week. It’s been awhile since I got one of those.