To give the Devil his due New Orleans’ Mayor Nagin only asked for a “Chocolate City” to be rebuilt after Katrina, presuming it to continue existing on political corruption and welfare as the way of life; politicians like Nagin depending on holding power by playing to the welfare base living on the dole. President Obama wants to rebuild a “Chocolate America,” attempting to make our nation into Nagin’s vision of people held in slavery to the government depending on the unproductive to vote themselves the money the productive earn.

It may very well be it is his repressed anger and resentment toward Caucasians that Obama has such an agenda, one that he tries to conceal by cozying up to powerful Caucasians but underscores my own indictment of the Founding Fathers that the seed of America’s destruction was sown in slavery and Obama may in my opinion be the result, and even the Presidency is not enough to allay his feeling of inferiority and being a victim of prejudice and a devotee of those like Jeremiah Wright because of his color. But if I am correct in seeing America as Babylon of Revelation, Obama while pressing for an agenda punishing productive taxpayers to pay the bills for those unproductive on the dole paying no taxes and for a One World Order may be following God’s agenda for our nation. America has left off even the pretense of being a Godly nation any longer, and in my opinion this is the real reason the GOP self-destructed and Obama was able to get elected.

The bottomless pit of bailouts and handouts benefitting only politicians together with their corporate bosses is said to be “sailing into uncharted waters.” However, for those who can think clearly the dangerous reef threatening to enslave America and make our nation part of that One World Order is clearly in sight but no one at the helm of the Ship of State is listening. More to the point, they really don’t have to listen and they know it. All they have to do is talk whether anyone is listening or not.

My native Kern County as a whole is considered a cultural wasteland and there are legitimate reasons for those that see it as such. However, given the fact that people here for the most part have always been of the laboring class and more concerned for just having a job and making ends meet than those that have the leisure and means to be patrons of the arts goes with the history and geography of the county and the San Joaquin Valley in general. Places of cultural refinement where the elite socialize with members of their own upper class right out of some Hollywood set and people talk about great ideas, art, and literature are rather sparse. Now if only the city fathers of Bakersfield had taken my advice about turning the Padre Hotel into a world-class brothel… oh, well.

Kern County being more of a patchwork of various colonies, many not even English speaking, than any cohesive structure the churches and bars are the most common places to be found where people socialize, and each has its own particular “culture” attracting certain kinds of people. My mother used to say if the churches were as friendly as the bars they would be crowded. I’ve spent a great deal of time in both churches and bars and understand her accusation. But in all fairness, both establishments have their “regulars” that become a clique and loath to make visitors feel welcome. However, that is human nature and not amenable to change.

While I’m not a drinker I’ve done a lot of socializing in various bars since their hours are not as confined as the churches. And I am quick to compare Congress with the bars rather than the churches. One example for the comparison comes immediately to mind.

One of the regulars at a particular bar here in the Kern River Valley was a loquacious drunk. Once he started getting loaded he began talking nonstop; and he could keep this up literally for hours. He spoke in a quiet, endless monotone but nothing he would say made any sense to anyone, and people dreaded being held captive by him until they discovered that if he was led to one of the steel columns supporting the bar roof and put the fellow’s hand on it he would keep on talking to that post and the person leading him to it could slip away unnoticed. Eventually, his wife and companion barfly would decide when it was time to leave and fetch him from the post. She was most understanding of the situation and cooperated fully.

Congress is that loquacious drunk and We the People are that post. It doesn’t matter to those in Congress that they aren’t really talking to people or making any sense but drone on endlessly. You see, the drunk being mindless in his drunken state didn’t have to make any sense either to a person or to a post; he was completely satisfied with only the sound of his voice droning on endlessly. The problem We the People are confronting is that while we are treated as though we are inanimate objects we can’t lead those in Congress to some convenient post where we could slip away while they could drone on without harm or even being an aggravation to anyone.

Now if Mexico should implode, this will be an opportunity for Obama to really show who is boss. And all the while I remain especially attentive to everything concerning the relationship between Obama and Israel.

Weedpatch and Little Oklahoma are not the same places of my childhood where I would sometimes catch lizards. I still like the little fellows but a surprising thing has happened; here in the Kern River Valley over the past years I have witnessed an evolutionary change in the critters- they run faster than they used to! I know this is true because I can't catch them as well as I could when I was a kid; probably something to do with climate change, a hole in the ozone layer or air pollution.

My mother and maternal grandparents provided a broad and varied background that enabled me to make do and appreciate the value of most things; could find pleasure in such circumstances as living in Las Vegas or Little Oklahoma. In my imagination I can enjoy such magic as to be the envy of the most skilled sorcerer or conjuror, but also able to appreciate the practical skills of shaping and forming of metal by lathe and mill, to turn walnut and ash into something of both beauty and practical value, to wire or plumb a house, to get an engine humming sweetly and teach these things to others. These are things that help to fulfill a man; that tells him life has meaning and is worthwhile, these together with things like family and friends are some of the whispered promises of immortality that among many other things causes me to believe in a hereafter.

As to family, a mother teaching the little one to do dishes, sweep the floor or do laundry might not speak as loudly for the present, but when that little one learns she is contributing something of value to the family it has eternal potential. When that boy is taught to take on the obligation for disposing of the trash, cutting the lawn or washing the car, he is learning lessons for living a productive life.

But in defense of our children listening to the noise they call music today, I know the music we were listening to in the fifties, much of it from the thirties and forties as well, was based on a culture and society that still lived in hope that things would only get better and better; jobs were plentiful, America was the preeminent world power, we were a nation on the go and a phone call or cup of coffee was a nickel.

In contrast to the songs of love, hope and a better future of my time, our children turn to the mind-numbing noise they call “music” glorifying suicide, violence, sex and drugs as an escape from having to hope in the face of hopelessness. Such noise is a mechanism for tuning out the mind and giving in to the animalistic senses that have no responsibility or accountability; an anti-establishment protest against being robbed and cheated of hope. A generation that has lost hope in eternal verities of love and goodness, the triumph of good over evil often opts for the glorification of evil as it gains the ascendance. At least it promises change and excitement and, therefore, some believe it must be better than the status quo, which they believe dooms them in any event.

However, even in Camelot there are inescapable realities. Dragons need slaying and damsels need rescue. The young knight must know his enemy and keep his sword sharp. A betraying Guinevere or Lancelot should never cause the loss of a crown and the Grail must be sought no matter the cost. Arthur must be true though all others play him false.

It would seem to be obvious that a man must be able to have hope of providing for a wife and children in order for love and romance to survive, to enable that girl to commit herself to a husband and children. The basis of this is a home of their own no matter how humble; remove this hope and you have the generation and the society we presently have; a generation that knows it has been betrayed and is ripe for rebellion and revolution, anarchy, or as seems the present path total enslavement to a government without conscience hypocritically portraying itself as “caring for the poor” and “working class Americans.”

Even though Jacob's Staff has been traded for books, it is still the responsibility of the poet-historian to keep the legends alive and grave his marks. Truth will always sort through the myth of legends and make what is vital real. In the most clouded of memories, sharp spikes of light much as with Thoreau’s flakes of light dart here and there, illuminating what is of real value in the keeping and the sharing with others, and we can never guess what is taking root in the minds of our children that will become their own epics.

In the twilight of life, we begin to sort through, even unconsciously, the things that make it all worthwhile, the faces and places, even demons that come often unbidden to mind. I would make more of fiction were that needed. But reality has been more than enough to pauperize any attempt to clothe it with more than an occasional lapse of memory, which in its kindness, covers many hurts.

We are all builders and makers regardless of the type of architecture. Even tents in the wilderness had to have their ribbons of color. The nomad needs something to draw his eye and tell him he is a man. Few things attract a man, as Thoreau made so plain, as his honest toil resulting in a structure, no matter how humble, which evidences his ability to do with his mind, back and hands. And, if the effort is directed toward the welfare of his family what a worker he is, putting even Thoreau to shame. We are inveterate builders, but even the cave will show signs of something more than utilitarian shelter. We will hang our pictures and bric-a-brac to declare our personness. The most humble of abodes will show some indication that building is more than providing a roof over our heads. This is the reason for my making so much of removing the onerous bureaucracy that precludes a man doing for himself. You must turn from the seemingly, meaningless disarray of twisted threads and knots of the back of the carpet and look at the grand design of its true face. In far too many cases government would have us leave off any attempt to make our own carpets by insisting there be no disarray of twisted threads and knots whatsoever, which would not be so onerous to me if government itself were not only a disarray of twisted threads and knots without the redeeming quality of any grand design when you turn its carpet over.

In one of my wilderness forays, I came across an old mining shack of rough lumber. The bare wood walls of the interior were covered over with the comics (funny papers to us oldsters) of a long defunct newspaper. Now any part of the newspapers would have served as well against drafts, but the comics? They were the needed color.

We are suffering the noisome pangs of politicians, once more, telling us what they are going to do for (more properly to) us. They will talk of building for the future. My grandad built a better privy than what these scoundrels are likely to produce and it smelled better than the stench of these charlatans.

Somewhere along the way, we got too busy for the things that really count. The work, books and beauty, the people are there but they want for attendance. As rich as the endowment may be, it profits nothing to those that will not take heed and invest it properly in those things of lasting value like family and friends.

“You have forsaken your first love... I would that you were either hot or cold but because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth!” What a word of warning that should be to all! However, it falls on deaf ears of those who are more concerned for the cares and riches of the false than a reality where love conquers all. God's love goes begging as the professionals either prostitute it as religion or mysticize it to some ethereal realm out of existence.

There are few companions in my life like Thoreau despite his ego. Like he, I would fain have planted ... sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, and the like rather than beans. There is time for planting beans and making pencils and they should not be in competition with those heart's longings for that which encourages the spirit and gives hope of better than meeting only physical needs or gaining the riches of this world.

Like Thoreau claimed to do, I sow in hope. While much of what I write has been called inflammatory I do not write in order to promote anarchy. I am not an incendiary but do hope to ignite hearts to a better calling than the evil system that does promote lawlessness and greed. And if, as Henry suggested doing, I provide some of the friction to an evil machine so much the better. In some cases, the system is of such a complexity that the simplest solution may well be to take an ax to such a Gordian Knot. Unhappily the Knot has its guardians who, unless they be subdued first, will inveigh with all their might against all who oppose them. It will take a good many ax-men to win such a battle.

The very complexity of the evil system of government leads directly to the attempt at simple solutions. This is an historical imperative and most often leads to slavery or revolution. It is an historical imperative for the very reason that too many men's hearts seldom seek the welfare of others but are motivated by the desire to live without honest toil; by the desire to steal, lie, cheat and engage in every form of immorality freely and without restraint. The worst of such men become politicians.

It was early recognized that Law was an absolute necessity to restrain evil and punish the evildoer. Though this would seem to be self-evident, it is still required for each generation to teach the next. Our failure to educate our young people to the facts of our national history and the great men and women who sacrificed so much to give us the greatest and freest nation the world has ever seen has led to a generation that neither knows Joseph nor the God of Joseph and appears to be headed in the direction of lawlessness, especially as they witness the politicians, the rich and powerful ignore the laws with impunity.

One of my favorite things to do in this area is visiting the folks out at the old mining claim. I just returned from such a visit to get away from the dreariness of so much bad news abounding all about. I sit with my cup of coffee and a cigarette and let my mind wander and wonder amid the familiar rocks, trees and hills. Grandma and Great-grandma died in their sleep in one of the old cabins, long gone to make way for the present campground. They died peacefully in bed without the antiseptic paraphernalia of exotic machines, tubes and hoses with which we now prolong life in the dubious notion that bankrupting, heroic measures are needed simply because they are available.

I wonder once more at the thought of Hallowed Ground. Perhaps it is the Choctaw Cherokee blood that courses through my veins, but if there is such a thing as Hallowed Ground, this is it for me; the site of many cherished, childhood memories and where such precious, loved and loving dear ones lived and departed. I wonder, also, about David and his longing for the water of Bethlehem. He must have felt the same way I feel when I'm at this so very special place. The bittersweet melancholy and loneliness that often envelopes me in these surroundings is ameliorated and assuaged somewhat by reminding myself that few have such memories to sustain them.

Also, the very freedom to come and go as I choose is something for which I am most grateful and something with which very few people are blessed. And while far from rich in material things I will opt for such freedom in lieu of the unnecessary and cumbersome riches and baggage of those that think mere things are what will make them happy and secure. It is people, not things, which make for happiness, and, tragically, grief and misery as well unfortunately. But the soul of a nation and that of the individual is in the joy and suffering that is God within us, is the express image of Him, and opens our hearts to both.

As I sit on a granite boulder beneath an old pine where, as a child, I once had placed boards in the branches for a aerie from which to think, read and survey my wilderness playground in the solitude and imagination of that best part within any child, I'm sensible of the fact that we are too seldom conscious of the things and people, the circumstances which will manufacture memories. How much kinder would we be to others if we only knew how forcefully such things will come, later, in our night visions as haunting, tormenting specters or beloved friends. Tragically, the choice is not always with us, but too often with those whose self-love has betrayed the trust of the friend.

The day is getting late and I must leave- Too bad. It seems something is out of joint when I am a visitor to what was once home. Somehow, there is something wrong with this. Hearing the noise overhead, I watch a Stealth Bomber and its chase plane making a low level pass, about 1,500 feet AGL I judge, the fascinating form of the bat-like bomber seeming alien and threatening and, strangely out of place. Oh well, back to where I presently hang my hat; it isn't home but I remind myself as I do so often that this world is not my home, I’m only passing through.

Apart from my being born in Weedpatch and familiarity with Little Oklahoma (southeast Bakersfield) it was in our travels cross-country with our mother and stepfather right after WWII that brought my brother and me into contact with the labor camps and the people that Steinbeck and Guthrie immortalized. The simple living conditions and the simple ways of the people touched me as a child as did those early Okies and Arkies of our Little Oklahoma neighborhood to which we were returning.

These folks didn't know they were underprivileged and culturally deprived because there didn't exist, then, the host of bureaucrats and officials telling them they were underprivileged and culturally deprived; there didn't exist a legion of social services that catered to the poor in order to build their own bureaucratic empires, keep scoundrels in office and fill their pockets at the expense of the working middle class.

Without the demonic abuse of television we had no idea of what we were being deprived of. It seemed reasonable to me as a child that Santa only came at Christmas. You worked for anything you wanted the rest of the year. I will never forget selling Cloverine Salve, flower and garden seeds door to door in order to earn my Red Ryder BB carbine. Of what great value such a noble possession when I had earned it by my own industry!

The real tyranny of poverty is accomplished not by being poor, but by a society's emphasis upon what constitutes poor. And, while, as Topol so well put it: “It's no disgrace to be poor, but it isn't any great honor either” it took the bureaucrats and the welfare state to make being poor a disgrace and dishonor humble, simple living and, even the opportunity, freedom and liberty to choose such a lifestyle. The welfare, crime and barbarian infested ghettos and barrios created by politicians and their corporate bosses are a poor substitute; a cruel trade.

There have been times in my life when a dollar in my pocket or a can of peaches was wealth. But it took the government to make me feel poor and underprivileged, to make me feel that, in some ephemeral and disquieting, vague way that I was being cheated of something that I hadn't earned by the sweat of my own brow. The camps of the forties I experienced in our travels cross-country following the war couldn't have been too different from those of a few years past. Certainly they were peopled by the same kind of folks. The war had left its impress and much talk surrounded this great event of American history though we children still played Cowboys and Indians with cap and rubber band guns. The conversations were still held by grownups with the ubiquitous chew or snuff doing good service in punctuating speech. There were even a few Mammy Yokums complete with corncob pipes.

Some camps had running water, some didn't. Some had cabins, some had tents or half-tents, a floor and board structure halfway up and topped by tent material. A few had wood stoves. One of the best was nestled in a grove of magnificent trees. Being summer time, I was entranced by the huge, marvelously colored moths, along with June bugs and other assorted insects that would be attracted to the camp lights at night. I had never seen such amazing behemoths of mothdom; some were the size of hummingbirds!

One of the great inventions of civilization is the Mason jar. These were obviously designed for children to keep a variety of insects and lizards with which to keep such treasures captured for the handy and close inspection of budding, inquiring, prospective scientists; the future entomologists and herpetologists; also, you could, if you had a mind to, get some interesting reactions from assorted mothers and little girls with some such collection of varied arachnids, moths, worms, etc.  The occasional lizard or small garter snake served admirably in such experimentation of human behavior, especially if the incarcerant(s) somehow, inexplicably, got loose in a bedroom (your mother's or a sister's, if you played your cards right and the fates cooperated).

 A parent with such a child is helped in their own growth processes by finding an empty jar and stimulated in their minds by having to imagine what might have been set loose in the house. I am convinced that one of the major obligations of children toward their parents is just such activity. It keeps the grownups on their toes.

It has been my privilege to spend years working for an honest living, to work with the folks that have kept this nation going, the mechanics, machinists, laborers as well as many in the professions like educators. But my heart is still, largely, with those poor folks of my Dust Bowl era like my grandad whose philosophies of life were based on such simple verities but proved so profound in the working out.

One of the earliest jobs I had that paid a wage was on a rock crusher near the Kern River before the dam was constructed. The rig had been set up along a stretch of the river where the rock and sand could be processed for building materials. I was about fifteen years old and was paid a whole dollar an hour for lubing the machinery, keeping the ditch clear for the shovel and tossing boulders into the massive, iron crusher jaws. Being summer time, rather than walking down to the river a 55-gallon steel drum was available to immerse my body when the heat got to me.

It was marvelous to watch what those great iron jaws would do to the rocks I threw to them, slamming, busting and chewing into the various parts of aggregate with horrendous noise (and no ear protection provided), which would drop through the screens for sizing. The long shovel, dragged by cables, would reach out and drag a mammoth mouthful of material up to the crusher and spill it into its yawning jaws, there to be hammered unmercifully to pieces.

Once, while clearing the ditch for the shovel the operator, not paying attention to the fact that I was still in the ditch, shoved the contraption into gear. The slack, steel cables suddenly whipped tight and caught me in the chest flinging me bodily into the air and out of the ditch. I was fortunate enough to escape with no more grievous injury than the loss of my shirt and a full-chest cable burn oozing blood droplets. A dunk in the water drum and I was back at work. A slight mishap was not going to deprive me of the opportunity of a dollar an hour.

If such a thing were to happen in today's society, some lawyer would have had me owning the rig. Not to mention the possibility of some kind of Workman's Compensation scam, apart from my age. Why, I might have wound up one of those forty-five percent getting some form of government assistance. Of course, where would a fifteen-year-old get a chance to do such work today? No insurance! In spite of the potential for accidents, I mourn the loss of opportunities for young people to do the kinds of work that were open to my generation due to the exhaustive controls government has placed on jobs; another case of government overkill. It's not that workers do not need protection in the workplace, but excessive, bureaucratic intrusion with its attendant litigation has emasculated industry in far too many instances.

I do not, however, suffer the delusion of a William Ellery Channing, a champion of The Elevation of the Laboring Class: “There are those who, in the face of all history, of the great changes wrought in the condition of humankind, and of the new principles which are now acting on society, maintain that the future is to be a copy of the past, and probably a faded rather than bright copy.” No one is a greater proponent of the dignity of laboring with one’s own hands for their daily bread than I am, but there is no room for the altruism of Channing, good man and well-intentioned though he was, that would glorify labor in the face of the natural propensity of human nature to avoid hard work if people can escape it. And given the direction America is presently headed Channing’s dreams of a bright rather than faded copy for the future are doomed. But there is little I can do about that.

So, I still find comfort and joy in examining the skin of an old pine and the lichen, mica-mottled, shape and strength of a huge, granite boulder; of staring up through the branches of a tree to a clear blue sky. There is joy and the sense that we are not alone, that there is eternal purpose, when staring at the star-studded canopy of the night, listening to the flutter and scratchings of night creatures or in the blazing heat and light of Midsummer Day in the middle of the Mojave. I still thrill to the sun and a full moonrise; I'm still moved at their setting. A good thunderstorm is a delicious joy to my soul. Though the scars of battle, those lifelines, etch ever more deeply into my face, I have never lost or traded the wonder of a child at it all. These things I share with all such men and women irrespective of education, race or geography.

Men owe it to women and children to never lose the best part of the child in them. It is the wonder and magic of childhood that, retained in the man, evokes the tenderness and understanding, even the strength, so necessary to help any who are weaker. It is that best part of man, in God's image, that becomes the poet and artist. That which began with lying on the grass or sandy loam and watching the ants in their fascinating industry or, if you were fortunate, a doodle bug (ant lion) working his way into the soil creating a marvelous cone in the process. Looking at the sun and your surroundings through a piece of colored glass or a clear colored marble, a purie, of believing anything is possible if you are honest and true, of believing in a world of adventure that would reward thrift and honest toil.

My life in Little Oklahoma and on the mining claim in Sequoia National Forest, my reading the classics of Cooper and others forever and indelibly molded the values and ideals I carry with me today. No amount of betrayal of them has diluted them, only tempered them by the ugly realities of the baser natures of men and women. Thus it is that my need of Walkabouts when I was able to do so in what I could find of that Great Empty of the deserts keeps my mind in tune and the real issues and values of life, as I see them, in perspective and the best part of the child alive. This helps keep me from the mere sentimentality of “Meet John Doe” and being drawn into the overly simplistic fixes of hugely, complex problems by an unaccountable government that only lead, ultimately, to despotic, totalitarian “solutions.”

Is it any wonder that when given the option between urbane and domesticated I would choose the wild and untamed? But I am of the same conviction of those like Emerson, Thoreau, and London that a man draws his real values and strength from the Garden of pines and mountains, the desert and the sea, rather than from the neatly manicured lawns and shrubs of comfortable prisons. It is natural in our hearts to admire the wild which excites and equate the tame with dull. I concede the need of being with people and my own proclivity for books. I open a book, stick my nose, literally, into it, and breathe its perfume of the printer and binder's craft before I even begin reading. I draw strength from such a wild source as well as that of natural and unrestricted flowing streams and rivers.

There have been times, though, when I needed a blanket and floor space in lieu of the road. I am properly grateful for such and never considered it being for my benefit alone. People have needed my company and visits many times that they weren't even aware of. I have also learned the luxury of being able to close a door for privacy; something I will never take for granted. But if the labor camps should return that I knew as a child it will not be surprising to me; and privacy of any kind will only become a memory lost to the One World Order to which in my opinion we are being herded like sheep.

When asked by his Sunday School teacher who the first two Apostles were, Tom Sawyer in desperation replied “Adam and Eve?” We may laugh at Tom's desperate attempt at an answer but it reminds me of many a similar “answer” to Bible questions. However, from earliest childhood like Timothy I was well schooled in the Scriptures and my great-grandmother liked to show my Bible knowledge as a child to others. She would ask me questions like “What was Noah's Ark made of?” and I would dutifully reply: “Gopher wood.”

Now my grandparents, great-grandmother, and I had no idea that the Hebrew word Gopher wood was an uncertain translation. In the NIV for example it is given as Cypress. But we knew our King James Bible was God's Word and would defend Gopher wood with all our might. There were very few in Little Oklahoma that knew there were any other versions or translations of the Bible and we held anyone suggesting such a thing of suspicious and questionable character at best. The Old Time Religion was good for Paul and Silas and it was good enough for all of us. And anyone that had a lick of sense or cared anything for God knew Paul and Silas used the King James Bible! Well, that is somewhat of an exaggeration even for Little Oklahoma residents of my childhood, but even there some of these could be found and they were not exactly rare in other parts of America.

As I often reach back in my memory to that simple time of my childhood among simple and honest folks, the women in grain or flour sack dresses and us boys in our bib overalls and barefoot, I can easily excuse the ignorance of good people with good hearts; they believed in God and in America, they believed in doing what was right and that goes a long way toward many deficiencies of “book learning” and I should be excused for longing for the simple honesty, the plainness and openness of our dirt-poor community in old Southeast Bakersfield; a time before drugs and a collapse of morality were destroying our nation. A time when the bad guys usually did wear black and the good guys wore white and, quite sensibly to us boys our cowboy heroes kissed the horse instead of the girl.

But, by the end of WWII there was a quick change of culture in our nation. The boys came back from overseas where so many had gained a cosmopolitan view of things, and that together with the nation having become the preeminent world power, an industrial giant, the Atomic Bomb, women working at men's jobs, the abandoning of the simple, agricultural way of life, so many, many changes. As with the Old South after the Civil War, gone forever, the way of life in America we knew as children.

I have lived long enough to look back far enough. I grieve for the loss of so much for our children. It seems a tragedy that young people know more about the local Mall than an animal trail along some shimmering, singing, mountain stream or a clear night sky, bejeweled by countless stars, that they are accustomed to raucous noise, the continual dinning on our ears and senses by “civilization” loudly hawking its wares and affairs as opposed to the bark of a squirrel, the call of quail or the hoot of an owl.

Reaching back to such a simple time of life in order to make sense of things, it’s all a little fantastic. It does bring to mind the statement in the Bible that God uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. And when people become wise in their own conceit, that is when they believe themselves to be wise but are in fact fools, we are in grave danger.

Pity the child that learns not to obey until the pitch of his mother or father's voice reaches the correct crescendo of decibel level that result in threats of bodily harm unless orders are followed. Such children do not dream of the joy of fulfilled expectations while marveling at the industry of ants or the glinting beauty of a butterfly. Too often children are shoved in front of the tube and treated as the unwanted liability and inconvenience they in actuality are to some parents.

A few years ago I was hiking in Fay Canyon, one of the more beautiful areas of the Kern River Valley; the recent snow and rain had been sufficient to cause the streams in the area to be running nicely. This is a particularly delightful area and while walking through the forest I lived again with melancholy longing some of the fun my children Karen and Michael and I used to have in this place of such beauty of nature.

As I walked along one of the streams, my eye caught a glimpse of a piece of obsidian, that marvelous translucent volcanic glass with the smoky color. It was part of an arrowhead; this area has a lot of animals even today and, judging from the shape and size of the fragment I'm certain some Indian had shot at something, probably a deer or maybe a rabbit, and this may have been the remains of his attempt at dinner.

A couple of hours later when I was returning to my car I came across a place where it was obvious some folks had been cutting trees for firewood and I spied some shell casings, .45 auto. The people must have been doing some plinking with the gun while they were here, and being a re-loader from many years’ back I have a habit of picking up brass. Whoever was shooting must have emptied a couple of clips from the number of casings I found. As I was gathering these, I also found a 1985 penny. I'm gray and my eyes are growing dim but I still see obsidian, shell casings, and money on the ground.

I sat on a granite boulder beneath a large old Digger pine beside the stream; and with a cup of coffee I had gotten from the thermos in my car and lighting a cigarette, examined my artifacts. It must be my Choctaw Cherokee blood that responds so to such an environment. I could well imagine the Indian and what he had to contend with in living off this land. My thoughts ran to what it must have been like here before the intrusion of the White-Eyes. Then I looked at the .45 casings and the penny. The Indian could never have imagined the culture that would produce such marvels. What a difference between that arrowhead and the .45, and his wampum and the penny with the technology that produced such things. I also thought about what that Indian understood in his own culture and environment. His knowledge was certainly extremely limited compared with what European nations possessed. But he functioned well enough in the world he knew, though life must have been very brutal for him at times. However, as in the allegory of the cave the Indian must have thought he knew a great deal not being able to realize the darkness of his ignorance in so many ways.

But the Indian's knowledge and expertise were to prove no match for the superior learning and technology of the more advanced cultures of Western Civilization. An arrow is no match for a .45. But imagine, if you will, the tremendous difference between the time and the world that existed for both the Indian that shot his arrow here and the person that stood in the same place firing that .45! Who do you suppose God holds more accountable for knowing what is best?

While I long for the simpler way I once knew as a child, while I know that much of what I was blessed with as a child was denied my own children because of a downward spiral by an entire society of standards of speech and behavior, of the civilized good manners I was raised with, the failing system of education, an increasingly nanny government and America descending into a plastic society demanding to be entertained, of easy credit and a loss of personal accountability by politicians on down like that Indian whose arrowhead I found people will learn and adapt or suffer. Those that refuse and go counter to the crowd are in for a very difficult time of it in the America we are now facing.

The Indian may well have had a profound belief in The Great Spirit, but it did not save him or his way of life when opposed by a more advanced culture with its science and sophisticated weapons. That he was ignorant of things like systematic theology, having his own equivalent in his own system of superstitions and beliefs, was to prove no match for the great learning with its concomitant system of vanquishing foes of his conquerors.

However, I was impressed once more by the seeming accident of birth that made me the beneficiary of being a citizen of the United States, and that I was born in a time of such vast advances in the sciences. And so it is that so many things twist and turn through our lives that bring us to moments of decision that can so thoroughly change things for good or evil. So it is that I began to question so many of the things that I had simply accepted as Articles of Faith that had no sound basis in either Scripture or reason, confusing like so many do beliefs with knowledge.

I do not have any longer the excuse of the Indian or, even, that of being a simple product of Little Oklahoma for my ignorance. I became educated. More, I have a wealth of experience for which I am responsible before God and, from which, I am to draw for examples of my own blind orthodoxy and childishness of the past. I can envy my Indian ancestor for his freedom from technology, for his escaping having to pay a mortgage and fight traffic. But I cannot envy his ignorance and superstitions that too often earned the pejorative of “savage.”

Still, as I witness what is going on with our government right now, a government seemingly in chaos while so many wicked prosper at the expense of ordinary American citizens I fully realize how quickly the thin veneer of the “civilized” can be stripped away and what were once civilized people resort to savagery for brute survival. And from a biblical perspective I continue to watch with great interest how President Obama is going to deal with the economy, but I will watch with special interest how he deals with Israel and its Muslim enemies.

It is all too much like watching biblical prophecy unfolding before my eyes and I can’t help but wonder if Obama will lead the way to One World Order? Now that he is president to the applause not only of the majority of Americans but also globally the verbal pauses that mocked those claiming he was a great orator have all but disappeared, and I find this disquieting because I know as a very well qualified behavioral expert what this might mean. Before he was elected he fumbled many times with those verbal pauses of “uh, uh, uh,” before attempting to answer a question, using those verbal pauses to gather his wits so as not to say anything specific that might harm his chances of being elected. But now that he has the power this hesitancy and seeming deficiency of speech has all but disappeared and he speaks quite distinctly without those verbal pauses.

Clearly Obama has an agenda and the intellect to pursue it, but I continue to believe it is a very sinister one for America. I’m not among those “conservatives” hoping Obama will fail. It is only speculation on my part, only an opinion if you will, but I’m among the miniscule number of those who believe he will succeed no matter who or what attempts to stop him and thereby continuing to hold my credentials among the good folk of the aluminum foil hat group.

At least Sam Clemens didn't have to deal with sexual perversion being touted and flaunted as “acceptable” on a national scale. He and Bret Harte could do battle with the more seemly sins of their day like political corruption, religious and scientific chicanery and Henry James could content himself with lengthy novels. Sam could safely take to task the Boston Girl with her attack on his misuse of the adverb and tautological tendencies; and some things, as Sam pointed out, are simply unlearnable; and “rose up” continues to be a good acceptable Southern phrase, but one the girl particularly upbraided Sam for using.

In reply to the Boston Girl, Sam wrote: “I have a friend who has kept his razors in the top drawer and his strop in the bottom drawer for years; when he wants his razors, he always pulls out the bottom drawer - and swears. Change? Could one imagine he never thought of that? He did change; he has changed a dozen times. It didn't do any good; his afflicted mind was able to keep up with the changes and make the proper mistake every time!”

But so it is that we are, in some ways, doomed by some curious and inexplicable bent of mental processes to make some of the proper mistakes every time, and in all probability you have something which is as unlearnable as that poor fellow with his strop and razor or Sam’s “rose up.” To be charitable perhaps some in Congress want to change, but like that poor fellow with strop and razor their minds are so afflicted as to be unable to change, finding any change from being corrupt and inept “unlearnable” and are doomed to “make the proper mistake every time.” We the People can only wish the unlearnable and proper mistakes worked in our favor rather than those with their snouts in the public tax trough.

Perhaps some kind of pain-avoidance therapy might have cured that fellow and Sam of their making the proper mistakes every time, but I doubt either of them or any in Congress would submit to such a technique. What about alcoholism? I have a story about that and pain-avoidance therapy.

I’ve known quite a number of alcoholics, one of my best friends committed suicide because of his addiction so it is an issue I take very seriously and write quite a bit about it in my book “Birds With Broken Wings.” It was some years ago I noticed that when trying to meet some attractive woman and get acquainted, if she was interested at some point in the conversation she would usually ask whether I was a drinker? The increasing frequency with which I encountered this question from women caused me to realize how cautious women had become about such a thing; and well they should be due to so many tragedies alcohol abuse leads to, particularly for women.

In my case, I could always truthfully tell women I was not a drinker. But I didn’t often share the story of how it came about that I could easily forego alcohol through pain-avoidance therapy.

Strong drink and tobacco were an absolute taboo of my grandparents. Not so with my mother. She both drank and smoked. Between the popularizing of these things via silver screen, the license of society because of WWII and rebellion to her parent's mores, Mom heartily engaged in both of the fascinating and sinfully attractive practices. Then, as now, one of my favorite odors came from sticking my nose into a pack of cigarettes or pouch of pipe tobacco. I even enjoy an occasional cigar. But booze was another thing entirely. It was while living at Minter Field (which had been opened for veteran’s housing right after WWII) with my mother and Stepdad #3 that so many things of great interest occurred; among them, my introduction to drunken debauchery at the tender age of ten.

My brother and I had discovered a stash of booze Mom and the stepdad thought they had well hidden, and a bottle of whisky was among the forbidden fruit. There are some things that just have a natural attraction for kids; along with guns, explosive devices and sundry items of mayhem and destruction there is booze.

Now no child with any self respect can deny a righteous dare. And when one’s younger brother advances the dare, well, you can imagine for yourself the humility of not meeting the challenge. And I was up to the mark.

My brother: “Bet you can't drink any of this stuff.” Me: “Of course I can!” I did. In fact, I liked it. No challenge at all. It was so good and impressed my brother so much that there was nothing to do but have another snort, and then another. It tasted good and I felt good. I felt real good. I was thoroughly drunk.

I recall basking in the hero admiration of my little brother, then going into the bedroom and getting up on my bed beginning to jump up and down like crazy. What great fun! But suddenly I was lying on my back staring at the ceiling, watching it swirl in a hazy circle above me. “This is not right,” my mind was saying. My stomach knew it was not right; in fact, my stomach was plumbing new dimensions of never before felt uneasiness. No, not uneasiness; my stomach knew I had purposely tried to assassinate it! Well, my stomach was not going to take that lying down you can bet. It didn't.

You've heard the one about the passenger found bending over the rail of the ship, whom when told that no one had ever died of seasickness replied, “Please don't tell me that. It’s only the hope of dying that's keeping me alive.” I discovered the absolute truth of that statement. I had never known such sickness, never believed anyone could live through such living death!

But I lived. It wouldn't be until many years later that I could even endure the smell of whisky. Even at that I never became a drinker and have wondered at times whether that early experience with John Barleycorn just might have been like a vaccination against becoming a drunkard?

Not to make light of what could have been a tragedy such as alcohol poisoning sometimes resulting from my childhood experience and the binge drinking that does sometimes result in death. I would never suggest this kind of thing as a pain-avoidance therapy since the “cure” can be worse than the disease, much like some charlatans “exorcising demons” that can result in harm or even death. But these caveats do not prevent my muse from entertaining the notion that some kind of pain-avoidance therapy is the only thing that would cure politicians.

Watching and listening to the inauguration ceremonies and speeches today called the subject of miracles to mind. Many of you will remember the “March Miracle” years ago when after a sustained draught afflicting most of my native state and causing some to refer to Isabella Lake as “Isabella Puddle” the rains finally came and saved the day. After conducting some business down south and driving from Los Angeles over the Grapevine and through Gorman then up the Kern River Canyon toward home here in the valley I witnessed the results of the abundant, unexpected rain that had turned the fields and hills into a profuse brilliance of colors DeMeer would envy. Against a carpet of emerald green, God has painted fiery landscapes of glorious orange with California poppies, the shimmering, subtle purples of Lupine and the wild, yellow sulfur of mustard blossoms among many other colorful wildflowers awakening from their drought induced slumber. When mixed all together, the effect of such an array of vivid colors from the Lord’s seemingly infinite palette was breathtakingly beautiful beyond description!

Yes, I do believe in miracles beginning with the Genesis Creation of the universe and the miracle of life here on earth. And though the March Miracle I described isn’t in the category of turning water into wine or raising the dead it was a miracle of a different sort, one of the more common miracles that we seem to take for granted because while they occur all about us their very ordinary status though sometimes unusual deprives them of the distinction of being “miracles” in the spectacular sense of the word. Still, the awesome beauty of the profusion of flowers, their colors made even more vivid with the background of newly born green grass resulting from the rains of the March Miracle springing from the parched earth was indeed spectacular and gave every impression of a miracle having been performed.

The March Miracle was transitory; I knew that even as I allowed myself to be thrilled and drawn in by the beauty of it. And while today’s inauguration was much like the March Miracle in a way, like the transitory nature of such beauty resulting from those rains the ceremonies of today reminded me of James 1:9-11: “Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.  For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.”

We have witnessed the beauty of what we know should be blessed and kept, that better part of ourselves that wants to hope, wishes to hope that somehow, someway we will learn to get along together and the leopard will change his spots and our government will respond by doing what is right for America and We the People. But I believe the sun will rise with its burning and withering heat, the flowers of today’s ceremonies and speeches will fall and the grace of their fashion perish. And though the rich man will fade away in his ways he will not leave any legacy of a March Miracle remembered for its beauty, but rather the ugly scars of a parched earth he abused to gain his power and riches.

If you don't want much, you don't need much and a wise man lives simply. However, since the price of liberty is eternal vigilance we can no longer depend on our leadership to pay the price. For most, their only “vigilance” is the next election and lining their own pockets.

Even the experts are in agreement that government, at virtually every level, is out of control. Crime is rampant, people are being taxed beyond the ability to pay and the “fixes” are proving worse than the problems in too many cases. I mourn for those, trapped by their circumstances, unable to even dream any longer, unable to entertain any thought that things will be any better for their children despite all the fanfare of the coming inauguration of Obama though treated as a “coronation” and his taking over the Oval Office. I am not among those that believe he is going to fix anything, but on the contrary has a “plan for failure.” A winning smile and glittering generalities all the while the money crooks continue to enjoy the largess of a very cooperative government does not bode well for a new administration in the White House.

But after eight years of Bush the majority of people are celebrating his leaving office as much or even more as they are celebrating Obama taking over thereby accounting for the carnival atmosphere. However, optimism generated by rose colored glasses is misplaced. Nevertheless, let us have our carnival; reality will set in all too soon.

As to the part ordinary Americans have played in financial doom easy credit and the multiplying of the “toys” some people simply could not do without many never thought about planning for their lives; they must have thought that somehow everything would work out. But life is not like that. The world is a rewarder of results not wishful thinking, and due to so much chicanery by money lenders and politicians trying to plan a financially secure future is nearly impossible even for the most prudent and frugal of ordinary Americans.

I used to travel the open highways of the San Joaquin, passing through Weedpatch, Arvin, Lamont, Pumpkin Center, Taft, Shafter, and I would wonder? The open fields of cotton, beans, onions, and the orchards of almonds, oranges and grapefruit, the vast vineyards filled with the promise of plenty, I wondered? I'm sure Steinbeck and Saroyan wondered as well. Amidst such marvels of a rich land, how could there ever be any want?

But people here in my native state are awakening to the harsh reality of there being no free lunch, of the scarcity of water together with the huge influx of illegal aliens that are colonizing the area. Jobs are being lost in Silicon Valley clear down to San Diego, companies are revising their plans for expansion, some are leaving the state and builders that used to contend with agriculture that is much in jeopardy are no longer building but going bankrupt.

Well, there is little I can do to change things and that may be just as well. I have my own self-appointed tasks, the most part having to do with preparing some of my manuscripts for publication. In doing this, there is one in particular I have expanded titled “The Lord and the Weedpatcher.” I’m going to take the liberty of sharing an excerpt from the book that though it was written a few years ago still strikes a responsive chord in my heart and perhaps it will in some of you as well if you would like to take some time away from the dirty business of politics:

As I used to travel I would skirt the east side of Bakersfield, now a teeming metropolis compared to the town I knew as a child, the air polluted and discolored and heat waves wriggling up from the asphalt, concrete, and arid alkali soil, distorting the view. I’d travel through the oil fields then drive up the canyon, marveling at the rugged, granite monuments and the Kern River beckoning the fisherman, cutting through the magnificent, solid rock formations, unchanged since childhood. I would take delight in the grass-carpeted foothills appearing soft as a woman’s breasts- smooth, rounded, undulating, and inviting the gentle, tender caress of caring love. But I worry that just as so many women are abused so even these beautiful hills may succumb to the demands of an unsustainable population and the greed of those without any concern for the beauty of nature or being the caretakers to preserve it.

Yet how very dreadful that so many human beings must live like rats in a cage in places like Los Angeles, deprived of fresh air or a view of the stars, where young people have no hope of anything better and join gangs in search of something that they think will make their lives relevant and purposeful, will give them a sense of “belonging.” That this often leads to barbaric cruelty, a life of crime including murder seems the better choice for too many. And what of a society that seems unable to offer them any better hope? No homes worthy of the name, no education, no jobs, and no hope.

While sitting alone by a campfire of Juniper in some favorite desert retreat, stirring the coals and watching the coffee boil, absorbed in the aroma of its richness and enjoying a cigarette, I would think about the skewed priorities of humankind. The black silhouettes of the mountains outlined against a star-bright night speak peace to my soul. The hoot of an owl, the bark of a coyote, the scratch of some other night creature nearby all tell me that people were never meant to spend their time passing through this too often vale of tears in a constant attempt to have so much superfluity at the expense of their own souls. I'm sure David got to the point as king where he would have gladly traded the palace for the peace and tranquility of the sheepfold, bears and lions notwithstanding.

I have just returned from doing some work on a cabin up at Erskine Creek. Muscles I haven't used in too long a time ache and I spent the night in the old, Dodge wagon. Cold; but it was a beautiful, moonlit night, the wind soughing through the pines lulling me to sleep.

Make no mistake; building without water and power on site is nothing to write home about. Breakfast consisted of boiled coffee, eggs and hotdogs scrambled together in the cast-iron frying pan. But that is the price of some degree of solitude among the rocks, pines, and critters.

The sun really warmed up toward noon. Knocked off and took a drive over to Boulder Gulch (which used to be our mining claim when I was a boy) before heading back down the Canyon. We have to contend with the roadwork often taking place and I would have to wait until 4 p.m. to get through.

As I sipped coffee and smoked while musing of my childhood on the old claim, my mind was flooded with the memories of the simple life I had enjoyed here with grandad, grandma, and great-grandma. Grandma and great-grandma died peacefully in their own beds here in one of the old cabins and I still miss them sorely.

Sadly, the campground was littered with trash. The Styrofoam Generation with its uncaring and selfish attitude was well represented. Incongruously, a gray tree squirrel scampered about and a Valley quail perched on the limb of an old pine calling lustily to the covey. But the noise of the traffic on the highway nearby though infrequent and the litter carelessly left about disturbed what would otherwise be serene tranquility.

At some distance, I noticed a young woman and a small boy going about looking through the trash. It became obvious that they were looking for aluminum cans. The young woman was clearly handicapped; she walked with a difficult, wrenching stride from some kind of hip problem. Their clothes were dirty and they needed a bath.

Since I was going to be heading back down the canyon in a little while, I called them over to me and asked if I could give them some of the food I had left in my ice chest. They gratefully accepted what was left of a loaf of bread, some hotdogs and a large, blueberry muffin. The little boy's eyes really lit up over that treat. Grandad, grandma and great-grandma would have helped and I honored their memory.

As I walked about the place, I could see a young man had joined the boy and girl. It seems that they were staying at the camp and trying to stick together in extreme circumstances; homeless and jobless, depending on the warm weather and the castoffs of campers. I’ve seen much of this in the Kern River Valley increasing over the past few years.

Here was a young couple in their twenties with a boy about five. A melancholy mood descended upon me as I thought of the growing number of signs held in the hands of young people “Will work for food!” Bangladesh and Ethiopia may be far away but these things are here at home, in the Land of Plenty! I could not help but think of the shame and disgrace of it all. People do not plan to be destitute, uneducated, drunkards and drug addicts, jobless, welfare mothers and wards of the courts and jailbirds. But without a plan for success, a plan for failure is already assured. And I am acutely and painfully aware there are many that do not want to plan, that do not want to take responsibility for their lives and expect others and the government, meaning taxpayers, to take care of them. Oh, well, it’s an evil system seeming beyond the redemption of men and one which God does not seem obliged to contravene while allowing Satan his time as the god of this world, which God will eventually call to an end.

I’m not one to question the motives of God and perhaps he did not make a mistake in making the seeds so large in Avocados as George Burns opined, but I do wish the Lord had provided more trout streams. To me, there is nothing closer to heaven on earth than the crystal clear waters of a pristine, wilderness stream with deep pools, waterfalls and splashing, rock-studded, short rapids the sunlight causing the cold waters spraying off the rocks glancing all about with the brilliance of countless diamonds, Nature displaying her wealth with seeming profligate abandon. Put all this beauty with the rugged country of huge, granite mountains, scented pines, a clear blue sky, the call of quail and the rustle of deer and other critters among the trees, trout lazing in deep, cool pools of pure, crystal clear water and you have the closest thing to perfection for body, soul, and spirit you can find on earth.

I have fished the Pacific Ocean, lakes and rivers but these lack the gem-like perfection of the forest fastness of a wilderness trout stream; to drink in the beauty of sun-dappled pools as the concentric rings spread toward the banks from a trout taking some insect on the surface. And there is magic in the electric strike of the fish taking a hand-tied fly of your own creation or a simple bait of red worm or salmon egg.

While I have nothing but praise for God’s creation of trout streams, it has also been my happy lot to have enjoyed the vastness of the Mojave Desert and Death Valley. There is a peculiar beauty in the rugged, unspoiled bigness of these Lonesomes, particularly at night when the air is so clear that each star stands out with sapphire quality and beauty and you can tell the grains of sand in the moonlight. I have watched from sunrise to sunset, in rapturous silence, the variegated, subtle changes of myriad colors reflected from the seemingly grim and foreboding rocks and mountains of places like Cuddeback and Fremont Peak.

The openness of the majestic spiked Tetons, the grandeur of Bryce, the romance of Colorado, Wyoming and the Dakotas, all these I have relished in my travels. I once took an entire summer, long years ago, to tour in my '54 Chevy station wagon every national park between the Twin Cities and California. I have seldom spent my time in a better way. No crowds of people, no litter of trash or beer cans to be seen, no traffic, only the scenic grandeur of things the way God fashioned them. The irreplaceable memories of such places in my night visions are beyond price. How I wish children today could have had their souls enlarged by such experiences.

Like Thoreau, I can settle for a special tree where I can sit on a granite boulder and, watching and listening, commune with God in an often wistful state of mind that wishes things were different in the world. I prefer the rugged beauty of my trout stream where in sacred solitude I lift my soul to the granite peaks and their Creator and rest in the coolness of a great, old pine and am free.

I walk the pine needle carpet of the forest and plucking a couple of the needles from a handy branch crush them between my fingers, then holding them to my nose drink in the perfume of them. I take a pinch of resin exuded from the tree, the beautiful, translucent, amber, aromatic blood of the pine and savor its aroma; then, placing it in my mouth I relish the pungent tang of the unadulterated taste of the forest. I will cook the fresh trout by the side of the stream and, with pinion nuts and berries, coffee and tobacco, enjoy life in a fashion that no Wall Street tycoon could buy for any amount of money, and those too busy with the affairs of this world might envy but never be able emulate.

It often makes me wonder what others are striving for, what they think they really want of life that drives them to rob, cheat and steal, to work even honestly for some unidentified “something” that they think will satisfy that itch they can't seem to scratch. It does seem that people do, indeed, live lives of quiet desperation. Too busy to what purpose? No time to do what? The tragedy of lives lived to the touch of a button on a remote and escape into the virtual world of TV rather than actually experiencing life.

I believe it is most unfortunate that religion gave place to the devil in making hell more exciting and enticing than heaven. This is not the Lord’s fault; it is the fault of the inventions of men attempting to replace the glory and promises of God with their own egos. There is supposed to be joy in our salvation but too many of the churches have certainly missed the boat. The silliness of such people like some of the charlatans on TV trying in the flesh to make religion exciting, I will take my trout stream or the Great Empty of the Chocolate Mountains where the glory and promises of God do not require the trappings, embellishments, and inventions of men and remain untarnished and undiluted.

The old towns of Isabella and Kernville used to be heaven on earth to me. Before the dam was constructed the Kern flowed unrestricted through the valley and numerous sloughs were home to abundant wildlife. Catfish and bullfrogs made for great sport as Indian fashion you stealthily crept up on them for your breakfast or dinner all the while the perfume of the water and vegetation mixing into an aroma to be savored together with a mental satisfaction and joy to my soul that anything artificial would profane.

It’s no wonder I always felt trapped in a city environment, and I don’t believe it is only the result of the Choctaw Cherokee part of me. Concrete, asphalt and plastic make a prison to me. It just isn’t natural for people to live in large cities. Like rats in a maze, I see folks trying to get by in circumstances animals show more sense by avoiding. In fact, only people are capable of building their own prisons. Animals would never build nests with no escape. But animals have the enviable attribute of instinct; they don't have to plan. People have to think and plan. Most don't, of course, and since they don't plan for success, a plan for failure is assured.

“Hooray for Hollywood- That screwy, ballyhooey Hollywood!” And here it comes to Washington, D.C. on inaugural day compliments of the MSM and Hollywood for the coronation of their very own top celebrity Barack Hussein Obama to whom they owe so very much. I think it most unfortunate Governor Sarah Palin got killed off early on in the production but that’s Hollywood, and because of the immense security concerns and precautions the dancing bears, jugglers and street vendors hawking their wares won’t have an opportunity to perform or sell. But as Congersman Frog told Pogo when criticized for not delivering on his political promises: “Well, well! Not everyone’s perfect you know… you don’t elect a God, y’ know.” Ah, gentle reader, the MSM and Hollywood just may have succeeded in leading many people to believe that they have in fact elected a god, the light of adulation shining in the many adoring eyes of those who see nothing short of divinity in Obama.

Congress has been doing the same song and dance routine for so long we have become jaded by the repetitiveness of the choreography, in other words it has become a stale routine of greed and corruption and we expect nothing better of those seeking power and authority over others, but is the inauguration despite a fawning MSM and Hollywood adulation and devotees of Barack Hussein Obama to be the overture to La Danse Macabre rather than David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant? The evil portents of finances paint a bleak picture for America’s future; and I believe only God can save America from economic collapse, not a demigod; though the irony of any believing God approved slavery in America that made Obama possible is not lost on me.

All the events leading to Obama, a Negro with dubious past and somewhat less than saintly associations as President has seemed more than just a little surreal, but could it become macabre? We know the glories of life are transient and often vain, Jesus comparing the real glory of the lilies of the field to the Hollywood splendor of Solomon’s array, and history has many reminders in story, song, and art magnifying the truth of this and the inevitability of death whether rich or poor. But is the Devil playing the role of pied piper in leading America on its present path, or will there be a new and glorious day shining blessed of God once Obama is in the White House? For my part, I don’t expect God’s blessing America when it is led of servants of the Devil.

I have the benefit of time and leisure to speculate about many things, but as Jesus said my worrying won’t change anything and no man by taking thought can grow taller. Fortunately I’m not vertically challenged being six-feet tall so here it is the middle of January and as I sit at my desk writing brilliant sunshine is streaming through the windows, the birds are singing and the Kern River Valley is experiencing balmy weather while so much of the country is suffering floods and bitter cold. It’s easy for me to say to the resident cat “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” and appreciate the glory of God in a sunbeam, but I doubt it comes readily to mind in many other parts of the country getting hammered by bad weather.

But here I am enjoying the beautiful day, enjoying the here and now because this is what God has blessed and given me to enjoy. I’m grateful for my friends, that I can still do things for myself when they are not around, I’m even grateful for the resident cat; she earns her keep as my faithful and furry companion, though my friend Mike Turner and I do sometimes suspect her of being an ET and keep the aluminum foil handy just in case.

Perhaps because there is so much uncertainty and bad news abounding, I’ve decided to lighten my own mood some by sharing a few things I’ve written in time past that struck me as humorous but will repeat to see if it might help lighten your own mood a little as well. If you have read any of these in any of my books or web posts, I ask you bear with me in the repetition.

When I was a boy and we had recently moved to the mining claim in Boulder Gulch, I had the whole Sequoia National Forest as my playground. Ecstasy! But grandad wasn’t receptive at first to my taking a gun and immediately setting out to explore this wondrous domain on my own. He knew that at eleven years of age while he had taught me to use a gun much earlier I had a few things to learn about the great outdoors and using firearms in it.

But I knew grandad. Children are marvelous cons when they put their minds to the task. I desperately wanted to get out and explore this treasured and exciting wilderness, but I also wanted to take a gun with me in case of the anticipated menace that might arise like a bear or lion attack, a natural and prudent precaution to my way of thinking at the time.

My plan was elegant in its simplicity. There was much work to do to make the cabin habitable and firewood was always needed. I set to with a will to show grandad how seriously I took these responsibilities. I cut wood, fetched water from the well and even looked for other things to do. And all this without even being asked or threatened! I actually asked grandad if he had any other chores I could do! Looking back, I know I risked my grandparents’ questioning my sanity, but so intent was I on my goal I didn't even stop to think how utterly disquieting my behavior might have seemed.

Now grandad didn't hold with loafers or laziness and I was always taught and expected to carry my share of the load. But to actually ask if there was any work to do? That is childhood heresy! An act that would get any self-respecting kid drummed out of the corps! Fortunately there weren't any other kids around to witness my apostasy- Except my younger brother.

Now Ronnie, my nemesis (read: younger brother and fink), was not taken in by my newfound religion of obedient industry. At the end of the day, and what a day it had been, grandad made the kind of pronouncement, which all parents think is praise. He said to my grandmother and great-grandmother: “A certain young man really made me proud of him today! He did what he was supposed to do without being told and even asked if there was anything else he could do to help.” The fink then piped up: “Yeah, he just did it so you would let him take the gun out by himself!”

There is no wrath to match that such as rises up to confront the truth when you have been found out in a well-executed plan to deceive. Now, while I have never been one to hold a grudge, and while this only happened a few decades ago, I have recently forgiven my brother his base canard against my integrity. Of course, I assume the proper degree of repentance on his part for so nefarious a calumny. If not, forget it!

In time, I was entrusted with the artillery (no thanks to you know who) and was able to claim my rightful place with Kit Carson and other worthy mountain men. But I never forgot my attempt to deceive grandad by my good works.

As I have pointed out in other writings, much of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, makes no sense unless we take the position that God was learning about people and they were learning about Him. That much of what God has done is only understandable in a context of His literally dealing with children as a parent should be equally obvious; and how many of his children attempt to deceive God by their “good works.”

It was only a couple of years before WWII that Ronnie and I, with the usual child's love and familial affection decided to do a really nice thing for mom. We were living in San Pedro at the time and it was exciting to watch the great, gray ships of war going through the harbor, to listen to the stories of the various sailors that seemed to drift in and out of the place we were living.

Mom was a late riser, and without adult supervision two little boys can be quite creative. It occurred to us that it would be a very kind thing to show her our appreciation for all she had done for us. Now how were two, small children to be able to do something really grand for their mother, very early in the morning, with no adults around? Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Inventive and imaginative little chaps that we were we finally hit on doing the dishes. Now, gentle reader, I was four years old and my brother, three. If you have had the inexpressible joy of raising children through those early years, you might wonder how two children, four and three years of age, do the dishes without adult supervision? I will, of course, explain.

There were the usual plates and silverware, but those items were simply too pedestrian to warrant our genius and industry; simply too unworthy of the zeal we had to really impress our mother with our good works. And so it was that, filling the bathtub, we submerged Mom's toaster and waffle iron in its depths along with a copious amount of bubble bath. Of course, there was a lot of water and soap and the two appliances hardly made a dent in the tub's capacity.

Casting about for more items that were obviously in need of cleaning, we tossed in a clock and electric iron. I think a curling iron also made the tub and some other miscellaneous items too mundane to recall. Lastly, how to do the actual washing? Well, nothing but climbing into the tub ourselves seemed reasonable. And thus it was that Mom, finally awakened by the joyful sounds of her little darlings splashing and laughing, hard at work in their worthy occupation, and came into the bathroom.

The scene in my mind's eye after lo these many years shifts somewhat. But I vividly recall our mother standing in the doorway of the bathroom with her jaw hanging open while gasping for breath, the most amazing look of horror on her face as I raised the waffle iron from its soapy depths in salute to mom of our labor of love. I do recall, specifically, that one of her girlfriends had spent the night and our mother, to her undying credit, asked her to please take a hairbrush to us as she was afraid to.

“Love's Labor Lost” is more than the title of a musty, old novel. It was quite real to my brother and me. Not only didn't mom appreciate our act of affection, she actually seemed to respond in a very negative way. That we survived with our bottoms intact was a miracle. But while our intentions had been honorable we were slow to show such industry again. There was the time mom found me scrubbing the toilet with her toothbrush, but I have found that a rather common misstep among the more responsible children. In retrospect, maybe it isn't so hard to understand why I was raised, primarily, by my grandparents?

Well, what is God to do with such children? If earthly parents are any example, and I believe they are, God has a tough row to hoe. His children often mean well, but doing “good” in order to deceive as I had with grandad is all too common among God’s children and good intentions such as Ronnie and I had in “washing” mom’s things do not of themselves merit God’s favor, though I believe he provides better oversight of his children than do many parents.

The “Middle East Conflict” is a euphemism for the unrelenting religious hatreds, atrocities and wars that have been going on in that area of the world for many centuries and not likely to be settled without the direct intervention of God as we read in the Bible, and cannot possibly be understood apart from where it all started with Abraham and his very unique relationship with God. However, a reading of the Bible leads to concluding the family of God has its share of black sheep; its share of kooks and characters, even jailbirds, drunks and others some family members would like to disown out of sheer embarrassment but then what family does not? What makes anyone think the family of God is so pristine as to preclude some of its kinsfolk not meeting the expectations and standards of those with their noses in the air over their supposed “pedigree” of holiness and righteousness?

When it comes to the family of God there is a distinction Jesus made about prostitutes and tax collectors entering heaven before Pharisees, that generation of vipers against which both John the Baptist and Jesus used the most scathing language to be found anywhere in Scripture not excepting even James and Jude! The final arbiter is whether the person possesses the quickening spirit of God that makes a person a member of the family, and the cautionary words from Scripture are that the legitimate children of God should be able to discern the spirits whether they be of God or not, and not be too quick to judge in such a matter. The more obvious children of the Devil such as the monsters in human guise that prey on women and children are easily judged, but some require a very discerning spirit when it comes to such a thing keeping in mind that someday the children of God will judge angels, so how much more those in the world.

There are several seeming to be accepted of God in the Bible we find surprising, some God openly expressed his disappointment in, even anger just as an earthly parent would an errant child. But even when it comes to Abraham we find some things that indicate he was not perfect. However, to be called the “Friend of God,” ah, now that is exceptional and deserves much study and scrutiny to understand, and a good place to start is the following passage from the New Testament:

James 2:14-26: “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Or as Jesus so succinctly said, “Every tree is known by its fruit.”

The very idea of God requiring Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac is abhorrent to the civilized mind! We recoil in horror and disbelief from this monstrous demand of what seems a bloodthirsty deity requiring the human sacrifice of a man’s son, and that by the father’s own hand, just as any civilized person would! But to credit it at all and find any understanding of it we would have to place ourselves in the very time and circumstances in which it occurred, a near impossibility; I say near because it can be done if you really make an earnest attempt at the necessary study, keeping in mind at all times Romans 15:4: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”

Dispensationalists would separate the different stages of God’s workings with humankind in various ways from The Fall and ensuing blood sacrifices at the very beginning of human history as God used the skins of animals to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve and evidenced by the animal sacrifices of Abel, who his brother Cain murdered due to his having given place to sin in his dark heart. However, while Dispensationalists make some valid points I’m more inclined to the thought that God may have been learning things along the way even as earthly parents do of their children and adjusted his methodology accordingly. But the depth of The Fall cannot be measured apart from its consequences of it blasting all of Creation, so much so that God repented of his creation of humankind and eventually destroyed all but Noah and his family in the hope to begin anew, an attempt by God possibly through the council of gods the beginning chapters of Genesis would lead us to believe was involved in the decision to create the Adam in their own image. However, if God had hoped Noah would make things right it was a hope quickly dashed by his son Ham and things once more deteriorated to perversion and violence filling the earth.

But following The Fall and God pronouncing the curse due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve things became very bloody from the killing of animals for skins to cover their nakedness to the dangerous and painful bloodiness of childbirth, the blood sacrifices of Abel, and his bloody murder at the hand of his brother Cain causing the Lord to tell the murderer that the blood of his victim cried out to him from the very earth.

However, God’s attitude toward the shedding of blood is also revealed by his denying David building the Temple because he was a bloody man of war, had actually been guilty of murdering Bathsheba’s husband so he could have her, and chose Solomon, a man of peace and wisdom to build the Temple. But through the prophet Samuel we learn even before David becomes King of Israel that God delights more in obedience than any blood offerings and sacrifices upon an altar.

The Bible is filled with fascinating stories about the relationship between God and humankind, and one of the most fascinating accounts of all is that of Abraham entreating for Sodom when the Lord announces his intention to destroy the city along with its inhabitants should he find things as wicked there as he had been told. An immediate question arises as to why the Lord should have to come see for himself? But that brings up the issue of why the Lord should have to ask Adam and Eve what they had done, why they had become afraid, and why the Lord should have to ask Satan in the book of Job where he has been and what he had been doing? If, however, we are to understand things like these from a human perspective they make sense if God is more human than religious people are willing to credit, which given the Biblical account that man was made in the image of God does make sense.

It is in this exchange between the Lord and Abraham about Sodom we find a man talking to God as though to another person in the flesh as Abraham takes up the issue of whether the righteous judge of the earth just might do something out of character that would tarnish the Lord’s honor. This is a genuine concern on the part of Abraham for the Lord, and the Lord treats it as the sincere, genuine heartfelt concern of a friend.

One question that readily comes to mind in this exchange between the Lord and Abraham is why he should have any doubts about the righteous judge of all the earth, why he would have any concern about the Lord doing anything unrighteous? It is here where we discover the family relationship, what could be thought of in terms of a human relationship that existed between the Lord and Abraham. But the closeness of this relationship is revealed when the Lord tells Abraham concerning Sodom “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?” This is God treating Abraham as worthy of sharing the very thoughts of God, and sharing them before taking action.

But since God could foretell the future of Abraham, had already informed both him and his wife Sarah they would have a son to carry out his becoming a great and mighty nation and a blessing to all other nations why shouldn’t he know the situation in Sodom without having to go see for himself? It could be as simple as a misconception about God not needing input from those of his children who have faith and believe in their heavenly Father. As in all families some children have exceptional gifts whereby they bring honor and glory to their parents while others no less loved may not have anything extraordinary that distinguishes them beyond the average child. In my opinion God needs as much input from his children as he can get, and does in fact act on this information, especially from his more gifted children. I actually believe God invites input from and conversations with his children even as do earthly parents their children.

It isn’t an easy let alone comfortable thought that God might be in fact learning from his own children, since for most this calls into question the theological conception of the perfection of God; but it is perfection defined and interpreted by the standards of men, not perfection as defined by God of himself in the Bible, and true holiness is defined by God not the religious interpretations of men which too often degenerates into “a form of godliness while denying the power thereof,” the trappings of religion without the genuine substance of a good and sincere, loving and obedient heart that God holds most dear above all else. As to obedience Jesus tells of two sons asked by their father to do something. The one says he will but does not, the other says he won’t but later repents and does his father’s bidding. Which, Jesus asks, is the better son? Quite obviously the one with a true heart, though it may struggle at times with doing what is right as an act of obedience.

Abraham was sorely tested by God concerning his heart of obedience, even to the demand that he sacrifice his son Isaac. As cruelly abhorrent such a thing in fact is to the civilized mind, having more the appearance of the insanely twisted diabolical rather than anything of divinity it has to be understood within the context of a blood-soaked world anything but civilized and blasted by sin and groaning for its redemption, one for which God had already seen the opportunity for redemption in his chosen friend Abraham. Had God learned some things from his exceptional children since the time of The Fall and the Deluge? I believe so, and I believe God acted upon the things he was learning from such exceptional children; though the possibility that God has made errors of judgment they would be the same kind of errors made in love we make as earthly parents.

The adumbration would seem unmistakable, that in requiring such a sacrifice by his friend Abraham God was preparing through this seemingly diabolical demand of Abraham to show the world he would not spare his own most exceptional child, Jesus, for the sake of redeeming all his children through the passing ages until the End of the Age when all is made right. In this way, God has shown he accepts all the responsibility for what is wrong in his Creation and does what he must to be both accountable and a role model to his children.

But things did not become any easier following the promises of God to Abraham, that he would become the father of a mighty nation and a blessing to other nations. Still, the promise was held sacred and believed, Abraham would continue to be believed the “friend of God” as the following so well illustrates:

II Chronicles 20:1-7: “It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they be Hazazon-tamar, which is En-gedi. And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the LORD: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, And said, O LORD God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever?”

Just how many do you suppose understand the demands made of Abraham that brought him into this most singularly unique relationship of being the friend of God? Understood or not, it was unique and through this friendship God would carry out his plans to redeem all his children and save them out of a world destined for destruction at the End of the Age.

But until that time comes, we should give all the more earnest heed to the following: James 4:1-4: “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

I take it that God has suffered much grief and disappointment from his children, much as earthly parents do. The present crisis in the Middle East that may be the beginning of the end in fulfillment of prophecy is the result of Abraham listening to Sarah rather than holding on to the promise of God for a child, and though well-intended by Sarah and accepted custom at the time Ishmael was the resulting disaster playing out now in the Middle East.

We are told the righteous enter life everlasting through much tribulation; Jesus affirming not many will be saved. The battle for God’s children remains one of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, but the offer of God remains to all those with a heart to hear and choose not to be a friend of the world in Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”

It is a prerogative of advancing age that permits us oldsters to think of the past as better than the present, to say “The old days were better,” just as Jesus pointed out “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.” But it cannot be gainsaid that we oldsters had a simpler time of it in many ways before TV and computers. There is also a very basic wisdom within the context in the command that “Thou shalt not remove the ancient landmarks which thy fathers have set!” However, it is usually in vain we oldsters try to meliorate the arrogance of the young too often wise in their own conceit by pointing out while we were once young they have never been old. And though age does not automatically confer wisdom and it is good for the young to question their elders with respect wisdom remains known by its children of whatever age.

It is also a characteristic of advanced age to be repetitious, to skip around, to ramble in reverie and forget with convenient memory, a blessing of time passing while casting its azure tint over the past, how very harsh life could be without many of the blessings of technology mixed as they are. I would not willingly give up the wonder of flipping a switch for light and heat, nor would I trade my indoor tap for a well outside with hand pump. Certainly none of my age misses the inconvenience and stench of the old outdoor privy.

But while I have not yet chosen to retreat entirely into the past and I continue to write for the better part in the real time of here and now, there is the need to draw apart at times from the present bad news prevailing and I do admit to wishing there were more of the people that seemed to be around in time gone by; people to whom a good name was important, and a handshake was a bona fide contract. I miss the simple verities of being able to tell who the bad guys were and the black and white issues that crime did not pay and honesty was the best policy, that lying, cheating, and stealing were wrong. It seems that heroes were easier to come by and identify with in that time not really all that long past. They helped the down and out, they came to the rescue of the weak and helpless (Who was that masked man?).

Right was right and wrong was wrong. Preachers, teachers and policemen were our friends. The president was our trusted leader and our country was the ideal for an oppressed society anywhere else in the world. George Washington was America’s role model and the Statue of Liberty stood tall offering hope to millions from foreign lands seeking a better life.

I admit to being an embarrassment to my learned colleagues, those like myself with the alphabet after their names. But like that great old preacher, Vance Havner, I prefer Plain Vanilla. Maybe Weedpatch, Little Oklahoma and Sequoia Forest will forever prejudice me against the too often pomposity of self-importance those typical of the universities seem to delight in. But no amount of quoting the ancient Greek philosophers will make this generation the same as those gone by. There is a difference in the music to which our young people dance. There is a difference in the amount and complexity of evil that threatens them. There is a clear warning of that generation without natural affection that presages the end, an end that carries the unmistakably dismal warning of a growing hopelessness of things ever becoming better, that conditions here in America and worldwide will only continue to deteriorate as “evil men and seducers wax worse and worse.”

Rugged mountains with a crystal clear, swift trout stream and star-spangled canopy overhead at night, the desert's sere and mind-expanding vastness, the critters of the deserts and forests are still my main attractions. These marvels continue to keep the best part of the miracle of childhood alive in me, to keep things in their proper perspective and priority. Perhaps the cities, while exciting in their own right, are in such chaos because city-dwellers lose sight of these marvels or even worse have never known of them. Many children, sadly, have never experienced a smogless day or night; have never seen a live trout stream. I will never forget one young man I had taken camping putting his finger in a small stream and asking me: “Is this real water?” I didn’t laugh. I understood.

When I was attending high school here in the Kern River Valley, I played in the orchestra and band (clarinet and tenor sax). I love music, and the best hourly money I ever made at this time was playing, with Billy Mills at trumpet (no, not that Billy Mills), for the dances at the Southfork Community Hall. Imagine! Three dollars an hour for doing something you loved to do? Fantastic! And I only made a dollar an hour at hard, manual labor. Grandad was quite insistent that I engage in this kind of activity. I never received any allowance or pay for the chores which were considered my duty to do. I scrounged for paying jobs wherever I could.

Billy was the son of the principal of our high school, but I had a car and he didn't; in fact I was the only boy in our school that had his own car at that time. So I provided transportation, a '38 Pontiac. I will say that while grandad was an excellent jack-of-all-trades the mechanical functions of the automobile remained a mystery to him. Consequently, I had to learn the auto mechanic trade the hard way- by simply doing. A '28 Buick, a '29 Ford, a '36 Plymouth, '38 and '39 Pontiacs together with a hodgepodge of tools, a chain-fall and a huge pine tree on our mining claim and true grit gave me a realistic start on the mechanic trade eventually graduating from “shade tree mechanic” to the real thing over time.

Billy and I were returning from a gig on the newly opened stretch of highway between Southfork and Isabella. It was quite late and very dark, and as I came around a bend in the highway where it cut through a hill, the banks ascending steeply on both sides, suddenly my headlights were shining on a cow standing broadside across the middle of the road! To this day I do not know how I avoided plowing into the critter! There just wasn't room enough to go around either side of the animal, or so it seemed. But I did- The remarkable reflexes and coordination of youth; and guardian angels?

Turning to look at Billy he had disappeared into thin air! And then, slowly I saw a head with the widest open pair of eyeballs in it I have ever seen begin to appear in the rear view mirror from behind the front seat. He had moved so quickly while I was busy trying to prevent hamburger all over my grill that I hadn’t even seen him move! We never know what extraordinary feats we are capable of until the exigency arises as per the saying: “Heroes are made, not born.”

I played guitar as well as clarinet and sax, but finally sold my Gretsch Chet Atkins after many years because of the inability to chord properly with a permanently damaged left hand due to a teenager pulling out in front of me without looking when I was riding a motorcycle. Crashing into the side of the car at nearly 60 mph and sending me flying over it my immediate thought was “I’m dead,” and after bouncing three times on the asphalt when I hit the roadway and looking at my broken bones protruding from compound fractures and the blood gushing from my injuries I could only wonder with amazement why I was still alive? The kid was fined $17.00 for not having a driver's license or insurance and failure to yield the right of way. I spent a long time in the hospital in a body cast and later on crutches waiting for bones to knit. I have always wondered what the fine would have been if he had killed me; $17.50?

The moral of the story and a commentary on the system is that if you are going to be nearly killed in an accident, pick out someone with plenty to lose. My mistake was choosing the usual dead-beat with nothing and whose parents were even worse. The problem is that you, of course, cannot plan such things. And the deadbeats quickly learn that the system makes only responsible people pay. And, of course, the tragedy of drunk drivers that selfishly without regard to others get behind the wheel will remain a curse until a pragmatic approach is taken to getting them off the road, things like taking their cars and licenses away from them permanently with automatic imprisonment should they ever be caught driving again.

Really got sidetracked, I was talking about music. When I first got started on clarinet I discovered that to really become a musician and master the instrument took long hours of daily practice. That's a lot of self-discipline for a kid; but especially hard on my grandparents since they had to contend with all the noise of my running scales. However, when I first performed with our little orchestra at the old Kernville Elementary school grandad said to me afterward as we were driving home, “You know, your practicing every day on that clarinet nearly drove me crazy but tonight made it all worthwhile.” This was high praise from grandad and much needed encouragement for me.

It reminds me of the time I beat everyone in the 880 here in the valley and in Bakersfield. I loved running long distances and no one could come close to me in such races. But I never mentioned the medals I won to grandad since I didn't want to appear to be bragging. That says something about the way I was raised. When grandad learned of it from others, he asked why I hadn't told him. I really didn't know how to answer him.

We have lost something vital in our society that used to make sense of personal accomplishment without the need of trophies, medals or praise. I still remember when it felt good just to be a skilled craftsman, to master a trade and take pride in doing such work.

As a machinist and tool and die maker I thought it a matter of personal pride in doing a superior job, not for a raise or the plaudits of the foreman but for the feeling of personal satisfaction, self-worth and self-esteem. I know these old-world values have been supplanted by an evil system that rewards irresponsibility, incompetence and sloth. But I do miss them, those old world values that conferred its own kind of honor on honest labor and providing for yourself, and I believe the world was a better place when men and women could take justifiable pride in their work.

This new regime coming to Washington is long on promises, but what it will not be able to do in my opinion is to restore the pride the “forgotten man” used to take in a job well done and rewarded by the honest labor of their own hands when those jobs have been outsourced to foreign nations or traded for people feeding at Caesar’s table, thereby making them Caesar’s dogs.

Of course, there are any number of things like Yellowstone erupting, the Big One hitting the west coast, or just the evils of greed and avarice of the wicked or religious hatreds breaking out in nuclear weapons being used that can change everything in a moment of time. But it has always been a good time to trust in the Lord and lean not to our own understanding and never more so than in these most uncertain, troubling and dangerous times we now live in.

I’m reminded of a song we used to sing in our little church, one line of which went “Well, I run to the rocks and I hide my face, the rocks cried out, No hiding place, there's no hiding place down here.” Maybe the script writers using that in the series Babylon 5 actually knew something.

All pretensions aside the basic problem is that Jews, a “stiff-necked people” as God called them, are generally not liked. And even though we would like to think we have moved past Harper Lee’s historical reference to asafoetida and excepting those like Joe Biden “the warm bittersweet smell of clean Negro” Jews are no more liked today than they have ever historically been. Others will do business with them but they may not like them, and not all the Jewish Hollywood propaganda in the world like The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Fiddler on the Roof and Exodus aggrandizing Jews has changed the historical record that in general people do not like Jews.

The Football of the world they have been kicked from here to there, from nation to nation throughout history because they refuse to assimilate and bow to other cultures and their gods, maintaining a religion and traditions that are odious to other nations and peoples that has brought them into conflict wherever they have tried to establish themselves. But it is to their own hurt all too often wherever Jews have taken control they have abused their advantage of wealth, a weapon Hitler used quite effectively, and in Hollywood and TV where by bullying influence every relative will find a place of employment irrespective the lack of talent and the unspoken words “Christians and Gentiles need not apply” too much like the old “No coloreds allowed” are too often the case.

But the historical record from the Bible has it God intentionally chose Abraham, Ishmael was the bastard cast out and never to usurp Isaac as the rightful heir (resulting in the hatred for Jews on the part of Muslims we see today) and eventually the tribe of Judah became predominate from all the others because they alone remained stedfast up to the time of the Babylonian captivity. But all that followed led to the form of Judaism into which Jesus was born represented by rabbis and the Torah. Then following the capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple by the Romans the Diaspora resulted in the dispersion of Jews throughout foreign lands. However, the ideal of a future restored nation of Israel and Temple remained the hope of Jews, and while Hitler unwittingly provided for the launching of the modern nation of Israel the restoration of the Temple and instituting all the proper sacrifices yet remains a future hope.

I used to know a chess champion who once told me he never beat an opponent that didn’t have some excuse for losing like “he wasn’t feeling well and on top of his game,” much like Judd Hirsch staring at the board after losing a game and exclaiming to Jeff Goldblum “This is not checkmate!” Some people simply cannot admit to losing. They “know” they are better and smarter than their opponent so how is it possible they can lose?

When it comes to religion it’s a matter of “my god is the real thing so you are an infidel and I’m better and smarter than you! Therefore it isn’t possible for me to lose to you!” And if it were not for all the hatreds and bloodletting resulting from this it would be seen for the silly thing it is. But the terrorists of whatever stripe remains bullies using the same theme of their god is the real thing, and that excuses every heinous crime against humanity no matter what!

Satan is the ultimate sore loser. Through his supreme ego he thought he could rise above God and overcome the Most High. But God checkmated Satan, and the Bible is a reliable source for discovering how Satan despite his having lost is determined to make things as miserable for humankind as he can. Satan is still screaming “This is not checkmate!” despite the truth of the matter as outlined in the Bible.

There is no such thing as a “proportional response” to the monsters that prey on women and children, those that rape, torture and murder women and children to satisfy the monstrous lust that drives such creatures of the Devil. You either kill them or put them in prison for the rest of their miserable lives. But is it any less such a monster that is going to murder others, men, women, and children in the name of their peculiar deities?

Those speaking for Israel understand there is no such thing as a “proportional response” to terrorists. Like the rattlesnakes they are, killing them is the only proportional response. And if it means those supporting the terrorists are in the way they should never have supported the terrorists to begin with.

Since the rest of the world excepting America is against Israel, the Jews may now be attempting to call attention to this fact in the hope that the present action being taken may polarize nations and expose the actual anti-Semitism that prevails among so many nations against Israel. No other nation would be expected to endure the indiscriminate lobbing of rockets by terrorists against civilian targets so why is Israel expected to endure such a thing? Now Israel is forcing a decision on the part of other nations; are they going to confront the hatred of Muslim terrorists and the nations that countenance and even encourage it for what it is or are they going to continue to scapegoat Israel?

As for any help from Barack Hussein Obama, I think Israel can discount anything like that. No matter what he says the man is not to be trusted and will do what he believes to be in his own interest and Israel be damned! I believe the Israelis understand this and it may well be the reason for their timing in meeting the problem head on now. But to my detractors I will say in all honesty I hope I am wrong.

From a Biblical perspective this may be the beginning of the End of the Age, it may result in the nations gathering themselves together to wage war against Israel. But my understanding of that eventuality is that America will not be a key factor in this. One possibility of this coming to pass would be the economic collapse of America removing us from being of any help to Israel.

It is all intensely interesting to me both as speculation and from watching events unfold in real time in the real world. I’m in the enviable position of being a spectator rather than having to participate physically. In other words no one is shooting at me, the bombs and rockets are not falling here in the Kern River Valley, and having nothing to lose I’m free to speak my mind. Nothing heroic about that, but there is still the responsibility of people who are free to do so to speak their minds while they still can. The time to be heroes may yet come for us right here in America, even here in the Kern River Valley.

And there is no getting past the promise God made to Abraham, God’s promise there would always be a remnant of those who like Abraham would remain faithful to God, and would be the inheritors of the promise no matter how the nations of the world might seek to destroy them. But it is to that remnant of true believers, the legitimate children of God that the promise of God’s blessing belongs not the pretenders.