The Holy Grail of physics is the Grand Unification Theory. So far, a balanced equation has escaped physics. But I believe it will eventually be found if we ever understand what “Life” is, what it is that animates at birth and departs with death. The Holy Grail of world peace requires a balanced equation as well. And through the amendment as a starting place I believe it can be found.

    One of the missing components of the equation has always been the exclusion of women in the process of seeking solutions. You don't discount an entire one-half of the human race and hope for a solution.

    Another missing piece of the equation has been the failure of humanity to give children the proper priority. These two things alone have been more than enough to doom the world to a history of conflict and continuing warfare.

    I used to be very religious. As such, I prayed long and often. But I never got an audible reply in response to my much praying. I always wished God would answer audibly, that I could be certain of a yes or no to my requests. I would pray for wisdom and guidance and ... nothing. I've wished for a messenger angel to tell me: “Hey, Sam, God just got your latest request and here's what you're supposed to do.” Nope. Never happened.

    Why couldn't I have a burning bush or Damascus experience? Why didn't God speak to me as He did my namesake, the last Judge of the Old Testament? Was God mad at me? Surely I gave Him reason enough many times. It wasn't until I wrote the HEY, GOD! book that things began to come together for me. I really poured out my doubts and reservations of those things I used to believe in that book. It was not only an intellectual exercise, finally discriminating between what I knew as opposed to what I believed, it was a catharsis of religiosity, a cleansing of much hypocrisy and religious prejudice in my own life that I confronted honestly in the book.

    So I began to consider this lack of communication between God and myself. Was I praying or talking to myself? And if praying, why no answers? Gradually I began to consider the other guy who writes this stuff that goes under the name of Heath. I've always known it wasn't me; it was that stranger with whom I, at times, only have a reserved and polite acquaintance.

    As I lay in my bed at night, I would pray. Nothing. But a new thought began to form. Was God replying or was I carrying on a conversation with myself, talking with myself? Now I talk to myself frequently. I long ago realized that if I wanted an intelligent conversation, I would have to talk to myself. But I have never heard voices. I may be nuts but I'm professionally qualified to know what that means and I'm not quite ready to be committed. Not yet. Sure 'nuff workin' on it though.

    Well, I asked myself, suppose those conversations required God's input? I often come back to myself while talking with God with questions and answers of which I may not, in fact, be the author; a considered possibility. And if I'm not the author of such ideas, questions and answers, Who?

    I have never understood the compulsion to undertake the amendment. The idea presented itself and while at first rejecting it, the more I considered it, the more pragmatically and logically it became the only way to begin the process toward world peace. Certainly I could look at my background and experience working with children and understand trying to do something for them. I've spent my life working with and for children. But a U.S. Constitutional Amendment, and one that would cause America to begin the revolution leading the world to peace?

    The more I examined the profound implications and complexities of the amendment, legally and sociologically, the more convinced I was of the very genius and originality of it, a genius I couldn't claim for myself leading to something no nation in the history of the world had ever done through the foundational charter of its government.

    The genius of the amendment, in large part, lay in the fact that it does, indeed, transcend all national characteristics and boundaries, it addresses an issue on which all people of the world agree. For the first time in history it makes America, the world, face itself with the question of whether or not we do cherish children as the hope of the future of the world, of an advancing civilization.

    Another part of the genius of the amendment is the fact that there was a love and caring in this of which I could never dream of being capable. At the very least it had to be the work of that other guy if not of God. But I'm not about to say God made me do it, that the idea is His. When people ask me what I know about God, I tell them honestly: Nothing! But ask me if I believe in God, emphatically YES! Ask me what I believe about God and the time would fail in my reply. That was a part of my own conversion away from religiosity and the tyranny of religion, learning to separate what I know from what I believe.

    But who is that other guy, for example, that in spite of the many betrayals of my love, in spite of having my heart stomped so many times, keeps trying to stick up for women? Who is that guy who keeps a romantic mindset, who is sensitive and caring, who seems to love children when I want to tell the world to go to hell and leave me alone while I go fishing? He seems to be there in my conversations with God. He seems to be there when I'm ready to throw in the towel and tell the world to go to hell and leave me alone.

    This other guy doesn't seem to know when he's licked. And he refuses to become bitter, hard, cynical, callous and unbelieving. Who is this guy who seems to take over just after I've been pouring out, quite angrily and loudly at times, my complaints against and to God and others?

    Well, whoever he is, he is relentless. I can't seem to escape him. And I've certainly tried to. I've described him, at times, as the best part of the man, the child within who has the wisdom and innocence of childhood that the man lost along the way.

    But there's a kind of maturity, at times, that this child seems to possess, a maturity I don't have that enables him to examine and reflect on things I would never be able to think of. It's as though he can delight in the seemingly erratic flight of a butterfly yet find a logical pattern in it. But such things have no practical value to me.

    I ask myself at times whether I'm responsible for protecting this child and, if so, how? But wouldn't I far rather be rid of him? It would, again at times, sure make my life a lot simpler and easier. For example, I know when I'm beat, when to give up. He doesn't.

    He delights in the great musicals of the theater, the great works of poets and philosophers who encourage things like love, romance and chivalry. He delights in the compatibility of differences between men and women, in the peculiar differences between mother and father in their relationship between each other as husband and wife and their different relationship to him as mom and dad, of the differences between his boy companions and girl companions.

    There is fascination, mystery and charm, even adventure in those inexplicably strange and marvelous creatures called girls that are so very, very different to him as a boy. There is a totally non-understandable, mysterious yet exciting promise about them of something future. But what is that thing? It intrigues the child-boy. Part of the indefinable mystery of it all is the lack of the boy's ability to think of much in the way of future beyond tomorrow. This is a time when the two weeks before Christmas seems an eternity.

    He may even try to impress these marvelous creatures when he is in kindergarten. But he could never explain why he felt he wanted to. He wouldn't even talk about it and would be terribly embarrassed if someone should accuse him of doing so. Part of his embarrassment would be the inability to articulate a reason. If he doesn't understand it himself, how can he possibly explain it to others?

    But another part of his embarrassment remains a mystery into adulthood. A large part of this lack of understanding will carry into adulthood, an adulthood plagued with thousands of books written by other adults who don't understand either. I think I was looking for the other half of myself. I was, as she, incomplete without the other. Of course, how could any child understand or articulate such a thing?

    I frequently refer to the great works of literature and stage and often read such books and watch the movie productions over and over. I read, among others, Thoreau's "Walden" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mocking Bird" at least twice a year.

    Then there is William Inge's "Splendor in the Grass." I very much appreciate Natalie Wood's artistic genius in playing the role of Deanie, a tormented young woman, with such extraordinary sensitivity. I will always believe Natalie knew personally the tragedy that Deanie suffered.

    But it is the ending of the story that always affects me as deeply as she and Bud (Warren Beatty in his introductory role) ask the question of each other: “Are you happy?” Each replies that they don't think about that much anymore. And they don't need to speak of the heartbreakingly grievous pain of such thoughts; it needs no words spoken. It is understood.

    As a society, we are not happy people. In fact, I don't meet many people who have ever known real happiness, at least not in the sense of Inge's story. I write of this at some length in my Birds book. The loss of the best of innocence in childhood that would lead to real love and romance for the adult in a society carries a heavy price. Most people now are best described in the words of Bud: “I guess you just have to take whatever comes along.”

    But both Deanie and Bud realize they lost something precious, something priceless, and will never be happy again because they once knew happiness and it would never be there for them again. They have the standard of real happiness against which all the experiences of the rest of their lives cannot escape comparison and be found wanting. They will spend the rest of their lives loving others without that kind of happiness again. Ever.

    The Splendor in the grass will never fade. It is a haunting thing once you have known it and lost it. This is the tragedy of betrayed love and innocence. As Deanie leaves after seeing Bud for the last time, the lines of Wordsworth's poem, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” come to her mind:

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now forever taken from my sight,

    Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;

    I leave the Ode at this place because of the way Inge used it and because it best makes the point here without going on to grim reality or vain attempts to justify such monumental loss of profoundly innocent love and happiness by supposed lessons learned. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Or, Better never to have known love than to have loved and lost?

    Inge leaves the question unanswered. Indeed, he had no answer. He magnificently poses the question but knows better than to attempt the answer.

    Of course, can you miss something you never had, something you have never experienced? You can if someone else tells you they have had such a thing, such an experience. You can recognize the hollowness of your own heart in response and never have found love and romance in your own life.

    But if you knew the pain of the betrayal and consequent lost love and innocence Inge presents beforehand, who in their right mind would opt for such a thing? Yet it requires such experience to warn others, to be a poet, to be able to separate the diabolical from the divine for the sake of others. The genius of such a system is the survivor alone knows whether it was truly worth the pain in order to save and keep the innocent from such pain in their own lives.

    There is a desperate need for civilized manners in our society, for protocols and proprieties to be observed. There is a need for chivalry and the encouragement of protecting the weaker, of ridding society of bullies and predators of children. There is a desperate need of encouraging the ideals of childhood and adolescence.

    The betrayal of the ideals of youth and innocence is not the price of reality and should never be misconstrued as such. When I write and speak of the absolute necessity of guaranteeing children a lawfully protected safe and innocent childhood, too many react as though reality carries just such a price. Such people may well have never experienced real love and romance, may never have experienced the splendor in the grass Inge so movingly presents. Such people cannot know the price paid for real love and romance, the price our children pay for such a chance being ripped away from them.

    I have learned many things from the betrayal of my love and trust, the betrayal of my innocence. But they are lessons I would far rather not have learned. Life may well be too often a bittersweet waltz. But it needn't, shouldn't be. Children, young people, know this. As adults, with vaunted mature thinking, planning and, yes, plotting, abetted by never knowing the best of the ideals and innocence of childhood in too many cases, we have become a callous and hardened society that acts like it hates children.

    If such a society thinks itself adult, sane, then it does indeed take a madman like Boo Radley (To Kill A Mockingbird) to strike the necessary balance and save the children though his actions in doing so be considered unsuitable to the laws of a civilized society. There is a higher law such madmen recognize that must be obeyed or we are lost, the prey of those whose callous bitterness, lust and hatred knows and recognizes no civilized laws of humanity. And, in fact, when such laws, no matter how well intended, deny, even thwart, justice, and only such madmen as Boo can hope to bring society to its sense and understanding of justice.

    The madness of the amendment is of the nature of Boo's madness. It is a call to justice, justice and protection that has been denied children throughout not only our history as a nation, but also the history of the human race. The root of the insanity of our society is the lack of a willingness to risk loving. By cheapening love through perversion of every description, whether pornography, abortion as a means of contraception, the entertainment media, literature that pretends to extol reality at the cost of innocence, we are becoming a hardened and callous, violent people.

  Shadows from my past:  She is a beautiful young woman with a beautiful little girl. When she called me, she asked if I would store her things because she was going to jail. When I got to her place, she had them all packed and ready for me to put in my truck. It was a pitifully small amount of possessions. She had lost so much so many times because of the booze and drugs, because of so many unworthy men in her life.

    So many like this young woman were led into drinking by alcoholism in the family, among the men she dated and lived with. Booze and drugs are “a monster of frightful mien.” But the monster, when embraced, shows its true character by destroying people.

    She was drunk when I arrived at the decrepit mobile where she lived, a structure that looked like it should be condemned; the typical residence reeking of the poverty of the hopeless. She had to have done the packing a good deal earlier since she was thoroughly incapable of doing so now. I've had a lot of experience with drunks. I lived with an alcoholic whom I loved deeply. I got my real education in alcoholism from her.

    I watched this girl who was facing jail as she literally rolled in the bare, dry dirt of the yard in 98 degree heat playing with three, large dogs. She didn't even notice or care that her beautiful, long hair was flaying about in the dirt. She was wearing shorts and I could see her lovely legs were bruised and scratched from running into objects and by the claws of the dogs.

    It literally broke my heart to watch her. Here was a beautiful, young woman who was a beautiful person when sober; loving, sensitive and intelligent. But when drunk, I had witnessed a Jekyll and Hyde personality. The Hyde personality was ugly, loud, vulgar and combative, the result of a hideously abusive childhood and an equally abusive adulthood. When drunk, the bitterness, anger and pain, the awareness of her own self destructive behavior, her self-loathing and loss of hope would come pouring out.

    Raucous music was blaring from a cassette player. She was going to jail and said she wanted to enjoy her last bit of freedom. The booze and the loud noise, rolling in the bare dirt with dogs were her idea of enjoying her freedom. She knows I'm a writer. She has read my Birds book. She once told me she wept over nearly every page. I've had several women, tragically, tell me the same thing.

    I know better, by my knowledge and experience of the diabolical, than to remain any longer than necessary to place her things in my truck. I know I'm at risk even being there while she's so drunk. But I'm thinking of her little girl. At least her little girl won't lose everything this time by my taking care of her things.

    Until you see a beautiful, young woman rolling drunkenly in the dirt with a bunch of dogs licking and pawing, biting and scratching her, seen her turn mean, vulgar and ugly, you haven't seen Pope's Monster vice of frightful mien. Until you have seen children suffering from the Monster, the Beast, suffering watching a mother or father in such a condition as this beautiful, young woman, suffering from the loss of love, suffering too often the abuse, molestation’s, even their torture and murder, you haven't seen the Monster, you know nothing of the diabolical.

    This took place on a Sunday afternoon. It was Monday morning when I got the call from the Sheriff's detention facility. It was the young woman. She asked if I could please come and get her since charges were not going to be brought against her and she was going to be released. I asked where her little girl was? She said with friends. I shuddered at that. It could mean anything.

    When I picked her up, she was still wearing the same dirty shorts and blouse she had been wearing while rolling in the dirt Sunday. She was a real mess. But she was sober now. The first priority was the little girl. Since I knew the Chaplain at the facility I had him intervene to get a message to the young woman about my concern for her little girl and good man that he is, he hastened the release of her mother.

    She asked if I could please give another young woman who had just been released a ride into town. Many people released from the detention center have no one to help them, not even to give them a ride into town. Since it was on our way, I agreed. As we drove, the other young woman said she had heard of my proposed amendment. She said if that had been the law when she was a child, perhaps she wouldn't have been molested as a little girl and maybe her life would have been different. She said she would tell others about the amendment and I could count on her support, to let her know if there was anything she could do to help.

    I know, of course, that while she means well she will probably go right back into the kind of life that caused her to be jailed. That repeating cycle of hopelessness that has its roots so many times in molestation and other forms of child abuse. What chance do such children have as adults?

    After dropping the other woman off, I stopped to get a couple of items. One was a Shelly Doll for the little girl. I knew this would help soften the reunion of mother and daughter. Another item was a compact game kit containing things like checkers and chess. Then we went immediately to pick up the little girl. But there was some confusion as to her whereabouts. It took almost two hours of scouring neighborhoods before the young woman recognized the correct area and we found the right house.

    I knew I was committed to having the young woman and her little girl as houseguests. They had nowhere else to go except back to the same environment where a drunken couple the two were living with would only precipitate the same crisis.

    Once back at my place, the young woman and her little girl were able to eat and bathe. We did laundry so they had clean clothes. The young woman doesn't have anything but gives me her jail slippers saying maybe I could use them since they were too big for her anyhow. When she was arrested, they took her away in her dirty clothes and no shoes. But she was too drunk at the time to notice or care. It was very late by now and I made up the sofa sleeper in my living room for the two of them and we all went to bed exhausted.

    The following day was consumed by making the rounds of places like Social Services. The couple that had the young woman arrested had forged her signature in order to steal her food stamps. That meant a visit to the Sheriff's office as well. I'm all too familiar with this routine. Then, a trip to the clinic for physicals and a check for things like head lice. We stop at the grocery store for some much needed food items.

    Children have different priorities than adults. It's summer. It's very hot. I had a strategy for doing some work after sunset this first, full day with the three of us together when it became cooler. But the little girl had another priority, the fishpond in the back yard. At the beginning of summer I usually clean the pond and reset my pump to circulate water creating a small waterfall. The birds and animals really enjoy this. But I had procrastinated and the job remained to be done.

    Because of the urging of the little girl, the pond became the evening's priority. And, sure enough, with her helping, the pond was cleaned, filled with fresh water; the pump was in place and operating before nightfall. But I had to admit that her sense of the priorities was better than mine.

    The three of us had two, full days together. I was calling a number of people and agencies to try to get help for more suitable living arrangements for them. But the toll on the young woman was dreadful. She was an alcoholic and not being able to drink was stressing her out considerably. Her mood swings were increasingly severe and typical of the alcoholic going through withdrawal.

    But she wouldn't agree to AA or a rehab program so I wasn't surprised when she asked me to take her and her little girl back to the same place with the two drunks that had precipitated her arrest and stole her food stamps.  There was no choice for me. You don't reason with an addict. They will sell their souls and their children's souls for a drink or fix. In the case of this young woman, I knew it was a dead end when she accused me of being more concerned for her little girl than I was for her. When a parent's priorities are that badly skewed, you know you've done all you can.

    But I warned her that if any harm should come to her little girl, I'd make sure all three adults would go to prison and there would never be any more help from me. My major fear is the risk of molestation and other forms of abuse to which the little girl is at hazard from the alcoholism of her mother. Such lifestyles are a major factor in all forms of child abuse.

    With a heavy heart I took them back to the hellhole where I knew a beautiful, young woman would be drunkenly rolling in the dirt with dogs once more. But I've informed neighbors and the proper agencies to keep watch for anything that threatened the little girl. Social Services and CPS have provided for periodic visits. I've done all I can do. And, as always in such cases, it isn't enough. It isn't nearly enough. But I'm a well-trained and experienced Behaviorist. I was able to do one thing of substantial value in the short time this young mother and her little girl were with me. I was able to get the young mother to heartily resent me. There is a therapeutic value, at times, in the kind of resentment I fostered in this young woman. But only someone with a great deal of experience with such people dares practice using such a mechanism.

    She knew that I was fully aware of the kind of men she consorted with. She had told me so much of her own past, had poured out her heart to me and wept for her little girl and the kind of life her drinking had exposed the child to that she became vulnerable to suspicion of my using such intimate knowledge against her, of throwing it into her face as others had done.

    People will react in different ways to genuine charity and love. They may well be properly grateful or they may resent, even hate the benefactor; but to the therapy of resentment. It began with my being the only one she could call who would pick her up from the detention center, then buying the doll and game kit for her little girl on our way to pick her up. It was furthered by the things I provided for her and her little girl, the many places I took them so the mother could start getting some necessary priorities attended to. But more than anything else, it was my interacting with her little girl that will be burned into the young woman's memory.

    We are sitting in the Social Services office, waiting for someone to talk to the young woman. Her little girl has the game kit with her and asks if I would like to play a game of checkers? Sure. We set up the board and play a game of checkers with the diminutive pieces. Then I suggest teaching her to play chess. I show her how to set up the pieces and explain a few of the primary moves each piece can make. She is fascinated; she's an exceptionally intelligent little girl with the kind of hurtful maturity that comes from the loss of so much of a normal childhood and the kind of life she has been forced to live with drugs, alcoholism, welfare, and various men in and out of her mother's life and no father. Her mother is watching intently as her little girl and I enjoy the games. A scene burned into her memory.

    Back at my house, I show the little girl how to use my computer. She writes a paragraph about a large bunny rabbit. But I'm not surprised that the rabbit is a monster with huge fangs and part of a child's nightmare. This little girl has had a lot of nightmares and no baby bunnies or ducks. One part really rips at my heart where she writes: “That's my mom, she's ok.” She has an excellent gift of language and imagination. She could easily become a writer. And her mother is watching the interchange, the bonding if you will, between her little girl and me. More memories. There is the fishpond episode. Her mother watches as her little girl and I clean the pond and get it set up. More memories.

    We are all sitting at the kitchen table and her little girl proudly tells me about a loose baby tooth. She says she has lost almost all of them and has nearly all her adult teeth. Such things are real events in a child's life. I'm glad she thinks we are close enough for her to share such a momentous and personal event. I'd be happy to play tooth fairy once more. But she's too old to go for that, I think sadly.

    Then, suddenly, the image of that drunken woman trying to hand me her bloody tooth pops into my mind and I wince, thinking of this little girl and her future surrounded by booze and drugs, of vile men in her mother's life; the perversity of memory; the natural fears of people who care about children.

    She asks if we can try playing another game of chess? She is properly intrigued with the game and is anxious to learn it. I say, sure. I'm grateful to shake off the fearful, mental images. In no time, the little girl is learning the proper moves of each piece. She is a very quick learner. Her mother watches us together. More memories.

    I show the little girl my karaoke machine. I put on a tape and sing her a song. No man she has ever known has sung to her. She smiles in a shyly delighted way through the whole song. Her mother watches and listens. More memories. In a very short time, the little girl is asking if there is anything she can do in the house or yard to help me. The desire of a child to please those who take an interest in them can be heart rending. I purposely come up with a couple of things so the little girl can feel she has returned my kindness to her. More memories.

    I share a few of the stories I used to tell my own children of my pioneer life as a child in the wilderness. The little girl is fascinated, as all children are, with my life and adventures in the forest with the critters. More memories. By now I'm sure the reader must have gotten the point.

    No matter what the future holds in the life of this young woman, the mental pictures of her little girl and me, the things we did together are etched permanently into her mind. And they will be nightmares to her until she quits drinking and gets her life in order. This little girl will be wondering, even asking, why she and her mother can't have the kind of life I presented to them? Proper attention to her as a child, the lack of alcohol and vulgar language in the home, the chance to learn and explore without loss of patience by adults, no being screamed at, no drunkenness, fighting or abuse. And her mother won't have an answer. Children are very perceptive; this little girl especially so.

    With every drunken episode, the mother's resentment of me will grow; her pain for her little girl and what she is doing to her will get deeper. The memories; the mental pictures of that child and me together doing the normal things a parent should do with a child will become ever more vivid. She will resent me for my judging her without my saying a word of condemnation not realizing that it will be she herself doing the judging; and, her little girl.

    The hoped for effect of such therapy of resentment is obvious. It may be the very thing, which will enable this young woman to get her act together, and her life on the right track. She will, I fervently pray, try to prove me wrong about her; that is, prove me wrong in the light of her perception of what she believes I think about her and she will try to “Show Me!”

    But with addiction, I have learned there are never any guarantees. Only hope, hope that the torment and nightmares of the memories of her little girl and me together will become greater than the torment and nightmares of going without the booze and drugs.

  I'll call her Sue.

    Her father molested her; frequently. He would also put dresses on her little brother and molest him.

    When she was in the third grade she said something to a relative, which resulted in the principal of her school calling her into his office. Thinking she had done something wrong, she was fearful about being called into the principal's office.

    What did she find when she got there? The principal, two policemen, a social service worker and the school nurse. If she had been frightened before, she was now terrified!

    It didn't take much coercion on the part of all these authority figures to get Sue to recant her story. She had made it all up. After all, as these authorities pointed out quite dramatically, Sue didn't really want her father to go to jail, to leave the family with no support, to shame the family, etc.

    Sue's life, as she grew older, took the usual turn of the options of the molested, little girl. Her choices were nymphomania, lesbianism, prostitution, drugs, and alcohol; the usual failed marriages and children born to, to put it mildly, an unstable home.

    It was later she found out her father had been molested himself. This was his justification for molesting her and her little brother.

    There were others involved; an uncle and a grandfather. Incest was commonplace in this so-called family. Sue's mother kept quiet about it.

    Sue eventually wound up on disability. By the time she contacted me, she was a basket case.

    The final straw was when a postal clerk abused her. Her food stamps were not in her post office box. When she inquired of the clerk about them, she was told in front of several other patrons, "Why don't you get a job?"

    Humiliated, a son still with her, no money, unable to work, unable to pay rent or even buy shoes for the child, Sue finally decided she had a story she had to tell.

    But no one was interested in her story. She had heard about me. She had heard I was a writer with media and political connections and might be willing to write her story for her. Her disability and a failed operation left her unable to write.

    After listening to Sue for over two hours, I had to tell her the brutal truth. No newspaper, no TV station, no publisher, no politician would be interested in her story. Sue was crushed. “Why not?” She asked.

    I then told her what you don't want to hear; her story was too commonplace to be of interest to the media.

    Now you don't want to hear about this because of several reasons. There's nothing you can do to help, you don't want to believe this is a commonplace story, you're sick, yourself, of people ripping off the welfare system and paying taxes for deadbeats like Sue, etc.

    Sue was incredulous. Hers a commonplace story? How could that be?

    I began the litany of statistics, the women like herself who have told me, personally, the same, identical story, and the fact that nearly one-half of girls are molested in some way, the reasons children don't talk or can't talk about being molested.

    Sue now knows what's she is up against. An uncaring and disbelieving society that refuses to confront molestation for the dreadful, destructive beast it is, and a beast out of all proportion to what people generally believe. We simply do not want to believe that any civilized society could have such a problem of such monstrous and monstrously destructive proportions!

    She wanted me to write her story. And, in a very brief account, I'll do so. Why so brief? Because I have far too many identical stories and hers is not exceptional. She didn't have her arms cut off in a rape, her father wasn't head of a billion-dollar empire, and she hadn't been a child beauty queen.

    In other words, her story didn't have a hook, a gimmick to attract public attention. The fact that it was a common story, a common tragedy, left it exactly that: Common. The fact that such a common story repeated millions of times in millions of lives is, itself, a comment on a society that refuses to believe, refuses to act on behalf of it's little victims of monsters in the guise of men, a society that in failing to take action, is dooming itself to deserved destruction seems to escape our elected leadership. And the electorate.

    Anecdotal? Hardly. Would that it were. Sue's story is being repeated thousands of times daily across America. But we will treat such stories as anecdotal because the truth of its frequency is something no civilized society wants to confront.

    Through molestation, Sue was taught she had no value as a human being, as a person. All she ever was as a female was a thing to be used by men. The brutal betrayal of trust and innocence whether by molestation or adultery, both kin of Judas, the betrayal impacts the betrayed for life, girl or boy.

    Sue sees her father's face in the relationships she has had with every man. And how many other lives, such as those of her own children, have been impacted by her own tragedy?

    But Sue, for what it's worth, here is your story. Though so briefly told that few will understand the magnitude of your personal tragedy. It's too bad the leadership pays more attention to the airbags in cars than the plight of the multiplied thousands of children who would gain inestimably more in safety by attention to your story.

I keep pounding the drum that America has a responsibility, among the community of nations, to be the first nation in history to be honest in its professed love of children, to be honest in accepting the fact that our children are, in fact, our most precious resource and our only hope of the future. It was for this reason that nearly twelve years ago I began to work on a Constitutional Amendment to protect children from child molesters:

Proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution

An adult convicted of the molestation of a child will be sentenced to prison for a term of not less than ten years.

If the child dies as a result of the molestation the person(s) convicted of the crime will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A child as defined by this article shall be one who has not attained their sixteenth birthday.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

    While the proposed amendment languishes without support from any in Congress or even the churches how can America, in all honesty, avoid the stench of hypocrisy by intruding into the affairs of other nations on the basis of human rights and ignore the most fundamental and inviolable human right of all, the right of a child to be raised in protected innocence? Dr. Jess Diamond says we must ban violence. What a revolutionary idea! And we all agree. But where and how to start has been the bane of humanity.

    I did not come up with the truly revolutionary idea of this amendment overnight; quite the contrary. It took many years following false trails, many years as a parent, a teacher and administrator, a pastor, a worker in social services, so many attempts and struggles with so many ideas before the amendment even suggested itself.

    It took decades of work and experience in many areas, it took fighting for needed reforms in education and politics, it took the writing of reams of material addressing widely diverse subjects, the writing of theses, a doctoral dissertation and six, lengthy books to provide the foundation for the answer to the two, most prominent questions I faced every where I went in respect to the ills of America: “What can I do and how can I do it?”

    Even at that I had to deal with the very points people like governor Glendening and others have brought up. Yet, in spite of the many obstacles, I finally had to admit to myself that nothing short of the amendment can accomplish the purpose.

    I am without any illusions concerning the enormity of the task. Nor do I minimize the legitimate questions well-meaning opponents of the amendment bring up to me. I am also aware that these have not had the years of mulling the problem over in their minds that I have had, that they have not been personally involved with children in all the circumstances that I have. Yet even the most obtuse would agree that there can be no more noble monument to any nation than to take this step, the first in history, to take such a stand for the sake of the future of America and the human race.

    Woman is the antithesis to war. Women hear the cry of children much more than do men. Women do not bear children to sacrifice them on the altars of the violence of men. But men do not listen to women. So it is that I appeal to the Momma Bears to take their rightful place of working for passage of the amendment, to finally make their voices heard against the violence of men.

    Revolutionary? Yes; in every need and sense of the word. A New Thing is needed worldwide, a new thing that promises with hope of success a banning of violence. Only then will humanity be able to reach out to the stars and devote its energy to the colonizing of space, but to take the violence of humanity with it? Unconscionable!

    Violence must be supplanted by devoting the need of men for challenge and risk-taking, pioneering and exploration, of proving manhood to reaching out to the stars. And you ladies are to be the inspiration for meeting such a challenge.

    This is why I say, categorically and without contradiction that the compatibility of differences between men and women, rather than competition and combativeness, must become our goal. And men and women must recognize, accept and work together on the basis of each being of equal value!

    Tired and gazing into the distance, scores of destitute girls have arrived in Bombay too traumatized to reveal what happened to them before their mysterious mass deportation from Saudi Arabia. Police and social workers fear the girls are the victims of a child prostitution or labor ring. Some say the 76 girls, ranging in age from 6 to 15 were abandoned by their own families. Tattoos of flowers and fish skeletons found on the hands of most of the girls may have been used as identification marks by someone who controlled them in Saudi Arabia. This was a recent article buried in the pages of a metropolitan newspaper. What were these children doing in Saudi Arabia? How did they get there? How many died? Children too traumatized to even answer such questions. Who cares?

    I have a lot of trouble finding people who care. It isn't a subject that most of my friends will even discuss. Very seldom does any friend even ask, “Say, Sam, how's it going with the amendment?” Social denial. People don't really want to know about child abuse. It is a dark and shameful thing, the stuff of nightmares for those who do care, for parents who must constantly be on guard against becoming a Kanka, Klass, Russo or other parent who has had a child stolen, tortured and murdered by free-roaming, predatory beasts in the form of men!

    Elementary schools: a natural for such predators as teachers. A former Lamont, California elementary teacher, one Thomas Hamley, recently admitted he molested his two adopted sons. His admission came on his being accused of molesting two school children.

    The Boy Scouts: another natural environment for predators. Social workers: Another natural environment for them. The churches and so on. And all the while it becomes increasingly difficult, by perverted laws that cater to perversion, to even question the backgrounds of applicants for positions in such institutions. And some, like Social Services, actively recruit homosexuals for its ranks! 

    I sometimes like Clarence Paige's commentary. But he failed miserably in respect to Judge Bork's book “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”. I wasn't too surprised at Clarence's hit piece. I know him well enough not to be surprised and I understand while in no way excusing his prejudice. It remains inexcusable. But why would he write such a distorted hit piece about Judge Bork and his book? Because Mr. Paige actually believes in untrammeled personal freedom without concomitant responsibility at the expense of our future as a nation; is he really a judge Scheindlin without the judicial robe?

    Far better, and far more objective, is the view of Mona Charen who rightly says that Judge Bork has done us an inestimable service by calling attention to the corruption in the laws and arrogant courts that cater to a perverse minority at the expense of the majority, elitist laws and courts that act as though there were no absolutes of morality and decency. Most certainly Judge Bork uses Gomorrah as an appropriate analogy. And few would disagree that revolution is the answer.

    But the revolution that is needed is a revolution against violence, one that requires children to be raised in protected innocence. It requires men and women accepting and treating each other as of equal value. It requires encouraging the compatibility of differences between men and women rather than competition and combativeness. It requires the peoples of the world banning violence and raising a generation of children able to fulfill the highest potential of the human race.

    Such a generation will produce the poets, composers, artists, philosophers and scientists able to reach the stars. Such a generation will bridge the gap between the hard and social sciences. Such a generation will be able to make the computation of Love divided by Hate equals Ambivalence and make sense of it for the purpose of confronting and banishing hatred and ambivalence toward evil.

    But the violence in the world by Emerson's Musket Worshipers together with Americans committing intellectual and moral suicide via King Sports and Queen Entertainment is not conducive to philosophical, critical thought or anything like an appreciation of art and poetry.

    Thoreau well said: “I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. ... We quarter our gross bodies on our poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance.”

    The proposed amendment isn’t going to go away so long as I am alive. It cries out for action, but it must be action by those who have not quartered gross bodies on their poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter’s substance.

From “The Culpepper Chronicles” a work in progress:  I get so many inquiries about Weedpatch University that it occurred to me I should provide readers some background on its Dean and faculty. Let me say at the outset that there is such a stellar array of scholars, scientists and artists on the faculty I hardly know where to begin.

    But it is probably most appropriate that the history of Dean of the University, Doctor Mordacai Jedidiah Culpepper, is the most logical place to start.

    Dean Culpepper's American ancestry can be traced to the earliest beginnings of Colonial plantations in the South in the early 1500s. In fact, there is some relation by marriage to Captain John Smith.

    While Dean Culpepper's heritage is deeply rooted in the civilized and genteel manners of the Southern traditions, few are aware of the many famous writers and scientists he can boast in his family tree.

    It was Colonel Jeremiah Elihu Culpepper that anticipated Benjamin Franklin's famous kite and key experiment by over 30 years. But instead of a kite and key, Col. Culpepper had one of his Negro houseboys stand in an open field while holding a branding iron aloft during a thunderstorm.

    The Culpeppers, notwithstanding their well-deserved reputation in the arts, were, as the mentioned example proves, much given to science as well. In fact, long before our present experiments in space, one Amazah Jedidiah Culpepper sent a dog into orbit around the earth in 1873.

    Having earned a degree in science from Georgia University and having devoured Newton's Principia in the process, Amazah was fascinated by the idea of space exploration. With a solid background in mathematics, he reasoned that the earth being a sphere, one only had to propel an object at a speed necessary to overcome earth's gravity in order for it to achieve an orbit around the planet; solid, scientific thinking.

    His first attempt using gunpowder to launch a subject, in this case a pig, was first thought to be successful until word came to him some days later of a peculiar story circulating in a town some miles distant about a pig falling from the sky and crashing through a farmer's roof. To add mystery to the improbable story, the farmer even claimed the pig was cooked on arrival at his domicile.

    Nothing daunted and having further considered Newton's Principia, Amazah determined that acceleration by force of an explosive charge to overcome gravity had certain disadvantages. One being that such a method might indeed cook the subject projectile. Another being that it was doubtful any living creature could survive such instant acceleration.

    Though lacking certain knowledge of whether it was the cooking, shot or fall that had killed the pig, Amazah, scientist that he was, felt there had to be another way by which he could accomplish his purpose without the undesirable side effects.

    Amazah was determined to launch a living creature successfully into orbit, an inanimate object being far too mundane and plebeian for his aristocratic sensibilities. And being somewhat sensitive to causing undue pain or injury to living creatures, he was not going to again risk another subject to the possibility of such by use of an explosive accelerant.

    Giving much thought to factors of overcoming the cooking problem and instant acceleration by use of an explosive charge, he calculated instead of an explosive, a massive rubber band of sufficient length, about 50 yards, attached to a stout oak tree with sturdy, forked limbs of the correct configuration of a sling shot would accomplish the purpose.

    This ingenious device required an elaborate design of a number of ropes and pulleys to stretch the rubber sufficiently. The first subject chosen for an orbiting trajectory using this marvelous work of genius was a turkey. Amazah's reasoning being, indicating the powerful scientific mind of the creator of such an apparatus, that a solid, heavy, winged fowl would have an additional flight advantage should it fall a little short of orbit.

    However, he met with failure again, as the large bird was completely denuded of feathers when shot out of the powerful sling. While the bird was not recovered, the feathers, though covering a wide area, were.

    But in spite of such disappointments, he heeded the maxim that perseverance alone is omnipotent and his next attempt using one of his favorite fox hounds, Ol' Beller (since no human volunteer of sufficient courage and scientific curiosity was to be had), met with success; the proof of this being the fact that the dog was shot out of sight and never recovered. Therefore, logical scientific reason declares it must have successfully established an orbit around the earth.

    Because of such an illustrious and venerable history, much of Dean Culpepper's ancestry has been recorded by a family biographer, Mrs. Catalpa Culpepper of Pumpkin Center, and entitled “The Culpepper Chronicles” in which many stories of the spirit of scientific inquiry that imbued the family may be found.

    A particular instance of this surrounds an ancestor, one Archibald Culpepper, when, as a child, his scientific precocity evidenced itself very early.

    One example of this precociousness took place as described by biographer Catalpa Culpepper when Archibald, a winning child but with a somewhat disconcerting habit of teasing other children, at the age of nine tied a cat to a neighbor's child, one Samantha Noglesby.

    This in itself wouldn't have been so bad but he proceeded to squirt a liberal dose of turpentine on the cat's posterior causing it to shred the poor little girl's clothes, skin and hair. According to the record of this event, the Noglesby's were some upset about the whole affair and it was rumored that little Samantha suffered an adverse and life-long fear of cats and little boys thereafter.

    On another occasion, he had the rest of the children in the neighborhood believing an evil spell had been cast on them by the town witch (a harmless old crone who only wanted to be left alone) and the children, repeating the story to their parents, resulted in the tarring and feathering of the poor old creature.

    Also described is an incident where he had shown some proclivity for becoming a future inventor by an experiment using the family cotton gin in an attempt to find out if it would pluck chickens and de-hair the neighbor's small dog.

    The results, ghastly and messy, were somewhat of a disappointment, particularly to the neighbors who were quite attached to the dog; overly so in Archibald's opinion. As Archibald later wrote in his memoirs, some people, he had discovered, simply didn't appreciate the encouraging of natural, scientific curiosity in children.

    The family archives contain another sample of Archibald's instinct as a child for scientific investigation.

    An Aunt, Begonia Culpepper, wrote of the time Archibald was visiting and had, in childish curiosity, mixed gunpowder in her husband's pipe tobacco to see what would happen. It chanced that she had witnessed the extraordinary event.

    Her husband, Major Mordacai Culpepper (for whom Dean Culpepper is named), had just come into the house of an evening and, as was his custom, charged his pipe, a large meerschaum with a carved figure of a lion on the front. Settling comfortably into his favorite chair, he touched a match to the tobacco.

    It should be pointed out in Archibald's defense that he probably had no idea of the proper amount of gunpowder to use. So, being motivated by scientific curiosity, he was generous.

    Begonia would never forget the scene, she wrote. The sudden flash, the whooshing sound of the blast of flame and the shriek of the Major all happened so suddenly.

    The Major's face finally materialized through the smoke and fire. His small beard, mustache and eyebrows had totally disappeared in the combustion. His hair was still blazing nicely though as he raced for the kitchen and the water bucket with which to quench the conflagration.

    Having been wounded in the war, which had crippled him, it was pitiful, Begonia wrote, to watch his attempt to hasten in his crab-wise, lurching strides.

    In describing the event, Begonia wrote that in her imagination she could still smell the noxious odor like that of singed chicken, which had lingered for quite some time afterward. It was weeks, she wrote further, before the Major's skin resumed its normal color and his hair, beard and mustache grew back.

    Begonia Culpepper did not write of any punishment meted out to little Archibald; an indication, perhaps, of the Culpepper's fine tradition of encouraging and supporting scientific curiosity and experimentation in their offspring.

    Thus the spirit of scientific inquiry was manifested to a large degree very early in the life and character of Archibald who went on to contribute much to scientific research before the turn of the century in many and widely diverse fields such as those of explosives, anesthesia and hybridization. His experiments in these areas using chickens, frogs, and Albanians, are legendary. Much of this material may be found in WU's fine and extensive library.

    That Archibald Culpepper was exceptional and had quite an extraordinary childhood may be inferred from the fact that one Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a family acquaintance) used many of the incidents from Archibald's childhood in a book he entitled “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Though, to Mr. Clemens' discredit he made no mention of this fact.

From an article I wrote in 1998:  No discussion of “going green” should exclude frogs. And for those who expressed gratitude for my bringing this up in the last issue of The American Poet, where else but in this publication would you find questions of such burning intensity addressed, questions which undoubtedly involve NASA cover-ups and government conspiracies leading to the omission of frogs from Columbia’s last mission? Who is responsible for not taking frogs (or lizards) into space? Fearless as I am, and not to be outdone by Rush Limbaugh, Extra, 20/20 or any others in fearlessness, I am committed to getting answers to such questions no matter where the chips may fall! In my righteous crusade to expose the kind of shameful and blatant discrimination perpetuated against frogs (or lizards), I intend to pursue this flagrant violation of the rights of frogs no matter where it may lead! And in total disregard, I might add, of threats to my own person! I will boldly go where no man has gone before in this holy crusade for justice for frogs (and lizards)!

    There are those who feel I am attaching too much importance to the subject of frogs, some naysayers who go so far as to disparage me and frogs, who say my attention to the subject is overweening and could be much better directed toward subjects of greater gravity. Such calumny and accusations are vile canards at best and, at worst, attempts to misdirect me from a subject not only dear to my heart but one that should be of consuming interest to all right-thinking individuals with a concern for justice. After all, what kind of world would it be without frogs? Just think about that one for a moment! And we cannot discount among my detractors those with FBI and CIA connections who would remove me from this noble effort, sensing as they do, the threat this poses to such interested parties in their own attempts to bamboozle and flim-flam the public.

    An excellent example of this is the fact that we hail the bald eagle no longer being on the endangered species list. We have spent vast amounts of money on saving this noble symbol of America. And it was right that we should have done so. But I have to ask myself, as I'm sure any thinking person would, why such interest in bald eagles and none for frogs? An obvious conspiracy more than suggests itself.

    Where, I ask, is the same consideration given frogs as the government has given bald eagles? You think being a frog is easy? You think because the lowly frog cannot soar in the heavens he is less worthy of our notice? Or do you despise the poor frog because he hops, has webbed feet, has funny eating habits, a long tongue and is often abused by small boys tucking him in their pockets and using him to surprise mothers and scare little girls and teachers? Or, even most despicable of all, do you despise him because of his color, because he is green? For shame!

    Why does the witch turn the handsome prince into a frog? Why not a toadstool? Rank discrimination because only the kiss of a princess will return the prince to his former station! And where the princess who will kiss a frog? Discrimination! And the witch understands this! She knows she has doomed the prince because of this prejudicial attitude of so many princesses toward frogs, an attitude fomented and abetted by secret government agencies and NASA! An even more serious indictment: When has a witch ever turned a frog into a prince? Ah, ha! Never!

    When will people become aware and sensitive to their ingratitude for all that frogs have contributed toward civilization and become ashamed of their treatment of frogs? Fearlessly I stand up for these unfortunate creatures and invite all of you to take part in the rally I envision on the steps of the White House itself in defense of these noble amphibians and will, like Ghandi, if necessary, fast until the magnificent, and often sacrificial, contributions of frogs to science, literature, music and art are recognized and frogs are given justice! Let Riddup and Ribbett ring out across America!

    By the way, for those who expressed an interest in the bronzed bullfrogs there is still a small quantity available on a first come, first served basis. But you must hurry; supplies are very limited; a real buy at only $29.95 each or two for $65.00 plus tax, shipping and handling. Show you care; buy a frog. Other items such as paperweights, lapel pins, tie bars, earrings and bookends are available also. Write or call for a complete list of I Care About Frogs items. Or, if you wish, you may purchase these items with the motto "Be A Real Friend" with a tasteful picture of a frog appended.

    And for those who really care, who want to make a difference and can afford it, don't forget to request information on the Adopt A Pond program. If you could see the living conditions in some of the ponds I have witnessed, it couldn't fail to bring tears to your eyes.

    For those of limited means, there are also programs ranging from Adopt A Lilly Pad to an individual polliwog, tadpole (one of my personal favorites), individual adult frogs or even a frog family.

    Another program under way is the Equal Rights For Frogs movement. Be sure to inquire about this worthy effort directed toward stamping out discrimination against frogs. Truly inspiring! I envision the Green Party that will absorb the present ineffectual one, arising from this.

    One last thing, I have written a pamphlet, which I'm sure you will want to have if you are interested in the movement. It is titled: “Understanding Frogs and Our Enigmatic Toads.” Just ask for this by the initials: UFOET. For that small number of readers who believe I've finally taken leave of my senses, this soul-stirring plea for justice for frogs ought to restore my credibility.

    I count it one of the real blessings in my life that I have not had to wear a watch in years. But I worked hard all my life to reach such exalted status and have earned the right to go without wearing a watch. My time is my own. And it being the most valuable thing I possess, I try to use it to the best effect. For me, that best effect is the writing I am compelled to do, my own “curious labor.”

    So I shun appointments like the plague. I revel in spontaneity. And having punched a clock for so many years, I never take the liberty I enjoy for granted and I thank God daily for it. But I also realize the great responsibility I have for using this blessed time wisely; at least as wisely as I have the light to do so.

    I write a good deal about the necessity of civilized manners and speech; but these are learned behavior. James Boswell bears quoting on this subject: “There is no doubt that there may be an excess of luxury by which the more solid properties of man will be weakened, if not annihilated. In observing individuals, we find that a keen gratification of appetites and tastes, as produces exquisite pleasure of an inferior and slight kind, which can be repeated with frequency, indisposes them for steady, noble enjoyment; and to borrow an admirable metaphor from Goldsmith, in his life of Nash, their minds shrink to the diminutive size of the objects with which they are occupied. A mind so shrunk and shriveled, as to take in only petty delights, is averse from those extensive satisfactions that are suited to the dignity of human nature, in that state to which, amidst all our imperfections, it can at times be raised.”

    Well, if Boswell had been aware of Hollywood and TV, he would most certainly have expanded his excellent and sage comments on the ability of petty entertainments and luxuries to shrivel the intellect as well as good manners and speech. Are such things being annihilated in America? I think they are.

    The corrosive and cancerous disease of the petty pleasures of entertainments and good times to the exclusion of thinking of our future, our children and their welfare, of what is really best for our children, as opposed to what is noble, will most assuredly and ultimately destroy us if not cured in time. Bread and circuses are as much a part of human nature now as they have ever been; just another proof of our having never attained wisdom.

    But what Boswell wrote is knowledge, not wisdom. And it is knowledge which humanity has possessed from the very beginning though Boswell states it in quite memorable words with his own peculiar and quite distinctive genius for doing so.

    Obviously any person or society that gives themselves over to petty entertainments and petty luxuries is never going to advance in truly civilized speech and behavior. These require the restraints of self-discipline. But only wisdom can possibly lead to the effective application of such knowledge, to the effective restraints and disciplines needed. And America sorely lacks wisdom.

    If anything, Boswell perfectly illustrates that the facts of even correct knowledge do not automatically lead to wisdom and the two should never be confused. This is very much like my continued warning to people that they should never confuse what they believe with what they know. The result is chaos and bigotry in too many cases.

    I have always gotten a chuckle out of the story about the meeting between Dwight Moody the great American evangelist, and Charles Spurgeon the great English pulpiteer. At one point during their conversation Moody points to Spurgeon's cigar and says: “Brother Spurgeon, don't you know that is sin?” Spurgeon riposted, poking Moody's more than ample girth: “Brother Moody; that is sin?”

    And while it was obvious Spurgeon never missed a meal, there is no doubt that Moody dug his grave with a fork. And his remark to Spurgeon always reminds me of the story told by J. Vernon MaGee of the dinner where American Christians were hosting a group of German Christians at a large restaurant in Los Angeles. The Americans were thoroughly condemnatory of the Germans drinking beer. The Germans were outraged at the American women dressing like sluts. Well, a little self-righteousness always goes a long way.

    In my library, I had the complete set of The Metropolitan Pulpit, the encyclopedic set of Spurgeon's sermons. I also had and read his multi-volume commentary on the Psalms. Not having been formally educated, Spurgeon spoke better than he wrote. His sermons, while printed in full by The London Times, weren't models of erudition. But his preaching held parishioners spellbound. He was an orator, not a writer.

    The Times also printed the sermons of Joseph Parker, one of Spurgeon's contemporaries and held in great esteem. Unlike Spurgeon, Parker was well educated, very erudite, and a very good writer. I had the complete set of Parker's commentaries (as encyclopedic as that of Spurgeon's sermons) and they were very good and quite enjoyable to read.

    A reporter for the Times was interviewing Spurgeon and asked somewhat jocularly: “Sir, do you expect to see Joseph Parker in heaven?” To which Spurgeon replied: “No, I do not.”

    The reporter, aghast at Spurgeon's reply, asked: “Sir, why ever not?”

    Spurgeon, lowering his head, replied: “I expect he will be so close to God Himself that I will be too far removed in order to be able see him.”

    Now I got to know both men very well from their writings. I also read extensively the secondary material from varied sources about both men. I would like to believe the story about the reporter from the Times; I would very much like to believe Spurgeon was quite sincere in his self-deprecating and extraordinarily humble observation concerning himself and Parker. Such humility, as opposed to so much self-righteousness that abounds among the religious, would be a real tonic and can't fail to bring a tear to the eye. Because of this, I would occasionally use this anecdote in one of my sermons. And how I liked to believe Spurgeon's humility was matched by my own in those days. How wrong can you be!

    My problem with the story, once I came to realize and accept the fact that I was only a common, garden variety sinner, was this: Successful men get caught up in their own press (often self-manufactured) and begin to believe it. This is deadly.

    Because of my familiarity with Spurgeon while wanting to believe better of him the skeptic in me knows he was quite capable of playing the expected role of the humble servant of God. And he knew his reply would be of great credit to him in such a capacity. It also put Parker in his debt.

    My experience in the churches, my great familiarity with the Bible, the book remaining my primary textbook, my formal education and the education I have received at the hands of the real world cause me to question motives. I not only question my own wisdom, I am constantly questioning my motives in nearly everything I say and do.

    One thing of particular interest to me, and one which I bring to my readers because I know they will be interested as well, is the subject of death. Philosophically, it is argued that we don't have much time or get much of a chance to develop living to a high art, life being a very personal and singular thing and of comparatively short duration.

    But we get far less of a chance to practice dying or develop the art since it is a one-time only and terminal event. Besides, who in their right mind would want to practice the art of dying? I am so very familiar with religion that I can say without fear of being contradicted that the basis of religion is the attempt to formulate a philosophy of death ever as much or more than a philosophy of living.

    Oh, I credit religion with attempts to formulate a philosophy of life as well. But whether death comes as a gentle friend to relieve suffering, or a mad and ravenous beast to rip, tear and devour, a philosophy of death is at least of equal importance to people as a philosophy of life since the one serves to interpret the other for us. As a result, the very real and inescapable issues of life and death are the focus of religion and philosophy. Because of this, I draw a great deal of my writing from these two sources of inquiry.

    Good and evil, life and death, these are the fountainhead of religion and philosophy, of art, of the grandest or the most corrupt, of human endeavors. In humankind's search for wisdom, however, often grievously erroneous religious and philosophical concepts have led us a wrong path. They are great and grave errors to confuse belief with knowledge and to confuse knowledge with wisdom.

    A formal and disciplined education in religion and philosophy most often leads people to believe that in the study of the great thinkers throughout history, one is studying and learning wisdom. Not so. What is being studied and learned in most cases is knowledge. And while so very beneficial, and essential, it should not be confused with wisdom.

    James Boswell and Charles Lamb are excellent cases in point. I very much wish all people would read the great English and American essays (I don't include the great German, French, and Italian writers because that would be lifting hope to a dizzying, ethereal height which would be, to say the least, unrealistic). There is so very much to be learned from doing so. I have certainly not become so anile as to fail in continuing to derive much knowledge from this salubrious exercise of my mind.

    Having quoted Boswell, I give you Charles Lamb. In his essay “Witches, And Other Night-Fears”, Lamb points out that just as there is no law to judge of the lawless, there is no canon by which a dream may be criticized. “Credulity is the man's weakness” he says, “while being the child's strength.”

    Just so, a careful reading of the works of Boswell and Lamb will quickly apprise the reader that, indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. What was before still is. Yet it remains for one generation to pass on the knowledge of the one to the next. And there will always be, hopefully, those of genius who will use the right words and phraseology to do so. And it remains the responsibility of the new generation to learn what is beneficial from the old. But having said this, the cautionary word remains that belief never be confused with knowledge, that knowledge never be confused with wisdom.

    It is well to weep over those things, at times, that we cannot remedy. Such deeply rooted feelings in those sensitive to such things can help in our race for wisdom. And it is a race, of that I have no doubt. Number 92 looms too ominously on the immediate horizon. And not to dispute Lamb, it is my waking dreams that trouble, that make me a poet, the maker and the teller of the stories that are needed to make the ordinary, and ordinary people, extraordinary. It is, after all, the ordinary and ordinary people who are the stuff of the real tale of life. Marvelous men and women come and go. But the ordinary, the real heroes and heroines, remain to carry on at their lasts and anvils, the raising and caring for children, the next generation in the story and from whom the marvelous men and women of the future are to come.

The following is excerpted from The American Poet Weedpatch Gazette of 1999; soon to be back in print: Put me with any group swapping lies and I can always hold my own. But require me, as with that young woman to J.B. Priestly, to tell all about myself? Instant mental pandemonium! As with J.B., I'm always prepared with the lion's part written. But faced with the roar of the nightingale, the lion becomes mute.

    Like Clemens, I have known good men, honorable men, even men of the cloth, who knew nothing (or pretended not to know) of that most distinguished game of real gentlemen, Draw Poker. And I have known good men, honorable men, even men of the cloth, who had no facility with the telling of a good and well-contrived lie. So much the pity I feel for such culturally starved and deprived creatures so lacking in the most essential, useful quality and sensitivity of true, moral character.

    How, now I ask you, is a real man, a man of distinguished culture and refinement, of real sensitivity to the finer things in life, to hold a legitimate conversation with a beautiful member of the opposite sex without facility in one of the most useful and essential devices in any man's armory in such cases? Why the poor soul without such is, above all others, most to be pitied!

    Women are marvelous in playing their part. They expect a man worthy of their consideration to be able to hold his own with the best in the use of this device. They are naturally attracted to those men who have proven skill in the ability to command their interest by such a time-honored facility in the use of this mechanism directed at them. It makes the woman feel appreciation for the kind of man who would go to such trouble for her benefit alone.

    But just imagine the poor soul so lacking in probity of wit, not equipping himself as a gentleman of the first cloth, so lacking in perspicuity and perspicacity as to deny a woman her right to hearing delicious lies in tribute to her beauty. Such men are most certainly no fun at cocktail parties and are invariably boorish oafs.

    The kaleidoscope is a marvelous device. As a child, I was entranced by it. As I grew a little older, I became entranced and fascinated by the study of fractals, of the symmetry in nature as exemplified by the patterns of colors in butterfly wings in which I delighted as a child, the symmetry to be found in all of nature.

    And what normal man isn't entranced by the symmetry to be found in the physical attributes of a beautiful woman? Without such beauty of symmetry, there would be no poets extolling her beauty.

    Now that same study which began with things like a child's toy is making it possible for us to entertain the idea of teleportation and star travel. But we should never forget this started with things like the kaleidoscope and the patterns in butterfly wings. And the physical attributes of a beautiful woman.

    Studies in particle physics are well on the way to proving that we do, indeed, live in a sea of consciousness, that Psi, the paranormal, will be understood through the efforts of such research and the hopes of men like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others will be realized.

    A frequency of sound that can produce heat and light is a realized fact in sonoluminescence. Who is to say that a frequency may not yet be found that would enable those passed on to communicate with us? Entrancing idea; it certainly entranced Doyle.

    The ancient poet/historians were composers of music. Singing and music were spoken, and later, written, without instrumental accompaniment. Instruments to accompany words were a later invention. We still retain some knowledge of this in our language. Her words were music to my ear, or My heart sang, for example. The melody and harmony of Nature's Universal Lyre so popular with poets is another.

    Without wisdom, we most certainly will destroy ourselves. And I will continue to maintain that the proposed Amendment for the protection of children from child molesters is the place to start in becoming wise, that a philosophical abstraction can become a reality by this New Way, a new way that has never before in history been attempted.

    Fearful as it is because of so many unknowns, fearful because of a Dark Ages mentality that infects so many; the Amendment still holds promise of true enlightenment. But just try to find someone with whom you can have an intelligent discussion beginning with my equation for peace. In most cases, you get a vacant, glassy-eyed stare. This is the basis of my fear of our running out of time. Books have proliferated on the concern about the intellectual loss in America. We could hardly be called a nation of intellectuals. Congress alone gives one cause for fear on this basis.

    But where is the book that emphasizes the need to prioritize children? A lot of abstract lip service but no specific like the proposed Amendment that emphasizes this need in order to avoid our destroying ourselves; neither does the book exist, apart from my own with documentation, which places an emphasis on the absolute need of women being equally involved in The Great Conversation.

    Where is the wisdom of selfishly conceiving unwanted babies and then murdering them by abortion? Where is wisdom when some are too rich while others are starving to death? Where is wisdom when people are divided, and even murder each other, in the name of God or politics? Where is wisdom when ideological or racial hatreds continue to proliferate? And lacking wisdom: If not now, when?

    Do I really enjoy dealing with all of this? Absolutely not! I most sincerely wish it were some other guy. And, as I often think, maybe it is that other guy, the one I blame for such thoughts and writing. I only know, as I've often pointed out, that for some reason he behaves as the Hound of Heaven who will not leave me alone. I do this by a compulsion, not because I want to.

    It's Friday; this morning the sun shines brightly through the windows where I (or that other guy) do the writing. Tonight I will go to the Club (since the churches close up shop early and aren't open on Friday or Saturday nights and if we had a museum or art gallery they would be closed as well) and enjoy shooting pool, listening to the music, and dancing with the ladies. I'll still hope I can duck quickly enough if I have to. I'll try to ignore that other guy.

    I won't meet anyone who wants to discuss my equation for world peace, that Wisdom + Knowledge = Peace, but I will hear some new stories of love and romance, of betrayal of love, of who just went to jail or got out, and maybe there will be a fight over one of the girls. Or between a couple of them; a catfight as it is called. But when I come home, I know I will lie in bed unable to sleep until that other guy has his say.

    The other night we were having this discussion about the real objective of learning, knowledge, and education. I say discussion though that other guy seems to do all the talking. Obviously most get an education in order to make their way in life. And that's as it should be: but what about character? Shouldn't children be learning about character as well, both at home and in the classroom? Well, I had to admit that was true. And this should be one of the objectives of learning, knowledge, and education.

    Citizenship. We used to teach children to be good citizens. What did that mean in the context of what children are actually learning about America and its leadership today? I shuddered at that. Come to think about it, now that that other guy had me thinking again, curse him, when I was a child good citizenship was one of the goals of education and emphasized at home and at school. When had that passed away?

    Like good manners and correct, civilized speech. When had those stopped being objectives of education? Well, the albatross of that other guy led me long ago to start thinking about the last time poets worked in America, the time of the great Broadway Musicals. Seems America was losing sight of good citizenship, good manners, and correct, civilized speech as objectives of education about the same time; both at home and in the schools.

    I had given a copy of one chapter of my novel to a girl and she later told me: “Sam, I don't know how you wrote this! I had forgotten I had such thoughts and dreams when I was a little girl. And you're a man, a grown man! It must have taken a lot out of you to write that way.”

    Admittedly it does take a lot out of me to write that way. But as I recently shared with a friend, thank God I can still think and dream like a child! It hasn't been beaten out of me yet and I thank God life has not made me hard, cynical, and callous. I still delight in the magic of childhood, in Santa, the fairies and elves, enchanted forests and glades, I still believe in the best of Camelot, of Knights and their Ladies. I still delight in birds and animals, looking through a kaleidoscope and watching butterflies, baby bunnies and duckies.

When I have written recently about being attended by angels this has quite a history. There has not been a time in my life since birth they have not been there to save me from harm whether by the hands of others or, more frequently, my own lack of good judgment; i.e.: doing really dumb things. An example being the following incident from my book “The Lord and the Weedpatcher”:

    It might not have been a dark and stormy night, but it was sure black as the ace of Spades.

    A fellow and I had not known each other very long when we took that trip to the outback of the Black Hills area of the El Paso Mountains Northeast of Mojave. We were in my shiny, new, 1968 VW. I had bought the vehicle to deceive the CHP. Sure enough, I never got a speeding ticket in the bug so the concept proved sound.

    We were loaded for bear (actually we were after Jackrabbits but were prepared for anything from a native uprising to attacking Roosians). We had, between us, my Colt Single Action Army in .357, a 12ga shotgun, a Ruger .22 semi-auto, a Ruger Single Six in .357, a .45 auto, and a .22 Remington pump. We also had enough ammo to justify the hardware.

    It is a well-known fact among people that know me that the wives of my friends are not friendly to me for long. I'll explain.

    Now, as I said, this fellow and I had not known each other long when we made this Safari. Therefore, his wife did not suspect that this might be the last time she would see her husband alive (or, at the least, back home within a reasonable span of time, say, sometime within the year).

    It was full dark by the time we took the Randsburg road out of Mojave to the Mesquite Canyon turnoff near Garlock and pointed the VW's nose North on the dirt road into the boonies.

    I knew the area well, having traveled it many times, but it was new to my partner. An owl landed in the middle of the road, staring into our headlights. We stopped and stared at each other until the critter decided to take off. We continued winding our way deeper into the outback. Up jumped a Jack and the war was on. We bailed out and cut loose with the artillery, dust, dirt and rocks showering about the hapless varmint. He escaped the hail of bullets and assorted shrapnel, a wiser bunny, acquainted now with the baser instincts of perverse humans.

    We had driven for some time, ever deeper into the Big Lonesome and had a good time rapping off rounds. It must have been close to 10:00 p.m. when we crested a steep hill, the headlights piercing out into the blackness. With no moon and far off the beaten track, the night was as dark as any I have ever been in. I knew, approximately, where we were and which direction we were heading. But in the darkness, with many dirt tracks leading all over the place, I wasn't absolutely certain of our exact position.

    Fortunately, it was a warm, summer night. As this fellow and I looked out into the inky darkness, we decided to risk going down the hill. It didn't look too steep at that point. So, climbing back into the Bug, we started down. We had only gone a short distance when the incline increased dramatically. But, since we couldn't back up, there was no choice but to go forward. We finally bottomed out on a small, flat area and the road ended, the headlights piercing out into utterly black emptiness. We were stuck where, upon inspection of the place, a construction crew that had built the high-tension utility towers had graded the road for access.

    The little plateau where we were stranded ended at a cliff that, we discovered later, went straight down for about 300 feet. Being men of astute and sound minds, we sure weren't going to drive over a cliff. And, lacking four-wheel drive, we couldn't drive back up the road. What to do?

    We walked back up the road to the place where we had stopped before our descent. Looking about, we came across a large piece of plywood. Turning it over we discovered it was a sign saying: Utility Road! Four-wheel Vehicles Only! Great! What idiot had knocked the sign down resulting in the stranding of a couple more idiots? Oh well.

    Returning to the Bug, giving voice to the requisite deprecations and vilification’s the situation warranted, we proceeded to gather brush and lit off a bodacious bonfire to light up the place and, hopefully, attract someone's attention to our predicament. To really appreciate our marooned status, one has to be familiar with the territory. To reach this garden spot of America, one has to take the Randsburg-Garlock Road. This eventually takes you to the Randsburg/Johannesburg metropolises. The combined population might have been around 200 or so. This highway is not exactly well traveled.

    From our perch about halfway up the mountainside, we saw one set of headlights pass on the highway off in the distance in about an hour's time. We fired off a few rounds hoping someone might hear. Neither the fire nor the shooting or our deeply felt and well-sounded curses and imprecations against the fates brought any response.

    Since it was about midnight by this time, we made the rational decision to walk out to the highway. We could barely see well enough to scale down the cliff face with a few scrapes and bruises but we made it; stout heart and all that. Not wanting to leave all the artillery, we took it with us and looked like a Cuban Expeditionary Force; bandoleer-laced Banditos.

    Finally, reaching the road without breaking arms or legs, we started down that long, lonesome highway toward Johannesburg. About an hour into the hike, we came across someone's sense of humor. A hand-painted sign written in the middle of the road in white paint said: “HI!” We unlimbered the weapons and proceeded to properly ventilate the sign, blowing it and suitable chunks of asphalt away as an expression of our appreciation for the humorist's work.

    As an aside, one might wonder about the shooting habits of this fellow and me. Yes, one might wonder. Suffice it to say we were never too concerned about ricochets as long as we could see for a mile and in a desolate area. I have been hit by ricochets twice; (been shot at a few times as well) neither did any damage to my person, but one ricochet is worth mention as it was quite strange.

    I had been out in the Quartz Hill area hunting Mojave Greens. It was late as I got in my old Chevy truck and headed for the barn. As the hunting god would have it, there in the middle of the dirt road slithered one of the quarries. How obliging of the reptile. I had, at that time, a Single Action Army in .45 Long Colt caliber. Big slug.

    Stopping the vehicle, I climbed out and unlimbered the Colt. The snake had gone into a convenient strike coil and I threw down on the varmint. BOOM! went the Colt; SMACK! went something against my chest. The venomous slitherer was doing a nicely executed headless twitch and at my feet was the flattened slug. The dirt road was so well compacted the bullet had actually done its job on the snake and bounced back against my chest.

    But, anyhow, back to this fellow’s and my trek. Further along, we saw a camper parked off the road. We shouted but there was no response. We weren't surprised since who wants to acknowledge a couple of strangers in the boonies who are out on a stroll after midnight? Going up to the camper and knocking at the door seemed unwise. Suppose it was inhabited by a paranoiac with a built-in 12 gauge? Discretion seemed to indicate that we keep on our way.

    It was after 1:00 a.m. when we saw headlights in the far distance coming our way. Traffic! But, if we were to attempt to hail anyone down at this hour and in this desolate area, it might be best if only one of us appeared, and that without looking like highwaymen bristling firearms. Talk about sound judgment. No slouches, this fellow and me, in that department.

    The approaching headlights gave rise to the scheme that this fellow would stand in the middle of the road and attempt to hail the vehicle while I waited in the bushes at the side of the road with all the artillery. If the vehicle did stop, my partner would explain our plight to the driver and try to get a ride to Johannesburg. There was the possibility, of course, that the driver might just as easily run my partner over; hence it was I that chose to hide in the bushes. Now don't think for a moment that the choice was a result of my buddy being stupider than I was; we tossed a coin and he lost.

    Well, as luck would have it, the vehicle turned out to be a pickup/camper and the driver was a man with his son who were on their way to do some quail hunting. My buddy was able to convince the guy that we were straight gun enthusiasts and the fellow was sympathetic to our plight. So, I was able to come out of the bushes and the fellow allowed us to stow our gear in the camper and we set out for Johannesburg.

    Arriving in town, we retrieved our weapons only to be greeted by the local gendarmes. One was a crusty old coot and the other a young fellow. It happened that, observing the array of weapons at our disposal, these two officers had their curiosity piqued. As the older one demanded the weapons, he pointed to the sidewalk in front of the local cuttin’ ‘n’ shootin’ establishment where we chanced to disembark. It was liberally sprinkled with fresh bloodstains where, we were told, an earlier incident had taken place. It seems that some kind of altercation had resulted in one of the parties puncturing the hide of another due to a righteous disagreement about who bought the last round at the bar.

    Talk about serendipity! It was just our luck according to the other events of the night that a couple of yahoos had made the local constables a tad wary of strangers bristling guns. The old coot was for hauling us off to the local hoosegow, but the younger, glory be! convinced him it would be better, after satisfying himself of our bona fides, to take us to Randsburg and let us call someone to come and rescue us. The old fellow was still not convinced that we were after jackrabbits with .45s and .357s but finally relented. My guess was he didn't want to be bothered with any more paperwork.

    And, so, after satisfying themselves that the weapons were all unloaded (my buddy and I holding our breath as the old fellow performed the operation. We could just see him adding more glory to the legends of Johannesburg and splatters to the sidewalk in the process), we stowed the weapons in the trunk of the young deputy's unit and off we went to Randsburg. On the way, the young fellow was even decent enough to offer to put us up for the night, but as we explained there were a couple of women who, by now, were probably counting the insurance money if we didn't get in touch with them as soon as possible. It was now about 2:00 a.m.

    Arriving in Randsburg, the deputy took us to the local Denny's and went in to explain the situation to the manager. This would take some explaining, as we had to bring all the weapons in with us. Our appearance didn't foster much confidence. Both needing a shave and dressed for desert hiking and, in all, looking like a couple of real desperadoes, we were, in a word, threatening! The deputy came back and said all had been arranged so, carrying our gunbelts and assorted weaponry into the restaurant, we aroused no little interest in the dinner guests present, who were fortunately very few at that late hour. We had no trouble getting a table to ourselves and, laying out the guns, belts and ammo on and under the table, we ordered coffee, the manager waiting on us as the waitresses seemed otherwise occupied. Too bad. I have always considered it my incumbent duty to liven up folk's, otherwise, dull days. Finally, there was nothing for it but to proceed to call the womenfolk.

    It was now about three in the morning, but oddly enough they were still awake. After the normal exchange of pleasantries usual under the circumstances, it was decided to call an old friend of mine, a truck driver, to come and get us. Reaching him, he readily agreed to come and fetch us. I knew he would make good time. I had ridden with him before.

    Sure enough, he was there in about two and one half-hours. Drunk. Oh, well. I should have thought about that before I called him. It was an interesting ride back to L.A. My truck driver friend’s old Caddy convertible really burned up the highway. I bet my buddy’s and my fingerprints are permanent fixtures in the upholstery.

    The next day (same day, really) I got hold of triple AAA in Ridgecrest and the tow man knew the site of the VW. Seemed another vehicle had taken the same track a couple of weeks previously and they had had to build some road to get the car out. Cost him six hundred dollars. Fortunately, since the work was already done and I belonged to the Auto Club, it would be a freebie. Good old AAA.

    My buddy and I went on to even more enjoyable trips to the outback, but his wife developed a certain nervousness thereafter about our association. I suggested an increase in insurance coverage but this did not seem to mollify her. Ah, women; there is just no understanding them at times. There was the time at Hamburger Mill Site and the episode with the, previously, unexploded parachute flare and the time we gave the dry lakes a wide berth but I will leave those stories for another time. 

The following excerpt is from my book “The Lord and the Weedpatcher.” With all the bad news I thought some of you folks could use a little cheering up:

    My daughter Karen and my son Michael shared in many of their dad's proclivities for adventure. Part of the reason, sadly, was that their mother didn't want them around. So, when I went somewhere, they went with me. As they grew older, the adventures became more adventuresome. They will have their own stories to tell their children. I hope they do it with charity toward their father.

    This buddy and I would often go out to Kramer's Junction and hit the dirt roads until we got many miles off the highway. Out around Hamburger Mill Site and the Cuddeback and Harper Dry Lake area, we would begin to encounter our quarry: Jackrabbits.

    Using single actions with fast draw rigs, we would fire about 100 rounds per rabbit. The fun was in the shooting, not the killing. And, it was as good an excuse as any to get out of the city.

    Since we re-loaded our own ammo, I cast the bullets, the shooting was cheap. We could afford to be profligate in bouncing rounds off rocks.

    Reloading can be a lot of fun. When I first started as a boy, I'll never forget seating my first primer with my Lyman tong tool. I was loading for the .270 and was as nervous as the proverbial cat in a room full of rocking chairs. But .270 ammo was expensive and, with true grit, I mastered the skill in order to be able to afford to shoot. I've never regretted the learning.

    But my buddy missed throwing a charge once and nearly cost me a day's shooting. We were out at Cuddeback and a large, old jack bounced out of the brush. Pulling my Colt, I tripped the hammer only to have the round go pumph instead of bang! Staring at the gun, I was amazed to see the bullet sticking halfway out of the end of the barrel. Only the primer had fired and with sufficient power (about 600 pounds pressure) to force the bullet that far.

    Far from our truck and with me cursing my buddy roundly, we started the long walk back. Suddenly, right there in that trackless, vast desert there was a pair of rusty pliers right in the sand in front of me. Talk about serendipity! Using the rusty pliers, I was able to pull the slug from the muzzle and we were back in business.

    Because of our crusade against verminous ground squirrels and jackrabbits, this fellow and I began to kid about a 500-pound rabbit looking for us to get even. I never realized that my little girl, Karrie, actually believed there was a monster rabbit after her old dad until she recently told me of it. You sure have to be careful around little ones. They have vivid imaginations. Even worse, they cannot discriminate when listening to grownups talk about 500 pound rabbits and the one that got away. And we all know about the veracity of fishermen.

    I got even with this fellow the night I shot out his truck window. Well, shot out may be too strong. Actually I put a BB hole in it. I happened to be driving that night and among the weapons we had brought with us was a CO2 powered pellet gun. Just for fun.

    Now the rule was that the windows were to be open so as to fling a round at the bunnies without the trouble of stopping the vehicle. But this poor fellow was cold and had rolled his window up. Sure enough, a rabbit bounced up on his side and with electric speed I flang a shot at him with the pellet pistol. But my buddy’s window was closed.

    It got real exciting for a moment as the BB zinged around the cab of the truck. Amazingly it didn't hit either of us. But there was a neat little hole in the center of the window and a thin crack straight up and down from it.

    There was some discussion following this trick: “Why was your window up! Why did you try to shoot me! If I'd really wanted to shoot you, I'd have used the .357 you dummy!” And many other good-natured, comradely remarks. But he got even.

    It was our custom to reload for the driver. One day, (I was driving and using the Colt as usual) a jackrabbit jumped up and I began to shoot. Bang! Click. Bang! Click. Bang! Click.

    Now one of the reasons that this fellow and I are such good friends is the fact that we share the same twisted sense of humor. He had only loaded every other chamber in the Colt. Great fun; for him. Now you shooters out there understand the fun of shooting at bounding jackrabbits is seeing the clouds of dirt, rock and dust being blown around the poor things, educating them to the perversity of human nature and hastening them on their way, feeling the good, honest buck of a fine weapon in your hand, not the occasional and accidental killing of the poor things. But only a low-down skunk would do such a thing as cheating your bosom buddy to half a load. It also galled me that he thought of it first.

    Remember the skit of Bill Cosby saving a snowball for revenge? Of course my buddy could no longer trust me to reload for him now. This was one drawback of his little joke. But, like Cosby, I waited.

    It was nearly two years later. We had gone to Kelso Valley. My buddy had forgotten- I hadn't. I can wait a long time to get even and I never forget. He usually used a Ruger (just what you would expect of someone who would do such a dastardly thing to a friend. Anyone knows that only a Colt Single Action Army is suitable for the real purist). But this time he had brought a .22 auto and, thinking all was forgiven, was letting me reload as he was driving. Sure enough, a rabbit bounced up on his side and Bang! Click! Being an auto loader, one shot was all he got. Served him right. Justice is sweet. So is revenge.

    What he was so appreciative of was my steadfastness, patience and ability to wait him out. I'm sure he knew there would come a time and was glad to get it over. But you can't help loving someone that shoots out a sliding glass door with a.45 Colt Auto- One of this fellow’s neater tricks as he was demonstrating gun safety to a neighbor while living in Carson. His wife was not amused. But surely God gets a chuckle out of our antics. He has to have a great sense of humor.

“Take our lands and make us your slaves but give us bread for why should we die?” Thus those ancient Egyptians cried out to Pharaoh to save them during the severe famine that ravaged the land. Joseph had “saved” the people at the cost of enslaving them. During the decades I worked with thousands of children in the schools, I was forced to watch the “enslavement” of our young people just as surely as what happened to those Egyptians. No, I didn’t see hoards of emaciated bodies; I witnessed the starvation of their souls, of their hopes of a future, the destruction of their families through the evils of a society that no longer cherished its children, and denying God, had no answers for the geometrically mounting problems of that society. And, denying God, only “Pharaoh” remains to “save” us!

Will men and women of Reason come together for the sake of the children? I hope so. I live in such hope. I don’t require such people subscribe to my belief system; it is only required that they be reasonable and have a genuine, caring concern for children and families. They must, of course, in order to be able to offer practical solutions, be qualified and experienced to do so. Good intentions, as with the “stroking of egos,” alone, will never suffice.

“A new broom may sweep clean but an old broom knows where the dirt is!” When it comes to the sins and ills of education, this “old broom” knows where the dirt is. You can only gain limited input by bringing someone from the educational establishment into converse with someone from industry, for example. Both may be knowledgeable of their own areas of expertise, it takes someone with experience in education to know its problems and someone with experience in industry to understand its needs. But the happiest confluence of conditions and circumstances that would promote reasonable solutions would be for people with experience in both areas to have the authority to address the situation and such people are exceptional.

Winners, not losers, write history. Only now are we able to deal with many of the unpalatable facts of our own history as a nation, with the histories of WWI and WWII. Granting that our present level of communications technology makes hiding the facts more difficult, atrocities still are committed by the “good guys.” In cases like Randy Weaver and Manfred Roeder’s, evil men and systems can still, like bad doctors, “bury” their victims and “mistakes.” But where are the atrocities of Muslims being paraded in the MSM? And it seems the barbarians of the drug cartels in Mexico are at least just as barbaric.

A few years ago Mr. Stephen Fahsbender, of radio station KNZR, made an excellent point in his paraphrase of Jesus’ statement: “What does it profit a nation to gain the whole world and lose its soul, or what will a nation give in exchange for its soul?” Perhaps the switch of radio station KIWI from easy listening and classical music to “either Spanish or Adult-oriented rock” spoke to the point.

But, the leadership today is woefully ignorant of the wisdom of the past. One of America’s earliest writers, C. B. Brown wrote: “How little cognizance have men over the actions and motives of each other! How total is our blindness with regard to our own performances! I have erred, not through sinister nor malignant intentions, but from the impulse of misguided, indeed, but powerful, benevolence.” So it is that I have come to pray; Lord, protect me from well-intentioned men, men who mean well but have neither the experience nor qualifications to actually do well!

People have an itch they can’t scratch. Since they don’t generally know what is best, or even, for that matter, what they want, they look to leaders. God help them when such leaders are no better than “well-intentioned!” But I cannot bring myself to believe Obama is even well-intentioned.

It may be our War for Independence was driven by profit as some suggest rather than ideals. The best of ideals seldom carry through without profit raising its head somewhere along the way. The Founding Fathers erred greatly in my opinion by not abolishing slavery by our Constitution thereby planting the seed of our eventual demise as a uniquely distinctive world power and I see the beginnings of ending up as those ancient Egyptians offering themselves as slaves in exchange for bread.

There was great promise for America in the past and I agree with Abel’s assessment that Cooper wrote the American Epic in his Leather-Stocking tales because “...they are an implicit idealization of our national adventure.” Cooper’s theme of the victory of love over lust is lost to this generation. Curiously, men of different races and cultures learned to love one another during the Viet Nam war. The “good” part of war is the emotional high, the camaraderie, and the dependence on others to do their part when your life is at stake, the pulling together in common cause and, the dark side of love, the common hatred of a common enemy, and the fact that wars are about power and profits.

Cooper was one of our foremost social commentators. He, as so many other thinking men, came to the inescapable conclusion that class distinctions were impossible to avoid. Too bad Marx, Engels and others couldn’t see the truth of this maxim according to Cooper: “Classes do, and will, exist in this country, as an incident of civilization; a truth every one can see as respects those below, though his vision may be less perfect as respects those above him.” Lincoln gave his own dour assessment by saying the Negro would never be the equal of the white man.

Cooper, because of his privileged status, earned the enmity of those that, because of their own lack of either genius or privilege, understandably tried to pull him down to their level by the very same name-calling and subterfuges in the guise of “democracy and fairness” practiced today. Say what you will, Carnegie, for example, had a valid point in this regard. But Cooper recognized the common greed inherent in men and, like Jesus Christ, “knowing their hearts, did not commit himself unto them.” Cooper fought the good fight and, regardless your opinion of whether a “landed aristocracy” is more productive of Enlightened Self-interest as opposed to that of Manufacturers one must admit of the fact that a ruling class has always prevailed in government.

Our so-called “public” schools are dedicated to producing an underclass of thoroughly ignorant future citizens which will be easily led, not by Enlightened Self-interest, but by an equally thoroughly unscrupulous and greedy, well educated, upper class. As I warned years ago, the schools are in the business of producing a “Slave Generation,” not educated men and women who will accept responsibility, hold themselves accountable and be productive either to posterity or to the general welfare.

Because women have generally confused “equal rights” with “equal value” I installed in my “data base” a few years ago the following: “Duke University recently named Nannerl Overholser Keohane, a woman, as the University’s president. Clinton is busy naming women to important government posts, and a woman, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, billing herself as a Jungian analyst has a best seller titled: “Women Who Run With the Wolves.” The only thing that saves this book from falling into the relative merits and interest level of such works as “Great Moments In Ping-pong” is its unashamedly anti-man phraseology. Couched in the usual language and phrases of pseudo-intellectualism, the Man-bashing book rides the crest of the waves of the media propagandized frustration of all those women with that itch they can’t scratch; somehow, some way, it is all a conspiratorial conceit of men that makes any distinction of any real differences between men and women. I may have to go back and re-read my own book on the subject. I had come to the conclusion that there were some real differences! But I had come to the conclusion that the differences were created of God to be compatible, not competitive or combative. I did not accept Sam Clemens’ conclusion that “Men and women are natural born enemies.”

But so long as their sex is confused with their true value concerning equality women will be the slaves of men, and as to a nation of slaves the present Caesar and the dogs feeding at his table will not have a fence between America and Mexico, but if all factors such as housing, welfare, schooling, loss of jobs for legal citizens, etc. are considered, illegal aliens cost the California taxpayers about $30,000 a head per year. It takes the taxes of about thirty-five honest, working, California citizens to support each illegal. This is money lost to the citizen’s own children and family, the California economy, etc. Now you don’t have to have the wisdom or loquaciousness of a tree full of owls to see where this leads- just where we are, a state that is literally bankrupt because of such “entitlements” given criminals, the illegal aliens that too many legitimate American citizens here in my native state cannot afford for themselves!

When is the leadership going to wise up to this fact and say and do the hard things which must be said and done, something like the current Swine Flu but will kill hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions here in America? And when is my generation going to accept its responsibility for allowing such a destructive travesty of government to come into being and flourish instead of passing the buck on to young people? We made the mess, not our children! It is this abysmal failure to accept our responsibility and be held accountable for the mess that has led us into Cooper’s “Institutionalized Iniquity!”

It is easy enough to understand the thinking of men like Emerson and Thoreau; I spent enough time in pulpits and the churches and education to do so. My “failure” to become an “amiable” man in these institutions proved my undoing. It is easy enough to understand the disillusionment of Emerson and Thoreau, as with that of Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams. Even as I have witnessed over the past decades, the betrayal of our children and our nation through the selfish disinterest and apathy of “amiable” men and women working in unconscious collusion with the wicked enemies set on our destruction and enslavement to Caesar. And I cry out, once more: Who speaks for the children!

Emerson marked those that had forsaken the ancient landmarks, grieving that grief teaches them nothing. No matter the common stirrings in the souls of people as they look out at the stars or the beauty of God’s creation all around, if the lessons of grief are lost to a man or woman, they have little to offer of any practical value to others, particularly to children. It would seem our present “leadership” has learned nothing of the lessons of grief, but on the contrary are set on being the cause of enormous and possibly terminal grief for America, especially if our leadership should fail in confronting the enemies of Israel before we lose the power to do so for the “greater good” of a “New World Order.”