Mom - 2009

This could be the hardest thing I have ever written and it should be if I am totally truthful which I will try to be.
My mom was the hardest person that I have ever known to get to know and to love on an ongoing basis and it didn’t need to be that way.
I do not want this to sound like a diatribe of negative feelings and comments but I do want it to be a true indicator of the fears that I had in the early part of my life to the abject desertion that I felt in the latter days of her life.
A little history on my mom; she was born on a farm in Colorado and was an only child for 13 years before her sister arrived. This was bad timing since mom had to come home after school to help with her sister as her mom had chores that needed to be done. Needless to say, my mom was VERY unhappy and exhibited it towards her sister and later her brother, per my mom. When she was 18 years old she left home never to return and moved to Denver where she eventually met my dad.
In later years she visited a psychologist to discuss these feelings that she had regarding her sister and tried hard to unbundled all of the hurt feelings and I think she did to a certain extent as she and Sandy had a good relationship during their adult lives.
I have long felt that certain people should not adopt children and I think even after all these years that I still feel that way about my mom. Now, she might have gone into it with a positive attitude and felt that she had a lot to offer a child and she did but unfortunately her anger issues were counteractive to building the trust and love that a young child needs to receive from a parent. Coupled with the fact that I was looking for approval from a woman and I needed a mom; it would have been really easy to have won me over but such was not the case.
The early days of the adoption were difficult as I tried to adjust to another house with different adults but from what I remember; it was a very short honeymoon.
I have a clear recollection of her working with me at night on learning about vowels and different words. Now, I remember that it was night because it was dark outside my bedroom window. I am sure that at 5 years of age I would have been tired and I am sure she was tired also but she screamed at the mistakes I made and, in fact, accused me of deliberately missing the words. I remember thinking, ‘How can a 5 year old do something like that?”.
My dad came in and took her to the living room and there I was sitting in my bedroom wondering what I could have done not to cause the problem. I do not remember anything ever being said to me about it later on; it was just another unresolved issue that never got resolved.
My mom was a screamer, a yeller, a door slammer, a window breaker, a face slapper, a banging the pans so hard on the counters that the handles broke off, and just about any other tirade you can think of. Her screaming was legendary because she screamed so loud the neighbors could hear her with our doors closed and theirs also. It was never a mystery when I was being punished and it was funny that none of the neighborhood kids or their parents came by during or after one of these sessions.
Suffice to say that I did go through a period as I grew older of knowing what buttons to push on mom and I did regularly. As I grew and got a little smarter I even knew how far I could push her to get only a certain response and nothing more. So if I did something I would do just enough for her to slam a door but nothing else. It was very interesting seeing how this all worked with her and I thought it was great fun at the time. Now I think it’s just sad that I acted this way.
One thing that she did that I still bristle from today is the face slapping. To me, that is a violation of a person and should never be done. I cannot think of one circumstance where slapping another person’s face would be justified. And mom was famous for it but every time she did it she pushed me further away from ever being close to her.
What she taught me instead was to protect myself especially from her and I was always on my guard around her. Even after the physical discipline part of our relationship was over; I still was guarded around her.
One thing that I couldn’t understand was that after every hellacious argument that we had then she needed or wanted to make up whether I wanted to or not. This confused me and years later in therapy I asked my counselor why this happened this way. She related that this was the way she was raised so when she had a fight with her parent(s) then they made up this way. So she was just acting out what she knew.
I am not sure whether I was better off knowing that fact or not because I was unable to know what to do with the information.
So much of whom mom was revolves around being the center of attention or the seat of power, as she thought she was in her later years. She felt her ability to persuade was contingent upon her having money and what she could do with it. Paula and I had many conversations that the risk of being closer with her was not worth the reward and so there was always a distance between us.
When she came to visit we enjoyed the time but when she left we went back to our lives. And that was always a better way for me and my family.
She adored Brandon and I think it was because he was the only grandchild that dad ever saw and that was special to her. The other two she really showed no great affinity for although she did have Brianne spend 2 weeks with her in Colorado.
Holly she disliked and I was never able to understand it and all she could say was, “She’s a spoiled brat”. Hell, all of my kids were spoiled; Paula and I made them that way. Now they weren’t rotten but they were privileged to a certain extent and I saw no harm in that at all. But mom just would not back off from Holly and it eventually meant that she went home to Colorado early and she never was extended another invitation nor did she ever return to my house.
To this day, I would argue that Holly’s kind and gentle nature was something that mom couldn’t be around. Those that know Holly know the type of person she is so no further discussion is necessary.
Mom smoked for 65 years or more and developed C.O.P.D. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Her case was emphysema and she was on oxygen for many years before she passed away in 2008. A side issue of COPD is dementia and mom had it and it got worse as she got older.
To make a long story short she gave power of attorney to her next door neighbor and her landlord. When I eventually had to go to Colorado, at the landlord’s request, to move mom out of the home she had lived in for 20 years; I found out that I no longer had her power of attorney.
After obtaining an attorney and going to court I was given guardianship but the landlord had full control of mom’s assets. One of the sad facts that came out of all this was that my mom was telling everyone that I could not be trusted. That one really stung.
I would be in charge of her care and the landlord would control the money. As it worked out all of mom’s money was spent on her care and when she died she had $13.00 in a bank account.
It is ironic that this woman who touted her money died destitute and on government assistance.
My dad prior to his dying asked me to make sure that I took care of her until she died and I said that I would. I was willing to do what it took to do that for her and my dad but I was never given the chance.
I do believe that mom suffered from dementia and that she was taken advantage by two people that saw her money and possibly thought this would be an easy mark. But the real sadness was that I was unable to do what my dad asked me to do but I did my best for both of them.
So mom has been dead for almost a year and my life is back to normal and sadly I do not miss her. The latter years were so painful that they actually wiped out my childhood anger in a lot of respects.
One thing that gave me hope about her and what she might have deeply felt about me happened on the day she died, her 85th birthday, August 22, 2008. I was told by a nurse not to wait too long in getting back there so I arrived at 11:45am on her birthday. As I arrived a nurse told me that she was sleeping and that every so often she woke up and called my name. Once I entered the room I went over to her and she awoke and I took her hand and told her that I was there and wished her happy birthday. She smiled slightly and went back to sleep. She never called my name again and as family gathered she would awaken a bit and then go back to sleep.
Pastor Wille from St. John Lutheran came in and spent 45 minutes talking to her and reading from the Bible. He ministered to her over the years when she lived in La Porte. She was so calm and you could see that she was listening to him. Once he left and the family left to get hotel rooms she got real calm and as I stood there holding her hand she died peacefully. No one but her and I at the end.
Looking at her I could see that all that she had been was gone forever. No more anger, no more ego, no more control, all of it had passed away and at that time I felt a peace that I have never felt in my life. I had fulfilled the promise I made to my dad and to her also and I had fought the good fight. I lost a lot more than I ever won but I withstood the onslaught and survived.
And that is sometimes the very best thing we can hope for…to survive.

Dad - 2009

It seems fitting to write about my dad on this date since he passed away 31 years ago today.
Raymond Warren Spalding was a simple man from simple roots born in a time of great national distress and family discord. He was a loving son, husband, father, and grandfather during his life and was a man fired in the times of his youth to work hard for his family.
His father abandoned the family when he was 5 years old and he never had a role model that he could look back on to show him how to be a dad.
He loved his mother fiercely and quit high school at age 14 to go to work to support her and the family. We never returned to his studies except for a correspondence course in accounting that he took after World War II. His devotion to his mother was transferred upon her death in 1948 to my mom and there never appeared to be a wavering in that area of his life.
He was 5’7” tall and maybe 125 pounds sopping wet. His height was never a factor in his life and he was even a champion ballroom dancer in his early days. He never wanted for a dance when he and mom went out and he could dance all night, per mom. I only saw him dance a few times but I knew I was adopted after seeing him on the dance floor and knowing my limited dancing capabilities.
My dad was a good dad but not a great one. Now that sounds bad at first blush but he never had the tools to be a dad and I do not fault him for that even today. His main focus was to go to work, make money for his family and live as well as he could while he was here. In that sense he had the great World War II work ethic and he should be honored for that but his input at home would have gone a long ways in changing the family dynamic in our house.
Dad was a soft spoken person who never really said too much but when he did people listened to him, intently. I still remember conversations that we had that showed me the great intelligence that he had and even the softer side of him. He didn’t let many people see it because it made him to vulnerable and that was a place he did not like to be in at all but he was a wise man to me and his input meant a great deal to me. During a particularly trying time in my life he told me,” Don’t ever lie but don’t ever offer too much information either”. I still remember the surprise hearing that type of earthly wisdom coming from him because it was what I needed to know exactly at the time.
What I needed most from him was protection from the emotional outburst of my mother and he was not there to help me. He worked Monday through Friday from 7-6:00pm and a half day on Saturday too. He didn’t have to work on Saturdays but he did all the time I was at home. It was interesting that most of my mother’s outburst were timed to coincide with the time dad was gone from the house.
He was an accounting person for most companies that he worked for and held titles like Controller, Office Manager and such. He was greatly admired by his office staff and he was always included in after hour parties and get togethers.
He was blind to the race factor of the 60s and that was quite a feat since most of his staff were minorities but he treated them all fairly and expected no more or less from any one of them then the rest of the staff. His even disposition made for a quiet workplace.
My dad was the first “Chick magnet” I ever knew. The women loved him. My girlfriends were so enamored with him and I just sat and watched in amazement. His quiet demeanor was just amazing to watch and it wasn’t put on…it was the real thing but he never disrespected my mom, in fact, she thought it was quite hilarious how women found him so attractive.
Dad had a temper though and although it wasn’t displayed often he could light up a room with it when he really got angry. Thank goodness I didn’t cross that threshold too often, only one time when I took his radio apart to see how it worked. He got so mad he slammed the door and forgot to take his pinkie finger out of it first and broke it. It was a tense few weeks in the house after that and I stopped electronic exploration of the household appliances.
Dad was a voracious smoker, one of those that started early in life and tried to quit but just couldn’t so it. I always felt that his attempts to quit were half hearted at best except when cancer crept into his life. He got lung cancer in his mid 50s and received radiation treatment and per his doctor the treatments were successful and he was told to go home and live his life. He hadn’t smoked for some time during this time but that was not to last for too much longer. Sadly, at age 59 he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His first radiation treatment was on his grandson, Brandon’s “birth” day.
The latter years of dad’s life were sad ones to me because his physical condition deteriorated because of the radiation treatments and other health factors just became too much to bear.
He lived long enough to see and be with his grandson and I think that gave him a sense of peace. I think knowing that the Spalding name would continue another generation gave him some small sense of satisfaction.
A decision was made by mom and him to move to Fort Collins, Colorado to be closer to family that could assist them during this time. As much as Paula and I tried to be there for them; it just wasn’t possible on the level they needed that it could be done…so they moved. This fulfilled a promise that dad made to mom in 1948 when they moved to California to take care of his mother…”I will take you home to Colorado someday”, and he did.
Dad passed away on June 30, 1978 at 4:00am with mom and me in the room. I was holding his hand.
As we were leaving the hospital and walking to the car my mom said something so profound that I still am amazed today at its utterance, “He died like a true accountant; he died of the last day of the financial year”.
The impact that dad had on me is not so much the material things that I had growing up but rather the quiet support that he gave me during my years at home. He did instill in me certain principals that I still live by today and I am grateful.
My sorrow with dad was his inability to quit smoking and make a life for himself with his grandchildren. He would have so loved them just as he loved Brandon. He was tentative around him because he lacked experience with babies but the few pictures that we have you can see the pride in his face when he was with him. There was so much more for him the see and experience and even today, Brianne and Holly both mention Pop-po and say how much they would have liked to meet him and he would have like that a lot, I know.
My epitaph as a dad is yet to be written but I know when it is some of it will be a reflection on my dad and the impact he had in my life. While I coveted more of his time and attention; I know he gave me the best that he could and I need to be grateful for that and not center on the “what-if” factor of the relationship. But even in the looking back this many years after he left me I can truly say that I am proud to have been his son and I will do what I can to honor his memory in the future.

Parental Times – The Early Years

I have a rather checkered childhood of foster homes and eventually an adoption to a good solid middle class post World War II family in a small Los Angeles suburban city.
As most of you might think; adopting families really want children and really want to instill in them their value systems and while much of that might be true there is a darker side to the adoption picture.
Many of the families that “pass” the adoption test just weren’t meant to be adopting parents. I do not mean this in an arbitrary manner; it is just that they carry baggage that shouldn’t be put on a child.
While birthing a child changes the dynamic of the relationship; there needs to be better testing of potential adopting parents in order for the children to be placed in solid, well adjusted families.
In the little that I have found out about the adoption process of the 1950s it has become painfully clear to me that it really wasn’t that hard to get a child if you had a marriage, house and a job. While investigation took place on the part of child services it was done with people that the adopting parents referred to the agency. I am not sure how impartial those referrals would be to an agency and maybe there have been adoptions not made because of referrals. But in my case, it followed normal channels.
Adopting me was no bed of roses after four and one half years of foster homes and being moved around so I was fairly disenchanted by the time I was adopted. I believe I would have tried the patience of any well intentioned mother and father but I was a winnable case if the effort was put into it.
Since I knew my name, Robert Richard Bevan, I was aware when my name was changed to the one I have today. In retrospect changing my middle name after so long was not a positive thing in my life. Since I used my entire name when I gave it to anyone it must have been an important part of my identity and this was lost on my parents. Coupled with the fact that my middle name is not a family name or a name of any importance even to close friends of the family; I am still puzzled why it needed to be changed.
During my teen years I mentioned to my father that I was going to change my middle name when I was old enough in which he replied, “If you do I will sue you for all of the money that I have spent on raising you”. I always thought that was an unusual response since I was not thinking about changing my last name.
I have always been proud of the Spalding last name and I have worked hard over the years to do nothing that would bring shame to it, it is a good name and Ray Spalding was a good man and deserves all of us who have the name to treat it with respect.
But I digress…
As a child you want to trust your parents and when a base of trust cannot be built early in the relationship then problems will follow. Such was the problem with my mom. She really never gave me much of an indication that she ever wanted to have children in her life. She was 13 when her sister was born and that led to an alienation from the family and I feel that she always felt cheated out of her adulthood by having to take raise me. Now I believe she loved me; I just don’t think that I fit into her plans.
If one part of the parenting model is not full into the process the child rearing process will break down and the child will feel emotionally abandoned as I did.
Did I think my parents loved me? Yes
Did I know my parents loved me? No
Further postings will discuss different aspects of relationships that I had with my parents but suffice it to say that years later, many years later, I still feel abandoned in the love portion of the relationship that I had with these two people. These were good people but they should not have been parents to me or any other child and while I thank them for what they gave to me I still mourn the fact that they could not love me as I needed to be loved.

A "Magical" Place

A “Magical” Place

Time is the ultimate judge of anything.
Look at the Sphinx and the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal. Who can argue with the dynamic sense of time and history of these places and the lessons that they teach in history and art; yet they are stationary in time. As beautiful as they are and as much as we can conger the beauty of these places when they were new…they stand, in one place, in time. Now don’t get me wrong regarding the great works of history but one place has transcended life in the modern era…Disneyland.
Disneyland? Yes.
Walt Disney was every bit the visionary of ages past but with a different spin. That spin was motion and motion counteracts time which is the big differential of the great wonders mentioned above. It was his attention to detail and the need for motion that makes Disneyland a place of awe and wonder to children and parents alike.
While I am not sure of any numbers; it would seem incredulous that families from all over the world have traveled to the wonders of Egypt, China, or India yet families from all over the world makes trips to a relatively small area of Orange County, California to visit a modern day “Wonder of the World”.
Now there are those that would say that Florida, Paris and Tokyo should be considered and they are fine places, I am sure, but they are not “Ground Zero” of an idea that was so foreign to the thinking of most people in the 1950s and the fact that it is still one of the preeminent places to visit in America and the world. This alone should make us all take stock in what was on Walt’s mind back then.
Disneyland is not a place as much as it is an idea on a conscious plane that makes us focus in a different manner. When we are there, time stands still yet there is motion and excitement and memories that are made that follow our lives for the rest of our lives.
I remember Grad Night, June 15, 1967 at Disneyland as a time of seeing the park at night, all night, and being a part of something with other graduates that made a familial bond, if only for the night.
I have been there for the first times of my children and now grandchildren and the memories just keep piling up. My 60th birthday was special but made more special because Disneyland was “Ground Zero” for the celebration. I fully expect that there will be more memories made but if there were none more than I have a sufficient number to ruminate on for the rest of my time.
But back to Walt, what was he thinking?
With the sacrifice of World War II and the effect that it had on some many people; Walt wanted to build a place for Disney employees and their children and where peace reigned and the world outside took two steps back from everyone who entered there for just a little while. Where all the adults could be kids again and at the same time enjoy the childhood of their children and grandchildren. What a simple idea in a complicated world.
Disneyland is much larger and different than when Walt passed away in December 1966 but the essential reason for being has not changed…to “look like nothing else in the world” and did he ever succeed in that thought.

Women are the Answer

Women are the Answer

I saw an article the other day in a newspaper that showed an Iranian woman in her traditional clothing but with a look of determination and a quote by the picture, “We are not afraid”…and a cold chill ran down my back.
Oh, the poor mullahs and other power holders of Iran…what have you gotten yourself into and how are you going to deal with this one.
Everyone knows the old quote, “When momma ain’t happy…” well I am not sure that Iran is ready for a whole bunch of unhappy mommas. Change is on the horizon, Iran, and you better get ready for it.
For too long the women of Islam have been held in bondage from a religious viewpoint that treats them not much different than chattel. Now there are those that would say that the Christian-Judeau religions do the same thing and that might be true to a certain extent but I do believe that these two religious orders have allowed themselves to evolve into a more modern approach or at least it seems so.
But Islam, a long male dominated religion, has come to a point of realization that you cannot suppress an entire class forever before they will finally rise up to take their place.
The current unrest in Iran might be controlled at this time but the internal pressure for change will not be diminished but will only simmer until it shows itself again, and it will and it will be sooner than this time.
So western democracies and other forms of governments that have felt the lash of the Islamic jihad against them have spent untold years trying to find a way to co-exist or defeat this mentality and there is really only one…women.
Women of Iran and all Islamic countries unite and be heard for it is your time to throw off the bonds, the fetters of your past and become full citizens of the world at large.
The time for women’s liberation has come to this part of the world and if you want to see a change in the “New World Order” especially in the Middle East then insert a little womanly thought to whether their men should be out fighting or making a living and supporting their families.
And once they are allowed to work, drive cars, be seen in public, hold the hand of the man that they love in public, and hold office and effect their thoughts and principals on their country and the world at large then and only then will the world really be in a place to truly judge this area of the world.
What the west has failed to see over the years is that we did not need to support the mujahedin but rather the ones that bore their children and make their meals.
Now, that might sound sexist but rather it is a first step in getting this part of the world in societal balance with the rest of the world. We cannot achieve any type of peace if one part of the equation is left out and women in the Middle East have definitely been left out but I have a feeling that is going to change and change real soon.
So power to the People of Iran and POWER to the WOMEN of Iran to go and finally seize that which has been yours all along but kept from you.
Women have shown their capabilities to lead and I think maybe it is time for more women world leaders so we can see what direction they will lead us. It can’t be any worse than the direction that we are headed.

There's a Difference

Phil Jackson, the record setting coach of the Los Angeles Lakers was on the Tonight Show last week and made an interesting remark; it went something like this…that the unrest in Iran was made possible by the current approach by the administration that was elected last November.
What a funny and naïve comment, I thought.
First off, I realize that Mr. Jackson is a Buddhist and although I am not fully aware of their thought patterns regarding world issues I am sure that they have peaceful intentions but I had difficulty seeing the current administration’s ineffectiveness in getting the economy under control as being a bell weather ringing endorsement for their obvious lack of foreign diplomacy, especially in Iran today.
Hello, liberals and the rest of you Bush haters, people are dying in Iran today for what…FREEDOM…Freedom like we have in this country. They are not just marching but they are marching with the full knowledge that their pictures are being taken and that there is a good chance that goon squads will be visiting them and their families some night to exact a judgment on them that we would be horrified at knowing about. But what do I hear from the liberal side…that our President’s silence somehow has a Svengali mystic hold over the event and that our mute president and his administration is leading the way in assisting in any manner to the Iranians striving for freedom.
Listen, what is happening by our, “oops did I offend” foreign policy makers in Washington D.C. today is only adding to the problem, not assisting it.
Now I will be the first to say the Mullahs and the other leaders in Iran today don’t give a hoot about what is said but the man in the street trying to affect a change in government needs to hear the world at this time, that we see them and we support them in their efforts.
Now I have marveled for years how Coach Jackson sits on the bench when things are not going well for his team and he seldom seems upset and is the calmest coach I have seen in ages but that approach does not translate to foreign policy and the need for freedom fighter to “hear and feel” the support of our country at this time.
Sitting on our hands just to placate the Iranian government not only harms the protesters that are literally fighting for their lives but also emboldens the despots that have held power for the past 30 years. Remember these guys…the ones that assaulted our embassy, sovereign American territory back in the 70s and took hostages for 444 days. Remember???
American foreign policy needs to have words associated with action and this administration in their politically correct approach now has a problem in North Korea and Iran and is being seen in the world as a “Knock off” French government of appeasement.
Listen up, there are different views on this subject and I for one have no desire for an expanded war in the region but I do want expanded dialogue that let’s the Iranian people know that we know they are out there and we support their efforts in obtaining their freedom in whatever manner it eventually comes to them.
War is not always the answer but neither is the “Three monkey approach” to foreign diplomacy. I will leave it to the reader to fill in who fits the bill of these rather well know caricatures.
By the way, anybody see or hear from Joe Biden lately? What’s up with him?

Children at Play

Children at Play

It’s been years since I played with my trucks and Lincoln logs along the hedge line at the old house on Baylor street but watching my grandchildren play has brought back a lot of old memories and in a good way.

One of the most evident things is that toys were much simpler back then and today’s toys are engineering marvels not even thought about in my day. The other big difference is the reliance on electrics to inspire play but even with all that the kids still play with the cardboard box and the packing materials that come inside.

Now don’t get me wrong, children still play and to a great extent still play the same way that we did in the 50s but they are a smarter more in tune bunch than I think we were back then.

I can watch my grandchildren play and enjoy in their activity as much as if I were doing it myself but they each play in such different ways.

On a recent sleep over in Jordan’s room, Maddie, Abby and Jordan were sequestered behind closed door playing dolls with Jordan’s Barbie collection. The room was strewn with doll clothes and other parts of the Barbie Diamond Castle, horses and carriages and clothes, lots of clothes, and there were all the dolls, stark naked. It was determined through this ritual that Ken, the male Barbie doll, was to go to work sans clothes. Isn’t it interesting that when boys play with Barbie she is generally topless? Man, we didn’t have those options with trucks and Lincoln logs. But this sisterhood of the Naked Ken was a time so well enjoyed by all parties and as an adult I was amazed how kids that really didn’t know each other that well could interact on such a level with no fighting or arguing, sharing equally and all of them having a good time.

Now Noah is a different matter. He is noisy, rambunctious and generally calling out to someone for some type of information about something. Even his parents aren’t particularly good at interpretation on this two-year olds vocabulary but he is passionate about whatever he is speaking about. He is a little more eclectic on his toy choice as he goes from hither to yon and then back again, to the toy box retrieving toys just screaming for attention to be dropped on the floor and summarily dismissed. But there is no denying that he is full into playing with everything while he is at our house and that is ok with me and grandma.

And then there is Peyton who is just learning the freedom of the floor and the art of rolling everywhere to get where she wants. Seeing her struggle to get a toy on the floor where the other children are now lost to such effort makes me stop and see where we have all come from and where these children, God willing, will all someday go.

For as we grow we still play, as teens with that first love and the playful days of courtship and even into marriage the playfulness changes into a more intense set of rules into adulthood and the playfulness with our children that does not seem so playful to them at times to middle age with growing children and learning the art of being young again so that we do not repress their burgeoning spirits and allow them to continue their art of continuing playfulness with the people in their lives to old age and sitting in a chair and watching all of the essence of life being relived again in front of us in the play of our grandchildren and great grandchildren.

I am so thankful that I have had the opportunity to watch my children and grandchildren grow and I look forward to the future of more grandchildren and maybe even great grandkids some day but I do not want to lose this time.

My grandchildren make memories for me that are so vivid to me of their joy and anticipation and that gives me hope for the future and that is a good, very good thing to have in my life.

The ABC Debacle

Like President Obama doesn’t have enough stuff being the president now he has an actual television broadcasting network at his disposal…ABC.

The soon to be program from the White House on the healthcare issue is a direction so foreign to what we have seen in the past that it is frightening.

Why? Because Americans have seen the major news networks as an impartial observer to national and world events and they have needed that so that they can obtain facts and come to acceptable decisions on important manners. The news has always needed to have an arms-length attitude about any newsworthy subject in order to serve who they serve…the viewing public but ABC has crossed a line, in my opinion.

While it was uncomfortable to see Charlie Gibson almost wet his pants on TV the night that Barak Obama was elected president; it is even more uncomfortable to have the obvious cronyism displayed on national TV. Where is the arms-length distance for ABC to honestly assess the president’s healthcare initiative so it can be presented in a fair and “impartial” manner to the American public?

I, for one will not be watching it for several reasons:

• No allowance has been made by ABC to allow any dissenting voices or questions to be heard during this time.
• No ads espousing a different opinion will be allowed during the broadcast.
• Handpicked people will be allowed to attend the broadcast and all questions will be screened beforehand. (The president will have the answers on his teleprompter, I am sure).
  

I am boycotting ABC national news not only on the night of this broadcast but in the future. I will continue to watch the local ABC affiliate but as for Charlie Gibson and ABC; they have crossed a line with me that I cannot allow myself to step back over in the future. Too bad, because I really liked him and thought he did as good a job as anyone in trying to “report” the news and not make it.

Present Day Jitters

I was watching TV last night and President Obama was speaking about some newsworthy item when I noticed a very significant thing…his hair is already turning gray. How many days has he been in office (I, can hear some,” Too long” out there) but he is turning gray at a rate that looks faster than a speeding bullet.
Then I read that he is losing sleep over the deficit, eh yeah, when did that start bothering him?
So I started thinking that this “president” thing might be a whole lot harder than he thought it was going to be. Maybe the words, “We’re going to spend our way out of this recession” is starting to sink in on him now that the deficit is ballooning and the dollar is in the dumper. What he didn’t anticipate was that Russia, China and India and the other emerging economies were going to dump the dollar and go another direction on the world currency market. Oops, probably should have thought that one through before he saddle us with $1,000.000.000 (that’s one trillion) in new debt that will be paid for by our children and grandchildren.
Our nation’s massive debt is not only an international problem but also a great internal problem. As our borrowing power falls we have several choices and none of them are good. Two of them are to print more money that will cause inflation or raise Treasury note interest and further weaken our economy. And quite frankly, China isn’t supporting our debt anymore and there are no other takers on the world scene either that can sustain the capital influx that we will need to just service the debt. The threat of “hyper-inflation” is beginning to rear its ugly head. I will go into that topic in another blog because it is its own topic.
I will admit that past administrations (and not just the previous one) have failed to heed the,”Don’t spend more than you take in” ideology. I can hear the Clintonites saying, “But we had a surplus and Bush spent it all.” Get over it, the economy of the Clinton era is what is tanking at this very moment. He was just lucky that it didn’t happen on his watch.
I am beginning to wonder if President Obama’s 144 days in the Senate and whatever field work he did before that canvassing or whatever he did are going to be sufficient experience to get us through this.
But I am getting a sneaky suspicion that all his answers that were rapid fire on the campaign trail are not as functional now that they need to be implemented.
Our domestic state is at a critical mass and with the social emotional state being at the edge of panic but contained at this time; I see perilous days ahead of us if our government cannot reign in the current economic fluctuations.
Candidate Obama spoke of change and hope and all the good words that we want to hear but now we need to hear the words that make us feel like he can do the job that he was elected for and I am not hearing anything that smacks of confidence but more of a trial and error mentality. All the confidence of the campaign trail has evaporated into a “give me some more time to fix this” mantra. Time is running out Mr. President and the American people need answers now.

A Favorite Relative

A Favorite Relative

As we age we begin to look back at past benchmarks in our lives and we begin to understand the real effort that people put into us to make us who we are today. When we come from a disconnected childhood of foster homes and so many unremembered memories that wired us in a peculiar way; then we really begin to see the special people of our lives.
Now many of us would pick a grandmother or their mom (this was an easy choice for me…not to pick her) I wonder how many people would pick my most favorite relative.
Before I identify this person let me say first that my exclusion of any other relative in my life should not be seen as a slight but rather that their inclusion into my life added so much to the fabric of who I am today and I can only be thankful for the opportunity to have known so many loving and kind people in my life.
Now back to my candidate that I have chosen and what made this person so special to me. I wasn’t raised by this person but they taught me a lot in the years that I knew them, I was never schooled in any particular subject yet I learned so much about life and to a great extent how it works. So what were the great defining aspects of our relationship that made me choose this person; that they were kind to me, didn’t meddle in my affairs, always met me with open arms fully extended and then fully closed to accept me into them, spoke kindly to me and of me, and most of all made me feel loved, loved every time I was blessed to be able to spend some time with them. They never asked more from me than I was able to give (and I am sure that I could have given more) but they always appreciated my best efforts and made me feel valued in the process.
Now this is an exceptional person not only in my life but in the life of my family and even today years after her passing we speak loving and kind words about this person and we miss her with an intensity that is as profound as the day we lost her, my mother-in-law, Martha Elizabeth Beal Gammon.
What makes this sixth grade educated, farm girl from a rural area of Oklahoma so memorable to me is exactly what was stated above, her kind and easy manner in looking at life and how best to live life in the process.
By worldly standards, Martha was not blessed with many skills that the outside world holds dear but when you really began to know her then you began to understand that life is not that complicated and that life is meant to be lived one day at a time. If she taught me anything it was to take stock of who I am and to live my life one day at a time. Basically, it is to simplify myself not only to myself but also to those around me.
She mastered this because she was a simple person and she never gave cause to be seen as anything else but who she was. Yet, she wasn’t acting in this manner for any other effect but being Martha. I have never heard anyone say that she was anyone but who she projected to the family at large. The mastery of being able to be who we truly are and to be comfortable in our own skin is a true rarity in our society today.
Her love is family lore today. My children’s memories of her are as crisp and precise as to the moment of what was said or done that after so many years there had to be an almost mesmerizing state of being when they were with her. Her play time with them is legendary whether it was working a kid’s puzzle at a table or sitting on the floor playing a game.
That inherent quality of time and how you give it is a remarkable trait and so many people live their entire life and never grasps it true intent. But time and time again I saw it in her as a normal facet of her everyday life.
She also had a great gift of being gracious and being thankful for what she had and people felt at ease around her. When you went to her house in her later years, it was an oasis from the outside world; kids played, the older girls went shopping and the guys stayed home with Martha and watched sports. Now she didn’t care for sports but being in her house with her was enough for her to enjoy our company. We were noisy and hungry and everything a bad guest might normally be but Martha was never frazzled by it all.
In closing, I will probably never have the opportunity to know anyone like Martha again in my life but how blessed I am to have had the opportunity to know even one Martha.
So when times are rough and days go bad; I will endeavor to try to regain some of the Martha factor in my life and slow down, take a deep breath, and live one day at a time and I just have a feeling that she will be there smiling at me and that is enough for me.