RagsToRich(mond)

Remember When??

Mr. W. K. Kellogg's home on W. Van Buren in Battle Creek remained empty for decades after his death in the early ‘50s; and until the mid-1980s. My (then) wife and I actually thought about buying it....got a Realtor's tour...and noticed the ancient telephones still had "W.K's" name and other locations on them.  But both the house, and the neighborhood, were in rough shape by then.

The house was finally purchased by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and moved to its new downtown headquarters site, where the house is today.

Laura Davis, WKKF SVP., (in pix, waving, red jacket and hard hat), managed all aspects of the WKKF's $85 million construction and economic development project. I believe the WKKF moved into the new headquarters bldg in '91.  Laura still resides in Battle Creek. (Photo is from a postcard sent to Mrs. Davis, and taken/drawn by a local artist, who inserted Tony-The-Tiger, W. K. with his seeing-eye dog "Rinson,"  offspring of the famous TV and movie dog, "Rin Tin Tin.")

Sunday Morning Musings:

Vampires, Haiti, The BBC and The Great State of Mary Land 

Every night at 10 p.m., I turn on BBC World Service radio (over Michigan Public Radio/NPR), and fitfully listen to the BBC until NPR’s Morning Edition comes on at 5 a.m.  I read, drink black coffee, and catch 3 or 4 hours of sleep, usually in 60-minute increments throughout the night.

For example, this blog is being written at 4:05 a.m. on Sunday.  I’ve been up several hours, listening to the radio, and finishing the final pages of Wambaugh’s  THE GLITTER DOME, and Hawke’s SPEAK OF THE DEVIL.

Speaking of the devil, and other-worldly characters, yesterday morning on BBC, American Author (Interview With The Vampire) Ann Rice commented: “I used to be obsessed with sex.  Now, at my age, I’m obsessed with other things.”  (‘Me, too,’  I think.  ‘Well, sometimes still sex.’)

Rice says she’s now obsessed with writing a series of novels on The Life of Jesus.  Obsessed with The Catholic Faith.  The Church.  The Pontiff. (Many of us ‘50s Altar Boys lost that obsession when we figured out our Favorite Parish Priest was a Rest Stop Romeo.)

Rice used to be obsessed writing about sexually-obsessed Vampires.  Which sold her 100 million books.  And gave her the mula to be obsessed over The Church and The Pontiff.

On the other hand, the BBC…as are so many in Europe… is obsessed with hating America and Americans.  Brits have never gotten over the fact we used to be THEIR COLONY.    Or that we don’t, really, speak “proper”  E-N-G-L-I-S-H.

I don’t know about you, but I could puke or punch every time a Continentalist comments: “We LIKE Americans.   It’s just we don’t like AMERICA.”

I say to that: stick it in your ear, Vanessa Redgrave.

And quit pronouncing the state of Maryland (MAIR-uh-lund), as MARY   LAND. (As in Mary had a little lamb.)

At least the French are not conflicted about their hatred of us.  They haven’t liked an American since Benjamin Franklin.

Don’t get me wrong.  There’s lot to admire about France and Great Britain:  Big Ben, The Queen, Double Decker Busses, Oxford University, Pretty Gullymops, Charles Dickens,  Pretty Gullymops, Double Decker Busses, Big Ben,  BBC World Radio.

Take the BBC.  It has more correspondents worldwide than anyone; the only source (other than the NYT, perhaps) where you can find stories on interesting, obscure topics and places. 

So I ignore some of the BBC Anti-America backchannel. (If you’re an American, listening to The BBC Radio is like having sex with a beautiful babe who has bad breath. Some things are best tolerated.)

For the past 14 days, the BBC has been blasting America for is logistical foul-ups in Haiti.

The BBC’s puffed up, Always-Kings-English Correspondent Rupert Winfield Hays:  Bitch. Whine. Bitch. Whine.  America and Americans are either clogging the Haitian airport, or stealing bus loads of orphan babies out the back door to La Dominica.

This morning Winfield was on a new tack: blasting Florida because the Governor had the temerity to wonder how he’s supposed to pay for the hundreds of critically injured Haitians now being flown to that state, and now choking up all the hospitals’ Intensive Care Units. 

This, at a time when the State of Florida is an economic basket case.

Sorry, I can’t blame the Governor for asking who’s paying the bill. 

And, Whinny Winfield might cast his critical net closer to The English Channel.

The French have a gruesome, bloody colonial history in Haiti.  If anyone should be obsessed, guilt-written and bustin their Catholic humps in Haiti, it’s The French.

I haven’t heard about Sarkozy airlifting the wounded to the Champs Elysees, filling up The Tuileries with beds and Haitian injured.

Have you?

Maybe that’s tomorrow BBC Radio segment.

Obama on the Radio

At 8:45 last night, I heated a kettle for hot tea, turned the radio to NPR, and lights off in the living room.            

I’ve written speeches for people of influence and power for 39 years, and wanted to listen to President’s Obama “State of the Nation” speech without visual distractions and mental leakages from TV pundits and jabberwocks in the U.S. House Chamber.

President Obama’s 6,300-plus word, 70-minute speech was much too long.  It seemed the thinking of a tired, exhausted man.  Straining with rather shop worn alliterations and metaphors.  Stumbling and struggling with words from the teleprompters and even with himself, to stay positive, to remind us of the history and national qualities that have made America strong, virtuous and a beacon of freedom for two hundred years.

I sensed Obama, and perhaps many others (including myself) are less comfortable today with The Manifest Destiny theology/geopolitical attitude that has seen us overextend our reach and resources across the world in recent decades, while not taking care of our own people, needs and problems at home.

The speech was most troubling in content – as if his wordsmiths in the bowels of the Executive Office Building had simply “cut and pasted” paragraphs from The President’s last 24 speeches on jobs, the banks, stimulus program, and health care. 

And Obama seemed, on occasion, disingenuous.  Talking about “freezing Federal spending” for three years, but not touching entitlement programs and the military, which represent the bulk of the Federal budget.

At the end, I flipped off the radio a bit disheartened and sad. 

Sad for this young leader I’d voted for with such hope and expectation just a little over a year ago. 

Who has faced so much, and perhaps tried too much the past year.

And who now seems so buffeted, so uncertain, so malleable, caught in the mainsail of contemporary America politics.

 Maybe Just One Brewski

“You ever exposed to Agent Orange?” the VA Hospital interviewer asked Jack, as she absent-mindedly snapped the thin rubber POW bracelet on her right wrist, squinted, leaned over the computer screen as if near sighted  –  pecking out responses with two fingers. 

Jack had been at the VA Hospital in suburban Missouri for several weeks.  The Hospital a campus-like setting, shaded by large oak trees overhanging winding roads, with three- and four- story red brick buildings dating back to 1924, when the facility was one of the largest psychiatric hospitals in the military.

Some Hospital buildings were now shuttered, Jack noticed. But it was still an impressive, sprawling facility. Had its own police and fire stations, nine-hole golf course, steam heating plant, and a mile or more of connected, covered walkways between buildings.

A friend had dropped Jack off with his old nylon parachute bag of clothes, at the door of building 9, the inpatient drug addiction ward.

Several days before, Jack heard pebbles bouncing off of his apartment window.  He looked down to the parking lot to see a circle of family members, looking up at him, with long serious faces.  

They’d confronted him – an intervention exposing ugly aspects of a lifelong alcohol  “problem.”

Now, this Hospital intake interview was leaking into a third hour – weed whacking through sensitive parts of Jack’s childhood and family life in Topeka, Kansas, military service (back-to- back  9-month Tonkin Gulf deployments on the USS Coral Sea, a WWII era bird farm, with  A6As and F-4 Phantoms bombing the crap out of the Ho Chi Minh Trail night and day, pilots not returning, flight deck crews getting sucked into jet intakes, air-to ground missiles and Mark 4 two-thousand-pounders cooking off on the hanger and mess decks), followed by two tanked marriages, lost jobs, bankruptcy, addiction.  

She was rehashing “the whole enchilada.” 

He couldn’t get the drift of her Agent Orange question.

Jack nervously steepled his hands, sweat beading on his forehead: “Me? Agent Orange? I was on an aircraft carrier.  Not in-country Nam,” he told her, sitting on the edge of an old gray metal chair; the overheated windowless interview room no bigger than a broom closet, wondering where the conversation was headed.

The VA interviewer, well into her ‘70s, looked like everybody’s tiny Grandma.  Warm, sincere, nonjudgmental.  A slightly unkempt look, she patiently moved thin strands of gray hair out of her eyes, pausing every five minutes or so to take a sip from a white china mug, then, with a contented look of satisfaction, she’d redip a black and orange “Constant Comment” tea bag into the mug.

“Well, the stuff (Agent Orange) might have blown out (on the wind from Vietnam) to your ship,” she continued, glancing thoughtfully into Jack’s eyes as if skeptical about his sanity, giving him a reassuring wink. 

Jack smiled back weakly.  She was trying to be helpful, he realized.   

He felt cornered.  Contained.  And wanted to get the hell out of the room.  

Finally, the interview was over. 

Now sweating profusely, he put on his Wal-Mart reading glasses, and started down the solitary stairs to the Ward rec room.  The glasses distorted the distance between the stairs.  He slipped, stumbled, and slid down the 12, metal-tipped steps on his back, skin peeling like from a potato.

Suck it up.  Don’t say anything, Jack cautioned himself, plastering a pasty grin on his face, limping through the rec room door.

If the Ready Room was the center of life on an aircraft carrier, the Rec Room was the center of life on the Addiction Ward.  It was where you socialized, got the news and scuttlebutt, listened to lectures, watched films and TV.  And were subjected to war stories.

 Jack noticed a reversion to the military life lingo he’d hated in the ‘60s Navy.  The constant “F Word.”  Trash talk about pussy purchased in Olongapo and Sasebo bars, pseudo-war-time glory days that made Audie Murphy seem like a wimp.

   Vietnam was like Woodstock, he thought.  Every Baby-boomer claimed they’d been there.  Hero or hippie.  He’d tried both in the ‘60s, and been neither.

Most  VA patients seemed fellow Vietnam-era vets – late 50s to mid-60s, thinning hair, bulging waist lines, telltale red veins popping out from under eyes and on noses, taking tentative steps that would soon require walker or wheel chair.

Jack had heard addiction Ward applications soared during hard Midwest winters. For poor vets, the place was often the best, and only, option:  three-hots-and-a-cot, a bedtime snack in brown bag with cookies, orange and chocolate milk, big screen TV, Internet access, a cozy stay of 30 to 45 days. 

As long as you followed the program, stayed sober, dropped clean.

This was the second or third VA wintertime stay for many on the Ward, and they helped Jack find the pharmacy and barber shop, much like short-timer shipmates helped when he first went aboard the Coral Sea at NAS Alameda in ’68.

In other ways, it was like a vacation, a return to Mommy, or to the womb. Everything taken care of.   Good food. No cell phones.  No bill collectors.  No bitchy bosses, girl friends or wives.  No bars on the cells.

Daylight hours filled with lectures, AA 12-Step “recovery” meetings -- a routine broken by visits to the Hospital bowling alley, gym, library, canteen.

Jack noticed much chow line and rec. room talk was about VA disability benefits:  How to apply for Agent Orange or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) disability benefits if you’d served any where near Nam.   

How to make your case.   How to fill out the forms. 

How to react when “those VA bureaucrats” tried to catch you up on symptoms or experiences.

Many on the Ward were already drawing down VA payments. They wore disability benefits like combat ribbons, and some were willing to offer fact or fiction to The Man.

“Go for it. I did,” a guy named Ted said to Jack, as they watched the CNN news in the rec room.

Ted  served 4 months in Vietnam, got shot in the ass – ‘a one-way (plane) ticket back to CONUS,’ he admitted. 

Allegedly traumatized by the ass shot, Ted was near 60, and collecting VA disability checks.

Ted paused, then added his case was being reexamined:  “80 percent (disability) and I’ll get over two big ones ($2,000) a month.”

He’d be out of the VA Hospital in a few days, and eager to drive his antique Corvette, which Ted said displayed a “Vietnam Viet” Purple Heart license plate.  Lots of dreams and expectations -- for cross-country trips on his chromed-out, candy-colored 1600cc bike, and a lower golf score.

Jack wondered how Ted sat on his Harley during those long trips with that "combat wound."

When Ted left the Ward, Jack didn’t miss him, the talk about benefits, road trips or dreams.

He'd never much been into dreams, or big bikes.

And if he’d learned anything from 46 days at the VA, it was to live in the moment, to just have a bit of gratitude for sucking air and shaving face every morning.

Jack walked out of the VA Hospital, hoisted the faded parachute bag of clothes to his right shoulder, and took the #7 bus to downtown Kansas City.  And the Greyhound station.

It’s gonna be a long day, he rationalized.  Maybe I’ll stop for one just brewski.

 Maybe I won’t.

## 30 ##

Author’s Note: All characters, events and locations in this work are fictitious.  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

 “To Be or Not To Be”:

The Race to the Bottom

The Michigan Education Association (MEA) -- nee public school teachers’ union -- continues its track record of resisting change in the classroom and ignoring the fact that not only can’t Billy read, many Michigan teachers can’t read or write at the 12^th grade level, lack basic computation skills, and ought to be working in a car wash or Wally Mart, rather than collecting an average salary of $ 54,739 a year, for about 9 months work.  (Michigan ranks about 4th in teacher salaries, nationally; but 23rd in high school graduation rates.)

The MEA is urging its local affiliates to publicly resist and criticize the State of Michigan’s application for “federal stimulus funds” under the Obama Administration’s “Race To The Top” competitive grants program.  The feds are giving major grants to a limited number of states willing to address public school improvements in a comprehensive way.

Street talk sez Michigan has as much chance of getting one of the $100 million-plus federal grants, in round-one, as the City of Detroit has of hosting the  2020 summer Olympics.

But we can’t blame the MEA for everything wrong with public education in Michigan.

After months of feverish activity and grantwriting, Governor Jennifer Granholm and her minions at the Department of Education are reportedly printing up covers for their “Race To the Top” grant application to the Feds.  They’re calling Michigan’s application “BE THE CHANGE.”

No wonder we be not getting the federal dollars.

The Signing of The Cross

“Screw you!,” my Italian friend Tony yelled at me, during the middle of a b-ball pickup game, in the Veterans Hospital gym, Battle Creek, Michigan.

How crude and rude.

All I’d done was to gently mock Tony’s “Signing of The Cross,”  whereby  he traced the shape of the cross, motioning  right hand, temple to chest, left to right shoulder,  before shooting a free throw from the foul line. (Which he proceeded to miss.)

For decades in America – until perhaps the ‘70s – it was common to see high school, college, and even pro basketball  and football players do The Cross Thing, at the free throw line, before kickoff and extra point.

Having grown up Catholic, I couldn’t understand the Cross Thing and sports.  Seemed to me that God and Jesus had lots of more important things to worry about, and to support, than whether me, and the rest of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish grade school B- team, sank foul shots from the free throw line.

And later, I  wondered, too,   how Christ decided which team to root for…  like  when Notre Dame played Boston College; and there was always  such  a frantic amount of  Sign Crossing  by  both teams.

Not that The Cross Signing seems to do much good, at least on the athletic field. 

Even with all the  Cross Signing, and Touchdown Jesus looming over the end zone and the stadium, Notre Dame managed to lose 3 home football games this year and fired Charlie Weiss, a Mass-Every-Day-Kinda-Guy, if there ever was one.

But, personally, I have no problem with Signing the Cross before foul shots or points-after.  Whether you’re Catholic, Lutheran, Dutch Reformed or just hedging your spiritual bets.

As long as we leave the door open to wearing the niqab or burqa at tip-off.

Larry The Barber

I’d lost track of Larry Gregg.  He’d cut my hair at the downtown Hair Shed for nearly 25 years or so, whenever circumstances found me back in Battle Creek for awhile.  He also cut the hair of my two sons, from near toddler age to adulthood.

Larry was a lot of fun and good for a laugh.  He was irreverent, and  always had the latest downtown gossip and tidbits…..what businesses were on the brink, who was sleeping with whom at the companies and major NGOs downtown, what BCU was working on in Ft. Custer, who was odds on favorite in City Commission races.

He last cut my hair in August, 2009….the tab was $20 plus tip.  My salad days were drawing to a close, at that point.  So I started getting my haircut at a place off SW Capital that had a $8 special for old people and vets.

I ran into Larry and a friend of his in the Horrocks check out line one evening last Oct. 

Then, I opened the BC Shopper-NEWS last week…and found this little display ad notice.

Larry would have made a great CIA agent.

Pulling the Plug on China

So, Google may pack up and leave China, after finding out the Chinese have been cyber attacking the Google  Internet system.

Surprise.  Surprise.

More than Google might buy a ticket on the 14-hour Beijing/Newark shuttle out of China.

Americans could quit buying most things made in China.  No more $15 made-in-China dress shoes at WallyMart.  No more $300 big screens from Beijing.  No more silk shirts from Shenzhen. No more rip-off Gucci bags from Guangxi.

Imagine the U.S. Main Street response to such a boycott:  the tearing of hair, the screaming and moaning by liberals and conservatives alike; charges of punishing America’s poor while protecting Wall Street fat cats!

Now, before Internet or Facebook trolls start labeling me an isolationist, a racist, sexist, elitist and bigot, let me note I was married to a Chinese woman.  (A lovely, engaging woman.) 

I lived in China three years.  (Culturally, an awesome country.)  Traveled from Hong Kong to Dalian, lots of time in Shanghai and Beijing, and in remote rural areas, eating farm meals  of fish head soup and rice with Chinese peasant family members, sitting on dirt floors, around stone fireplaces, in huts with no windows and pigs in the bedrooms.

But most urban Chinese – especially those under 40 – have nothing but distain for the United States and Americans.  They see us as a gluttonous glob of overweight, self absorbed people.   Our kids don’t learn, our economy doesn’t work;  lazy round-eyes that scream “Gimmme Mine! ME! ME! ME!” about everything from food stamps to health care. 

Young Chinese consider America the trash bin of history.  And they’d love to help  close the lid.

So, maybe it’s time we take out our own trash in America. Have a housecleaning and a work bee; start on a new diet, get some backbone and kahoones.

I’d start by putting China and Chinese consumer products on my high calorie, junk food, take-out-the-trash  list. 

Right behind Wall Street. The banks.  Entitlement programs.  And War in Wackastan.

Think we could coax Dirty Harry out of retirement?

Payback Time.

A few weeks  ago, my car died.  A tiny, ’91 Geo Metro. Two-seater.  Convertible. 4 (yes, four) cylinders.  Stick shift.  With a bent front frame that made the front tires toe-in, and the lil’ sweetie drive like a drunken sailor.

I’d had the car for about 4 months; bought from A Comedy King who left me less than chuckling, with all the things wrong with the car. 

But that’s not what this blog is all about.

See,  I got this friend who’s in the used car business – a shrewed guy and businessman, with a big heart --  and, he travels to Lansing, Grand Rapids and Northern  Indiana several times a week for car auctions.

So I got a great deal from him on a ’99 Ford Crown Victoria.  Now this is not your everyday run-of-the-mill-used -ford. 

This car has balls to the wall: “POLICE INTERCEPTOR” reads the chrome on the trunk grillwork.  Heavy duty shocks, brakes, tires.  And a 4.6 fuel-injected V-8 under the hood.

It’s a “retired” light blue Michigan State Police Cruiser.  You know the kind --  black trim and, best of all, those HUGE front and back, extended bumpers – as righteous phallic symbols as a police 38 special or a stun gun.

So, I’ve gone from having NO road respect; to almost having too much.

Cars slow down behind me and give PLENTY of room.  Those in front suddenly start using their turn signals and stopping at yellow lights.

Maybe I should get a pair of those mirror-like  sunglasses.  And start practicin sayin things like: “Feeling lucky punk?  Now do ya?”

Gosh, It’s nice to suddenly have status.  And feel respected.  Isn’t it?  J

----------------

Author's Note:  For those of you who live in southwest Michigan, USofA....and are looking for a QUALITY used car at the RIGHT price...from a dealer you can TRUST, send me an email at: jmadisonrichmond@gmail.com.  And I'll share the name of my car dealer-friend.  You won't go wrong!

ObamaCan’t?

I ain’t ready to trash my Obama/Yes We Can buttons…. Yet.

But gotta say, like in a creepy Stephen King novel, the Obama buttons on my bedroom shelf are starting to whisper, in the dark, middle of night:  “Jimmie, Jimmie, Jimmie.  Did you make a mistake on Obama Can, you old, hippie man?”

I could probably stand this trash talk, but the buttons don’t leave it there:

“Jimmie, notice the big banks are back at their bad behavior?”

“Jimmie, the greedy CEO blokes, the Wall Street crooks, never got their chains shortened, now did they?”

“Trillion dollars in ‘stimulus’ dollars doubled our national debt, but where’re  the jobs, roads, bridges, energy, technology projects your Obamaman talks about. I don’t see ‘em on Main Street.”

“Did ya know 30 PERCENT of Americans, – 1 in 4 ALL kids— now on food stamps?  ‘Can Do’ Nation? Or  ‘Food Stamp’ Nation? Wadda say, Jimmie?”

“Why’s your Peacenik President pouring 30,000 U.S. troops, billions of bucks in Whackastan?

“Jimmie, do ya know Chinese now think we’re made of cream cheese???”

“Screw you, ObamaCan’ts. Need some sleep!!!!,” I scream out loud in the darkness, jumping out of bed, scooping up the Obama buttons… tossing them in the sock drawer.

I look down, see where the pins sticking out from back of the buttons, have stabbed two of my fingers.  Blood drops drip  on my nightshirt, speckling the off-white bedroom rug.

“Hee  hee.  Hee hee.  Hee hee,” I hear  from inside the now closed drawer.

Outside, on the front lawn, I hear a voice say: 'Come here, Cujo.  Nice boy.  Nice boy.  Suppertime."

A Christmas Story?

Grandpa watched year-old “Jackson” scoot across the dark wood, dusty floor, anxious to grab bright green and red lights off the Christmas tree, to climb the stairs – spurts of activity, a magnet drawn to things new, different.

Jackson’s nearby parents a security blanket, watchful eyes and hands scooping him up and away from hot lights, steep stairs, the unknown, unpredictable aspects of life.

Jackson seemed not to recognize the old man in the red sweater; not part of his circle of faces and voices.

He stared with set lips, unsmiling eyes at Grandpa’s funny face efforts, bursting out a single sob when the old man laughed, talked too loud.

“Is this kid intelligent beyond his years, or what?  Look at those eyes,” Grandpa said to his son, Joshua, Jackson’s 30-year old father.

Joshua said nothing; nodding a small acknowledgement, turning back to fast-thumb his Blackberry keyboard, checking emails, Facebook, and the day’s sport scores.

Grandpa took it in, thinking of links between ages and generations, between grandson and characters in a book he was reading…a biography of Charles Schulz, cartoonist and creator of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy, Schroeder and Pigpen.

Cartoon characters based on youngsters like Jackson?, he reflected. 

No, Charlie Brown and Lucy may have looked like small children, but were insecure and neurotic as most teenagers and adults, and why PEANUTS was the top cartoon strip for decades before Schulz’s death in 2000.

“My contract says when I die, Peanuts dies,” Schulz would say about his comic strip, which made him a billionaire.

An unhappy, lonely man, Schulz kept an emotional wall between himself and his children – thinking the barrier protected his creativity as a cartoonist. Charlie Brown and Snoopy on newspaper print were more important than family distractions. “I put all of me in my characters,” he’d tell anyone who asked.

Then Schulz grew old and fragile in the late ‘90s, with cancer, and strokes: He changed -- physically and emotionally clinging to family, tears welling up in his eyes and down his cheek, when they sought to leave, to be with their own children, in their own homes.

Grandpa drove home from the Christmas gathering, thinking Jackson was fortunate to have his  parents, who put arms around him, protected against hot lights and steep stairs;  thankful the little boy was no, not, Charlie Brown, or Linus, or  Schroeder.

Pulling into the driveway, he thought,   

We’re born in extreme weakness.

We die in extreme weakness.  

And, in between?

Admit your mistakes.

Live in the day.

Remember only people are important.

Try not to trip on the stairs.   Or fall on the ice.

Let Lucy keep the football.

F-Laws, Russell Ackoff, and 'Moving The Ball Down the Field'

I have a long time, good friend, Steve, who talks about 'moving the ball forward,' in life. He means he has a predisposition, a preference for action over inaction, for commission over omission.

A modest, quiet guy, he's nevertheless been very successful -- by almost any measurement one cares to use in life.

If like me, chances are you know more people who're not like Steve -- who'd rather work their mouths than work their brains, or their arms; and who'll criticize others'  work or action, while avoiding it themselves.

That may sound a bit harsh and negative. But modern society -- modern business -- does not generally reward risk takers.

Yet, people and organizations learn, change and grow by errors of commission -- by our efforts, and from our failures. 95 percent of what we know and retain, we have learned on the job or in life. Not in school or in a Harvard MBA program. (Typically, we retain only about 5 percent of what we read.)

We suffer, we fail, in life and in business by errors of omission. By fear.  By inactivity.  By doing nothing.  Or too little.

Russell Ackoff, world renowned guru in operational theory and research (who recently died), published his F-Laws, a laundry list of the crazy rules that make life, leadership and business failure/success often problematic and frustrating because of our aversion to action and risk taking in life and in our relationships.

For a reprint/audio copy of a BBC interview with Ackoff shortly before he died, go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0053d49...

Writer's Note:  I originaly published this last year at Thanksgiving time.  Are you a Moma's Boy, or Moma's Girl?  :-)

Moma's Boy

My mom died 6 years ago.

But, it could've been yesterday.

Because yesterday -- last night -- I came in from work and thought to myself: 'Think I'll call Mom."

Something I did almost every night into adulthood, even with my own family,  a busy career, and across the long distance phone lines.

Of course, I couldn't call her, yesterday. But it's like she isn't gone; it's like I could. And I have that sudden urge many evenings.

 I told my grownup son about having this random thought; and he gave me a  stare and said: "You OK, Dad?"

I may be 65, but I'll never forget my Mama. 

I'm still a Moma's Boy.

I remember my 4'11" Irish Immigrant Mom cooking the turkey in a bag overnight, the fresh cranberries, her special dressing and especially the pumpkin pies.

I like pumpkin pie the way The Cookie Bear loves .... cookies.

And, at Thanksgiving, Mom always made two large pumpkin pies PLUS a small one....just for me....just for Jimmy.

I'm still a Moma's Boy.

And I'm thankful for all she gave me....not just the small, special pumpkin pie each Thanksgiving.

Think I'll call her in my mind. 

"Can you hear me, Mom?"

NOTE:  This is the fourth in a series of articles about Battle Creek (Michigan, USA) area churches.    

‘Awestruck’ Evening at First Congregational Church

By Jim Richmond

“My God, I used to take care of his kids!,” Laurie Macon, a northside neighbor of long ago, said, giving me a hug before the simple dinner that preceded the “Awestruck Service” last night in the dramatic, embracing circle sanctuary at First Congregational (United Church of Christ) Church near downtown  Battle Creek.

I hadn’t intended to go to Church, but a friend, John Wright, called, wanting me to see his horses,  and then  go to Congregational  for the service (“Hey, it’s different. You’ll like it.”).

I’d never been in First Congregational – always thinking it was part of the big, stuffy, old line, conservative and all-white churches half ringing the northside of Battle Creek.

I was mistaken:  it is warm, engaging, inspiritational and (I don’t think the Lord would mind), fun.

Not too long ago, First Congregational added an expansive indoor meeting space, that’s more like eating in an open air courtyard – and that’s where we had a simple buffet dinner – quietly served and bussed by church members including, I noticed, a retired BC mayor and his wife,  and another couple who are both architects and historical preservation buffs.

“People from all over town go here on Wednesday nights.  If you like a contemporary service, and are inclusive, open minded -- this is a great place to be” my friend John commented, as we ate chicken, mash potatoes, gravy and cold slaw on paper plates, and as I gawked around at people in the Church courtyard, and the multi-story glass ceiling, which seemed to stretch into the night sky.

Rubber necking a bit, I see Donna and Jack Gray at another table, Marie Ptacin, Clare and Tom Ott, Nancy and Chris Schweitzer, Lauren Sackrider – and many other young and old time Battle Creek “suspects” – people known to quietly lead and support such efforts as Battle Creek’s Nursing Clinic (for the homeless), South Central Michigan Music Center, Habitat for Humanity,  Substance Abuse Council, Alano Club, the tutoring program at Ann J. Kellogg School, the Battle Creek Community Foundation, JONAH, and other civic projects. 

AT 6:30, we strolled into the adjoining, circular church sanctuary, open at its center, and which seats about 250 people in comfortable, stair-stepped concentric rings of pews.

The Wednesday night “Awestruck” Service was established by church members and Associate Pastor Leah Robberts-Mosser about 18 months ago, part of the Church’s evident journey to examine religious mission, membership and community outreach.

Wednesday night is different from Sunday morning service at First Congregational, which evidently has a more traditional liturgy and overall feel.

 ‘We wanted this (Wednesday) to be a special night when we eat, pray and worship together,” Associate Pastor Leah said.

Four teams of FCC members rotate in planning the Wednesday services, selecting the evening’s liturgy, reading, and music around a particular theme. 

Last night’s music was inspirational, lively and uplifting, featuring a small, enthusiastic choir (dressed very casually like everyone else in blue jeans, Dockers and sweaters, it seemed) and an unusual blend of live music, musicians and instruments.

Pastor Leah talked on Apostle Paul’s message to The Philippians.  There was an intimate breaking and sharing of bread and wine, by all, in the center of the sanctuary. 

And at the end, we all went down to the sanctuary’s center again, to link hands, sing, celebrate the Lord, and also wish Pastor Leah, her husband David, and family “Godspeed” as they relocate to another Church in Illinois.

A lot of my stereotypes about downtown churches got broken at First Congregational last night during its Awestruck Service.

Walking out of the sanctuary, I found myself humming the melody and the lyrics to one of the evening’s hymns:

“Close as tomorrow the sun shall appear.

Freedom is coming and healing is near.

And I shall be with you in laughter and pain

To stand in the wind and walk in the rain”.

Your (Un)Friendly Secretary of State Office

"You’ll  have to wait outside! We have to get to the machine! Our staff must get through!," the grumpy gal in gray sweater said to me, and about 6 others crammed into the 4x5 entranceway to the Secretary of State office on SW Capital at 8:45 am yesterday, all of us waiting to get a number and then get car title, license or plate.

We'd had a "cozy" little get-acquainted chat...bantering about giving each other Swine Flu, the Lions Loss, etc, until the gray sweater gal (turned out she was the SOS BRANCH MANAGER) pushed open the Door.

NO matter the self service "machine" she was sooo worried about had a big "out of service" sign on it.

No matter it was raining outside.

No matter HER employees had all been NICE to us when THEY came thru the same door earlier.

I told my new found compatriots: "Something in her wakeup must of been wrong.  She doesn't need take it out on us. We're the customers. We're the taxpayers. We're her boss."

Rapid bobbing of heads in agreement. 

Ah, I thought, we have the beginning of a modest taxpayer’s revolt here.

We rushed into get our number slips, and the solidarity slipped away. Every man, woman and child for themselves.  And ready, eager smiles of supplication for the gray sweater lady.

It’s how wars are lost.  And won.

Asher, Sullivan Are Real ‘Change Candidates”

Next Tuesday, a small number of City voters can make a huge difference in Battle Creek's future.

The recent City Commission's difficulty in dealing with financial cutbacks and future directions reflects how important it is for City voters to....vote.....
And in doing so, I urge my friends and associates to consider voting "yes" for Ward 3 candidate Laurie Sullivan, and Ward 4 candidate Chuck Asher.

 Photo: City Commission Candidate Laurie Sullivan (left) with Steve and Linda H. at their Elizabeth Street home.  (Photo by Jim Richmond)

Both are nonencumbents... challengers...part of the nonpartisan "Candidates for Change" that hope to bring fresh ideas and commitment as new City Commissioners.

Laurie -- as many of you know from her on Facebook -- has been an oustanding and outspoken civic and neighborhood leader on BC's north side for more than a decade.

She and her husband bought an empty house -- which had no heat or electricity...and turned it into a gemstone of a place, while Laurie worked with the BCPD to push the crack pushers and addicts out of the neighborhood ..and through her leadership and collaborative style and ability with other Northside residents brought new energy to code enforcement and historic preservation discussions on the Northside and downtown area.

She is a strong leader...who will devote the time and the brainpower to helping build a better Battle Creek.

Photo: Chuck Asher at one of his "50 Stops a Day, 50 Days," at a near southside residence.

Chuck Asher is a retired BC Fire Department Lt., who has knocked on "50 Doors (each of) 50 Days" talking with near-southside residents about City issues, their views and concerns.

Asher is committed to making public services like police, fire and street repairs real priorities.

Both of these people LISTEN as well as they TALK.

So, on Tuesday, if you're in Battle Creek’s Ward 3 or 4....hope you'll think SULLIVAN....ASHER.

Jackie Pieper Taught "Lessons" in Teaching and in Life

"Miss Pieper's Boys" are boys no longer.

And Jackie Pieper, 84, admits her own life is no longer what it was before Feb. 22, 2003, when she suffered a fall in her home.

It was an accident -- like those experienced by many elderly Americans -- that wiped out her independence. For her there was no more living in her own home, driving her car, shopping and coffee with retired colleagues and regular church attendance.

But, according to a friend, Pieper always has lived by the motto "Turn life's losses into life's gains." She has shared that philosophy -- and much more -- with dozens of "kids-heading-for-nowhere" that she taught in the Lakeview School District for 22 years.

And "Miss Pieper's Boys" have not forgotten the lesson, or their teacher.

Pieper was born in 1919, the only child of John and Nelle Pieper, both teachers in Urbana, Ill. Her father, a professor of agriculture at the University of Illinois, suffered a heart attack and died at age 53 in 1939. Jackie said it was from her mother, a country-school teacher, that she acquired her "zero tolerance for errors." "My mother used to say: 'There is no excuse for meaning well and doing badly.'"

Pieper never meant to be a teacher, in spite of her parents' strong career example.

She earned university degrees in speech and industrial design and for 12 years designed the exteriors of everything from washing machines and furniture to children's toys and outboard motors at a company in Chicago.

Pieper attended summer workshops on Mackinac Island of the Moral Rearmament Movement, and "I learned that God could guide you in life -- that I could go anywhere and do anything."

Pieper went back and got a master's degree in speech and language, became certified to teach and ended up applying for a teaching position in Battle Creek, "where I didn't know a soul, but knew that I belonged, and that I would spend my life teaching kids here."

For more than two decades, she was part of a small group of "migrant" teachers in the Lakeview School District.

"We went from school to school, working with kids who had language difficulties," she said.

Pieper never married but would end up with a huge "family."

Over the years, she also became what she called "a gap filler" for poor kids, often from broken homes, where there was a gap between government assistance and what the family needed to survive.

One of those families included Gary Nash, who described himself as "a kid heading for nowhere" when he met Jackie Pieper.

"With six children, our family was so poor all we ever ate was commodity food. My dad died when I was really young. And at age 8, I had a profound stuttering problem."

Pieper worked with Nash to overcome the stuttering, and he became one of "Miss Pieper's Boys" -- disadvantaged youngsters she ensured got dental care, new clothes for starting school in the fall and even Christmas presents to give to other family members.

She filled the basement of her house on South Moreland Drive with new clothing, purchased with her own money and donations from others, that she'd give to kids and their families.

Nash, now executive director of the YMCA in Escanaba, also remembers all the trips he and other "carloads of kids" would take with Pieper to basketball games, musical and theatrical productions, the zoo or a movie.

"What I didn't know then was that each of these trips was a 'teachable moment' for us kids, as far as Jackie was concerned. We'd go to a basketball game, and then over a nice dinner, Jackie would talk and question us about how the team never gave up and what might that mean for our own lives and futures."

Pieper also followed the life paths of her former students; was known to quietly help kids pay for their college tuition. She would even let some of them stay in the basement of her home while attending college classes to save money.

"I'm a weed puller, not a flower planter," she said, referring to helping kids and families with immediate needs. "I've always been interested more in righting today's wrongs than in starting up something new."

The past year, since her fall, has been a roller coaster of "in and out of hospitals, nursing homes, getting better, and then getting other health problems," Pieper said.

She now has a small, comfortable unit in the Heritage Assistance Living Center on Helmer Road.

"It was a shock for me, the prospect of having to sell my home and move in here," she said during a recent interview. "But the day I arrived, all the pictures, all the furniture, all the things I loved from my home had been brought here by my great and good friends. It was almost like going home again."

Today, whenever Jackie Pieper needs something, her many friends and now adult "Miss Pieper's Boys" are there for her. Little wonder why.

"She was just like an aunt or second mother to dozens of us kids," Nash said. "There was never a lot of 'gray' in Jackie Pieper's world. She taught and showed us that there's a lot you can and should do in life. And some things you shouldn't do. I've never met a more honest person, in each and every aspect of her life. She set standards for integrity, moral courage and selflessness."

Nash said he is "trying to pass along" these same values to his own four children.

And while Jackie Pieper might still consider herself a reformer, a "weed puller," it's obvious she's planted plenty of flowers during her lifetime.

Jim Richmond lives in Battle Creek, and is past vice president of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and president of the Battle Creek Community Foundation.  His column  first appeared in the Battle Creek Enquirer newspaper.

Some Shoplifting Stereotypes Don't Fit

The three young girls had stuffed the stolen blouses, slacks, caps and other items down their pants – right on the sales floor of the large, suburban, retail store, and then casually headed for the door.

They didn’t get far.

My friend, a long time “loss prevention” specialist for this and other retailers, was waiting for them at the door.

Nah, these kids weren’t shook being confronted by an adult for stealing. 

They denied it.  Sauntering across the parking lot.

“I chased them.  They weren’t going to get away.  And I called the cops,” my friend said.

The cops caught the kids.

“And I got my stuff back!,” she exclaimed, shortly after I watched her, and another store employee, with arms full of recaptured contraband, walk back across the parking lot to the store.

As we know from national stories about the rich and famous pinching penny items in Hollywood boutiques, stealing isn’t just for poor folk.

“I’ve see it all.  And I’ve seen them all,” she observed.  She’s pinched the powerful and the prideful – the retired chair of a regional government, sons of a police chief, a downtown Pooh-Bah with plenty of cash in his pocket.

Two cop cars were parked next to the store.  The three girls sat in the back seat of one.

“Don’t be quick to be critical of those girls,” my friend said. “A lot of these kids are from homes where there’s drugs, domestic violence.  And where there’s no money, when they need clothes.   For some, this (stealing) is the only way they can get a new outfit or a pair of shoes.”

So much for stereotyped  stealing.

Hear that Winona Ryder.

Driving A Cab In Battle Creek: 'I always watch their eyes'

Bright lights of the Yellow cab emerged out of the fog, on time, at 6:05 this morning.

It's been over a year since they found the cab driver's body, left stuffed in the trunk, in the Riverside School parking lot.

Lots have changed: Taxi cabs now have a bulletproof, sliding plastic barrier between themselves and passengers in the back seat. Rear door locks can be controlled by the driver.

But it's still dangerous work. For not much money.

"I rent this thing (cab) from the company. $80 a day plus gas. Anything over that I keep," he tells me.

"You can make $100 some times, if you want to work a 14-hour day."

Cold days are better than warm. Rain better than sunshine. "People don't like to stand out and freeze waiting for a bus," he tells me.

"First, Second and Third days of the month, everyone is busy. That's when people get their (SSI or SS) checks."

There are usually 8 to 10 'Yellow' cabs on call in BC, plus several other cab companies to call, if you don't mind the lingering smell of puke in the back seats.

I asked could he refuse a fare, if worried about getting stuffed in his trunk.

"Hey, if we fear for our life, we don't have to pick up nobody," he commented.

How do you decide?

"You get a sense for it after a while. Time of day. Where they want to go. Who'se with them. And I always, always watch their eyes."

Peeing In The Orange Juice Glass

Most of us have a family member, colleague or friend who ALWAYS has to have the credit and the  last word. 

On the work site, we learn to give the boss credit for successes and to assume blame for failures. And to let the boss take ownership for the best ideas. (They usually do, anyway!)

Graphic artists intentionally make minor design mistakes or omissions so a client will catch them and feel an important partner in the creative process. 

 I   worked as a journalist and writer for years – and then in management –  and tried to stay mindful of how good copy, a good idea, a good project or a good employee -- can be spoiled  by Alpha dog behavior of an enthusiastic supervisor.

   For example: writers of all sort  are a rather bilious lot, "full of envy, fear and self loathing" --  and  notoriously negative about ANY  blue edit marks, commonly referred to as "tweaks, " by  a book or copy editor.  

The old story goes like this:

 'A writer is left on a deserted island with his editor.  

The writer is starving.  

All that is left is a glass of orange juice.  

Days pass.

The writer is near death.  

He is about to drink the juice when the editor grabs the glass from his hand and pees into it.  

 The writer looks at him, stunned. 

 "There," the editor says, handing back the glass, "It just needed a little tweaking."  

I’m not sure how all this hangs together.

Maybe, simply that there's  a difference between tweaking and peeing in the glass -- in most of our relationships; whether on the job, with the wife, teenage daughter/son, or friend.

And sometimes the best advice is no advice.  And no tweaking.

Or, maybe I just need a good copy editor for this blogsite.

Donorcycles, Punkmobiles and Women Drivers

“How do you like riding that donorcycle?”  a friend said to me, with a smile and chuckle,  the other day.

It took me a while to get it: motorcycle or bicycle riding + frequent use= traffic accident, and opportunity to donate heart, lung, kidney or liver (or all of them).

After about two months of riding a bicycle to work at 5:30 a.m. and normal daylight hours, I have G-O-T the message.  You can watch the track, the traffic and your back, wear helmets and leather pants until the cows come home.

You’re still gonna get whacked on that two-wheeler.  It’s just a matter of time and distance, the law of gravity, and female driving habits.

A couple weeks ago, a guy I know and his new, young squeeze were on their Honda or Harley, stopped at the light on Columbia, in front of the Michigan State Police headquarters.  A woman in a car came up right behind and hit them…..the couple was thrown over the top of the cycle; they survived; the cycle did not. “I never saw them!  I never saw them!,” the woman driver exclaimed to onlookers and the State Police bluecoaters.

The basic problem is that two wheelers are invisible to everyone else on the road.

(ABOVE) Photo Caption: Don't do Evel on your motorcycle.

You are SMALL.  Vulnerable. 

Some motorists get a perverse thrill out of intimidating and scaring road runners and two-wheelers.  They drive up next to you in their punkmobiles, and yell “FUC* YOU!!!!!” in your ear, laughing as pee runs down your leg and into your tennis shoe.

Two-wheelers LEARN to WATCH drivers’ EYES.  You can tell whether the driver is paying attention to driving, the traffic, and sees you. 

Doesn’t matter if you’re peddling in one of those supposedly secure and safe, white striped “bicycle lanes.”  That white stripe could be yellow, because it runs right up your back, as you peddle along, and proclaims:  “Road Kill!! Hit me!”

The biggest threat to all of us on donorcycles:  WOMEN CAR DRIVERS.

They are not mean.  

They don't yell obscenities at you.  Women drivers  almost always grin abashedly, and mouth the words: “I’M SORRY,” after they’ve pushed the bicyclist off the road.  Or flying into a ditch.

Women are compulsive multi-taskers, when behind the wheel of a car.

She is bopping to Bon Jovi on the CD.  With her left hand, she is talking to her boyfriend on the cell phone, plucking eyebrows with tweezers in the mirror, taking a drag off a cigarette and balancing a hot cup of coffee.  With her right hand, she is applying lipstick and combing her hair.   Occasionally, she nudges the steering wheel with free elbow, to keep the car heading in generally the right direction.

So it ain’t no joke:  Stay off bicycles and motorcycles, unless you want to die young or have a death wish.

 As Edith Ann used to say on Laugh-In: “And that’s the truth.”

Author’s Note: This is the third in a series of “Church Visit” profiles to appear here, on the Battle Creek Enquirer newspaper blogsite under "Nite Moves," and on Facebook under my name. For last week’s visit to, and profile of, First Wes Church go to:  http://ragstorichmond.blogspirit.com/archive/2009/08/30/f...

A Small Church with a Big Heart

It’d be easy to miss First Christian Church.  It’s a small, nondescript building on B Drive North, immediately across the road from the eye-popping, traffic-rubber-necking-new Harper Creek High School complex, replete with its impressive football stadium, and its own Astroturf field.

Last Sunday morning, I attended First Christian’s service. And, no offense (or defense) intended, but I’d take First Christian any day over a Friday night football game.

The Church was built, with much of the physical labor provided by Church members, in 1968, according to Pastor/Dr. Kingery Clingenpeel.

Outside and in, the small Church building has that '60s look – neat as a pin, bright new upholstered pews, lovely stained glass windows, every inch of the building lovingly cared for, but with that blond wall paneling  popular 50 years ago. 

There are few if any pretentions at First Christian --- no flashing video screens, music bands, stirring solo songs, rolling in the aisles or rocking in the pews during the service – just a lovely pianist, enthusiastic singing,  strong sense of community,  a profoundly appropriate and well delivered sermon, and a welcome for each and all.

While the Church seats about 150, there were perhaps 50 members at the service. First Christian Church is part of the Disciples of Christ – proudly so, in a time when many churches are dropping  their denominational affiliations , partly as a way to attract more members – seems many  people prefer their religion  like their fast food, with or without anything, made to order.

Pastor Clingenpeel ‘s sermon was on the history of Labor Day in America -- all the generations who’ve come before us to shape this great country of ours, and how the themes of labor as joy, as fun, as fulfilling, can also be found and confirmed in The Bible and in the history of Christianity.

I've heard few better sermons.

Afterwards, we joined congregation members for a slice of banana sheet cake and cup of instant coffee in the small community room that adjoins the Church.

Looking for a friendly church?  One that welcomes everyone; and is proud of its beliefs?  Spend a Sunday morning at the 10:30 a.m. First Christian service.

And, say a prayer for those Harper Creek High School Beavers across the road.  They lost their football opener –big time -- on that new Astroturf field last Friday.  Chances are, they’re gonna  need all the prayers and help they can get against the Battle Creek  Central Bearcats this Friday night.

Author’s Note: This is second is a series of “Church Visit” profiles to appear here, on the Battle Creek Enquirer newspaper blogsite under "Nite Moves," and on Facebook under my name. 

For last week’s visit to, and profile of, Dexter Lake Church go to: http://ragstorichmond.blogspirit.com/archive/2009/08/23/c...

Next Sunday: First Christian Church.  On 8.13.09: Ft. Custer Chapel  (former military base chapel, now operated as a nondenominational church.).  8.20.09: Southwind Community Church (Lakeview). 8:30.09: Salvation Army (Battle Creek).  For later fall: Battle Creek's high roller, downtown churches.

‘First Wes’ Sunday Service a Pleasant Surprise

I was prepared to not particularly like First Wes Church today. Albeit a good friend is a Church member. My prior impressions of First Wes were as this huge, quasi mega, impersonal church (for Battle Creek’s size) more about growth than agape.

Turned out I was wrong.  On several  scores.

The Church's Senior Pastor spoke on “The Real Thing,” agape love vs. Eros or physical love.  I’d give him a grade of B on the sermon.  Sort of a laid back style, combining bits of Deback Chopra, Wayne Dyer and Tony Campolo. His sermon was reasoned; perhaps a bit too secular in tone and delivery:  “Real love is a choice, not a feeling. If we have real faith in the Lord, that faith leads to real love.  Real love is choosing to love those you’d rather not love.  Real love pulls us out of fear of life and others.”

He used PowerPoint slides, a giant screen with an amusing video with skits about how wearing your Christianity on your sleeve, chest or car bumper doesn’t mean you’re A Good Christian, or a very loving person.

More than the sermon, I was impressed with the music and the musicians:  Five or six musicians that sounded like 12.  Three great lead singers, solid instrumental accompaniment.  The contemporary religious songs were well chosen (love themes, like the sermon).  It would be hard for Pontius Pilate to sit at First Wes and not stand up, and get caught up in the Christian music.  And the music left me with a spiritual connectedness I didn’t particularly feel from the rest of the service.

One of the male vocalists is evidently head of Church music.  Good voice.  But, I kept hoping the female vocalist would sing solo again – a white Mavis Staples.  “Wow, is she good,” I leaned over and said to my friend and Church host.  “Yes, sings a lot of jazz, too” my friend commented.

At the end of his sermon, The Pastor, in what seemed like a somewhat awkward, halting statement about recent  Church growth and adding another pastor (they have 3 or 4 for various functions ... big church) showed a video of the new assistant minister – growing up in Battle Creek, swimming in a Lakeview H.S. meet, later with his motorcycle, and a solitary baby picture of his wife (I think.  Or was it his child?  Hard to tell from the video's audio track). 

The congregation didn’t seem to know whether to shout out  welcome and amen, or laugh, uncomfortably, at what they thought -- but were not sure -- was self depreciating humor in the video.  I hoped the New Guy would come up next to the Senior Pastor on stage and redeem himself.  He didn't.

I stopped at the Information Desk before the service and got a purple plastic bag with First Wes welcome items.  “You want a First Wes coffee mug or water bottle?” the friendly Welcome Desk volunteer asked me.  (I took the purple water bottle.)  Lots of good printed Church material in the bag. Turned out the volunteer was the sister of a mutual friend, I’d worked with, long ago in Battle Creek.

Resting for a minute in the atrium’s “First Wes” Café after the service, with lines of folks getting cappuccino, coffee and sweets, I glanced through the Sunday’s bulletin:  1,924 attended last week’s three services and donated $28,772.  Pretty impressive when there was no offertory or basket passing at the service, just the opportunity to leave an offering or tithe envelope at the door.

“We exist to reach the lost and broken in the region and to bring them into a fully devoted relationship with Christ,” is the proclaimed, printed mission of First Wes Church.  (Some may be lost and broken, but most of the Sunday congregation looked pretty well off and middle class to me.)

First Wes makes up for its size, by having active church missions and programs for youth, adults, men, women, singles, and almost any other subgroup possible within its congregation.

Overall, a nice, low key and mildly inspirational  Sunday morning of reflection. 

I like First Wes and will go back.  If they let me in the parking lot and the door. 

But then that's what agape is all about.

For more information on the Church and its many programs and services, go to: firstwes.org.

Church of the Nice and Easy

I went to the Dexter Lake Church today; that used to have this huge congregation, but is going thru some life changes; as we all do. The old minister left; the new one is young, long winded, and the congregation has shrunk and the remainder are a bit testy.  Something like, I guess, what's happened since Donnie Swaggart took over from Dad Jimmy.

It's one of those....well the word escapes me....churches where most everyone stands throughout the service, people say "Amen!" to ever 3rd word uttered by the preacher, and rock and sway back and forth like they've had a few too many... waving their arms in motion to the music and the minister's words.....their eyes gradually starting to roll back into the top of their heads ... where there's a giant stage, musical instruments like an iterant 70s rock band might have, and a HUGE rear screen that flashes pictures -- reminded me of Fillmore West in SF in 69, except I looked all around and couldn't see Bill Graham, Grace Slick, Big Brother and the Holding Company, County Joe, or Janis Joplin in the church audience.

The screen didn't changes images, but had something like: "Dexter Lake Church" -- Experience it. Believe it. (Or something like that, I hadn't brought a pencil or notepad with me.)

Now, that should have been more than a WARNING, since I am a borderline agnostic...questioning most everything......searching for faith, and thus Sunday church hopping. Right away, I thought "Nope, this ain't my cup of tea."

But I got a ride over with a friend.

I wanted to be nice.

Most of all, I didn't want to walk the 4 miles back to the Club.

So I sat and listened to the preacher...and tried first to concentrate on what he was yelling about ... something about a half full clay jar of olive oil, and then he went and actually got a clay jar off the stage, as a prop I guess, and he'd wave the jar in the air while he preached, and I kept hoping he wouldn't spill the olive oil. (Have you noticed how some preachers, especially the pentacostal type,  don't say "god" or God?" (It's GOOOOOOWAD).

          Anyway, he was starting to roll... breathing heavy....wiping sweat with a white hanky from forehead...starting that alternating rhythm of loud breathing and pauses.....that reminds one a bit of foreplay or a nasty Muddy Waters, Tina Turner rift ("We only do it nice...and easy") raising and lowering his cadence, ....theatre, passion, happiness....unquestioned belief and response from his flock.

I looked around and realized I was probably the only one not getting it...  and not getting into the spirit of the occasion.

So, I kept day dreaming....checking out the people in the other pews...rubber necking for good looking women to ogle a bit....

A couple rows up and to the right were five churchgoers together ...in profile.....two men...three women....and I think they were related. And they were all chewing gum (most of the people in the church seemed to be chewing gum). But these five were chewing gum in sync, like the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th violin chairs in the Battle Creek Symphony orchestra. Or The Beastie Boys. Or the Spice girls.

"How do they do that?," I wondered to myself.

After about 40 minutes of this, I excused myself from my friend, and went out to the car....and started reading the last chapters of THE ODESSA FILE.

Next Sunday I'll try a bit more mainstream church....

And I won't write about the experience here.

Or will I?

Lius Live Life of Hard Work, Family Values

by Jim Richmond

It’s been 36 years, since Tony Liu swam for six hours in shark infested waters of the Pacific Ocean, escaping the Communist China mainland and reaching freedom in Hong Kong, and eventually the United States.

Tony said he longed to live in America, learn English, open a Chinese restaurant, raise a family, and most of all, to become a U.S. citizen.  Goals he’s since achieved.

For most of those years, Tony and his vivacious wife, Lisa, (a native of Hong Kong) have owned and operated Chinese restaurants in Battle Creek, first in the downtown, and for the past 20 years on Columbia Avenue. 

Their “Tony’s Hong Kong Restaurant” is not the biggest Chinese restaurant in Battle Creek, but many area residents think it has among the best food, service and most authentic décor. 

“Our buffet is not the largest (in variety of offerings among  area restaurants), but our food is very high quality,” Tony commented one recent afternoon, sitting  at a table, during a lull in the restaurant’s business, talking about why his restaurant have been successful in an increasingly competitive local market.                             

Tony and Lisa Liu, with daughter Melissa. (Photo by Jim Richmond)

While he’s proud of the buffet, Tony encourages guests to consider ordering from the menu, which features a much larger variety of speciality dishes. 

He gives a tour of the spotlessly clean kitchen area of the restaurant, and the large sign that reminds him and  employees: “Quality Food.  Good Service.  Clean  Restaurant.”

Since arriving in Battle Creek 31 years ago, the Lius have devoted long hours, usually seven days a week to their business, while raising their family of four children, Roger, 27, Daniel, 25, Waiman, 19 and Melissa, 16. 

Roger and Daniel are both University of Michigan graduates; now computer engineers  for the Intel Corporation. Waiman attends the University; and Melissa is a junior at Lakeview High School and attends the Science and Math Center.

Tony and Lisa also have developed a personal and family philosophy over the years that can be summarized: ‘Work hard. Get an education. Take care of family. Appreciate what you have.’

Their children worked weekends, for no pay, at the family restaurant during high school and college days while they were living at home.  And daughter Melissa was working at the restaurant during the recent interview with her parents.

Melissa said she sometimes misses not going with friends to weekend parties or a football game, “But I learned to realize my parents are working hard for us. That they’ve sacrificed a lot for us, and for the family,” she said.  “It doesn’t hurt me to sacrifice a little (by working at the restaurant weekends).”

Tony’s Hong Kong Restaurant is located at 174 East Columbia Avenue in Battle Creek, Michigan, USA.

Life on Capital Avenue SW:

Laundry Guy, Hattie The Hooker, Gospel Mike, Julie Andrews, Jimmy Swaggart, Paul the Apostle, Black Beauty

Walking south, up Capital Avenue, he carries a large sack of dirty laundry in both hands, like a 50 pound sack of potatoes.  Sweat beads and drips from sun tanned face, he ignores the stares from car traffic in this tough, transitional neighborhood, located in Battle Creek, Michigan, near America’s economic “ground zero” disaster area.

Wiping forehead, Laundry Guy glances at the businesses, houses and apartments along Capital. 

Sheets of thick plywood cover most windows and doors of the vacant buildings, held in place by metal bolts.

It is only 5 p.m., but Hattie the Hooker, resplendent in blonde wig, and accompanied by her pimp, has already set up shop on the west side of the street, lounging on a stone wall.  Both are visibly tweaking – anxious about their next twinkie and hit from the glass crack pipe.

Hattie ignores Laundry Guy when he walks by. 

Hattie knows a loser when she sees one.

“Hey, PreacherMan,” Laundry Guy yells, recognizing  Gospel Mike (a Native American, Christian preacher) and his  teenage daughter, walking up ahead, who’ve stopped to talk with someone in a nearby truck. 

“Wait a minute,” Gospel Mike says back, “I want to talk to you!”

Gospel Mike -- the Cable TV Program Preacher Man known for beating his Indian drums between his Christian gums and pronouncements, taped for public Access TV each week in the basement of his run down house near Capital Avenue -- looks very much like a stereotyped Cigar Store Indian, down to the black pony tail and the animal teeth hanging from a necklace.

Gospel Mike talks about recently returning from Salzburg, Austria, where he visited with his Austrian wife’s family, and shows digital camera photos of himself playing a flute at a family picnic there – straight out of SOUND OF MUSIC, with the mountains and everything but Julie Andrews and her brood in the background.

Gospel Mike is obviously not your ordinary American “Redskin.” Nor your ordinary Preacherman.

“I try call old white Preacher friend of yours, but doesn’t return my call,” Gospel Mike tells Laundry Guy, referring to a shared conversation in Burger King recently, with a white Preacher who’s diverse avocations and pursuits amazingly encompass the missionary efforts of Paul the Apostle; the musical and religious theatre of a Jimmy Swaggart and the sometimes hard edged, bottom line attitude of a low income rental property owner.

White Preacher had dramatically, and with flourishes,  proposed Gospel Mike lead a special interdenominational service at White Preacher’s little church, the former chapel at the nearby Ft. Custer Military Base; a strangely appropriate  yet odd venue for an Indian-led religious service and séance south and east of The Little Big Horn, sans namesake General George Custer.

  While Old White Preacher insisted on holding hands and praying with Gospel Mike in the booth at Burger King, he’s allegedly not returned Mike's recent telephone calls.

A car honks and pulls next to the curb. “You want a ride to the Club?” Frank asks Laundry Guy, from a battered blue Chrysler minivan.

“No thanks, Frank,” Laundry Guy replies. “I’m going up the street to the laundromat.  Need to talk to this gentleman (Gospel Mike) a bit more before I do.”

Frank looks down the street at Hattie and her Tweaker Friend, at Gospel Mike, at Laundry Guy, at the dude in the nearby truck. ‘Was this a drug buy, a hooker hookup or just a neighborly conversation?’ one could almost hear Frank thinking, as he slowly pulls away, shaking his head.

Laundry Guy walks on up the street, and Gospel Mike yells, “Hey, you be sure to tell  old white Preacher friend to call me.  You be sure, you hear? I live down that street, and my cell phone (number) is on sign in front (yard).”

“Of course it is,” Laundry Guy says, “all of us put our cell phone number on a sign in our front yard.”

Five blocks up Capital Avenue, Laundry Guy arrives at the Laundromat. 

He puts clothes in a washer. 

A friendly female attendant, about 30 but with no front teeth, demonstrates how to save quarters by stuffing more clothes in smaller machines. 

During the conversation, Laundry Guy notices a big Black woman sitting nearby, waiting for her clothes to finish, listening and amused at the conversation.  Black Beauty gives him a warm, generous, open smile. As if to say: ‘Life’s a bitch today. But, hey, we all can help each other.’

He does his laundry, coincidentally reading Larry McMurtry’s DEAD MAN’s WALK, all about Gus and Call as young men, before they became heroes of LONESOME DOVE. And their fighting off sneaky, scalping Redskins named Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf and their savage, white-women-loving Comanche brethren.

Acting casual and absorbed in the book, Laundry Guy glances over at Black Beauty, as she sorts and folds large hampers of clothes.  She has a natural grace in motion.

Laundry guy thinks about friends saying big women are best partners and lovers; much better than skinny types with small butts, and big attitudes.

Black Beauty avoids eye contact, when Laundry Guy walks past several times, gets a Coke out of the vending machine; and later an overpriced, small, yellow bag of peanut M&Ms.

Clothes now dry; he folds them.  Looking over, he notices Black Beauty has more than a nice smile, she has deep, thoughtful, intelligent eyes; a lovely chin line and high cheek bones.

Laundry Guy takes the empty Coke can back to the counter.

“Don’t take this wrong,” he stops and says to Black Beauty, hesitating only several seconds, “but you have a beautiful, beautiful smile.” 

“Who me?”  Black Beauty responds, turning to see if white Laundry Guy’s talking to her or someone else.

Then she rotates forward, flashes that smile, and returns to sorting her laundry, as Laundry Guy walks out the door and down Capital Avenue.

Bottlecap Blues

In the 1950s, soft drinks came in glass bottles with strong, clawlike steel caps that had to be pried open and off.  And the pointed edges of the caps were sharp…sharp as nails, a razor blade.

A bottlecap was a strange weapon of torture…especially to use on a child.

But he did it.

“He” was a full Professor of History at the regional university in Kansas City.  The Professor, a normally meek, mild mannered, tiny, timid sort of a man with bow tie and thick glasses, lived next door for several years on Coleman Road.  With Shelly, his 4-year old daughter. (Twin brother Johnny and I were about 7 at the time.)

Shelly was as loud, outgoing and captivating as her pedantic pop was scholarly and nondescript.

While The Professor seemed very bright, he did not own or drive a car.

Many days, my Dad would take The Professor, and Shelly, to the grocery store, or the library or the doctor’s office, in our 1948 dark blue, four-door Plymouth.

Johnny rode one backseat, shotgun window.  I the other. 

In between would sit The Professor, and Shelly.

As regular as rain, or a sunset, The Professor would tightly hold one of Shelly’s hands whenever in the car.

 Shelly would jabber on.  Like a typical, somewhat hyperactive child. 

Until she would let out a muffled wimper, and contort her arms and torso as if undergoing electric shock treatment.

She struggled desperately to roll off the car seat, away from her father, and onto the floor.

Trying,  most of all, to pull hand from her father’s death grip.

Seems The Professor secretly carried a sharpened bottlecap, and he pressed the cap into the soft palmed flesh of his lovely daughter’s hand.

When she 'misbehaved.'

When my Dad found out, car rides for The Professor, were over.

“Mr. Mac”

By  Jim  Richmond

To some, he was known as “Teddy Mac,” to others, just “Teddy,” but at work, it was strictly “Mr. Mac.”

He was “Uncle Teddy,” (McNamara) to me.

The McNamara’s, a first and second generation Irish immigrant family, lived in the small, river bluff town of Atchison in northeast Kansas, moving there after a short, unhappy existence of digging and planting on the kin’s Begley family farm near Potter, Kansas.

Teddy was one of five brothers – Jimmy, Tommy, Bobby, Johnny – raised largely through teen years by their Irish widower of a father,  Thomas

and small, red-headed sister Mary, who had to “step up” at age 13, when wife and mother, Anna Begley McNamara, died after a five-year-long TB wasting.

Anna died in the upstairs bedroom of their small house on Parallel Avenue, the same day that husband, Thomas, lost his job with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad engine repair yard.

Following her mother’s death, Mary dropped out of high school for awhile to manage household chores, do the laundry, housekeeping and cooking for her father and unruly band of brothers.

The McNamara brothers were Irish to the core -- lovers of life, family, Catholic faith, and  “tip and taste of the brew.”

Mary said that -- except for soft hearted and especially considerate Tommy -- her brothers had a bit of the Irish devil in and about them. It was a challenge for the teenage girl to care for six men in the home.

Teddy McNamara was also loved by the young ladies in Atchison, Mary recalled, in a 1992 videotaped interview, when she was 77.

  “Oh, Teddy also kept Pop on his toes, trying to keep track of him,” Mary said with a laugh.

One Sunday morning, Teddy told his dad he was off to attend Catholic Mass.  Just an hour later, Pop McNamara ran into a neighbor while shopping in downtown Atchison.

“Good morning, Thomas,” the neighbor said. “Sure and enough, I just saw your Teddy watering the grass front of that tavern by the river.”

 To keep up with the ladies, and in order to afford decent clothes in his poor Irish family, young Teddy Mac also changed jobs frequently and acquired a talent for selling almost anything, to anyone, Mary recalled.

He had a short-lived job selling bedroom furniture.  Teddy was about to close a mattress sale with his own dad. “But he wanted Pop to pay full price and full commission,” Mary chuckled.  

Later in life, Teddy became somewhat of a business legend in Kansas City for his detailed knowledge, skills and toughness in purchasing fresh vegetables and frozen food items that were then, in turn, sold to area restaurants, hospitals and retail outlets by Pisciotta’s Frozen Foods and Vegetables, an Italian family business.

While the Italians owned and ran the business, with a fleet of trucks and warehouses, everyone called Teddy McNamara, “Mr. Mac,” out of respect for his buying and selling talents and contributions to the business’s success.

He was Pisciotta’s purchasing manager, and knew good bananas from bad like no other, and how to turn around and sell a train load of frozen French fries, hardly before the train had arrived in the Kansas City station.

It was said that no one could barter or buy like “Mr. Mac.”

I was about 17 when he got me an after-school job at Pisciotta’s.

I’d ride the bus from De La Salle Academy to the business’s location near the farmers’ market, in the “river bottoms” north of downtown Kansas City.

For a couple dollars an hour, I’d sort blue copy invoices, help the office staff, and any small errand “Mr. Mac” or “W.E.” Pisciotta (the family scion and business’ CEO) might have for me.

I valued the job, and learned by watching Uncle Teddy and the Italians.

And while Uncle Teddy and I were Irish, the Pisciottas treated us – like most of their employees – more like members of their extended Italian family.

Several times, W.E. gave me cash advances so I could buy a new refrigerator, or other big ticket item, for my mom on her birthdays – deducting $15 from my weekly paycheck to pay him and Pisciotta’s back.

Well before my own teenage years, all but Tommy of the McNamara brothers had moved from Atchison to Kansas City or elsewhere. (Mary met and married Charles E. Richmond in Atchison, and the couple relocated to Kansas City, where they raised their family.)

On many Saturdays, Teddy, Johnny and Bobby would show up at our house, getting out of one car en masse for an unscheduled visit, with a six pack of beer and heads full of blarney.

More often than not, Teddy would also have a crate of free Pisciotta groceries and vegetables for my Mom.

Mom always had a place at our Kansas City home, table and in her heart for her brothers.  And they, in turn, treated her with a quiet deference and solicitude that probably had something to do with the Atchison years and her help in raising them.

Living in Kansas City, Teddy and his nurse wife Delores raised three daughters, Gerri, Kathy and Jeannie. 

The girls roughly paralleled the ages of me, my twin brother John and older sister, Martha.  So we saw a lot of the Teddy McNamaras in Kansas City.

Gerri tells me she and her sisters thought we lived in “a mansion,” while I recall our place on Coleman Road as a nice, but modest three bedroom home. 

Memories of youth are in the eye of the beholder, because, in turn, I remember Uncle Teddy, Aunt Delores and their girls always had lots and lots of food, and bottled soft drinks when we visited their home.  (Bottled soft drinks were a rarity at our house, reserved for special occasions. Our three cousins seemed to have all they wanted, whenever they wanted it. Big time distinctions for kids in the early to mid 1950s!)

The McNamara brothers, and sister Mary, have long since died.  

Starting with Tommy, in Atchison, in his early 40s of a heart attack and with a young family, and ending with Mary, at 88, in 2003, they dropped like the individual petals from a bright green shamrock.

After Teddy’s funeral, we followed the casket and the long line of cars from Church to the Catholic cemetery and then to the gravesite.

It was a cold, blustery day. 

After the service, I turned with the crowd of mourners, heading back alone, I thought, to my car. 

Next to me, walking slowly up the cemetery road was W. E. Pisciotta – still the “boss” but much older, Italian good looks misshapen by age and illness.  He was breathing hard as we inched toward the cars together.

I felt honored for the moment with him, remembering from my youth his business skills, his family’s open heart to their employees, his personal generosity to me.

“Jimmy, your Uncle was somebody special,” W.E. said, simply.   

We walked on silently in the chill, and parted.

W.E. was a man of few words, great presence. His seven words that day imprinted on my mind, remaining for 40 years. 

He, too, did not live much longer, after our cemetery road meander.

And while Uncle Teddy, “Mr. Mac,” his Irish brothers and my mom are gone, they have left, in their places, several blossoming generations of McNamaras, plus extended relatives with melting pot names like Borkowski, Richmond, Van Meter, Dunwiddie, Jertson and Meyer. And many carry on the Irish traditions a bit, remembering their own versions of stories about Atchison, and the McNamara’s brothers and sister who came before them.

Teddy -- “Mr. Mac” -- will always be a special uncle:  An Irish Uncle with character, guts, humor, talent, and love of family.      

          He knew a lot about bananas and French fries.

He taught a lot more about selling, dealing with people of different backgrounds, races and cultures, and what it means to be a standup guy.

“Mr. Mac” left a legacy, and me with lots of great memories.

WWII ‘Old Salt’ Worries ‘Luck May Be Running Out’

Frank Price says he’s been lucky in war and in love, serving and surviving on the battleship USS South Dakota (BB-57) during World War II, when the ship suffered 42 hits during just one of its engagements with Japanese warships and fighter planes.

Price, 88, talks knowledgeably about the ship’s bloody WWII conflicts, battles with famous names like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Tinian and Truk. He served on the USS South Dakota for nearly five years, achieving the rank of Chief Warrant Officer.

But his real luck in life has less to do with making it through World War II, than meeting and marrying Margaret Marie (Lennon), his wife of 64 years, Price said.

The two grew up on neighboring farms near Bellevue, Michigan, but didn’t start dating until after Price returned from Navy service.

“I didn’t get serious with any girls before I got out of the (military) service,” he recalled.  “Because I didn’t know if I’d make it back home alive.”

He remembered Margaret. “I walked over to the Lennon family farm and asked her mom if I could ask Margaret out on a date,” Price recalled.  Six months later, they married.

Price returned to work at Post Foods, where he was employed 45 years. 

After raising seven children, Margaret then worked 20 years at the Battle Creek Federal Center.

Following retirement, the Prices relocated to Sarasota, Florida; but returned to Battle Creek to be closer to family and for medical reasons, he said.

About a year ago, they moved into the Care Community assisted living facility, located on General Avenue in the Ft. Custer area of Battle Creek. 

After a fall and a hospital stay, Margaret was transferred by her physician and family to a long term care facility.

Each morning, Frank gets a ride from Care Community to visit his wife for two or three hours.

“I’ve been lucky to have Margaret all these years.  But, maybe my luck’s running out.  I miss her so, so much,” he said.

n  30 –

n   

Photo Caption: Frank Price served as a Chief Warrant Officer for nearly five years aboard the USS South Dakota (BB 57), during some of the battleship’s most fearsome fights with the Japanese in World War II. (US Navy Photo).

A minister friend was recalling days as an iterant preacher and member of a musical quartet that travelled the upper Midwest, performing at tent revivals and churches.

It was the ‘50s, and the quartet relied on generosity of the faithful, including food and bed each night.

When lucky, they shared the family’s dinner table and fare.

The quartet knew each other too well, according to my friend.  All that singing, traveling and living together.

“We’d end up kicking each other under the dinner table,” he recalled.

One quartet member had his own Harold-Hill like pitch, asking food platters be passed for a second helping each night.

“That was mighty fine asparagus!!,” he’d say, complimenting (not Marian -the-Librarian but) the household missus, while trying to brush off gravy stains from the front of his shirt.

He'd beam a big, expansive, life affirming smile, and wait for what he hoped would be missus' reply.

“Oh, you think so?” missus would say, seeming surprised by the compliment. “Well, how about you havin’ a second helpin of that asparagus, then!”

A few minutes, the toothpicks passed. 

After dinner coffee served.

Before table could be cleared of dishes, the siren song repeated.

“Oh, yes. That's mighty fine peach cobbler. Mighty fine peach cobbler.”

“Don't say, you tell me?” missus would respond, proud as a 4-H winner at the County Fair. 

 “I got a nice second piece for you rite here.”

Two of my favorite places for walks, and just quiet bench time, are historic Oak Hill Cemetery, where everyone from Ellen White, C.W. Post, W. K. Kellogg to Junior Walker ("Junior Walker and The All Stars -- "Shotgun!" fame) are buried, and the relatively new Ft. Custer National Cemetery off Dickman Road in nearby Augusta, Michigan.

There is a German POW memorial and grave(s) site at the national cemetery. A line of German POW graves. German soldiers were prisoners at Ft. Custer in WWII from 1943 to 1946.  More than half of the 26 buried here, were killed on Oct. 31, 1945 when the truck they were riding in....to do farm work...was hit by a train.

Across the cemetery road are more U.S. military graves, and a single bench near the tree line, that provides a wonderful spot for thinking or reading, or saying a prayer of thanks to our US soliders buried here.

I stop at the bench often on my walks....but also slowly meander among the U.S. graves...mostly from WWI, Korea and Vietnam......quite a few of the Vietnam vets buried here are younger than me. (Perhaps, one day, I will join my Vietnam Vet brethern in this ground. Not an unpleasant thought.)

But I wonder about all of them....their military service in the various wars. Their families. Their lives.

Capt. Burley served as a nurse in one of the MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals) units, forward deployed during the Korean Conflict -- the same hospitals that the TV series and movie were based on.

There are so many told and untold stories in the two cemeteries.

But the national cemetery, and our US soldiers buried there, are special.

And, yes, "We Love You Mom."

 Actual MASH unit, unloading wounded US soliders, Korea, early 1950s.

Postcard to George                                      

Hi, George.

By now you and Laura are settled back in Texas.

Sorry I missed your spine-tingling speech the other day at the SW Michigan Economic Club – whooooohaaaaa!  Bet that was a perky group.  Understand it was only the second public speech you’ve made since departing the White House.  You wanted to be around friends, right? Not worry about protesters or placards.

Take your time to adjust.

Even for a guy with your gumba, it must be a change, a shock!

Hope you're sleeping in a bit late.

Giving Laura more hugs.

Back out there biking with Lance Armstrong in the mornings.

You deserve it!

Pretty rough eight years, right, pardner? Like fallin off a buckin Texas longhorn in the last 60 seconds of a two-minute ride.

Left you with a few bruises, we bet?

But then you left us in a pile of steer shit, too, if you'd pardon my language.

Decided what you're gonna do now?

Build that new presidential library to house papers about your eight years of Presidential "successes"?

Maybe your library can rewrite history. So there WERE weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So you tracked down Osama. So you tightened rathered than loosened regulatory rules on the Wall Street speculators. Reformed social security and national health care. Got us started down the free-from-foreign-oil road. 

While you wait for that library, just lean back, chill out,  mi amigo!

You could buy another baseball team. Join Rush on radio in the morning.

We could use you, Cowboy!!!! Bang, bang. Bang, bang. In my cold, dead hand..and all that.  Especially now that Charlton is pushing up daisies instead of fighting gladiators in The Coliseum.

Me? Gosh, buddy, I'm lost for words, M-I-S-S-I-N you so!

As I said, Amerika has been in a pile of deep do-do long before your departure. 

Same with our family, Mr. P.

Mary lost her job.  Has breast cancer; which has spread. We've spent all our money saved for retirement, so we could pay her hospital bills.

I'm on unemployment, too.

Can’t sell the house.  And the kids can't find work; except at McDonald's or Wal-Mart.

But, don't worry about us.

We'll get by.... Always do.

And like most folks in Amerika, we're trying hard to stay positive,  but to clean up after your eight-year Texas Chainsaw Massacre, know what I mean?

Maybe not.

You always said you didn't give a damn what people thought about you as President...that history would decide.

I think you're soooooo right. It's being written right now.

Say "hey," to Laura for us.

Kick that coon dog for me, hear? :-)

‘What Cha Doin After Breakfast, Bill?”

By Jim Richmond

“Eddy,” asks the question, like clockwork, as he helps the assisted living center staff.

And the same conversation goes on around the tables each morning.

And again at evening time: “What cha doin after dinner, Phil? Goin outside?”

At breakfast, about 60 seniors, most with noticeable physical and/or mental challenges, wait patiently for nurses to show, to distribute small containers of pills, following by cold cereal with milk, and then kitchen helpers roll in large metal warmers, containing tin trays, usually with scrambled eggs, sausage, a piece of toast, jelly, butter, and small glass of juice.

Almost everyone waits patiently, 3 or 4 residents to a table, for the food. For the food is the focus on the day -- three times a day for those in this assisted living facility.

“What cha doin after breakfast, Eddy? Goin outside?”

“What cha doin after breakfast, Sally? Goin outside?“

The litany is repeated, around the room, like Mary Ellen and John Boy, saying good night to the whole family on TV’s The Waltons.

The residents have a fairly wide range of daily activities to chose from; considering the facility serves many very poor seniors; and those with emotional and physical problems that would bar their admission or acceptance elsewhere.

You learn a lot…and are reminded a lot by living in an assisted living facility. About caring. About weaknesses. About emotional strength and friendship in the face of aged bodies, missing legs from diabetes, missing brain power from onset and end stage dementia.

The assisted living residents and staff are much like family. A close family. Usually cheerful, upbeat, encouraging, and good listeners. Occasionally loud, unhappy, jealous.

The late day sun shines in the first floor dining hall tonight….as residents eat hamburgers with tomatoes, onions, mustard and ketchup, plus macaroni salad, and a single delicious cookie.

I walk back through the tables toward my room. And notice this lovely, at one time elegant, elderly lady with red hair. That same morning she had sat with her small table group of resident friends across the way; smiling, engaged, animated. Very much in the here and now.

She sits at the dinner table for at least 40 minutes, now, her head half bent forward, eyes with a blank stare, at the untouched plate of food before her. Not a movement of her eyes, her head deathly still. Not a flicker.

***‘What has caused such a change?,’ I think.

I sit in my room, now, when suddenly a man in a wheel chair stops at my door, and blurts out: “The social workers won't let my wife come back here (the assisted living center).  But this is like home for us.”

“Where is she now?,” I ask. He names a local nursing home.

He is visibly upset. “They say she needs 24-hour care. And that it can’t be provided here. But I know they’re wrong! It's all about that other place keeping more of our money!”

“We’ve been married 64 years. I miss her so,” he says, trying to wring a heavy wood cane in his hands like a wet dishrag, turns wheelchair around, heading out of my room.

“Oh, well,” he adds with a deep sigh.

In the distance, I hear the faint sounds of the auto organ in the recreation room. The organ is playing "Red River Valley":

 From this valley they say you are going
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile
For they say you are taking the sunshine
That has brightened our path for a while

Come and sit by my side if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
But remember the Red River Valley
And the cowboy who loved you so true

Won't you think of the valley you're leaving
Oh how lonely, how sad it will be?
Oh think of the fond heart you're breaking
And the grief you are causing to me

As you go to your home by the ocean
May you never forget those sweet hours
That we spent in the Red River Valley
And the love we exchanged mid the flowers

I say to myself and to no one “What cha gonna do after breakfast tomorrow, Jim?  Try to help another old man, get his wife back home?"

-----

***  I see her late this evening.  Sitting alone in the dining room.  A pink plastic "throw up" bowl in her lap.  She tells me she was in the hospital two days earlier in the week.  I notice purple bruises on her arm from the intervenious feeds for medication. "I was just VERY sick at dinner time tonight.  I feel better now," she says.  I comment: "You are always so bright, cheerful and elegant."

"Oh, you think so?," she smiles and says.

"I'm his live-in girlfriend! You little prick!!"

The Felpausch grocery store on Columbia Avenue was like a Strasberg acting class yesterday – but the ‘student’ performing got an ‘F” grade from her audience.

The checkout lines were long.  So we all had time for the show. Right behind me is a woman, chatting away on her "two-way" cell.

"That son of a bitch came to my door last night," she two-ways to someone. "I told him:'I gave up that crack candy FOUR weeks ago!  And my old man is upstairs, and he'll come down and beat your ass!'"

I listen and linger to watch her, and a kid who looked about 3, with filthy clothes, try to pay for their groceries with a check.  And then have a problem.

“I’m his live-in girlfriend!,” she screams at this young male clerk, staffing the customer service/blooze/cigarette/lottery desk in front of checkout lines.

Thirty or so of us in four lines are all eyes and ears.

Young clerk goes on autopilot.  He pastes a half smile on his face, his eyes go blank, as he repeatedly lifts up a microphone and pleads: “Manager to customer service.  Manager to customer service, please."

Having my four items checked, and being a nosey old man, I walk over and stand in line behind lady in shorts; like I’m waiting to buy a carton of KOOLS or a fifth of STOLI.  I wanna hear it all.

“We can’t cash the check, ma’m.  You signed it but your name isn't on the account,” clerkboy repeats, batting the virtual ball back and for to the woman’s side of the net.

But she has a vicious serve, a relentless backhand, and a trash mouth.

“I signed that fu*ckin thing, because I’M HIS LIVE-IN GIRLFRIEND! SOOOO, you’d rather just lose a good customer?  You, you........ little PRICK!”

She repeats her mantra, in a loud voice, as  “manager” finally shows up. 

And when their brief conversation is over, she follows manager to the back of the store, a pit bull waiting to take a bite out of his ass or ankles, at first misstep.

Walking to the parking lot, I thought  how times have changed.

It used to be if you were someone’s ‘live-in girlfriend,’ you didn’t publicize the fact. 

To say nothing about signing the guy’s personal checks, because you happened to be pulling his chain,  after midnight.

And to think a lot of this crazy stuff started with Lee Marvin and palimony.

I'd better go take my spoonful of Geritol.

The Wrong Side of 31^st Street

We lived on the "right side," of 31st Street. And didn't cross 31^st Street very often.

The Street runs east to west, in the '50s dividing two distinct neighborhoods and urban Kansas City,  like a long, ragged scar.

Our address was 3140 Coleman Road, south of 31^st..

Oak tree boulevards and streets of handsome middle class, stone homes....Redemptorist Parish.

Below 31^st, , small wood framed houses crammed on small lots with Hispanics and poor whites.

The two parish teams competed in basketball; but rarely went  into the other’s church, school or  neighborhood, unless invited.

Much, I can’t remember from the early '50s.   Good thing my twin brother recalls everything:

* Obscure kids who lived and went to school with us for a couple years. 

* Particulars about the hot girls in junior high.

"Tell him Linda Cole is on the phone,"  I hear my Bro' say to his secretary with a laugh,  calling to chat before the Christmas holidays.

* Details on the two distinct routes we traveled to and from School each day. 

One we labeled "The Campbell Soup Trail," and the other, "The Rainbow Trail." Neither was a trail...but a 1.3 mile walk  through urban streets..... We covered the "trails" up to 4 times a day.... to serve Mass at 6 a.m…..to School …..home for lunch ….and home at night. 

Always tussling, pushing, shadow boxing with each other ... exploring alleyways and trash bins..... Stopping along Southwest Trafficway at  Stack’s Drugs for a cherry Coke...the Candy Store for jugeabees...or to knock on the glass and startle Red the Barber, asleep in his chair.

A large hill, rock quarry and dump separated the two neighborhoods.  

We'd roam the quarry and woods;  a bit uneasy over who or what we'd find.

* Lots of summer afternoons spent in the rock quarry  ….tadpoles….. exploring the holes and caves, where dynamite had been used for mining….not so long ago.

It was inner city, but not inner city.  Urban life but not urban life.

And…in the quarry…. the two came together unpredictably and sometimes dangerously.

There would be the sudden appearance of kids from ‘the other side,” wild deer and rabbits, old men looking for empty bottles or the chance to bluff kids out of their Ice Cream Truck  money....

and  then the hot afternoon, when we were twelve or so….

A group of kids, stumbling over the body of Sister J.B.'s (our Catholic Grade School principal) old Irish immigrant father. Who had suffered from dementia, lost his way, fallen and died in the quarry.  

Large black flies swirled around his head, maggots crawled from his distended mouth.

After that, I thought Sister J.B. looked at us with an edge and different attitude, in 7th grade class.  Did we remind her of her father and what happened? 

Or, more likely, something else, like our poor grades. :-)

Sister is gone, of course.

But some days -- while thousands of miles and light years  away from 3140 Coleman Road -- I have a hard time leaving the neighborhood.

At least in my mind.

-----

For a very different slant on these years, read my blog, "Growing Up Catholic" at

http://ragstorichmond.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/04/04/g...

BATTLE CREEK, Michigan. -- Thank you, Mr. Kellogg, for your foresight in establishing your charitable foundation with much of your personal wealth 76 years ago.  So, so many good things have been accomplished worldwide because you cared -- and cared especially about Battle Creek.

We read with thankfulness about the continued, quite remarkable record of recent Foundation grantmaking, coverered in yesterday's Battle Creek Enquirer.  And while its portfolio is diversifed today, God Bless Kellogg Company's values, drive and creativity ---all your own personal qualities -- which have sustained and grown the Company and its stock value, and thus much of the Foundation's work. 

Mr. Kellogg, I  suspect -- if you were alive today -- you'd have a few questions about the Foundation that bears your name.

The Good Lord knows it’s a REAL struggle dealing wholistically  with social problems in any community.  So messy.  So unpredictable.  Involving so many people who'se ideas and lives don't match each other.

In its new printed annual report, The Kellogg Foundation announces its focusing future grantmaking around an exclusive  effort to address problems of “vulnerable children” – in select areas worldwide – through hundreds of millions of grant money each year. 

There are lots of “vulnerable children” in Calhoun County – they are poor, they are black, they are white, they come from broken homes where alcoholic parents beat their spouses, have forced sex with their 10-year old daughters, where there are single parents with no jobs and no futures.  Where teenage pregnancy is rampant.

At the risk of you going 'thumbs down' on the next grant application, would it be alright to suggest, after reading your annual report, that the Kellogg Foundation might take a look at its own grantmaking in Battle Creek?

So many good projects -- over those decades: Kellogg Auditorium, Kellogg Arena, Kellogg Community College programs and facilities, The Linear Park, Binder Park Zoo, Math and Science Center. North Pointe Woods,  The Rink, Alano Club facility and services, "Yes, We Can"  initiative, Battle Creek Health System, downtown revitalization, Urban League programs, Neighborhoods, Inc.

But with your "new" focus on vulnerable children, perhaps it would be helpful to "turn the clock back" in terms of both Foundation programming and geographic focus.

 Nearly 70 years ago, Mr. Kellogg and his new foundation funded the "Michigan Community Health Project," a comprehensive effort to bring together citizens, educators, doctors and physicians TO WORK together -- at the community level -- to change the lives and health of children......all children, in select Michigan towns.

Not too a bad place to "start again" with vulnerable children, do you think? Getting the community involved in helping to shape and deliver Foundation strategies and services that relate to children.

Perhaps that is being done today.

And lastly, several observation about the Kellogg Foundation today:

• Mr. Kellogg would probably be surprised at how few of The Foundations's senior staff actually LIVE in Battle Creek. From cross referencing an old staff listing over “Google,” it appeared several years ago that about 65 percent or so of Foundation program and executive  staff live(d) not in Battle Creek – but in Chicago, Washington, Ann Arbor, Aida, San Francisco, Atlanta, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Portage, Mexico City, South Africa, etc.   The Kalamazoo airport probably loves these folks. 
• Mr. Kellogg might wonder why only one of his Foundation’s current Board Members lives in Battle Creek.   
• And why so few of the Kellogg Foundation employees seem visibly engaged in volunteer leadership positions with Battle Creek organizations. 

All of this seems different from the philosophy, commitment and actions of prior Kellogg Foundation leaders. When there was an expectation and a commitment that Foundation staff give back personal and job-release time to the community – this community that Mr. Kellogg loved. 

Life moves on.  People and organizations change.  So do needs.

But, I suspect the Foundation might be a bit different today…if Mr. Kellogg was alive….and actually sitting at his old desk…..now just on historic display in the Foundation lobby.

"I want mine."

Looks like President Obama's 'economic salvation' package of some $800 billion and change is going to be approved by both House and Senate.

Not long after Bush and his Band of Brothers dropped $750 billion on the banks without telling them: 1) they had to use it to make l-o-a-n-s; and 2) no, it would not be allright to use the federal dollars for the banks' "performance" bonuses to top management.

But, most of us are already lining up to get our piece of the new pie.

The government has announced new restrictions on direct lobbying for the money. That won't work. For long.

Congressman Mark Schauer is surely getting a deluge of project ideas; and his phone ringing off the wall or desk.

After all, if we're gonna give out cash like drunken sailors payin their bar bill, why not some for me?

Why Benton Harbor and not Battle Creek?

Be fair. Be square.

Gimmme mine.

We got ourselves into this financial mess over the past 20 or so years. It was all of us; and none of us. Banks. Wall Street. Real Estate people.  Consumers. All of us living beyond our means or with no means....and thinking the piper would never call.

And while it's not a popular view, or grounded in the reality of the moment, the 'economic salvation' or bailout is a terrible idea...at least as I read and try to understand the problem.

The real problem is no one understands the financial problem, or has much of an idea about a solution.

If you know anything about 12-step recovery programs (yes, dopers and druggers), one of the first steps toward sustained recovery is taking personal inventory and responsibility for one's actions.

I've come to believe in that...the hard way.

What we need not do is spend more money we don't have; lets suck it in and suck it up, individually and collectively, and reorient, recreate our lives and reorder our civic priorities in the United States.

About as much chance as me fitting in my '68 Navy uniform again.

My concern is not so much a personal one. I'll probably get by; eat at least a meal or 2 a day; likely have a roof over my head somewhere and somehow until I die.

But I worry about our children and grandchildren....and the baggage and the nation we leave for them.

It's all about money; and nothing about money.

Scarey as h*ll for most of us. Isn't it?

Here's an interesting perspective: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/01/12/making-...