When I was sitting out on the Cumberland (actually on the walking bridge there in Nashville, nice bridge) I was thinking of one of my forefathers who had been born in Murfreesboro TN in Dec of 1832. This fellow named Beaty was of Scotch Irish descent, so I guess I have descended from a line of usurpers because that suggests Orange blood but the line left Ulster behind and is known to have entered at a place called Wilmington North Carolina. This is the first Beaty I know of so I don’t know what colors they wore in the wars with Britain but family tradition assures me we were on the right side. I was wonderin on the Cumberland about this because this ancestor was known for exploits in the War for States Rights (I want to start making a shirt with a confederate war flag and the words If You Don’t Love it Leave It, I don’t know why I find that funny but I do!). I don’t know if he was a non combatant at the time that the Stones River Battle swept through his front yard but his knowledge of the area made him an ideal candidate for spy duty which he attached a significant amount of honor to, scouting the countryside and crossing lines (occasionally in drag apparently) to map those union troop movements. After the war he took a boat up the Cumberland out of Nashville with his wife and settled into Bowling Green, KY where my Great Grandfather was born in 1867. This boy who became Papa Bea learned the Barber/Jewelry business in Kansas City and established himself in those trades in Capitol Hill OK on the Canadian river sometime after the opening of that land to white settlement. His father had migrated to Poteau OK where he died in 1910. Other than that recent German immigrant strain that entered my blood, this was the most Northern branch of my family at the time of the Civil Disagreement. I wondered about this as I looked at the Nashville Quay where my ancestor, following the capitulation, left looking for a new life. I know even more about some of the more southern strains of my family and even heard rumors of a will and testament listing humans as assets. I don’t know what all this means or why I am writing it down and putting it here. I don’t know what my ancestors had in their hearts when they lived in and perpetuated a society based on human bondage and I don’t know if generations expurgate the guilt and I don’t know how to make people who hate out of fear reflect on any of this stuff.

Sorry I wandered off into my mind a bit. I am still thinking on this age of Confused Man thing. I think of the ways we (my fusion group here) conned ourselves into believing that the import and ownership of human spirit in the form of African Man (and woman and babies) was acceptable behavior. Now I realize that at the time these people were initially imported, there was little need of rationalization outside of a morality and ethical consideration based on religious conviction of relatively few profit driven men and I believe history is full of times when a moral and ethical assessment and justification of action was delayed until a more appropriate time or until the need just disappeared into the vapor of history. Those pioneers in slavery just needed a little bit to cling to and the fact that slavery is mentioned at all in the Bible was probably good enough to ease any lingering conscience they may have felt. Of course, arguing the great debate on religious terms would never effectively accomplish anything and a good scientific explanation was needed, that’s the ticket as they say, and in reality there were two fundamental scientific justifications which both had really been the drivers to initiate the system to begin with they just needed formal justification, it took time, effort and brain power to add a shiny new formalism to it all. The first, the primary one, the one with the greatest appeal to the masses, the foundation of the great con, and the one that lingers from rural areas in the south to the urban ghettos of the north to this very day, the one most easily cracked by logic but most difficult to destroy by emotion is “they are an inferior race that don’t disserve full partnership in our fusion reality.” The other is a less fundamental more abstract concept in the evolution of the human mind, and as such it is less susceptible to basal moral logic in fact it is detached from moral and ethical judgment because it described an abstract economic equilibrium that has evolved relatively recently (I presume) with the advent of civilization, the American version of Das Capital (and with Nationalistic pride its philosophical roots by John C. Calhoun, Honorable Senator from South Carolina, predated Marx by at least 35 to 40 years). Senator Calhoun argued that an economy based on slave labor (within a moral and ethical framework of course) was more practical and yes possibly even more ethical than the means of labor ownership, the acquisition of Irish, Welsh and Northern European Immigrants that was beginning at that time to fire the Industrial Revolution in the North.

All this while slumberin on the Cumberland.

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 2 times, lastly by PSBeaty on Apr 08, 2006 ---</FONT></center>

I'll fix your flat tire Merle
Don't you get your sweet country pickin' fingers all covered with erle
Oh your a honky I know but Merle you got soul
So I'll fix your flat tire Merle
by Pure Prairie League at some point


I didn’t mean to sound like a history lesson but that John C Calhoun was quite the character don’t you think. I was reading through the contributions of others and I was trying to figure how they fit with what I have observed. The most discomforting is the story of the little puppy (oh my God!). I think the key element there is three, there were three white kids involved as there where three black kids when I received blows for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I believe those who hate or our inspired to act out of hate need the positive reinforcement of another (makes me think of Columbine High School in Colorado). I think the rest of the story is interesting as well. People tend to feel threatened when somebody doesn’t follow the fusion rules (your white, why you with them black kids). You see a lot of fusion acquired behavior in these types of situations. I remember in high school, I was a hellion drummer in the school band and I got to know lots of good young black musicians, kids who were bused in from Douglas High, the all black school with such noted musical graduates as Charlie Christian. At lunch, there was a bunch that hung around in the music rooms with the thick foam walls to practice in. I had a friend, Kent, he wasn’t black, but we would hang and he would pick out songs on the piano like Southern Man, and Sign on the Window and Crash on the Levy and the Locust Sang (we used to love to sing the part where the man standin next to me well his head was explodin’) and stuff like that and the black kids in the other booths would come in and play a bit occasionally and stuff so we got to be friends. There was one guy named Andre played the big bass fiddle and tuba. This guy had a lotta soul man he could get down. He was the lead tuba in the marching band and at the football games Andre put a little dip in the cadence while marching and us drummers being cool and all picked right up on it Man we was out there drumming pop poppa top pa pop pa top top (basss drum Bumb bumb), and on the bumb bumb part Andre got the dip going with the top of tuba going down in a soul fashion and the drummers (all white I might add, well we had Eduardo the Mezcan) caught on to Andre and would do a knee bend in unison and most of the rest of the band got into the act and before you knew it we where the first predominately all white band in the state to play half time shows with a little bit o soul in our step (I have heard they have made rules where you can’t have this type of thing anymore, you gotta play it straight). But the point of all this is that when it was just a couple of us interacting within that band zone there was no difference between black and white. But when I ran into some those guys out with their non-band mates in other areas of the school, well its not that they weren’t friendly or acknowledging it was just a subtle thang on the side that no one would notice. Know what I am sayin’. I am sure the noticed the same type of behavior from whites as well, you know, under appropriate circumstances its cool to hang with you man.

The Zap and Goofus comments are interesting to me in that they get at or ask the question: Was the great experiment in desegregation successful (well that is what I thought of anyway when I read them)? I think we can all agree that Alabama has had some soul searching with this issue. Interesting that you say it seemed to be more of an issue with the adults because I got exactly the opposite feedback, the kids were the ones moved to emotional racism in my experience but I assume it was learned behavior (and part of the fusion process, what is that the father is the son of the child of the father (man)) but I guess in the 60’s Alabama was more of a front line than OKC. Goofus, do you remember the separation like I do, the special evenings and times for blacks to go to amusement parks and stuff? The thing that springs to mind about Zap’s comments is something I thought was unusual at the time of our school riots (73 and 74 were the worst years I believe for this but there was tension (and cops with guns) in the halls in 75 and 76) was the fact that the poorest blacks were taken and shipped to the poorest white schools where we as kids were confronted with our fusion by-products of racial hatred in our minds with the physical manifestation in our halls (where I came from that first argument to justify slavery, the emotional one, about racial superiority of the whites was strong and the lower the economic level of the kids, the more likely it would be truly emotional (I don’t know why, I don’t make the rules)). Now the question was desegregation successful? Well I don’t live in OKC anymore so??? I do know what I see around me here in the Susquehanna valley and Baltimore MD area. I see very little change from what I knew along time ago. I see white men as predominantly managers and supervisors and blacks as predominately laborers. I see cities filled with poor blacks with a chip on their shoulder (Rev.’s Jackson and Sharpton have become chip caricatures) and I see cities with poor whites who hate poor blacks the way the poor white kids did where I grew up. I see faux cordiality between black and white all the time and the same kind of conflict and issue in interpersonal relations between white and black that Agnes described. In my corporate reality, I see "so called" successful blacks, non-labor roles) segregated and ridiculed by the laboring blacks. I also see a segment of America (poor whites and blacks) that are losing what economic base they might have (jobs going to China and stuff) and I see cities full of decay. If you want a reality check take the train from Washington DC to Boston, sorry it so depressing but this is what I see.

That brings up the other argument, the intellectual treatment of racism and Senator Calhoun’s view that we need to reassess how we handle labor whether; is it outright ownership of laborers or indebtedness to the company store. In defending slavery, Calhoun actually argued for a form of socialism based on the “fact” that the system would provide care and feeding of the laborers in a better more effective manner than free market hiring for a wage. Odd isn’t it! This argument is historically the case of the extremes either you are either a free market capitalist (which requires a zero toleration for compassion) or a pinko commie fag (a compassionate safety net). AHH, but what of that intangible entrepreneur spirit and how does it fit into a compassionate society. I don’t know maybe I am seeing this wrong but it is the fodder of American political movements, folk songs and country music ever since time began. That brings me to seeing Merle Haggard in the Ryman. There are two songs that have become anthems during my life that I actually feel physically repulsed when I hear them. Merle’s Okie from Muskogee is one of them. It is not because the song paints a picture of an ideal world in the minds of some where marijuana and LSD are replaced with football and living right, you know whatever. It was because it was used as part of the great con game, the use of that song in the way it was by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan was, to me, the first realization that what had seemed to be ours, passion in the words of a simple song, could be taken and distorted for the purposes of conning good and compassionate people. There was a record that was very popular in Oklahoma (and I assume other places) called Merle Haggard Live in Muskogee recorded in the 70 to 71 time frame, after the anthem had been used to identify and define the silent majority in America, and that album is really good. I mean it is the short quick versions of his songs Silver Wings and Mama Tried and Workingman’s Blues (Jude and Jody’s Furniture’s theme song for years) and stories of being Okie with tales of people from the Muskogee area (which includes Okemah and Poteau and Sallisaw where the Joad’s came from) not having too much and singing a Jimmie Rogers song that, as he explains, captured some of that feeling (I got a barrel of flour, lord I got a bucket of lard), it is actually well done. Well, I did see Merle in the Ryman and it was an excellent show. He did all those songs about mama and prison and drinking and loving and working and living and I was in the Ryman seeing it (good seats too) and as I watched and listened I wondered how I would react to Okie from Muskogee. Well, it was the same as it was every time I have sat through this experience, while the crowd went wild, I just sat on the bench with that same physical feeling of betrayal. The chemistry of emotion must be fascinating and I actually began to wonder about that while he was singing. I wondered if the receptors were involved that created the visions at the CSN concert way back in my dreams. He followed that song with Take me Back to Tulsa and that helped change my emotions a little, it was a start, when it ended I had to hit the urinal and I while I was standing there the words slipped out of me, “well, that was a good show but I am from Oklahoma and I smoked marijuana back then.” The man standing next to me was about my age and I heard him reply in a knowing voice, “I betcha took some trips on LSD as well.”

OK, I will shut up for awhile but I hope people will comment on some of these things because I think talking about it is important and I have brought it up here to stimulate discussion so I can spill it out into the rest of my world. And, as far s I am concerned we can’t be imposing ourselves on the rest of the world until we really effectively deal multi-culuturalism at home.

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 3 times, lastly by PSBeaty on Apr 09, 2006 ---</FONT></center>

I'm not sure if you want feedback/comments or not, PS. But I'm stickin' some more in and if you don't want 'em, just tell me to clam up and I will.

I'm not so sure that desegregation was an experiment. I think that maybe, just maybe, a few politicians (Yep! Some of 'em actually might do some good!)saw that something had to be done (or got some arm twisting from their constituents) and tried to get behind the whole civil rights thing. Did it work? Yes and no. The obvious crap is mostly gone....segregated seating, drinking fountains, stuff like that. But it's still there, bubbling just below the surface of everyday life.

A few years ago my wife, who is a 100% second generation American Finn, accompanied a woman whom she worked with while the lady was apartment hunting. The woman was actually half Asian Indian and half Egyptian and dark complected. The places she inquired about were all from rent ads in the paper, some she even contacted by phone before hand. But all of the pre-contacted places were suddenly taken or doors closed as they came up the walk or nobody answered them though there was obviously somebody home. The "taken" apartments still had their "Apt. for rent" signs up for weeks afterward. She asked my wife to accompany her and do the talking in the hopes that having a White person along might help her chances. Well, it didn't. That's what this woman faced every time she went out apartment hunting. This was maybe five or six years ago in good ol' "liberal" Connecticut.

Maybe ten years ago, we were in a supermarket that has its own bakery. I was in an aisle facing it when an elderly couple stopped a few feet away from me. The man said, "Oh, my god! Would you look at that!" The wife added, "It's bad enough that they let them work here, but she's even touching the food!" I looked in the direction that they were to see a Black woman working in the bakery. I think I said something like, "You f****** bigots! What the f***'s wrong with you!" (I don't usually flare up like that but I was pissed! I may have scared the crap out of them, too because I'm 6' 4", stocky and look like a Klingon without the lumps on the forehead! Well, in my book, they deserved a lot worse than what I gave 'em!)

A mere two weeks ago, I overheard people at work worrying about the possibility of Blacks or Hispanics moving in next door to them. It's still there. There are still people being murdered because of their skin color. Still kept out of jobs, or places to live. Still getting beaten on by a few bad, racist cops. Maybe not quite as bad as it was, but it's still bad. Maybe more insidious now because it's hidden from view.

It's so sad to see racism. I remember one Sunday last summer, I think it was I went with my mom to the Food Lion grocery on my road as she had to pick up something. I saw a poster in the window advertising that the black gospel group the Sensational Nightingales were gonna be doing a free show at the black church down the road from us laster that afternoon. So when I got home I told Mike lets go. So we went. We were the only whites there but the folks at that church really accepted us & hugged us hello & we had a great time seeing the Sensational Nightingales sing & they had watermelon after the service. I learned that they accepted us alot more that we white accept them. We had a great time...

I dunno. The riot I was talking about was in the 70' 71' school year. I still have friends that don't share my skin color that I'm sure I would not know now if there had been no integration. Have the attitudes changed? No. History is repeating itself. In the 73-74 school year I lived with my aunt and uncle in Macon, Mississippi. I was bumfuzzled when I went to the resaurant there and all the tables were reserved. I asked the waitress what was going on. She said YOU can sit anywhere you want. It's not a question of whether it worked. It had to happen. (Thanks to MLK Jr. and Rosa Parks.) Did it stick? Not yet. I think it advances every day though. Like I said before, this is one of the reasons I live in Oregon now. Is it absent in Oregon? Not by a long shot. We all need to keep making our voices heard...

of course i want your thoughts and Zap, it is all an experiment, life is one big F'n experiment!!!!

of course you gotta wonder when did desegragation become integration. It was like suddenly somebody put the positive spin or con (con is neutral, can be good or bad there is all kind a cons going on but it is often an experiment) on something that was going so incredibly wrong at the time (kids dying in halls and stones thrown in anger in the name of desegregation). i really think that the spin actually occurred when the issue went to Boston. it is just one of those stupid things i think about? but if you don't think its relevant just look at them Mezcans in the street (by the way my habit of saying Mezican instead of Mexican came from my close friendship with Anchel or Angel as we Anglo would say, his mom made the best mezcan food so good his sisters Carmen and Ada both won Mezcan queen in the local contest based on their Moms Tamale's, she couldn't speak a lick of english but man she could tamale and that was good eatin' man!!!so it is OK if I say Mezcan cause Mezcans are in my fusion zone!!!)

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by PSBeaty on Apr 12, 2006 ---</FONT></center>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PSBeaty:

of course i want your thoughts and Zap, it is all an experiment, life is one big F'n experiment!!!!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I dunno, PS. I'm leanin' more towards accident. Experiment implies that you're trying to figure something out. Most of us humans seem to be making things up as we go along, usually making a mess of things.

I realize that I'm getting off the story board track here, but here's a link to a well known Stanley Forman photo of the busing riots in Boston in the mid '70's. Ironically, it's a young white man about to jab a black man with the pole of an American flag. http://www.umass.edu/legal/Hilbink/lpscf03/bostonflag.jpg

While searching for it, I ran across another photo of a white guy holding up a racist effigy of a black person. The white guy was wearing a peace sign pendant. WTF!

(not to change the subject, but the image of captain zap as a 6 foot 4 klingon is downright cute...i'm serious!)

at the moment i don't have much to add that i haven't already said, but i've been enjoying everyone else's comments and i do mean everyone! (well, 'enjoyed' put in the right context)

'course, i am suddenly reminded of the time i was invited to a soul party...and i don't mean a "theme' party, i mean a stone soul party...not only was i the only kid invited (I was eleven at the time)...i was the only white person there...(the folks throwing the party thought i was okay generally, and invited me to bring some music to share (albums i borrowed) ).
(they checked with my folks to see if it would be alright for me to go...it was)...anyway, some of my favourite songs showed up...i wasn't surprised...it was what i anticipated...
...and i was excited to offer up my newest discovery (never heard anyone talk about him, saw the album at a friends house, intrigued, i played it...awesome!!)...still, i made no introductions...
"go ahead put on some music...", the next thing they hear is, "dolly dagger" (jimi hendrix, "rainbow bridge")...then i bust out dancing like someone just slapped me happy...
...i totally did not expect the reaction...
"what the hell is that?!" (uh-oh, severe tone) "that's jimi hendrix!" "that's not soul music, we are not playin that i'm taking it off." "what do you mean?! that sounds good! anyway, he is black,...what difference does it make?!" i was really confused..(not con fused, but confused) didn't understand...
(i wasn't trying to be contrary, i had no idea i had deviated so...).
the folks there still liked me, but figured me misguided or something, 'course that got them a skeptical look. <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif" width=15 height=15>

i'm not really sure what sort of contribution i'm making to this thread but...i think it's in code...

directly from the little book in my back pocket

"I am standing at the Nashville Gage on the Cumberland River on April 1, 2006. I am thinking of the only river boat pilot I know by name and shook his hand, John Hartford. I have been in Nashville and I find it odd that there is no evidence that john was here (I saw a big guitar on the street once with Townes Van Zant on it and posters of Lee Clayton playing in a bar called Windows on the Cumberland, but no John) its odd and I know he was the stoner who loved the Opry and made fun of the Grand old Conglomeration but still I can see him on a river boat at the quay dancin' a jig and playin a banjer or a fiddle and singin them silly songs that entertain on a sunny afternoon and I assume that much like me, he loved the traditions that resonate through the halls around while hating the pain the life must have caused for those in the honky tonk world.

He is just a feller worked on the river all his life by a paddle wheel.. you say he is old fashion, now that is no big deal...well its to thin to navigate and its to thick to plow, so let him go on mama, don't put him down for it now!

I am now sitting in a bar called Legends Corner about 50 yards from center stage at the Ryman. I look up and see effigies of the Blues Brothers and across the bar there is a framed picture of a young Elvis and a young Connie Smith and Minnie Pearl and a Yardbyrds Little Games cover an 18x30 framed Million Dollar Quartet-a guitar shaped like a '57 Chevy fin,next to pictures of Merle George and Tammy next to a picture of the guilded palace of sin. If you have never been to the Country Music Hall of Fame or the Ryman, despite what you may feel about Country Music and the Grand Old Conglomeration, theres a special feeling as i see the Merle Haggard live from Okie Muskogee, actually a good album but it is the Guilded Palace of Sin next to it that catches my affection. Lets see I am winging it but it has Sin City, Hot Burritos 1 and 2, the Little Hippie Boy and My Uncle (well I am headed for the nearest foreign border). The cover has Chris Etheridge, Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons in Nudie Suits (Sneaky Pete dressed in black). That classic Gram Parsons Nudie suit, the one with the leaves on the front and the cross on the back and sleepy eyes on the butt, a wonder. I always loved that suit, the reason I mention it is that although thaey don't give Gram or John or even Woody Guthrie the repect they deserve for the history of the music they keep in this town but (thank God for Emmylou) they do recognize the feeling and I saw Nudies sawing machine and looked in the glass case at that Nudie Suit of Grams before I left that hall, it was right next to Emmylous big black guitar with the Rose on front!

straight from the book in my pocket in Nashville on April 1, 2006, it is here just because

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 2 times, lastly by PSBeaty on Apr 18, 2006 ---</FONT></center>

my great Aunt was lost after the OKC bombing for 24 hours. she lived in a high rise building on 4 or 5 there by the federal building and her window faced the building and shattered that morning and she had alzheimers and wandered off into the unknown for 24 hours as they dug bloody bodies from the rubble on April 19 some 12, was it 12, 12 years ago. I have an Irish friend who moved to Norman OK from Galway Ireland and their 6 month old was in the YMCA where kids were cut by broken glass. so Tim McVeigh acted out of rebellion against the American Government gone astray in civil liberties and such and blew up innocent people in OKC because the worked in or close to a federal building. but that is the point of fusion and conning, he fused with those that would thumb their nose at the US Govrment and was conned by those who would see an act of violence as a solution, an eye for an eye as it were. he was passionate and acted but to what end, did he strengthen or weaken those who would destroy civil liberty? was he right from his side? I didn't cry when he died but neither did he, was I wrong? was he wrong to act against what he considered an attack on his way of life? was Bin Laden or Hitler? i hate these guys yet in their reference of events they are all justified and others agree, what is wrong with this picture?

I couldn't let the OKC bombing lie, sorry!

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by PSBeaty on Apr 19, 2006 ---</FONT></center>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PSBeaty:

I look up and see effigies of the Blues Brothers <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

hmmm....

"our lady of blessed acceleration, don't fail me now."--elwood

i loved that movie

yeah, as hard as it may be to believe, i like weird stuff too...like, how in the world can i like neil young's "southern man" AND lynard skynard's "sweet home alabama"? there must be something fundamentally wrong with me...

right now i'm listening to some renaissance crap and i like it...i must be insane!

(i'm sorry, i wrote this before you posted again so adjust your perception accordingly [apply patience please? but keep writing!])

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by agnes on Apr 19, 2006 ---</FONT></center>

you know somewhere back there i wrote there were two songs that make me physically ill when I hear them Okie from Muskogee and (the other one) Sweet Home Alabama not that I have anything against Alabama (I have a huge tint type photo of my Alabama relatives from about 1880 that I need to get framed, they are a bunch o'hicks all standing in the yard with the serious expressions and on the portch you can see a pie out cooling on the rail), or do I care about the NEil Young dig (although I found it interesting that Neils mothers family are ex-patriot Canadians from Virginia as a result of the great American Debate in the 1860's and their refusal to defeated) but Watergate did bother me, sorry. That song has become another anthem though and L. Skynard are in the Country Music Hall of Fame as a result for the genre of southern "country" rock (there is a nod to the Allman's). I can't listen to that song, I mean its got a good beat thats easy to dance to, but.........

THat said,... The political season is on and I awoke this morning to the list of Democratic choices to oppose Rick Santoram, our Republican Christian Nazicrat from the Commonwealth of PA. and Bob Casey Jr jumps out with a well managed con complete with presence and banter in favor of considering a Nuclear Option against Iran and talk of relaxing tax reforms to allow "investment in medicine that will trickle down on America" (the trickle down on America was mine, I am sorry, but that wa his gist. I always thought that was a great term, trickle down and how it was taken up as a theme by the silent majority bunch, Americans Everywhere getting Trickled on and liking it, we are a nation of golden shower fetishists and proud of it. Of course Bob is developing his con for one to one con fights with Rick as the second candidate, our liberal hero (I missed his name, sorry, and he is probably the one I will vote for), made emotional pleas about how the nuclear option won't work and has never worked historically and how we need to consider options on how to develop a sound medical program. No talk at all about the environment or energy but I guess its early. There was a third fellow who meekly agreed with the other conmen present. I am more and more in tune with that Greek fellow, Aristittle or stottle or something, Democracy, even a republican democracy, just don't work. or maybe the idea of having slick Bob Casey come out in the form that can beat Super Christian Bushboy Rick San the man toram and this other fellow (what was his name) with shirt sleeves rolled up and voicing the cries of the anti bush new age agenda so these views will transpire into the clouds of fog in the US Congress and this fog will turn into a rain of sanity and good judgement that will trickle down on us all, not a yellow shower, but a good purifying clean rain that will wash away our ignorance and fear as we all become one happy united fused world where Muslims and Chritians and Voodoo queens can join hands in harmony with one con for all and women, men and babies everywhere will sahre a safe clean happy environment....(In Birmingham they love the Gov'nor)

Man I am losing it!!!!

So that is what I think, enjoy the beautiful spring day all!

so Pete was over from the UK on holiday and we were out with family and such having a generally good old time. I took them down to Washington DC and I almost walked them half to death (I forget others don't enjoy the hiking vacation as I do, it was hot and I pushed the kids a bit and their Mom a bit but Pete was up for it). We went first to the Space museum, I have been there a million times, always a fav with the tourists when they come visit this area you know. the john glen capsule and the apollo 11 capsule (I can'r believe NASA lost that video). the lunar land and the wonders of aluminum foil and all. Over to the the National Art Galery (the kids seemed to like this one more than you would imagine). I love the impressionist exhibit althought he MET's is better. but they have a room full of George Catlin's there of Indians painted on the plains in a world far far away, i love those paintings as well (excellent journals if you are intereested in American Indian Anthropology and hev nmot picked them up yet). THen up the mall in the hot sun showing these Welsh people monuments to dead presidents and war heroes (they don't know much of the presidents but the wars some of the wars were shared with the UK, the WW@ memorial was nicely done). on down to Lincoln Then to the wall (I explained that there were those that that didn't like the wall because it made the wall to personal so they put the soldier statues there as well, but they did do a good job and the soldiers are dazed and confused looking). but the wall has its typical affect witht he names and reflections and all, THen back to union station and the Irish Pub (good Pub there at the Phoenix Hotel). then after a few pints Pete and I reinacted an event we had shared years ago when we worked for the same company and I was there on business. He had a customer dinner and i had been out with my own group and that evening official work stuff ended so he showed up at my room in the phoenix at aroun 11:30 in a typical time to loosen up type of frame of mind. I was getting ready to go out when I turned and realized he was emptying my minibar into a small blue bag. I thought this can't be good. But, always up for adventure out we went in the dark of night to explore the monuments of Washington (Night is really the best for those monuments), Pete , myself and a bag full of minibar.

So our first stop was naturally capital hill, on a bench, drinking a drink or two, in the dark of night and talking about god knows what. Oh, I am sure we were a nuissance, but a minor one and we were caring for the empties properly. Well of course, inspired by the gleaming white dome of the capital building and the assorted drinks I had consumed I was inspired to 1. talk about the freedom and rights of an american citizen and 2. talk about the the mandatory rights of nature to call at the most inoppurtune moments. So, as I discreetly crept into a shadow to relieve myself on the capital lwan Pete mentioned how impressed he was with the freedoms of America and cracked the seal on another mini bar delight. Suddenly there was a rattle of bushes and out jumped a cop, now this was pre 911 and security although tight was nothing like today and I was quite startled as I was trying to hide the evidence of any "unsavory" activity i might have been involved in at that point (being carefull with zipper and the orientation of the frank and beans of course). Well, he points at me and says "I got you for indecent exposure (I swear I was in the shadows and concientious to all but those hiding in a bush) and I got you for public intoxication (pointing to Pete with the minibar in his hands). Pete immediately responds in his most difficult to understand Welsh accent "But sir, we are tourist to your fair city and we mean no harm!" well, the cop was in a hurry down the mall and talking on a talkie device and insisted we be more discreet as we enjoyed the memorials and off he went.

well we wondered to a less well lit section of the mall and had another drink and marveled at the bizarre ness of this episode. It just so happens that was the very night and very close to the very time that some maniac had try to fly his plane into President Clintons window. so last Monday night after a few pints Pete, Caleb (his son), Kathryn (my daughter) and myself went to retrace the steps. like i said, in todays world, there is no way we would have felt even remotely free enough to set on a bench there and drink a few drinks and other "unsavory" things because you have to cross barricades with cops on duty constantly, keeping an eye out

but that is the world we live in!

we went to the BAltimore harbor the next day and i explained more history about how BAltimore was a southern city north of Washington in the Civil war and it was a city under occupation and marshall law with a mound built along the harbor topped with men in blue with cannon pointing at all the people of Baltimore and we went to Fells point by water where they made all the clipper ships that transported good to California and Europe before the advent of the modern steamers and and took him to Fort McHenry where the Star Spangled Banner was written (they had never even heard of the war of 1812) and as we sat at a fell point bar overlooking the harbor and had a few pints i pulled out paper from my billfold with famous dead presidents and patriots and explained how Hamilton wanted to build a finaincial system with the British and his monument is on wall street and how Jeffereson was an enlightened dreamer who wrote of the inaliable rights of man while owning and impregnating slaves. Jefferson the Francophile who bought Louisiana from Napolean for money used in a war to defeat Britain while encouraging a split between arron burr and hamilton ultimately resulting in the death of one and the political banishment of the other.

On Petes last day, i had worn the family out, so it was only pete and i in the mustang (a bueatiful day for a drive in the country in the convertible) and off we went through the PA countryside to Gettysburg. Through the museum off the battle and up on cemetery hill where lincoln spoke. As we walked the to the high tide point and looked across the field of Pickett's charge, I explained how the Civil war was the first war where technology had made it possible to eliminate souls at a bargain rate, 12,000 dead and dying in a few minutes, the chivalry of man and war, we went to the round tops and looked down on Sickles avenue and i explained how Dan Sickles was a true american soundrel before the was. how he was famous as a womanizer in Washigton DC (John Kennedy apparantly had nothing on Dan). How, Dan's wife, feeling rejected, had embarked on a daliance with the Grandson of Francis Scott Key and how, when Dan found out, he approached him in the park across the street from the white house in the noon day sun and shot him dead. How Dan then became part of legal history in the US by successfully avoiding the gallows by being the first man to us the temporary insanity plea. Dan then became a general ended up at Gettysgurg where he luckily made a tremendous militarily blunder that saved the day, loosing his leg to a cannon ball right there near little round top and became a great hero. Today his leg is still on display at the US Army War museum.

oh well, Pete and Family now know a little US HISTORY, for what it is worth.