Hard times hurt neediest the most

Thanksgiving edition, plus a turkey bonus at the bottom...

First you need to let your belt out another notch to accommodate Thanksgiving’s excesses of fine food. Then consider this:
Lots of people today are unhappy, and not just from overeating. Everyone knows things are going haywire. Even though we’ve liberated Iraq and elected our first black president, jobs keep disappearing, banks keep failing and our savings and home values keep plunging.
Worse, this situation bids to deepen the desperation of the truly down and out among us. They depend on charities like the Salvation Army, which in turn get pinched when we contributors feel less secure. Collection plates in some churches are getting lighter, too.
With the outlook particularly bleak for our poorest neighbors, it’s time that we who are more fortunate decide to give more to help them despite all.
May I suggest two charities that are especially worthy of your help now?
One, of course, is the Salvation Army. So much of what you give them goes directly to help those in need wherever they are. This charity has long been a favorite of my family.
On the home front during World War II, my dad had led his town’s efforts in support of the Red Cross early on, until higher-ups in its organization got too controlling of the locals. So he then led the annual drives to support the Salvation Army, and was much happier.
Then in college I had friends volunteer to help during a tornado disaster in Waco, Texas. They said the Salvation Army gave away coffee and donuts to the rescuers while the Red Cross charged for them.
I have supported the Salvation Army ever since. But only this fall did I experience some of its good work first-hand. My barbershop harmony chorus scheduled an appearance in a Salvation Army facility near Richardsville. All I knew was that it’s in Virginia. Richardsville is a wide spot in the road off of State Route 3 about halfway to Culpeper from I-95, and it’s the address of Camp Happyland, run by the Salvation Army.
Camp Happyland is a 215-acre campus with several buildings dedicated to the service of groups the Salvation Army sponsors, especially youngsters age 7-12 from destitute homes in the Washington , D.C. and Beltway areas. They can vacation for free here.
But the large audience we senior guys were to sing for consisted mostly of needy elderly adults. We first joined them at a complimentary supper in the large dining hall and then sang for them in a spacious auditorium. They obviously enjoyed the entertainment, and we had as good a time as they did, for sure.
Before the show, I had the opportunity to visit with camp manager Patricia Decatur of the Salvation Army. She explained that Camp Happyland offers its facilities for use by various groups, such as Sunbeams and Girl Guards, Boys and Girls clubs, and older adults plus Salvation Army Corps members. The group we sang for stayed for a full weekend encampment there, officially the Salvation Army Conference and Retreat Center of the National Capital and Virginia Division. The facility includes two guest lodges, two other permanent cabin units, and plenty of space for tenters and house trailers.
The whole place was spotless, our hosts congenial, their food excellent and I wish we could have stayed longer. I left happier than ever to support this charity and not only with my bass voice contributing to “Amazing Grace.”.
Indeed, as business guru Peter Drucker clamed several years ago, “[Salvation Army is] by far the most effective organization in the U.S. No one even comes close...in respect to clarity of mission, dedication, ability to innovate...and putting money to maximum use”
The other charity I want to mention is, unlike the Salvation Army, strictly home-grown. It’s centered primarily in Aquia Harbour. It got its start by commemorating the good local deeds of Pat Esser, a long-time resident and former homeowners association president who passed on several years ago.
Each year around Christmas, the few volunteers (officers of the Patricia Esser Children’s Foundation) visit several needy families in Stafford, as recommended by the county’s welfare office, and provide their children with clothes and other basic needs plus gifts. Donations can be sent to P.O. Box 1064, Stafford 22555. They go 100 percent to the needy, according to the group’s president, Joe Spagnoli.
Whether giving to the large or small charities, we can help more than usual during this difficult season to make a difference in the lives of our truly needy neighbors.
*****

Ode to a Tom Turkey

God bless our Thanksgiving traditions. But permit a flip of the bird to our national bird--what a turkey. Aside from the dressing, they don’t taste very good, either. Ham, steak, even KFC chicken are better and less bland, in my humble opinion.
Turkeys, you see, gave me nightmares as a kid. Not eating them, but getting chased by one. Dad was standing some distance from our car, talking with his farm’s hired hand.
I soon decided to venture out, too. That’s when a huge tom turkey fanned its feathers at me and gave chase. I barely made it back to the car, without pecks but with unspeakable anguish for a six-year-old.
Perhaps my reward later as a teenager was to revisit the farm each Thanksgiving season. My task was to catch and load several live turkeys from Dad’s pen, tie them up, load them into my pickup and deliver them to a meat locker that dressed them out. Then the happier part of my turkey endeavor was delivering the oven-ready products to various friends’ homes as gifts of the season. If they only had known of my hassles in rounding up those birds.
They were so much lankier and friskier in those days than today’s fatter, squatty turkeys. Also they looked just like they are still portrayed today--tall with handsome gray and black feathers. Truth is, most of them you buy had been all white.
Fifty years ago, the Beltsville White was all the rage. It was bred to be compact and small by scientists at the USDA’s experimental farm in Beltsville, Md. Following their success in making that turkey large-breasted and small-winged, further breeding efforts developed much larger turkeys with those Beltsville characteristics.
From their utterly obese stature to their bland taste, they are about as much like their wild, rangy cousins that once gave me nightmares as a Prius Hybrid is to a Model T Ford.
Ah yes, I sat in one once and dreamed of running over that old tom turkey

Salutes for a special Thanksgiving

Approaching Thanksgiving and the season of good cheer, let’s all be thankful for the many things we should be thankful for.

Although my personal appreciation list isn’t all that long, having publicly cheered for the GOP this fall, for instance, I do want particularly to thank a new manager of Starbucks on the corner at Stafford Marketplace, and to wish her well and “Adios.”

You see, she was helpfully instrumental in preventing, from now on, the spread of awful diseases among her customers occasioned by the presence of my little Yorkie pup, Lollipop. The other day, the lady ordered us in no uncertain terms to vacate the premises immediately and permanently. She hollered that the health department would close the place down otherwise.
Nonetheless I’m honestly happy, first that Lollipop will no longer have to face any more stern rebukes like that. Me neither. I could have pointed out that her fine Starbucks coffee had in fact proven highly therapeut ic when administered in small doses to my pup over the past two or three years there. Lollipop’s teeth remain so clean that she doesn’t even have to get them scrubbed by the doggy dentist anymore. We’ll now find out if other kinds of coffee might do just as well and be certainly cheaper, without the hassle.

Thanks should also go to the nice company that recently sent me a free sample of some Extreme Acai Berry Melt Away Tablets. I intend to try them out, soon as I get around to securing a refund from the company for two subsequent shipments of the pills. I hadn‘t intended to order them (at $89.31 per bottle, as charged to my credit card), but here they came anyway. It’s a small price to pay to be reminded there are places out there on the Internet that you do not want to go, and certainly not to disclose the numbers on your credit card. Especially at Thanksgiving.

My seasonal good wishes also go out to Barack Obama. His election to the presidency occasioned history’s sharpest two-day point decline in the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, making for some great stock bargains for me to buy. Too bad my supply of cash (see above) is now a mite tight.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m sure his election was for the good of the country. It surely prevented numerous race riots, darkly predicted previously had he not won. Further, he deserves what the pundits describe as the typical honeymoon for a while in a new President’s dealing with Congress.

But if he gets that pup he promised for his daughters on election night, he’ll want to keep it out of our local Starbucks. On second thought, perhaps a Starbucks nearer to the White House, being in Democratic areas already friendly to Obama, might not be so tacky. After all, Stafford County is still GOP country, partner. It is in fact the nation’s closest one geographically to the White House, for whatever that‘s worth.

Seriously, Obama truly has my best wishes. I only hope he might be able to do even half as well for the country as another talented part-black American, Tiger Woods, has done for golf. Granted, George Bush is a tough act to follow, but...

By the way, I hope you won’t mind if in the future I refer to Obama (which sounds kinda foreign, don’t you think) as “President Beaux,” a much friendlier sound. Or, in headline usage (as in JFK, RFK, RMN, etc.) make it BO. He may even want to name his new pup BO also. My old cowboy buddy Sid Goodloe once had a really ugly hunting dog he called BO (or was it Beaux?). Anyhow.

What I was most thankful about this presidential election, other than the fact that everyone was so tickled pink over the national proof positive that just anyone could become a president here, was that it made the big newspapers profitable, if only for a few days. As you may know, they have been suffering lately from decreased readership, having to lay off reporters right and left.

But President-elect BO's victory sent his huge throng of supporters on a joyous hunt for newspapers to proclaim for all time--say, in some future attic collection discovered by curious heirs-- the wonder of his precedent-setting election.

Which reminds me, finally, to proffer a personal Thanksgiving salute, seriously now, to our area’s leading local daily paper. Unlike its famous big-city counterparts, Fredericksburg's Free Lance-Star has managed to keep growing in circulation in recent years. May it continue to serve us locals--even the Democrats-- in fine fashion.

Honoring great deeds and old vets

Time marches on, and it’s already time again for my annual Veteran’s Day column.

Like in my past columns, I’ll mention personal heroes I have had the pleasure of knowing, but this time I’d like to start with an Army officer’s touching commemoration of the death of his son in Iraq.

Here’s how Lt. Col. Mark Murphy, Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, put it, following a public ceremony:
“He said, ‘Come on, let's sit down and talk.’ He pulled up a chair...and we sat down next to him...For the next 15 or 20 minutes, he talked with us about our son, Iraq, his family, faith, convictions, and shared his feelings about nearing the end of his presidency...He said that he'd taken a lot of heat...but was proud to say that he never sold his soul.

“One of the somber moments was when he thanked us for the opportunity to meet, because he feels a heavy responsibility knowing that our son died because of a decision he made. He was incredibly humble, full of warmth...”

Quite a tribute to George Bush, the Texan who kept America free of terrorist attacks after 9/ll and brought peace to Iraq.

Now to my other heroes:

JOE SPAGNOLI--“Congratulations, you have been selected...” the telegram said. So began a teenager’s World War II odyssey. After stateside combat training, Joe wound up with about 15 army comrades, on his 19th birthday, in a river paddle boat on the Ganges River to get to Dinjan, the 10th Air Force base in the Indian state of Assam.

From there, he was assigned to air-alert jungle outposts to provide early warning of Japanese air strikes and military movements. His units lived among Gurka fighters out of Nepal, involving stays with Naga tribes in their villages. The Nagas were well known as headhunters.

“The chief of five large villages I met with several times had rhinoceros tusks dangling from his ear lobes, and adorned with ivory around his upper arms and across his forehead,” Joe recalls. The chief had 17 wives plus 30 coolies and their wives and children at his disposal.

Then there was the chief’s bodyguard. “A Gurka guided me behind the Naga. Carved rather raggedly on the stick was the symbol of twelve heads he had taken so far.” In one ceremony, Joe had to ritually sacrifice a goat.

His novel tour lasted two years. Long afterward, Joe would head several Midwestern public school systems. He and wife of 59 years, Charlotte, have since enjoyed a long retirement in Aquia Harbour

FRANK LEWIS: Last year I wrote an article about Frank, the 85-year-old cartoonist for this newspaper, a fellow Stafford resident, and a World War II enlistee in the army. Frank had engaged in hand-to-hand combat in the Philippines to help free Manila of Japanese control. Then, again in Vietnam, in U.S. special forces, he helped train and lead Montagnard tribesmen for two years against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese along the Cambodian border. A diminutive old guy, and shy--you’d never guess the extent of his valor.

FRANK WITHROW: Speaking of diminutive, this Frank, originally from Texas, probably has more smarts per pound than just about anyone alive. As a teen enlistee who survived Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego, Frank would become a military weather forecaster. Then in the south Pacific, Frank was among those who stormed ashore at Majuro, near Tarawa and the staging area for the attack on Guam and Saipan. He served as a senior weather forecaster. “We also flew as tail gunners.”

Now a retired Ph.D education expert enjoying the good life in Stafford, Frank was once a high official in the Johnson Administration’s education department. In addition to contributing greatly to the literature, especially in educating the hearing-impaired, he is also an accomplished artist, showing his paintings in local venues--and of course a member of Stafford’s ROMEO ( Retired Old Men Eating Out.)

HENRY MARSH AND BERNIE WISE: I would be remiss in discussing height-impaired men who served in the military if I left these two out. Henry (RIP) went ashore in the second wave hitting Omaha Beach in the greatest military invasion in history. It was his first taste of combat. He survived and lived to serve and sing many years, with me for a while in a barbershop quartet, in Fredericksburg. Our singing pal and Henry’s best friend, Bernie Wise, was a combat medic when the troops hit Iwo Jima. “I was on shore when the flag went up,” Bernie says.

It’s been a great pleasure knowing these area gentlemen. Thanks again for their great service to our country.

Election post mortem: Blue

Approval of Stafford County's road bond referendum was a happy surprise for me. I had expected it to lose because of our county's worsening economy, a reflection of what's spelled disaster for the GOP efforts elsewhere this fall.

So now there is hope for some of our dangerous, miserable old county roads. Yes, dangerous. If you don’t believe me, just take a little trip out Mountain View Road. It’s still the cowpath it’s been for centuries, just paved over.

I have railed before about its dangers, particularly all those huge old trees growing right where the road’s shoulders should be. We've grieved when teens plowed their cars into the trees, but then have done nothing. Now it looks like we'll do something. True, the state should be handling it, but since they won't, we must. To the referendum's champion, couinty supervisor Mark Dudenhefer, congratulations.

Other than that, there's precious little to brag about. True, our county stayed Republican, by a small margin, as did most of the rest of the southern states, excluding of course our very own Old (now New?) Dominion.Thus, nothing can be done now about the Democrats’ coming takeover of Washington, lock, stock and pork barrel.

So we're left to survey the wreckage and hunker down and lick our wounds. At least most Stafford County voters retained their sanity.

On election night I recalled exactly how it once felt to come to terms with the fact that a real nobody like Bill Clinton had won the presidential election. Thanks partly to the votes drained by that flaky independent candidate, Ross Perot, we sent a saxophone-playing smarty pants and his scheming spouse into the White House to engage in further outrageous shenanigans, just as they had in Little Rock.

Substitute Chicago‘s corrupt Southside for Little Rock and today’s situation is nearly identical: We’re getting our second "black" President.

And we losers are left to sing the blues, or worse. Reminds me of that old song that went, “You ain’t been blue ‘til you’ve had that Mood Indigo.” Well, now I’ve got it.

These thoughts contrast vividly with my reactions to happier presidential election outcomes. First there was consternation, then excitement over the contested Gore-Bush contest, finally settled by the Supreme Court. Then came satisfaction when an elitist, John Kerry, handed Bush another term.

But now, what coming changes should we fear? “With this election, the U.S. is at a philosophical tipping point,” wrote columnist Dan Henninger in the Wall Street Journal. Businesses will be allowed to create “wealth,” he writes, only so long as it’s not primarily to create new jobs or economic growth but to support a deep welfare system--to wit: Obama‘s promised universal health care, plus his “spreading the wealth“ mantra.

Is there a bright side? Perhaps, even in the midst of the economic meltdown. In fact it’s a direct result of the meltdown, proving, I suppose, that even the darkest clouds can have a silver lining. The first of these bright spots is that we’ve won the Iraq war. Further, the price of gasoline has plummeted. Also, illegal aliens have apparently been going back to Mexico in record numbers. But the Democrats will work to bring them back. Just watch.

In any event, claims columnist Dick Morris, “Obama will preside over the largest expansion of the government’s role in the economy since the 1930s.”

We’ll undoubtedly see. Undaunted, as the old Frank Sinatra tune goes, "I wanna be around to pick up the pieces..."