On Moral Ground

"Assuring our own comfort at a terrible price to the future is not worthy of us as moral beings." ~ Moral Ground

I posted the above as my Facebook Status a couple hours ago and received this...

An interesting quote. However, if one loses a football game by one point because time ran out with an unused time out available is also unacceptable, no? Please do me the favor of extrapolating the analogy before answering.

...in response almost immediately from my good buddy Brad down at the radio station.

Now, I haven't known Brad all that long, and the first time we met (over the airwaves; him in his booth, me in my car) we immediately locked horns over his global warming and my climate shift. But Brad and I are brothers by high school and Don Cowan's choirs, and both of us are old enough--he's still The Kid!--and wise enough NOT to talk politics at one another. Moreover, we've done a couple shows together down at the theatre, and I can't help but like the guy, even if I didn't want to!

Clearly, the boy was at the radio station on the Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend and not all that thrilled about it. "Extrapolating the analogy..."??? Well, there was nothing for it but to retreat to the yard and watch the birds and squirrels shower in the sprinkler. So I parried from my cell phone and got back this....

Is not using one's resources for the present (which is the ONLY reality) to protect the possibility of a future (which is at best, fiction) more or less "moral"?

Right away I sensed a problem or two. First, I'm not buying the today-is-the-only-reality construct. If that's the case, why do squirrels bury their nuts? Second, who said anything about not using resources?

Moral Ground simply holds that our species is responsible for the condition our world is in and that we as humans have a moral obligation to make it better for ourselves, our kids and their kids' kids. We have made a mess, and it's on us to clean it up.

Memorial Day Weekend no time for games?

Someone on Facebook said Memorial Day is NOT "about" games, and I let the remark pass without comment. Can't rightly figure why this young woman's statement stuck with me. But it did. So I tucked it away for further study and went on with my Looney Old Man (LOM)chores.

Seems to me Memorial Day is about remembering. The root memorial reaches back to the 14th century, meaning "preserving the memory of a person or thing." The Old Testament takes the concept all the way back to ancient Egypt and the first Passover. Twelfth chapter of Exodus. Look it up, children.

The toughest challenge a man can face is burying his child. The Good Lord bless and keep Don Lansaw for giving his life to save his wife's during the Joplin tornado, but I submit any man with a heart and soul would do the same. Failing to protect your little girl, laying her in her grave.... Friends, burdens don't come heavier than that.

Melissa Kaye Miller is my oldest of two. I was in a classroom in Washington, D.C., on that hot August afternoon in 1969 when she was delivered at the old Wichita General Hospital. Since I was a Seaman Deuce fresh out of the Naval Recruit Training Center, Orlando, FL, her birth set me back a whole $3.50--so Mom could have a box of Kleenex in their room. Sixteen rounds were bought that night at the NCO club in Arlington. I know, 'cause I paid for eighteen of 'em myself!

In those last few years before Melissa was taken from us, we generally celebrated Memorial Day weekend with a big camp out. Our hardcore group only consisted of bits and remains of three families, a Miller and two Porters. Dean Porter and I met in Don Cowan's mixed choir at Rider High School. His big sister, Betty, was in Don's elite A Capella Choir, and all the guys who knew Dean were in lust with Betty! Dean had a surprisingly large following for a short, dumpy Boy Scout, but before he and I made it into A Cap ourselves, we had become like one, "Jim 'n' I" twins.

Older still than Dean and Betty was Big Brother Paul whom I did not get to know very well in those early days at Rider. Paul, you see, already had a wife and kids by then and was always handy to make those Friday night runs to the liquor store for us.

The first Memorial Day Weekend Campout back about, oh, 1974-75 was us--First Ex-wife, Melissa, Brian, myself--Dean, his wife Laverne and their son Joey. A few others may have passed through our camp at Lake Arrowhead, but those were the primary cast of characters for the beginning years. Paul joined up sometime during his second marriage.

I don't recall many games being played, except by the kids when they were younger. Oh, there was the occasional hide-n-seek-in-the-dark which fizzled after Dean slid head first through the campfire in a mad attempt to beat IT, Paul, to base. I was dead on Dean's heels, too, until that tree came out of nowhere! Generally a heap of steam got blown off, guitars got picked poorly and songs sung loudly between sessions of burning meat on the fire and passing out somewhere near a tent and out of traffic.

I got a telephone call early on a cold April morning in 1989. Melissa had been stabbed to death in her own apartment in front of her son Michael, 2, and daughter Diana, not yet a year old. Talk about the day the music died. I all but died inside.

The case remains open, Melissa's killer not yet positively identified. For that reason her case will not be discussed in these pages.

Michael and Diana came calling last weekend, first I'd seen them since days after their mother's memorial services. Childishly young adults now, we spent a fair part of last weekend around The Cave, and from that arose this Memorial Day Weekend Campout revival, being observed concurrently in River City, Estes Park, CO and on line and dedicated to all the priceless memories of Melissa Kaye Miller Sodeman and Paul Davis Porter.

It's Friday afternoon, children. Let the games begin!

Let's stop this Westboro Cult NOW!

Someone probably smarter than me once said my right to swing my fist ends just short of your face. I defy anyone to find a more staunch defender of First Amendment rights than this writer, but when abuse of said rights becomes a bloody club against the anguish and suffering of others, it's time to terminate the abuse by whatever means necessary.

That said ~ and Yours Truly not being able to make it to Joplin, MO, this Sunday ~ thought I'd pass along a few good tips for the good people of Joplin from the folks in Brandon, MS.

Hello, Operator! I've been cut off....!!

Seems that tiny island cultures and polar bears aren't the only folks facing dispossession as our Earth's climate continues to shift. We may be waving bye-bye to WI-FI.

Scientists have been warning of more extreme storms as a result of climate change,

PlanetGreen.com reported this morning.

The events of 2011 could be an example, or at least a harbinger of threats to come.

This ability to reach out and touch someone far distant has come a ways since Aunt Era & Uncle Tandy's party line. Best I can recollect, their "ring" was two shorts and a long. And Lord help us if a long-distance call came in as that usually meant somebody just died!

Betty? Bob? Betty Bob!

Cousin Frank Ed's entry, Betty Bob, wins the alternatively-gendered cockatiel name game. Frank Ed and I would have been twins had we not been born

three months apart and to different mothers. Technically speaking, my Mom and Frank Ed's Mom were sisters-in-law, but blood could not have knitted together two women any more closely. Frank Ed and I had the two greatest Moms in the world and shared them amongst ourselves every chance we could get.

Betty Bob is a queer duck. S/he sits in a cage in the north-facing back room window, issuing staccato, monosyllabic squawks at what must be max volume for a bird that size. Attempting to squawk back does not help without a firm grasp on his/her lingo. More often than not, trying to communicate with Betty Bob pisses him/her off more than anything else.

The sum total of my knowledge of cockatiels equals bigger, louder, nastier than a parakeet. The folks at Cockatiel.com say the guys have greater vocals than the gals and tend to whistle a lot, which tends to make Betty Bob a Bob. On the other hand, same folk say females hiss and attempt to bite much more frequently and with determination to bring home meat. That says Betty decidedly is Betty!

Grands & Greats meet....

Two generations of the Miller Clan reunited Saturday when (from left) Gracie Hilbus finally caught up with her great grandchildren Michael and Diana Sodeman after 21 years.

Here's the thing, Lord.....

I've had a good run. I came in with the thirty-three and a third, long-playing phonograph record, and if it should all end today, I'm going out with my lifetime music library on a thumb drive in my pocket.

How many people woke up today disappointed over still being here after this rapture buzz? Thought that by now they would at least be up to security screening on the Stairway to Heaven, right? Well, I wasn't one of them, Lord, and yes, I'm smiling.

My two eldest grandkids, Michael and Diana, came to see us yesterday. They'll be staying until Monday before continuing their road trip across America. Twenty-one years since last I saw and touched these two cubs. Damn near a generation, Lord, and I lived in fear Diana would bring on the next generation before...if ever...I saw her again! The image of Michael I've carried in my mind is a snapshot: two-year-old boy caught from behind, buck naked, holding a garden hose in a suggestive pose, watering his Granny Smith apple tree.

For some time now, Lord, I've been feeling what I imagine Moses felt; standing on that mountain top after a 40-year road trip, looking into that promised land of milk and honey and knowing he didn't make the cut. Oh, I brought it on myself, same as he. If only I had worked harder on memorizing the music....

We formed the Donald B. Cowan Legacy Choir January of last year, 30-something of us from all the Rider A Capella Choirs Don had nurtured, given voice to and directed for 32 years. His last hurrah, as it were, would be a grand reunion concert by a choir composed of all his a-cap alumni, a choir nearly 200 voices strong spanning the years 1961 to 1993 and all coming back to River City from all across the country.

The first of two concerts is June 25 at Memorial Auditorium, the same venue where I last sang with the Rider 1967 choir. Lord, I can never forget that last note of You'll Never Walk Alone dying in that hall, Don smiling as he mouthed "Good bye" and just waving his finger tips to us before turning to acknowledge the audience.

Now, today, begins the final weekend rehearsals before concert week, and I do NOT know the music! It's been praying on my mind since last month's rehearsals. I play the MP3 recordings through my head as I go about my days, but, Lord, these few remaining brain cells must not be as tacky as they once were. Nothing seems to stick. I told myself, "Self, shape up by May or ship out."

But here's the thing, Lord. If I don't make the cut, I'm okay with that. No, I'm good with that. I've had a great ride, helping to form this choir and bonding with a family that transcends blood. Tomorrow is our first dress rehearsal at Aiken Auditorium, and all our family and friends are invited. I'll get to sing with them one more weekend, and my grandkids will be in the house to experience The Greatest Choir Ever!

Lord, it truly is a God thing.

Thank you, Lord!

Being of The Earth

And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

That's me on the left and my Dad, Buddy Miller, on the right. His full given name was Francis James, whereby I acquired James and why he took to Buddy or Shorty quick as he could. Offered here in evidence, we were not big planters nor were we tied to the oil patch in spite of what you see in the background. This was shot with a Brownie box camera, I'm guessing 1952 or '53, in the backyard of the second house I remember, over on Elm Street.

I can't recall what we planted. Beans, no doubt; probably tomatoes. Gardening was simply planted in us. Both Mom and Dad were born to the farm, Dad up in Michigan and Mom here on Texas' Rolling Plains. They were of Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation, making-do through the depression and enduring through wars and rumors of wars.

Mom is still with us, living on her own for the most part. Lord, she'll be 81 this month, my last living link to John Sanford Saunders, my CSA veteran great granddad. Dad died in 1996 after chasing his elusive dreams around the world. World War II and the U.S. Army Air Corp plucked him from the family farm in Michigan and deposited his skinny butt in a barracks at Sheppard Field, Texas.

Thankfully for me, beans weren't the only seeds he planted!

First zucchini coming in yellow?

First zucchini of the spring '11 crop. What's with the yellow?

Got a bet going with Mike Allen, the oldest living dude in the Donald B. Cowan Legacy Choir, that my zucchini can whoop his yellow squash.  I would not want Mike to know, but I'm a touch concerned about how my fingerlings are looking.  This first one off the vine seems to me a bit yellow.

They say that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you.  Maybe I am concerned about this color thing simply because it has been years since I've had space to play in the dirt.  Been so long since I last saw a baby zucch, I've forgotten how to read sign!

Playing in the dirt!

"Are you sure Trump started this a way?"

 

My first lessons in the natural history of the Rolling Plains came bouncing around in the bed of Tandy Jackson's old pickup truck.  I couldn't have been more than three or four years old the first time he took me and my cousin, John David, out checking oil leases south of Electra, Texas.  There were two kinds of people in the oil patch of western Wichita County back then.  There were the Kadanes who owned the land and the mineral rights, and then there were the Jacksons who sucked the crude from the underground deposits.  I was neither.  Heck, I was just the city kid along for the ride.  Guess in a lot of ways, maybe I still am.

 Many empires were built by John David and I under an old mesquite tree.  Every time I'd go up to Kadane Corner for a day or two, we'd spend them digging in the dirt, grading roads, building corrals and little lean-to shacks. He had an old replica pickup truck that I would have swapped for my Roy Rodgers Ranch Set...almost.  Almost...but not hardly.  Uncle Tandy didn't much approve of our foolishness, frittering away good daylight when there were plenty of chores two boys could be tending to.

I guess after my Mamaw and Granddad Saunders, Tandy Jackson was the third old person I met.  Yes, he was hardshell baptist, too, and a deacon to boot as well.  I'll always be obliged to him for teaching me how to blend peanut butter and Karo syrup!

Is that the time?  I'd love to sit her visiting, but Annie will be wanting to come home soon, and fool that I am, I kept the Blazer!  Y'all come back when you can stay longer. 

Roots revisited

Miller's Cave is an 8x12, two-bit shed deep in Brook Village, the very heart of River City's historic old country club.  Not The Country Club colony just up the road by the old Burns Mansion, mind you.  We're nearer Gene's on Holliday, around the corner from where Haven Park used to be and smack in the middle of where River City's Country Club began.  That's Ben Franklin Elementary a short hike west.  Started First Grade there, back in '55.  We lived on the other side of Mr. Kemp's & Mr. Kell's railroad tracks on Avenue Q long before someone turned it into a muppet musical.  Two blocks east is Carrigan where I unceremoniously ended my elementary school career, thrilled to be moving on to Barwise Junior High!

Brook Village field office, a.k.a. Miller's Man Cave

We could visit for years over how a 62-year-old son of a sea dog came to be retired in this neighborhood. I won't keep you engaged here quite that long. Not at one sitting at any rate.  This journal, you see, is a lot like a road trip but different.  Getting there doesn't mean a damn thing; it's the trip that counts.

Hear that?  The bells of First United Methodist Church (FUMC) chime out "Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus our blessed redeemer."  Sitting out here of a Sunday morning, you can hear those bells if the neighbor birds aren't too chatty.

That was the first Methodist church in River City, I believe.  Goes back to 1881.  A mile northeast is the foundation print of our original home church, First Primitive Baptist Church, that stood on the corner of Seventeenth & Burnett Streets until TXDOT decided it needed that piece of real estate more than we did.  Ours was not the first Primitive Baptist church in River City.  At least one other predated it and was located over on Northside.

Ours was, however, the first progressive hardshell baptist church here; progressive in that it allowed piano accompaniment for song services and Sunday school, neither of which was allowed in "old line" churches.  Some of the brethren were shocked, or so I've heard, that W.P. & Cordie Saunders--my Mom's folks--would leave the old church and help charter a new one.  History records no other particular, peculiar people excel at feuding, breaking up, splitting off, making up and starting all over again like hardshell baptists.  And they've got the late, great Speaker of The House Mister Sam Rayburn to prove it.

The split between the two local churches came before my time, but I'd like to think that metamorphosis was to prepare the ground for my arrival.  Not too likely, I'll admit, but it could have had something to do with Granddad Saunders being a deacon and Mom learning to play piano.

DRAT! There's the phone!  Excuse me, I have to take this.....