The Gang .......and Writing Home
Posted on 07/05/2002 4:03:19 AM PDT by Snow Bunny
Nawww, are they crackin' skulls full of mush again?!
What's the scoop....MUD
That's what I tell her, but she's pretty well got me under lock and key...NO FREEPIN' 'til the lawn's mowed...NO FReepin' 'til the taxes are filed...NO FReepin' blah blah blah...
NO!! No Screen Name fer the Missuz...MUD
Thanks, Cob.
Three Marbles
During the waning years of the Depression in a small southeastern Idaho community, I used to stop by Brother Miller's roadside stand for farm-fresh produce as the season made it available. Food and money were still extremely scarce and bartering was used, extensively. One particular day Brother Miller was bagging some early potatoes for me. I noticed a small boy, delicate of bone and feature, ragged but clean, hungrily apprising a basket of freshly picked green peas. I paid for my potatoes but was also drawn to the display of fresh green peas. I am a pushover for creamed peas and new potatoes. Pondering the peas I couldn't help overhearing the conversation between Brother Miller and the ragged boy next to me:
"Hello Barry, how are you today?"
"H'lo, Mr. Miller. Fine, thank ya. Jus' admirin' them peas......sure look good."
"They are good, Barry. How's your Ma?"
"Fine. Gittin' stronger alla'time."
"Good. Anything I can help you with "
No, Sir. Jus' admirin' them peas."
"Would you like to take some home?"
"No, Sir. Got nuthin' to pay for 'em with."
"Well, what have you to trade me for some of those peas?"
"All I got's my prize aggie-best taw around here."
"Is that right? Let me see it."
"Here 'tis. She's a dandy."
"I can see that. Hmmmm, only thing is this one is blue and I sort of go for red. Do you have a red one like this at home?"
"Not 'zackley .....but, almost."
"Tell you what. Take this sack of peas home with you and next trip this way let me look at that red taw."
"Sure will. Thanks, Mr. Miller."
Mrs. Miller, who had been standing nearby, came over to help me. With a smile she said: "There are two other boys like him in our community, all three are in very poor circumstances. Jim just loves to bargain with them for peas, apples, tomatoes or whatever. When they come back with their red marbles, and they always do, he decides he doesn't like red after all and he sends them home with a bag of produce for a green marble or an orange one, perhaps."
I left the stand, smiling to myself, impressed with this man. A short time later I moved to Utah but I never forgot the story of this man, the boys and their bartering.
Several years went by each more rapid than the previous one. Just recently I had occasion to visit some old friends in that Idaho community and while I was there learned that Brother Miller had died. They were having his viewing that evening and knowing my friends wanted to go, I agreed to accompany them.
Upon our arrival at the mortuary we fell into line to meet the relatives of the deceased and to offer whatever words of comfort we could. Ahead of us in line were three young men. One was in an army uniform and the other two wore short haircuts, dark suits and white shirts obviously potential or returned missionaries.
They approached Mrs. Miller, standing smiling and composed, by her husband's casket. Each of the young men hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, spoke briefly with her and moved on to the casket. Her misty light blue eyes followed them as, one by one, each young man stopped briefly and placed his own warm hand over the cold pale hand in the casket. Each left the mortuary, awkwardly, wiping his eyes.
Our turn came to meet Mrs. Miller. I told her who I was and mentioned the story she had told me about the marbles. Eyes glistening she took my hand and led me to the casket.
"This is an amazing coincidence," she said. "Those three young men, that just left, were the boys I told you about. They just told me how they appreciated the things Jim "traded" them. Now, at last, when Jim could not change his mind about color or size...they came to pay their debt. We've never had a great deal of the wealth of this world," she confided, "but, right now, Jim would consider himself the richest man in Idaho."
With loving gentleness she lifted the lifeless fingers of her deceased husband. Resting underneath were three, magnificently shiny, red marbles.
Hmm, that has a nice ring to it. MissuzMUD.
And you could get her hooked on FR.
Then you could turn the tables...
NO! No FReepin' till the ironin's done! NO! No FReepin' till after dinner dishes are done! And so on. Get the picture?
You have a devious mind...I like it. I can sorta be ThePusherMUD!!
LOL & FReegards...MUD
Ted Williams, former Boston Red Sox slugger, is shown in cockpit of a Marine F9F-5 Panther jet fighter plane while taking a refresher course in Sept. 1952. Williams, the Boston Red Sox revered and sometimes reviled ``Splendid Splinter'' and baseball's last .400 hitter, died Friday, July 5, 2002, of cardiac arrest at Citrus County Memorial Hospital in Inverness, Fla., said hospital spokeswoman Rebecca Martin. He was 83. (AP Photo)
Capt. Ted Williams, former Boston Red Sox slugger, at the Marine Airbase in South Korea, after he crash landed his thunder jet at an advance airbase in this Feb. 15, 1953 photo, on his first combat mission over North Korea against enemy targets. Williams walked away safely from the crash.
America is a Christian nation, or at least it used to be.
The Continental Congress, during the Revolution, authorized the importation of 20,000 Bibles and later authorized and endorsed the American printing of the Bible. Today, however, most government schools that regularly expose children to information about homosexuality and abortion will not allow the distribution of Bibles.
Postmodern types who have obsessively pursued a campaign to convince Americans that the Founding Fathers were not Christians have, in the manner of those who rewrite history to suit ideological goals, used quotations out of context and even fabricated them.
John Adams is often quoted by these secular missionaries as having said, "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it."
This is a great example of propaganda, as you will see when you read what Adams actually said. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson lamenting petty squabbles between different sects and preachers, Adams wrote:
"Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!' But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell."
As you can see, Adams, who was a devout Christian, actually said the opposite of what people pretend he said by taking one part of a quotation out of context.
For those of you interested, David Barton's book "Original Intent" (WallBuilder Press, Box 397, Aledo, TX 76008) does an outstanding job of documenting the Christian orientation of the nation's Founding Fathers.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, an orthodox rabbi, wrote an article in The American Enterprise magazine entitled "Why Jews Should Pray for a Christian America." Here is part of what he had to say:
"And it is Christianity that has been responsible for, among other things, the founding of America and its flowering into the greatest civilization the world has ever known. It is my fervent belief that America has been blessed as a place for Jews to live not in spite of the deep-seated Christian beliefs of most Americans, but because of them. It is also my great concern that all Americans — including Jews — are endangered by a weakening of Christianity in our society today.''
Rabbi Lapin warned that what Jews should fear is a post-Christian America and said that he enthusiastically endorses the Christian conservative movement.
"Though I am not a Christian," he wrote, "I recognize that the prosperity and security of America — and all of its people — depend upon retaining the moral fiber of its Christian founding."
He's quite right. A few years ago, however, when Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice remarked casually at a news conference that he thought America should return to its Christian values, the Anti-Defamation League angrily demanded that he apologize. He didn't, of course.
George Washington was right when he said in his farewell address that a republic could not survive without a virtuous population, and that nothing could impart virtue to people better than religion. Therefore, he concluded, any man who is an enemy of religion is an enemy of republican government.
Folks who value liberty had better pray for a rebirth of a Christian America. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charley Reese can be contacted at briarl@earthlink.net. © 2002 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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