“After reading your book I will only say this...you are so far into flagrant heresy that it is highly unlikely that you are saved...you are in the position of a self-excommunicated man...that you are on the road to hell…I would not waste even this much time on you except for my personal debt to you for having presented the gospel to me. That would be the great irony: the man who led me to Christ roasts in the lake of fire forever...you are a perpetually lawless man whose wives treated you just as you have treated the Church... be not surprised at your present lonely condition. It will get worse. Much, much worse. In hell, it will be forever... here is my counsel...recant publicly and send out a newsletter telling your readers that you have done so.”

(Comment by Gary North, friend of the author since high school, son-in-law of Rousas J. Rushdoony and founder of INSTITUTE FOR CHRISTIAN ECONOMICS and leader and publisher for CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION).

The above was in response to a book I wrote some time ago where I raised some questions that prompted my old friend’s dire warning. Among several other things, I suggested that God has admitted, according to the Bible, making errors!

If you trouble yourself to read Strong’s Systematic Theology or any comparable work you might understand why Aquinas is said to have pronounced at the end of his life “All I have done is nothing but straw.” To have devoted your life to what in the end proves only philosophical and theological speculation thinking this was empirical knowledge has to have left a great mind like that of Aquinas in despair at the end.

Of those things I count among the greatest blessings of my life was to have been born in America, and to be born into a Bible believing home and like Timothy raised in the admonition of the Scriptures which are able to make one wise unto salvation. I could, I suppose, have as easily been born a Muslim taught to hate all others that were not Muslims and become a suicide/homicide bomber.

But having been born into a Christian nation and raised in the Christian religion has certain obligations, just like the obligation I have to be a good American citizen, leading to my writing the book to which Gary referred “HEY GOD! What went wrong and when are you going to fix it?” causing his genuine concern for my soul. For that I was grateful to him.

Gary could be right. It may well be that having written some of these things my soul is destined to be stir-fried in the infernal regions. Not unlike poor old Rushdie of Satanic Verses, and I had to ask myself will this book result in some Baptist or Four Square Ayatollah putting out a contract on me? Or, at the very least, can I expect to get horsewhipped like that poor fellow in Elmer Gantry? Time will tell. Of one thing I am certain, if I am correct in some of the suggestions I make I’ll most certainly have the Devil’s attention!

To aggravate the matter of my self-excommunication even further, I have expanded considerably on the early views that earned Gary’s dire warning of my soul’s peril requiring a new revision of the book now in process. But there is something dreadfully wrong about our world, the constant turmoil and warfare, so many suffering because of the greed and avarice of those that abuse their power and authority. And this “something” seems no closer of a solution by Gary or any others in the churches than it ever was.

I used to have a very comfortable, orthodox Christian view of things. I ministered in pulpits and even started three Christian schools after years of working in the public schools. As long as I did not admit of those reasonable, legitimate but very unsettling questions of the faith like what happens to babies when they die and why so many parts of the Bible are virtually impossible to reconcile with facts and realities, I could go along to get along with the brethren.

But once I admitted these legitimate questions do exist and theologians have not answered them, that the churches themselves are filled with ignorance and superstitions, I opened the floodgates of questioning my smug, comfortable orthodoxy. All hell broke loose! as per my friend Gary and others. I had to resign myself to being a leper to the churches and the people I loved. A very lonely position that no one would choose; it is a compulsion, but whether a compulsion born of God in a search for truth that I cannot answer.

I no longer consider myself a particularly religious man. But I know the myths and fables of past civilizations have much to offer by way of understanding. The various scriptures of ancient peoples, particularly the Old and New Testaments with which so many are familiar, are of special interest. For this reason, I treat of them in some detail in the book. However, the difficulty of addressing the problems raised by the study of ancient writings like the Bible is the result of the lack of common cause and cooperation of those that think of themselves as enlightened. And especially those that think of themselves as Christians.

As to what went wrong and when is God going to fix it, I think God needs our help. A very heretical idea at best. But when it comes to the paradox of good and evil, the responsibility has to lie somewhere. Good Jews and Christians immediately point to Sin. But who, and what, made it possible for sin and evil in the world? This is not as simple a question as most good synagogue and church people have been led to believe.

In the Talmud, Rabbi Simelai makes an interesting point when he calls attention to Jewish thinking in regard to the interpretation of the Law; Moses, he says, lists 613 commandments, Isaiah reduces them to 6 (Isaiah 33:25,26), Micah reduces them to 3 (Micah 6:8) and, finally, Habakkuk to one: The righteous shall live by his faith (Habakkuk 2:4). This certainly got Luther’s attention.

It would seem that Rabbi Simelai and Christian theology are in agreement at this point. However, the fighting that surrounds a definition of this faith continues unabated. A large part of the debate and conflict centers on issues like the teleological and eschatological interpretation of Scripture. But the resulting cosmologies should not make any soteriological demands on believers, as, I fear, is coming more and more into vogue and creating widening schisms.

This book is an attempt to examine what in my opinion constitutes real understanding of God, if such is possible, and what saving faith consists of. What part is the responsibility of God and what part is that of the people who claim to worship him in working together in understanding and cooperation to fix this mess the world is in?

At a time when books about Spiritism, angels and demons, experiences of all kinds are selling as never before, I think it good to take heed to Isaiah 8:19-20: When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

I wish every proponent of the Glossalallia, especially, would take heed to the wisdom of Isaiah. You can trace this gibberish, mutterings, far back in time before the prophet. Long the stock in trade of conjurors, seers and idol-worshiping priests of every description, such “angelic language” has an ancient and ignoble history. Where it is not used to simply call attention to the practitioner as an exercise of the fleshly ego, it is simply a continuation of a religious fraud of past centuries or outright hysteria. And such people are going to condemn Joe Smith and his golden tablets and peepstone. The New International Version of the Bible perpetuates this heretical fraud by using the word tongues instead of languages in the NT. Why? Because of fear on the part of the publishers of alienating the fastest growing segment of Bible purchasers: Charismatics! This is intellectual fraud and dishonest, prostituted scholarship for the sake of profits!

It is generally agreed that a properly defined problem is half of its solution. The continuing, and growing problems of humankind are obviously the result of a failure to cooperate in arriving at solutions. This lack of cooperation comes from a distrust and lack of agreement among the peoples of the world, a failure to define a common and saving faith, if you will.

Religion, by whatever definition and however practiced, is a commonality of all people, even those pre-Homo sapiens (pre-Adamic to the religious) hominids. But it seems that most religions do not hold up very well to honest and sensible examination, much of Christianity included. Personally, I would like to credit God with more common sense than the churches seem to. For example, while I fully expect to meet my loved ones already gone on before me, I also expect heaven to include trout streams, forests, and oceans with pounding surf to delight us with the continuing magic of such things. In my opinion, heaven without the best of Creation would be a cheat. And heaven must have the laughter and wonder of children. What could possibly substitute for this? And Jesus did say: For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. I hope he was right.

There are many questions the Bible does not answer. Haven’t you ever wondered, for example, what Eve told Adam at the time of The Fall? She must have said something because God condemns Adam for listening to his wife! The Genesis creation: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. The “us/our” is the plural Elohim. Just who is the “us/our?” It cannot, according to the rules of good scholarship and the Hebrew, be the so-called pluralis majestatis. Nor is such the case where last used in the “confusion of tongues” at the Tower of Babel. And why is it that translator’s, Hebrew and Christian, do not correctly use Yahweh (or Yahvah) thy Elohim as it actually occurs in the Ten Commandments?

A difficult problem of reconciling the origins of humankind with the Bible increasingly demands the attention of Christians as well as those of other religions. Though Darwinian evolution without any evidence of the origin of Life, with no explanation or definition of Life is a fraud in the guise of science, there are certain facts of science that will not go away with fanciful interpretations or wishful thinking on the part of religionists.

Were Adam and Eve vegetarians? The Genesis narrative would lead to this conclusion. After the flood, God gives Noah express permission to eat meat, thus implying it was not acceptable previously. But Abel brought animal sacrifice to God while Cain brought the produce of the soil. What led one son to be a tiller of the soil and the other to raise sheep? And why raise flocks if you are not supposed to eat meat? Cain’s offering was rejected and Abel’s was accepted. What, then, was the real difference between the two, and a difference that led to Cain murdering Abel? I believe there is a great deal more to this than Bible commentators have offered.

A rather unique idea is that of viewing the Bible as a Romance, William Graham Scroggie notwithstanding, keeping in mind that the course of true love never runs smoothly. Perhaps God (Mother and Father God being the better pattern for the creation of Adam and Eve as well as other living creatures) is motivated by love and the Bible manifests this need and this search to love and be loved, for true worship as defined by this love.

Where did Cain, in fact, get his wife? Since God is so obviously opposed to incest, it isn’t likely she could have been a sister. Who are these sons of God as opposed to the daughters of men in Genesis 6:1,2 the commingling of the two resulting in the race of Nephilim and causing God’s great anger and the Flood? What went wrong that enabled the race of the evil Cainites to overcome the godly Sethites? Did war in the heavens brought to earth result in the monsters among us that cannot be human, monsters without any semblance of conscience that prey on women and children?

Why was astrology so important to the ancients like those magi who appeared at the birth of Christ, and even some of the church fathers? Who were those post-Neolithic hominids that buried their dead with ceremony long before Adam is supposed to have come on the scene? Did God give Satan the power to create, or was there war in the heavens between good and evil deities resulting in Satan becoming the “god of this world” as the New Testament has it? Were dinosaurs and a proto-race of humanlike creatures a part of Satan’s creative efforts that turned out so badly God had to destroy them and create man in His (Their?) image? Did this result in Satan’s great hatred of humankind and motivate him in getting Adam and Eve to fail?

Jesus says God is a Spirit. The Apostle John says no one has seen God at any time. But didn’t Adam and Eve see God? God appears to Abraham on his way to check out things in Sodom and Gomorrah. Who did Abraham see, and how is it that the Bible declares Moses and Elijah saw God, and God spoke to them face-to-face?

When I was a very young man, I had the privilege of the friendship of one of the greatest scholars of the Bible of modern times, Charles Lee Feinberg, Ph.D., Th.D. Dr. Feinberg; a “completed Jew” as he would have it, was the Dean of Talbot Theological Seminary at the time we met. For whatever reason, he took me under his wing and one of my most prized possessions is an autographed, Pilot Edition of the New American Standard Bible for which he was the head translator. A master of Semitic languages, his major area of study at Johns Hopkins University, Uncle Charles, as he asked me to refer to him, gave me much needed and expert guidance in my own scholarly study of the Bible for which I will always be grateful.

As a Christian, I firmly believed in the historicity of the resurrection. In regard to the Bible, I had always maintained that no one has any right to consider themselves truly educated who has not read the one book that has had a greater impact on civilization than that of any ever written: the Bible. In the course of my own study, I amassed a personal library of some 5,000 volumes of the finest, most scholarly works about the Bible, its history, the geography, languages, and mores of the peoples of Bible times. From earliest childhood I was raised in a church environment and taught the lessons of Scripture. The study of the Bible has been, virtually, a lifetime habit.

Because of our extraordinary relationship, Uncle Charles advised me to get a university education from non-religious schools. Which I did. As a result, I was thrust into an academic environment that saved me from many of the myths and superstitions that hold sway in religious institutions, something that Uncle Charles recognized would eventually be my undoing as a scholar in my own right.

Early on, I realized there was something fundamentally wrong with a gospel that could not discriminate between an Albert Schweitzer and a David Livingston. What kind of a gospel would allow Livingston into heaven and consign Schweitzer to hell? Both men lived sacrificially for others. Yet to watch the average minister struggle with such a question is a study in human behavior as they attempt to contrive an answer that is inevitably a conflict with the very doctrine of soteriology they espouse.

No one has a higher regard for the Bible as literature than I. But my regard for the book does not blind me to scholarly, textual criticism. One of the marvels of the Bible is that it is so free of many of the myths and superstitions that held sway during the historical period covered. One could say it is a virtual miracle that stories such as that of the fabulous Phoenix are not contained in the book (this is not to say that it is free of fabulous stories like the sun standing still for Joshua. It is not). But the book is in some ways a credible history of the times covered by it. Yet, to say that it is without error flies in the face of irrefutable, scholarly evidence to the contrary.

Orthodox Jews and Christian fundamentalists claim the book to be without error in the original autographs. But none such exist. The best manuscript evidence at our disposal shows corruption’s of the texts in several places, even some what I call “holy tampering” of the texts by both Jewish and Christian copyists and translators.

Some people make the ignorant statement that the Bible is without contradictions. I will cite only two of many examples I could give: In the 27^th chapter of Matthew, Judas goes to the chief priests, throws the betrayal money into the temple and goes out and hangs himself. They pick up the money and buy the potter’s field to bury strangers. But the story as given in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles is that Judas, personally, used the money for a real estate investment.

In the 2^nd chapter of Exodus, Moses flees Egypt in fear of his life. But in the 11^th chapter of Hebrews, Moses is portrayed as not fearing the wrath of Pharaoh. In both of these examples, the contradictions are evident. Yet the twisted and distorted attempts by otherwise honest commentators and preachers have been a history of obfuscatory language and “reasoning” that flies in the face of honest scholarship. Such attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable have brought rightful suspicion of ministers and Bible commentators. If they cannot be honest in regards to textual criticism, where else might they be practicing such intellectual dishonesty?

My years dedicated to work in the churches, to the study of books by the great Bible academics, led eventually to an appraisal of much intellectual dishonesty, and even the hypocrisy of much so-called “orthodoxy.” And in my studies I have found the attraction for the New Age Movement. Whether a stream (or ocean) of consciousness, the stream of nature, such things may have a basis in fact and often prove preferable in many cases to the mysticism and hypocrisies of organized religions that try to dismiss legitimate questions.

The greatest of the heresies of which I am accused of the brethren, the thing that brought a breach between me and those orthodox brethren with whom I used to have sweet fellowship, was my finally accepting the fact that in the Bible God has admitted to making errors. Granted these errors were made in love, they remain. The most obvious was God admitting he was sorry he made the Adam and determined to destroy them from the face of the earth. But God risked it all again, in love, on Noah only to have his love betrayed once again. The Bible is filled with such errors of love as God sought for men to do his will; men like David and Solomon who failed of God’s expectations for them.

I have made many errors of love. They are those of loving and trusting only to have that love and trust betrayed. Yet neither God nor I have given up loving and trusting again and again. If God is love, and I believe he is, love always takes such a risk. An error? If so, it is a risk all those that follow the teaching of Jesus take in practicing the real Gospel, that of loving others.

The blind orthodoxy of religious men led to the Dark Ages and some of the cruelest treatment of human beings imaginable, all in the name of God and Jesus Christ. Christianity was to be distinguished by love as opposed to the false religions of the world. Tragically, the churches took a wrong turn and are noted for the confusion and chaos of today.

In examining the history of religion, especially Hebrew and Christian, I believe I have discovered some of these wrong turns. In the words of an old friend, J. Vernon McGee: “These Christians may love God but they sure seem to hate each other!” And once the reader gets into the following chapters and discovers how misleading, even dishonest, religious history and theology, Jewish and Christian has been, I believe there will be justifiable anger.

At a time when the charismatic antics of pulpit, TV and radio so-called “evangelists” are making every attempt to make God look foolish, when men seem to think God places a premium on ignorance, the world has a right to look askance at the churches. The very superstitions and charlatanism perpetrated by some of these scoundrels would, you would think, cause reasonable human beings to exclaim: These stories are as phony and self-serving as a politician’s smile!

But many still give their money to these holy thieves and liars. Unhappily, the opinion of these divinely anointed mullahs of the folks who support their so-called “ministries” as ignorant sheep to be shorn is sadly born out by the continued ministries of frauds flying in the face of Jesus plainly stating the true prophets of God do not wear soft clothing or live in king’s palaces.

And what of the scholarly “holy liars” who perpetuate the myths and superstitions of the churches, schools and universities? An accounting of these people is long past due! Tragically, this condition will persist until Christians are willing to question their own blind orthodoxies and honestly seek answers to the legitimate questions we all have a right to ask of God if we are indeed the children of God.

Anyone who has read the Psalms knows the writers were not afraid to confront God on the issues of the pain, suffering and injustices of the world. Where did the churches take a wrong turn in attempting to make God something he is not? God is not perfect by the definition of men; he is perfect by his own. And he is a lot more human, for lack of a better word according to the Bible than the churches give him credit.

Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence are religious inventions of men; they are not characteristics God claims for himself in the Bible. Until those who profess to speak in the name of God begin to be honest, I have little hope things will change for the better in the churches. If the churches are to lead as agents of change for the better, they are going to have to get their act together and agree on courses of action rather than practice theological juggling acts of the nature that led to the dismal assessment of Aquinas.

One example of real action would be to see the churches agree on a Constitutional Amendment against the perversion of child molestation. The great majority of Christians agree the molestation of children to be the most monstrous of acts, and what better institution than the Church to take the leadership in this area?

Self-flagellation, terror and apocalyptic sermons have never accomplished anything of substantive change for the better. On the contrary, they have proven delusional and destructive. How about some leadership for positive action from pulpits for the sake of our posterity?

There is no doubt in my mind that many will join Gary in their warning that I will be consigned to the outer reaches and the eternal flames of hell by some of the things I cover in this book. However, the greatest impetus for this book came from my obligation to my children and others that responded to an essay I published under the title: THE AMERICAN POET. The response was so overwhelmingly favorable for such a book as this that I could not, in good conscience, fail to follow through. You will find that original seminal essay at the end of this book.

But there is another reason for this book. In sharing some of these ideas with others, they have expressed great appreciation for being freed from the contradictions, even superstitious fears of their own blind orthodoxy; the “tyranny of religion” as I began to call it. And there is something else, a “something” that has plagued humankind. As we look at the stars in the canopy of heaven who has not thought: What a beautiful world it can be! If only it weren’t for some of the people in it!

Could such things as the stars, of creation, of life be the result of chance, of some ethereal cosmic force without intelligence? But who will ever be able to present a sensible answer to the paradox of good and evil in the midst of any kind of divine plan, of a loving sentience as the primal cause of truth and beauty? How to make sense of the power of love being unable to gain the ascendancy over evil? Why does the evil always seem to prevail?

There are inexplicable things, anomalies for which science has no answer. But answers must come if there is to be any hope for the human race. Will they come by way of men and women taking the initiative of opening the door to new, philosophical thought? Or will they come by the advances of science? Or will they come by some amalgamation of the two? And who will be willing to pay the price of such a thing?

The images of war, the carnage of the battlefield, the mangled, bloody bodies of so many men, women and children; and to what purpose? In view of such senseless slaughter, who has not wanted to shake his fist in the face of God himself! Where is truth to be found in ideological hatred, whether religious or political? Must the seeking for truth always result in the carnage of a battlefield strewn with broken and maimed, bloody bodies? Why must truth and justice be bought with bomb, cannon and rifle, sword and bayonet?

And does an honest search for truth and justice always require the sacrifice of those innocent that don’t even know why they are being maimed and killed? Must some bloodthirsty deity such as Allah for example representing itself as “truth” demand continual human sacrifice to appease its hatred and anger toward humankind and the human failure to meet divine expectations? Insanity! Bloody religion! Bloody humankind!

Jesus used great plainness of speech and the common people heard him gladly. I have attempted to do the same.

Opinion by definition is a belief lacking positive knowledge or proof. And it is a fearful thing to ascribe such a thing to God. But does God have opinions? If you dare entertain the question it opens inquiry for every kind of philosophical and theological speculation, much of it very disquieting. So for that reason if no other since the great majority does not want to have their comfortable beliefs questioned most people would not be willing to entertain the notion. Granted such speculation begins with the assumption of there being God about whom to speculate. But beginning with the assumption could God(s) have been expecting more of Adam and Eve than they delivered? According to the Bible story God regretted he had made the Adam, and determined to destroy humankind with a great flood.

God sometimes chose people that did not live up to his expectations; that proved a great disappointment to him. As with the story of Adam and Eve, didn’t God know beforehand how such people were going to turn out? Perhaps no more than parents can do with their own children; perhaps God is no more able to predict the outcome than earthly parents?

I’m well enough schooled in theology to know the apologetics, but all such eventually devolve into things like semantics, and being for the better part only speculation cannot offer real answers for what are after all opinions without positive knowledge or proofs. Though science supports much of the Bible, when it comes to questions concerning Deity(s) we must fall back on opinions and speculation.

The Biblical account indicates God was often involved with decisions that did not turn out as anticipated or hoped for. The very lunacy of the history of humankind being one of wars and hatreds does not leave one with the impression “God is in his heaven, and all is well upon the earth.” There hasn’t been a time in history when this has been the case. So, I believe the question as to whether God has opinions is a legitimate one. Too much of the Creation evidences trial and error, a “Let’s try this and see what happens” approach. This was the basis of my book “HEY GOD! What went wrong and when are you going to fix it?” But the very title brought me no little condemnation from religious sources. Had some of these people actually read the book they would doubtless have become downright apoplectic. I recall one fellow who was anxious to have me visit his church until during the conversation I mentioned the book. His invitation was immediately withdrawn.

It is a good thing the Bible ends on a positive note, that there will be “new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness… and all tears will be wiped away.” You couldn’t ask for a happier ending to the lunacy and cruelty of what this earth and humankind has been prey to. However, not to cast stones at the Bible and discount legitimate questions about God there is enough of real world problems to deal with that involve much speculation about things scientific; medicines for example.

Neither Emerson nor Thoreau had any use for an “opium eater’s paradise,” and I have never been tempted to enhance my writing with such artificial aids despite some very admirable writers, some of great genius doing so. Nevertheless, some of the “remedies” I recall from childhood might qualify. What with so many disasters involved with medications today and so much being said of our being an “overmedicated” society it brings to mind some of the medications of yesteryear I knew as a child.

In that bygone era of my childhood homeopathic remedies were a household staple. A few I recall were really distasteful like a tablespoon of sugar dosed with turpentine; hence Julie Andrews singing “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” But the sugar did not make the turpentine any more palatable. A sore throat was treated with a rag soaked in kerosene wrapped around it. My brother and I would drink sassafras tea, chew slippery elm and licorice root for digestion, and would endure charcoal tablets “good for the blood.” Fuller’s Earth and mustard plasters were commonly used when we had a cold, as well as that nationally acclaimed Vick’s Salve, not only rubbed on the chest but made to swallow as well.

Since intestinal worms were a commonplace of that bygone era, Vermifuge was essential. But this medicine was especially deadly if misused. However, our great-grandmother having been trained as a “practical nurse” as they were called in her day was in charge of all doctoring in the family and my brother Ronnie and I felt quite secure in her capable hands.

Cod liver oil, Carter’s Little Liver Pills, Lydia Pinkham, Creomulsion were found in the medicine cabinet along with iodine and mercurochrome. Some bottles like that Vermifuge were adorned with the familiar skull and crossbones icon of death warning of poison. You won’t find such bottles in medicine cabinets today.

Among the banes of childhood, some of you will recall being dosed with Castor Oil; really ugly stuff to choke down. But it was perplexing to me as a child to be warned never to eat any of the beans from the castor-bean plant (Ricinus communis) in the yard as they were deadly poison! How could Castor Oil be considered beneficial, and the beans it came from be dangerous? Why on earth was there such a plant in the yard? I don’t know. The folks loving plants and gardening, perhaps they had it because of its beauty. And while the large, shiny and mottled beans were quite beautiful as well, being warned Ronnie and I were never tempted to eat one. We had never heard of the deadly ricin, but our grandparent’s warning was sufficient for us. Though also perplexing to me was the caution of never eating cherries and drinking milk together as this was said to be a poisonous combination. I wasn’t told of the prominent connection to the death of President Zachary Taylor.

In Little Oklahoma, when the weather turned warm off came the shoes of all the children and most of the womenfolk. After a long, cold winter it was wonderful to feel that warm alkali soil on my bare feet all summer long. But this led to many injuries from the ubiquitous and cruel goat’s head stickers, splinters, broken glass and rusty nails, sometimes leading to blood poisoning. Then there was the caution to Ronnie and me never to go barefoot in the chicken yard or anywhere there might be animal waste because of the danger of picking up diseases from doing this.

Of the folklore of the time in our neighborhood, in the case of blood poisoning was wrapping the infected limb with a dead chicken. Fortunately, neither my brother nor I were ever subjected to this “cure.” But in retrospect, many of such “remedies” were not that far removed from the practice of medicine like “bloodletting” in the past. And I’ll bet many of you oldsters out there have similar stories from the past.

Having lived long enough to look back far enough, it is a wonder to me so many children of my era survived our doctoring in childhood. The typical items to be found for doctoring in most homes of those far off days would cause horror in families today! And many of those items of time past could never be purchased today without a prescription if at all.

Yet, even with the blessings of modern medicine and the truly marvelous advances of medical practice we still face the “practice” of physicians that equate with the auto mechanic saying, “Let’s try this and see if it works,” or in the spirit of scientific inquiry, “Let’s try this and see what happens.” And there seems to be no end of “modern” medications that prove to be harmful.

I don’t question how much better off we are today due to the advances of science and medicine, but there was a lot to be said for that sassafras tea, slippery elm and licorice root as well. At least these continue to be beneficial and leave me with the warm feeling I am not being a guinea pig for the pharmaceutical industry or a victim of the FDA’s “oversight.” And given the increasingly high cost of prescription drugs and increasing number of government boondoggles, I’m grateful I was raised with sassafras tea, slippery elm and licorice root.

As to our modern day witch doctors, psychologist and psychiatrists, “Conversation Therapy” is now suggested for the elderly. But years ago I had been pointing out just having a friend to talk to would do more good than paying for “therapy.” How sick do you have to be to believe you can “buy a friend” to listen to your problems? It was my asking God if he had an opinion about something that was troubling me that started the whole line of inquiry into this aspect of God; and if God is not my friend then why the question at all? Can we have any question of such a nature that does not reflect our own divinity and personal relationship with God? Don’t all children have questions of their parents, oftentimes questions of a most perplexing nature?

But if we are in fact made in the image of God, if the very Spirit of God works in us as his children and we reflect our heavenly parentage and are given to opinions and speculation why not our heavenly parent or parents? If much of our science is predicated on “Let’s try this and see what happens” why limit God precluding trial and error, precluding opinion? Someone had to try the first mushroom and tomato. The problem of course is mistakes are made on the way to knowledge, on the way to knowing what is good and what is bad; and since this is true for humans, why not of God?

Christmas is that unique time of year when all Christian nations celebrate the birth of Jesus; The Prince of Peace. The Christmas season is something that continues to inspire hope of “Peace on earth, to those of good will,” a time when people reflect on those things most real and of most value in our lives. And while the emphasis properly is the Christ in Christmas, Saint Nicholas has become such a part of the celebration of the birth of Jesus it is nearly impossible to separate the two; so much so that some years ago I wrote a column about this and each December since then I have continued to share it with readers:

Two of the most endearing qualities of a child are trust and imagination. They will believe in magic, they thrill to stories of fairies and enchanted lands. Christmas, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, stories of birds and animals, enchanted islands and forests; these are the domain of childhood.

We don't forsake these things in adulthood. We continue to want our Merlins, Camelots, and enchanted glades. As parents, we enjoy making things like Santa with his elves and reindeer, that magical fairyland of the North Pole and letters to Santa real to our children. All too quickly we find ourselves adults and learn of the fantasies of childhood, but the intent of parents in wanting their children taught and exposed to the myths is the innocence of goodness.

Santa is the ultimate angel to a child. There isn't the slightest trace of evil connected to Santa; he could never do anything wrong or anything to hurt a child. Santa believes in children, in the innocence of childhood. Our desire, as adults, to believe in angels follows the same pattern. We grow into adulthood and have to leave the myth of Santa, but we desperately want to continue holding on to what Santa represents.

The history of Santa Claus is quite interesting. He is generally thought to derive from Saint Nicholas, the bishop of Myra about the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century. However, while no written document attests of this, legends surround the bishop who became the patron saint of children and sailors, and these legends and devotion to the saint penetrated into every part of the world.

Early Protestant Dutch settlers in what was to become New York replaced St. Nicholas (Sinter Claes in Dutch) with Santa Claus. The change to Father Christmas began in Germany and extended into other countries through the Reformed Churches. No other saint of the church has the popularity of St. Nicholas when it comes to children. Moreover, none other made the transition through the Reformation to acceptability in Protestantism.

The emphasis of Santa relating to children is the basis of his enduring popularity. He personifies the love of children and the best of childhood as no other figure, historical or mythological.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Who will forget these words to a little girl written by Francis Church for the New York Sun in 1897? His concluding words to little Virginia:

“Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance, to make tolerable this existence...the eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished...The most real things in the world are those that neither children or men can see.

“Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

Do I believe in Santa Claus? Of course! I couldn't be a poet otherwise; I would lose the best part of the man that makes me so, the child within. The Christmas season with the distinctive music and decorations, the buying of gifts, the celebration of the hope of peace on earth, is something none of us would want to lose. Singing Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas celebrate the season. Children write letters to Santa and hang stockings with care and we watch A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. We have added The Grinch to the story of Scrooge, there is now a Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy, Rudolph and so many more with all the innocence, charm and fantasy of childhood.

The story of the North Pole, Santa's home and the workshop of elves, the magic of Santa's being able to visit every home with a child in a single night, going down chimneys, his Ho, Ho, Ho, children leaving cookies and milk for him and, very important, Santa knows if you have been bad or good, naughty or nice. Believing in Santa is as natural to a child as faith and prayer. George Beverly Shea sings a beautiful song: If I Could Pray as a Child Again. How many of us, as adults, haven't wished for this?

Childhood is of so very short duration, such a short time in which to teach and encourage children in the things that will prepare them for adulthood. The whole concept of Santa is one of the things that will do this. We know that all too soon our children will face the realities of the denouement of Santa. Nevertheless, the lesson of goodness and the memory of the magic and innocence of childhood, like the healing power of a mother's kiss, should remain. Of the greatest importance is the fact that Santa loves all children no matter the physical or mental differences, the race, religion or geography. This is what children learn from Santa.

The non-Christian world recognizes the Jolly Old Elf, separating him from sectarian religious beliefs. He is welcome in Turkey, China, Cuba, and even Iraq! And unlike the cruel religious wars of Judaism, Christianism, and Islamism, none have ever been fought over Santa Claus. To my Christian acquaintances I would say Santa is not the enemy of Christ; quite the contrary. Santa epitomizes the very essence of the Gospel. How I wish the emphasis of Santa on children was practiced in the churches.

One Christmas, a store displayed Santa hanging on a cross. Many people were outraged but the storeowner said he was only trying to make people aware of how commercialized the season had become. The philosophical aspect of this revolves around the substitution of Santa for Christ. People would yawn over a crucifix, but Santa? Perhaps, I say to myself, this may be the result of the virtually non-controversial universality of the goodness of Santa versus an image that separates people and one that has been steeped in controversy and bloodshed for nearly two thousand years and is still on going?

Some of you will remember a song, Green Christmas, by Stan Frieberg years ago that satirized the season. Many radio stations would not play it. However, Frieberg was only following Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol that made the name Scrooge a household word. But many religious people reviled Dickens because the emphasis of the story, as with Frieberg's song, was on the spirit of human goodness rather than Christ, who while epitomizing human goodness in too many cases has been distorted by religious beliefs. The larger view of the whole of humankind to which the Gospel makes a universal appeal is lost to such critics. It would be interesting indeed to know the thoughts of that early Bishop of Myra about this turn of events. But unlike religious sectarianism Santa became an expression of goodness, hope and belief that transcends all sectarianism because he is the champion of children and childhood.

Children are the basis upon which the peoples of the world can come together and coalesce for the common good of humankind… once children are made the proper priority of all nations. It is far past time that humankind grew out of and overcame sectarian hatreds. Santa represents what the attitude of all adults should be toward children and childhood devoid of any evil.

Henry Adams said: “Politics, as a practice, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” Had it not been for his era, I think Adams would have included religion in the statement. But only a poet or a child would point to Santa as another direction for humankind. No matter what opinion one holds, the need to believe is there in all of us. And that best part of us responds to the beliefs of the innocence of childhood Santa represents.

While taking an art appreciation course as an undergraduate many decades ago I received the only “A” grade given. Not just because the professor was so demanding of excellence in his students but because I was so obviously enthusiastic about the subject, absorbed and enchanted by the works of great artists this came through in my course work. But one thing nearly precipitated a disaster for me when I brought up the subject of Norman Rockwell among American artists. I had said in my opinion he was greatly underappreciated and art critics would eventually be proven wrong in dismissing him as an artist.

Fortunately the professor granted me some latitude for this aberration, and I was smart enough not to pursue my opinion too rigorously. Very early I had learned the lesson you do not argue with those who hold the power of the grade and your academic future in their hands. At that, it wasn’t as though I were mentioning Botticelli, Van Gogh, and Norman Rockwell in the same breath.

Nevertheless wisdom is justified of her children: NEW YORK (CNN) -- Found hidden behind a wall this year, the Norman Rockwell painting "Breaking Home Ties" broke a record for the artist when it sold for $15.4 million at auction this week… "Breaking Home Ties" was discovered earlier this year in a secret hiding place behind a wall in the Vermont home of cartoonist Don Trachte, who died last year. He had bought the work from his friend Rockwell in 1960…

For those of us raised with the Saturday Evening Post and Norman Rockwell, from the very beginning it didn’t take any great smarts on my part to know he was underappreciated as an artist. My generation knew he was a great artist from the start, and even in Little Oklahoma we knew what we liked even if we were not schooled in art appreciation. The one and only real arbiter of art, Time, would justify those of us who appreciated Norman Rockwell as a real artist. And given enough time, who can say but what Norman Rockwell will eventually hold his own against Rembrandt “heretical” as such a thought may be?

In my critique of To Kill A Mockingbird I expressed my opinion Harper Lee ranked with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. But the simplicity of her writing, a genius of simplicity hid the greatness of her work, a work that had all the subtlety of the great themes of great literature and great writers; and just so with the art of Norman Rockwell with a like genius of simplicity. But, God forbid! the professional critics ever dare expose their fear of “provincialism” for the all too often shallow thing it is.

Eventually America would hold its own against the great European and English artists and writers, though Shakespeare for example remains the standard against which all are judged. But in like manner as that of critics disdaining Norman Rockwell, so with the infamous and despicable ACLU that would destroy every vestige of our American heritage. Yet, like Norman Rockwell, the Bible, the Ten Commandments, Nativity Scenes, and so much more, these are part of our heritage; and things like these are not only evocative of our great and noble heritage as a nation, but these inspire hope in us as a people with such a rich heritage. “Remove not the ancient landmarks” remains not only good advice, but is an imperative for any hoping to maintain a national identity.

Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. However, the final arbiter of Time will invariably separate the wheat from the chaff, will cull the pretenders and exorcise them. The artistry of our Founding Fathers is evident in bringing forth a nation that came to be the standard of hope and beauty throughout the world. But the critics like the ACLU will not have such an America, and in its corruption of art and beauty, encouraging things like ugly Mexican barrios and Spanish and the destruction of all things distinctively American would make America into an ugly and corrupted image appealing to the critics setting themselves above the Founding Fathers and We the People who know what we like.

“On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying.” Could Emerson view our world today he would have all the more reason for his dim assessment of humankind, one that led Franklin, Clemens, and others of renown to doubt ours a species deserving of surviving. It wasn’t just the brutish beginnings of what was to become civilization leading to these men pronouncing our species unfit; it was the slavery of English factories, of those in both the north and south of America, places that should have been “factories of hope” rather than “factories of slaves.”

It is painfully evident We the People are not told the truth by our “leadership.” In some cases where national security is involved this is quite understandable. But increasingly we are not being told the truth for the sake of power and profits, the Federal Triune Dictatorship being more interested in the bottom line of power and profits rather than the bottom line of national security. And as evidenced by a thoroughly corrupt UN the conditions in other nations can hardly be said to be any better.

But such is the condition in America today where we have just cause to wonder why We the People are accounted unworthy of being told the truth by our leaders? And in far too many cases it really does come down to hiding the truth for the sake of power and profits. The result being we have just cause to be cynical of the phrase “national security.”

None of us can possibly feel at ease when those in our government are actually forced to conceal the truth from us for whatever reason. Few of us are so naïve as not to know there are cases to be served by “the greater good.” But this decision concerning the greater good cannot be trusted to liars, thieves and corrupt scoundrels.

However, one thing definitely impacting national security is the indiscriminate breeding without any thought for the future of the resulting babies that must invariably lead to incalculable misery and suffering, not just in third world nations but even in the more advanced like America where such indiscriminate breeding has resulted in a number of third world cities like Los Angeles throughout our nation.

But the wealthy have always favored the breeding of more slaves, a notable exception being the story of the Hebrews in Egypt. Pharaoh and his counselors were alarmed that the enslaved Hebrews might grow in such numbers as to threaten Egypt. The decree to “winnow the crop” resulted in the story of Moses.

The nations of Western Civilization are facing the same problem as that of the ancient Pharaoh; the slaves are growing in such numbers as to threaten civilized nations. The slaves invading America from Mexico by the millions certainly threaten our nation, but these slaves of today are not likely to produce a Moses.

England and other civilized nations have nurtured the viper of Islam in their midst for the sake of slave labor. But the slaves to Islam, for such they are in reality, are increasingly likely to produce a nuclear holocaust. Were such people not enslaved to such a barbaric religion they might be able to entertain some hope of a future that did not require all to bow to a bloodthirsty Allah and his pervert “prophet” with the subjugation or destruction of all “infidels.”

I recall a time in America when people were filled with hope for the future. This is no longer the case. Our nation has been sold out and betrayed by greed for power and profits, our betrayers offering We the People nothing that would either promise or sustain hope for the future of America, but are rather dedicated to making wage slaves of all Americans not belonging to the privileged club of wealth. This is patently obvious by the refusal of our leaders, both Republican and Democrat, to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor from the barbarian and totally corrupt nation of Mexico.

The thoroughgoing corruption throughout our own government is nowhere so in evidence as in the refusal to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws for the sake of slave labor benefiting only the wealthy in America. This is so patently obvious one can only wonder why any in the political spectrum even talk about “national security” since such a thing is such an obvious farce. And Caesar Bush will talk about “securing Iraq” all the while refusing to secure America. Not that the Democrat Party holds promise of anything better.

The bottom line for good people is justice; and when justice is not served, is in fact mocked by our courts and government there can be no hope for a better America. It is intrinsic in good people to want justice, to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Should Ellie Nesler have let the law handle the evil man that molested her son? And what would have happened to Ellie and her son if this monster was released and came after her and her son? Are the victims to stand guard with guns to protect themselves because the law fails to do so, to wait in fear not knowing when the predator will attack? Some will point to the many faults and the failure of Ellie Nesler to be a good parent, of her being a drug abuser and such, but her concern for her son was something all parents feel for their children.

The weakness of any law falls into two general categories. One, it fails to be just. Two, it is impossible of enforcement. The laws governing child molestation are of the first category. They are not just. And when a law fails to mete out justice, the people have a right to cry out for a just law to take its place. The leadership, failing to hear the cry of the people against laws that have become so punitive against honest, responsible, law-abiding citizens and so favoring the irresponsible, the bullies and criminals that the leadership better begin listening to the cry of the people.

I doubt any of us would advocate anarchy. And while no reasonable person could fail to sympathize with Ellie Nesler, no reasonable person, for the sake of a civilized society, wants to have to resort to her method of seeing justice served. Then what? The only answer is law that is just, law that we can depend on to be enforced, expeditiously and without a ten years or more process of appeals, law that does not make the victims wait in terror for the criminal to come back to do them further harm.

Without a just system of law, there can be no civilization worthy of the name. Like most civilized Americans I want children to grow up and live in a civilized society, not one where it takes a gun to protect ourselves and mete out justice. But we need leaders that do not set themselves above the same laws We the People are expected to obey. I do not hold much hope of this becoming the case in America, especially since our leaders refuse to secure our own borders and continue to favor other nations over America for the sake of power and profits.

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom provided the Second Amendment as our protection from the tyranny of an unjust government. We can only hope and pray it does not come to this and a just government will come about before We the People are forced to act on our own behalf once more for the sake of freedom.

All of this to point up the fact the greater good cannot be served by liars, thieves and scoundrels. And it remains virtually every tyrant and despotic government maintains itself using the same mantra of “the greater good” in order to maintain and advance an agenda of power and profits, our own government now being an infamous example of this, known to the whole world as such and thereby putting a sword in the hands of our enemies.

I have a bulletin for our leaders: We the People can handle the truth. What we cannot, will not handle is lies for the sake of power and profits, a creed of “the greater good” advancing only the agenda of tyrants and despots, advancing only the cause of those like the despicable ACLU and others demanding America become something other than the America of the Founding Fathers, an America that was once a proud nation and beacon of hope to the rest of the world!

Among those things so very uniquely, distinctively American is the Daisy Red Ryder lever action Carbine BB gun. It is coming on that time of year once more, and I will once more call attention to the fact the Daisy Red Ryder Carbine WAS NOT AN AIR-RIFLE! IT WAS SPRING-POWERED!

How does a Daisy Red Ryder spring-powered BB gun become an “air-rifle?” By the ignorant in power calling it such and promoting the ignorance through films like “A Christmas Story (1983).”

Now I find it a charming film with some very clever dialogue and I continue to watch it with delight, but decades before the film was made I earned my genuine Daisy Red Ryder BB gun selling garden seed and Cloverine Salve door-to-door as a child in Bakersfield. This was such an important event in my life it became the focal point of my novel Donnie and Jean about two children growing up in Bakersfield, and it was the mechanism by which Donnie met Jean and how these two children changed each other’s lives.

While the book includes much of Kern County history for the period of WWII and is largely autobiographical, there are the deep subjects of religion and politics as well where angels and all good Baptists fear to tread. And not a few people that have not read the book will wonder how God could use a BB gun to bring two children like Donnie and Jean together. How can God bless a boy wanting a BB gun? Well, maybe as that last line in Sergeant York: “The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways.”

But even as a child I knew the difference between the low velocity Red Ryder Carbine and an air-rifle. That spring-powered BB had nowhere near the velocity of a proper air-rifle, some of which can match the killing velocity of a .22 cartridge, and the better quality ones selling for up to a thousand dollars or even more for the match quality guns. When they were first developed, Napoleon thought air-rifles should never be used in warfare because of their silent killing capability.

However, I very much doubt the makers of the film were aware of any history of air-rifles and I’m sure they didn’t know the difference between a spring-powered Red Ryder BB gun and an air-rifle. Had anyone qualified bothered to check they would have noticed the Red Ryder was never advertised as an “air-rifle.” I’m sure Harper Lee knew the difference since she had Jem and Scout’s uncle giving them air-rifles not spring-powered BB guns, and Aunt Maudie would not have been in danger from spring-powered BB guns at any distance across the street while bending over presenting a “generous target” before Atticus intervened.

But as with the fallacy of calling the Red Ryder BB gun an “air-rifle,” in just such manner on the part of the universities and their product media illegal aliens become “immigrants,” child molesters, rapists, and murderers become “gentlemen,” and Negroes become “African-Americans.”

However, I share Ralph’s disillusionment over his Madison Avenue discovery about “secret” messages and Ovaltine commercials. When I joined the Captain Marvel Club I felt cheated to discover the “secret code” was only the alphabet backwards.

It has been many years now since I learned some of the hard lessons of childhood that things do not always turn out as advertised. Still, I can’t help wishing people would tell the truth. While I can understand ignorance, and as a classroom teacher I spent years trying to dispel ignorance, nevertheless I wish we had a leadership that would deal in the truth rather than lies many of which unlike the “air-rifle” error in A Christmas Story are intended to deceive, take advantage and do harm.

“Yet some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise, and wherever the vein of thought reaches down into the profound, there is no danger from vanity.” I have learned to appreciate my “simple, rural poverty” that has no need of either lies or praise, and I cannot help wishing those that lie and scheme their ways into power did not do so. However, this is the system established by the god of this world, and those that would achieve and hold power over others work by the rules of that system. But these will never be profound for their very works proclaim how shallow their need for the praise of men, nor does it speak well for humankind that such as work within Satan’s system rather than that of Jesus rise to power over others.

But to return to A Christmas Story and the Red Ryder Carbine, one of the things missing from the film was the genuine reaction Ralph should have had when opening that box containing it. Since that part of the story is missing, I will tell you from my book what my reaction was, what the reaction of Ralph should have been and perhaps would have been had he earned the gun as I had:

The day finally arrived. The long, heavy, and important looking heavy cardboard box clearly said in beautiful red block lettering: One Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun.

Everyone was gathered round for a sight of the long talked about Carbine. My grandparents and great-grandmother heaped praise on me for my diligence and responsibility in fulfilling the goal; together with the essential and expected dire adult warnings of consequences should I ever misuse the weapon.

I beamed with pride at the praise of fulfilling my obligation and listened dutifully, shook my head in the right places and, in general, ignored the threats and warnings. I knew my part as the kid and I knew the part of the adults, and we all played our parts faithfully. That’s part of being family.

As everyone looked on I took my pocketknife, and being careful not to damage the box removed the heavy, copper clad staples. Holding my breath, I slowly lifted the lid. There in front of me, wrapped in thick, brown, wax paper was the Red Ryder Carbine.

I slowly exhaled at the excitement and anticipation of finally holding it in my hands. Gently lifting the magnificent Red Ryder Carbine out of the box I began to carefully unwrap the paper; I didn't even want to tear the protective, waxed paper.

And here it was at last; in all its metallic blue and dark brown walnut glory, with genuine saddle ring and leather thong, the picture of Red Ryder mounted on Thunder, together with his name formed by his lariat clearly branded into the stock, the gun I had dreamed of and worked so hard and waited impatiently for so long.

Everyone said it was beautiful. Grandad clapped me on my shoulder and said it like man-to-man, “I'm really proud of you, son.” I almost blushed. After everyone had taken a turn admiring the marvelous treasure, I was permitted to go to Ronnie's and my bedroom with it.

It was like I was dreaming; a gauzy, surreal scene as I held the gun in my hands, moving them all over the rich walnut of stock and forearm, touching the saddle ring and leather thong. There was Red Ryder's picture, mounted on Thunder, with his actual signature in scrolled writing formed by his thrown lariat branded right into the wood on the beautiful, smooth walnut stock just like the pictures of the rifle that I had seen.

This was something I had dreamed of and worked hard for; something I had earned myself. It was real now; a dream realized that I held in my own hands. This was something I had earned on my own. This made it really special; something I could take deserved pride in as a personal triumph of self-discipline and perseverance.

I gazed with pleasure at the long tube under the barrel into which you poured the BBs, just like the tube on the Winchester ‘94 .30-30, a real cowboy rifle. After a few moments of enchantment I pulled the lever down, cocking the gun, and returned it to its upper position and felt it click into place: Ready to shoot!

I held it to my shoulder, pointed, sighted and pulled the trigger. Snap!

It was an authoritative sound, a sound that meant business. I was now a Rider of the Purple Sage; I was shooting it out with rustlers and bandits! I could now hold my own alongside Red Ryder, the Lone Ranger, and Hopalong Cassidy. I belonged.

I didn't delude myself that a BB gun could compete with a .30-30. But it didn't have to. It wasn't meant to. It was special not because of the difference in firepower, but what it represented of the cowboy aura where only children lived, something I realized somehow grownups weren't a part of, something that belonged to me as a boy no matter how grown up I was beginning to feel.

There was magic in that world that grownups didn't seem to understand or had long forgotten. I couldn't go out there in those open fields around the neighborhood of Little Oklahoma with one of the real guns. But I could go out there, wherever I might find There in my imagination, with my Red Ryder Carbine and enter into that magical world that belonged to me as a boy, no grownups allowed.

I couldn’t remember when I had lost interest in shooting marbles or playing Cowboys and Indians, I couldn’t remember when cap guns stopped being of interest to me; maybe when I first started venturing into the forest around the mining claim on my own. But for some reason, the Red Ryder Carbine seemed to be a reminder of the things that were really meaningful about being a boy, before I had started thinking more like an adult rather than just a boy. Strangely, with the Carbine in my hands, I seemed to want to go back to when things were simpler and not so confusing to me, a time when I believed I could be one of those cowboys fighting rustlers. I still wished things didn’t have to become so complicated with growing up.

“God Bless America” is a great song. Just don’t try singing it in the schools as we used to or you will be sued by the ACLU using your own tax money to sue you. If the rest of the world sees America as a bunch of lunatics led of lunatics there is sufficient to support the view. Just a government that funds the ACLU and a “leadership” that talks “homeland security” while refusing to secure our borders is patently lunatic enough to support the accusation.

The appeal of the noble gunman who rights injustice is something we all applaud. We always applaud the good guy who blows away the bullies. But because of university bred political correctness America cannot identify the bullies using plain language, but our enemies are free to demonize America at will. And given the “leadership” of America, our enemies have no problem making our nation out to be the bully among nations. And bullies have no friends.

My condemnation of Caesar Bush from the beginning has been based on his being only a politician, and as such would never allow our troops to fight a war to win, but as with Korea and Vietnam only to sacrifice Americans to political ends and that means for the money to satisfy the greed of the corporate masters with all politicians in their pockets having the rule over America.

And what is this visit by the Pope to Turkey but political? He already apologized when he had nothing for which to apologize. Perhaps this visit is the equivalent of going into “therapy,” which has become all the rage when someone says publicly what they really believe privately only to have it come back to bite them.

Some time ago I read of a big league ball player after a questionable call by an umpire stepping away from the plate and saying to him “What would you do if I said you’re a blind sonofabitch, a rotten umpire and shouldn’t be allowed to work in the major leagues?” The umpire replied “I’d throw you out of the game.” The ballplayer thought for a moment, then said to the ump “And what would you do if I only thought you’re a blind sonofabitch, a rotten umpire and shouldn’t be allowed to work in the major leagues?” The ump replied “Well, nothing. You can think what you want to.” The player looked at the ump for a long moment; then returned to the plate.”

As Jesus pointed out “Wisdom is justified of her children,” and those that don’t know enough to keep their mouths shut rather than making fools of themselves are certainly lacking in wisdom at the most charitable; but it is when words become the weapons of fools and tyrants we are at the greatest risk, the tyranny of religion such as that of Islam being a case in point.

It would serve us well to look to some of the wisdom of the past in addressing this issue. There is a solid foundation of historical wisdom from which to draw. How many today, for example, know much of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania? Yet his wisdom of religious toleration is still an excellent example to follow in many ways.

Penn wrote a great deal. He had the spirituality of a John Woolman mixed with the common sense of a Benjamin Franklin. Penn’s most well known work is “No Cross, No Crown” that he wrote while in prison in the Tower of London for his heterodox, religious views. A devout Quaker, he questioned the orthodox interpretation of the trinity among other things but his preaching and teaching of mankind’s responsibility for social ills, the opinion of Benjamin Franklin and others, was especially ill-received by the churches of his time.

An example of his opposition to the pseudo-spirituality of his time (and ours as well) is a statement from his book which fairly represents his view, together with that of Franklin, of the relationship between men and God: “True Godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it.”

Would that those professing to love and serve God would pay heed to Penn’s words in this regard. Particularly those who insist you must belong to their little, exclusive club in order to really be right with God and have his blessing and favor. From Penn’s “Some Fruits of Solitude” we read:

Inquiry is human; blind obedience brutal. Truth never loses by the one, but often suffers by the other.

There are some men like dictionaries; to be looked into on occasions, but have no connection, and are little entertaining.

A wise man makes what he learns his own, another shows he’s but a copy, or a collection at most.

Because of the truth of Penn’s observation people like Socrates, Jesus, and Washington leave no class as Emerson observed. There are many pretenders, but none to take the place of those persons like Socrates, Jesus, and Washington unique in history.

It takes a great breadth of reading and study to take advantage of the best of wisdom, to learn the lessons of the past in such a way as to improve the future. By paying too much attention to expediency, to palliatives that do not cure the ills or advance civilization, we have suffered mightily. At the best Caesar Bush is a fool; at the worst a dangerous fool that has put America in grave danger. He lied to get his wars, and is now caught out as both fool and liar. How now is America to extricate itself from the danger? The clear and present danger of Islam is patently obvious, but fools and liars are not going to deliver America. And the present crop of politicians exemplifying the “systematic organization of hatreds” holds little hope of change for the better.

As with politics blind obedience to some superstitious or religious orthodoxy invariably leads to conflict, conflict which, like that between Muslim and Jew is in itself a crime against humanity. Consider the divisiveness in our own country of those that promote one form of religious interpretation of Christianity over another. And especially those preaching and teaching their way is the only way of salvation. But those in the churches of America and England are not preaching and teaching the hateful and barbaric doctrines characteristic of woman-hating, bloodthirsty Islam. It is obvious that such fanatical, superstitious, religious taboos and hatreds such as that of the Moslem Taliban are repugnant to any civilized society. To beat men, women and children openly in the streets for a failure to adhere to religious dogma is barbaric in the extreme.

But the tail will always wag the dog when good people fail to do their part in opposing evil. However, throughout history the case has been a failure of good people to actively oppose the evil. Nobel-winning Physicist Michio Kaku has pointed out the very real danger the world faces because of nuclear proliferation. There is no denying the substantive evidence of such a threat. But it will take leaders of great knowledge and conviction to confront and overcome the obstacles to peace.

However, men being war lovers there must be a place for women in the decision making processes of world governments for peace to have any chance. I call your attention to the fact that women are conspicuous by their absence in the UN. But wisdom can never be achieved by the exclusion of a full half of humankind in the decision-making processes and leadership of nations.

This lack of women having a place in our own history of government is all too apparent. During all the turmoil of the years preceding our Civil War, a few women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were active abolitionists. But because they were women, they were refused admittance to the Antislavery Convention in London held in 1840. The commentaries of Sir William Blackstone held sway and continued to enslave women to their historical status as legal and political nonentities.

But Mrs. Stanton and some other determined women were resolute in changing their “slave” status. So it was that in 1848 the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions came into being. Patterned after the Declaration of Independence, these women cited their grievances and asked for justice, especially in respect to the franchise. However, it would be another seventy years, 1920, before women won the right to vote. And only one woman, Charlotte Woodward Pierce, of that original meeting in Seneca Falls would live to cast a vote for President.

It is to America’s credit that such a meeting as that of Seneca Falls could be held and widely publicized (though most certainly unfavorably many times) … This in spite of the fact that it would take seventy years to accomplish the purpose of that original meeting in 1848.

I find it a curiosity of history that the two, abolition of slavery and woman suffrage, should be so intertwined in time; but perhaps, given the similarity of the causes, not so curious. And I would point out that the battles of Civil Rights and Women’s Rights would boil over and still be fought in the recent history of the sixties.

But in spite of the passage of time, even to this date, it cannot be said that women have achieved equal status with men, either in America or any place else in the world. For this to be accomplished requires wisdom, the kind of wisdom that denies prejudice and bigotry and leads to equal value, something not to be confused with equal rights and something not considered during the Seneca Falls meeting for women or by Martin Luther King, Jr. on behalf of minorities.

It will take the kind of perseverance evidenced by those like William Garrison and Elizabeth Stanton to accomplish the task of equal value. More, it will take exceptional women like Stanton and Mott, as diverse, educated and intelligent as Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Cochrane (Nellie Bly) and others, to develop a philosophy distinctive of women that will meld with that of men and, through the compatibility of differences correcting the errors in the philosophies of men, thereby making for a complete philosophy on the basis of equal value.

I give America credit for being a nation that considers fairness and justice of such great importance, and we are a nation that has a history of being charitable beyond that of any other nation towards other nations, especially following WWII and in many other instances. We are a nation that in spite of many failures such as our deplorable mistreatment of Native Americans has a generally proud heritage of fairness and justice.

However, unless women attain a place of equal value to men throughout America and throughout the world humankind has no chance of attaining the kind of wisdom that holds any promise of world peace. If on this basis alone Islam was determined to be the enemy of civilization that would be sufficient cause to banish it from the world. But such a “war on terrorism” cannot be waged by fools driven by greed and avarice with any chance of success. And the world is running out of time; the world does not have the seventy plus years it took for women to win the vote here in America.

Embarrassing as it is to admit, my first attempt at flying a gas model airplane ended in a total disaster. Fortunately it was only a silhouette model and I didn’t have that much time invested in building it. But I learned from that early attempt and went on to success, though the scale models which required a great deal of time and effort in building were not the best performers. But those scales were beautiful. As with so many of the issues of life perseverance was the key to success, and that first disastrous attempt could have been the end of my experience with gas powered model airplanes.

What is it that causes some to persevere and others to give up? What a person believes has much to do with this distinction. It was my good fortune to be born into a generation and among good people who encouraged children in doing things like building model airplanes rather than joining gangs dedicated to crime. Mine was the generation raised to slogans like “Crime does not pay” and “Honesty is the best policy,” a generation with justifiable pride in America. In short, mine was a generation that believed in America.

It all comes down to what people believe. If you believe others are inferior because of race you act accordingly. If you believe taking a gun and robbing and killing others is acceptable you act accordingly. If you believe no one has a right to have nice things and you deface property with graffiti or other acts of vandalism, and so on. It is all a matter of belief.

Parents, churches, and schools used to teach moral values and children were raised with beliefs in such things. This is no longer the case. In every instance where such instruction is attempted here come the ACLU and its accomplices to destroy all attempts to maintain standards of moral and civilized behavior. That America has fallen prey to a Federal Triune Dictatorship dedicated to corruption robs children of any chance of believing in America and encourages the growing barbarism throughout our nation. What are the beliefs of our leaders? In the words of Jesus, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” I don’t wonder Kissinger says there is no chance for success in Iraq. What chance does America itself have without a national heritage, culture, language and identity, when our leaders won’t even secure our own borders because of their unholy lust for slave labor?

A friend has just come by to visit. As we often do, we got into a philosophical discussion about religion and I was attempting to explain my dissatisfaction with preachers in general. During our conversation he provided me with an excellent example of my statement that preachers, much like university professors, major in abstractions, not things that are of any real value to our lives in this down and dirty real world.

Well, I had used the word absolute and he seized on that saying God was the universal absolute. Now I know, good hearted as he is, he thought he had defended the honor of God and said something of real value that made perfect sense. But what that something was, there are no words in our vocabulary to explain.

Emerson pointed out the poet as the namer and maker gives expression to the thoughts common to most, thoughts that while common enough many people are incapable of verbalizing themselves. But poetry as such is not expression given the imprimatur of the universities that have bastardized the very meaning of the once venerated office of the poet, of those who made events, nature, and people memorable by “theater.”

In science, the concept of workability is the hallmark. That and replication are the essence of all science. If it works and can be repeated, explained, it’s good science. Preachers are poor scientists of their trade. Once you remove all the emotional attachment and prejudice of the average preacher’s verbiage, you have little left that has any practical benefit in the workaday world with which most of us have to contend. Just take away his pet phrases and buzzwords and few are left with anything to say. Small wonder Sam Clemens said: “He was as happy as if church had just let out!”

While living here on the mining claim I learned pinecones burn hot and fast but they have no lasting value, unlike a good honest piece of oak. Now the pinecones are great for starting the fire, but you need the oak for the long haul. How’s that for good old boy homiletics?

Jesus said he that overcomes, perseveres, will inherit the kingdom. The faint-hearted need not apply. He also said that we would be given the power to do so if we mean business. But there are many pretenders to the faith, without any real repentance from dead works, who, when the going gets rough or the Devil seems to offer a better deal or whose egos get in the way, fall away. By their fruits we know them.

What reality of God answers to our grief, when we desperately need answers? I believe there is a very human aspect to God, which stands to reason. If He had wanted robots He would have created them. Instead, He made people, in His image, creatures that could love and hate, work and fail, create and appreciate beauty, imagine and dream.

The humanity of the prophets and disciples is evident throughout the entire Bible. In Galatians 5:12 Paul wishes the Judaizers would emasculate themselves. In 4:9 Paul is indecisive about whether we know God or He us. In Ephesians 4:18 we are told that ignorance of divine things is due to hardening of our hearts; in 6:12 there are forces of evil in the heavenly realm. Colossians 1:19 there is a reconciliation of things in heaven to be accomplished. Indecision and human weakness are all there; no plaster saints.

Conviction of wrongdoing brings surrender and repentance, which brings obedience. That is the way of The Gospel. The conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount ends with the warning to count the cost and build accordingly. No one can do this without cold, hard facts in hand. If we are left guessing, God has played a cruel joke on us. However, if we are able to “know” it is worth everything to find out and pursue the very best that God has for us. And it should be exciting work, not guesswork.

It is one of my most infuriating traits (to my detractors in religion and education) that I insist that God is both reasonable and practical. I even believe He expects us to be these things as well. I believe in teaching young people the value of learning, of setting goals and persisting in accomplishing them, of persevering in tasks undertaken.

If Heaven is anything less than having joy in jobs that are worthwhile, of learning things of value, of being able to build, create, fellowship with those like-minded, of having fun, then it would be a cheat. But if it is all these things and more, religious leaders are having no success in showing it.

Heaven must offer both peace and excitement; it must be a place with a trout stream, mountains, and an abundance of wild life and unlimited opportunity to grow in mind and spirit. So I believe Heaven to be, particularly in the wilderness, in the stars at night and in the hopes, dreams and aspirations of young people who haven’t learned what is impossible.

I long for “Sons of Liberty” where others and I fired with that same revolutionary spirit against evil could resort, without distinction between plebeian and patrician, and encourage one another. While it is certainly a commonplace befitting our human condition to, lacking position in the higher classes, make a virtue of the lower, but this has somewhat to do with my own, professedly tongue-in-cheek, appellation of an Okie Intellectual. But it serves me well in getting the goats, if not the attention otherwise, of my self-assumed betters.

Reminds me of my own kin. My brother didn’t write much because he was proud but couldn’t spell his way through a book of cigarette papers. His failure to write is a great loss because he could have helped so much in putting some things of interest to his own children in print and helping me in much of my own writing. It is sad to me that our great-grandmother, grandparents and mom didn’t write down many of the stories they shared with us as children. Sadly, there are some things, like what really counts in life, that are only appreciated with age and wisdom.

The seeming disparity between an Andrew Johnson and Abraham Lincoln is easily resolved in the reading of histories. It is for that reason I encourage you to read Bowers’ account, The Tragic Era. It takes the historian of the soul and appreciation of the poet to do justice to history. For this reason, our most ancient historians were, literally, poets. The mythic of some of the histories had more to them than a simple embellishment of facts. The exaggeration of truth is not always with the intent of passing a lie. It is not always for the purpose of making the teller more important than he really is. The Indian acting out the hunt serves to provide not just the bald facts, but also a story that will be remembered.

Sadly, many truths become legend and are distorted to the point of prejudice; and those that are ignorant of the facts, whether willingly so or not, begin to build their own “facts” on such distortions. Convinced in their own minds of a truth which has no basis in anything but presumption (like the theory of Darwinism and the wars of Caesar Bush), the followers of noble lies and fairy tales designed to promote their own peculiar prejudices often carry them to the extreme of persecuting those that refuse to believe a lie. God’s “strong delusion that they will believe a lie... because the love of the truth is not in them” will be of such a character; the ministers of this grand lie will, as usual, come as angels of light.

I have come to know many wealthy and powerful people. The majority of these, while agreeing with much that I write about, would never be able to put their own thoughts into print as I do. For that reason, these men and women, many good people, would never put in writing what they share with me in confidence verbally. I understand this and have never betrayed their confidences. But there was a time not long ago when honorable men were able to freely express their minds; when political candidates were not one dimensional players in a schlock drama in spite of, at times, making speeches to the sound of cocking pistols in their audiences.

The poets of America have all but disappeared. And America is all the more impoverished, even placed in increasing danger because of this loss. But poets are the true believers, and little of the America my generation knew remains to sustain the belief in America of poets.

The problem of graffiti throughout Bakersfield and other towns about is evidence of those not properly “housebroken.” Years ago when I first began to see gang graffiti on the cottonwood trees along the Kern River I knew civilized people were in big trouble, that barbarians marking their turf had no sensibility of civilized good manners and were not about to learn better, had no interest in learning better.

While the national forests and parks are becoming increasingly dangerous for Americans because of the Mexican drug lords they and their gangs including illegal aliens have not yet taken over the Kern River Valley, and those of us living here count our blessings this is not yet the case. But when it comes to defacing things like cottonwood trees, this is evidence the barbarians have no respect for anything in either Nature or personal property.

In 1969 I filed on a silver mine here locally. A beautiful trout stream, Bull Run Creek, runs through the claim. The first time I ever visited the place in 1948 was at the invitation of an old man (probably my age now). He was the stereotypical prospector, grizzled, gray beard, gnarled hands, stooped back, faded and patched Levi’s, flannel shirt, slouch hat, etc. He happened by our cabin one day and was invited to lunch. While eating, he learned of my passion for fishing. He described where he was living and how to get there going on to say there was a great trout stream with waterfalls and deep pools and plenty of large trout begging to be caught.

The old fellow lived in a tin shack on the claim alongside the stream panning enough gold to supply his few needs and came down to town (Kernville) only when absolutely necessary. He recognized in me a kindred spirit and the first chance I got I took a rough map he had drawn for me and, with tackle in hand, went calling.

Bull Run Creek running free and wild, unprofaned by any pollution and sparking clean, the water so clear I could see the bottom of pools twenty feet deep was everything the old prospector said it was. He showed me a dent in the shack at the side of the doorway telling me he made it chunking a rock at a bear. According to him, the mine was last worked about 1928. It was a Lode claim and every winter the stream would flood it out. There were some old model T and A engines, and an old straight eight that they had used to try to keep the shaft (a stope) pumped out. He said they quit when they couldn’t keep up with the water.

Years later I filed on the claim, naming it the Laura Jean. Only then did I discover that the old boys that had worked the mine had never bothered with this nicety. They simply took the silver and gold and didn’t fuss with notifying Uncle Sam of their enterprise. When I first visited the site a mule trail was still in evidence together with a smelter and the remains of a rock crusher. The ore would be brought down from the mine to this site, and holding ponds for the necessary water were made of granite boulders. One very interesting structure was a long single room made of rock with gun holes all about. The old boys were obviously not going to welcome “visitors” when they were working the mine.

While teaching high school I took several of my pupils back to this pristine, wilderness site to give them the chance to share the wondrous joy of an unspoiled, mountain stream and the wildlife. So many magic hours with young people, my own children especially, in this truly magnificent setting. Oftentimes I cooked trout on the blade of my machete and ate them right beside the stream. Now how can you beat that for quality living!

The country is so rough that it keeps the riff raff out and only other noble souls (fishermen) frequent the spot. It has seemed a sacred trust to maintain it and the very ruggedness of the country has, thus far, kept it so. Only the hardiest can make the hike in and these are, invariably, kindred souls. It is in such settings that we clean out our minds and souls and get our priorities right. There is no other counsel or medicine its equal. But that might be my Choctaw Cherokee blood on grandad’s side speaking- Strong feelings for the land and critters there.

While it remains an intriguing question whether those old miners quit work because the claim played out or they could no longer keep the water pumped out as that old fellow said it was never my intention to work the claim. For one thing, the stope going under the mountain would have to be pumped and dredged then remain dry for at least two years before being safe to enter. At that slant drilling would be required to pick up the vein of silver and determine whether it would be profitable to proceed. No, I filed on it in order to keep this marvel of Creation pristine and free for others to enjoy, and I used to keep the trail open so Forestry could have access.

But eventually a gate had to be installed at the end of Burlando Road out of Kernville to keep the riff raff, the barbarians not “housebroken,” from driving in to the lower area of the stream and trashing it. Still, I take some degree of comfort in knowing the area remains largely without the evidence of barbarians; and while I can no longer make the hike in and long ago set aside my tackle, I have a few pictures and the memories to sustain me.

Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. Proverbs 22:28

The Bakersfield Californian asking for “Treasures from the past” is sparking quite a bit of interest. For those of us who can look back over seventy or more years there is much to remember, and I capture quite of bit of this history in the autobiographical novel I wrote about two children growing up in WWII Bakersfield. But while the Clock Tower was moved and the Fox Theater renovated there is no duplicating many of the places such as the little church my grandfather built on the corner of Cottonwood and Padre. Fortunately, I still have a picture of it and together with memories is all that remains of the little church.

I cannot but wonder at the longevity of the ancient Egyptian civilization. It epitomized the meaning of “ancient landmark.” Those ancient Egyptians had something remarkable to hold on to, landmarks the fathers had set. But as with all civilizations, removing those landmarks eventually led to the demise of ancient Egypt.

But what of the America oldsters like me remember? Suffering as we do from a Federal Triune Dictatorship from hell that America some of us recall now only exists in memories of the past, and when we speak of that America it seems to many of our listeners we are recounting fables rather than actual history, stories like the days of King Arthur and Camelot. But America now seems led of lunatics bent on the destruction of America and the whole world wonders how our nation could have fallen into the hands of such lunatics? A great part of the answer is to be found in the cautionary words not to remove the ancient landmark, which in this case our Founding Fathers set.

There is no explaining an America such as that depicted by Norman Rockwell, but for those of us who lived such an America there is no forgetting it. And even though I was born in Weedpatch and raised among Dust Bowl Okies and Arkies, that America was real enough and we pledged allegiance to our flag, we sang “It’s A Grand Old Flag” as lustily as any in the more privileged and sophisticated schools of the time. We had pride in that America, we trusted our leaders, and the Bible remained our primary textbook both in homes and schools.

As my friend Byron, the Episcopal Priest, and I were discussing that America we knew as children it was with a great deal of melancholy we have lived long enough to witness the removal of the ancient landmarks, the loss of so much of the America we knew as children, an America children today will never know, an America Byron and I remember that was once held in such esteem by the nations of the world, but is now seen as led of lunatics, and thoroughly corrupt lunatics at that, all of them on the Devil’s payroll.

It was when our discussion turned to the Bible things became interesting rather than melancholy. My thought it may have been Satan and his crowd that caused the “confusion of tongues” in Genesis might explain the extreme evil of Homo sapiens not having a common language. It may even explain why the story uses the plural form of gods involved, crediting the story in Job of Satan being included in the “sons of God” and Jesus designating some as “children of the Devil.”

Imagine if you can what it would mean throughout history if all of humankind had a common language from the beginning and continuing to this day. Would this prove a greater threat to God or to Satan? Room here for much philosophical speculation.

But when it comes to “false prophets,” those that make a mockery of the plain words of Jesus that true prophets of God do not wear soft clothing or live in king’s palaces organized religions of all beliefs come under condemnation. While the Roman Church for example can no longer say in the words of Peter “Silver and gold have I none,” neither does it say “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” Wealth invariably makes a mockery of religious pretensions.

As to wealth Byron and I found agreement that in the Temptation even though all the kingdoms of the world were the Devil’s to give to whomsoever he chose and this claim was not disputed by Jesus, these meant nothing to him. In the words of Jesus, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul.” So it was Jesus knew Satan had nothing of value to offer him. But why should it have been of such importance to Satan that Jesus worship him; so important the Devil was willing to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would only bow to the Devil? At this point the conversation with Byron became quite interesting indeed; after all politicians settle for much less, as with most others on the Devil’s payroll. However, I never think of wealth but a memory from the past in Bakersfield comes to mind: The Dump.

Living the solitary life of a writer and author I do not generate much in the way of household trash. The resident cat certainly does not contribute in this regard; a real advantage compared to some pets if you insist on not living in a fur free zone. As a result it takes two or three months for it to be worthwhile to make a trip to the landfill and empty my old pickup. At that, sometimes I just make the trip as an excuse to take the drive all around the lake and enjoy the natural grandeur of our valley. And I’m ever mindful to be grateful for the lack of traffic that makes the drive a pleasure.

None of us way back when I was a kid had ever heard the word Landfill. The Dump was its progenitor. There were few as exciting places to visit as the Dump. Whenever grandad had to make the trip I was quickly in the old Ford pickup with him, all eagerness to explore this wonderful treasure trove of people’s castoffs. Truly, one man’s trash is another’s treasure, but to us children it was all hidden riches only awaiting discovery.

I will never forget the time I became wealthy as Croesus as a result of one such exploration. Nothing escapes the sharp eye of a child. No eagle is a match for the gimlet eye of the child seeking treasure. I was making my way up a hill of paper, cans, broken glass and other debris when I spied it: A crisp, brand new one-dollar bill! It was folded into a square no larger than about one inch. But I saw it!

To understand the magnitude of such a find, one must remember that at that time penny candy was really a penny, bread was five cents a loaf and an entire peach pie could be bought for fifteen cents. Royal Crown Cola, Pepsi, Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Nehi were a nickel each. An entire dollar was real wealth.

My strict, religious upbringing as a child caused me to give ten cents (a tithe) of my treasure to the church (The church in this case was the little one my grandad had built himself and pastored in Little Oklahoma in Southeast Bakersfield). But what was a dime to ensure that God would undoubtedly bless me in finding even greater wealth? Not to disparage those that believe in tithing, but such is the sometime thought always unspoken, never admitted, of somehow putting God in our debt by some act on our part.

While the barbaric woman-hating religion of the sword Islam epitomizes the doctrine of putting God in one’s debt by even acts of murder and other atrocities to the “glory of Allah” and his pervert “prophet,” the same thinking is common to all religions, and in the end it all comes down to wealth whether in this world or the next for all those that believe they can put God in their debt by whatever means. Even, as Paul points out, though they speak in the language of angels, have faith to move mountains and give their bodies to be burned, without being motivated by love these profit such people nothing in the economy of God and the kind of wealth motivated by love Jesus said was to be laid up in heaven. But this is the kind of love that hates evil, and confronts it for what it is recognizing there is never an instant’s truce between vice and virtue, between the children of God and the children of the Devil.

While academia suffers no want of educated fools, an even greater number of fools are to be found among those steeped in the arrogance of presumptive ignorance among which the worst are those disparaging the Founding Fathers. Such ignorant fools have “read a book” and this “qualifies” them to speak insultingly of those like George Washington for example. These fools cannot but remind one of the story of the elephant and the fly. When the fly tells the elephant he must leave the elephant replies, “I didn’t notice you were here.”

The Father of our Country remains a near mythical figure in the annals of history, and while the “flies” are abundant none can detract from the genuine greatness of George Washington. And not a single “fly” can do other than simply be annoying as is the characteristic of all flies filled with a false sense of their importance. No doubt such flies believe they would be better off if America didn’t even exist, if there had never been any like our Founding Fathers who bequeathed us the freest nation in history and then in their presumptive ignorance disparage the very men who gave them the freedom to act like flies. But though the flies like to find fault as though they would have done better I doubt they would put their lives on the line as did those like George Washington for the sake of the freedoms We the People now enjoy and make Americans the envy of the world.

But speaking of freedom, my old farmer friend came by the other day and we got into a discussion about the quality of life here in the Kern River Valley. Russell and I go all the way back to that time when Isabella had a population of 36, so we share a lot of memories about the area before the “Dam People” moved in and the area began to be populated with “flatlanders.”

Russ and I agree that despite the many changes the quality of life makes the valley a very unique place to live, and we share a like gratitude for the blessing of being able to live here. Not only are the air and water clean, there is no traffic and no lines in which to wait for service. But such are the vicissitudes of human nature that if someone has to wait ten minutes at the DMV it is cause for complaint. And all too soon does the glory of the surrounding mountains, the pristine river and streams with trout become a commonplace to many and so taken for granted as to eventually pass unnoticed.

First moving to the Valley in 1948 with my grandparents to settle on a mining claim that is now Boulder Gulch Campground, I found this area every boy’s dream for hunting and fishing. The unspoiled forest, the wild Kern River and Bull Run Creek where trout abounded, it is no wonder that over the years despite encroaching "civilization" it remains my choice for quality of living; and I can hardly fault those moving here for the abundance of clean air and water, among other things.

Having long ago left off the hunting and fishing, now preferring to watch the quail, dove, and those beautiful gray tree squirrels rather than viewing them as food supplying the family pot, the mountains, Bull Run Creek and so many other things remain as they were when I was a boy.

Something else I have retained from those earliest years without electricity or indoor plumbing is an appreciation for simplicity in living, without any of the illusions. The Valley still affords people the opportunity to live simply and enjoy Nature.

Before plastering his cottage at Walden in preparation for his first winter there, Henry Thoreau wrote of how pleasing to the eye the rough, unfinished wood, the bark and knots exposed. I know what he meant. Having done so much building myself, there is something about the bare, raw wood of the construction, working it, the scent of it that makes the covering of it with things like plaster, drywall, stucco seem a somewhat melancholy task.

As a boy, I experienced the same thing with those marvelous balsa and tissue model airplanes. Once all the intricate work of construction was done, I would gaze at the model, all the various delicate parts fully exposed, all properly constructed and the nearly gossamer web work of formers, stringers, longerones, ribs that brought those carefully cut, placed, glued, and sanded parts together into an airplane and it was a somewhat melancholy task, the covering of such beautiful, intricate work of my fingers and mind with the tissue, and then the painting, concealing such a work of art constructed from what at first appeared to be a jumble of miscellaneous and seeming unrelated pieces with no discernable use or purpose.

Many years ago I would learn of the high prices being commanded for "used boards." People would buy old barns and outbuildings in order to have the weathered boards, sometimes intricately grooved or holed by insects, such boards being pleasing to the eye. Some were used for other forms of decorative construction, some used by artists. Speaking of which brings to mind a pet peeve; while many such uses of old, weathered boards are quite pleasing to the eye, a decorated toilet seat hanging on a wall just does not seem to either obscure or enhance its true, intended function, no matter the "art."

My own little cottage in the country has such boards mentioned covering my screened front porch. I look up at the weathered, bare wood with the same pleasure Henry expressed, considering it a sin should these weathered boards, mottled and stained with the rains and snows of many winters, April and May showers and summer heat, ever be profaned by paint.

Admittedly, with increasing age I do find myself increasingly coarse in my manner of living, and this applies to this little cottage in the country as well, where spiders spin their webs unmolested, except for the occasional black widow or recluse, and I enjoy the company of forest birds and critters. As my manner of life coarsens in some ways, it seems I take greater pleasure in things like butterflies and supplying fresh water daily to my wild, country companions.

I have lived in virtual palaces, with concomitant large mortgages, houses that would grace Malibu or Beverly Hills for which I could not even pay the property taxes today, that have not been so pleasing to my eyes as this decaying little cottage that seems to be gently weathering old age, keeping pace with me. What small amount of paint there is on exterior boards like fascia is peeling, the roof leaks, and these things seem in keeping with my own mood and lack of concern for such things in declining years, during which time the things I used to believe of so much importance and consumed so very much of my time, effort and money, so much of my life seem very nearly trivial to me now.

No, my mind still does good service and I have not forgotten why such things were once important to me. Admittedly a writer lives in their mind, welcoming the solitude of their thoughts rather than society, and generally wishes to simplify their lives for the sake of writing. It just seems that I could have chosen a better path long before I did the one I have been following these past few years, a life of simplicity without the acquisition of things, and has other priorities than the lives most account "successful."

I neither fault nor begrudge wealth to those who can responsibly use it beneficially. However, this requires a talent, and it is a talent, that I lack. Regarding philanthropy and works of charity, however, come to think of it Henry did mention his offer of help to the poor of Concord, provided they would live as simply as he did. The poor declined his offer.

Having caught a large lizard in the house, I took him outside and loosed him amongst the large granite rocks in the backyard where he will have more suitable accommodations, admittedly not the usual housekeeping chore enjoyed by those not privileged to live in my surroundings blessed by Nature. Not that I mind having lizards in the house with me; I’m kindly disposed toward the little fellows and they are good at keeping unwanted bugs and spiders cleaned out. But I don’t want to step on one barefoot in the dark, and they become too easy prey to the resident cat that despite my repeated threats of bodily harm to her like cutting her tail off behind her ears refuses to leave the little critters alone.

When I was a boy I anxiously awaited the warm weather as the opportunity to move my bed out of the cabin and place it under a large pine where I would be lulled to sleep by the balmy night breeze soughing through the pine needles, an Aeolian harp, one with the Universal Lyre the strings swept by the hands of angels. These many decades later, there is still magic for me in that whispered music.

Granting the difficulties of living without electricity and indoor plumbing, nevertheless I was thoroughly spoiled as a boy living on the mining claim here in the valley before the lake went in, to have the whole of this part of the Sequoia National Forest and the wild Kern River flowing unrestricted through the valley to myself to explore, hunt and fish to my heart’s content. Therefore it should not be surprising I would want to share this part of Creation with my children as they were growing up.

So at every opportunity I would bring my children here. I would teach them to camp, to fish and to shoot wherever possible in the areas I had come to know and love as a boy. And one of these favorite spots was Bull Run Creek, a pristine trout stream in a pristine wilderness, with its marvelous deep clear pools and sparkling water running over the rocks and waterfalls cascading down over water-carved granite no artist in sculpting could possibly duplicate. I cooperated with Forestry in those days keeping the trail clear all the way back to the old mine and tin shack, and was among those encouraging the present gate be installed at the end of Burlando Road in order to keep this pristine area from being trashed, as was beginning to happen with an influx of uncivilized people not properly “housebroken” before that gate was finally installed.

Surrounded by such abundant beauty of Nature as we are here in the valley, some may be inclined to take it for granted. But I will never forget one occasion that keeps me from doing so.

A young friend born and raised in Los Angeles had never been in a wilderness environment. Hard as it is to believe, there are those born and raised in metropolitan areas that have never heard the call of quail, have never seen more than a handful of stars at night, and have never experienced a native stream. While visiting such a stream with me, the young fellow bent over and putting his finger in the flowing water he looked up at me in wonder and asked, “Is this real water?”

I didn’t laugh; the question was a sobering one, and fortunately I was able to treat it with all the respect it commanded. Given the young man’s background it was far from being a silly question; and it was a forceful lesson to me never to be forgotten that we should never take the bountiful beauty of our valley for granted, but fulfill our obligation as custodians of these wonders and blessings of Nature.

It doesn’t take but a few moments to make a first impression, and human nature being what it is that first impression whether a matter of speech or dress is indelible. But there are those that seem genetically wired to be ugly no matter what the conventions of a society even knowing they are being ugly. Still, the old adage holds true Pretty is as Pretty does.

Reflecting on simplicity in living, neither Henry Thoreau nor I left off civilized language, manners and behavior in order to live so, but this is a matter of taste in some instances. I do have a few things, Henry might suggest they were the “Devil’s doorknobs,” that would require dusting had I a mind to do so. Fortunately, like the spider webs decorating my cottage, they are safe from my ministrations, safe from any attempt on my part to either disturb or better their condition.

As to adopting a vegetarian diet I am not a fanatic on the subject but eventually gave up the eating of animal flesh in the main because it was disagreeable to my imagination, became increasingly barbaric, uncivilized and unclean to my mind and not worth the bother any longer preparing through laborious inventions of cookery and culinary arts. And I am of the same opinion as Henry that how we treat animals is a reflection of the degree of civilization throughout.

In like manner I found that vulgar language, while never approving it even in literature or film became increasingly disagreeable and uncivilized to me as well. It grates on the nerves, on my ears, it makes otherwise beautiful women and handsome men ugly, and like equally ugly, loud raucous noise some mistakenly call “music” in order to justify it I greatly prefer to avoid.

Thanks to my being raised in the tradition of the best of Southern manners and behavior, vulgar or profane language, as with vulgar or sexist “humor” was something considered “low,” and not to be used by the better classes signified and dignified by genuine ladies and gentlemen. My, oh my how the times have changed.

But Carlene Carter had it right: “God can’t make an unbreakable heart.”

Whether the hasty romances of honky tonks or the sophisticated seductions practiced in churches or other environments, the end of most is as Carlene Carter so beautifully phrased it in her song with its marvelously haunting melody, and so many romances only have the participants working on their next broken heart.

Sometimes reverie carries me into those evocative memories of another life from whence came the stories I share in my book Birds With Broken Wings. And as I think about that former life, I realize there was much to it in learning the kind of wisdom resulting from questioning my own. But I would not trade for those experiences that gave me more compassion and understanding of the weaknesses and failures of others.

As a musician and singer, another fellow and I were doing a gig in an upscale supper club where I played clarinet and tenor sax and sang standards like “Funny Valentine.” We were close to finishing the last set of the evening when those at one table who had been especially enthusiastic gave me an idea. There were about twelve people in the group, all dressed in formal evening wear and some had been singing along with us.

I asked if one of the ladies would care to come up on stage and sing. A beautiful, petite brunette was encouraged by her friends to do so. We managed to get her to step up on stage with us and after some short discussion as to her preference, settled on Franky’s New York, New York.

It turned out to be a trio to get her courage up. But very quickly the three of us were really into the song and gave it a grand finale that had everyone in the place loudly applauding. The girl proved to be remarkably talented once her nervousness was overcome. I expressed the hope she would be back. There is nothing like a beautiful woman with a good voice to make your evening complete.

But you are left wondering at such times about the lives of such people when the music has ended. Was her life one where the music continues to play or was it, as with most, composed of just meeting the ordinary needs of the day? Yet music, as with the actual poetry of life, was made to meet just such needs. While life is not for most people music, poetry and flowers (and love letters) we should never forget the need of such things in our lives.

In our society today there seem to be many dedicated to being ugly. For such people no amount of beauty whether of writing, speaking, dress, or civilized good manners on the part of the better classes will dissuade those dedicated to being ugly. But it remains Pretty is as Pretty does. And people are correctly judged on this basis no matter how perverse universities, schools, ACLU dominated Supreme Court and corrupt politicians, media, Hollywood, TV attempt to make it otherwise.

Why should anyone in America have to “Press one for English?” We can thank Ronald Reagan for opening the floodgates to the invading hoards of Mexicans, and the GOP lost because they just don’t get it. And Democrats are going to lose if they don’t get it. We the People are fed up with politicians pandering for votes, appealing to minorities and perverts while ignoring the majority, when not insulting us, just to get elected all the while refusing to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor to benefit politicians and their corporate bosses.

The whole world knows America has been betrayed and sold out for profits; that our politicians are easily bought and sold to the highest bidder, that they serve the god Mammon and there is no truth in them. And because of this long line of liars and panderers America is no longer a unified nation with a national identity. As I look at the picture of George Washington on the wall here where I write I have cause to wonder how many homes in America now display his picture. I don’t expect to find his picture in the homes of Mexicans legal or illegal, but how many homes in America still know anything about our history as a nation, or for that matter the teachers in our schools? I have no doubt if the ACLU has its way pictures of George Washington will be banned from the schools as happened with the Bible, the Decalogue and prayer.

Among the many disasters threatening America is the decline into barbarism witnessed by the increasing use of vulgar and profane language, the lack of civilized proprieties throughout America. However, like my picture of George Washington there was a time within my memory when children were instructed in the use of proper language and civilized manners. But with the encouragement of the universities and an ACLU dominated Supreme Court any rules enforcing proper dress and proper language in the schools of America were halted. Such rules were further discouraged by the use of trash books filled with profanity and perversion posing as “literature.” In no time at all such trash was passed on to the actual speech and behavior of children aided by teachers, the products of the universities, TV and Hollywood, the result being the sinking into barbarism where no standards of decent dress or language, no standards of discipline were allowed.

Despite all the scholarly tomes filled with theories no one knows exactly how Homo sapiens became separated by language. That this has resulted in so much evil makes me rethink the story of Babel in Genesis. Perhaps the gods mentioned were Satan and his group? But whatever the reason there is no discounting the evil resulting from the lack of a common language among humankind, though the crowning glory of language was to be English.

In “My Fair Lady” Professor Higgins had an excellent grasp of the vital importance of the English language and the ability to speak it properly. He knew language separates the classes, and the better classes were distinguished by proper speech more than any other factor, enabling even a flower girl to be treated as a duchess. Were it not for his personal life Bill Cosby might enjoy more success trying to get this message across to Negroes. But at that, proper dress and speech must begin in the home, and reinforced by the schools.

The Greeks had a word for it. The expression comes from the marvelous precision and facility of the Greek language beyond any other of the time leading to the "Golden Age" of philosophical speculation, among other things. I came to appreciate this in my own studies of Greek (and Hebrew) under the tutelage of my friend and mentor Dr. Charles Lee Feinberg, Th. D., Ph. D. the Dean of Talbot Seminary in La Mirada, California. Uncle Charles, as I was privileged to call him, was a master of Semitic Languages as well as Greek and was appointed by the Lockman Foundation to undertake the task of heading the group of scholars translating the manuscripts for the New American Standard Bible. My autographed copy of the Pilot Edition of this work is among my most prized possessions.

Though the German and French languages would eventually excel that of the Greeks, it would be English as exemplified by Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible that would prove to be the epitome of language achievement in the civilized world.

For real students of language, not only are vocabulary, grammar and syntax essential to such study, but also the philological and morphological characteristics of language are of great importance. If I appear to place undue emphasis upon the need for those claiming a command of English to have the essential credentials for their claims, it is largely because I witness far too many making such claims while their writing proclaims their ignorance.

It was not that long past that knowledge of Greek was a characteristic of good breeding and manners, one of the requirements for the status of "Gentleman" among the better classes. But we are now past that requirement, and while knowledge of Greek and studies of Greek writers and philosophers still have an essential place among scholars, it continues to be no more than a pretentious affectation by those who make a show of their self-assumed knowledge of philosophy, for example, by quotations from the Greeks while knowing nothing themselves of the Greek language.

Even worse, such pretenders will quote from Socrates and Plato all the while ignoring those like Goethe and Emerson, even Thoreau (who was not entirely innocent of some affectation respecting oriental writers and philosophers), men who greatly improved upon the ideas of the Greek philosophers. In a further display of ignorance, pretenders to knowledge quoting the Greeks will sometimes take from Buddhist, Hindu, or Islamic writings in a further display of ignorance by ignoring Western writers and philosophers that had a far greater command of the "Great Conversation" than any of these others. We have read some of their writings; those that want to make a display of their knowledge of Aristotle, Zen, Vedic hymns, the Rubaiyat, the Koran, etc., all the while displaying their own ignorance of the fact that Bacon, Emerson, or Sam Clemens said it far better.

Now I know some of these pretenders to knowledge wish to avoid appearing provincial, they want others to believe they are well read and knowledgeable of foreign mystics and philosophers, and the books proliferate singing the praises of such things. However, at least pundits and writers like Buckley and Will, when quoting some arcane philosophical work, are well enough educated to provide the proper context for such quotations.

It is not that Zoroaster and Confucius were without genius; what gives the lie to any kind of claimed superiority by those who make claims of superiority for Oriental writers and philosophers, for example, is the very fact of the obvious superiority of Western Civilization over all others. Would those who make claims of the superiority of Buddhist, Hindu, or Islamic writers wish to live in such societies and the cultures resulting from these as opposed to the truly civilized nations of Western Civilization? I think not.

Though detractors abound defending the “right” to be obscene, profane and vulgar, to speak and dress as barbarians it is the English language, as Professor Higgins so well pointed out, that distinguishes between a flower girl and a duchess, and continues to distinguish true ladies and gentlemen. To point out the obvious, needed because of barbarians defending their “right” to contradict the obvious, character is not defined by language. But genuine character of virtue and integrity seeks improvement, not the destruction of those things beautiful such as proper dress and speech.