Legends? or Truth?

There is much evidence around the world that advanced societies have existed before us.  If it’s true, and there have been advanced civilizations on this planet before and the legends we hear about them represent the highest technical achievements of those civilizations, then we are all in mortal danger.

Our DNA (the infamous double helix) is made up of four proteins, labled A, T, C, and G.  At first, genetic research was confined to just manipulating these letters to make modest changes to an organism.  Soon, they discovered that certain combinations of these letters made “words” and they could manipulate whole words to change things like eye color, or hair color.  Now, they have learned that these “words” make “sentences” and they are able to manipulate entire “sentences”!  Anyone who has seen the altered chickens with breast so large the chickens are not able to stand up can attest to the fact that genetic manipulation has reached an amazing level of sophistication.

How long do you think it will be before scientists can manipulate entire paragraphs?  Will this usher in the era of mixed breeds?  Is this where the legends of half man half beast such as Centaurs, Satyrs and Mermaids come from?

A television show recently told about a young scientist who, through gene splicing, managed to extend the lifespan of a yeast spore by ten times its normal duration.  He went on to say that it is only a matter of time before scientists can do the same with human cells!  Is this where the legends of eight and nine hundred year old biblical characters came from?

If these legends do, in fact, represent the highest level of achievement for those previous civilizations, then we have come full circle because we are at the threshold of those very same achievements.  It only follows that whatever they did to destroy themselves, we are about to do ourselves.

Aunt Bobbie

On July 2^nd, 2011,  the last surviving member of Gail’s parent’s generation passed away in Muskogee, Oklahoma at the age of 96.  “Aunt Bobbie,” the wife of Robert Owen Johnson, was born in Gideon, Oklahoma on January 1^st, 1915 and except for the past year or so, lived an active life.  Her real name was Katie Ballard Ross and she was the youngest of the five children born to Commodore Ross and Emma Still.  Commodore’s father, George Lowery Ross was the nephew of John Ross (1790-1866), Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1866 and known as the “Cherokee Moses.”

Cherokee Chief, John Ross

Before marrying into the Johnson clan, Katie had been married to Charles M. Pitchlynn, a man whose ancestry is also linked to one of the five civilized tribes.  Charles’ great, great grandfather was John Pitchlynn, one of the earliest pioneers on the Mississippi frontier.  When John’s father Isaac died, John was raised by the Choctaw Indians and learned their language.  Later, John established a trading post on the Tombigbee River in Mississippi and acted as Indian Agent and interpreter for George Washington during his presidency. He served in the capacity of presidential advisor until at least 1820.

In 1804, John married Sophia Folsom, a woman of mixed heritage.  Her father was Ebenezer Folsom and her mother was a mixed Choctaw/Anglo woman named Natika.  Sophia has the distinction of having the oldest known grave in Oklahoma.  John and Sophia had a total of ten children, of whom Peter Perkins Pitchlynn is the most renowned.  Peter was the Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation from 1860 to 1866.  As a side note, Peter’s younger maternal cousin, Frances Folsom (1864-1947) married Grover Cleveland in the White House.

Choctaw Chief, Peter Perkins Pitchlynn

A trip to Oklahoma always included a visit with Aunt Bobbie and she never ran out of interesting stories to tell.  I’m glad I had a chance to get to know her and hear those stories.

Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink!

I have a plan to bring our country out of this “Depression”!  We need a national project on the same scale as the Transcontinental Railroad and I propose a transcontinental pipeline to bring water to the West.

After the Civil War, this country would have almost surely entered a depression period if it had not been for the Railroads and the jobs they provided for returning military men.  In this century, we have a need that is almost as pressing, and that is the need for water in the West.  The western states have always relied on the Ogallala Aquifer for its water needs, but over the past century, farmers have almost pumped it dry and water is becoming a crisis everywhere in the West.

I propose a national pipeline from Lake Michigan to solve this problem once and for all.  It would be a massive undertaking that would eliminate unemployment and give our country focus.  Currently, 130,000 acre feet of water pour over Niagara Falls every day on its way to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence Seaway.  That’s enough water to fill Diamond Valley Lake and Lake Havasu in just over 11 days.  By comparison, when Diamond Valley reservoir, alone, was filled from current sources it took well over two years!

Think of the benefits to be gained from irrigating Nevada, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico!  After the pipeline, we can then focus on another pipeline to bring Pacific Ocean water to Death Valley.  It would change the climate of the desert and make it a habitable, and maybe even desirable, place to live!

Tattoos

Every generation has its fads but I feel a special sympathy for the latest generation.  In the forties it was the Zoot Suit, in the fifties the Bobby Sox crowd had saddle oxfords and the Beatniks had their goatees, in the sixties the Hippies had long hair and flowers, but all these things had something in common, they were reversible.  The Zoot Suiters could shed their baggy dress, the Bobby Soxers could revert to street shoes, the beatniks could shave their goatees, and the Hippies could cut their hair.  I lived through one of those generations and if you saw me today you would have no way of knowing if I had been a long haired pot smoking dropout who had burned his draft card and lived in a Volkswagen bus or if I had been a Viet Nam warrior.  What do you do with a Tattoo?

Uncle Billy

January 1945, a few days before he shipped out

I have always been intrigued by the fate and short life of my Uncle Billy.  Born on December 5th, 1927, he was only 2 years old when he and his 4 year old brother and 7 year old sister were separated from their mother and sent to live as foster children with Clara and Sealey Carpenter in Bassett, Nebraska.

Uncle Billy had finished his junior year of High School in Bassett and was about to enter his senior year when the lure of fame and glory in the military got the better of him.  Since all of his brothers, and now his sister Eleanor had moved to the west coast to join the war effort, he was the only one of the siblings who still remained at the foster home in Bassett.  It must have seemed awfully lonely to him.

In July of 1944, he headed west to Sacramento, California, to be with the rest of his family.  On August 28^th of that year, in San Francisco, he lied about his age and enlisted in the U. S. Army.  He was 99 days short of his 17 birthday!  Billy had barely finished basic training when things heated up in France.  The Germans had just completed “Operation Northwind” at Colmar, France, wherein they split the forces of the U. S. 7^th Army and placed them in a grave situation.  The following is the speech given by Adolph Hitler to his troops on the eve of the offensive.

"This attack has a very clear objective, namely the destruction of the enemy forces. There is not a matter of prestige involved here. It is a matter of destroying and exterminating the enemy forces wherever we find them. The question of liberating all of Alsace at this time is not involved either. That would be very nice, the impression on the German people would be immeasurable, the impression on the world decisive, terrific psychologically, the impression on the French people would be depressing. But that is not important. It is more important, as I said before, to destroy his manpower."

General Eisenhower ordered reinforcements, a few of which came from the beleaguered troops who were still embroiled in the “Battle of the Bulge” just to the north in the Ardennes, and a contingent of fresh recruits from the United States.  Billy was one of those fresh recruits.

Billy’s unit, the XXI Corps was subordinate to the 3^rd division of the U.S. 7^th Army when they began combat operations in mid-January of 1945.  Their goal was to regain the ground lost to Germany’s New Years offensive, “Operation Northwind” into Alsace, France.  For this effort, Billy’s unit would be attached to the French 1^st Army, under the command of Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and they would be pitted against the command of none other than  Heinrich Himmler himself.  It was a fierce pitched battle in bitter winter cold that ultimately collapsed the “Colmar Pocket” and ended German resistance in France.  This is where William Raymond Henderson lost his life on February 2nd, 1945.  He had taken cover in a small farm building that was hit by tank fire.  The seasoned veterans knew better than to take cover in buildings that were inevitably the targets for artillery, but green recruits did not.  Billy is buried in the military cemetery in Epinal, France.

Happy Birthday USA!

 To paraphrase one of our greatest presidents, Eleven score and fifteen years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation…  We were a light to the world, and a departure and escape from the tyranny of old world forms of religion and government, the last, best hope for mankind.

Now, it appears as if our president is intent on bringing us down to the level of those very same institutions we fought to escape from; a giant leap backward for mankind.  So others would not feel left out, it seems like we have sacrificed the standards of our forefathers for the benefit of those who could not or would not live up to them.

We lowered the standards in our schools to accommodate the shiftless, unmotivated dropouts, we lowered the standards for citizenship to accommodate all the illegals who have all but bankrupted our social welfare systems,  and we, or should I say Barney Frank lowered the lending standards to accommodate all the social misfits who would not work to fit into the “American Dream.”  The net effect has been to destroy that “American Dream” for our children, and probably our grandchildren.

We lifted ourselves above the level of the third world because we were an industrious people unfettered by government regulation.  We should not feel guilty about what we have achieved.  If our “carbon footprint is ten times that of other countries it is because we worked and fought ten times as hard.  That is, and always will be, the way of the world.  We should not lower our standards to bring the rest of the world into the fold, it will not help them and will only damage us.

We need to abandon “Free Trade” and institute tariffs now, to protect ourselves from cheap, third world, labor.  Tariffs will bring manufacturing back to this country and we can, once again, measure our worth by our productivity.  That would be a great birthday present!