I was reminded today, in the midst of one of the saddest times of recent years, just how lucky I have been in the associations that I have formed in business. The funeral of the son, and only child, of my primary business associates, Connie and Morrison Brown, was an occasion that took two people in shock from the completely unexpected event, and demonstrated to them that business customers are as good a source of strong friends as are any other aspects of one's life.
My father and Morrison worked together long ago at what was then called a Cabinet Shop, Wade Manufacturing Company. Morrison was a designer and my dad worked a bench, where the various furniture and fixtures were built. The close relationship between designer and craftsman, necessary in such a business, served Morrison well. Later as a designer in his own business, he would seek out those craftsmen like my father to help him with his projects. By the time that Morrison was doing his own work, my mother and father ran their own custom drapery shop. Their association started about three years before I went to work with my parents.
I soon bought out the drapery business and in the combined businesses, I now have a 32 year working relationship with Morrison and Connie. In some capacity, and often central to the project, I have been there in 80% of the projects that Morrison has tackled over the years. So long as I work with Morrison, then I am a part of Brown's Interiors, but having been a teacher and having a rather outgoing personality, I have developed strong relationships with many of those people.
Morrison set a standard for an exceedingly high level of professionalism on all his projects. Those of us who came in to take care of the various aspects of delivering the product sold and anticipated were always mindful that we had to maintain those professional standards. A few of us had extended contact with the customers on different levels. I probably fell somewhere below the finish carpenter and the carpet man in that respect, but my product was always the most visible, the last to be installed, and often the most anticipated. In reality, I thrived on the pressure to finish off the project with no dropoff in customer satisfaction from the day the project was given a go and a substantial monetary deposit was made. We were playing with big bucks, and customer dissatisfaction could quickly sour a whole project.
Many of the people that we have worked for over the years were at the service to honor Chess Brown, the deceased son. They came because they felt almost as close to Morrison as family. He had indeed reached across the usual boundaries of the client/designer association and become a valued friend.
And, it seems that I also had been able to pass through that line with many who hugged my neck and told me how wonderful it was to see me again, asked questions about my family, and generally showed a real interest in my life. I treasure those associations as much as I treasure the friendships that lie outside my work world.
Craftsmanship and service have taken a real beating over the last many years. The market for the really good work that is related to interior design has grown smaller and smaller. Most of us who are still in the business have seen our potential customer bases shrink by 90% or more. Many of the people who could be producing first rate products have taken to producing second rate products to increase that potential customer base. Today, I get more work in Blowing Rock than I get out of the whole of Union County. I have watched as even the wealthy have often gone the cheap, second rate, route in homes that cost them millions of dollars. It is sad, to say the least.
One of my favorite mental images took place in an apartment where a carpenter and the wealthy widow who was having work done to redo the living room of her apartment, pushed aside the clutter of reconstruction, put a linen tablecloth over a work table, and sat on two work benches to have their wine and finger sandwiches while they talked of an opera both had seen in New York. It tells me that we can indeed span the usual lines of relationships and be rewarded in the process. I have seen many variations on this theme over the years and have even had a concert pianist play classical music for me on her baby grand while I hung draperies in her large music room. That same lady's daughter walked and talked with me through the receiving line after the service. Good friends are where you are willing to make them.
Two years, almost to the date of Chess's death, Connie died from the cancer that had been there for several years. Morrison is by himself, confused, and unable to take care of himself. This has to be one of the saddest situations that I have ever seen. Brown's Interiors, Inc. no longer exists and the lot of us are scattered..
Friday, March 19, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Health Insurance Death Sprial
Get away from healthcare and let the insurance system die a natural death in the marketplace. What we are watching as insurance premiums go up and up is actually what Paul Krugman called its "death spiral." The announcement by one provider that it would raise the premiums of all the independent insurance holders in California by 30% is a statement that their model is failing. In fact, it failed long ago by any honest assessment.
Why is Wellpath raising the premiums by such a large amount. Irritated at Fox News for suggesting that they were doing nothing but giving the Democrats red meat in this battle, one Wellpath executive told the Fox listeners why this was happening. Of course no one listened. This attempt to bring needed repairs to our system has produced nothing but hypocricy, irrational screaming, and outright demogogory on the right side of the political aisle. What is it that these people will not face?
Here is what the insurance executive tried to tell Fox News. At the present level of premiums, so many well people have decided to go uninsured that the ratio of well to sick has fallen and thus put more pressure for taking care of the sick onto the sick. In other words, if you have medical needs and buy insurance, then the amount of your medical bills that you are going to have to pay has risen because there are less well people in the pool to help pay your bills.
Here is what the insurance executive did not tell Fox News. At the elevated premium level after the 30% increase, Many fewer people will buy insurance, because they can not afford it, making the burden heavier on the sick, which will produce more increases, which will lead to less people buying insurance. The death spiral actually started about fifteen years ago and is accelerating. In the last year, two million more Americans have been dropped from the insurance premium paying population, either by the companies because they were costing too much or because they found they could no longer afford the premiums. Flush your toilet friends and see what is happening to the system that we have.
Indeed, market forces are going to be the downfall of the health insurance industry if we do not interfere to prop them up, and that is what the present Democratic bill has done. Forget all of the garbage about Obamacare and all the other mindless chatter about people in the government deciding who gets what care. That is the garbage of the mindless. What is happening is that we are seeing that the marketplace can not adapt to contridictions that are inherient in the whole health insurance and healthcare monster. When maximums are achieved at one location it is only because of extreme and undesirable deficiencies at another location in the complex system. When profit is the primary motive of all business interests involved, then "you win-I lose " situations multiply. When you ask some guy in Des Moins to pay $1,500 per month so someone in Kansas City can be cured of cancer, and then next year you demand $1,950 per month from that man because the guy in Chicago quit paying the $1,500 he was paying, and the next year to ask for $2,400 from the guy because the guy in Dallas also quit paying his money, then the guy in Iowa is going to figure out sooner or later that he is getting suckered. Many of our citizens have already figured that out and more and more are doing so. That is the death spiral.
So, I propose that we get as far away from health care as we can get. I openly suggest to all who see themselves as non-users of insurance benefits to quit paying the tax, since it is optional. Let this system die a natural death inside the free marketplace, because, left to itself, it will die. Moreover, it will do so within the next ten years. Put all the money you might put into health insurance into a healthcare savings account, barter, deal, and do whatever you have to do to reduce the costs you do incur. It is time to let these self righteous ideologues and their system die. Let the marketplace work.
Why is Wellpath raising the premiums by such a large amount. Irritated at Fox News for suggesting that they were doing nothing but giving the Democrats red meat in this battle, one Wellpath executive told the Fox listeners why this was happening. Of course no one listened. This attempt to bring needed repairs to our system has produced nothing but hypocricy, irrational screaming, and outright demogogory on the right side of the political aisle. What is it that these people will not face?
Here is what the insurance executive tried to tell Fox News. At the present level of premiums, so many well people have decided to go uninsured that the ratio of well to sick has fallen and thus put more pressure for taking care of the sick onto the sick. In other words, if you have medical needs and buy insurance, then the amount of your medical bills that you are going to have to pay has risen because there are less well people in the pool to help pay your bills.
Here is what the insurance executive did not tell Fox News. At the elevated premium level after the 30% increase, Many fewer people will buy insurance, because they can not afford it, making the burden heavier on the sick, which will produce more increases, which will lead to less people buying insurance. The death spiral actually started about fifteen years ago and is accelerating. In the last year, two million more Americans have been dropped from the insurance premium paying population, either by the companies because they were costing too much or because they found they could no longer afford the premiums. Flush your toilet friends and see what is happening to the system that we have.
Indeed, market forces are going to be the downfall of the health insurance industry if we do not interfere to prop them up, and that is what the present Democratic bill has done. Forget all of the garbage about Obamacare and all the other mindless chatter about people in the government deciding who gets what care. That is the garbage of the mindless. What is happening is that we are seeing that the marketplace can not adapt to contridictions that are inherient in the whole health insurance and healthcare monster. When maximums are achieved at one location it is only because of extreme and undesirable deficiencies at another location in the complex system. When profit is the primary motive of all business interests involved, then "you win-I lose " situations multiply. When you ask some guy in Des Moins to pay $1,500 per month so someone in Kansas City can be cured of cancer, and then next year you demand $1,950 per month from that man because the guy in Chicago quit paying the $1,500 he was paying, and the next year to ask for $2,400 from the guy because the guy in Dallas also quit paying his money, then the guy in Iowa is going to figure out sooner or later that he is getting suckered. Many of our citizens have already figured that out and more and more are doing so. That is the death spiral.
So, I propose that we get as far away from health care as we can get. I openly suggest to all who see themselves as non-users of insurance benefits to quit paying the tax, since it is optional. Let this system die a natural death inside the free marketplace, because, left to itself, it will die. Moreover, it will do so within the next ten years. Put all the money you might put into health insurance into a healthcare savings account, barter, deal, and do whatever you have to do to reduce the costs you do incur. It is time to let these self righteous ideologues and their system die. Let the marketplace work.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
A Little Loss of Courage
Merle Haggard sings a song he wrote, "Mama's Hungry Eyes", in which he has the line, "just a little loss of courage as their age began to show." Over the last several years, and especially as it applies to my own father, this line has hit home in ways that I never would have considered. There are often a lot of ways to describe a single series of events, and the poet that finds the most meaningful or tersest description certainly may own rights to the naming of that series of events. I think that Merle owns the naming rights to the events that I saw in my father, and am sure are repeated in the population over and over.
My father, like most people, was many people and I certainly do not have ownership of the total Clyde Moore. But, no one can deny that he was a driven man who saw the world as standing in his way. His central daily task was to use machete, fists, verbal assault, or whatever it took to cut for himself a way through that jungle growth that was composed of every kind of vine hostile to his ambitions. He was a fighter and his first thought about you or anyone else that he encountered was that you were put there to be outdone, outsmarted, out-fought, or outworked.
Sometimes I use the word "bully" to describe him. If you show me your definitions of a bully, then I can certainly show you how Clyde Parks Moore fit those definitions. The thing that bothers me so much today is that I can also show you those same characteristics in varying degrees in all his sons, including me. But, the word bully has such a limited scope, and omits so much of the man, that to just call him a bully would be unjust, and simply not sufficient.
So what happens when a man with the drive of my father finds that he no longer has the physical and mental prowess to meet the world on his terms and must subjugate his will to the will of others? What happens when he finds that it is not his drive but his undeveloped skills of negotiation that will best help him accomplish his goals? What happens when he has no choice but to wait upon others and their schedules to get the help he now has to have to simply get from here to there?
Before I go on with this, let me say that as my father was in the throes of his severe loss of abilities, just when he had to rely upon others for help, there were complicating factors with my mother and her condition that set up terrible clashes between he and I which should never have happened. But, I was the last person that my father gave up on bullying for a bunch of reasons, and those clashes happened. I am not writing this as some sort of absolution of my own sins. I should have been smarter, but I was not.
Nothing about my father's last years bothered me so much as his giving up on the courage that drove him for so many years. He began to surrender that courage at the age of 62 because the government had told him that they would be somewhat responsible for him at that age through Social Security. By the time he was 65, he had made the transition to retired, and he never pretended to be anything but retired in the 24 years he lived after that. The word retired carries with it the justification for the surrendering of courage, and so he let it slip away from him long before there was any physical reason for him to do so.
My father spent a lot of time in his years between 62 and 89 playing the role of the senior citizen. He traveled on buses with his friends. He attended a weekly meeting of senior citizens and served as its co-president twice. He and my mother developed friendships and got together regularly with others their age to play card and board games. He worked in his shop making all sorts of wood items, something that he was sort of a natural at doing. His work was beautiful. and imaginative.
For 27 years, that was my father's life, mostly because the government had set up programs that allowed him to lose courage, lose vitality, and lose desire to get any of it back. Those 27 years equals the total of the years of my brother and his son, who died early due to cancer. What Merle Haggard described as a little loss of courage, my father, because the government told him he could, surrendered as if he were going to be able to simply molt like a bug and take on a new and better skin.
The contrast with my mother was striking. She worked until she was past 80 years of age and was suffering from dementia so badly that she could not and did not desire to perform. She may have done so to earn the money they needed to live the life they wanted to live. She may have done it to make sure that I had workers. She may have done it simply to remain vital, but she did it. She never gave up on the person that she had been all her life. She never lost courage.
As we go through the wars to get this country back to working for its citizens by getting its citizens to work for it, we have to face the notion that there is some magic age when we define people as insignificant, but very worthy of our support regardless of the cost. We are wrecking our economy by sending $7 upward in our society for every $1 that is sent downward. This has to stop or we will not have a country much longer.
I have seen the forces within my own family to not only keep this up but accelerate it. I have watched, and participated, as rather than take on "family responsibilities" we relegate those responsibilities to the government. I have watched as my siblings denied the moral obligation to limit the taking of government money by allowing a natural death to happen. This is not a problem that "they" are causing. It is a problem that "we" are causing.
In an ideal world, I have no idea how my father's last 27 years would have played out, and I do not want to know. This is not an ideal world, never has been, and never will be. But, knowing that nature will create those conditions sooner or later which will lead to "a little loss of courage" why do we speed up the process? Why, if the government is going to get involved, is it not encouraging people to delay that process until nature demands it? Why do we give people the tools to give up courage early when those tools are bankrupting us?
God bless every one of you who is 65, or 70, or more, who goes to work on a regular schedule and maintains his or her vitality. My Aunt Lib, who also worked for me, worked on until she was about 87. She always said that if she stopped then she would just die. For her the choice was work or die, and she worked, God rest her soul. If only there were tens of millions of others out there like Aunt Lib, then we could get our country back. If only.....
My father, like most people, was many people and I certainly do not have ownership of the total Clyde Moore. But, no one can deny that he was a driven man who saw the world as standing in his way. His central daily task was to use machete, fists, verbal assault, or whatever it took to cut for himself a way through that jungle growth that was composed of every kind of vine hostile to his ambitions. He was a fighter and his first thought about you or anyone else that he encountered was that you were put there to be outdone, outsmarted, out-fought, or outworked.
Sometimes I use the word "bully" to describe him. If you show me your definitions of a bully, then I can certainly show you how Clyde Parks Moore fit those definitions. The thing that bothers me so much today is that I can also show you those same characteristics in varying degrees in all his sons, including me. But, the word bully has such a limited scope, and omits so much of the man, that to just call him a bully would be unjust, and simply not sufficient.
So what happens when a man with the drive of my father finds that he no longer has the physical and mental prowess to meet the world on his terms and must subjugate his will to the will of others? What happens when he finds that it is not his drive but his undeveloped skills of negotiation that will best help him accomplish his goals? What happens when he has no choice but to wait upon others and their schedules to get the help he now has to have to simply get from here to there?
Before I go on with this, let me say that as my father was in the throes of his severe loss of abilities, just when he had to rely upon others for help, there were complicating factors with my mother and her condition that set up terrible clashes between he and I which should never have happened. But, I was the last person that my father gave up on bullying for a bunch of reasons, and those clashes happened. I am not writing this as some sort of absolution of my own sins. I should have been smarter, but I was not.
Nothing about my father's last years bothered me so much as his giving up on the courage that drove him for so many years. He began to surrender that courage at the age of 62 because the government had told him that they would be somewhat responsible for him at that age through Social Security. By the time he was 65, he had made the transition to retired, and he never pretended to be anything but retired in the 24 years he lived after that. The word retired carries with it the justification for the surrendering of courage, and so he let it slip away from him long before there was any physical reason for him to do so.
My father spent a lot of time in his years between 62 and 89 playing the role of the senior citizen. He traveled on buses with his friends. He attended a weekly meeting of senior citizens and served as its co-president twice. He and my mother developed friendships and got together regularly with others their age to play card and board games. He worked in his shop making all sorts of wood items, something that he was sort of a natural at doing. His work was beautiful. and imaginative.
For 27 years, that was my father's life, mostly because the government had set up programs that allowed him to lose courage, lose vitality, and lose desire to get any of it back. Those 27 years equals the total of the years of my brother and his son, who died early due to cancer. What Merle Haggard described as a little loss of courage, my father, because the government told him he could, surrendered as if he were going to be able to simply molt like a bug and take on a new and better skin.
The contrast with my mother was striking. She worked until she was past 80 years of age and was suffering from dementia so badly that she could not and did not desire to perform. She may have done so to earn the money they needed to live the life they wanted to live. She may have done it to make sure that I had workers. She may have done it simply to remain vital, but she did it. She never gave up on the person that she had been all her life. She never lost courage.
As we go through the wars to get this country back to working for its citizens by getting its citizens to work for it, we have to face the notion that there is some magic age when we define people as insignificant, but very worthy of our support regardless of the cost. We are wrecking our economy by sending $7 upward in our society for every $1 that is sent downward. This has to stop or we will not have a country much longer.
I have seen the forces within my own family to not only keep this up but accelerate it. I have watched, and participated, as rather than take on "family responsibilities" we relegate those responsibilities to the government. I have watched as my siblings denied the moral obligation to limit the taking of government money by allowing a natural death to happen. This is not a problem that "they" are causing. It is a problem that "we" are causing.
In an ideal world, I have no idea how my father's last 27 years would have played out, and I do not want to know. This is not an ideal world, never has been, and never will be. But, knowing that nature will create those conditions sooner or later which will lead to "a little loss of courage" why do we speed up the process? Why, if the government is going to get involved, is it not encouraging people to delay that process until nature demands it? Why do we give people the tools to give up courage early when those tools are bankrupting us?
God bless every one of you who is 65, or 70, or more, who goes to work on a regular schedule and maintains his or her vitality. My Aunt Lib, who also worked for me, worked on until she was about 87. She always said that if she stopped then she would just die. For her the choice was work or die, and she worked, God rest her soul. If only there were tens of millions of others out there like Aunt Lib, then we could get our country back. If only.....
Friday, February 5, 2010
Of Sickness, Health, Old Friends, and Family
Remember when the news of the day was the new car, the new child on the way, the new school that the kids would enter this year, the problems on the job, or the promotion? Somewhere in your twenties you enter that world and it goes on and on as if it were never going to end, and then silence, it is over.
The last kid goes off to college and the house has an eerie silence in it that all the televisions and radios can not fill. You walk into bedrooms once almost off limits to you and look around, waiting for what was to come to life, and noting happens. Finally the telephone rings and one of the children tells you that they would love to see you, but it may be next month, or the next, or the next. You adapt.
It is sort of a blessing that your own parents are in more need of your time and energies now, and you jump headfirst into their problems, and you start calling up and talking to people who you have known along the way who got lost. You join in community efforts more and you get involved in other interests, writing or working sudoku puzzles. When you get the chance, you go on extended trips to places you always wanted to visit.
In the twinkling of an eye, grandchildren are born, parents pass on, and you find yourself sitting in front of the computer, signing up for Social Security and Medicare. Little back and leg problems become chronic, and you spend a lot more time in the doctor's office or other medical facilities. Sisters, brothers, inlaws, friends, and other acquaintances start having problems that are even more chronic and life threatening.
You go to the mailbox and there is a letter from an old friend's wife saying that Larry died a couple of months ago after an extended illness.
Three years ago, while working in High Point, you stopped by to see Larry and Kathy, old college friends, and had a great couple of hours but you knew that Larry was headed for big problems, but, though you are in his town many times, you fail to followup, and he is gone. But, like magic, another old college friend calls you up and tells you that he has letters you wrote him when in college and he wants to give them to you. You drive across town to see him for the first time in 35 years and you find there is a kindred spirit that is sort of in the same place in life that you are, again, and the communication is very satisfying. There was a reason that you were buddies 45 years ago.
What is it going to take for me to like this thing they call old age? For one, a lot more contact with my grandchildren than I have been able to have over the last six years. Another is for family members to tear down the religious and political fences they have constructed to corral their friends and keep out their enemies. I really do not give a damn about either your politics or religion any longer, I care about your humanity. Us old geezers are close enough to finding out the real truth about religion and we need to stop dividing up the world into those who think like us and those who don't. My soul belongs to me, not you, so, stay off the turf.
But, it is also going to take as much reuniting with old friends as possible. I want to sit and talk with Dennis Franklin and Robbie Cannon, Joe Miller and Jimmy Mullis, and all the others that were once such a great part of my life. I want to share the pain and the agony with my family members who have been there all my life. I also want to share the joy and the rewards of a well spent life.
Morrison and I have been partners in business for 31 years. I want to be one of the people he and Connie talk to about her bout with cancer. I want to console and elate her as she takes this unwanted journey. I want to talk with both of them about the great projects that we have tackled together, nearly always with astonishing success. I want to gloat over the awards won and the people made happy by our work.
And, I want to make new friends and enjoy those that circumstance or propinquity have brought into my life. I want to go out and drink a cup of coffee now and then and talk about life, politics, and baseball scores.
Like the other parts of my life, this one will also pass, and I want it to be worth the living just as the other were. The death and sickness notices will come, and I accept that as a part of this phase of my life, but I demand there be balance.
The last kid goes off to college and the house has an eerie silence in it that all the televisions and radios can not fill. You walk into bedrooms once almost off limits to you and look around, waiting for what was to come to life, and noting happens. Finally the telephone rings and one of the children tells you that they would love to see you, but it may be next month, or the next, or the next. You adapt.
It is sort of a blessing that your own parents are in more need of your time and energies now, and you jump headfirst into their problems, and you start calling up and talking to people who you have known along the way who got lost. You join in community efforts more and you get involved in other interests, writing or working sudoku puzzles. When you get the chance, you go on extended trips to places you always wanted to visit.
In the twinkling of an eye, grandchildren are born, parents pass on, and you find yourself sitting in front of the computer, signing up for Social Security and Medicare. Little back and leg problems become chronic, and you spend a lot more time in the doctor's office or other medical facilities. Sisters, brothers, inlaws, friends, and other acquaintances start having problems that are even more chronic and life threatening.
You go to the mailbox and there is a letter from an old friend's wife saying that Larry died a couple of months ago after an extended illness.
Three years ago, while working in High Point, you stopped by to see Larry and Kathy, old college friends, and had a great couple of hours but you knew that Larry was headed for big problems, but, though you are in his town many times, you fail to followup, and he is gone. But, like magic, another old college friend calls you up and tells you that he has letters you wrote him when in college and he wants to give them to you. You drive across town to see him for the first time in 35 years and you find there is a kindred spirit that is sort of in the same place in life that you are, again, and the communication is very satisfying. There was a reason that you were buddies 45 years ago.
What is it going to take for me to like this thing they call old age? For one, a lot more contact with my grandchildren than I have been able to have over the last six years. Another is for family members to tear down the religious and political fences they have constructed to corral their friends and keep out their enemies. I really do not give a damn about either your politics or religion any longer, I care about your humanity. Us old geezers are close enough to finding out the real truth about religion and we need to stop dividing up the world into those who think like us and those who don't. My soul belongs to me, not you, so, stay off the turf.
But, it is also going to take as much reuniting with old friends as possible. I want to sit and talk with Dennis Franklin and Robbie Cannon, Joe Miller and Jimmy Mullis, and all the others that were once such a great part of my life. I want to share the pain and the agony with my family members who have been there all my life. I also want to share the joy and the rewards of a well spent life.
Morrison and I have been partners in business for 31 years. I want to be one of the people he and Connie talk to about her bout with cancer. I want to console and elate her as she takes this unwanted journey. I want to talk with both of them about the great projects that we have tackled together, nearly always with astonishing success. I want to gloat over the awards won and the people made happy by our work.
And, I want to make new friends and enjoy those that circumstance or propinquity have brought into my life. I want to go out and drink a cup of coffee now and then and talk about life, politics, and baseball scores.
Like the other parts of my life, this one will also pass, and I want it to be worth the living just as the other were. The death and sickness notices will come, and I accept that as a part of this phase of my life, but I demand there be balance.
Friday, January 22, 2010
The Tall Dark Stranger
There is an old joke that I was reminded of today as many people stood up for the Supreme Courts decision to allow corporations to spend all the money thay wanted or could afford to spend as a part of election campaigns. This decision can not be allowed to stand or it will surely be the undoing of our democracy and the republic. But, this is just one more case of corporate interests taking over our lives. Here is the joke.
In an old western town, a man swings open the doors of the bar and looks around, obviously very mad and looking for someone. At the end of the bar he spots a man drinking a whiskey and he walks up to him, getting very close to the man's face.
This is the way the conversation went.
"Are you the one they call the tall dark stranger?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who stole all of my cattle?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who burned my fields and destroyed my crops?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who raped my wife and my daughters?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who then burned down my house?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who then killed all my family, leaving me alone and broke?"
"Yep"
"Well buddy, next time, let's watch that shit!!!"
Conservatives in this country are so busy hating that which they feel so smug in hating that they are allowing the Supreme Court and corporations to do to all of us what the Tall Dark Stranger did to the rancher. These "freedom loving fanatics" are giving away every freedom that they have so that they can rack up points in their stupid little game of "Who are the real patriots?" There is indeed cultural snobbery at work in this country and it is the people who are what my Italian son calls "Red Neck Wannabes" that are the snobs. Meanwhile their accomplices in suits are destroying our country with the blessing of these Wannabes. It is enough to turn you into a Grenola.
In an old western town, a man swings open the doors of the bar and looks around, obviously very mad and looking for someone. At the end of the bar he spots a man drinking a whiskey and he walks up to him, getting very close to the man's face.
This is the way the conversation went.
"Are you the one they call the tall dark stranger?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who stole all of my cattle?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who burned my fields and destroyed my crops?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who raped my wife and my daughters?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who then burned down my house?"
"Yep"
"Are you the man who then killed all my family, leaving me alone and broke?"
"Yep"
"Well buddy, next time, let's watch that shit!!!"
Conservatives in this country are so busy hating that which they feel so smug in hating that they are allowing the Supreme Court and corporations to do to all of us what the Tall Dark Stranger did to the rancher. These "freedom loving fanatics" are giving away every freedom that they have so that they can rack up points in their stupid little game of "Who are the real patriots?" There is indeed cultural snobbery at work in this country and it is the people who are what my Italian son calls "Red Neck Wannabes" that are the snobs. Meanwhile their accomplices in suits are destroying our country with the blessing of these Wannabes. It is enough to turn you into a Grenola.
He Is Who I Thought He Was
At the end of his first year in office, the country is in a storm. It really did not matter who we elected as President, that storm was coming. It is born of the economic insecurity and all the hundred million reasons that people have to not trust government to come to their personal aid or represent their interests. That segment of our population who figure that they were ordained by God to rule have set upon this president with a special vengeance. Is it because he is black? I think so.
But, he is who I thought he was when I voted for him and encouraged others to do the same. I have run my own business for over 30 years and I understand that there is a big difference between actually creating a good product and creating satisfied customers, and talking about what I would do if I did run my own business. I also taught mathematics for 11 years and while Barack Obama was a law professor, law, like mathematics, requires a high degree of mental discipline. I knew that if I could read the evaluations of his students, then I would know the man. Those students said that above all, he was practical.
The din of pure bull coming from the right about Barack Obama reverberated upon itself and took many a person to a level of total hysteria about him and his coming presidency. In the midst of that din, there was nothing of logic and truth that could get through, and many of the people participating are still walking around unable to hear and see what is right before them. Every action coming from President Obama is twisted to fit the prophecy of that din, and thus we have a large portion of our population who will never know the man, and that is a shame.
Barack Obama was a novice to politics compared to many who had come before him. He was going to have some monster stumbles, but through it all, unlike George W. Bush, he was and is capable of learning and adjusting. George Bush came in absolutely confident that his narrow way was right, and beyond any need for adjustment. He never adjusted to any realities and he led this country into several of the worst situations that we have found ourselves over the last century.
And to what is it that Barack Obama will adjust? The teacher's mind will direct him along a path to an answer that is both possible and reasonable. It may never lead to the kind of absolute rightness that George Bush always enjoyed, inside his mind, but it will lead to the best answer possible under existing circumstances. That is what we need in this country today, a realization that we can improve our corporate lives by finding solutions to problems that take us to at least a little higher on the hill than we are today, even if they never take us to the top. We need to start improving our lives by increments and a practical person will settle for a better tomorrow, even if it is not perfect.
It may well be that big improvements in the health care and health insurance situations are not possible politically. If that is the case, watch as President Obama finds out what he can get and goes with that. We have already seen that, and we have seen the Democrats abuse their mandate by filling the bill with every kind of pork that they needed to buy out all the effected parties. Now, Congress must find itself and the will to go back to the drawing board to construct something that both incrementally improves the current situations and and is not filled with billions of dollars of give aways to Senators who would abuse their situations.
After George Bush, I just wanted a president who was willing to listen, learn, and work on incrementally getting us back to where we need to be as a country. Barack Obama has filled that bill very well. He is who I thought he was and I like that.
But, he is who I thought he was when I voted for him and encouraged others to do the same. I have run my own business for over 30 years and I understand that there is a big difference between actually creating a good product and creating satisfied customers, and talking about what I would do if I did run my own business. I also taught mathematics for 11 years and while Barack Obama was a law professor, law, like mathematics, requires a high degree of mental discipline. I knew that if I could read the evaluations of his students, then I would know the man. Those students said that above all, he was practical.
The din of pure bull coming from the right about Barack Obama reverberated upon itself and took many a person to a level of total hysteria about him and his coming presidency. In the midst of that din, there was nothing of logic and truth that could get through, and many of the people participating are still walking around unable to hear and see what is right before them. Every action coming from President Obama is twisted to fit the prophecy of that din, and thus we have a large portion of our population who will never know the man, and that is a shame.
Barack Obama was a novice to politics compared to many who had come before him. He was going to have some monster stumbles, but through it all, unlike George W. Bush, he was and is capable of learning and adjusting. George Bush came in absolutely confident that his narrow way was right, and beyond any need for adjustment. He never adjusted to any realities and he led this country into several of the worst situations that we have found ourselves over the last century.
And to what is it that Barack Obama will adjust? The teacher's mind will direct him along a path to an answer that is both possible and reasonable. It may never lead to the kind of absolute rightness that George Bush always enjoyed, inside his mind, but it will lead to the best answer possible under existing circumstances. That is what we need in this country today, a realization that we can improve our corporate lives by finding solutions to problems that take us to at least a little higher on the hill than we are today, even if they never take us to the top. We need to start improving our lives by increments and a practical person will settle for a better tomorrow, even if it is not perfect.
It may well be that big improvements in the health care and health insurance situations are not possible politically. If that is the case, watch as President Obama finds out what he can get and goes with that. We have already seen that, and we have seen the Democrats abuse their mandate by filling the bill with every kind of pork that they needed to buy out all the effected parties. Now, Congress must find itself and the will to go back to the drawing board to construct something that both incrementally improves the current situations and and is not filled with billions of dollars of give aways to Senators who would abuse their situations.
After George Bush, I just wanted a president who was willing to listen, learn, and work on incrementally getting us back to where we need to be as a country. Barack Obama has filled that bill very well. He is who I thought he was and I like that.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Grandma Lilly In Her Kitchen
Mrs Lillian, Grandma, Mrs. Lilly, World's Best Cook, Sheriff Dillon DevoteeI have many pictures of my maternal grandmother, but this is my favorite, for it is the only one that I have of her in the kitchen. The lady loved to cook and she was nothing less than a genius when it came to the culinary arts, not the jazzy stuff you see on television, but the real stuff where you take a chicken, some flour, some lard, a few different vegetables, some sugar, tea, and you feed the masses that come to your door.
See that sheet in front of her? That covers a table of food that has already fed the gathered once that day and is waiting on them to get hungry to eat again. As you can tell, the house is old and lacks all the modern conveniences, but it was the house that I most wanted to be in, especially on a Sunday at dinner time, which was what you modern people call lunch.
The whole town of Fort Mill knew my grandmother as Mrs. Lilly or just Grandma. She loved people and she loved it when those people would allow her to cook for them and offer them a place to sit and talk for a spell. First Baptist church did not start until Grandma was in her seat, though my Grandfather never darkened the door. Grandma worked in the cotton mill across from her house until she could work no longer, but she never stopped taking care of her family.
Grandma loved to ride in her car. When her second from the youngest son was killed in Korea, she took her part of the insurance money and bought a new Buick, though she could not drive. Anyone could drive the car so long as they satisfied one condition, she was the front seat passenger. Sometimes, when she just wanted to ride, she would take her pocketbook, go sit in the car, and wait for someone to come out and take her somewhere. She has sat in that car for a couple of hours waiting patiently.
Grandma's other great love later in life was Sheriff Matt Dillon, of Gunsmoke. She did not miss the program for anything. If you were in the house when it was on, you stayed quiet.
Grandma had a great sense of humor and told some rather bawdy jokes now and then. She loved to laugh and tell her stories. She dipped snuff and a spitting can was always close by. She was the best pea and bean sheller in the family and we always went to get her when we had lots of them to shell.
When Grandma gave up house keeping after Grandfather's death, the kitchen table that she had came to our house to replace our old one. Hers was a metal table with a green formica top. I can see it as well today as I could fifty years ago. When we took it into our kitchen I told my mom that it was sad for I feared that I had eaten my last good meal off that table. We laughed, for my mom had inherited her mom's cooking skills.
Today, the two things in my house that I hold the most attachment to are the old cast iron wash pot and the ceramic biscuit bowl that belonged to my Grandma. So long as I am here, they will be also to remind me that whatever I am, I owe so much to this grand old lady.
Protocols, Here is a Middle Finger To You
The dictionary defines it as a code of correct conduct. A second definition is that it is the ceremony and etiquette that is observed by heads of state, diplomats, military officers, and such. Then too, it is rules surrounding the formatting and transmission of data in world of computers.
Last month, I ran into one of the really stupid protocols that got me to thinking about them and how we are changing life, not with actual advancement of any tangible kind, but with rules that supplant the actual production of wealth and make it appear as if we are advancing while we go backwards.
Look at it this way. You are in a long hallway on your way to a door on the far, far end. The walls of the hallway are decorated with a continuous scene that is seamless. The scenery moves toward you to make it appear that you are moving forward. You like the scenery so you walk backwards to enjoy the scenery longer, but because the scene moves faster and faster, it appears that you are walking forward. You will never reach your goals, of course, but the allusion of moving forward is so strong that all your mental factors play along and, as though in a trance, you play the game.
Now, to the stupid protocols that got me to this point. I take two blood pressure medicines, both low dosage medicines that are available in generic forms. Together, they keep my blood pressure well under control even when I do stupid stuff and do not watch my weight. So, let us look at protocol number one. It is a rule that blood pressure must be within a certain range, even if those forces that affect it are not controlled, and the control of the blood pressure can and should be regulated artificially. I like this protocol, and though I am the poorer for using it to my advantage, I am happy as I move backward.
Protocol number two is the one that says that if I am going to use these artificial crutches, then I have to abide by a series of rules that allocate monies to parties that have positioned themselves within the process so as to benefit from my weakness. This starts with the doctor with the really nice office and flat screened televisions and minions creating and filing paperwork. If I want these pills that cost less than one cent per pill to produce, I have to pay the doctor at least $175 every so often. Now that I am on Medicare, I might add that you pay the doctor now.
But Protocol number two has many sub-protocols, and the really neat part about them is that no one knows exactly what they are. I will attempt to identify some of these. The first is a protocol that says that Uncle Sam has a stake in my situation and thus has passed a law, under George Bush and the Republicans I might add, that says that since I am 65 and on Medicare, then I have to get my medicines according to a set of rules they have spelled out in a bill that is too complex to ever understand. Here is the sum total of that bill. It is a way of making sure that drug companies can, from now till the end of time, make obscene amounts of money by not having to compete in an open and fair market place. You can't pay for those expensive medicines? Well, join Uncle Sam's program and he'll show you how you really could afford it, and some more for the obscene profits.
The drug programs that were passed under the Republicans, are a set of protocols that include the fact that if you do not join, then no licensed drug dispenser can charge you less than some high arbitrary amount for your drugs. If you will not join the program, then they will force you into the program by making it impossible for you to afford even the least costly of drugs. My two prescriptions, without a drug program, were to cost me over $35.00 per month and the pharmacist insisted that no one could sell them to me for less because that was the law.
So here was my quandary. How do I get around all the stupid protocols and get the two prescriptions that I needed for a reasonable price. The doctor protocol is a tough one, but now that I am on Medicare, those visits are no longer $140 to $190 out of my pocket. In fact, they do not cost me, as I said before, they cost you. So, for the doctor protocol, I simply employ another protocol that shifts the cost to you. I knew that you would like that one.
The second protocol is possible if I just say that I do not have insurance and do not tell them my age. In that case, several outlets will let me have the pills for a total cost of $8.00 per month. I will not name those places, but I am sure that most of you know them whether I spout their names or not. The local pharmacist at the drug store that I once used told me that I would get caught and they would force me to pay the higher price. I flipped him off as I walked away.
This morning I opened up Facebook and I had a question from a friend about whether or not the athletic teams of the high school where I once taught had an activity bus. We did not, we used a regular bus that was assigned to the school. We did not have the protocol that said that they could not be used for insurance reasons, or whatever. The question was enough to drive me here to attack the whole world of protocols that have made our lives so complex, and expensive, that we have lost fact of what is going forward and what is going backward. I will elaborate on this in later posts.
Last month, I ran into one of the really stupid protocols that got me to thinking about them and how we are changing life, not with actual advancement of any tangible kind, but with rules that supplant the actual production of wealth and make it appear as if we are advancing while we go backwards.
Look at it this way. You are in a long hallway on your way to a door on the far, far end. The walls of the hallway are decorated with a continuous scene that is seamless. The scenery moves toward you to make it appear that you are moving forward. You like the scenery so you walk backwards to enjoy the scenery longer, but because the scene moves faster and faster, it appears that you are walking forward. You will never reach your goals, of course, but the allusion of moving forward is so strong that all your mental factors play along and, as though in a trance, you play the game.
Now, to the stupid protocols that got me to this point. I take two blood pressure medicines, both low dosage medicines that are available in generic forms. Together, they keep my blood pressure well under control even when I do stupid stuff and do not watch my weight. So, let us look at protocol number one. It is a rule that blood pressure must be within a certain range, even if those forces that affect it are not controlled, and the control of the blood pressure can and should be regulated artificially. I like this protocol, and though I am the poorer for using it to my advantage, I am happy as I move backward.
Protocol number two is the one that says that if I am going to use these artificial crutches, then I have to abide by a series of rules that allocate monies to parties that have positioned themselves within the process so as to benefit from my weakness. This starts with the doctor with the really nice office and flat screened televisions and minions creating and filing paperwork. If I want these pills that cost less than one cent per pill to produce, I have to pay the doctor at least $175 every so often. Now that I am on Medicare, I might add that you pay the doctor now.
But Protocol number two has many sub-protocols, and the really neat part about them is that no one knows exactly what they are. I will attempt to identify some of these. The first is a protocol that says that Uncle Sam has a stake in my situation and thus has passed a law, under George Bush and the Republicans I might add, that says that since I am 65 and on Medicare, then I have to get my medicines according to a set of rules they have spelled out in a bill that is too complex to ever understand. Here is the sum total of that bill. It is a way of making sure that drug companies can, from now till the end of time, make obscene amounts of money by not having to compete in an open and fair market place. You can't pay for those expensive medicines? Well, join Uncle Sam's program and he'll show you how you really could afford it, and some more for the obscene profits.
The drug programs that were passed under the Republicans, are a set of protocols that include the fact that if you do not join, then no licensed drug dispenser can charge you less than some high arbitrary amount for your drugs. If you will not join the program, then they will force you into the program by making it impossible for you to afford even the least costly of drugs. My two prescriptions, without a drug program, were to cost me over $35.00 per month and the pharmacist insisted that no one could sell them to me for less because that was the law.
So here was my quandary. How do I get around all the stupid protocols and get the two prescriptions that I needed for a reasonable price. The doctor protocol is a tough one, but now that I am on Medicare, those visits are no longer $140 to $190 out of my pocket. In fact, they do not cost me, as I said before, they cost you. So, for the doctor protocol, I simply employ another protocol that shifts the cost to you. I knew that you would like that one.
The second protocol is possible if I just say that I do not have insurance and do not tell them my age. In that case, several outlets will let me have the pills for a total cost of $8.00 per month. I will not name those places, but I am sure that most of you know them whether I spout their names or not. The local pharmacist at the drug store that I once used told me that I would get caught and they would force me to pay the higher price. I flipped him off as I walked away.
This morning I opened up Facebook and I had a question from a friend about whether or not the athletic teams of the high school where I once taught had an activity bus. We did not, we used a regular bus that was assigned to the school. We did not have the protocol that said that they could not be used for insurance reasons, or whatever. The question was enough to drive me here to attack the whole world of protocols that have made our lives so complex, and expensive, that we have lost fact of what is going forward and what is going backward. I will elaborate on this in later posts.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Clyde and Nell Moore's Children and Grandchildren
Last and only picture that I have of all of we brothers togetherI have no idea why we did not take more pictures together, but we obviously did not. The best that I can calculate from the picture is that it was taken in 1968 or 1969. The only way that I can do that is that I know that the younger one of us, Kevin, looks about 10 or 11 in the picture and he was born in 1958. Roger, the one in the green shirt, and the fourth by birth, died of Hodgkins Disease in 1977, shortly before his 28th birthday.
By birthday and year born:
Donnie Parks Moore, the one in the two toned blue shirt was born on May 29, 1941.
Wayne Allen Moore, the one in with the red sweater was born on July 25, 1943.
James Aubrey Moore, (me), the one in the white shirt was born on Nov. 27, 1944
Roger Clyde Moore was born on February 14, 1950
Roy Kevin Moore was born on April 14, 1958.
By profession we were and are:
Donnie works in engineering for Duke Power Co. as he has for 40 or so years though now he do so on a contract basis.
Wayne worked for Rexham Corporation until he retired as its President in 2002, I think. He briefly owned his own cruise booking company.
Aubrey was a math teacher for 12 years and has owned his own custom drapery business since. I still work.
Roger worked as a bartender at Rhineland House in Charlotte for several years before his death.
Kevin was a nuclear operator in the Navy before working shutdowns at nuclear power plants for many years. He then worked for several companies in IT before becoming a stay at home dad for his son, George.
Wives were:
Donnie married Nancy Farris of Charlotte and Harding High School in 1963. Nancy has been a stay at home mom most of those years.
Wayne married Reen Harris of Chapel Hill in 1969. Reen has also been a stay at home mom and wife most of those years.
Aubrey Moore married another teacher, Sarah Moore(now Sarah Moore Moore) of Gastonia and Ashley High School, in 1968. Sarah taught for 10 years, worked in the business, and worked as a stay at home mom when possible.
Roger married Patti Flynn of Charlotte and Myers Park High School in 1972. Patti has held many positions and has lived in several countries outside the U.S., including Peru, Germany, Pakistan, Thailand, and short stints in others. Patti is now an environmental lawyer living in Bangkok, Thailand and writes environmental law for third world countries. Patti never remarried.
Kevin married Dr. Liz Fink, an internist, from Warner Robbins, Georgia in 1995. Liz has worked as a physician since, allowing Kevin to be the stay at home parent.
Children are:
Donnie and Nancy: Sheri Evans(the eldest of the grandchildren) and Donna Youngblood.
Wayne and Rene: Katie Rakestraw, Allen Moore, and Meredith Moore(married to a Moore).
Aubrey and Sarah: Brian Moore, Darren Moore, David (Ormand) Moore
Roger and Patti: No children
Kevin and Liz: George Moore( adopted form Cambodia).
Directional Shifts and Renewal of Purpose
Having grown up part of a couple of clans that were filled with real doozie of personalities, I came to see families as imperfect, or terribly messed-up, you take your choice. As I live, my feelings of being a part of something that I have to overcome have been replaced by an acceptance of my family as-is. That has been a long journey and I am very often at war with my own feelings, even today.
Family, even the distant ends of it, has a strong pull on me. As I sit here and write this, just behind me, spread out over the bed that is in this room, are hundreds of pictures of family from as far back as 80 years. I love looking at them, naming all the poeple in the pictures, and relating to anyone willing to listen the qualities and relationship to me of the persons pictured.
I inherited this group of pictures from my deceased parents. Nobody else really wanted them. There are many in there that I really love and cherish. I have been looking at some of them off and on most of my life. Many are of me and my brothers when we were small children. A really special one is me sitting at the feet of my mother, who is standing; just me and mom, wow.
We are much more than our history. We are what we do today and the plans and preperations that we make for tomorrow. We are the kind word we give to a stranger and we are the promise that we remake to our spouse to love him or her till death do us part. We are the vision that we act upon when we vote, when we give to charity, and when we help build community institutions.
And yet, I sit in the midst of history that I have collected. I catalogue it and I sort out that worth keeping and that not worth another viewing, reading, or hearing. Thanks to digital cameras and recorders, and digital storage, my storehouse of that history now runs into the tens of thousands of pictures, hundreds of short movies, thousands of songs, and thousands of pages of written history.
And so, last year I set out on a project. I will not leave this mountain without some story that it tells the willing listener or reader. I will make some sense of it all and that is who I will be today and tomorrow, the person who gives some form to all of this that people to come might learn from it, or simply entertain themselves by listening and reading.
Thus, this blog, which I am using as a sorter, a gauge, and a chance to see some things in print so that I might know what is worth the keeping and what is not. I have taken off some time from the blog to evaluate what I have written and decide the direction that I want to go. I have some idea of what is worth my time and what is not, and if you follow the blog, then you will begin to see the changes that I intend to make.
While I have toned down the political, I will always have comment to make on issues that I consider too important to overlook, or where I feel that I have a worthwhile perspective. But, I have lost much of the political passion that I had only a few years ago. At most levels of government now, the people there are the people that I supported, so I have little to complain about, and I am willing to trust my instincts and wait on good results.
My travel is being diminished because of the economy and Sarah's physical problems. That is fine, we have traveled most of this country and much of Canada, and I have few feelings of need to go see places that I have not seen. I love the road, but I do not have to have the road.
My efforts will turn more to stories of people, many times family, and those stories will probably have a running theme of acceptance of the things that I can not change, and would not change just to fit my narrow view of what is good and what is bad.
And, while this blog will continue to be used as a lab, I will co-ordinate with others to tell stories using other mediums. It is my hope that in the not too distant future, those efforts will yield fruits. That has to be seen.
And those stories will be stories of my family members, largely. Accepting them as they were, I find that much of their lives are very compelling, and I want anyone willing to read this blog to get a chance to know the folks that I called cousin, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, brother, mom, dad, or somehow connected to all those people.
Family, even the distant ends of it, has a strong pull on me. As I sit here and write this, just behind me, spread out over the bed that is in this room, are hundreds of pictures of family from as far back as 80 years. I love looking at them, naming all the poeple in the pictures, and relating to anyone willing to listen the qualities and relationship to me of the persons pictured.
I inherited this group of pictures from my deceased parents. Nobody else really wanted them. There are many in there that I really love and cherish. I have been looking at some of them off and on most of my life. Many are of me and my brothers when we were small children. A really special one is me sitting at the feet of my mother, who is standing; just me and mom, wow.
We are much more than our history. We are what we do today and the plans and preperations that we make for tomorrow. We are the kind word we give to a stranger and we are the promise that we remake to our spouse to love him or her till death do us part. We are the vision that we act upon when we vote, when we give to charity, and when we help build community institutions.
And yet, I sit in the midst of history that I have collected. I catalogue it and I sort out that worth keeping and that not worth another viewing, reading, or hearing. Thanks to digital cameras and recorders, and digital storage, my storehouse of that history now runs into the tens of thousands of pictures, hundreds of short movies, thousands of songs, and thousands of pages of written history.
And so, last year I set out on a project. I will not leave this mountain without some story that it tells the willing listener or reader. I will make some sense of it all and that is who I will be today and tomorrow, the person who gives some form to all of this that people to come might learn from it, or simply entertain themselves by listening and reading.
Thus, this blog, which I am using as a sorter, a gauge, and a chance to see some things in print so that I might know what is worth the keeping and what is not. I have taken off some time from the blog to evaluate what I have written and decide the direction that I want to go. I have some idea of what is worth my time and what is not, and if you follow the blog, then you will begin to see the changes that I intend to make.
While I have toned down the political, I will always have comment to make on issues that I consider too important to overlook, or where I feel that I have a worthwhile perspective. But, I have lost much of the political passion that I had only a few years ago. At most levels of government now, the people there are the people that I supported, so I have little to complain about, and I am willing to trust my instincts and wait on good results.
My travel is being diminished because of the economy and Sarah's physical problems. That is fine, we have traveled most of this country and much of Canada, and I have few feelings of need to go see places that I have not seen. I love the road, but I do not have to have the road.
My efforts will turn more to stories of people, many times family, and those stories will probably have a running theme of acceptance of the things that I can not change, and would not change just to fit my narrow view of what is good and what is bad.
And, while this blog will continue to be used as a lab, I will co-ordinate with others to tell stories using other mediums. It is my hope that in the not too distant future, those efforts will yield fruits. That has to be seen.
And those stories will be stories of my family members, largely. Accepting them as they were, I find that much of their lives are very compelling, and I want anyone willing to read this blog to get a chance to know the folks that I called cousin, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, brother, mom, dad, or somehow connected to all those people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)