ABOUT OUR WATER

                                                

There have been many examples of what mans greed has done to our way of life. Even when a bad outcome is for certain, we still press on, incredulous to the outcome.  We see it with the warming of the earth as it pertains to burning fossil fuels. We see it with the national debt, piling up to a point where it will become impossible not to avoid some kind of financial collapse. We see it with tobacco users who shun the statistics and say, “Not going to happen to me.” but all of these outcomes pale in comparison, to what is happening to our drinking water because well---we can’t live without it. We, who live in such abundance, when it comes to water, often forget about the others.

Deep beneath the earth lie reservoirs of clean clear water. They have been there for tens of thousands of years and longer but it has only been lately that we have had the ability to pump them dry like we are doing. You see three quarters of the earth is covered with water. The bad part of that is, most of it isn’t fit to drink. The water that is fit to drink is ether in these aquifers, or it comes from rivers that drain runoff from the land. Runoff from rain or snowmelt. The problem is a whole lot of people don’t live near a water source from runoff, so they pump and pump.

There are parts of Oklahoma and Kansas where they are going to have to turn back to dry farming. There is no more well water to be had. The aquifers have been depleted. These farms have huge investments in land, equipment and structures. Just not farming the land is not an option. They are turning their thirsty eyes to other sources like us. That’s the way greed works in America and it’s a weak point of capitalism. Worry about tomorrow when the time comes. For now, just make all of the money you can. There comes a time in everything when you just plain wear it out and some of that is not avoidable. Sad to say we are wearing out a part of the earth that could be avoidable. Depleting it of its natural resources. Poisoning the very air we breathe and the water we drink and all in the name of making money.

Parts of California are caving in due to the empty aquifers that are under the land. Bridges and highways are breaking apart. There is no fixing that. Some seaside communities in Florida fear seawater draining into their underground aquifers and poisoning the little fresh water they have. Yes, the oceans continue to rise from melting glaciers and encroach more on the land every day. The population of the United States has remained fairly stable. We grow far more food then we need but there is a world market for it. When the time comes that you sacrifice the country your kids have to live in, to make as much money as you can, well that’s just sad.

None of this is eminent but it is inevitable the way we are going. Old farts like me will have water to drink and food to eat for the rest of our lives. But the generations to come, which you would think we would care about, will not. Modern technology may help with things like desalination but you cannot produce enough water this way to irrigate half of Kansas. This once, bread bowl will turn back into a dust bowl and those waves of amber grain we once sang about, will be no more.

DEATH OF THE INNOCENTS

                                               

There are days that I can’t believe how cruel our world is. Days when I try to comprehend why adults kill children and days when I can’t begin to understand all of the hate that that goes on in this world. Days when my empathy is taxed, watching all of the suffering that goes on —yet at the same time there are days when I can’t understand those who can ignore it all and go on with their own happy carefree lives, as if it doesn’t matter or pertain to them. This inattentiveness is as much of the problem, as those who created the problem in the first place.

To those of you who think that the filth on the Internet, newsstands, movies, etc that you try to explain as your first amendment rights doesn’t play into this, think again. It not only fosters it, in some respects it encourages it. It is sad enough when a child dies from some disease or in an accident but for a child to die at the hands of some perverted, sadistic, criminal seems to defy all logic. This kind of behavior has always existed but it gets more prevalent each day in a society that seems to have less and less morals, with each generation. Almost, with out exception, the homes of these predators when they are caught are filled with porn.

We need changes in our mental health care for sure, but maybe a little bit of decency in the world these predators grow up in, would help them not get to this level in the first place and not be a predator and now that I have said this, I will sit back and listen to all of the people who will say, “preventing porn would never have stopped this.” I will listen to the defense attorneys that will beg for leniency for the person who did it because he had a rotten childhood. I will do all of this and wait for the next child to die while people tell me, “That’s life, get used to it.”

A while back, in the small town of Watkins Minnesota they buried the latest victim of this kind of perversion. No amount of words, no rationalization, no excuses can bring peace to her troubled family who has truly lost a part of their family they had big hopes for. There will be an empty desk in the school where this innocent child would have been starting her formal education. There is an empty bed in her parent’s house and an empty feeling in their hearts no one can fix. One can only shudder to think what this child went through before she was killed and thrown into a swamp. Events like this impact everyone, even those who didn’t know this child. Children today have to be brought up in fear of the world around them, much as a young fawn has to fear the wolves. To those in society who are good people, they get lumped into the category of not to be trusted either, no matter there good intentions and no one blames the parents for feeling that way.

There has to be a special place in heaven for this little angel and for Jacob Wetterling far away from the bad people and close to the heart of God. There are those who will ask us, “how God could let this happen?”  I say “God gives you a free will to live your life anyway you want to.” As my dad used to say. “He gives you enough rope to hang yourself, if that’s what you want.”

SEE YOU DOWN THE ROAD ROG

                                   

A couple of years ago I traveled to Brooklyn Park to say goodbye to an old friend. Rog had passed away the week before and I had another hole in my heart. Although we hadn’t seen much of each other lately, we packed a lifetime of memories into the years we were together. When we were both starting out in life we lived across the street from each other. Our kids played with each other and our wives became good friends. At that time I was stuck in a factory job I hated and one day Rog told me to put in an application where he worked with the city and the rest was history.

For the next thirty years we worked together, played together and enjoyed each other’s friendship. Trips to the boundary waters to fish, and trips to Sparta on the range to deer hunt. We fought many a fire together on the fire department. Trimmed trees and flooded skating rinks and plowed snow in twenty below weather. Rog always led by example. He was a soft-spoken man but if you didn’t pull your weight, he was quick to tell you and although small in stature he backed down from no one, if he thought he was right. I never knew a harder working man.

I got to know some of his siblings and family including his parents, steeped deep in their Finish culture. Rog was so proud of his family and their heritage. He liked to sprinkle a little Finnish into his conversations from time to time. Always in the morning it was hyvaa huomenta, when he first saw you and at night hyvaa yota. His pocketknife was a puukko and a match for his cigarette was a tulitikku. He would count, yksi, kaksi, kolme, nelja, and viisi when he counted up to five. He had that sly little smile when he spoke in Finnish because he knew that only a Finn could talk that sing songy language. He celebrated St. Urho’s day every year and he was an Iron ranger at heart. He said they called me “The Sparta flash,” in school where he played hockey.

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” That was Roger’s mantra too. He led by example and with him it worked because you saw how much he loved life and people and you couldn’t help but want to emulate him. Sadly missed but never forgotten.

I have a drawer in a hutch, where I put all of the obituaries of my friends and family. For a long time it was maybe one or two a year. But lately the drawer is filling up because---well life-- or should I say death is catching up with all of us. Sometimes I look through the drawer and each obituary and I try to think of the good that I drew from that person. How they were special or different from the others in the drawer. How they made my life better and in some case completed me. We are all a work in progress from birth to death.  If we were smart, we took the lessons that were shown us by others and learned from them but it was the love we had for each other that meant the most. Love is unique because it is so personally tied to you and the giver and in the end it is the greatest gift you can ever give to anyone.

THE MAKINGS OF A FAMILY

                                              

This past weekend I was a guest at another family reunion. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Holst family reunion and now it was a chance go as an outsider to Pat’s family reunion. It was held in Door County Wisconsin and I know those of you who have been there; know the beauty of that place, nestled on the rocky shores of Lake Michigan. The flowers, cherry trees, the quaint little shops and inns that dot the rugged shoreline, only serve to accent the natural beauty of this place but I’m not here to talk about the scenery, I’m here to talk about some people.

Every time I make a new friend, and I made a few with this family, I want to get inside their heads and see the past as they saw it. For within those same minds lie the stories that need to be told and the secrets of why they were all there that weekend. Oh we don’t want to hear stories of failures-- we’ve all made mistakes and their best noted and forgotten, but instead stories of the successes and the undying love that still brings them together at times like this. You see, I don’t care how much money you make or what kind of car you drive or how many degrees you have. I care about the hearts you’ve touched along the way in this incredible journey called life and mine was touched by what happened next.

At this gathering was a ninety-year-old woman who is the family’s matriarch. Crippled and slowed by old age, her body definitely showing the signs and wear of a long lifetime of living. But yet at the same time, showing it all with grace, and carrying it with pride. For it’s in the eyes of a person that we find that inner fire that never dies until they do and her eyes glowed with so much pride that day, for all to see. As that last day wound down, and the last jokes had been told and the last meal had been consumed, her family saw to it that the focus of that day was changed from those people’s relationships with each other to her. Instead, now, there was a hush over the party and that spotlight was put on Mom and it was touching. All the day’s games were now over, the fire was now out and it was time to roll the credits and right there amongst all of them, was the appointed leader of that great family. What happened next was only fitting and proper. I’ll leave it at that.

There is a certain amount of responsibility that goes into the changing of the guard. Generations die out, only to be replaced by new ones, with new ideas and different values. But at the end of the day, we all have a sincere responsibility to see that we keep those things alive, that worked so well, for so long, for our ancestors. True, something’s in life can and will be replaced by new technology but nothing will ever replace the love and caring that can live in the human heart if we let it. If that doesn’t happen we will have all lived our lives in vain. You can emulate it all you want but only if you mean it and it’s here that actions speak louder then words. It’s also here that being a copycat isn’t wrong but the sincerest form of flattery.  This one’s for you Aunt Marilyn. God bless you and your family