ONE PERSON ASKED, SO---

Now, don't anybody panic. I'm alive and well--well, as well as I am, anyhoo.

Having made the local circuit of the medical profession (actually that, for me, consists of my personal physician and the specialist he recommended) the consensus is that they can't perform the required operation here in the Huntington area, so I must travel to the mistake by the lake--otherwise known as Cleveland--to have them poke and prod and eventually decide to slice into my innards and put a piece of plastic in my aorta. The locals can do the work below the renal arteries, it appears, but are hesitant to do so above the renal arteries. And I appreciate their honesty and concern.

Medically, it is known as a thoraco-abdominal aneurysm. The aneurysm I had repaired some nine or ten years ago was an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and the repair was done locally and the repair has performed perfectly now since February 2000. So, no, I am not really concerned about any surgery that will be required, other than the fact that I am now nine years older and that has some implications.

What does cause some minor concern is that they also found aneurysms on both femoral arteries, both small and of small consequence at the present time. My head has been scanned a number of times and they tell me they did find a brain in there but did not find any indications of aneurysms.

Originally I had not intended to publish this material, but since my daughter has contacted her prayer groups and such, I figured I should do so just to allay any fears anyone has.

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My activities go on unabated. Maybe I am too fatalistic, but I have lived a good life, am secure in my religious beliefs, have provided as well as I can for my wife, and have no fear of death. I intend to live many more years and be a thorn in the side of the far left liberal fringe element--if for no other reason other than I just like to jangle their headbones every now and then--and support those conservative beliefs that I hold dear.

I hope to finish my songbook for the kids before the first of the year. I don't know whether I can or not, though, because every time I drop one into print, I think of two or three others, so the whittling down to a hundred or so is really going to be a tough thing for me. And every day I find myself singing new songs--actually old ones that I haven't sung for ages. And if it pops into my mind, chances are good that it is one that I like really well.

My health, otherwise, is generally good. I had a shoulder problem a while back but a shot with a six inch needle in my butt and a regimen of steroids took care of that in no time flat. Seriously. I could not raise my hand, my elbow or my shoulder more than an inch or so due to the pain. But the hand and elbow worked fine if manipulated by my other hand or by someone else. And the shoulder did not hurt when manipulated. I simply could not get my own muscles and sinews to go. But the next afternoon after seeing the doctor, the pain was almost completely gone and I had full movement. After two days, the pain had disappeared too.

My wife is back to work full time. Her ankle is still a problem but she's a gritty girl and still goes to work with it. We will be asking her doctor to limit her to eight hours daily and no work over 40 hours per week on Tuesday. I am much more concerned about the eight per day than I am by the forty per week. I can really see the difference between and eight hour day and a nine or ten hour one.

Got to go. The whistle just sounded which means the run is starting out at the still.

Cheers.

Hello, Follower

It's me again, Margaret.

I've been doing a lot of copying and pasting on my songbook for the kids. Mostly, the songs are just what the title indicates to them, Songs My Papaw Sang. And those are old and new, classics and dimly remembered things, country and pop, rock, you name it, even religious. I sing all the time and half the time don't even realize that I am.

And I have been doing a little thinking , too, of the divisions within our country, of the rancor that is plainly evident everywhere we look. The shouting never has relevance, the noise is only to hide our fears.

And I pulled Bob Dylan's song out and sang it again. Been a long time--


WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE

Oh, my name it means nothing, my age it means less,
And the country I come from is called the midwest.
I's taught up and brought up, the laws to abide,
And the land that I live in has God on it's side.

Oh, the history books tell us, they tell it so well,
The cavalries charged, the Indians fell.
The cavalries charged, the Indians died.
Oh, the country was young then, with God on it's side.

Oh, the Spanish-American War had it's day.
And the Civil War too, was soon laid away.
And the names of the heroes I's made to memorize,
With guns in their hands, and God on our side.

Oh, the First World War, boys, it closed out it's fate.
The reason for fighting, I never got straight.
But I learned to accept it, accept it with pride,
For you don't count the dead when God's on your side.

When the Second World War came to an end,
We forgave the Germans and then we were friends,
Though they murdered six million, in the ovens they fried,
The Germans now too, have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians all through my whole life.
If another war starts, it's them we will fight.
To hate them and fear them, to run and to hide,
And accept it all bravely, with God on our side.

But now we've got weapons of the chemical dust.
If fire them we're forced to, then fire them we must.
One push of a button, and a shot the world wide.
And you never ask questions, when God's on your side.

In a many dark hour I've been thinking about this,
That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss.
But I can't think for you, you'll have to decide,
Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side.

Now as I'm leaving, I'm weary as hell.
The confusion I'm feeling, aint no tongue can tell.
The words fill my head and fall to the floor--
If God's on our side, He'll stop the next war.


Well, I don't know about that, but it does make one wonder.

I've also been talking/singing "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", although it is long and I forget more than half as I go along. But one verse just jumps out at you as you go through it--

"And Ira started drinking hard, jail was often his home.
They let him raise the flag there and lower it like you'd throw a dog a bone.
He died drunk early one morning, alone in the land he had fought to save.
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch was the grave for Ira Hayes."

Wow! And I cry every time I remember that verse. Not just for Ira Hayes the man, but for all the Ira Hayes there are and have been in America. What a comment on the greatest country in the world that we cannot remember our heroes. Dylan wants us to know that he knew them from memorization in "With God On Our Side", but this poem says nothing at all about him being a hero, it expects us to know that already and revere him as such.

So I could question my grandchildren and ask if they know who he was and what he did and what that meant. But, you know, I think I am fearful that I will not hear what I want to hear but what I have just described. And if my giving them my songbook will help cure that, then it will be worth all the tears and frustration I have had in trying to get the lyrics all correct. And, if they already are aware, then we are well ahead of the curve (another one of those overused, trite sayings that you write about.)

Last topic--

My grandkids, of course.

The two boys, still in high school, are coming to rely on me as a 'last resort' in some of their honors courses. I am really impressed with the knowledge both of these young men have in the sciences and the arts, and I can tell you quite honestly, I think their violin playing is better than anyone else's. Both have shown an interest in the instrument and both play very well. The older taught he younger a lot of the basic stroking and fretwork long before the younger ever began classes. Both are members of their high school orchestras, the All-County orchestra, and the Tri-State Orchestra, and have played here locally and on the road for regional events.

I seldom give an exact answer to their school related questions because that would be too easy. Instead I try to inculcate the reasoning behind the questioning and what response would be appropriate to that particular question when asked in that particular manner about that particular topic. In other words, I try to make them think. I am not popular with their teachers, I don't imagine. I don't view education as being to educate for the Westest, but as a broadening of the inherent intellect of the individual, and, as such, cannot be rigidly aligned with 20 or 25 other individual intellects to make a super intellect. Indeed, the only manner in which a child can develop properly is one where it's own drive for education is encouraged and challenged and never sated. Sitting for a six or eight hour day in modern schools would be stultifying to any intellectual process.

And as Jim would say, TTFN.