tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57852872480615877952024-03-13T05:20:07.461-06:00HomeCountryAl Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.comBlogger423125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-62990910862121124472018-11-11T17:10:00.000-07:002018-11-11T17:10:06.886-07:00 MAKING THE MOST OF CHANCE ENCOUNTERS<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Until a matter of days ago I didn’t
even know Lilly; hadn’t met her. I may have seen her working in the background
of a retail store where she is employed. She is a supremely attractive young
lady of great charm and warmth; one of those people you just know is good
inside and out. Among the things I now know about her: like me she is tied to
the State of Maine, and looks upon the north coast of Oregon where she now
works with a similar love. She was adopted along with her brother as a small
child and until recently had never connected with her birth parents. She is a
serious, committed and dedicated employee highly valued by friends of mine for
and with whom she works. I knew immediately that if I had the power I would
adopt (or steal her away) as a granddaughter forthwith. All within the space of
a few minutes time and reinforced by that inner voice which whispers a
confirmation of “first” impressions’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Because I am at heart a writer and
storyteller, I confess to seeing (or thinking I am seeing) more in the people,
places and events around me than might meet the casual traveler. (If this is
only a dream, I hope never to awaken, for it is a source of unmitigated
pleasure.) Sometimes I even allow myself to believe it is a communicative
attribute – that we leave something behind as we “celebrate” brief encounters
as we travel and connect meaningfully and thoughtfully when confronted by such
fleeting “gifts” of chance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There comes to mind an experience I had when
returning to one of my favorite haunts in Cannon Beach after an absence of
several years. I am fascinated by the art of glass-blowing, and when I have the
chance, I pay a visit to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ICEFIRE GLASSWORKS</i></b>. It was late in
the day, but I hoped for a few minutes of happy gazing from the viewer’s
booth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The time ended all too soon, and
as I headed for the closing door, the owner held me back. “You’re welcome to
stay; we are just closing for the public.” I must have looked up questioningly.
The two people behind the desk explained: “We remember you from your last
visit. You made us all feel good.” I tried to explain that I hadn’t been there
in two years. “Could be”, they agreed, “but we haven’t forgotten; you bring
something special with you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope what
they were detecting is my love for people and my interest in what makes them
tick. But maybe they were just imagining something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">As
we traveled westward through the incomparably- beautiful Columbia River Gorge
several days ago, we stopped for an evening meal at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pietro’s</i> in Hood River – another favorite way-marker<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>–<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we
staked out a booth amid a Saturday night crowd that filled the popular
establishment. Returning from an exploration of the salad bar I found that my
thoughtful family had changed my seat to a more comfortable chair. My reaction
was immediate as I changed back to the wall-side original selection with the
words “This will not do at all; I can’t see the people!” I’m sure that to my
loved ones it seemed just another confirmation of my growing eccentricities,
but for me it was an important teaching/learning moment. As I travel, food is
somewhere down the list when it comes to the magic of everyday adventure. What
I noted that evening on the banks of the mighty Columbia were the families
enjoying one another; families of many colors and ethnic trajectory. Except for
one blonde –haired teen-ager (whom I was quick to forgive) I did not see a
single person texting or even holding an electronic device. The diners were too
busy talking, looking at each other and having fun; there was a lot of “love”
going on. My heart was nourished more by what I was seeing than by one of the best
pizzas anywhere around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As my family moved toward departure, I scooted
over to the nearest booth where an extended family of ten were laughing and
sharing a meal honoring octogenarian grand –parents. I asked them if they were
seeing what I was seeing. That began a conversation which spanned their three
generations<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">and
a total stranger from another. A two-or-three-year-old grand-daughter with curly
hair attached herself to me like an old friend and chattered away while her
mother and I shared family genealogy and thoughts on the importance of family.
We found much to talk about and she seemed genuinely sorry that I had to leave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But there is another side to this
attachment to the people “of everyday” we meet by chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
still westbound, I suddenly departed at an off-ramp from I-84 along the Columbia
River Gorge. We didn’t really “need” fuel, I had never stopped there before and
it would slow our journey. The young girl who came to pump gas, (in Oregon you
don’t get to do-it-yourself,) had the same kind of friendly glow and
“sweetness” as Lilly, but I sensed immediately a deep darkness not quite hidden
behind her friendly spirit. She was most certainly underweight and most of her front
teeth were so damaged as to need a lot of repair work. I thought about her all
week and couldn’t ignore a deep sadness each time I recalled that very brief
encounter. One week later to the day when returning homeward our car insisted
on getting off at that same unaccustomed exit. The young girl was not on duty,
but working my way through some close-mouthed co-workers to the manager who
took pity on me, I learned Jennifer’s sad story, left a note to let her know I
was not going to forget her and began making plans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As I finish this overlong column,
tired and glad to be home, I am listening to Louis Armstrong singing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Oh What a Wonderful World”</i> and
formulating an email of thanksgiving to Lillie for touching my heart in such a
beautiful way, and a letter of hope to another sweet, girl-of-promise named
“Jen”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-72450081222576505332018-11-11T17:06:00.001-07:002018-11-11T17:06:12.202-07:00GRAPPLING FOR JUST THE RIGHT WORD<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">As a
story-teller - whether writing a column, teaching a class, composing a verse,
or sparring with friendly conversationalists - I am always challenged by the
pleasurable task of finding the better (or best) word to describe a particular
thought, object, place or idea. It is not unusual for me to spend a week of
days pondering the best <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">title</b> for an
article I have already virtually (or actually) completed., even though I know
my editors might change it anyway. For example the title for <u>this</u> effort:
I could have said<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> SEARCHING</i> (FOR JUST
THE RIGHT WORD). That choice would have been adequate; sufficient. But not
wonderful. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grapple</i> is an old French
verb dating back to the 1520s meaning <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to
seize and hold fast.</i> Even in today's word- market it connotes a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">determined</i>, maybe even an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">especially mindful</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hunt</i> for the strongest and best.. It also tells the reader - almost
parenthetically -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that success in the
search may not always take place - but is worth the effort. Understanding
language and the availability to the user of a range of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nuanced</i> words made even more notable when <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">borrowed</i> from another tongue brings added delight to the reader AND
to the writer. Mark Twain noted that using just the right word was often the
difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Only he could have
grasped and articulated the point so well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are many reasons why I love my
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">native tongue</i>, especially what H.L.
Mencken defined as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> English</i>.
While the practitioners of most well-established languages of the world have
been <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">protective</i> in keeping their
proud vocabularies and grammars unsullied by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">foreignisms</i>, Americans - from the beginning - have been welcoming
-- in fact even celebratory -- in their acceptance of the practice of embracing
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">borrowed</i> words, and even inventing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">new</i> ones where necessary. During the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">colonial</i> years our English cousins
referred to this openness as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">acceptance
of barbarisms</i>, and all these centuries later we are still at it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As a young boy I delighted in
learning that the native-American word for a Connecticut<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>brook I was much given to wading in was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Noromeocknawhyosunatankshunk</i>, which in
the Algonquian language meant "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">clear</i>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">flowing waters from the faraway hills
which gleam brightly in the afternoon sun while traveling over many
stones"</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Alaska's far north
there is an old Inuit village called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shaktulik</i>.
To begin with that word merely referred to the shape of the coastal geometry
there. (Stretched out place.) Over time though, it took on a different meaning
altogether: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"A place where if you
are going there you will begin to ask yourself 'I wonder if I will ever get
there!' " </i>Similarly the Eskimo people of the sub-arctic have nearly a
hundred synonyms for the word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">snow,</i>
but nary a one for forest fire, while no other word could paint a sound-picture
for a wind storm in the Pacific Northwest quite like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Williwaw! </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what about the
resident of a far northern Eskimo village who keeps stepping out doors to check
on the possibility that someone (anyone) may be coming? He(she) would be an
iktsuarppok, of course. On the other hand the Finnish have a word which tells
us just how far a reindeer can travel before needing a rest: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poronkusema;</i> which turns out to be 17.5
kilometers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Loan words from the German seem to
occupy a most-favored-nation status for American lexicographers. What would we
do without classics like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doppelgänger,
schadenfreude </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wunderkind</i>? And
I find one with a peculiar currency in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">warmduschershare</i>
which literally paints a picture of a person who intentionally avoids both hot
and cold showers, preferring not to wander too far from the self-allotted and
non-controversial "box" we often cower within rather than make a
dangerous decision. By the way, the Dutch have a wonderful long word which
means <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sytuisvogelpolitiek</i> (ostrich
politics): Voting the same way as last time and expecting a different outcome.
(Ostrich with head in sand.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I better finish this before I become
guilty of sesquipedalianism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-48005672284868155812018-02-16T22:30:00.003-07:002018-02-16T22:30:40.467-07:00TAKING PRIDE IN OUR UTAH/KOREA CONNECTION<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> Sixty-eight years have passed since
that June day that saw the peace of the Korean peninsula shattered by an
invasion of the South by Communist forces from the North, with support from the Soviet Union and China, and with entire
armies of the latter country eventually joining the North Korea People's Army
in overrunning free South Korea. Among those who responded to the call for
assistance to the beleaguered South were over five million American young men,
just 2.2 million (40%) of whom are still with us as of 2017. Some of those were
also veterans of WWII, while some went on to fight in Viet Nam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> These grizzled veterans who were
born into the Great Depression and experienced the war years of Franklin
Roosevelt's America are in their 80s and 90s. For the most part, they have not
been a "noisy" group known for demonstrations and advocacies pleading
for special recognition, but to the contrary
returned home to quietly take their place in a society which mostly
thought of theirs, as <i>the forgotten war</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> For some of us - and for various
reasons - that has not been true. In my own case my particular military mission
placed me in regular contact with my opposite numbers in South Korean society,
both military and civilian. My interest in Korean history and in particular
emerging details about the war I had just participated in tended to keep me
involved in further study, especially after I found myself with responsibility
for producing a weekly radio talk show with a strong history bent, and
eventually as a regular newspaper columnist. Most important was my relocation
to southern Utah where I quickly fell into a natural friendship with a
Korean-American patriot and neighbor named Sunny Lee who had wedded her life to
serving her adopted country in appreciation of the contribution its citizens
had made to the freedom of her native land. I also discovered a rare sense of
awareness among a group of veterans who had seen Korean combat service with the
213th Field Artillery Battalion, a unit of the Utah National Guard which had
distinguished itself in the battle of Gapyeong
on May 26, 1951 after taking on large numbers of an invading Chinese
Army without the loss of a single guardsman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> With the generous support of the
Korean government - in particular the ministry of Patriots & Veterans -
Mrs. Lee literally became the U.S. spokesperson for this veterans group and
others, leading a series of return visits for the Gapyeong and other Utah-American
veterans of the Korean War. I was privileged to join the 2009 tour, and my
granddaughter as part of a special contingent of K.W. student- grandkids of Vets.
participating in a Peace Camp and guided visit the following year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> After carrying out a number of similar and
very demanding veteran visits, Sunny went on to supervise an effort to help the
surviving families of Missing-in-action veterans to better understand and
"finalize" the story of their loss, concluding with a trip to
present-day Korea, a visit to historic and sacred sites and a special memorial
service. Only those few of us who know Sunny Lee intimately understand both the
personal sense of fulfillment this experience involved, and the deep emotional
price it exacted from this remarkable super-patriot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> Recently a plane landed in Las Vegas
carrying two young gentlemen whose errand it was to underline that
partner-nation's appreciation of this unusual Utah Connection, and those who have
supported the rare friendship it has engendered on both sides of the Pacific: 25-year-old Tae Hwan Park and Joon Chang Lee,
both senior cadets at the Korea Army Academy at Yeongcheon stepped down on U.S.
soil as representatives of a grateful nation. Prior to their official visits to
Utah National Guard headquarters, Cedar City mayor and Veterans' Monument, an
Idaho veterans home and a meeting with MIA families, several of us enjoyed a
dinner and evening with them at the Springdale home of John and Sunny Lee. The
depth of their sense of honor and respect, and their love for America made all
of us as proud of these sons of serving Senior officers as if they were from
one of our own service academies.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w03gZlycr10/Woe9e30s61I/AAAAAAAAB2M/257PlntDeW0epOU92e5URRrmbzCe3UkYgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_7186.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w03gZlycr10/Woe9e30s61I/AAAAAAAAB2M/257PlntDeW0epOU92e5URRrmbzCe3UkYgCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_7186.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Photo
Caption: L to R Standing: Cadet Tae
Hwan Park, Cadet Joon Chang Lee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Seated: Gene Gregory, Marine; Al
Cooper, Air Force; Col. Dan Roberts, Army<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-28136107359021470302018-02-16T22:01:00.000-07:002018-02-16T22:01:17.905-07:00A NATION ON THE BRINK, AND A MAN NAMED ABRAHAM<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> When Abraham Lincoln was born, the
Republic was only 33 years old. George Washington had been dead only 10 years
and many of those who had signed their names to the Declaration of Independence
were still living and active. James Madison was president - our 4th, and the
people of Lincoln's generation were not far removed from the events surrounding
the nation's painful birth. The population of the infant states was still only
7 million, although that number would double in the next decade; the Indiana
Territory was the western "frontier."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> Back in 1783 when the Constitutional
Convention reached agreement over a supreme written law- thanks to compromise -
they had failed to resolve three fundamental problems. These three
"jaw-breaker" questions hovered over all those proceedings, but the
founding fathers became convinced that in these areas of disagreement, there <u>could
be no chance of compromise</u>. Many present there in Philadelphia believed in
their hearts that these unresolved differences would eventually bring about the
dissolution of the Union they had forged. Elbridge Gerry from Massachusetts,
Roger Sherman from Connecticut, and even Madison himself wrote of their fears.
The three unsettled problems loomed large by the time Abraham Lincoln was old
enough to become a student of Government: <b>Slavery!! States rights vs. Federal!! </b>and <b> Secession!!<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">One of the reasons George
Washington had allowed himself (reluctantly) to be persuaded into accepting a
second term as President was that of a growing trend toward <i>partisanism</i>. The constitution did not
contemplate the emergence of political parties. Its framers had grown old and
suspicious observing all that was wrong with England's "parliamentary
democracy". Despite all his worst fears, Washington witnessed - and
abhorred - the rise of multi-party politics, and a growing tendency toward <i>international adventurism</i>. Even before
he left office he saw seeds being sewn which would result in the deterioration
of relations with England (and the War of 1812;) conflict with the western
tribes over Indian land rights, and the insoluble differences between states
with respect to slavery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> The political environment into which
Lincoln was born saw two principle parties, the Democrats (pro-slavery,
pro-South and largely pro-states rights,) and Whigs (more centrist and largely
anti-slavery.) Increasingly though, both parties were becoming fragmented over
the slavery issue, and the birth of a new more-solidly anti-slavery party was
likely. (This would be the Republican party with which Lincoln would almost
immediately align himself along with other Whigs.) Other issues which divided
office holders swirled around the development of western lands, and even here
slavery and its expansion was at the heart of debate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> Slavery questions hark back to the
founding fathers. Washington, though a slave owner, deplored the practice,
freed his own at his death, and worked toward phasing out the system. Jefferson
tried to lead Virginia toward being the first state to outlaw slavery outright,
and in fact that state had embarked upon the implementation of a solution prior
to the outbreak of civil war. When Lincoln observed in his debates with Stephen
Douglas, that the nation could not continue "half slave and half
free," that it must necessarily become "all one or all the
other," he was putting his finger directly on the problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> With the passage of the Missouri
Compromise in 1820, a national disaster seemed to have been averted when
congressional controls on the admission of "new" territories at least
produced a temporary quieting of southern outcries of unfairness. But all of
that changed dramatically in 1858 with the Dred Scott decision, which among
other things denied the former slave's argument while finding that slaves had
no standing in any court. As disappointing as that ruling was for Republicans
and all abolishioners, Judge Roger B. Taney's southern-leaning Supreme Court
went a huge step farther in ruling that Congress did not have the authority to
outlaw (or limit) slavery <i>anywhere! </i>Thus
reversing the Missouri Compromise, and making the American Civil War
inevitable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Personal Note: </span></b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">For
all of my life, I have believed that Abraham Lincoln's birth was no accident. <b>ACC<o:p></o:p></b></span></i></div>
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></b>Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-55565964969227898512017-12-17T12:02:00.001-07:002017-12-17T12:02:55.997-07:00THE BIRTH OF THE MERRY OLD ELF<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Somewhere
among the jumble of memorabilia I have preserved over the years is a
handwritten letter with my name and childhood address on it. It is postmarked “The North Pole”, and is
signed, <i>Santa Claus</i> in bright red ink. It continues to raise some
interesting insights into one of our most enduring seasonal traditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
name <i>Thomas Nast</i> is seldom heard these days, and where it is, I doubt it
is associated with Christmas. But the
fact is this immigrant American who
arrived here from his native Germany at the age of six, a century-and-three-quarters ago, has touched our national Christmas
tradition far more than the casual historian might suppose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">By
the time he was 13, Nast had already begun a career as a newspaper
illustrator. He was destined to become
one of the most influential cartoonists of his day, his biting satires a
regular feature of <i>Harper’s Weekly.</i>
His work directly affected the outcome of one of New York’s most famous
political campaigns, and it was Nast who invented the Republican Elephant and
the Democrat Donkey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">What
is less known is that he also invented America’s <i>Santa Claus.</i> The idea of <i>Father Christmas, </i>or <i>St.
Nicholas,</i> came to our shores with the first Dutch settlers, who pictured
this mythical character as a tall bishop of serious demeanor, clad in black
clerical robes, and carrying a birch wood staff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Thomas
Nast set about changing this image with a cover design he did for an issue of <i>Harper’s
Weekly</i> in December,1863. He was
burned out on serious subject matter, and tired of reporting on the grim war
news coming from the battlefields of the Civil War. In this drawing he depicts a fanciful Santa
Claus, visiting a Union Army outpost, clad in the stars and stripes, and
distributing toys to the soldiers. He entertains the crowd with a jumping jack
dangling from a hangman's noose, its chest bearing the name "Jeff"
for Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In the background Nast pictured
soldiers playing games, trying to
capture an escaped pig and trying to climb a greased pole.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">In
the years that followed, Thomas Nast refined his idea of what Santa should
really be like, deciding that the country needed someone who was brightly
dressed, full of good cheer, and anxious that children should strive to be
“nice”. Nast and his artist’s pens
turned Santa into a toy-maker headquartered at the North Pole, and in an
illustrated children's book he published in 1866, he added a reindeer-drawn
sled filled with toys. Over a period of
twenty-three years, the cartoonist who loved Santa Claus left us a legacy that
has become a heart-warming part of every Christmas.. . a “right merry old elf”
who refuses to be taken too seriously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-65816216565206287382017-12-17T11:57:00.001-07:002017-12-17T11:57:37.942-07:00THE BLIZZARDS OF YESTERYEAR<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Ever
since a personal adventure which led to being snowbound for three days in a
mountain cabin, I have been an avid collector of winter survival stories, and
weather phenomena from out of our national past. And I am not alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Somewhere
in the remembered past of nearly all of our northern tier of states, is the
story of a blizzard or two, and many of us who grew up with grandparents who
were story tellers, have heard them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Folks
who were attentive to nature’s warnings might have noticed that the autumn of
1886 in much of the West was filled with such omens. The birds which ordinarily stayed through
winter headed south. Hibernating animals
fortified their lairs with extra care, and sought shelter early. From November 1886 through February 1887,
blizzards followed each other across the western plains, from Montana on the
north to Texas on the south. Howling
winds and sub-zero temperatures accompanied heavy snow. Following on the heels of a summer-long
drought, the unrelenting winter storms took a heavy toll: nearly 90% of the West’s free-ranging cattle
were wiped out in what the day’s ranchers forever after knew as “The Great
Die-Up”. So devastating was this winter
of blizzards that it was the death knell of free-ranging. Never again would the great herds wander
unfettered across the vastness of the American West.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Those
of us who grew up on the knees of Eastern grandparents and great-aunts and
uncles who were around during those last decades of the nineteenth century have
heard our share of tales about “The Great Blizzard of 1888”. It struck on March 12th, bringing
unprecedented snowfall to the East Coast, where cities like New York were
paralyzed, and hundreds of thousands of citizens were trapped in their homes,
barns and places of employment. In that
great city alone, 400 people died and millions of dollars in damages were
recorded. For 36 hours the storm pounded
the area, virtually isolating the city from the rest of the world. Firefighters were unable to respond to blazes
which broke out as citizens tried to survive the cold. Those who lived through it never forgot “The
Great Blizzard of 1888”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Just two months previous to that event, another century-type storm
hit the mid-west. Because of the time of
day the blizzard exploded over Nebraska and South Dakota, it became known as
“The Schoolchildren’s Storm”, so many children were marooned in school houses
on the northern plains. Out of that
storm came a national heroine whose name, Minnie Freeman, became a household
word. When the storm blew out first the
windows, then the roof of the tiny sod schoolhouse in which she and her
children were trapped, she decided to lead her charges to safety. Lashing them together with whatever ropes and
pieces of clothing were at hand, she started out in the teeth of the gale, for
a house she knew stood about a mile away. Her exploit was heralded widely by a
fascinated press, and she eventually received 80 marriage proposals along with
her adoring mail. A song “Thirteen Were
Saved” or “Nebraska’s Fearless Maid” became <i>The Song of The Great Blizzard
of 1888.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Weather
statistics suggest that if you live long enough, and happen to be in the right
place at the right time, you stand a good chance of experiencing a blizzard of
your own. With that thought before us,
it’s a good idea to equip your home and your family car with “The Big One” in
mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-11309300884353974162017-12-05T14:41:00.001-07:002017-12-05T14:41:12.189-07:00NEITHER RAIN, NOR SLEET : THE "SNOWSHOE EXPRESS"<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">We’ve
all heard of the Overland Express, and of course the Pony Express. But how much do you know about the “Snowshoe
Express” ?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Back
in 1856, an unusual plea was printed in a Sacramento newspaper: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 2.0in;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">People Lost to The
World,<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 2.0in;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Uncle Sam Needs a Mail
Carrier . . .<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">read the two-line
appeal. The unusual story which began
with those brief words has been all but forgotten among those tales of
daring-do which spice the history of our Mail Service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Scattered
along the ridges of the High Sierras between Nevada and California were dozens
of mining camps and the isolated communities which grew up around them. For much of the year, winter storms and
twenty-five foot snow drifts effectively cut the inhabitants of these camps and
villages off from the rest of the world.
From the first snowfall to Spring thaw, there were no lines of
communication and the remote gold-seekers were strictly on their own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">A
Norwegian-born Californian named John Thompson, himself a
prospector-turned-farmer, read the newspaper advertisement and, after some
trial experiments, presented himself to the U.S. Postmaster in Placerville with
a plan. Equipped with a set of what he
called “Norwegian Snowshoes” - long wooden skis- constructed from childhood
memories, ten feet long and weighing a good 25 pounds, Thompson proposed to
carry the mail. Real snowshoes were
known as "webs" or Canadian snowshoes while the long skis Thompson
used were often called "Norwegian skates". The post office quickly
signed him on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">For
the next 13 years, “Snowshoe Thompson” became the winter angel for hundreds of
isolated families, carrying 80-pound sacks of mail over uncharted miles of the
most perilous alpine country in North America, with 1 or 2 blankets and only
such dried foods as he could fit into his pockets. In time the people along his bi-weekly route
came to depend upon him, not only for mail, but for medicines and emergency
supplies. John Thompson was much more than a carrier of mail and supplies. He
was a powerful man of exceeding generosity and a deep sense of devotion to the
people he served.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> In December of 1856 he found a miner named
James Sisson lying on the floor of a cabin in obvious distress with both legs
frozen and gangrenous. Thanks to Thompson's efforts and rapid back-country
travel the man was transported to the care of a medical Doctor who upon
examination refused to perform the needed amputation without anesthetic. To provide
the needed pain-killer Thompson skied another 90 miles to Placerville, then
another 50 to Sacramento and finally the same distance in return. Sisson
survived the ordeal and eventually moved back east.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Sadly,
the postmaster in Placerville never came through with any of the promised pay
for Thompson’s unique service and it fell to the families he served to
compensate him as they were able.
Finally, with the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1869,
the need for Thompson’s “Snowshoe Express” ended. His grateful clients petitioned Congress to
grant a pension to their devoted carrier, but it never happened. His tireless energy finally gave out, and he
died at the age of 49 unable to complete the spring planting of a grain crop on
his farm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> As a collector of philatelic cancellations, I
would give almost anything to run across one of those envelopes once carried by
the skiing mailman of the high Sierras bearing his own handmade postmark: “<b><i>SNOWSHOE EXPRESS - 1857</i></b>”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">There
remains one last postscript to the story of John Thompson. The unusual service he rendered may have been
forgotten, but the long wooden “snowshoes” he used left their mark. The sport of cross-country skiing in the U.S.
West owes its origins to his example.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-9284503826963900292017-12-04T22:03:00.001-07:002017-12-04T22:03:01.708-07:00LOST TRADITIONS AND THE DEMISE OF NEIGHBORHOODS<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> You can no longer even find the town
of Coytesville on a map of New Jersey; it has long since been absorbed into the
sprawling collection of ambiguous and ever-changing bedroom communities serving
as way stations for New York City commuters. But in my circling mind it looms
ever larger in importance. Founded and laid out in the early 1800s by my
maternal great-grandfather, its’ very name is eponymous with one of my own and
its imprint lies deep in my spiritual DNA. For the first 14 years of my life it
was my home, and my own mother, like<b> her
</b>own, had never known any other; with family roots imbedded in the same sod
on which Washington’s rag tag army had encamped in its most desperate days and
whose musket balls and cannon shot I could find untouched beneath mere inches
of forest duff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> I thought of this once again as
another Thanksgiving celebration came and went, surrounded by three generations
of my own posterity, not one among whom has ever walked where I played
hide-and-seek beneath arching oaks which were two hundred years old, now
doubtless paved over by “progress”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> One of my Thanksgiving Day memories is of a
local tradition which saw neighborhood children dressed in colorful costumes
roaming the streets and ringing door bells, usually armed with a cast-off purse
or money bag, asking “Have ya anathin’ for Thanksgivin’?” Usually small coins
or other treats were happily handed out from stacks waiting just inside every
doorway for the playing out of a much-enjoyed event known as “Ragamuffin Day”.
As a kid I assumed that “ragamuffins” were universal; that they inhabited the
streets of every American community during this festive season. Only years
later would it dawn on me that this was not true; that ragamuffins and their
colorful antics had been born in New York City’s Brooklyn neighborhoods where
European families had settled, and from which the observation would branch out
only to nearby enclaves – obviously to my own. Popular in the 1930s and 40s, it
would die out in postwar years, and would remain only a fond memory for folks
of my generation who had lived there. Interestingly,
historians looking back on the ragamuffin parades which took place in New York
City in those largely-forgotten days believe that the famous Macy’s Thanksgiving
Day Parade had its birthing with those costume-clad clown-like ragamuffins of
bygone times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> My
favorite dictionary defines the word tradition as “<i>the passing down of elements of culture and time-honored practices from
generation to generation</i>”. I subscribe wholeheartedly to the belief that
traditions – whether family-centered, locally-born or widely held – are the
glue that binds us together, and endows us with a sense of identity that clings
protectively in good times and in bad. I, for one, take comfort from the notion
that if <b>our</b> parents and grandparents
could return for an ethereal visit to our 21<sup>st</sup> century family, they
would recognize us as their own, and find reason to take pride in the things
they passed down to us. I sometimes feel - on special occasions - that they
even sit at our table with us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> While I try hard to convince myself
that we live in the best of times, and that even better days are still ahead,
there is part of me that laments the loss of the kind of closely-knit and
caring neighborhoods of the past many of us grew up in, and I find comfort in
the words of the great Scottish poet and thinker James Barrie who wrote <i>“God gave us the gift of memories that we
might have June roses in the November of our lives”.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-15515038022230493502017-11-08T13:56:00.001-07:002017-11-08T13:56:14.759-07:00THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When I answered our doorbell
yesterday, I was met by the happy face of a neighbor and very special friend
who is as “close” to my heart as any fellow human not born my twin could be. She
– with her husband – lives just 3 miles away from my front door today, but when
I arrived at Seoul’s Kimpo Airport to help defend her country 65 years ago she
had not yet been born. We share between us not only a mutual love for and
devotion to the United States of America which is our homeland, but a deep
appreciation for the unique history which ties us together across years, miles
and continents.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Both together and separately we have
addressed or attended dozens of gatherings, on both sides of the Pacific in the
interest of insuring that the struggle which kept the land of her birth free is
not forgotten, and that those who fought that very costly war together will be
honored and remembered across the “free world” and across the generations. Each
year we gather Korean youth to our “backyard”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>here in southern Utah for several weeks of
remembrance, and many of the college-age grandkids of our American veterans
have been introduced to “the land of the morning calm” in the company of this
friend. And in addition, for several years, my friend – Sunny Lee of Springdale
-- has been personally leading the families of U.S. MIAs on voyages of
discovery searching out the stories of their loved ones “over there”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I make reference to all this in
order to introduce the exact subject about which I wish to direct today’s
comments. Not only do I welcome the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“THANK
YOU”</i> greetings our veteran headgear invite as we wend our way through
everyday society, but this quiet “communication” which is a reassuring part of
American life affords<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> me</i></b> a chance to let those I meet
know that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I am immensely proud to have
had the privilege to serve</b>; to actually represent the thousands - even
millions of my fellow citizens who didn’t happen to have that opportunity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Make no mistake about it; I hate war
as does anyone who has held the hand of a wounded or dying friend or who has
grown up in the family of a disfigured and damaged loved one; I have
experienced both. On the other hand I have learned the meaning of the word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">honor</i> at such a personal level that my
entire concept of living a good life was changed forever. How do I pay for
that!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When November 11, 2017 dawns, I will
once again don my Air Force class A dress “blues” and venture out upon the
public way in order to “rub shoulders” with my neighbors and perfect
“strangers”, as I do every year. Not only does it give the people I meet an
opportunity to think about and even speak of important things, but it gives me
a chance to express my very personal sense of pride in having had the privilege
to serve, and a visible reverence for all those American men and women whose
ability to do the same thing has been denied them by the very <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">cost</b> of that service.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At any given time, it is estimated about 1.4
percent of our national population are living veterans. Talk about an honored<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> minority!</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span></span></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;"></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Historical Note:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At 5:00 AM on the morning of November 11, 1918 the Central Powers and
the Allies signed the documents of armistice officially ending World War I. The
“politicians” among them decided to delay the actual announcement until 11:00
AM, making possible the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eleventh hour of
the eleventh day of the eleventh month</i> mantra which they thought had a nice
ring to it. In those six hours of warfare 2,738 men from both sides died while
more than 8,000 were wounded; needlessly. Nearly 3,000 men who would never get
to be fathers, grandfathers, et cetera. </span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-6918262594933597832017-09-07T21:30:00.001-06:002017-09-07T21:30:16.287-06:00AMERICAN VOLUNTEERISM IN THE FACE OF DISASTER<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As the ongoing Hurricane <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harvey</i> disaster unfolds before our eyes
I cannot help but be carried back 13 years in time to another August and
another storm, that one with the assigned name of Hurricane <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charley.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charley</i> came ashore on
Florida’s Gulf coast near Punta Gorda on August 11, 2004 as a category 4 storm
with winds of 145 mph. After doing unprecedented damage there and at Port
Charlotte, it headed north into the heart of southeast Florida and into Hardee
County where it was destined to devastate the county seat of Wauchula. Before
it was done it would take 18 lives directly and do 16.3 billion dollars in
damage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The state of Utah had only recently
become a signatory to an interstate disaster assistance compact, and when
Florida sent out a plea for outside aid Utah’s Emergency Management leaders responded.
I immediately volunteered and became one of a task force of four to represent
Utah in response to the stricken state. Flying into Tampa, we were immediately
assigned to Hardee County where local responders had been overwhelmed by events
which crippled the county seat of Wauchula and the surrounding communities.
When we arrived rescue efforts were still in progress and first responders were
still involved in a door-to-door search for people trapped by fallen trees and
debris in homes and workplace. There was no electric power and would not be for
weeks to come and only one limited fuel source was operating on generator
power.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The management of response and recovery
efforts was in the hands of the Public Safety Director whose home and
everything he owned had been totally destroyed. He and his family were living
in the downstairs of the Public Safety building in who’s upstairs operating
headquarters we would find ourselves huddled for the next six days with a
dedicated cadre of local volunteers directing every life-saving and public
safety effort for a wide area of suffering. Every single person answering
phones, making decisions and dispensing resources in that room had likewise
lost all or part of their own home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At first it seemed impossible, in
our clean clothes, intact footwear and fresh clean-shaven faces, to fit in with
that roomful of tired overworked and weary “veteran” responders, but by the
time we departed a week later they would be our “brothers” and “sisters”, and a
cheer for Utah would go up from the tear-stained faces of everyday heroes
handing out sincere hugs and kisses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was decided that we could be of
most immediate and effective use to the command structure if we took charge of
managing volunteers and donations, one of the designated and important <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Incident Command</i> functions. Dividing our
duties between the phone desk at headquarters and the volunteer assignment
point in the field, we would soon become immersed in one of the most personally
gratifying areas of disaster operations; one in which we had direct one-on-one
personal contact with everyday Americans arriving by the hundreds each day,
dedicated to the most magnificent of human motivations – the thing we call <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loving thy neighbor</i>. And come they did,
with chain saws and tools, with prepared meals to feed a crowd or a few,
individually or more often by the whole-family, from as far away as Tampa and
Orlando. Since we had 5,000 lost or homeless domesticated pets housed at the
Fair Grounds, we had a ready-made and safe arena in which to employ the
children who wished to perform a service while their parents were assigned
elsewhere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Most often assigned to the desk at
the Command Center (where I often and gladly manned the desks of other
functions as needed: infrastructure management, animal services, diesel fuel
supply for dozens of commercial-size generators or emergency medical response).
It was here I came to understand the broad area of donations and donors. In a
single hour (we operated the center in overlapping 12 hour shifts) I might hear
from a PETCO semi driver approaching town with 20,000 pounds of pet food
wanting to know where to deliver, a loaded-to-the-gills WAL-MART van wanting a
location to set up, a family wishing to donate a meal of
spaghetti-and-meatballs to feed 100 seeking directions to an appropriate
parking lot, or an expert on Florida alligators offering his needed services to
deal with one of our ongoing problems. Arriving daily would be generous
individuals with money (large and small), often preferring to donate it to
“local” rather than national institutions (a common sentiment I found in such
disasters.) I always had a deserving and proven alternative in mind including one
group who helped families with expensive power line problems on their own
property, or other repairs uncovered by utility companies or insurance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Many of the local residents of rural
Wauchula were non-English -speaking and too concerned by their uncertain citizen
status to even come forward and admit they needed help let alone sign their
names to a questionnaire. (One of my pleasures was to drive our van during
time-offs into such residential areas where I could invite little kids inside
for ten minutes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">air conditioning
comfort</i> and watch the sheer joy on their faces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(And thrill to their joyful “high-fives”!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Later, I would serve at FEMA
headquarters at Port Charlotte where I would gain important Disaster Management
skills, but from where I would have given anything to be back in the “front
lines” touching hands with real people and experiencing the wonderment of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">American Volunteerism at its finest</b>.</span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-19390061602879072732017-08-29T22:03:00.000-06:002017-08-29T22:03:04.493-06:00LUCKY TO HAVE A BOYHOOD HERO <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I might more properly have titled
this working document <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lucky to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Have Had </i>a Boyhood Hero</b> until I
thought about it a while, and realized there has never been a time when Jack
Dwyer ceased being just that for me; a hero whose image and imprint is as real
today as the last time I saw him standing in his sharply-pressed Army Air Force
“Pinks” in our front yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All these
years after he most certainly passed on from this world I wish there was a way
I could say a “Thank You” to him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I must have been no more than seven
years old when Jack – in his early 20s – would have arrived with his parents who
came to live in the big old house across the street from our hundred-year old
New Jersey family home. I know that Pearl Harbor had not happened yet when I
was first invited to tour Jack’s upstairs “private museum” of swords and knives
and weapons-of-war collected from around the world. Mr. Dwyer Senior was a
senior executive with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cunard White
Star</i> shipping line, and Jack had gotten to work as first a cabin boy and
then a steward aboard that shipping giant’s passenger vessels since his early youth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Along with every shining,
jewel-encrusted blade came a story, and Jack was an accomplished collector and
teller of tall tales. Along with a Gurkha knife would come a recitation of
Kipling’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gungha Din </i>and a replay of
a story known to every child of the day. When allowed to hold in my hands a curved
scimitar of rippling Damascus steel, I was able to envision images of knights
in shining mail as seen in my favorite weekly newspaper chronicle <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Prince Valiant,</i> while the iconic twisted
blade of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kris</i> dagger<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from Java is easily the most
easily-remembered of them all to this day. Then too there was an attic room
hung with an assortment of military weapons from WWI: a British Lee Enfield
rifle, a French Labelle, a German Luger pistol, a “Broomhandle” Mauser and a belted
Webley as I still recall; all exciting and memorable for an imaginative kid of
my age.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I realize now that Jack was a
“one-of-a-kind”, even for the age in which he had grown up, and was obviously –
if not a thoroughly spoiled lad – at least one greatly indulged by generous and
loving parents. Along with the aforementioned collection of weaponry, he had
managed to bring home on his father’s ships an English sports car and an
unusual matched motorcycle and sidecar of European manufacture he had acquired
from a “bored” Prince (or other person of royal birth.) Both were to add their
own chapters to my legacy of hero-worship.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The bright-green sports car was an
open two-seater with three headlights, the center one of which was “steerable”
for seeing around bends. We took it for an initial spin at dusk so that I could
steer the light from my passenger seat on the left. On subsequent trips I made
certain to guide Jack down every side street in town on which I knew other kids
would be sure to see me; especially Barbara Hummel and Elizabeth Riker. The
motorcycle was an even bigger thrill, and my driver knew just how to go around
a curve so that the side-car in which I rode rose up in the air just enough. I
think we wore matching leather hats, but I could be over-imagining.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When war broke out Jack was quick to
join the U.S. Army Air Corps and enter training to become a fighter pilot. (He may
have already been a Reserve pilot since he advanced - it seemed to me -quite
rapidly.) To begin with he was flying Curtis P-40 fighters, made famous by
Clair Chennault’s Flying Tigers and the best we had at the time. Flying
training missions from east coast bases, Jack would regularly buzz my house at
altitudes low enough to shake my Mom’s upstairs clothes line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly thereafter, Jack transitioned into a
P-51 “Mustang”, the plane whose arrival would change the very course of
victory, and whose Rolls Royce Merlin engine I could hear coming when still
many miles away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On those increasingly rare occasions
today when my ears are “serenaded” by that mystical sound, my boyhood friend
comes automatically into view and I feel renewed to realize that I still enjoy the
imprint of a boyhood hero who remains larger than life.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span></span>Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-32537477463224747762017-08-14T10:04:00.000-06:002017-08-14T10:04:04.747-06:00SHINING A LIGHT ON FERMI’S PARADOX <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Back on June 4<sup>th</sup>, 2017 I
wrote about the West Virginia county where CELL phones and other electronic
appliances give way to a giant telescopic “ear” with which earthlings listen
for interstellar messages. Since then I have given much thought to some of the
possible implications of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fermi’s Paradox</i>,
which that research pointed me toward; an invitation as it seemed to explore
some subject matter I would not ordinarily take the chance of boring my readers
with. The name of Enrico Fermi, the father of the nuclear age, has been
well-known to me ever since I came under the influence of a New Jersey junior
high school teacher who was devoted to educating her students on much more than
the Math her contract specified.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fermi, an Italian-born physicist
and Nobel laureate who escaped his fascist homeland just in time to head up the
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Manhattan Project</i> and the development
of the atomic bomb, had the chance in his short lifetime (he died of stomach
cancer at age 53) to think logically of possibilities beyond the earth’s sphere
and even the outer reaches of our galaxy. In a discussion with some of the best
scientific minds of his day, he discussed what has famously become known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Fermi Paradox.</i> I note here that
there are those who argue that the “question” is not a true “paradox”, and that
beyond that, it does not have any support in established science.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I am a story-teller and not a papered
professor with a scholarly reputation on the line, I feel free to continue
anyway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At the heart of the so-called paradox
is the increasingly evident fact that not only are we surrounded in our galaxy
by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">billions</b> of other planetary
systems – that is a central star (or two) such as our sun, around which a
family of circling and associated planets have organized – but that many of
them are similar enough to our own to suggest the possibility of a
life-sustaining, earth-like environment. Add to that the likelihood that many
of them would be older – perhaps <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">much</b>
older – than our planet’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">teenage</i>
level of maturity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The big question that possibility
poses for an earth-bound thinker boils down to this: If there are other
human-like populations in advanced development stages elsewhere who know about
us and “our world”, and have the technological prowess to do so, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">why haven’t they made contact with us?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Setting aside all the cosmic and
scientific hypotheses which make Dr. Fermi’s list of 22, I am fascinated most
by these two:</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It
is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And . . .</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It
is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">If
either or both of these be true, perhaps potential “visitors” may have
destroyed themselves just about the time they might have said “hello” to us; OR
perhaps they observed just enough of our earthly doings from a distance to
decide they couldn’t afford to get involved with folks who were building big
bombs and exhibiting so limited a respect for the doctrine of “loving one’s neighbor”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>[In 1954, I was briefly tasked by
the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigation (OSI) to interview citizens
reporting UFO sightings near Washington’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hanford
Atomic Works</i> as part of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Project Blue
Book</i> (UFO investigations 1949-1969). Since “declassified”, I will still
only mention that most of my reports came from experienced pilots, control
tower operators, aviation professionals and on one occasion a gathering of 50
adult RC (radio control) hobbyists who all saw the same thing. Please don’t ask
me what I think of all this; I really don’t know what to say.] </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As an octogenarian who reads history,
has seen war, watches several hours of TV news every day, and has a large and
loving family, I am a worrier. Why then do I work so hard at what I do every
day?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still believe that living a good
life and loving my neighbors, and doing everything I can to contribute
something worthwhile is important. I hope you feel the same.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 9;"> </span></span>Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-13666649609089051812017-08-02T10:31:00.001-06:002017-08-02T10:31:55.191-06:00ON THE LOOKOUT FOR LIFE’S MILESTONES<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The place known to its non-resident
owners as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Melody Ranch</i> embraced some
400 acres of mostly hilly and heavily-wooded northern Vermont countryside. Its
many mysteries included long-abandoned <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>barns and outbuildings, the remains of a
prohibition-era whiskey still, and a “bottomless” pond whose black waters were
said to hide a wagon and team that had fallen through thin ice one long-ago
winter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For several years of our young
married life, the rambling 13-room farm house which presided over <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Melody Ranch</i> was our home, and we were
the designated “care takers” of the premises. Exploring the vast and diverse
acres of that 200-year-old “homestead” was a never-ending adventure, and by the
end of our tenancy, we had still not seen it all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One day, while wandering among a
mixed stand of maples, beeches and other hardwoods far from farm buildings or
any roadway, I literally stumbled over what I thought at first was some random
piece of stone poking its way above old leaves and forest duff. It seemed
though to be out of place surrounded otherwise by a carpet of relatively
unbroken woodland floor. Bending to look more closely I saw that it was the top
of a square granite post, obviously hand cut to shape. There was a two-digit
number barely visible through the time-encrusted build-up of lichen on the
stone’s top, and I found that the whole thing was firmly and deeply set into
the ground. Looking around, I could find no</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">similar
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The trees whose spreading canopy I stood
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In northern New England hardwood trees are what plant scientists call the
“climax forest;” that is they do not just spring up on available land, but
follow in orderly progression a complex series of preparatory steps. First come
berry bushes and ground covers, followed by birches and poplars, beneath whose
protective umbrella the conifers – spruce, hemlock and pines – make their
appearance. Only after this lengthy environmental metamorphosis do the
hardwoods emerge, eventually denying sunlight and moisture to the underlings
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The incident played in my mind for
some time until one day at the general store in the village of Worcester, I
mentioned it to an old-timer. “Oh”, he exclaimed with no particular surprise,
“what you came across was a mile marker on the old Hardwick stagecoach line. It
used to go right through this country in the early 1800s. Every so often there
was a granite post to let the driver know just where he was on the old
turnpike.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Old Turnpike”! I marveled. Right
through what was now an unbroken forest stretching as far as the eye could see
in both directions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That unexpected woodland discovery
took place sixty years ago, and if some farmer with a chainsaw hasn’t come
along to change things, those sugar maples are now probably two feet in
diameter, and that old granite marker completely covered by forest detritus.
Ever since that day though, I have looked at human history from a very
different perspective, and as I have traveled this wide, wonderful and
disparate land of ours, I have looked for the “mile markers” – in whatever
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<br /></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-77041167206300563632017-07-18T09:15:00.001-06:002017-07-18T09:15:23.718-06:00SINGING OUR WAY THROUGH TIME<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I purchased my first very own
musical recording at the age of ten or eleven, at a “ten cent” store in nearby
Englewood, New Jersey on a Saturday family shopping trip. It was the beginning
of an “indulgence” which has seen a revolution in recording science and which
continues today. That early investment was a black 78 rpm wax disc with a red
label featuring Bing Crosby and Kate Smith singing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t Fence Me In. “I can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences”</i>
the two proclaimed and my Dad had to explain “hobbles” to me. It was a humble
beginning. The collection of easily broken and scratched black wax “singles”
continued right up to Harry James, the Andrew Sisters and the “Fire House five
Plus two” and a hundred others! They’re still in my cluttered basement today
(weighing more than fifty pounds per boxful!)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The age of vinyl and the coming of
first binaural and then stereo sound saw me building my own room-filling sound
system which is still with me today, and a record collection which grew
exponentially; and that barely mentions my Tanberg and Sony tape decks and the
collection they spawned after the “experts” of the day proclaimed that “tape”
was the ultimate recording medium, after which there could be nothing better.
Already my wife is urging me to build a cabinet designed to “hide” my stacks of
CDs from the public, but I tell her to “hang on”, the coming world of
“down-loading” will obviate the need if something even more dazzling doesn’t
come first.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And that leads me to the story I
really want to tell. One of the last vinyl L.P.s I purchased was an album cut
in 1968 featuring Petula Clark performing some of her most famous hits,
including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This is My Song, Don’t Sleep in
the Subway</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Groovin’.</i> My
record of activity on the back of the cover indicates my last play took place
on March 16<sup>th</sup>, 1969, just prior to our family move from Vermont to
Utah, and the apparent retirement of the sound system which did not get
“plugged in” again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Shortly after moving to Rockville, I
learned that the daughter of one of my radio fans was a personal friend of
Petula Clark, and had been for much of her life. Shortly after that, I was
introduced to Petula’s daughter, Bara De Cabrol on an occasion when she had
stopped in southern Utah to pay a visit to that family. By coincidence, I was
the speaker at the event being visited on that occasion which led to a brief
exchange of correspondence with her and thereby a personal connection after she
returned to her home in NYC, from which I have enjoyed a most pleasant memory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not long ago I received an
unexpected, but very much appreciated and timely gift from my Utah friend in
the form of a brand new, 2016 CD recording of Petula Clark titled <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FROM NOW ON,</b> just released from a
recording studio in London. Petula, at age 84, and still singing her heart out.
I listen to it with some regularity, but especially when I need to be reminded
that like the English lady with a full head of curly blonde hair,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I</b> yet have places to go and worthwhile
things to do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Alongside the well-known lyrics from
out of a famous past such as these: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blackbird
singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. All
your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise</i> is a new poetic
challenge found in such as these my favorites:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I don’t
need to know what your life has been, I’ve been there too and I have seen. All
that really matters is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">From Now On</b></i>.
. . those last three words the song’s title.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And perhaps the most personally meaningful of all : </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wandering
around the world I’ve seen, the good the bad the in-between, no one is perfect,
this we all know but my heart and soul keep telling me Never let go. Keep doing
what you’re doing, and giving it all you can.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> NEVER LET GO.</b></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Not only is her voice “youthful”
and as lovely as ever, but she writes and sings her own music, and adds piano,
harp and string accompaniments along the way. I for one hope the inimitable and
unstoppable Petula Clark never let’s go.</span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-56912901014705096462017-07-17T11:12:00.001-06:002017-07-17T11:35:45.553-06:00LESSONS LEARNED ON A WALK IN THE WOODS<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>More than four decades ago I
rendered a pen-and-ink sketch of a charming wild creature with which I enjoyed
a near-magical encounter while living at 7,000 feet in the folds of a Wasatch
Mountain pine forest. I later penned an essay titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ghost that Flies at Midnight</i> telling the story. The secretive
nocturnal “creature” happened to be the North American Flying Squirrel, and my
connection with this tiny and mysterious wild animal was short-lived and
singular; I have never met anyone else who has even seen one in the wild.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nSx0oHAEWBM/WWz1JoobMXI/AAAAAAAAB1s/Fj0eqhy9RDYzp4nYSPN8W4eE4Jrn6assQCLcBGAs/s1600/Flying%2BSquirrel%2B%25282%2529-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1234" data-original-width="1600" height="246" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nSx0oHAEWBM/WWz1JoobMXI/AAAAAAAAB1s/Fj0eqhy9RDYzp4nYSPN8W4eE4Jrn6assQCLcBGAs/s320/Flying%2BSquirrel%2B%25282%2529-001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Recently I have been considering
the claim by a segment of environmental scientists that modern <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">professionally-managed forests</i> cannot
replace what is lost with the removal and disappearance of natural, undisturbed
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">old growth forests</i>. Coincidentally, I
have been reading a book about the world of American owls – including the environmental
changes which have challenged – and even threatened the survival of – the “world”
inhabited by these fascinating birds-of-the-night. The connective tissue
between these two subjects lies in the realization that these same “cute”
flying squirrels constitute the principal food source for the
rapidly-disappearing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">North American</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spotted Owl</i>, both of which species live
almost exclusively and entirely in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">old
growth</i> forests.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The flying squirrels themselves
depend for food upon the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">false truffle</i>
which they find attached to the roots of certain trees, which they in turn help
to propagate as they scatter its spores in their own activities. The truffles
benefit the trees by supplying specific nutrients not readily synthesized
naturally. As a further step in this cycle of inter-dependency, the pellets
excreted by the owls after consuming a squirrel further spread the truffle
spores throughout the forest floor. This arboreal drama is but one example of
the kind of symbiosis which is a hallmark of natural <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">old growth</i> forests – among a small remnant of which – I was apparently
blessed to live for 40 years without realizing it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The argument between the timber
industry and environmentalists just a few years ago made the spotted owl an
iconic, half humorous (and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ill-chosen)</b>
central figure. Those arguing for the preservation of old growth forest
remnants were not merely concerned about one species of owl, nor were they
trying to put an end to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">all</b> timber
cutting. The spotted owl became a symbol because it was discovered to be one <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">obvious</b> casualty of a thoughtless (but
profit-driven) wholesale <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">clear-cutting</i>
strategy. In the process of defending its case the giant timber companies put
forward the argument that the “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">managed</b>”
forest – re- planted and cultivated forests such as those they proposed to fill
the giant open spaces left behind after their mechanized harvests – would in
the end be more productive and just as beautiful – as the primal forests, they
would in time replace. And they point to living examples to prove it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The term <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">old growth </i>has a very specific and well-established definition. It
refers to stands of ancient groves of mature, never-before disturbed integrated
species of trees, together with the supporting communities of flora and fauna which
have developed and matured with them over long periods of time; hundreds of
years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What we know now but might not
have fully understood just a few ago is that once “disturbed” or destroyed
these priceless pieces of natural history cannot be renewed or “managed” back
into existence. The complex combinations of inter-related life forms – from snails
and salamanders to nesting birds, migrating animals and insects by the millions
will not return. On my annual visits to the Pacific Northwest I am exposed to
visual reminders of every side to this unfolding story: vast stretches of
decades-old ugly scrub land left behind by mindless clear-cutting, new
replacement forests of baby conifers of identical size and geometric spacing
reflecting the sense of responsibility to the future on the part of the modern
timber industry, and the soldier-like stands of middle-age trees in “managed”
mountain-side “regiments” awaiting the chain saws of some carefully planned
future harvest.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rkFXBCKpbpk/WWzvtgKSh1I/AAAAAAAAB1k/sew4ctoMSV4cHb_jUz1QuTlxvBr3nA8SQCLcBGAs/s1600/Klootchy%2BWoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rkFXBCKpbpk/WWzvtgKSh1I/AAAAAAAAB1k/sew4ctoMSV4cHb_jUz1QuTlxvBr3nA8SQCLcBGAs/s400/Klootchy%2BWoods.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And I continue to experience the
heart-stopping thrill of walking beneath forest giants that are 300 and 400
years old, in the midst of the lushness of a green-and-growing biodiversity,
the un-measurable dimensions of which boggle the mind of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thinking</i> visitor. Here, even the dead
standing, and supine and decaying trees are important citizens of the primal
system, supporting the birthing of new growth, nesting sites for myriad forest
creatures and thousands of kinds of fungi, lichen and molds – all contributors to
the whole. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I can only hope that we
will always have a sufficiency of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thinking,
caring</i> people in our society to insure the survival of our disappearing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">old growth forests.</i></span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-53078797292051809872017-07-14T22:07:00.001-06:002017-07-14T22:07:29.747-06:00LIVING WITH A STORYTELLER’S DILEMMA<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Because I am a lover of books, I
have my favorite “local” book stores wherever I end up at the end of a day’s
travel. Between Cannon Beach on the coast of Oregon and Rockland on the coast
of Maine, I have walked many miles without leaving their crowded aisles whose
shelves are well-known to me, but also ever-changing. It’s not just books that
fascinate me, but the people who like me gravitate to such places, and from whom
I often learn as much as from the inviting pages through which I roam. I have
especially come to appreciate the practice of my Oregon haunt to label books
which have earned the personal recommendation of a store employee or two with a
few words of commentary noted on a tag taped on the front of the shelf. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On such a recent visit, I mentioned
to a young store employee my interest in a particular subject. Within minutes I
was confronted by a growing stack of volumes she had gathered for my appraisal,
and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>among which was a “gem” which
answered all my questions, and which traveled home with me. (It is a book on TIDES
exploring the Science and Spirit of oceans from which I will draw hours of
pleasure and a wealth of seldom-visited knowledge; in short it has the promise
of adding something to my everyday life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the course of a one week visit, I
may end up purchasing only two or three selected volumes, but chances are I
will have pages of notes and observations; new ideas and a plethora of words
and quotations, and often new story ideas which will find their way onto my
desktop and onto future pages.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>With all of this I yet face a
regular dilemma, wondering whether a particular idea deserves to become a
story, and even more importantly whether the story should be shared with others
or “treasured up” for self or sequestered fearing perhaps it will not seem
relevant or worthwhile or interesting to others. Pondering this troublesome
quandary, I ran into a reference to an ancient but still valid point of law
known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theft by finding</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In its earliest form in Medieval
times it posited the idea that if one finds something of value the owner of
which cannot be determined, it is alright to keep it as long as its value is
shared with others in some way, and not hoarded by the finder alone. The idea
really struck me: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theft by finding! Is
this a concept worth exploring? </i>Might it not apply to a story-teller who
develops or happens upon a story of value and then fails to share it with
others by its very telling!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Taped to the wall over the top of my
keyboard where my eyes can’t miss them are the four Japanese symbols for the
word <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ikigai</i>,</b>
the meaning of which in English would read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
reason</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for which I rise each day.</i>
For me personally it asks the question “with the skills, talents, devotions and
passions which have been given to me as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gifts</i>,
am I being faithful; am I rising each day determined to share with others
something of value in what I do?” In a broader context, am I doing everything
within my power to nurture those talents, and in finding new ways to put them
to use in a world which continues to need every bit of person-to-person service
within reach?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even on a personal level I find
relevance in the law of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theft by finding</i>,
and wonder whether I need to make room for one more sign on my wall!</span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-18550121007217653222017-07-02T12:05:00.001-06:002017-07-02T12:05:23.573-06:00CREATING THE “MONSTER” WE CALL NORTH KOREA<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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the free Republic of Korea to the south, and the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Communist enslaved nation of North Korea on
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remembering that just 58 years previously, I and my unit had been receiving
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later. Disobeying the instructions we had been given to be careful of what we
said, and even how we arranged our facial expressions that close to the
green-uniformed North Korean soldiers, I launched into a passionate
condemnation of the United Nations/U.S. policies which had denied us the
opportunity to defeat the North entirely when I believed victory was possible
back in 1953 when “our side” was “infected” with the “let’s go home fever” our
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interviews which made me a minor “personality” on global South Korean
television. It became apparent that very few American veterans were willing to
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Why can’t I just look at my “Korean experience” as a closed chapter, and take
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stage for the birth of the evil empire the world still faces and which we at
one time had reduced to a virtual shadow on the map. (We actually occupied
Pyongyang their capital city at one time while controlling the air space over
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with the help of Russia could we ever hope to win a surrender from the Empire
of Japan at an acceptable cost in American lives. He still believed this when
the Big Three met for the Yalta Conference in the Soviet Crimea in February,
1945. The critically-ill and foundering FDR (he would be dead in sixty days)
met secretly with Joe Stalin with whom the American President believed he had
developed the kind of private friendship and trust he could rely on. The deal
which was hammered out would give Russia a free hand in Manchuria (always at
the heart of the Soviets’ long-range planning) and – by the way – the
occupation of the northern part of the Korean Peninsula and a similar portion
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the end of the war in Europe, as agreed. The only people at the Yalta
Conference who held the secret knowledge of the Atomic Bomb were Roosevelt, and
his closest advisor, Ambassador W. Averill Harriman; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and possibly Joseph Stalin!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It would be the devoted Averill
Harriman who would make certain the otherwise “untutored” and unprepared Truman
Administration honored the Yalta agreement, including the Communist takeover of
North Korea.</span></div>
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</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">As
Vice President, Harry Truman had never had a single meeting with Franklin Delano
Roosevelt</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">.</span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-73161145180498422852017-06-25T21:29:00.001-06:002017-06-25T21:29:43.537-06:00REVISITING THE SENSE OF PEACE AT KLOOTCHY CREEK<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I first fell under the calming influence of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ancient primal forests</i> of the Pacific Northwest
some years ago when I first learned about the “stories” waiting to be found in
a little-known roadside park on Oregon’s highway 26. Made famous not so much by
the pioneer family who gave the place its magical name, as by a giant tree
which had for 750 years called that generous nesting ground nursery and home,
it has been for me a spiritual magnet ever since. Struck by lightning years
ago, and then felled by hurricane winds that followed in December of 2007, the
giant first lost its majestic top which has since become a “nest” log for
future descendents even now taking shape, leaving behind a many-scarred but
still majestic “monument” to a history reaching back to the journeys of Marco
Polo, spanning the birth and death of kingdoms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At its zenith the giant Sitka Spruce
at Klootchy Creek reached 200 feet in height, with a diameter of 18 feet and a
circumference of 56 feet. Over it all presided a crown of 93 feet casting a
rain shadow which effectively protected it from too much competition while
fostering the growth of nitrogen-producing undergrowth. In its day it is
believed to have been the largest tree in Oregon and perhaps the largest Sitka
Spruce anywhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My father was himself a product of
this country, and in fact had grown up in a family of timber men and in the
remote timber camps of an era which had shaped him inside and out. After being
flooded out of one Skagit County home, the young family had lived for a year
inside the hollowed-out trunk of a huge fallen Douglas fir, not unlike some of
the “monsters” with which I communed in my Klootchy Creek visits. Perhaps
something in the strings of DNA encircling my own chromosomes were speaking to
me in the fetid silences which embraced me here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was raining lightly but
determinedly at the time of my farewell visit, and I took the occasion to walk
beneath the towering evergreens on a path virtually clogged to overflowing with
new life. So fertile and fecund is the soil and the community of growing
materials which fill every square foot of environment that one can’t help but
feel touched by the fullness and promise and enthusiasm through which you walk
and whose essence fills each breath you take.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Back in my car, writing in my sodden
note book and attempting to pat my camera dry, I paused to consider the
emotional artifacts which cannot be ignored when I am “at home” in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">places</b> I love. Out of curiosity I had
been noticing that almost from the moment of our arrival at our destination,
with the sound of the nearby surf in my ears and the kiss of salt air on my
face I found my usual high-speed mental activities being slowed and “gentled” and
my underlying doubts and apprehensions being replaced by a sense of peace and
harmony. Testing, I found my blood oxygen levels in the mid 90s, my heart beat
slowed and my blood pressure itself “better than normal;” even after a
1,260-mile drive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another branch of my ancestral
family settled on another coast, that one carved roughly by the less
accommodating and welcoming cold North Atlantic, buying Nantucket from the
Indians and pioneering Maine coastal and island-towns where they built ships,
went whaling, and farmed the sea, woods and fields of Maine’s “Down East”
country. They also wrote books and poetry. Their DNA also twists its way
through my cells. There are places on a particular peninsula in Maine’s
mid-coast where my body and soul experience the same sense of being “home”;
where just being there has the power to bring tears to my eyes and contentment
to my heart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One sad fact slows the dance of joy
both destinations hold out to me: Last week’s Klootchy Creek adventure may well
be the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">finis</i> to both.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-56714004603314924232017-06-23T13:46:00.003-06:002017-06-23T13:46:50.523-06:00A WELCOME RETURN TO NO NONSENSE SCHOOLING<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Shirley and I are proud <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">great </b>grand-parents of seventeen, each
one of whom is a gift and a blessing in our lives. We delight in almost-daily
reports from the “field” where life plays out and family adventures are the
currency of everyday. Since the beginning of the current school year we have
been noticing something new and exciting taking place in the lives of our three
Denver-area kids:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aged seven, ten and
thirteen and all highly intelligent and doing well in school, their lives as
“scholars” seemed suddenly to literally “take off” with their acceptance into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Golden View Classical Academy</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Golden
View</i> is a K-12 school founded and organized on principles and programs
developed and supervised by The Barney Charter School Initiative at Hillsdale
College</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">with the aim of delivering a
classical education with an emphasis on our own history and civic ethics and a
sense of individual responsibility. Qualifying standards are very demanding and
parents who end up requesting consideration for their children are generally
highly motivated to partner with their kids in “going the extra mile”. And it
shows everywhere we looked both on the campus and at home where our three have
turned a serious circle in the enthusiasm and dedication to learning and
achieving we all notice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After meeting the Principal, my wife
and I together with our grand-daughter were invited to sit in as
officially-welcomed guests to 10-year old <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Taj’s</i>
5<sup>th</sup> grade history class, where I could see where his excited
interest in the American Civil War had come from to bubble over in so many of
our conversations. As the class of thirty or so students, obviously proud of
their sharp, neat uniforms moved through their well-ordered discussion groups
and class presentations, they would pause to greet or shake hands with us as
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– including our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Taj</i> reported on the
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Noticeable at every juncture in our
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importance of the classical <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">virtues</i>
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absence of “big brother” computer stations at every bend and curve at the same
time that cordial and happy conversations seemed to be welcome fare between
students wherever we roamed; there was even an off-the-beaten-path corner where
a kid could pause to touch the keyboard of a handy piano!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our most charming demonstration was
put on by 7-year-old <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Asha</i> who
volunteered to teach the adults in our Denver home a lesson introducing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Riggs </i>method of English pronunciation; a
system which breaks down grammar-based phonetics into recognized mouth sounds.
It was a revolutionary “discovery” for several of us, as we were practically
mesmerized by our 1<sup>st</sup> grade-aged “professor” who understood
“articulatory phonology” so well as to be able to explain it to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">us</b> with surprising self-confidence. I
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exposed to this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">International System </i>at
so early an age.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o3Nj2VMcovk/WU1v6kTtnCI/AAAAAAAAB1U/c35TDkpEZroICBjES7qnscFawZpZrcEEwCLcBGAs/s1600/Asha%2BTeaches%2BClass%2Bat%2BHome%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o3Nj2VMcovk/WU1v6kTtnCI/AAAAAAAAB1U/c35TDkpEZroICBjES7qnscFawZpZrcEEwCLcBGAs/s400/Asha%2BTeaches%2BClass%2Bat%2BHome%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By the way it was little <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Asha </i>who managed to place in humorous
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place in her book-conscious older sibling, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Taj.
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
now have a brother who is one of those people who has to read all that stuff
they print on cereal boxes!”</span></i></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-59087285044663771812017-06-14T22:09:00.001-06:002017-06-14T22:09:38.780-06:00AT LAST! A PLACE WHERE CELL PHONES ARE BANNED<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>High on my bucket list of
destinations worth visiting is a town (in fact an entire county) in West
Virginia. Green Bank is not very big; in fact Pocahontas County is neither
large nor famous other than for the facility which lies at its center. The
rather remote area is not very well known itself other than to a particular
scientific “community” for which it might as well be the center of the
universe. So to speak. And that takes me back to a different – though related –
story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">THE WOW MESSAGE</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">On the night of August 15, 1977,
astronomer Jerry Ellman was holding down the fort at Ohio State University’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Big Ear</i> radio telescope in the town of
Deleware when he noticed that a cryptic set of alpha-numeric symbols had crept
mysteriously across the computer screen. So surprised and excited was he that
he quickly made a distinctive scientific notation in red ink on the printout: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: red;">WOW!</span></i></b><span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both the symbol and its intensity represent a
close approximation of the chemical formula for hydrogen, known to be the most
plentiful – and most commonly-recognized chemical in the Universe. The event
quickly became the closest evidence yet for intelligent life outside our own
planet – this one emanating from somewhere near the constellation <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sagittarius.</i> The search for intelligent
life (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SETI</i>) </b>beyond earth thereafter became much more serious. Over
the years following WOW, a whole new scientific importance was placed on the
very expensive hunt for “messages” from a long distance away from<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> home</i>; for instance a
four-hundred-eighty-feet tall tower in Green Bank, West Virginia.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">IS ANYONE THERE?</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank
radio-telescope is so sensitive it can detect the electro-magnetic arrival of a
snow flake on earth one of the most alert “listening posts” anywhere, with a
parabolic collecting area covering more than two acres in size. To make the
“steerable” installation as efficient as possible, the entire surrounding area
of more than 2300 square miles is officially defined as a “National Quiet Zone”,
within whose boundaries electronic emissions are tightly restricted. Not only
are CELL phones and other electronic signal sources restricted, but most micro-wave
ovens and spark plug-equipped appliances and vehicles cannot be operated in
many areas where they might interfere with operations; diesel equipment is
therefore favored. In the interest of communications a single low-powered
public radio station serves much of the region.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What I find interesting is that when
asked about their unusual limitations most of the residents of the “quiet zone”
seem to like it just the way it is. What’s more, they may be among the first
folks anywhere to know <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">when</i></b> we find someone listening<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
somewhere out there</i></b>.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">CONSIDERING THE FERMI PARADOX</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The very fact that intelligent
contact from outside our solar system has not yet been <u>demonstrated</u> to
have occurred, presents scientific “thinkers” with something of a puzzle. As
physicist Enrico Fermi famously pointed out in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradox,</i> given the billions of star systems similar to ours, many
of which are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">far</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">older, </b>dozens or even hundreds of
resident “earth-planets” ought to have visited us by now. He lists some very
thought-provoking – even cautionary – reasons why this might be so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Oh, by the way, the current “favorite”
prospect is a planetary system nicknamed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tabby’s
Star </i>in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cygnus</i>. Stand by.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-56676411941121490712017-05-26T08:06:00.001-06:002017-05-26T08:06:54.489-06:00BEING TRUE TO THE STRAIGHTEST GENERATION<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have read – and expect to continue
to run into – some well-deserved editorial reminders that this year is the 75<sup>th</sup>,
and likely the last numbered and remarked anniversary of that epochal episode
known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">World War Two</i>, within whose
embrace I experienced my crucial growing up years, and true to whose promise I
lived out some of my country’s most crucial and foundational decades. For me
and a fast-disappearing number like me it is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the </b>centrifugal and defining event of a lifetime. It fills the
capacity of my memory cells so fully that virtually all other subjects are
subordinate and related to it. Including – and perhaps especially – that
three-year “diversion” we call Korea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yesterday a Vermont friend phoned to
report that Jerry Thomas had passed away in a home-town nursing home. Jerry had
been one of six of us who traveled to the Air Force Recruiting Station in
Montpelier one December day in 1950. That original “six” represented one third
of the boys in our high school graduating class and we chose to enter the U.S.
Air force and take our basic training together. I fear I may be the last of
that “spirited” bunch, with each of whom I had shared uncounted “cherry-cokes”
at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">THE SPOT. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the following months, as the Korean War
grew larger, most of the others followed in one Service branch or another. It
was what our older brothers and cousins had done a few years earlier, and it
was what we did. Like those predecessors we too had weathered the Great
Depression, gotten by on less and witnessed everything World War II had brought
to our 20<sup>th</sup> century door step. We were in every sense of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> generation, and motivated by the
same sense of brotherhood and patriotism. We were true “believers”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In fact, it is worth pointing out
that more than 400,000 of those of us who fought in Korea had also seen active
service in WWII, including most field-grade officers and a preponderance of
senior “non-coms”. (To our ever-lasting benefit.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I think often of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">world </i>we came home to, and the unique
nature of its shape and character; and of the unvarnished reality of our modest
expectations. Married, with a young family and only a high school education, I
had the good fortune to attract the attention of an Air Force Reserve senior
officer who was a Vice President of Vermont’s most important business
enterprise, and who recruited me into the most <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">august</i> of its departments - even without an advanced degree. There
my similarly selected colleagues included Cal Haskell, a recently released Air
Force Major and experienced senior command pilot, and Gordon Paterson who had
served with the 82<sup>nd</sup> Airborne Division and who limped from a bad
training injury. Gordon, a devoted Masters candidate became my business <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mentor</i> and best friend. We shot
competitively and wandered wild country together. (He became a senior staff
member of the University of Vermont and is still a good friend.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We were next joined by Lt. Clayton
Jordan who came home from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Battle of
the Bulge </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stalag Luft III</i> –
one of the most notorious of the worst Nazi prisons – as a proudly honored
local hero. As a Sergeant who fought on with his last bullet after releasing
his men to surrender he was awarded a “battlefield commission”. Clayton twice
survived being sentenced to execution by firing squad by sheer audacity. He is
perhaps the bravest man I have ever known. I also was assigned to work on a
daily basis with a man named Glen Rice, my opposite number in our Dallas, Texas
branch office. Glen had been taken prisoner in the fall of Manila back in 1941
and had survived the Bataan Death March. Crippled for life from his years of
beatings and punishment by the Japanese, he never complained and felt honored
to be working with the rest of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">us.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Each of us in our own personal
variations, had watched our loved ones go off to war, rally behind a united
cause, honor deeply-held values and convictions and remain true to our own
personal sense of honor. We came from a generation or two that went to church,
opened doors for ladies and pretty much stayed married once we got that way. We
didn’t own a lot of Mutual Funds, but tried not to buy stuff we couldn’t
afford. I know I am super “old fashioned”, but still write checks and don’t
know feel deprived not knowing how to use an ATM machine. And I think I have
lived in the very best generation; in perhaps <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">straightest generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></b></span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-61940790462800517142017-05-16T12:20:00.000-06:002017-05-16T12:20:02.653-06:00 SCARING UP A FARMSTEAD BREAKFAST<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When my Dad was in charge, he never
“made” breakfast, he always “scared it up”. When living in a cabin – he assured
us – he would leave the door open so that he could run outside just in time to
catch the manually-flipped “flapjacks” as they exited the chimney. I thought of
all that last week as I noted an unexpected “find” in a nearby meat department,
thereupon bringing home a lovely, glistening, five-pound “pork belly”. </span></div>
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fresh cut, I covered it with a dry rub of salt, pepper and brown sugar (my
private stock of maple sugar too precious to reduce further), and set it to
cure, wrapped, in the bottom of my outdoor refrigerator where I was careful to
turn it several times daily over its five-day aging process. Rinsed, dried and
ready for the most sacred step of all, it went into my pre-heated smoker over
chips of maple wood where I tended it lovingly for about five hours. With a
golden “bark” and an internal temperature of 165 degrees, I pulled it out to
cool gently before slicing thick quarter-inch slabs redolent of sweet-salty
maple magic.</span></div>
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putting a skillet on the heat. I drank in the incomparable smoky smell of the
first few strips of hours-old bacon which I set aside on kitchen toweling when
half done. Spooning just a jot-and-a-tittle of hot pan fat over the quivering
yokes, the bacon returned just in time to get re-acquainted and back to
temperature before it was savoring time. You’ll have to cut me some slack for
believing that I haven’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">scared up </i>a
better, sweeter-tasting breakfast than that one in a very long time; and I
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Back on the Vermont hillside farm of
my teenage years, the smoking fire would have been funneled underground through
several feet of smoldering maple chips or dry corn cobs before being “trapped”
in an inverted wooden barrel where the bacon and hams hung suspended, for a
longer period of time. We had no “electric freezer” back in those times and in
that far northern clime, and along with other parts of the pigs and other farm
animals the cut meat leavings were merely wrapped, labeled and placed on
shelves in an old outdoor cabinet in our woodshed where they kept frozen solid
until May – or maybe June.</span></div>
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Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-53116917408651852272017-05-01T20:41:00.000-06:002017-05-01T20:41:04.537-06:00MARKING APRIL’S CONNECTION WITH HISTORY<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Highway traffic passing my Rockville property for
the past several weeks may have been doing some head-scratching as they looked
over to see a strikingly beautiful, familiar yet unfamiliar “American” banner
flying at the top of my flag pole: alternating red and white horizontal stripes
with white stars in a field of blue filling the upper left quadrant. One member
of my prized collection of seventeen historic “American” flags, this one gets
flown on very rare occasions. It is in fact the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">first</b> national flag of The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Confederate
States of America</i> with only seven stars (representing Texas, Florida,
Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Louisiana.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Known affectionately as “the stars
and bars”, its three broad stripes when rippling in the wind or blown about in
battle could easily be mistaken as the Union colors, confusing maneuvering
troops of both denominations, and getting people killed at Manassas in the
first Bull Run battle. Because the white bar was so large, it may even have
been mistaken as a “surrender” symbol. Accordingly it was replaced by the more
well-known and unmistakable “battle flag” with its diagonal cross-bars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When displaying this particular flag
to school children I point out that it figures importantly in our country’s
history, and that many tens of thousands of American boys died fighting under
its stars and bars; it is their youthful bravery and devotion to a cause that I
honor – NOT the cause itself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was with President Lincoln’s call
for 75,000 volunteers in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">April</b>, 1861
that the plunge toward civil war probably became irreversible, setting the
stage for South Carolina’s firing on Fort Sumter on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">April</b> 12, an eventuality Lincoln had sought to avoid at all costs. (In
fact he had carefully coordinated the dispatch of the ship carrying needed
supplies for the fort with Confederate leaders. Of all the “southern” states,
South Carolina was the most obdurate and entrenched in its anti-Union,
pro-secession sentiments.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was almost exactly four years
later on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">April</b> 9, 1865 that
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Army of Northern Virginia</i> to General Ulysses (“Sam”) Grant,
effectively bringing America’s costliest war to an end in the living room of a
home owned by Wilmer McLean in Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Seeking peace
and safety for his family, McLean - a proud Southerner - had departed his
previous home in Manassas Virginia, when the war had actually begun when a
Union cannon ball fell on his kitchen when he was dining with Confederate
General PGT Beauregard in July, 1861.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then it was<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Apri1 </b>15, 1865 when an assassin’s bullet took the life of Abraham
Lincoln who was probably the only living human who could have prevented the era
of political and social strife which befell the bereft nation which had paid so
egregious a price for a reunion over which the slain leader would likely have
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As the breeze rippled the “Stars and
Bars” these past few days, I could not help but visit other “collectors’
banners in my personal “museum” including: the 20<sup>th</sup> Maine
regimental; Irish Brigade colors; Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s 7<sup>th</sup>
Cavalry guide-on; General Hood’s 1<sup>st</sup> Texas Headquarters flag; George
Washington’s “Pine tree” flag and the Revolution’s “Bennington Battle Flag”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On the wall to my left hangs Don
Troiani’s portrait of the 14<sup>th</sup> Brooklyn Hussars of 1862, while at my
back a large lighted reproduction of Mort Kunstler’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lee Takes Command”</i> capturing that historic May 31, 1862 event looks
down on my writing desk. A replica 1863 Cavalry Officer’s sword is suspended
over all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As an ironic afterthought, there is
also a certificate with then Governor Zell Miller’s signature “appointing” Al
Cooper (a definite “Yankee boy”) a Lieutenant Colonel in the Georgia Militia
-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thank
you</i> from the State of Georgia for a modest piece of service during the 2002
Olympics.</span></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-9656546757030354032017-04-20T06:03:00.000-06:002017-04-20T06:03:11.349-06:00THE LONG ROAD TO OUR OPIOID EXPLOSION<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I remember the day, sixty-six years
ago, that I was called to the Quonset hut headquarters of my commanding
officer, Lt. Colonel Lenton D. Roller. He shared with me a Top Secret communication
he had just received from a U.S. Army CID officer requesting that an
Investigator from our unit look into reports of an unusual level of criminal
activities in a South Korean village near us, but in a remote area off the
beaten path. There was something of a political challenge inasmuch as this area
was under the control of the Columbian Military, the South American country of
Columbia being one of our United Nations “partners”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The small town was known to us as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Little Chicago”</i> because of the
lawlessness which surrounded it. (I will not mention the real name of that
village out of respect for the people who may call it “home” today.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I selected three of my fellow Air
Police men to go with me, minus identifying helmets and armbands. Instead of
our similarly marked (and widely-hated Willys jeep with its obvious siren and
mounted .50 caliber machine gun, we chose an older (and much-loved) Ford-made
WWII model from the motor pool. It was a long and rough ride to the village,
and it was late in the day when we entered the seemingly empty village.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like most such agricultural
enclaves, the residents’ thatched huts were in the background to an area of
packed dirt at the center of the short street on which we parked. The military
center surrounded a long system of what appeared to be three squad tents hooked
together end-to-end, from the open door to which blue smoke issued, accompanied
by a strong smell and a strange sing-song of human voices. Leading our foursome
inside where a lone, weak light bulb hung from the center overhead strut,
revealing two rows of double high G.I. cots with a narrow space between their
length, a strange sight reached my (until then) innocent eyes. Fifty or sixty
soldiers (?) lay languidly and half-stoned smoking opium and cocaine and making
the happy moaning noise we had heard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So far we had seen no one to talk
to, but I had this disturbing feeling that we were being watched running down
my spine. “Fellows” I whispered, “we’re getting out of here.” We moved, slowly
but watchfully back through the settling dusk to where we had left our jeep.
But it was not to be quite that easy. We found our jeep, not exactly where we
had left it, but turned upside down in the dry creek bed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Fortunately there were four of
us, and luckily we were driving the lighter-weight old WWII Ford</span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">model. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We soon had it upright and in running
condition, and we were on our way, promising each other that we didn’t care if
we ever saw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Little Chicago</i> again.
That was in the year 1951, but I can still feel that unmistakable shiver that
went up my spine telling me that someone’s rifle scope was trained on my back. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One year later, 1952 and I was
serving back in Washington State in the good ol’e USA and working on a special
military liaison assignment with the nearby County Sheriff Department and the
Seattle Police Department Vice Squad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the process, my partner (M/Sgt. Walter Korewo) and I uncovered information that
linked a local nightclub known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
------- Gardens</i> with possible drug distribution activity AND a teenage
prostitution ring. Accordingly we documented our undercover operations with a
report shared quietly with our superiors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We were promptly ordered to meet personally with a U.S. Navy flag-rank
officer who was the military liaison for law enforcement with the “civilian
world.” To our utter surprise we were “braced” and dressed down for what we
were reporting. “You risk setting our local relations back by years!” he
informed us. “Don’t you know who owns the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">- - - - - - Gardens?</i>” (Even all these years afterward, I prefer not to mention
names.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suffice it to say. . . M/Sgt
K. was quickly transferred to an East coast assignment, and since I was within
months of my end-of-enlistment release, I was left in place.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not only did I receive a stark lesson
on the extent to which the drug trade’s tentacles were having a corrupting
influence where I least expected to find it, but I changed my mind about
looking forward to continuing my law enforcement career field in the civilian
world. Today, all these years after that visit to a Korean town called “Little
Chicago” and my rude look into that as- yet -unglimpsed world of human
addiction I am reminded daily that this year the U.S. will suffer more than
500,000 deaths from what we call “Opioid overdoses”, with my own state of Utah
ranking 4<sup>th</sup> in the nation’s list of shame.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5785287248061587795.post-75002411223387247352017-04-11T07:25:00.000-06:002017-04-11T07:25:48.514-06:00A TALE OF TWO BROTHERS AND THE WAR TO END ALL WARS<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On June 28, 1914 the heir-apparent
to the Hapsburg throne in Austria-Hungary, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his
wife Sophie were assassinated by an 18-year-old student radical no one ever
heard of while visiting Sarajevo, Serbia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In truth the Archduke was not exactly “loved” in his own country, and
one might not have expected the event to deserve more than a headline or two in
a Europe where such events were not all that uncommon, but thirty days later an
insulted Austria declared war on Serbia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Upon that action a series of mutual defense treaties began to come into
play. First Germany declared war on Russia, then within another few days,
Belgium and France. On August 4<sup>th</sup>, Great Britain declared herself at
war with Germany, and the dominoes of history came tumbling down. Within weeks
twenty-seven nations had declared war, and what became known as “The Great War”
(eventually World War I), and “the war to end all wars” was underway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>World War I – “The Great War” – had
been going on for three years, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">twenty
million </b>were already dead before President Woodrow Wilson on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">April 6, 1917 </b>finally got around to
involving the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A surge of
patriotism swept the country, and on May 3<sup>rd</sup>, 1917, Identical twins
from Washington State named Auburn and Oscar enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps,
along with many of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Skagit county
boys they had grown up with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They became
the subject of some notoriety and a front page newspaper article<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when it was discovered that every inch of
their body dimensions, and even some of their finger prints were identical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They trained together in California,
where their superb marksmanship on the rifle range quickly got them noticed.
Soon they were on their way to the battlefields of France, where the boys from
Skagit County became the backbone of the 20<sup>th</sup> Company, 5<sup>th</sup>
Marine Regiment. There, the twins were permitted to serve in the same Company,
but not in the same squad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By June, 1918, the war was not going
well for the Allies, and the Germans were poised to finally capture Paris. As
the French retreated from the lines they had been holding near Chateau Thierry,
about 30 miles short of their capitol city, the Marines were left to carry out
a poorly-planned attack, across a field of wheat and oats to the side of a
copse of forest growth known as Belleau Wood – a small patch of landscape which
was about to make the United States Marines the legendary service branch it has
been<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ever since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one told Major Berry’s Marine Brigade the
Wood was filled with a numerically-superior German force whose machine guns had
been laid out to cover every square yard of the open field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At dawn on June 6<sup>th</sup>, the 5<sup>th</sup>
Marines launched the attack, with the 20<sup>th</sup> Company out front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Auburn’s squad was decimated by enemy fire,
and he himself was felled by grenade shrapnel to the head and face. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oscar’s squad soon passed by, and Oscar saw
enough to be sure his brother was dead. Spurred on by that knowledge, in the
hours and days to follow, his intelligence missions behind enemy lines would
win him the Navy Cross and make him one of the most decorated Marines of the
Great War.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the grim battle swirled around him, Auburn
was passed over by medics who left him with the dead where he lay until
nightfall when those who came to collect the dead – Germans and Americans alike
– determined he was alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would
eventually spend nearly a year in hospitals in France and the U.S., much of
that time unable to utter a word through the bandaged and wired facial wounds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In a Naval hospital on the east
coast he would meet a red-headed volunteer who would become his wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They honey-mooned back in Washington, where
the twins from Skagit County would be briefly reunited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the next forty years, divided by a
continent, they would see each other only one more time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Battle of Belleau Wood is seen
by historians as the turning point in the Great War – the “Gettysburg” of World
War One.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It gave the Marines the
nickname “Devil Dogs” and defined the Corps forever after. The wounded and
scarred twin from Skagit County refused the Purple Heart, and did not <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>think he had done anything special. But he was
a “hero” and a quiet inspiration to his four sons, two of whom would see action
in other wars, and two who would become Marines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His full name was Auburn Forest Cooper, and
he was my Dad. Not all of his wounds could be treated and he died too young. On
June 6<sup>th</sup>, every year, I proudly place his circular dog tag and the
attached globe-and-anchor emblem from his uniform around my neck as I dress for
the day. He taught me all I needed to know about honor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Al Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04854725178668390192noreply@blogger.com0