Too Generous Pensions to Cause Troubles Ahead

Long-time mayor the late Clyde Fant used to lecture the state legislature for approving benefits for local employees while refusing to provide money to cover them.  Many cities are finding themselves in untenable financial binds, unable to pay pension benefits they have promised.  In many cases labor unions lobbied for and got pension plans that included early retirement and generous pensions.  Some cities are calling on their states to cover the shortfall but they are finding the states have over committed to pay pensions to their workers.  Who is left?    Not the federal government. Only the burdened taxpayer, who must work much longer and for a smaller pension.  Look for some real battles between unions and governments in 2011.

Looking Back Through 2011 and Ahead to 2011.

When I was editing a weekly newspaper, at the end of the year I would review 52 issues and summarize the most important happenings of the year.  This blog started a year ago,  giving  the opportunity to read the entries and reflect on the events of the past l2 months.  As always there was good and bad.  Our family lost members, relatives and friends.  This was to be expected as our generation gets older.  The generation that follows me already numbers several in their seventies and more in their sixties.   Time waits for no man, but we can still look forward to a better  20ll.  

A Christmas Tree of Thorns

Christmas is past but the tree with its lights and dozens of a variety of ornaments continues to provide pleasure and will until it comes down after New Years.  Why is it fun to put up the  tree and decorate it but it is work to remove the ornaments and take the tree down? Thinking about Christmas decorations brings to mind   how hard during the depression people would look for ways to  show the holiday spirit.

During the Christmas season a girl brought to our seventh grade room a tree she had made.  It consisted of a limb off a thorn tree sprayed with silver paint and ornamented with a gum drop on every thorn.  We came in from  lunch  one day and found the tree had lost some its gum drops.  The teacher,  Oren Trout, flew into a rage.  He demanded the miscreants confess, and when no one responded he demanded that everyone make a list naming every person  that had stolen a gum drop.  I had not seen anyone so the paper I handed in was blank. Not so was some of the papers and as he read names off my name was called several times.  His anger abated somewhat, he invited all who claimed innocence to make their case.  Students who did not defend themselves faced punishment.  I no longer remember what that involved but he loved to use a paddle so I was happy to be accepted as innocent.

Baby, It's Cold Outside -- No, It's Man-made Global Warming

Winter has officially just begun but blizzards, plane and train cancelations and delays, highway pile-ups, and worst of all to some re-scheduling of a football game are making people unhappy in the United States, Europe, and much of the world.  It us becoming more and more difficult for the  global warming salesmen to convince an individual standing in two fee of snow in sub-zero weather that his discomfort is caused by global warming and that warming is man made.  The Al Gore disciples made this argument l2 months ago and continue to promote it.  Their goal is to  slow down production in industrialized nations, as exemplified by their cap and trade mantra. We had to listen to this same  bull the first cold spell we had a year ago.  I hope, and am beginning to think, people are beginning to ignore these climate changers

Merry Christmas Everyone

May your joys be many and lasting and your sorrows be few and fleeting.

One year has passed since my daughter set up this blog.  I did not know if I would  take advantage of it and if so whether it would be like a diary or a commentary on current events.  As it has developed, it has been a little of  everything, from remembrances of  my time on the USS Pickens in World War II, to stories of events in my childhood, to sometimes bitter comments on government policies.  What has brought me the most pleasure has been hearing from former shipmates and  family members of  Pickens shipmates. What direction this blog will take in the coming year is unimportant, only that I continue it in some way as long as I am able.

A Very Sad and Personal Message Today

Evelyn Cox Lowe died at l:40 this morning.  Today, Christmas Eve, would have been the wedding anniversary of  Evelyn and her late husband, Terrel, who died four years ago. Terrel, my cousin, was like a brother. He was about four months younger than I, and we spent a lot of time together.  He had retired as a Methodist minister but came out of retirement to pastor some small churches.  He and Evelyn managed the Methodist church camp on Caney Lake and earned commendations for their assistance to persons dislocated by Katrina. Evelyn was one of the finest individuals I have ever known and I felt about her as I did my sisters.

Before Air Conditioning Became Automatic in Cars

When cars first came out with air conditioning, I was convinced that I would  never   be such a softy that I would resort to such a luxury; of course it wasn't long until I didn't see how I could exist without it.

For a few years most cars on the road were manufactured before air conditioning was even an option. My landlady had a green Oldsmobile 98 in excellent condition, with low mileage, and without air.  When she went to the wedding of her son to a girl in Texas, she saw everyone driving with windows closed because they had air.
Rather than let  people know her car was not air conditioned, she chose to keep her windows closed and suffer  the heat.

Even though I bought a house (which I rented) she was my landlady all the years I spent in Homer, and she and her family became like family to me.  I was a pall bearer for her husband and her son.