spokesNspin

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I thought I had trouble with my children breaking stuff.  Check out this story about David Garrett falling on his 18th century violin.  It’s a good thing he did it himself.

A story like that puts things in perspective.  Yesterday I test rode a bicycle I want to buy. 

 Isn’t it just beautiful?  I have had my eye on this bike for at least four years.  From time to time I would go in the bike shop and stroke her and talk to her.  I want to get it in time to train on it for Mountains of Misery. 

I will try to remember Garrett’s violin when I take my first fall on the bike.

I still need to register for the ride.  I guess in addition to buying a new bike and registering I should probably think about training for it.  That is the hard part.

What goes around comes around, You reap what you sow. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. These are all sayings that lead us to believe that some how, what we receive in life is based upon what we do. Put these along with a couple of others like “A chip off the old block” or “Nuts don’t fall far from the tree” and you get the foundation of what I think is a fundamental truth of life. That is, you can’t really appreciate your parents until you become one yourself.

The problem facing most parents is, what do we tell our children about mistakes we made in the past? Many years ago, I caught one of my sons playing with matches. What is it about pyromania and boys? I believe the tendency comes on the Y chromosome. I found out about Tommy playing with matches from his older brother. It turns out he was out behind the lawn tool shed lighting some fires. We had a talk about not playing with matches and I thought we were okay.

Sometime later we get a visit from Usha, our neighbor. It turns out that her son Veejay, Jason, another boy from across the street and my son, were at her house engaged some pyrotechnic work. This time I got really wound up.

“Tom didn’t we talk about his already? I thought you said you wouldn’t do it again.”

You never get much of an answer in situations like this. As the issue unveiled itself it turns out the activity involved, flammable liquid of some type, a bottle, matches, cloth. I am not sure I wanted to know exactly what they were up to. There were many rumors and versions of the story. Supposedly Jason had a book on bomb building. They were trying to build a lamp. Could it be they were building a Molotov cocktail? What ever it was, I was not happy.

“What in the world were you thinking? Did you want to burn down Usha’s house?

Mostly to these questions you get him looking at the floor, shuffling his feet and mumbling “no”. I guess these are stupid questions anyway. Is he going to tell me that his intention was to try and burn down the neighbors house?

“How about yourself? Do you realize what could have a happened to you?”

“What would you do if you had been hurt? I went to school with a kid who did this sort of thing. He ended up in the hospital. He had scars for the rest of his life. He had nicknames like “flame on”, “flash” and “crispy critter”. Is that what you want?(another stupid question). “Look at me when I am talking to you boy! Don’t you dare look at me that way!”

What can a parent really say at times like this? When I was young I went through a period of trying to improve my pyrotechnical skills. I had a cousin from California who used to come visit for one month each summer. Bring your out of town cousin into the picture with your brother and you have three boys, a recipe for disaster.

One day we decided to build a little fire in an A-frame building. Before long we had a roaring fire and it was out of control. This was just a little building used at times to give calves or pigs a little shade. It really was just an A-frame about the size of a really large tent. As the flames grew larger and started licking bracing going from one side of the shed to the other, we got concerned. At least I was concerned. I think Kevin and Jim had already given up.

They stood outside and watched the disaster unfold as I frantically fought flames. I would come out gasping for air and run back in to try and put out the fire. My father was on a tractor in a field adjacent to where our fun was taking place. On one of my trips out from the building gulping air I looked up at the smoke billowing from the A-frame.  Coughing and choking I managed to yell,  ”Do you think dad can see the smoke?” It could be seen in the next county. Just then I looked up to see my dad come over the fence with a shovel in his hand. He made it in one stride and he said “You’re damn rights I can!” He had the fire out in about 30 seconds and saved the day and the shed.

Of course, my dad didn’t ask stupid questions like I did when my Tommy built a fire.  Dad was a man of action, not one to lecture.   He pointed out that the fire could start up again. It would be a good idea if the three of us, my brother, my cousin and I put some more water on the dying vestiges of our fiery pit.

“How do we do that?”

“There is the livestock trough, and there are some buckets”.

“How much do we put on?”

“I’ll let you know when it is enough.”

With that, he left and went back to work.

We spent the rest of the day hauling water in buckets and dumping it on what was gradually going from the fiery depths of hell to a mud hole. We trudged, arms aching back and forth and back and forth from the trough in one corner of the farmstead, to the old A-frame in another corner. I think we did it for the rest of the day.

So what do you tell your own son when you catch him building fires? You can rant and rave and act self righteous but the back of your mind is thinking back to when you were a kid. You’re thinking “Man wasn’t that cool”

I don’t know the correct answer. I do know that I have done some things in the past that I don’t want to tell my children about. Not that they are all that serious but some times it is just better to let sleeping dogs lie.

I like cowboy poetry.  A poem by Wally McRae tells it the way it is for most of us.

He sometimes turns his horse’s tail
Wrong-ways to a cow
He still can’t tie a bowline
Though I have showed him how.

Once he took a brace and bit
And drilled it in the dirt.
He left his boots out in the rain,
And yonder lies his shirt.

He tried to take his saddle off,
Forgetting the back cinch
And somehow kinked the cable
On my calf-pulling winch.

Once he filled my water jug
Plumb full of gasoline
Wore a groove into my grindstone
At school, said words obscene.

He lost a brand-new Crescent wrench
Nicked a new hoof nipper.
Took my pinchers from their pocket’
And “fixed” my new chap zipper

Spilled grease upon my welding rod.
Broke eggs in my felt hat.
Then in the lot at weaning time,
Sicked the dog upon a cat.

When we were corralling cattle, once,
He met us on his trike.
Scratched his name upon my saddle
With a mar line-spike

My boy has done’er all my friends.
He’s constantly in trouble.
Yet, folks who knew me as a kid,
Insist that he’s my double.

Their recollection’s faulty.
I dispute it with a curse.
I wasn’t like him, growing up.
I was a whole-lot worse

So why do I write this story?  It seems Tommy has never out grown pyromaniacal tendencies of young malehood.  Yesterday he made a belated comment on a post here from several weeks ago that contained an even more belated confession.

I admit that as a young boy I even played with shot gun shells.  They really are irresistable due to the ease of  taking them apart and getting access to gun powder.

I guess the lesson here is this.  Parents probably shouldn’t tell their children about all their youthful mischief.   What they can come up with on their own is sufficient.  And as a parent maybe I am glad that I didn’t always know everything my kids were up to.  I would probably have earned more gray hairs than I already have on my head.

I do wonder though what my parents may have done in their youth that I haven’t yet and probably never will know about.   And I can hardly wait to see what my grandkids do while their parents aren’t watching. 

To James and my grandchildren  yet to be born.  Remember that grandpa won’t rat you out.  Maybe that was why my grandpa used to sit in his rocking chair with a grin on his face.

Today I finished reading a book entitled Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston.

This book will make you so mad that you could spit.  The author explains how in the last 25 years or so the people in the highest income brackets have used the government to enrich themselves at the tune of millions and millions each year. 

 And they do it the name of free enterprise and competition.  Hardly though.  What they really do is use the government to take away all the risk and give them all the rewards.

And what is really outrageous is that they also get government to not allow the records of how they do it to be public.

Do you remember how when the new drug plan was being debated it came out  that the government knew it would cost more but told the actuary that figured it out he would be fired if he told Congress?  He writes about that and other health care issues.

He writes about energy deregulation, box stores that get exhorbitant subsidies to build stores, subsidies to build sports venues, etc. Most often the entire profit of these enterprises is made up of the subsidies.

He has a very interesing chapter on how household alarm companies are making money at the expense of all of us that don’t have alarm systems.

Each chapter infuriated me more.   There were a few places where I think he stretched the point a bit but overall he makes a good point.

Now I need to read something more relaxing.  I have started The Golden Compass.

If anyone has read my earlier posts they could probably assume that I am not a Mitt supporter.   Woohoo big surprise! The assumption would be correct.  It hasn’t always been that way. 

 I was living in Utah when Romney was there running the 2002 Olympics.  At that time there was some talk of him staying in Utah and running for Governor.    I was in favor of that. Not because I was particularly fond of him but due to other reasons.  One is that he fit the unwritten but practical religious requirement for being elected Governor in Utah.  He is a white Mormon male.  There has for several years been an unwritten religious test in Utah.   The interesting thing is that in spite of the fact the he got 90 percent of the votes in the Utah presidential primary a lot of Utahns were not excited about him running for governor six years ago.  Why? Because at that time he was Mitt the moderate, not Mitt the candidate trying to pander to the religious right.  The exact reason I was in favor him running for governor in Utah. 

So now to my friend Pat.  She sent me an article entitled “Mormons Dismayed by Harsh Spotlight” and ask what I thought of it.  I have reproduced parts of the article below with my thoughts in italics.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in late January revealed that 50% of Americans said they would have reservations or be “very uncomfortable” about a Mormon as president. That same poll found that 81% would be “enthusiastic” or “comfortable” with an African-American and 76% with a woman. The article doesn’t mention until later that 45 percent of Americans wouldn’t vote for an Evangelical Christian either.   That fact seems to be lost on all the complaining Mormons.  I have for years said that Mormons were too cozy in bed with the religious right because first chance they got the religious right would kick them out of the bed.

Mr. Romney was reluctant to speak publicly about his religion. Eventually, senior advisers persuaded him to do so to allay voter concerns about how it might affect his decision-making as president. …Although Mr. Romney’s December speech was well-received by political pundits, it did little to move his polling numbers. It wasn’t a speech about tolerance for everyone, just  Mormons.  It was a blatant pandering to the religious right. It specifically excluded non believers as worthy to serve.

In December, while campaigning for the Iowa caucuses, former Baptist preacher and Republican candidate Mike Huckabee asked a magazine reporter: “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

Mormon church leaders, who repeatedly asserted the church’s neutrality in elections, had tried to keep out of the political fray. Church spokesman Michael Otterson says they couldn’t ignore Mr. Huckabee’s comment. Members said it implied that they were devil worshipers. Phones were ringing off the hook at church headquarters in Salt Lake City. Huckabee recently said his comments were taken out of context.  Right!  He knew exactly what he was doing.  But I also believe that LDS members who responded to his statement soft pedaled the issue. But such religious doctrine should not have to be justified or explained.

The allegations about blacks stung the most. Many Mormon historians say Mr. Smith welcomed blacks from the church’s inception, had ordained some blacks, and ran on an abolitionist platform for president in 1844. Blacks were barred from being church leaders, they say, by his successor, Brigham Young. Many Protestant churches, Mr. Bell pointed out, were segregated well into the 20th century. In 1978, the church lifted the ban on blacks becoming leaders. The point here that seems to be lost on most LDS members is this.  Yes the ban was lifted.  But the LDS church does not acknowledge or accept that the ban may simply have been the result of racism and bigotry on the part of Brigham Young.  Just as it was for many of his generation.  There is a difference in the eyes of most people between saying “we were wrong so we have now granted the priesthood to all worthy male members” and saying “it was God’s will until 1978 but now it is His will that they be given the equal opportunity.” A relevant post is Chocolat & Voting for Mitt Romney.    

For some reason the “values” debate has become over riding for many people and confused with other civil issues. Unfortunately the debate has been hijacked by radical religious believers, Mormons included.

I am sure Pat wishes she had never asked the question. J