Posts Tagged ‘The Real World’
New Year:The Wheel Goes Round Slowly by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
New Year, Slow Beginnings
New Year:
The Wheel
Goes Round
Slowly
Burn The Calendar !
There is an old Ozarks superstition and wives’ tale that says, “Every January 1, you throw away the old year’s calendar.” Usually there was some kind of logic or type of explanation that suggested a common sense approach to Life.
I don’t remember my mother or grandmother’s explanation of the logic. They both were simply efficient about getting the calendar off the wall and outside into the trash.
January 15, 2013, my old calendar was still on the wall. I needed a photograph for this article, so off the wall and into the yard goes the old calendar. The Year 2012 was not one of my favorite years. Good Riddance, 2012 !
One flick of my trusty Zippo lighter and I got to watch 2012 go out in a blaze of glory. Nikon D 200 Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
After New Year’s Day, the theory is that the world is ready to pack away the holidays and get back to work.
Have you ever noticed how slowly the world at large usually seems to move ahead in the new year ?
You can blame The Twelve Days of Christmas from December 25 to January 5 and celebrate Christmastide and The Twelfth Night on the evening of January 5, but, that does not explain the slow take off for a New Year.
The Old Christmas Day is January 6. The Feast Of The Three Kings, which is the first Sunday of the New Year, can work out to January 6, 7,8, or 9, and depends on if you use a Julian or Gregorian Calendar.
However, The Old Christmas Day and The Feast Of The Three Kings observances are not sufficient reason to explain why the world at large takes a slow stride into the early days of January.
Wherever you are in the world, when a New Year starts you can run the celebrations and the observances period about as long as you like and can afford.
If you can afford the time off in The Real World of earning a living, you can even postpone getting back into “The Work World” until you observe Candlemas on February 2.
Humans throughout history obviously have not been in a hurry to get back to work in the New Year. The world’s major religions accommodate the reluctance by a host of various religious holidays to help the average human to ease into January.
Why are people slow to jump feet first into the New Year ?
We humans jump up and down for the New Year’s Eve celebration and are anxious for the New Year. Yet, at the stroke of midnight, we seem to ease off and step back.
Why is it after January 1, humanity seems slow to move bravely and confidently into January and the New Year ?
In my life time, I have noticed people may have to go back to work after January 1, but their heart is not in it.
Anyone can sit at a desk, keep the lights on and run the heating or air conditioning, but, to “do work” that accomplishes something requires the initiative to be willing to undertake tasks.
I have noticed that it seems to take about the first two weeks of January before people “get down to business” and “get back in the game” of earning a living.
It seems there is a cautious need to ease into a New Year like a hot bathtub of water by putting one toe in first.
Like an old steam engine, we seem to have a need to build up a head of steam to finally get rushing down the tracks into the present.
Perhaps, all of humanity is “A Bunch Of Lazy Bums.”
No doubt, everyone will have a theory or come up with a theory.
The best theory that I have come up with about the caution of a New Year is : Capricorn.
Salute The Goat
I applaud the ancient Western astrologers. Sometimes the ancient astrologers were “dead on” when they selected an animal to represent a cross section of humanity. They definitely got it right when they chose The Goat to represent Capricorn and the people born under that sign.
“Goats Are God’s Weed Eaters”
Capricorn is one of the most reserved signs of the Zodiac.
I grew up around livestock on a farm. My mother, the hog farmer, had hair goats to eat away the brush, sprouts and cedar tree saplings.
“Goats Are God’s Weed Eaters.” If a goat can nibble away at a half inch or inch thick sapling, then, they will eat it down to a stump. They, like their appetizers, which means they start with the the lush green leaves of a bush, vine or sprout first.
Goats can be curious. A kid might run up to you in the field and a billy goat might slowly saunter toward you to check you out in the pasture.
Ozark farmers in the 1960s took pride in their goats. Goats are not pretty creatures. They have a Minus Sign pupil in their eyeballs, which gives their faces a distinctive character.
All goats, billy goats, the kids and the female goats all have “chin whiskers”, which most people call, beards.
Wool goats have wavy or ringlet strands of hair that hangs down aound their body. In the winter time, poor old wool goats seem weighed down in a mink coat that seems bulky and heavy to carry and wear.
Don’t “kid”, (pun intended – on the farm, a child of a goat is called a, “kid.”) yourself, an old wool billy goat in the heavy wool coat can move and “charge” at you quickly.
You violate an old billy goat’s “personal space” and if he thinks you are a threat, head down and horns “locked” in your direction and he will come at you with the speed of an Olympic sprinter and the strength of a small bulldozer.
Ozarks farmers always claimed, “Goats will kill brush.” Goats will nibble saplings and vines down to stumps and roots, but, in time, Mother Nature will bring the brush back.
Goats Versus Sheep
Goats will eat grass down to the roots. Ozarks farmers never liked sheep because sheep would eat grass and the roots, which meant you always had to reseed and re-sod the pasture.
Grass seed is expensive when you have to buy several acres worth plus fresh topsoil and fertilizer.
Ozarks farmers know livestock can be “skiddish”, which means they frighten easy. A loud noise will send chickens and turkeys to the four winds. Horses, cattle and goats usually don’t frighten easy.
Early Bible writers obviously weren’t farmers or had a low opinion of humanity, every sheep I ever saw was stupid.
Sheep scare easy and you always have to watch them to make sure they don’t do something stupid like wander off a cliff or out of the field into the highway.
Wolves, coyotes or packs of wild stray dogs get in sheep, they run and get “mowed down” by the hungry predators. Goats initially run, but, then, some stop, turn and fight the predators. Battered, beaten and bloodied, sometimes an old billy goat will win and the predator is dinner for the buzzards.
Goats Are The Weather Warriors
Goats are “sure footed.” Their hooves are designed to allow them to stand and walk in the most challenging terrain.
In wintertime in southwest Missouri, horses, cattle and sheep can’t always stand up in the cold, ice and snow.
Horses, cattle and sheep have to lay down out in the pasture because they can’t walk in the terrain and weather. Goats can.
One winter in my childhood, I witnessed goats unable to stand for a couple of days in the winter.
However, Mother Nature had dropped hail and ice mixed with the snow for a couple of days, so that one to two layers or sheets of ice coated the earth underneath the picturesque blanket of snow.
Roads were closed. Snow plows with their weigh and chains on their tires were carefully trying to break through the sheet or sheets of ice that covered the asphalt under the snow.
When a ton-and-a half or two ton dump truck fitted with a blade to act as a snow plow finds it difficult to move along a road without slipping into a ditch, you have to give a goat in the field credit for trying to stand up.
For a couple of days, that winter, even a goat could not stand up. When the animal tried to rise the hooves slipped and slid on the sheet or sheets of ice beneath the snow.
The poor goat ended up spread eagle on the ground with his or her legs spread out to the sides.
The Dead Of Winter Remains Alive
In The Missouri Ozarks
I believe that the severe winter was either The Winter of 1967 or The Winter of 1968. It was an “Arctic Winter”, Heavy snowfall all winter long. Extreme cold temperatures. And power lines were down two or three times, during that winter. It was a Frozen Hell. It was masochistic winter that tortured man and beasts in the southwest Missouri Ozarks.
That severe childhood winter of the 1960s is why when “The Experts” talk “Global Warming”, I laugh.
In situations where “The Experts” talk and try to convince me of “Global Warming” and “Climate Change”, I challenge them to go spend a winter in the southwest Missouri Ozarks.
If “The Experts” still have all their fingers and toes free of “frostbite” and have not “froze to death” out in the woods or the countryside come Spring, then, I might listen.
It does seem that there is a “Climate Change” because the southwest Missouri Ozarks, now, can receive a tornado in January. However, where winter weather is concerned the temperatures are still bone-chilling and you get heavy snowfall.
Granted from the 1980s through the early 1990s, the winters in the southwest Missouri Ozarks did not seem as severe as in the 1960s.
Check with The Stone County Old Timers and they will tell you Mother Nature has a strange sense of humor about winter weather in the southwest Missouri Ozarks. There can be two, three or a few years were winter seems almost mild.
Just when people start to smile positive “Climate Change”, Mother Nature pulls out all the stops and you wonder if any person or animal can survive the cold and snow until spring.
The bright side of that devastating 1960s Winter in the southwest Missouri Ozarks was, in the spring and summer there were less ticks, chiggers and snakes because Mother Nature had “killed them off” with the severe winter.
The Naked Goat
Sheep farmers always claimed sheep wool was better than goat wool, but, in the 1960s in the Ozarks wool goat farmers had a market for the wool. Wool goats like young boys are not fond of “haircuts.”
Of course, in the wool goat’s case the annual “haircut” is more like a “bikini waxing” in that you have to remove all the hair, i.e., wool against the goat’s will. Electric shears are faster.
Uncle Richard DeLong only had the manual scissor shears, which meant the bawling, moving, fidgeting wool goats would sometimes get their skin nicked by the shears.
The end result is poor wool goats with their “nicked shaving cuts” looked comical.
Think of a close friend in full body Long Johns pink underwear that the worn and frayed arms and legs seem at least one size too short. Then, image the trap door in the back of the clothing,
The poor goat’s sheared backside would wave the trimmed tail as the sheared animal with the fresh haircut quickly exited the pen to the freedom of the pasture.
If you think the mental picture of a freshly sheared wool goat is funny, then, visit a farm and help a farmer at wool shearing time.
Hair goats have the same “work ethic” and eating habits of wool goats, but their hair is more like a windbreaker in the sense that while it keeps them insulated in the winter they can easily move around.
In the spring, a hair goat naturally sheds the hair like dogs and cats do at the right times of year.
Hair and wool goats were also used to provide milk, cheese and as a source of meat.
I am a “picky eater” country boy. I never drank goat milk, ate goat cheese or goat meat. I have put a big nipple on a bottle and fed baby goats from time to time.
Goats Adaptable Livestock
Goats are resourceful livestock. They seem to adapt well to almost any terrain, although I would not recommend trying to raise a “pet goat” in a Madison Avenue New York City apartment.
Goats love plants. They do not discriminate between briar bushes, orchids and prize roses, so you definitely have to fence goats off away from gardens and flower beds.
Goats don’t require gas, electricity or catalytic converters; sorry OPEC.
Goats are environmentally friendly and they provide biodegradable nutrient rich fertilizer for your lawn or pasture.
Capricorn Humans
Samuel E. Warren, my father, Uncle Richard, Uncle Hobert and Uncle Joe DeLong were all born under the sun sign of Capricorn. My Rising Sign is Capricorn and I have worked with many Capricorn natives in my life time.
The goat is not as pretty a mascot as a ram, bull or eagle. Yet, the goat is a steady, determined, industrious, hard working, resourceful creature that braves terrain and weather to carry out it’s life mission. Goats are curious and have a subtle sense of livestock humor.
Talk to a farmer or watch hair or wool goats in a zoo or petting zoo and you will wonder if God has a sly sense of humor because the noble characteristics of goats do seem to be ingrained into Capricorn humans.
In my experience Capricorn human are conservative, cautious, curious, deliberate, determined, resourceful, and hard working.
If there is a fish or sea aspect to Capricorn, then, I consider it the sense of humor. Capricorn humans have a subtle sense of humor that often flows past their fellow humans.
Saturn The Ultimate Foreman
A Capricorn human’s biggest challenge is always Saturn, which a person might call Fate. In ancient Roman mythology, Saturn ruled agriculture, liberation and time. In a early 21st Century sense, then, Saturn is “The Business God, who decides promotions, schedules and time off.” The ancient Romans identified Saturn as a “God Of Wealth.” The ancient Romans had Saturn pegged as “The Work God.”
As “The Boss Of Bosses”, the bottom line is the ancient Romans realized that Saturn was not going to “cut them any slack.” Saturn was not going to go out of his way to give anyone “time off” or “promote” a person if they didn’t “earn the promotion.” And, Saturn was “ A Grade A Rule Book Stickler,” who demanded “by the book, all the time, no exceptions.”
Obviously, Saturn had to be a pagan God, because no human would ever want to work for such “A Dictatorial Boss.”
Saturn ruled agriculture, which meant farming and food. In an early 21st Century perspective Saturn or Fate is the God Of Agribusiness.
As a God Of Wealth, Saturn signed the paychecks and As the God Of Agriculture, He got to say, who got to Eat and who went Hungry.
The only time, the ancient Romans ever “Got to Stick It To The Boss” was once a year at the annual festival of “Saturnalia,”
At Saturnalia, the ancient Romans had free speech, switched jobs, ate like pigs, partied like wild men, got drunk and gave gifts. Sound like an office Christmas party ?
Bingo !
Saturnalia was celebrated December 17. Today Saturnalia is celebrated December 25. The “get even with your boss” pagan god party became the Christian Christmas holiday
Historians have not discovered why the date moved from December 17 to December 25.
Crafty Christians
Early Christians however, when they “stole” or “ripped off” pagan ideas liked to “Christianize” them. For instance: Christian churches were often built on pagan worship sites.
If the move to December 25 was to “Christianize” the holiday, early Christians “outsmarted themselves” and did Saturn a favor by moving the holiday from Sagittarius right smack dab into “Capricorn” a Zodiac Sign ruled by Saturn.
The W Word : Work
Whatever mythological God rules a sign is considered the “ruler” of the sign, so since Saturn rules Capricorn, Capricorn humans are “the employees of Saturn.”
If you move the mythological religious god concept to a philosophical and psychological concept then you can swap the name, Saturn, for the word, Fate.
Look at your calendar, from December 22 until January 19, during the Zodiac Sign of Capricorn; haven’t tasks seem more time consuming?
Doesn’t it seem to take longer to get even the minor jobs done?
Even if you were able to take time off from work for Christmas and or New Year’s: doesn’t it seem that now your work has piled up and you are paying for the time off ?
Time is another trait that the ancient Romans attributed to Saturn. Saturn truly was an “Equal Opportunity God” because He didn’t discriminate. Saturn made “everyone work like a dog.”
Regardless, whether you call the ruler of the sign, Saturn or Fate,
Capricorn humans always seem to really have to earn their “pay” in Life. They work hard.
Capricorn humans don’t seem to get “the breaks” that people born under other sun signs seem to get on the job.
However, when a Capricorn human earns a promotion, award or honor; they “earned the recognition through hard work.”
Some sun signs can be a boss’ “pet”. In my life time, I have noticed, seldom, if ever, is a Capricorn a “bosses’ pet.”
Fate or Saturn keeps a Capricorn human’s “nose to the grind stone.”
When you look at the month of January and wonder, “Why does it seem the New Year always seems to get off to such a slow start ?”
Consider that Capricorn is the steady sign, which is conservative and steady; not fast and impulsive. Saturn or Fate demands due diligence, hard work, attention to detail, procedures by the book and hard work.
Short cuts usually just mean more hard work or going back and fixing the mistakes caused by short cuts. Saturn The Ultimate Foreman is looking over your shoulder.
Fate is in charge !
Saturn is in charge !
Aquarius En route
On the bright side, look at the calendar. A shift change is coming.
January 20,Aquarius The Water Bearer reports for duty. Aquarius is more laid back, more flexible, and tends to think “Outside The Box.”
While Capricorn demands rules, regulations, procedures and wants to “Do It The Way It Has Always Been Done”; Aquarius usually takes the risk of tossing or, at least, putting aside the rulebook.
Aquarius is an air sign, which means you can breeze back in to the daily responsibilities of Life.
Keep in mind, the ancient astrologers chose “Waves Of Water” as the glyph or logo for Aquarius, which should be a subtle reminder to let your emotions ripple along on the job.
In the Real World, when Mother Nature adds significant amounts of cold or hot water to air the result is an ice storm or thunderstorm that can grow violent.
Violent air creates hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones. Try to learn to heat up and cool down at regular intervals in your work day, so that you don’t let the stress of daily life cloud your judgment and send you thundering in the wrong direction.
Best Wishes for Clear Skies and Smooth Sailing !
Sam
Links
Twelve Days Of Christmas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Days_of_Christmas
Old Christmas Day
http://www.christmas-time.com/cp-old.html
Feast Of The Epiphany Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Epiphany
Candlemas Time and Date.Com
http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/common/candlemas
Capricorn Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_(astrology)
Capricorn Astrology Online
http://www.astrology-online.com/capricrn.htm
Capricorn Sun Sign Zodiac Signs Astrology.com
http://www.astrology.com/capricorn-sun-sign-zodiac-signs/2-d-d-66920
Saturn Mythology Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(mythology)
Zodiac Sign Dates
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/zodiac-sign-dates.html
Star Cats Personal, Relationship, Family Astrology
Honor The Friend by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
Treasure the Damon and Pythias’
Relationships Of Your Life
Honor
The
Friend
by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
Iremember friends.
In life, you, my reader, will remember friends.
Friends are the unique people, who add spice and meaning to your life. The ultimate concept of a “Friend” is the classic story of Damon and Pythias.
Phythias stood ready to “give” his life for his friend. Damon returned and the devotion of loyalty, fidelity and friendship, so impressed the king that the issue was settled and the king allowed both men to enjoy the “freedom” of their lives.
In Life, there are different levels of friendship.In my life, I have had friends my own age, friends who were younger than I and friends who were older.
The older friends were sometimes employers, supervisors or bosses who I respected for their integrity and credibility.
A friend is someone that you can rely on and they can rely on you.
Fools Fair Weather Friends
“Fair Weather Friends” are the fools in Life, you meet, who show up to party with you. If you are paying for the food, buying the drinks and are in a position to pay the tab or the bill, then, you will find you have “scores of friends, followers, groupies, and companions ready to be your buddy.”
Of course, when your wallet is empty, they will slip into the shadows.
The first time Life puts a crisis in your path, the “Fair Weather Friends” will have lost, misplaced their cell phones and changed their cell phone numbers.
After all, they are already “too busy” leeching, bumming and being a parasite to another person, who is celebrating a great moment of Life.
A Fair Weather Friend is always a “prostitution” of the word, “Friend.”
Fools are The Fair Weather Friends that are pathetic people, who are simply the cancerous bacteria of Life. The minor role of any Fair Weather Friend in your Life is to clarify the true meaning of the word, “Friend.”
Friends, true friends, do not leave you in time of trouble. They help to the point they can and will still be there once the trouble passes.
A friend may not always be able to go shoulder-to-shoulder with you to “combat” the trouble head-on, but, usually they will be in a position to provide advice, guidance and counsel that will help you.
A friend always maintains their integrity, credibility and devotion to you. An acquaintance or an associate is a “temporary friend”, who will exit out the side or back door anytime the “heat” of a Life situation starts to rise.
The trick in Life, is the ability to look at and think about people and decide where they stand in your Life. Realize, we all have relationships in Life. Everyday our Life changes and the lives of our friends also change.
Relatives,spouses, Life events and the natural progression of “Time” can change your relationship with a friend. You loose contact with the friend.
Remember A Friend Always
The important fact is you never loose the memory of a “Friend.” Years later, when you are faced with a serious life situation you will remember the “Friend” of that event and you will know how to approach the situation for a successful result.
Years later, you will be able to reflect and remember a “Friend” or “A Roster Of Friends” who have added meaning, enjoyment, happiness, joy, laughter, and depth that changed the shadow of your Life into the pyramid that will stand the test of the ages in the Real World.
“The Ancients”
“The Ancients”, those early, superstitious humans that inhabited planet earth and eeked out an existence in stubborn soil, under moody skies and facing angry seas, where smarter than we, modern humans, give them credit for.
The ancients took note of their lives and the world around them and left behind stories, sculptures, paintings, drawings, sketches and other items that would be documented by scholars and uncovered by archaeologists.
Their pagan gods and goddesses inspired their simple imaginations and gave their dubious lives meaning in a world that was alive at a level far beyond their simplistic interpretation of life.
Their understanding and attempts to solve the curiosity of their lives allows us to pass on those lessons as stories, TV shows and movies to inform and entertain ourselves and future generations.
“The Story Of Human Nature”
The true genius of their daily lives is “The Story Of Human Nature” survives every generation for the next.
Emotions The River Of Life
The emotions of human nature is still the same basic water that has always flowed in “The River Of Life.” A friend, who stands on the shore, may have worn her Roman tunic and carried her shield and worn her sword. You might have called her, “Isis, Diana, Fortuna, Juno, Athena, or, Hera”
In the 21st Century, a friend may stand on the shore of The River Of Life in a bikini,a business skirt, a uniform, a simple dress and, one would hope, the gender appropriate attire, unless of course; it is Halloween, the holiday, which tosses out all rules of dress for a comfortable costume.
A friend is a friend, regardless of the time period of history. Emotion is the key that always unlocks the feelings that identifies a “Friend.”
Time and the events of Life will age you and your Friend. Fate and distance will demand circumstances that will keep you from a Friend.
Your mind will never delete, corrupt or misplace the memory of a Friend. Because in Life, whether it is two weeks later or thirty years later, when you notice a man on the street or a woman in a cafe; your mind will quickly identify your Friend.
Associates, affiliates, acquaintances, groupies, fans, and Fair Weather Friends are the respective props and holiday banners of our lives that end up in the dumpster of our daily memories and activities.
The Immortality Of Friendship
A Friend is a person, who can step through the mists of Time and step back into your Life and the “friendship” resumes as though only a few minutes might have past.
Children, spouses, jobs, travel and all the events of Life, will have changed you and your Friend, but, the immortal genetics of Friendship never change.
The truth of the Damon and Pythias story is the voyages, crisis and disasters of Life will always challenge you, but, Friendship is a value engineered into your immortal soul and no force on earth can destroy a Friendship.
People can decide to end a Friendship;but, no force in the Universe can destroy a Friendship.
Usually in The Real World some of the best stories of Friendship are found in the annuals of War. War is the entity that rattles Time and consumes lives. The human struggle for survival creates and solidifies Friendship quickly.
Peace time relationships that evolve into Friendship usually require more time and day to day interaction to allow the Friendship to grow into maturity.
Fabulous Feast For A Friend
A true friend is always a “Friend.” A Friend lasts a lifetime.
In The Real World, Viking feasts should be held in great oak halls. Huge torches should burn away the evening hours.
Valkyries from Valhalla should descend and slide a chair up to the feast table to celebrate the glorious banquet held in the “Honor Of The Friend.”
Waves of music should rush through the caverns of the great hall. Wings of aroma of mutton, pork and sides of beef should tickle the noses and salivate the tongues of guests.
Joy and laughter should thunder off the walls under the bright campaign streamers of your Life that decorate the great hall. Platters of vegetables should glow like ripe jewels and the sweetness of fruit should blanket the senses.
Your Coat Of Arms and your Friend’s Coat Of Arms should be side-by-side as “The Great Shields” and be the centerpiece of the evening hung in the command position on the great rafter over the head table.
You and your friend should sit under The Great Shields, feasting, toasting, and laughing. Your karaoke voices should sweep through the hall to announce your deeds to the assembled guests. Great animal skins, symbols of your great hunts should line the hall for your guest to sit on.
On either side of The Great Shields are the other Coats Of Arms, campaign streamers and prestigious sheepskins that document the voyages and battles of your life.
Of course, the evening would be devoted to feasting and storytelling. You and your friend while away the hours with the tales of your triumphs, tragedies, successes, failures, and the stories of your lives.
Honor Your Friend
Of course, in The Real World, no one goes out of their way to find or rent you a Great Hall for a banquet feast for a friendship reunion. However, your mind and your imagination can make the necessary arrangements and host the monumental occasion. After all, a true Friend is always a Friend for Life.
Honor yourself; Honor your Friend.
Go ahead, pick up the cell phone or log on the Internet and try to find a Friend of your past.
A New Year is always a wonderful time to try and “check in” with an important person in your past that you call,”Friend.”
Sam
Auld Lang Syne Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne
Damon and Pythias Wikipedia
Christmas Cash,Costs,Challenges of The Ozarks 1960s
Christmas Cash,Costs, Challenges
of
The
Ozarks’
1960s
The Old House
Of The Ozarks
This small house beside Missouri State Highway 176 in Stone County, Missouri in The Ozarks can go unnoticed by passing motorists. This Old House served as The DeLong Family Home in the 1960s. Birthday parties, Fourth of July, Halloween Trick or Treat events,Thanksgiving Supper and Christmas Day Dinner celebrations were held in the three – room house, which had a Laundry Room built on in the 1970s. There was no inside plumbing. Uncle Joe built an Outhouse down on the hillside. While the house did not have the social comforts of some 20th Century homes in The Ozarks; it always felt like “Home” to DeLong family members, who returned to Stone County and the Missouri Ozarks anytime of the year. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
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Home in my childhood was “The Ozarks.”
The Ozarks is one of the places in the world, where myth and reality live side by side.
You live your life in The Real World and sometimes it seems like you look up and see a wild,white-haired Mark Twain smiling down at you with his pen in hand.
The heavy snows of winter fall. The scene looks like a Currier and Ives lithograph on a china plate and then you feel the “bone chilling cold” enter your body. You see your breath. You trudge out of the knee-high snow into the warmth of your home.
You “warm” by the large, rectangular, dark brown “Warm Morning” gas stove and realize winter in The Ozarks means Christmas is usually just days away.
You get a hot cup of coffee and wonder why people think The Ozarks is “permanently stuck in an 1800s Time Warp.”
If you ever watched an episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies” you may believe the fictional characters represent “Life In The Ozarks.”
You would be wrong.
I grew up in the Ozarks and I never ate possum.
I have ate squirrel.
Uncle Hobert DeLong was a “dead on shot” with a rifle. Every time he went into the woods, he came back with a “mess of squirrels” and sometimes “a mess of rabbits.”
Of course, no one remembers Jed, granny and the rest of the Clampett were supposed to have been from Bugtussel, Tennessee and the characters get associated with The Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks.
Cartoonist Al Capp made a large fortune drawing the comic strip of Lil’ Abner for 43
years that reached 60 million readers in more than 900 American newspapers.
Capp’s newspaper comic strip was one of my mother’s favorites. Capp put the characters in Dogpatch, Kentucky, but as a kid everyone though if you were from The Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks, then, you must be like Lil’ Abner.
I never went to a Sadie Hawkin’s Day dance.
Dancing wasn’t allowed at Galena High School in the 1960s. It was an issue that came up with every senior class wanting a “Prom.” The Baptist and Pentecostal churches of the 1960s in Stone County were vocal in their objections and they kept the prom dance out of school.
I graduated in 1973 in a “Graduation Exercises” ceremony, but there was “No Prom” because the churches still didn’t allow dancing in school.
The Ozarks Hillbilly Stereotype
No matter how incorrect the “hillbilly” stereotype is about The Ozarks. Americans and foreigners seem to cling to the dumb hayseed and lazy cartoon and television stereotypes of “The Ozarks Hillbilly.”
The irony is that the Ozarks is pretty close to the center of the United States and it has always seemed like an “undiscovered country” to foreigners and other Americans.
My geographical calculations of “The Ozarks” begins from the southern city limits sign of Jefferson City to the southern city limits sign of Little Rock, Arkansas, which is what I always considered to be, “The Ozarks.”
Stone County, Missouri is in the southwest section of the state and borders Arkansas, which means, “reckon I grew up one of them thar’ Ozarks’ country boys.”
Missourians in the Ozarks joke, “If you don’t like the weather just wait 15 minutes and it will change.” There is truth to that joke. The weather doesn’t always change every 15 minutes, but in a 24-hour day, the weather can change several times in a day.
Pen To Paper
To put pen to paper and write a story about Christmas in The Ozarks, I will have to set the stage.
There are many famous Missourians from United States Army Generals of the Armies John Joseph “Blackjack” Pershing to “The Most Trusted Man In America” Walter Cronkite, but, usually the celebrities are known as Missourians and not necessarily, “Ozarkers.”
Neosho, Missouri’s Thomas Hart Benton put his brush strokes on canvas to paint pictures; I will try to paint a word picture of life in The Ozarks in the 1960s.
Tom Sawyer Childhood
Life in “The Ozarks” in Stone County, Missouri in the 1960s was like “Tom Sawyer on a tractor and in a pickup truck.” Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Midwest buckboards and stagecoaches were replaced by 18-wheelers, Greyhound and Continental Trailways buses.
Rose O’Neill’s Kewpie dolls could be still found in toy stores in the Ozarks. Overall, Life in southern Missouri had not changed all that much since the days of Mark Twain, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose O’Neill.
“The Tomato Factories” of Reeds Spring, Abesville, and Galena in the 1930s had been replaced with “The Garment Factory” in Reeds Spring and Crane and Crane had a “Casket Factory.”
Fasco in Springfield, Missouri employed several people from Stone County. In 1960, Silver Dollar City was just beginning operations. Branson, Missouri in 1960 was “no threat” to country music in Nashville, but, Nashville musicians would begin to head for Branson, during the 1960s. In the area of economics, “times were tough”, in Stone County and southwest Missouri in 1960.
Blood Out Of A Turnip
Every nation has an economy. Money flows around in the metropolitan and urban areas, but in rural areas the ocean of money flows into a narrow stream that sometimes becomes a dry creek bed. In Stone County, it seemed even the rocks in the creek bed were usually “bone dry.”
After The Great Depression and World War II, the United States economy was strengthening. In the rural areas of the Ozarks, being “poor” is still a way of life.
In the early 1960s, the local power companies were working hard to provide, stable and reliable electricity.
Stone County, Missouri had a reputation of being one of the poorest counties in The Show Me State.
Traditionally in Missouri, statistics reveal “Mining” is the major source of manual labor income for the state. Farming comes in second. There were caves in Stone County, but no working mines.
Farming is hard work. Even with good weather and the money to buy seeds, livestock and equipment, farming is a full-time job to make a living.
Gardening maybe a hobby; Farming is a job.
Grandma DeLong like to sum up an economic situation as, “I couldn’t afford to make a down payment on an old settin’ hen with all her eggs rotten.” The purpose of this country statement was to point out that someone was “financially broke.” It was a common financial phrase that you heard in The Ozarks in the 1960s.
By 1960s, some farmers in Stone County had had it with “life on the farm.” Some people sold their farms and moved to other states. Some people stayed on their farms, but tried to get a “public job” at Silver Dollar City.
When it came to money in Stone County, Missouri and The Ozarks in the 1960s “people minded their Ps and Qs” and sometimes the lack of money was described as “Trying to get blood out of a turnip.”
Ozarks Hills And Hollers
Corn and tomatoes were the big income producing crops in Stone County, Missouri in my childhood in the 1960s. There were always stories of some of the corn being used to produce “moonshine” and “white lightning.”
In the early 1980s, I was “home on leave” from the military and a family friend unscrewed the lid on a Mason jar and asked me if I wanted some of the clear liquid.
I thanked him, but decided not to drink the “white lightning.”
The geography of Stone County had some cliffs and bluffs in the landscape of the hills and hollers. When the soil was too rough, rocky or poor to raise any other crop, usually the farmer would sew cane and other pasture grasses.
Fertilize was not all that expensive, but, the amount needed to nourish the soil and get crops to grow was sometimes too big a chunk of money out of a farmer’s budget.
Uncle Richard had one field beside State Highway 176, that the family called, “The Cane Field” because it was too rocky and the soil too poor for any other crop. The cane was used to feed to the cattle in the winter time,
Spring and summer usually the crops grew well and there was plenty of pasture to feed the livestock. Farmers didn’t get rich, but they made “the ends meet.”
Deep Freeze
Winter in southwest Missouri in the 1960s was always Armageddon. Fields were buried under blankets of deep snow. The important contribution of the deep snow and cold temperatures is the weather would kill off chiggers, ticks and snakes as long as farmers burned the brush in their fields and hollers in the early falls.
Burning the tree leaves in the hollers that fell kept deep leave beds from filling up the hollers. In the winter time, chigger, ticks and snakes would burrow into the deep leaves to try and wait out the winter until spring.
Southwest Missouri’s picture postcard “snows” were efficient in freezing farm ponds, which stayed frozen unless you broke the ice with an ax for the cattle to get a drink.
The weight of a Black Angus, Polled Hereford, Jersey or Holstein cow would sometimes shatter the ice and a cow could drown trying to get a drink of water in the winter.
Later in the 1960s, someone invented a device to stick in farm ponds in the winter to keep the water from freezing.
The deep freeze of the Ozarks in winter would freeze trees. The weight of ice on the limbs would cause the limbs to fall and take down electric lines. If you were lucky, you would be without electricity for a day.
On average people usually went without electricity for two to three days usually two to three times,during winter from October through April. The worst case scenario meant you would go without electricity for one to two weeks during the winter.
A Country Mile
The strength of my childhood came from my family in the Ozarks. Momma, Grandma DeLong, Uncle Richard, Uncle Hobert, Aunt Mary, and Cousin Donna were my family in the Ozarks.
In Houston, Texas, I could step out in my front yard. Donna and Debbie Brinkley from the house next door only had to walk out their gate and a few feet to walk into my yard for us to play.
In the Ozarks, neighbors always seemed to live a country mile from your front door.
Thelma Thomas was my closet neighbor in 1960 and she lived about a tenth of a mile from my front door on top of a hill. Her kids were grown with families of their own.
The Galena School District usually included Jenkins and Wheelerville, Missouri, which was only a few miles from Crane, Missouri. And, Crane, Missouri was 10 miles from Galena.The district would extend south to almost Reeds Spring, which was about 15 miles from Galena.
Many of my classmates would have to do chores before catching the school bus in the morning. The bus ride for some of the kids meant they were on the school bus for two hours before they arrived at Galena Elementary or Galena High School. After school, they would spend two hours on the bus once it left the school.
You would see classmates in school, but the distances and the rural road conditions to their parents’ farms meant that “visits” and social interaction was almost impossible, except for possibly on the weekend.
Crane, Missouri was only 10 miles from Galena and we usually only went grocery shopping in Crane on Saturdays.
“Life On Planet Earth Before Electronics”
Children of the 21st Century will think I grew up in The Dark Ages because there was no Internet, no facebook, no twitter, no computers, no X box, no play station and no cell phones.
Yes, there was “Life On Planet Earth Before Electronics.”
Fire had been discovered. My father always carried his Zippo cigarette lighter.
We didn’t have to use stone tablets and chisels because there was an archaic device called, a typewriter that used ribbons, bond paper and carbon paper that helped people put words on paper for future generations.
Telephones Come To Stone County
Telephones were being installed in homes, near Galena and Abesville, Missouri.
In order to have a telephone in your home if you lived near State Highway 176, you had to be willing to be on “a party line”, which meant when your phone rang, your neighbors telephone gave off a jangle sound,
There was one public telephone booth in Galena, Missouri. The phone booth was on the sidewalk by the US Post Office, next to Floyd’s Barber shop, which was next to Rose’s beauty shop, which was next to the Hillbilly Cafe and sat across the street from the courthouse. In 2011, that area is now a parking lot for The Stone County Judicial Center.
The reason why the telephone was so important in 1960 was it allowed Momma to call Daddy in Texas and he could call her from Texas. Grandma and Uncle Richard never had a telephone. DeLong and Warren family members, who lived in other states could call us and we could call them.
In the 21st Century, when it seems children own a cell phone as soon as they learn to speak; it may be hard to imagine the importance of a telephone in your home, but, imagine for a moment that you lived in the snow and ice of the South Pole and you were trying to make a phone call to your grandparents in the United States.
If your grandparents lived in a city like Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles or New York City, it would be easy for them to place a call. But, if you lived in a remote location at the South Pole, there might not be phone lines or cell phone towers, so you might not get the phone call.
Old Missouri Spring
This old spring is on Warren Land in Stone County, Missouri. The Ozarks area of the United States has always been difficult for “people to live off the land” because the soil is poor and rocky. If you need rain; you will get a drought. If you need sunshine;you will get a flood. Nature seems to enjoy working against farmers. Wildlife and insect pest can have a negative effect on crops. The Old Traditional Ozarks Hillbilly concept portrays citizens as dumb and lazy. The truth is an Ozarks Hillbilly is one of the smartest and hard working people, you will ever meet because they use their elbow grease and common sense to work a “Miracle” on stubborn pieces of land to earn a living and raise their families. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
The Miracle Of Life In The Ozarks
When you think of “The Ozarks” in the 1960s; you understand the word, “Miracle” is a reality.
The Ozarks’ lunar style geography of cliffs and bluffs, poor soil, an over abundance of rocks, moody weather, predator wildlife like wolves and coyotes as well as insect pests; it is a “Miracle” that people were able to live, earn a living, and sometimes prosper in this section of the United States.
When you are a child, you open your toys on Christmas Day. Underneath the Christmas Tree, you begin to play with the toys.
As a young man, you can find yourself trying to decide if you want to go “Home For The Holidays.”
As a senior citizen you can sit back with a cup of coffee or a glass of egg nog and remember the toys and the celebrations. When you look back long enough at your childhood, you really begin to understand and appreciate the sacrifices that your parents made for you.
At last, you can understand, the challenges, costs,hard work and the effort that your parents made to make Christmas seem like a “Magickal Holiday” that simply happens.
Sam
“Have A Green Christmas” by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
“Have
A
Green Christmas”
Have Yourself A Green Christmas !
If Christmas Day this year is “too close” to put the”green” in your stockings and brighten up the gifts under your Christmas Tree,then, a simple act of “saving” should be the shine on your Christmas tree and keep more bills in your wallet for next Christmas. Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
I always got my “Letter to Santa Claus” request.
Regardless of the economic conditions at the North Pole and in “The Lone Star State”, Mom and Dad always made sure I had a “Merry Christmas.
As a child, I simply came to expect that I would have a wonderful Christmas. After all, both of my parents were workaholics.
My mother left “public work” to stay at home and “raise me.” I appreciate her decision. Throughout my childhood, my dad ALWAYS worked a second job. In 1960, momma and I moved to the farm in Missouri.
My mother was one of the few “Women Hog Farmers In The United States Of America”, especially in 1960. Momma raised hogs and used the money to provide for my every need from grade school through college.
Daddy stayed on the job in Houston, Texas to “maintain his seniority” and continue working toward a retirement plan.
Like most kids, I knew, the vast majority of my toys on Christmas morning came from the money in daddy’s wallet and the cash in momma’s purse.
The Big Picture
What I never saw was “The Big Picture” of earning a living on a daily basis.
The reason the wrapped, brightly colored boxes, sporting bright bows, under the Christmas Tree made my home look like Santa Claus’ North Pole Showroom and a Toys R Us store is because my mom and dad were “bound and determined” that I would have a better childhood than they had.
I did.
Dirt Poor Childhoods
Opal M. DeLong Warren, my mother, was born in a small house in Peach Tree Holler, near Reeds Springs, Missouri. Opal’s mother, Martha, and father, Charley, loaded their personal belongings and their son, Richard, into the covered wagon and moved from Versailles, Missouri to a place, near Reeds Spring in Stone County in 1907.
All the rest of the DeLong children were born in Stone County. Richard began farming as soon as he was big enough to do the farm chores. The other boys: Willie, Hobert and Joe didn’t go to school very long.
Opal DeLong liked school and graduated from the 8th Grade. Every year, Martha, her mother ordered three dresses a year for Opal out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog to wear to school. She rode a pinto-mix horse, named,”Shorty” to the Wilson’s Creek School in Bear Den Holler.
Samuel E. Warren, my father, went to school in Perryville in east Texas. Joseph Samuel Warren, his father, was a tenant farmer, which meant J. Frank Couch, owned the land that “Papa” Warren farmed.
“Dirt Poor” is an accurate financial description of my parent’s childhood years.
To add insult to injury, Fate unleashed The Great Depression around the time of their teenager years.
Daddy’s Short Range Financial Plan
Daddy adopted the policy of “Live For Today ;Tomorrow Will Take Care Of Itself.” The major flaw in his long-range financial plan is “In Order To Spend Money – You Have To Earn Money. The More Money You Spend, The More Money You Need To Earn To Keep Your Comfortable Lifestyle Going.”
At the end of the day, Daddy’s financial plan meant, “He had to be a ‘workaholic’, in order to keep earning money to spend. The irony is you spend so much time working,you never have “any fun” spending your money.
I remember, Monday through Friday, he would arrive home from work at about 4:30 p.m. He would sit down for supper and talk about his day. He could only relax a few moments and then, he would have to start getting ready for his “night job” as a bartender or bouncer.
His gray pressed Cameron uniforms would hang in the wardrobe beside his double breasted suits and neckties. By about 6:30 or 7 p,m,, the pickup would ease down the narrow driveway to take him to his “part-time job.”
Sometimes momma would wake me up about 2:30 or 3 am, so I would be waiting for daddy to come home from work. The headlight beams would dance down the narrow driveway and in a few minutes I would smell the aroma from a box of a dozen Dunkin’ Donuts, which daddy usually would stop and pickup on the way home.
Daddy did make a lot of money. But, he met himself coming and going.
Daddy always had “a wad of bills” rolled tightly that looked like a short, fat, pill bottle, with a rubber band around them that he carried in his front jeans pocket. In addition, to the roll of bills in his front pocket, he always had several bills in his wallet.
The roll of bills was one of those “Games Of Life” that when you take it out to pay a bill, people notice and they just naturally assume you are some kind of financial genius.
The stated “Big Picture” was daddy and momma were working to build their “Dream Home” on land momma bought in 1938, near her mother and father.
The Coffee Service
Daddy told me he offered the coffee service in his shop “at the plant.”
From 1960 until his death in 1978, daddy always made two trips a year to Missouri. One vacation trip always came for the Fourth of July. The second vacation trip depended on the vacation schedule at Cameron’s, which meant his two weeks began either at Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Whenever he came to Missouri, he would stock up on three-pound cans of Folgers coffee. He said it was cheaper to buy the coffee in Missouri. About once a year, he would buy a huge coffee pot that could make about 50 cups of coffee. Daddy wasn’t a shopper. He went into a store, picked up what he needed and paid the cashier at the checkout register.
However, if Sammy walked past Craftsman tools, he would stop and browse slowly at all the tools. Daddy loved Craftsman tools and bought all kinds of Craftsman wrenches, vise grips and other tools.
One trip each year, daddy would “shop” for a new coffee pot to take “to the plant.” He would shop around at the different stores and compare the features of the coffee pots.
I have, no doubt, there are people who bought bass boats with less research than daddy put into buying the right coffee pot. Despite his dedicated “shopping around for the right coffee pot”, he always ended up with the same type. And, he would buy a huge cardboard box full of Styrofoam cups to take back to Texas.
I remember the huge coffee pots because their shiny silver cylindrical design made them look like huge vacuum tubes that went into the back of a radio.
“I get to the plant in the morning and I make the coffee for the shop. I have a coffee can with a slit in the lid. The guys know that coffee is 25 cents a cup. They put a quarter in the can. If they don’t have a quarter, then, they put in some change. I don’t really worry about it because the guys are honest. At the end of the week, I take the coffee can of coins home. Monday morning I always bring in a new empty coffee can for that week’s coins,” said Daddy,
In 1978, daddy was suppose to leave at the end of June for his Fourth of July trip to Missouri. He never arrived. The Houston Police Department notified momma of daddy’s death at home.
A few days after daddy’s funeral, momma and I made the trip to Houston. We found Folgers coffee cans stored in rooms around the house. Each can was filled to the plastic lid with mixed change from pennies to half dollars and a few silver dollars. The cans all had coins and none of the coins had been wrapped.
Momma asked Wanda Brinkley, a next door neighbor for help in wrapping the coins. Wanda had momma take the coins next door to her mom and dad’s house, Mr. and Mrs. Pete Pippins. Momma ordered the pizzas.
All day until after midnight, Momma, Wanda, Mr and Mrs Pete and I wrapped coins. Wanda’s two daughters, Donna and Debbie also joined the coin wrapping adventure. At this point in US history, American banks did not accept coins unless they were wrapped in bank wrappers.
Using the bank coin wrappers that daddy had on hand and some of the wrappers that Wanda had, we all wrapped coins all day and until well past midnight, It was after 2 am, when we finished.
Bank Robbery ?
The next day, Wanda, Momma and I went to the drive thru lane of the local Reagan State Bank. Wanda would put about 10 rolls of coins at a time up to the drive thru teller’s window.
“You have a lot of coins,” remarked the teller.
“My husband, Sammy had the coffee concession where he worked. He died recently. We just discovered, he never wrapped any of the coins from the coffee fund,” explained Momma.
The teller nodded. A bank guard showed up with a dolly. The teller seemed to slow,at one point, in tallying the amount of coins. We sat in the car at the drive thru for a couple of hours.
After about an hour, the bank guard emerged from a side door with the rolls of coins in the familiar purple bank sacks stacked neatly on the dolly. He pushed the dolly slowly across the several lanes of the drive thru into the rear entrance of the main bank.
The bank guard made about four more trips with his dolly from the drive thru to the bank.
A couple of days later Wanda spoke to a friend, who worked at the bank. The friend had heard about all those sacks of coins that came through the drive thru. The friend laughed and told Wanda it was not uncommon for people to drop of rolls of coins at the drive thru and she told Wanda the rest of the story.
Then, Wanda Brinkley, telephoned momma.
“When we dropped those coins off at the bank. The bank got worried and called the local office of the FBI. They told the FBI why they were calling and asked the bureau to check for recent bank robberies because they could not believe that anyone would save that amount of coins.
“ While we were waiting in the drive thru lane and the teller seemed to be taking the time tallying up the coins, they were waiting for a call back from the FBI to tell them if there were any reports of bank robberies where a large amount of coins had been taken,” Wanda explained and laughed.
We wrapped about 20 three-pound coffee cans of coins to take to the bank. Momma also brought about 10 cans of unwrapped coins with her back to Missouri. It was two or three years before I ever wanted to wrap rolls of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters,half dollars and silver dollars.
My father died at age 52. The Harris County, Texas Corner’s Report listed the cause of death as a “possible ‘double heart attack.’” Daddy had literally “worked himself to death” through the years.
Momma’s Big Picture Financial Reality
Momma would never be a “Victim Of A Global Financial Crisis.” She had a poor childhood and realized ”Money Has To Be Managed.”
Momma always put aside a few dollars to have when she needed it. “Save” wasn’t a word, it was a philosophy and a way of life.
People would tease my mother that she probably had the “First Dollar” she ever earned. Momma would smile and shrug off the comment.
Opal M. DeLong Warren was “never broke.” Maybe, she didn’t have a lot of money in her wallet or handbag, but, Momma was “never broke” financially.
Momma loved to remind me “I bought the first car, your daddy and I ever owned. And, I paid cash for it. I bought the first home, your daddy and I ever owned. I bought the land in Missouri, under my own name with my own money, before I ever met your daddy.”
All the claims were true statements. Momma’s message was not that she was a 
suffragette or a women’s libber, but that she knew “How To Spend And Save Her Money.”
Opal M. DeLong Warren is the woman, who went to the Reagan State Bank in Houston and arranged for the money to “buy the home in Houston at 313 East 26th Street.”
Stubborn Sammy
During World War II, US Army doctors had told daddy that he had contracted “malaria in the Philippines.” In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Veterans’ Administration wasn’t always able to convince Congress to provide medical care and decent pensions to veterans.
In the early 1950s, momma found out that daddy was eligible for VA medical care payments thanks to the hard-nosed efforts of Texas Congressman and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Sam Rayburn.
Daddy told Momma, Uncle Sam had sent him into World War II and, “I don’t want nothing else to do with the ‘Damn Government.’”
Momma reminded Daddy that some days it seemed difficult for him to get out of bed to go to work. Grudgingly, Daddy did the paperwork and accepted “Uncle Sam’s Official Help”, which didn’t last that long. By then, daddy’s health had improved and he did go to work everyday.
Momma The Family Banker
Martha Lou Marcum DeLong, my grandmother, kept her coins in a coin purse and her dollar bills in a sugar bowl in a plain white dish cabinet in the living room.
Everyone knew Grandma DeLong had worked hard all her life, but, Missouri’s “old age pension” provided her the money to live out her senior citizen years.
Opal M. DeLong Warren had the reputation in the DeLong Family, Stone County, Missouri, Upshur County, Texas and among neighbors in Harris County – Houston, Texas of “Saving For A Rainy Day.”
The Burial And The Banker
When daddy died in Texas, I asked momma if we could bring his body back to Missouri for burial. I went to the bank with momma. She told the banker, “I need money to bring my husband’s body back to Missouri for burial. I don’t know, when or how I will pay you. But, you will get your money back.” I watched momma tell the banker those words.
In the 21st Century, most bankers would find a polite way to show the widow to the door out of their office.
In 1978, the banker nodded, “Okay, Opal. When you know how much you need for sure, let me know. You’ll get the money,” I heard the banker tell momma.
I was already a college student, so I was impressed that a banker would listen to a widow without demanding various forms of collateral.
The banker was not going out on a limb. He knew momma owned her “80 acres” of land and owned the other “10 acres” of land that she lived on. He knew she still “owned her home in Houston, Texas.”
The banker wasn’t gambling; he was investing.
The worst case scenario would be the bank would end up with Missouri real estate and maybe Texas real estate. Real estate in a city is usually more valuable than farm real estate,
In the late 1970s and early 1980s there was an active real estate market in Missouri and Texas.
But, everyone from Stone County, Missouri throughout southwest Missouri knew “Opal Warren always pays her bills.”
Samuel E. Warren was laid to rest in Yocum Pond Cemetery, near Reeds Spring Missouri. The financial cost of moving daddy’s body from Texas to Missouri was $7,000. The bank let momma borrow the money. Momma paid the bank off ahead of time.
Momma used money she already had saved for the associated funeral expenses and the double headstone. Uncle Sam provided the “foot marker” that was placed at daddy’s grave.
Save And Manage Your Money
Through the years, relatives would have financial issues come up in their lives. When they had no one to turn to, they would turn to “Opal.”
If a relative was out to buy a big screen TV, then, they were on their own.
But, if it was a valid emergency like a mortgage, insurance, food for their kids or medical bills then momma would “loan” the money. A few of my relatives paid Momma back. The majority did not.
Momma had a better financial plan than daddy. Momma never invested in the stock market. I had the debate with her several times and she always told me, “Son, I hang on to my money.”
Momma quit farming around 1982. The only “risky investment,” momma ever made, other than her son, was in Land.
Land That Pays For Itself
But, she always said, “Invest in Land, that will pay for itself.” Her Land did pay for itself because she “rented the pasture to other farmers for their cattle to graze on” and “loggers would cut some trees off the Land every three or four years for lumber.”
The Other Land
Through the years, momma would tell me that people had called her and tried to sell her land in Galena or elsewhere in southwest Missouri. I asked momma why she passed on the offers.
“I have the land I want. The land I have been offered isn’t land I would want to buy at any price,” Momma would answer. Momma lived on one parcel of land. She could open her front door and look across the road to see the land that she had bought back in the 1930s.
Momma is one of the few people in the world, I know of, where bankers would call her and try to persuade her to move her money to their bank. She would smile, “The Bank Of Crane has always done right by me. Until something changes, I will stay with my bank.”
At age 84, momma left “The Real World” in 2004. She had a double wide home that had central heating and air conditioning. She never went hungry and there was always food in the ice box and the pantry. She always had her coffee and cigarettes. When she went to the doctor or the hospital, she could always pay her medical bills.
Momma’s Financial Secret, “She Learned To Save Money And Manage Her Money.”
Momma and daddy made sure I always had a wonderful Christmas. I got enough toys to outfit a museum.
I was an “Only Child”, which meant I had to play by myself most of the time, but, I had a huge wooden toy box in the garage full of toys to choose from each day.
In Missouri, every other weekend or so, my Cousin Donna would be at Grandma DeLong’s and Uncle Richard’s. I would of brought toys with me or we would go off in the woods to play. In Missouri, the toys were in a big cardboard box in the garage.
Samuel E. Warren Jr., the senior citizen, realizes now, Momma’s ability to always put “The Green In My Christmas” came from her daily financial sense of saving and managing her money. Thanks to my mother, “My Merry Christmas” was always “A Green Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Momma .”
Filipino Farmer Foto Feature Photos by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
Filipino Farmer
Foto Feature
Filipino Farmer Ramon Q. Saldana Jr., of Barangay Baras, Leyte, Republic of the Philippines, hunkers down to watch the pigs enjoy their first breakfast and lunch in “The Real World.”
At 9 a.m., December 10. 2012, the first pig of the litter arrived “squealing” for air. Ramon dashed to the old sow’s side and assisted in the delivery of the rest of the pigs.
The “farrowing”, i.e., “birthing process” takes a lot of energy and strength out of the old sow, so she is still “groggy.”
After birth, an old sow can accidently lay down on one of her own pigs and be so disoriented that she won’t respond to the squeals.
Ramon put up a tarp on bamboo poles to provide a shade for the old sow, who simply laid down out in the sun and started to farrow. Nikon D 70 Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
“Give me a minute. I just got born.”
This Yorkshire pig arrived in “The Real World”,shortly after 9 a.m., December 10, 2012. A few minutes after birth, he seemed as “hungry” as his other brothers and sisters. But, the process of being born, obviously, takes a moment for you to gather the strength to stand and walk, at least, for a baby pig. Nikon D 70 Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
“Lunch !” The Yorkshire sow stretches out on the ground. She has had a busy morning. She just gave birth to a litter of 10 pigs. Once the pigs were cleaned up they scrambled over each other for an “early lunch”, compliments of their Yorkshire mother.
Nikon D 70 Photo by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
“ Should I Join The Military ? ” Editorial
The Samuel E. Warren Jr.’s
“Should I Enlist In The Military ? “ Editorial
Salute Your Military Veteran
by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
A young man or woman, who reaches “the age of enlistment” has a decision to make: “Should I join the military ?”
Only you can make that decision.
I guarantee you “military service” will change your life.
Your mother loves you and brought you into this world, so Mom will “Pray” that you don’t enlist because people die in War. It is to be expected that your Mom would prefer you choose another line of work.
Everyone forgets “civilians”, the ordinary citizens of the world also happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and also die in War. War is an event that does not “check I. D.s” or decides only “people in uniform” can die in War.
Your father loves you and, probably, would prefer you to choose a different job. Unfortunately, for “Dear Ole’ Dad”, centuries of world history have embodied the “Macho Mythology” that a man is suppose to live for War.
“Horsefeathers !”
No one lives for War.
War is an event that ends lives in the blink of an eye, leaves land in rubble and contributes to generations of negative emotions, “hard feelings,” suspicion, and in some cases “down right hate.”
Your father will find it hard to express his emotions and views on whether he believes you should or should not “join the military.”
But, even if your father never finds the words – look in his eyes. Respect is a virtue that shines out through the eyes.
Family members will all have an opinion about whether you should “enlist.” Be polite and courteous and listen to their words, which reveals their feelings.
Friends will tell you their “fad of the moment reaction.” Throughout world history there are times when the perspective of military service or a military career is popular or unpopular.
The Vietnam War was extremely unpopular so the military was called, “The American Military Industrial Complex.”
And, “The Draft” made sure enlistment age men did not have to make the decision; the decision was made for them by the politicians of government. You either reported for military service or you went to Canada, Mexico or ran the risk of being sent to jail. No choice.
The Gulf War was a popular War. United States Government politicians learned a “War has to be marketed.” The advertising campaign worked. Enthusiasm, adrenaline and patriotism had young Americans lining up to “die for oil”.
Global governments can remain dependent on oil – the “Dead Dinosaur Stew.” No one has to think about the War cost of human life, in terms of, “Marines Per Gallon.”
Youth to middle age is the “Time Of Life About Passion” and your decisions are made to reflect the “heat of passion” and “to live in the moment.” Youth is about optimism, hope and idealism. Youth is the passion to want and work for a better world.
Middle age and older is the reality that Life is about paying bills, buying groceries and raising kids. Middle age means you learn to temper the passion of youth with the reality of daily life and the practical responsibilities that come with it.
In the United States Armed Forces the traditional term of enlistment is four years. A lot can happen in your life in four years.
You can join the military in “Peace time,” but, War doesn’t use a day planner. War can happen at any time. If you are on active duty or the reserves, when War begins. . .”Here are your orders. Get your gear and report to the flight line.”
In making your decision to join the military, forget what your girlfriend or boyfriend has to say. Unless, you are walking down the aisle and, then, into the military recruiter’s office to raise your right hand.
A girlfriend or boyfriend’s opinion means “Nothing” because you can change your mind about the person and end the relationship at any time.
A “new husband” or a “new wife” is a opinion that you should listen to about your consideration to join the military and the decision to enlist or accept a commission, if it sounds like that person is going to stand beside you and share your life.
In the United States Armed Forces, a spouse is as much on active duty as the military member because “Uncle Sam’s” decisions will affect the both of you.
Uncle Sam ain’t a family man.
The mission of the government and the military always comes first.
If you want to be the best Little League Coach In United States History and influence generations of little bat swingers and base runners, then, pursue your dream, but: Stay Home. Don’t enlist.
The Real World military is not some silly baseball, basketball, football, soccer or golf game; it is a serious,professional calling that saves lives and carries forward a nation’s domestic and foreign policy in no uncertain terms.
At the end of the day, it will be you, who signs your signature on the forms and raises your right hand to recite the oath of military service.
I joined the United States Air Force because I needed a job.
I had been a professional “college student” long enough. I had taken the courses I needed and the “underwater basket weaving” courses that I found interesting. I still didn’t have a clue what I was going to do with “MY” Life.
I wanted to make a positive difference in the world.
I could never imagine “Mr. Warren” teaching history at Galena High School in Galena, Missouri.
Teaching history was never going to put me in the history books alongside General MacArthur or General Patton.
Mark Twain had already done the Missouri writer, author and newspaperman routine.
Missourian Walter Cronkite was still doing the “CBS Evening News” at the time and as a newsman ranked up there right alongside the president of the United States and all world leaders when it came to being an “international celebrity.”
Cronkite’s “credibility” as a newsman and a human being put him shoulder to shoulder with the pope.
Like all young men and women, I wanted my shot to help change the world.
It is nice to think someday some bored teenager is going to be looking at a photo of you in a history book and scoff, “What did you ever do that was so great ?”
All the great jobs and wonderful slots in history had already been taken when I decided to go “eyeball to eyeball with the world.”
Missourian General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing had already become the highest ranking American General after General George Washington, so, earning a place in US History or Military History would not be easy.
The reality is “Every man or woman, who earns the honor to wear their nation’s military uniform becomes a world leader, even if no one ever publishes their life story or pictures of the person in a history book. Day to day, military service has you carrying out tasks that carry your nation’s policies forward into making a positive change in the world.”
Everyone who wears a military uniform and works on behalf of their nation is a world leader.
If I were to walk into a room with the Queen of England, the pope, a president, a prime minister and a person in uniform. I would be respectful and polite to the people in the room. I would go to “The G.I.”, the person in uniform to talk and socialize because a military person is a unique person, who has a definite view and understanding of life.
The G.I., understands that life is about nobility, honor, credibility, loyalty and hard work. The G.I., understands courage and patriotism are virtues inscribed in your DNA and those virtues have to be lived and not taught or talked about.
A G.I., hopes to live long enough to tell “war stories” to his grand kids, but realizes War
is the event that might require him or her to sacrifice his or her life for their fellow man.
Your choice to enlist in the military or accept a commission has to be your choice because it will affect your life from the day you enter “boot camp” until the day they fold and present the flag to your next of kin.
A beautiful busty redhead United States Air Force buck sergeant once told an enthusiastic, gungho, flag-waving patriotic, energetic, Airman Warren, “Sam, you were born a civilian. The day will come when you take off the uniform and return to civilian Life.”
I grinned, “Not me.”
Time has proven we were both right.
I did retire from active duty and returned to civilian life – “Officially.”
Global Family
I no longer put on the “blue suit” each day. I love to misplace my razor and go for days without shaving. Sometimes, I even take my time strolling into a barber shop for a hair cut.
Airman Warren was also right in his youthful arrogance and passion.
Staff Sergeant Warren did officially retire. Staff Sergeant Warren returned to “civilian life” and got accustomed to being called, “Mr. Warren,” or “Sam.”
But, after a career of military service, you never “truly” return to “civilian life” because you gain an international perspective of Life.
You realize Ramon Q. Saldana Jr., of Barangay Baras, Leyte, Republic of the Philippines works hard for his children and wants them to have a good life, while you know that Brenda Martin, of Abesville, Missouri, United States of America is still going to college and working at making her place in the world for a happy and successful life.
In the Family Of Humankind we are all related. A national policy of “Isolationism” is unrealistic – Thanks to World War II, which proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that no matter where you are in the world, War can find you.
Back in Missouri, I would hear friends remark, “American foreign aid is a dumb policy. We should keep that money here at home.” Money is like water; it has to move. When water stands in a hole, it stagnates and breeds mosquitoes, which carry disease.
The Message Of Money
When money stays in a bank and doesn’t move, it stagnates and breeds hostility among the citizens, who need the money for their businesses, pay their mortgages, car payments, buy groceries and pay their electric and water bills.
Eventually, Citizens get tired of reluctant banks and some citizens decide to carry guns to “liberate” the funds of banks and get the money moving.
I read an interview with a famous American bank robber and the interviewer asked, “Why do you rob banks ?”
“That is where the money is,” replied the robber.
American foreign aid recognizes that money has to circulate to keep the world in business at home and abroad.
People or banks, who sit on money are only kidding themselves because everyone on the planet affects someone around them and an ocean or a mountain is no longer a permanent barrier,
Effective Economics
An economic crisis in China will affect Americans in the Ozarks. Before my wife and I sold Warren Land in Missouri, one of those walnut logs from Stone County, Missouri had been selected to be shipped to China to be manufactured into a table.
“The Occupy Wall Street” and “The Arab Spring” movements are over . . .for now. People are no longer content to be peasants. People, now, expect a decent living wage, and an acceptable standard of living.
Thanks to facebook, tumblr,Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Word Press, Blogger, Flickr, Picasa and the Internet – the world is now a neighborhood.
Real time communication allows people around the world to check on friends and family wherever they are on the planet, so breaking news is now only seconds or minutes from reaching people.
Citizens Of The World
No longer is a person just a citizen of their barangay, county, parish,province,state,republic, country or nation. Now, every citizen truly is a Citizen Of The World.
Governments are aware that the citizens no longer expect to be treated like children, who are given candy and told to sit in the corner, while the world moves on.
International and national change is an element of life. Change is not always welcomed and sometimes, even governments are reluctant to accept change. Change is not always gradual or peaceful, sometimes change becomes violent and War erupts.
A person can choose to join and serve in the military or they can just hope that War will not happen in their lifetime and that they will not end up getting “drafted.”
Peace Is Unstable
For the record, Peace is unstable. Periods of peace on the world stage are few and far between.
Until the day comes when Israel’s Arab neighbors are no longer trying to destroy Israel, the idea of world peace will remain a childish fairy tale.
When you take the time to read the news and think about Life, you will realize that now you have to have an “international perspective” that goes beyond your city, state or nation.
The G.I., can “retire” or get the “honorable discharge”, but, you never truly return to civilian life because you have changed and now realize that you see and understand the world differently than the “civilians” around you.
In retirement, you maybe an “ordinary citizen” again, but, your choice to serve in the military changed your life. Whether you realize it or not; you now know what is truly important to you in your life. You know and understand your personal values.
The Choice
What makes a retired G.I., different that the citizen beside him or her ? The choice.
Joining the military is never about “getting a job”, “payment of college tuition”, “free medical or dental care,” or any of the other bogus justifications that we rationalize to our minds.
The decision, “to serve”, means that you hear a calling in your heart or mind that tells you: “This Is Who You Are ! ”
Heroic Heritage
Anyone can put on a uniform or Halloween costume and pretend to be in the military.
A veteran or retiree knows what it means to “wear the uniform” and “do what has to be done” to be worthy to wear that uniform and honor the memories of the legions of men and women who have worn a variation of that uniform down through the centuries.
A military veteran, a military retiree, a military reservist, and a military man or woman on active duty are simply citizens, who understand the importance of standing up for what you believe and having the courage to wear a uniform that proclaims I will go anywhere, anytime to defend my right and your right to live our lives as we see fit.
Citizenship In Action
Your decision to join your nation’s military always has to be your decision.
Whatever nation you live in and are a citizen of, then, the honor to serve your country is never a responsibility to be taken lightly. You represent your government, but, your heart and soul should always rest shoulder to shoulder with your fellow citizens. The government signs the paycheck, but, the citizens pay the taxes that allow the government to pay the troops on duty.
For what it is worth, if you do decide to enlist or accept a commission of military service, then, you have the admiration of one retired American sergeant. I salute you.
Welcome To The Immortal Legion !
Samuel
Word Warrior Warren
samwarren55
Adolph Hitler Reborn Editorial by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
with 8 comments
Adolph Hitler Reborn
Pope Enron
Pope Francis I “preaches” his “Hippieism” message to the Masses of listeners gathered on the Saint Peter’s Basilica Square.
Pope Adolph
Pope Adolph Hitler I “preaches” his “Aryan Master Race Message” to the Masses of listeners gathered together in town halls, auditoriums and by their radios before and throughout World War II.
by Samuel E. Warren Jr.
Adolph Hitler had a reputation of being a charismatic speaker, who motivated people.
Hitler’s Dream Of World Domination had one major flaw: people will not willing surrender their personal freedom if they feel threatened.
Adolph made people, especially The Jews, feel threatened.
Pope Francis I is a pope – no one feels threatened around him because he is a “Holy Man.”
Pope Francis I appears in public or on TV and people surrender their Common Sense like an old coat.
Pope Enron’s message of The Poor, Love, Peace, Mercy, Justice, Ecology,, Humanity, Humility, Compassion is a global addiction that people are “snorting” through their skin pores.
The Sleep Sheep People Of Planet Earth are “hooked” on Pope Enron’s humane humility.
I have never believed in The Apocalypse, The Rapture, Armageddon, The End Times, The Anti-Christ, Pete The Roman, The Great Whore Of Babylon or any of the other Doom And Gloom Prophecies Of Humankind.
Anytime I sensed I was beginning to consider “The Prophecies”, I would switch on my Second Brain Cell and the Common Sense God gave me would remind me, “Hey, Sam, those are the stories written by religious writers and old dead prophets to make a buck in their lifetimes. Some of the stories got collected and published in the Holy Books.”
Adolph Hitler and other charismatic speakers got inside peoples heads and go beyond Common Sense of the people.
Hedonistic Holy Men
In my lifetime, I have witnessed the results of what happens when a speaker gets in someone’s head and robs them of their common sense.
People were shocked by the insane deaths caused by charismatic Holy Man Jim Jones.
People were shocked by the insane deaths caused by charismatic Holy Man David Koresh.
People were shocked by the insane slavery imposed on the citizens of Iran by the charismatic Holy Man Grand Ayatollah Khomeini.
Pope Francis I has gone all the charismatic dictators and insane Holy Men one better. All the rest relied on a message of Hate and Violence to rally people to action.
Pope Francis is encouraging everyone to lay down their swords and beat them into plow points.
As a child I never knew what reincarnation meant. By the 1970s, I had an understanding of “The New Age Concept Of Being Reborn.”
If a charismatic speaker of Adolph Hitler’s legendary charisma where to be reborn as a globally respected Holy Man what would the impact be on humanity ?
Violence and War puts people on the defensive.
Love and Peace have people purring like kittens. No one feels threatened or paranoid. People are at peace within themselves.
Religious Addiction
The World’s Old Traditional Religions have always understood the propaganda process to get people “hooked” on religion. You give people nice words and a feeling of calm and the sense that all can be right with the world.
The World’s Old Traditional Religions prevent people from “sobering up” because “withdrawal” back into The Real World is just too “painful”. So people continue to get their “religious fix” and stayed “doped up” within the realm of religious fantasy.
A World Without God, Yahweh, or Allah is just “too painful” a thought for religious people to consider. Naturally, they are convinced that their particular religion holds “The Patent And Copyright On God”, so they dare not step out into “The Sunlight Of Secular Sobriety.”
If a man or woman truly wanted to be the legendary “Anti-Christ” all they would really have to do is step into the shoes of a global religious figure and promote their own personal agenda using the vernacular and jargon of that particular faith.
Pope Francis I has already inherited 1.2 billion Sleep Sheep People worldwide.
Now, he simply reaches out to the rest of the world with the harmless gestures and cozy words that make everyone want to snuggle up for a long winter’s nap.
Adolph Hitler needed the Real World munitions, money and supplies to wage his War Of Hate.
Pope Francis needs no Real World resources to wage his War Of Love because people like the children in the pied piper are dancing their way into his camp.
The Poker Bluff Of Islam
Pope Francis I called “The Poker Bluff Of Islam.”
Throughout the 20th Century anytime Hate, Violence, and Murder “Put Islam In The Headlines”, the senior clerics rushed to open their Qur’an
The Islam and Muslim clerics always pointed to the words of “The Poor” and “Charity” and people would “buy” the words.
Now, Pope Francis I has exposed “Islam’s Achilles Heel.” He has held out an olive branch for an interfaith dialogue.
Islam has “NO CHOICE” but to accept to backup their claim that Islam is a religion and not a Terrorists’ Faith.
Islam and the Muslim World has to accept the pope’s invitation to “lull” Citizens Of The World back to their state of mental sleep.
“Communism‘s Achilles‘ Heel”
Now, Pope Francis I has exposed “Communism’s Achilles’ Heel” of “Paranoia.” He held out an olive branch to China.
China has “NO CHOICE”, but to accept because “The Political Cold War Hate And Propaganda” made “Communism A Satanic Form Of Dictatorial Demonic Social, Religious And Economic Government.” People in the West, East, Middle East, Latin America and Europe are all terrified of the idea of Communism.
China will have to accept the pope’s invitation to “play down” the global uneasiness of Communism.
China’s continuing support of the sadistic, psychotic, unstable “Fat boy Of North Korea” means China needs some “positive press” in world headlines.
China’s continuing support on the United Nations Security Council of the sadistic, psychotic, irrational, religious nut jobs of Iran means China needs some “positive press” in world headlines.
In The Spotlight
Pope Francis I has Islam and the Chinese Communists, center stage in the world spotlight, right where he wants them.
Islam and China have “To Accept” the invitation or risk “a swift negative global reaction” that neither Islam or China can afford.
Peace is one message you can not kill with bullets. Love is one message you can not kill with bullets. Charity is one message you can not kill with bullets. These messages survive every War.
Pope Francis I has chosen “The Right Messages” to get the obvious combatants talking.
Religion remains “The Global Drug” that keeps people “high” on Life.
If someone can use religion to get people to willingly surrender their freewill, then, the War Of Slavery and Servitude is won without firing a single shot.
Could Adolph Hitler be reborn as a pope ?
Anything is possible in the Real World.
It will be up to the Sleep Sheep People Of The Real World to decide in they wish to curl up in the storytelling words of a religious Holy Man or cling to their God-given Common Sense.
Pope Enron, I have this hangup about skull caps. The gray Nazi SS service cap with it’s silver human skull insignia was impressive, but equally ominous and infamous. The white Catholic skull cap might be to hide your hair loss or to keep your bald spot warm. Either way, I don’t like skull caps.
Sieg Heil to you, Il Duce !
I don’t like dictators. Whether they wear a business suit, a military uniform or appear as an old man in a white dress – I have no use for dictators.
Pope Enron keep preaching your “Hippieism”, social, political, religious and economic philosophy.
I ain’t buying. I enjoy the unpredictability of Life.
God and I, we call it, “Freedom !”
Sam
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Written by samwarren55
March 23, 2013 at 2:50 AM
Posted in Bloggers, Blogs, Business, Current Events, Editorial, Family, God, Holidays, Money, Mythology, Observances, Opinion, Patriotism, Religion, Soap Box Political Opinion, Soap Box Religious Opinion
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