THEM

THEY are numerous. THEY are wealthy and powerful beyond belief. THEY have the ability to make people do anything they want them to do, when and how they want them to do it.

THEY are the medical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the food giants, and the press. This is not a conspiracy theory, since the only “conspiracy” involved is the desire for the greatest possible profit and the largest market possible. I am also not going to list numbers, statistics, or specific events. I am merely going to narrate for you a scenario, and expect you to extrapolate from that what you will. Facts, statistics, and physical proof are out there, especially on the internet. Feel free to research to your heart’s content.

The medical industry has the responsibility for keeping America healthy (presumably). But today’s medical practitioners don’t do much to get people healthy. They do do a lot to keep their patients coming back repeatedly, however, soothing and tut-tutting over the patients’ frustrations at never getting “well.”
 
Nowadays, being healthy is becoming more and more a condition that is entirely up to the individual, but most people don’t know that. They haven’t learned to take responsibility for their health, so they blindly hand that responsibility off to a professional prescription-writer, symptom-hunter, and test-result-interpreter, and wonder why they can never seem to get well and feel really good.

Most of what ails America’s health today can be traced back to a faulty, synthetic diet. Our parents were raised on good basic nutrition, before the earliest stages of this transformed regimen, and suffered the least, eating a nutritionally sound diet which included raw whole milk, lots of meat, poultry, butter, cream, and fresh vegetables and fruits grown by the family itself. By the time our generation came along, the number of manipulated and synthesized items in the American diet had increased exponentially. And the generation we are now raising is the most unfortunate of all, for, not only are they the second or even third generation of Americans consuming this synthetic diet, but their diet will consist almost completely of manufactured, synthesized, and processed foods. If you don’t believe me, watch what gets scraped off the plates and into the garbage. It is almost invariably the vegetables, meat fat, or chicken skin, all nutrient-dense foods necessary for optimal health.

Today’s generation, unless they live on a family farm or have members who are educated in real nutrition, must subsist on a very nutrient-poor diet. Years of constantly eating empty foods and devouring chemicals, polyunsaturated fatty acids and trans- fats, sugars in numerous forms, and artificial vitamin supplements have produced a population that not only is sick all the time, but is obese, and generally has hypertension, diabetes, and/or heart problems. Years of constantly being harrangued by nutritional charlatans in the medical industry to eat grains and plant-based foods has led to a nation of nutritionally deprived sheep, blindly obeying because the “authority” is a god who wears a white coat and has a stethoscope draped around his neck.

If America is the “healthiest” nation in the world, then the world is at death’s door, because no other country on earth eats the nasty, chemical-riddled, synthetic diet that Americans do. No other nation even comes close to consuming the amount of vile poisons that Americans do, and that’s just in the diet: Wait until you learn what’s in their medications, the same medications that are supposed to get them “well.” And, no other nation on earth has so many doctors, hospitals, clinics, and medications (more than 24,000 prescription drugs alone) to treat all the diseases and disorders that result from this dietary onslaught.

Nobody profits from this pitiful situation like the medical industry (unless it’s the food giants and pharmaceutical conglomerates). Profit is good. Profit is a great motivator. Profit in its proper context is one of the things that made the United States the freest country on earth. But the profiteering that goes on in these related fields at the expense of the health of the population of this country is obscene.
 
When I was a youngster, a trip to the doctor’s office cost about five dollars. Some people could afford it, some couldn’t. If your doctor practiced in a rural area, he might even take produce in payment for his services. If his patient was, say, a mechanic, he might accept work on his car as his fee. Medical costs to the patient were minimal, the treatments were fairly simple, straightforward, and frequently natural. He counted his practice a success if he could point to people who no longer needed his services. He did a lot of “First Aid” type work, but also treated–sometimes actually CURED–numerous other diseases.

But doctors in those days weren’t confronted with the array of recent conditions that plague Americans today. There was one form of diabetes in those days, Type I, or Childhood-onset. Hypertension was virtually unknown, obesity was much less prevalent, and myocardial infarction was so rare that when the EKG machine was invented, it was ignored by most doctors, since it was only for finding the rarest of heart disorders.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe all doctors are bad. I don’t even believe most of them are. But I do believe that virtually all of them who are employed by HMO’s and other conglomerates are suborned by the system. For them, to defer from the party line (to actually cure someone, for instance, or refuse to push the drug of the day) could result in their being fired and blackballed. So most of them, ethics aside, have to go along to get along, or they have to get out of the business.
 
Medicine long ago stopped being an altruistic service to help mankind, to care for one’s neighbors, and to heal the hurts of the population. It stopped when it became a business, which was about the time that health insurance came along. When doctors learned they could get paid no matter what for whatever services they performed for insured patients, the number of maladies, tests, and medications began to increase by orders of magnitude. Then, it became an even bigger business, until it was consuming a very large part of America’s income. When Hillary Clinton proposed her “Universal Health Care” boondoggle, it threatened to control one seventh of the entire GNP of the wealthiest country in the world. Who knows what it would cost us now.

Now, as you should know, the bottom line is always the bottom line, and the medical industry, intent on more and more profit, actually keeps its victims ill in order to keep them coming back repeatedly, never healing, but always “treating.”

The days of the enviable American diet are so far in the past that only a few older people really have any personal experience of it. The days of America’s robust good health are also lost somewhere in the dust of progress. But the days of the medical industry’s headlock on the population, as well as their deathgrip on our wallets, have arrived with a vengeance.

More anon…

Seduced And Abandoned

Dear Mr. President:

For those of us who love you and have supported you, defended you, and cheered for you, your incomprehensible stand on the Immigration Bill has left us reeling with surprise and shock. We feel betrayed by a President we were led to believe appreciated our support. For the last seven years or so, we have stood firmly in your corner when everyone around us was thumbs down and scowling, no matter how you performed. You enjoyed some of the highest approval ratings any President has ever received. And you sold it all out for the good will of Mexico, a country that thinks you are a fool.

Were you lying to us all this time? Were those gorgeous, glorious, flag-covered rallies during you election campaigns merely for “show?” Were you secretly laughing at us behind closed doors, snickering and pointing at all the fools who swallowed your line?

If not, then, what is it that the Democrats have got on you to make you turn your coat in a matter of moments? It’s not bad enough that you have turned your back on your supporters. You have chosen to stand behind a bill that YOU KNOW is evil, undermines the laws of this country, and triples the tax burden on those of us who pay the bills for the criminal tresspassers you appear to want to suck us dry.

If you are not complicit with the Democrats and Leftists in Washington who wish this country to sink into the mire of historical mediocrity after her 240 years of glorious history, then you have a very strange way of showing it.

And, if you aren’t aware of the Left’s burning desire to humiliate you and to see your Presidency mocked and derided as comparable to that of Carter, you are blind and ignorant of the motives of Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid. By luring you into support of their latest attempt to destroy America, they have put you into the position of being made a laughingstock from now on.

History isn’t going to remember you as the heroic President who secretly flew to Iraq to encourage the troops on that Thanksgiving Day several years ago. Those troops are going to do their job no matter WHO lives in the White House. But they are also going to share our disappointment. It’s not going to remember you as the fighter pilot who strode across the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, much to the infuriated jealousy of the Left, who couldn’t conjure up a pair of stones among them. It won’t remember the President who reached into a circle of menacing “security” thugs in South America and physically pulled your Secret Service man from harm’s way.

History will remember you only as the President who bamboozled the electorate twice, then went on to turn his coat and sell his country out to La Raza for the sake of a few cheap, illiterate votes which will all wind up being cast for the Left in any event. You bought votes for the Democrats with your integrity and honor, and stood behind a blatant attempt at a Leftist coup. For shame, Mr. President; FOR SHAME.

To say you have disappointed us would be a serious understatement. You have squandered the love and support we lavished on you. You have left us astonished and sad, at a loss to understand your motivation in this situation. But believe me, Sir, for us on the Right, losing a President to the Dark Side now and then is not a new experience.

But, we do know that even if YOU don’t realize the danger of this Immigration nightmare, and the evil it stands for, WE do. That is why we have done everything in our power to force this bill into the ignominy it deserves. WE THE PEOPLE have elected you, and we have stood against this bill because you refused to do so.

Thank God there were enough people in this country who love her enough to stand against the sneaky, underhanded way your little Kennedy-ite clique tried to get this passed under the radar and in the dark of night, before anybody had a chance to read it, comment on it, or make amendments to it. We defeated it in spite of your best efforts; not just once, but TWICE. Read our lips: WE DO NOT WANT THIS BILL TO PASS. No matter who supports it.

Not only did you join with the Leftist Democrats to try to foist an ILLEGAL bill on the citizens, you allowed them to manipulate you into a position of vulnerability. For the greatest Strategery player ever to come down the pike, this is worse than defeat. It is ignominious defeat.

How does it feel to be screwed over? It’s a good thing you don’t have to run for re-election. Right now, you couldn’t get elected as janitor at the dog pound. I hope you enjoy your retirement, and I hope the mockery, derision, and contempt of the Left that will follow you for the rest of your life is what you wanted out of your terms as President. I hope the same feelings from those of us on the Right who supported you feels good, too. It’s all the consolation you will get from this.

You have not only left us “seduced and abandoned,” you have taken up with the town floozy right in front of our eyes. I guess the term “Cowboy” doesn’t really fit you, after all.

UPDATE: Defeated! Thank you, AMERICA!!

YooHoo, Washington!! WE Don’t Want This Bill!

Michelle Malkin is doing yeoman’s work in keeping awareness of this evil bill alive. Go to her site and read about the latest in the Democrats’ desperate attempt to wrest America from the hands of Americans. Today’s vote was on some addenda, and the vote on the complete bill is scheduled for sometime next week.

And, there is more discussion on this. Apparently, the Shamnesty Bill is the reason for the snooty reaction by Washington regarding talk radio.
The American Thinker has more to say on this aspect of the situation. Makes a person want to take an umbrella to the heads of some of those arrogant jerks. Hello, Mr. Lott? The “bigots” who are on talk radio are the same people that re-elected your sorry ass. Maybe they ARE stupid, after all…

Perhaps that doesn’t sit well with Mr. Lott or with his colleague, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who recently spoke to the National Council of La Raza and impugned the motives of his fellow Americans regarding the bill they don’t agree with. Here was a US Senator saying the “loud people,” the “bigots” who disagree with amnesty for illegal aliens should “shut up” and go away. It seems increasingly evident that some of these politicians, who ostensibly represent the people, get really upset when the people are actually heard from.

Fishing In Heaven

The Alaskan fishing season is in full swing now, and the anglers abound. Even tots have their poles, and many know good places to wet a hook. Freshwater or salt, fishing in Alaska is always (almost) like fishing in Heaven. A few pointers for those who think they might get here some day, and have enough time for whipping the water to a froth, I give you the following:

Freshwater fishing (above) means spawning fish—-agressive and territorial. They will generally bite on anything that comes into their line of vision.

Saltwater fishing (above) means bright, fresh fish, more varieties, less competition, and greater abundance.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Salmon are silver torpedoes, slicking through the green depths with nothing on their minds but eating or mating. The Salmon species on the Pacific coast are especially lovely, with five distinct families.

The king of them all is the King, or Chinook (Onchorhynchus tschawytscha), which can reach a hundred pounds in weight. It turns red in fresh water, and is a stunning sight on the end of your line. Eat your Cheerios before you go after this one! (“Onchorhynchus” means “hooked nose,” a characteristic all salmon get when they are in spawning waters.)

The Chum, or Dog, sometimes called Calico (Onchorhynchus keta), is also large, but not anywhere near as hefty as a King, running between ten and twenty pounds. It’s called “Dog” because when it takes on its spawning colors, its teeth get long and crooked, like dog’s fangs. In the ocean, it’s bright silver, and hard to tell from a Coho except by its very large eye pupil. Its spawning colors are stripes of purple that look like paint dribbled on the fish’s sides. It is abundant, commercially valuable, and has yellowish meat.

Silvers, or Coho (Onchorhynchus kisutch), are glorious, silver beauties that weigh between ten and twenty pounds, and turn a vibrant scarlet in the fresh water. These fish are more fun to catch than just about anything in the water, jumping, leaping, spinning, and diving deep, stripping line off your reel with the most beautiful sound in the world.

Sockeye, or Reds (Onchorhynchus nerka), are gill-feeders, hard to catch on a lure, but outstanding for fly fishermen. Their meat is bright red-orange, and they turn brilliant red in their spawning colors. They are small (about six pounds), slender daggers of gunmetal blue while in salt water that get both humped and red in fresh water.

Finally, the lowly, but abundant Humpy, or Pink (Onchorhynchus gorbuscha), which is probably the all-time most fun-to-fish-for fish in the water, and the one most commercially valuable. If you can’t get a Humpy on your line, you’d better check to see if you have a hook on there. These feisty little rascals weigh in at between three and ten pounds—most often around 5 pounds, and are the backbone of the salmon fishing industry. They are called “Humpy” because the males develop high humps on their backs in fresh water, where they spawn. In the ocean, they are silvery, but in fresh water, their color is a deep green. They are extremely abundant. They are easy to catch, fight when hooked, and make a great day fishing like fishing in Heaven. The catch limit is usually four to six fish per person per day. Four of these species can be caught in Valdez Arm, and the fifth, the Sockeye, is abundant all along the Western coast and in Norton Sound, near Nome.

Don’t feel sorry for the salmon, and think that they shouldn’t be caught, but allowed to swim free. “Catch-and-release” is a waste of time with Pacific salmon. By the time they come back into spawning waters, they’re coming to spawn and die. Period. That’s what they do–spawn and die. Once they come into fresh water, they begin the process of death. If we catch them, we eat them, before they die anyway. And their sheer numbers guarantee that returning one or two fish to the school isn’t going to affect any subsequent return in the slightest. Nature has already provided sufficiently for waste, predation, and mistakes. Eat and enjoy.

FISHING IN HEAVEN

All this is leading up to something. There’s fishing, and there’s FISHING! When people fish in Alaska, they’re enjoying the finest. It truly must be like fishing in Heaven. Beginner’s luck is all it takes to get your limit, and I’ve even seen the salmon jump right into boats.

Humpies and Dogs are almost always caught on Pixie Lures, Kings are caught with big, noisy, brightly colored spoons in fresh water, and Reds are caught with flies, or snagged. At low tide during Humpy season, there are clusters of Pixie Lures tangled in the rocks, left there by crowds of hopeful anglers. Sourdoughs like to say that you’re a real fisherman if you can drag your hook through a school of Humpies and not get a fish on it.

Silvers (Coho) can be caught on lures, but the usual way to get them is to troll with herring, which is towed behind a slow-moving boat at a depth of about twenty-five feet. Big bait gets big fish, so using nine-inch herring should result in something worth taking a picture of. Ask an Old-Timer to show you how to bait your hooks for this. It takes expertise and a couple of small pieces of specialized equipment, but knowing how will really pay off.

Boats should be used for most of the species, although humpies and silvers can be caught from the beach, with lures. There is an Alaskan phenomenon known as “Combat Fishing,” which occurs on the major salmon streams when the fish are running hard. Unless you’ve experienced it first-hand, or at least seen pictures of it, it’s hard to understand just what the attraction is.

BONUSES

There are other fish in the sea: the ones you don’t see very often, or those you might want to throw back. Occasionally, if you are fishing in deep water, presumably for halibut, you will find a strange, bug-eyed red fish on your line. Don’t throw it back. It’s a
yellow-eyed rockfish, commonly known in Alaska as Red Snapper, and it’s delicious, although it’s hard to clean, with large, hard scales. Fillet it, instead. The bulging of the eyes, tongue, and belly are reactions to the release of atmospheric pressure. Remember that you brought this fish up from 300-400 feet, and didn’t give it time to decompress. Yelloweye’s fins have hard spines that cause painful wounds if they puncture your skin, so handle with care.

Something that thinks your rockfish is bait is the lingcod.

It’s not a true cod, but I can tell you from experience that it’s like catching a truck tire. Good specimens run about forty pounds, and they have cavernous mouths. It is not unusual to see a lingcod come to the surface and take your rockfish right off the hook. If you do, brace yourself, and get both of them into the boat. Talk about a fish story!

Halibut is another sport-caught fish that can present a challenge.

It is caught with a pole that resembles a derrick–short, stiff, and strong, with a pulley on the tip and a reel about the size of a small cantaloupe. Use at least 80-pound test line, or you’ll just feed them hooks with meat on them. The hooks are heavy, three to four inches long, and are designed to hold a large lump of bait, for the halibut’s mouth is like a big vacuum cleaner. Small ones, around 20 pounds or so, are called “chickens.” Make sure you have heavy duty leader for this guy, and, don’t be surprised if you find yourself trying to boat a 200-pound barn door. Keep a hammer or axe-handle in the boat for brain surgery, because these fish are one big muscle, and can beat a boat to kindling. Once in the boat, make sure it lies with the white side down. Some guides and fishermen keep a .22 pistol handy for dispatching them before they bring them into the boat. Eat your Cheerios and your Wheaties!

Another keeper is black cod, or sablefish. They are long and blackish, and look like inner tubes with fins and teeth. They are excellent eating, and can reach respectable sizes.

The ones you want to throw back are the little codfish, called, “tomcod,” although they are edible; six-inch flounder, and the sculpin, or “Irish Lord,” which is so ugly you won’t even want to waste a hook on it. Shake it off your hook with a pair of pliers, but don’t grab it with your bare hand, because the spines are sharp and venomous, and cause painful wounds.

Getting most fish into the boat isn’t as easy as it sounds, and requires a large, long-handled net in the hands of someone who doesn’t have a fish on. If there are two of you in the boat and you both have fish on your hooks, you have to be agile and resourceful.

Larger, longer-handled nets are used in the Copper River to dipnet Kings, but you have to eat not just your Cheerios, but your Wheaties, and liver, too. The water of the Copper is roiled and opaque from glacier silt, and correspondingly cold, and the size of the fish runs around fifty pounds. If you’re not tied to something, you can be swept downstream in the river’s boiling current. (And, don’t forget to tie your net to something, too, or it may be swept–along with its catch–down the river.) But if you do it right, there aren’t many things that can equal the thrill of lifting a fifty-pound torpedo out of your net. Have a camera handy for this one.

AFTER YOU LIMIT OUT

Besides mounting the trophies for display, you might ask, “What can I do with a fish that big?” Try eating it! Start with humpies and silvers, and after cleaning them under cold water, all you have to do is stuff them with onions and celery, rub them with mayonnaise, seal them in foil, and bake them about an hour in a conventional oven at 350 degrees. Bake until the meat is opaque, and you can flake the meat all the way to the bone in the thickest part of the side, about an hour. Salmon goes well with boiled or baked potatoes and coleslaw. Nothing fancy, just basic good food and flavors that complement each other well.

If you have too many fish to eat all at once, you can either freeze them (easy), can them (a little harder), or pickle them (somewhat more complicated). Recipes for this abound. Follow the instructions with your pressure cooker, or those given you by Alaskan friends.

One other thing: If you are fishing in fresh water for Dolly Varden or grayling, and you see a bear, give ground! Even if he has your fish. Cut your line and let him have it. Never, NEVER argue with a brown bear! They eat people. Don’t let anyone tell you they won’t hurt you if you leave them alone. They are cantankerous, aggressive, unpredictable, powerful, and FAST. If you accidentally wander into what they consider their territory, or come between them and their cubs, they will attack.

Apologies do not work with bears. Make plenty of noise, try not to startle them, and don’t run unless you have to–just back away slowly. Don’t turn your back on them, and don’t think a big stick is going to have any effect on them, either, unless the big stick happens to be a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun loaded with 00 steel shot or a rifled slug. Of course, this means letting him get close enough to guarantee a bullseye, so your aim had better be dead on, or all you are going to do is make him mad. A word to the wise should be sufficient.

Depending on which species of fish you are planning to go after, you will need at least two poles, perhaps three if halibut-fishing is also on your agenda. By the time you buy your gear (outfitters will provide it if you charter a boat) and your license, you’ve shelled out a fair amount of money, so you’ll want to be sure of getting at least one day’s limit. (A tip: Keep a pair of plain cotton garden gloves in your tacklebox to help you get a grip on your slippery catch.) Go where you see a lot of people fishing, because that usually means that’s where the fish are. Generally, salmon come in and feed on the incoming tide, but there ARE exceptions. Ask a local when it’s the best time to fish. Watch the tide tables in the newspaper, and schedule your fishing so that you start at low tide. That will give you a good six hours of incoming tide to fish. If you don’t get anything in six hours, check the end of your line. It is possible to get skunked when fishing for humpies, especially late in the season. Check with outfitters or other old-timers.

Most Alaskan towns near fishing waters have custom-pack canneries where you can take your fish to be processed. They provide a number of services, including packing your fish for the trip back home. Some people like to trade their fresh fish for smoked or canned fish, already processed. The services and prices vary from cannery to cannery, so check around and take your pick.

If you come to Alaska to fish, keep the weather in mind, unless the wind is blowing, for the fish will bite even if it’s raining, especially if you drag a lure through what they think is their territory. They are aggressive at this stage, and will strike at any trespassers, and lures just seem to really ring their bells.

Whatever you use, wherever you go, however long you plan to stay, plan on a great time, because nobody in Alaska wants you to go home disappointed (“skunked”). Enjoy yourselves, and, remember the cry of the happy fisherman up to his armpits in a Humpy patch: “Got one!”

The Robin’s Lullaby

One of the things that I forgot about Living In Alaska was that in the summer, the birds sing all night long. Lately, the robins have been serenading me from one of the tall poplars in the back yard in the wee, small hours of the morning. Robins sing a beautiful, liquid melody in a sweet alto voice, and if they are close enough, you can hear a few added trills and curlicues to make each singer’s song distinctive. When it is finally warm enough outside at night to sleep with a window open one gets to fall asleep to the robin’s lullaby.

But sleeping with the window open is the other thing I forgot about Living In Alaska. It’s DAYLIGHT at midnight: Light enough to read a newspaper outside without a flashlight. Dark blinds help some, but most of us just put aluminum foil on the windows to darken the room enough for sleeping. The only problem with this is that opening the windows to hear the robins sing at midnight means letting a lot of light into the room. The horns of a dilemma, as you can see.

The Solstice is tomorrow. There are festivals of all stripes everywhere, but few will have fireworks. (It’s daylight, remember?) We save our fireworks for Winter Carnival-type celebrations and the Iditarod. There will be enough darkness in a few months to satisfy even the most discerning fireworks afficionado. The first day of Summer is tomorrow, as I said. The last day of Summer is somewhere around the 28th of this month, if I’m not mistaken.

This has been a hot, sunny, beautiful month. I suppose as soon as tomorrow rolls around, it will pucker up and rain until October, and then start to snow. Oh, well, we can use the rain. The fire danger is back up into the “red,” and it’s been about three weeks since our last measurable rainfall (1/8″ in my rain gauge), so it might not be as pretty as it is today, but it will be welcome. And the robins sing in the rain, too.

Remember?

Let’s see…why did I come in this room? I know that face, I just can’t put a name to it. Where are my glasses?? (oh. on my head…) Tom Rush remembers that he can’t remember while I go see if I can find where I put my favorite gel-pen and my glasses (again).

My GOSH, I Love These Guys! (Pt. 5)

Read all the comments, too…

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy

After all these years, I’m finally getting around to thanking you for being my Daddy and for doing the right thing for me time after time, even when I didn’t have brains enough to appreciate the sacrifices you made for us kids.

I’m so sorry you had to go when you did. Heather was just a newborn, and you barely got a chance to see her before you were gone like a ghost. She never had the pleasure of standing on your lap and playing with those five hairs on your head (you always said that perfect heads didn’t need hair. You were right), and I never had the joy of watching her do it. I suspect she would have been your special little angel. You said when you heard I had gone into labor, “Just look for a little red meatball with orange wool on top. That will be ours.” By now, you know that the meatball didn’t have any wool, and was as bald as you were. But, yes, it was orange…

I’m so sorry I didn’t go to your funeral. I don’t know why. I think I was just so shocked by losing you that I didn’t really know what I was doing or thinking. I know Mike still has a grudge against me for that; and I really have no excuse that I can think of. But I know you’ve forgiven me, and I guess that’s why I don’t dwell on it much any more.

But you were the best dad in the world, as far as I am concerned. I’ll never forget what you wrote in my yearbook, and I’ve always tried to keep it in mind whenever I set out to face a new challenge. “Never sell yourself short,” you said. Did you know, when you put that there, how much it would come to mean to me? Did you have a little glimpse into the future, so that you could see the uncertain and unsure person I would become? Your words became my backbone, Daddy. When everything else turned to jelly around me, and I was scared to death, I could always rely on those four little words.

You trusted me. Always. I never got the feeling that you were suspicious of anything I did. I tried hard to live up to that trust, too. You knew how hard it would be to be a grownup, and you put your faith in me. If I failed you, all I can do is ask for your forgiveness. Thank you for believing in me.

Mom always told me that I was your “love child.” If that means the child of your heart, I accept the honor most readily and humbly. Thank you, Daddy, for loving me as much as you did. Thank you for still loving me so much.

And, thank you for being the best Daddy a girl could ever have. I love you, too.

Paul Potts

I’m probably the last person on the internet to provide a link to this, but it is incredible. Grab a big hankie, sit back, and enjoy…

O My Heck!

LOL! As we used to say in Utah, years ago, “O MY HECK!!”

Click here and see what the Anchoress thinks is funny these days. Come to think of it, I laughed out loud at every one of these. They used to say “Puns are the lowest form of humor,” and they were probably right. Then. Nowadays, everybody takes themselves so seriously that even saturday morning cartoons are little lessons in political correctness and earth-worship. Even the pun can be good for a laugh, if it’s good. Go see what I’m talking about.