tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15707327675531661222024-03-12T23:09:15.519-05:00Ray's BlogRay Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-29885407277442787422020-07-18T22:46:00.000-05:002020-07-18T22:46:15.598-05:00Arizona American Legion post honors Urbana, Ill., Iwo Jima veteran <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #201f1e; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; padding: 0in;">Jim Kelly proudly wears a hat and T-shirt sent to him by the American Legion in Sacaton, Ariz.. (Photo by Jim Kelly Jr.)</span></i><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;"></span></td></tr>
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<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">James “Jim” Kelly, 98, of Urbana, a World War II Marine veteran who was on Iwo Jima for the entire 36-day battle, recently received a surprise in the mail from Tony McDaniel, adjutant of the Ira H. Hayes American Legion Post No. 84 in Sacaton, Ariz., and Urbana High School alumnus Gene Atteberry, a classmate of Kelly’s son, James Jr.</span><div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> When Atteberry, now living in Baton Rouge, La., attended a flag-raising ceremony for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima in Sacaton on Feb. 24, he received a Legion Post challenge coin from a tribal elder and wanted to honor the senior Kelly by giving it to him. When Atteberry told the officers at the American Legion, they put together a larger package of two post hats, two T-shirts, four challenge coins, and four pins and sent it all to the 98-year-old Marine veteran.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> A letter from McDaniel enclosed with the gifts explained that they were being given to Kelly “in honor of yourself, our comrade, and your dedicated sacrifice of military service to the best nation in the world. Your sacrifice to service gave veterans like me the opportunity to serve my nation as the democratic free country that it is.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Kelly served with the Fifth Service Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment of the Fifth Marine Division. During the battle on Iwo Jima, Kelly lost his friend and fellow Urbana High School classmate, Richard L. Pittman, on Feb. 21, 1945. The local Marine Corps League #1231, formed in 2005, is named in his honor. Kelly also lost three of his service battalion buddies in the battle when they were hit by a mortar round as the four of them were delivering ammunitions and supplies to the front.</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">
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Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-34198515836621082292020-05-28T14:42:00.001-05:002020-05-28T14:44:52.731-05:00Memorial Day 2020 -- Loss is felt every day<div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="color: #050505; margin: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/military/memorial-day-tribute-loss-is-felt-every-day/article_86dce987-144d-52ff-bfd3-e969e7fa0ec0.htm?fbclid=IwAR3TnOMhBwCra5KHwJbLkD111X0weJwYB6_zzbV8YzE8yp5gwTkNWdG8E_E" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a></span></div>
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Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-27076150189205196132019-05-26T16:20:00.000-05:002019-05-27T23:13:11.860-05:00May 29, 2019, Address for Veterans' Assistance Commission Memorial Day Ceremony at the Champaign County Courthouse<span style="font-size: large;">I have always appreciated the opportunity to remember and honor those men and women who died while serving in the militaryand fighting to protect us and preserve the freedoms we enjoy. People attend ceremonies, like the one here today, that are held throughout the country, and they visit memorials to remember those who died. Flags are placed on their graves with respect. These activities have been an American tradition since Memorial Day was first observed not long after the end of the Civil War. <br /> Of course, it isn’t just today that we should remember and honor their memory and their sacrifices. The families and friends of those now gone don’t just think of them on this one day each year. That loss is felt every day. It remains real. It never goes away. And that is something we all should remember and honor, as well.<br /> Amid the pain and the loss felt by those left behind, we want them to know that we are with them. That we acknowledge what they are missing because of the cost of freedom. They bear that burden for the rest of us every day of their lives.<br /> When I was growing up in southern Illinois, there were numerous veterans in the community—a few from the first world war, many from World War II, and later several Korean War veterans. So I was always aware of the significance of Memorial Day—or Decoration Day, as it was called back then. My hometown was a small village of about 75 people and the surrounding family farms. There was a two-story general store with an upstairs area for people to gather for plays, dinners and other occasions--like when the World War II veterans were home on leave or one of them was killed in action. A board on the wall listed the names of those who were serving, and a Gold Star appeared next to the names of those who were killed. There were four Gold Stars. And in later years, the father of one girl who lived nearby was killed in Korea; and two of my classmates from the one-room schoolhouse we attended were later killed in Vietnam. <br /> I remember them today, and I remember their families.<br /> Back in the Civil War, my great-grandfather received a medical discharge from the 123rd Regiment, Illinois Infantry, came home and died not long afterward from severe dysentery—as did many veterans of both the Northern and Southern Armies—before Decoration Day began in 1868. My grandfather was only a little over a year old when his father died, leaving another son and two girls to grow up without a father. My great-grandmother raised them alone and lived another 64 years. <br /> I remember them today, too. <br /> An older cousin of mine landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy in an M4 Sherman tank in A Company of the 741st Tank Battalion and was brought ashore by an LCT—a tank landing craft. B and C companies were in the amphibious Duplex Drive tanks with a “flotation screen” around them, which was supposed to enable them to float, and were launched 6,000 yards out in the rough waters of the English Channel that day. Many of them immediately sank to the bottom of it. Some of the men were rescued by nearby boats—but not all.<br /> My cousin made it to the beach, but his tank was soon put out of action, and he and his crew never got another one until before the Normandy breakout some time later. Then they rolled on through to Paris, were at the forefront of the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, made it through Germany, until finally ending in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war.<br /> When he came home, my father hired my cousin as a truck driver, and I saw in his actions what is now called PTSD. After years of dealing with that internal pain, as well as severe pain from a permanent injury to his neck, he specifically chose D-Day, June 6, to take his own life, leaving a wife and a young daughter behind. He didn’t die in the war, but from the war.<br /> I remember him today, and all those men and their families.<br /> Each of us has someone to remember. Each of us knows family members or friends who died in the military or those who live with such losses. As someone who works with veterans’ organizations and writes military historical fiction, I spend a lot of time talking and working with other veterans and their families. <br /> There’s one last story I’d like to share with you today. It’s about a battalion commander from the Fifth Marine Division who died in the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. He was also a husband and a father of four at the time. I’ve known three of his children—his sons—well over 10 years now, and I’ve known that they lost their dad in the war. Two of the sons don’t remember him. One of them told me: “All I knew was that I never had a dad. His picture was on the wall.” The oldest son was 5. He remembers seeing his father off in San Diego in late 1944 when the Fifth Division headed for the Big Island of Hawai’i to train for the invasion of Iwo Jima.<br /> But I recently learned more about their story that makes me better understand why—to this day—they still feel his loss in their lives so profoundly.<br /> Before going into battle, their father wrote the letter a father never wants to write. It was a farewell letter to his wife—to be opened only if he was killed. During his time overseas, he wrote many letters to his wife, expressing his love for her and his family. But while on Iwo Jima, he only wrote two brief letters: one from “Fox Hole Villa” on February 25th—six days into the battle; and the other from “Tojo’s Cave” on March 2nd. His eldest son told me both of the letters praised the courage of his men, and that, woven throughout, was his father’s unwavering faith in God that he shared with his wife.<br /> Three days later, he was killed.<br /> Somewhere along the line previously, he had told his wife that if he were ever to be killed in battle, he wanted to be buried with his men. He was first buried in the Fifth Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo Jima. And when the bodies were exhumed after the war to be sent home, his wife honored his request to be buried with his men by selecting, as his final resting place, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacificin Hawaii, which is also known as the Punchbowl, rather than bringing him back to his hometown of New Orleans.<br /> It wasn’t until years later, in 1990, when they were able to visit the grave together as a family for the first time—a widow and her four grown children. The older sister had brought the letters their father had written—including the farewell letter—and they all sat around the gravesite and read each one. <br /> It was a deeply emotional experience for them. And they never shared that farewell letter outside the family until their mother gave her consent to do so after her death.<br /> With the family’s permission, I’d like to share some of it with you all here today on this Memorial Day.<br /> He wrote:<br /> “There is so little that can be said in this letter, my darling, when our hearts shall go on talking to each other forever no matter how silent is my voice. It would be so utterly unreasonable to believe that my departure means separation.<br /> “Don’t mourn, babe. I did not go into battle unprepared for death. It wasn’t going to touch me, for sure; this I was supremely confident. You cannot imagine my surprise when it finally came. I firmly believed that I was to return to you and our children. But God thought otherwise; and, darling, if I loved God less despite all His kindness to me, I would not have gone unprepared for fear that it would mean separation from you for eternity.<br /> “I am leaving you with four small children. Some will pity you, but I don’t because I know you loved me dearly and these children of ours are the living testimonials of our love. Mary Jo and the boys will do much to keep your heart alive. I have great faith in them, babe, because I have faith in you. It doesn’t matter so much whether they be rich, or considered brilliant, or achieve great worldly fame, but so much more important is they know, love and serve God and respect the integral dignity of all men.<br /> “It is goodbye for a little while only, babe. I always loved you.<br /> “Yours forever,<br /> “Johnny”<br /> Growing up, the kids learned much about their father from their mother and often had to take their big brother’s direction, partially motivated by the instructions given in letters his father wrote to him about his responsibility to look after his younger brothers. My friend treasures those letters. Especially the last one that was written to him on February 18th—the day before the Marines landed on Iwo Jima. <br /> When their mother died in 2003, the two oldest sons took her ashes to Hawaii to be reunited with her husband. <br /> Their father was very present in their lives, as I hope the families of all those we honor today also feel. Those servicemen and women sacrificed SO much so that you and I, and all of us, can live in freedom. Let’s not forget that their families have also sacrificed so much. And, sadly, many continue to.<br /> Today, tomorrow, and always—we will remember them. <br /> And we do so because, as President Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, it is up to us “that these dead shall not have died in vain.”<br /> Thank you for coming today. It is still up to us. </span>Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-92110548336615595272019-01-21T11:20:00.002-06:002019-01-21T15:25:35.097-06:00Recalling a conversation with Burl Ives<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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The famous singer/actor Burl Ives was from a little town of about 100-150 people called Hunt City in southeast-central Illinois, a few miles from the village of Bellair, where I was born and raised. "From Here to Eternity" author James Jones was born and raised in nearby Robinson.<br />
In 1982--13 years before his death in 1995--I interviewed Burl as part of a cultural journalism project called Tales from the General Store that published 27 issues in tabloid newsprint format and was distributed in several newspapers throughout east-central Illinois. Those issues are helping to preserve part of the history and culture of the area, and the entire collection is now available for free through the Digital Public Library of America at <a href="http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/collection/p16614coll12/search/">http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/collection/p16614coll12/search/</a>.</div>
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Burl had much to say about growing up in the area, his career, the musicals in which he performed (Lerner and Loewe's "Paint Your Wagon"), movie roles (Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"), songs he sang ("The Ballad of Barbara Allen," where he sees the same image saw when he first sang it early in his life), and more. Read all about him: <a href="http://www.talespress.com/Issue_3_Burl_Ives.pdf">http://www.talespress.com/Issue_3_Burl_Ives.pdf</a>.</div>
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Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-67119366118231662912018-09-26T23:36:00.000-05:002018-09-26T23:36:54.113-05:00Fifth Marine Division Association reunion Oct. 16-21 brings Iwo Jima veterans to Urbana-Champaign <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Two Iwo Jima veterans and I made our way to the elevator
through a group of young students in the lobby of the Sheraton Pentagon City
Hotel in Arlington, Va., a few years ago during the annual Iwo Jima Reunion and
Symposium to commemorate the Feb. 19 anniversary of the invasion of the island
during World War II.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When we got
on the elevator, one of the veterans looked at the other one, chuckled and said,
“Those kids are not much older than I was when I saw a bunch of Civil War
veterans at a reunion of the battle at Gettysburg.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah,” the
other one said, “I remember seeing Civil War vets, too.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I remember looking
at them and being rather amazed. The Civil War was over in 1865, some 145 years
before that night on the elevator. I’d never thought about these World War II veterans
having ever seen Civil War veterans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Fifth
Marine Division Association is bringing Iwo Jima veterans to Urbana-Champaign Oct.16-21
for its 69th annual reunion. This is the Marine division whose Easy Company, 28th
Marine Regiment troops raised both flags on Mount Suribachi, the second one depicted
in the iconic photo that Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took that
is one of the most recognized photos in history and was made into the statue
that overlooks the nation’s capitol from Arlington Cemetery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While there
are Iwo Jima veterans around the area, people will have the opportunity to meet
and greet several of these aging veterans from around the country at the free screening
of Oscar-winning filmmaker Arnold Shapiro’s 1985 documentary, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to Iwo Jima,</i> on Saturday, Oct. 20,
at the Virginia Theater. The theater will open at noon with historic displays,
and the film will be shown at 1 p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Shapiro is
coming from his home in California to introduce the film and sit on a panel
with the Iwo Jima veterans afterward to discuss the battle and the effect it
has had on these men. There is no charge for admission, although the FMDA will accept
donations to help maintain the association and to develop a digital library of <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">books, interviews, photos,
and artifacts for the FMDA museum on the Big Island of Hawai’i where the
division trained for the battle of Iwo Jima.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Years from now, when the Iwo Jima
veterans and all the World War II veterans are gone, there will be some aging
citizens saying the same thing about seeing these Iwo Jima veterans like the
two veterans said about seeing the Gettysburg and Civil War veterans on the
elevator that night. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Looking back, I remember seeing
World War I veterans when I was a kid. Some of them hung around the pool hall,
playing pool and enjoying life. They were a lively group and had a lot of fun
talking trash to each other as they played snooker. One of the group who had
lost an arm in the war sat and watched. And I watched him, quite astonished, as
he rolled his cigarettes with only one hand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But most of the veterans I remember
were from World War II and Korea. They had flown The Hump </span><span style="color: #424242;">over the
eastern end of the </span>Himalayan Mountains in military transport aircraft from India to China
to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek and the units of the
United States Army Air Forces<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">,
they had flown missions over Europe and throughout the Pacific and to Japan,
they had made landings on Pacific islands and on Omaha Beach during the allied
invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe and fought throughout Europe and the Pacific. When
I hosted television writer and producer Norman Lear at Ebertfest a couple of
years ago, I’d read that he had flown 51 missions over Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Really that many?” I asked. “That
was a lot of combat missions.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Only 37 of them were combat missions,”
he said dryly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The barber who cut my hair for years
was a veteran of Iwo Jima. Somebody told me once that one day, they’d walked
into his barbershop in the middle of the afternoon. Three or four other men sat
around the shop talking. Besides Ben the barber, who had been wounded on Iwo
Jima and was being hoisted up the side of the hospital ship and looked over his
shoulder and saw the flag on Mount Suribachi just after it was raised, one of
them had been relieving the guard a little before 8 a.m. on Ford Island on Dec.
7, 1941, when the Japanese attached Pearl Harbor, another had landed on Omaha
Beach on June 6, 1944, for the allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. The
other two were Marines who served during the Korean War. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s one conversation I would have
liked to have heard. And we’ll have the opportunity to hear some of these
veterans talk about the experiences they had during the battle for Iwo Jima after
the film at the Virginia on Oct. 20. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hope to see many of you there because
these are things to remember.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-5872578636732576182018-09-12T22:01:00.000-05:002018-09-12T22:01:07.853-05:00Urbana (Ill.) Rotary talk Sept. 11, 2018, on Return to Iwo Jima documentary<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">I know I’m here
to talk about Arnold Shapiro and his 1985 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return
to Iwo Jima</i> documentary to be shown at the Fifth Marine Division
Association reunion in Champaign on Oct. 20, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say
a couple of words about the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. (Rotarian) Tom
Conroy just did that, and it’s all over the news this morning, but I want to
talk about heroes. People have different ideas about what constitutes a hero.
To me, it goes along with the Rotary motto of “service above self,” and is not
just an idle, catch-all motto.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The passengers aboard United Flight 93 who
took charge of the situation after they knew what was happening in New York and
Washington—that the planes had crashed into the World Trade Center Towers and
the Pentagon and believed their plane was headed for the Capitol Building or
the White House and caused the plane to crash into a field near Shanksville,
Penn., giving their own lives to save the Capitol or the White House—were
heroes much like the Iwo Jima veterans who put their lives on the line to win
the battle for island and help win the freedom we now enjoy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By bringing the reunion here to
Urbana-Champaign for what very well may be the last for these men, now in their
90s, I’d hoped we would give them a reception as they received at last year’s
reunion on the Big Island of Hawai’i where they had trained for Iwo Jima. Everywhere
we went on the island, the group was greeted with appreciation. But the one occasion
that sticks in my mind is the day we went to Parker School in Waimea, where the
Marines used to go for concerts and social events when they had liberty. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As we turned down the street toward
the school, you could see the elementary school children lined along each side
of the street, waving American flags. More than one of these old Marine veterans
had tears rolling down his cheeks at the sight. And when we got off the bus to
go inside for the program, most of the veterans spent several minutes talking
to the kids about how much they appreciated what they were doing and asking the
kids about their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We have a great program planned here
for the 69th annual reunion of the Fifth Marine Division Association (see
schedule in <a href="http://www.talespress.com/Spearhead_Spring-Summer_2018-WEB.pdf" target="_blank">Spring/Summer 2018 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spearhead</i></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">), and Oscar-winning documentary
filmmaker Arnold Shapiro has helped make it better by giving us, gratis, the
right to show at the Virginia Theatre his 1985 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to Iwo Jima</i> film, hosted by Marine veteran Ed McMahon, that helped
set up the annual “Reunion of Honor” trip to Iwo Jima where the Americans and
the Japanese, once mortal enemies, came together in peace. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For the record, 6,821 American died
in the 36-day battle, more than 17,000 were wounded, about 21,000 Japanese
died, and a total of 2,251 damaged planes landed on Iwo Jima—the first one while
the battle was still raging on March 4 on the way back to the Marianas from
bombing raids on Japan, saving the lives of 24,761 crew members who would have
otherwise gone down in the ocean and undoubtedly died.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A sign on a sea ration carton at the
entrance to the Fifth Marine Division Cemetery (where the division buried those
killed in action) put the sacrifices of the Iwo Jima veterans in perspective
for those airmen and for the people at home whose freedom was maintained: “When
you go home, tell them, say, we gave all for their tomorrows for all of our
todays.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like the passengers on United Flight
93, these men were heroes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Arnold Shapiro is not a veteran, but
he went to Camp Pendleton, Calif., for an Iwo Jima memorial service in the
early ’80s and met a number of Iwo Jima veterans. He raised the question to
four of them about going back to Iwo Jima. There had been a veteran-organized
trip to Iwo Jima for the 25th anniversary of the battle in 1970 just after the
island had been returned to Japan to strengthen ties between the two countries,
but nothing after that. A few weeks after meeting at Pendleton, a group of the
veterans formed a committee to make the going back a reality and asked Arnold
to write the initial letters to the State Department and others to get the ball
rolling. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For his part in that first official
“Reunion of Honor,” Arnold produced the film that will be shown at the Virginia
Theatre at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, during this year’s reunion—no charge
for admission, although we will accept donations to pay the theater rental and
insurance costs. He is coming from his home in California to introduce the film
and participate in a panel discussion with the Iwo Jima veterans afterward. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When Arnold said we could show the
documentary at no cost, I asked him if he would come back to introduce it. He’d
just retired and moved away from L.A. and a 52-year television career in which
he had produced 29 series and nearly 100 documentaries for every broadcast
network and 14 cable channels and said no. Then he called and asked how far
Urbana-Champaign was from Springfield, where he’d like to visit the Abraham
Lincoln sites. The proximity to Springfield made up his mind to attend the
union. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition to producing the 1985 documentary,
he raised $30,000 from the John Wayne Foundation via his friend, Michael Wayne
(John’s son), for the monument that sits on the invasion beach, and wrote the
words that are in English facing the ocean where the annual “Reunion of Honor”
is now held annually and written in Japanese facing the interior of the island.
The words Arnold wrote and gave me the OK to use in my novella, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iwo Blasted Again,</i> follow:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Reunion
of Honor on the Fortieth Anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima, American and
Japanese veterans meet again on these same sands, this time in peace and
friendship. We commemorate our comrades living and dead, who fought here with
bravery and honor, and we pray that our sacrifices on Iwo Jima will always be
remembered and never repeated. February 19, 1985, Third, Fourth, Fifth Division
Associations: USMC and the Association of Iwo Jima.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">He told me he’d written that in about 15
minutes and it was the best writing he’d ever done. Of all his work during his
career, he says Iwo Jima is his favorite subject.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>He has traveled back to Iwo Jima several times for the “Reunion of
Honor” and has often contributed funds for Iwo Jima veterans to make the trip
back to the island. And<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>in addition
to the film we’ll be seeing at the Virginia, Arnold also wrote and produced the
2001 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heroes of Iwo Jima</i> (a 96-minute
documentary hosted by Danville native and Marine veteran Gene Hackman) and wrote
and produced as his final project the 2015 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iwo
Jima From Combat to Comrades</i> (a 55–minute documentary hosted by Ryan
Phillippe) shown on PBS on the Marine Corps birthday Nov. 10, 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For the last one, Arnold asked me to
check the script for military accuracy, and because of his work in prisons with
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scared Straight</i> and other work about
prison life, I asked him to read my prison novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">With the Silent Knowledge</i>, and review it. The review is posted on
Amazon where the book is available.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Before I show the short trailer of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to Iwo Jima</i>, I want to read a
piece I used in my novella from a Marine you will see in the documentary—you’ll
also see the monument on Iwo Jima. But I got William Norman’s words from the letters
of Dr. Luther Lowrance from Robinson, Ill., a graduate of the University of
Illinois who was treating wounded Iwo Jima veterans in a hospital in Hawaii. I
secured the letters from the doctor’s family for the University of Illinois
Library’s Rare Book Room:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“The sight that met my eyes as I set
foot on the beach is one that I shall never forget,” Norman wrote in the
hospital after he was wounded. “Dead Marines were so thick that we had to
sidestep them in order to move forward. I have withstood heavy enemy bombardment
that lasted all night on Saipan, but never have I seen men who died so
violently. Men were blown to pieces, one leg here, an arm there, and strings of
guts that were several feet long. These men had scarcely set foot on the beach.
But to us, this was a reminder that we would have to fight, and pay in human lives
and blood, for each foot of this barren island.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Men like William Norman and the Iwo
veterans, like those on Flight 93 who gave their lives to save the seat of our
government, are the real heroes in this world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While the veterans, families and
friends are in Urbana-Champaign Oct. 16-21, they will also learn about the
Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education at the University of Illinois,
the history of the university’s ROTC program and the current Naval ROTC
program; visit the Vermilion County War Museum and the Fischer Theatre in
Danville and the Ernie Pyle Museum in Dana, Ind.; and the Abraham Lincoln Home,
the Tomb and the Presidential Museum in Springfield. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hope to see you at the Virginia next
month. We also have tickets for the banquet that Rotary member Betsy Hendrick’s
Hendrick House will be catering at the Hyatt Place Hotel—see registration for
banquet in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spearhead</i> issue. Paul
Lewis, Marine Embassy guard who spent 444 days in captivity during the 1979-81student
revolution in Tehran, will be the keynote speaker, and Art Leenerman, one of 14
remaining survivors of the USS Indianapolis, will be a special guest at both
the film and banquet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-26229398312521089302018-08-06T09:51:00.000-05:002018-08-06T09:51:17.342-05:00Cottage cheese, ketchup and ‘My Kitchen Prayer’<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Not long after my father died in 1997, my mother (who was
confined to a wheelchair and had been for several years) came to live with us.
Our daughters, Jessica and Caitlin, were ages 3 and 1. Caitlin doesn’t remember
her grandfather, and Jessica barely does. But we’d been down to Bellair, the
small village where my parents lived (near the Moonshine Store of hamburger
fame) the week before Princess Diana was killed in the car crash in Paris. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>One
memory from that visit remains in our family:<span style="color: red;"> </span>Jessica
had heard my father say his favorite expression when something annoyed him or
even amused him: “Thunder and Mud!” We were all in the living room watching
television when she walked up to him and said, “Papaw says, ‘Thunder and Mud!’”
<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He laughed and slapped his leg as he sometimes
did when something tickled him. Later that night after we had gone to bed, he
came to the bedroom door and told us about Princess Diana. He had a heart
attack and died a week later. For a few weeks after the funeral, a neighbor
looked after Mother. But my sisters and I decided it would be better if she
came and lived with my family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Both my
wife and I worked, and the girls were in day care. Mother was able to care for
herself to an extent and got around in the wheelchair. The girls were with her
much of the time when they were home. That was particularly true after we
widened the door of the cottage next door so Mother could be nearby but have
the autonomy of her own home. She could still cook and take care of herself
with help. As time progressed and they got older, she also took care of the
girls at times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She cooked
some for them, read to them, watched television and patiently answered the
endless questions they thought up for her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came home one evening, and she was propped
up in her hospital bed with Caitlin sitting on her lap<span style="color: red;"> </span>and
Jessica standing beside the bed directing the whole show:<span style="color: red;"> </span>They had rouge, powder, eye shadow<span style="color: red;"> </span>and lipstick all over her face and were still going
strong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Here,” I
hollered when I walked in the house. “What in the dickens are you kids doing to
your grandmother?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Leave them
alone,” Mother said, smiling. ”They’re having fun.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They loved
being with her, and I thought it was great that they had that time with their
grandmother.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not long
afterwards, Mother was in the kitchen getting the girls supper. I don’t know
what she’d gotten for them, but the story goes that<span style="color: red;"> </span>Jessica
had some cottage cheese that she apparently didn’t want, so she smothered it
with ketchup, thinking she wouldn’t have to eat it. Mother had other ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Now you
eat that, young lady,” she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jessica had
other ideas, too. She looked up at the plaque Mother had on kitchen the wall
that read:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Kitchen Prayer</i></b> </span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Bless my pretty
kitchen Lord<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">And light it with Thy
Love<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Help me plan and cook
my meals<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">From Thy heavenly
home above.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Bless our meals with
Thy Presence<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">And warm them with
Thy grace;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Watch over me as I do
my work,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Washing pots and pans
and plates.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">The service I am
trying to do<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Is to make my family
content,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">So bless my eager
efforts Lord<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>And make them heaven
sent.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She started
singing the words to the little poem and taught Caitlin to sing with her,
believing that their grandmother would be so happy to hear it that she wouldn’t
make her eat the ketchup-covered cottage cheese. As I recall, it didn’t work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When Mother
died a year or two later, both Jessica and Caitlin were devastated. They’d
known her all of their lives<s> </s>and couldn’t remember when they didn’t know
her. Their other grandmother had died when they were only 3 and 5. They hadn’t really
known death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the funeral, I was to give the eulogy for
Mother. Jessica asked if she and Caitlin could be a part of it and sing “My
Kitchen Prayer.” I agreed and stood listening as they sang the song from their
hearts. Though there were tears during much of that day and the days around it,
the music was a comfort, a piece of her that they got to keep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Singing that little song as young girls was just
our way of contributing to a ceremony dedicated to honoring a grandmother we
were so close to,” Jessica says, “but today when I look back on that poem, it
means something more. The role of homemaker, the act of being in the kitchen
for hours a day … Sometimes it’s seen as this less-than, diminished role for
women. But food was a huge part of how Grandma cared for her family and showed
them love. It was how she gave strength, both physically and emotionally, to a
family of hard workers with long days. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"> “That
prayer, which I still know all the words to, personifies that quiet strength
that Grandma and so many of the women of her generation showed in small ways
every day. I still think of her every time I taste a dish of hers that someone
brings to a family gathering, and I bet I’d think of her if I were ever forced
to eat ketchup-doused cottage cheese again, too. But it taught me that you have
to lie in the bed you make, so you better make it well.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-80304906942376434382018-07-11T07:48:00.000-05:002018-07-11T07:48:29.261-05:00Summertime livin’ and eatin’ at its best
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“It’s summertime
and the livin’s easy” is a line from one of my favorite songs. And summertime
is probably my favorite season. There isn’t much I don’t like about it. The reason
that comes to mind right now is fresh vegetables. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The garden planted in early spring starts to
produce its delicious bounty in summer. According to what you like, you can enjoy
a variety of the freshest-tasting vegetables you could ever want. White icicle
radishes are my favorite. When they’re cleaned and washed, there’s nothing better
with any meal than those radishes dipped in salt. Personally, I like to dip
them in salt from one of the old-fashioned salt dishes like my grandmother
used. Tastes better somehow.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now if you like lettuce, you’re in luck, too.
Some people like fresh-picked lettuce wilted in hot apple cider vinegar, bacon
grease and a touch of sugar. And it’s not bad, really. But I prefer to take
fresh lettuce, wash it in cold water and pile it on a peanut butter sandwich. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If your garden is planted as the summer clips
along, you can have most anything you want for weeks. The onions have been in
the ground for quite a while, if you haven’t picked them all to eat as green
onions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s the large onions, sliced and put together
with fresh sliced cucumbers in vinegar and water that I like best. Salted, of
course. They compliment any dinner well. For a snack, there’s nothing better
than a large Bermuda onion, sliced and salted and put on a bread and
butter—real butter, please, none of that slick, tasteless margarine—sandwich.
It may be better if you have a cast-iron stomach. I don’t know. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tomatoes have got to be next. The first
vine-ripened tomatoes of the summer are difficult to beat. What I always liked
to do as a kid was walk through the garden and spot a really red, ripe, juicy
one, pluck it from the vine, wipe it off a little and eat it right there. And
yes, I carried the salt shaker with me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All the fresh tomatoes taste good, but they
don’t compare with that first one. Some people make the mistake of putting them
in the refrigerator, though. That’ll ruin the taste of a tomato quicker than about
anything I know. So just slice hot tomatoes and put them on the table with your
favorite meal. I even like them with bacon and eggs in the morning. They just
start the day off the way it should be started.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Green beans come along when you’re ready for
them and not a minute sooner. I think I like wax beans the best. But any kind
of fresh green beans cooked with bacon grease and some onion chips tastes so
much better than store-bought beans that I sometimes wonder if they’re even the
same thing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Moving beyond the green beans in the garden but
at about the same time, the peas ripen and bulge in their pods. When they do,
you cheat a little and dig a bunch of new potatoes even before they bloom if
you have to. Just as long as you get the potatoes. All you do then is skin the
potatoes and de-pod the peas, cook them together in a thick, rich, cream sauce<s>.</s>
A little salt and pepper tops them off just fine. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And finally: Yeah, finally because it’s the
pinnacle of the summer. It’s the World Series of garden eating. That’s when the
corn starts coming on, filling out into large yellow ears. (I like white corn well
enough, but I especially like the Peaches and Cream variety with both yellow
and white kernels.) Nothing like it if you eat it right. I love to take the freshly
roasted or boiled corn and dip it in melted butter—again real butter, please,
if you don’t want to spoil the taste—salt and pepper four rows, add a glob of
butter for good measure and eat the four rows across horizontally with one
vicious gnawing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Okay, so I’m an enthusiastic garden eater who
likes his salt and real butter. Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it. And
don’t quit until you’ve eaten four or five ears that way. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At the end of the summer, if you’re lucky, you
can have at least one meal with all your favorites. I personally can’t imagine
anything better than a meal consisting of corn on the cob—roastin’ ears we used
to call them<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>—sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and onions,
creamed potatoes and peas, green beans and white radishes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yeah, in the summertime, “the livin’s easy” and
the eatin’s great.</span></div>
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</style>Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-24628769690081102012018-06-16T21:30:00.000-05:002018-06-16T21:30:28.682-05:00A Memory on Father's Day<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">As I reflect on this year's Father’s Day, mine has been gone for more than 20
years. Still, it’s a day I want to remember him because of who he was, what he was,
when he was, and for all the times I forgot that. This column is for him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My father
was a farmer and a truck-driving man. Not the kind of trucker who drives the
18-wheelers on the interstate highways today. His trucks had no
air-conditioning, sleeper cabs, cushion-ride seats, AM-FM or Sirius radios, GPS
systems or any other comfort modern technology provides.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>No, he
drove a regular two-speed axle, two-ton straight truck. The only bigger truck
he ever owned was a 10-wheeler he took west a couple of years to follow the
wheat harvest from the panhandle of Texas to the Canadian line. And the trucks
were almost always Dodges. In a trucking career that spanned from 1939 to the
mid-‘80s, he had only two trucks of a different make that I can recall with as
many as five during World War II when he had a deferment from military service
to support the farming community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>With these
trucks he hauled livestock, hay, grain, coal, lime, fertilizer, furniture—anything
he could get in a truck. He and his drivers hauled through all kinds of weather.
I’ve seen him scoop coal in the driving rain, load livestock in the bitter cold
and haul hay in the blazing heat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Probably
the only things that kept me from trying to follow in his footsteps was a trip
I made to the Indianapolis stockyards with him one hot July or August when I
was 10 or 11 years old.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He had several
stops to load a cow here, a calf there and a few hogs somewhere before being
full loaded. A couple of places with just a calf or two, he wouldn’t even set
up the loading chute. He just raised the end gate, tossed the animal in and
drove off. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The sweat dripped
from his face, stinging his eyes while a river of it poured in; his shirt was
completely soaked. As he wrote out the bill of lading for the woman at the last
stop and wiped his eyes with a red handkerchief, the sweat trickled through the
small hairs on the back of his hand, smudging the pencil lead on the paper as
he wrote.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>”Would you
like a Pepsi, Harold,” the grizzled, white-haired woman asked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Be good,”
he said, still furiously scribbling and holding out his left hand for the
drink. One gulp, two gulps, a breath, another gulp. The Pepsi was gone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Thanks,”
he said, handing her the empty bottle. Almost before he had the copy of the
bill of lading ripped out and had given it to her, he was shutting the door,
switching the key on and grinding the engine to life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As we turned
out on the road, and headed east toward Indianapolis, he said, “Don’t ever do
anything for a living that you have to work this hard.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Except for
those trips, there were times I hardly ever saw him for days on end. He’d
sometimes put on his clothes on Monday morning, load for Indianapolis, sleep in
the truck at the coal mine in Brazil, Ind., while waiting for a load of coal for
the return trip. And he’d scoop the coal, load for Indianapolis and do it over
again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Or he‘d get
home in the wee hours of the morning, sleep a little and be gone long before I
got up. Even when I did get to go with him, he didn’t talk much. And when he
did, it was about being honest or always paying his bills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He slowed
down as the years passed, had only two trucks for a while, then only one after
he started farming. Then he’d work from six in the morning until nine at
night—sometimes earlier, sometimes later—day in and day out, unless it rained.
When I worked with him, I prayed for rain 24 hours a day. He never told me not
to farm, but I remembered his advice about hauling livestock. Farming didn’t seem
any easier. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Just before
he quit hauling livestock in the ‘60s, he took a straight load of cattle to
Indianapolis and put four lambs on the upper deck at the front of the truck.
Livestock hauling had dwindled and coal hauling was almost a thing of the past.
He unloaded the cattle and was home by midnight.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The next
morning he woke to the sound of lambs bleating. Jumping out of bed, he bellowed,
“What the devil is that?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Sounds
like sheep,” my mother answered.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Thunder
and mud, I forgot to unload those lambs.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another
trucker going to Indianapolis stopped by for the lambs, and my father’s friends
razzed him for a while. He’d smile and shake his head, but he never forgot his
family or friends as he had those lambs. And it seems to me that a man who
worked hard all his life needs to be remembered on Father’s Day.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"> Thanks, Dad, I wish you were still here to share the day.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-43401213466174975582018-05-27T11:34:00.000-05:002018-05-27T11:34:33.497-05:00‘Blowing fire” takes the pain out of a burn<div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.2em;">
I was young, only 6 years old. Although I don't understand it, I do remember what happened, how I felt. Let me tell you about it.</div>
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It was an early summer evening and I heard my mother call me home for supper. For a while, I pretended I didn't hear her. Then I headed home, dejected that I had to do something as boring as eat supper when I could play.</div>
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As I walked along with my head down, the rest of the kids continued playing kick the can. I kicked disgustedly at the gravel at the side of the road with my bare feet. The remains of a brush and leaf pile a man had burned in front of his house was upon me before I realized it. But, I never hesitated or missed a step and began walking through it.</div>
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At the edge of the 12- or 15-foot-long pile, the powdery soft gray ashes felt pleasant to my feet. Closer to the center of the pile, the ashes began to feel warm. But, they still felt pleasant as I kicked along. Several feet in the center were red-hot coals, covered by mounds of ashes at the top.</div>
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Jumping and screaming, I took one, two, three, maybe four steps before I could get out of the hot coals. I ran gingerly, falling and landing in the ditch with my feet sending messages of pain to my brain.</div>
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A friend heard my screams and came running to my rescue. He tried to calm me down, told me not to cry. I only screamed louder. He didn't know what to do, but stayed with me.</div>
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My father was driving by a half a block away with a truckload of cattle on his way to Indianapolis. Somehow, my friend got his attention or my father heard my screaming. I don't know which. But he came and got me and carried me home.</div>
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It's not quite clear to me what happened for a while after that. I vaguely remember the doctor looking at my feet and trying to get me to shut up. Didn't happen. He smeared lard on both feet and wrapped them with gauze.</div>
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One of the neighbors suggested to my mother that a local farmer who could "blow fire" be called. By the time he arrived from the field, I had been screaming for well more than an hour. The doctor had done me no good at all. I awaited the farmer who blew fire hopefully, yet skeptically.</div>
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When he arrived, he told my mother that he didn't know what he could do since the doctor had put the lard on my feet. But he would try if she wanted him to. She did. So did I.</div>
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Between cries of pain and tears of anguish, I watched his kind face and steady eyes (that I can still see clearly today) as he unwrapped the bandages from my feet. Tenderly, he held first one foot then the other with one hand and blew through a finger of the other hand at my burned feet.</div>
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His eyes never left his job. Although I hoped he could help, I looked at him and knew almost that there was nothing neither he nor anybody else was going to be able to do for me. But as he blew, the fire seemed to leave my feet and my crying and screaming subsided.</div>
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Not quit, subsided.</div>
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He left to do his evening chores and returned in an hour or so and went through the process again. By the time he had finished the second time, even my blubbering had quit. My feet were tender, but they no longer burned. It wasn't long before I was asleep, exhausted.</div>
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In a few days, the water was drained from the massive blisters on the bottoms of my feet. My mother pulled me around in a little red wagon until my feet were healed and I could walk again.</div>
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Since then, I've tried to explain and understand how the pain left my feet. I've attributed it to the fact that I was young and wanted to believe, that I simply became exhausted and went to sleep and the burn went away, that I ... . But I've been burned since, and the burning sensation lingers for hours, even days.</div>
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Whatever happened, the pain of the burn doesn't go away as quickly now as it did back then. And the burns since haven't been quite so bad, either. I don't know.</div>
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I do know that many people believed the fire could be blown out of a burn. These people claimed it takes no special ability to be able to do it. Anyone can learn it, they said, if they could find somebody to tell them how.</div>
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Here's how they said it works: As the fire blower ministers to the burn victim, he or she blows over his or her fingers at the burned area, but doesn't let the breath touch the burn. While he or she is doing this, he or she repeats several designated words over and over in his or her mind.</div>
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The surface technique is simple. Anyone can learn it by watching or reading the above paragraph. The words are another thing. I have never found anyone who would tell me what they were. Nor did anybody know their origin, but they thought they were partially Biblical.</div>
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The fire blowers believe that for anyone to be able to blow fire, a man who knows the words must tell a woman, never a man. And he can't tell a relative. Then a woman can tell a man, never a woman. Nor can she tell a relative.</div>
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None of these people were allowed to take money for their services, they said. They only claimed that they could take the fire out of the burn so it wouldn't hurt; they didn't claim that they could cure the burn, eliminate scars from severe burns to alleviate the pain caused by tenderness.</div>
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Perhaps it's only folklore; perhaps there's nothing to it; perhaps it exists only in the mind. I don't know. I only know that one time a long time ago a man blew the fire out of my feet. At least I thought he did.</div>
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Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-48774646152694279582018-04-02T22:40:00.001-05:002018-04-02T22:40:38.747-05:00The Hanging of Elizabeth Reed
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #14264e;">My June 21, 1978, column in the
Robinson Daily News ...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #14264e;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;">Time was when there
wasn't much for convicted murderers to look forward to after completion of
their sentences. Take old Elizabeth Reed from Purgatory Swamp south of
Palestine, Illinois, for example.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>Reed was accused and convicted of slipping a
little “sweetin’” in her husband’s coffee (or sassafras tea, according to the
account you read) back in 1844. Her sentence? To hang by the neck until dead.
And that didn’t take long. What happened to her after ...</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>But let's take a look at the events leading up
to the hanging before going on to what little I could find out about what
happened to her after she completed her sentence. Existing accounts are sketchy
and inconsistent, and this account is based on a composite of the articles
about the event now on file at the Robinson, Ill., Township Library (the
library where as a youngster <i>From Here To
Eternity</i> author James Jones honed his interest in literature).</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>Reed and her husband, William, lived in a log
cabin in what one writer called Purgatory Swamp; another writer said this cabin
was located eight miles south of Palestine or about a half a mile northwest of
Heathsville.</span></span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>During the summer of 1844, William Reed became
ill. A doctor was called to the cabin. After a brief examination, the doctor
said the feeble old man couldn't live long. And he didn't.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>A neighbor girl, Eveline Deal, was called to
the cabin to help care for him. After the doctor left, Elizabeth put some white
powder in the old man's coffee. He was dead when the doctor returned.</span></span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>At the time of the funeral, Elizabeth acted
like the grieving widow. It wasn't until later that her behavior became
suspect. Or, more likely, it wasn't until the Deal girl told someone that she
had seen Elizabeth pour white powder in the coffee that she was suspected of
murder.</span></span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>The paper that contained the powder was still
in the cabin. Evidently Deal turned the paper and her suspicions over to the
sheriff, and he conducted an investigation. It was established that Elizabeth
had bought the powder (arsenic) from a Russellville druggist. The paper was the
kind used only by that druggist who identified it as the one he had wrapped the
arsenic in for Elizabeth.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>Witnesses testified that she had gone to the
druggist in a disguise to buy the poison. What kind of disguise was never
mentioned. In various instances, Reed was described as a strange woman,
("of a very peculiar and hardened disposition") who seemed to have a
facial disfigurement of some kind. She always wore a white cap or band tied
around her head and wore a veil over her face when she went out. Perhaps that
was the disguise.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"> At the time of her arrest in August of 1844,
Reed was placed in the county jail at Palestine. She quickly burned the log
jail (which was never rebuilt because the county seat was moved to Robinson) to
the ground. Until a change of venue was granted, she was kept in the loft of
the sheriff's cabin "with a chain fastened to one of her lower limbs, and
thence to a part of the bed."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;">In September of 1844, the Grand Jury indicted
her for murder. The change of venue was later granted, and she was moved to
Lawrence County. Her trial was held in April 1845, and she was found guilty and
sentenced to be hanged on May 23, 1845.</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>One eyewitness said years later, "The
(execution) day dawned bright and balmy." Some 20,000 people had come from
all over Illinois and Indiana to watch the hanging. Many of them arrived before
dawn.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>Elizabeth Reed supposedly gave a full
confession, which was later printed in pamphlet form. She was visited regularly
in Lawrenceville by the clergy and allegedly confessed to them or their wives.
It is difficult to determine what actually happened, because one account of the
incident indicates that the governor of Illinois offered to revoke the
execution sentence if she would confess.</span></span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>Whether she ever confessed, she still rode to
the site of the hanging on the morning of May 23, 1845, sitting on her coffin.
The crowds surrounded her on all sides, singing songs like "On Greenland's
Icy Mountains." Reed, who had been baptized after her conviction, was dressed
in white and had shouted, prayed and sung as she rode along. She mounted the
scaffold singing "psalms of praise."</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>One writer said the "scaffold stood on the
northeast corner of the green hill (in Lawrenceville) with the maple tree at
the bottom which had its top badly broken by the great number of men and boys
anxious to see the taking off of this poor woman." A later writer said the
hanging took place near the 10th Street Bridge. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>Take your pick.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>Before the hanging, a minister preached Reed's
funeral as she sat on the scaffold. At the conclusion of the long sermon, a
black hood was placed over her head and she stepped to the trap and the
sheriff, who had tried to resign rather than hang a woman but didn't because
there was nobody else to do it, cut the rope which held the trap by a small
pulley fastened to a post. Reed plunged through the trap, "revolved
several times, but did not struggle much" and was lowered from sight. Her
sentence was completed.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;"><span> </span>No,
they didn't put a convicted murderer in jail long in those days. Nor did they
spend much money to bury one. Reed was buried in a shallow grave beneath the
scaffold. Relatives dug her up that night and reburied her in an unmarked grave
next to her husband in the southwest corner of Baker Cemetery near Heathsville.
According to available reports, there is now a marker over her grave, and Elizabeth
Reed has the distinction of being the first and only woman to be hanged in
Illinois.</span></span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="color: #535353; font-family: RobotoCondensed-Regular;">(<b>Note</b>: This is not
the Elizabeth Reed that Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts wrote about in
his song, “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” He wrote that song about a girl but
not the one in the title. Story is that Betts often wrote in the Rose Hill
Cemetery in Macon, Georgia, where Elizabeth Reed Napier, born Nov. 9, 1845, a
few months after Elizabeth Reed was hanged, is buried. He is said to have used
the name on her tombstone as the title because he didn’t want to identify whom
the song was about: “a girl he had an affair with who was Boz Scaggs’ girlfriend.”
Many references to Elizabeth Reed can be found on the internet<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>,
including a book about her hanging.)</span></i><i><span style="color: #eaeaea; font-family: Roboto-Regular;"></span></i></span></div>
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</style>Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-46803262293370584612018-03-26T21:54:00.000-05:002018-03-26T21:54:29.569-05:00When Emperor Nero ruled Rome, life got complicated<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Roman emperor<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> Nero</span>, named <span style="color: #1a1a1a;">Lucius
Domitius Ahenobarbus at birth, ruled more than 2,000 years ago. He was born Dec.
15, 37 A.D., not long after Pontius Pilate had Jesus nailed to the cross between
two thieves. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I recall hearing that while Rome was
burning, Nero was playing the fiddle. Fake news, maybe. So I sought the truth. According
to the ancient biographer Suetonius, Nero was the son of the first Roman </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">e<span style="color: #1a1a1a;">mperor’s
only daughter, and his ancestors were not what you would call hospitable folks.
His grandfather enjoyed “violent gladiator games,” and his father was
“irascible and brutal.”<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> His father, Domitus, had apparently
been involved in a political scandal of some kind and died in 40 when Nero was 3.
Before</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">that,<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> Nero’s
mother Agrippina had her own scandal and was a “suspect of adultery with her
brother-in-law.” Quite a group running things back then</span><span style="color: red;">, </span>replete with<s><span style="color: red;"> </span></s><span style="color: #1a1a1a;">banishments, power grabs, and plots to take control—even
an assassination. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> </span>Just the kind of environment for someone to seize control of
the government<span style="color: red;">. </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;">His
great uncle Claudius took Nero’s mother for his fourth wife and added </span>Claudius
to his<span style="color: red;"> </span>name<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> “to mark
the adoption.” </span>And so he<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> became Nero Claudius
Caesar Drusus Germanicus and entered public life as an adult at 14 years old.</span><span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> While there were differing accounts about
how Claudius died in 54, most folks think Nero’s mother Agrippina </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">helped<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> to make
sure her son would become the emperor. So with a little manipulation, Nero rose
to power. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> All reports from ancient writers say
Nero was quite extravagant in his construction projects and the way he spent
the country’s funds and left the provinces ruined. But historians today take a
different view, believing that Nero was really interested in making things
better </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">with<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> public works projects and charity—which took lots of
cash and seems likely for someone leading his country to make it great</span>.
Still, Nero’s policies were deemed “well-meant but incompetent notions.” Like a
failed initiative to abolish taxes in an effort to help the people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> </span>At only 16 years old when he became emperor in 54,<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> Nero had no experience in governing. His tutor, Seneca, is
said to have written his first speech before the Senate, and his mother </span>has
been<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> </span>reportedly to have<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> “meant to rule through her son.” </span>While she was
doing that, they<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> say she got even with her
political rivals and murdered three of them. How’s that for taking care of
business? </span><span style="color: blue;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> </span>Nero<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> followed in his mother’s
footsteps by getting rid of people who didn’t </span>share<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> his beliefs. </span>He<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> was </span></span>also<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> said to be having an
affair with a slave girl, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">and
he poisoned<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> his half-brother Britannicus because his
mother sided with him when she saw Nero was following his own mind. That got
her exiled from the palace. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Later, he had his mother killed, possibly
because of her disapproval of his affair with Poppaea Sabina </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">while<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> she was
still married. </span>Regardless,<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> Agrippina was no
more. The modern scholar Miriam Griffiths suggests things </span></span>go really
went<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> downhill after
her death</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">and<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> says,
“Nero lost all sense of right and wrong and listened to flattery with total
credulity.”</span><span style="color: blue;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Prior to this, his relationship with
the Roman Senate </span>had been<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> relatively good. But scholar Jurgen Malitz writes, “Nero
abandoned the restraint he had previously shown because he believed a course
supporting the Senate promised to be less and less profitable.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"> He divorced another of his
wives, Octavia, on grounds of infertility, banished her, and when there were
public protests, he accused her of adultery and executed her and married again
in 64, the same year The Great Fire of Rome erupted. That was the night of July
18-19 when a large number of mansions, residences and temples were burned. The
fire lasted a week, destroying three of 14 Roman districts and severely
damaging seven more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><i> </i>Differing
accounts </span>of <span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">cause<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> have described it
as an accident, a plot of Nero’s </span>or simply <span style="color: #1a1a1a;">“unsure.”
Some said the plot was because of Nero’s dislike of the ancient construction,
and he wanted to build his own lush palace and a “30-meter-tall statue of
himself, the colossus of Nero.” </span>So<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> he
accused the Christians of starting the fire and had many arrested and brutally
executed by “being thrown to the beasts, crucified and being burned alive.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> More
than 2,000 years </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">later, scholars<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> and historians </span>continue
to research and argue whether Nero started the fire, sang and played the fiddle
while Rome burned. But<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> Nero ruled his kingdom for
several years and did pretty much what he wanted and nobody touched him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> By
65, though, there was a conspiracy against Nero, with many wanting to “rescue
the state” from him and restore the republic. But he got wind of it and
executed its </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">leaders<span style="color: #1a1a1a;">. Even his old adviser, Seneca, was
accused, but denied being involved. Nevertheless, he was ordered to commit
suicide.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> Then
some said Nero kicked his </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">next<span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;">wife, Poppaea, to death before she had her second </span>child.
Other historians suggest she may have had a miscarriage and died. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span>Later<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, his tax
policies caused a rebellion. The rebel leader lost the battle and committed
suicide, while the followers of Nero’s commander<span style="color: #1a1a1a;">
wanted him to be emperor. He wouldn’t act against Nero, but others stepped up,
and his army officers refused to obey him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> He
couldn’t leave Rome</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">,<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> the palace guard left
and most friends abandoned him. At this point he wanted someone to kill him.
But he couldn’t find anyone, and reportedly cried out, “Have I </span>neither
friend nor foe?” and ran to throw himself in the Tiber River but couldn’t do
it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;"> A friend offered a
villa<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> outside Rome, and some of Nero’s </span>loyalists
accompanied<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> him </span>in disguise<span style="color: #1a1a1a;">. Once there, he ordered them to dig a grave for him. He
knew the Senate had declared him a public enemy and planned to execute him by
beating him to death. The Senate hoped to find a compromise, but Nero didn’t
know that and </span>prepared<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> to commit suicide. He
begged one of his companions to set an example by killing himself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> When
he heard horses approaching, and knew they were coming for him, he </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">pressed his
private secretary to kill him.<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> But Nero finally got
the job done, becoming the first emperor to do so. One of the horsemen tried to
</span>stop<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> the bleeding, but was too late. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;"> His
last words were reported to be, “Too late. This is fidelity.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> That
was June 9, 68 A.D., almost 1,950 years ago. What a </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">time in which to
have lived in such a place!</span></span></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-87698927019634065152018-03-12T21:09:00.000-05:002018-03-12T21:09:34.788-05:00School shootings—a shocking and drastic change for safety consideration in education
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At
Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., two teens went on a shooting spree
on April 20, 1999, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others before
turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide. At the time, the
massacre was the worst high school shooting in U.S. history and prompted a
national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation
to determine what motivated the gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17.
—History.com</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nearly 20 years later, the “national debate on gun control
and school safety” is still ongoing, and there are always “major investigations
to determine what motivated the gunmen.” Changes have been made by some
retailers regarding who can buy what kind of gun after the shooting on
Valentine’s Day that killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School in Parkland, Fla. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But our perspectives
changed with the Columbine shooting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At the time of the Columbine
High School shooting<span style="color: red;"> </span>in an unincorporated area
of Jefferson County, Colo., I was teaching English and journalism at Urbana
High School. Not long after the story broke, the administration sent a notice
to all teachers to read to their classes about what to do if someone was
suspected of planning that type of incident or that someone was exhibiting a suspicious
form of behavior. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While I was reading
the notice to my class, I saw one student about half way down the middle row in
front of me writing and not seeming to pay attention. After I finished reading,
I intended to have a discussion about the school shooting and what it meant for
the school environment. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the student got up
and brought his note to me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I don’t remember
exactly what it said, except that it was something about a possible event of
the Columbine type happening at the high school and identifying a student
dressed in black as a possibility. Knowing the student in my class and his
father, I didn’t think the student was serious in what he had written<span style="color: red;"> </span>or that there was any danger from the kid dressed in
black.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nonetheless<span style="color: red;">, </span>I walked over to the side of the room, punched the
call button and asked for a dean to come to my classroom. When the dean
arrived, I handed her the note and told the student to go with her. From that
point, the student’s parent was immediately contacted, explained the situation
and asked to come to the school and get the student. At the time, the father
was involved with an extremely important situation at his job that<span style="color: red;"> </span>I won’t try to explain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Suffice it to say, he
was very upset at being interrupted and by what his son had done. And while I
don’t know what happened at home, I do know that the father brought his son to
school a couple of days later, had his son apologize and assured me that that
behavior would never happen again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And it didn’t. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the Columbine
shooting marked a new time. Prior to that there had been school shootings going
all the way back to the Enoch Brown school massacre on July 26, 1764, when a
group of Delaware Indians entered a log schoolhouse in the Province of Pennsylvania
and killed Brown, the schoolmaster, and nine students. Others followed through
the years, but it wasn’t until Columbine that school shootings seemed to
increase in their frequency and really got the country’s attention.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since Columbine, there
have been 25 school shootings, 10 of which resulted in the deaths of<span style="color: red;"> </span>four or more students or staff for a total of 122
fatalities, including the death or suicide of the shooter(s) who gunned down
the innocent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Before Columbine,
there were training sessions for tornado drills, and<span style="color: red;"> </span>how
to respond if hostages were taken—back in the early days of the atomic age,
there was even something called a “duck-and-cover” air-raid drill where
students were instructed to crawl under their desks and cover their heads to
somehow protect against nuclear fallout.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Holding training drills<span style="color: red;"> </span>and sending a kid to the dean’s office who did a
stupid thing because he thought it was cool<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">(</span></span>sounds
like something I might have done as a kid, and my father would have done the
same thing my student’s father did—maybe even taking<span style="color: red;"> </span>off
his belt and wrapping<span style="color: red;"> </span>it around my rear end in
the process) are what the school environment has
come to, even more so today after all the school shootings and other threats to
our security where the benefits of freedom are curtailed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There have been cable
news talk show discussions 24/7 since the shooting in <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Florida,</span> town hall meetings, politicians and the National Rifle Association
members spinning their positions and everybody who has an opinion or a solution
bickering, talking over each other, tweeting and jacking their jaws, still
without any idea of how to really stop the senseless killings.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But with the available
security to get on an airplane, enter a courthouse and other public arenas, it
would seem that it is equally important for security to be afforded to the
staff, teachers and students going to school day in and day out.</span></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-12853259836096724242018-02-21T22:52:00.000-06:002018-02-21T22:52:58.808-06:00Impasse and arrogance in Springfield
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The recently
published, slightly edited column in the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette was
originally sent as a letter to Illinois Gov. Bruce V. Rauner and House of
Representatives Speaker Michael J. Madigan on April 5, 2017. I received a
perfunctory reply from a member of the governor’s staff merely thanking me for
writing and nothing from Speaker Madigan.</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;">I returned not long ago from a tour
of Saipan, Tinian, Guam and Iwo Jima where I went with Military Historical
Tours and the Iwo Jima Association of America to attend the 72nd anniversary of
the Battle of Iwo Jima and the annual Reunion of Honor where the United States
and Japan, once bitter enemies in combat, come together as comrades in peace to
commemorate the battle that took the lives of 6,821 Americans, another 19,000
casualties and the lives of 21,000 Japanese. That war preserved our freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Unfortunately,
however, we citizens in Illinois don’t enjoy the freedom we should because of
the puerile manifestations of partisan politics in Springfield reminiscent of
schoolyard bullies for which Gov. Bruce Rauner and Speaker of the House Michael
Madigan are the principal players in the resulting lack of budget, people and
businesses leaving the state in droves, college students going to universities
out of state, school systems throughout the state cutting programs and faculty,
ad infinitum.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
was a saying in the Marine Corps for people like them: “Lead, follow or get the
hell (there was a stronger word when it was as critical a situation as it is
now) out of the way.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Iwo Jima veterans on Guam, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima, now in their late 80s
and early 90s, were able to follow that directive at the ages of 17, 18, 19 and
20 and on up without acting as these two politicians both do in their esteemed
positions of responsibility. Where would this country be had all those men and
women fighting in World War II behaved in the deplorable manner both the
governor and the speaker are now?<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another
adopted Marine Corps mantra and directive that has been quite successful is to “improvise,
adapt and overcome.” The Marine Corps and the other military services and the
civilian working men and women who keep the country moving smoothly follow that
concept. The part of society that rarely practices that concept and leaves
people behind, as Marines and others in the military and all good citizens
never do, is many politicians like Rauner and Madigan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their
arrogance amazes me. I first met Madigan briefly in 1986 on an elevator in the
state Capitol when I was raising money and doing publicity for the Illinois
Vietnam Veterans Memorial. That was just after a couple of us had gone to Rep.
Zeke Giorgi, a World War II veteran, and got a $500,000 rider attached to the
Veteran’s Bill so we could order the marble and get the memorial dedicated
before year’s end. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On
the elevator, Madigan was surrounded by his minions and had the arrogant and
pitiful look of superiority and desire for power that the state has come to
know so well from him. He looked prime for a blanket party, even then—in Marine
boot camp when one of the recruits failed to measure up to his
responsibilities, the other recruits threw a blanket over his head after lights
out and delivered a few punches for inspiration. Of course that is not PC now,
but once was all it took to get the recruit squared away. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Madigan’s
personality and behavior remind me of the comment usually attributed to Sir
John Dalberg-Action, the 8th Baronet, who was an English Catholic historian,
politician and writer: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That
is not to say that the governor is any different. He’s got the power corruption
thing, too. He just smiles more and tries to dress more like the common man.
And he’s filthy rich, much like our current president, and just as arrogant as
either Madigan or Trump. I’ve met Rauner a couple of times. Once at the
dedication of the Chez Family Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education
at the University of Illinois and once at the celebration of designating
Champaign County as the “Birthplace of the Tuskegee Airmen March 1941” and the
signs to be posted on local </span></span><span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">highways. Rauner was jovial and were
wearing his campaign and political face in both instances. Neither of the men is
impressive in their actions and the condition in which they have the State of
Illinois.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"> ’Nough
sed. While this is mainly cathartic, I hope they both can do the right thing
and sit down with members of both parties and settle this impasse. They owe it
to those who fought and died for our freedom and to those living here in
Illinois and depending upon their leadership, not their power struggle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-8987671614813807592017-12-07T08:34:00.000-06:002017-12-07T08:34:40.346-06:00Remembering the attack on Pearl Harbor that led to the U.S. entry into World War II
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dec. 7 marks the 76th anniversary of the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor that killed more than 2,400 American servicemen and civilians,
wounded more than 1,200 and propelled the United States into World War II that
eventually took the lives of 405,000 Americans and some 60 million worldwide
before it finally ended in 1945 when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Much
has been made about the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. But in
reality it wasn’t that much of a surprise. The Japanese had been on the move
throughout the Pacific and the Orient since 1904 when they defeated the
Russians in Port Arthur, Manchuria. Then they took control of Korea and most of
the German colonies in the Pacific, including the Carolines, Gilberts and
Marianas, plus the German colony on the Chinese coast at Tsingtao.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>American
writers Homer Lea and Jack London had written about the Japanese efforts to
expand its empire prior to World War I. Gen. Billy Mitchell wrote about it in
the mid-1920s. And in 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria and followed in July 1937
with the “infamous Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which instigated the Second
Sino-Japanese War,” and then followed with attacks on Shanghai and Nanking.
Finally, there was the Japanese air attack on the American gunboat, USS Panay, in
December of ’37 that happened to be filmed by cameramen on the Panay and on the
riverbank. Both films clearly showed Japanese aircraft attacking the Panay with
the American flag flying. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
was all</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">public information. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
when George Patton was the intelligence officer of the Hawaiian Division, he
issued a detailed report dated June 3, 1937, in which he concluded, “Japan was
willing and possibly able to attack Hawaii.” In the last sentence of the report,
he wrote, “It is the duty of military forces to prepare against the worst
possible eventualities.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gen.
Patton always said, “To be a successful soldier, you must know history.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Either
the leaders of this country didn’t know history or didn’t pay attention to it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
late as November 1941, admirals in Washington wrote a vague message warning the
commanders in Hawaii of the possible danger of an attack, but never checked to
see if any precautions were being taken. Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Twomey
writes about this in his book, “Countdown to Pearl Harbor,” which I read last
year prior to attending the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
commander of the Pacific Fleet’s intelligence unit had lost track of Japan’s
biggest aircraft carriers. Twomey writes of false assumptions and racists ones,
misunderstandings, infighting and ego clashes between intelligence officers and
the Navy and Army commanders—all of which led to our being totally unprepared
for the attack.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
much warning was evident long before the “Day of Infamy.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At
7:02 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 7, two young Army privates, George Elliott Jr.
and Joseph Lockard, at a mobile radar unit at Opana on the opposite side of
Oahu, picked up “a blob of unknown, inbound airplanes that erupted on their
oscilloscope,” and they reported it to authorities. Only the switchboard
operator and one other man were at Fort Shafter’s information center as Elliott
informed the operator that a “large” flight of planes, which turned out to be
360 Japanese war planes, were inbound. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
few minutes later Lt. Kermit Tyler, a fighter pilot who had been given the
morning shift for the second time in his life to be a “pursuit officer,” called
the mobile radar unit at Opana. With no fighter planes standing by, he knew
nothing about how things worked or what to do. When Lockard told him about the
incoming aircraft, he said he thought about it for a moment and said, “Well, don’t
worry about it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
had a friend who was a bomber pilot,” he said later, “and he told me any time
that they play this Hawaiian music all night long, it is a very good indication
that our B-17s were coming over from the mainland because they use it for
homing.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He
had heard such music on his radio as he drove to the center in the early
morning hours. And a flight of B-17s had, in fact, been flying all the way from
California and arrived in the midst of World War II.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At
7:55 a.m., Dick Lewis, a Marine sergeant from my hometown, was relieving the
guard on Ford Island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was
standing at the end of the runway with three other Marines, all of whom had
just returned from a few months in the Central Pacific building airstrips with
the forward echelon of the Marine Air Wing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
looked over my shoulder and saw these planes flying right at us,” Lewis told me
in an interview that was later published in Leatherneck magazine. “I thought
they were Army planes at first and wondered why they were flying maneuvers on
Sunday morning. Then I noticed them meatballs on the wings and wondered why
they covered up the stars on the bottom of the wings. That’s how dumb I was at
first. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Then
I saw something coming out of the planes and didn’t know what it was that was
hitting the airstrip and making fire jump off the runway. They were still quite
a ways away from us, and pretty soon something went ‘Yiinnnggg,’ and I went end
over end. I got a ricocheted bullet in my right shoulder. And I knew it was for
real then.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
a short time, Lewis thought he’d lost his whole shoulder. Bleeding badly, he
yanked off his dungaree jacket to get down to his undershirt and tore it off,
then took his fingers and pushed the shirt into the hole to stop the bleeding.
But his arm was hanging straight down and wouldn’t move.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“We’re
under attack, boys!” Lewis shouted as the planes flew over. “This is the real
thing.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He
said they were on the other side of Ford Island about three miles from
Battleship Row; smoke was billowing up over the hangers, and planes were
burning right in from of them. Smoke was also beginning to billow up over the
harbor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Dadgoneit,”
Lewis told me in the interview, “we knew the war was coming just as well as you
and I are sitting here and know that it did happen. They sent us on out to Guam
to build an airstrip, and then we went on to another island—I may be getting
these islands mixed up—but we went on to Midway and helped build an airstrip on
Eastern Island and got on ship and came back to Barber’s Point on the fourth or
fifth of December. We came into Pearl Harbor and unloaded all our planes and
things.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
so, the war did come. It raged on for 43 more months in the Pacific and in
Europe. The world endured tremendous loss and destruction amid that horror—and
witnessed a lot of courage and sacrifice, as well. What Pearl Harbor signals
today is that the security of our world can be a precarious thing, and
sometimes we must fight to preserve our freedom. But it also has a great cost. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-79469697217515332552017-11-26T12:06:00.000-06:002017-11-26T12:06:05.309-06:00The rules for teachers in 1872<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">During the summer and at the start of every school year when
I was still teaching high school English and journalism, I reviewed lesson
plans, saved magazine articles and newspaper stories, and filed away anything
remotely connected to the classes I was teaching. Sometimes I used the
material, but much of the time everything stayed in its original file folder,
never to be used again, but I lugged the stuff with me every time I moved to a
new town or school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>During the
last few weeks, I’ve been going through my many files and cleaning them up. I
still have difficulty throwing things away. But it’s been quite interesting
revisiting those old files, yellowed newspaper clippings and magazine articles,
and letters from former students and a host of others. And it has rekindled
many memories.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One clipping
that I found most intriguing was, “Rules For Teachers 1872,” from an unknown
source. The rules brought back one memory in particular: I had switched from a
clinical psychology master’s program and working in a maximum-security prison to
pursuing a master’s degree in English education and preparing to teach. I’d
been compelled to be clean-shaven as an employee at the prison, so I grew long
hair and a beard when I changed my grad school plans and was on campus at
Southern Illinois University where no one said anything about my beard or the
length of my hair. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To student
teach, though, I’d had my hair cut relatively short but kept the beard. Walking
into class one evening just before leaving campus at the end of the quarter to
student teach, the professor looked at me, smiled and asked, “Did you get the
job, Ray?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then the
day I reported to the high school to student teach, the principal called me into
his office and told me beards were not allowed in the school. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“To student
teach here, you must conform to community standards, “ he said after we
exchanged small talk. “You can have the afternoon off to shave.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I knew to
argue would be a battle I’d lose, so I reluctantly agreed. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Is a mustache acceptable for the community
standards?” I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh, yes,”
the principal said. “We have several prominent men in town with mustaches. No
problem for you to have one.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So I went to
a barbershop uptown and had my beard shaved but kept a long, extended mustache
known as a<span style="color: red;"> </span>“Fu Manchu.” The principal never
commented on it, but my cooperating teacher wondered whether it was acceptable.
The students approved.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Times have changed
from those days in many schools when male teachers weren’t allowed to have long
hair or beard. The clip in my files went far beyond the no-beard rule, though, although
beards apparently weren’t prohibited in 1872. Teachers in some schools back
then were even required to “sign contracts which included the following ‘Rules
for Teachers,’” according to the clip:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean
chimneys.<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2. Each teacher will bring a bucket
of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>3. Make your pens carefully. You may
whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>4. Men teachers may take one evening
a week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church
regularly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>5. After ten hours in school, the
teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>6. Women teachers who marry or
engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>7. Every teacher should lay aside
from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining
years so that he will not become a burden on society.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>8. Any teacher who smokes, uses
liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop
will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>9. The teacher who performs his
labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be give an increase of 25
cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After my student
teaching days (when I did go to the barbershop for a shave), I don’t recall
ever being told I couldn’t have a beard or long hair, or told what to wear—although
it was still customary for male teachers to wear coats and ties.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: large;"> Some rules are obviously worth
having if they help create a positive learning environment. I just don’t recall
a list. And I’m not sure I would have taken too well to the lamp-filling,
chimney-cleaning, pen-whittling life of a teacher in 1872.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span>Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-57215529638219407782017-09-24T13:05:00.000-05:002017-09-24T13:12:41.658-05:00Some thoughts about prisons and our responsibilities<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And
as a single leaf turns not yellow</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">but with the silent knowledge
of the whole tree,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Without the hidden will of you all.”</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Kahlil Gibran</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Prophet</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This excerpt from <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The
Intruder” is from a book of 26 prose poetry fables by the Lebanese-American
artist, philosopher and writer Kahlil Gibran. Originally published by Alfred A.
Knopf in 1923, it is Gibran’s best-known work, has been translated in more than
40 different languages and has never been out of print.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> While Gibran has more to say
about crime and punishment, he gets to the crux of the problem in this poem,
which has long been my favorite and where the title of my recently published
novel, “With The Silent Knowledge,” was taken.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> Growing up in this country, I’d
always believed that the courts and the prisons were set up in the interest of
society and to function for everyone’s welfare—for the accused and the
convicted, as well for the victimized and the afflicted. With that in mind, I
majored in psychology (and English) as an undergraduate and planned to go to
grad school to become a clinical psychologist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But after a year as a
“correctional counselor” in a maximum-security penitentiary, I developed a
different perspective. Prison Riots, murders, rapes and myriad other heinous prison
conditions no longer surprise me.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span> <span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was
reported to have used justice with mercy, mercy with wisdom, and the three with
a balance that fit the circumstances. He was the kind of person I thought all
judges should be—and were. It still bothers me all these years later that I fooled
myself with this naive belief.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Something in me still can’t
accept that any American judge would ever send any redeemable man or woman to
prison, if the judge realized what he or she was sending them into. Once there,
the possibility of anyone ever being redeemed is less likely.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> The chance for a crime-free life of
redemption is more likely by keeping the felon in the community where the
problem originated. That is not to say that I think violent and dangerous
people should not be sent to prison. But since the community is part of the
problem, as Gibran writes, we need to address the root causes of non-violent
criminal behavior—poverty, stress, drug or alcohol addiction and abuse, lack of
education, the family structure and more—and keep those offenders out of prison
where they are educated with the “Big House” inmates’ mindset.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> I have known many convicts in
prison and many ex-convicts in the general population. And I can’t truthfully
say that I have any personal knowledge of the prison experience, per se, ever
instilling a single positive value in a person, although there are programs
that reach a few. I can also truthfully say that I have no knowledge of the
prison experience not disintegrating, if not stripping away the positive values
a person may have when he or she enters.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> However, we continue to send
people to prison at an alarming rate. The prison population in Illinois, for
example, has risen from about 10,000 to nearly 50,000 from the time I worked in
one. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and
results in negative societal and economic effects.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> Much has been written about
prison conditions, so we cannot claim ignorance. Judges and the communities have
to be aware of and know what’s happening. And if we know, being an educated and
caring people, all of us should collapse the prisons for many minor offenders by
merely destroying their rotten foundations and work to solve the issues that
have prompted the offenses.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> But I also know that’s wishful
thinking on my part. It’s much easier to send offenders to prison to punish
them and get them out of our sight rather than deal with the problems by providing
educational opportunities, job training, therapy and other endeavors to promote
learning to live in a society free and honorably<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> We express concern over the fact that prisons are overcrowded.
We express anger when a prison erupts into full-scale riot and guards are
killed or injured—or the released felon kills someone or returns to the same
life he or she left. But our society never, not even for a second, thinks the
statistic of the recidivists failure is also the statistic of our failure, any
more than the beliefs that the full and overcrowded prisons and the riots are
the results of our failure. Or if it does, it doesn’t change anything.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> I don’t know how long since it’s
been since I started doubting the essential justice of man, but it seems like a
long time ago. The Russian writer Dostoevsky said, “Man is a pliable animal, a
being who gets accustomed to everything.”</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> That’s too bad in this case. </span>
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Dostoevsky
also said something to the effect that you can tell the quality of a society by
looking at its prisons. You might want to take a look around you—he spent some
time in a Siberian prison.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span>
</div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-81549249647103795552017-08-06T15:58:00.001-05:002017-08-06T15:58:14.986-05:00Making the most of time off in the summer<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Time off from
work is a great way to grow personally and enhance life skills that benefit the
whole world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As an English teacher and journalism
teacher for much of my working life, I always had summers off to do whatever I
wanted. Some teachers used to say that June, July and August were the best
months of the year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And there is something to that. It
gives teachers time to recharge and prepare for a new school year. During the
summers off, I’ve taken courses for a master’s degree, attended a writing
workshop and combined it with a vacation, hooked up a travel trailer and taken
my family on a 30-day trip around the country to tour national parks, visit
friends and do whatever else of interest that came up along the way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I even taught history in summer
school one year. Another summer I strapped on a backpack, tent, sleeping bag
and canteen and hitchhiked on a 30-day trip from Illinois to Washington, D.C.,
down to Florida, across the South and Southwest to Southern California, up to
San Francisco, and back to the Chicago suburbs. I camped sometimes, stayed with
friends or people I met along the road and occasionally stayed in a motel. I
turned down rides just like people turned me down when I stuck out my thumb.
But I met some people on that trip years ago who are still good friends to this
day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another summer, I went to Australia
for two weeks for the filming of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Thin
Red Line</i> movie of the James Jones novel about the Guadalcanal campaign in
World War II. During other summers, I’ve taken students for eight-day tours throughout
historical sites in Europe with the American Council for International Studies or
taken them and my own kids camping on my father’s farm in Southern Illinois.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Those summers were fun, memorable
and probably made me a better teacher. I always came back to the classroom
refreshed, had a new perspective about life and looked forward to meeting my
new students each year. I always told them the first day that I was glad to be
back for one of the second most important jobs a person could have. A student
would often say he or she thought teachers believed their jobs were the most
important. I would answer that parenting was the most important job in the
world because if the parents did their job, my job was much easier. Those were
the parents who always came to conferences to see how their student was doing
and how they might help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A parent who apparently wasn’t doing
the best job once came to a conference, and I was telling him about the
progress of his student and how he might help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You mean you want me to do your
job?” the man asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“No,” I said. “I want you to do your
job.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But I digress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When one of my daughters was quite young,
she was surprised after talking to one of her friends about a trip we’d taken
that not everybody’s parents had summers off. She thought they should. I
understand her perspective. And while I don’t think it would work out for
everybody to have summers off, I’ve always thought vacations most people have
are a little skimpy and the country would benefit if everybody had a little
more time off to do what they wanted, although I hadn’t thought through how
that might work with most American companies’ profit motives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then the first of this year, my
college sophomore daughter participated in an improvisational workshop at The Second
City Theatre in Chicago. So the rest of the family went along for a few days
vacation in the city for a little improv of our own. It was my turn to be
surprised when Caitlin came back to the hotel after the first day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“There are two women in my improv workshop
who work for a reinsurance company headquartered in Switzerland,” she told us at
dinner that evening. “Most everybody else is my age, in their ’20s. I really
like these two women. They aren’t really old, probably in their ’40s, but I
just didn’t think there’d be anyone that age here. One of them has kids that
are 6 and older.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I thought it was an interesting way for
the women to spend a week of vacation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It’s not vacation,” Caitlin said.
“Their company gives employees a week off each year to do an activity of their
choosing for personal development, whatever they want to do. They said people have
gone skydiving, traveled to Italy to learn to make pasta, or done whatever else
they want to do for a week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“One of them lives in Indiana, and
the other lives in Connecticut. They met each other through work and
work-related trips and decided to come here. I know one of them is keeping a
journal and is recording different improv exercises and warm ups to show or maybe
try with her coworkers.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’d never heard of any companies
doing that. It’s not the summers off that teachers have, but what a great idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-70218180024127957082017-07-28T10:20:00.001-05:002017-07-28T10:20:30.745-05:00A typical bait-and-switch employed by a car dealership<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Not long ago, I totaled my black 2011 Kia Sorento EX in an
accident and was looking for a similar one to replace it. Deciding not to buy a
new car, I started looking online and found a black 2015 Kia Sorento LX on the
Edmunds website at Bob Rohrman Schaumburg Kia in Schaumburg, Ill., called and
talked to a pleasant woman about the SUV, received an email from her that
promised me an extra savings of $400 on the car that was already marked down
from the price on Edmunds, made an appointment for a test drive, received a
text from her that the appointment had been scheduled for Saturday, July 15, at
1 p.m., told her I would be there and drove the 160 or so miles to Schaumburg. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On the drive north
from my home in Urbana, I received a call from a salesman at 11:24 a.m. to see
if I would be there at one. I told him I was on the road and would be there a
little after one. He said, “Fine. We’ll have the car ready for you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When I arrived, I
was met by a young man who immediately started looking for the SUV to show me.
I told him that I’d been told it would be ready. A few minutes later, he came
back and told me that the car had been sold. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I was stunned
after driving more than 160 miles, paying tolls and having been told the car
would be ready and available. Another man behind the desk who was sitting
beside a man I think was the general manager, Alik Freeman, engaged in a
whispering conference with him and then told me they opened at 9 a.m. and the
car had been sold shortly afterward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When I told him
I’d been called at 11:24 and told the car would be ready when I arrived, he
apologized, said it took awhile to close the sale and wanted to know if I would
be interested in anything else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I was quite angry,
bit my tongue and said little, but told the man that his apology meant nothing,
nor would I even consider buying a car there. Nothing else I could do but write
about it on this blog, contact the Kia corporate office, the Illinois attorney
general and the Better Business Bureau, post it on Facebook and spread the word.
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bait-and-switch happens
all the time, I’ve heard. I understand they weren’t holding the car for me, but
I would have appreciated a call telling me that the car had been sold rather
than a call to see if I was keeping the appointment and that it would be ready
for me when I arrived. That didn’t happen and when I looked online days later,
the car was still on the Bob Rohrman Schaumburg Kia website. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another one of
life’s lessons learned about trusting what people say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-18240260119042835452017-07-10T23:04:00.000-05:002017-07-10T23:04:35.510-05:00Former Handy Writers Colony member, author and playwright Shirota funds Lowney Turner Handy scholarship
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Author and playwright Jon Shirota, the last member of the Handy
Writers Colony in Marshall, Ill., has given the Marshall High School Foundation
$5,000 to fund the Lowney Turner Handy Creative Writing Scholarship for the
next 10 years to give $500 annually to the best writer at the high school.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “If I live to be 100,”
Shirota, now almost 90, said and laughed, “I’ll give another $5,000 to continue
it for another 10 years.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The Japanese-American who
was born and raised on Maui and lives in Southern California is the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucky Come Hawaii</i>, written at the colony
in the early 1960s, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pineapple White,
Chronicles of Ojii-Chan</i></span><b><span style="color: #1e1e22; font-family: OpenSans-Semibold; mso-bidi-font-family: OpenSans-Semibold;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and
several other stories and the following plays: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucky Come Hawaii</i> (adapted from the novel), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leilani’s Hibiscus</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Voices
From Okinawa. </i><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">All three plays were published in
</span></span><a href="http://manoajournal.hawaii.edu/"><i><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Voices from Okinawa</span></i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and have been
performed in New York, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Okinawa and Japan.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> When <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucky Come Hawaii</i> was adapted into a
play, it was awarded a production grant from the John F. Kennedy Center for New
Plays and led to other plays and other playwriting awards for Shirota. He<span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the
American College Theater Festival, the Los Angeles Actors Theater Festival of
One Acts, the Los Angeles County Cultural Affairs Department, and the
Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and National Endowment for the Arts.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Shirota
wanted to fund the scholarship to honor Lowney Handy for nurturing him and
helping him become a writer, without whom he doubts he’d ever have come to be a
writer. He was working as an Internal Revenue Service representative in Los
Angeles when Handy invited him to the colony in 1963. He resigned immediately,
loaded up and drove the 2,000 miles to Marshall.<span style="color: #2a2a2a;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“She showed me the way,” Shirota said. “And
I have the signed picture of her that she gave me on the wall of my office that
I look up to each day as I sit down to write. She inspires me. My contribution
to the writing scholarship is my way of honoring what she did for me.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> On the occasional
trips back from his California home for James Jones Literary Society symposia,
Shirota visits Handy’s grave in Marshall and leaves a bouquet of flowers after
standing quietly before her grave in quiet contemplation.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> After hearing of
Shirota’s contribution, another former colony member who has contributed to the
fund for the annual $10,000 James Jones First Novel Fellowship Award, Robinson,
Ill., native Don Sackrider said, “It seems the Handy Colony lives on. How
nice.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> While the Lowney Handy
Writing Award has existed for many years, and a certificate is presented to the
winning student each year by Dr. Jim Turner, Lowney’s nephew, it has never had
a cash award to go with it.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “This is certainly a
great tribute to Lowney and to Marshall,” said Alyson Thompson, director of the
Marshall Public Library who has been instrumental in helping Shirota set up the
financial contribution and is working with him and the Marshall High School
Foundation to get the award in place for the next academic year. “It is
not only an attribute to her, but to the community as well. And for that we are
all thankful.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The $500 annual
scholarship will be given to student who completes an application, holds a GPA
of 2.5 or higher—Shirota likes the lower GPA because he never graduated from
high school and joined the American Army as soon as he could and was stationed
at Schofield Barracks where Jones was stationed when the Japanese attacked
Pearl Harbor—and be a graduating Marshall High School Senior.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Included with the
application is a Creative Writing Essay as outlined by MHS Senior English
teacher Amy Gard or her successor. Marshall High School students also compete
for an essay-writing award, initiated by the James Jones Literary Society,
based on Jones’ short story, “The Valentine.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another former colony
member, Edwin “Sonny” Cole, a Marshall native who wrote two novels, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some Must Watch</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Legacy of Love</i>, before turning to teaching at Menlo Park, Calif.,
becoming head of the lower school and then becoming headmaster where he stayed
until retirement, also remembered Marshall by leaving $100,000 to the Marshal
Public Library after he died in 2015.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The library has all
the books written by members of The Handy Writers Colony. Besides Shirota,
Jones, Sackrider and Daly, other writers from the colony who published books
include John Bowers, Tom Chamales, Jere Peacock and Charles Wright.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Contributions will be
accepted for the Lowney Turner Handy Creative Scholarship by the Marshall High
School Foundation at 806 N. Sixth St., Marshall, IL 62441, to help fund the
scholarship for years to come to honor Handy who mentored many writers at the
colony and was the guiding force in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From
Here To Eternity</i> author James Jones’ initial success.</span></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-47397819762758002912017-06-23T21:21:00.000-05:002017-06-23T21:21:32.540-05:00Impasse, Arrogance and Responsibilities in Springfield<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I returned not long ago from a tour
of Saipan, Tinian, Guam and Iwo Jima where I went with Military Historical
Tours and the Iwo Jima Association of American to attend the 72nd anniversary
of the Battle of Iwo Jima and the annual Reunion of Honor where the United
States and Japan, once bitter enemies in combat, come together as comrades in
peace to commemorate the battle that took the lives of 6,821 Americans, another
19,000 causalities and the lives of 21,000 Japanese. That war preserved our
freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Unfortunately,
however, we citizens in the state of Illinois don’t enjoy the freedom we should
because of the puerile manifestations of partisan politics in Springfield reminiscent
of school-yard bullies for which Gov Bruce Rauner and Speaker of the House
Michael Madigan are the principal players in the resulting lack of a budget,
people and businesses leaving the state in droves, college students going to
universities out of state, school systems throughout the state cutting programs
and faculty, ad infinitum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
was a saying in the Marine Corps for people like them: “Lead, follow or get (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">there were stronger words when it was as
critical a situation as it is now</b>) out of the way.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Iwo Jima veterans on Guam, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima now in their late 80s
and early 90s were able to follow that directive at the ages of 17, 18, 19 and
20 and on up without acting as these two politicians both do in their esteemed
positions of responsibility. Where would this country be had all those men and
women fighting in World War II behaved in the deplorable manner both the
governor and the speaker are now?<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another
adopted Marine Corps mantra and directive that has been quite successful is to
“improvise, adapt and overcome.” The Marine Corps and the other military services
and the civilian working men and women who keep the country moving smoothly
follow that concept. The part of society that rarely practices that concept and
leave people behind, as Marines and others in the military and all good citizens
never do, is many politicians like Rauner and Madigan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their
arrogance amazes me. I first met Madigan briefly in 1986 on an elevator in the
state Capitol when I was raising money and doing publicity for the Illinois
Vietnam Veterans Memorial. That was just after a couple of us had gone to Rep.
Zeke Giorgi, a World War II veteran, and got a $500,000 rider attached to the
Veterans’ Bill so we could order the marble and get the memorial dedicated
before year’s end. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On
the elevator, Madigan was surrounded by his minions and had the arrogant and
pitiful look of superiority and desire for power that the state has come to
know so well from him. He looked prime for a blanket party, even then—in Marine
boot camp when one of the recruits failed to measure up to his
responsibilities, the other recruits threw a blanket over his head after lights
out and delivered a few punches for inspiration. Of course that is not PC now,
but once was all it took to help get the recruit squared away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Madigan’s
personality and behavior remind me of the comment usually attributed to Sir
John Dalberg-Acton, the 8th Baronet, who was an English Catholic historian,
politician and writer: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That
is not to say that the governor is any different. He’s got the power corruption
thing, too. He just smiles more and tries to dress more like the common man.
And he’s filthy rich, much like our current president, and just as arrogant as
either Madigan or Trump. I’ve met Rauner a couple of times. Once at the
dedication of the Chez Family Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education
at the University of Illinois and once at the celebration of designating
Champaign County as the “Birthplace of the Tuskegee Airmen March 1941” with
signs to be posted on local highways. Rauner was jovial and wearing his campaign
and political face in both instances. Neither of them are impressive in their actions
and the condition in which they have the state of Illinois.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #424242; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>’Nough
sed. While this is mainly cathartic, I hope they both can do the right thing
and sit down with members of both parties and settle this impasse. They owe it
to those who fought and died for our freedom and to those living here in
Illinois and depending upon their leadership, not their power struggle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-60030078138318273722017-05-13T07:38:00.000-05:002017-05-13T07:38:19.255-05:00More thoughts about those who can't shoot straight
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before heading out<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a> Iwo Jima to
commemorate the annual “Reunion of Honor” between former enemies of different
ethnic groups, religions, cultures and beliefs but now good friends, for the
72nd anniversary of the World War II battle that killed 6,821 Americans,
wounded another 19,000 and killed about 21,000 Japanese, I want to respond to
the comments I received about a recent Voices column: “Remedy for gangs that
can’t shoot straight?”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Somebody asked me if I
was serious about putting gang members—or anybody who can’t hit their intended
target and instead kill children and other innocent people—in the military and
teaching them to shoot straight, to learn discipline and to fight with enemies
who shoot back with equal skill. See </span><a href="http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-03-05/ray-elliottvoices-remedy-gangs-cant-shoot-straight.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-03-05/ray-elliottvoices-remedy-gangs-cant-shoot-straight.html</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
for the specifics.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Well yes, I was
serious. But then no, I wasn’t serious because I know it’d never happen. Would
it have an effect? Of course, it would. When Japan and Germany surrendered at
the end of WWII after both sides had attacked each other without mercy, the
United States and the Allied countries helped rebuild the economies of their former
enemies and established a lasting friendship that has continued for more than
70 years.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The people killing
innocent children and others here in Champaign-Urbana and Chicago and around
the United States are not all gang members and are mostly all citizens of this
country, not members of a foreign country with which we are at war. These
people are at war with each other, with many of the same ethnic groups,
religions, cultures and beliefs or family members who resort to senseless violence
that take the lives of innocent people and their own as well.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> But to the reactions I
received to my proposal of putting these people who can’t shoot straight into the
military to teach them how to shoot, drill them with well-trained forces of men
and women and then send them to trouble spots around the world where our
military is deployed and let them shoot at people who shoot back to help remedy
the situation.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The first response I
got was from a man I consider to be one of the wisest, most reasonable and
considerate in the area. “You have an interesting concept in today’s
News-Gazette,” he said.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> While I wasn’t sure of
his meaning, others followed with similarly ambiguous points of view. Which
sort of surprised me, initially. I’d tried to make the column a satire but
didn’t manage. My thoughts were along the lines of some words in a Kris
Kristofferson song: “partly truth and partly fiction.” Partly truth and partly
satire, I guess.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Then I received an
email from Arnold Shapiro, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning director and producer of
the effective <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scared Straight</i> series
that took juvenile offenders into maximum-security prison to meet with hardcore
inmates who gave the youths a sample of what they could expect if they came to
prison—a sort of Marine Corps boot camp with the inmates to help the youths go
straight as the drill instructors did with recruits to make Marines out of them.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Shapiro, who wrote the
words for the “Reunion of Honor” monument on Iwo Jima, raised the money for it
and produced three documentaries about the battle—the last (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From Combat to Comrades</i>) which aired on
the PBS last fall—emailed, “A very thoughtful, interesting and substantive
article that should be discussed with those who make laws and deal with wayward
youth.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The words Shapiro
wrote for the Iwo Jima monument that was dedicated on the 40th anniversary of
the battle in 1985 gives the hope of peace between those who were once enemies:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “On the 40th
anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, American and Japanese veterans meet
again on these same sands, this time in peace and friendship. We commemorate
our comrades, living and dead, who fought here with bravery and honor, and we
pray together that our sacrifices on Iwo Jima will always be remembered and
never be repeated.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> These few words are
inscribed on both sides of the monument just above the landing beaches, one in
each language; the English side faces the ocean where the Americans landed, the
Japanese side faces inland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, it’s not
that simple. But if it’s possible for enemies who take the lives of many more
innocent people and combatants in our wars through the centuries to join
together in peace and friendship, maybe it’s not such a stretch to believe that
it’s possible to stop all the killing by these “wayward youths” by teaching
them discipline and how to shoot straight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-2368250134665711312017-03-08T00:14:00.000-06:002017-03-09T00:02:09.556-06:00Remedy for gangs who can’t shoot straight?<style>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">CHICAGO<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(AP)—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Police say the two young girls
who were critically wounded in separate weekend shootings in Chicago’s South Side
were not the intended victims.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Department spokesman Anthony Guglielumi said in
an email Monday that the girls, ages 12 and 13, were shot in the head Saturday
night in areas with heavy gang activity by people who were aiming at someone
else.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"> Who would have thought
that? Aren’t there a lot of young girls and other seemingly innocent people out
on the street in cities and towns across the country, and particularly in
Chicago, but here in Champaign-Urbana, too, where people get hit and killed
while they are walking down the street?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Well, of course. These young and innocent people are killed by
people who have had no training of any kind with guns. They just somehow pick
up pistols, stick them in their pockets and pull them out when they see
something they don’t like and fire off a few rounds. They’re worse than The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, the name of a 1969 novel by Jimmy Breslin that
was a funny story made into a movie in 1971.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These gangs are two warring Mafia families in New York. One of them,
considered weaker than the other, uses a dang old lion to blackmail the other
gang’s “clients.” </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s the story of Papa Baccala, a Brooklyn
Mafia boss, and Kid Sally Palumbo, a would-be capo who “couldn't run a gas
station at a profit even if he stole the customers' cars.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sounds like some of the people running around
shooting people today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
enough of that. These young gang members and others who carry guns like this is
the wild west need to learn to shoot straight and hit the people they want to
hit instead of young and innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time and are on the bad end of people who can’t shoot
straight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So what
to do with them? Obviously they go to prison with other criminals, if and when
they are caught, are charged and maybe convicted. Which doesn’t always happen.
And if they do go to prison, they’re back on the street before you know it to
pick up a gun and shoot at somebody again. You read about that every day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Rather
than prison for these gun-happy people who can’t shoot straight, we, as a society,
have a responsibility to teach them to shoot straight so they will hit their
intended targets and not young girls or anybody just walking down the street.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When
these people are caught and convicted, rather than send them to prison, send
them to the military for the term they would have gone to prison. I’m partial
to the Marine Corps myself. Let these trigger-happy dudes step off the bus and
into the yellow footprints each recruit does when they get to Marine Corps Recruit
Depot at Parris Island or San Diego and go through boot camp with a drill
instructor screaming in their faces from early morning to late at night.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By the
time they get to the rifle range, they might have had an attitude adjustment.
Maybe not, but they could learn about rifles and how to shoot straight by
snapping in for a couple of weeks—that’s without live ammunition, dry firing. No
live ammunition until they can be trusted. That may not ever happen, although
you can be sure that they will learn safety protocol. I recall one day on the
live-fire range when we (recruits) had been told if we had a jam to keep the
rifle pointed down range and hold up our hand. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One
recruit not far from me held up his hand but pointed the rifle down the firing
line with everybody in line. The rifle coach came running down behind the
firing line, grabbed the rifle with one hand and knocked the recruit down with
the other. Needless to say, that was the last time anybody failed to point the
rifle down range. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After
boot camp, these people can go off to recon outfits, jump school or special
forces in the Army, SEAL training in the Navy or another elite outfit where
they will be surrounded by tough, well-trained men and women who know how to
treat bad guys.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then give
them live rounds and send them off to some troubled area where people shoot back.
If they can’t shoot straight by then and haven’t had an attitude adjustment,
they can still go to prison. And when they finally do get back on the street,
at least they can hit their targe<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>ts and little girls and
innocent people will be a bit safer.</span></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-12651969457690996962017-01-22T16:51:00.002-06:002017-01-22T17:00:10.698-06:00Iwo Jima memorial service planned for Camp Pendleton<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Iwo Jima Association of America of Quantico, Va., and
the Iwo Jima Commemorative Committee of San Diego, Calif., are joining together
Feb. 15-19 at Camp Pendleton, Calif., to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of
the Battle of Iwo Jima.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Both organizations
have met separately in February for many years to remember one of the bloodiest
and most brutal campaigns in the most costly war in history. For 36 days, more
than 70,000 United States Marines and sailors, aided by tens of thousands of airmen
in the air and sailors at sea, fought tooth and nail, inch by inch against
22,000 Japanese defenders led by LtGen Tadamichi Kuribayashi.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The battle for the
island was critical because of its location between the U.S. airbase in the
Mariana Islands and the Japanese mainland. The radar that warned the mainland
of pending U.S. air raids needed to be disabled so the bombers could fly
undetected all the way to Japan, and any U.S. planes damaged in the raids would
have a place to land on the return flight of nearly 1,500 miles rather than
being lost at sea.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nearly 6,000 Marines
gave their lives of the total 6,821 Americans killed on the island of 8 square
miles of volcanic soil 650 miles from Tokyo. Another 19,000 Americans were
wounded, and nearly all of the 22,000 Japanese died in the battle. Twenty-seven
Medals of Honor were awarded on Iwo Jima, 22 of them to Marines of the Third,
Fourth and Fifth Marine Divisions, which was more than a quarter of the MOHs
awarded to Marines during World War II.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So the spirit of those
who fought so gallantly for the principles of our nation and to preserve
democracy and free those oppressed by tyranny won’t be forgotten, these two
groups are committed to perpetuating that spirit and ensuring that future
generations remember the battle long after the last Iwo Jima veteran is gone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Iwo Jima Memorial
Service begins at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 18 at Camp Pendleton on the westerly side of
the Pacific View Events Center near where Laura Dietz, founder of Iwo Jima
Monument West, is leading the initiative to erect a Marine Corps War Memorial much
like the Joe Rosenthal photo of the iconic flag raising on Mount Suribachi that
sculptor Felix de Weldon used as a model for the memorial at Arlington National
Cemetery in Virginia.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A wreath will be laid at
the current Iwo Jima Memorial in Camp Pendleton that overlooks the Pacific
Ocean. The program will close with a 21-gun salute and Taps for the men who died
on Iwo Jima.<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After the ceremony, a World War II
memorabilia display will be open in the rear of the banquet hall. At 5:30 p.m.
there will be a concert by the First Marine Division Band, followed by a call
to order, the Presentation of Colors and a program that will include an
invocation, welcome remarks and a keynote speech by distinguished guests, the Empty
Chair Tribute, an Iwo Jima flag-raising tableau, closing remarks and dinner. </span></div>
</span>Prior to the Memorial
Service, IJAA (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><a href="http://www.iwojimaassociation.org/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">www.iwojimaassociation.org</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">) will
host a symposium at the Grand Pacific Palisades Hotel in Carlsbad that will
include several distinguished speakers who will address the historical events
leading up to WWII and Iwo Jima, the actual battle and the aftermath to current
times. Also expected at the symposium will be the Joe Rosenthal Chapter of the
USMC Combat Correspondents Association. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Rosenthal’s photo is
arguably the most reproduced photo in history and is a recognized symbol of Iwo
Jima and the Marine Corps. In addition to bringing the history and significance
of the photo to younger generations and teaching them about the Marines, Iwo
Jima and the sacrifices of WWII veterans, the group has begun a petition drive
in hopes of having a U.S. Navy warship named after Rosenthal. Members of the
public can sign the petition online at </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><a href="http://www.ussjoe.org/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">www.USSJoe.org</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Both IJAA and the IJCC
will tour Camp Pendleton on Thursday and visit the Stu Segall Strategic
Operations Studio on Friday and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Lunch
at a base mess hall will be included each day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Additionally, Military
Historical Tours (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><a href="http://www.miltours.com/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">www.miltours.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">) of
Woodbridge, Va., will host a trip to Guam March 20-27 and on to Iwo Jima for
the annual Reunion of Honor that is held in conjunction with a delegation from Japan
that includes Yoshitaka Shindo, the grandson of Gen Kuribayshi. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Funds are currently
being raised to send seven Iwo Jima veterans on the annual “Reunion of Honor” tour
in March. Two have been financed to date. Tax-deductible contributions of any
amount may be sent to “IJAA,” P.O. Box 680, Quantico, VA 22134.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1570732767553166122.post-54650415556659127002017-01-22T16:22:00.000-06:002017-01-22T16:22:00.620-06:00‘Never Surrender—The Ed Ramsey Story’
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor having
been on Dec. 7, marking the entry of the United States into World War II, there
were a host of books and films about the war to remind us of what this country
owes the 16 million who served and those who supported the war effort at home.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One documentary set in
the Pacific Theater is “Never Surrender—The Ed Ramse<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">y </i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack">Story</a>” about the late Edwin Ramsey’s experiences
as<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>a guerrilla leader in the
Philippines adapted from his book, “Lieutenant Ramsey’s War.” I’d read the book
and was invited to the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEify2tBdEU_fggoG62tN1pDnz7VHmCdTrKMnGyCbMK4F1V4SzzcKI5aXXPQYWdBNhrgjg4DGEuAObFVQ7MlXoIbO5albRcIGHK4N85SPg2bMSFuLUOmZ-YtfSuwCCQMt9eLEp-pTgMioizg/s1600/Ray+and+Raqui.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEify2tBdEU_fggoG62tN1pDnz7VHmCdTrKMnGyCbMK4F1V4SzzcKI5aXXPQYWdBNhrgjg4DGEuAObFVQ7MlXoIbO5albRcIGHK4N85SPg2bMSFuLUOmZ-YtfSuwCCQMt9eLEp-pTgMioizg/s320/Ray+and+Raqui.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Raquel Ramsey and I at the documentary premiere in Los Angeles.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ramsey was born in
Carlye, Ill., grew up in Kansas and went to the Oklahoma Military Academy. With
a bachelor’s degree and a reserve officer’s commission, he enrolled in law
school at Oklahoma University. In his last year of law school in 1940, his
sister, Nadine, a pilot who had moved to California, was in a plane crash that left
her seriously injured. When she was released from the hospital after a few weeks,
Ramsey dropped out of school and went to California to care for her. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By Christmas 1940 she
was walking again, and by January 1941 she was able to care for herself. And
she was making plans to fly again—which she started doing in February.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Broke and with the
academic year in law school half over, Ramsey was at loose ends and wasn’t sure
what to do. But with a reserve commission, the war already raging in Europe and
prospects of the United States being drawn into it, he believed it wouldn’t be
long before he’d be called to serve. So he applied for active duty, and with
his experience as a polo player and a love for horses, he ended up in the
Army’s 26th Cavalry stationed at Fort Stotsenburg near Clark Air Base when the
Japanese attacked the Philippines on Dec. 8, 1941. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like many American
military personnel and Filipino soldiers, Ramsey refused to surrender and
evaded the Japanese in the jungles of the Philippines until they were able to
become organized and provide resistance as a guerrilla force. While many of the
Americans and Filipino fighters, were caught, tortured and executed—some even
beheaded, Ramsey eventually became the leader of about 40,000 guerrillas
throughout the Philippines.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Most of the resistance
was providing intelligence to the allied forces and helping prepare for the
eventual battle for the Philippines. Before the end of the war, and because of Ramsey’s
leadership, the Japanese looked long and hard for him and placed a $100,000
bounty on him. When Gen. Douglas MacArthur finally returned to the Philippines,
as he had promised he would in his famous “I shall return” speech after
President Roosevelt ordered him to leave the Philippines and go to Australia in
early 1942, Ramsey had led the guerrillas through three and a half years of resistance
and provided information that helped make MacArthur’s return successful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When the American
forces did arrive, Ramsey was emaciated and weighed less than 100 pounds. He’d even
had his appendix removed without being anesthetized because the drug, which had
been purchased on the black market, turned out to be water and there was no
time to try and find more. Ramsey drank a bottle of rum and was held down
during the operation. The appendix burst as soon as the doctor removed it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For his service, Ramsey
was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, second highest award to the Medal
of Honor. There has been a movement to raise it to the Medal of Honor. But
until he died in 2013, Ramsey wasn’t concerned about that happening.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I didn’t do what I
did for a medal,” he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The documentary
included interviews with Ramsey during his lifetime, as well as clips and
narratives about the Philippine resistance movement from the war years. It was
a moving film about the experiences of one man and the leadership he provided
among hundreds of stories of heroism during the war.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ramsey’s widow, Dr.
Raquel R. Ramsey, a Filipina 29 years his junior who was married to him for 30
years and was one of the producers of the film, said, “It was a war story, but
more a love story as (actress) Jackie Bisset posed to me. It also showed that
no matter how many challenges he faced in war or peace, he never surrendered.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nor did Ramsey hold grudges.
He lived in Japan for five years after the war and worked for Hughes Aircraft.
(Ramsey also worked at Hughes Aircraft with former Urbana, Ill., resident John
Britton, a Marine Iwo Jima veteran and graduate of Urbana High School and the
University of Illinois.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The premiere was held
at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate
dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and longtime friend of Ramsey, said, “This
is a story of sacrifice, survival, heroism and reconciliation and that is why
the Museum of Tolerance was a perfect venue.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some 300 people, many
of them friends of Ramsey, attended the premiere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The documentary will be available after the Oscars where it
is entered in three categories at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:
documentary, original score and original song.</span></div>
Ray Elliotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04855864485409314167noreply@blogger.com0