Never Again- Part I

The colored strobe lights flashed red and blue into the night sky. An ambulance pulled away with her cousin's husband Ed and a rubber-gloved attendant bandaging his head and checking his eyes with a flashlight for signs of a worsening concussion. The ambulance with her cousin Janelle had already gone. She was unconscious and her ears had blood dribbling out of them. Eva watched t through the living room window as they pulled away and tried not to cry even as she held a bag of frozen peas to her own face.

Eva sat on the sofa, adjusted the peas on her swollen cheek so she could talk and tried to answer the sheriff's deputy's questions. "I told you I was just trying to stop him. If I'd wanted him dead I wouldn't have used that cheap aluminum skillet; I would have used that cast iron one." She stared at him. "He was going to beat her to death. When I yelled for him to stop and grabbed his arm, he back-handed me so hard I hit the floor."

"What started this?" the deputy asked.

"We share a ride to work since I live just across the street. The cheap bastard won't even let her have a car," she interjected. "Anyway, he was drinking, as usual, when we got home. We were barely out of the car when he came storming across the street yelling and carrying on about her signing up for direct deposit. He pulled her arm and started dragging her to the house telling her he'd teach her to fool with the check. I knew there was trouble so I followed them. He's hit her several times before, you see," she said.

The deputy clicked his radio and asked if there were any complaints on file. The reply was negative. "Well, there don't appear to be any complaints on him."

"There wouldn't be. If she did, he'd just give her another beating and she knew it."

"What did he hit her with?"

"A wooden TV tray," Eva answered. "That pile of kindling used to be part of a set."

"How many times did he hit her with it?" he asked, scanning the pile of rubble.

"Only once," Eva answered. "That was because he knocked me down when I grabbed his arm. He picked up that table and popped her in the head and was going for a second blow when I popped him with the skillet." She swung her arms with the bag of peas in one hand demonstrating.

The deputy squeezed his eyes shut trying not to laugh at her. "Are you going to be all right?" he asked at last.

She shook her head. "Can I go home now?"

"I suppose; I don't think I need anything else. Stay in the area for a few days until the D.A. sorts this out. He may want to call you if he has any questions."

"I'll be home or at work," she said as she stood to leave. "Wish I could say nice to have met you."

"I understand," he said. He handed her a business card. "I'll need you to come by and sign a report tomorrow at the sheriff's department."

"Okay." She wobbled a little on her feet and the deputy motioned for another officer to walk her home.

"Is there anyone I can call to stay with you tonight?" the deputy asked her. "You might have a concussion yourself where you hit that floor."

"I'll call a neighbor. I'll be fine," she replied.

A Thank You to Our Veterans

Sunday, November 11, 2012, is Veteran's Day. Have you thanked a veteran for their sacrifice to protect our country and our rights against foreign countries who might want to destroy our way of life? They give up time with their families they can never make up. They give up their innocence when they go into battle and see atrocities they might never have seen otherwise that leaves many of them with PTSD issues, depression, drug and/or alcohol issues, or all of them.  Many are not able to cope with these issues or don't know where to go for help. They lose their families due to the issues they suffer from because of what they have witnessed. How many former soldiers have come home just to die later from exposure to chemicals in the air where they fought? Too many. How many are jumpy all the time? I can think of a few that I wouldn't want to walk up on without warning them I was coming.  How many have come back missing limbs or paralyzed and wondering how they would now support themselves and their families, how they will get along in society? How many have suffered from indignation upon arriving home from the Middle East or, in the past, Vietnam? How many times have our reservist soldiers gone into disaster zones within our own borders to keep the peace so that you don't have to worry about violence from those who would loot or destroy what you have left after a flood or fires?

We need to thank our veterans for their service to our nation. So- Thank you veterans and current members of the military. God bless you.

Sudden Death on the Back Nine-Part IV

Troy dialed the local police precinct and asked for a detective. He gave his statement about what had happened to him and that he did indeed have a witness, the man who dug him up and saved his life. The detective assured Troy he would send a car right over. Troy told him he was headed over there himself just so he could confront them on the affair and what they had done. After assuring them he had no weapon and promising not to hurt anyone he told him he’d leave the front door open for him.

A few minutes later Troy stepped out of the shadows of his yard. He saw the unmarked car with its strobe light flashing followed by a patrol car heading in his direction. He retrieved his own hidden house key and silently slipped inside. His hands flexed into fists as he heard the sounds of lovemaking coming from his bedroom. He took several deep breaths and forced himself to calm down.

“What the hell?” Polly said, as the light switched on shining brightly on them as they were caught in the act. She quickly pulled the sheet over herself as Archie rolled over. “Troy?”

“It took me a while, but I figured it out. The next time you try to kill someone, make sure they are dead before you bury them. You’re such an idiot,” he added. “I can’t believe I ever loved you.”

The shock worn off, Archie jumped up quickly pulling on his trousers. “How did you get out of that grave? She even packed it down like I told her to.”

Troy closed his eyes a moment. He had heard the detective come up behind him and Archie had just admitted to planning the attempted murder in front of him. He smiled ironically and shook his head. “You should make sure you aren't being watched when you bury someone,” was all he said. He turned and walked out of the room. He shook hands with the detective and motioned him inside as Archie and Polly sat speechless. He stepped back inside. “Just tell me this, Polly, when were you going to report me missing?”

She stared at him blankly and never gave him an answer. She caught the robe Troy threw her.

“You probably don’t want to go out of here wearing nothing but cuffs.” 

Questioning the Electoral College

As the presidential election of 2012 is rolling around, I think it is time for a little lesson in voting. Did you know that even though one votes for a candidate, all the votes are tallied, and someone has received the most votes, they may not actually win the election? That's right. That vote can be overturned in a sense by the Electoral College.

The Electoral College has been around since our country's first election. The framers of the Constitution for some reason decided that election of a president by popular vote was not good enough and so created an electoral college to do it for us supposedly based on the popular vote. Seems like an un-necessary extra step to me. Members are based on various factors: number of senators in each state (2), and the number equal to how many representatives there are for each state which is based on population and will vary as the population does (Census figures), and three for Washington, D.C. These electors are usually voted in by popular vote. Supposedly, the electors vote according to who their individual states have popularly voted for the president, only actually they do not legally have to do that at all. It has happened four times in our history, as recently as 2000 when Al Gore, who won the popular vote, lost the electoral vote and therefore was not put into office. Regardless of how anyone feels about who won or lost the election that should not be legal. If someone won the popular vote that is who should win the election.

In this day and age when business people and politicians are often bought and paid for in various ways, otherwise there wouldn't be any lobbyists out there; it would be way too easy for someone to buy an electoral vote. I'm not saying that has happened, but it potentially could. Some states have sanctions for not voting with the popular vote- a fine and not being able to be an electorate again. Big deal! Anyone could pay the fine for them and if they truly are just trying to rig the election, then they don't care if they are not voting in the next one. At least Michigan negates the vote of the person not voting according to their state's wishes; others just give a slap on the wrist, so consequences vary wildly all the way to only being replaced.

When I checked the National Achieves (http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html) it listed how many representatives there were for each state and how many states had no laws or pledges regarding the electors voting with their state's popular vote - that means no penalties. There were 24 of them. That's 24 states' electorates potentially voting against the popular vote – almost half!

I don't see how we would have the right to point fingers at other countries' elections if we can't guarantee we would have an absolutely fair election. This is from a Constitution-believing, proud patriot: The Electoral College must go if we can't find a way to guarantee they will vote with the people they represent. I understand the College is supposed to make lesser populated states just as heard as the larger ones, but unless we want another play out of the 2000 presidential election, changes need to occur. Maybe jail time should be part of the deal for not voting as they are supposed to and it should be counted as election fraud. I am not a politician and I do not have all the answers, but together, as a country, the way the founding fathers did, we should figure out a solution.

On the Farm-Raising Sheep

I got talked into obtaining a few long-horned sheep about eighteen months ago by someone with sheep who was buying hay from us. I wouldn't have to have them shorn since they didn't have wool since they were hair sheep and the hair is more or less usless. They were supposed to go either for meat or the rams for their horns once they started having offspring. The entire 'herd' was a ram and five ewes. Oh my, what an undertaking that was. The ewes were raised on the bottle as their mothers had rejected them so they were very tame. Being tame, I named them and made pets out of them. That is always a bad idea, but somehow I always manage to do it regardless of the animal, be it a cow, a pig, or a sheep.

Raising sheep is an adventure, make no mistake. One weekend, since my husband was ill, my eldest son decided to come help mom get caught up on things that needed done around the farm. One such chore, was catching the sheep, which by this time had multiplied due to the ewes having had babies in February. We needed to tag the lambs. You talk about a rodeo. The adults were already tagged and I wondered why the previous owners had waited until they were loading them to do it. They seemed to handle so well when they got them for us and we had only some trouble getting them into the barn when they lambed- they follow a feed bucket pretty well. The lambs, however, run like the wild little critters they are. I had built a divider fence out of fence wire and, with my husband's help, finally lumber in order to separate the lambs from the ewes (they kept going through the wire). That's when I noticed the difference in the ewes and the rest of them.

The ram is also wild as we were told not to make friends with him or he could get where he wasn't afraid of us and charge. I took that to heart- he has some nasty looking horns and I have seen him charge my poor dog when I was trying to find his water bucket. After about an hour of trying to catch the lambs to tag them my son was swearing a blue streak and, as he is much too old for me to wash his mouth out with soap, I couldn't very well stop him. He looked at me and then I surprised the heck out of him. I was just as hot (it was nearly 100 degrees) and ticked off as he was at their speed and agility, and one even jumped straight up four feet over the fence back to mama. I told him to go ahead, just make sure he put in a few words for me since I didn't use them myself. He broke up laughing and we gave up the project least we both have a heat stroke.

That was about the time I started finding the little ones had gotten into a deadly plant I thought I had been pretty good about keeping out of their pen. My youngest son told me over the phone right where to find it and he was right. The little jumpers had gotten over a barricade and then knocked it over allowing access to all. It was around the silos.  I lost three of the little ones- all rams. Darn!

A few months after that I listed the whole lot for sale on Craig's List. At first no one wanted them, and then a couple people only wanted the female stock. I listed the two rams I had left, the dad and one of the lambs with a nice set of horns himself. .

By law, they have to be tagged before they can be sold and the tags are farm specific. Only ones born to the farm have to be tagged with that farm's tags so that they can be traced to their original farm. The people who bought the sheep were pretty good at catching them, although we did manage to get them led into a corral of sorts first and I just handed them the tags and asked if they had a tagging device. They can tag the little suckers.

I think I'll stick to cows and maybe a pig or two, but the pigs will be for me to eat, and some chickens (for eggs).

Sudden Death on the Back Nine -Part III

Troy watched his home from the inside a neighboring home where the inhabitants were on an extended vacation. They had asked him to keep an eye on the place and he could feed their exotic fish, so he knew where the key was hidden. He decided he would just stay there and not get a hotel room so if she filed a missing persons report they wouldn’t find him, at least not yet.

Gerald took Troy to the house and he had waited for Polly to leave before entering. He went into the house to his study where he opened the safe and withdrew several hundred dollars in cash and then raided the pantry and refrigerator. He laughed knowing she would be perplexed by the raid. He took several changes of his casual clothes in a duffel bag and went back across the street and waited.

As Troy watched clandestinely from behind the curtains of the window facing his home he saw Polly pull up and into the garage. She lugged heavy shopping bags into the house just as if nothing had happened. About an hour later Archie pulled into the drive and got out. He took her hand as if consoling her and patted her arm. Troy wished he had a directional microphone to hear them. They went into the house and a few minutes later the police showed up. He smiled to himself. “She must have found the missing items.” He wondered out loud if she would report everything missing or if she had even checked the safe. Would she tell them he was missing?

A half hour later the officers came outside still writing in their notebooks. One of them pointed to the house where he was and Troy ducked back just enough that he could still see what was going on without being seen himself. She was shaking her head and he thought it looked like she said the word ‘vacation’. Safe, he thought, at least for now. They walked door to door to the neighboring houses questioning the inhabitants and scribbling in their notebooks. At last they left and Troy breathed a sigh of relief. She had said ‘vacation.’

As darkness fell Troy wondered why Archie was still there. Around ten he left but he looked a bit disheveled. Troy narrowed his eyes as he recalled what Gerald had told him about the phone call Polly made after she buried him. Could it be that she was talking to Archie? Hmmm. Suspicion gnawed at him for hours. His friend Archie and Polly? No way; Archie didn’t even like Polly.

Troy watched the news and knew there was mention of a break-in at his house but no mention of his being missing or his belongings or the money; just some food, which they thought odd.  He snickered, either she didn’t notice or she wouldn’t report it. He started watching carefully when she left and when she came home. She was gone all night twice and he paced the floor. He knew if he took his neighbor’s vehicle, word would get around so he couldn’t follow her and he couldn’t take his own because if she came home and it was gone she would report it stolen.

Two days later Archie pulled into the drive. Several hours later he saw the lights go off in the house and Archie didn’t leave. Troy knew he had been right. Archie’s dislike of his wife was all for show. He sat down hard on the sofa and cried. It was bad enough what Polly had done, but now it looked as if his best friend was also involved and more than just with a murder plot. He thought for a while longer and then made a decision.

Where Were You September 11, 2001?

To borrow from an Alan Jackson song, where were you when the world stopped turning? Obviously September 11, 2001, the world did not stop turning- but it sure felt like it. I was in our dairy barn cleaning up after the morning milking. My youngest son had already gone inside and saw the report on the Today Show.  He ran to tell me a plane had hit one of the buildings of the World Trade Center. My reply after the 'Oh my God!' was, "Somebody's in trouble," the last word being dragged out. I asked if it was a small plane like the one that hit the Empire State Building so many years ago and of course he looked confused not knowing what I was talking about. (I only knew about it from historical reports-I am not old enough to have read about it real-time.) He just shook his head and said, "No, Mom; it was a jetliner." You could have knocked me over with a feather. As I was finished in the barn, we came inside to watch the updates together. Horrified, we watched as yet another plane hit the second tower and then the towers collapsed. Panic reigned supreme in the streets as people understood we were under attack even as they had no idea what had happened.  I told him one is an accident, two is on purpose. Then of course came the reports of the plane crashing in Pennsylvania and the one that hit the Pentagon. All air traffic was officially grounded. We just stared at the television, my arm around his shoulders. We knew we were at war. My husband having heard vague reports on the radio that we kept in the barn came in and asked if we'd heard the news.

As the days went on we learned, if we had not already known, what real heroes were. Those brave, selfless individuals who caused their own plane to crash rather than let the terrorists take it into the White House or some other government building, gave everything for their country. The rescuers who knowing full well they might not make it out, went into those burning towers to save those that could be and then retrieve those who couldn't and many of them too gave everything to their fellow man not just their country. There were poor, unsuspecting people conducting business, going about their day who were killed inside those infernos, many of which died trying to save their coworkers. We will never forget.

All these years later, we still remember vividly where we were. Of course many have been born who have never felt the devastation of seeing that awful, terrible site except on historic news reports around the anniversary, and many of those will go on to defend our country, once they are old enough, so that it doesn't happen again, or if it does, they will be there.

September 11 has been named Patriots Day in observance of those thousands who died that day.  Just as December 7, 1941, is remembered as Pearl Harbor Day in honor of those attacked in Hawaii while they slept is not meant to bring about hatred for the Japanese, Patriots Day is not meant to bring about hatred for those of Middle Eastern descent. There is enough hatred in the world. It is to remember the victims, the fallen heroes of that terrible day, and to remind us to keep ever mindful, ever vigilant and not let it happen again.

God bless America, the survivors, the families left behind wherever in the world you hale, and the heroes who defend us against those who would do us harm if given the chance again.