Berry Much

Okay. I feel sure Obama has no chance of winning the Presidency unless McCain (formerly referred to as “McPain” by me until I realized I had no choice but to support him if I want any semblance of conservatisim in the Whitehouse ever again), completely screws up. And thank God for this, since I feel Barry would be not only a disastrous President, but a very dangerous one.  Having our enemies who want to nuke us over for a nice cup of java thinking you can kiss their butts enough to convince them not to annihilate us is not my idea of a President watching out for our safety.  Not only is it a downright stupid attitude for one who seeks to be the Commander In Chief, but it is an idea which well defines Obama as a naive and inexperienced politician.  I have no inclination whatsoever to test drive Obama just because he’s black and the liberal media wants me to feel guilty for being white and vote for him.  If Obama wants to be a foolish and naive appeaser, I suggest he take a look around on the internet and watch a few of the slow beheadings of screaming, gurgling Americans, performed by the bloodied hands of those he seeks to placate.  Then again, he probably feel Americans deserve it.

Secondly, I never want, ever….a President who hates America.  Maybe it’s just me, but heck it just seems like a bad thing.  Obama sat for what was it, 20 years, and listened to the rantings of his mad maniacal Preacher as he shouted “GodDAMN America,” and “the CHICKens have COME HOME to ROOST!” as he referred to America deserving the horrible carnage put upon us by the whacko religious freak terrorists of 9-11.  Not only do I believe Obama heard every bit of this at many different times through those years, but I believe he supports each treasonous rant with every breath he takes. Obama refusing to wear the flag pin, abhorring the Pledge of Allegiance, befriending and hanging out with bomb-planting terrorist (William Ayers), insisting that we “common people” must get used to the fact that we can’t drive the cars we want and we can’t use as much heating fuel and we can’t eat the foods we are used to because we must make an example of ourselves for the other poor countries…….where the hell does it end?  I’ll tell you where. America ends it in the voting booths across America in November, IF many will wake up and realize he’s an empty (yet dangerous) suit, with rhetorical words and no backbone.  Many people can and have given great speeches designed to make people feel good long enough to take up dangerous causes. Appealing to the superficial emotions of disillusioned masses by way of a teleprompter is easy. 

When liberal media pundits were complaining on all the news shows yesterday, shocked that my fellow Kentuckians, who handed Hillary a 35% landslide over Obama in the primary, admitted on their way out of the voting booths that they wouldn’t vote for Obama because he believed and adhered to every word his America-hating(and especially white-people hating) Preacher had spouted, I couldn’t help but smile. Kentucky said what no one else has had the guts to say..that Obama is a devout racist, not willing to move to the future of “change” he parrots as his mantra, but rather bogged down in a past that is no longer relevant.  FINALLY it is the good, old-fashioned, in-your-face hillbillies who are brave enough to say the truth. I’d like to tell Michelle Obama this is definitely a time in MY adult life I am proud of Kentucky.  We recognize a snake oil salesman when we see one in these here parts, Barry.

Scene:  Sun shining, truck bouncing, me lip-syncing to Abba on XM.  Wind blowing through my partially open windows (not all the way open, I’m not that wild), WHAT A GREAT DAY.  You see, all is well today, because I am on my annual sabbatical to see the Amish people.  Well, teenage Amish boys, to be exact.  The pure, rosy-cheeked, lean but muscular and every one of them ”strong as an ox,” Amish boys.  Why are they lean and strong? Because THEY WORK so hard.  They are focused, they are pure.  The Amish boys have it all going on.  What a great relief these (my) Amish boys are, in contrast to the loud and rude world I usually encounter.  No “pull ahead and we’ll bring it out to you,” or “who knows where the one-and-a-half inch screws for electrical outlet plates are, don’t know if we ever had any,” or “we closed 5 minutes ago, yes it’s 10 minutes early for us to close but we’re closed.”  Nope, not the Amish boys, homey don’t play that.  Amish boys are happy, strong(see above), mannerly, disciplined, and handsome(as in the I have great character and love God and my family and I don’t need the evil trappings of the world, type of handsome).  And YES, they do adhere to the Amish dress code.  Black trousers, white shirt, suspenders, and yes…Amish hats, (they do take them off briefly to wipe their labored brow, but only briefly).  Also of note, they roll up the long sleeves of their white shirts sometimes, too.  They are allowed. 

So here I go, on my way to the Amish flower stand, for my annual purchase of Amish flowers, which of course means I also buy specially brewed Amish dirt.  I drive up to the stand, which is just bustling with the activity of all the other non-Amish people making their own yearly sabbaticals.  I swear, the sun is just bursting out of the sky to shine on this stand….wow.  Thank you God for such a fine day.  I sit in my truck for just a minute, letting my mind wander to imagining myself as the Amish mother, wiping my flour-caked hands on my white apron long enough to ring the dinner bell, which hangs above the water-well and bucket.  You know, the bucket on a rope that Amish people have to raise and lower with a crank handle.  Anyway…I am ringing the dinner bell, “Come to dinner, Amos….Samuel!  Steamed carrots and freshly plucked and boiled chicken on the table!  Fresh blackberry pie for a treat! Come and eat and then back to work, my sons!”  Beautiful saying of grace, serene dinner, pleasant (but not frivilous) talk, pleasant appetites.  Ah…the life of an Amish mother….

Smiling, I climb down out of my truck and approach the stand, a bounce in my step, a smile on my face.  There they are, but this time two new Amish boys, faces shining and muscles taut, as usual.  I make my way over to the flowers I am looking for (Impatiens), happily knowing the Amish boy who is watering all the flowers in the Impatiens area will be eager to help me. ”Hello there, isn’t it a beautiful day?”  No answer, obviously he is so concentrated on precisely and thoroughly watering the flowers that he did not hear me.  “Isn’t this just a wonderful day?”  Possibly this Amish boy is deaf, they have placed him to work here so that he can use it as a strengthening and learning experience.  What better than nature’s colorful blooms coming to life from seed to help this Amish boy who cannot hear.  He looks up, no smile on his face, no rosy cheeks, not sweating, “I’m going on break.”  No.  I back up a few steps…”Excuse me?”  Him now looking at the sprayer nozzle of his watering hose, fidgeting with it, trying to get it turned down or turned off, and it suddenly spews water at a 90 degree angle out the side, directly into my chest.  Me, wanting to still be a good sport, “Woooooo, you got me there, I guess I got in the way.”  The Amish boy throws down the hose and walks away, my unbelieving eyes following him.  My dripping upper body, exposed.  My heart was broken and my chest was wet.  Refusing to accept this, I realized that maybe this was just a visiting Amish cousin from a different “branch.”  Maybe he was only half Amish or he used to not be Amish and they tried to mold him, force him, so he was rebelling.  Yes, that is what is happening here, this boy is not Amish at all.  It’s okay. 

I finish picking out my flowers and clumsily try to drag them in repeated trips, up to the counter to pay for them.  Oh, here we go, a REAL Amish boy.  “Well hello there, I just went crazy picking out all these flowers, they are so beautiful and the blooms are just so healthy!” “Yeah, okay, how many you got?”  Me, nervously trying to recount how many I had…I did know but have now forgotten…..ummmm….”LOOKS like you got about 24, that’ll be thirty-twenty-seven.”  I paid the boy.  On the way to the truck, as I once again dragged the flowers behind me, I glanced over at what I used to believe was the magical Amish dirt.  “Garden Magic,” it’s called.  Garden Magic Vegetable dirt, Garden Magic humus, Garden Magic peat moss.  I passed it up, not willing to go through the hassle of buying (and loading), Magical dirt that just looked like dirt.  I drove off, Stairway to Heaven playing on XM now, my still-wet chest which now had magical dirt clinging to it,  dripping down onto the truck seat. The sun had clouded over, I shivered.   

Come to think of it, I didn’t even see their Amish dog, Milo, at the flower stand.  He had always been there before. He would saunter in and around the rows of flowers, insisting that people pat him on the head before he would move on for more attention from the next customer.  I loved that dog.

I was recently walking beside a pond in my neighborhood, taking in the day, seeing once again that there really is nothing as beautiful and calming as simple rays of sunlight glinting across water.  My mind wandered again, as it has often of late, to the days when I was my Dad’s “tomboy,” and how he taught me how to bait a hook, and slide into homeplate.  The mind being what it is, it of course took me next to my teenage days, when I avoided him, and to my young adult days, when I did not have much time for him, other than to politely laugh with him at family gatherings and hug him before we left.  These thoughts were quite intermixed with glimpses of me as a child on his lap, grabbing his sliderulers out of his shirt pocket while breathing in his wonderful aroma of Old Spice.

My Dad has been gone from this earth since right before Christmas, after a brave battle that only men and women of his generation seem to fight with such honor.  But I found I have not lost him.  During my walk by the pond and as I watched a hawk circling above, I took in a breath that was at first my breath, but became his.  I could feel my feet trudging purposefully as he did when he took me on walks through the woods, I could feel my head tilting as his did, my..his eyes squinting against the sunlight.  I looked down and saw my wrinkled knuckles with short fingers, like his, I felt my shoulders shifting as his did with each step I took.  I could feel the stories of my Grandpa, his father, and I could feel his loves, his hates, the pulsing drumbeat of the heart of my Dad.  For the first time I understood what Indian lore tells us about feeling the spirits of ancestors.  Heritage was suddenly no longer just a word or a scant thought of men in white powdered wigs.  Heritage was ME, heritage is my Dad, heritage is us all. I see the circling hawk with your eyes now, Dad.  I am here.  I KNOW you.