Saturday, May 29, 2010

A Civilian Remembrance On Memorial Day Weekend

On Memorial Day weekend of 2005, I was still in the Navy and stationed in Maryland, but was using my time off to visit home to Rockford. Of course I saw family members; but the supreme reason for this _particular_ visit was to see the former Janalee Whippler, with whom my deceased Mary and I had been acquainted long ago. That final Saturday of May 2005 was the first time Jan and I were ever physically in the same place....with both of us unmarried.

For more than two months preceding this meeting, I had been rebuilding and expanding my friendship with Jan via telephone calls and writing. I had learned much about how God had cleansed her from the straying into sin that had ended her first marriage. In fact, Jan's ex-husband Rich had _encouraged_ my growing closer to Jan. So, with geographical distance giving the benefit of keeping our first interactions purely spiritual and personality-based, Jan and I had already grown close in ways that mattered, even _before_ I knocked on her apartment door and saw her again.

Jan and I ended up getting married--with me in my Navy dress uniform--a year and a half after my Mary's arrival in Heaven. Mary had seen me into the Navy; it was left to Jan to share my retirement ceremony. Jan was given two and a half years to live as my wife, before God called her home also. Now, it has been more than two years since Jan crossed over to glory; but on this Memorial Day weekend, I am particularly remembering her.

Some people don't get it. I did not stop loving Mary when I married Jan; and I have not stopped loving Jan just because I don't feel duty-bound to be a hermit for the rest of my earthly life.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Followup on Linda

No, I won't be marrying her. Linda herself has acknowledged that we are very different in our interests and priorities--which doesn't make her a bad person, but makes US a poor combination. The more so, since she has still MORE ailments than I realized at the start, and MY ailments (chiefly high blood pressure) would be aggravated by having full-time responsibility for her welfare. I do, however, find SOME things I can do at times to assist her in her difficulties.

My colleagues in the Colorado Renaissance Festival were told at our first meeting of the season that I was "in a relationship." None of them read this blog. I will, for the time being, NOT be telling them about the "cancellation" between Linda and me. As long as they think I'm still involved with someone, I can enjoy friendly conversations with the women but not be perceived as hitting on them.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Salty Socialism

When I go grocery shopping, I often buy salt-free canned vegetables, in view of my high blood pressure. Salt-free or low-salt foodstuffs have been available for many years, BY THE INITIATIVE of food companies, WITHOUT the government needing to tell them to provide this alternative.

Recently, however, I heard about calls (WHAT a surprise, under the Obama regime) for direct federal oversight of salt content in foods. Big-government advocates are willfully ignoring the fact that there is ALREADY provision being made for those who need to lower their salt intake. And as a caller to a radio program pointed out, forced across-the-board salt reductions would NOT be making provision for persons with severely LOW blood pressure who actually need MORE salt than most of us do.

Count on big government to insist that one size fits all, as well as to insist that no one can do anything constructive unless government is in charge of it.

More recently, I heard Great Britain's Gordon Brown saying something in a debate which didn't make sense at first. Brown was passionately denouncing British conservatives for wanting, as he put it, to take large amounts of money "out of the economy." I knew that British conservatives, like American conservatives, wish to reduce tax burdens, which means common citizens having more money to spend, and money spent by consumers is very much IN the economy. But at last I realized that for Brown, the government and "the economy" ARE ONE AND THE SAME. For this neo-Marxist, money ISN'T in the economy at all, UNLESS it is in the hands of government, or at least having its use tightly controlled by government.

Gordon Brown's notion of what the word "economy" means is akin to our Democratic Party's notion that no one can possibly avoid being overdosed on salt unless government micromanages their diet. It's all part of the relentless push toward putting every last detail of our lives under ironclad supervision.

When you hear leftists talking up the benefits of more and more government control, be sure to take what they say with a grain of salt--if they'll still allow you to HAVE a grain of salt.