How Lucky I Am To Be A Baby Boomer - Christmas

Being a baby boomer gives me the opportunity to remember how magical Christmas can be. It has not always been the constant reminder of how many days are left to shop, stores staying open for hundreds of hours up until Christmas Eve or panic over whether that gift you ordered on the Internet will arrive in time.  Even with my slightly wacky family as a child, Christmas was not a mad rush but a time of simple gifts, cards sent in the mail and beautiful decorations.

When my brothers and I were small there were catalogs from local stores with all the latest toys.  We would pour over them for hours deciding which one was the one we each wanted Santa to bring.  That special item was circled and a letter sent off in hopes it would be under the tree on Christmas morning.  There were live trees for sale all over town and going to pick out the perfect tree was a big event. My Dad would spend hours getting every light and ornament in just the right place, Mother spent hours in the kitchen creating all those wonderful smells of Christmas goodies, and the three of us laid on the floor by the tree amazed at how beautiful it was.

On Christmas Eve the only presents under the tree were the ones that we purchased for each other.  Then it was off to the Midnight Candlelight service at the Episcopal church.  The church was completely draped in pine swags and lit entirely by candle light. I can still remember the smell of the pine and all the burning candles, all the families dressed up in their finest and the beauty of the service itself.

Of course, Santa came sometime that night after we were sound asleep, ate his cookies and left all the things we had carefully chosen from the catalogs. At the time I guess the arrival of Santa and the gifts was the most important thing to the three of us.  As I look back now the important part of Christmas was the decorations, the cards that came in the mail, Mother's baked goodies and going to the midnight service.  There was excitement about the big day but never a stressful mad dash to get everything done even when I got older and understood all the preparation my parents did to make Christmas perfect.

As an adult, a wife, a mother I tried to recreate the Christmas each year that I remembered.  Some years I was successful, some years not.  It was easy to fall into the artificial tree routine.  Wow, you just take it out of the box and stand it up.  I remember how much my boys hated the artificial tree decorated with the red velvet bows and apples. That ended when we moved to New Jersey and were shunned because we put up the artificial tree and lights on the house right after Thanksgiving. I learned real fast that you had to have a real tree and put it up on Christmas Eve. That way you can leave it up well into January and it makes the Holiday season last longer.

Have to tell the best of my Christmas stories.  When I was a single Mom with my son Wally in high school it was a little tough to make ends meet.  We were driving a wonderful 1965 Dodge in 1992 with it;s original faded red paint.  Of course we had to have a tree but all of them were out of our budget.  So we got a flashlight and a saw and headed out to "stalk" a tree.  Lots of quiet country roads with trees growing along the sides so surely we could find the perfect tree.

That particular night it looked like Dallas during rush hour or maybe all those cars were actually tree police looking for stalkers like us.  Well after dark, when we were about to give up, we happened upon a tree farm.  The man looked at us rather strangely but took us out into the lot to find a tree.  By flashlight we cut down a beautiful tree and put it in the backseat of the lovely Dodge.  The man must have felt sorry for us since he only charged us $25.00.  Presents were slim that year but the tree was spectacular. Many years later Wally and I went to son Wes's for Christmas.  He had decorations but no tree. All the stores had stopped selling their live trees since it was Christmas Eve.  Lucky for us we passed a dumpster behind a store where they had discarded the trees that did not sell. It was a wonderful Christmas Eve decorating our "trash picked" tree.

Part of the fun of Christmas for me has always been to make Christmas presents. That tradition came from a lack of money for buying presents for extended family members and friends.  In truth I probably spent more money making clothing, wooden toys, teddy bears and plates of goodies than I would have if I had gone shopping.  It is about the fun and the careful thought of making something special for the people you love.

If you think back about past Christmas times it is the funny or not so funny family interactions like the time someone told you Christmas dinner was two hours earlier than it was or the years spent in the emergency room or the year the dog ate the pumpkin pie or the cat knocked over the tree everyday. Few presents people rushed around and shopped for will be remembered.  The fun and family traditions are the ones that count.

It is three days before Christmas,  There is a beautiful live tree all decorated upstairs and an upside down tree twinkling downstairs.  The cards will get mailed on our way to do the only shopping we are going to do and the handmade presents are ready to go.  The building is a glow with all the outdoor lights.  This will be a wonderful, simple and joyous Christmas.

                                Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year

Thanksgiving Would Show Up Again

How Lucky I Am To Be A Baby Boomer - Pause to Reflect

With the events of the last week, I think it is time to take a moment to reflect  on how attitudes and rhetoric have changed in my lifetime.  The basic fundamentals that I was taught of respect, compassion and kindness to my fellow man seem to have gotten lost.

My parents were not particuarly religious but as far back as I can remember we got dressed up every Sunday morning for church.  I don't think they attended a church before and once I turned sixteen they stopped taking us.  As dysfunctional as my family was my parents did a great job of teaching us to respect the beliefs of others.

My Mom was a great reader and paraded us to the library every week.  When she went to work books were her method of keeping us out of trouble while she was gone.  The Library in Muskogee was a magical place with its endless series of beautiful wood bookcases, a little merry-go-round and a mezzaine floor of glass blocks.  There was an unforgettable smell of polished wood and slightly musty paper when you walked in the door. There was a whole world to explore in those books we carried home each week.

I think I was about ten or eleven when I discovered a shelf of about twenty or thirty books, each on a different religion of the world.  Funny how I can still visiualize that shelf in my mind as if I was looking at it today. That shelf was my summer reading program and I read them all.
Many of them were on the different branches of Christianity but there were also books on Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism.  That was the time I realized that even though they had different names the basic thesis was that they were basically the same.

Man has an inherent need to believe in a higher power.  Each religion has similar rules to live by teaching forgiveness, compassion, kindness and respect for not only our fellow man but for all the animals and the planet we live on.  Sure, we have had a lot of religious wars through out our history probably caused by small groups with fanatical reasons. Every religion of the world has gone through it's time of fanatical beliefs and perhaps every religion you don't believe in looks fanatical from your point of view.

When my parents left it up to me to attend church I began going to different churches with my friends.  There were ones I didn't like too well but growing up in the Episcopal church I was used to a little pomp  and circumstance.  At college my best friend wanted to go to synague on Friday nights and wanted someone to go with her.  She and I took Hebrew classes from the rabbi to understand the service.  Luckily I took Latin in high school which helped with the beautiful midnight Christmas masses at the Catholic church.  Friends of every religion have been apart of my life and I respect all their beliefs even though they may differ from mine.

I only had one relative in Muskogee, an amazing uncle by marriage.  He was well into his late fifties or sixties at my first remembrance of him.  He was a newspaper reporter with fascinating stories about my Dad in Kansas City during the 1920's - not ones Dad wanted told.  Uncle Tom could read seven languages, composed music, painted and read everything printed on paper. He lived in a little house by the railroad tracks I referred to as Uncle Tom's cabin and walked to work as he never owned a car. He never cared about worldly possessions and was an atheist.  Kindness, compassion and a love of learning were his attributes.

Our country was founded on the basis of religious freedom. That is the right to believe in a God or not believe in a God. Our founders were not all Christians, contrary to popular belief and gave us the right to choose our religion.  Our Statute of Liberty says "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".  This is what America should be, what we need to be.

In this time of un-Christian rhetoric and hate it is time to pause and think why should we be afraid of letting people in great need come to our country.  The two phrases my parents used a lot keep coming to mind.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."   and 
"There but for the grace of God, go I"

How Lucky I Am To Be A Baby Boomer - Summer of 1961

Of all the summers I have lived through, the Summer of 1961 stands out as one of the most fun, rather carefree and enlightening. It was that summer of being fourteen and turning fifteen and graduating from the ninth grade.  The time when you are too young to date and too old to play with dolls.  Rather reminds me of a song about how lovely it is to be a women but still in braces and can't walk gracefully in high heels.

How Lucky I Am To Be A Baby Boomer - 9th Grade

With the slightly cooler weather this week I pulled out my green and white Muskogee Rougher sweatshirt.  In the little town I live in it gets lots of comments usually referring to my being an Okie from Muskogee. I was stopped in the little local grocery store by a man who asked if I was from Muskogee. He said he grew up there also but had graduated several years after I did.  We chatted about how much fun we had and I did remember his Dad as one of the more famous names from the weekly stock car races.  It is always a warm, fuzzy moment when you realize what a small world this really is.

I recently heard John Irving, the author, discussing his theory of developing characters for a book.  He said that by the time a person is thirteen or fourteen they have developed their character or personality characteristics.  Wow!  That is scary when I think back about my class in the 9th grade at Alice Robertson Junior High. 

My memory is pretty good but looking through piles of scrapbooks and old yearbooks from Alice Robertson Junior High provided most of these little stories about my interesting class.  There had been inklings of what was to come in the 8th grade.  Seems like my class was so disruptive during assemblies that the entire class was banned from further assemblies.  Sulphur bombs had strangely appeared in front of the principles office on several occasions.

I always thought as a cheerleader that we did a pretty good job of cheering the teams on.  The AR Warriors always seemed to have a great team.  The two years before us they only lost one game and that was to our cross-town rival, West Junior High.  The team of 1960-61 had a perfect record, they lost every game.

Surely the basketball season had to be better.  They did win some games but did not take loss lightly.  After losing to the team in Sapulpa it seems like a little damage occurred to Sapulpa's gym.  The basketball team then won the record for the longest stay in Mr. Abbott's Blue Room.  For a week they reported there every morning for the day and for a long time could not be seen walking their girlfriends around in the hall.

How Lucky I Am To Be A Baby Boomer - Junior High

In the spring of 1958 I, along with 109 other little bright eyed sixth grade Whittier children, looked forward to summer days knowing that in the fall we were to join kids from five other elementary schools at Alice Robertson Junior High.  To say our world would expand was an understatement.  The amount of maturity that occurs between the 7th and the 9th grade is easy to see looking at the old yearbooks.

Alice Robertson Junior High School

A little interesting history on Alice Robertson Junior High (now called the 7th and 8th grade center).  Alice Robertson, from Muskogee, was an educator who was only the second woman elected to Congress in 1921. She was also the first woman to be appointed as a Class A Postmaster. The school itself opened in 1940 and is adjacent to the largest football field built in Oklahoma by the WPA in 1936.  Known as Indian Bowl, the stadium is still used today as the high school stadium for the Muskogee High School Roughers.  Being a historic preservation person I am proud to see both the school and the stadium still in use.

Camp Fred Darby 1959

After a summer of all the usual swimming, girl scout camp, fighting with brothers and a family attempt at a vacation (the vacation is a novel in itself) the scary day arrived when I had to enter the doors of that huge building.  There were a total of 422 students in the 7th grade alone.  Instead of sitting at the same desk in the same room all day long as in elementary school we had to change classrooms and teachers.  It was our first introduction to band, orchestra, chorus, home economics, gym and lockers. It was also a twenty block walk home instead of the ten to and from grade school.  Scary as it was, it did not take long to make more friends and get used to the daily routine.

After all these years it is hard to remember a lot of the events that made the characteristics of the baby boomer generation develop compared to the classes before us especially in the 7th and 8th grade. The sheer size of class itself created more chaos.  There did not seem to be a day that went by that someone wasn't sent to The Blue Room.  The Blue Room was next door to the principle's office where Mr. Abbott got out his paddle.  It does seem like a trip there was a badge of honor for most of the boys.

My mother was pretty good at keeping me busy with piano and dancing lessons and girl scouts.  If there was a talent show at school I was always the first one to sign up much to the chagrin of my brother Paul. Unlucky for me, Paul was in the ninth grade when I did some dance in a talent show and gave some silly speech to the entire school running for a student council office.  His friends, who I looked at in the same way I would have looked at Troy Donohue or James Darren, would pass me in the hall and yell "Hey, Paul.  Isn't that your sister?"  Paul would answer
"No, I don't have a sister". He was good at crushing all my fantasies.

Talent Show 1959

Yes, it was the time when I fell in love at least once a day. Movies didn't help.  I had outgrown Superman and Wagon Train on TV and dashed off to see Gidget or A Summer Place with all the other teenage girls. I rushed home from school everyday to watch American Bandstand and knew the name of everyone on the show.  I learned to dance using the door jam for a partner and poured over every issue of Teen Magazine.  If I did not have the latest copy of Seventeen magazine how was I ever going to know what to wear or how to act!

Gidget I was not

Oh how I remember the sock hops in the gym.  The boys sat on one side of the gym and the girls on the other. Excuse me!  When the music started on American Bandstand everyone grabbed a partner and rushed to the floor. Now the ninth graders danced but they certainly were not going to ask a little kid out onto the dance floor. 

There is a funny story I well remember about a sock hop and macho brother Paul.  He actually had a date to one of them with a very pretty girl.  Not being able to drive, Mom had to take him and pick up his date. This was when my Mom had the bright red Jeepster.  Cute as it was it was not the cool car Paul dreamed about.  To make matters worse Mom figured that since I was going to the dance too that we would just all go together.  Paul moaned and groaned all the way to the girl's house about me, about the Jeepster and about life in general.  When we picked the girl up she rode in the backseat with me.  Needless to say, Paul's first real grown up date was not at all what he imagined.  I enjoyed it. Revenge is nice.

Macho Brother Paul

At the junior high level it seemed like slowly the realization set in that there were "popular" girls. I can't say that every girl wanted to fit in that category but there was definitely something to being well liked. Naturally cheerleaders sort of stood out.  Don't think that has changed much through the years but when I was in school there were only cheerleaders for the varsity team.  Out of the whole school only nine girls could achieve that distinction.

Mrs. Chance, the physical education teacher was also the cheerleader coach. You know, I don't remember ever seeing Mrs. Chance in anything but a white shirt and white shorts in the three years at Alice Robertson. She was a short stocky Indian woman, very stern and her skinny legs stuck out of those big legged shorts almost cartoon like.  Anyway, every spring there were tryouts for the cheerleaders for the following year. For weeks all the girls got together in groups of nine and practiced like crazy before the elections. 

The day of the tryouts had to be the longest day ever.  The hopefuls did their routines in front of the pep club who voted for the girls they thought were the best. I lost. The end of the world had really come.  I can remember walking home with a boy who had stayed to watch the tryouts and crying all the way. He tried hard to console me but it didn't work.  When I got home and told my Mom I lost and she was overjoyed. That didn't help.  Guess she wanted a concert pianist or a ballerina instead of a cheerleader.

Ah....the 7th grade picture

Somehow I manged to pull myself together and go back to school.  Just by chance a few weeks later one of the girls who got elected as a cheerleader found out she was moving over the summer. Mrs. Chance put the three names of the next runner-ups in a hat and drew one to replace the moving girl's spot.  She drew my name.  Mom was not happy. 

It was over that summer between the 8th and 9th grade that a lot of the characteristics of the baby boomer generation began to show up in all of us.  The "me" generation was beginning to emerge and patterns of behavior changed.  Life was getting more fun and more interesting.

How Lucky I Am To Be A Baby Boomer - Early Years

Lucky me being born in the first year of the Baby Boomer generation that let me experience all the culture and societal changes of the decade and a half. It was the era of the great housing boom that created the suburbs, the huge increase in car ownership and the phenomenal economic change that made class distinctions less noticeable. 

I grew up with two brothers, Paul two years older and Kenny two years younger.  We lived in Muskogee, Oklahoma which was a town of about 38,000 people in an after-the-war little tract home. My dad was a pharmacist and my Mom was the epitome of "June Clever". The neighborhood of about a hundred and fifty similar houses was filled with young families and lots of children.  The majority of the houses were only two bedrooms but no one thought anything about three twin beds and a dresser in a tiny room. Dad added another bedroom when I was about ten so I could have a room of my own.

                 About 1950 - Kenny & Mom back row - Me, Paul and a friend

With two brothers I naturally was a tomboy. Mother shooed us out of the house early on the days there was no school.  I can remember playing Cowboys and Indians, army with real army surplus canteens and helmets, hide and seek and baseball.  Superman was fun until a neighbor boy jumped off the roof thinking he could fly and baseball for me lost it's luster after my brother, Paul, hit me square in the forehead and knocked me out.  Broken bones, cuts and bruises were almost considered part of the play. The street was our playground, good for sledding when there was snow or clamping on the metal skates and racing down the street.

                                              Kenny and I

School days always started with the whole family around the breakfast table.  There was no way you were going off to school without a balanced breakfast.  I developed phobias about eggs and prunes but trust me, I ate them.  Dad would always go around the table giving everyone a kiss on his way off to work in his suit, tie and hat.

                                 Dad's first new car - 1956

                                         Mom's Very First Car

Needless to say we rode our bikes or walked the ten blocks to school. That was the fun way to start the day since all the kids walked or rode bikes.  I couldn't wait to get to school each day not only to see my friends but also because I liked to learn. The bad part was that my Mom was President of the P.T.A. for years and all the teachers and the principle expected Kenny and I to be good.  Not much hope for Paul.  But it was tough if we were bad since the teachers always told her if we got into trouble.  Those were the days when if you got a spanking at school, you got one when you got home too.

Recess was the time to play baseball, shoot marbles, jump rope or run around like crazy kids.  I remember having bandages on both knees for years from falling down on the playground.  Mom was constantly upset about the hems torn out of my dresses or dirt ground in a skirt.
Yes, those were the days when we wore dresses and little flats to school.  I think it was about the time I was in the fifth grade that Paul stopped telling me on the way home how much trouble I was going to be in for the messed up clothes and I started acting a little more refined.

                    Annual Whittier School Picnic at Spaulding Park



All holidays were fun.  Halloween back then was really the best.  Mom made costumes for us and we went out with brown paper grocery sacks to Trick to Treat.  No parents went, we were on our own with Paul being responsible for us.  We would fill the sacks and run home, dump them out in our own piles and run out to fill it up again. The house that gave out good stuff would probably be hit a couple of times. Christmas Day we would wake up early and sneak out to see what Santa left.  The stockings came back to bed with us and we had a chocolate high the next morning.  My Dad put on a huge fireworks display in the street every year on the 4th of July.  I loved the sparklers and worried about Dad holding the Roman Candles in his hand to shoot them off.

I remember Saturdays when we were all still in grade school was movie day. Muskogee had two movie theaters which were packed with kids every week.  Our next door neighbor had five children and each Saturday our Moms took turns either driving all of us to the theater or packing little sacks of candy.  We had a dime extra to buy something to drink and we would spend the afternoon watching the cartoon, the news reel, a Flash Gordon serial and some kid-orientated feature.  Paul was the oldest so he would tell us all to sit in our seat and not move until he came back - we actually obeyed an eight year old.

There were swimming, piano and dancing lessons. We were all three Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts, went camping and on cookouts.  Mom gave us birthday parties every year in the backyard and seemed to enjoy it. Sundays were filled with going to church and sometimes a drive in the country or a rare chance to go out to eat. I learned to dance at The Pioneer Room at the Severs Hotel by standing on my Dad's shoes when we went there for dinner.  Actually going out to eat was rare and everyone was always home for dinner around the kitchen table.

Not to give the impression that the early 1950's were without some fear. This was the Cold War/Russia/nuclear bomb era.  We spent a lot of time in my grade school years practicing "duck and cover" under the desk or in the hallway in case of a nuclear bomb attack.  We did the same tactic for a threat of a tornado. Seems funny now that "duck and cover" would have protected us from either one.  The other thing we learned from a film every year for six years was about Danger,Stranger.  Danger,Stranger was what to do if a man in a trench coat and a hat pulled over his eyes told us our mommy said for him to pick us up or that he had a kitten he wanted to show us.  It taught us what to do if approached by a stranger and how to stay safe.

Sometime in the early 50's we got a television set.  I read recently that when TV's came into vogue families started watching four or five hours a day. Ed Sullivan actually started in 1948 then came the Mickey Mouse Club, The Lone Ranger, Lassie. Hopalong Cassidy, Sky King, Sea Hunt and many more. Remember how you would die if you sat too close to the screen or that you could only watch one or two shows a day?

                                   Vacation to Wisconsin in 1953

My family wasn't perfect but my parents taught the three of us the value of work by giving us chores to do.  They taught us independence and responsibility by letting us do things on our own. By the time we were out of grade school we knew how to take care of ourselves in any situation and that if we did something wrong it was our own fault and there was no one to blame but ourselves.

                   Whittier Graduation  Book - 45 Girls and 65 Boys 
         {Interesting that now days they think 20 kids in the class is too 
            big.  We had the classes with 33 or more in each.}

If the years before age eleven are the so called formative years the baby boomers in my neighborhood were well on their way to the free-spirited and creative generation we were to become.  After elementary school we were headed off to the junior high to meet up with more children who were beginning to imitate the combined characteristics of Leave It To Beaver and the Little Rascals.  Life was getting more fun and very interesting.

If you have any comments or questions please email me or put them in the comment box below.  If you want, put your email address in the box by my profile and you will be on the list to receive the rest.

How Lucky I am To Be A Baby Boomer - Part I

Being a member of the first official year of the Baby Boomer Generation I have heard for years about how we were going to break the Social Security and the Medicare systems due to the sheer number of us.  Most of the articles you read have us all moving to Florida or Arizona to live out our years playing golf or bridge. I think they have us mixed up with the G.I. Generation ahead of us.

The Baby Boomer generation is defined as those of us who were born between 1946 and 1964, the result of a population boom after World War II.  The oldest will be 70 next year, the youngest 52.  Most of us think we were very,very lucky to have grown up in the greatest generation ever. The analyst that sits in some little office and dreams up the statistics has it all wrong.

Boomers don't think that the normal idea of retirement is cool.  It doesn't fit our image or our lifestyle.  Baby Boomers redefined each stage of life as we experienced it.  No other generation had more influence on fashion design or hair length.  We influenced education, music, race relations, sex-roles and child rearing in a larger way than any other age group.  Boomers will change what we know about old age. We don't consider ourselves senior citizens but rather Vintage. Classic. Resilient. Fun.

Here are a few statistics:

Boomers are more educated and occupied more professional and
     managerial positions.
They are more racially and ethnically diverse.
Boomers have a higher rate of separation and divorce and lower rates 
     of marriage.
They had fewer babies.  Boomers were 40% of the population in 1964
     and 20% in 2014.
They had varied work histories and worked for more of their adult years
     than previous generations.
Boomers were not great savers and were hardest hit by the 2008
     recession. A recent survey by Merrill Lynch found that nearly 80%
     of boomers intend to keep working.
Boomers will not only enjoy a longer lifespan but a healthier one.  

Interesting statistics with really interesting reasons.  The reason for Boomers working longer is in part financial but is also due to the fact that many of the boomers chose a career that made them a good living but have created a new one doing something they always wanted to do.
Great time to open a bakery, become and artist or a writer, work part time in a bookstore or some other place of interest or teach others on what they have learned in their lifetime. Retirement means doing what you like to do - not what you have to do.

Surprise!  Boomers will enjoy not only a longer lifespan but a healthier one.  The age-adjusted death rate for heart disease was 67% lower in 2005 than it was in 1990.  The age-adjusted death rate for stroke has declined 74% since 1990. This suggests that many Boomers may be aging more slowly than previous generations.  It also points to the fact that they have healthy habits such as less smoking and exercise even if they started later. 

As much as retirement places in Florida and Arizona are promoted, most of the Boomers will remain in their homes or downsize to urban lofts or condos.  This is a group who always wanted to be where the action was and the urban setting gives them all the cultural amenities usually with in walking distance.  Interesting fact that the current hottest spot for retirees is Oxford, Miss. Oxford, a college town, offers a huge variety of things to do including golf courses but also rock concerts and plays. The free spirited and social cause orientated Baby Boomers will stay engaged and have a great time.

So, now you have a few facts about the Baby Boomers.  Chances are that we will not make the "entitlement" programs such as Social Security and Medicare go broke and it definitely be fun to prove them all wrong.

Why is the Baby Boomer generation so very lucky?  Tune in next week to find out why.  Please feel free to send me your comments - good and bad.

I Should Have Known: I Will Not Vote For Anyone Who Talks About Reducin...

I Should Have Known: I Will Not Vote For Anyone Who Talks About Reducin...: I am sure that there are a lot of people will not even look at this posting due to the title.  They are the same people who want better ro...

I Will Not Vote For Anyone Who Talks About Reducing Taxes

I am sure that there are a lot of people will not even look at this posting due to the title.  They are the same people who want better roads, wonderful National Parks to visit, better health care for our veterans, teachers and schools that can educate our children, funds for the many natural disasters that seem to be occurring more often and on and on. If you are still reading, stick with me and maybe you will see why I feel this way. I am no expert but I have done a lot of research.

The theory that I keep hearing on why taxes on corporations  keep going lower is because of the "Trickle Down" idea.  Looks to me like there isn't much of a trickle down happening.  Manufacturing jobs have been disappearing for years to other countries and many of the big corporations are no longer based in the United States so they don't have to pay taxes.  Our government, both state and local, gives companies huge tax breaks and the companies pay few, if any, tax returns.

Ten of our largest corporations pay no taxes at all.  Let's take a look at the top four.

1. General Electric
    From 2008 to 2013 General Electric made $33.9 Billion in U.S. profits. They stashed $108 billion
    in offshore accounts.  They received a tax refund of $2.9 billion from the I.R.S. and if they would
    have paid taxes it would have amounted to $37.8 billion.  So their tax rate was -9%.  At the same
    time the CEO made $19 million a year and has a retirement account worth $59 million.
 
2. Boeing
    From 2008 to 2013 Boeing made $26.4 billion in U.S. profits.  They paid no taxes but received
    a tax refund of $401 million dollars. Their tax rate is -2%  They have outsourced tens of
    thousands of jobs to low-wage paying countries and is one of the top recipients of corporate
    welfare.  Last year the CEO made $23.3 million.

3. Verizon
     From 2008 to 2013 Verizon made $42.4 billion in U.S. profits. They received a tax refund of
     $732 million from the I.R.S. and if they had to have paid taxes it would have been in the amount
     $630 million dollars  They also stashed $1.8 billion in offshore accounts.  Their CEO makes $15.8
     million currently. Tax rate of -2%.

4.  Bank of America
     In 2010 Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the I.R.S. even though they made
     $4.4 billion in profit. To top it off, they received a $1.3 Trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve
     and the Treasury Department. From the money they have stashed in offshore accounts they should
     have paid $4.3 billion dollars in taxes. Their CEO made $13.1 million last year.

The list of the worst ten goes on to include Citigroup, Pfizer, FedEx, Honeywell, Merck, and Corning
but the list of other companies goes on and on.  Interesting about these four companies is that all the CEO's sit on something called the Business Roundtable.  They all recommend that the retirement age be raised to 70 for Medicare and Social Security with deep cuts to Social Security. Guess I wouldn't have to worry about a cut to either of these programs if I made millions of dollars a year.

For the past four years President Obama has proposed a reduction in the amount of $4 billion a year
in fossil fuel subsides, Congress would not even discuss them so the fossil fuel industry still receives $37.5 billion dollars a year, from you, the taxpayer. These companies are making billions a year but still getting a handout at the same time tens of thousands of workers are being laid off. Where is the "trickle down" here?

The states operate in much the same way.  There were 23 states the end of July who could not pass a budget by the July 1st deadline due to shortfalls.  They give tax incentives to big business to move to their state and then the state does not have the money to build roads, maintain schools and goes crying to the Federal Government when a tornado or flood occurs.  At the same time they holler about states rights
and not wanting the federal government in their business.

The war in Iraq and Afghanistan was projected to cost $200 billion dollars.  The cost has risen to
$4 trillion dollars and may go to $6 trillion dollars when you include the medical care to our veterans.
All of this money, $4 trillion,  was borrowed with tax cuts for everyone in the country at the same time. The on-going debt ceiling battle is in great part due to the expense of our eleven year battle in the middle east.  The first time in U.S. history that we went to war without a tax increase.

No, I do not want a tax cut. I want our government to make everyone and every corporation pay their fair share.  Get rid of the tax loopholes, stop giving refunds to corporations who pay no taxes, stop the subsides to billion dollar fossil fuel companies and get the money out of the offshore accounts. You and I, the voters, do not get away this behavior.  I will be voting for people who realize the "trickle down" effect has never worked. How can you vote for tax cuts when our government is living on borrowed money and half of our states are broke?

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I May Have A Problem

I have two sons, Wes age 45 and Wally age 41, who both decided this year that maybe they should have listened when I told them to go to college on Mom and Dad's money before they had the responsibilities of wives and children.  They both went, quit, went back, then gave up. Wisdom finally set in and they are both back in school.  I could not be happier but it is a real challenge for both boys.  I can fully relate as I did the same thing but I could not be more proud of either of them.

Wally is a Music Performance major and he told me the other day that if he could prove that he did indeed do a Senior Recital in 1998 that he would not have to do another one. Being a good Mother that saves programs of important events I decided to look and see if I could find one. So far no luck, but I must say it was amazing what I did find.

Doesn't everyone need to keep a box of their high school and college term papers?  Especially the one that made a A?  The totally made up story titled  "My Conflict" about how I was adopted. Wonder if that teacher just felt sorry for me and thankfully she never talked to my parents.  That goes for the rest of the two file cabinet drawers of class notes.  Who knows when I might need to do some calculus computations or know how to run a color TV camera?

Can you really just throw away ticket stubs to Eric Clapton, Leon Russell or Tommy Emmanuel?  Or programs from the 1964 Beach Boys or Herman's Hermits concerts? Or the letters you wrote to your parents from Girl Scout Camp?

How could I not keep the skate boots that I won as Queen of the Stardust Skating Rink in 1961 (complete with pom poms)? Or my felt cowgirl outfit I wore every Saturday morning when I was five years old so I could look like Dale Evans? Then there are all the roller skating, ice skating and dancing costumes from recitals and shows. Plus the junior high cheerleader outfit that goes to all my class reunions.

Then there are drag racing team uniforms and forty years of ticket stubs. Five hundred vinyl records and a complete sound system and microphones I cannot part with. File drawers full of sewing patterns, newsletters I wrote and how-to-do pages from building renovation to running festivals and events. Never can tell when I might need all this stuff.

The only thing that saves me from being on an episode of "The Hoarders" is that I am OCD when it comes to clean, neat and tidy.  I do throw garbage away, clean out the refrigerator every day or two and put stuff back in its place. Normally I can find anything is a few minutes of needing it. Maybe even faster at finding things I don't need at the moment or at all.

A counselor would probably ask me why I have this compulsion to keep things.  Why not?  If I have to pack an extra U-Haul with this stuff when I move that is okay with me. Truthfully my Mother did not keep anything that was not useful at the moment.  If I did not wear a piece of clothing for two weeks it went to some poor child who needed clothes.  Once she read a letter. looked at a birthday card or a picture of a grandchild it was gone. Guess I have rebelled by doing the opposite.

The thought does cross my mind sometimes as to what Wes and Wally are going to do with all this stuff when I go off to the Happy Hunting Ground.  They could probably open their own vintage store but hopefully as college graduates they will be too busy.  

I am quite sure I am not the only one in this predicament.  Perhaps we could form a National Pack Rat Museum or The Museum of Obscure Crazy People?  In my spare time I will work on this.  Until then I will keep looking for a Senior Recital Program from 1998.

Cleaning Out the Storage Building Causes More Work

When we moved here and started on the building eleven years ago we had eight storage units.  Finally about four years ago we got down to just one.  You have to have at least one so that when you find that thing-a-ma-jig you did not know you needed you have someplace to put it. It is time to get rid of the storage unit when there is no room anywhere to put stuff and stop collecting, going to garage sales and trash picking.

Half of what was in the unit became items we had no use for what so ever.  Out to the dumpster or out to the street for someone else to trash pick.  Part of the other half found a new home with our sons, the rest that needed to be restored, repainted or redone into something else was put in Marshell's garage with a life span of only four weeks, two days and nine hours. 

My prized EASY Wringer Washer rolled out of the unit.  Hmm......what was I going to do with that?  I remember falling in love with the color of the porcelain tub.  Do not have a place for it in the house and no cool garden to put it in.  Going to have to be a Landmark.  If you are coming to my house just look for the building on the corner with the Easy Wringer Washer out front.

Of course, it took two days of cleaning all the grease and oil off the bottom half.  The motor must have exploded at least twenty years ago as it was a little crusty.  A couple of coats of good old gloss black Rustoleum paint made it look pretty good.

Since the washer looked so good it made the mailbox stand and the water pump look shabby.  The mailbox stand is actually a smudge pot.  Smudge pots are used in orchards to keep the fruit from freezing.  They are usually filled with diesel fuel and lit when the temperature is expected to drop.  This one came from California when Marshell and I got married.  Our wedding and reception were outdoors in December and they were on hand in case it got cold.  Naturally we could not live without one.

A new color of paint certainly makes it stand out.  Maybe the bright color  will ward off bills and political announcements.

In case you have a pile of old wood frame windows you do not know what to do with here are a few ideas. These all came from the downstairs of our building when we gutted it.  There was this wacky structure which was sort of an office with counters and these windows. Of course I couldn't throw perfectly good windows away.


Three became the cover up for a window that had been taken out in the upstairs bath by the previous owner.  Halite blocks did not look very attractive so Marshell made a fake window with three of them. I painted an outdoor scene on the wall to hide the blocks and the center window panes were replaced with mirrored glass.   Solved the problem with the wall and gave us a mirror for over the sink.

Another one of the windows became a mirror in the downstairs bath. It was amazing how much larger the room appeared after it's installation. Of course, I did do a little decorative painting on it which adds to the look.

The Future is Now

In the 1970's I was intrigued by the huge black solar panels on roofs of houses.  In the 1980's I was very impressed with a NASA installed wind turbine that provided power to Block Island, Rhode Island's fifty winter residents.  I was astounded in the late 1980's when my eighth grade son's teacher told me to buy an Apple computer that covered the entire desk and was slightly expensive. When I first met Marshell in the 1990's he carried around a huge box that contained a cell phone that only made phone calls. 

Technology has come a long way.  Just as we have embraced the computer and the cell phone you can now slip into your pocket, it is time to embrace the technology of the wind turbines and the solar industry.  It is all too common that people repeat the catch phrases that changing to renewable energy is too expensive, inefficient and will not supply the world's needs.  Let's take away the terms "global warming" and "climate change".  Let's try to ignore the politics and greed that dominate the fossil fuel industry.  Why not think in terms that the future of energy production is here now and it is time to use it?  Why not think of it as clean, renewable and sustainable and it is time to make the transition now?

As all of us trudge thru our busy lives there is so much information that we do not see, hear or read.  Did you know that the top cities in the United States who use 100% green energy are Washington, D.C. and Aspen, Colorado with Austin, Texas coming in at 99%?  When the discussion of job creation comes up do you ever hear that world wide green energy employs 7.7 million people with 724,00 of those jobs in the United States?  

The United States currently supplies 13% of our energy needs with green energy.  Iceland is at 100%, Albania 85%, Paraguay 90% and Germany, Norway, Denmark, Spain, India, Brazil, France, Japan, Bangladesh and Indonesia are moving to be 100% green in the next five to fifteen years.  These countries are shutting down there nuclear and fossil fuel plants and turning to green energy due to the cost of fossil fuels. They need the job creation for their growing populations. It helps governments quell social discontent, reduces the need for war over energy needs and provides sustainable energy at a much cheaper cost.


Solar energy has come a long way since the 1970's.  The panels are small and much more efficient.  In the last three years the cost of solar has dropped by 75% with another 50% decrease expected in the next three years.  More than 500,000 solar PV systems are currently installed in the U.S. with enough power being produced to supply 5 million homes with all their energy needs. Battery storage systems have gotten much more efficient to provide power 24 hours a day.  Solar jobs alone are expected to increase in the next year by 25% creating 24,000 new jobs.

The United States Navy is currently building the largest solar field in the world 60 miles west of Phoenix to provide power to fourteen of its bases.  This will save $90 million dollars in power costs over the next 25 years and reduce the need for fossil fuels.  Saudi Arabia has been building solar fields for the last few years to sell power to European countries.  By the end of this decade the cost of solar will become cheaper than conventional electricity.

Currently in the United States there are 49,000 wind turbines in 39 states.  There are over 500 wind manufacturing facilities spread across 43 states and a wind farm of 50mg can be completed in less than a year at a far cheaper cost than that of a conventional power plant.  New technology is developing every day.  Norway is working on a direct drive system that will do away with the need for the transformer itself. The first offshore wind farm in the US is currently under construction off the coast of Rhode Island and wave action turbines are being installed in other places in the world.

Hawaii has to import all the fossils fuels for their power needs which has become too expensive.  Their first thought was to switch to LNG as a transition phase to renewable energy but decided instead to just make the move to switch to clean energy.  Their first grid tied wave driven turbine is expected to go online in the next few months.  They have also launched a thermal energy conversion project (OTEC) that uses the temperature difference in the ocean water to generate electricity. Not only does the OTEC project create electricity it also desalinates the ocean water at the same time.  This desalinated water can be used on the islands or put back into the ocean close to shore to grow schools of fish and kale. Hawaii plans to be 100% renewable energy by 2045 and it is the most aggressive project in the US.


China, in 2007 was opening a new coal fired plant every week and has the highest amount of air pollution in the world.  Their current slow down in production and financial situation is due to the fact that in 2014 they began weaning off of fossil fuels.  They have shut down steel, iron and cement sectors even at the cost of temporary job losses to switch to wind, solar and hydro electric forms of energy.  The unbearable air quality  has been the catalyst for the beginning of this fundamental change. Four nuclear plants are currently under construction as well as wind and solar installations.  Actually by the time the nuclear plants are up and running in six to ten years they expect to already have enough power from wind and solar to provide their energy needs.  They are leading the world in the investment in green energy far outstripping the United States.

               Which of these two pictures look better for the landscape?

As a science major in college I always think of the scientific fact the "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".  Fossil fuels and water are finite resources. There will always be a use for fossils fuels but if we don't think and plan ahead what happens when they are gone?
Can we really continue to drill holes in the earth making it look like a pin cushion without some consequence?  Can we afford to inject millions of gallons of water back into the earth that can never be used again?


Having always been a Michael Jackson fan one of my favorite songs has the lyrics " If you want to make the world a better place
                   Take a look at yourself and then make the change
                   I'm starting with the man in the mirror
                   I'm asking him to make the change"

It is past time we should have been embracing the green technology and moving toward a clean sustainable future.