The Little Town with a Big Heart

What Does It Take to Make a Hero?

It takes a village.

As we reflect on another anniversary of 9/11, who among us will not be sadly reminded of that day and of the firefighters who fought and earned the title of hero?

Following 9/11, Senior Citizen Dee Matthews, a New Yorker and former DuBois, Pennsylvania resident, visited her neighborhood firehouse where seven of its members died that fateful day. Struck by the fact that the firehouse was shattered in more ways than one, Matthews prayed with the firefighters and later resolved to bring light back into NYC Engine Company 84 and Ladder 34.

Matthews called on two close friends in DuBois, Pennsylvania, Pat Stewart and Judy Hand to help her. With an anguished voice, Matthews said, “The firefighters are in mourning; they’re devastated. I know my hometown well enough to know they wouldn’t want those guys to suffer more than they already have.”

Her friends responded, “Let’s adopt them.”

On that day, via the telephone, bonded by three hundred miles of fiber optics and fueled with a commitment and love of country,  three senior women gave birth to Operation: Adopted Heroes.

Coming up with a name for the project was easy, but could they find the support needed to make a difference? The three women would soon discover that their small community was as heartbroken as so many others throughout the country. The town jumped in and became part of Operation: Adopted Heroes.

It takes a village.

Matthews’ two friends did not flinch when the opportunity to help was presented to them. Embracing the last audible words of Todd Beamer, 9/11 victim on board Flight 93, they adopted it as their mission statement. “Let’s roll,” they said to the town, and the town heard them.

Pat and Judy knocked on doors asking for donations for the families of the firefighters who had lost their lives and they were rewarded by an outpouring of generosity. Each of the seven families received sixteen hundred dollars raised by these two women.

It takes a village.

When she had visited the firehouse, Dee Matthews noted some of the chairs were past the point of comfort, so funds were solicited from individuals as well as local DuBois businesses to provide fourteen new solid oak chairs. Paint and other supplies were also bought to rehabilitate the firehouse in hopes of lifting the spirits of the men still grieving the loss of their co-workers.

A local grocery store was asked to contribute food. “The families,” said Pat, ” have children with big appetites. They need nourishment.” Enough groceries were donated to provide many nutritious meals for the families and firefighters.

High school band students boxed up the supplies to be delivered in a trailer packed with the new chairs and other items. “Operation Adopted Heroes: We will never forget” was painted on the side of that trailer.

It takes a village.

“We will never forget” were not empty words. Folks in Dubois, Pennsylvania support their commitment even today by remaining in close contact with their adopted heroes and the families of the fallen.

When the 2001 Christmas holiday approached, Matthews, Stewart and Hand discussed what they might do for the families. “This will be such a sad Christmas for them,” Judy said. “We need to let them know we’re still thinking of them.”

They appealed once more to their friends and neighbors and again the response was, “Let’s roll!”

After phoning all of the 911 widows to determine what their fifteen children liked, disliked, needed or wanted for Christmas, they gathered toys and clothes contributed by folks eager to help. Local high school students wrapped the gifts to be taken to the families before Christmas.

A group of seniors in town made cotton throws for each of the widows, hand embroidered with the victim’s name on each one. Quilts, made by the Chat and Sew Quilters Club were donated for the firehouse cots; fruit baskets and hams were given by a local grocery store.

Stewart and Hand, accompanied by DuBois firefighters, were met by the FDNY group at the George Washington Bridge and upon arrival at the firehouse joined Dee Matthews and her mother. Together they hand-delivered the gifts to the firehouse and to the families of their adopted heroes.

They could have sent them by UPS but they didn’t; they drove three hundred miles to present the gifts in person. They showed up because that’s what heroes deserve.

Twenty-four adopted heroes of NYC Engine Company 84 and Ladder 34 were later honored at a DuBois community parade, complete with fire trucks (of course), banners, balloons and cheering crowds on both sides of the parade route streets. The senior women responsible for the project headed up the parade holding a huge banner.

It takes a village.

Captain Luongo and Captain Depew of Ladder Company No. 84 both spoke:

“It’s one thing to put stuff in a box and send it, but you people came to our little house and we had a day together. Family tradition is part of the reason firefighters go above and beyond,” Captain Depew said. “What you did helped us work through a difficult period. Knowing we had your support made it a little easier. You will always be welcome at our house.”

Three truly remarkable senior women found it intolerable to do nothing when faced with our national grief and sadness. Because of an ongoing commitment to a firehouse three hundred miles away, a community was transformed into the little town with a big heart and it made heroes of them all.

Sometimes it takes a village.

Author’s Note:

Dee Matthews has since died but she showed us all how even one person can make a difference.

Ode to the Cowboys

Cowboys like smoky old pool rooms, clear mountain mornings, little warm puppies, children, and girls of the night. Them that don't know him won't like him and them that do won't know how to take him. ~ verse from "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys"

I’ve been thinking a lot about cowboy movie heroes. I remember going to the movies every Saturday and with only one trip to the bathroom, staying there until Mama or Daddy picked me up.

A Saturday matinee cost ten cents for kids under twelve, a candy bar was a nickel and a bag of popcorn, a dime. I showed up every Saturday unless I had chicken pox, measles or mumps. My folks loved it because the show started at noon and lasted until 5 o’clock. The matinees my brother and I usually attended featured cowboy stars like Rocky Lane, The Durango Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Johnny Mack Brown, Rex Allen, Lash LaRue and Tom Mix.

My hometown of Orangeburg, South Carolina boasted two movie theaters, the Carolina and the Edisto. For a mere 10 cents, we saw a newsreel, cartoons, a chapter from a serial, a short subject with Laurel and Hardy, sometimes a documentary, and then, best of all, the feature.

I was allowed to spend an entire quarter so I bought a Tootsie Roll since it could last me until I went to college. I bought candy, a large bag of popcorn, a large Coke and that took care of my quarter.

After finding a seat, I settled in for an afternoon of magic. I watched Movietone News and that fool rooster crowing his head off, and then footage of the President or the war or something current. A glimpse of the latest Paris fashion was shown and maybe a candid visit with Betty Grable, Bette Davis or Errol Flynn. During most of the newsreel portion, however, I talked and giggled with my friends.

Then it was Looney Toons: Donald Duck and Tweety Bird. After cartoons came a comedy featuring Ma and Pa Kettle or The Three Stooges, and then it was time for a continuing serial like Buck Rogers (my brothers fave) or the one I liked best, Blondie. (With the exception of Bubblehead Blondie, there was a serious lack of serial heroines although much later in the century TV soap operas would make up for the deficit.)

In cowboy movies, the good guys always prevailed and got the girl; the bad guys always got caught. After the gunfights were over, our hero stood next to the bar in a cowboy saloon drinking sarsaparilla with his sidekick, someone like Smiley Burnett who talked funny.

My brother and his friends booed and hissed if and when a cowboy kissed someone other than his mother or his horse.

Every now and then a cowboy gave a live performance at the Carolina Theater. I had a crush on Lash LaRue who cracked his whip, KAPOW! and made my eyes grow as big as salad plates. He was one slick, sexy dude dressed head-to-toe all in black, a good guy even though he never wore a white hat.

My heroes have now all gone up to that big roundup in the sky, but I can't forget the good times I experienced on Saturdays for twenty-five cents.

                                          An Ode to Cowboys

I miss ol' Hopalong Cassidy. I coulda sworn I saw him yestiddy. 

I ’spose I must be wrong, ’Cause I heard his git-along-song

When he pranced off on his horse into history.

Buster Crabbe made Westerns, too. You remember him, at least you ought to.

He was a white hat cowboy in his prime,

He could turn his horse round on a dime.

But with a name like Buster Crabbe, he had to.

Will someone tell me where did Lash Larue go

With that black hat of his cocked real low?

When he snapped that bullwhip my stomach did a flop-flip.

His smile was mighty sexy, also.

Do you ever ponder about Tom Mix and 

wonder how he did those gun tricks? 

He was quickest on the draw, could shoot holes in a straw,

Then use 'em over again for toothpicks.

Where oh where could all my heroes be?

Those matinee cowboys I so loved to see. 

I ‘spose I could be wrong,

But did I hear their git-along-song

When Calvin Klein pranced into history?

The Town That Time Forgot

Several years ago while living in Coastal Georgia, hot flashes and global warming took control of the upwardly moving saturation of my body. That’s when my husband Babe and I began looking for a summer getaway in the mountains. It took a while to find the right town with just the right character (and characters), but finally our search paid off when a Saluda blip appeared on our personal radar screen.

Laying claim to a main thoroughfare not much longer than a football field, shops and restaurants line up on one side of the street. A defunct set of railroad tracks stands sentry between the business side and children playing outdoors on swing sets and monkey bars in the town’s well-used playground. Squeals of their laughter can be heard even when it snows. I love that sound.

Weekends often bring strangers to our midst, curious to find out how a town the size of ours has survived the onslaught of high tech as it heads toward the isolation of all people everywhere. The visitors receive friendly smiles of welcome and easy chatter, but it is difficult for any of us to portray Saluda in mere words.

“We believe Saluda is a special place,” it might be said to a stranger. Or, “Saluda is like a modern-day Brigadoon —definitely magical.”

Indeed, none of the residents have lived here for over two hundred years as in the mythical Brigadoon, but Saluda has no problem claiming to be the town time forgot. That, in itself makes it a haven for throwbacks who still remember how things used to be back in the day.

In Saluda it is rare to see people in restaurants texting the person seated across the table from them. They talk to each other using real words. I once even witnessed a boldly snatching a smart phone away from her child. “This is called real time. Get used to it,” she admonished. Good for her!

Saluda people don’t do a lot of texting because they would rather have conversations. They still speak and spell the language learned in grammar school and they don’t care what’s going on in the Silicon Valley. Saluda people don’t give a hoot about fiber optics; they don’t allow electronics to rule their lives, inhibit their conversations or steal their humanity.

Friendly folks chat with each other while munching on an old fashioned hamburger, hot dog or a made from scratch milkshake served up in a large metal ice cream shaker.

When visitors wander into one of our local cafés, it’s not unusual for them to be invited to sit for a spell. That's when a local might tell him about all the new grandbabies born the week before or give an update on the Historical Society project. The stranger learns about the kind of produce sold at the Friday tailgate market. “The veggies are terrific this year,” he will hear. “Best doggone corn and tomatoes since 1945.”

There could be a report on the Saluda Dog Society’s recent fundraiser when enough money was donated to build a new shelter. Information might be shared that local thespians plan to perform, “It’s a Wonderful Life” during the month of December.

A tear or two will grace the eyes of an older resident when he reports, “It’s official. A community barbeque will be held in the park annually with all proceeds going to the Wounded Warriors Project. God Bless America.”

Saluda folks still use Ma Bell to ask about a friend’s son serving in the Middle East and they still phone each when they just feel like saying, “Hey, how’s your mama and ‘em?”

They support the lonely veteran struggling to adjust to a life without legs. They sit in church next to the widow who feels abandoned since the love of her life can no longer be by her side. They attend town meetings; they donate blood to the Red Cross and they always, always vote.

Saluda people figured out a long time ago that when we care and nurture each other we make a difference.

It took us a few years to settle permanently in this magical place that is not Brigadoon but comes pretty darn close. What took us so long?

Brigadoon, Brigadoon, blooming under sable skies.

Brigadoon, Brigadoon, there my heart forever lies.

Let the world grow cold around us, let the heavens cry above!

Brigadoon, Brigadoon, in thy valley, there'll be love!

Rocky Bottom

The cold, black Edisto River snakes through the small southern town where my brother and I grew up. There was a cove in the river floored with pebbles and that is where we learned to swim. Warm and familiar, we cut our teeth on those stones, and it was the place to which we returned when we were no longer children ... if only in our hearts.

When our swim teacher was much younger she trained for the Olympics. Imagine our delight when she accepted the Red Cross’s offer to become the official Edisto River Swim Instructor. Kids in our town proudly sported a lifesaver patch earned by diving off platforms and swimming against the strong current. It was a rite of passage.

I will never forget the day I was learning the Dead Man’s Float. It was in the roped off kid's section, the official dividing line between safety and peril. Beyond the ropes, deeper water rumbled past on its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

I was under water when a whistle shriek made me jerk my head up in time to see the swim teacher plunging over a barrel and diving headfirst into the deep water, slicing it with first one muscular arm and then the other.

She was clad in a black Catalina swimsuit designed to make her look skinny and a black bathing cap giving her the appearance of a loggerhead turtle as she cut through the water like the Gold Medalist to which she had once aspired.

She headed downriver toward a small, black child struggling to keep his head above water. As soon as his limp hand disappeared into the blackness for what could have been forever, she caught up with him and grabbed his little body before it floated out of sight.

She pulled him out of the river, placed him on the muddy banks and proceeded to give the child mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When enough water squirted from the little boy's mouth to put out a grass fire, I let go of the breath I had been holding in.

It all happened quickly, but the moment was captured in my mind where it has remained as a permanent snapshot, a defining moment leaving me with a lifelong, formidable respect for that cold-hearted river. A child’s near-fatal drowning was valid testimony that the river was a killer in disguise but our swim instructor an unbiased heroine who did what she was born to do.

The people in my small Southern town, as well as my experiences there, nurtured and shaped me into the person I was born to be. Even today, it continues to suckle me and will do so all the days of my life.

While it may be true that Rocky Bottom was only a shallow area of the Edisto River, over the course of my life it became a touchstone in my soul that could take me home.

Scrappy and Boo Sanford, the brother and sister who narrate the stories of Rocky Bottom, are fictional entities of my imagination. If any of the people places or events seem even remotely familiar to the reader, it may be because many small southern towns are made up of people who love football, fried chicken, barbeque and ancestors. That pretty much describes the folks who season my made-up town of Greenburg, South Carolina.

DURING

I tossed and turned before finally getting out of bed and padding softly to the kitchen for a glass of water. A light was on in the breakfast room and I wondered who besides me was having a hard time sleeping.

Daddy was sitting alone at the kitchen table in front of what was left of a bottle of Jack Daniels. His shoulders were slumped, his head bent.

I stood back, shielded by the night shadows. A part of me wanted to put my arms around the man who had been my hero and who any fool could see needed comforting. But I was young and ignorant of adult pain, so I remained in the shadows.

I felt his sadness and it hurt me, but something big had happened to me on that long, horrible day, something unexpected and still very raw. A new piece of me had reared its head from the cocoon existence of self-absorbed adolescence and this new feeling compelled me to keep still.

When six hundred black college students publicly opposed the status quo, it changed everything for me. If, years later I wrote my life story, I would be obliged to say, “That day in the Square is when everything I had ever believed shifted.”

They had marched in silence knowing they would be taunted and sneered at by intolerant, frightened white people. Prepared to suffer physical abuse or God knows what, they kept on because they believed in their cause. I caught only a measure of their passion, but it was provocative and I was determined to protect a smattering of the transfused spirit I had stolen from them.

I would no longer be a naive young girl when, through a different set of eyes, I was able to be more generous in my judgment of Daddy’s involvement that fateful day. Generosity of spirit came easily when I thought of the students, however. I had sensed the courage it took for them to demand a better way of life for themselves and their people, but Daddy’s participation in it was harder to understand. He had followed orders instead of his innate sense of fairness.

And therein lies the rub.

In my mind’s eye, I can see Daddy giving the order to use fire hoses on those students. It makes me sad to remember, but I can do it. The thing is, he is long dead and I am left with only a pocketful of memories of the man who was once my hero.

Other people can do the blaming, the criticizing. Let them. I choose to remember him as a human being. I choose to keep the vision of my father as he sat alone at the kitchen table in the middle of the night weeping for having played a part in man’s inhumanity to man.

That image is enough to remind me that we are all fallible. Even parents.

AFTER

It has been a long time since I witnessed first hand a not so peaceful protest demonstration in my hometown, a long time since my unintentional comeuppance. A long time since the day my perception of the world shifted.

Now when I catch myself gazing through the windows of my past, I find it difficult to understand how I could ever have gone along with a myopic community that patently ignored the basic rights of too many of its own.

It shames me that I never questioned the existence of separate drinking fountains and toilet facilities. I was aware that black children were relegated to swim in the river away from where we swam and played, but it was not until years later that I challenged the injustice. I, like many Southerners, accepted the status quo and it will forever be my cross to bear.

I know times change, issues change, and sometimes even people change. Diversity makes our lives sing and not ding. But needed change, whether domestic or far-reaching, must be purged from the predilection of ideas and beliefs handed down from parent to child. To be effective, it must claw away at the marrow of our primal souls.

My hometown is no longer the small, sheltered place where my brother and I were acquainted with every backyard and all the Chinaberry trees within a six-block radius. We knew all the kids, their parents and most of their aunts and uncles. We knew no strangers then.

Some landmarks are left, but they become fewer in number as time marches on. The big clock in front of The First National Bank still stands. The statue of the Confederate Soldier that once stood proudly in the town square, however, has been taken down. In its place, a patchwork quilt of multi-colored azaleas now covers the area each spring as a gentle reminder that beauty can be found in diversity. The tired old Civil War fought and refought long after Appomattox has lost some ground.

Schools I attended for twelve of my young years managed to survive the unrest and subsequent rebellion of the turbulent Sixties. They have since been rebuilt, renamed and revitalized. I don’t recognize them today.

When I return, I don’t know where to go. There are no remembered haunts where I might bump into old friends; no special gathering places where I pigged out on hot dogs and hamburgers and shag danced till I dropped. There are no familiar places left for me go.

The river bridge is still there, rotten to the core and condemned to die as slowly as so many other worn out traditions. The kid area with its green water barrels disappeared long ago. The wooden platforms off which both children and dogs loved to jump, no longer exist.

Rocky Bottom itself was dredged and done away with more than twenty years ago for some harebrained, probably bureaucratic reason. The shallow area floored with tiny pebbles where hundreds of kids learned how to dogpaddle is no longer available to any children, black or white.

The thing that remains pretty much the same is the Edisto River itself. It is still swift and deadly, and it still moves toward an inevitable end. That frightening, black body of water grasps and holds onto bits and pieces of remembered childhoods, the carefree days so many of us spent down at Rocky Bottom.

Scout’s Honor

Honor: honesty and integrity in one’s beliefs and actions. — BSA Pledge

Lt. General E.G. “Buck” Shuler is Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Mighty Eighth Museum and he is my childhood friend. I am a captive audience as the General leads us on a tour of the museum, speaks of significant fighter planes or points to a photo of a celebrated WWII Ace. My friend wears a crown of white hair these days, but it only takes a blink for me to remember him as the redheaded boy he was when we were kids.

At fifteen, maybe sixteen-years-old, Buck’s tall, lanky body is erect. He holds his chin high as the Scout Master pins a red, white and blue BSA medal over my his heart. Having earned his twenty-first merit badge, he is being elevated to Eagle Scout, future leader, a man who will one day make a difference in the world.

The expressions I see on the faces of his parents reflect the pride they feel in their son’s early accomplishments. They know how difficult it was for him to earn merit badges while juggling schoolwork, football and an active student’s social life. They raised their son to be unafraid of challenges gave him a caring heart and are proud of their endowments.

Someone in the group behind me sneezes and I am quickly brought back to the here and now as my old friend tells us about the gallant Mighty Eighth aviators who have served our country since I was two-years-old. Proud and happy to credit his compatriots, Buck pointedly shies away from mentioning his own, not insignificant contributions.

Buck Shuler, outstanding graduate of The Citadel and former Commander of the Eighth Air Force, was first a Boy Scout. It occurs to me that his early training cemented and honed his sense of commitment. Perhaps his early training brought him to leadership positions at The Citadel and then continued to guide him toward an illustrious military career. For sure, the BSA Motto remained with him as a reminder to do his best, to do his duty to God and country and to help others.

This former Boy Scout flew 107 combat missions over North Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam and Laos while I was tucking two baby boys safely into bed each night. My son’s first day in kindergarten occurred the day Buck was deployed to Taegu Air Base, South Korea in answer to the USS Pueblo crisis.

In summer, my children and I meandered the South Carolina beaches in search of shark’s teeth while my friend flew F-4C combat support missions in the Korean demilitarized zone. He defended my family and me while I looked for shells, went to parties and took freedom for granted.

I remained safe at home reading books or nagging my husband for squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle while General Shuler initiated the first air attack on Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf.

Because of his strong determination, strength of character and knowledge, it is now possible for people who have taken peace for granted in the past — people like me — to honor the brave men and women who serve in our stead.

General Buck Shuler would be the last one to say that he was a key player in the formation of the Mighty Eighth Air Museum, but he was. And he took on that responsibility even after retiring from the Air Force. He did so for one reason: to honor those who did not take peace for granted.

My friend deserved the Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster he received, the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with five Oak Leaf Clusters, and his Air Force Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster. He more than earned the Republic of Korea’s Order of National Security Merit Cheonsu Medal, as well as thirteen other decorations and ribbons.

If, however, all of the medals, citations and awards presented to this honorable man should somehow disappear never to be seen again by the naked eye, I suspect one badge would remain stamped forever on his brain. That would be a red, white and blue BSA Eagle Scout medal, pinned over his heart in 1952, faded from his many years of service. Because of his early training, other future leaders have learned from him what it means to make a difference in the world.

I salute General E. G. “Buck” Shuler, Eagle Scout, who still soars like an eagle. Scout’s Honor.

Hope Cometh in the Morning

I eagerly await the last hard freeze of the season when the cold, hard earth wakes up and leaps into spring with blooms that proclaim rebirth. It is then that I throw off my overcoat and wander around outside, astonished at the beauty surrounding me.

I was under-astonished years ago when I lived out West. Southern California is overrun with palm trees and bougainvillea and the hills are alive with the blooms of Magnolias. There are Oaks almost as tall and droopy as if they were grown in Charleston. What California doesn’t have, and what I missed the most, were Dogwood trees.

What a shock to discover I was living in a state totally lacking the beauty of a four-cornered, white flowering tree that presents itself each spring in order to remind us of what Easter is all about.

There are no lightning bugs out there, either. On warm summer nights, I gazed out my window in hopes of seeing a lightning bug flicker across the dark sky but it didn't happen. California kids actually go through childhood without ever housing lightning bugs in a Dukes Mayonnaise jar with holes punched in the top.

As the spring seasonal changes began to move toward Easter, I felt emotionally compromised, aching for azaleas and dogwoods mixed with yellow daffodils. My soul longed for a glimpse of the flowers and trees of the South Carolina Low Country.

The exhibition of colorful  azaleas and roses at the Edisto Gardens in Orangeburg where I grew up presented a living painting that surpasses my ability to describe. Monet would have loved it. Every shade, hue and color in the Azalea spectrum was surrounded by countless dogwood trees, robust with dramatic blossoms. It was impressive.

Every Easter, church choirs in the area came together to sing at the Sunrise Service held in the midst of the burgeoning gardens. The flowers, discerning their role in the planned program, managed to slash through the fog of early morning light to deliver hope to those of us waiting for the sunrise.

I was always cold arriving at the gardens, even wearing three layers of clothes underneath my choir robe. Folks not in the choir were also dressed in layers as they moved quietly up the hill hoping to find the best perch on which to listen to the music and hear the message of hope. I remember watching them gather together in the dark, greeting one another with a hug or a handshake and always a smile.

What a magnificent sight it was when the sun came up. Standing with other choir members on the slight incline we called a hill, I looked out at a spring bouquet of flowers that stretched over a two-mile radius, a never-ending mural. It was the official nod that welcomed in the new season, rich with the birth of flowers as colorful as Easter Eggs sprouting from grass as green as shamrocks.

We sang, “Up From The Grave He Arose,” “In The Garden,” “On a Hill Far Away,” and other familiar Easter hymns. Friends and neighbors in our little town welcomed Easter as the sun crept up slowly, yawning itself into the newborn day — God’s other gift to humankind.

So there you have it — the reason I look forward to the last cold snap, the final week of shivers, socks and sweaters. I’ll probably fret about the bulbs I’ve put in the ground and I’ll definitely need to pray for the survival of the already stressed out hydrangeas I bought on sale and planted in the back yard.

I will need to rely on what I learned during those cold Easter Sunrise Services when I was a kid. I will have to depend on my early conditioning to fill me once again with faith that our garden, as well as our world, will once again burst into bloom. When I look for the flicker of lightening bugs outside my window I will know that when the morning comes, I will wake to azaleas, dogwoods and yellow daffodils. 

Our World in Twenty-Five Years

I worry about our world in twenty-five years at which time I will either be living on the other side of the flowerbed or enjoying my fifteen minutes with whomever has replaced Willard Scott. 

But I have a family and God willing, they will still be here. They will be the ones asking how and why my generation allowed the devastation of our country to happen.

     

Well, WE didn’t let it happen. Our elected leaders, people we trusted to guard the country's welfare, could have listened to scientific facts.

But they didn't.

They spent insane amounts of money on campaigns instead, money that could have been used to insure a livable planet for my children and grandchildren.

But they didn’t.

They could have insisted on educational programs on energy conservation.

But they didn’t.

They could have chosen to look honestly at the threats facing the world and our responsibility to mankind.

But they didn’t.

What can we do about it now when we are almost out of ammunition? Not much.

The country could come together (for a change) and fight what appears to be the inevitable, but our leaders would need to be on board. They would have to make a commitment to do whatever is necessary to insure a livable planet in twenty-five years.

That would be ideal in a perfect world, but sadly there is not much chance of it ever happening in this imperfect world. Egocentric, mean-spirited politicians are interested only in ignoring the obvious because they are more afraid of losing votes than doing the right thing.

In twenty-five years, the world we love today will be history and God will weep.