THE NINETY-0NE PERCENTER vs. NFL

(In the Autumn Desert):

In the last post it was President Trump who was the “Ninety-One Percenter,”  having been the recipient of 91% negative news and entertainment coverage in the past year or so.

Autumn in Washington

But I think I see a reverse percentage –  This time it appears that the People are the Ninety-One percenters,  supporting the sentiments expressed by President Trump about certain football players and the patriotically impotent officials at the NFL.

I   love football!  I love the playing of the game,  the rules of the game, the fans, the noise, the field,   and even some of the players.     I love my one team!!  And I like a whole lot of others.

It began here for me,  on the playing field:

Our Junior High marching band was invited to participate in half-time events – before most of us even knew what football and half-time was all about!    But there we were, in bright blue and gold uniforms,  in the chill night air with bright lights pretty much blinding us.

And then you hear the whistles and the drum beats and you see the drum majors taking off,  and you march in formations,   formations after formation,  rhythms,  trumpets blaring, feet pounding,  and because it was the year of The Bridge on the River Kwai ,   all of us,  maybe 800 combined school band members, had to take our frozen lips off of our cold instruments and start whistling  “Colonel Bogie’s March!”   Look up that amazing song!

Maybe the whistling wasn’t that great,  but we were doing it for the football team!    We were doing it for our high school!  We were doing it for our city!    We were all doing it!

And I fell in love with the whole football world right then.

For the past several years,  many posts in The Spruce Tunnel on Fall weekends were enthusiastic reports of the latest (Bears)  game.   Or the Spartans.

After the Super Bowl I knew a “long desert” of time was coming before I could watch any more football.

Except for last year.   I  became uneasy.    More  and more I saw the political Left intrude into the enjoyment of the sport.    Well-publicized rule violations;  well-publicized criminal investigations;   well-published medical investigations;   and well-publicized  anti-American antics.

Everything about football had become politicized.    It’s not that these issues didn’t exist;  football fans are generally intelligent enough to know about them – and care.  But it was the hysterical hype about each issue that demanded an end to this and an end to that, a change to this, a change to that . . .   and  (in accord with the rhetoric of the Extreme Left):  “Shame, shame, shame….”      Leftists must have their way!

In the words of these Leftists:  You’d better feel guilty and start agreeing with us.

In the words of our president,  in his best New York-ese:   “Get em otta here!!!!”

I’ll bet ninety-one percent of football fans agree!

 

 

 

THE NINETY-ONE PERCENTER AT THE U.N.

(It’s quieter and more peaceful here since The Spruce Tunnel “cut the cable,”  but every now and then something from the leftist media will ooooooze  in.)

 Extreme Leftist Sub-Leaders of the One World Government:

The president of the United States recently gave a speech here.    I read it.   It made me feel good and safe and relieved.    At last!   At last, someone is saying it’s okay to be an American and it’s okay, as an American,  to love my country and want to see it thrive.

And it’s okay to feel that way about your country too, if you are a citizen of another country.

If we don’t care about our own native land,  then what good are we for dealing with the larger issues we all  have in common?

62, 000, 000  of us voted for this particular president because he articulated what we had been feeling and what we hope for.   (We cannot know how many supported Mrs.  Bill Clinton,  because so many reports are coming in now of confirmed and evidenced voter fraud that put her in the winning column,  precinct after precinct,  city after city . . . .  Who could ever know how many real votes she got?)

Supporters of these international Extreme Leftists at the United Nations include the entertainment-news media.      Somewhere around 96% of them say they voted for . . .  of course,  the Extreme Leftist Mrs.  Bill Clinton.     Journalists.  Vote.  Left.  

They have been waging an extreme and unrelenting war against their own elected president.

Surprise!    Independent analysis has shown that  91% of news coverage of our president has been negative.    Surprise!    (not)    That’s 91%.      Some big famous “news”  outlets are in the high 80s percentage of negative (and false) news coverage of the president.

Just facts of  “modern” life.

So, after looking into the speech the American president made at the U.N. on behalf of our country,   I was amazed to hear just about 99%  negative comments on the speech.    There were no words that inspired those comments,  but there was plenty of animosity that inspired those comments.  I shouldn’t have been “amazed” – but I was, at the vitriol and mendacity of the assertions.

The difference between real life and the entertainment-news media has never been greater.

The so called Ninety-One percenter president hit a 100%  home run with many, many Americans.

 

 

 

NEW MOON, NEW LIFE, AND BIRTHDAYS

Been distracted lately.  Too many hurricanes;  too many earthquakes;  too much end-of-summer physical work on your property!  

Spent the day today outdoors,  digging,  hefting a shovel,  throwing dirt around,  moving a wheelbarrow around,  raking,  hoeing,   leveling new surface soil:

 

(And just how do you know when the surface is level?    Level enough to plant new grass?     Will have to try again  tomorrow.     Maybe then I’ll be satisfied.)

And planting:

That’s an ugly picture!   But there’s nothing wrong with my grass.     Small areas of thin grass have been given a shovelful of new topsoil, grass seed laid down,  and straw laid on top of the seed.    Not a pretty sight,  but some day it will look nice!

While I was doing all this back-breaking work today   ( I know why they call it back-breaking!)  I was letting my mind go free.

Hey!    There’s a new moon today!     Good day for planting.    0 %  light from the moon, but as the moon grows a bit bigger each day,  new life from the seed is drawn out and grows larger and larger.    At least,  that is ancient wisdom.  Plant your crop during a new moon.

New moon – in September!     Today, then, is Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year!   And the first day of  Jewish High Holy Days, ending with the joy of penitence, the offer of reconciliation to one’s neighbor, acknowledgement of sins,  and the joy of God who has made a way for forgiveness   (Yom Kippur).

This also begins my  “new year”  too.   In one week I will have a whole new possible year laid out for me,  and, God willing, I will live it.    That is,  my birthday,  which often falls within the Jewish New Year festivities.

One more week to be this “age.”     I don’t really care what number anymore.  I’m already old enough to go to school,  to drive, to  drink, and to vote.   But I rather like ages that end with a zero,  and there are only seven more days for this one.    I might have only a couple more “zero years” in my lifetime,  so I tried to consciously enjoy this one from time to time.

Here’s something about birthdays I’ve noticed as the years pass:  When you’re young,  other people celebrate your birthday for you and then with you.   But the older you get,  the  more you celebrate your own birthday,   with an appreciation for all the good things that make up your life,  things that only you know.

Your parties may look the same throughout the years,  with cake, gifts, cards, friends and family,  candles, singing, decorations – more or less from year to year.

And it’s all fun.   

But inside,  internally where you “live,” where you think and observe and feel and plan and know . . .  inside yourself,     when a birthday comes,   it’s you yourself that makes good cheer for the day that is your day,  special to you alone.

LOYALTY SENSE

“Ethnonational secessionism or global hegemony” — remember that phrase.  I’m going to use it in a minute.

(No photos, I think.  This is an interior thought from me and is a recording, for me,  of a snapshot in the timeline of world history.)

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 “Blood is thicker than water.”     When it comes down to the most fundamentally,  extreme basics of life – your family is instinctively your first point of reference.      (There aren’t as many extremely dysfunctional families or self-loathing families as the entertainment-news media would have us believe.)

Normal people are rather loyal to their own families.   Grandparents, parents,  sisters,   brothers, children, and grandchildren.    And then cousins . . .   etc.

I grew up in the ’50s and the pre-radicalized ’60s.   (Never mind how old that makes me:  I’m not really that old.)  It was Chicago, and my home was in the midst of various ethnic groups:   Irish,  German,  Italian, Polish, and Mexican primarily, with a few outliers like me,  a Swede-Finn.     After a few curious questions like “What nationality are you?”  or  “Were your parents born in America?”  we went on with our lives, our school, our play, without any further thought or even awareness of our “differences.”   We went home at night to our various-language speaking homes.

Once Cultural Marxism took over and became the dominant philosophy presented to us in movies,  television, radio, and magazines,   we were taught to think that differences made a  . . .  difference.    Somehow.

A big surprise in the ’70s came when I read a sociological study that concluded that “People are happier when they are living in neighborhoods made up of primarily their own kind.”    One race likes to live among people of its own same race.   One ethnic group is happier living with people of its own familiar ethnic group.   Et cetera.

That seemed like common sense,  evidenced by my own observations from a pre-radicalized American culture.

Blood is thicker than water.   You are happiest among your own familiar  “kind” of people.

How hard it is to write those words today – and not feel defensive.

But there is nothing wrong with feeling patriotic and loyal to your culture even if it’s made up of many ethnic groups.    “America”  defines a culture with citizens of one common set of values.     It is worth our heartfelt  loyalty.

As a history major in the universities I attended,  I saw how evil ethnic cleansing is,  and genocide,   and granting privilege to one ethnic group or another.  One of the biggest causes of unrest in the world —   small wars,  skirmishes, guerilla warfares, armed revolutions,  civil wars —  is the deliberate creation of artificial  national boundaries,  breaking up families and tribes and ethnic groups into arbitrary political alignments.

Tribes just want to get back together again.   Clans and families want to live together.

As I’ve returned from my  rather long vacation and returned to reading world events,  I see so many areas of the world on the verge of civil war for just this very reason.   The Kurds want their own country,  their own national boundaries.  They do NOT want live across four or five other “nations”  created in the Middle East.

The Catalans want their own region back, under their own local control.    (Even though it’s been a few hundred years since they were annexed into Spain.)   Ditto the Basques.

Many  ( a majority?) of  Ukrainians speak and feel and identify as Russian.   Why do the NATO nations want the Ukraine?      Why should they?

Africa is one big political and cultural mess of forcibly moved ethnic groups,  with Leftist governments desperately trying to keep control through any tyrannical and murderous means they can use, starvation being a very effective tool.

China is trying to take back (or take over)  an area of northern India, closest to them.   They’re close to succeeding.   400,000 refugees in “relief” camps;  50 dead this summer.

China and the Uighurs.

Burma.   The Philippines.   Southern Russia.  Chechens.  India  (Darjeeling tea, anyone?)

If you are well-informed,  you get the picture and you’ll be able to see an overview, draw some useful conclusions.

This is the picture of Ethno-Seccessionism —  ethnic groups wanting to secede from the national state that is now governing them.

What is holding them back?    What force is opposing them?   Why cannot people live in peace among their own families, clans, tribes, and ethnic groups?

It breaks my heart that people can’t.

What’s stopping them?     It is the diabolically strong force of Global Hegemony.    The opposing Force wants control of —  everything!  And everyone.    to do that It must break down boundaries, barriers,  loyalties,  identities, blur differences, and absorb all.     It must have Global Control,  Global Hegemony over everything and everyone.

And this motivation is one of the driving forces behind the deliberate promotion of ethnic groups being “migrated” into foreign countries, where they don’t match the culture,  where they are not willing to be assimilated,  where they do not respect the citizens already there.

Civil wars, unrest, agitations result, today, from this clash of Ethnocentric Secessionism and Global Hegemony.

Who do you want to be?      Who do you identify with?    Who are you and your family safer with?

Local control or an inhuman, “efficient” Big Brother machine?     Power makes on hungry for more Power.

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To see how far along the second road we are,  check with your local township government,  your local school board,  or city,   or county.    See how much in compliance they are with Agenda 21 –  or 2030 – or any of the new names the Globalist have come up with.  

Check also the book of Revelation in the Bible –  chapter 13.  ( “Beast” is just a way of expressing the Force behind this growing Global Hegemony.)     If it’s seen in the bible, does that mean it’s inevitable?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POSTCARD SENSE – (A useful post)

I’m from a time that when you went on vacation, you sent postcards back to the people at home.

It’s still a fun thing to do,  but we don’t actually do it anymore, even though they still make really nice postcards.    Nowadays I buy a few postcards, but mostly as souvenirs, or as interesting additional little bits of information for me to save.

Vintage Donner Lake postcard

On my way out West, I heard about an app that allows you to take a photo on your own cell phone and send it in and “they” would make a postcard out of it,  write your message, stamp and  mail it!      How convenient –  how personalized!

I promised Cooper I’d send him a “thank-you”  post card made from a photo his Mommy had taken of us on Donner Lake,  when I got home.

I didn’t use an app.

Here’s the front of my new postcard,  from Mommy’s cell phone.  I printed it out on stiff poster board paper,  the 7 X 11 size,  printing the photo on the glossy side so I could use a pen on the matte side.

A ruler, a pen,  a stamp, and an address – looks official!      The size of the printed photo is 4 X 6 and I could fit two of my choices on one little poster paper.

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The color on my  printed postcard  did not seem to easily smear or run,  but if I hear of any trouble,  I’ll just use the stuff you to save  jigsaw puzzles.  It dries into a  clear and tough coating.

Cooper says he likes to receive mail.  He’s got this unique, adult-type relationship with his mailman but in a conversation I overheard,  he told the mailman that he hardly ever gets anything in his own name.  I think I just found a fun way to send him things.

BICYCLE SENSE

Maybe you guys understand this,  but I sure don’t:

Why do perfectly good, well-inflated tires go flat if you don’t use your bicycle for a few months . . .  or a year?

You can’t just “take out your bike”  when the timing is right.

And why do the little caps on the tires where you put the air in become so much impossibly tighter to the very same fingers that tightened the cap in the first place?

I’m the one who tightened them;  I should be able to take them off.

But,  oh-h-h-h-,     it was worth all the fuss.  Until I get new Rollerblades,  being high on wheels   is a wonderful feeling.

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Here in the Far North we’ve had high overcast clouds with heavy misty rain this morning;  followed by a band of bright sunshine, wherein I could ride my bike;  and soon now, developing,  another band of high overcasty clouds which will surely rain down a fine, heavy mist onto us.

Remnants of Irma.

IRMA – PERSONAL FOLLOW-UP

Many of us know someone who lives in Florida,  or we’ve visited Florida ourselves and know some of the places that we’ve been seeing on television.

Here’s a street I’ve driven on many times before:

A battered and tired alligator making his way . . .  home, I guess.    This is Strawbridge Rd.,  a residential and small business street in Melbourne FL.

My sister,  who lives there,  came through just fine.

This is her front yard.  Note only small branches down.   No big trees this time.   Her truck is parked  crosswise to protect the garage doors.   I wouldn’t have thought of that.  But then,  I don’t have to,  up here in the Far North.

Here’s her back yard:

Just small branches down.  One year, during Charlie in 2004,  my sister stuck her cell phone out the window so I could hear the hurricane overhead.  It was pretty impressive.  And then there was a huge crash.    The next day they discovered part of their neighbor’s roof in this back yard.

I don’t mean to diminish the destruction that some people are suffering.  Irma’s winds were strong and long –  it was overhead for a long time with Tropical Storm force winds and Hurricane force gusts, so some areas sustained much more serious damage.   I’ve heard more than 60% of  people in Florida are without power, and will be so for weeks.

My sister’s horses?   Apparently the barn held in the winds and the horses, according to my sister, seemed more concerned about their late breakfast this morning than anything they had heard during the night before.

My neighbor’s condo and  his son’s family is in Pinellas county,  Tampa-St. Pete.     All is well there too.     However,   his son says next time he’d evacuate –  he never wants to go through another night like that!

And one more:  my in-laws, or uh,  whatever you call my son-in-law’s parents who  live just north of Ft. Myers.    —  no word yet.   Perhaps they were out of state.    Perhaps they haven’t returned to see . . .  anything.

I know of many prayers that were being said.   I know that referring all things,  all destruction,  all danger,  all feelings to God, can make things go better.

Deo gratias.

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I don’t usually like written-out prayers, or sugary sentimental thoughts,   but I picked this up from a bulletin of a church I had to go to this weekend,   and although they don’t mention Harvey or Irma specifically,   there was flooding, and I think this is a nice thought,  a thoughtful prayer — and so I’ll post it here:

 

 

BEAUTY AND THE (you know) BEAST

I hate to be trite and use this well-known phrase to apply to the  hurricane —   but  I really was struck by the Beauty of some of the storm pictures:

There are many photos like this,  showing the beauty of Nature in a storm;  the symmetry and strength,  the power,  the immediacy of the winds;  the seemingly unaffected   human dwellings far removed in the background;   danger and indifference . . . .

But of course,  the Beast:

Many photos like this too, and many more to come.

As I write this, my sisters are  in harm’s way:

See where the “95”  is?    My sisters don’t live in the same household,  but both live just slightly below that number 95,  one of them just a few miles from the ocean. 4,  5 miles? And the other one just about smack in the middle of the state.

The outer bands of the hurricane is roaring above them right now with heavy rains, strong winds and gusts, and waterspouts and tornadoes aimed their way.

Actually, in a much smaller way,  we here in the Far North may be impacted next week — we’re a little north of  the top edge of those tracks,  right in the way of the remnants of Irma.    For us it will be “interesting”  and “fun” if you like rainstorms.   Hurricane remnant rainstorms are noticeably different from regular rainstorms.

We all are praying there won’t be serious and widespread tragedies to mourn when it’s over.    Yeah, “prayer changes things.”    But humans are not in control.

We do what we can – to prepare and shelter and put things safely away:

Flamingos?    Even the flamingos in Busch Gardens (Tampa area)  need to be protected.   A long line of them were marched into shelter.  Kind of cute.

I’ll be keeping an eye on my favorite place in Florida:   Tuckaway Shores beachside motel apartments;    Bizzaro’s Pizza on Melbourne Beach with the best New York pizza you can order –  if you can understand their rapid-paced Brooklyn accent!

And, of course, this –

Ron Jon’s  (Surf Shop) of Cocoa Beach!   I stop there twice on each trip to visit family,  once coming and once going.   I don’t surf;  but I enjoy being a Tourist!

Unity?  Solidarity?  Community?  Empathy?    Stay tuned.   We’re all part of the vulnerability of the “human condition.”

 

 

 

CAN’T ALIGHT

Alight:    (verb);    an adverbial of place,  with no object;   to get off a vehicle of some sort

This will pass, but it’s a strange feeling.    I’m home, so I’ve had a “homecoming,”   and I’m appropriately filled with gratitude and mild surprise that all went well.      But deep inside,  I haven’t “arrived.”

I can’t  “alight”  from my vehicle that has held me for the past two and a half weeks.

I am floating around my home as though I’m a ghost,  seeing, but not quite belonging.

I’m at the age where I can easily imagine leaving this world,  leaving my home for good,  and yet curious about what will happen to this house.  What would it look like when I’m no longer living . . .  here?

It would look like this, like it does now.    With me,  close by, looking down and around, but  not quite dwelling in it.    “I” will not be here,  but this house will still stand.

The reason may be that I’ve been doing the same things that I did when I was in “travel mode” and getting ready to leave for my trip.   I seem to be washing and arranging the same clothes that I had gotten ready for the trip, only now putting them back into their closets and drawers,  not in suitcases.

I’m looking through old mail, paying bills, throwing away junk mail and catalogs,  just as I did right before I left.

I’m still eating  from an almost empty refrigerator with “travel food”  yet to finish. Familiar food of  the past couple of weeks.

Still cleaning and organizing the car, as I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks.

For Pete’s sake:  I’m still watching a hurricane threatening our coastlines!

My reality is still . . .  traveling.

So what am I?    Am I the body now living in this house?   Or am I my mind,   still alert and oriented to my car?

It’s my birthday month right now, and I have to renew my driver’s license –  inside a Secretary of State office   I went there today,,  traveled a bit to get to a smaller office at what I thought was a good time of day;   took a number and realized there were thirty numbers ahead of me!

As I sat there I thought this may take  2 1/2 hours for my turn.  No, actually,  it would be  about 200 miles worth of driving.  Enough to drive out of one state and get halfway into the next.    That’s a big waste of time, just sitting there, getting nowhere.

I left the building.

I’m me,  in my mind,   but I haven’t yet come to terms with the ups and downs of everyday living.   Being here, not getting here.    I can’t put together the physical reality of being home and the mental reality of getting home.

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So who is me?

Where am I?

And what am I?

 

It’ll come back to me soon.

 

 

SAYING BYE

There comes a time when you “just know”  it’s time to reverse direction and turn towards home.    After spending so much time together, side by side,  the little one,  Cooper,  my grandson, bravely accepted that I wanted to go home.  He knew I wasn’t going to be there when he came home from his second whole new day of school.

He shuffled around that morning,  went away and got something,   then handed me his favorite  cute little bear.    He said, “Here, Grandma,  you should take him with you.”

He didn’t want me to be alone on my long ride home.  He wanted his love to accompany me on my way home.     (This is the “miracle child”  that was born under surprising circumstances, sent to us when the whole family needed him . . .  He brings peace, caring, and love.       The story is in the Archives for November 2010,  so I won’t repeat it here, except to say Cooper’s mission continues.)

So,  it was  time to hit the open roads again   (with little bear on the dash).

Those hazy mountains up ahead . . .  one hour later . . .

. . .   one hour later I reached them and enjoyed driving through them for the last time this year.

Last drive through mountain scenery.    And then the  mountainous terrain thins out:

Hours and hours of driving later,  next day in fact,  there are still occasional mountains to drive into:

Tunnels make it easier (and fun!):

Eventually,  good-bye to buffalo land:

Good-bye to all the dinosaurs:

Well,  but good-bye to fossils and archeological digs and dinosaur museums.    And an archaic way of looking at gasoline:

I grew up with those Sinclair gas commercials on television.   I think their mascot was called “Dino.”      Much to my surprise,  when I became an adult, I learned that oil doesn’t come from smooshed dinosaurs,  but that’s all right.

A couple days of driving later I had new scenery to look at:

It’s all green now.  Rich, fertile land for cattle and sheep and wheat and corn.    Our food.

You think this might be a boring place to drive?     No!   If you’re open to genuine experiences,  the sheer immensity of the landscape, the wide green expanse,   the limitless scenery,   the vast distances that your eyes can take in –  occasionally I still just have to  take a deep breath when I see so far into the land  I’m driving into.

The high plains,  the prairie,  sometimes becomes a desert during August:

You pass by moving clouds of dust alongside the Interstate,  knowing that a tractor or a little truck or a car is on the dusty local roads.

I’m on the road with the big rigs.    I feel safe with the truckers out there.    I love listening to the Truckers Radio Show during the overnight hours.   They usually love their jobs,  love the open roads,  but it’s a difficult job that’s tough on a man’s body.

It’s a hard and lonely job.

So,  I’ve been putting  the West behind me as the sun hung low in the western sky.

 

Fun with the sun:

The sun sits on the bridge in my rearview mirror.

And then night falls —

From beginning to end –

I started out with the eclipse,  the new moon covering the sun.

I’ve ended it now when the moon is full . . .

On the day I arrived home,  Son was kind enough to help me celebrate on his deck with grilled steaks.    The last time I saw him the moon was less than a sliver.  Now we enjoyed the full moon,  glowing reddish orange high in the sky.

Same sun.  Same moon.    But I feel different.  I know I’m different.

So much has been added to me.

“LEFT COAST” LIFE

 

The New Donner Memorial Experience:   Gone   Gone   Gone

Okay,  I hope you enjoyed “Lake Life”  and  “Mountain Life,”  because I have to get a little negative here.   Yes,  there was fun,  lots of activities,  lots of good food,  and lots and lots of really nice people —  but at the same time there were a lot of censorship and restrictions on the way you can think.

In fact – maybe the motto was:  Stay active;  don’t think.

Or:  Stay active;  we’ll tell you what to think.

As I traveled west,  I was pretty miffed about all the signs in the zoos that I visited that explained not what animal I was seeing or where they came from,  but   signs that  just gave the name, followed by    “And humans  are destroying this animal’s habitat.”

The World War One Museum conclusion?   “Humans who love their country –  Nationalism –  cause wars.”

The dinosaur museum?    “Humans are causing another extinction event  today. . .”

One day during my vacation,  when everyone was busy,  I decided to re-visit the Donner Party Memorial.  I remember it as a nice one, very informative, with lots of educational, interesting gifts in the gift shop.

But this time there was a big difference.  I should have known something had changed by the police presence there.

 

So maybe they were just having a meeting.

Here is the monument built to the Donner party,  90 some in all,  and 46 died.

Their story is, of course,  a bit sensational:   betrayal and incompetence along the way,  miscalculation of the season and ignorance of survival techniques in  the weather,  and the overblown “horrors”  of cannibalism by a couple of the people,  in an attempt to stay alive.

It happened here:

That’s Cooper’s   “Beautiful Lake,”  as he calls it, where we did so much of our activities.

But in the museum (information center) –  Gone were the beautiful displays of animals native to the area.   Gone  were the life-sized figures of the people and their daily equipment, pots and pans,  children’s toys,  their covered wagons,  yokes, and wheels and axles.    Gone were the historical dioramas of building the railroad into the High Sierras shortly after the Donner Party tragedy,  a railroad which would have made their tragedy unnecessary.     Gone were many of the logs and diaries and books written by the survivors.    Gone was the sense of the grit and courage and perseverance of the Donner Party,  a tribute to the hope and dignity of human beings.

So much I had wanted to see again was just gone.   In fact,  if I didn’t know the story well myself,  I would have been a bit puzzled about what exactly had happened here.

Because I had known what had happened here,  it was easy to recreate in my imagination what took place in these woods.   This is a poignant and eerie scene –  if you know the details.

A few areas were marked.  The actual campsite of one of the families:

With just a small plaque to name this site.

They had built a brand new large “information center”  —  so what took up all that space?

Well,  two main large areas told us:   “We must not forget that Western Man destroyed the culture of the   Washoe people  who lived here.”

And there were some large displays of generic “Native American”  life.    This could be any tribe of Indians.    But they can’t live like this anymore.    This culture is  “gone.”

The second main large area was taken up by the Chinese coolies  (is it still okay to call them that?)   who were brought over from China  (shanghaied –  is it still okay to say that?  Because  Chinese merchants captured and sold their fellow Chinese to any country who could use them as workers.)   to do the hard labor of building the railroad across America.

The main statement was:   Western Man must not leave them out of the pages of history.”

Well, guess what!   Western Man didn’t!   I remember learning about the Chinese laborers in at least three different years in school,  with an increasing, maturing  presentation of their plight and of the context.

If young people today,  40 and unders,  don’t know about the Chinese laborers,  don’t blame Western Man –  blame the government schools and their weak, dumbed down curricula.     No one has “forgotten”  them except for the education system.

After all this negativity,  I felt like  “ducking”   every time I read some display sign.

This censorship of the “whole”  story of . . .  anything . . .  was all over.   There was an underlying feeling of guilt and self-doubt and uncertainty everywhere I went.

How about trying to buy some food?

 

And when presented by two or three or four trash cans side by side,  I never did learn which was “garbage” or “recyclable”  or  “compost”  or  “you’d better not put that in here”!

I hope this Left Coast mentality is stopped before it permeates our entire society.   This is not what our Founding Fathers,  our forefathers, and our grandfathers  fought for!   We must not lose our American History in a hysteria of anti-West,  anti-White,   anti-human propaganda.

FREEDOM !!!!!

 

 

MOUNTAIN LIFE

 

Beautiful mountain flowers, just one of many photos.    I’ve been living for the past few weeks at about 5900 feet, altitude,  but for the people here,  they find their fun way up higher — say  7200 feet.

So up we went one fine day.

I loved loved loved these open chair lifts,  feet dangling,  the wind in my face!   I discovered, though that they only go part way up – and not down –  so then you have to use the covered “gondolas.”

This is  a view from inside a gondola.  We’re going down.    Your ears can pop from the altitude change!    We’re looking down about 50 feet onto a mountain bike trail.    Cooper’s Daddy teaches mountain biking . . .   winter mountain biking,  in the snow.   He’s probably a good teacher,  but I’m never going to find out!

Cooper was excited to be up in the mountain tops.  There were many things he wanted to do.    Gem panning, for one.

Panning for gold and semi-precious gems were one of the historic  draws to this area,  so I guess he’s learning his own local history.    He found some really nice ones, including a really nice portion of a geode with amethyst crystals inside.    I’m the grateful recipient of that —  his idea.

This was his second choice:

Well, it was hard to capture this activity with the camera.

In case you wonder how he likes being catapulted 25 feet into the air  —

So much fun!   Wish I were six years old again!

The third place he wanted to go while we were up on the mountain tops was a trampoline place.   They actually do some serious practicing for the Olympics up here.

There were dozens of trampolines, side by side, as well as gymnastic floor areas and  things you tie yourself up in to do aerial tricks.   The place was busy with all ages of kids working on their moves.     Cooper  enjoyed the jumping, and his Daddy got into the trampolines too and displayed some spectacular dives and twists.

But it isn’t all for fun:

This is a place to learn your snowboarding tricks.   You can jump and spin and somersault safely, because when you do it in the snow,  it’s going to be a harder landing!

And, yes —

You practice spinning, jumping, twisting tricks on your bike too.

And when you come down from all the activity what do you do next?

See the long shadows?   That’s  “evening on the soccer field.”

After soccer practice . . .  a bike ride to a restaurant . . .

And then the next day . . .  another full round of activities!

(See why this lady is ready to come home soon?)

 

LAKE LIFE

Here’s where the Little Blue Car has been parked for the past week:

Beneath a mountain,  at the lakeside.    You can just about see it at the bottom right corner of Cooper’s house.  Cooper’s Mommy and Daddy have worked very hard and are working hard and long hours to be able to choose a home in this location,  but, nevertheless,   every day they told me how lucky and how grateful they are to have a home like that.

So, good.

The Little Blue Car hasn’t had much to do lately.    This is how we got around:

Cooper’s family spend a lot of time in that lake –  Donner Lake.

Tbere’s  a  fearless jump  into the Lake!   Daddy is close by in case he’s needed,  but by six years old?

Nope:

He spent two hours  in  that Lake.     The whole family did.

And after lake time,  Cooper piloted the boat:

Ahhhhh.   Viking blood runs true in the newest generation!

 

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Active, active, active.   Everyone bicycles, serious mountain biking;   everyone does water sports in the summer,  snowboarding and snow mountain biking in the winter;   and lots of other sports all year round.      All the men.  All the women.  All the children.

But something else I noticed while here in the High Sierras:   I really didn’t see many people my age.   I think everyone must wear themselves out by age 50.

 

DESTINATIONED

Yes:  “destinationed.”     ” Destinationed out.”     As in “I got there and I’ve met my  . . .  end . . .”

These people are active!

It’s good.    I’m okay.    I’m exhausted.   Done thinking.    I’m sunburned,   been scraped and bloodied,    dizzied,     weak-kneed,    so-o-o-o-o-o thirsty,    tired,   and shaky . . .   and half-drowned at the bottom of this:

I’ve  been staying there . . .  right about where that little boat in the bottom left corner is coming out of.     Donner Lake.    I’ve been on the Lake and under the Lake . . . .   Tricks on the Lake  you  shouldn’t do at my age, or at least while you’re still weak-kneed from other activities.

Do you know that after you peddle boat across the Lake and back again that your legs don’t work so well for a while?

I took that  Lake photo from up here:

 

Location of Rainbow Bridge:

That little straight dark line in the center of the picture is the famous Rainbow Bridge.  Thanks to “Walt Disney Presents”  and my Viewmaster cards,  I learned about this Bridge as a child.    Almost never thought of it as real.

We got up there from Old US 40 – an old highway with breathtaking views and hairpin turns:

We parked our cars below and climbed up by foot further:

There were more rocks to climb:

Really was fun jumping from place to place, planning your footholds carefully.   Going down this mountainside was a whole different perspective.   You could see the depths.

Cooper was with me:

He lives there at Donner Lake –  this is his back yard!    The mountains, the forests and the Lake.        We celebrated Cooper’s Daddy’s birthday — on a pontoon boat – and with ski lifts and gondolas and a bit of hiking at the Summit —  el.  7200 feet.

I did a few other thingsout here at Donner,  but I’m too tired to write about them right now.   Packing the car for the trip home is next on my mind.

I’ll need a rest from this vacation.