Happy New Year

Welcome to the New Year! Where are the jet packs and the flying cars and stuff? Ah well.

I want to tell you all that there are still nice people in the world. I was looking up Savannah Melodies on the web and came across a very nice website that sells the plants called Scarbrough’s Garden @ http://daylily.net/scarbroughsgarden/garden.htm. Well, it seemed to me a user friendly site and they invited questions.

I had a very pleasant correspondence with Mr. and Mrs. Scarbrough which I had planned to cut & paste here but was having trouble with the web-based e-mail format transferring correctly without a bunch of work. I told them about Savannah and how I was interested in the flower but that I have a notorious black thumb. They e-mailed me back saying that they would send me a free one in her honor and were confident that it would do well here, even under my hand! Isn’t that cool? I think it is a very nice gesture and wanted to share that with you. They have a very nice site and I would recommend it. If you are interested in growing any of the things they offer, please consider them.

In other news the Lake Superior State University has issued its list of words and phrases that should be banished from the language for Mis-Use, Over-Use or Uselessness at http://www.lssu.edu/banished/ among the words and phrases? Blog! While you are there, you may also wish to click on the link that tells about the Unicorn Hunters.

Our New Year’s celebration was not as eventful as Christmas. We had church and a chili cook-off afterward. Since I became a teetotaler sixteen years ago, the holiday has become more reflective and restful. The kids go outside and bang pots and pans and the Ad-a-man club shoots fireworks from the top of Pikes Peak.

We did celebrate my little buddy, Dale’s birthday, though. He turned 40 and we gave him a big black bag full of as much over-the-hill stuff as we could find. We (Russ and John and I) went to the ARC and got him some caps and slippers and other wardrobe enhancements. We even found a “Grumpy Old Men” hat like Walter Matthau wore. I gave him a six-pack of prune juice and a jar of prunes as well as a “Depends.” We had great fun at his expense, but, well, it wasn’t our idea that he turn 40.

We are praying for the families of the victims of the tsunami and earthquake. I would like to refute the allegation by the UN’s Jan Egeland that the U.S. is stingy, however. I would, but I won’t take the time. Whenever there is a disaster anywhere, who is the first on the scene? Americans. Often times privately funded organizations. Who was first on the scene when hurricanes devastated Florida? George W. and Jeb Bush. Monetary or humanitarian aid from which countries? Well, Americans have always been both fiercely independent and magnanimous at the same time, since before we became a nation. Religious “heretics” came here to escape persecution because they wouldn’t go along with the status quo but stuck to their values and beliefs.

I don’t have all the numbers handy on all the unpaid loans America has given and all the money we are giving as a nation to this problem. You can’t really add it up because they call for helicopters and we divert 37 from their current military mission. We have private organizations and radio and TV stations and churches that take up the cause. Anyway, I am proud to be an American and proud of our Texas Cowboy President who represents the core values of the majority of our country.

As the Good Book says, “Fear God and respect your president.”