February 20, 1986

February 20, 1986.

Now THAT seems like such a long time ago.  I was in 9^th grade, and that was my 15^th birthday.

The other day I found something.  It was a birthday card. Ruth and Glenn Hicks had given it to me, and it was printed on parchment paper, and purported to be a "Happy Life Insurance Policy" and it listed all the reasons why I should celebrate and be merry for this birthday and for many more to come.  It insists that despite all the negative things that might be out there, that I deserve to be happy, and that I have the right to pout if I am not.

Less than a month before my birthday the space shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff, sending parts of itself down into the Atlantic with great plumes of smoke.  The repeated video footage of the event would imprint themselves on my brain, and to this day I can see the three main trails of debris as they fell toward the water.

On board was the first school teacher to attempt reaching into space, Christa McAuliffe.  I was sitting in English class, and Mr. Ramage, the principle, came to the door, calling out Mrs. Parker, to inform her.  We didn't know Christa, but it didn't matter…

Two and a half months before the Challenger tragedy, I went to school one day.  Dennis, my brother-in-law, came knocking on the door of my agri class, telling Mr. Watkins that he needed to speak to me.  I went out into the shop, where I was told, "James, I don't know how to tell you this, but your Dad is dead."  You know, it took a lot of courage to do that, to be so open and up front with me about what was going on.  I don't know how much he knew of what had happened, but as it turned out, Dad and Ted had gone to do some work that morning, and Dad told Ted that he wasn't feeling well, leaving the tractor and going up to the truck to sit down for a few minutes.  When he didn't return, Ted went looking and found him.

Tiny Goodman, the coroner, said that a team of the world's best doctors probably couldn't have saved him – he had a massive heart attack and his life was snuffed out just like that. I spent a long time regretting that I had not told him "I love you" that morning as we went our separate ways. But really, how could I know?  

I remember the cold, gray November day at Owley Cemetery, where Pastor Bolt of the local Assembly of God, my classmate's father, came to speak.  My uncle Wilbur, more like Grandfather than uncle, and his daughter Sue (more like an aunt than a cousin) were there, along with others in the family, from Mississippi.  I remember Sue laughing loudly at one point.  I appreciated that – as funny as it may sound.  It meant the world wasn't over, despite how I felt.

From November to February was a blur.  I don't remember Christmas at all.  In fact, other than the Challenger I don't remember much of anything about it.  But since I found the card from Ruth, I know I had begun to work for her at the elementary school in the evenings, doing janitorial work.  I did that throughout the rest of high school.

In the years since then, many things have happened.  Glen got his kidney transplant, and it failed, then got another that worked wonderfully, then had his own heart attack that took him away from us.  The last year or so I worked with Ruth, it was just her and I.

After I graduated, I didn't know what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go.  I had some vague notion that I might go to college and become a teacher, but I had seen folks who did that and returned to school way too young, and I thought it needed to wait a while – and besides I didn't really have any goals.

I finally joined the Air Force and after six years in uniform I went to work in the same office that I had just left, but not in uniform any more.  A year later I went to work for another company, doing more of the same.  A few weeks ago, I hit my fifteen year anniversary with that company.  I won't be there for the sixteenth.  But, that's a story for another day. 

I was thinking about that card.  Looking at it this morning, I read Ruth's note, written in her left-leaning script, and thought about how almost 27 years ago, her hand touched the paper and wrote on it… She's gone now, along with Glenn and a few others in my story.

I have letters written to me when I was in the Air Force by my cousin Sue, the laugher, who passed on several years ago.  She was the first I heard say, laughingly, "I'm a poet, and didn't even know it."

I have notes and journals hand-written by my Mom, who has been gone now for almost three years.

These treasures are special, but so hard to look at sometimes.  There's a magic in the written word.  The idea that you are holding something once touched by another, reading words once written by someone whom you cannot see right now.

I am thankful this season for the many blessings I have today, and for the warm and happy memories I have, and oddly enough, for the many hardships that have helped to forge the person I have become.  According to my birthday card, I had at least 1,000,000 (and counting) good wishes for my birthday and for all of the birthdays to come.

And just in case we ever have to face the day when, for one of us, tomorrow never comes, I want you to know that I love you.

Oil Salesman

I am no conspiracy theorist, but something's fishy in Texas (or is it Washington?).

The former president and his right hand man were both oil executives. I am sure it had nothing to do with any decisions they made while in office, but still... The oil industry seems to have a huge ability to influence Washington insiders, to include members of the legislative branch as well as, potentially, the executive branch.

In those years, the government clamped down on anyone's ability to regulate "speculation" in oil prices - meaning with rumors of a possible war in the middle east, crude oil prices can jump through the roof - and even though no supply is cut, the price you and I pay at the pump can rise as much as thirty or forty cents in a week's time... On rumor! And when the war drums start beating more slowly, the crude oil prices bounce back down, yet it takes weeks for the 'trickle down theory' to go to work at the gas pumps.

For a while now, I've had those thoughts - why can mere rumor cause my fuel bill to go up by a hundred dollars or more in a month's time?

Then I started reading some things by the oil industry, who who are still, after all these years of recession, making record profits (we can't control the price at the pump, they say, and we hardly make any money as it is off fuel sales, etc) (Ref the propoganda machine here: http://www.exxonmobilperspectives.com/2011/04/27/gas-prices-and-industry-earnings-a-few-things-to-think-about/ (If you believe them, they're actually LOSING money: "Over the past five years, we incurred a total U.S. tax expense of almost $59 billion, which is $18 billion more than we earned in the United States during the same period." )

Now, the GOP folks in Congress and on the Presidency trail, (whether you're Republican, Democrat, or Independent, it doesn't matter in the end, we're all paying the same price for our gas), are bashing Obama's presidency for "doubling the price of gasoline". My memory may be weak, but it seems to me like it was pretty darn high in the good old days of George W. Bush's presidency, and I was thinking, "How can the price have doubled?"

Someone sent a link to someone's "useless trivia" that showed how much he paid for gas every time he's filled up since 1979. Ref: http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html The charts seem to show a huge spike downward just at the end of the Bush years and going into the Obama term...

Then I found a more official site for gas prices that confirm these charts. Suffice it to say, in June and July of 2008, regular unleaded gasoline was averaging around $4.00 per gallon:

2008-Jun
06/02 3.932
06/09 3.979
06/16 4.007
06/23 4.002
06/30 4.027
2008-Jul
07/07 4.051
07/14 4.054
07/21 4.005
07/28 3.896

With a presidential election just around the corner in 2008, I will note that from this high point, gasoline prices just kept dropping. This may not have been affected by politics, but if the oil industry folks wanted 'their man' to win, then they COULD have done something to appease the very restless voting public. Unfortunately, so many people were getting laid off left and right and the economy was a shambles, for a variety of reasons, and 'their man' lost anyways... But that's okay, because all the way through December, gas prices just kept dropping:

2008-Dec
12/01 1.790
12/08 1.681
12/15 1.648
12/22 1.635
12/29 1.590
2009-Jan
01/05 1.672
01/12 1.772
01/19 1.832
01/26 1.813

On January 20, 2009, President Obama was sworn into office. December ended with gasoline prices at $1.59, and in January, remained in the middle-upper $1-$2 range, but was already drifting upward again.  Now Representatives McConnell and some Presidential candidates are bashing Obama for the doubling of prices - when in fact, those prices haven't yet hit the Bush-era prices as seen in mid-2008.

Now that another big election is just around the corner, you've got folks pushing rumors of war, and speculators again driving up the gasoline prices... It seems that even as our economy improves, the gas prices are moving upwards again (trying to break the momentum for political reasons? Maybe not, but... maybe).

It's about time that reason prevails. I am NOT a big fan of government interference and regulation - but there are times in every industry where people will manipulate numbers to get what they want. I for one would recommend that we educate ourselves on what causes these problems.

I found a pretty good writeup on it here. I do not endorse any views they represent, but if you look you can find even more information elsewhere:

http://money.howstuffworks.com/oil-speculation-raise-gas-price.htm

If you follow this article through to its conclusion, it gives a good insight into the problem and what has/has not been done to curb it.

An exerpt:

By betting on the price outcome with only a single futures contract, a speculator has no effect on a market. It's simply a bet. But a speculator with the capital to purchase a sizeable number of futures derivatives at one price can actually sway the market. As energy researcher F. William Engdahl put it, "speculators trade on rumor, not fact" [source: Engdahl]. A speculator purchasing vast futures at higher than the current market price can cause oil producers to horde their commodity in the hopes they'll be able to sell it later on at the future price. This drives prices up in reality -- both future and present prices -- due to the decreased amount of oil currently available on the market.

Investment firms that can influence the oil futures market stand to make a lot; oil companies that both produce the commodity and drive prices up of their product up through oil futures derivatives stand to make even more. Investigations into the unregulated oil futures exchanges turned up major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. But it also revealed energy producers like Vitol, a Swiss company that owned 11 percent of the oil futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange alone [source: Washington Post].

As a result of speculation among these and other major players, an estimated 60 percent of the price of oil per barrel was added; a $100 barrel of oil, in reality, should cost $40 [source: Engdahl]. And despite having an agency created to prevent just such speculative price inflation, by the time oil prices skyrocketed, the government had made a paper tiger out of it.

President Obama and some lawmakers are reviving the notion of oil price oversight/curbing speculation - but of course they are being blocked on almost all fronts. There's some folks making huge money off these oil speculation games... (at our expense).

What if the speculation has to do less with the rumors of war and more to do with the attempt at getting rid of the ones who would curb it?  (ie., ruin any recovery to the economy and you can oust the incumbent).  Maybe... maybe not.  But it's an interesting notion.

Regardless of that, I suggest you take the time to write your public officials and recommend that they look into the issue of oil/gas price manipulation through speculation. 


If enough people start to push it, someone will notice: 


http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

One final thought:  What would YOU do if the price of gas dropped by $1 or more? If you spend $200 a month in gasoline now, what would you do with the $50.00 that you saved?

Creation

Whatever happened to Creation?

We have become accustomed to, conditioned to live a Reactionary lifestyle. The holidays are coming, so I must make great amounts of tasty food. I have great amounts of tasty food, so I must eat too much. I ate too much, so now I must diet.

It seems like a simple example... but it is typical of how many of us live our lives, day-to-day. This thing happened, so I did that. A reaction. A new door appeared, so I went in. It can be a good thing. A new job opened up, so I applied. My sister turned 50, so I sent her a birthday card (errm. I'm only a few months late with that!!!).

Whatever happened, though, to Creation?

I have learned to have a mix of reaction and creation. In this modern world, there's no way to avoid chain reactions. Someone posts a "Hello" on Facebook, and you reply. Someone pokes you, so you poke back.

But Creation, in my terms, means having Vision. A Master Plan. Or maybe, it doesn't.

I picked up a camera and went out into the world and took some photographs. It was a reaction, yes, an escape from the mundane, from the stress, but it was transformed into something more. Something in me sought out some place to share the one or two photographs that had particular meaning, to me. Particularly my photo "Heaven's Light", a rural church at sunset. When I found that place to share, I posted the photos in a public forum.

Within moments, I had two new 'friends' who liked the photos, and commented on them. One of those friends dropped off the radar after awhile, the other, is still one of my best friends. Over time, more and more connections were made, essentially because of one photograph that I took. It was a reaction, at the time, but also a creation. It was "stopping to smell the roses" or see the sunset, as it were.

Eventually, through the personal encouragement of my friends, my family, I decided to compile my photographs into a book. It took over a year, off and on, with a wild, mad final rush, over the last couple of months. But I did create the book, with no particular feel for what I'd do once it was done. I just had this burning, craving desire to create Something Good.

I haven't ordered any of the books now, in a couple years. But while I did, I sold all I ordered. More than a hundred, all told.

Reactions... I showed the "photo" that started it all to a friend. She said that she knew someone that would like it, and called her up. The Someone liked it and wanted a copy. I had one printed and took to her. She liked it so much that she wanted a copy of the book, as well, sight unseen. So I brought her a book, but told her that I'd sell it to her full price, only she could give me $5 less and donate the rest to the church, that was featured on the cover.

Next thing you know, she called me back and asked how many more of the photobooks did I have? I said, 3 or 4. She said she had pending orders for 7 but if I needed to order more, hold off... A few weeks went by and when we talked again, she had sold several more. I ordered some more - and in all, through her, I sold 28 books, with a $5 each donation back to her church - which was met dollar for dollar by a church organization, and the church took the $280 earned, and paid for some much needed furnace repairs.

The Holiday-Food-Diet reaction chain didn't do much.. but mixing Reaction with Creation works wonders.

I got my start in photogaphy back at Mount Ida High School as a photographer on the yearbook staff. Truth be told, I'd always been interested, I'd gotten my own camera at about 11 or so, and just kept taking photos.

But as an adult, I didn't like spending money on film, so it fell by the wayside. A neighbor lost her husband due to a heart attack, and I started mowing her grass, because it was way too much for her alone. When she finally settled the estate and was getting ready to move, she gave me a camera as part of the thank you for helping. I didn't want payment, but appreciated the gesture. I took the digital camera and took some photos, and loved it so much I bought a better camera. And the rest, as they say, is history. There's a lot of Reaction in this story...

But the Creation is good, too. In addition to the old church getting much-needed repairs, the book opened other doors, as well. One old farm, featured in the book, I titled "home". It was an old farmhouse and barn that has always stuck a chord, deep within me... It's nestled near a mountain, cozy, inviting, feeling like "home".

Turns out, when Robin (now my wife), saw the photo, and saw the caption, it certainly meant something to her, as well... For it was her Grandfather's farmhouse. He's gone now, and the farm is owned by someone else, but there's still that deep current of "home-ness" that connects us, and always has connected us, even when we did not realize it.

If I continued to live Reactively, then I'd never have known. We would never have been. Creation is more important today than ever. Be reactive - you can't help but be, we're all human. Transform the Reaction with Creation and you never can tell what Wonders may be discovered.

Be still. Listen, not so much with your ears, but with your heart. Find a quiet place to grow. To be. To create.