A Hymn

Every morning we will raise
to our God our songs of praise.
Every morning we will raise
to our God our songs of praise.

With God's kind protection blessed,
sweet and deep has been our rest.
In the morning we will pray
God's protection for this day.

What this day will bring to pass,
gladness or sorrow we cannot guess.
You, who give the light divine,
shine on us, Christ Jesus, shine.

Then, when comes the dark of night,
all with in us still shall be bright;
you will bring your peace and love,
radient gifts sent down from above.

Music: John B. Dykes, (19thC)
Words: William H. Furness (19thC) adapted
Sequence: Cathouse Pandemonium, Ltd.

Meeting Colin Powell

I did meet Gen. Colin Powell when he was first Secretary of State. It was before 9/11 and I think he was still enjoying himself in the job. The story goes that his elevator was next to what was then the door to the info center, which was kind of a computer help desk. He was returning to his office early in the lunch hour, probably just getting back from some meeting, and observed an elderly black woman coming into the Infocenter to see her daughter. Three or four minutes later he came back down to meet her.

All the managers were at lunch and missed it, but when he came in it got pretty exciting. At the time, I was back in the server room with the acting manager, Mr. Robert Clause who looked like Santa Clause and was soon to retire.

One of the women came back ecstatic: "He's here! He's here! I can't believe he's here!" She continued this exclamation for quite some time after turning to alert folks in another room. Having no idea what she meant (had Jesus joined us?) Bob and I went to investigate. We were about knocked over by a tall, young black worker coming the other direction who quickly opened his locker, in the intervening hallway, and pulled out Colin Powel's book.

"He's here, I'm going to ask him to sign this."....

When I got into the main room of the InfoCenter ahead of the young man. It was suddenly quiet.

"Where is he?" I asked a woman standing against the back wall.

She pointed.

A couple of rows up, Colin Powel had knelt in the aisle next to a young worker, her mother seated on the other side, and she was explaining to him what it was that she did at her computer. No sooner did I spot him than the silence was broken by the woman returning from the server room: "It's him. It's him. I can't believe it's him." The young man and his book quickly passed her and got into position.

The exclamations of the excited lady could not go unnoticed. Secretary Powel looked up at her and said, "Chill, woman." This brought a lot of laughter and he became aware that some thing of an audience was growing. As he signed the book (I marveled at that young man's preparedness for this moment), another woman asked if she could get her camera. As she ran for her locker, we heard Secretary Powell say, "Hurry up the President might be calling me."

I'm getting nervous. I start whispering to folks, as I'm lining up to get my picture taken next to the Secretary, "I hope that Lynn and Carey don't come back and catch us goofing off." People look at me to see how long it's going to take me to figure out how silly that thought is. It is hard to get in trouble when you're goofing off with the number-one boss.

That was a very memorable moment. He was still everybody's hero in those days. How I wish that in the early days leading up to Iraq he might have awakened to the need of the country, not only for good soldiers and leaders, but occasionally its need for patriots with critical thinking and principles un-tethered from other worldly values and undaunted by the need for personal sacrifice.

Easy for me to say, but hard for anyone to do.

Bernice in the ICU

My friend Bernice is in intensive care. It has been a struggle for her, after falling two weeks ago.

Here's a story about her family's store, The Comet, and my old Adams Morgan neighborhood.

link

A Time with Harold Wylie

In the course of my father’s career as an educator, he took a lot of psychology classes. One of only three times that I ever saw him explosive, before his stroke, was when I impugned Freud’s character. I only remember him swearing once and it was while hunting with a Presbyterian minister; a neighbor of ours in Wyoming. He said, once, that he had learned from one of his psychology class that punishing bad behavior is generally counter productive as there are many who desire attention, any attention, and find even the attention of a punishment to be a rewarding experience. He said it is better to simply reward the behavior you want while ignoring behavior that is undesired.

The Presbyterian minister was Harold Wylie. They had been driving for quite some time looking to bag a deer or two. I got to ride along in the back seat. One of them spotted a dear in the bottom of a valley. The road we were on snaked along it's top. The dear was two maybe three hundred feet down at the bottom of the valley. The other side sloped more gently up and away from us.

Boy, was I excited. This was what deer hunting was all about. but I noticed that dad and Mr. Wylie (we never called him Reverend or anything like that) were not particularly excited nor were they in a hurry. Eventually, they realized that the deer was not going to run off and they almost reluctantly turned off the engine and went about the business of getting their guns out. Dad used the hood of the car to steady his relatively heavy 30-ought-six -- a military version with bayonet mounts.

I was in disbelief that they were not moving faster and worried that the deer was going to get away.

Dad fired a shot and I saw a plum of dust in the ground behind and to the left of the deer.

At missing, Dad allowed himself to swear, "Damn."

He then immediately apologized to Harold who quickly said, "That's okay, I know how you feel."

The deer stopped grazing looked up at them then slowly turned and walked away.

I think Dad and Harold were a lot more interested in whatever conversations they were having than in field dressing a dead deer and lugging its carcass up the side of a valley.

They met in Weiser

http://www.mountaintimes.com/mtweekly/2007/0412/ancient_music.php3

Kurt Vonnegut passes

A great recap of a wonderful person.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_on_re_us/obit_vonnegut

Dreams of Vietnam

I had an increadible dream that put me as a soldier in Vietnam. I met some very realistic characters including an older black soldier named Fields who had been a teacher in DC and a National Guard soldier, helping other inner-city kids improve themselves. I visited a hotel where tremendously corrupt individuals were crafting business with each side, ate at a counter where slices of marinatted meet were layered with garnish, pushed into waves then skewered.

At one point, I saw the clouds all moving quickly, falling from one place to another in the sky, and taking the shape of many separate human skulls.

When I first got there, they didn't have firearms for us, but told us that firearms would be made available to us in the event of an attack. Someone referred to me as a member of a team using a codeword that I had not heard since the 70's.

During one isolated interlude, I was with others in tall grass, falling back toward a river. The enemy was coming and we were trapped in the small delta area. No shooting, however.

Note that I was never in-country in Vietnam like this dream portrayed.

My first day, I had been allowed to get lost. I didn't realize that others in my group were following me and keeping tabs on my travels. That night, many were passed out. One guy had painted himself army green. I heard somebody reporting to a leader that they had observed that I made a point of talking to everybody who I met.