At an earlier time in your life you probably operated a lemonade stand for a day or two or, if profitable, even longer. It’s the traditional new business of choice for most young kids. Well three of my 8 grandchildren; Michael III (7), Perrin (5) and Griffin (3) decided this weekend to also take this popular new business plunge. Griffin, although a traffic magnet with his bubbly wit, tried his best to wolf down cookies and eat up profits at the slightest turn of his sibling’s watchful proprietor eyes.

They set up their business in sight of their Mother’s Eagle eye on a trail where there is daily jogging and frequent golf cart traffic, unimpeded by autos whizzing by. Signs were made, lemonade and cokes prepared, chocolate chip cookies baked and a bucket of ice set out to ensure that hot clients were served cold drinks …just the traditional stuff. But here’s where the traditional stopped and some knowledge of human nature and advanced business thinking took over. Michael realized that many people would come by the stand high on thirst but low on cash, not expecting to have an opportunity to slake their mounting thirst on their morning run. He, therefore, had the ingenious idea of having a “Grand Open”…..he ran out of sign space for the complete “Grand Opening”….where he would establish a good relationship with the market and build brand awareness by giving away free samples on the first day, asking them to come back later in the weekend and bring their friends with them. Pretty sensitive and equally smart huh? There’s more. Realizing that almost everyone who comes by has a dog, he had a bowl of free cold water for bow wows.

I don’t know about you, but I get frustrated with and do not frequent for a follow-up visit, a restaurant where there is a lack of cleanliness by the food handlers….at least the ones I can see. Having heard his family and his grandparents voice this concern, he decided to establish clean practices by using alcohol disinfectant on his hands before placing cookies on the napkin for purchasers. One last thing, if on subsequent days potential clients were short of cash he “ran a tab” on them by having his sister say as she poured the lemonade, “that’s ok, we trust you to bring it back to us later.” I have to tell you, I was pretty impressed with the sensitivity to people’s desires and feelings as well as the business acumen of this 7 year old. But what makes me most proud of him is that he says he wants to grow up to be “a great man of God”. I think he is off to a good start.

 . . . A ‘BLM Adoption’ that is . . .

What in the world is a “BLM Adoption” you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s one of the most wonderful, intriguing, challenging  ways to own a living piece of American history . . . literally. Sounds asinine, doesn’t it? You can’t ‘own’ living history . . . living  history?!?! . . Or can you . . .

“BLM” is the (US Department of Interior) Bureau of Land Management. The BLM’s stated mission is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. That means over-seeing and occasionally ‘manipulating’ the population of various natural wild animals. In this case, a literal piece of American history. The Wild Mustang.

***The picture I had of our newest addition was corrupted & I had to remove it. When I can get this squirrely stuff figured out, I’ll put his smiling horse-face back up here. . .

This yearling of ours doesn’t have a name. Just the freeze-brand symbols they gave him when he was rounded up with some others in his herd. He was captured some months ago in Nevada, and has remained untouched by humans . . . other than being forced into a ‘crowd pen’ where agile, brave horsemen were able to get a string with a numbered tag around his neck and the permanent brand on.  The pen you see him in here is designed for his own safety. Horses are prey animals, so their first response is to get away and run. Trust me, he doesn’t want to get CLOSE enough to anyone to kick them. He just wants to run.

How do I get myself into these things? Why can’t we resist all the “Please, Mom! Dad, I promise I will gentle him and pay for EVERYTHING . . . . I promise!” 

We must have no backbone, or an overload of it . . . we’re not sure which. Last year’s adventure included bringing 2 calves into the mix. This year I guess it’s a Wild Mustang. Well, our growing children chasing a Mustang around the farm trying to coax it with food is a better learning experience than any Wii or PS2 game we could buy . . .

We pick him up mid August. I’m sure you’ll hear about it here on JTIU . . .

Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .

hello blog readers, i’m mabel-i’m married,
pregnant, eternally hungry and living abroad for the time being
because my husband francis works for the us state department.   we’re
stationed in uganda, a country known for only a few things- coffee,
mountain gorillas, and a pretty good hollywood movie about it’s former
dictator.  over the next 10 years or so we’ll be living abroad in a
number of countries, all of which will hopefully have reliable
electricity, potable water, and a minimal disease load.  we’re
currently 0-for-1.

i work part time for the embassy health clinic to stay busy but i’m
trained as a veterinarian.  at some point i may start an at-home
veterinary business but since i’m also 5 months pregnant the thought
of tackling a newborn, a new culture, and a new business at the same
time doesn’t sound smart.  at any rate, we live a life full of risky
malarial adventures here on the equator.  it was more exotic when the
prospect of an overseas move was just a prospect but we’re still
enjoying it.  i’d traveled abroad quite a bit prior to the big move so
i secretly thought i was rather well prepared but i’ve since learned
that traveling abroad and living abroad aren’t the same thing.  i
think i might have been better equipped to rebuild the engine on a
model t ford than i was to live in africa but here i am, surviving.
maybe that’s a stretch… but not much of one.

assuming i don’t contract yellow fever before the next time i sit down
to write, i’ll be putting out a thought or two on our experiences here
on the blog if you’re interested.  if not, then feel free to skip my
entry and spend time basking in the safety of your cozy american
living room or going on a biscuit binge at the cracker barrel because
that’s what i’d be doing right now if i could.

if you don’t like it let me know and i’ll maybe put something else
out. i’m not known for my skills in grammar so i have mistakes.

i was an agriculture major, you know.  no english required.

watch for my ‘bio’ coming soon to jtiu.

Well I’m back and chompin at the bit to get back at the grind! There are so many things to address, I’m not sure where to start, but I will figure it out as I go along . . . bear with me.

My first thoughts were that I would write about the fabulous trip the family and I had to our favorite spot on the planet—Montana (or “Monturner” to reference an earlier post of mine where I all but bash that scoundrel Ted Turner . . .). Then I thought no, I’ll write about the problems our National Forests face out west against the dreaded pine beetle. Something we HAVEN’T seen covered in the news by the way. I thought it was sad to see our Southern Pines suffering from an infestation, but wait a couple years until the epidemic pictures of our dying Ponderosa Pines hit the drive by media format. It will break your heart. I’m certain the ‘left’ will make it an upcoming mantra of sorts. It’s all about a hot cause for them it seems. And of course by then it will almost be too late. . . Anyway, then I thought I’d write something of the people I talked to about the election while we were out west. They put a very interesting down home perspective on things that actually reminded me of what a fabulous country we DO live in. . .

Then I realized that those topics can wait. Something better came along, as it were . . . I had the good fortune  of coming home to the news that what I had been hoping  and praying  for was actually reality. There’s a new face  on the JTIU block who makes me look about as interesting as paint drying (would that I were even that  interesting) . . . I am thrilled to say that tomorrow morning you will get your first weekly installment from “mabel” . . . So that’s my topic (really an introduction, rather) . . . mabel. Wait until you get a load of mabel.

Please be nice to her (I know you will, it’s really just a figure of speech, you know). Even though she lives a world away, she could take me with both hands tied behind her back & I don’t want to test her. . . I just want her wit, charm, character and integrity to warm your hearts the way it does everyone else who reads her musings . . . This is quite a feather in the JTIU cap. I must say it’s purely selfish that we’ve invited her to join us here. You know, “A house is known by the company it keeps”, and I pray that JTIU is always written and read by quality upright living Christians the likes of “mabel”. We already love her here. I’m confident you will too.

Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .

One, two, two and a half, two and three quarters, two and seven eights……three. If you are a parent you know exactly what this form of counting is all about. You tell your child to do something, they stall….I mean begin the test to determine who is in control. You quickly realize that you have unwittingly entered into a situation where you may lose a skirmish to a little person who can’t drive, can’t read, puts his/her left shoe on the right foot and vice versa….. can’t count to four but sure knows how to play this little 1..2..3..game.

When you get to two you realize that this is not a ditch you want to die in so you begin this little game of asymptotes. Didn’t know that’s what you were doing did you? An asymptote is a mathematical term defined as: a straight line approached by a given curve as one of the variables in the equation of the curve approaches infinity. At two, panic, fear or realization that you are about to lose to someone a mere fraction of your age causes you to begin halving the difference between 2 and 3…2.5…and then halving the difference again…and again…and again ad nausuem. In theory you will never reach the asymptote….three…. in this mind bending game. However you chose to end this little mental jousting either by one or the other throwing in the towel or World War III breaking out, potential damage is being done. The child knows that nothing happens until after the magic number two is reached. History has shown them that there is plenty of time to comply before the hammer drops. And then additional edicts will come forth…next time….don’t do that again….etc..

This past week my wife and I spent our annual family beach vacation with our three kids, their spouses and our eight grandchildren ages 3 through 11. Each year we chronicle family additions and growth with a photograph taken on the beach at the end of a long day of swimming, running on the beach and playing baseball…a tradition going back three generations. Yesterday was PICTURE DAY! Tuck your shirt in, no throwing sand, get in line, push your hair out of your eyes, don’t try to make everyone laugh, quit pulling her hair, don’t stick your finger…….you get the picture!

As I watched this little process unfold, equally as difficult as the job of herding cats, I recalled a scenario my wife and I used as a reminder of the importance of making as sure as possible that our children responded on the first request or demand. Did it always work….NO! Did this fact allow us to forget the objective…also NO! We occasionally played the asymptote game but we also reminded each other of its peril and went back to what we knew to be in the best long term interest of our children and their children. We are blessed with children who work to apply discipline in an attempt to prepare their children for making good decisions and responding quickly to authority as a protection for themselves and to honor their parents. Are they perfect….NO! And when all eight cousins get together, protocol is severely tested.

To illustrate the scenario we continually used as a benchmark let me pose a question that you might find valuable in measuring your parental mettle. Can you stop your child from doing something potentially harmful to them with one word or directive from you without playing the asymptote game? Well let’s have a test of your answer. What if you walked out of your front door and saw your child running toward the street between two parked cars in pursuit of an errant ball. Their short stature and focus on retrieving the ball prevents them from seeing a car barreling down the street on a collision course with your child if they do not stop before entering the street. Now for the key question. Will they stop if you say “STOP “……..ONE TIME? By not being able to answer this question in the affirmative I believe you will agree that the child has learned something that is detrimental to his/her potential health, well being and safety. They have learned that they do not have to respond to the first directive because there are other requests to follow.

There is a price to be paid when you expend the energy and the time to teach this truth. Consistency, firmness, willingness to “take the heat” of a child who seems to not like you for a moment or a day are requirements to being a good mentor and teacher of this protective armor. It’s difficult to love someone you do not respect. If they win this little game, respect erodes. Don’t let them “win” because “if they win…they, lose….and so do you.” Rest assured that if you don’t pay the price now, you will pay the price later….and that price will be significantly inflated from its current level.

America is a funny place. Our inhabitants have a morbid desire to see those who are on top knocked from their lofty perch. Conversely we also love to see the fallen rise again like Phoenix from the ash heap…..assuming that their rise is accompanied by humility and change. We all know numerous fallen ones who have risen again with more narcissism and arrogance than they possessed before the fall, but I will not sully this story by mentioning their sorry names.

In the 50′s there was a comic book character named Ozark Ike. He was a mythical and prodigious character with a toothy grin, a shock of blond hair coming out from under the bill of his hat and an Adonis like body. His ability was head and shoulders above the opponent’s players in every mythical game he played. In the 1999 major league player draft, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, drafting number one, selected such a player….Joshua Holt Hamilton. Josh was a chiseled jawed 18 year old kid with a “can’t miss…best ever” tag that earned him a $3.96 million signing bonus…pretty good for a North Carolina country boy. It seemed like a sure thing for the Devil Rays….no risk here….Josh was the cleanest of the clean cut. As a baseball player he was the bluest of the blue chips, a highly decorated high school outfielder-pitcher whose fastball was clocked at 96 m.p.h.. Following graduation he was named High School Player of The Year by Baseball America and Amateur Player of The Year by USA Baseball. Hello minor leagues, next stop, “The Bigs”

But, as often occurs, a not-so-funny thing happened on his way to the “The Show”, as the major leagues are traditionally and affectionately know. He spent his first two minor league seasons with three different Devil Ray farm teams finishing a successful 2000 season with the Charleston River Dogs of the South Atlantic “Sally” League. Before the start of the next season, a car driven by his mother and in which he and his father were passengers was struck by a dump truck. His recuperation cut his 2001 and 2002 seasons short and nagging injuries forced him to end his 2002 AA Orlando Rays’ season on the DL. For a young man who had never tried drugs or had even a sip of alcohol until 2001, the mixture of free time, loneliness, excessive money and a growing penchant for experimentation during the 2001 and 2002 seasons proved to be the devil’s brew. With addictions growing, his habitual tardiness to games and practices and subsequent AWOL periods from the team led him to forgo the complete 2003 season. His hopes of returning to the Devil Rays in the Spring of 2004 were thwarted by his failure to successfully pass multiple drug tests. He was completely out of baseball from 2004 through the summer of 2006, dropping out of numerous attempts at rehab over these years. At the worst and in his own words here is where Josh Hamilton was in 2005.

“When I think of those terrible times, there’s one memory that stands out. I was walking down the double-yellow of a two-lane country highway outside Raleigh when I woke up in a trance. I was so out of it I had lost consciousness, but my body had kept going, down the middle of the road, cars whizzing by on either side. I had run out of gas on my way to a drug dealer’s house, and from there I left the truck and started walking. I had taken Klonopin, a prescription anti-anxiety drug, along with whatever else I was using at the time, and the combination had put me over the edge. It’s the perfect example of what I was….a dead man walking.”

In June of 2006, after only 8 months of sobriety, MLB allowed Hamilton to return to the Devil Rays. Having not protected him on their 40 man roster he was lost to the Cincinnati Reds in the Rule 5 draft which prohibits teams from protecting players who may have a possibility of making another major league team. Cincinnati subsequently traded him to the Texas Rangers where he began the 2008 season. At mid season this year he has 117 hits, 21 home runs, 95 runs batted in and is hitting .310. With these stats he is well within striking distance of trading the Crown Royal liquor of his wayward days for the coveted “Triple Crown” of hitting. On Tuesday of this week in the Home Run Hitting Contest at the All-Star Game Josh Hamilton put on a hitting clinic the likes of which has never been seen. He hit an almost unbelievable 28 home runs in the first round of the contest which precedes the AS Game each year. He was out hit 5-3 in the finals and did not win…but he won something more important…the hearts of every man woman and child who witnessed this young man’s feats and heard his story. An additional heart warming aspect of the story is that he asked his coach when he was 13, 70 year old Clay Counsil, to pitch to him during the contest. His smile had returned as had the skills he almost wasted with the three plus years of abuse of his body. If you saw the event and heard his story and were not touched almost if not totally to tears…check your pulse and call 911.

In late September of 2005 in the throws of a drug induced stupor and without his truck which had been taken by a drug dealer he placed a call to his wife Katie, whom he had married during a brief period of sobriety during 2004. Katie took him, with 26 vile and pervasive tattoos covering his body, gaunt and in dire need of a fix, to his grandmother Holt’s door step….the same grandmother he kissed before each and every baseball game through his high school years. It was her straight talk and convincing conversation of her’s and God’s love for him that caused him to return to Christ and the faith of his youth. He is now unabashedly and unashamedly open with his story and his testimony of faith. Aware of the temptations and risks posed to addicts he joins with Major League Baseball and the Texas Rangers in protecting himself from these demons as he faces the pressures of major league baseball’s daily grind.

Joshua Holt Hamilton is the centerpiece of a beautiful story of a disastrous fall and subsequent regeneration and redemption, with the same forgiveness offered to all who are apart from Christ and want to return. Josh would, undoubtedly, point to Christ as the centerpiece instead of himself. I pray that Josh is able to continue being salt and light to an unregenerate world. Please join me in this prayer…and watch this “Super Natural” athlete light up the scoreboard.

Earlier I posted on Barack Obama’s recent vote on HR 6304, known as the F.I.S.A. Bill which is an amendment to the 1978 F.I.S.A. Act, suggesting it was a vote of political expediency and not the result of a firmly held position.  In this regard there is a significantly radical and unconscionable vote by Obama in the Illinois Senate that warrants the understanding of all humane and thinking voters and establishes his view of protecting the defenseless child.   It has gotten little or no ink or air time during this campaign but it should be brought to light.  He may, over the weeks ahead, try to re-invent himself on the issue for political expediency.

As an Illinois Senator in 2002 he voted AGAINST the Induced Infant Liability Act, which, if passed, would have protected babies that had SURVIVED the savage procedure of late term abortions. This position puts him even further left than NARAL (National Abortion And Reproductive Rights Action League) Pro Choice America. His vote meant that a defenseless child who miraculously survived an “unsuccessful” (successful in God’s sight) abortion procedure could be placed alone in a room and allowed to die because “the death of the child was the initial intent of the mother” This is nothing less than infanticide! I can think of few positions worse than this one held by Obama. Be on the lookout if and when the abortion issue is discussed in the campaign. We can also give this knowledge the distribution that the press has not seen fit to present.

As each day passes, posturing and positioning is proliferating in the Presidential race. There is an obvious attempt by each candidate to widen their reach for votes. It is, therefore, incumbent on a thinking voter to consider the candidate’s stated and long held positions on issues and not just the current position they state. Some, if not many of the current “positions”,  are possibly if not probably held not because of a passionate world view, but for political expediency. An example of this is Obama’s vote on July 8, 2008 FOR the long debated and long overdue passage of the F.I.S.A. Bill in the US Senate. This Bill, HR 6304, which passed by a vote of 69-28, is an amendment of the F.I.S.A Act of 1978, facilitating acquisition of foreign intelligence on potential acts of terror against the US.

Obama’s vote is the antithesis of his long term position on US sovereignty and security.  Consider what he may have been thinking.  IF he voted AGAINST the Bill, he would have been consistent with his “previous” position as well as his current position on all other matters pertaining too US safety.  It would, however, have left the issue as one where he would have been out flanked by McCain’s strong positions on US security, thus giving McCain a political advantage.  He could, however, vote FOR the Bill, knowing that the vote was there for its passage and his vote would not have changed the outcome, and thereby take the F.I.S.A issue off the table as a significant difference between him and McCain.  He took the road of political expediency and voted for the Bill.  Consider this possible thinking as you evaluate Obama’s “change of heart”.

On the surface there may not seem to be even the remotest of similarities between the world changing event of December 7, 1941 and the current energy crisis faced by all the civilized world. But before declaring me as crazy as an outhouse rat consider my rationale.

After becoming Chancellor in 1933 at age 44, Hitler quickly began to implement his plan for world dominance through the creation and subsequent march of the Third Reich forces through Europe. With the fall of France in 1940 the future of the whole of Europe looked grim. The Brits were in trouble and under continuous bombing of London. British resources were in short supply and dwindling fast. Nerves were frayed and there was growing concern that Hitler would prevail. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, ever the optimist but also a brilliant tactician and pragmatist, had been “encouraging” President Roosevelt to enter the war, believing that without the US’s resources and backing all of Europe would be lost to Germany.

Roosevelt was between the proverbial rock and a hard place, with a country and Congress strongly averse to entering the War. On March 11, 1941 the Lend Lease Act was signed, thus providing $50 billion to the UK and Russia to continue the fight…and none too soon as Hitler invaded Russia in the Summer of 1941. Roosevelt, even though sympathetic to the European dilemma, still faced strong opposition in the US. Japan changed the mind and wills of the collective psyche of Americans with the attack of Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941. Upon seeing Roosevelt’s response to the attack, the Japanese General who directed it stated; “I am afraid we have awakened the sleeping lion.” His utterance was both prophetic and understated!

Japan did the free world a big favor because over the next four and a half years the energized Allied forces destroyed both the Third Reich and Japan. Pearl Harbor changed the will of America and the course of World history. After Roosevelt and Churchill spoke to the US Congress on December 22,1941 the resolve and determination of America was four square behind the War effort. All resources were refocused on winning WWII because the result of not doing so was clear and chilling.

Now to the energy crisis we face. We may be closing in on the resolve needed to solve it. What stands in our way? Is it the ingenuity of American business. NO….we have taken hundreds of people into space and returned them safely, and placed many on the moon with equal recovery success. Do you own a computer or iPod? The genesis of these developments was some pretty smart inventive American “kids” fiddling around in a garage. Is it resources? NO…regardless of our current financial situation there is capital available to develop solar, nuclear, hydrogen and wind power and to get oil from off the coast, in ANWAR and from the oil shale in Colorado. Why…because it can be profitable to the often maligned but incredibly productive American entrapreneur. Is it obstructionism? YES….from environmentalists who make us think that ANWAR is an idylic vacation land instead of a tiny, stark, uninhabitable spot in an extreme outpost in Northern Alaska. YES…from the same extremist groups who want to save the whales and kill the defenseless unborn baby. YES…from some self serving and intransigent politicians who have long prevented energy development with their elitist self aggrandizing thinking. During the last 20 years of this obstructionism Denmark…DENMARK… has become a net exporter of oil and Brazil…BRAZIL…has eliminated their dependence on the Saudi’s petroleum while we have wallowed in verbal jousting, blame someone else posturing and do-nothing-ism.

U.S. House Member Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) has, on the other hand, attempted to rally the House troops with his simple pledge signed by about 200 of the 435 House members calling for immediate drilling in known oil reserves in the US. Guess who has yet to sign it? You guessed it…primarily the Democrats. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Solon’s return to Capital Hill after the July 4 holiday and the ear bending that probably occurred by the 75% of the population who oppose the anti-drilling position of the Dems. Westmoreland, a down to earth, savvy, street smart realist with the guts of a burglar is one of the few “standing in the gap” for us and the US on this and other matters. Get a copy of the Congressional record of his rapier like evisceration of the Dem’s past bellicose rantings and current non productive positions in his speech to the House on June 12, 2008.

OK, now to the parallelism. Granted, four buck gas is not the equivalent of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack was, doubtless, the catalyst that turned the focus of the US from “Red Roses” to “Rosie the Riveter”. Maybe expensive gas and the specter of expensive food and cold winters might make us realize that the reality craze has more to do with energy independence than with an idiotic tribal immunity meeting. If so, maybe we can again arouse and unleash the productive lion and change the course of energy and America.

Is it just me? Besides the hair, do these guys look alike? Both puppets, both have sawdust for brains, neither have morals. . . The only difference between these two is that one ran for President, and the other is running for President. Of course it may be the pain pills I’m on from experiencing the land mine explosion in my mouth that my Dr. lovingly and expensively called a root canal. . . . in that case, never mind.

 Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .