In April 1990 I wrote my first letter to the editor. It was published in the April 27th edition of the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago newspaper. Over the years I have written many letters to the editor of various newspapers. After writing one for my college newspaper that was fairly well received, I was asked to be a regular columnist for the paper. I had previous experience before 1990 in editorializing when I was self-publishing a small newsletter and mailing it out to my friends. I have also freely shared my opinions on this blog and other computer venues since the geo-cities days. But, April 1990 is what I will always consider the beginning of my public spouting of opinions.
Recently, I obtained a copy of that original letter. My letter was inspired by a column I had read in the Daily Herald a few weeks earlier. I am reprinting it here in it's original form, including the size of the columns when it appeared in print. Please note I did not write the headline.
As I read Burt Constable's column
on April 15 about Moslems reaction
to Donald Trump's Taj Mahal, it got
me wondering what a Christian's re-
action to the Taj should be.
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| By Samsz - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5250404765 I have tried hard not to rank these comic strips or even say that they are my top 10 favorites. They are just 10 of my favorites. Peanuts, however, will always be my favorite strip. I'm sure that my love for comics strips grew from my love for Peanuts. I once tried to learn French, just so I could read the French edition of a Peanuts anthology at our library. This strip is from the day I was born. For more Peanuts click here. |
I'm sure I have written a post like this before with a similar title. I am taking another stab at the subject. My youngest brother Keith was born on Nov 11th 1970 aka Veterans Day. . This is the 54th anniversary of his birth. I was born in September of 1964, so I was already 6 years old when he was born.
. Keith's last Veteran's Day was 16 years ago when he turned 38. He died 5 months later in an Elgin nursing home when I was 44. Since then I've turned 60 and he's perpetually 38. Keith loved math and I'm pretty sure if he was still around he'd call me up today to announce that he had now been alive for 90% of my lifetime. The truth is that he was on;y alive 63.33% of my lifetime time and that number goes down each year I outlive him.
Now Keith would want me to provide a more accurate accounting of that number by factoring in the 5 months between his 38th birthday and that day in April of 2009 when he shuffled off this mortal coil. Let's be real, Keith would want me to calculate the percentage down to at least the day, factoring in the leap days as well. He probably wouldn't be satisfied with even that and want it down to the last minute.
But That's not what I would want. What I would want of course, is that his multiple health problems were all resolved and that he was here with us celebrating his full deck plus 2 jokers (that's 54th please try to keep up) birthday with us. What I would want is that his children now in their 20s would still have their Dad with them instead of hardly remembering him or not remembering him at all. What I would want, is that instead of struggling to recall his legendary dumb jokes, there would be another 15 1/2 years worth of them to smile and nod at. But I did not get what I wanted. Instead, I got grief. Now Veterans Day means more than just Keith's birthday to me. It reminds me that I'm a veteran, a veteran of grief.
I'm going to spend the rest of this post unpacking the last sentence of the previous paragraph. When Keith died Amy and I had been attending a small group at our church for only a few weeks. We knew the leader of the small group pretty well because he was the children's ministry pastor and all our children were in the children's ministry at the time and we were both volunteering there. So when he showed up at Keith's visitation I wasn't too surprised. What did surprise me, however, was that the couple whose house the small group met at came to the visitation. We had just met them a few weeks before. They didn't have children, and they didn't attend the same service as we did. It really meant a lot that he came. He explained to me that a few years before when his father had died, he had a similar experience. Some people he hardly knew came to the funeral because they had lost someone and knew how important it was having people there not only to pay respect to the person they lost but to also be there for those who had lost someone. Both the couple who came to Keith's visitation and the people who had gone to his Dad's funeral had one thing in common, they were veterans of grief.
When I think of a war veteran I think of someone who's been through something devastating and life-altering and has been permanently changed by it. Grief has that same effect on you. There is something else I've learned about veterans they try to be there for each other. There is a camaraderie, a family bond. It's a community that doesn't require serving in the same unit or even the same war. The same could be said about a veteran of grief. I don't know if this is true of all veterans be it war, grief, or something else. But as I dealt with losing Keith, empathy for those encountering the same thing grew in me. I was never one to shy away from the funerals of people I knew, but I started gravitating to the funerals of family members of people I knew. As a veteran of grief, I have been able to comfort people and try to help in tangible ways as people begin their journeys with loss and grief.
Keith is often front and center in my heart and mind during these times. I have not yet lost someone closer than a sibling and have not experienced what it is like to lose a child, a parent, or a spouse. I have done my best to comfort those who have lost more significant people in the time since Keith's passing. A dear friend lost his father and wife in short order. I have to be honest I can't imagine losing Amy. I know it would devastate me completely and while I know God would bring me through it, I know it's just a drop in the bucket in comparison to losing Keith. Amy herself lost both her parents within a few years of each other. It broke my heart to see her "orphaned" knowing that her loss was far greater than mine. Yet knowing how God has helped me through this lesser loss of Keith has helped inform me how I can minister to others as they become more experienced with grief.
I still miss Keith, especially on days like today. Tomorrow my remaining brother and I head over to Keith's house to help his widow with some practical needs. It will be bittersweet just a day after his birthday. All my siblings have tried to look out for our sister-in-law and our niece and nephew and I think we would all say that we wished we could do more. In sports veteran players often act as a surrogate coaches to rookies and other new team members. Grief is not a team that anyone chooses to play for. Isaiah 53:3 prophesies about Jesus describing Him as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Jesus, His word, and His people have equipped me as a veteran of grief. I'm not sure if I'm paying forward, or pointing backward but regardless of the direction I'm so glad to try to be there for others when grief has them upside down.
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Here are the prompts for this week’s Writer’s Workshop:
Generally speaking, I'm a generic or store brand guy. There are multiple reasons for this. One, I generally like most foods and don't notice a big difference between store brands and name brands. Two, I like the savings that shopping at a store like Aldi produces in my budget. In fact, I quite prefer the Aldi brand brownie mix to any other brand name brownie mixes out there. We often still refer to the Aldi products by their brand-name counterparts; Aldi Sandwich cookies are Fake Oreos and Aldi Woven Wheat crackers are Fake Triscuits.
That being said, there are some brand-name items that I will spend more money on. I think one of the reasons for that is that most of these items are "splurge" items so since I'm buying them infrequently I don't mind the occasional additional expense. Nutter Butter cookies, for example, don't always have a store brand equivalent and they are good for an occasional treat.
My Fictional Sabbatical
If I could spend a year living in a fictional world it would definitely be the land of Narnia. You may think that I'm too old to enter Narnia. But some adults like the Cabby and the Cabby's wife (The Magician's Nephew) have entered Narnia. So there is hope for me. As for what I would do there, While I wouldn't mind meeting Reepicheep the mouse, or going to the parliament of Owls,I would do whatever the adventure Aslan brings me. This is a common phrase used in many of the Chronicles of Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, who just happens to be my favorite author. One advantage of spending a year in Narnia is that no time would pass while I was in Narnia, so I would not miss a single minute of my time with my family. I enjoy my life with them much more than any fictional world could afford me.
If you'd like to participate or see other submissions to this week's workshop click here.
Suited to one another? I met Amy in the fall of 1990. I was 25 and she was 21. I was returning to the WIU campus after having to take the semester off for academic reasons. She had just graduated from Northern Illinois University that Spring and was starting graduate school in Macomb.
Our paths meet. She decided to go to the year's first large-group meeting of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship which met on the 2nd floor of the student union. I believe the meeting was held in the Fox Room. A majority of our meetings were held in that particular room.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, our meeting at the Fox Room (if it was the Fox Room), was not the first time Amy encountered me. She had gotten to the Student Union early that night and was studying at the Hardees when she spotted me waiting in line to order. She thought to herself, self, that the guy in the ball cap stroking his chin and pondering what type of Hardee’s fare he will consume tonight is just the kind of guy who is likely to be at this meeting tonight.
Lisle, Illinois is where Amy said she was from when I introduced myself to her at the I-V meeting. It turned out her hunch was right I was one of the students on the exec committee for our chapter and introduced myself to all the newcomers that night. It also turned out that Lisle was where my grandparents lived.
Many things in common. Besides Lisle, it turned out that Amy and I shared quite a few similarities. We were both from families with 5 children. Our fathers were both the oldest of 7 children. We were both raised Catholic and we both became disillusioned with that faith when our Parish priests came into our Parochial schools in 7th grade to tell us that not all of the Bible was true.
A Friendship quickly blossomed. We were inseparable. Because I did not have a car at school and because we lived in suburbs near each other we drove back to the Chicago area on holidays and vacations. We both enjoyed watching and playing sports and so many other things. Whether at school or back at home we spent most of our free time together.
Time Passed as it always does. She was the closest friend I ever had. But life outside of university beckoned us both and we began to make our way in the wide world. We talked on the phone, exchanged letters and tapes over the years, and spent as much time together when we were in the same time zone. Many people began to realize that there was something between us beyond friendship. If there was we were oblivious to that notion.
Eventually, we realized what others had already figured out. We loved each other, and one night in February of 1997 on AOL of all things, I got the memo that the Godly wife I had almost given up on finding was the same person who had sized me up at Hardees all those years before,
Soulmates? Certainly, but the best kind. Best friends who fell in love and never stopped being best friends.
Thanks to John Holton for hosting the Writers Workshop at The Sound of One Hand Typing.
The U.S. Presidential election is a week away, and I wanted to explain how I am voting in it. This is not an endorsement; I don't expect anyone to vote like I am. However, I do feel that I am making a logical and sensible decision, given the choices before me.
If you were not aware, the election is between Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. In the state of Illinois, where I reside, one other candidate is also listed on the ballot.
I have quite a bit of history when it comes to voting in elections. I turned 18 in 1982 and voted officially in that election and voted in my first Presidential election in 1984. Before that, I had voted in 2 mock elections, one in 1976 at Grove Jr. High School where I voted for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter, and one in 1980 at Elk Grove High School where I voted for Carter over Ronald Reagan. Incidentally, I voted for Carter for the same reason I voted against Carter: I thought that the incumbent candidate needed more time to complete their work. On both these occasions my views were in the minority.
My procedures for choosing who to vote for have evolved since those mock elections days. I take the responsibility to vote very seriously. Initially, I try to pick between the majority party candidates, and if neither stands out to me as the best choice I may vote for an independent or write-in candidate. I believe one time, four years ago, when I found no candidate worthy of my vote, I just skipped down to the next race in the election.
The first thing I try to determine is whether the candidates are credible. That is to say are they believable? Will they do what they say they are going to do? It may surprise some people that this is the first thing that I try to determine. Why not look at what the candidates say they believe and vote on the one I agree with the most? Why not? Because, if the candidate is not credible it doesn't matter whether I agree with what they are saying if I don't believe they can or will do it.
Among the two major party candidates, there is only one credible candidate and that is Vice President Harris. When I read the issues page of her website I believed her when she said these are the issues that are important to her. So, she is credible in that regard.
Unfortunately, there is very little that Donald Trump says that I believe. To me, he is not a credible candidate. He says that he won the last election, In fact, 3 minutes into his Jan 6th, 2020 speech at the Capitol Mall, he stated "We won this election, and we won it in a landslide". This was never a credible statement. Trump has been creating a false narrative since he first declared in 2015 that he was seeking high office and that the only way he could lose is if other people cheated. So naturally when he lost the election it was because of massive fraud.
There are very few things that Trump has said that I have believed. Most of his few credible statements are not positive. He said recently that if reelected he will consider arresting his opposition. As scary as that image is and how undemocratic it seems, I can totally believe that he would consider that. When he was caught on a hot mike saying he wanted to force himself on women, I found that credible. Morally reprehensible, yet credible. When as President, he maligned the countries that were sending us the most immigrants, I truly believed that he could be so mean-spirited and uncaring. Unfortunately, all those statements match to what has already been revealed by his character. When he makes positive claims, his character, and his history of previously false claims, make it virtually impossible for me to believe a word he says.
This is why when he claimed to be pro-life when running in 2016 I did not believe him. When he actually did appoint conservative judges and justices I was surprised. Those appointments did lead to Roe vs. Wade being overturned in 2022. So you might think that I would now find Trump credible at least on this issue. No, Trump has backpedaled on his abortion views for the 2024 election and so I can't find him credible on that issue either. I chalk it up more to political expediency than anything else.
In most Presidential elections since I started voting in 1984 there have been (in my opinion) 2 major party credible candidates running against each other. The only exceptions are the aforementioned Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. In Clinton's case, I never found him to be a trustworthy candidate.
If there are 2 credible candidates I don't then try to decide who's more credible. I decide who's more worthy of my vote. Only credible candidates are worthy of anyone's vote, and then I am free to decide from who's left.
The Republican Party has done the country a great disservice over the last 3 election cycles by not putting a credible candidate on the Presidential ballot, Fortunately for them, most voters look for a candidate who purports to match their views first and then judge the character of that candidate. This puts the voter in a difficult situation by looking for candidates who agree with them they open themselves up to be maneuvered by master operators like Clinton and Trump.
In 1992, it seemed like the Republicans saw Clinton for who he was, but the Democrats failed to grasp that. They were enamored with the idea of putting the first Democrat in the White House since Carter won in '76. In 2016 despite a field of credible Republican candidates, the Republicans reimagined themselves in the worst possible way picking a bully who could win and make populist gains at the risk of the party's soul.
I think it might be easy to think that if there is only one credible candidate that is the candidate you should vote for. But this has simply not been true for me. I could have gladly supported Joe Biden years ago when he was a Pro-Life Democrat, especially over Trump. Biden decided to believe that a Pro-Life Democrat could not elect his President and changed his stance so he could get the job he always wanted. Biden abandoned his beliefs for the expediency of office for the same motives that the Republicans abandoned their integrity to embrace Trump. In the 2016 and 2020 elections, this put me in quite a pickle. I didn't believe that anyone should vote for Trump and I could not bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. While I found both these candidates credible, my conscience would not let me support them.
People would tell me you must choose the lesser of two evils. I would say why should I choose evil? Also, if I had to choose the lesser of two evils in those elections it would not have been Trump. I'm not even sure that Trump would ever admit that he was the lesser of two anything. "People are always telling me Don you're so evil. Frankly, If I was going to be evil I'd be amazing at it."
Adam Kizinger made an impassioned speech at the 2024 DNC urging his fellow Republicans to vote for Harris in the election, It is tempting but the truth is that the 2024 election has me in the same pickle. I won't consider Trump and when I do consider Harris, I can't get past her pro-choice positions. It's frustrating because I would have gladly supported someone like Nikki Haley or Kizinger and will probably end up writing one of their names on my ballot. I'm not picky, I just want to be able to choose between two credible candidates and the Republican party keeps on robbing me of that opportunity.
It is Fall, and I am in my usual decline of posting here at Leap of Dave. Lately, when I have posted, I've just been putting out OPV (Other People's Videos) instead of mixing in my own content. It's not that I don't have things to write about, there are plenty of post ideas that I am wanting to get out there; it's not even about lack of time, it's more like I need a jump start to get this blog churning again. So, for that much needed jump start, I went to my blog roll and saw that John Holton of The Sound of One Hand Typing put out this week's Writing Workshop prompts.
Along with trying to write this post using 12 sentences only, I will also use another of his prompts to tell you why I use Google Chrome. I am not a Chrome snob by any means it is just something that I am used to, it doesn't try to invade my computer like Microsoft Edge does, and I never really got into Firefox.
As a long term substitute teacher at a middle school my job is both varied and predictable. For the past few days I've been subbing for 7th grade teachers. Our 6th graders last year were a bit of a challenging bunch, and I have been glad to see that many of them have matured since last year. Many, however, is not most, and the past few days while not difficult, have been eventful.
Thanks again to John Holton, for helping me to have something to write about today. I also appreciate John for reminding me that Weird Al Yankovic is turning 65 today, making him exactly 4 years and 11 months older than myself.
There have been many changes to the NFL in my lifetime:
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