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SOMEONE HAS TO PLUCK THE CHICKEN/SOMEONE GETS TO SOUND THE ALARM is now available as an e-book for about 1/2 the price of the paper back. They are charging too much for the soft back and hard bound, but I'm trying to get them to lower the price. Drop by my house and I'll sell what I have left at a discount.

 

                                Synopsis

 

Let me take you back in time to simpler days when my fourth great grandfather ran around with Daniel Boone.

  Some of your stereotypes may be challenged when I describe an orphaned Indian boy brought to my fifth great grandfather by Chief Logan at the boy’s request so that he could be raised by whites in order to become a minister of the Gospel.  You will learn much about early nineteen hundreds farm life.  My wife’s step father was from the mining country in the Idaho Panhandle so I will take you deep down below the surface looking for the ore body.  Some of my relatives worked in the open pit iron mines of northern Minnesota so they will get some attention.

 

After we had moved to California we eventually bought a small house on a large enough lot to have a few chickens.  When Mom wanted to have fried chicken ready for super when Dad got home it was up to me to chop its head off and with Mom’s help, pluck it.  Thus I learned that “someone has to pluck the chicken”, and I grew up with a respect for the country work ethic and the ingenuity of the American farmer.

 

My exposure to the diverse cultures of Minnesota farmland and suburban California presented me with a view of the winds of cultural change blowing across the country which were bringing a demand for lowering standards of behavior and the lessening of punishment.  My comments on the source and susceptibility to the push for change are accompanied by anecdotes from history, and the lives of relatives and my own life experiences.

 

I was in the Deep South during the Reverend King’s marches for Civil Rights.  When the anti war crowd was breaking windows on the first floor of the Chancellor’s Office at U.C. Berkeley, I was on the second floor servicing a Mimeograph machine.  The time I spent on high school and grade school campuses opened my eyes to the flow of changing standards in our culture.

 

There will be an effort to describe the pivotal changes in my life and destiny which I believe came about as the result of prayer, the importance of the Southern Baptist Church in my teenage years, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as I became an independent adult.  I will also describe the events which lead to my leaving the LDS Church for 25 years and why I came back recently.  The challenges of raising a family in a home divided on religious belief will also be covered.

 

On the job I dared to stand up for the rights of those I supervised to take their breaks.   At another company I worked for I took a stand against corporate greed.  It cost me in promotions and raises and eventually resulted in AmeriGas refusing to recognize the Americans with Disabilities Act for me.  Rather than sue them I decided to leave with a two year disability and have the California Department of Rehabilitation upgrade my clerical skills so I could get a desk job.

 

The promoters of compassion in this country have succeeded in creating so many categories of disability that it was nearly impossible for this middle aged white guy to get an entry level desk job with the State of California.  The worsening of my disability and my efforts to overcome it with alternative therapies will be covered in my chapter on health.

 

It’s just as well that I wanted to work in spite of my disability.  My two year disability policy required me to apply for a Social Security disability (SSI), so I went to be examined by their doctor.  When I walked into the crowded waiting room I was ushered right in to see the doctor.  He explained that the people in the waiting room had to wait for an interpreter so for that reason alone they would qualify for SSI.  Since I was able to walk in I would not qualify.

 

I believe in climate change, but it was around long before humankind was here to influence the weather.  Over a century ago at least one scientist determined through an experiment that the concentration of CO2 was already past the point where adding more would increase global warming.  The global warming scare babies are ignoring the quantum factor in climate change.

 

Unions are another controversial subject for conservatives and I will cover pros and cons.

 

My essay on guns is one of my largest chapters.  It will inspire laughter and anger.  

 

During the 90s I collected many articles on the Clintons, enough for a good sized chapter.  There are also a few pages on the last Bush administration.  One of the books I quoted from explains what happened to the weapons of mass destruction.

Though I am a strong believer in Christianity (The LDS Church in particular), I dare to describe some of the churchs’ short comings.  Bragging about the LDS record for taking care of their own should not surprise anyone.

 

I have studied the Koran and make a point of showing the verses which allow moderate Moslems to live peacefully among Christians and Jews.  The evils of Sharia Law and Radical Islamic Jihad are also described.

 

My book is meant to make you laugh, cry, be afraid, and take hope.  I hope it helps you to better understand the past and prepare you for the future.  In addition to all the above subject matter, the last chapter explains what Jesus has directed the LDS Church to do to encourage world peace as we prepare for his second coming.

 

 

 

                                   Brief biography

 

 

I grew up a country boy.  We left the farm when I was only six, but we went back on vacation nearly every year.  When I was twelve I obtained a work permit and picked tomatoes for 15 cents a lug, a large field lug.  For the best tomatoes the pay was 25 cents a lug.  When I was 14 my friend Jimmy Terry’s mother got me a job on a small ranch caring for the animals and irrigating the pasture with a moveable aluminum pipe sprinkler system.  Occasionally we mended fences, herded sheep on horseback, loaded bales of hay into the loft, and helped hold the animals while a little blood was taken to be sold to hospital labs or research labs.  In the spring we packed wool into long sacks when the sheep were shorn.  I worked there on Saturdays when school was in session and six days a week during summer vacation.

 

The move to California when I was six presented me with my first opportunity to take a bath in a regular bath tub instead of the twenty gallon galvanized wash tub we used on the farm.  All we had to do was turn on the hot and cold faucets and adjust them to obtain a comfortable temperature, no more heating water up on the wood stove.   An indoor toilet and real toilet paper was also a treat.  In our outhouse back on the farm all we had was pages torn out of an old Montgomery Ward Catalog to wipe with.  The ice box was also more convenient than going down to the basement for the storage of perishables.  Of course in Minnesota in the winter time any shed or even the porch could provide much more space and colder storage than the icebox cooled by large blocks of ice dropped off by the ice man.

 

When we left Minnesota we left the land of 10,000 lakes, and as I hear it 10,000 is where they stopped counting.  However, the scarcity of lakes in California didn’t seem so bad after driving through South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada.  Though we left Minnesota when I was only six, I had already been hooked on fishing.  Watching my Grandpa spear fish through the ice attracted my attention, but I was really hooked one summer day in a rowboat.

 

Dad and Grandpa took me and my sister Delma to a little lake not far from Menagha in North Central Minnesota, not far from Grandpa’s place.  We got into one of those small dark green rowboats you used to see on most lakes, rowed out to drop anchor and try our luck.  Trying several different spots resulted in nary a bite.  Finally, just as Grandpa was getting ready to pull the anchor so that we could get to shore before the approaching rain cloud soaked us the bite began.  We were using hand held lines instead of rods and reels so we could feel the tug on our lines very well.  Just as a few large drops of rain started hitting the water the sunfish went crazy.  Delma and I each swung our catches to either Dad or Grandpa to take the fish off our lines and as soon as our newly baited hooks had sunk a little ways another fish hit the line.  That frenzied fishing continued until we had enough for a meal and the possibility of becoming thoroughly soaked seemed near at hand.

 

As with many a country boy, I was fascinated with guns, but before we go to that subject I want you to understand that I detested fighting.  As a little boy at the age where fights did more hurt to the feelings than the body, I would rather take a beating than fight.  I remember stepping between bully and victim to take the blows meant for one of my peers.  I was tall for my age and felt protective toward my smaller classmates.

 

I did take up hunting for a few years, bringing home duck and pheasant for Sylvia to roast.  I even tried deer hunting for a couple of years with no success.  Actually, starting when I was twelve I often roamed the hills to the West of the block we lived on in Pacheco, California trying to rid the pasture of those pesky ground squirrels which created so many holes that could cause cattle or horses to stumble - at least it was our excuse.  Once I was old enough to buy a gun of my own I bought a shot gun and a hand thrower for clay pigeons.  It wasn’t long before I became very good at hitting them.  I eventually bought reloading equipment so that shooting shotgun and rifle would be more affordable.

 

From my youth, marginal health and serious illnesses resulted in an interest in traditional and alternative medicine.  When I was in the middle of my junior year in high school a severe strep infection nearly ruined my kidneys.  It started as acute glomerulonephritis, but was soon termed chronic for a time, then latent.  It had not entirely cleared up when I tried to join the Navy in 1959 after graduating from high school.  The result was a 4F Draft Rating.

 

By the time I was thirty my physical strength was improving, but I was developing the first symptoms of the neuropathy which was destroying motor nerves resulting in the atrophying of muscles.  It started with a hammer toe on each foot.  It continued to most of my toes then caused drop foot making it necessary for me to consciously think about lifting my foot with each step in order to avoid tripping.  By the time I was forty I had been misdiagnosed as having Charcot Marie Tooth disease and a few years later I had foot surgery to straighten out the middle three toes on both feet in order to get rid of the painful corns which the hammer toes caused.  In my early fifties when I was physically stronger than I had ever been I suffered a serious case of vertigo which left some permanent residual poor balance and marked the start of an accelerating loss of strength and stamina.

 

My outspoken ways on the job resulted in my having to take a two year disability in order for the California Department of Rehabilitation to upgrade my clerical skills.  The job I was eventually able to obtain with the California Department of Health Services was far from a desk job.  My lack of stamina resulted in painfully knotted back muscles most of my time on the job.  I finally retired a couple of years early.

 

I had been supplementing the pay from my permanent intermittent job with the state by writing for the Elk Grove Citizen for a couple of years.  After retiring from the State of California I also quit my job as a stringer for the local newspaper in order to concentrate on my effort to write the book I was working on.  Having worked in the printing industry much of my life I prepared the camera ready copy so that a trade shop could print the text.  I took the 200 copies they printed to a long time associate and friend to print the cover and bind them.  John Cook and son Steve of Photo Instant Print in nearby Lodi California did a great job for me.

 

I have had a long standing interest in religion and politics.  In spite of their dislike for organized religion, my parents sent me and my sisters to the Southern Baptist Church when we were kids.  The loud, highly emotional preaching of the Reverend Fairclough (sp?) reached deep into my soul and lifted me out of the folding chair I was sitting in to come forward and profess my faith in Jesus Christ.  I was active in the Baptist Church through my teenage years and will ever be grateful for the anchor to my soul the Baptists provided.

 

By the time I was a senior in high school I had questions that the Baptists did not provide the answers to.  When I became acquainted with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), I knew I had found a home.  Within less than two years I was serving a full time mission for the Mormons in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina.  About one year after my return I married a lovely LDS lady named Sylvia Mesna in the Los Angeles Temple.  We raised four great kids who have also served as missionaries.

 

After about twenty years of activity in the church my outspoken ways eventually caused me some trouble with my leaders when I stood up to racists and spoke out against the secret practice of polygamy by Mormon fundamentalists.  My search for answers eventually led me to join the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints resulting in my excommunication from the LDS Church.  Twenty five years later I have returned to the LDS Church.

 

My interest in politics started when I was on my mission for the Latter-Day Saints in Alabama.  My first field of labor found me within a couple of hours of Montgomery Alabama when the Reverend King was marching there.  Within about a year I was a few miles north of Atlanta, Georgia during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Attending Diablo Valley College, for a few years after the completion of my mission, cultural attitudes being promoted there were quite a shock to me.  After obtaining my A.A. Degree I went to work for A.B. Dick Co. servicing duplicating equipment.  What I saw on high school campuses was also shocking.  The work also took me to the U.C. Berkeley Campus most days.  I was frequently approached by members of the anti war crowd and was on the second floor of the Chancellors Office when the mob was breaking windows on the first floor.

 

For a couple of years when I was in my thirties I joined the American Independent Party to see what they had to say.  It took only one election to find out that they were going nowhere.  I even tried the John Birch Society for a year or two, but their reactionary ways and intensity seemed a little over the top at that time.  While most of my time was divided between work, being a parent, and in church activities I subscribed to a wide range of periodicals in order to determine who had the credibility I wanted to trust in.  I did this so that some day I could write about where this country came from and where it was heading.

 

We have allowed the promoters of cultural change to turn our public schools into morality free zones where sexual freedom is being promoted.  The politically correct lack of standards for the entertainment media, the internet and schools is turning our children into whores for whom casual sex and shacking up has become common.  Political activists with teaching credentials are giving the students who will listen, a new morality to replace the traditional morality and work ethic I grew up with.  Instead of a fear of punishment and failing to be able to support a family, they are being taught to fear carbon producing industry, global warming and to believe that the government should provide for all our needs.  Instead of being taught the Golden Rule and Ten Commandments, many of our school children are being taught to hate people who don’t agree with their idea of fairness.

 

BUY THE BOOK from Xlibris.