Voices from the Past

Last year my daughter was given a “politically correct” school assignment to research her ancestry and determine who her immigrant ancestors were. The assignment was intended to show that all Americans were immigrants – some have simply immigrated more recently – and less legally – than others. The assignment backfired when she learned that only two of her ancestors were immigrants. The rest had been living on American soil before the U.S. was founded! Dozens of her ancestors were among those who created a new and radically different nation out of a hostile wilderness and established the principles by which it would quickly rise to become the greatest nation on earth.

Since I was the one in possession of the family Bibles and other ancestral records, it fell to me to help her with the research for this project. What started out as a simple task of assembling a list of names and dates of birth and death quickly spiraled out of control. We soon realized there were numerous gaps in the records in my possession, and that the records for several branches of our family ended prior to identifying their immigrant ancestor. So we had to start digging deeper.

We discovered that, prior to about 1850, there were few government agencies or offices keeping birth, marriage, and death records. Instead, the primary repositories for these records were local churches. Fortunately, as city governments began taking responsibility for maintaining these records in the mid- to late 19th century, churches provided copies of their records to the local town clerks. These clerks often compiled those records into local histories that were published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And what most would find mundane reading became life-changing for me.

It began when I read a few sentences in The History of Pittsford Vermont concerning Stephen Jenner, one of my ancestors who fought briefly in the Revolutionary War. Stephen and his wife, Mary, moved to Pittsford in 1772 following their marriage. On July 7, 1775 they had their first child, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Timothy. On Timothy’s second birthday 1,000 soldiers from Gen. John Burgoyne’s army attacked the nearby town of Hubbardton, killing some 300 men, women, and children. Those not killed were forced to flea, some bringing the news of the attack to Pittsford, where the townspeople could hear the sounds of gunfire from the battle. Fearing a similar fate, the people of Pittsford buried their belongings, so the British could not make use of them. While others prepared to defend the town, because Mary was four months pregnant with their second son, Stephen helped her mount their only horse, placed the infant Timothy in her arms, then led them out of town under the cover of night.

Tears welled up in my eyes the first time I read this account and imagined the scene of a 28 year-old father, having buried everything they could not carry, placing his pregnant young wife and 2-year-old son on a horse, then stealing through the darkness, leaving their home and nearly all possessions to an unknown fate while silently praying they did not run into any British scouts who might be patrolling the roads that night.

For the first time in my life I truly began to understand the miracle of the American Revolution and the sacrifices my own ancestors had made to create this country. It was no longer just a list of names, places, and dates in a dusty history book. It had become personal, because it was the story of my own family.

For several months now, the leisure time I would normally spend reading a Tom Clancy novel has instead been devoted to reading about the lives of my own ancestors in The History of Ancient Woodbury and similar tomes. And it has been as fascinating as any adventure story. I’ve read of Civil War battles, the War of 1812, the French & Indian War, the Pequot War, and King Philip’s War, of men and women conquering the dangers of the wilderness to build their homes and lives, of the struggle for the abolition of slavery and the institution of women’s voting rights. I’ve read the actual charters of new townships, deeds for purchase of land from indigenous tribes, records of church and town meetings, and letters and diaries expressing the hopes, fears, and ideals of those who risked their lives and fortunes to create the United States of America.

And it has left me with an overwhelming sense of shame!

We are a lazy, depraved, and ungrateful generation who do not deserve the great gift that has been given to us. Perhaps because we did not put a single drop of our own sweat or blood into obtaining our freedoms, we treat them with disregard. We have abandoned most of the principles, morals, and personal disciplines that made the U.S. once the greatest nation on earth. We have distorted, confused, and abused those principles, morals, and disciplines for political or financial gain, or to assuage our guilt at violating them. And by doing so, we have desecrated the masterpiece my ancestors created.

The voices of my ancestors now cry out from the past. They cry out from the pages of those local histories, letters, deeds, and wills. They demand to know how long I will sit back and allow my own countrymen to despoil what they worked so hard to create. They cry out to me to do something to reverse our country’s deterioration before it’s too late to salvage my heritage. And the pain and despair in their voices has made the political and social climate of this country intensely personal for me.

I only hope their voices reached me in time … their voices have certainly determined how I will vote next week!

The Carbon Credit Scam

Did you miss your opportunity to help the Prince of Nigeria transfer his millions of dollars in frozen assets to safety? Well, don't worry, Al Gore has given you another chance to be duped! Thanks to the miracle of carbon credits, even nobodies like you and I can help the Prince of America save the planet from global warming.

Here's how the scheme works: if you're an obscenely wealthy, planet-raping oppresser of the little people (like Prince of America, Al Gore), you can ride around in the luxury of private jets all day long -- belching out more pollutants in a single day than the average American produces in a lifetime -- and not only assuage your own guilty conscience, but also bamboozle the simple-minded into believing that you're actually "acting green" ... just by buying carbon credits! But wait, it gets even better. By paying a few extra dollars to erase your "carbon footprint" you can cast aspersions at anyone who isn't rich enough to do the same, thereby shaming them into using less fossil-fuels so there will be more for you and your fat-cat Hollywood friends!

You see, a carbon credit is nothing more than paying a fee to someone who owns a tree in return for credit for the amount of carbon dioxide that tree removes from the atmosphere. Oh sure, that tree was there anyway, and it was going to process that carbon dioxide anyway, and they're not going to plant a single additional tree just because some rich polluter pays them an arbitrary fee for the credit. But actually cleaning the air isn't the point. The point is to feel good about yourself -- smug, self-righteous, and condescending toward anyone who doesn't buy carbon credits -- and to be environmentally holier-than-thou toward ordinary people.

And it gets even better. Since they don't use the money from carbon credits to actually clean one cubic inch of air or to plant more trees, there is a limited supply of carbon credits available in the world. Once the elitists like Al Gore have bought them all up, they will be able to justify legislating away the rights of ordinary people to use fossil-fuels in the name of environmental preservation. Oh, happy day for the planet! Then only the wealthy elite -- who are, because of their wealth and privilege, obviously wiser and more deserving than all the rest of us, anyway -- will be able to play on their private jets and yachts and vast estates to their hearts' content without any fear that mere undeserving peasants like us might emit even a speck of greenhouse gas trying not to freeze to death in the winter. No, they will keep us firmly crushed under the iron heels of their jackboots where we belong!

Heil, Gore, savior of the planet! Sieg, heil!

NOTE: As always, the opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily represent the opinions of my sponsors.

Our Next President

Wow! The race is already on! Everywhere you turn, the buzz is all about one presidential candidate or another, isn't it? Of course, it's still very early, so none of them are really saying anything yet. They're just prattling on about how the country needs "a new direction" and they're the only one who can provide it. Yeah, right!

But, if you're following the race as avidly as I am, here's the question I think you need to ask yourself about our next chief of state:

Do you want a leader or a follower?

When you hear a candidate say: "I'm listening to the people, and I'm going to give them what they want," that's a follower. That's someone who just sticks a wet finger in the air, sees which way the wind is blowing, then heads off in that direction. That's no leader. That's no visionary. That's just a tumbleweed! That's just a jerk who wants an easy path to power. We've already got way too many of those running the country!

A leader is going to say: "You may not like what I'm about to tell you, but please hear me out. I'm going to ask you to sacrifice, to do things that are difficult and unpopular, to do things that won't make your life easier in the short run, but it's ultimately going to take us to a better place. Here's the plan ..." Now that's a leader! And if you have any sense, that's who you'll vote for.

If we're lucky, a true leader will emerge among the candidates. It's not real likely, because it's difficult for a real leader to get elected when all the other candidates are giving false promises of easy solutions and more free goodies for everyone. There are no simple or easy solutions. And there's no such thing as a free lunch (or health care). In fact, the only way we're going to get a real leader is if we force one to emerge!

We need to stop listening to and contributing to candidates who just make more empty promises and vague references to a "new direction" and a better world. We need to tell those people to shut up and go home! The best thing we could do is boycott their public appearances until they start saying something of substance. Empty auditoriums would send a powerful message to our candidates that it's time for them to show some real leadership.

Black History Month -- a White Man's Perspective

Take a good look at my photo. I'm a white man. Not just any white man; an old white man. So how do you think I feel about Black History Month?

I love it! And why wouldn't I? It celebrates the accomplishments and contributions of people who have enriched my life! It doesn't detract one bit from the accomplishments of anyone else to focus on the achievements of African-Americans for a month. It merely serves to remind me what a wonderful and colorful world I live in!

I don't listen to just one kind of music, and I sure don't like to stare at just one scene or color all the time. I like variety in my life. And Black History Month helps me appreciate that variety just a little more. Variety doesn't dilute anything for me; it enriches everything!

To those who get upset about there being a Black History Month, but no White History Month, I would say this: why aren't you lobbying for one, then? That's how we got Black History Month. People who cared enough about it got off their behinds and did something about it.

I want to hear different perspectives. I want to have my ideas and preconceptions challenged once in awhile. I'm not threatened by people who see things differently from me -- even those who vehemently disagree with me. I want to know the truth. And learning the truth usually requires examining every perspective, sorting through conflicting versions of the same events, and applying rational thought. If my knowledge, beliefs, and values can't withstand a different point of view once in awhile, then maybe they're not grounded in the truth. If they are, listening to another opinion can't do me any harm, can it?

I'm a white man who's glad there's a Black History Month. I just wish there were eleven other varieties to go with it. That would make life the richer still.

And please remember: "the opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my sponsors."

Day One

Here is my first post in my personal blog. I'm really only doing this to get the space set up so I can come back and see if I actually like the layout. It's late at night, I'm tired, and I just want to get my blog set up. I'll come back and do some real intellectual damage later!