Recession Depression Revisited

The panic from the Corona 19 virus whether from the virus itself or the promotion of its virulence, has caused a worldwide uproar. The shutdown of businesses, travel, and the quarantine of workers has caused an intense impact on families, here in the United States and in countries all around the planet. Its intrusion into everybody’s existence is nearly unbelievable.

Before the C19 collision with civilization, there were media reports on children going to bed hungry. Many organizations existence was solely based on reaching out to them and supplying their needs. Relief organizations gathered donations and sent food stuffs to curtail those starving in foreign lands. Their herald pierces many generous hearts and the donations have eased the suffering and diminished its torment.

Now, the shutdown and quarantine has ripped the bandage off this terrible wound. Hunger again will gain the upper hand. Starvation isn’t sudden exsanguinations, but rather the slow death drawn out over many weeks and months. The loss of products and finances in the homes of the United States will hasten a severe impact all over the world.

Forty percent of deaths from the Corona Virus in America occur in nursing homes. Old age homes are where Americans warehouse and stockpile the elderly who have “outlived their usefulness.” Would the incidence of death have been lessened if we cared for our elderly as do our Amish friends and neighbors? It is reported sunshine and fresh air has a major impact in defeating C19. The elderly are for the most part kept inside, often isolated in their rooms. Even with the “protective barriers” in place, the caretakers move from one client to another. Unless the caretaker, which is impossible, showers and has a complete change of clothing and shoes, viruses and germs will be transferred from one person to another.

I know that I am older, 71 years old to be exact, but I don’t fear death. I don’t relish the thought of ending my life tight now, but I do know that I’d rather pass into eternity in a quicker death than a long drawn out wasting away from starvation.

Politicians have changed our onetime masked cowboy hero’s television introduction of, “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo Silver! The Lone Ranger!” into “With a virus curse, a cloud of fear, and a home alone order, they take our jobs away and steal our silver.”

Horns

As I was returning from church Sunday morning after worship service, I passed a friend who was walking outside of his home. I tooted my horn. It’s often customary for neighbors from the “mountains” to say that you saw them and just wanted to say “hi.” It was the first time I’ve blown my horn since I bought a new car over a month ago. The horn sounded harsh to me, but then again most horns were to be created to be a warning and not as a friendly greeting.

Maybe it’s just me, but horns of yesterday sounded much different. If we go back to the time of the steam whistle, they seemed loud, but when a train or ship sounded in the distance, it was muted, sounding so nostalgic. In bed late at night a train would pass nearby. Its whistle would float through the open bedroom window softly saying goodnight. Even the newer diesel horns seemed to lose their sharpness in the night air. Steamboat captains whose sternwheelers and tugboats that plied the rivers around Pittsburgh were known by their whistles. If you recognized the whistle, you knew the captain. If he changed boats, the whistle and the cook moved too.

When automobiles were invented the first ones were steam driven and whistles remained. They were smaller and perhaps a bit more shrill, but they still sounded like a person or a bird whistling. When people invented vehicles and chugging gasoline motors, their first horns were bulbs which honked when squeezed, sounding very much like a distressed Canadian goose. Bulb horns were replaced by electrical ones that vibrated to make their sounds. The variety was nearly endless and depended on the size and shape of the trumpet. Their sounds ranged from a barely heard buzz or beep to the vintage “Aah-Ooo-Gah” of yesteryear.

Trucks had a need for larger and louder horns. Some were electronic, but many were equipped with air horns. A blast from the trucker warned others that they were coming, causing pedestrians and other drivers to scoot out of the way. Even those horns had a different, less harsh and threatening sound to them. Some of the air horns of truckers, even pickup drivers, actually played a series of notes, sounding out a recognizable tune. “Dixie” seemed to be one of the favorite refrains on their hit list.

What's Missing

More than me missing my parents, Edson Carl Beck, my mother Sybil Miner Beck, and my wife Cynthia Morrison Beck, there are several unsolved missing items that move to the front of my mind. I know where my parents and my wife are now, heaven. They are safe and I know they are in Heaven.

These two missing things have haunted me over many years. One mystery that has never been solved is just a small frivolous item; a tiny pouch with a thin pull string to close it. The bag originally contained bubble gum. The pink pieces of chewing gum were covered with a hardened gold colored coating of sugar. The gum was to look like prospector's gold nuggets.

Every once and awhile as a child I could convince my parents to buy the linen-hued sack with the bright red pull strings. The happiness of having the bubble gum didn’t end when the last bubble had burst and the gum was tossed into the trash.
The drawstring pouch became a storage place for plastic figures, ball bearings, marbles, lucky stones, or money. My family wasn’t a wealthy one, but when I could gather a penny, a nickel, a dime, and a rare quarter, it would find its way into the sack. The little bag became a repository for this young man’s treasury. My stash needed to be guarded and hidden. That was the rub. I'd hidden it so well I could never find it again.

The second missing mystery involves a handmade game that I shaped for my dad as a Christmas gift. It was fashioned after the old games of Parcheesi or Pollyanna. Some people might be old enough to recall gathering around the table, rolling the dice, and moving the pieces until they were safely home. The game board was about 25 inches square with a raised wooden border. The spaces around the board and into the home goal were laboriously drawn and hand painted. In each of the four corners contained a circle with a barn, shed, or pasture with fencing to reflect the theme of a farm design. I painted each circle to match animal figurines. Each animal about three quarter of an inch high: sheep, cows, pigs, horses; four each. They were also cut and painted. The board could be stored on the wall like an art piece with the animals and dice perched in display on the frame.

Somehow this potential heirloom disappeared and remains missing.

Who knew that Facebook "Community Standards" were accumulative. I made four posts since last year and have been put into their Facebook dungeon and not permitted to post for seven days. This site uses its Liberal bias to screen and muzzle voices with opposing views. I understand it's a private entity and FREEDOM of speech has little meaning to them. Keep up the good work, Facebook. Book burning and voicing dissenting voices is dead on your tyrannical site.

Post It Notes

Since I started my blog, I’ve shared 1,292 posts. With this post it will be 1,293. The blogs started by recalling my adventures in nursing, as a corpsman in the United States Navy, my years in college, and my history as a child. I also make note of stories passed down to me by my parents Edson Carl Beck and my mother Sybil Miner Beck. I share these tales from my heritage because I don’t want them to be lost. There are so many stories I know I have forgotten and that upsets me. I wish I’d have noted them much earlier while they were fresh and I wish I would have listened more carefully when Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents, and Parents were talking.

My children Amanda Yoder, Anna Prinkey, and Andrew Beck asked me to write a biography of my life. I thought my blog was what I was doing. At their insistence, I did a brief outline of the facts, but it was like an iceberg lettuce salad without dressing. It was bland. I wrote the biography listing where I was born, my home, and my school days. I shared first jobs, my enlistment in the United States Navy, my duty stations, and college. I shared the time after graduation with a BSN degree in nursing, the hospitals where I worked, and positions that I held.

Then came my retirement and the beginning of my writing career, where I felt the stories from my past were better served in a blog form than in a written journal. Blogging is in essence is electronic journaling and was more expedient for me. I’ve led a rather sedate life with some scattered incidents of excitement. Those are the things I try to include in my BlogSpot. They are the things I think might be interesting to others.

After I became a published author, I had to promote my books and became a little more outgoing. Couple that fact with my house being empty except for my cat Willow I enjoyed making excursions out of the house and meeting people. I was able to talk with someone, anyone.

As a nursing supervisor, I was able to talk with others on a daily basis, form friendships, and share small portions of their lives. Retirement curtailed that outlet and I needed the stimulation of talking with others. Sometimes it was with complete strangers.

I completed the task of the dry biography for my kids, but the really interesting and likable stuff was already written and saved in my blog. PS, I am just rambling because I haven’t any idea of what to share today.

Twist and Shout

In my lifetime I’ve ridden and driven along roads that twisted and turned as the highways climbed or descended hills. Some were local and others throughout other places in America. Riding the school bus through high school I travelled steep Route 711. It was also called the Springfield Pike. Wintertime was always a challenge when it was ice and snow covered. Sometimes the Pike was covered in a heavy fog. One foggy evening my dad Carl Beck said, “If it wasn’t for the soda cans tossed out, we wouldn’t be able to see to get home.” One night actually I had t stick my head out of the side window, shine a flashlight down, and tell my dad to steer left or right.

Ore Mine Hill is also near my home. It was so winding my dad said he believed they paved it following a snake. It almost seemed the road was tracked the path of a serpent.

Kreinbrook Hill Road is very near. When a college classmate friend of my daughter Anna Prinkey visited, I drove them into Mt. Pleasant. She was from the flatlands near York, Pennsylvania. The descent was more than she could handle and she felt ill. I had to drive more slowly.

An extremely twisted road was going from Tennessee to Virginia. We were attending the World’s Fair in Knoxville and driving to Virginia Beach. Many of the turns were horseshoe shaped. The most remarkable thing I saw was there were mobile homes all along the road. I still wonder how they got there. The curves made us ill by the time we reached the top. “Whew, we made it,” I thought, then my stomach lurched…we had to go down the other side too.

A friend and I drove to visit our friends in North Carolina we got off the beaten track in West Virginia. Of course the road twisted as we climbed through the mountains. It was late in the evening, raining, and the combination of darkness and wet highway made the trip more difficult.

My travelling companion and I have difficulty with heights. Her problem came from an auto accident with head injuries. My uneasiness developed after having two episodes of disequilibrium. I wasn’t dizzy, but felt unbalanced. We were again driving back from our friends in North Carolina. She was in the driver’s seat and because the Blue Ridge Parkway was close, she wanted to see a waterfall along the way. We started and the beautiful vistas that opened up were soon swallowed by the near panic feelings we had and had to take the nearest exit missing the visit to the falls.

Just for Kicks Politics

Not too long ago I heard people complain about the number of political advertisements, polls, and telephone calls. Candidates seemed to crawl out from the woodwork. I expected folks to complain about the potential onslaught of more ads as the general elections and presidential elections drew nearer. The anticipated distaste of hearing political promises and mudslinging was beginning to draw supporters from both parties into pre-election insults about the other party.

But then something unforeseen occurred, the Corona virus. The news releases swallowed every other aspect of the media’s reporting. Each agency grasped at the smallest tidbit and trumpeted it as truth, even if they had to twist facts to give a new outlook on an old falsehood or fact. Reporters continued to ask the very same biased questions hoping that they could wring out something new or catch someone in a controversial or contrariwise statement. Often they cut and patched official statements until they said something completely out of context.

What I wanted to highlight is now all of the ads are trying to soothe the impact of the virus, either the real devastation or panic that the virus has engendered. The general theme of each ad seems to be “We’re in this together” or “Although we’re alone, we’re together.” Is it just me or does it seem they are saying settle into the “New normal” and accept the herd mentality? Do they believe that all the good things America stands for has come to naught and American workers will never shake off the fear and dread that has allowed the government to compel many to stay huddles at home. So many conflicting reports only confuse and frustrate people while watching their families go hungry and their livees slip away.

It seems these sympathetic advertisements try to assuage and mitigate the loss of freedom and business, but to me it only enhances the fears introduced by less than honest reporting. It was easy for federal, state, and local politicians to have subtly wrested Constitutional freedoms away by scaring citizens into submission. It’s caused many to look to the same government which has stolen the liberty to solve all our problems. It seems to be setting the stage for accepting a one world government.

Proposals to inoculate and to mark either by chip or by data carrying permanent metal bracelets of each person are already circulating. If a person can’t prove that they’ve received the vaccination or the chip, they will not be permitted to travel, arrested, and sent to holding facilities until they comply.

All in all, political ads don’t seem so bad after all.