“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.”

–John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756

Founder’s Quote Daily

Obama(THHO)phone much?

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And here we have a quote that pretty much sums up why I am so incensed at the government in general and this administration in particular:

“A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal.”

–Thomas Paine, Constitutions, Governments, and Charters, 1805

Founder’s Quote Daily

You see, the government has been overstepping it’s bounds ever since it created the first Department to handle something that was not explicitly layed out in the constitution. Not sure WHICH Department it was, but two that jump to mind that are in existence without constitutional authority (and are, therefore, illegal) are the Departments of Education and Energy. Come to think of it, the Department of Revenue isn’t allowed, either. Nor is the Department of Transportation.

What other Departments can you think of that are not constitutionally justifiable?

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“If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.”

–George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Founder’s Quote Daily

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Last night, MEG wanted to play school. This involves me sitting in one of her (small) chairs, and filling out worksheets that she has made up previously. Occasionally, there is a craft that she demonstrates and I get to work on.

Last night’s craft was a hand-made “kite” folded out of a sheet of regular paper. The instructions were to tape a piece of ribbon for the tail, and then to color the kite and to make it a Father’s Day kite.

Dad passed away on September 3, 1992. It was the morning of my parent’s 43rd wedding anniversary. I was living in California at the time, with my first wife and her two daughters. I got the call at work (this was pre-cell, remember?), my first wife breaking the news to me in a straight-forward way. “[Sister] just called, your Dad passed away this morning.” A blood clot had broken free in his leg and traveled up to his heart.

So-called “bereavement” rates on airlines meant that the airlines would jack the prices higher than the planes could fly. You see, you book at the last minute, so you have to pay a premium price plus all kinds of fees. Living on the Central Coast of California at the time (north of SLO, in Atascadero) meant the closest airport of any size was two hours away in Santa Barbara. Instead, I drove. Jumped in my Mazda 626 (sure wish I still had that car) and drove like a bat outta hell. Passing through Kingman, I hit a construction patch that tore a hole in one of my tires. I put on the temporary spare and limped up to the truckstops east of Kingman. I pulled into a tire place and got a new tire, and headed on to Flagstaff. I spent a short night at Lea Ann’s house, then in the morning headed down to Tucson. [Younger Brother] didn’t want to go in and see Dad; the rest of us there went up and had a viewing. Dad looked like he had fallen asleep in front of the football game. No, that’s wrong. Dad looked like he was studying the strategy of the football teams on TV.

We saw him there, in a hospital bed, because there was to be no burial or cremation – he had donated his body to the UA medical department for cancer research.

After the priest held a private service in the living room of Mom and Dad’s home, in Tucson Estates, I went home.

All of these memories came rushing over me as my beautiful daughter watched me making the Father’s Day kite. She went out to her Mommy and said “Daddy’s crying!” She was worried that she had done something wrong, or that I didn’t love her anymore because I was crying. We spent the next while explaining to her that sometimes, tears were happy tears. I tried to put into words just how much my Dad would have loved her.

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my friend Greybeard calls time on a motorcycle “Two Wheeled Therapy.” Not sure that I was doing it correctly, he came all the way out to Arizona to conduct a one-on-one session. I borrowed Pastor’s Shadow, and he rode the BMW that he had originally given to his son (but recently swapped out with a Suzuki. Hmmm. You think maybe that was the reason for the trip? Naaaahhh ….)

Yesterday afternoon, after I had wrapped up my work, we met at the Flying J on the west side of Phoenix (I-10 and 67th Ave.). After the initial meeting-and-greeting, we got on the interstate and headed west, to exit 103 (or, as Greybeard puts it, “halfway to California”). We stopped at that station, so he could top off his tank, and we headed north, made a couple of jogs, and then started relaxing on a two-lane road winding it’s way through the desert south of Wickenburg. We actually ended up in Wickenburg, but not before getting to appreciate some great Arizona desert back country, a lot of cattle guards, and quite a few whoops through washes – the road didn’t bridge over the washes, it was paved right through them, normal for the area. We also saw a lot of fauna that he didn’t always get to see, being from back East and all. Saguaro, of course, Teddy Bear Cholla, Prickly Pear, Ocotillo, Mesquite, bunch grass, scrub pinyon, scrubbier oak. We stopped at the Burger King southeast of Wickenburg, he bought a round of sodas, and we just talked for a while. Since he retired a couple months ago, he’s just been relaxing, mostly.

We left Wickenburg and followed highway 60 to highway 74, and then rode east until it met up with I-17. We traveled south, and we parted ways at Bethany Homes Road.

Naturally, neither one of us remembered to take any pictures.

I gotta tell ya, the therapy session was very well received and I think I got a passing grade from The Master.

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

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