And once more it is the changing of the seasons.

It is amazing that no matter what we do as mortal men/women, it pales in comparison to what Mother Nature guided by the hand of God can do!  The sun comes up every morning and goes down every night.  It's path across the sky is always the same.  We look at the same horizon that was placed there lo those many years ago.  The sun I will see in a few minutes is the same one that my mother watched on the plains of Kansas and is the same one her mother and grandmother watched  across the ocean in a land I will never see.

Always in the back of my mind, when I think of my ancestors, I picture Ellis Island.  I will never see the Statue of Liberty, but it is as clear in my mind as the keys on this keyboard that I write on today.  I see the Haas family clearing land along the river to build a home to raise children.  The natural progression of live never ceases to amaze me.  Nature never ceases to amaze me!  

When I was a child, I thought as a child and when I became older, I put away my childish ways, or did I?  Life was so simple when all I had to do was play in the dirt and eat wormy Mulberry's from the tree North of the house.  Sunday's always found us in Plevna, Kansas at Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield for Sunday dinner.  We always gathered at the round oak table and there was always room for all of us and we all had a chair.  Grandma Hatfield always cooked the chicken and there was always enough.  It always amazed me how that worked out!  There were never leftovers and no one left hungry.  There was always pie for dessert and the pies were always cut into exactly enough pieces.!  

Grandma Haas was crippled by a stroke and she walked with the help of a walker.  Great Grandma Hatfield took care of her, but still kept her active.  They both wore aprons.  Always.  Get up, get dressed, put on your apron.  I have an apron that I usually wear when I am baking, but other than that, just clothes.  Great Grandma would get a pan of potatoes and a paring knife and hand them to grandma.  It took grandma a while to get the potatoes peeled, but it was her job.  

The parrot, "Polly" would set on its perch and sing "After the ball is over, after the dancers are gone....".  Great grandma would step around the corner and feed Polly a piece of apple, or celery or something.  And the Grandma Hatfield would tell how Polly had come from Brazil and was brought here by an ancient relative who "sailed the seas".  Polly had been featured in the Kansas City Star many years before.  When Grandma Haas passed and Great Grandma Hatfiield moved to Coldwater, Kansas, Polly and her perch went with her.  When we learned of Polly dying, we were all devastated.  An era was over.

Great Grandma Hatfield lived to be 104 years old.  I never seen her again.  When she passed she was returned to Abbyville, Kansas to rest in the family plot there.  I want to return some day and see her grave.  When I have served my time here on earth, I will be interred in Pueblo, Colorado.  Just seems like the place to be.

I love to go "back home".  I love to visit the graves of my forbearers.  It gives me a sense of peace to look back on the road I have traveled. My heart swells with a sense of pride that the ancestors that came before me  forged a living from unyielding earth to make a place that this skinny little, knob kneed creature that lived to become "Lou Mercer" could grow and thrive.

Momma taught me to never forget where I came from and always be proud of my ancestry.  

And I am!

Good Morning World!

Just want to open my eyes and say that!  It is before 6:00 AM and I do not have the news on yet, although AOL news let me know that the world's oldest manatee turns 100.  How they know that beats hell out of me, but be sure it is way better news then I am going to get when I turn the silly television on and watch Hillary and Donald, both frothing at the mouth because the other one is a total asshole.  "Vote for me, because I am the lesser of the two evils!"  I ask you, is this how to run an election?

Oh, and over on the side lines we have the Bernie supporters who are not going to give up on Bernie because he will change the world.  I am sick of hearing it all and we are still 3 full months away from going into the voting booth, if we actually get to do that any more.  I forget the last time I drove over to Pleasantview and walked out with my little  "I voted" sticker.

Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Independent and whoever else is running for the highest office in this land, you all need to know something up front.  I am not voting for the candidate that is put forth by whatever party simply because that is my party.  I am not voting for the one who has the latest dirt on the other candidate.  I am not voting   for the candidate who screams the loudest, uses the dirtiest words, or points a finger upward and declares, " I am running because I beleive in God and I will bring our country back to God!"  God did not nominate any of you.

I do not want to know what Hillary did in her emails, because all of them do the same thing.  I do not want to know that Trump's wife plagurized Michelle Obama or that he screwed people out of money.  What I want to know is did any of you read the constitution?  Did any of you study our history from the time we set foot on this shore and seen this country through the eyes of the immigrants in Ellis Island?  Do you know what Ellis Island is and what it represented to those people?  Do you understand that WE were the immigrants?  Do you know how many Indians we massacred to get to where we are today?

Did you study what the slaves, brought here in the bellies of ships owned by slave traders endured?  Did you study how they were auctioned off like so many cattle in public squares and sold to men owning big plantations that needed free labor?  Did you know that when babies were born they became the property of the "Massa"?  Did you study how many souls were lost in the Civil War on both sides of the battle? Did you know it was illegal for a slave to know how to read or write?

Do you remember John F. Kennedy?  Did you study the Civil Rights movement at all?

Do you know what the Stonewall Rebellion is about?

Does World Trade mean anything to you?

What is fracking?

What are GMO's.

Why do we pay property taxes?

Why is Black Hills Energy allowed to gouge people that are unable to pay?

What are we going to do about the homeless people that are seen daily on our streets?

Why is the pharmacuetical industry not checked on thier prices?

Why is medical care so high?

What about the pet population?

What about the illegal drugs that are killing our kids?

I could go on all day, but the bottom line is this...I do not give a rat's ass if Hillary spent her money on a dress from wherever and I am going to look at what her record actually is, not what the spin doctors tell me.  The state of Donald Trump's hair and whether or not he has ever been faithful to anything or anyone is none of my business.  Until we, as a people, stand up and demand decency from the highest leaders of the land  we might as well forget that there is an election coming up and set in our little pile of shit and stay comfortable.  As long as we stay in that pile it is warm, it is when we try to get out of it that we get cold and uncomfortable and realize what a stinking mess we are in today.

Debbie told me that.