A weary mother returned from the store,
Lugging groceries through the kitchen door.
Awaiting her arrival was her 8 year old son,
Anxious to relate what his younger brother had done.
“While I was out playing and Dad was on a call,
T.J. took his crayons and wrote on the wall!
It’s on the new paper you just hung in the den.
I told him you’d be mad at having to do it again.”
She let out a moan and furrowed her brow,
“Where is your little brother right now?”
She emptied her arms and with a purposeful stride,
She marched to his closet where he had gone to hide.
She called his full name as she entered his room.
He trembled with fear–he knew that meant doom!
For the next ten minutes, she ranted and raved
About the expensive wallpaper and how she had saved.
Lamenting all the work it would take to repair,
She condemned his actions and total lack of care.
The more she scolded, the madder she got,
Then stomped from his room, totally distraught!
She headed for the den to confirm her fears.
When she saw the wall, her eyes flooded with tears.
The message she read pierced her soul with a dart.
It said, “I love Mommy,” surrounded by a heart.
Well, the wallpaper remained, just as she found it,
With an empty picture frame hung to surround it.
A reminder to her, and indeed to all,
Take time to read the handwriting on the wall.

Recently I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure.  Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said, “I love you and I wish you enough”. The daughter replied, “Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom”.

They kissed and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking,”Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?”. “Yes, I have,” I replied. “Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?”.”I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is - the next trip back will be for my funeral,” she said.

“When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough’. May I ask what that means?”.
She began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone”.

She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more. “When we said, ‘I wish you enough’, we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them”.
Then turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.
She then began to cry and walked away. They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.
Copy and send this to the people you will never forget. If you don’t send it to anyone it may mean that you are in such a hurry that you have forgotten your friends.

TAKE TIME TO LIVE…..

To all my friends and loved ones,

I WISH YOU ENOUGH

Take all American women who are within five years of menopause -

Train us for a few weeks, outfit us with automatic weapons, grenades, gas masks, moisturizer with SPF 15,
Prozac, hormones, chocolate, and canned tuna - drop us (parachuted, preferably) across the landscape of Afghanistan and let us do what comes naturally.

Think about it. Our anger quotient alone, even when doing standard stuff like grocery shopping and paying bills, is formidable enough to make even armed men in turbans tremble.

We’ve had our children. We would gladly suffer or die to protect them and their future.

We’d like to get away from our husbands, if they haven’t left already.

And for those of us who are single, the prospect of finding a good man with whom to share life is about as likely as being struck by lightning.

We have nothing to lose.

We’ve survived the water diet, the protein diet, the carbohydrate diet,and the grapefruit diet in gyms and saunas across America and never lost a pound.

We can easily survive months in the hostile terrain of Afghanistan with no food at all.

We’ve spent years tracking down our husbands or lovers in bars, hardware stores, or sporting events.

..finding bin Laden in some cave will be no problem.
Uniting all the warring tribes of afghanistan in a new government? Oh,please.. we’ve planned the seating arrangements for in-laws and extended families at Thanksgiving dinners for years…we understand tribal warfare.

Between us, we’ve divorced enough husbands to know every trick there is for how they hide, launder, or cover up bank accounts and money sources. We know how to find that money and we know how to seize it…with or without the government’s help!

Let us go and fight. The Taliban hates women. Imagine their terror as we crawl like ants with hot-flashes over their godforsaken terrain.

This is an absolutely beautiful tribute to the United States of America
Say what you may ~ I thought this to be worthy of passing on.

And an Australian wrote it. Many people love America - many people don’t.

But it is what it is.

Written by an Australian Dentist….and too good to delete….

To Kill an American

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)

“An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim.
In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.
The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. Americans welcome the best of everything…the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.

The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It’s been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.
< BR>
So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
Please keep this going!
Pass this around the World
Then pass it around again.
It says it all, for all of us

My Mother taught me LOGIC…
“If you fall off that swing and break your neck,
you can’t go to the store with me.”

My Mother taught me MEDICINE…
“If you don’t stop crossing your eyes,
they’re going to freeze that way.”

My Mother taught me TO THINK AHEAD…
“If you don’t pass your spelling test,
you’ll never get a good job!”

My Mother taught me ESP…
“Put your sweater on;
don’t you think that I know when you’re cold?”

My Mother taught me TO MEET A CHALLENGE…
“What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you…
Don’t talk back to me!”

My Mother taught me HUMOR…
“When that lawn mower cuts off your toes,
don’t come running to me.”

My Mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT…
“If you don’t eat your vegetables,
you’ll never grow up.”

My mother taught me ABOUT SEX…
“How do you think you got here?”

My mother taught me about GENETICS…
“You are just like your father!”

My mother taught me about my ROOTS…
“Do you think you were born in a barn?”

My mother taught me about the WISDOM of AGE…
“When you get to be my age, you will understand.”

My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION…
“Just wait until your father gets home.”

My mother taught me about RECEIVING…
“You are going to get it when we get home.”

And my all time favorite thing-JUSTICE
“One day you will have kids,
and I hope they turn out just like YOU.
Then you’ll see what it’s like.”

After being interviewed by the school administration, the eager teaching prospect said “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning, and I’m supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and even censor their T-shirt messages and dress habits.

You want me to wage a war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases,check their backpacks for weapons of mass destruction, and raise their self esteem. You want me to teach them patriotism,goodcitizenship,sportsmanship, fair play, how to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, and how to apply for a job.

I am to check their heads for lice, maintain a safe environment,recognize signs of anti-social behavior, make sure all students pass the state exams,even those who don’t come to school regularly or complete any of
their assignments. Plus, I am to make sure that all of the students with handicaps get an equal education regardless of the extent of their mental or physical handicap.

I am to communicate regularly with the parents by letter, telephone,newsletter and report card. All of this I am to do with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a big smile AND on a starting salary that might qualify my family for food stamps! You want me to
do all of this and then you tell me . . .

I CAN’T PRAY ????”

Historically, crucifixition was an entirely a Roman practice, not a Jewish form of execution.
 But the early Christians shifted the blame to the Jews,
because they wanted to convert the Roman masses.

For the last 2,000 years the “Christ killer’ accusation has caused some of the
worst Anti-semitism with crusades, pogroms, forced conversions, the Inquisition,
the Holocaust, and even today Jews are often subject to Anti-semitic attacks
because of this accusation.

However, as an ex-Christian, who now thinks for himself,
there is something I find strange and bizarre with horrible accusation:
 the center belief of Christianity is that God had to sacrfice one-third of himself
 to appease his own anger. So according the the Christian’s own beliefs, someone had to do
crucifying of Jesus Christ, so that the Christians themselves could have their salvation
and go to their heaven.

Therefore, instead of hating and persecuting the Jews, shouldn’t Christians,
instead, thank the Jews for killing Jesus!?

Since God chose to commit suicide by having himself crucified,
I think christians should follow his example also by killing themselves.

Maybe by having himself crucified that was God’s grand plan on how to get
rid of bigots. Just teach them how to commit suicide.

Back in the 70’s, my wife, baby daughter, and I lived
in Goodna, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane. We were
young and inexperienced and like most couples our age
lived pretty much hand to mouth. It was a struggle to
make ends meet. Any savings we had went as a down
payment on the home we were buying. Once a week my
wife went shopping and bought the food and supplies we
would need the following week.

Like the Southeastern United States, the area we lived
in was subtropical and prone to cyclones (same as
hurricanes). One day a cyclone approached our area. It
wasn’t a big one as cyclones go, so we weren’t too
concerned. We figured 6-12 hours of high winds and all
would be back to normal. Except things didn’t go
exactly according to plans. The cyclone moved in over
top of us and hit up against another pressure front
and stopped dead. And there it sat for two days. Not
too much wind but oh did it rain. An inch an hour for
48 hours. That’s right - we got nearly four feet of
rain.

Now Brisbane is built on the Brisbane River, not an
impressive river as rivers go - only a few feet deep
and a hundred feet wide in the western suburbs where
we lived. At least during normal times. Four feet of
water over several hundred square miles is one hell of
a lot of water. Trust me on that one - I’ve seen it.
And all of that water all had to get to the sea via
the Brisbane River. During the night, our little
Brisbane River rose and rose. The police were
magnificent. They woke people up and evacuated
thousands of homes during that long night. Only two
people drowned in our area - residents of a mobile
home park whose trailer was swept away. The police
commandeered trucks and backed them up to the local
grocery store and loaded all the food and
necessities, drove them to high ground and parked
them.

By mid morning the river was 60 feet deep and three
miles wide. We lived on a hill so we weren’t
submerged. When you walked over the crest of the hill
and looked down into the valley where there was once a
highway, railroad line, shopping centers, and
thousands of homes you were stunned into silence. All
you could see was water everywhere. No electric poles,
no roof tops, nothing. Everything was under water.

We took stock of our situation - it wasn’t good. The
flood came on our weekly shopping day so the house
contained very little food. We had some candles and a
flashlight. Nothing else. There was no electricity or
water. Fortunately it was warm weather.

We were in stunned disbelief. So were our neighbors.
However, we decided we had better quickly organize
ourselves. We knew we were going to be isolated and
without water or power for some time. We started
collecting all the rain water we could. Without it we
were screwed. We dismantled and reassembled a
non-mortared barbecue under our carport. We started
collecting all the firewood we could find. We assessed
the food situation. Some people had full freezers. We
separated what we could eat over the next several days
and dug pits and buried the rest. Everyone shared what
they had without a single word of what came from whom.

Needless to say we survived - and in good shape. The
R.A.A.F flew some food supplies in (especially fresh
bread that the local prison was baking and fresh,
unpasteurized milk from local farmers.) by helicopter.
In fact I look back on those days with some fondness.
Our carport became the hub of the neighborhood. At
night we would just sit around the fire and talk.

The thousands of people who were displaced didn’t go
to refugee camps. They went into the homes of those
not flooded - sometimes friends or relatives, often
strangers. Nobody forced you to take in another
family, everyone just did it.

Hundreds of millions of dollars was raised throughout
Australia. The relief agencies didn’t screw around
with the money either. As soon as the water receded in
a weeks time, they set up centers in every hamlet.
Anyone who was submerged was given an initial $4,000
in CASH to tide them through. More came later. Was
there some abuse? A few instances but not many and the
there was follow-up to deal with that.. Was there any
looting? Virtually none.

What does this have to do with New Orleans? Plenty.

Why didn’t the people in the Superdome make any effort
to organize themselves? Why didn’t groups of men
patrol the restrooms to prevent rapes?

We have gone a long way in the past 40 years to
creating a dysfunctional society where self reliance,
pride in one’s self and a sense of right and wrong are
no longer esteemed or even valued.

We have allowed our government and media to say to
people that you are not at fault for what you do. You
are victims, little children who can’t look after
yourselves.

We have told our minorities that everything that goes
wrong is the result of racism. That you cannot succeed
in a racist society.

We have told the dysfunctional that we will look after
you no matter how egregiously you act.

We have excused crime saying that poverty creates
crime, when we all instinctively know that it is the
crime that creates poverty.

We have told young women that it okay to have babies
without fathers. There is no stigma attached - in fact
if you have a baby we will shower you with money and
benefits so you can move out of your parent’s house
and have even more babies. Even if this guarantees
your babies will be raised in poverty.

We have told young men that it is okay to father as
many children as you can. The government will assume
the father’s traditional role and look after the
mother and babies.

And most importantly, we have called morals old
fashioned and judgmental. What right does society have
to say that something is right or wrong?

And what have we gotten for this? (not to mention the
$1 trillion we have spent on the poor) Citizens who,
at the first sign of trouble, stand around bewildered.
You see it on the news. Faces screaming, “Help me!”,
“Tell me what to do!”

God help us. We’re reaping what we sowed.

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house-building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family.
He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire.
They could get by.

The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor.

The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end a dedicated career.
When the carpenter finished his work the employer came to inspect the house. He handed the front-door key to the carpenter.

“This is your house,” he said, “My gift to you!”

The carpenter was shocked! What a shame! If
he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently.
So it is with us. We build our lives, a day at a time, often putting less than our best into the building. Then, with a shock, we realize we have to live in the house
we have built. If we could do it over, we’d do it much differently. But we cannot go back.
You are the carpenter. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall.
“Life is a do-it-yourself project,”

And so it goes -

Your attitudes and the choices you make today, build the “house” you live in tomorrow. Build wisely!

Remember….

Work like you don’t need the money

Love like you’ve never been hurt.

Dance like nobody is watching.

“Life may not be the party we hoped for… but while we are her we might as well dance!”

The Wild and Free Pigs of the Okefenokee Swamp
based on a telling by George Gordon

Some years ago, about 1900, an old trapper from North Dakota hitched up some horses to his Studebaker wagon, packed a few possessions — especially his traps — and drove south.

Several weeks later he stopped in a small town just north of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.

It was a Saturday morning — a lazy day — when he walked into the general store. Sitting around the pot-bellied stove were seven or eight of the town’s local citizens.

The traveler spoke. “Gentlemen, could you direct me to the Okefenokee Swamp?”

Some of the oldtimers looked at him like he was crazy.

“You must be a stranger in these parts,” they said.

“I am. I’m from North Dakota,” said the stranger.

“In the Okefenokee Swamp are thousands of wild hogs.” one old man explained. “A man who goes into the swamp by himself asks to die!”

He lifted up his leg. “I lost half my leg here, to the pigs of the swamp.”

Another old fellow said, “Look at the cuts on me; look at my arm bit off!”

“Those pigs have been free since the Revolution, eating snakes and rooting out roots and fending for themselves for
over a hundred years. They’re wild and they’re dangerous. You can’t trap them. No man dare go into the swamp by
himself.”

Every man nodded his head in agreement.

The old trapper said, “Thank you so much for the warning. Now could you direct me to the swamp?”

They said, “Well, yeah, it’s due south — straight down the road.”

But they begged the stranger not to go, because they knew he’d meet a terrible fate.

He said, “Sell me ten sacks of corn, and help me load it in the wagon.” And they did.

Then the old trapper bid them farewell and drove on down the road. The townsfolk thought they’d never see him again.

Two weeks later the man came back. He pulled up to the general store, got down off the wagon, walked in and bought ten more sacks of corn.

After loading it up he went back down the road toward the swamp.

Two weeks later he returned and again bought ten sacks of corn.

This went on for a month. And then two months, and three.

Every week or two the old trapper would come into town on a Saturday morning, load up ten sacks of corn, and drive off south into the swamp.

The stranger soon became a legend in the little village and the subject of much speculation. People wondered what kind of devil had possessed this man, that he could go into the Okefenokee by himself and not be consumed by the wild and free hogs.

One morning the man came into town as usual. Everyone thought he wanted more corn.

He got off the wagon and went into the store where the usual group of men were gathered around the stove. He took off his
gloves.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I need to hire about ten or fifteen wagons. I need twenty or thirty men.”

“I have six thousand hogs out in the swamp, penned up, and they’re all hungry. I’ve got to get them to market right away.”

“You’ve WHAT in the swamp?” asked the storekeeper, incredulously.

“I have six thousand hogs penned up. They haven’t eaten for two or three days, and they’ll starve if I don’t get back there to feed and take care of them.”

One of the oldtimers said, “You mean you’ve captured the wild hogs of the Okefenokee?”

“That’s right.”

“How did you do that? What did you do?” the men urged, breathlessly.

One of them exclaimed, “But I lost my arm!”

“I lost my brother!” cried another.

“I lost my leg to those wild boars!” chimed a third.

The trapper said, “Well, the first week I went in there they were wild all right.”

“They hid in the undergrowth and wouldn’t come out. I dared not get off the wagon.”

“So I spread corn along behind the wagon. Every day I’d spread a sack of corn.”

“The old pigs would have nothing to do with it.”

“But the younger pigs decided that it was easier to eat free corn than it was to root out roots and catch snakes. So the very young began to eat the corn first.”

“I did this every day. Pretty soon, even the old pigs decided that it was easier to eat free corn.”

“After all, they were all free; they were not penned up. They could run off in any direction they wanted at any time.”

“The next thing was to get them used to eating in the same place all the time. So I selected a clearing, and I started putting the corn in the clearing.”

“At first they wouldn’t come to the clearing. It was too far. It was too open. It was a nuisance to them.”

“But the very young decided that it was easier to take the corn in the clearing than it was to root out roots and catch
their own snakes. And not long thereafter, the older pigs also decided that it was easier to come to the clearing every day.”

“And so the pigs learned to come to the clearing every day to get their free corn.”

“They could still subsidize their diet with roots and snakes and whatever else they wanted. After all, they were all free. They could run in any direction at any time. There were no bounds upon them.”

“The next step was to get them used to fence posts.”

“So I put fence posts all the way around the clearing. I put them in the underbrush so that they wouldn’t get suspicious or upset.”

“After all, they were just sticks sticking up out of the ground, like the trees and the brush. The corn was there every day. It was easy to walk in between the posts, get the corn, and walk back out.”

“This went on for a week or two. Shortly they became very used to walking into the clearing, getting the free corn, and walking back out through the fence posts.”

“The next step was to put one rail down at the bottom. I also left a few openings, so that the older, fatter pigs could walk through the openings and the younger pigs could easily jump over just one rail.”

“After all, it was no real threat to their freedom or independence. They could always jump over the rail and flee in any direction at any time.”

“Now I decided that I wouldn’t feed them every day. I began to feed them every other day.”

“On the days I didn’t feed them the pigs still gathered in the clearing. They squealed, and they grunted, and they begged and pleaded with me to feed them.”

“But I only fed them every other day. And I put a second rail around the posts.”

“Now the pigs became more and more desperate for food. Because now they were no longer used to going out and digging their own roots and finding their own food. They now needed me. They needed my corn every other day.”

“So I trained them that I would feed them every day if they came in through a gate. And I put up a third rail around the fence.”

“But it was still no great threat to their freedom, because
there were several gates and they could run in and out at will.”

“Finally I put up the fourth rail.”

“Then I closed all the gates but one, and I fed them very, very well.”

“Yesterday I closed the last gate. And today I need you to help me take these pigs to market.”

– end of story –

The price of free corn The allegory of the pigs has a serious moral lesson. This story is about federal money being used to bait, trap and enslave a once free and independent people.

Federal welfare, in its myriad forms, has reduced not only individuals to a state of dependency. State and local governments are also on the fast track to elimination, due
to their functions being subverted by the command and control structures of federal “revenue sharing” programs.

Please copy this flyer and send it to all your state and local elected leaders and other concerned citizens. Tell them: “Just say NO to federal corn.”

The bacon you save may be your own.